A FLOWER.
But at last it was evident that the acquaintance between Haworth and
Ffrench had advanced with great rapidity. Ffrench appeared at the Works,
on an average, three or four times a week, and it had become a common
affair for Haworth to spend an evening with him and his daughter. He was
more comfortable in his position of guest in these days. Custom had
given him greater ease and self-possession. After two visits he had
begun to give himself up to the feverish enjoyment of the hour. His
glances were no longer furtive and embarrassed. At times he reached a
desperate boldness.
"There's something about her," he said to Murdoch, "that draws a fellow
on and holds him off both at the same time. Sometimes I nigh lose my
head when I'm with her."
He was moody and resentful at times, but he went again and again, and
held his own after a manner. On the occasion of the first dinner Mr.
Ffrench gave to his old friends, no small excitement was created by
Haworth's presence among the guests. The first man who, entering the
room with his wife and daughters, caught sight of his brawny frame and
rather dogged face, faltered and grew nervous, and would have turned
back if he had possessed the courage to be the first to protest.
Everybody else lacked the same courage, it appeared, for nobody did
protest openly, though there were comments enough made in private, and
as much coldness of manner as good breeding would allow.
Miss Ffrench herself was neither depressed nor ill at ease. It was
reluctantly admitted that she had never appeared to a greater advantage
nor in better spirits.
Before the evening was half over it was evident to all that she was not
resenting the presence of her father's new found friend. She listened to
his attempts at conversation with an attentive and suave little smile.
If she was amusing herself at his expense, she was at the same time
amusing herself at the expense of those who looked on, and was
delicately defying their opinion.
Jem Haworth went home that night excited and exultant. He lay awake
through the night, and went down to the Works early.
"I didn't get the worst of it, after all," he said to Murdoch. "Let 'em
grin and sert if they will--'them laughs that wins.' She--she never was
as handsome in her life as she was last night, and she never treated me
as well. She never says much. She only _lets_ a fellow come nigh and
talk; but she treated me well--in her way."
"I'm going to send for my mother," he said afterward, somewhat
shamefacedly. "I'm goin' to begin a straight life; I want naught to
stand agin me. And if she's here they'll come to see her. I want all the
chances I can get."
He wrote the letter to his mother the same day.
"The old lady will be glad enough to come," he said, when he had
finished it. "The finery about her will trouble her a bit at first, but
she'll get over it."
His day's work over, Murdoch did not return home at once. His restless
habit of taking long rambles across the country had asserted itself with
unusual strength, of late. He spent little time in the house. To-night
he was later than usual. He came in fagged and mud-splashed. Christian
was leaving the room as he entered it, but she stopped with her hand
upon the door.
"We have had visitors," she said.
"Who?" he asked.
"Mr. Ffrench and his daughter. Mr. Ffrench wanted to see you. _She_ did
not come in, but sat in the carriage outside."
She shut the door and came back to the hearth.
"She despises us all!" she said. "She despises us all!"
He had flung himself into a chair and lay back, clasping his hands
behind his head and looking gloomily before him.
"Sometimes I think she does," he said. "But what of that?"
She answered without looking at him.
"To be sure," she said. "What of that?"
After a little she spoke again.
"There is something I have thought of saying to you," she said. "It is
this. I am happier here than I ever was before."
"I am very glad," he answered.
"I never thought of being happy," she went on, "or like other women in
anything. I--I was different."
She said the words with perfect coldness.
"I was different."
"Different!" he echoed absently, and then checked himself. "Don't say
that," he said. "Don't think it. It won't do. Why shouldn't you be as
good and happy as any woman who ever lived?"
She remained silent. But her silence only stirred him afresh.
"It is a bad beginning," he said. "I know it is because I have tried it.
I have said to myself that I was different from other men, too."
He ended with an impatient movement and a sound half like a groan.
"Here I am," he cried, "telling myself it is better to battle against
the strongest feeling of my life because I am 'different'--because there
is a kind of taint in my blood. I don't begin as other men do by hoping.
I begin by despairing, and yet I can't give up. How it will end, God
knows!"
"I understand you better than you think," she said.
Something in her voice startled him.
"What!" he exclaimed. "Has my mother----"
He stopped and gazed at her, wondering. Some powerful emotion he could
not comprehend expressed itself in her face.
"She does not speak of it often," she said. "She thinks of it always."
"Yes," he answered. "I know that. She is afraid. She is haunted by her
dread of it--and," his voice dropping, "so am I."
He felt it almost unnatural that he should speak so freely. He had found
it rather difficult to accustom himself to her presence in the house,
sometimes he had even been repelled by it, and yet, just at this moment,
he felt somehow as if they stood upon the same platform and were near
each other.
"It will break loose some day," he cried. "And the day is not far off. I
shall run the risk and either win or lose. I fight hard for every day of
dull quiet I gain. When I look back over the past I feel that perhaps I
am holding a chained devil; but when I look forward I forget, and doubt
seems folly."
"In your place," she said, "I would risk my _life_ upon it!"
The passion in her voice amazed him. He comprehended even less clearly
than before.
"_I_ know what it has cost," she said. "No one better. I am afraid to
pass the door of the room where it lies, in the dark. It is like a dead
thing, always there. Sometimes I fancy it is not alone and that the door
might open and show me some one with it."
"What do you mean?" he said. "You speak as if----"
"You would not understand if I should tell you," she answered a little
bitterly. "We are not very good friends--perhaps we never shall be--but
I will tell you this again, that in your place I would never give it
up--never! I would be true to _him_, if all the world were against me!"
She went away and shortly afterward he left the room himself, intending
to go upstairs.
As he reached the bottom of the staircase, a light from above fell upon
his face and caused him to raise it. The narrow passage itself was dark,
but on the topmost stair his mother stood holding a lamp whose light
struck upon him. She did not advance, but waited as he came upward,
looking down at him, not speaking. Then they passed each other, going
their separate ways.
The next day Ffrench appeared in the engine-room itself. He had come to
see Murdoch, and having seen him went away in most excellent humor.
"What's he after?" inquired Floxham, when he was gone.
"He wants me at his house," said Murdoch. "He says he needs my opinion
in some matter."
He went to the house the same evening, and gave his opinion upon the
matter in question, and upon several others also. In fact, Mr. Ffrench
took possession of him as he had taken possession of the young man from
Manchester, and the Cumberland mechanic, though in this case he had
different metal to work upon. He was amiable, generous and talkative. He
exhibited his minerals, his plans for improved factories and workmen's
dwelling-houses, his little collection of models which had proved
impracticable, and his books on mechanics and manufactures. He was as
generous as Haworth himself in the matter of his library; it was at his
visitor's service whenever he chose.
As they talked Rachel Ffrench remained in the room. During the evening
she went to the piano and sitting down played and sung softly as if for
no other ears than her own. Once, on her father's leaving the room, she
turned and spoke to Murdoch.
"You were right in saying I should outlive my terror of what happened to
me," she said. "It has almost entirely worn away."
"I am glad," he answered.
She held in her belt a flower like the one which had attracted Granny
Dixon's attention. As she crossed the room shortly afterward it fell
upon the floor. She picked it up but, instead of replacing it, laid it
carelessly upon the table at Murdoch's side.
After he had risen from his chair, when on the point of leaving, he
stood near this table and almost unconsciously took the flower up, and
when he went out of the house he held it in his fingers.
The night was dark and his mood was preoccupied. He scarcely thought of
the path before him at all, and on passing through the gate he came,
without any warning, upon a figure standing before it. He drew back and
would have spoken had he been given the time.
"Hush," said Haworth's voice. "It's me, lad."
"What are you doing here?" asked Murdoch. "Are you going in?"
"No," surlily, "I'm not."
Murdoch said no more. Haworth turned with him and strode along by his
side. But he got over his ill-temper sufficiently to speak after a few
minutes.
"It's the old tale," he said. "I'm making a fool of myself. I can't keep
away. I was there last night, and to-night the fit came upon me so
strong that I was bound to go. But when I got there I'd had time to
think it over and I couldn't make up my mind to go in. I knew I'd better
give her a rest. What did Ffrench want of you?"
Murdoch explained.
"Did you see--her?"
"Yes."
"Well," restlessly, "have you naught to say about her?"
"No," coldly. "What should I have to say of her? It's no business of
mine to talk her over."
"You'd talk her over if you were in my place," said Haworth. "You'd be
glad enow to do it. You'd think of her night and day, and grow hot and
cold at the thought of her. You--you don't know her as I do--if you
did----"
They had reached the turn of the lane, and the light of the lamp which
stood there fell upon them. Haworth broke off his words and stopped
under the blaze. Murdoch saw his face darken with bitter passion.
"Curse you!" he said. "Where did you get it?"
Without comprehending him Murdoch looked down at his own hand at which
the man was pointing, and saw in it the flower he had forgotten he held.
"This?" he said, and though he did not know why, the blood leaped to his
face.
"Ay," said Haworth. "You know well enow what I mean. Where did you get
it? Do you think I don't know the look on it?"
"You may, or you may not," answered Murdoch. "That is nothing to me. I
took it up without thinking of it. If I had thought of it I should have
left it where it was. I have no right to it--nor you either."
Haworth drew near to him.
"Give it here!" he demanded, hoarsely.
They stood and looked each other in the eye. Externally Murdoch was the
calmer of the two, but he held in check a fiercer heat than he had felt
for many a day.
"No," he answered. "Not I. Think over what you are doing. You will not
like to remember it to-morrow. It is not mine to give nor yours to take.
I have done with my share of it--there it is." And he crushed it in his
hand, and flung it, exhaling its fragrance, upon the ground; then turned
and went his way. He had not intended to glance backward, but he was not
as strong as he thought. He did look backward before he had gone ten
yards, and doing so saw Haworth bending down and gathering the bruised
petals from the earth.