Читать книгу The rainproof invention: or, Some tangled threads - Emily Poynton Weaver - Страница 5

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THE NORBURY HOUSEHOLD.

It was almost noon before Stanton was summoned to Mr. Norbury’s presence. He had spent the time of waiting in a lively conversation with Bob, who had not troubled himself to make even a pretense of working except when Mr. Norbury’s door opened; then a spasmodic fit of industry seized him and he wrote diligently for a few seconds, only to relapse into his former state as soon as the door closed. Yet, if work had been pressing, Littleton would have done as much as any one. His notions of morality forbade him to idle when he conceived that his master’s interests required industry, but on such occasions as the present he felt perfectly free to enjoy himself if he could.

Whether or not his companions argued the matter as he did, in their case also there was rather the appearance than the reality of industry, for Stanton’s conversation was interesting. Ralph Warrington, indeed, endeavored to attend strictly to his occupation, for it was due to himself to give his employer the time he had bought, but even Ralph could not refrain entirely from listening to the stranger’s entertaining talk. “Noblesse oblige” was Warrington’s motto; but, though good enough in its way, it is a poor stronghold in the hour of temptation, and occasionally it failed him.

Bob had embarked in an eager defense of his favorite style of music, which Stanton had spoken of disparagingly. In the excitement of the moment he was about to illustrate his argument by an example, when Stanton raised a warning hand, the door of the inner office opened sharply, and Mr. Norbury came out. Bob began to scratch away with his pen, but his dreaded chief came slowly down the long room to his desk.

“What have you been doing this morning, Littleton?” he asked sternly.

Bob showed him silently. Mr. Norbury frowned and rebuked him sharply, telling him that if such a thing happened again, he would be dismissed on the spot.

Bob looked abashed, and inwardly resolved to mend his ways; but it was not the first time he had received such a reprimand, nor would it be the last.

The great man appeared to have forgotten Stanton altogether, and was leaving the room without a word to him, when that young man rose and stated his errand. Mr. Norbury made no immediate answer, but led the way into his own room and, throwing himself into a chair, began a long and rigorous examination as to the aspirant’s qualifications, with the inquiry that commences the Church of England catechism, “What is your name?”

“Mark Stanton.”

“Your age?”

“Twenty-four, sir.”

“What experience have you had?”

Satisfied on this point, Mr. Norbury proceeded to the question of salary. He explained the work that was to be done, and named so small a sum as remuneration for it that the young man was visibly disappointed, and brought down upon himself an angry tirade “on the folly and absurdity of setting too high a value on himself.” Nevertheless, as Stanton had been out of a situation for more than three months, he humbled himself before the impatient old man, and soon saw that his deferential tones were doing their work. He had made a favorable impression, and though Mr. Norbury continued to question him closely, his manner was less disagreeable than at first. Stanton had excellent references, and the master of the mills finally decided to give him a short trial as traveler for the “Patent Rainproof Cloth.”

Bob was leaving the office as he passed through it, and out of the goodness of his heart invited the stranger to dine with him. Stanton accepted the invitation gratefully.

“Well, has he engaged you?” was Bob’s first question.

“Yes, on trial, as traveler. I’d sooner do anything else; but I’ve been out of a situation for weeks, and beggars can’t be choosers.”

“Well, I think you’re lucky; it’s better than bookkeeping anyway. What did you think of old Norbury?”

“I thought him rather—peculiar. He is a little brusque in manner, isn’t he?”

“Brusque! I should say he is! Did you notice the way he spoke to me? I might have been a schoolboy doing my copy.”

Stanton laughed. “He is painfully suggestive of a schoolmaster, now you mention it.”

“Warrington used to say that it was because of his being a self-made man; but that was before Miss Norbury came home. Ralph can’t see any good in people who haven’t a pedigree as long as his own; that is, in any one except Miss Norbury.”

“Then she hasn’t a pedigree?”

“Not that I ever heard of; and I know as much of the family as most people. Mr. Norbury’s father—he’s a very old man now—was a stone mason at Inglefield, and he lives there still in a tiny cottage near the park. He is very proud of ‘our James,’ I can tell you. He thinks there’s not another man in the world to match him for cleverness. He says he’s ‘a great scholar,’ though I don’t believe he went to school for more than six months in his life.”

“But, surely, you don’t mean to say”—

“Yes; it’s true. I knew his father when I was quite a bit of a lad. I have heard it many a time.”

“How can he manage his business with such an education as that?”

“Oh, he taught himself, I suppose; I don’t know. At any rate, he learned enough to get into Monitor & Co.’s mills before he was twenty.”

“He must have had lots of pluck,” said Stanton with a note of admiration in his voice; “but how did he start for himself?”

“He scraped and saved like a miser for nearly ten years, and learned everything about the working of the business, and all the while he was grinding away at his patent. At last he got it perfect; then he left Inglefield and married and set up for himself.”

“Do you mean to say he contrived to save enough in ten years to start a factory with?”

“Yes, unless he borrowed something. I dare say he got better pay than we do,—the Monitor people are not such screws as he is,—but of course he started in a very small way. He had a little, old place down by the river at first; it wouldn’t begin to hold his machines now.”

“He must have been a lucky fellow.”

“Well, I suppose he worked hard for what he’s got. At Inglefield he never took a day’s holiday, they say. I doubt if I’d slave so, even if I was certain of a fortune at fifty—and inventions are nasty, tricky things. It’s ten chances to one that you’ll do the work and some one else get the benefit.”

“Well, it hasn’t been so with him. I heard yesterday that he’s the richest man in Wharton.”

“I don’t believe it; Mr. Blackmore could buy him up twice over, but he’ll be richer yet, I dare say. He’s wearing his life out now trying to invent some improvement in the ‘Rainproof.’ His business is everything to him, and if you want to get into his good graces you must pay proper respect to that.”

Stanton was silent for some minutes; then, either because his curiosity was insatiable, or because his politeness did not permit him to let the conversation flag, he began again.

“You have spoken several times of Miss Norbury; has he any other children?”

“No, only Elsie.”

“Is Mrs. Norbury still living?”

“Yes. If you come into the office, you’ll soon know all about them. Miss Norbury always makes the acquaintance of any new fellow as soon as she can.”

“How do you know that?”

“How do I know anything? Mark my words, within the month you will know Miss Norbury. She will meet you somewhere, or she will make her father ask you up to supper.”

“What sort of a girl is she? Pretty, of course?”

“Why ‘of course’? All girls are not pretty!”

“No, but surely Miss Norbury”—

“Hush!” exclaimed Bob. “There she is.”

Stanton looked with some interest at the young lady who was approaching them. She was tall and slight, graceful in figure and carriage, but not pretty. The shape of her face was better than its coloring, for her complexion was pale and not very clear, and her blue-gray eyes might have been darker with advantage. Her features were rather commonplace in character; they had not even any striking defect. Her hair was brown, of a moderately dark shade, and was straight by nature, though it was rendered wavy or curly by art as fashion demanded. When her face was at rest, it usually wore a gentle, pensive, rather sentimental expression; whether or not it was a true index to her character remains to be seen.

She came quickly down the street, and was seemingly in a hurry, but she did not forget to bow and smile to Bob, and after that Stanton wondered less at the clerks’ admiration of her. Such a smile! it was like the beauty of unexpected sunshine, almost bewildering and dazzling in its radiance. Her whole face woke up and brightened into something more charming than beauty. She might be plain when she was grave, but she was bewitching when she smiled.

Bob’s account of the mill owner and his family had been correct in most particulars. Taking one year with another, Mr. Norbury’s profits had increased and his business had extended steadily, and if he could succeed in his new experiment his future prospects would be brilliant. For many years he had given all the time he could possibly spare to working at the improvement of his patent, and had often seemed on the very point of success, but, like the water of Tantalus, the secret constantly eluded him. He was almost weary of the struggle, but he could not bear to be beaten, and, wealthy though he was, he was not half satisfied with the position he had attained. He was accustomed to judge men rather by what they possessed than by what they were, and, strange to say, he measured himself by the same standard. He never attempted to conceal the fact that he had risen from the lower ranks; he felt that the fact was nothing to be ashamed of, and he was not ashamed. But he did not stop there; he admired neither intellect nor goodness unless its possessor were wealthy. In his eyes that man had done best who had amassed the largest fortune by his own exertions.

He was not parsimonious, however. He liked spending money as well as getting and keeping it. Misers he abhorred, regarding them as useless to the community and particularly in the way of those who are entirely dependent on their own efforts. He was fond of saying that he “owed nothing to his parents,” but he did not, therefore, forget the relationship. James Norbury was a good son, and had provided for his father generously for many years. It was not his fault that the old man did not share more largely in the good things he had won, for he had begged him again and again to leave his little cottage at Inglefield, and to take up his abode in his more luxurious dwelling-place in Wharton.

Miss Norbury by no means regretted the old man’s decision. It was a constant annoyance to her that her father never forgot the humble position from which he had risen. Elsie was well educated and well read; she dressed well and was admitted to the best society that the smoky little manufacturing town afforded, but after all she was only a workingman’s grand-daughter. It was one of her standing grievances that Mr. Norbury would insist on talking of the humble circumstances in which he had been brought up, even when he might have concealed the fact. Though never exactly a polished man, his manners and mode of speech would hardly have betrayed him, for in his earlier days he had shown considerable quickness and dexterity in accommodating himself to the society into which he was thrown. Now indeed, as his position became more assured, he troubled himself less about being agreeable, and was sometimes so aggressive in his self-assertion that Elsie was seriously ashamed of him, and bitterly lamented her hard fate in being a “nobody,” as she phrased it.

Perhaps no one else thought as much of her disadvantages of birth as she supposed, unless it might be Ralph Warrington, for she had inherited a double portion of her father’s old adaptability of manner. She exerted herself to please, and she succeeded; people often called her “a fascinating woman,” and she was a great favorite in Wharton. She possessed some quickness in acquiring information, and as she had had good teachers, she was generally reckoned clever, and perhaps she was. She had “finished her education” (to use the current phrase) about twelve months before my story opens. The two previous years she had spent on the Continent in the study of French, German, and music, so she was not without accomplishments.

For years her father and mother had lived comfortably but unostentatiously in a good-sized, rambling, old-fashioned house in the older part of the town. It was built directly on the street, which was so narrow that two vehicles had barely room to pass. There was a tiny strip of garden at the back, but it was too small and dusty to be of much use. To make matters worse, the neighboring houses were so shabby and poor that they were being gradually abandoned by all who had any pretensions to gentility. It was not surprising, therefore, that when Elsie came home she did her utmost to persuade her father to remove to a “more respectable part of the town.” But in vain; the house was comfortable, and nothing would induce Mr. Norbury to leave it. At last Elsie gave up the struggle, and expended her energies on making its internal arrangements more refined and elegant than they had ever been under her mother’s rule. But she had learned a lesson. This time she went to work diplomatically, and by making only very gradual changes contrived to evade her father’s opposition. The shabby furniture, worn-out carpets, and hideous colored prints were deftly spirited away, and the old rooms began to look surprisingly cheerful and tasteful in their dainty freshness.

One thing was not so satisfactory to Mr. Norbury. The expenses of housekeeping mysteriously increased from the moment of his daughter’s home-coming, and the growth was greater as the year went on. But, after all, there was no reason why he should not indulge in luxuries that he could afford as easily as his neighbors. Perhaps they were even due to his position as a man of capital; and, as for never having been used to them, one man has as good a right as another to the good things of life, if he can pay for them. So Mr. Norbury was induced to argue, and Elsie had her way.

With regard to engaging extra servants it was the same. She contrived to touch his ready pride, and again she was allowed to arrange as she chose. He had a right, an infinitely better right, to all that his money could buy than those who owed everything to the accident of their birth. He had given a fair return for all he had made; it was the honest profit on honest labor, and he had a right to the good it brought. So, by way of asserting this right, he continually allowed Elsie to lead him into what, the year before, he would have stigmatized as “useless extravagances.”

Bob was wrong in declaring that Mr. Norbury’s business was “everything” to him. His business came first, but Elsie had a large share of his affections notwithstanding. It was the old story of “my ducats and my daughter”; but his interest in and affection for his daughter were perceptibly growing, so that it was at least possible that Elsie might eventually outweigh the factory in his estimation. But that is going far into the uncertain possibilities of the future; at present it was not so. Elsie was clever and graceful and bright—“good company”; a girl that any father might reasonably be proud of; but his best years had been given to his business and his patent, and they were still the dearest object of his life.

Mrs. Norbury, unlike her husband and daughter, had no energy, no strength of will, and was as weak of body as she was irresolute in mind. She was a nervous, superstitious, rather lachrymose woman, much given to the nursing of half-imaginary ailments that incapacitated her from taking her proper place as mistress of the house. She had very willingly delegated her authority to her daughter, and now she had nothing to do but to return the calls of their few visitors and to perplex herself with every variety of fancy knitting. She was not quick at copying the patterns she was always collecting, and the study of the complications into which wool and cotton may be twisted afforded abundant occupation for many a long hour.