Chapter VI

On the last Thursday in October, Nan Barmister came to Hurstbury. The Annarlys usually asked her to lunch about that time; they might have done so this year, though possibly not as the invaluable Mary had given notice, and Michael was at home. Michael had never mentioned his brief sojourn in Soho; there had been no necessity, and somehow it had not occurred to him to do it, so the family concluded Nan knew nothing of his being home, when she proposed to come and see them. They had often told her to write and propose coming when she was able, but she had never done it before; to tell the truth, they were not very pleased that she did now; they felt it to be an ill-chosen time. However, they decided that it would not be kind to refuse her, although all three sisters had engagements of some sort for the afternoon.

“Michael can entertain her,” Mabel said; “he and mother can look after her for the afternoon. We shall all be in to lunch, and some of us to tea, if she stops till then. After all, she is his relation really, not ours.”

Constance hesitated. “Wouldn’t it be too tiresome for him?” she said.

Rosalind was of opinion it would. “It really isn’t fair to ask him,” she said; “he’d simply be bored to death. She’ll be all right with mother, and mother doesn’t mind; she will be able to tell her all about Mary’s delinquencies. They really get on awfully well alone together, better than if we are there. I am sure Nan likes it better.”

It is a great help towards comfort and well-being to be able to be sure that what you wish is so by the mere fact of saying it; quite a number of people have this creative faculty—where the tastes of others are concerned. Rosalind had largely; her sisters may not have entirely believed in it, but they did not contradict her now. The question of who was to entertain Nan was left unsettled, but she herself was informed they would be pleased to see her on the suggested Thursday. And on that day she came.

The Annarlys’ drawing-room was a nice-sized room, with a thick pale green carpet and rosewood cabinets, where Worcester china and Venetian glass stood in well-kept array. There were polished tables with books and photographs and magazines on them, quantities of fresh flowers everywhere, and many brocade upholstered chairs—mostly looking too large and stuffed for Nan. The whole room looked, if not that, in some way incongruous with her. Even the recently lit fire, lit thus early on her account, seemed to emphasise the fact that she was out of place. And Constance, the only member of the family ready to receive her when she arrived, did not dispel the feeling. At least, she did not for Nan, though she was unaware of it herself, and was as agreeable as she always was, talking pleasantly till the others came in just as lunch was announced.

The dining-room was a nice-sized room too; it, like the drawing-room and the three good-looking, well-dressed sisters, looked its largest and best kept when Nan was there. She had a way of slipping quietly into a place, of keeping so still when she was there, and, whether she talked or was silent, of being so inconspicuous that everything in the Annarlys’ house stood out in contrast with her; one found oneself wondering how much it cost at Warings’ or Shoolbreds’, and how many years ago it was bought.

Mrs. Annarly said afterwards that Nan was not so shy that day as she sometimes was. There is a degree in shyness, as there is in fear, which gets beyond itself and produces something which, in its outward results, is akin to courage. Some such thing, aroused on behalf of another, had helped Nan to invite herself to the house of these overwhelming connections—whose house, persons, and invitations she avoided and looked upon with dread as a rule—and helped her through with the much worse ordeal of being there. It did not prevent her from perceiving, as other of their friends and relatives would not, that they rather wondered why she had come, and rather looked upon her coming as a nuisance; but then nothing could have prevented that; like many of the shy, she had abnormal powers of perception. It did, however, help her to behave as though she did not perceive it, and to talk and answer questions with a greater fluency and readiness than she had ever before developed in their company. There was not a great deal of opportunity given her; the sisters, and Mrs. Annarly too, found it easier to talk about their affairs than hers, and to each other than her. A few kind questions about her father and her health exhausted what there was to ask her. A few cultivated comments on pictures now on view, which as a dweller in town she might have, though had not, seen, and on concerts recently given which similarly she might have, though had not, heard, exhausted what there was of general interest to say to her. After that they spoke of their own concerns—to her principally, though with divergencies to each other. They told her of lectures on Renaissance art now being given locally; and she did not tell them that the man who gave them had also written a book in which he made mistakes about the date of Flemish weapons. They told her of a Spode dessert-service promised to Rosalind for a wedding-present; and she did not tell them that, if their description was correct, the designation was not. She did not think of mentioning those things, so they naturally could not know that she knew them, and knew with an accuracy with which they knew nothing. Rosalind spoke a good deal about her trousseau, she did on most occasions just now, and Nan listened with interest; when Rosalind said she must promise to come to the wedding, she answered that she hoped she should, probably with less sincerity than Rosalind said what she did. Rosalind always meant pleasant things at the moment she said them; Nan did not, unless she also meant them before and afterwards too.

Michael had small share in the conversation at lunch. In Hurstbury it was essentially the woman’s meal on weekdays, a man had little part in what was discussed, he was there—as a permanent adjunct—rather by courtesy only. Nan, a listener, and, occasionally, answerer of questions, did nothing to alter the usual conditions. But after lunch Michael did not attempt a retreat, as the sisters half expected he would—as they would have wished had the guest been one of their own choosing. He followed them into the drawing-room, and so saved Mabel the trouble, she certainly would otherwise have taken, of going to fetch him to do his share in entertaining his cousin when she and the others left for their different engagements.

She glanced behind her at the clock; she was standing on the sheepskin rug before the fire, her large well-shaped feet planted far apart.

“I shall have to be off in a minute,” she said. “We are playing away to-day. You don’t play hockey, do you, Nan? You should; rippin’ game. It’d be awfully good for you, take you out a bit. You must have rather a mouldy time, I should think.” She looked round at the clock again. “I must go; only twelve minutes for the train. Don’t bother about tea for me, mother; I’ll get a drink somewhere. Good-bye, Nan, I’m afraid I shan’t see you when I get back. Take my tip about the hockey; I dare say I could get you into some club that plays near town.”

And she swung across the room and went out, rather noisily.

“What energy!” Rosalind said. “Isn’t it wonderful? And it’s really quite warm to-day, you know.”

“Yes,” Nan answered, she was sitting by the back window, “it is a nice day. May I go into the garden?”

Michael rose, though neither Constance nor Rosalind thought he was the person addressed; they knew of no other methods of address than speech, or the direct and obvious glance.

“Oh, yes, of course, if you care to,” Constance said. “I am afraid it’s rather damp.” She moved towards the window as she spoke. “There are some quite nice chrysanthemums left; you must have some to take home.”

She led the way to the garden door, as if she were going out too; but if that was her intention the sight of the wet grass, or the voluntary presence of Michael, remitted her sense of duty; she contented herself with telling him which were the best chrysanthemums. Having done that and having stood a minute on the top of the steps to say a few words, she went in, feeling free to attend her committee meeting without any discourtesy to the guest, undue taxing of her mother, or asking a favour of Michael. Things often befell thus with her, and she usually deserved it. So she went to her engagement and Rosalind to hers, and Mrs. Annarly dropped asleep over a book, until the coming of a visitor aroused her and also put Nan out of her head.

But in spite of Constance’s thoughtful orders, Nan did not get many chrysanthemums. Michael began cutting at the first group of plants, while his half-sister still stood on the steps.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” he said. “I had no idea you were here till lunch time.”

“No,” Nan answered, “I know.”

“There are some better ones lower down,” Constance called; “those have been frost-bitten.”

Michael moved obediently. “It’s awfully decent of you to come,” he said. “You must hate it so.”

“Be sure he cuts you nice ones,” Constance’s pleasant voice cried, “and plenty; as many as ever you can carry.”

“Yes,” Nan answered, “yes; thank you.”

The face she turned in the direction of the speaker, who could not see her now by reason of screening shrubs, was grateful. “It’s kind of her,” she said to Michael, as if explaining.

“Is it?” he answered harshly; though afterwards he said, “I suppose that is what she is; what they all are—kind.”

Nan ignored the words, and turned to the subject which was really uppermost. “Did you write to Sir Joseph Harte?” she asked.

“About that statement we sent to the directors from town? Yes, I wrote and asked him if he had received it.”

“What did he say?”

Michael felt in his pockets, and found a letter which he handed to her.

It was in the crabbed handwriting of Sir Joseph himself, and it was marked _confidential_.

DEAR MR. ANNARLY (it ran),

_I have carefully considered your letters of the 2nd and 20th,
and the statement enclosed in the former. I find nothing in them
to alter the conclusion I had come to in this deplorable matter;
nor do I find anything which would warrant me in asking my
co-directors to reopen, or reconsider, your case. I am, however,
able to tell you that we have now decided to take no further steps.
Out of consideration for the work you did while with us, and
the temptations to which you appear to have been subjected, the
other members of the Board have consented to abandon any idea of
prosecution._

_Speaking personally, I much regret the unhappy termination of your
connection with Galhardy’s—a connection which promised to be useful
to us and brilliant for you. But I still hope that, warned by this
lesson, and saved by the generosity of the directors from the full
penalty of publicity, you may yet use your gifts to do valuable
work in some other branch of your profession._

_I am,_
_Yours sincerely,_
_JOSEPH P. HARTE._

So she read, Michael mechanically cutting chrysanthemums the while.

“I suppose it is as much as one could expect,” he said when she had finished; “at least, he writes himself, and he writes kindly, one could hardly look for more if he believes the tale—as he certainly does.”

“Yes,” Nan said, although she did not herself quite like the letter; she did not know why, unless, perhaps, it was that she had a feeling it did not ring true. But it was only a feeling, and possibly groundless; certainly not a thing to mention to Michael, whose present attitude of spiritless acquiescence was the best in the circumstances.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he answered indifferently.

They moved on slowly, stopping by a few of the chrysanthemums as they went. Nan noticed how tired and ill he looked, and with what patient inattention he cut the flowers, obeying Constance’s orders, but automatically, and without observing what he did.

“I don’t want any more,” she said, and led the way down a damp path away from the plants.

“I suppose,” she said, “since the directors have decided not to prosecute, you will be able to get some similar work in time?”

He shook his head. “As easily get back to Galhardy’s as get into any similar work. There are only a few of those firms in existence, and they’re a close ring in some respects: the word has gone round about me long before this; not one of them would have me at any price.”

“But surely it would be to their interest to do so?” she protested. “They would never act against their own interests to please Galhardy’s? They must know that you can do work which no one else can, and which they want.”

“And,” he said, “when it was done, have Galhardy’s claim it, and say it was what I had already done for them, or based on it, or near enough to be reckoned the same!”

“But it would not be; you surely have not done for them all there is to do?”

“All?” he laughed. “No! nor a tithe, nor a hundredth! But that would not make any difference. If it was worth having, Galhardy’s would claim it, and the other people would have to fight them for it, and there’s few who could afford to fight Galhardy’s like that.”

“What an iniquitous thing!”

“There’s plenty of it in the world,” he said indifferently. “There are some big firms that have a fund on purpose for that sort of thing and for fighting patents—not defending their own patents, but defending themselves when they are had up for infringing other people’s. Galhardy’s can knock most others out, if it comes to law, they are so rich; no one could afford to fight them—or to employ me to any purpose.”

They had come to the end of the path now, and reached the old workshop. The door stood ajar, so that one saw the neglected interior and a single garden-chair drawn up to the burnt-out stove; Nan half stopped.

“Will you come in?” Michael asked. “It’s rather damp inside, I’m afraid, though drier than out.”

They went in. The place smelt mouldy and smoky too, and struck chilly with the chill of disuse. There were a lathe and a certain number of tools in racks and on shelves, but most damaged or obsolete, and all red with rust. A few odd bits of metal work and turning lay about, of amateur workmanship and no meaning or use now that even the long-forgotten design of their making was gone. The place spoke aloud of a dead hobby, a pastime that was outlived. To one who was an engineer, in the first and last meaning of the elastic word, and who was used to working on abstruse problems and seeing his theories put into practice by the best appliances that could be evolved, it might speak with a grimly pathetic voice.

Nan crossed the little untidy place to the cold stove.

“May I light a fire?” she asked.

“I’ll light it,” Michael said; “it’s a brute of a stove; half the time it won’t light, and if there’s any wind it smokes furiously.”

There was no wind that day, and the stove lit comparatively easily; Nan lighted it, Michael bringing coke from the stokehole.

“I don’t often have it,” he explained; “it hasn’t been very cold yet. When it is, I expect I shall still do without. After all, the fire isn’t much loss as a rule, and there would be trouble about the coke if I had it often.”

Nan looked up with inquiry, and he explained. “The coke for the hot-water boiler and the conservatory stove is allowanced; a load is reckoned to last so many weeks; if I take it, it won’t.”

At Galhardy’s the directors had been induced to supply a private room with an open grate for their genius, because a steam-heated atmosphere tried his head. If Michael remembered this, he did not compare it with the present situation. He accepted that as he accepted all the other things just now.

Nan drew up to the stove when she had the fire alight. “What are you going to do?” she asked again.

“You had better say, ‘What can I do?’” he answered. “Oh, yes, there are other branches of engineering, I know that, and know something about some of them. It was only by chance I stumbled into this one. I was not trained to it specially.”

He spoke as if the astonishing ability, which showed rare proficiency and original genius in several widely different branches of one of the widest sciences, were an ordinary and not remarkable thing. It was not remarkable to him, it was a matter-of-course fact of existence, and one which he supposed, if he ever thought about it, he shared with others—only, perhaps, most of those he had come across were too idle or too stupid to use the powers which they, no doubt, possessed in common with himself. That would have been his view had he ever evolved one.

But the fact, so far as it concerned himself, was of no particular value now. “I have got no reputation in any but the one line,” he said; “naturally, with the choice of applicants for any job there is, the preference is given to a man with a reputation on that subject. That militates against me for a post of any size in any but the now closed branch; and for a small one, the circumstances that I have had a good thing in one line, and am now offering for a small one in another, tells quite as much. Not to mention that I have been at Galhardy’s, and left for no explained reason, which would pretty well prevent me getting anything anywhere.”

“Have you tried?”

He had, his experience, though small, had been bitter. “It is true I have only been home three weeks,” he said, “and so you may say have not had the chance of making many attempts. But one can learn a good deal in a short time, especially of that sort of thing.”

They had taken much, these directors of Galhardy’s. They may have been entitled to it, Nan did not know, and she did not concern herself to think or concern herself to condone or to justify either them or the sufferer; the bare facts were enough. And the facts, as they stood now, were that they had the man’s invention and the results of some years of his best work; and in taking them they had, incidentally, also taken his reputation and his nerve, and, at one time it seemed, possibly his balance of mind too. The last danger was past, but another loss was made plainer than it had been before—they had, also no doubt incidentally, taken his chance of earning a living in any other way. They certainly had much and had left little.

“Surely,” she protested aloud, “surely there is something!”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” she was obliged to answer, and again sat staring into the little open doorway of the stove. There must be something! He was in collapse now: nerve gone, energy gone, ability in eclipse, the whole immaterial man shattered; but there was still something there; she felt it. She knew nothing of technical facts, little by practical experience of him; but she knew, with the unerring knowledge of women (some women), that there was still something there, and believed it with that faith which not merely removes mountains, but sometimes makes men. So long as there was something in him there was still something which could be done, though it might take long to find out what it was, and how to do it.

“They have not taken your brains,” she ventured at last.

“My brains are not much use,” he answered. But he spoke gently, his brains were at a discount now, their existence as an asset and a marketable commodity was even in some doubt; he was grateful for the assumption of them and their value.

“They are not really of much value,” he told her. “Even if I could still deal with problems—we’ll say I could, if you like, though I am not at all sure of it myself, I don’t think I shall ever do anything again. If I could, what better off am I, if no one wants their problems dealt with by me? One can’t set up as a consulting engineer without capital or reputation. My reputation would blast the best capitalised concern, and my capital would not float the best reputation, for it is non-existent.”

“Have you no money at all?” she asked.

“None. No doubt I ought to have saved, but I didn’t; it cost me a good lot to live, and I didn’t bother; also, no doubt, I was a fool. I have managed to clear up what was owing, but that is all, and I should not have been able to do that, if I hadn’t had an offer for my car just before—just before this all happened. At present, I have a five-pound note and”—he put his hand in his pocket and took out some coins—“about enough to pay my fare to town third class another six times. Those are my assets, and my prospects—_nil_. I have hardly enough to buy a plumber’s outfit or the wherewithal to start the hawking of tools in the Whitechapel Road.”

The position did not show hopefully, Nan saw that; nevertheless, she led him to talk of the work and chances of consulting engineers, and other freelances of the profession.

But what he said did not show the prospect any brighter. For success in such ways business ability of the highest order was the first and last requisite: that and the capacity to live on little and wait, and, incidentally, the little to live on while waiting. For a man to work out his own inventions and profitably dispose of them much more was needed: much capital, much space, much plant, and, if he was to make even the barest margin of profit, the rare fortune to light upon a moderate proportion of honest men.

“Unless one has enough money not to need to make more, one can hardly make it by working out inventions or any of the problems which want working out,” so he said.

Yet, either because of her silent attention, or because the thing was so strong in him, in a little he began to talk of some of the problems. They were always floating about at the back of his mind, complex and simple, of practical importance and theoretical interest, equally dear to him, and ready under normal conditions to come to the forefront of consideration at the provocation of a word. Of late, they, like everything else, had been in abeyance; it was only for a minute or two the old passion reasserted itself now; in a little the interest was gone.

“What I have to consider,” he said “is, not what might be worked out, but how to get a living, and there doesn’t seem much prospect of my being able to do that, for I can’t do anything but this one sort of thing.”

“You can draw,” Nan suggested; “can’t you do something with that?”

“Be a draughtsman?”

The idea of following that branch of his profession had no more occurred to him than the idea of being a plumber; his tone showed it, but after a second he said quietly, “Yes, I suppose I could do that; I could draw out other people’s designs, and work out things for contractors—if I could get the work.”

“Would you do it? Would you, if you could get it?”

He considered a moment, and the pause more than words showed the gulf for him between the past and the present. “Yes,” he said slowly, “I think so; I think I would. After all, one thing is much the same as another now. I could do that, I suppose I should, if I could get it. I dare say it might come to it that I should be thankful to get it.”

“Could you?”

“I should say not.”

“Why?”

“Because after what has happened no one would trust me to work out his design, for fear I should steal the idea. Oh, I don’t mean that would be said exactly, or that anything definite will ever be reported against me, nothing so clearly to be met as that; but there will be a feeling, a sort of doubt, and that is enough, more than enough. Why should confidential work be given to a man with a doubt about him, when there are plenty without able to do it?”

Nan realised the difficulty. “And the other work you spoke of?” she said. “The contractors; you said draughtsmen did things for them. Would the doubt tell there?”

“Probably not; the work they want is not confidential; it is merely drawings to meet technical difficulties in putting up plant on a large scale. But most contractors have their own draughtsman, or the one to whom they always go; it is difficult for an outsider to get the work.”

“Still, possible, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, in time, quite possible.”

“And some, once got, would lead to more?”

“It might—probably would.”

“Would that eventually lead to the other kind—the better kind? I suppose in that sort of work, as in everything else, there are degrees of proficiency, and the man who can do the best in the best way is rare. So rare that once found he must be employed in spite of his drawbacks?”

Michael admitted it was so; he had had enough experience in employing draughtsmen to know it true. It did not occur to him to deny that he could do work of such quality; he could do it, it was the quality of all his work. He did not himself think of it exactly as such; he had no standard of best or worst in work; one did what one wanted, or what was wanted; there was nothing less, nothing more. Some men, of course, did not do what was wanted; again it was not a question of best or worst, it was not anything; if it was not done, it was nothing. One did not criticise it, one mentally called them wasters, and took the work away and did it oneself. (It is possible to see that such an attitude of mind might make more enemies than any realisation of superior personal ability or human conceit about it.)

The afternoon was gloomy and overcast, the gleam of sunshine which had brightened the garden when Nan first proposed going out had long vanished. By mid-afternoon it was grey without and greyer still in the small shed; the discarded tools and scraps of metal which littered it, became mere lumps, with here and there one standing out with the unnatural distinctness things assume in half lights. Nan noticed them; she had an eye for such details even when preoccupied. Michael did not, perhaps, because all, actual and spiritual, was, as it were, of a piece to him. They drew up closer to the stove, talking fitfully now of the possibilities of draughtsman’s work and its difficulties and drawbacks. And though they spoke of the obvious drawback, that it was out of the question for one without a connection to expect to make even pocket-money out of it for some time, they did not speak of the utter distastefulness of such work to a man of Michael’s calibre. Nor yet did they speak of the bitterness for such a one having to solicit as a favour work inferior to the crudest of that which he used to delegate to subordinates. Such things were too personal to be spoken of and too obvious. Besides, the other drawback was enough: the fact that it was impossible to expect to make a living at it for long.

“My father is not a rich man,” Michael said, towards the end of the afternoon. “He had losses last year, and he pretty well lives up to his income, I believe; he naturally looks to provide for his daughters too, so far as he can; I can expect nothing from him. Theoretically, I imagine, I am at liberty to live here until I get something to do——”

“But practically you can’t do it,” she concluded for him. “You can’t do it for long. No, I know.”

Unconsciously, as she spoke, she glanced over her shoulder to where, through the smeary little window, one could see the house, the curtained drawing-room window and the corner of the conservatory. The tea-gong sounded as she looked. She rose instantly, the idea of not obeying a summons to meals here, or venturing to keep anyone waiting, never occurred to her. It apparently did not occur to Michael either; he rose too, and they went into the drawing-room.

A second visitor had taken the place of the first, her presence, and the recent return of Constance, and later return of Rosalind, prevented any comment on their long absence; indeed, probably no one had noticed it at the time or thought of it now. Tea, with sweet cakes and talk, filled the short time before Nan left; and if she herself contributed little to the conversation, little was expected of her, and nothing of Michael, except to hand cups and plates.

Almost directly after tea Nan left. Michael walked to the station with her; so did Constance, who said they seemed to have seen so little of her this time. During the walk the small bunch of chrysanthemums, which were fetched in at the last minute, was criticised; Constance told Michael he should have cut more, and Nan that she should have helped herself, if he was too lazy. She also said kindly that Nan must come again soon, some day when they were all at home. Nan answered rather shyly, Constance made her shyer than any of the Annarlys, and more aware of her own deficiencies in comparison with so many social gifts. Michael also said little; he really knew nothing of the topics discoursed upon, but apparently he was not expected to; he was there for form’s sake merely, and to put Nan into the train.