IN WHICH INMAN SHOWS THE SUBTLETY OF A VERY
VENOMOUS SERPENT
DURING these fateful weeks Nancy’s aversion to her husband settled
into a milder form of repugnance as she thought she recognised on his
part a warmer feeling towards herself. The reason for this increase of
amiability she might easily have surmised if she had been acquainted
with all the facts, which was far from being the case, for Inman told
her just as much as he wished her to know. One might have thought that
his affability would have aroused suspicion: that she might have
realised that there is no need for the highwayman to waste powder and
shot when a smile, which costs nothing, will serve his turn as well. But
Nancy was in no mood for analysing motives, and was only too thankful
that a protector was at hand to stand between her and the ill-temper
which Baldwin expended upon her with a savage coarseness that exceeded
anything she had previously experienced. The very sight of her,
reminding him as it did of the man who had robbed him, and of her better
fortune—for what was a paltry five hundred to one with her
means?—goaded him to vulgar reproaches and accusations which Nancy
would have found intolerable if it had not been for the knowledge that
her husband was only waiting his time. Inman was not always present on
these occasions; but when he was he would let his eyes rest on her with
a meaning look, and she knew that he was conveying the message he had
spoken in private a hundred times.
“Have patience, lass! It’ll be your turn after a while! I’m booking it
all down!”
In reality, of course, she was mistress of the situation, with the key
at her girdle, and she was quite aware of it. Baldwin’s resources were
almost exhausted and Inman’s savings she guessed were inconsiderable.
She was the only capitalist of the three, and if Baldwin had been wise
he would have made her his friend, in which case she might not have
acquiesced so carelessly in the use of her money for the appropriation
of his property. As it was, he alienated her sympathy and made her
hostile.
She seldom replied to any of his taunts, and was even silent when her
husband encouraged her, contenting herself with a shrug and an
expression of weary indifference, and Inman would continue:
“You’re safe enough in my hands. Leave it to me, and don’t worry your
head over whys and wherefores. Your interests are mine, and I’ll steer
the ship into calm waters, you’ll see; but it won’t be Baldwin Briggs
who’ll be master when it gets there.”
He always laughed as he ended, and Nancy sometimes smiled. His strong
self-confidence struck a chord in her nature that responded readily. She
did not love him; she did not even respect him; sometimes when she
happened to touch him as they lay side by side in bed she would shiver
and draw back as if he had been some loathsome animal; but he was the
only protector she had, and he saved her the trouble of thinking for
herself at a time when she found it difficult to think. That is why she
acquiesced without question, and with a dull glow of satisfaction at her
heart and the beginnings of a sense of triumph, when Inman told her what
he had planned regarding the purchase of Baldwin’s property.
“It’ll tide him over for a bit,” he said, “but it’s a plank and not a
jolly-boat, and he’s bound to go under.”
His eyes smiled into Nancy’s as he said it; but the rest of his face was
passive.
“He doesn’t seem to think so,” said Nancy.
“No,” remarked her husband grimly; “he feels safe because my arm’s round
him; but the time will come when——”
He opened his hands and flung his arms wide—a significant completion of
the sentence; and seeing his wife’s eyes soften he added with a laugh:
“Then, maybe, we’ll save him and make him galley-slave, the foul-mouthed
devil.”
When the report spread round the neighbourhood that Inman was the
purchaser that astute individual only stared. Once, when he was directly
challenged, he replied that he didn’t discuss business matters except
with principals, and added:
“Lies are as thick on the ground as weeds. He’s a fool who wastes his
time stubbing ’em up!”
“Doesn’t Baldwin guess?” Nancy asked, when he was relating this
encounter.
“All Baldwin does is to curse to all eternity those who’ve bought at
half value,” laughed her husband. “There’s no wonder you look worn and
withered, Nancy!—he’s blasted you! Let him guess! Let ’em all guess!
Priestley’s a safe lawyer, and’ll give naught away.”
This was only one move in the game and a legitimate one; there were
others, more devilish, that required a clear head, infinite patience and
the unscrupulous use of means which Inman judged it prudent to conceal
from Nancy’s eyes. Every evening when the men had gone Baldwin and Inman
would return to the office and discuss the situation out of earshot of
the women. On one of the earliest of these occasions Inman had produced
from a cupboard of which he had been given the key a bottle of whisky
and a single tumbler.
“You don’t touch this stuff?” he said. “You were a wise man not to begin
it, for it’s a habit ’at isn’t easy dropped. I wish I could do without
it; but I’ve always found in my case that a drop of whisky’s a help when
I’m hard pushed, and gingers me up a bit. I don’t recommend it, mind
you, all the same, to them that aren’t used to it.”
He was mixing himself a glass as he spoke, with a veiled eye on his
master who looked as if he was going to forbid the indulgence. Inman,
however, took no notice.
“A cup of coffee or a bottle o’ bitters might get you to the same place
in time,” he said; “but this lands you there quicker, and time’s money
just now. It gives your brain a spurt and comforts your heart, _I_ find;
but those who haven’t begun it had better keep off it.”
He turned a deaf ear to Baldwin’s mutterings, and from that moment
showed himself unusually resourceful. No actor on the stage of a crowded
theatre who was drawing the plaudits of his audience that night was
playing his part more admirably than Inman to this company of one. He
had no great liking for spirits, and he was on ordinary occasions
studiously abstemious; but he could drink hard on occasion and be little
the worse for it, and he counted on this capability now, when he had an
object in view—the object of guiding a pair of unaccustomed feet into
the perilous groves of Bacchus.
Midway in the course of their deliberations on that first occasion he
had stretched out his hand for the bottle again and had checked himself.
“That won’t do!” he said with a laugh; “—too much is as bad as too
little,” and he had risen and returned the bottle and tumbler to the
cupboard, putting the key in his pocket—an action which had made the
desired impression on Baldwin.
For a time the ingenious and infernal scheme seemed likely to fail; but
if his hopes were disappointed Inman continued the same tactics and
displayed no hurry. At one time he would leave the bottle untouched
until the ineffectiveness of his suggestions led Baldwin to bring down
his hand upon the table with a hot recommendation that the condemned
stuff should be fetched out and his counsellor should get a move on. At
another he would profess physical weariness and depression, and would
refuse almost angrily to drink on the ground that a man might go too far
in drowning sorrow. On such an occasion Baldwin might storm as he liked
and Inman would remain unmoved.
“We’ll leave it over till to-morrow. You wouldn’t have a man do what
you’ve too much sense to do yourself?”
The subtle poison worked slowly, but still it worked. One night, when he
had been more than usually harassed because the bank at Keepton where he
had opened an account had definitely refused an overdraft on the ground
that the security he was able to offer was insufficient, and Inman’s
ingenuity had been unequal to the task of raising money in any other
direction, Baldwin sat in the kitchen, brooding over his misfortunes,
long after the others had gone to bed. He was weighted with care and
dreaded the sleepless hours that stretched in front of him.
After a while he went out and quietly entered the office. It would not
have surprised Inman to know that the duplicate of the key that locked
his cupboard was in the master’s bunch; it might not have surprised him,
but it would certainly have gratified him, if he could have seen the
door unlocked and the whisky bottle produced. Baldwin had only a vague
idea of proportions, but he followed his foreman’s example and mixed
himself a stiff glass. That night he slept heavily and was untroubled by
dreams. Thereafter the two men drank together, not without protest on
Inman’s part, and Baldwin soon outdistanced his teacher. Then Inman knew
that the game was won.
All the village was aware that Baldwin was drinking heavily before the
news reached the ears of Keturah and Nancy.
Although it had been planned with that object Inman professed great
annoyance when he found that the confidence he had reposed in Albert
(very sympathetic confidence) had been abused; and his frowning silence
when the matter was mentioned in his hearing was sufficient confirmation
of the truth of the report. It was Hannah who told Nancy. Her kindly
heart had been touched by the message Jagger had brought her; and
knowing that Nancy’s condition caused her to stand in special need of a
friend in whom she could confide and who could be of service to her in a
hundred ways she determined that nothing short of actual prohibition by
Inman himself should keep her away.
Hannah was a woman of action; a woman for an emergency; and though
sharp-spoken, a healer of breaches rather than a maker of them. Inman
gave her a keen glance when he found the two together; said “How d’ye
do?” in acknowledgement of her nod; and so tacitly recognised the
friendship. It was the first real crumb of comfort Nancy had tasted
since her marriage.
“You know he’s taken to drink, I suppose?”
“Who? James?” inquired Nancy, not wholly indifferent to what this might
portend.
Hannah shook her head. “Nay, I mean Baldwin. It’s all over t’ place ’at
he goes to bed drunk night after night.”
It was on Nancy’s lips to deny it; but one or two suspicious
circumstances she had observed held back the contradiction.
“James has never said aught,” she remarked hesitatingly.
“Maybe not,” replied Hannah, who was careful not to make mischief
between husband and wife. “They say your husband’s done his level best
to keep him off it,—locked t’ drink up, and Baldwin broke t’ lock, he
was that mad for’t. But I’ve happen done wrong to tell you, for you’ll
be safe enough with your husband in t’ house. All t’ same when you’re as
you are it’s as well to know.”
“Yes, I’m glad you’ve told me,” Nancy said. “I daresay folks are making
a deal out o’ very little; but I’ll keep my eyes open and say naught.”
When Keturah heard of it she was at first tearfully indignant, but it
was her nature to believe the worst, and her sense of helplessness led
her to patch up a kind of peace with Nancy upon whom she was ready to
lean now that the only prop she had known was likely to fail her. Later,
when Baldwin was at no pains to conceal his condition, fear dried her
tears, and drove her into a mood of despondency that left her limp and
unequal to the strain of her ordinary household duties.
The seeds thus sown bore the crop of results Inman had foreseen, and
hearing of Baldwin’s moral wreckage, the firms that had continued to
give him credit now withheld it, whilst others gambled with the risk by
charging higher prices. It was in vain that Inman interviewed and
pleaded with them, for he was always forced to admit reluctantly in the
end that in their place he would have done the same.
“The business is sound enough,” he would say; “but of course I’m not
master and Mr. Briggs is. It’s a sad pity that trouble’s driven him to
this; but we’ve to take facts as they are and I can’t blame you, though
I wish you could see your way just this once——”
“Would you, if you were in my place?”
Inman hesitated. In conducting these negotiations he gave the impression
of a man whose inflexible loyalty was baffled by a strict
conscientiousness.
“If I could be absolutely sure that he would allow me to guide him, I
would say yes. So far he has done so on most occasions. Once or twice
lately—but he wasn’t master of himself then, and I’m hoping he’ll pull
himself together.”
“Find somebody to guarantee the account, Mr. Inman, and you shall have
the old terms with pleasure. What about your wife?” Everybody knew by
this time that Nancy had ample means.
Inman shook his head. “I’ve tried my best, but you know what timid
creatures women are; and my wife’s as far in as she cares to be.”
“That’s exactly our position, Mr. Inman.”
This was how it always ended, and Inman would shake hands with a
downcast expression on his honest face, and a note of regret in his
voice as he assured the principal that he couldn’t blame him.
One man in the village refused to join in the general chorus of
condemnation. There is a variation of a familiar proverb that reads: “A
friend loveth at all times, and is born as a brother for adversity.”
Maniwel Drake was such a friend.
He had been having a hard struggle in his business as we have seen; but
so far his shoulders had been broad enough for the burdens they had had
to carry, and his heart had always been light. Since Jagger’s
“conversion” he had scarcely had a care in the world; for the loss of
his little capital had left him unmoved, and it is true to say that the
contemplation of Baldwin’s misfortune had given him more sorrow than
anything he had experienced since the death of his wife. It afforded him
little satisfaction to realise that as Baldwin’s embarrassments
increased his own diminished; that the “hurdles” were being removed one
by one out of his path; and that a moderate prosperity was opening out
before him.
It was not until Baldwin took to drink that Maniwel allowed himself to
give way to depression, however, and when he found that his son received
the news with an indifference that was not far removed from satisfaction
his wrath was aroused.
“If there’s rejoicing in the presence o’ the angels of God over a sinner
’at repenteth,” he said, “there’s like to be rejoicing amongst t’other
sort over one ’at sinks deeper into t’ mire; but I should grieve for a
son o’ mine to join in such a devil-dance! I’m for lending Baldwin a
hand if it can be done at all. He’s both ox and ass, is Baldwin; and if
he can be got out o’ t’ pit it’s our duty to do it.”
“And have your labour for your pains,” commented Jagger.
“It won’t be t’ first time I’ve worked for naught, and been no worse
for’t,” replied Maniwel.
He chose his opportunity when he had seen Inman pass on his way to the
station, and early in the afternoon he walked up to Baldwin’s workshop.
There was no one downstairs and all was quiet above, but when he reached
the next storey he heard a sound in Baldwin’s office and went in, as he
had always done—as everybody did—without waiting for an answer to his
knock.
There was a bottle on the table and a glass half full of spirits was in
Baldwin’s hand. He set it down angrily when he recognised his visitor,
and with a curse bade him begone.
“I neither know nor care what brings tha!” he shouted. “Get outside,
afore I help tha down!”
“Baldwin!” said Maniwel in a firm but kindly tone; “there never was a
time, lad, when tha needed a friend more than tha does now, and I doubt
if tha has one i’ t’ world, barring my-sen. I’ve come as a friend——”
“I won’t listen to tha,” shouted the infuriated man, who had already had
drink enough to inflame his passion. “I tell tha I’ll do tha an injury
if tha doesn’t take thi-sen off! Damn tha! Isn’t it enough ’at tha’s
ruined me; thee and thy son——!”
“God help tha, lad!” broke in Maniwel; “tha can’t do me half as big an
injury as tha’s doing thi-sen, and I’m flayed them ’at’s advising tha is
doing tha no good.”
His eye had fallen on the second glass in the cupboard, and his voice
became more pleading. “Don’t thee pin thi faith to Inman, lad. I’d do no
man a wrong; but it’s borne in on me ’at that lad’s working for his own
ends, and when he’s finished wi’ tha he’ll toss tha on t’ midden same as
an old shoe! Cannot tha trust me, lad? Tha’s never known Maniwel Drake
go back on his word, and I promise tha I’ll help tha, if I have to
suffer for’t.”
Baldwin’s anger had made him impotent, but at these words he drained his
glass and then dashed it at Maniwel’s feet where it lay broken in a
thousand fragments. Curse followed curse as he refused his old mate’s
offer and threatened him with mischief. Maniwel went a step forward and
laid his hand on the other’s arm.
“I’ll go, lad. It’s ill trying to reason wi’ a man ’at’s i’ drink; but
just try to let this one word get through t’ drink to thi memory. When
tha comes to thi-sen and wants a friend, tha’ll find him where he’s
always been—at Maniwel Drake’s.”
With these words and without a backward glance, he left the room, and
returned home.