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.

He began to walk: it was automatic, like much else; he did not know he walked; he did not know where he went, nor whom he passed; he did not know if people looked at him or if they did not. Likely they did not: after all, a grey, drawn face is no unprecedented thing; and there is not one person in a thousand who, looking through the eyes, gets a glimpse of the soul behind. The rain was falling faster now, but he did not turn up the collar of his coat, he was not aware of it; not really aware of the jostle of the foot-passengers and the noise of the traffic, though both, subconsciously, pressed painfully on his nerves. His lips moved once to repeat some words—“My inventions,” and “I fear I can do nothing for you in that matter”—his mind, oblivious of all else, labouring round in one restricted circle.

Someone touched him. He stopped dead, like a vibrating balance arrested by a sudden hand. A girl was at his elbow; a girl who looked up with shy, comprehending eyes.

“Michael,” she said. “Cousin Michael, won’t you come home and have tea with me?”

He heard her, and by an effort brought his mind to focus so that he compelled himself to understand the drift of the words. “I am afraid,” he said politely, with an odd patient politeness, “I cannot—I’m so busy.”

She nodded, but—“It’s not far,” she said reassuringly, and rather as if he had consented.

She had touched his arm when she first spoke to him, and she had not let go; now, in the obscurity where they stood, some distance from a light, she slipped her hand down till it touched his ungloved one. Hers was ungloved too, and her fingers closed on his with a compelling touch.

“It is not far,” she said, and led the way to a side street, narrower and quieter than the main one.

He came. It was automatic almost, as his former actions had been, though with a difference; he had this much consciousness, he was aware that the streets were quieter and less lighted, and there was relief in it. She knew the neighbourhood well, leading the way by by-streets, and he accepted her and her leading. They came to a short street where there were tall old houses, but little lighted, and no foot-passengers about; a momentary feeling passed over him as of an animal that has escaped noisy pursuers, and is at the entrance of its hole.

She opened a door in one of the dark houses, and led the way in: across a dusky hall, into a large, dim room, where a shaded light burned, and a shadow moved above a desk screened from view. There was the sound of faint scratching, pen on paper, nothing else, and no one looked out as they entered. She crossed the room, and at the far side opened a small door set in the panelling. Beyond, was a narrow staircase, lighted only by a candle, set in an angle where stairs went up. She lifted it down, and the door fell to behind.

“This way,” she said, and led up the stairs.

At the top, another door, masked as the first, in the woodwork, gave on to the room above. This room, lighted only by firelight, was also large and dim, and pervaded with an almost tangible sense of quiet; the falling to of the door behind them seemed to shut out the world.

The girl crossed the room to the fireplace, where a kettle, ready to boil, stood on the old-fashioned hob. “I’ll make the tea in a moment,” she said. “Sit down.”

He sat, and she made tea.

It is uncertain when he had had his last meal; when he had it it was only a sandwich in a refreshment-room, or lunch on a train, not a human meal, with human companionship. No relation to this tea with the girl, who spoke and was silent by turns harmoniously, making no demand on him, yet allowing no obvious silence to call for explanation or speech.

After a time, food and quiet and the curious influence there was present had so far restored balance, that he was consciously aware that his hostess was Nan Barmister, a cousin with whom he had been so little intimate in the past that his coming to her home, to which he had never been before, must seem odd. It crossed his mind, as he turned from the table, that his acceptance of the invitation, his presence at all in town, needed explaining to her. The wounded animal’s instinct to hide, one of the first of the natural instincts to reassert itself, inclined him to explain as it inclined him to conceal his sodden and muddied boots. But even as he pushed his feet into the greater darkness under his chair, he felt her eye on them.

“One might think I had been on the tramp,” he apologised, with a flickering effort to recover his ordinary manner.

“No,” she said; then added, “I don’t think that: I think the bottom of the world has blown out.”

He looked at her, but hardly with surprise. When the horizon holds one thing only, it is not surprising for others to know it; and, in spite of some feeble stirrings of pride towards concealment, it does not seem to matter much, amidst the general ruin, that they should.

She had knelt to rearrange the fire; she did not get up, but sat back on her feet on the hearthrug, her face towards the blaze. “I think,” she said, without looking round, “when that happens one does not notice things; they aren’t really there; there is nothing there but the one thing—I think that is Chaos.”

“How do you know?” he put the question faintly curious.

She moved her shoulders. “I don’t know,” she said, and she did not. She did not know that the great knowledge—the knowledge that matters—is divined, not known, of inspiration rather than experience.

“I suppose,” she said, still looking into the fire, and speaking slowly—“I suppose when that happens—Chaos, I mean—after a great while one touches solid again, something takes shape——”

“There is nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing,” he repeated.

His hands hung on either side of his chair, there was a slackness, a relaxing about his whole figure. It was as if the collapse, which had approached before and had been staved off by will, by a despairing flicker of hope and the frenzied chase of it, and later by the automatic capacity in man to go on a while even after the final stroke—as if it had come at last. Strength, even the strength to resent or conceal, was gone.

“They have taken everything,” he said apathetically, “my reputation, my good name, my daily work and daily bread, and”—his voice quivered a little—“my invention.”

She nodded; she was not looking at him now; she looked away just before his voice quivered for the invention. She knelt, staring at the fire again a long time without speaking. At last she said, though more as if addressing herself, “Don’t you think sometimes, after a long time, something takes shape where nothing, less than nothing, has been left?”

“You do not understand,” he said wearily; “you do not know what I am up against.”

“No,” she admitted, “that is true. But”—she turned earnest eyes on him—“surely there is something?”

“No.” He spoke indifferently, with the indifference of a brain beyond feeling or caring, one to which nothing matters.

Nevertheless, in a while he began to talk fitfully, induced thereto one does not know by what, possibly by something in the girl who crouched dark and inconspicuous by the fire and watched him covertly.

He did not rehearse facts straightly, or speak at all as to one who knew little of his life and nothing of what had happened; he forgot his listener was in that case, he forgot her actual physical personality altogether. It was no narrative of the catastrophe he made, nor of what, so far as he knew, had led up to it; it was not even a plain statement of his losses; certainly no clear account of the last two days. Much that had occurred in them, much altogether was temporarily, at least, blotted from the shaken brain. Yet what he did say, with its omissions and reiterations, its harping on unessential detail and curious, and seemingly reasonless, digressions gave the kernel of the matter. Gave it, perhaps more completely, and presented a truer and clearer picture of the real soul of the thing to this listener than any mere statement of facts.

At half-past eight someone opened the door at the far end of the room. It was a heavy door of old mahogany, and gave on to the landing and beautiful main staircase of the house. An old woman in a large white apron and black cap pushed it open now and came in, exclaiming about the darkness. The room was still only lighted by the fire; the windows had long been a dim blur, beyond the old woman the landing and staircase, poorly lit though they were, showed brightly illuminated by contrast.

“Why, you haven’t got a light!” she said, setting a tray on the corner of the table.

“No,” Nan answered, “we didn’t want one.”

The old woman said something about spoiling the eyesight, and proceeded to light candles in curiously wrought silver candlesticks. Then she quickly collected the tea-things—she must have been out all the evening, or they would have been collected before—and set a simple supper in their place.

It was a very simple meal, cold meat and cheese, the remains of a tart, little more. It was set for one only, but Nan took it as a matter of course that Michael would remain and share it with her.

He hesitated, then accepted, and soon they sat down together.

“My father is out,” she explained; “he won’t be back to-night. He had to go out of town to see a customer who has a very precious chair she wants matched. She would not send it here to be looked at, so he had to go to see it. When he has to go any distance he usually travels one way by night; it saves time.”

Michael said “Yes,” and recollected that he himself must spend the night somewhere.

She appeared to remember it too. “Are you going to Hurstbury?” she asked.

A vision of Hurstbury, the substantial suburban villa there, and of his father and stepmother and the family flashed up into his mind. “No,” he said, “they don’t know I’m in town.”

There was much else they did not know; some they would have to know sooner or later, the realisation came with a jar; some they would never, could never know, that realisation would come later with a grim bitterness of perception. For the present one thing was enough, they knew nothing of what had overwhelmed him, and in his present state he could not face their ignorance or their inquiries.

“I shall go to an hotel,” he said.

Nan acquiesced, as if it were the best thing. “Unless you stayed here?” she suggested tentatively. “I suppose you would not stay? I would be rather glad if you did; a little Italian casket has come to-day; it is small and very valuable, and it is known that my father has bought it. There is no one in the house but Mrs. Bidden and me, few but old caretakers in any house in the street.”

It did not occur to him to question if this ostensive reason were the real one for the invitation; he did not think about it. He was easily persuaded to stay, utter exhaustion gave him curiously little inclination to resist any proposal she made, even while it almost instantly effaced impressions not connected with the one great matter on his mind. He forgot about the casket almost so soon as he heard of it; though, by some chance, he recalled it, or that there was something he ought to do, about bedtime.

“That thing you spoke of,” he said vaguely, “shall I take it with me?”

“The casket? No, it is as well where it is.”

“I’ll take it, if you like, I am not in the least likely to sleep. It really hardly seems worth going to bed.”

Nevertheless, he did sleep; gradually exhaustion overcame him and stupefaction stole upon his brain. The endless, hopeless thinking and planning, asking questions of the past, contriving wild plans for the future, grew dimmer. Dimmer the scene at Galhardy’s which he had reacted again and again, so that, without volition but with an indescribable plainness, he had lived it in railway trains, on station platforms, in London streets, a hundred times and then a hundred more. It grew dim and blurred; from being beyond control it grew beyond distinctness, it merged in the brown twilight of a quiet room; it grew dark. Darkness spread over the brain, the blank darkness of utter exhaustion, but repose.