and said no more, all efforts on his wife's part to lure him into
ground less favourable to his point of view proving fruitless. He
merely smoked his pipe and emitted an obstinate purr.
"But what else can one expect, dearest," Ethel Hilton confided to a
friend afterwards, "if one marries an internal combustion engine?"
II.
Neither was Mrs Carfrae satisfied to find her beloved Johnny Carr's
lawful wife disporting herself in her present company. One afternoon
she heckled Jim Carthew upon the subject, to the extreme embarrassment
of that loyal youth. The rest of the party had gone off to explore
Algiers, and were safely occupied for the present with the
contemplation of the passing show--ghostlike Moors in snowy burnouses,
baggy-trousered members of that last resort of broken men, _La Legion
Etrangere_, and spectacled French officials playing at colonies.
Mrs Carfrae's chair had been wheeled into a corner of the open
courtyard which occupied the middle of the Hotel Magnifique, as far as
possible from the base of operations of a pseudo-Tzigane orchestra
which discoursed languorous melody twice daily; and its occupant was
dispensing to Carthew what Themistocle was accustomed to describe as
"some five o'clock."
"So you are leaving us, Mr Carthew," observed the hostess.
"Yes, the day after to-morrow. There is a boat then. I must go. There
is trouble brewing in the colliery districts again, and Sir John wants
me."
"And you will take Lady Carr with you?"
"Oh no," said Carthew, flushing. "We are not together. I mean, it is
not on her account that I am here."
"So I have noticed," said Mrs Carfrae dryly.
"I was invited here by the Hiltons," explained Carthew, and plunged
into a sea of unnecessary corroborative details. "I was quite
surprised to find Lady Carr here," he colluded. "I thought she was in
London."
"And why," inquired the old lady with sudden ferocity, "is she not at
Belton, with her man?"
The faithful Carthew stiffened at once.
"I expect Sir John sent her out here to have a good time," he said.
"He could not get away himself, so----"
Mrs Carfrae surveyed him for a moment over her glasses.
"You are a decent lad," she observed rather unexpectedly.
This testimonial had its desired effect of reducing Carthew to
silence, and Mrs Carfrae continued--
"You have been with John Carr for some time now, have you not?"
"Yes; ever since I came down from Cambridge."
"How did you meet him? He does not take to young men readily as a
rule, so I have heard."
"I had the luck," said Carthew, his eye kindling with historic
reminiscence, "to meet him at dinner one night at the end of my third
year, at my tutor's. Sir John was an old member of the College,
staying there for the week-end. He told us at dinner that he had come
up to find a good ignorant unlicked cub to help him with his work, who
could be trusted to obey an order when he received one and act for
himself when he did not. Those were his exact words, I remember."
"Ay, they would be. Go on."
"This unlicked cub was to come and be a sort of general factotum to
him, and do his best to help him with his work, and so on. Marvyn (the
tutor) and I sat trying to think of likely men, and finally we made a
list of about six, whom Sir John said he would run his eye over next
day. After that I went off to bed. I remember wishing to myself that
I had taken a better degree and been a more prominent member of the
College: then I might have had a shot for this berth, instead of going
into a solicitor's office. But as things were, I hadn't the cheek.
Well, do you know, Jug--Sir John came round to me next morning----"
"Before breakfast, I doubt."
"Yes, as a matter of fact I had just come in from a run and was
sitting down to it. He asked if he might have some: and after that he
offered me--_ME!_--this grand billet. Of course I jumped at it--who
wouldn't, to be with a man like that?--and I have been with him ever
since."
"Well," said Mrs Carfrae, "you should know more of the creature than
most folk. What is your unbiassed opinion of him?"
"I think he is the greatest man that ever lived," said the boy simply.
"Hmph! As a matter of fact, he has less sense than anybody I ever
knew," replied the old lady calmly. "Still, you are entitled to your
opinion. I need not trouble you with an account of _my_ first meeting
with him: it occurred a long time ago. But--wheel me a little nearer
the sun, laddie: this corner is a thing too shady--it may interest you
to know that he would have been my son-in-law to-day, had it not
been--" she paused for a moment, very slightly--"for the uncertainty
of human life. And that is why I take something more than a passing
interest in the doings of that slim-bodied, brown-eyed, tow-headed
hempie that he married on. And that brings me to the point. Laddie,
those two are getting over-far apart, and it must be _stopped_!"
"Yes, but how?" inquired Carthew dismally. "I understand that entering
a lions' den just before dinner-time is wisdom itself compared with
interfering between husband and wife."
A quiver passed through Elspeth Carfrae's frail body, and she
straightened herself in her chair.
"I am a havering and doited old woman," she announced with great
decision, "and no one takes any notice of what I say or do. But I tell
you this. So long as my old heart beats and my old blood runs, I shall
be perfectly willing to face every single lion in the Zoo, gin it will
bring a moment's happiness to Johnny Carr. The lad deserves a good
wife. Once he nearly got one--the best and fairest in all the
world--but God decided otherwise. Now he has got another: I know her:
she has the right stuff in her. And when I leave this hotel next week
I am going to take her with me, in her right mind, and deliver her to
her man!"
The old lady concluded her intimation with tremendous vigour. Carthew
sat regarding her with a mixture of reverence and apprehension.
"You are going to--to speak to her about it?" he asked.
"I am," replied Mrs Carfrae, with vigour.
"I would do anything," said Carthew awkwardly, "to put things right
between those two. But supposing you make your attempt, Mrs Carfrae,
and--and fail, won't it make matters worse?"
"Much," said Mrs Carfrae calmly. "If I interfere, unsuccessfully, I
doubt if either of them will ever speak to me again. That is the usual
and proper fate of busybodies. But--I am going to risk it!... Run me
back to my sitting-room now, and call Janet. I hear your friends
yattering out there in the verandah. They will be through with
Algiers."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
JIM CARTHEW.
But our two conspirators were fated, for all practical purposes, to
exchange _roles_.
The following evening Daphne and Carthew found themselves sitting
together in the hotel garden after dinner. A great moon shone from a
velvety African sky; the scented breeze rustled in the palms; and the
music of the band drifted to their ears in intermittent waves.
It was one of those nights which touch the imagination and stir the
emotions--a night upon which human nature expands to its utmost
limits. A night upon which passion awakes, and long-cherished secrets
are whispered into suddenly receptive ears. Also a night upon which
the devil stalks abroad. Dido resided a few miles from this spot. It
was probably a night like this that made the Fourth Book of the Aeneid
worth writing.
If Dido failed to resist such environment, what of Daphne? She was
young; she was intensely susceptible to such things as moonshine and
soft music; and, disguise the fact from herself as she might, she was
lonely. It is not altogether surprising that, as she surveyed this
silent comely youth who lolled beside her eyeing the glittering
Mediterranean in stolid abstraction, she should unconsciously have
acquiesced in the first of the dismal prognostications of that
splenetic but clear-sighted baronet, Sir Arthur Hilton. Jim Carthew
had occupied Daphne's thoughts a good deal of late, and to-night she
felt suddenly conscious of a desire to flirt with him.
"Cigarette, please!" she commanded.
Carthew silently handed her his case, and allowed her to select and
light her own cigarette--a prodigal waste of opportunity, as any
professional philanderer could have told her.
"A penny for your thoughts!" continued Daphne pertly.
Carthew, struck by a peculiar note in her voice, turned and looked at
her. He was met by a provocative glance. There was a brief silence.
Then he said gravely--
"I don't think you are quite cut out for that sort of thing, Lady
Carr."
Daphne, feeling as if she had received a whip-lash in the face, stared
at him, white with anger. Then she rose stiffly from her seat and
moved towards the hotel. Carthew did not stir.
"Don't go," he said. "We may as well have this out."
Daphne stood irresolute. Then curiosity got the better of virtuous
indignation, and she sat down again.
"Will you kindly tell me," she said, "what you mean by talking in that
way?"
Carthew's honest eyes lingered on her face in a manner which she could
not fathom. Did the man love her, or was he pitying her, or was he
merely indulging in sarcastic reflections at her expense? Whatever his
motives, he had a knack of compelling attention.
Presently he began to speak.
"I wonder," he said, as if talking to himself, "why men and women are
made as they are? Why does A love B, while B worships C, who cares for
no one in the world but himself? And why does D insist on confusing
things still further by not quite knowing what he--she--wants? I
wonder! They say there is enough money spent in charity every year to
supply the needs of every poor person living, but so much is
misapplied that many have to go without. I think it is the same with
human affection. There is so much true love going about in this
world--enough to keep all of us well-nourished and contented. But what
a lot of it goes to waste! There is so much overlapping! _Why_, I
wonder? It is a difficult business, Life, Daphne."
He had never called her Daphne before, but neither of them seemed to
notice the familiarity.
"We're a contrary crew, we mortals," he continued presently. "Here we
are, you and I, sitting in the moonshine inaugurating a flirtation,
though neither of us cares a snap for the other--in that way. Why, I
wonder? I think it is partly due to pride--wounded pride. You are
angry with your husband----"
Daphne, who was methodically picking her cigarette to pieces, looked
up indignantly.
"I'm _not_!" she said hotly.
"Oh yes, you are," replied Carthew. "You think you are
not, but you are. You try to believe that you are merely
indifferent to him, but you are not. As for me, I am angry
too--piqued--furious--jealous--raging--I admit it--with a girl whom
I dislike intensely. The more I see of her the more selfish,
affected, shallow, unwomanly I see her to be. And yet--I _love_
her! Why? Why? Why? People tell me she is heartless, soulless,
sordid, greedy, vulgar--everything, in fact. Sometimes I feel they
are right. Still--" he dropped his head into his hands and
continued doggedly--"what difference does that make to _me_? I love
her!... She cared for me once, too. She told me so--and she meant
it! Perhaps if I had been a little more patient with her I might
have kept her, and--and helped her a bit. Perhaps that was what I
was sent into the world for--to make things easier for Nina. I
could have done so much for her, too. I could have made a woman of
her. She has her soft side: I know: I have seen it. No other man
can say that. Meanwhile," he continued with a whimsical smile, "I
am trying to solace myself by allowing you to flirt with me----"
Daphne drew her breath sharply.
"And you are not very good at it," concluded Carthew unexpectedly.
"You are very candid," said Daphne frigidly.
"Yes, but I speak truth. You are not good at it. Flirtation is a
crooked business, and you are straight, _mon amie_. But wounded pride
is not the only thing that has drawn us here together. Something else
is responsible. We are both craving for sympathy. 'A fellow-feeling,'
you know! I know all about _you_," he continued quickly, as Daphne's
lips parted. "You are by way of being a neglected wife; and since Nina
has informed me that she has told you all about _me_, I suppose you
regard me as a bit of a derelict too. Well, we have forgathered. What
is going to happen next?"
Daphne was silent. She certainly did not know what was going to happen
next. Her ideas on all subjects were a little jumbled at this moment.
Presently Carthew continued--
"We came together," he said gently, "just when each of us required a
little companionship and sympathy; and we got it. I think our chance
encounter on the highway of life has been a very profitable one. But
it has served its turn. Our roads diverge again. We must part company,
little comrade."
"Why?"
Daphne spoke this time in a tremulous whisper. A great wave of
loneliness was surging up towards her.
"Because," said Carthew's deep voice, "it is the only thing to do.
Think what may happen if we travel on together too far. At present we
are safe. I love some one else, and so do--and you are angry with some
one else, let us say. Supposing, since the girl I love does not love
me any more--supposing I ceased to love her? It seems hopeless,
incredible, I admit; but it might conceivably happen. And supposing
you gave up being angry with--some one else, and became indifferent to
him, where might we not find ourselves? Our sheet-anchor--our platonic
sheet-anchor--would be gone. And sooner than send you adrift among
cross-currents, little Daphne, I prefer to forgo the only friendship
in this world that I really value. You are too delicate and too
fragrant to be tarnished by common gossip, so I am going away
to-morrow. Let us say good-bye now--you beautiful thing!"
Daphne looked up at him in amazement. But there was no passion in his
face--only an infinite tenderness. To him she was simply a woman--one
of the rarest and fairest of her sex, perhaps, but still simply a
woman--whom to succour, without expectation or desire of reward, was
the merest courtesy on the part of any knight worthy of the name. This
was a man! Daphne bowed her head, wondering dimly and scornfully at
the insensate folly of Nina Tallentyre.
"Shall we go back to the hotel?" asked Carthew at length.
There was no reply. Turning to note the cause, he saw something bright
and glistening fall upon his companion's hand--then another. With
innate loyalty and delicacy he averted his gaze, and surveyed the
distant seascape with laborious intentness.
Meanwhile Daphne sat on, her head still bowed. Through the night air,
from the hotel verandah, there came the refrain of a waltz. It was
called _Caressante_, she thought. Carthew knew it too, and dug his
teeth into his lower lip. Waltzes have an unfortunate habit of
reviving the memories of yester year.
"Don't go in," said Daphne at length. "Don't leave me--I can't bear
it!" Her voice broke.
Suddenly Carthew turned to her.
"Daphne"--his voice was low, but he spoke with intense earnestness--"you
are lonely, I know, and sad; and you are too proud to own it. Shall I
tell you who is more lonely and more sad, and too proud to own it too?"
"Do you mean--" were Jim Carthew's good resolutions
crumbling?--"yourself?"
"No, no,--nothing of the kind. I mean--your husband!" Then he
continued hurriedly--
"Daphne, if I thought I was leaving you to real loneliness and
inevitable wretchedness, I--well, perhaps I shouldn't go away at all.
But I--I am not needed. Little friend, you have the finest husband in
all the world, waiting for you. For all his domineering ways, he is
shy, and wants knowing. You have never discovered that. I don't
believe you know him a bit. It all comes of having begun wrong. Go
back and study him. Give him a fair chance! Give yourself a fair
chance! You and I have always been friends: will you promise me this?
Go back, and give yourself and Jack Carr another chance."
Half an hour ago Daphne would have smiled sceptically and indulgently
upon such a suggestion. But this lonely, loyal spirit had touched her.
She felt she would like to please him.
"Very well," she said. "I promise. No, _I can't_!" The memory of some
ancient wrong suddenly surged up in her, swamping the generous
impulse. "_I can't!_"
"Why?"
"Jack is so hard," she said. "Look at the way he treats those in his
power. His workpeople, his----"
Carthew laughed, positively boisterously.
"Hard? Jack Carr hard? Listen," he said, "and I will tell you a
secret."
* * * * *
When he had finished Daphne stood up, white and gleaming in the
moonlight, and gave him her hand.
"All right," she said softly--"it's a bargain. I go home to-morrow."
BOOK THREE.
THE LIGHTING OF THE CANDLE.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
SOME ONE TO CONFIDE IN.
Certainly matters were in a serious state in the Mirkley Colliery
district. The whole industrial world was unsettled at the time. There
had been trouble on the railways, and a great shipyard strike was
threatening in Scotland. Most serious of all, the men were beginning
to defy their own leaders. They had taken to organising little
sectional revolts of their own, and Employers' Federations were
beginning to ask how they could be expected to ratify treaties with
Trades Union officials who were unable to hold their own followers to
the terms of agreements concluded on their behalf.
The Mirkley district had caught the infection. The mischief had
originated at Marbledown and Cherry Hill, the immediate cause of the
trouble being a simple question of weights and measures.
The ordinary collier is paid by piecework--so much per ton for all the
coal he hews. This coal is carefully weighed on coming to the surface,
and to ensure fair play all round the weight is checked by the men's
own representative at the pit-head. Now just as all is not gold that
glitters, so all that comes to the surface of the earth from the
interior of a coal-pit is not necessarily coal. A good deal of it is
shale, stone, and the like--technically summarised as "dirt"--and has
to be sorted out from the genuine article by a bevy of young ladies
retained at some expense for the purpose. As colliers are paid for
hewing coal and not dirt, the mine managers, reckoning one
hundredweight as the average weight of dirt in a tub of coal, had been
in the habit, when making out their pay-sheets, of deducting this
amount from the total weight of each load brought to the surface.
_Hinc lacrymae._ The man in the pit claimed that he should be paid for
all he sent up the shaft, alleging that it was impossible to separate
coal from dirt at the face, and that dirt was quite as difficult to
hew as coal. To this those in authority replied that a collier is a
man who is employed to hew coal and not dirt, and that as such he
should only be paid for the coal he hewed. It was a nice point, and so
high did feeling run upon the subject, and so fierce was the demeanour
of their _employes_, that pliable Mr Aymer and pusillanimous Mr
Montague yielded to the extent of fifty-six pounds, and henceforth
each toiler in Cherry Hill and Marbledown Colliery was debited with
one half instead of one whole hundredweight of dirt per tub.
Encouraged by the success of their colleagues, the men employed at Sir
John Carr's great pit at Belton proffered a similar request. But
though the request was the same its recipient was different. Sir John
greeted the deputation with disarming courtesy, and announced in a
manner which precluded argument that on the question of the owners'
right to deduct for dirt in each load he would not yield one inch. On
this the deputation rashly changed their ground and alleged that the
toll of one hundredweight per tub was excessive. Whereupon Juggernaut
whisked them off without delay to the pit-head. Here a minute
examination was made of the contents of the next ten tubs of coal
which came to the surface, and it was found that, so far from
defrauding his _employes_, Juggernaut was defrauding himself, for the
average weight of dirt in each tub was not one hundred and twelve but
one hundred and thirty pounds.
"You see, Mr Brash?" said Sir John cheerfully. "I am afraid you have
all been in my debt to the extent of eighteen pounds of coal per tub
for quite a considerable number of years. However, if you will be
sensible and go back to work, we will call it a wash-out and say no
more about it."
Then he departed to London.
But he had to return. The half-hundredweight of Cherry Hill
and Marbledown outbalanced Belton's plain facts and ocular
demonstrations. The Pit "came out" _en masse_, against the advice
and without the authority of their Union officials; and for two or
three weeks men loafed up and down the long and unlovely street
which comprised Belton village, smoking their pipes and organising
occasional whippet-races against the time when the despot who
employed them should be pleased to open negotiations.
But the despot made no sign. Presently pipes were put away for want of
tobacco, and whippet-racing ceased for want of stake-money. Then came
a tightening of belts and a setting of teeth, and men took to sitting
on their heels against walls and fences, punctuating recrimination by
expectoration, through another four long and pitiful weeks.
Not so utterly pitiful though. For a wonderful thing happened. The
unknown benefactor of the strike of seven years ago came to life
again. Every morning the postman delivered to the wife of each man in
Belton a packet containing a ration of tea, sugar, and (once a week)
bacon. Coal, too, was distributed by a mysterious motor-lorry, bearing
a London number-plate, and manned by two sardonic Titans, who
deposited their sacks and answered no questions. So there was no
actual destitution in the village. But there was no beer, and no
tobacco, and no money. Women and children can live for an amazingly
long time on tea and sugar eked out by a little bread, but man is the
slave of an exacting stomach, and requires red meat for the upkeep of
his larger frame. The whippets, too, had to be considered; and when,
after an interval of seven weeks, a notice went up on the gates of the
pit buildings, intimating that all who returned to work on the
following Monday would be reinstated without question, Belton Colliery
put its pride into its empty pocket and came back as one man.
But the danger was not over yet, as Juggernaut well knew. For the
moment the men were subdued by sheer physical exhaustion. The first
pay-day would fill their bellies and put some red blood into their
passions. And it was certain information, received on this head at the
Pit offices, that sent Sir John Carr home to Belton Hall with knitted
brow and tight-set mouth one wintry Saturday afternoon in early April,
a fortnight after the men had resumed work.
He stepped out of the big motor and walked into the cheerful fire-lit
hall. He stood and gazed reflectively upon the crackling logs as the
butler removed his heavy coat. But the removal of the coat seemed to
take no weight from his shoulders. He felt utterly lonely and unhappy.
Was he growing old, he wondered. He was not accustomed to feel like
this. He did not usually shrink from responsibility, or desire a
shoulder to lean upon, but at this moment he suddenly felt the want
of some one to consult. No; consult was not the word! He could have
consulted Carthew. In fact he had just done so, for Carthew had
returned from his holiday two days before. What he wanted was some one
to _confide_ in. With a sudden tightening of the heart he thought of a
confidante who might have been at his side then, had things been
different--a confidante who would have sat upon the arm of his chair
and bidden him play the man and fear nothing. Well, doubtless he would
play the man and fear nothing, and doubtless he would win again as he
had done before. But--_cui bono_? What doth it profit a man----?
He wondered where she was. Yachting on the Mediterranean, or
frivolling on the Riviera. Or perhaps she was back in London by this
time, ordering her spring clothes and preparing for another butterfly
season. At any rate she was not at Belton Hall. Whose fault was
that?...
Had he been lacking in patience with her? Had he treated her too much
like a refractory board-meeting?... A little fool? Doubtless; but
then, so were most women. And she was very young, after all....
"Will you take anything before dinner, sir?" inquired a respectful
voice in his ear. "Tea? Whisky-and----"
"No, thank you, Graves. Is Master Brian in the nursery?"
"Yes, sir."