Helbeck of Bannisdale Volume I Part 34

He sulkily explained to her that work was unusually slack in his own yard; that, moreover, he had worked special overtime during the week in order to get an hour or two off this Sat.u.r.day, and that Seaton was on night duty at a large engineering "works," and lord therefore of his days. But she paid small attention. She was occupied in looking at the new buildings and streets, the brand new squares and statues of Froswick.

"How can people build and live in such ugly places?" she said at last, standing still that she might stare about her--"when there are such lovely things in the world; Cambridge, for instance--or--Bannisdale."

The last word slipped out, dreamily, unaware.

The lad's face flushed furiously.

"I don't know what there is to see in Bannisdale," he said hotly. "It's a damp, dark, beastly hole of a place."

"I prefer Bannisdale to this, thank you," said Laura, making a little face at the very ample bronze gentleman in a frock coat who was standing in the centre of a great new-built empty square, haranguing a phantom crowd. "Oh! how ugly it is to succeed--to have money!"

Mason looked at her with a half-puzzled frown--a frown that of late had begun to tease his handsome forehead habitually.

"What's the harm of having a bit of bra.s.s?" he said angrily. "And what's the beauty o' livin in an old ramshackle place, without a sixpence in your pocket, and a pride fit to bring you to the workhouse!"

Laura's little mouth showed amus.e.m.e.nt, an amus.e.m.e.nt that stung. She lifted a little fan that hung at her girdle.

"Is there any shade in Froswick?" she said, looking round her.

Mason was silenced, and as Polly and Mr. Seaton joined them, he recovered his temper with a mighty effort and once more set himself to do the honours--the slighted honours--of his new home.

... But oh! the heat of the ship-building yard. Laura was already tired and faint, and could hardly drag her feet up and down the sides of the great skeleton ships that lay building in the docks, or through the interminable "fitting" sheds with their piles of mahogany and teak, their whirring lathes and saws, their heaps of shavings, their resinous wood smell. And yet the managing director appeared in person for twenty minutes, a thin, small, hawk-eyed man, not at all unwilling to give a brief patronage to the young lady who might be said to link the houses of Mason and Helbeck in a flattering equality.

"He wad never ha doon it for _us_!" Polly whispered in her awe to Miss Fountain. "It's you he's affther!"

Laura, however, was not grateful. She took her industrial lesson ill, with much haste and inattention, so that once when the director and his nephew fell behind, the great man, whose speech to his kinsman in private was often little less broad than Mrs. Mason's own--said scornfully:

"An I doan't think much o' your fine cousin, mon! she's n.o.bbut a flighty miss."

The young man said nothing. He was still slavishly ill at ease with his uncle, on whose benevolence all his future depended.

"Is there something more to see?" said Laura languidly.

"Only the steel works," said Mr. Seaton, with a patronising smile. "You young ladies, I presume, would hardly wish to go away without seeing our chief establishment. Froswick Steel and Hemat.i.te Works employ three thousand workmen."

"Do they?--and does it matter?" said Laura, playing with the salt.

She wore a little plaintive, tired air, which suited her soft paleness, and made her extraordinarily engaging in the eyes of both the young men.

Mason watched her perpetually, antic.i.p.ating her slightest movement, waiting on her least want. And Mr. Seaton, usually so certain of his own emotions and so wholly in command of them, began to feel himself confused. It was with a distinct slackening of ardour that he looked from Miss Fountain to Polly--his Polly, as he had almost come to think of her, honest managing Polly, who would have a bit of "bra.s.s," and was in all respects a tidy and suitable wife for such a man as he. But why had she wrapped all that silly white stuff round her head? And her hands!--Mr.

Seaton slyly withdrew his eyes from Polly's reddened members to fix them on the thin white wrist that Laura was holding poised in air, and the pretty fingers twirling the salt spoon.

Polly meantime sat up very straight, and was no longer talkative. Lunch had not improved her complexion, as the mirror hanging opposite showed her. Every now and then she too threw little restless glances across at Laura.

"Why, we needn't go to the works at all if we don't like," said Polly.

"Can't we get a fly, Hubert, and take a jaunt soomwhere?"

Hubert bent forward with alacrity. Of course they could. If they went four miles up the river or so, they would come to real nice country and a farmhouse where they could have tea.

"Well, I'm game," said Mr. Seaton, magnanimously slapping his pocket.

"Anything to please these ladies."

"I don't know about that seven o'clock train," said Mason doubtfully.

"Well, if we can't get that, there's a later one."

"No, that's the last."

"You may trust me," said Seaton pompously. "I know my way about a railway guide. There's one a little after eight."

Hubert shook his head. He thought Seaton was mistaken. But Laura settled the matter.

"Thank you--we'll not miss our train," she said, rising to put her hat straight before the gla.s.s--"so it's the works, please. What is it--furnaces and red-hot things?"

In another minute or two they were in the street again. Mr. Seaton settled the bill with a magnificent "d.a.m.n the expense" air, which annoyed Mason--who was of course a partner in all the charges of the day--and made Laura bite her lip. Outside he showed a strong desire to walk with Miss Fountain that he might instruct her in the details of the Bessemer process and the manufacture of steel rails. But the ease with which the little nonchalant creature disposed of him, the rapidity with which he found himself transferred to Polly, and left to stare at the backs of Laura and Hubert hurrying along in front, amazed him.

"Isn't she nice looking?" said poor Polly, as she too stared helplessly at the distant pair.

Her shawl weighed upon her arm, Mr. Seaton had forgotten to ask for it.

But there was a little sudden balm in the irritable vexation of his reply:

"Some people may be of that opinion, Miss Mason. I own I prefer a greater degree of balance in the fair s.e.x."

"Oh! does he mean me?" thought Polly.

And her spirits revived a little.

Meanwhile, as Laura and Hubert walked along to the desolate road that led to the great steel works, Hubert knew a kind of jealous and tormented bliss. She was there, fluttering beside him, her delicate face often turned to him, her feet keeping step with his. And at the same time what strong intangible barriers between them! She had put away her mocking tone--was clearly determined to be kind and cousinly. Yet every word only set the tides of love and misery swelling more strongly in the lad's breast. "She doan't belong to us, an there's noa undoin it." Polly's phrase haunted his ear. Yet he dared ask her no more questions about Helbeck; small and frail as she was, she could wrap herself in an unapproachable dignity; n.o.body had ever yet solved the mystery of Laura's inmost feeling against her will; and Hubert knew despairingly that his clumsy methods had small chance with her. But he felt with a kind of rage that there were signs of suffering about her; he divined something to know, at the same time that he realised with all plainness it was not for his knowing. Ah! that man--that ugly starched hypocrite--after all had he got hold of her? Who could live near her without feeling this pain--this pang?... Was she to be surrendered to him without a struggle--to that canting, droning fellow, with his jail of a house? Why, he would crush the life out of her in six months!

There was a rush and whirl in the lad's senses. A cry of animal jealousy--of violence--rose in his being.

"How wonderful!--how enchanting!" cried Laura, her glance sparkling, her whole frame quivering with pleasure.

They had just entered the great main shed of the steel works. The foreman, who had been induced by the young men to take them through, was in the act of placing Laura in the shelter of a brick screen, so as to protect her from a glowing shower of sparks that would otherwise have swept over her; and the girl had thrown a few startled looks around her.

A vast shed, much of it in darkness, and crowded with dim forms of iron and brick--at one end, and one side, openings, where the June day came through. Within--a grandiose mingling of fire and shadow--a vast glare of white or bluish flame from a huge furnace roaring against the inner wall of the shed--sparks, like star showers, whirling through dark s.p.a.ces--ingots of glowing steel, pillars of pure fire pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing, so that the heat of them scorched the girl's shrinking cheek--and everywhere, dark against flame, the human movement answering to the elemental leap and rush of the fire, black forms of men in a constant activity, masters and ministers at once of this crackling terror round about them.

"Aye!" said their guide, answering the girl's questions as well as he could in the roar--"that's the great furnace where they boil the steel.

Now you watch--when the flame--look! it's white now--turns blue--that means the process is done--the steel's cooked. Then they'll bring the vat beneath--turn the furnace over--you'll see the steel pour out."

"Is that a railway?"

She pointed to a raised platform in front of the furnace. A truck bearing a high metal tub was running along it.

"Yes--it's from there they feed the furnace--in a minute you'll see the tub tip over."