Sleep in Peace (14 page)

The joy of the Fair cheered the Armistead household for several days; their emotions had been released by it and they spoke more freely to each other; moreover, because so remote from the mill, it provided an excellent topic of conversation. Papa was very happy, too, in his release from Henry Hinchliffe; he became very cheerful and energetic, went earlier to the mill in the afternoon, and often stood with his back to the hearth, jingling the money in his pockets, as he used to do.

And then suddenly everything was terribly wrong again. Laura came home one day from school to find Mildred in tears, and an air of hushed disaster brooding over the house. It was the bank's fault again. “The bank won't extend,” Papa had told Gwen, and apparently that meant that Papa simply would not have any more money. There was no money to pay wages with at the mill, no money to pay the spinner; heaps of people owed Papa money for cloth, it seemed, but they would not pay in a hurry. It was possible that Papa might even have to go bankrupt! This was a notion so awful that it darkened the whole world; Laura could hardly take her mind from it long enough to do her Latin. Mildred, not for the first time, was given notice, but this time she actually left; Gwen did all the housework, and looked thinner and crosser than ever. At one time it seemed likely that Laura would have to leave school and descend to the vulgarities of the Hudley Girls' High School, but after a period of obscure agitation between Papa and Gwen, Gwen one afternoon called on Laura's headmistress, and it seemed to be settled that Laura should stay on. That evening Gwen, in an ominous tone, urged her little sister to work very hard at her lessons, since the headmistress was so kind. The form of this exhortation surprised Laura, stuck in her mind and brought her, next term, to a horrible discovery. It chanced that a school companion commented on the price of a certain atlas used in Laura's class.

“Mother says it's ridiculous, far too expensive,” she explained. “Four shillings for an atlas!”

“Three and fivepence,” Laura corrected her, for she remembered having seen the item on Papa's bill.

“Four shillings,” persisted the child.

Laura opened her mouth to repeat: “Three and fivepence,” for she had a strong visual memory and took pride in it, could see the item on the bill and knew she was not wrong. But suddenly she closed her lips tightly again; she understood the discrepancy. The headmistress had promised to keep her at the school for less than the customary fees! And she had kept her promise faithfully, even to the charging of textbooks at the wholesale instead of the retail price. (Laura had done too many sums about wholesale and retail prices not to understand the terms' significance.) It was a discovery so humiliating, so degrading, that Laura was stunned by it; the moment morning school was over she flew away home alone. Her heart burned with indignation; she entered Blackshaw House with a hurried, angry step, determined to have the matter out with Gwen and leave the school that very afternoon.

But Gwen, filling the kettle in the kitchen, was in tears. Blackshaw Mills had stopped work that morning. The boiler fires were drawn, the machines silent, the gates of the archway closed. Mr. Armistead had, by a last frenzied manipulation, found money enough to pay his men a week's wages in lieu of notice, and sent them off to look for other work. In face of such a disaster Laura's personal grievance was a trifle not worth mentioning; she halted, abashed. Ludo was also in the kitchen, slowly collecting spoons from the silver basket, in his large fingers.

“Go to Papa, Laura,” urged Gwen. “He's in the dining-room.”

Laura obeyed. Mr. Armistead was sitting erect in his crimson leather chair, with his nervous hands stretched along the arms, motionless, resting. To Laura's amazement his face looked less haggard than it had appeared for months, and his red lips were actually curved in a pleased smile. Laura went up to him, and,
unable to find any words, leaned against his shoulder and put her face against his, to comfort him. Mr. Armistead put his arm about her, and turning his face to hers, kissed her. His moustaches brushed her face agreeably, as usual, and Laura felt more sorry than ever for him.

“Well, Laura,” said Mr. Armistead in his bland tones: “We start the world afresh. But don't be afraid, my dear child,” he went on complacently. “Without boasting, I can assure you I've been in many a worse position, and emerged with credit. Trust your father, Laura!”

“I do, Papa,” lied Laura.

Indeed Mr. Armistead's head was full of schemes—none of which at first materialised. He tried to find another partner. None came forward—or at least, none with the indispensable minimum of money or credit. He tried to sell Blackshaw Mills; but trade was bad, and nobody wanted such a huge erection. He tried to let it; the same objection obtained. Mr. Armistead remained for several months, therefore, in the position of nominally owning solid property—machinery, buildings—worth more than fifty thousand pounds, and yet being short of half a sovereign with which to pay the greengrocer. All this time he was engaged in protracted negotiations with several banks, in the hope of inducing one to grant him a sufficient loan with which to make a fresh start; but the banks, as he said testily to Gwen, were all in a band, they told each other things, they all knew of his large overdraft with the Hudley and District and the mortgages on his property, and seemed disinclined to take him on as client. During this period one scene constantly recurred in Blackshaw House, namely: Gwen asking Papa for money. The scene usually began over a meal, with an allusion by Gwen to the price of some eatable, and rose steadily, while the meal ran its course and the table was cleared, through a gradually increasing indirect nagging by Gwen and indirect
riposte
by Papa to the horrid climax, when Gwen's voice became a wail prognosticating tears as she made a direct
demand, and Papa, furiously thrusting two fingers into an inner pocket, withdrew a couple of silver coins and threw them down on the table. The grocer, the butcher, the soling of Laura's shoes (alas!) were all the occasion of such scenes, which always culminated thus, in coins bouncing across the plum chenille of the tablecloth and being snatched up, with a smile of satisfaction, by Gwen.

At length Mr. Armistead conceived the brilliant notion of dividing Blackshaw Mills and renting part to some stranger, part to himself. The place had been skilfully laid out by Spencer Thwaite: a line drawn through the archway at right angles to the road almost exactly divided the manufacturing sections from the dyeing and finishing plant. Mr. Armistead's own taste, his inclination, turned to manufacturing and merchanting, his skill lay in design; moreover, he could not imagine himself laying down the proud title of manufacturer to wallow in the mess of dyeing vats and washing machines—Henry Hinchliffe had always attended to that, and Mr. Armistead did not intend to begin it now. Of course it was unfortunate that one required so much more capital to manufacture, than merely to finish, cloth; the spinner and his yarn account perpetually cast their shadows before. Still, if he could let off half the mill, the rent would come in regularly, his rates would be halved—and the banks, thought Laura, listening, would be more likely to help her father in half a mill than a whole one; for she already perceived that Mr. Armistead had a tendency towards too grandiose schemes. The Hudley and District, informed of the plan, viewed it favourably, since, the mortgage on Blackshaw Mills being what it was, its effect was practically to find a couple of tenants for their own property, which was at present decaying before their eyes. A tenant would soon be found, they opined, for a plant so magnificently equipped as Blackshaw Mills; this hypothetical tenant could pay a rent for power from Mr. Armistead's boiler and engine, and the whole thing would work out well. (The circumstance that the Hudley
and District was just about to be merged in a larger, more national bank, and naturally wished to show the most favourable possible balance sheet, no doubt aided them to take this view.) As for Mr. Armistead's own new venture, they suggested that a limited company—an idea nowadays much in vogue and strongly recommended by the best authorities, especially after the Chief Justice's speech to the Lord Mayor that year—should be formed, under the title of Alfred Armistead and Co. Mr. Armistead, agreeing enthusiastically to these suggestions, was brought up short by the question, whether he proposed to insert a
To Let
advertisement in the
Hudley Guardian
and
Hudley News
. He found such a proceeding highly distasteful, and said so with emphasis. Surely, he said, it would be better to make the matter known by word of mouth amongst one's friends, of whom he had, after all, a considerable number. The bank looked dubious, but a few days later wrote to Mr. Armistead to say that they believed they had found a tenant for him. Mr. Armistead hurried off joyously—to return looking flushed and angry, with contempt stamped all over his expressive face.

“What do you think, children,” he said scornfully, stalking into the kitchen where Ludo and Laura, as usual, were helping Gwen to prepare the midday meal: “Who do you think wants to rent half of Blackshaw Mills?”

His three children gazed at him, impressed by his heightened colour and the unusual firmness of his speech.

“Who, Papa?” asked Gwen.

“Henry Hinchliffe!” shouted Mr. Armistead.

“What? Never!” cried Gwen and Ludo. Laura gaped distressfully; she perceived that Henry Hinchliffe, by this bold stroke, had secured every advantage he had formerly possessed, together with liberty of action. True, he now paid rent; but then (thought Laura, and then pushed the thought down hard) he had got rid of Papa.

“And that isn't all!” cried Mr. Armistead, colouring still more
deeply and beating an angry tattoo on the dresser with his well-gloved hand. “He won't take it unless I put in new engines. Says he isn't satisfied with the power! When I think,” he raged, maddened beyond control, “of how he and I went to buy those gas engines together—Tchah! It's unbearable! The man's a cad! A cad! I always knew he wasn't a gentleman, but I never realised he was such a cad before.”

His three children spontaneously clustered about him, expressing their genuine sympathy and indignation. For once the Armisteads were incomplete agreement, even in their secret hearts. Whatever Papa's faults—thought Gwen, Ludo and Laura—he could never have done a caddish thing like that. Never! That Henry Hinchliffe should wish to rent part of Blackshaw Mills, thought Laura, was natural enough and not really blameable, since he had himself assisted in choosing some of its machinery; but to make Papa put in new engines when he himself was equally responsible for buying the present ones! It was incredibly vile. They talked thus, vehemently agreeing with each other, all through their meal.

“What shall you do, Papa?” asked Gwen sympathetically as they cleared away. “Advertise after all?”

There was a pause.

“Oh, let him have it!” shouted Mr. Armistead then suddenly, crimsoning to his temples: “
I
don't care.”

He threw himself violently into his armchair, and in a very few minutes was fast asleep.

He slept long and heavily, awoke looking pale and with pockets of fatigue beneath his eyes, put on his hat and coat without his usual jauntiness and went off at once to the bank, to announce that he would accept Hinchliffe as a tenant.

The matter did not, however, end there. For a few weeks it seemed as if the engines would ruin the whole scheme. The bank demurred at the extra expense and did not seem at all inclined to advance the necessary sum, finding it apparently the last straw
which would break the Hudley and District's back. Mr. Hinchliffe, on the other hand, remained adamant. He had the choice of various other premises, less well equipped otherwise but with power satisfactory to him; moreover, he was at present employed by another firm, and so in no urgent need of any premises at all. For a few days there was deadlock, and Mr. Armistead was in despair. Then—as so often before, thought Laura wearily—Papa suddenly became bright and jaunty again, and the negotiations with the bank proceeded. Gwen, however, remained rather quiet amid Papa's jubilation, and this made Laura nervous. She enquired of Ludo how the matter of the engines had been arranged.

“Well—it's like this, you see,” began Ludo.

In his gentle, rather stumbling and spluttering but vivid speech he explained that Mr. Hinchliffe had agreed to be content with one new gas engine. The present engines, since their overhaul in the year of Laura's birth, were merely faulty in starting; once they were running, they ran well. The new engine would serve to start the power up, said Ludo; and to buy this engine Papa had, so to speak, borrowed five hundred pounds from Gwen.

“From
Gwen?”
said the puzzled Laura.

From Gwen. It seemed that Gwen and Ludo had each inherited five hundred pounds from Mrs. Armistead. Papa was her sole executor and the children's trustee, and he had invested Gwen's five hundred pounds in the new limited company. Ludo's five hundred pounds, it seemed, said Ludo, had been spent on his education. His tone was a litle dubious, and Laura felt that, while Ludo's five hundred pounds had certainly gone, it had not necessarily all been spent oh Ludo's education.

“And have I five hundred pounds too?” asked Laura. Ludo shook his head. “Why not?” said Laura.

“You weren't born when Mamma made her will. She died before she could change it,” muttered Ludo.

He got up, put his hands in his pockets and strolled away. Laura sighed. Ludo was always like that about Mamma; poor
Ludo. On the whole she was rather glad she had not five hundred pounds.

A new gas engine, admirable product of matured experience, was ordered and installed; the necessary structural alterations were completed; the lease was drawn and signed, and Henry Hinchliffe became Alfred Armistead's tenant. Two new limited companies were floated, two brass plates were engraved; Messrs. Alfred Armistead and Co., Cloth Manufacturers, and Messrs. Henry Hinchliffe and Co., Dyers and Finishers, began work side by side in Blackshaw Mills. By an unfortunate irony, their respective halves of the bulding did not correspond with the order of their names on the great stone above the archway. Old Spencer Thwaite, who liked to do things handsomely, had caused the name of the firm, Armistead and Hinchliffe, to be carved there in fine bold letters; prospective customers or commercial travellers, visiting the two new firms, looking up at this stone naturally concluded that Mr. Armistead lay on the left and Mr. Hinchliffe on the right. The reverse was the case; and it was one of Ludo's duties at the mill to head off from his father, who was apt to fly into a rage when he saw them, these mistaken visitors. Such pinpricks served to keep Mr. Armistead's resentment alive in his heart. His pride was sore at the division of Blackshaw Mills, for the mills were all interwoven in his mind with his courtship and marriage; the sight of the Hinchliffes passing in and out, their brass plate, their fine brown horse and newly painted waggon, was an exacerbation. He could not forget that whereas he was heavily in debt to his bank, Henry Hinchliffe had a comfortable number of thousands in hand; he could not forget that those thousand, whatever their origin twenty years ago, had recently come out of his own pocket. It seemed to him, therefore, as if he had financed Henry Hinchliffe's venture at the expense of his own firm.