NEARLY AN ACCIDENT.
It was Rachel Ffrench who received her father's guest the following
evening. Mr. Ffrench had been delayed in his return from town and was
still in his dressing-room. Accordingly when Haworth was announced, the
doors of the drawing-room being flung open revealed to him the figure of
his host's daughter alone.
The room was long and stately, and after she had risen from her seat it
took Miss Ffrench some little time to make her way from one end to the
other. Haworth had unconsciously halted after crossing the threshold,
and it was not until she was half-way down the room that he bestirred
himself to advance to meet her. He did not know why he had paused at
first, and his sudden knowledge that he had done so roused him to a
momentary savage anger.
"Dang it!" he said to himself. "Why did I stand there like a fool?"
The reason could not be explained briefly. His own house was a far more
splendid affair than Ffrench's, and among his visitors from London and
Manchester there were costumes far more gorgeous than that of Miss
Ffrench. He was used to the flash of jewels and the gloss of brilliant
colors. Miss Ffrench wore no ornaments at all, and her dark purple dress
was simple and close-clinging.
A couple of paces from him she stopped and held out her hand.
"My father will be glad to see you," she said. "He was, unfortunately,
detained this evening by business. He will be down stairs in a few
moments."
His sense of being at a disadvantage when, after she had led him back to
the fire, they were seated, was overwhelming. A great heat rushed over
him; the hush of the room, broken only by the light ticking of the
clock, was misery. His eye traveled stealthily from the hem of her dark
purple gown to the crowning waves of her fair hair, but he had not a
word to utter. It made him feel almost brutal.
"But the day'll come _yet_," he protested inwardly, feeling his weakness
as he thought it, "when I'll hold my own. I've done it before, and I'll
do it again."
Miss Ffrench regarded him with a clear and direct gaze. She did not look
away from him at all; she was not in the least embarrassed, and though
she did not smile, the calmness of her face was quite as perfect in
expression.
"My father told me of his visit to your place," she said. "He interested
me very much. I should like to see the Works, if you admit visitors. I
know nothing of such things."
"Any time you choose to come," he answered, "I'll show you round--and be
glad to do it. It's a pretty big place of the kind."
He was glad she had chosen this subject. If she would only go on, it
would not be so bad. He would be in his own groove. And she did go on.
"I've seen very little of Broxton," she proceeded. "I spent a few weeks
here before going abroad again with my father, and I cannot say I have
been very fond of it. I do not like England, and on the Continent one
hears unpleasant things of English manufacturing towns. I think,"
smiling a little for the first time, "that one always associates them
with 'strikes' and squalid people."
"There is not much danger of strikes here," he replied. "I give my chaps
fair play and let 'em know who's master."
"But they have radical clubs," she said, "and talk politics and get
angry when they are not sober. I've heard that much already."
"They don't talk 'em in _my_ place," he answered, dogmatically.
He was not quite sure whether it relieved him or not when Ffrench
entered at this moment and interrupted them. He was more at his ease
with Ffrench, and yet he felt himself at a disadvantage still. He
scarcely knew how the night passed. A feverish unrest was upon him.
Sometimes he hardly heard what his entertainer said, and Mr. Ffrench was
in one of his most voluble and diffuse moods. He displayed his knowledge
of trade and mechanics with gentlemanly ostentation; he talked of
"Trades' Unions" and the master's difficulties; he introduced
manufacturer's politics and expatiated on Continental weaknesses. He
weighed the question of demand and supply and touched on "protective
tariff."
"Blast him," said Haworth, growing bitter mentally, "he thinks I'm up to
naught else, and he's right."
As her father talked Miss Ffrench joined in but seldom. She listened and
looked on in a manner of which Haworth was conscious from first to last.
The thought made its way into his mind, finally, that she looked on as
if these matters did not touch her at all and she was only faintly
curious about them. Her eyes rested on him with a secret air of watchful
interest; he met them more than once as he looked up and she did not
turn them away. He sat through it all, full of vengeful resentment, and
was at once wretched and happy, in spite of it and himself.
When, at her father's request, she played and sang, he sat apart moody
and yet full of clumsy rapture. He knew nothing of the music, but his
passion found a tongue in it, nevertheless. If she had played badly he
would have taken the lack of harmony for granted, but as she played well
he experienced a pleasure, while he did not comprehend.
When it was all over and he found himself out alone in the road in the
dark, he was feverish still.
"I don't seem to have made naught at th' first sight," he said. Then he
added with dogged exultation, "But I don't look for smooth sailing. I
know enough for that. I've seen her and been nigh her, and that's worth
setting down--with a chap like me."
At the end of the week a carriage drove up to the gate-way of the Works,
and Mr. Ffrench and his daughter descended from it. Mr. Ffrench was in
the best of humors; he was in his element as he expatiated upon the size
and appointments of the place. He had been expatiating upon them during
the whole of the drive.
On their being joined by Haworth himself, Miss Ffrench decided inwardly
that here upon his own domain he was not so wholly objectionable as she
had fancied at first--even that he was deserving of a certain degree of
approval. Despite the signs of elated excitement, her quick eye detected
at once that he was more at his ease. His big frame did not look out of
place; he moved as if he was at home, and upon the whole his rough air
of authority and the promptness with which his commands were obeyed did
not displease her.
"He is master," she said to herself.
She was fond of power and liked the evidence of it in others. She did
not object to the looks the men, who were at work, cast upon her as she
went from one department to another. Her beauty had never yet failed to
command masculine homage from all ranks. The great black fellows at the
furnaces exchanged comments as she passed. They would have paused in
their work to look at her if they had dared. The object of their
admiration bore it calmly; it neither confounded nor touched her; it did
not move her at all.
Mr. Ffrench commented, examined and explained with delightful eloquence.
"We are fortunate in timing our visit so well," he said to his daughter.
"They are filling an immense order for the most important railroad in
the country. On my honor, I would rather be at the head of such a
gigantic establishment than sit on the throne of England! But where is
this _protégé_ of yours?" he said to Haworth at last. "I should like
above all things to see him."
"Murdoch?" answered Haworth. "Oh, we're coming to _him_ after a bit.
He's in among the engines."
When they reached the engine-rooms Haworth presented him with little
ceremony, and explained the purpose of their visit. They wanted to see
the engines and he was the man to make the most of them.
Mr. Ffrench's interest was awakened readily. The mechanic from
Cumberland had been a pretentious ignoramus; the young man from
Manchester had dropped his aspirates and worn loud plaids and flaming
neck-ties, but this was a less objectionable form of genius.
Mr. Ffrench began to ask questions and make himself agreeable, and in a
short time was very well entertained indeed.
Miss Ffrench listened with but slight demonstrations of interest. She
did not understand the conversation which was being carried on between
her father and Murdoch, and she made no pretense of doing so.
"It is all very clear to _them_" she said to Haworth as they stood near
each other.
"It's all clear enough to him," said Haworth, signifying Murdoch with a
gesture.
Upon which Miss Ffrench smiled a little. She was not sensitive upon the
subject of her father's hobbies, and the coarse frankness of the remark
amused her.
But notwithstanding her lack of interest she drew nearer to the engine
finally and stood looking at it, feeling at once fascinated and
unpleasantly overpowered by its heavy, invariable motion.
It was as she stood in this way a little later that Murdoch's glance
fell upon her. The next instant, with the simultaneous cry of terror
which broke from the others, he had thrown himself forward and dragged
her back by main force, and among the thunderous wheels and rods and
shafts there was slowly twisted and torn and ground into shreds a
fragment of the delicate fabric of her dress. It was scarcely the work
of a second. Her father staggered toward them white and trembling.
"Good God!" he cried. "Good God! What----" the words died upon his
bloodless lips.
She freed herself from Murdoch's grasp and stood upright. She did not
look at him at all, she looked at her father and lightly brushed with
her hand her sleeve at the wrist. Despite her pallor it was difficult to
realize that she only held herself erect by a terrible effort of
self-control.
"Why"--she said--"why did he touch me--in that manner?"
Haworth uttered a smothered oath; Murdoch turned about and strode out of
the room. He did not care to remain to hear the explanation.
As he went out into the open air a fellow-workman, passing by, stopped
to stare at him.
"What's up wi' thee?" he asked. "Has tha been punsin Haworth o'er
again?" The incident referred to being always remembered as a savory and
delectable piece of humor.
Murdoch turned to him with a dazed look.
"I--" he stammered. "We--have very nearly had an accident." And went on
his way without further explanation.