Collected works of j s f.., p.718
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 718
“Wait!” said Bright. He had been exchanging glances with Ellerthwaite during the last few sentences. “Listen!” he continued, turning to Walshaw. “She made this statement before a private meeting of some of you, you say? You were there?”
“Aye, I was there, right enough!” replied Walshaw. “I heard her say all I’m telling you.”
“Me, too!” said Burton. “I was there, an’ all — heard every word on’t.”
“Did she give you any proof that the last statement was true?” asked Bright.
“Yes!” exclaimed Walshaw. “She did! — she knew well enough that it ‘ud add force to what she said. She showed us an agreement ‘at your father had signed. She was to have two thousand a year. She told us what she was going to do with it — what she didn’t want for herself. She was going to use it for furthering the Cause. It was her way, she said, of robbing the enemy!”
Bright looked across the table at Ellerthwaite. But Ellerthwaite was replenishing the glasses of the ambassadors, and Bright signed to Walshaw to proceed.
“Go on!” he said. “What else?”
“Well, your father died — so that didn’t come off,” continued Walshaw. “But she came back as secretary to you. Now then she dealt with you. She said that if she’d been a necessity to your father, she was a thousand times more of an absolute one to you! She said that you knew naught whatever about t’ business, that you’d been entirely dependent on her for running it since you’d taken hold, and that you couldn’t possibly do without her. More than that, she said that she’d always been able to twist you round her finger like a bit o’ soft stuff, and that if you had shown a bit of spirit about this Howroyd and Jubb affair, it had only been a flash in the pan with naught behind it, and you were probably bitterly repenting it already. And she said that if only to get her back, you’d be on your knees to her within a week, and she’d be able to dictate terms. Her own terms!”
“She didn’t happen to mention them, I suppose?” asked Bright.
“Oh, aye, she did!” said Walshaw. “She had it all cut and dried, I can tell you, Mr. Marrashaw! T’ terms were these — she said that you cared not one rap for t’ business: you were wrapped up in scientific research and such like. So she was going to insist on your clearing out altogether with what your father had left you in ready money and so on, and you were to hand t’ mill and t’ business clean over to us, t’ workpeople, to run on communistic lines. It was to be — ours!”
“And — you believed all that?” said Bright. “You did?”
“Well, of course, she put it in a better way nor what I’ve done,” replied Walshaw. “She explained it all more fully. And you know what a tongue she has, Mr. Marrashaw — yes, I should say we certainly thought it ‘ud come off.”
“And so, having heard all that Howroyd had to say, and what she had to say, you struck!” said Bright.
“Aye, we struck, right enough!” admitted Walshaw, sheepishly. “No denying that, sir.”
Bright pulled himself up and thrust his hands in his pockets.
“Very well!” he remarked. “Now then, what are you here for? What have you come to Mr. Ellerthwaite about? Why have you told me all these secrets? Am I to understand that you’re sick of your precipitate action? And is it just you two, yourselves? — or do you represent somebody else?”
“I said — they’re ambassadors,” interposed Ellerthwaite. “Come with olive-branches!”
“On whose behalf?” demanded Bright.
“Well, I’ll just tell you where it is, Mr. Marrashaw,” answered Walshaw, after a slight pause. “I said — we’d been done! I’ve told you how Howroyd and Hermie Clough got round us. Now then, you see, at the very start off, we found out that you weren’t such soft stuff as she made out. Instead o’ sitting down to cry as she reckoned you would, so to speak, you locked them mill gates! We all knew what that meant. You’d said that if there was a strike, it ‘ud be followed by a lock-out. When you turned that key in its lock, we knew you were a man that would be as good as his word. So — that settled Hermie Clough’s plan o’ campaign: we knew then that it had no real basis; that it existed only in her own imagination. T’ real fact o’ t’ case is,” he continued, with a broad smile, “I’ve come to t’ conclusion ‘at Hermie Clough’s one of these here megalomaniacs! — she thinks she’s a deal more powerful than she is!”
“Well?” said Bright. “What else? There’s more.”
“Yes, there’s more,” admitted Walshaw. “Of course, we began to get uneasy about the trades-union and the strike pay. And so, without saying aught to Howroyd or Hermie, or any of ’em, a small deputation — me and Burton there among it — went over to Hallasfield late this afternoon to see the head officials, and get a right, dependable, authoritative word about the whole affair. We saw ’em — the chief men, the executive. And — they told us straight! The union’s going to have naught to do wi’ t’ strike! There’s not going to be any strike pay! Howroyd had no right to pledge t’ union. He’s no power over it — it’s all gammon to say that he could force its hand. T’ secretary told us that we could give his compliments to Howroyd and to Hermie Clough and tell ’em that they could take their vapourings to somewhere else, where they’d be more in touch with rebellions and revolutions — t’ trades-union machinery wasn’t going to be put out o’ gear by them. ‘They’re a hundred years too soon,’ he said, ‘or, maybe, a hundred too late — they’re best fitted for French Revolution work,’ he said. ‘Anyway, we’re not going to have anything to do with ’em. Yours is a private dispute between your employer and yourselves,’ he said, ‘and you can go and settle it — the union’ll have nothing whatever to do with it!’ And so,” concluded Walshaw, “of course — we came home!”
“Much wiser nor we went!” added Burton.
“The fact is,” said Walshaw, “Hermie Clough — as was — and Howroyd’s had the lot of us on toast! Or else, they fancied they could do things that they can’t do. You know, Mr. Marrashaw,” he went on, with another sudden turning to Bright, “I can tell you something else ‘at you know nothing about, and that your father knew nothing about, either. Them two, Howroyd and Hermie were always plotting together! I’ll tell you how they used to do it — they were clever enough, or she was. As soon as your father had gone home of an afternoon she used to ring Howroyd up on t’ telephone from your father’s private room, making an excuse for him to bring an order book or something o’ that sort, and off he’d go, and of course, as your father had gone, him and her had t’ place all to theirselves! There were two or three of us in his department knew about that. And it went on, just t’ same way, after she came back to you, when your father was dead. Howroyd used to go round to t’ private office to her nearly every afternoon when you’d gone, and—”
“We’ll leave that alone, I think,” said Bright suddenly. “The thing is — what do you want? You spoke of some deputation that had been over to Hallasfield, of which you were members. Have you come here — to me — representing them?”
“Them and others,” assented Walshaw.
“T’ practical lot,” added Burton.
“Well — what do you want?” repeated Bright.
“We want to know if you’re going to keep up this lock-out?” answered Walshaw, suddenly. “That’s about it!”
“Aye, that’s about it,” muttered Burton.
“Very well,” said Bright. “Now I know what you want. All right — you can go and tell anybody and everybody that Marrashaw’s Mill will be at work, just as usual, first thing to-morrow morning. That’s definite — and it’s final.”
Presently the two men went away, evidently greatly relieved, and soon afterwards Bright went away, too; father and daughter were both quick to observe that he was not disposed for conversation. When he had gone they looked at each other.
“It seems to me,” said Milly, “that Hermione is a pretty good specimen of a wire-puller!”
“It seems to me,” replied Ellerthwaite, with a cynical laugh, “that Hermione is sadly deficient in two things — the sense of humour and the faculty of perception. In other words, Milly, my lass, she’s a good deal of a fool, and she’s a serious fool, which is worst of all. However — I reckon Master Bright has had his eyes opened to-night to more curious things than he’d ever thought of — he’ll do a lot of thinking as he goes home across yon moor.”
X
BRIGHT WAS CERTAINLY full of thought as he went out into the night: certainly he was also conscious that he had learnt things that evening of which he had never previously even dreamed. He had been brought face to face with the undeniable fact that intrigue and secret dealing and not a little jealousy and back-biting were as common among the leaders of the labour movement as they are amongst politicians and diplomatists of higher rank: it all came back to what he had said to them in his impromptu speech months before — there was no real union, no real and deep community of thought and purpose in their ranks. Here was Howroyd and his lot pulling one way; there were the trades-union officials pulling another; here, the old-fashioned workers like Mally Watkinson and Lockwood Clough denounced all and who interfered with what they personally considered a very safe and comfortable order of things; there, opportunists, like Walshaw and Burton, were ready to desert any cause at a moment’s notice as soon as they found that their bread was likely to lack butter. And behind all these various contending, seething, variable forces was the sinister figure of Simon Grew, ready to sell secrets, turn traitor, play the spy, act as go-between, if it profited his own pocket. But unprincipled as Grew doubtless was, he was a fellow of common-sense and keen penetration — had he not told him, Bright, that if he took up with the labour cause in deadly earnest he’d get a broken heart for his pains? “I know ’em!” Grew had said, with a cynical laugh. Bright was not sure now that Grew had not been right. And in that moment, as he paced slowly across the heather and ling of the silent moorland, he had a sudden illuminating vision of his own father, and saw Charlesworth in a new light. The old man had been old-fashioned, out-of-date, imperious, arbitrary, perhaps a bit hard and harsh, but he had also been a leader of men, for had he not kept a firm hand on the reins of his many-headed team and driven it successfully, with neither accident nor mishap for a long and notable course?
“I daresay he knew a lot more, and was a far wiser man, that I ever gave him credit for!” soliloquised Bright. “The old saying’s all wrong — the real truth is that there’s no fool like a young fool!”
He began to examine himself at that, seeking to discover wherein he had been foolish, and how he could learn some lessons from whatever folly he had committed. He was not going to give up any of his cherished ideas nor relinquish any of his deep-laid schemes; far from it: Marrashaw’s, he was resolved, should be made into that model industrial concern of which he had long dreamed: it was now the big ambition of his life to surround himself, as employer, with a contented and prosperous body of employed. And now, he thought, he knew them better. Instead of being a mass of units all bound together by common interest and mutual taste, he saw them in their true proportions as three thousand absolutely separate and distinct personalities, each requiring care, attention, proper and full shepherding. Shepherding! — that was a good word, he thought, with a laugh — he had got to be shepherd of a flock of sheep. And sheep are easily turned and easily led and easily frightened — and there are wolves. He had seen the wolves looking out of the dark recesses of the woods and crags upon the confines of the sheep-fold during the last few days, and it had not escaped his notice that many of them wore sheep’s clothing.
“Life-work!” he muttered to himself. “Life-work! Once more — I reckon the poor old man knew a lot more than I ever thought he did. No wonder he put up that statue to himself! — it meant I suppose, that he wanted to typify himself as the man at the helm.”
Bright was taking a short cut across the moor. It took him by what was little better than a sheep-track along the edge of the table-land, and at last by a great mass of rock which rose high out of the hillside, and formed a landmark that could be seen for miles along the wide valley of the Haver, far beneath. He paused as he came up to this rock and looked about him in the light of a half-moon and its attendant stars, and then lingering, suddenly became aware of a figure which sat motionless on a ledge close by — so motionless that at first he took its vague outline for a part of the dark mass above. But a light breath of wind stirred some drapery or other, and with a quick instinct he went nearer.
“Good God!” he exclaimed half-frightened at his own voice. “Hermie!”
Hermie turned her face slowly in his direction. She sat like a statue on a low ledge at the foot of the pinnacle of rock, her hands clasped on her knee, her whole attitude that of blank apathy. And the dim moonlight showed Bright that her face was drawn, pale and haggard.
“What is it?” he asked, going nearer. “Why are you here?”
“Go away!” she answered in a low voice. “Go — right away! I don’t want you — anybody! Go!”
“No!” said Bright. “I shan’t — I won’t! You’re in trouble. I’m not going.”
To show that he meant it, he sat down on the rock, close by her, keeping his eyes on her face. She turned away from him, staring fixedly at the hills on the far side of the valley, whose dark bulk was just visible in the uncertain light, and for a moment or two there was silence.
“If it was I who was in trouble — and you don’t know that I’m not — you’d be quick to do anything for me,” said Bright, at last. “Come, now — let me do something for you — anything. What is it?”
He waited a long time before she answered; when at last her lips moved, her voice was harsh and cold.
“You can’t do anything,” she said. “It would be far better if you’d go away. Thank you, all the same.”
“Well, I’m just not going,” declared Bright. “Look here — where’s Howroyd? You — you haven’t quarrelled?”
Hermie turned and looked at him with an expression of profound wonder.
“I couldn’t possible conceive our quarrelling,” she answered. “We’ve too much of a purpose. Howroyd’s gone to Hallasfield.”
“I heard that you’d gone, too,” said Bright. “Why didn’t you? And what on earth are you doing here — at this time of night?”
“I was wishing I could cry!” she replied suddenly. “But — women like me don’t cry! I wish we did.”
“Well, I guess you will, some day,” said Bright. “But — what about, now? Three or four hours ago, you were full of threatenings and slaughter! I was there at Bolton’s Fold. And now you’re — here! Why?”
“Because I’m beaten!” she retorted suddenly. “You’ve beaten me! I might have known. I let Allot go to Hallasfield, and at the last moment I stopped here — I thought I’d better be on the spot. And I went back amongst the people and found—”
She paused, turning her face again towards the hills, and for a moment there was silence.
“You found,” said Bright, “that the people had executed one of their as-you-were movements. Weathercocked! Well — that shows how little you’ve ever known them.”
“Money!” she muttered. “Money! Of course it’s your money. They let themselves be bought — body and soul! What chance do people like Allot Howroyd and Hermie Clough possess against Marrashaw’s money!”
“You’re on the wrong track,” said Bright. “Neither I nor my money have had anything to do with the collapse of your strike. It’s collapsed just because the people suddenly saw that it was going to lead to precisely what Mally Watkinson prophesied — cold hearths and empty bellies! Hermie! — what an awful pity it is that you can’t see things as they are! Why didn’t it strike a couple of clever people like you and Allot Howroyd that as soon as ever it came to a question of brass — for that’s it! — these people would desert you to a man? Don’t you think — come, now! — don’t you think you’re a bit foolish?”
“I daresay we’re both utter fools,” she answered. “So it’s a good job we’re married — we shall have that bond in common, at any rate. I’m glad I have married Allot — he’s got an ideal — my ideal. That’s — everything, to me.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re glad, then,” said Bright. “That’s all right. But I’ve ideals, as well as you. I want to carry them out, and I mean to.”
“By a system of genteel slavery!” she remarked, with a sudden sharpening of tone.
“Not half as much so as yours would be,” retorted Bright. “But come, don’t let’s argue at this time of night. Come away, now, and let me see you home. You’ll go to your father’s?”
Hermie suddenly rose and drew her wraps round her. She stood for a moment staring across the valley.
“I suppose you thought at first when you found me here that I should very likely throw myself off these rocks, or fling myself into the river, or something of that sort, if you left me?” she said. “Well, I shouldn’t. If there’d been any tragedy, it would have been in my putting a bullet through Grew and one or two others — I would now, if I could go scot-free. But there won’t be any tragedy — I hadn’t even anything to do with breaking Grew’s windows. And I’m going home to my father’s, and I shall sleep, I suppose, and get up in the morning and make breakfast, and by and by Allot’ll come back, poor fellow, with his disappointment heavy on him, having found that those fat-cheeked, black-coated smugsters at the trades-union headquarters will have nothing to do with us, and then—”
“Well, he’s got you to comfort him,” interrupted Bright. “You can comfort each other.”
“And then,” she continued, paying no heed to him, “we shall be sneered at and laughed at all over the town as the two fools who tried and failed — laughed and sneered at by the very people who, till to-night, regarded us as gods!”
“But you see, you weren’t even demi-gods!” said Bright. “And as to the people — you’d better read and think over the second scene of the third act of Julius Cæsar. Come, now, Hermie, why won’t you and Howroyd be sensible! With your abilities and cleverness, why don’t both you put aside your impracticable ideals and join in with me at what is practical? I’m not saying that your ideals are wrong or impossible — all I say is that the time isn’t yet — the people aren’t ready — nothing’s ready. Join in with what is practical, with what can be done!”
