Collected works of j s f.., p.692
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 692
The mill-owner was smoking one of these cigars now. It was a big, dark-coloured cigar, and he held it firmly in the corner of his clean-shaven lips. His hands were spread out on his chest, above his ample waistcoat, into the armholes of which he had thrust his thumbs; his fingers, short, thick, aggressive-looking, were playing tattoos upon his broadcloth. There was a wall immediately behind him, and he had tilted back his comfortably elbow-chair against it, and his feet, dangling in space above the thick rug before his desk, kept time to his fingers. Those who knew Charlesworth Marrashaw knew that this restlessness of finger and foot was a sure sign of disturbance.
There were two people in the room who knew it well enough. One was an elderly man who stood leaning against a bookcase near the fire; a man of about Charlesworth’s own age, grey, somewhat worn-looking; a workman, whose chequered apron was rolled up about his waist. His attitude showed a certain familiarity with his master; he stood, lazily leaning back, his hands thrust in the pockets of his trousers, his eyes fixed half-enquiringly, half-anxiously on Charlesworth’s frowning face. He was Lockwood Clough, now an overlooker and a deeply-trusted servant, who had gone into Marrashaw’s Mill as a half-timer in his early boyhood, and had never left it.
The other person in the room was a girl, who sat at a table placed on the left-hand side of Charlesworth’s big desk: a fair-haired, slender, delicately pretty girl, of refined features and gentle air; well and smartly dressed, who, while the mill-owner and his man talked, kept her head bent over the blotting-pad in front of her and busied herself in writing. Once she looked up, to consult a calendar that hung on the wall close by her chair; the momentary lifting of her head revealed a pair of large, quick, perceptive grey eyes and a mouth, warm and red of lip, that betokened a good deal of firmness and possible obstinacy. And she was Hermione Clough, Lockwood’s daughter and only child, now a young woman of twenty-three, and for the last four years secretary to Charlesworth Marrashaw. A product of the age, Hermione, despite the fact that her father was an ordinary working-man, had had what her employer called a lady’s education at various high schools and colleges: she read, wrote, and spoke three languages, French, German, and Italian, and in Charlesworth Marrashaw’s opinion was the smartest young person of either sex in all Haverthwaite — which, as he often remarked, was saying a good deal.
There had been silence in the room for a full minute: Lockwood Clough had said something which had made his master think — deeply. Presently Charlesworth took the cigar from the corner of his hard-set lips, and leaning forward to his desk, gave the overlooker a direct, commanding glance.
“So that’s what you think, is it?” he said. “Or, rather, it’s what — as it appears to me — what you seem to think! Now what is it, in plain words? Out with it, my lad, out with it! You know me, Lockwood — what’s the use of beating about the bush? Speak out — straight!”
Clough made an uneasy motion of head and feet: it betokened diffidence and perplexity. His eyes wandered to his daughter: Hermione made no response to his glance; they shifted from her to the mill-owner: Charlesworth nodded and reiterated his command.
“I say again — out with it, my lad! Why not?” he said. “All safe here — no eavesdroppers. Your lass there knows as much about my business as I do myself — happen a bit more.”
Clough shifted his position. There was a chair close by where he was standing, and he suddenly sat down in it. He turned to Charlesworth with an earnest look.
“It’s not that, Mr. Marrashaw,” he said. “It’s just this — I don’t like saying aught that I’m not dead sure about. I’m not at all sure about this — it’s an idea, a notion, a suspicion; call it aught you like. But it’s more than a fancy. Now, I know as well as any man that there’s disaffection breeding, not only amongst our lot, but all over the town, and if you want the plain truth, I’m convinced, though I can’t prove it, that there’s some sort of a secret society at work. That’s it, Mr. Marrashaw — a secret society!”
Charlesworth drew back in his chair, staring, and for a while there was silence, broken only by a steady run of Hermione Clough’s pen. It seemed a long time before Charlesworth spoke.
“A secret society!” he exclaimed at last. “What? — one of these affairs that you hear tell of in — is it Russia, or France, or? — nay, my lad, I can’t believe that! And in Haverthwaite! — ecod, it ‘ud be about the first time secrets were ever kept here, I’m thinking — a hot-bed of gossip as the place has always been! Secret! Nay, come! — I can’t believe that, Lockwood.”
“Well, it’s my belief, Mr. Marrashaw,” said the overlooker. “And it’s the belief of more than me — Ben Thwaites has the same idea. We keep hearing — well, bits of things. My belief is that some of ’em — the dissatisfied lot, you know — meet somewhere in secret, and talk things over, and lay their plans. It’s certain, anyway, that they’re what they call permeating — infecting, I call it — no end of our folks with their notions. There’s a secret centre somewhere, Mr. Marrashaw, where all this discontent and wild talk originates — I’m sure of it.”
“And it’s to lead to — what?” demanded Charlesworth.
Clough ran his fingers through his thin beard. He, too, was silent for a while; when he spoke, his words were slow, and he shook his head.
“Well, I reckon it ‘ud be a strike,” he answered. “A strike!”
Charlesworth started, and the cigar, which he had replaced in his teeth, lost its ash, which fell, spreading, on his waistcoat. He dashed it away with an irritated, impatient gesture.
“A strike!” he exclaimed. “A strike? Never been such a thing heard of in connection with Marrashaw’s Mill — never!”
“That’s not to say there mayn’t be, sir,” remarked Clough. “We live in different times. Things has changed — wonderful!”
“Aye, my lad! — and for t’ worse!” responded Charlesworth, sneeringly, and relapsing into the vernacular of the district, as he always did when strongly moved. “But a secret society! — mole’s work — underneath methods — come, Lockwood, that’s summat ‘at mun be seen to! We mun find out what it’s all about, my lad, and who’s at t’ bottom on it.”
Clough shook his head, regarding his master with doubtful eyes.
“How’s that to be done?” he asked. “It’s my opinion there’s only a handful of ’em, and they’ll keep things close.”
Charlesworth laughed. There was a cynical note in his laughter, and for the fraction of a second Hermione Clough glanced at him: she had an intuitive knowledge of what her employer’s laughter meant when that note was in it.
“Aye, no doubt!” said Charlesworth. “Close enough, I daresay. But there’s allus one thing’ll open a man’s mouth, Lockwood, my lad! — especially a Yorkshireman’s. That’s — brass!”
“You think you might — bribe one of ’em?” suggested Clough. “Buy him?”
“Aye, I do!” exclaimed Charlesworth. “In every affair o’ that sort there’s always one ‘at’ll betray t’ rest — if it’s made worth his while. Every man has his price, Lockwood! — mak’ no mistake about that. And if they’ve secret methods, why, we mun have secret methods, too. Look ye here!” he went on, leaning closer over his desk. “You keep your eyes and ears open and try to find out all you can. You’ll be getting to know somebody ‘at knows something — definite. When you do, bring him or her to me, on t’ quiet. Then we’ll see what a bit o’ brass’ll do. T’ mole’s in his run, no doubt — well, we’ll set a trap for him, and bait it wi’ bank-notes — what?”
“I’ve no doubt something’ll come out, in time,” said Clough.
Charlesworth threw away his cigar and pulled out his watch: it was his time for leaving the office. As he rose from his chair, the door opened, and a boy put his head into the room.
“Brougham at the front, sir,” he announced, and departed as suddenly as he had come.
Clough made over to the door, silently. With his hand on it, he turned and looked at his master. Charlesworth was putting on his overcoat.
“That’s the game, my lad!” said Charlesworth. “Secret deeds need secret detection. Set your wits to work! Find me somebody, man or woman, lad or lass, that knows something — and I’ll soon open their mouths and loosen their tongues for ’em. Brass, my lad, brass! — they’d sell their grandmothers’ souls for a ten-pound note. And I’m none short o’ ten-pound notes, Lockwood.”
Clough nodded and went away in silence, and Charlesworth, having carefully fitted on his silk hat and his gloves, picked up his gold-mounted umbrella and prepared to follow him. But first he glanced at Hermione, whose head was still bent over her table.
“Niceish lot one has about one — all unbeknown!” he remarked bitterly. “A man like me finds work, and bread and meat, and clothes and boots, to say naught of beer and skittles, for nigh on to three thousand folk, and some on ‘em’s so dissatisfied ‘at they start conspiracies i’ corners! Ye’d think ‘at such a thing as gratitude had vanished off t’ face o’ t’ earth. Well, good-day, my lass.”
Hermione looked up and pointed a slender finger to two or three sheets of paper which she had just placed on Charlesworth’s desk.
“Those letters need signing, Mr. Marrashaw,” she said.
“Oh, now then!” answered Charlesworth. “Mustn’t forget business, anyhow. That’s all, my lass?” he asked when he had attached his signature to the papers. “Aught else?”
“That’s all to-day,” replied Hermione. “Good afternoon, Mr. Marrashaw.”
She folded the letters into their envelopes when Charlesworth had gone, placed them with several others in a basket, and ringing a bell, handed them over to the boy who had announced the arrival of the brougham. Her work was over for the day: there was nothing to do now but to switch off the electric light, lock the door of the office, and hand the key to the porter as she passed out through the counting-house. But after a glance at the two-thousand pound clock, Hermione lingered. It was not yet five. Suddenly, as if she had made up her mind about something, she went over to the telephone which stood on Charlesworth’s desk, and called up one of the many departments of the mill.
“Hello!” she said as she got an answer. “Is Howroyd there? Yes? Tell him to bring the January order book round to Mr. Marrashaw’s office — just now. Coming? All right.” Then she waited: it would take Howroyd at least five minutes to come from his department to the office: she occupied herself meanwhile in putting on her hat and jacket. Presently the door opened, and a man entered hastily, carrying a big leather-bound book under his left arm. He glanced from Hermione to Charlesworth’s desk: Hermione shook her head.
“All right,” she said in a low voice, motioning him to close the door. “That was an excuse about the order book. I wanted to see you.”
Howroyd set the book down on Hermione’s table and turned to her with an inquisitive look. He was a man of something under middle age; a pale-faced, thin-cheeked man, noticeable only for a pair of large, lambent, imaginative eyes, in which a certain enthusiasm burned — students of physiology would have said of him at first glance that here was a man whose natural bent was towards cult of some sort. He had the large, loose mouth of the orator; the pendant lip of the thinker: his thick, coal-black hair, slightly shot with grey strands, fell untidily over a broad, high forehead, scored deeply with many lines and furrows. He lifted a thin, worn hand as he turned to Hermione; its fingers, long and slender, swept the hair away from his eyebrows: it was a characteristic gesture of his and betokened not so much weariness as pre-occupation.
“Yes?” he said.
“Look here, Allot,” began Hermione, sinking her voice to a whisper. “Something’s wrong! Somebody’s got to know — something — about us. There’s a traitor somewhere!”
Howroyd started and stared at her.
“Impossible!” he exclaimed. “There’s only nine of us — I’d answer for every man and woman! Just as I would for myself.”
“I don’t care!” said Hermione. “Something’s — out. Listen — my father’s got an inkling of it. He’s been in here, just now, telling his suspicions to Marrashaw. He’s convinced, my father, that there’s a secret society in the town, whose purpose is to spread disaffection and all the rest of it, amongst the workers. He says he doesn’t know (anything certain, but I’m not so sure that he doesn’t know) more than he lets out. Now then?”
“What did Marrashaw say — or do?” asked Howroyd, after a moment’s reflective silence.
“Say? Do?” exclaimed Hermione, with a sneer. “What do you think, Allot? Men like that have only one idea. He told my father to get hold of somebody who knew something definite, and to bring him or her to him — money, he said, would unlock any secret. Now think, Allot, think! — is there anybody, amongst us, who’s open to bribery? Is there a rat amongst us? Because, if things are given away now, why, then—”
“Well?” asked Howroyd. “Then — what?”
“Then,” she answered sullenly, “all we’ve worked for will be — ruined! The time’s not come! And if Marrashaw, and Ellerthwaite, and all the rest of them know what we’re planning, well — we’re done! That’s all.”
Howroyd looked round; evidently he was deeply perplexed.
“I can’t think of a soul!” he said at last. “There’s just the nine of us — and you know them all. And then — you know how careful we’ve been about our meetings. I can’t see how anything can have leaked out. It must be that you father’s got — well, just an idea, a suspicion. With, of course, nothing to go on.”
But Hermione shook her head. Her grey eyes became positive.
“No!” she answered. “I know my father. He knows something. He’s not the sort to talk without some bed-rock of fact. And you know how old-fashioned he is, and how fond of this business and of the Marrashaw tradition — he’ll serve Charlesworth Marrashaw by trying to find out more. Think now, Allot! — is there anybody, amongst — us — that could be bribed — bought?”
“Upon my honour, I don’t know, can’t think, of one, man or woman,” answered Howroyd. “But — you never can tell!”
“What?” exclaimed Hermione. “You think — that?”
Howroyd smiled, a little wearily.
“We haven’t got to perfection in human nature — yet,” he answered. “After all, none of us know what the other man’s thinking — or doing.”
“If anybody’s turning traitor, he or she ought to be shot!” said Hermione. “And I’m not speaking metaphorically. Are we going to have all our plans upset, wasted, wrecked, for the sake of a squeamish sentiment about—”
“Sh!” whispered Howroyd. “We haven’t come to that, my girl — and don’t want to.” Then he laughed gently, looking at his companion with a half-whimsical expression. “I think you must be a throw-back, to the times of the Terror or the Commune,” he said. “No, no — we don’t want that sort of force. Leave it to me — I’ve means of finding out if we’ve a traitor in the camp.”
“Well, I’ve told you,” said Hermione. “And I tell you again — I know my father! He knows something; he’s heard something, learnt something.”
“You couldn’t get it out of him?” suggested Howroyd.
Hermione signed to him to pick up his order book, and lifted her gloved hand towards the switch of the electric light.
“No more than he could get anything out of me, Allot,” she answered. “Well, that’s all, now. Let’s be going.”
They left the room together: whoever met them in the corridors outside had no other idea of them than that the clerk and the secretary were discussing the ordinary details of the business in which they were employed: certainly no one suspected that the thoughtful-looking man and the gentle, pretty girl were two highly-dangerous revolutionaries, sworn to pull down and grind into dust the pillars and stones of existent society.
III
CHARLESWORTH MARRASHAW, ON leaving his private office, passed out through the counting-house and the highly decorated, marble-pilastered entrance hall beyond it, and down a flight of broad stairs to the swinging doors and granite steps which gave on the quadrangle. There, on the asphalted drive, stood his brougham, a neat, solid, luxuriously-fitted equipage drawn by a pair of fine bay horses, in charge of an elderly, highly-respectable coachman. Charlesworth never got in or out of that brougham without casting a pleased and critical eye over it and its cattle: he paused now, drawing on his gloves, to glance at the horses: they were recent acquisitions, and he had given five hundred guineas for the pair. There was something comforting in looking at that sort of thing: it drove from his mind the disagreeable news which he had just heard from Lockwood Clough. And he glanced from the horses to their driver with a certain sly look of smug satisfaction.
“I think I got my money’s worth in these two, Crowther,” he remarked. “They seem to look better every day!”
“Fine pair, sir,” assented the coachman. “A very fine pair! Rowbottom, the vet., said to me this morning, sir, when I had ’em out on the moor, ‘Crowther,’ he says, ‘that’s t’ finest pair I’ve set eyes on this many a long day,’ he says. ‘I don’t know what your master paid for ’em,’ he says, ‘but they’re worth every penny o’ six hundred pound!’ That’s what he said, sir.”
