Success
sort. The workmen did well: there were several of them, experienced
men who understood their work; they would be finished probably by
to-morrow evening. There had been one mistake made: it was remediable,
but, since it might entail delay, it was annoying. The panel which
fitted over the chimney-piece had not been sent. It was part of the
original woodwork, but had been so badly damaged that little beyond the
centre coat of arms remained intact. Its repairing and restoration to
something like the former condition was the work of an artist in the
trade, who had taken his time over it, and, apparently, neglected to
send it back by the stipulated date. At all events, it had not come to
Redstoke with the rest. When, late in the afternoon, Michael discovered
the fact, he telegraphed to Barmister to have it sent by messenger.
It could not arrive until the mid-day train to-morrow; it might not
till late in the afternoon, according as to whether or no the artist
was ready to let it go. Still, even if it did not come until the late
train, there would be time to complete the work. It could be put up
last of all; the rest finished, or nearly, before it came.
Michael stayed at the small inn not far from Redstoke; he chose it as
much because he had never entered it before as because it was near
to the house. He avoided speaking more than was necessary to anyone
there; he shrank from any sort of mental contact with people, as raw
flesh shrinks from touch. One could not speak, hardly look, in this
neighbourhood without coming into some contact, near or remote, with
Galhardy’s, where everyone worked, or their relations worked; from
whence arose the daily bread, the daily occupation, almost in some form
or other the common interests and topics of conversation of two-thirds
of the population. It was from some director of Galhardy’s that the
young hounds in the stables came; it was for the workmen of Galhardy’s
that the line of a new tram ran through an aggrieved suburb; it was
through them really that political changes were felt as affecting
the demand for guns and munitions of war, taxing coal, or helping or
hindering foreign rivalry. One could not get away from sight and sound
of the great firm here, except by shutting the door and thinking of
something else. Michael shut the door, and thought of the joiners
and carpenters, and once, rather late, of how curiously outside this
once-familiar world he seemed. A full, stirring world-in-itself,
whose cross currents and by-plays mattered much, everything, to those
who lived there—as they once had to him, but mattered nothing now. A
thought, this, producing a feeling as of one dead, who, disembodied,
revisits the earth to play no part there.
The disembodied must feel cold revisiting the earth without their
earth-clothes of flesh, and lonely without any share in the matters
of the world. It and its interests may seem remote; yet they, while
perhaps wanting no part, must feel lonely without it, and long to be
away again to the land of shades. Michael longed to be back in the old
house in Soho. He longed more the second day than the first. He felt
then more acutely that he did not belong here; he shrank even more
from any chance of contact with those who did. As the day wore on he
found himself waiting and listening for such: for a familiar face or
a familiar step, in a way which was morbidly ridiculous perhaps, but
almost unendurable.
The panel did not come by the mid-day train. It was not really
surprising that it should not. Yesterday Michael was prepared for such
a contingency; but to-day, though he assured himself and the workmen
that he hardly expected it, its non-arrival worried him. He arranged
and rearranged the scheme of work in his own mind—he had the wisdom
to keep it there, and not to speak of it to the men. He kept his
nerves entirely to himself, with shame recognising them as nerves,
but not getting the better of them on that account. As the time of the
afternoon train approached he made plans as to what should be done if
the panel did not come. Of course, it would come; Barmister would have
telegraphed if, for any reason, he had been unable to send it, unless
he were hoping up to the last minute to get it from the repairer. Such
men, the real artists at their work, were difficult to deal with;
often addicted to drink, or temper, or other failings which interfered
with their carrying out contracts, even when they were inclined to do
so. If the panel did not come, the work could not be finished that
day: it could not, anyhow, be finished in time for him to return to
London to-night; though, if the missing part arrived to-day, it should
be possible to finish late and return first thing to-morrow morning
without coming again to Redstoke. Michael made up his mind to return
then. Panel or no panel, he would leave the house to-night, and come
back no more; the head joiner could wait, if waiting there must be,
and fix it without him. He would not stay longer than this evening—it
seemed too long to wait for that, although the afternoon was far
advanced. He looked at his watch: he had looked at it several times
in the last few minutes, for the messenger, had one come by the later
train, was due now—rather overdue, in fact; either the train was late,
or he was not coming.
The door opened quietly, and Nan, carrying a heavy parcel, came into
the room.
“Father has caught influenza from Josiah,” she explained. “He is not
bad, but he cannot see after things, so, as I knew no one to send, I
fetched the parcel and brought it myself.”
Michael took the parcel, for a moment too relieved for speech, though
not really surprised. It was not surprising that Nan should come;
indeed, now she was here it seemed so much the one thing likely
to happen—and the one satisfactory thing—that he thought no more
about it or any of his previous feelings. He uncovered the panel,
and superintended its placing without any haste, or anxiety, or
recollection of his desire to be finished and gone.
Nan stayed some time, making a few comments and suggestions, and
examining the work critically. She left when it was nearly done to go
and make arrangements for staying at the inn, as it was impossible
for her to return to town that evening. There was really no need she
should, Mrs. Bidden was well able to look after her father; she and
Michael would go back together first thing to-morrow morning. She left
him now to see the last of the work done, and then to follow her to the
inn.
But as it happened he did not follow. Just before he was ready to go a
car stopped before the house. He hardly noticed it, he was absorbed in
the work in hand, and, since Nan’s coming, had lost the sense of watch
for someone which had grown on him during the day. He heard the noise
of the engine, the car stop, turn and go away again, but only vaguely,
and without thinking of them in connection with himself. He certainly
did not think of them in connection with the Carsons; he did not think
of them at all until, looking round at some new sound, he saw Carson
himself standing in the doorway.
“Hullo!” Carson exclaimed in surprise. “You here! Where on earth have
you dropped from?”
He spoke much as he had spoken when Michael last saw him seven months
ago, except, perhaps, that there was something of greater geniality in
the tone; more of the camaraderie he had for men of his own sort, and
never had quite had for Galhardy’s genius.
“I came to see the panelling put up,” Michael answered. “It’s my
uncle’s affair; I mean, he’s the man that supplied the pieces that were
missing, and all that.”
“Did he, by Jove?” Carson said, coming into the room and looking
interestedly round. “He must be a bit of a conjurer! I told Sibyl I
didn’t believe she’d ever get the old tinder put together. Looks jolly
well, doesn’t it?”
Michael said he thought it was satisfactory on the whole, then went
round the room with Carson, answering any questions he asked.
“What an extraordinary fellow you are!” Carson exclaimed. “I had no
idea you knew anything about this sort of thing.”
“I don’t,” Michael answered, “I’m merely here as a kind of foreman on
behalf of the man who supplied it; I really know nothing about it.”
Carson laughed. “Oh, I know what it means when you know nothing of a
subject,” he said. “I was once let in for holding forth on one in the
innocent belief that you wouldn’t be able to catch me tripping. Never
again, not on panels nor piston-rods either. By the way, have you
deserted them for this, chucked engineering for good and all?”
“Not altogether,” Michael answered, “I occasionally do a little
consulting work, nothing to speak of; usually I am at the furniture
place, clerk and that sort of thing.”
He spoke casually, as if there were nothing in the admission. Carson
made no remark upon it—no doubt partly from delicacy, though it is also
possible that, to one entirely without personal acquaintance with work
in any of its grades, the contrast did not stand out in all its crudity.
“Sibyl did not tell me you were in that furniture concern,” he said;
“she might have let me know you were coming here.”
“Lady Sibyl did not know herself,” Michael said. “She does not know I
have anything to do with this; I did not see her when she came to my
uncle’s about the furniture and panelling; she knows nothing about me.”
“No,” Carson said, “now you come to mention it, I don’t know how she
should. Nor how anyone should either; you didn’t bother to leave an
address when you departed in fire and brimstone last autumn. I believe
Sibyl was a good deal affronted at the time; she said you had made some
arrangement to come and see her, and neither turned up nor wrote; and
when she wrote to you she got no answer, only, after a time, her letter
returned through the post office.”
“I’m sorry,” Michael said. “I did not think she would expect me; I
thought she would understand. Of course, she did understand, I know
that. It’s very good of you——”
“Oh, bosh!” Carson said. “That’s rot! Where are you staying? At the
pub? What on earth for? It’s a beastly little hole; I’ll send for your
belongings.”
But Michael declined. He keenly appreciated the suggestion and Carson’s
whole attitude. He understood, as only could one who knew the inner
workings of the great corporation, how rare it must be to find one in
any way connected with Galhardy’s, who either could or would so treat
him. Carson might be a man who would allow no one to dictate to him as
to friends, acquaintances, or proceedings; but he was also one who,
by the very class peculiarities which gave that quality, was liable
to have little sympathy with Michael and an enormous contempt for
that of which he was accused. Michael realised enough of this to much
appreciate the invitation, but he refused it none the less; to do
anything else would have been an effort beyond him, he felt he could
not face it.
“Well, stay and dine,” Carson urged, “you might do that, anyway. You’ll
have to, you won’t be able to dine there. Why, it killed one of the
pups last year, nothing but the feed down there.”
Michael stayed to dine; but it was not the thought of the dinner which
induced him, it was steel. Some chance words Carson spoke caught his
attention; only a few words, spoken inadvertently, not finished and
only not recalled because they could not be, but enough for Michael.
The old watchful observation by which in the time at Galhardy’s he had
come to divine what most men meant by what they did not say, sprang
to life again and helped him here. It was his steel that Carson had
referred to thus by accident, the new steel he had worked out for the
great firm some time ago, and which he thought he had left ready for
manufacture on a large scale seven months back. More than once he had