Success
there had been some rain earlier in the day, and a good deal during
the night; the roads were in a bad state, and the air damp and raw.
Just as she was about to leave the station she caught sight of a
figure in the distance, one she recognised. For a second she hardly
thought she had seen aright, rather that her own thoughts had become
visualised, which was almost as probable as that Michael Annarly should
be here in the flesh. Next moment she knew him real, and drew back
to the station doorway, with a sensitive plain woman’s instinct not
to court recognition. It was easy to avoid it, it is always easy for
insignificant women, it is one of the few compensations allowed them
that they can usually see so much quicker than they are seen. She had
recognised Michael Annarly at some distance, and without really seeing
his face; he would not recognise her until he was close upon her.
She knew the sort of recognition, the momentary blank ignorance of
identity, to be perceived by quick faculties under automatic courtesy,
the swiftly following but entirely vague remembrance of someone seen
somewhere, and then, when she had almost passed, a recollection of her,
and sometimes perhaps, when she had quite passed, a momentary regret
that recognition had not been quicker and fuller. She knew the sort of
thing, and a mixture of sensitive vanity and shyness prompted her to
avoid it; so she stood within the station doorway, screened by a stout
old gentleman, until Michael should have passed.
Just as he was level with her he turned a little, and for the first
time she saw his face fully. Owing to some shifting of the passers-by
she saw the whole of him—sodden, muddied boots, the boots of one who
has been walking long in bad weather; creased, splashed clothes, the
clothes of one who has worn them many hours; grey, drawn face, white
about the pinched nostrils, dark about the eyes, which looked forth
without seeing, which had seen one thing and could see nothing else.
Not Michael Annarly the successful, and so remote, kinsman she had
sometimes met; but a man on the edge of some abyss.
She slipped from behind the old gentleman, and went swiftly down the
street after him.
CHAPTER III
The directors of Galhardy’s were important men. Some of them lived
comparatively near to the great foundries, within eight or twenty-eight
miles of them; but all had other places of residence and other
interests. A person who was bent on seeing any of them was liable to
have to cover much ground, and, unless he had an appointment, waste
much time too. More especially was this the case with the chairman,
Sir Joseph Harte, a busy man with many schemes, and one who never felt
compelled to keep an engagement which second thoughts showed likely to
prove inconvenient or embarrassing.
It was very unlikely that the man who was seeking him that gloomy first
of October would have found him had not Fate and a desperate patience
helped. Three times that day he had been to Sir Joseph’s town house,
having in the previous two days been to each of his far-separated
country houses in consequence of information first that he was at one
and then at the other of these. On each of his three visits to the town
house he had found Sir Joseph out or engaged. On each of the first two
he had said he would wait, on the first with the ready acquiescence of
the servant, on the second in the face of advice to the contrary and
some suspicion, and on both without result. On the third application he
was frankly refused admission, and told Sir Joseph could not see him
that day, and the door shut before he had turned to go.
He went down the steps again; he had no alternative. But he did not
go away. For forty-eight hours in fact or in thought—when trains did
not fit or arrived in the useless small hours compelling delay—he had
sought an interview with Sir Joseph; he would not let this last chance
slip, he would wait outside if he could not in. Rain was beginning
to fall, but he did not notice it; rain had fallen a good deal at
intervals during the past two days, but he had hardly known it; he had
no consciousness of such things, he had temporarily lost touch with
them. In a way he had lost realisation of time itself, more than once
only coming to a consciousness of its passing or of the lateness of
the hour by the impossibility of getting a train, or the darkness of a
sleeping place he had approached.
A by-street joined the main one beside Sir Joseph’s house; he went a
few yards down it and waited. Before very long a powerful car came past
from some garage at the back; it turned into the main street and drew
up before the house. He followed, and stood at the corner: in a few
minutes the house door was opened and the chairman of Galhardy’s, in a
travelling-coat, came out.
“Sir Joseph! I must speak to you.”
Sir Joseph started. “Mr. Annarly?” he said, and drew back a little.
“This is very——”
He may have meant to say “extraordinary,” or perhaps “unwarrantable.”
But Annarly did not wait to hear. “I have been trying to see you all
day,” he said, “and the day before——”
“Indeed?” Sir Joseph spoke more pleasantly; he seldom spoke other than
suavely. “That is unfortunate, more especially as it is impossible
for you to see me now. I have only just time to catch my train at St.
Pancras.”
“I can drive with you.”
Sir Joseph hesitated; then made a virtue of necessity and they both got
into the waiting car which went swiftly away.
“It is about that cancelling letter, sir,” Annarly began; “I never
received it.”
He spoke without preamble and without the diffidence of inferior to
superior; he had forgotten that with the rest in the one idea that
filled his horizon, and had filled it to the exclusion of everything
else for something over fifty hours.
Sir Joseph’s horizon held many other ideas and many other schemes, and
he had not forgotten the relationship, but he spoke patiently: “I am
given to understand that is the line of defence you propose to take
up,” he said.
“Don’t you believe it?”
Sir Joseph showed surprise. “Really,” he said, “your question, your
behaviour altogether is extraordinary, and I must say unwarrantable.
How can I possibly answer such a query when I have not yet thoroughly
sifted the matter? A matter of such very grave importance that the
fullest and closest inquiry is absolutely necessary. There is to be a
board meeting to-morrow; I am leaving town now on purpose to be present
at it, the discussion of this very regrettable situation will take
place then; before that I cannot possibly go into the case with you.”
“Afterwards it will be of no use,” Annarly said grimly.
“What do you mean by that?”
Annarly stood his ground, he was too desperate to be politic. “If it
is not true that I am condemned beforehand,” he asked, “why am I not
heard in my own defence? Why does the board ‘not desire my presence at
the meeting,’ or at any time during the meeting? Why am I not required
at the Foundries, and, so far as it can be prevented, am not to hold
communication with anyone who does go there? Why are all the directors,
including yourself, so difficult to be seen these three days?”
“I should think,” Sir Joseph said tartly, “because their servants
thought your manner too peculiar to warrant them in admitting you, if
you talked to them as you are talking to me.”
Annarly with an effort controlled himself. “I am sorry, sir,” he said.
“I am afraid I am forgetting myself; of course it was accident merely
that you could not see me before, I know that; your time is very fully
occupied I know, and—and——. You have always been very good to me. It is
partly because of that, because I cannot stand that you should think
your belief misplaced, that I have come to you. I did not receive that
cancelling letter, on my soul, I did not!”
He spoke with a desperate earnestness. The elder man stroked his heavy
white moustache thoughtfully. “That is a very extraordinary thing,”
he said, “a very extraordinary thing. Letters do not often miscarry;
indeed, they very, very seldom do.”
“I am not sure that this one did. I have a suspicion that it was never
sent.”
“What!” Sir Joseph turned sharply. “Explain yourself, please!”
“I am convinced that Brett lied about it,” Annarly said. “I saw it in
his eyes when he spoke; the fellow’s a coward; he flinched when it came
to the lie direct—like the cur he is, he’d rather do something meaner.”
He spoke with the bitterness of undisguised contempt and dislike; but
it was a mistake and he realised it. “I am forgetting to be moderate
again,” he said, “I know, but it’s hard to remember when one speaks
of—that. But I’ll try. Of course Brett would have told you the letter
was sent, if you asked him about it. I don’t know if it was actually
dictated and signed by you, or only written to your order, but that
would have made no difference; he could have suppressed it either way.”
“Indeed!” The word snapped incredulous. “Is that the line of defence
you think of taking? It is? You surprise me!” In the dim interior of
the car the chairman’s face was not very plain to see, but there was
no mistaking the hostility of his tone. “If you are advised by me,”
he said, “you will think twice before you take it. It is unworthy of
you, unworthy and cowardly, and crassly idiotic too, discreditable
alike to your intelligence and to your honour to attempt to clear
yourself by bringing such a charge against any person. Are you aware
of what you are accusing Mr. Brett, of what gross breach of trust? It
is an unheard-of thing—a blatantly foolish thing too, when there is no
motive—what motive can be ascribed, even if he were capable, as I have
every reason to know he is not, of such a dishonourable action?”
Annarly’s hand went to his collar; the sensation of the overwhelming,
all-pervading force arrayed against him, which had pressed down on
him in his room at Galhardy’s, was coming again. It was all dark, all
obscure: he could see nothing clearly, think of nothing coherently;
even his own case refused to hold together, and his brain, with its
faultless logic and keen perceptions, refused to work.
“Brett hates me,” he said weakly.
“Hates you?” Sir Joseph repeated. “Nonsense! You are talking nonsense,
and you know it. You may have had differences of opinion with him; you
very likely did; you did with a good many people; your methods were not
always either popular or conciliatory—we condoned a good deal in you;
I fear, I begin to fear, too much.”
“Do you mean you think me guilty?” Annarly said, clinging to the one
idea.
“I have already told you I do not feel justified in giving an opinion
at present,” Sir Joseph answered. “But I will advise you”—he spoke more
kindly—“I can, and do, advise you—not as the chairman of Galhardy’s,
but as one who has always wished you well and taken an interest in
you—my advice is that you offer no such unworthy and unwise defence as
the one you gave to me: you will do best to offer none at all; you will
leave yourself in the hands of the directors.”
Annarly nodded: the sense of the end, of the drawn net, the ultimate
blackness and extinction of the last glimmer of hope, was closing upon
him. “The others will believe me guilty, if you do,” he said wearily.
“Do you believe me guilty?”
Sir Joseph signed to the chauffeur to stop. “I have already said all I
have to say on the subject,” he said.
The car stopped, and Annarly got automatically to his feet. A last
protest stirred in the overwhelming darkness and defeat. “My papers?”
he said. “My invention?”
“I fear I can do nothing for you in that matter. Good afternoon. You
must make up time, Rumbolt, we are late.”
Annarly stumbled out, the door was shut, and the car glided quickly
away. He was left on the muddy pavement.