A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I.

M >> Mrs. Humphry Ward >> Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I.




"And how have you been getting on with the Squire?"

He thought she started, but couldn't be quite sure.

"Getting on with the Squire? Why, capitally! Whenever he's there to get
on with."

"What--he's been away?" he said eagerly.

She raised her shoulders.

"He's always away----"

"Why, I thought they'd have made a Papist of you by now," he said.

His laugh was rough, but his eyes held her with a curious insistence.

"Think something more reasonable, please, next time! Now, where are we
going to lunch?"

"We've got it all ready. But we must see the yard first.... Miss
Fountain--Laura--I've got that flower you gave me."

His voice was suddenly hoarse.

She glanced at him, lifting her eyebrows.

"Very foolish of you, I'm sure.... Now do tell me, how did you get off so
early?"

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 Saturday, 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 brass?" 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 amusement, an amusement 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 nobbut 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 Hematite 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, anticipating 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 "brass," 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 glass--"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 "Damn 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 sex."

"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; nobody 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
spaces--ingots of glowing steel, pillars of pure fire passing and
repassing, 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."

There was a signal bell--a rattle of machinery. The tub tilted--a great
jet of white flame shot upwards from the furnace--the great mouth had
swallowed down its prey.

"And those men with their wheelbarrows? Why do they let them go so
close?"

She shuddered and put her hand over her eyes.

The foreman laughed.

"Why, it's quite safe!--the tub's moved out of the way. You see the
furnace has to be fed with different stuffs---the tub brings one sort and
the barrows another. Now look--they're going to turn it over. Stand
back!"

He held up his hand to bid Mason come under shelter.

Laura looked round her.

"Where are the other two?" she asked.

"Oh! they've gone to see the bar-testing--they'll be here soon. Seaton
knows the man in charge of the testing workshop."

Laura ceased to think of them. She was absorbed in the act before her.
The great lip of the furnace began to swing downwards; fresh showers of
sparks fled in wild curves and spirals through the shed; out flowed the
stream of liquid steel into the vat placed beneath. Then slowly the fire
cup righted itself; the flame roared once more against the wall; the
swarming figures to either side began once more to feed the monster--men
and trucks and wheelbarrow, the little railway line, and the iron pillars
supporting it, all black against the glare----

Laura stood breathless--her wild nature rapt by what she saw. But while
she hung on the spectacle before her, Mason never spared it a glance. He
was conscious of scarcely anything but her--her childish form, in the
little clinging dress, her white face, every soft feature clear in the
glow, her dancing eyes, her cloud of reddish hair, from which her wide
black hat had slipped away in the excitement of her upward gaze. The lad
took the image into his heart--it burnt there as though it too were fire.

"Now let's look at something else!" said Laura at last, turning away with
a long breath.

And they took her to see the vat that had been filled from the furnace,
pouring itself into the ingot moulds--then the four moulds travelling
slowly onwards till they paused under a sort of iron hand that descended
and lifted them majestically from the white-hot steel beneath, uncovering
the four fiery pillars that reddened to a blood colour as they moved
across the shed--till, on the other side, one ingot after another was
lowered from the truck, and no sooner felt the ground than it became the
prey of some unseen force, which drove it swiftly onwards from beneath,
to where it leapt with a hiss and crunch into the jaws of the mill. Then
out again on the further side, lengthened, and pared, the demon in it
already half tamed!--flying as it were from the first mill, only to be
caught again in the squeeze of the second, and the third--until at last
the quivering rail emerged at the further end, a twisting fire serpent,
still soft under the controlling rods of the workmen. On it glided, on,
and out of the shed, into the open air, till it reached a sort of
platform over a pit, where iron claws caught at it from beneath, and
brought it to a final rest, in its own place, beside its innumerable
fellows, waiting for the market and its buyers.

"Mayn't we go back once more to the furnace?" said Miss Fountain eagerly
to her guide--"just for a minute!"

He smiled at her, unable to say no.

And they walked back across the shed, to the brick shelter. The great
furnace was roaring as before, the white sheet of flame was nearing its
last change of colour, tub after tub, barrow after barrow poured its
contents into the vast flaring throat. Behind the shelter was an elderly
woman with a shawl over her head. She had brought a jar of tea for some
workmen, and was standing like any stranger, watching the furnace and
hiding from the sparks.

Now there is only one man more--and after that, one more tub to be
lowered--and the hell-broth is cooked once again, and will come streaming
forth.

The man advances with his barrow. Laura sees his blackened face in the
intolerable light, as he turns to give a signal to those behind him. An
electric bell rings.

Then----

What was that?

God!--what was that?

A hideous cry rang through the works. Laura drew her hand in bewilderment
across her eyes. The foreman beside her shouted and ran forward.

"Where's the man?" she said helplessly to Mason.

But Mason made no answer. He was clinging to the brick wall, his eyes
staring out of his head. A great clamour rose from the little
railway--from beneath it--from all sides of it. The shed began to swarm
with running men, all hurrying towards the furnace. The air was full of
their cries. It was like the loosing of a maddened hive.

Laura tottered, fell back against the wall. The old woman who had come to
bring the tea rushed up to her.

"Oh, Lord, save us!--Lord, save us!" she cried, with a wail to rend the
heart.

And the two women fell into each other's arms, shuddering, with wild
broken words, which neither of them heard or knew.


END OF VOL. I

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.