Haworth's/Chapter XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXIV.
A CLIMAX.
The same night Mr. Briarley came home in a condition more muddled and disheveled than usual. He looked as if he had been hustled about and somewhat unceremoniously treated. He had lost his hat, and was tremulous and excited. He came in without the trifling ceremony of opening the door. In fact, he fell up against it and ran in, and making an erratic dive at a chair, sat down. Granny Dixon, who had been dozing in her usual seat, was roused by the concussion and wakened and sat up, glaring excitedly.
"He's been at it again!" she shouted. "At it again! He'll nivver ha' none o' my brass to inak' way wi'. He's been at———"
Mrs. Briarley turned upon her.
"Keep thy mouth shut," she said.
The command was effective in one sense, though not in another. Mrs. Dixon stopped in the midst of the word "at" with her mouth wide open, and so sat for some seconds, with the aspect of an ancient beldam ordinarily going by machinery and suddenly having had her works stopped.
She would probably have presented this appearance for the remainder of the evening if Mrs. Briarley had not addressed her again.
"Shut thy mouth!" she said.
The works were set temporarily in motion, and her countenance slowly resumed its natural lines. She appeared to settle down all over and sink and become smaller, though, as she crouched nearer the fire, she had rather an evil look, which seemed to take its red glow into her confidence and secretly rage at it.
"What's tha been doin'?" Mrs. Briarley demanded of her better half. "Out wi' it!"
Mr. Briarley had already fallen into his favorite position. He had placed an elbow upon each knee and carefully supported his disheveled head upon his hands. He had also already begun to shed tears, which dropped and made disproportionately large circles upon the pipe-clayed floor.
"I'm a misforchnit chap," he said. "I'm a misforchnit chap, Sararann, as nivver had no luck."
"What's tha been doin'?" repeated Mrs. Briarley, with even greater sharpness than before; "out wi' it!"
"Nay," said Mr. Briarley, "that theer's what I've getten mysen i' trouble wi'. I wunnot do it again."
"Theer's summat i' beer," he proceeded, mournfully, "as goes agen a man. He towd me not to say nowt an' I did na mean to, but," with fresh pathos, "theer's summat i' beer as winds—as winds a chap up. I'm not mich o' th' speakin' loine, Sararann, but afore I knowed it, I wur a-makin' a speech—an' when I bethowt me an' wanted to set down—they wur bound to mak' me—go on to th' eend—an' when I would na theer wnr a good bit—o' public opinion igspressed—an' I did na stop—to bid 'em goodneet. Theer wur too much agoin' on."
"What wur it aw about?" asked Mrs. Briarley.
But Mr. Briarley's voice had been gradually becoming lower and lower, and his words more incoherent. He was sinking into slumber. When she repeated her question, he awakened with a violent start.
"I'm a misforchnit chap," he murmured, "an' I dunnot know. 'Scaped me, Sararann—owin' to misforchins."
"Eh!" remarked Mrs. Briarley, regarding him with connubial irony, "but tha art a graidely foo'! I'd gie summat to see a graidelier un!"
But he was so far gone by this time that there was no prospect of a clear solution of the cause of his excitement. And so she turned to Granny Dixon.
"It's toime fur thee to be i' bed," she shouted.
Granny Dixon gave a sharp, stealthy move round, and a sharp, stealthy glance up at her.
"I—dunnot want to go," she quavered shrilly.
"Aye, but tha does," was the answer. "An' tha'rt goin' too. Get up, Missus."
And singularly enough, Mrs. Dixon fumbled until she found her stick, and gathering herself up and leaning upon it, made her rambling way out of the room carrying her evil look with her.
"Bless us!" Mrs. Briarley had said in confidence to a neighbor a few days before. "I wur nivver more feart i' my life than when I'd done it, an' th' owd besom set theer wi' her cap o' one side an' her breath gone. I did na know but I'd put an eend to her. I nivver should ha' touched her i' th' world if I had na been that theer upset as I did na know what I wur doin'. I thowt she'd be up an' out i' th' street as soon as she'd getten her breath an', happen, ca' on th' porlice. An' to think it's been th' settlin' on her! It feart me to see it at th' first, but I wur na goin' to lose th' chance an' th' next day I give it to her up an' down—tremblin' i' my shoes aw th' toime. I says, 'Tha may leave thy brass to who tha loikes, but tha'lt behave thysen while tha stays here or Sararann Briarley'll see about it. So mak' up thy moind.' An' I've nivver had a bit o' trouble wi' her fro' then till now. She conna bide th' soight o' me, but she dare na go agen me fur her life."
The next day Haworth went away upon one of his mysterious journeys.
"To Leeds or Manchester, or perhaps London," said Ffrench. "I don't know where."
The day after was Saturday, and in the afternoon Janey Briarley presented herself to Mrs. Murdoch at an early hour, and evidently with something on her mind.
"I mun get through wi' th' cleanin' an' go whoam soon," she said. "Th' stroikers is over fro' Molton an' Dillup again. Theer's summat up among 'em."
"We dunnot know nowt about it," she answered, when further questioned. "We on'y know they're here an' i' a ill way about summat they've fun out. Feyther, he's aw upset, but he dare na say nowt fur fear o' th' Union. Mother thinks they've getten summat agen Ffrench."
"Does Mr. Ffrench know that?" Mrs. Murdoch
"He'll know it soon enow, if he does na," dryly. "They'll noan stand back at tellin' him if they're i' th' humor—but he's loiker to know than not. He's too feart on 'em not to be on th' watch."
It was plain enough before many hours had passed that some disturbance was on foot. The strikers gathered about the streets in groups, or lounged here and there sullenly. They were a worse-looking lot than they had been at the outset. Idleness and ill-feeling and dissipation had left their marks. Clothes were shabbier, faces more brutal and habits plainly more vicious.
At one o'clock Mr. Ffrench disappeared from his room at the bank, no one knew exactly how or when. All the morning he had spent in vacillating between his desk and a window looking into the street. There was a rumor among the clerks that he had been seen vanishing through a side door leading into a deserted little back street.
An hour later he appeared in the parlor in which his daughter sat. He was hot and flurried and out of breath.
"Those scoundrels are in the town again," he said. "And there is no knowing what they are up to. It was an insane thing for Haworth to go away at such a time. By night there will be an uproar."
"If there is an uproar," said Miss Ffrench, "they will come here. They know they can do nothing at the Works. He is always ready for them there and they are angrier with you than they are with him."
"There is no reason why they should be," Ffrench protested. "I took no measures against them, heaven knows."
"I think," returned Rachel, "that is the reason. You have been afraid of them."
He colored to the roots of his hair.
"You are saying a deuced unpleasant thing, my dear," he broke forth.
"It is true," she answered. "What would be the use in not saying it?"
He had no reply to make. The trouble was that he never had a reply to make to these deadly simple statements of hers.
He began to walk up and down the room.
"The people we invited to dine with us," she said, "will not come. They will hear what is going on and will be afraid. It is very stupid."
"I wonder," he faltered, "if Murdoch will fail us. He never did before."
"No," she answered. "He will not stay away."
The afternoon dragged its unpleasant length along. As it passed Ffrench found in every hour fresh cause for nervousness and excitement. The servant who had been out brought disagreeable enough tidings. The small police force of the town had its hands full in attending to its business of keeping order.
"If we had had time to send to Manchester for some assistance," said Mr. Ffrench.
"That would have been reason enough for being attacked," said Rachel. "It would have shown them that we felt we needed protection."
"We may need it, before all is quiet again," retorted her father.
"We may," she answered, "or we may not."
By night several arrests had been made, and there was a good deal of disorder in the town. A goodly quantity of beer had been drunk and there had been a friendly fight or so among the strikers themselves.
Rachel left her father in the drawing-room and went upstairs to prepare for dinner. When she returned an hour afterward he turned to her with an impatient start.
"Why did you dress yourself in that manner?" he exclaimed. "You said yourself our guests would not come."
"It occurred to me," she answered, "that we might have visitors after all."
But it was as she had prophesied,—the guests they had expected did not come. They were discreet and well-regulated elderly people who had lived long in the manufacturing districts, and had passed through little unpleasantnesses before. They knew that under existing circumstances it would be wiser to remain at home than to run the risk of exposing themselves to spasmodic criticism and its results.
But they had visitors.
The dinner hour passed and they were still alone. Even Murdoch had not come. A dead silence reigned in the room. Ffrench was trying to read and not succeeding very well. Miss Ffrench stood by the window looking out. It was a clear night and the moon was at full; it was easy to see far up the road upon whose whiteness the trees cast black shadows. She was looking up this road toward the town. She had been watching it steadily for some time. Once her father had turned to her restlessly, saying:
"Why do you stand there? You—you might be expecting something to happen."
She did not make any reply and still retained her position. But about half an hour afterward, she turned suddenly and spoke in a low, clear tone.
"If you are afraid, you had better go away," she said. "They are coming."
It was evident that she at least felt no alarm, though there was a thrill of excitement in her voice. Mr. Ffrench sprang up from his seat.
"They are coming!" he echoed. "Good God! What do you mean?"
It was not necessary that she should enter into an explanation. A clamor of voices in the road told its own story. There were shouts and riotous cries which, in a moment more, were no longer outside the gates but within them. An uproarious crowd of men and boys poured into the garden, trampling the lawn and flower-beds beneath their feet as they rushed and stumbled over them.
"Wheer is he?" they shouted. "Bring the chap out, an' let's tak' a look at him. Bring him out!"
Ffrench moved toward the door of the room, and then, checked by some recollection, turned back again.
"Good Heaven!" he said, "they are at their worst, and here we are utterly alone. Why did Haworth go away? Why——"
His daughter interrupted him.
"There is no use in your staying." she said. "It will do no good. You may go if you like. There is the back way. None of them are near it."
"I—I can't leave you here," he stammered. "Haworth was mad! Why, in Heaven's name——"
"There is no use asking why again," she replied. "I cannot tell you. I think you had better go."
Her icy coldness would have been a pretty hard thing to bear if he had been less terror-stricken; but he saw that the hand with which she held the window-curtain was shaking.
He did not know, however, that it was not shaking with fear, but with the power of the excitement which stirred her.
It is scarcely possible that he would have left her, notwithstanding his panic, though, for a second, it nearly seemed that he had so far lost self-control as to be wavering; but as he stood, pale and breathless, there arose a fresh yell.
"Wheer is he? Bring him out! Murdoch, th' 'Merican chap! We're coom to see him!"
"What's that?" he asked. "Who is it they want?"
"Murdoch! Murdoch!" was shouted again. "Let's ha' a word wi' Murdoch! We lads ha' summat to say to him!"
"It is not I they want," he said. "It is Murdoch. It is not I at all!"
She dashed the window-curtain aside and turned on him. He was stunned by the mere sight of her face. Every drop of blood seemed driven from it.
"You are a coward!" she cried, panting. "A coward! It is a relief to you!"
He stood staring at her.
"A—a relief!" he stammered. "I—don't understand you. What is the matter?"
She had recovered herself almost before he had begun to speak. It was over in a second. He had not had time to realize the situation before she was moving toward the window.
"They shall see me," she said. "Let us see what they will have to say to me."
He would have stopped her, but she did not pay the slightest attention to his exclamation. The window was a French one, opening upon a terrace. She flung it backward, and stepped out and stood before the rioters.
For a second there was not a sound.
They had been expecting to see a man,—perhaps Ffrench, perhaps Murdoch, perhaps even a representative of the small police force, looking as if he felt himself one too many in the gathering, or not quite enough,—and here was simply a tall young woman in a dazzling dress of some rich white stuff, and with something sparkling upon her hands and arms and in her high-dressed blonde hair.
The moonlight struck full upon her, and she stood in it serene and bore unmoved the stupid stare of all their eyes. It was she who spoke first, and then they knew her, and the spell which held them dumb was broken.
"What do you want?" she demanded. "I should like to hear."
Then they began to shout again.
"We want Murdoch!" they said. "We ha' summat to say to him."
"He is not here," she said. "He has not been here."
"That's a lee," remarked a gentleman on the outskirts of the crowd. "A dom'd un."
She made no answer, and, singularly enough, nobody laughed.
"Why do you want him?" she said next.
"We want to hear about that contrapshun o' his as is goin' to mak' th' mesters indypendent. He knows what we want him fur. We've just been to his house and brokken th' winders. He's getten wind on us comin', an' he made off wi' th' machine. He'll be here afore long if he is na here now, an' we're bound to see him."
"He'll be up to see thee," put in the gentleman on the outskirts, "an' I dunnot blame him. I'm glad I coom mysen. Tha's worth th' trip an' I'm a Dillup chap, moind yo'."
She stood quite still as before and let them look at her, to see what effect the words had produced. It seemed as if they had produced none.
"If you have come to see him," she said, after a few seconds, "you may go away again. He is not here. I know where he is, and you cannot reach him. If there has not been some blunder, he is far enough away."
She told the lie without flinching in the least, and with a clever coolness which led her to think in a flash beforehand even of the clause which would save her dignity if he should chance to come in the midst of her words.
"If you want to break windows," she went on, "break them here. They can be replaced afterward, and there is no one here to interfere with you. If you would like to vent your anger upon a woman, vent it upon me. I am not afraid of you. Look at me!"
She took half a step forward and presented herself to them—motionless. Not a fellow among them but felt that she would not have stirred if they had rushed upon her bodily. The effect of her supreme beauty and the cold defiance which had in it a touch of delicate insolence, was indescribable. This was not in accordance with their ideas of women of her class; they were used to seeing them discreetly keeping themselves in the shade in time of disorder. Here was one—"one of the nobs," as they said—who flung their threats to the wind and scorned them.
What they would have done when they recovered themselves is uncertain. The scale might have turned either way; but, just in the intervening moment which would have decided it, there arose a tumult in their midst. A man pushed his way with mad haste through the crowd and sprang upon the terrace at her side, amid yells and hoots from those who had guessed who he was.
An instant later they all knew him, though his dress was disordered, his head was bare, and his whole face and figure seemed altered by his excitement.
"Dom him!" they yelled. "Theer he is, by ——!"
"I towd thee he'd coom," shouted the cynic. "He did na get th' tellygraph, tha sees."
He turned on them, panting and white with rage.
"You devils!" he cried. "You are here too! Haven't you done enough? Isn't bullying and frightening two women enough for you, that you must come here?"
That's reet," commented the cynic. "Stond up fur th' young woman, Murdoch. I'd do it mysen i' I wur o' that soide. Allus stond up fur th' sect!"
Murdoch spoke to Rachel Ffrench.
"You must go in," he said. "There is no knowing what they will do."
"I shall stay here," she answered.
She made an impatient gesture. She was shuddering from head to foot.
"Don't look at or speak to me," she said. "You—you make me a coward."
"They will stand at nothing," he protested.
"I will not turn my back upon them," she said. "Let them do their worst."
He turned to the crowd again. Her life itself was in danger, and he knew he could not move her. He was shuddering himself.
"Who is your leader?" he said to the men. "I suppose you have one."
The man known as Foxy Gibbs responded to their cries of his name by pushing his way to the front. He was a big, resolute, hulking scamp who had never been known to do an honest day's work, and was yet always in funds and at liberty to make incendiary speeches where beer and tobacco were plentiful.
"What do you want of me?" demanded Murdoch. "Speak out."
The fellow was ready enough with his words, and forcible too.
"We've heard tell o' summat goin' on we're not goin' to stond," he said. "We've heerd tell o' a chap 'at's contrivin' summat to do away wi' them as does th' work now an' mak's theer bread by it. We've heerd as th' mesters is proidin' theersens on it an' laughin' in their sleeves. We've heerd tell as theer's a chap makkin' what'll eend i' mischief—an' yo're th' chap."
"Who told you?"
"Nivver moind who. A foo' let it out, an' we wur na in th' humor to let it pass. We're goin' to sift th' thing to th' bottom. Yo're th' chap as was nam't. What ha' yo' getten to say?"
"Just one thing," he answered. "It's a lie from first to last—an accursed lie!"
"Lee or not, we're goin' to smash th' thing, whatever it is. We're noan particular about th' lee. We'll mak' th' thing safe first, an' then settle about th' lee."
Murdoch thrust his hands in his pockets and eyed them with his first approach to his usual sang-froid.
"It's where you won't find it," he said. "I've made sure of that."
It was a mad speech to have made, but he had lost self-control and balance. He was too terribly conscious of Rachel Ffrench's perilous nearness to be in the mood to weigh his words. He saw his mistake in a second. There was a shout and a surging movement of the mob toward him, and Rachel Ffrench, with an indescribable swiftness, had thrown herself before him and was struck by a stone which came whizzing through the air.
She staggered under the stroke but stood upright in a breadth's time.
"My God!" Murdoch cried out. "They have struck you. They have struck you!"
He was half mad with his anguish and horror. The sight of the little stream of blood which trickled from her temple turned him sick with rage.
"You devils!" he raved, "do you see what you have done?"
But the play was over. Before he had finished his outcry there was a shout of "th' coppers! th' coppers!" and a rush and skurry and tumble of undignified retreat. The police force with a band of anti-strikers behind them had appeared upon the scene in the full glory of the uniform of the corporation, and such was the result of habit and the majesty of the law that those who were not taken into custody incontinently took to their heels and scattered in every direction, uttering curses loud and deep, since they were not yet prepared to resist an attack more formally.
In half an hour the trampled grass and flower-beds and broken shrubs were the only signs of the tumult. Mr. Ffrench was walking up and down the dreary room in as nervous a condition as ever.
"Good heavens, Rachel! " he said. "You must have been mad—mad."
She had persistently refused to lie down and sat in an easy-chair, looking rather colorless and languid. When they were left alone, Murdoch came and stood near her. He was paler than she, and haggard and worn. Before she knew what he was about to do he fell upon his knees, and covered her hands with kisses.
"If any harm had come to you," he cried—"if any harm had come to you"
She tried to drag her hands away with an angry face, but he clung to them. And then quite suddenly all her resistance ceased and her eyes fixed themselves upon him as if with a kind of dread.