The Collected Short Stories Read online

  "That's very curious!" he murmured to himself. Hawken was usually so prompt. Hawken, not being a woman, slept under the roof, so there was no excuse for his not answering the bell. The tension in the room had now changed quality, owing to this new suspense. Poor Janet's sombre stare became gradually loosened, so to speak. Attention was divided. Where was Hawken? Rawdon rang the bell a third time, a long peal. And now Janet was no longer the centre of suspense. Where was Hawken? The question loomed large over every other.

  "I'll just look in the kitchen," said I, making for the door.

  "No, no. I'll go," said Rawdon.

  But I was in the passage--and Rawdon was on my heels. The kitchen was very tidy and cheerful, but empty; only a bottle of beer and two glasses stood on the table. To Rawdon the kitchen was as strange a world as to me--he never entered the servants' quarters. But to me it was curious that the bottle of beer was empty, and both the glasses had been used. I knew Rawdon wouldn't notice.

  "That's very curious!" said Rawdon: meaning the absence of his man.

  At that moment we heard a step on the servants' stairs, and Rawdon opened the door to reveal Hawken descending with an armful of sheets and things.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Why!--" and a pause. "I was airing the clean laundry, like--not to waste the fire last thing."

  Hawken descended into the kitchen with a very flushed face and very bright eyes and rather ruffled hair, and proceeded to spread the linen on chairs before the fire.

  "I hope I've not done wrong, sir," he said in his most winning manner. "Was you ringing?"

  "Three times! Leave that linen and bring a bottle of the fizz."

  "I'm sorry, sir. You can't hear the bell from the front, sir."

  It was perfectly true. The house was small, but it had been built for a very nervous author, and the servants' quarters were shut off, padded from the rest of the house.

  Rawdon said no more about the sheets and things, but he looked more peaked than ever.

  We went back to the music-room. Janet had gone to the hearth, and stood with her hand on the mantel. She looked round at us, baffled.

  "We're having a bottle of fizz," said Rawdon. "Do let me take your wrap."

  "And where was Hawken?" she asked satirically.

  "Oh, busy somewhere upstairs."

  "He's a busy young man, that!" she said sardonically. And she sat uncomfortably on the edge of the chair where I had been sitting.

  When Hawken came with the tray, she said:

  "I'm not going to drink."

  Rawdon appealed to me, so I took a glass. She looked inquiringly at the flushed and bright-eyed Hawken, as if she understood something.

  The manservant left the room. We drank our wine, and the awkwardness returned.

  "Rawdon!" she said suddenly, as if she were firing a revolver at him. "Alec came home to-night in a bigger mess than ever, and wanted to make love to me to get it off his mind. I can't stand it any more. I'm in love with you, and I simply can't stand Alec getting too near to me. He's dangerous when he's crossed--and when he's worked up. So I just came here. I didn't see what else I could do."

  She left off as suddenly as a machine-gun leaves off firing. We were just dazed.

  "You are quite right," Rawdon began, in a vague and neutral tone. . . .

  "I am, am I not?" she said eagerly.

  "I'll tell you what I'll do," he said. "I'll go round to the hotel to-night, and you can stay here."

  "Under the kindly protection of Hawken, you mean!" she said, with quiet sarcasm.

  "Why!--I could send Mrs. Betts, I suppose," he said.

  Mrs. Betts was his housekeeper.

  "You couldn't stay and protect me yourself?" she said quietly.

  "I! I! Why, I've made a vow--haven't I, Joe?"--he turned to me--"not to have any woman sleep under my roof again."--He got the mixed sour smile on his face.

  She looked up at the ceiling for a moment, then lapsed into silence. Then she said:

  "Sort of monastery, so to speak!"

  And she rose and reached for her wrap, adding:

  "I'd better go, then."

  "Joe will see you home," he said.

  She faced round on me.

  "Do you mind not seeing me home, Mr. Bradley?" she said, gazing at me.

  "Not if you don't want me," said I.

  "Hawken will drive you," said Rawdon.

  "Oh, no, he won't!" she said. "I'll walk. Good-night."

  "I'll get my hat," stammered Rawdon, in an agony. "Wait! Wait! The gate will be locked."

  "It was open when I came," she said.

  He rang for Hawken to unlock the iron doors at the end of the short drive, whilst he himself huddled into a greatcoat and scarf, fumbling for a flashlight.

  "You won't go till I come back, will you?" he pleaded to me. "I'd be awfully glad if you'd stay the night. The sheets will be aired."

  I had to promise--and he set off with an umbrella, in the rain, at the same time asking Hawken to take a flashlight and go in front. So that was how they went, in single file along the path over the fields to Mrs. Drummond's house, Hawken in front, with flashlight and umbrella, curving round to light up in front of Mrs. Drummond, who, with umbrella only, walked isolated between two lights, Rawdon shining his flashlight on her from the rear from under his umbrella. I turned indoors.

  So that was over! At least, for the moment!

  I thought I would go upstairs and see how damp the bed in the guest-chamber was before I actually stayed the night with Rawdon. He never had guests--preferred to go away himself.

  The guest-chamber was a good room across a passage and round a corner from Rawdon's room--its door just opposite the padded service-door. This latter service-door stood open, and a light shone through. I went into the spare bedroom, switching on the light.

  To my surprise, the bed looked as if it had just been left--the sheets tumbled, the pillows pressed. I put in my hands under the bedclothes, and it was warm. Very curious!

  As I stood looking round in mild wonder, I heard a voice call softly: "Joe!"

  "Yes!" said I instinctively, and, though startled, strode at once out of the room and through the servants' door, towards the voice. Light shone from the open doorway of one of the servants' rooms.

  There was a muffled little shriek, and I was standing looking into what was probably Hawken's bedroom, and seeing a soft and pretty white leg and a pretty feminine posterior very thinly dimmed in a rather short night-dress, just in the act of climbing into a narrow little bed, and, then arrested, the owner of the pretty posterior burying her face in the bed-clothes, to be invisible, like the ostrich in the sand.

  I discreetly withdrew, went downstairs and poured myself a glass of wine. And very shortly Rawdon returned looking like Hamlet in the last act.

  He said nothing, neither did I. We sat and merely smoked. Only as he was seeing me upstairs to bed, in the now immaculate bedroom, he said pathetically:

  "Why aren't women content to be what a man wants them to be?"

  "Why aren't they!" said I wearily.

  "I thought I had made everything clear," he said.

  "You start at the wrong end," said I.

  And as I said it, the picture came into my mind of the pretty feminine butt-end in Hawken's bedroom. Yes, Hawken made better starts, wherever he ended.

  When he brought me my cup of tea in the morning, he was very soft and cat-like. I asked him what sort of day it was, and he asked me if I'd had a good night, and was I comfortable.

  "Very comfortable!" said I. "But I turned you out, I'm afraid."

  "Me, sir?" He turned on me a face of utter bewilderment.

  But I looked him in the eye.

  "Is your name Joe?" I asked him.

  "You're right, sir."

  "So is mine," said I. "However, I didn't see her face, so it's all right. I suppose you were a bit tight, in that little bed!"

  "Well, sir!" and he flashed me a smile of amazing impudence, and lowered his ton
e to utter confidence. "This is the best bed in the house, this is." And he touched it softly.

  "You've not tried them all, surely?"

  A look of indignant horror on his face!

  "No, sir, indeed I haven't."

  That day, Rawdon left for London, on his way to Tunis, and Hawken was to follow him. The roof of his house looked just the same.

  The Drummonds moved too--went away somewhere, and left a lot of unsatisfied tradespeople behind.

  STRIKE-PAY

  Strike-money is paid in the Primitive Methodist Chapel. The crier was round quite early on Wednesday morning to say that paying would begin at ten o'clock.

  The Primitive Methodist Chapel is a big barn of a place, built, designed, and paid for by the colliers themselves. But it threatened to fall down from its first form, so that a professional architect had to be hired at last to pull the place together.

  It stands in the Square. Forty years ago, when Bryan and Wentworth opened their pits, they put up the "squares" of miners' dwellings. They are two great quadrangles of houses, enclosing a barren stretch of ground, littered with broken pots and rubbish, which forms a square, a great, sloping, lumpy playground for the children, a drying-ground for many women's washing.

  Wednesday is still wash-day with some women. As the men clustered round the Chapel, they heard the thud-thud-thud of many pouches, women pounding away at the wash-tub with a wooden pestle. In the Square the white clothes were waving in the wind from a maze of clothes-lines, and here and there women were pegging out, calling to the miners, or to the children who dodged under the flapping sheets.

  Ben Townsend, the Union agent, has a bad way of paying. He takes the men in order of his round, and calls them by name. A big, oratorical man with a grey beard, he sat at the table in the Primitive school-room, calling name after name. The room was crowded with colliers, and a great group pushed up outside. There was much confusion. Ben dodged from the Scargill Street list to the Queen Street. For this Queen Street men were not prepared. They were not to the fore.

  "Joseph Grooby--Joseph Grooby! Now, Joe, where are you?"

  "Hold on a bit, Sorry!" cried Joe from outside. "I'm shovin' up."

  There was a great noise from the men.

  "I'm takin' Queen Street. All you Queen Street men should be ready. Here you are, Joe," said the Union agent loudly.

  "Five children!" said Joe, counting the money suspiciously.

  "That's right, I think," came the mouthing voice. "Fifteen shillings, is it not?"

  "A bob a kid," said the collier.

  "Thomas Sedgwick--How are you, Tom? Missis better?"

  "Ay, 'er's shapin' nicely. Tha'rt hard at work to-day, Ben." This was sarcasm on the idleness of a man who had given up the pit to become a Union agent.

  "Yes. I rose at four to fetch the money."

  "Dunna hurt thysen," was the retort, and the men laughed.

  "No--John Merfin!"

  But the colliers, tired with waiting, excited by the strike spirit, began to rag. Merfin was young and dandiacal. He was choir-master at the Wesleyan Chapel.

  "Does your collar cut, John?" asked a sarcastic voice out of the crowd.

  "Hymn Number Nine.

  'Diddle-diddle dumpling, my son John

  Went to bed with his best suit on,'"

  came the solemn announcement.

  Mr. Merfin, his white cuffs down to his knuckles, picked up his half-sovereign, and walked away loftily.

  "Sam Coutts!" cried the paymaster.

  "Now, lad, reckon it up," shouted the voice of the crowd, delighted.

  Mr. Coutts was a straight-backed ne'er-do-well. He looked at his twelve shillings sheepishly.

  "Another two-bob--he had twins a-Monday night--get thy money, Sam, tha's earned it--tha's addled it, Sam; dunna go be-out it. Let him ha' the two bob for 'is twins, mister," came the clamour from the men around.

  Sam Coutts stood grinning awkwardly.

  "You should ha' given us notice, Sam," said the paymaster suavely. "We can make it all right for you next week--"

  "Nay, nay, nay," shouted a voice. "Pay on delivery--the goods is there right enough."

  "Get thy money, Sam, tha's addled it," became the universal cry, and the Union agent had to hand over another florin, to prevent a disturbance. Sam Coutts grinned with satisfaction.

  "Good shot, Sam," the men exclaimed.

  "Ephraim Wharmby," shouted the pay-man.

  A lad came forward.

  "Gi' him sixpence for what's on t'road," said a sly voice.

  "Nay, nay," replied Ben Townsend; "pay on delivery."

  There was a roar of laughter. The miners were in high spirits.

  In the town they stood about in gangs, talking and laughing. Many sat on their heels in the market-place. In and out of the public-houses they went, and on every bar the half-sovereigns clicked.

  "Comin' ter Nottingham wi' us, Ephraim?" said Sam Coutts to the slender, pale young fellow of about twenty-two.

  "I'm non walkin' that far of a gleamy day like this."

  "He has na got the strength," said somebody, and a laugh went up.

  "How's that?" asked another pertinent voice.

  "He's a married man, mind yer," said Chris Smitheringale, "an' it ta'es a bit o' keepin' up."

  The youth was teased in this manner for some time.

  "Come on ter Nottingham wi's; tha'll be safe for a bit," said Coutts.

  A gang set off, although it was only eleven o'clock. It was a nine-mile walk. The road was crowded with colliers travelling on foot to see the match between Notts and Aston Villa. In Ephraim's gang were Sam Coutts, with his fine shoulders and his extra florin, Chris Smitheringale, fat and smiling, and John Wharmby, a remarkable man, tall, erect as a soldier, black-haired and proud; he could play any musical instrument, he declared.

  "I can play owt from a comb up'ards. If there's music to be got outer a thing, I back I'll get it. No matter what shape or form of instrument you set before me, it doesn't signify if I nivir clapped eyes on it before, I's warrant I'll have a tune out of it in five minutes."

  He beguiled the first two miles so. It was true, he had caused a sensation by introducing the mandoline into the townlet, filling the hearts of his fellow-colliers with pride as he sat on the platform in evening dress, a fine soldierly man, bowing his black head, and scratching the mewing mandoline with hands that had only to grasp the "instrument" to crush it entirely.

  Chris stood a can round at the "White Bull" at Gilt Brook. John Wharmby took his turn at Kimberley top.

  "We wunna drink again," they decided, "till we're at Cinder Hill. We'll non stop i' Nuttall."

  They swung along the high-road under the budding trees. In Nuttall churchyard the crocuses blazed with yellow at the brim of the balanced, black yews. White and purple crocuses dipt up over the graves, as if the churchyard were bursting out in tiny tongues of flame.

  "Sithee," said Ephraim, who was an ostler down pit, "sithee, here comes the Colonel. Sithee at his 'osses how they pick their toes up, the beauties!"

  The Colonel drove past the men, who took no notice of him.

  "Hast heard, Sorry," said Sam, "as they're com'n out i' Germany, by the thousand, an' begun riotin'?"

  "An' comin' out i' France simbitar," cried Chris.

  The men all gave a chuckle.

  "Sorry," shouted John Wharmby, much elated, "we oughtna ter go back under a twenty per cent rise."

  "We should get it," said Chris.

  "An' easy! They can do nowt bi-out us, we'n on'y ter stop out long enough."

  "I'm willin'," said Sam, and there was a laugh. The colliers looked at one another. A thrill went through them as if an electric current passed.

  "We'n on'y ter stick out, an' we s'll see who's gaffer."

  "Us!" cried Sam. "Why, what can they do again' us, if we come out all over th' world?"

  "Nowt!" said John Wharmby. "Th' mesters is bobbin' about like corks on a cassivoy a'ready." There was a large natural reservoir, l
ike a lake, near Bestwood, and this supplied the simile.

  Again there passed through the men that wave of elation, quickening their pulses. They chuckled in their throats. Beyond all consciousness was this sense of battle and triumph in the hearts of the working-men at this juncture.

  It was suddenly suggested at Nuttall that they should go over the fields to Bulwell, and into Nottingham that way. They went single file across the fallow, past the wood, and over the railway, where now no trains were running. Two fields away was a troop of pit ponies. Of all colours, but chiefly of red or brown, they clustered thick in the field, scarcely moving, and the two lines of trodden earth patches showed where fodder was placed down the field.

  "Theer's the pit 'osses," said Sam. "Let's run 'em."

  "It's like a circus turned out. See them skewbawd 'uns--seven skewbawd," said Ephraim.

  The ponies were inert, unused to freedom. Occasionally one walked round. But there they stood, two thick lines of ruddy brown and piebald and white, across the trampled field. It was a beautiful day, mild, pale blue, a "growing day", as the men said, when there was the silence of swelling sap everywhere.

  "Let's ha'e a ride," said Ephraim.

  The younger men went up to the horses.

  "Come on--co-oop, Taffy--co-oop, Ginger."

  The horses tossed away. But having got over the excitement of being above-ground, the animals were feeling dazed and rather dreary. They missed the warmth and the life of the pit. They looked as if life were a blank to them.

  Ephraim and Sam caught a couple of steeds, on whose backs they went careering round, driving the rest of the sluggish herd from end to end of the field. The horses were good specimens, on the whole, and in fine condition. But they were out of their element.

  Performing too clever a feat, Ephraim went rolling from his mount. He was soon up again, chasing his horse. Again he was thrown. Then the men proceeded on their way.

  They were drawing near to miserable Bulwell, when Ephraim, remembering his turn was coming to stand drinks, felt in his pocket for his beloved half-sovereign, his strike-pay. It was not there. Through all his pockets he went, his heart sinking like lead.

  "Sam," he said, "I believe I'n lost that ha'ef a sovereign."