Читать книгу The Wilderness Mine - Harold Bindloss - Страница 7

Table of Contents

A week or two after his talk with his wife, Creighton and Ruth one morning left Iveghyll in the small car. A quantity of heavy luggage was strapped on the back, and when Mrs. Creighton kissed her daughter at the steps, she felt she had in an important sense done her duty to the girl. Smart clothes meant much to Mrs. Creighton; they were a sign of the rank that she rightfully enjoyed. Yet she would not go with her husband to put Ruth in the train. Excitement and emotion were not good for her, since her heart was weak, and Creighton smiled with bitter humor when she stated why she could not come. Janet's weak heart was a convenience now and then.

His feelings were rather mixed as he drove down the dale. He noted that Ruth's hands trembled as she pulled up the rug, although she had some color and her eyes sparkled. She was young and had never gone away alone; after all, to leave her quiet home for a foreign city was something of an adventure for a girl. Yet Ruth had pluck, and he knew that in spite of some natural shrinking she meant to seize the chance he had given her.

Creighton was glad he had done so, although he would miss Ruth much. She was kind and staunch, and he turned to her for comfort when his wife jarred on him. Ruth was not a fool; he saw she knew his slackness but hid her disapproval. Well, he had arranged that she should study at Munich for a year, and now, while he sympathized with her high hopes, he wondered rather gloomily whether he had been rash. In a sense, it had not cost him much, but he was embarrassed by Janet's extravagance and the expense might, so to speak, be enough to turn the scale. So far, he had somehow kept the balance even; now the beam was obviously tilting.

By and by the car ran out of the dale and in front brown moorland and thin pasture rolled down to the sea. The landscape was stern and bleak. Ragged stone walls marked off the gray squares of fields, since the starved grass was never really green. The small farmsteads were, for the most part, tarred to keep out the rain, and bitter winds had bent the ash-trees that grew about the walls. In the distance were villages, surrounded by chimney stacks and colliery winding-towers, and long trails of smoke from the furnaces blew along the shore.

"The low country's charm is not very obvious, and I doubt if its look is deceptive," Creighton remarked. "One wonders why men were allowed to build villages like these. Ugliness is not needful, as some people think; I don't know if it's always cheap. If I were a free-agent, I think I'd stay in the dale, where all's green and quiet and one is out of the wind."

Ruth smiled. She knew her father, but she loved, and made allowances for him.

"You don't like ugliness," she said. "Yet men do useful work, and money's earned, at the furnaces and in the coal pits."

"Sometimes money's lost," Creighton rejoined. "Anyhow, it's horribly hard to earn and one gets tired."

Ruth gave him a sympathetic nod. She had seen the lines on his forehead get deeper recently.

"I know! It is not the work, but the wondering. Things would be easier if one knew one would make good. But you and Stayward are near success."

"Stayward believes this. John is never despondent and tired. He's indomitable—I think it's the proper word—like your mother. I don't know if it's unlucky we're not all like that."

"Pluck is a great thing," Ruth said thoughtfully. "One can remove many obstacles when one is not afraid."

"But not all, I think," Creighton remarked.

Ruth knitted her straight brows. "You mustn't daunt me, father. I need encouraging. You have been very generous, and, for your sake and mine, I feel the venture I'm making must be justified. The trouble is, I really have not much pluck, and now when I try to be confident, I doubt. One can get mechanical skill, if one works hard enough; but suppose I haven't the vital spark of genius? If there is a spark, one can help it to burn by study, but one cannot light it. Unless it springs up spontaneously, your art is dead and cold."

"You have the spark," Creighton declared. "I knew long since, when we heard the boys sing in the cathedral. You were very young, but I do not think you moved and I saw your eyes shine, as if the treble voices called and you meant to follow. I wondered where."

"Oh!" said Ruth, "they carried me to a world where nobody ever fails and there is nothing ugly and mean. I often think about that evensong—the light fading behind the pillars, the glimmer of the big red and green window, and the voices echoing along the high roof. You taught me the beauty of music then, and now you have given me another gift; the chance I'll always remember, if I succeed or not——"

She paused and resumed with some emotion: "I'm frank because you always understand. I mean to be a musician, if it's possible, and you have helped me to find out if it is. That is very much. You see, dear, it would be dreadful to look back afterwards and feel one might have been a great player and was not because one had never been allowed to try one's powers. Now, if I do fail, I'll know I could not have gone far along the path I love, and I hope I'll have the pluck to take another."

"You have pluck," said Creighton quietly. "It's your mother's gift. Mine was less desirable; I taught you to feel——"

He broke off, for they ran through a mining village, where children whose clogs rattled on the stones were going to school, and soon afterwards he stopped the car at a bleak, smoke-stained station by the sea. They had not long to wait and when the train rolled in Ruth put her arms round Creighton's neck and kissed him.

"I shall miss you and perhaps you will miss me. I'd rather like you to, but you mustn't bother at all; I'm going to be absorbed in work," she said. "When you write, tell me about the invention and the retorts. I expect they will make you and Stayward famous before I come back."

The whistle blew and Creighton jumped down from the step. Ruth waved her hand, he saw her face at the window for a moment or two, and then the train rolled through an arch and she was gone. Creighton walked back to his car, feeling strangely flat. He had sent her off, found her the longed-for opportunity to try her powers, and now, when he was lonely, he must meet the bill. The bill was not large. Indeed, it was strange he could help Ruth at so small a cost, but as he drove to the bank he thought bitterly about his wife's shabby ambitions and extravagance.

The bank was small and dingy. Soot grimed the windows that shook with the measured throb of a big mining pump. While Creighton waited at the counter there was a harsh rattle as a loaded cage came up a neighboring coal pit. Putting down the check he had given his wife, he said to the clerk:

"Enter this sum to Mrs. Creighton's account, and then she can draw the money when she likes."

"Certainly," said the clerk, who took the check and went behind a partition, where Creighton heard him put a heavy book on a desk. Then a door opened quietly and Creighton frowned, because he thought he knew what this meant.

"Mr. Evans would like to see you," the clerk stated when he came back.

Creighton followed him to an adjoining room, and did not feel much comforted when the bank manager, sitting in front of his big desk, looked up with a friendly smile. He knew Evans, who was urbane but firm.

"A fine morning, Mr. Creighton, although the wind is cold," he remarked. "Well, about this little check; we will, of course, meet Mrs. Creighton's demands to the full amount; but I expect you'll need the usual sum for wages and the payment you generally make the builders at the end of the month?"

"That is so," Creighton replied. "In fact, since we have been forced to use an extra lot of fire-bricks, we'll need a larger sum."

"Oh, well," said the manager, smiling, "I expect you will soon get your money back. To keep one's plant up to date is an excellent plan. Still, you see, in the meantime——"

His pause was significant and Creighton tried to brace himself. Stayward left him to look after their accounts and he had known money was very short, but he had for some time neglected to find out exactly where they stood. This was not altogether carelessness; he had been half afraid to study the books. Now, however, it looked as if the reckoning he had weakly put off had come.

"I suppose you mean we will be in the bank's debt when the wages and the builders are paid?" he suggested.

"A little on the wrong side," the manager agreed urbanely. "The improvements you are making are, no doubt, a sound investment. All the same, you will need a good sum at the end of the month and the balance is against you."

"How much?" Creighton asked anxiously.

When Evans told him he made an abrupt movement. From the beginning Stayward and he had not had enough capital and his invention had not worked well at first. They had been forced to alter the ovens and distilling plant as they went on; spending on improvements money they got for their coke. Although it had been a struggle, they had kept going, and but for Mrs. Creighton's demands Creighton imagined they might have continued to do so. Things, however, were worse than he had thought, and the last check, so to speak, had tipped the beam.

"Well," he said as coolly as possible, "we are pretty good customers and expect to get two or three large sums before very long. Our accounts with the blast-furnace owners are sent in quarterly."

"This leaves you on the wrong side for some time. Besides, I expect you find one's debtors don't always pay when they ought."

"That is so," Creighton agreed. "However, the people who use our stuff are honest and generally punctual. The time is not long, and as soon as we get paid I'll send the checks across."

Evans shook his head, regretfully. "The trouble is our directors don't allow a manager much discretion; head-office rules are strict, you know. Then one can't tell when a traveling auditor may arrive."

"You mean, if you are to cash our checks, you must have a guarantee for the over-draft?"

"Something like that," said Evans, in an apologetic voice. "A matter of form! We won't be very particular about the security; anything we can show an auditor will meet the bill."

Creighton's forehead got wet. He had no security to offer and doubted if Stayward had. Yet it was obvious they must find something to pledge, or the works must stop. One could not put off the payment of wages, and he could not give the bank a bond on the buildings and ovens, because they were already mortgaged. But this was not all. Stayward, concentrating on another side of the business, had left the books to him, and he had let things go until the house was threatened by bankruptcy. Stayward had staked his all on the venture and was very hard. Creighton shrank when he thought about his anger. Yet, if they could hold out for a few weeks, things might improve and Stayward need not know.

"Then, I suppose you really cannot wait until we get some money from our customers?" he said with a carelessness that cost him an effort.

"I'm sorry," the manager replied. "I'd have liked to help, but rules are rules, you know. Bring me something we can use to satisfy the auditor and we'll meet your demands."

Creighton nodded, although he was not deceived. He knew the security he brought Evans must be sound.

"Very well! I must talk to Stayward and see what we can do."

He thought Evans looked rather hard at him, but he remarked that this was the best plan and Creighton went out. When he reached the works he found some spirit they distilled from the tar would not stand the proper tests and for two or three hours he was occupied in his laboratory. Then Stayward joined him at the plain lunch that was brought to the office, and went off a few minutes afterwards. Stayward was not given to talk. When he had gone, Creighton returned to the laboratory and puzzled about the impurities in the spirit. To account for them was an awkward problem, but Creighton knew something about chemistry. The trouble was, he had forgotten much in the years when he loafed, and indulgence had blunted his skill. It was sometimes obvious he had once been a better man.

All the same, his work engrossed him and concentration was something of a relief. When evening came he had solved the problem and began to grapple with another that was worse. Stayward had gone off with a colliery manager. They did not keep a clerk, and Creighton was alone in the small office when he opened the safe.

For a time he studied books and documents, made calculations, and tore up the papers; and then pushed back his chair and wiped his face. His skin was wet with sweat and his brows were knit, but for some minutes he sat still, absorbed by gloomy thought. The day laborers had gone and the works were nearly quiet. A plume of steam went up outside the window and big drops fell on the iron roof. Now and then a shovel clinked and he heard the rattle of a truck.

Creighton pulled himself together. Although there was nothing he could lawfully pledge, he must not be fastidious. Money must be got, and he thought he saw a plan. He had long been rash and now must run another risk. It was the worst he had run, but if things went well, he would be on safe ground again when payment for the coke arrived.

They had stock on hand, coking coal that Evans would, no doubt, take as guarantee for a loan. Since the coal was not paid for, Creighton admitted that it did not really belong to them, but Evans did not know this and before long he would be able to redeem the stock. He would have to give Evans some kind of a formal transfer and must see him about this in the morning. In the meantime, he was tired after a disturbing day, and locking the office, he went for his car.