Probation

Towards eight o’clock on the following evening, Mary Heywood and Edmund were the only occupants of the kitchen. The lad was somewhat better and less feverish, and Myles had carried him downstairs and laid him upon his old resting-place, the chintz-covered sofa under the window.

There he lay, with a shawl thrown across him; his thin face wasted to sharpness—a waxen pallor on his cheeks and lips; dark rings under his great bright eyes. His almost transparent hands were stretched out upon the couch before him, and his unread book lay open across his knees. Mary had made things as cheerful as she could, so as not to let Edmund know how bitterly they were pinched in order to give him the things he needed. True, the fire was smaller than their kitchen fires were wont to be; and behind the cupboard-doors there was not very much to bring forth for supper; but the place was exquisitely clean and tidy, and so was the girl herself, in her faded gown, and with her pale, pathetic face.

‘Mary,’ said Edmund, breaking a silence, ‘does Miss Blisset never come here now?’

‘Well, it’s a good while, like, since hoo were here; likely hoo’s had summat to do as has kept her away,’ said Mary, as confidently as she could.

‘I canno’ think why hoo ne’er comes. I could like to see her ... where’s Myles to-neet?’

‘Gone to the reading-room, he said. I’m some and glad he does go there. Some o’ these chaps is hanging about the livelong day, fair as if they didn’t know what to do with theirsels. I reckon some on ’em will do summat as they shouldn’t before long.’

‘Has Harry Ashworth been lately?’ pursued Edmund, his thoughts turning towards his friends, now that he felt himself somewhat more free from pain and weariness.

‘Ay—he’s been more than once,’ replied Mary, and her cheeks flushed, and she gave a great jump, as a knock resounded at that very moment through the house. The coincidence was too remarkable.

In a moment, however, she realised that the knock was at the front, not the back, door, therefore it could not be Harry Ashworth who knocked; and secondly, it was not at all like his knock when he did come. Wondering who the visitor could be, and casting a critical glance around, to see if the kitchen were as neat as it should be, she stepped out through the passage, and went through the ceremony of unlocking and opening the door.

Outside it was dark. Coming from the light of the kitchen she could not see who stood there, but a voice which she had already heard once, and thought pleasant, inquired,

‘Does Myles Heywood live here?’

‘Ay, he does; but he’s out.’

‘Oh, is he? I’m sorry. I felt sure he would be in in the evening.’

The visitor still lingered on the doorstep, and inquired again,

‘Do you know how long he will be?’

Mary’s sense of hospitality was stronger than even her dread of Myles’s displeasure.

‘Won’t you step in a minute, and see if he comes? It’s Mr. Mallory, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. I did want to see him very particularly.’

‘’Appen, if you were to sit you down a bit, he might coom back soon,’ suggested Mary, fervently trusting that he would do nothing of the kind; and that Mr. Mallory would get tired of waiting, as she knew Myles himself did.

With a word of thanks Mr. Mallory accepted the invitation, and entered the house. A proper attention to established etiquette would have led Mary to usher him into the highly coloured parlour, but the recollection that there was no fire there, and that some of the furniture was wanting, overcame conventional rules, and he was taken forward into the kitchen.

‘I hope I am not intruding,’ he began, so courteously that all Mary’s innate politeness was roused to action, and his welcome was more effusive than it might otherwise have been.

‘Eh, dear no! Please take a seat!’ said Mary, pulling up her own rocking-chair. ‘Me and Edmund was quite alone, and not doin’ nowt at all, except talk a bit. Ned, here’s Mr. Mallory. You’ve ne’er seen him afore.’

Edmund had never been aware of Myles’s deep antipathy to the young master; he only knew that his brother had a sort of contempt for his employer, as a useless, highly finished piece of humanity, not good for much in such a rough place as Thanshope. He himself was intensely sensitive to refinement and beauty, in every shape and form, and as Sebastian was handsome, polished, and refined in an eminent degree, Edmund’s eyes rested upon him with a sense of satisfaction and soothed pleasure and delight, and he smiled pleasantly as he took the hand which their visitor extended, saying kindly,

‘I fear you are a great invalid.’

‘I’m none so strong,’ said Edmund. ‘I’ve been ill, but now I’m better.’

‘I suppose you are Myles Heywood’s brother and sister?’ continued Sebastian.

‘Ay,’ said the others, and they smiled—that smile of mingled pride and affection which speaks well for the absent one, and which Sebastian noted directly.

He took a chair by Edmund’s sofa, and, turning to Mary, said,

‘I suppose you know your brother has had his name and yours taken off my books.’

‘Ay,’ responded Mary, colouring with some embarrassment, while Edmund looked rather anxiously from the one to the other, this being the first he had heard of the circumstance.

‘Was it your wish, too, to leave my employment so suddenly?’ he asked slowly.

‘I didn’t know—Myles did it. He thought it would be for the best, I suppose, sir,’ stammered the girl.

‘But you,’ he persisted gently—‘have you such an intense objection to receiving a little assistance in such a time of distress, from a—you don’t say master here, I notice—from an employer whom you have served so long and so well as I hear you have done? I should not have thought so. You know it is not an ordinary case. It is not as if you or I, or any of us here, could have prevented it. There can be no shame——’

‘I never thought there was,’ said Mary, wondering in her distress what could be the grudge that Myles had against such a master as this. ‘I fair cried wi’ joy when I heard what you was going to do; but when Myles came in and told me——’

‘But you do not mean that he has forbidden you—that he prevents—it is——’

‘No!’ said Mary, suddenly. ‘Our Myles is not one of that sort, I can tell you, Mr. Mallory. He won’t take a penny himself—why, I don’t know. And I saw as it would go near to break his heart to see me and yon lad eating another man’s bread, and him standing by idle. But he said to me, “Thou’ll do what thou’s a mind to, Molly; it’s a great distress, and we m—mun—be g—great to meet it.” Oh! it were same as if he’d said, “There’s nowt for’t but to cut off my right hand; give me th’ chopper, and let me do it!”—that it were!’

She sobbed vehemently once or twice, and Sebastian read the passionate love and devotion she felt for that brother, whom, he began to think, he never could conquer.

‘Ah! that is more like him!’ he said warmly. ‘I thought I was mistaken. And will nothing persuade you to accept this help? It is such a small thing to refuse; and I do not think it right in you to refuse it. You must think of this brother of yours. He cannot stand the hardships of this time as Myles, and even you, can; and——’

‘You are very good—reet-down kind, you are!’ said Mary, looking at him with gratitude. ‘I’ll say this. We’ll hold out as long as we can. We mun do that, if we want to think well of ourselves. But I’ll come to you when it gets too much. You’re reet: I can’t see nowt to be ashamed of in it.’

‘You promise?’

‘Ay, I promise.’

‘That is well. Now, if your brother would come in, I could say what I have to say to him, and——’

Mary lifted her head. She heard footsteps along the flags of the back, and the tune being whistled which no one but Myles ever did whistle. She started forward as the back door was opened, and exclaimed,

‘Here’s Myles; he’s coming now.’

‘Ah, I’m glad of that,’ said Sebastian, though he was fully conscious of Mary’s discomfited looks. ‘Now I can speak to him myself.’

The back door was closed again; the quick steps grew leisurely; presently the kitchen-door also was opened, and the voice of Myles was heard, saying, as he entered,

‘I say, Molly, thou must——’

He came in, and looked round with a smile, which flashed out of his face as he saw who was there. His first impulse was to ask fiercely, ‘What brings you to my house?’ but Myles had very strongly developed the proverbial Lancashire sense of hospitality, and accordingly he suppressed his question, and remained silent, until Sebastian offered him his hand, saying courteously,

‘I hope you will not think I am intruding. I particularly wished to see you, and your sister was so kind as to ask me to wait a few minutes, in the hope that you would return.’

Sebastian had spoken just in time. Myles was assailed on the side of hospitality, politeness to a guest, and other similar feelings. He realised quickly that Sebastian had not acted as most masters would have done—sent for him to come and see him—but had come himself to seek him out, and now apologised for intruding in the most handsome and ample manner. There was nothing there that even his sore heart could construe into a slight. Moreover, the man was there, under his roof—had been invited there; and, if Molly might have been wiser, the thing was done, and he must act accordingly. He could not look cordial—the sense of the advantages which the other had over him was too heavily and oppressively present for that—but he could be civil, he could speak words something like welcome. He could even, under the circumstances, accept the hand which Mallory held out—or rather, circumstances did not allow him to refuse it. Accordingly, he took the hand, standing very erect, and looking very proud and solemn, while Mary knitted more quickly, as she observed, from her seat in the background, how each man looked straight and steadily into the other’s eyes.

‘Won’t you take a seat?’ said Myles, handing a chair to Sebastian, and taking one himself. ‘It’s a cold night, and you’ve had a longish walk.’

‘Thank you. It was on a small matter of business that I called—about your having taken your name from my books.’

‘Yes,’ said Myles, his eyebrows setting suddenly in a straight line across his brow, and his lips in one nearly as straight beneath his moustache.

‘It was this. I do hope you will not think that I come out of any officiousness or curiosity, because it is not so. Mr. Sutcliffe told me you had left my employment. I asked him if he thought you had any other occupation; and he said that, so far as he knew, you had not. I concluded, whether rightly or not, that your reason for leaving was that the factory was closed, and you would not accept assistance without working for it. Was I right?’

‘Yes,’ said Myles, concisely.

‘I know that employment, especially remunerative employment, is not easy to find in these bad times, and that you might not soon find anything to do; so I merely called to say that I know of two situations, for either of which you would be suited, and if you would like me to use my influence to get you either of them, I shall be glad to do so. You must not think that I meant anything else.’

‘You are very kind,’ said Myles, in the same constrained and colourless voice, which belied his contracted brows and the fiery flash of his eyes beneath them, ‘very kind; but I do not require any assistance, thank you!’

The manner and the tone were such that Sebastian felt he could not, after what he had said, urge his offer any farther. But the desire which he constantly felt when with Myles, to gain his esteem and win his confidence, rushed more strongly over him than ever before. He saw in the young man so much that was noble, so much that was good, so much that he, in his quiet, reserved way, intensely prized. Sebastian had a strong, though secret, desire to be much loved, to greatly influence certain individuals. He felt very strongly that where Myles Heywood loved or admired, it would be with a passionate whole-hearted devotion, which would go all lengths; and he desired greatly to see some other expression light those sombre, moody eyes, when they looked at him; to compel that right hand to stretch itself towards him in a genial, spontaneous clasp of friendship and regard.

Was it possible that he who before now had won hearts, both of men and of women; he who had inspired that fitful, capricious artist-Hugo with a passionate love and devotion; he who had seen Adrienne Blisset’s quiet eyes well over with something more than gratitude; he who felt within him the potentiality to subdue that fiery-hearted Helena, did he but choose to give his mind to the task, and to bring her to his feet with a devotion as intense as her present half-assumed scorn—was it possible that he was to be baffled by a young, uncultivated, untutored, unsophisticated artisan, who could continue to resist, defy, and scorn him, in spite of all his efforts to the contrary? Was it possible that this plain-spoken Myles Heywood, with nothing on his side but his prejudices, his pride, and his love, could continue to hold Sebastian Mallory at arm’s length, when he really set his whole battery of persuasion to work upon him? The idea was a galling one. He did not like effusiveness, but he did like devotion very much. He hated a display of power; but the power itself he loved dearly. Myles, in his present attitude, represented a defiant obstacle which must be overcome. But how?

Mary here afforded him unconsciously a little assistance, by saying in a tearful voice, ‘Eh, Myles, think about it! Remember how badly off we are. It’s not for mysel’, it’s for Edmund and thee. I canna bear to think o’ thee bein’ so pulled down and troubled wi’ such things. Thou’rt too good for it.’

‘Molly, lass, don’t make it worse for me!’ said Myles, with a reproachful look; and Mary was silenced, as Sebastian saw.

She sat down in a rocking-chair, and cried quietly, wiping her eyes at intervals, but she said no more. Myles turned his back upon her, not wishing to see her distress. Sebastian had also stood up. The man’s pride was stiffer than even he had supposed, and his desire to bend it became proportionately greater.

‘I am very sorry you will not let me do anything,’ he said. ‘You are quite mistaken in thinking there could be any degradation in it.’

‘I never said I did think so,’ interposed Myles.

‘You are not without ambition,’ pursued Sebastian, fixing his eyes upon Myles with conviction, and noting the answering flush in his face, though his eyes remained downcast. ‘No man who is worth anything is without ambition. If you would let me, I could put you into the way of furthering your ambition. Of course it would be a struggle; but then you are one of the right kind to struggle—you like it. A few years’ absence from England, a few years’ hard work in a post for which you would be well suited, and you might return here, if you liked, a different man, in a different position, able to do and get pretty much what you liked. Remember, to a man of courage, who has made a mark, most things that he wishes for stand open. Is this nothing to you? Do you prefer remaining shut up in Thanshope, with your own prospects, and the prospects of your fellow-workmen no better than they are? I cannot believe it of you.’

Almost unconsciously, Sebastian had half-cast aside the mask of indifference, and was speaking nearly as eagerly as he felt. He had stepped up to Myles, and laid his hand upon his arm. Their eyes met. Myles’s very soul had been stirred by the words he had heard.

They had touched the very well-spring of his present wishes and desires, the longing which had grown and intensified with his love and his sense of its utter hopelessness. To leave this place—go away to some other spot, where there would be scope for hard work, mental and bodily—work that would absorb his energies. There was nothing he desired more than such work. His enforced idleness was absolutely hideous to him. Out of England, he might advance, rise; Sebastian, he knew, was not wont to speak rashly or unadvisedly on such matters, but was given to measuring his words. He might return an altered man, well off, perhaps, or at least with the means of becoming well off; why, he might (it all seemed to flash in a second through his mind)—he might go at last, and seek Adrienne—and find her gone, hear that she was Sebastian Mallory’s wife. And then the acceptance of Sebastian Mallory’s assistance would have caused his last state to be worse than his first. He would have stooped, not to conquer, but to be forestalled, defeated, humiliated, and all the riches, and all the position that the world could give, would not restore his hopes and his lost self-respect. With a short sardonic, miserable laugh, he jerked his arm from Sebastian’s hand, and said almost angrily,

‘It is of no use. You will never persuade me to that. It is wasted breath to try it.’

Sebastian felt an absolute thrill of vexation and mortification; a thrill so strong as to surprise himself.

‘What makes you so obstinate?’ he unwarily exclaimed. ‘Is it some personal reason?’

‘Yes,’ answered Myles, looking him directly in the eyes; ‘it is!’

Sebastian’s lips were parted to speak, but he could not utter the words he intended to say. He was silent with a disagreeable, discomfiting sense that he was baffled and defeated. They were all silent till Sebastian said,

‘Well, since you will not, you will not. But I think you are mistaken in your course, and what is more, I think you will repent it before long. If you do, if you should come to change your mind, let me know. I have no wish to take my word back, but shall always be ready to abide by it.’

Myles smiled, almost scornfully, as he bowed his head slightly and said,

‘Thank you.’

In his inmost heart he was thinking that he would rather die than place himself under obligations to his rival, whose full formidableness he only realised to-night. There was, he confessed it, fully and frankly to himself, something extremely attractive about the grace and courtesy of Sebastian, but the most dangerous quality was the power which soon became distinctly visible beneath the polish; a power which forced the observer, however reluctantly, to respect as well as to admire. If he, the unwilling and prejudiced, felt these things so strongly, how much more must others, already prejudiced in his favour, experience it? So much the more reason why he, the plain and unadorned, should keep himself to himself, follow his own path, and not ape qualities so different from his own. But he had ceased to bear any ill-will to Sebastian. The latter did not know how far he had advanced in the very moment in which he seemed to have receded.

‘I will not intrude upon you any longer,’ said he. ‘You bear no resentment, I trust, but understand my motives?’

‘I bear no resentment at all,’ said poor Myles, putting his hand without hesitation into that held out to him. ‘If I have been rather rough, I beg your pardon. It is my way. I meant no incivility.’

‘I am sure of it. Good night,’ he added, turning to Edmund. ‘Good night, Miss Heywood.’

‘Good night, sir,’ said Mary, looking tearfully up, as Sebastian followed Myles from the room. She heard the door open and shut, and the steps of the unwonted visitor going away. Then Myles returned to the kitchen.

Edmund was tired. Myles helped him upstairs, and came down again. They scarcely spoke. Mary uttered no reproach, and he offered no apology; but when she got up to go to bed, he kissed her tenderly, saying,

‘Don’t think too hardly of me, Molly. I can’t do otherwise and be an honest man at the same time.’

‘I’m none thinking of blaming thee, lad,’ said Mary, escaping from him, and going upstairs.

He remained there a long time, brooding over the embers of the fire, and thinking, if only things had been different! And as he thought, a vision rose before him of that Sunday afternoon when he had so nearly betrayed himself, and he remembered Adrienne’s words:

‘If I loved that man, and he loved me, and asked me to be his wife, I would say yes; and I would love him and serve him as long as I lived.’

‘Ay, my darling!’ his heart cried within him, in a kind of anguish, ‘but you don’t love me; and if you did, I should not be worthy of you, if I did what was wrong to win you.’

No doubt he took a wild, fantastic, mistaken view of things, but to him it was much more real than if the most accomplished logician had argued it out for him, and proved it to be founded on the purest and most solidly reasonable basis.