Success
and stress of circumstances that he did go. Though, had he only known
it, he need not have been ashamed; it was the one really wise thing he
did that night.
They had the road up, working by hastily procured flares and the light
of the now lessening fire; men vigorously plying picks, most of them
hardly knowing for what purpose except vaguely that they were looking
for electric mains for someone. Inside, Michael left others to finish
dealing with the fire. It was under control now, and there were things
elsewhere demanding his attention; the steam mains to be looked to and
a temporary switch-board to be made and put up if the place were to
be got going again. Nothing but getting it going occurred to him as
possible, seeing the complete paralysis of life otherwise entailed.
He set men, as soon as any could be spared from the fire, to repair
the steam mains or to cut off the parts damaged beyond repair by the
bursting of the group of boilers attached to the fallen chimney. He
himself attended to the switch-board. There were materials at hand,
and he went to work at once to make an efficient, if rather rough,
substitute for the one which had been destroyed. A junior electrician
stood by to help him and carry out orders.
To them thus occupied came Mr. Heath, insistent on the subject of
rescue, somewhat incensed and very important.
“It is a positive disgrace!” he said. “Nothing being done for any of
the poor fellows! Precious lives may be lost by this delay. I insist on
the work being undertaken at once; I insist on my orders being obeyed!”
Michael glanced round. “Mind the wire,” he warned.
Mr. Heath minded in so far as to become entangled. “I insist!” he
repeated, extricating himself. “These poor fellows, pinned down by
masonry——”
Michael gave an order to the man at his elbow, who stood watchful for
a word from him, stolidly indifferent to anything else. “Pick up those
wires,” he said, and the man did. Together they executed some deft
piece of manipulation with them.
“Have you got any ambulances and things outside?” he inquired of Mr.
Heath without looking round. “No? Go and see about getting them then;
I’ll have some pieces collected for you by the time they are here.”
“Sir?” Mr. Heath could say no more; this was the most unseemly jest and
the most ill-timed impertinence he had ever heard of.
It did not occur to him, nor could it ever have been realised by him,
that it was neither jest nor impertinence; merely a simple statement of
a simple fact by a man who was simply dealing with things as they were
in a great emergency.
And Michael never knew Mr. Heath’s view either—how should he? He was
making a switch-board in the great emergency: a man has only a given
amount of brain-energy to expend at one time.
In a little while the ambulances came and the pieces were collected.
As Michael had foreseen, there was, and could be, nothing more to put
in them: the men in charge of the burst boilers were blown to atoms at
the first explosion; the two who had stood at the base of the chimney
were crushed out of recognition. There was no work of rescue to do,
only recovery, and recovery of that which could only be identified by
those who knew what to look for. Heart-broken women were admitted for
the purpose, and Michael left the switch-board to help them through
the painful work, and gently lead them away afterwards. Mr. Heath did
not see that, or if he did, did not observe. At any rate, it did not
erase the earlier impression nor yet the later one of Michael returning
quickly to work and suggesting politely but firmly that he, clerk to
the council, and all other outsiders were better and safer off the
premises and out of the way.
Mr. Heath went; he realised that he had something to do outside. With
the concurrence of others of the council, he telephoned for someone to
come and take charge of the power station in place of the engineer who
was dead. The reason why this had not been done before was, firstly,
that up till now no one had thought of it; and, secondly, when they did
think they could not immediately agree as to whose nephew to send for.
When that matter was settled, he was summoned by telephone.
And in the station, through the remaining hours of the night, Michael
worked, getting the place into going order again. The switch-board was
made, the electric mains outside found and connected up with the leads
from the extemporised board. Afterwards the sound dynamos were switched
in; one after another they were connected, and the fires relighted.
Once more the impressive noise of them began to be heard in the long
building; at first a little jerkily as the first great engine got to
work, afterwards deepening to the strong, steady hum which was their
usual voice. By degrees things began to come alive again, beyond the
station as well as inside it; soon after dawn trams and engines, cranes
and lights, most of that which had been paralysed through the night,
began to feel the power.
Soon after dawn, too, came the new engineer. It must be remembered
that Mr. Heath had telephoned for him, impressing upon him urgency
and the need for speedy coming; not omitting to mention, among other
reasons, that an impertinent person, unknown, was at the station giving
orders and taking none. To the dynamo-room came the new engineer, and
found the person at work on the last sound dynamo. To him he announced
himself, his name, occupation, and reason for being there.
“Ah?” Michael said without ceasing from what he was doing, which was at
a critical point. “Hand me that spanner.” This to the man close under
the dynamo.
It was handed, and for a moment he worked concentratedly.
The new-comer watched, casting a critical glance at the work, and also
at the pools of blackened water, charred framework, twisted pipes,
tangled wires, and general confusion and destruction all round. He
himself, naturally, presented a contrast; he looked very clean beside
the grimy men here, more especially beside the one in command. In
the cold morning light that one showed a haggard, unkempt person,
dye-stained, oil-stained, torn and smoke-blackened, disreputable, and
unimpressive. Careless, too—the new-comer noticed a loose bolt when the
work was apparently regarded as done.
He pointed it out to one of the workmen.
The man looked at it stolidly. He had been many hours on duty, and no
ordinary duty, and his enthusiasm for bolts and casual words of casual
comers was at a low ebb.
“You might tighten that down,” Michael said, and he obeyed.
The new-comer stiffened just a little. Michael turned to go.
The other looked him over. “Are you an electrician?” he said.
“No,” Michael answered, “only the man who dealt with the situation.”
CHAPTER XIII
On Saturday afternoon Mr. Giles Cordover came to fetch Nan. As Michael
was away she was rather busy; by this time he had become more useful
than he himself realised, and, in his absence, she tried to make up to
her father for the temporary loss. On this occasion, however, Barmister
would not let her stay; she could finish the work when she got back, or
on Sunday, he said, or any time. So she accepted the invitation, and
within ten minutes of Mr. Cordover’s coming went away with him.
Mr. Cordover lived some way out of town, in an old-fashioned suburb
not much built over as yet, and served by so bad a train service that
its chances of becoming popular were not great. The house itself was
a substantial red-brick one; the original structure some hundred
and fifty years old, the bay windows and other additions much more
modern and agreeing no better with the rest than did the elaborate
conservatory and weather-vane. But Nan, who could have told to a year
the date of the original building, thought them quite suitable; they
fitted with Mr. Cordover, if not with the house, and, after all, a
man—a real man—is more than a house. Inside, everything fitted with
Mr. Cordover—the sideboard with the carving of fruit, the solid chairs
ranged in a straight row and polished to perfection, the pier glasses
in the drawing-room, the curtains of green silk damask, so green and
such silk that they had defied sun and time and were as green as ever.
Everything was as Nan had expected, even the servants—they were not
permitted to wear caps or address their master as “sir” on account
of his political views of equality—but they were of the kind, lineal
descendants of the old retainers, who no more thought of leaving,
except for death or marriage, than a man’s own hands do.
“Well,” Mr. Cordover said, when he had shown the house and its inmates,
“there it is, the whole of it, sideboard and all; solid stuff as you
said, make fun of it, if you like.”
Nan looked up. “I know too much about the workmanship for that,” she
said, “also——”
“Also what?” he demanded, as she paused. “Isn’t it quite what you
thought?”
“I hadn’t thought about some of it before,” she confessed.
Her eyes went to an old setter lying on a cushion in the sunny window.
He was very old, paralysed in his hind-quarters, only able to move
with trailing limbs: an ugly thing, but free of pain, quite happy,
more especially when able to show slobbering love to his master. Near
by stood a chair, one of the beautifully kept chairs polished like
the others, but with the leather torn and scarred by the claws of a
one-eyed cat, rescued from tormenting boys (they were prosecuted for
cruelty at the police court), and incurable as all the feline tribe
with regard to the destruction of chair-seats. A parrot hung in a cage,
an irascible parrot that bit itself when it had no one else to bite,
the property formerly of an old clerk, now dead. Night and morning the
master, gloved for the purpose, took the bird from its cage, talked to
it, and let it walk round the room for exercise, as the former owner
had done. Nan’s eyes went to these creatures, and at the same time
her ears caught the sound of a crutch, the crutch of a little lame
old lady to whom she had already been introduced: a distant cousin
of Mr. Cordover’s, nominally presiding over the house. A frail little
thing of timid ways and aristocratic prejudices, who knew little of Mr.
Cordover’s politics and less of his angles—they never showed to her—but
who lived like a delicate plant in this sheltered nook provided by his
bounty. There was another woman upstairs, Nan had been introduced to
her too, she was still frailer than this one, though younger; not to be
much longer for this world, Nan had judged, when she looked into the
dreamy eyes from which the mind was half fled, and to which peace had
nearly come. A widow she was, with a name unfamiliar to the girl and a
tragic story of loss and suffering; that Nan had heard, but she did not
hear the other story of generous love unrequited, but living on to give
asylum at the last. There was no need to speak of that; it softened Mr.
Cordover’s face as he stooped to the frail creature whom he had brought
home to die, and kindled his eyes to pathetic pride as he saw a beauty
long gone for all others.
Nan, having seen these people and these things, as well as the house
and furniture, hesitated when Mr. Cordover asked her if all was not as
she had expected.
“All that I had thought about is,” she said, “the body is, but the
soul”—her voice grew soft and shy—“I had not before thought about the
soul.”
“Oh, the soul,” Mr. Cordover said. “Do you take stock in souls?” He
turned abruptly. “Come and see the polyanthuses, they’re the finest
you’ve ever seen.”
She went, slipping her hand in his arm as she did so; he kept it there,
squeezing it a little.
Nan enjoyed every minute of her visit, the house and garden, the little
lame old lady who presided at a tea as dainty as herself, and as