Читать книгу The rainproof invention: or, Some tangled threads - Emily Poynton Weaver - Страница 9

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ARTHUR LESTER.

Nearly a week after they reached home Elsie was sitting at dusk in her own room, when the servant knocked at the door. “Mr. Lester has come, Miss Norbury,” she said. “Missus told me to tell you.”

“Very well, Mary; I will come down.”

Elsie was eager to see her unknown cousin. She stood for a moment in the dimly lighted hall before entering the drawing room. Arthur was standing before the fire on the side opposite the door. She had a good view of him from where she stood, though he did not see her. The young man was tall, slight, and decidedly good looking, and Elsie found herself comparing him with the small, delicate-looking little lad who had visited them twelve years before. He had altered greatly, though his hair was scarcely a shade darker, and his eyes were as clear and almost as blue as they had been in his childish days. He looked manlier than Elsie had expected, and altogether he impressed her very favorably. She began to think that they had lost a good deal in not keeping up the acquaintance with him, and already in imagination she pictured him as a devoted and very creditable addition to her train of admirers.

If Arthur had known what a scrutiny he was undergoing, he might have felt some degree of embarrassment, but he continued his chat with Mrs. Norbury in easy unconsciousness, and Elsie, on the door mat, grew quite enthusiastic in her observations. “He has nice manners,” she decided, “and such a pleasant voice!”

Mrs. Norbury was making not very original remarks on the discomforts of railway traveling, but indeed there are subjects on which it is impossible to be original, and Arthur was doing his best to pay proper attention, when Elsie at last thought fit to go into the room. “How do you do, Cousin Arthur?” she said, offering him her hand.

“Very well, thank you. I hope you are well, Cousin”—

“Elsie,” she filled in, seeing that he hesitated. “So you have forgotten even my name! That isn’t exactly complimentary.”

“I beg your pardon; but I am afraid you will soon discover that I never am complimentary,” said Arthur, smiling. “I have not the requisite talent.”

Elsie laughed. “I am glad you have given me fair warning. I must confess to a weakness for pretty speeches. Shall I ring for the tea, mother? Where is father? Isn’t he in yet? I am sure he will make himself ill again, if he isn’t more careful.”

Mr. Norbury came home late, too tired and cross to eat. Things had been going wrong at the factory, or rather he had discovered several mistakes that had been made in his absence, and he had worn himself out with scolding, first one person and then another. Every one in the office, from Warrington to Charley Milwood, had come in for his share of censure; and a general sulkiness pervaded the counting-house, which the master imprudently insisted on regarding as “deliberate impertinence.”

Arthur eyed his uncle rather gloomily, for the smoke of the many conflicts in which he had been engaged that afternoon still hung about him. His shaggy eyebrows were drawn together in a frown that naturally suggested ill-temper, and the corners of his set, determined-looking mouth had a downward inclination that by no means modified that expression.

Elsie made conversation for everybody, and the meal came to an end at last. Immediately afterwards Mr. Norbury requested his nephew’s attendance in the room which his daughter dignified by the name of the study, and put the young man through much the same sort of examination as that to which he had subjected Stanton. All the while he kept his eyes fixed sternly on Arthur’s face, as if he desired to catch him in some attempt to deceive. In reality, however, that was not his motive so much as a desire to learn what sort of man his nephew was. He looked at the face as the index to the character, and he flattered himself that he read men well. Mr. Norbury did not particularly admire Arthur’s well-cut features, for they brought too vividly to his memory the thought of the man whom he would never forgive for the wrong he had done poor Bessie; yet, though the blue eyes that Elsie liked so well had some faint suggestion of his long dead sister, he would willingly have forgotten her too, for he felt that his own conscience was not clear of wrong; moreover, beauty was a very secondary consideration with him. This time Arthur was fully aware of the severe scrutiny which he was undergoing, and was disposed to resent it as equally unkind and impolite.

Mr. Norbury was under the delusion that he preferred men with strong wills, and rightly or wrongly he set his nephew down as wanting in determination of character and the more solid qualities necessary for the successful transaction of business, and he was disappointed accordingly. As a matter of fact, however, it was notorious that he did not usually agree with people who had “wills of their own.” It was his custom to insist imperiously on having his own way regardless of other people’s preferences; and when, as occasionally happened, he met his match in dogged obstinacy a conflict ensued more lively than pleasant.

The oral examination satisfied the manufacturer better. He was pleased to hear that Lester thoroughly understood the important mysteries of bookkeeping, and that his experience had been of a kind likely to prove useful in his new position. Fortunately Arthur had the prudence to keep to himself the history of his experiences with editors, for the knowledge that he cherished such ambitions would have lowered him many degrees in his uncle’s estimation. Even as it was, his uncle warned him solemnly against fanciful and romantic notions, and impressed on him most earnestly the necessity of a thorough surrender of his time and talents to the interests of the “Rainproof.” He was careful to make no definite promises, but he dealt in vague hints of the grandeur of the position which it was in Arthur’s power to attain by industry and perseverance. To enforce the lesson he gave a slight sketch of his own history, in such a self-satisfied strain that Arthur hardly knew whether to be more amused at or ashamed of his self-made relative. And yet, if the story had been told by any one else, he would have been the first to acknowledge that there was something heroic in the patience and determination that had triumphed over difficulties so various and formidable.

When the business arrangements had been talked over, Mr. Norbury’s gruffness began to wear off, and for a little while he chatted really pleasantly on indifferent subjects. Arthur readily responded to his change of tone, and the impressions which each received of the other were not so distinctly unfavorable as at first they had promised to be.

Arthur came up to Wharton on Friday; and though there was not much to see in the neighborhood, Saturday was specially left free by Mr. Norbury for his nephew “to look about him.” Accordingly, he was thinking of beginning his pilgrimage soon after breakfast when Elsie came into the room with her hat on and said: “I have a little shopping to do in High Street, Arthur. Should you care to walk with me and take a look at the town? I should be glad of your company, if you would.”

“Thank you. I should like to come very much.”

“I am sorry to say,” said the young lady as they were walking down the street, “that there isn’t a single object of interest within walking distance, though I am grieved, for the honor of my native town, to be obliged to confess it.”

“Wharton must be unfortunate then. There is something in most places that the inhabitants are proud of; but don’t trouble yourself on my account. I shall enjoy the walk for its own sake, I assure you.”

Elsie laughed. “I am glad you are so easily pleased; but, really, Wharton is unfortunate. It is an ugly place in the midst of an ugly country. I suppose an artist wouldn’t find anything worth painting within ten miles; it does not possess a single building old enough to be interesting, and it has no history, no legends, no ghost stories even. As far as I can discover, nothing ever happened at Wharton; and, to add to all these negatives something positive, it is dirty, it is smoky, and it is noisy, as no doubt you have already discovered.”

“Are you not a little hard on Wharton? Your three positive facts are true of most large towns.”

“But it isn’t a large town; it’s the dullest little place on the face of the earth. You haven’t seen it at its worst yet, or you wouldn’t have a word to say for it. Wait till you have been through the winter and have tried Wharton mud and Wharton fogs! If you can defend it then, I’ll never say another word against it.”

“I doubt if Wharton fogs can be worse than some I’ve seen in London.”

“Oh, I know London fogs have a bad reputation; but it seems to me Wharton attains at times to the furthest limits of darkness and thickness. When my father met with his accident it was impossible to see half a yard before one, and he lost his way between the office and the house, though he knows the road so well. It was the first serious illness he ever had in his life.”

“It must be a great relief to you that he has recovered so completely.”

“I am rather afraid his recovery may scarcely be as complete as it appears. The doctors say his health will not be fully reëstablished for some time, and any excitement and anxiety or even overwork may lay him up again.”

“I had no idea that he had been so ill.”

“Oh, he was very ill for weeks! He felt it extremely on account of the business; its success depends so much on his own personal supervision. I think he has made a great mistake in keeping the thing so much in his own hands, and indeed he sees it now. I do hope,” she added confidentially, “that you will stay with us. It would be such a comfort to us all.”

So saying Elsie entered the shop whither she was bound, and, though there was no lack of conversation going home, Arthur avoided the subject of the factory, and Elsie, with her usual amiability, followed his lead and talked of books and music.

Meanwhile Lester’s coming had given rise to much discussion in the office. If there had been any truth in the old saying, his ears would have been burning most uncomfortably while he escorted his cousin on her walk.

Bob Littleton had been called into the private room on the previous afternoon, and had been requested to go to the station and direct Lester to the house, as Mr. Norbury found it impossible to meet him as he had promised. Bob had executed his commission with such good will that he had seen Lester safely on the doorstep of his uncle’s house before returning to enliven his friends at the office with all kinds of conjectures concerning the new arrival. The junior clerks, at any rate, were looking out for him eagerly on the following morning, but Mr. Norbury marched in alone, perhaps a little grimmer in aspect than usual, just before the clock struck nine.

“Perhaps,” suggested Johnson, “old Norbury’s illness has done him good, and he just wants to be a little friendly to him. I dare say, after all, he has only come on a visit.”

“It doesn’t look like friendliness; he’s cross enough to bite your head off this morning; besides, Lester said he had come to stay,” said Bob.

“What is he going to do?”

“I doubt if he knows; and, at any rate, I didn’t ask him.”

“Is he like Mr. Norbury?” demanded Charley Milwood.

“Not a bit of it, my son,” replied Bob with some contempt. “Wait till you see him.”

As usual, Warrington did not join in the conversation, but in his own mind he felt aggrieved at Mr. Norbury’s having asked his nephew to come, for he regarded it as a slight upon those who had been in the office before, especially upon himself. The scraps of conversation that drifted to him from the other end of the room did not improve his humor. “I should think,” he heard Bob say, “he must mean to train him for a kind of manager, so that he can look after the thing when he’s ill or goes off for a holiday, for the doctors say he’ll be bound now to take holidays once in a way. If that’s it, I don’t envy the fellow.”

“Neither do I,” chimed in Charley. “He’ll have a lively time when old Norbury comes home.”

But Warrington did not agree with them. If he must do office work at all, he disliked having people put over his head.

The conjectures of the clerks had come very near the truth. After a short period of probation, to test his nephew’s proficiency in the art of bookkeeping, Mr. Norbury, who was thorough if he was anything, required him to take a course of lessons in the whole mystery of manufacturing the material, from its first appearance in the form of bales of wool till it left the mills in the shape of thick rolls of cloth or garments ready for wear.

To tell the truth, this rigorous course of instruction was almost more than Lester had bargained for, and more than once, when half deafened by the roar of the machinery, he wished himself back at his quiet desk in London, doing the mechanical work that left his thoughts comparatively free. But he never gave expression to his discontent, and his uncle watched his progress with increasing though grim approval. After a time his dislike of the work lessened, and he began to take a strong interest both in the noisy machinery and in the hard-working men and girls who attended it. As for them, they could scarcely say enough in praise of Mr. Lester, though they generally brought their commendation to a climax by the uncomplimentary assertion that “no one could think he comed o’ the same family as the master”!

The feelings of the clerks with respect to him were mingled. Most of them regarded him with a friendliness and pity for his hard fate, in which might be traced the merest touch of envy. Bob and Mr. Milwood were his stanchest friends, and Ralph Warrington was not far from being his enemy. The reason was easy to find. Elsie Norbury was currently reported to smile on Lester.