AT THE MILLS
When Michael came down on the following morning, he found Roger
gazing out of the window, at the snowy prospect, and drumming his
fingers on the pane.
‘A jolly day for you to turn out, Michael. Have you to go far
afield?’
‘Not very; but I have a good deal to do. Balder Hall is the farthest
place I have to go to. I must see Miss Strangforth.’
‘Ah, well, it is not a very good road.’
He turned to the breakfast-table, and they had both made some
progress with the meal, when Michael observed—
‘Roger, you said you were going to have it out with Otho Askam
to-day.’
‘So I am.’
‘Do you mean to give it him hot?’
‘I mean to tell him that I have done with him, and to promise him a
horsewhipping if he ever looks at my young woman again,’ said Roger,
roughly.
‘Do you know, I don’t think it is the best thing you could do.’
‘Better make him a speech, thanking him for his politeness and
condescension, perhaps,’ said Roger, bitingly.
‘Oh, nonsense! You know that is not what I mean.’
The thought in Michael’s mind, of which he could not, of course,
speak to Roger, was, that the girl was not worth making a great fuss
about. He found it difficult to speak very seriously on the matter,
looking at it from his point of view, and felt a sorrowful surprise
at Roger’s denseness.
‘What I mean is this,’ he went on. ‘Otho Askam is not exactly like
other men; he’s a greater blackguard than most. You might as well
harangue this table as expect to make him ashamed of himself, or get
him to see that he behaved vilely last night. That’s the sort of
creature that he is. And if you quit him at a moment’s notice,
people will be quite ready to say that there was more in it than met
the eye. I think that, for her sake, you should be careful.’
Roger moved uneasily in his chair, and a deep flush of anger was on
his face.
‘Curse him!’ he exclaimed, at length, with emphasis. ‘It would be a
good deed to choke him!’
‘Oh yes! But we have to put up with human vermin where we should
scotch them if they were snakes.’ Michael spoke more lightly, for he
saw that his words had taken the effect he wished them to have,
without his having been forced to say what he thought; that though
Otho had doubtless behaved abominably, yet that Ada Dixon, by
conducting herself like a fool, and a vulgar one, had put no
impediment in the way of his so behaving.
‘You know, he can sue you for breach of contract if you
inconvenience him, and that would be confoundedly expensive, and
very disagreeable—for you could hardly mention in a court of justice
the reason why you left him at a moment’s notice.’
‘But I could pay the fine, without making any row.’
‘And make every one think that he could say more about you than he
had done, if he chose to. No; you have to deal with men as they are,
you know, and not as they should be; and you cannot treat a
poisonous thing in the same way you might one that has no sting. I
should advise you quietly to give him three months’ notice; don’t
let him see that you think so much of him as would be implied by
your leaving him on the spot. Say you want a situation in a large
town; you often have wished it, you know, and——’
‘And Ada!’ said Roger, in a constrained voice. ‘While I am
palavering to save appearances, I must pass over the insult to her,
without a word. As if I should trouble my head about him, except on
her account!’
‘Roger, I don’t think you can accuse me of being wanting in a sense
of honour; and if you will believe me, you will honour her, and
consider her more truly, by not mentioning her name in Askam’s
presence. You proved last night that you knew how to take care of
her; why condescend to name her to him again?’
There was a pause, during which Roger looked dark and angry, but at
last said abruptly—
‘Yes, yes; you are perfectly right. But oh, Lord!’ he added, almost
grinding his teeth, ‘it can’t be a good law that protects a cad like
that from a horsewhipping. And I would like to be the man to give it
him.’
‘Of course, the fighting animal in you would,’ said Michael, who had
hardly been prepared for such intense bitterness on Roger’s part.
Could he have seen clearly into his friend’s mind, he might have
found that the thing which added bitterness to the gall was a first
glimmering consciousness that the fault had not been wholly on the
side of him whom he so freely apostrophised as ‘cad’ and
‘blackguard.’
‘There’s a higher thing though, than a fighting animal,’ pursued
Michael; ‘and that is a gentleman, who does not walk in the dirt,
unless circumstances oblige him to.’
Roger made no answer to this oracular utterance, and they presently
separated and went their several ways.
Roger, in the office, pondered upon Michael’s words, and knew they
were right. He swallowed down his consuming anger, and determined to
be discreet in what he said and did. If Otho came down to the mills
that morning, well and good. If not, Roger would, he thought, either
write to him with his decision, or go and call upon him that
evening. With an effort, he mastered the vexation that had been
gnawing at his heart, and turned to his work.
The morning, which despite the snow, had broken bright, clear, and
sharp, clouded over, till everything looked very sad and gray;—the
street where the tramping work-people had pounded the snow into a
dirty slush; the mill-yard itself; the river flowing sullenly past,
deep and flooded.
None of them all could be grayer than the spirits of Roger Camm. He
began to wonder how it was that he had so little luck, and tried
hard to see his way, even for a yard before him, but not with much
success. By degrees, to his trenchant mood succeeded one of
despondency and aversion to everything. He began to hope then that
Otho would not come down; so far from desiring to give him a
horsewhipping, he now felt as if it would cost him a disagreeable
effort even to look upon his face; he would prefer to write to him,
and get the whole thing disposed of without words or glances.
This was not to be. About half-past eleven he saw two horsemen enter
the yard—Otho Askam and his guest, Gilbert Langstroth. Otho called a
man to hold their horses, and they dismounted and entered the
office; but not before some conversation had passed between them
outside. Roger saw how Gilbert pointed here and there with his whip,
and stood reflectively looking about him. Then, after Otho had
shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows, they came slowly
towards the office. Roger felt dreary, cross, and cynical. The
effort had to be made, and he was in no mood for making it. The
deadly, nauseous flatness which is the reaction and the avenger of
strong excitement, had taken possession of him. He scarcely looked
up as they entered; barely returned Gilbert’s courteous ‘good
morning,’ but he noticed that Otho came in with more swagger than
usual, and that in his insolence he did not condescend to utter a
greeting of any kind.
‘What business?’ he asked.
‘There are the letters,’ replied Camm, as he pushed them across to
him.
Otho took them and stood near the fire. Gilbert turned to Roger.
‘I have been talking to Mr. Askam,’ he said; ‘and I find that he has
not insured that new machinery that came the other day. I think it
ought to be done as soon as possible.’
Otho looked up.
‘What’s that? Oh, insurance! You are at it again.’
‘I should imagine that Camm would agree with me,’ said Gilbert.
‘Why, of course,’ replied Roger. ‘It is a thing that ought to be
done at once, and I have mentioned it several times.’
‘Do you hear, Otho? Now do be reasonable, and get Camm to write
about it at once, and have it settled now.’
‘Not I!’ said Otho, laying down the letters. ‘We’ve spent far too
much money already in insurance. Insurance is all bosh. The mills
are insured; and where’s the use of a thing, or the amusement, if
you go and arrange against all accidents beforehand?’
At this novel view of the merits and uses of insurance, Gilbert gave
a short laugh; but having some personal interest in the matter,
presently resumed an air of gravity, and said—
‘Oh, you must not gamble with everything; and even if you do, it’s
wiser to calculate your chances a bit, unless you are clean mad.’
‘What answers have you sent, Camm?’ inquired Otho.
‘Those,’ replied Roger, pointing to some envelopes that lay on the
desk.
This extreme brevity, which for the life of him Roger could not have
altered, seemed to have an irritating effect upon Otho. He glanced
at Roger, and almost showed his teeth along with the scowl he gave.
But he picked up the letters and read them. As for Roger, the mere
presence of the other made him feel that his own power of
self-restraint was not so great as he had, in a moment of
despondency, imagined it to be. His blood was running with wild
speed through every vein; his hands did not tremble, but he felt
breathless, excited, furious; and as he happened to catch a glimpse
of Otho’s face, dark, nearly hairless, and coarse in its very
handsomeness, with its scowling brow and sinister smile, and
recollected how, last night, he had seen that face bending with a
more insolent expression than it wore even to-day, over the fair
countenance of his Ada, and how the latter had been seen raised
towards that of this man, with every sign of pleased and flattered
self-complacency, he felt a longing to have his hands at Askam’s
throat. Truly, he felt, he and these other two were no better suited
to one another now than they had been fourteen years ago, when they
had played together in the old garden at Thorsgarth.
Gilbert, who was leaning against a desk, with his eyes half-closed,
and looking tired and bored, was, as usual, taking it all in. He had
been a witness of the scene last night, and Roger’s pale face and
compressed lips now, and the glitter in his eyes as he looked
towards his employer, were not lost upon him.
‘Come, Otho, haven’t you nearly done? It is time we were moving,’ he
said.
‘Yes, I’m just ready,’ replied Otho, laying down the letters.
‘They’re all right, I think.’ He never interfered with anything that
Roger did; his reading the letters was a form to be gone through,
for he knew absolutely nothing of business of this kind, though he
could have rattled off, correctly and nimbly, the pedigrees of
twoscore celebrated racers.
‘Well,’ said Gilbert, once again, ‘won’t you think about the
insurance?’
‘No,’ retorted Otho, impatiently. ‘I’ve no money to spare for
insurance.’
‘Turning economical with advancing years,’ observed Gilbert, with
polite sarcasm. ‘Let me tell you that fire and water and bad luck
never spare a man because he had not money to insure himself against
them, and——’
‘How you preach!’ almost snarled Otho. ‘Tell you I don’t mean to
insure. Come away.’
‘I should like to speak to you before you go,’ observed Roger,
composedly.
Otho, hearing this, turned sharp upon him, grasping his whip in his
hand, and the insolence in his eyes growing bolder. Gilbert looked
quietly, but with equal interest.
‘What is it?’ asked Otho, his hand on the door-handle.
‘Merely that I am thinking of leaving Bradstane. To-day is the
twenty-fourth;—it was the twenty-fourth when I came to you. I wish
to give three months’ notice to you, as I shall leave you at the end
of that time.’
‘What the devil is the meaning of all this?’ demanded Otho, loosing
the door-handle, but holding the whip faster, and turning upon Roger
with a black look of anger. Roger, eyeing him fixedly, thought
within himself—
‘How did I ever bear with him for this length of time, the brute!’
But he answered civilly and tranquilly—
‘That is scarcely the way in which to speak to me. I say that I wish
to leave your employment this day three months. Isn’t that simple
enough?’
‘I’ll be hanged if it is!’ said Otho, savagely. ‘It’s usual to give
a reason when you leave a place,—and I want to know yours.’
‘I would advise you not to ask for it,’ was Roger’s answer, his face
growing paler, his lips tighter, his eyes more dangerous, as his
anger grew hotter within him.
‘What! may a man not ask his servant’s reasons for leaving him?’
began Otho. ‘It’s the first time I ever——’
‘Don’t be a fool, Otho!’ here observed Gilbert. ‘Roger Camm has as
good a right to give you three months’ notice as anybody else; and
he’s in the right of it, when he says you had better not ask his
reasons. Of course you’ll want a written notice, and of course
you’ll get one. So come away.’
‘I say,’ observed Otho, suddenly changing his angry demeanour into
one of facetiousness, and with an impudent smile, ‘perhaps you
disapprove of my attentions to a certain young lady, last night; but
I can tell you——’
‘If you mention her name, I’ll give you the hiding you deserve!’
thundered Roger, springing up, and walking very close up to Otho,
whose laugh now changed to a look of furious anger.
‘You are threatening me!’ he demanded, in a voice of suppressed
rage.
‘I shall not confine myself to threats very long,’ was the
breathless reply.
Otho’s eyes looked dangerous still, but he seemed also amused, in a
curious manner.
‘Then it is about the little girl that you have cut up rough. Lord
bless you, she isn’t worth thinking about twice!’ he said, bursting
into a loud laugh. ‘Which was the worst, eh?—she or I?’
‘You blackguard!’ said Camm, between his clenched teeth. ‘I’ll——’
His hand was raised, and there was fury in his eyes. The words
seemed surging in his brain, and burnt upon his heart. The tone of
them lashed him to perfect madness. If he had got hold of Otho’s
collar the results might have been unpleasant, but he felt Gilbert’s
hand on his arm, and Gilbert’s voice whispered in his ear—
‘Don’t you see he is just leading you on? You are not a
prize-fighter, if he is. Let him go!’
Roger’s hand dropped. Otho was watching him with a look of hatred in
his face which was far stronger than the sneer which his lips tried
to form. He was insolent, and he carried the matter off with a
laugh, but it had roused his worst hatred and his blackest
animosity.
‘I said I would go in three months,’ said Roger, constrainedly,
clenching his hands down, to keep himself under control; ‘but you
have made that impossible. You can look out for yourself from this
moment. I will not darken your doors again, if I can help it.’
With which, picking up his hat, he pushed Otho unceremoniously to
one side, and walked out, leaving the others to make the best of the
situation.
His heart was sick as he walked away. Such a scene his very soul
abhorred. All the tingling desire to chastise Otho seemed to
evaporate as he left his presence. He felt again nothing but
loathing, aversion, and a wish to keep as clear of him as possible.
But reptiles can sting, and Otho had stung. As Roger passed through
the street, and saw the windows of Ada’s home, his impulse was to
call there and see her; he hesitated, paused, walked on.
‘She’s not worth thinking twice about. Which was the worst, eh?—she
or I?’
His heart, wrung with shame and anguish, called upon her name. No.
He must not go in now. He must wait until hours had passed, and
reflection had come to his aid.
He went on to the Red Gables, and found Michael just in from his
first round. To him Roger related what had happened, and what he had
done.
‘I could not help it,’ he said. ‘I began civilly enough, and
prudently enough; but when that cur gives tongue I lose my head. He
has never happened to do it before, about anything in which I had
any concern; but as soon as he began, it was all up with me. I left
him and your excellent brother to settle it as they best could; I
walked off.’
‘Well, I cannot blame you,’ said Michael, when he had heard him out.
should’ have done the same, or more. But it is an odious business.’
‘It is a vile business,’ replied Roger, gloomily; ‘and until after
Christmas, I shall be at a loose end, for it is useless trying to
see after anything before then.’