Collected works of j s f.., p.704
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 704
“Allot!” she said, bending across and speaking in a confidential tone. “I’ve found out something that you ought to know — that we all ought to know. You remember what I said to you not long ago in this room — that there was a traitor amongst us? Well, there is! — and I know who.”
Howroyd’s deep-set eyes grew dark and his face stern.
“Who, then?” he asked.
Hermie bent closer.
“Grew!” she said. “Simon Grew! As sure as that we’re here. Listen!” She went on to tell him the story of the cheque. “Now, piece it all together,” she continued. “What other decision can one come to? My father tells Charlesworth that he can find a man who knows things and can be bribed to tell them. Very soon after that, Grew has an interview with Charlesworth — the very night of Charlesworth’s death. Charlesworth gives Grew a cheque for a considerable amount. And just after they part, Charlesworth sets off to his friend Ellerthwaite’s house. What to do? To tell Ellerthwaite what he’s learnt from Grew! The whole thing is as plain as — as that ruler!”
“Seems so,” agreed Howroyd. “But let’s see — didn’t Charlesworth die as soon as he got into Ellerthwaite’s dining-room? He did — then, he never told Ellerthwaite anything. So that there isn’a a soul but Grew who knows what Grew did tell Charlesworth! And as far as we’re concerned, we can’t prove that Grew gave us away. He’s a sharp fellow — he knows he’s safe. He’d stick to it — if we taxed him — that all he did was to give Charlesworth some statistical information, just as he’s said to Bright.”
“Would Charlesworth Marrashaw have paid all that money for mere statistics?” exclaimed Hermie, scornfully. “Not he! As sure as fate, Grew told him all about — us! All about our schemes, our ideas — plans, and so on. Charlesworth was a keen man — he’d see the importance of knowing all about the enemy’s plan of campaign. Probably he engaged Grew to keep him informed. I’ve thought it all out, Allot. Why did Charlesworth give Grew a bearer cheque on an account that he kept in another town? Secrecy again! Grew’s a traitor!”
Howroyd’s worn face grew serious, and he drummed his long thin fingers on the table before him.
“What’s to be done about him?” he said. “To have a man amongst us who’ll reveal our plans for money is — fatal. But what can we do?”
Hermie pulled open a drawer and producing a box of cigarettes, picked one out, and pushed the box across to Howroyd.
“If we lived in any other country than this,” she remarked presently, with a sudden gleam in her eyes which showed her earnestness, “we’d soon make short work of him! He ought to be — removed. I’d put a bullet through him myself without a second’s hesitation or compunction. But — we cant!”
“That’s certain,” said Howroyd. “We can’t! And as I said before, we can’t prove anything against him, even if we accuse him next time there’s a meeting. Yet — we can’t have him hearing all our plans—”
“In future,” broke in Hermie, “he must hear nothing. Whenever he’s present, there must be nothing beyond generalities. You and I must warn the others — privately. And we must keep the actual work of the society in the hands of those who can be thoroughly trusted.”
“There isn’t one of us that isn’t to be trusted, except Grew,” remarked Howroyd, thoughtfully. “I’m sure of that.”
“Very well, then — we cut Grew out,” said Hermie. “But — we don’t let him know it. If we arouse suspicion in him, then he’ll do more treachery. We must talk to the others — then we shall all be prepared.”
“Very well,” agreed Howroyd. He puffed thoughtfully at his cigarette for awhile, and then laughed, a little bitterly. “It’s unfortunate,” he said, “but it’s true that in every movement I’ve ever been in, there’s always been a rat!”
“Well!” retorted Hermie. “Haven’t I always said to you that it’s a vast mistake to have too many members of a directorate? Three are plenty: perhaps two. And my advice now is — let’s keep the really important things to ourselves — to you and me. In every cabinet there must be an inner circle. And if Grew’s turned traitor, how do we know somebody else won’t?”
“Can’t think of any other who would!” said Howroyd. “Think them over! Now Grew, in my opinion, always was doubtful. He’s a paid agitator — and, in my opinion, a man of no principles.”
“Well, we know him, now, any way,” remarked Hermie. “Forewarned is forearmed. And — it’s lucky for us that Charlesworth Marrashaw died before he could spread the news. There’d have been short shrift for the lot of us if it had once got out in the town that we were secretly working for — what we are working for!”
“That’s so!” agreed Howroyd. He looked round, glancing at the desk and chair from which Charlesworth Marrashaw had controlled the big army of workers in the three great wings of the mill. “Well,” he said, turning enquiringly to Hermie, “and — Bright? I know all about you and him. You’re in his confidence. What’s he going to do? What line is he going to take? After what he said that night at the Labour Hall, he can’t, in honesty, carry on this business in the old Marrashaw fashion. Has he said anything?”
“Not yet,” replied Hermie. “He’s had a lot to do — there’s a lot more to do. But — he will. Leave him to me, Allot. The old Marrashaw fashion!” she exclaimed, with a scornful laugh. “No — I’ll take care that that’s buried — deeper than Charlesworth is! But — give me time. I can do anything with Bright — if I go my own way about it.”
Howroyd glanced at the clock, and rising, flung away his cigarette and took up his big book. He lingered for a moment, looking thoughtfully at Hermie.
“You’ve a rare chance,” he said with sudden abruptness. “If, as you say, you can do anything with him, you’ve got it in your power, not only to right the wrongs of a hundred years, but to make him take a forward step that’ll shake industrial matters in this country to their very foundations. Restitution!” he exclaimed, with equally sudden fervour, and a flash of his sombre eyes. “That’s what’s wanted! If we’d one example, such as we might have here—”
Hermie turned to her hat and jacket, giving Howroyd a meaning look.
“Leave it to me!” she said. “Leave it to me! You and I know each other, Allot, so you know that with me, through everything, the cause comes first. Wait!”
Howroyd bent his head, and went off in silence, and as he paced the long corridors leading to his own department he thought deeply, letting his mind go back into the chequered history of the past. He came of a stock of revolutionaries — grim, stern-natured resolute men who for many a generation had been rebels in religion and in politics and in social affairs, conventicle men, Chartiste, Luddites, anti-this, that and the other, Ismaels, resisters, strivers against authority; their record of fines and imprisonments and distraints was a long and continuous one: ever since a Howroyd of Haverthwaite had been flung into York Castle for conscience’ sake in the days of Charles the Second, the family had been fighters for their own peculiar ideas of liberty and freedom, and Allot Howroyd himself was a fanatic. He was well read in the history of the movement to which he had devoted his energies, and now, as he walked the gloomy mill with bent head and tightened lips, he was wondering if there had ever been an instance in which such an opportunity lay in a woman’s power as now lay in Hermie Clough’s. And as he turned into the door of his own department, he laughed, a little cynically.
“The whole thing is — has she the power over him that she thinks she has?” he muttered to himself. “She’s as clever and shrewd and scheming as women well can be! — but she’s up against the old, deeply engrafted need of the Marrashaws! Will she stamp it out? — or will it re-assert itself?”
There was no need to cudgel his brains for an answer to this question — he knew that only time could give one.
V
SPRING CAME EARLY and warm and prodigal of leaf and verdure that year, and by the beginning of April Bright and Hermie resumed their Sunday wanderings into the wild moors which stretched far and wide to the northward of Haverthwaite. There were nooks and corners in those moors wherein men rarely set foot; deep ravines lying far below the level of the purple heather; great masses of rock towering high above it; whether in fern-clad valley or on wind-swept bluff there was silence and the sense of peace which only comes amidst vast solitudes. Bright had cherished a passion for the moors ever since he could remember anything: one of the chief bonds between Hermie Clough and himself arose from finding that she, too, shared in this love of wandering; during the previous summer they had spent their Sundays on the moors, as far away from their accustomed world as if they had been in an African desert. Their haunts were easy of access: train or tram took them a few miles out of the town; a mile or two’s walking brought them into country which had suffered little change since the days in which palæolithic man inhabited its caves and chipped his flints by the side of its rockbound streams. For these excursions little equipment was necessary: some simple food in a satchel, a couple of favourite books to be read leisurely when tongues grew tired, plenty of tobacco for Bright, and of cigarettes for Hermie, who smoked far more than was good for her, garments indifferent to rain — these were the things to be considered. And though they went together and returned together, these two, essentially individual in their tastes and likings, often spent hours in close proximity, yet in complete mental severance — Bright had a trick of throwing himself on his back in the heather or on some sun-warmed slab of rock, to stare in seeming idleness at the passing clouds or the shadows on the neighbouring hills: Hermie, another of sitting by running water, her eyes fixed on its swish and eddies: at these times neither interfered with the other, nor broke in on each other’s meditations: in their opinion there was a companionship in silence which was at least as real as that expressed in speech.
On the first of these excursions after his father’s death, Bright sat one Sunday afternoon at the foot of a grey crag which jutted out of a sharp hill-side, his hands clasped round his knees, his knees supporting his chin; his eyes fixed in sheer abstraction on the long range of mountains that rose, mistily-blue, far away in the west. Close by, Hermie lay full length in the heather, her eyes closed, the spring sunlight beating on her face and hair. For a good hour neither had spoken, nor moved; Bright looked as fixed and immovable as a bronze image: Hermie, for all he knew, was fast asleep. But suddenly she sat up, and with a quick change from the passive to the active, spoke his name sharply, as a drill-sergeant might have called a squad to attention.
“Yes?” responded Bright.
Hermie pulled out her cigarettes and began to smoke. Smoking with her always indicated serious thought, and Bright was aware of it.
“What are you going to do about things?” she asked. “It’s time we talked of them.”
Bright came out of his abstraction: his ready nod showed Hermie that he understand her meaning.
“Things!” he said. “Yes, I was just thinking about them. I suppose it is time.”
Hermie slid a little nearer to him in the heather.
“Do you know what they’re saying in the town — amongst the people?” she asked. “Of course they talk — and I hear: I hear lots. They’re saying that in spite of your speech at the Labour Hall, everything will go on in just the same old way.”
Bright laughed. There was a note of contempt in the laugh, tinged with the superiority of knowledge.
“Well, let ’em say!” he retorted. “I don’t care. It’s quite sufficient for me to know that they won’t.”
“What do you intend to do?” asked Hermie, coming to the point. “You’ve got a scheme?”
“Vague — indefinite — shapeless,” answered Bright, almost indifferently. “Wants working out yet. I’m working at it slowly. It’ll come — in due time.
“Can’t I help?” suggested Hermie.
“Afraid not,” said Bright. “This is one of those things that a man’s got to do by himself. Of course,” he went on after a brief pause, “as soon as my father died, and I found that he’d so left things that I’d just got to step into his place, whether I liked it or not, I realised that as I was sole proprietor I’d rights of my own. Every Marrashaw that ever was has done as he likes with his own — so why shouldn’t I? I’m not bound to follow my grandfather’s policy, nor my father’s — the entire business is mine, and I shall do what I please with it. Other men, other methods!”
“Well?” asked Hermie. She was secretly conscious that she was not too well pleased with what Bright said: there was more than a suspicion of the old domineering note which had never been wanting in any of Charlesworth’s pronunciations: what if Bright, after all, was going to turn out to be chip of the old block? Somehow, his assertion of his rights and his proprietorship, even if he meant well, grated on her. “And — yours?” she added. “What are they going to be — your methods?”
“Tell you I don’t know — yet,” said Bright. “I said — they’re vague. Want an awful lot of thinking out, Hermie. And — I can’t do my thinking — serious thinking — in company. Got to do it by myself! Anyway, there’ll be drastic reform. As I said — other men, other methods.”
Hermie again had recourse to her cigarette-case. She had smoked half-way through a cigarette before she resumed her attack.
“Well, I know what my notion of drastic reform is,” she said at last. “It’s the utter abolition of the present system! Root and branch!”
“Perhaps,” remarked Bright. “But — by degrees. It wouldn’t be very good policy to burn all your clothes till you’ve furnished yourself with new ones to put in their place, would it?”
“I’ve heard that argument till I’m sick of it,” said Hermie. “If there’s poison in your system, get it out quick and ruthlessly! That’s drastic reform.”
“A clean cut of the knife, eh?” suggested Bright with another laugh. “I’m afraid the analogy doesn’t hold good, my dear!” He glanced at her with a half-teasing, half-indulgent smile. “You’re a red-hot rebel, you know: I’m not. You’re all for ending things — present things — by a glorious revolution. But I’m a believer in constitutional methods — didn’t I make that plain to those Labour chaps? Asses! — they can get all they want through the ballot-box! Unfortunately they don’t know what they want, neither separately nor collectively.”
“I know what,” muttered Hermie.
“Wholesale revolution!” laughed Bright. “Which would mean stoppage and starvation. Far better achieve success by my reasonable and sane methods.” He laughed again, and twisting his fingers in a loose strand of Hermie’s fair hair, gave it a pull. “Whatever made you, a pretty, delicate lass like you, such a spitfire as you are?” he asked. “I heard you spouting once at the Labour Hall, though you didn’t know I was there, and I wondered if you weren’t a reincarnation of one of the women of the French Revolution, or of the Commune — you’d make a good petroleuse, upon my honour! How is it — how did it come about? To look at you when you’re clothed and in your right mind, anybody would think you were the most demure young person that ever was, but when you’re on the political ramp — my faith, Hermie, but you are a hot ‘un! — you know you are! And — why?”
Hermie listened, staring far out across the heather at the blue hills in the distance. She kept silence for awhile: then she suddenly spoke, in a lower tone.
“Do you want to know, Bright?” she asked.
“Interesting — from many points,” replied Bright. “Psychologically — very interesting.”
“I wonder if you remember my grandfather?” she said. “Old Ebenezer — Ebbie, everybody called him.”
“Little apple-faced old chap,” answered Bright, with youthful thoughtlessness. “Very bow-legged, and walked like a crab, side-wise. I remember him.”
Hermie’s eyes flashed sudden fire.
“Why was he bow-legged, and why did he walk like a crab?” she demanded hotly. “Because he was sent to work in the mill when he was a mere baby! — he minded a machine when he was five years old!”
“Damnable!” muttered Bright. “What a hellish lot our forefathers were, a hundred years ago!”
The utter simplicity of this ingenuous remark cooled Hermie’s sudden anger: she gave Bright a side-glance that revealed her recognition of his crudeness: he had forgotten, she realised, or he had never thought of the fact that it was his forefathers who had exploited hers.
“If you want to know what made me think and feel as I do,” she continued, quietly, “it was old Grandfather Ebbie. When I was a little girl, and he a very old man, living with us, he used to tell me tales of the bad old times — as I got older and began to read, I encouraged him. He’d a wonderful memory, even when he was ninety years old, and he could remember things going back to long before factory reform. He’d got to that stage, Bright, when it was nothing but a memory: he’d survived, and he’d peace and comfort in his old days, thanks to my father and mother, and he could speak of the bad old times without anger or resentment: it was more of a curious interesting memory to him. But God! — what times they must have been, and what devils, fiends, vilest of the vile, the masters were in those days! If only one could tear them from their graves, and bring them to life, and slowly torture them as they tortured children—”
“Steady, old girl!” said Bright. He had seen Hermie in a passion of indignation more than once. “Come! — remember the old boy; he’d got to talk of it calmly. And what did he talk of?”
“It makes my blood boil!” said Hermie. “I hope there’s a hell, and that they’re slowly roasting in it — I wish I’d the turning of the spits! Talk of? — what couldn’t he talk of; what couldn’t he tell — first hand evidence, Bright. How he himself, a baby of five, was made to work sixteen hours a day, kept to his task by the overseer’s strap, forced to his work by his own father and mother, who, in their turn, were forced to such an inhuman proceeding through the sheer necessity induced by less than starvation wages — that was why he was bow-legged and walked like a crab, as you say. God! — can’t you yourself remember what a lot of old men and women we used to have here in Haverthwaite who were like that? — stunted, deformed, crippled, all because they’d been driven to those hellish factories as tiny children! I remember lots — and, by God, I’ll never, never forget — nor forgive!”
