Success and How He Won It Part 12

"And she gives you trouble?"

"G.o.d forbid!" said the Manager, warmly. "The girl is as good as can be, but I did think the two might have made a pair, she and Ulric"----

"And Ulric will not?" interrupted Arthur, with a strangely rapid glance from the usually weary-looking eyes.

The old man shook his head.

"I don't know. Perhaps he did not really wish it, or perhaps he set about it badly; any way, it is over between them. And that was just my last hope, that he would get a good wife who would put some sensible notions into his head."

It was odd that the miner's simple uninteresting family affairs did not appear to "bore" the young man. He had not once yawned, as he was in the habit of doing, when not obliged to place some restraint on himself. His face even expressed a degree of interest as he asked:

"Are the notions he carries in his head at present the reverse of sensible then?"

The Manager looked up rather consciously at the speaker, and then down at the ground.

"Well, Herr Arthur, I need hardly tell you that. You must have heard enough about Ulric!"

"Yes, I remember. My father spoke to me about it. Your son is not in the good books of the gentlemen up there, Hartmann; very far from it."

The old man heaved a sigh.

"No, and I can't mend the matter. He will not listen to me, he never has listened to me. He always would think for himself and have his own way in everything. I let the boy learn a great deal more than the others, more, perhaps, than was good for him. I thought he would get on faster for it, and he is Deputy already, and will very likely be made Overman some day, but all the trouble has come from the learning though. He bothers himself about all sorts of stuff, and thinks he knows better about everything; he sits up all night over his books, and is just all in all with his mates. How he manages to take the lead everywhere, I don't know; but even when he was quite a little lad, he had them all under his thumb, and now it is worse than ever. What he says, they believe blindfold; where he stands, they will all stand together with him; and if he were to lead them into h.e.l.l itself, they would go, always supposing he marched first. But this is not at all as it should be, particularly here on our works."

"Why here, particularly?" asked Arthur, drawing figures with the key on the wooden gate, and apparently immersed in thought.

"Because the people here are too badly off," burst forth the Manager.

"Don't be angry, Herr Arthur, if I tell you so to your face. It is just the truth. I can't complain myself, I have always had more than my deserts, because your late mother was very fond of my wife--but the others! They toil and trouble day after day, and yet they can scarcely get bare necessaries for their wives and children. G.o.d knows they earn their bread hardly, but we must all of us work, and most of them would do it willingly enough, if they could only get their rights, as on the other works. But here they are pressed and harried for every farthing of their miserable wages, and the mines below are in such a state, that each man says his prayers before going down, because he keeps thinking that the whole concern will fall down some day and crush him. But there is never any money for repairs, and when a poor fellow gets into difficulties and distress, no money can ever be found to help him with either, and all the time they have to look on while thousands upon thousands are sent up to the city, in order that"----

The old man stopped suddenly, and clapped his hand over his indiscreet mouth in mortal fear. He had gone on speaking in such a zealous haste, that he had completely forgotten who it was that stood before him. The hot flush which rose to the young man's face at his last words, brought him back to a consciousness of what he was saying.

"Well?" asked Arthur, as he paused. "Go on. Hartmann, you see I am listening."

"G.o.d bless me!" stammered the old man, in sad confusion. "I did not mean that, I had quite forgotten"----

"Who spent the thousands? You need not make any apologies, Hartmann, but speak out like a man what you were going to say to me. Or perhaps you think I shall carry tales to my father?"

"No," said the Manager, heartily. "That you certainly won't do. You are not like your father, such an imprudent word as that to him would have lost me my place. Well, I was only going to say that all this makes bad blood with the hands. Herr Arthur"--he stepped up nearer, with a look of half-timid, half-trusting appeal, "if you would but take some interest in these things! You are Herr Berkow's son, and you will inherit all one of these days. No one has so much concern in it as you."

"I?" said Arthur, with a bitterness which happily escaped his unpractised hearer. "I understand nothing of your customs or of what is necessary here on the works. It is, and always has been, all quite strange to me."

The old man shook his head sorrowfully.

"Lord Almighty! what is there so much to understand? You need not study all about machinery and the shafts for that. You only need to look at the people and listen to them, as you are listening to me now. But n.o.body will do that. If a man complains, he is sent away, and then they say it is for insubordination; when a poor miner is dismissed on that score he finds it hard to get another place. Herr Arthur, I tell you, it is a crying shame, and that is what Ulric can't endure to see; it eats his heart out, and, though I am always talking and preaching against his notions, in point of fact he is right. Things can't go on in this way, only the means he would use to bring about a change are G.o.dless and sinful. They would bring him into trouble, and the others with him. Herr Arthur,"--the salt tears stood in the Manager's eyes as, without any hesitation now, he seized the young man's hand, still resting on the gate,--"for G.o.d's sake, I implore you, don't let matters go on like this. It can be good for no one, not even for Herr Berkow.

There are troubles and disputes now on all the works around, but when once they break out with us, the Lord have mercy on us, for there will be awful work!"

During the whole of this speech Arthur had stood silent, gazing straight before him. Now he turned his eyes to the speaker and looked fixedly and gravely at him.

"I will talk to my father about it," he said slowly; "you may rely upon that, Hartmann."

The Manager let fall the hand he had grasped, and stepped back. Having poured out his whole heart, he had expected some better result than this poor promise.

Arthur drew himself up and prepared to go.

"One thing more, Hartmann. Your son saved my life not long ago, and he has felt hurt, probably, at receiving no word of thanks. I do not attach a great value to life in itself, and it may be, therefore, that I did not estimate aright the service rendered. But I should have made good my negligence, if"----the young heir frowned and his voice took a sharper inflexion, "if your Ulric had not been the man he is. I have no desire to find myself and my acknowledgments repulsed, as happened to my messenger a short time back; but in spite of this, I would not be thought ungrateful. Tell him I thank him, and as to the rest, I will confer with my father on the subject. Good-bye."

He took the road leading to the park. The Manager looked after him despondingly, and sighed heavily as he murmured: "G.o.d grant it may do some good--but I hardly think it."

CHAPTER XI.

Up at the great house the carriage had been drawn out, and the coachman was busy putting to the horses.

"This is something quite new," said he to the footman who had brought him the order to make ready. "The master and mistress are going to drive out together. A red cross should be set against the day in the calendar."

The man laughed. "Yes, they won't find much pleasure in it; but you see they can't help themselves. The return visits have to be made in the town to all the great folk who were here at the dinner, and it would not do exactly for them to drive in separately, or, no doubt, that is what they would have done."

"A queer couple," said the coachman shaking his head. "And they call that being married! The Lord preserve a man from such wedded bliss as that!"

A quarter of an hour later the carriage containing Arthur Berkow and his wife was rolling along the road which led to the town.

The weather had been tolerable enough during the morning, but had now changed for the worse. The sky was lowering and overcast; the wind, which had risen almost to a hurricane, drove the grey clouds before it, and every now and then a heavy shower fell from them on to the already over-saturated earth. It was, in truth, a rough and stormy spring, of a sort thoroughly to disgust those accustomed to a town-life with a sojourn in the country.

Although the month of May had come, the bare leafless trees in the park showed hardly any symptoms of sprouting forth. The piercing wind and cold rains had destroyed all the flowers, to the distraction of the head-gardener who had been at so much pains to train them to perfection in the beds and on the terraces, and every bud was mercilessly nipped and blighted so soon as it showed itself. The impracticable roads and drenched forests made all excursions, possible only in a close carriage, as unpleasant as they were objectless.

Day after day nothing but storms and heavy rain; a grey cloudy sky, mountains veiled in mist, through which, ever and anon, a pale ray of sunshine would struggle faintly; and with all this a joyless, desolate home, where the mists gradually sank deeper and deeper, so that there, at least, no sunshine could penetrate, where every blossom, possibly ready to unfold, was frozen by the icy breath of bitterness and hatred.

In this home two people endured, as a kind of martyrdom from which each strove to escape as much as possible, that undisturbed seclusion which is looked on by most newly-married couples as the height of bliss.

Surely this was enough to account for the bride's pale face and for that expression of pain about her mouth which no amount of self-control could obliterate; to account also for the melancholy look with which she gazed out at the landscape.

She had given her strength credit for more than it could bear. The sacrifice had been promptly made in the flush of courage and of filial love, but the days and hours succeeding the sacrifice, the pa.s.sive endurance of her chosen lot, called now, for the first time, all her moral courage, all her power of will, into action, and however much Eugenie might possess of both, it was yet plainly to be seen that this after-time was very bitter to her.

Her husband, leaning back in the opposite corner as far off as possible, so that the folds of her dress hardly touched his cloak, did not seem to carry the burden of his happiness much more lightly. His face had, it is true, always been as pale, his eyes as expressive of fatigue, his bearing as languid as now, but there were lines in his countenance which had not been there before--dark, bitter lines, stamped on it by the events of the last few weeks, and which no amount of the coolest indifference would ever again efface.

He too looked out silently through the window, and made no more attempt than Eugenie to renew the conversation. They had met for the first time that day when about to set out on this journey, and some formal little speeches had been exchanged about the weather, the drive and the object for which it was being made; then they had relapsed into an icy silence which was to last, apparently, until they reached the town.

The expedition, conducted in this fashion, was not very agreeable; though in the comfortable close carriage nothing was felt of the inclement weather without, yet even the softest cushions could not prevent their feeling some inconvenience from the bad state of the roads, and the heavy barouche could only advance slowly, though drawn by fine and powerful horses.

They had accomplished nearly half the distance when a sudden jerk, more violent then any preceding, nearly threw the carriage over on its side.

The coachman swore and stopped the horses. He and the footman both dismounted from the box, and then a lively discussion went on between them out in the road.

"What is the matter?" asked Eugenie, leaning forward uneasily.

Arthur, for his part, did not seem much to care what was the matter. He would no doubt have quietly waited until some announcement on the subject had been made to him, but he felt himself called on now to let down the window and to repeat his wife's question.

"Don't be alarmed, sir," said the coachman, stepping up to the door with the reins in his hand. "We have had a very lucky escape, we were within a hair of upsetting. Something must have snapped in the hind-wheel. Frank has gone to see what it is."