Success
which, for him, it entailed.
“I should have that man of Wallaby’s, if I ever did get in,” he said.
“I don’t suppose he knows anything about marine engines, but that
doesn’t matter, he’s a good man; I don’t think much of specialised
knowledge _per se_; after all, it’s less what a man knows that matters
in real problems, than how he sets about dealing with what he doesn’t
know.”
Nan agreed and said nothing about air-castles and the previousness
of arranging the staff of them before the first brick is laid; she
knew that that childish faculty sometimes goes with the constructive
mathematical mind.
But the enthusiasm did not remain with the builder now. “I don’t know
that we need spend time talking of what I’ll do if I do make a success
of it,” he said, “quite likely I shan’t make anything of the kind.”
But she did not believe that; nor did he really, although at times he
insisted on it, speaking of the enormous difficulties of the hitherto
unsolved problem presented by the big engines.
That same day he wrote to the steamship company, saying he was willing
to undertake their work, suggesting terms and other arrangements. He
did not mention the matter to Barmister; although he and Nan thought a
great deal about it, neither mentioned it to her father, there would be
time enough for that when all was settled.
And as it happened events justified this reticence. Two days later
there came another letter from the company. Michael’s reply had been
received, but after further consideration, the board had decided not to
proceed on the lines originally indicated. Their own engineers hoped to
be equal to doing all that was necessary, so they would not trouble him
further in the matter.
“Are they equal to it?” Nan asked. “How can they be now if they weren’t
four days ago?”
Michael shrugged his shoulders. “They may have hit on something,” he
said, “though I hardly think so.”
“Nor do I,” she said significantly.
He took the blow, and blow it certainly was, very quietly. “After
all,” he said, “it’s not really surprising; it’s only what we might
have expected. The wonder is, not that they have backed out now, but
that they appealed to me in the first instance. Most of the directors
of this are in two or three kindred companies and thoroughly mixed in
that lot; if they don’t absolutely know any of Galhardy’s directors
personally they do indirectly; they must have known something about
that affair.”
“Of course,” Nan said, “they would hardly have applied to you if they
had not; it’s only because of that that you are free and willing to do
what they wanted, and they know it; besides, if, as you say, it was
through Mr. Blake they did apply to you, he would probably have said
something about it to them, very likely not to your discredit.”
“Blake’s a good sort,” Michael said; “he’d have made the best tale he
could; he believes the best, I think; he was awfully decent to me.”
His face brightened for a moment, as he recalled the afternoon with the
oil presses.
“What has caused this change, then?” Nan asked. “Why have they altered
their minds now?”
Michael did not know. “Possibly,” he suggested, “one director, more
nervous or more suspicious or more punctilious than the rest, who was
not there at the first discussion, came along afterwards and upset the
others. Or perhaps some one of them has heard a fresh yarn about me. Or
it might even be that someone in Galhardy’s, hearing there was a chance
of me getting in there, has taken the trouble to talk to them. I don’t
know how much interest Galhardy’s take in me and my proceedings, I
should hardly have thought so much as that, still they may; they had a
rather exalted opinion of the work I might do for other people, and the
consequent damage to them. Anyway, I don’t see that it matters how it
happened; it has happened, as it was likely to, and there’s an end.”
Nan nodded: there was an end, there was nothing to be gained by
speculating on the reason or the manner of it.
“And after all,” he said, “perhaps it’s just as well. I dare say
I shouldn’t have done any good with the thing, if I had had the
chance; it’s a subject on which I have worked very little; probably
I should have made a muddle of it. And working for people like that
again—working that way——”
He did not finish the sentence, but it was plain that he shrank from
the idea as he had before welcomed it, doubting his own ability and
everything else.
CHAPTER IX
Rosalind Annarly was to be married just after Easter: the wedding,
which was to have taken place in the winter, was postponed until then
on account of a death in the Wharton family—not in the immediate family
circle, but since the deceased was the only daughter of the weighty
relative from whom Dick had expectations, it was thought advisable to
pay proper respect.
“Besides,” so Rosalind said, “I hate a wedding with one family in
mourning or half mourning. And, after all, April is a much better time
to get frocks than the winter, and a new house, and curtains, and
everything look nicer then.”
So she supported the postponement with equanimity. She was very
comfortable at home; her father’s favourite, and an acknowledged
beauty, which, in connection with her satisfactory engagement, gave her
some prestige and even more liberty to have what she liked than would
otherwise have fallen to her share. If Dick was more impatient for a
change of condition, and had no sartorial consolations to pass the
time, he could at least reflect that the postponement was his doing, or
rather his relatives’, and dictated by wisdom if not by feeling. But
in the spring there was a period put to the time of waiting; the date
for the wedding was fixed, and the business of preparation went forward
with enthusiasm.
Michael, naturally, was expected to be home for the wedding. He had
been home very little during the winter and spring; he had really no
time for it. The family at Hurstbury were sorry, of course; but, since
he had never been there much, they cannot be said to have missed him.
For the wedding, however, they expected him: there is a definite part
allotted to the bride’s brothers on such occasions; Michael would come
and fill it. Constance wrote and told him so.
“What a pity he isn’t as good-looking as Jack,” Rosalind said. Jack was
home now, and a really satisfactory brother the sisters found: tall,
good-looking, and sociable—a masculine edition of themselves.
“Michael is nothing like Jack,” Rosalind said, thinking of her bridal
procession; “it’s rather a pity.”
“I don’t think that matters,” Mabel said. “The sort of thing I should
have thought a pity would have been if he had not been able to keep Mr.
Barmister away.”
“Mabel!” Constance protested. “How can you say such a thing? I am sure
he had nothing to do with Mr. Barmister stopping away.”
But Mabel thought he had. “The Barmisters would expect him to look
after them,” she said. “They wouldn’t know anyone else here, and they’d
stick to him. I guess he felt two of them would be too much for him,
and so persuaded Nan to accept without her father.”
Constance did not think so. “At all events,” she said, “I am glad Nan
is coming; she is a good little thing and must have a dull time. I
should have been pleased if her father had come with her.”
Mabel was sceptical. “He might have been all right,” she said; “on
the other hand, he might have worn a three-foot gold watch-chain and
five diamond rings, and gone round valuing the wedding presents in the
hearing of the givers.”
“Mabel!” Constance said, shocked; but Rosalind laughed, though she
reminded her sister that Barmister was not a pawnbroker.
“No,” Mabel agreed, “he might have given you something good from among
the pledges, if he were.”
Rosalind laughed again, and the subject was dropped in favour of the
more interesting one of wedding presents—who had given them; who
was yet to give; who had shown themselves more generous than was to
be expected, and who less; not omitting the irritating question of
duplicates, and what was to be done with them.
“Three half-dozens of afternoon tea-knives!” Rosalind said with a
little grimace.
“You’ll have to exchange some,” was Mabel’s opinion; “though you won’t
get much for them: they are as thin as paper, and really no use to
anyone—except to give away. Shall you keep all the salt-cellars?”
Rosalind could not make up her mind, and Constance said she was rather
surprised Uncle Giles chose those articles for his present.
“He ought to have sent a cheque, and a big one,” Mabel said, more
outspokenly. “I dare say he would if he and father had not fallen out
over the Budget.”
Rosalind observed pathetically that she had nothing to do with the
Budget, and did not see why, since she knew nothing about it, Uncle
Giles should have been mean to her. After that she was called away to
speak to her sisters-in-law-elect, and left Constance and Mabel to
finish setting out the wedding presents without her.
“There certainly are rather many tea-knives,” Constance regretted, as
she arranged the cases on the dining-room table.
“Even more teaspoons,” Mabel said; “though I should think we might
reckon them all in by now: there can’t be much more to come, so late as
this.”
The wedding itself was to-morrow. The house by this time was in
something of a flutter. For days past there had been a growing
excitement and tendency to disruption of ordinary life; now, almost
all pretence of routine had gone. People ran up and down stairs
constantly, friends and acquaintances looked in at all manner of
times, the dressmaker was interviewed in the drawing-room, meals were
unpunctual, the servants could be sent to the post at any hour, and
anyone could have a cup of tea whenever she wanted it. A wedding, like
spring-cleaning, brings maids and mistresses to the level of mere
women, and deranges the whole domestic organisation. Jack went to see
friends a good deal at that time, bestowing, however, a certain amount
of patronising interest on the presents between whiles. Mr. Annarly
retired as much as possible to the little room at the back. It had
of late been much littered with paper, and string, and milliners’
boxes, and parcels of things sent on approval, or ready to return
for alterations to shops and dressmakers. But they were gone now.
Constance, an orderly spirit, comparatively little affected by the
general excitement, had seen to that. It was she who had arranged that
the boxes and parcels should all find their way there, so keeping the
house clear, and things where they could be found, as long as possible.
It was she who saw that they were removed this morning, so as to be
ready for the furniture from the drawing-room, which was to be put
there.
The drawing-room was cleared of all superfluous chairs and small
tables; everything which could increase the difficulty of getting three
times as many people into it as it would naturally be expected to hold.
Mrs. Annarly went round the denuded room, while Rosalind, assisted by
her sisters-in-law-elect, was arranging flowers on a table, belonging
somewhere else, placed temporarily in the centre. Everyone in Hurstbury
had some flowers in bloom at this time, and everyone acquainted with
the Annarlys seemed to have sent some for the occasion: it looked as if
it would be impossible for the girls to deal with all the choice ones,
let alone the masses of daffodils, and primroses, and violets that were
piled about them. Fortunately, the recalcitrant Mary, who had returned
for a day or two to oblige her former mistress at the interesting time,
was clever with flowers—as she was with most other things. She took the
work over when the girls grew tired of it.
“I think things are nicely forward,” Mrs. Annarly said with