The Spinners

by Eden Phillpotts

CHAPTER XXVII

THE MASTER OF THE MILL

Raymond Ironsyde came to Bridetown. He rode in from Bridport, and met
John Best by appointment early on a March morning.

With the words of Ernest Churchouse still in his ears, the foreman felt profound interest to learn what might be learned considering the changes in his master's character.

He found a new Raymond, yet as the older writing of a parchment palimpsest will sometimes make itself apparent behind the new, glimpses of his earlier self did not lack. The things many remembered and hoped that Ironsyde would remember were not forgotten by him. But instead of the old, vague generalities and misty assurance of goodwill, he now declared definite plans based on knowledge. He came armed with figures and facts, and his method of expression had changed from ideas to intentions. His very manner chimed with his new power. He was decisive, and quite devoid of sentimentality. He feared none, but his attitude to all had changed.

They spoke in Mr. Best's office and he marked how the works came first in Raymond's regard.

"I've been putting in a lot of time on the machine question," he said. "As you know, that always interested me most before I thought I should have much say in the matter. Well, there's no manner of doubt we're badly behind the times. You can't deny it, John. You know better than anybody what we want, and it must be your work to go on with what you began to do for my brother. I don't want to rush at changes and then find I've wasted capital without fair results; but it's clear to me that a good many of our earlier operations are not done as well and swiftly as they might be."

"That's true. The Carder is out of date and the Spreader certainly is."

"The thing is to get the best substitutes in the market. You'll have to go round again in a larger spirit. I'm not frightened of risks. Is there anybody here who can take your place for a month or six weeks?"

Mr. Best shook his head.

"There certainly is not," he said.

"Then we must look round Bridport for a man. I'm prepared to put money into the changes, provided I have you behind me. I can trust you absolutely to know; but I advocate a more sporting policy than my poor brother did. After that we come to the people. I've got my business at my fingers' ends now and I found I was better at figures than I thought. There must be some changes. There are two problems: time and money. Either one or other; or probably both must be bettered—that's what I am faced with."

"It wants careful thinking out, sir."

"Well, you are a great deal more to me than my foreman, and you know it. I look to you and only you to help me run the show at Bridetown, henceforth. And, before everything, I want my people to be keen and feel my good is their good and their good is mine. Anyway, I have based changes on a fair calculation of future profits, plus necessary losses and need to make up wear and tear."

"And remember, raw products tend to rise in price all the time."

"As to that, I'm none too sure we've been buying in the best market. When I know more about it, I may travel a bit myself. Meantime, I'm changing two of our travellers."

Mr. Best nodded.

"That's to the good," he said. "I know which. Poor Mr. Daniel would keep them, because his father had told him they were all they ought to be. But least said, soonest mended."

"As to the staff, it's summed up in a word. I mean for them a little less time and a little more money. Some would like longer hours and much higher wages; some would be content with a little more money; some only talked about shorter time. I heard them all air their opinions in the past. But I've concluded for somewhat shorter hours and somewhat better money. You must rub it into them that new machinery will indirectly help them, too, and make the work lighter and the results better."

"That's undoubtedly true, but it's no good saying so. You'll never make them feel that new machinery helps them. But they'll be very glad of a little more money."

"We must enlarge their minds and make them understand that the better the machinery, the better their prospects. As I go up—and I mean to—so they shall go up. But our hope of success lies in the mechanical means we employ. They must grasp that intelligently, and be patient, and not expect me to put them before the Mill. If the works succeed, then they succeed and I succeed. If the works hang fire and get behindhand, then they will suffer. We're all the servants of the machinery. I want them to grasp that."

"It's difficult for them; but no doubt they'll get to see it," answered
John.

"They must. That's the way to success in my opinion. It's a very interesting subject—the most interesting to me—always was. The machinery, I mean. I may go to America, presently. Of course, they can give us a start and a beating at machinery there."

"We must remember the driving power," said Best.

"The driving power can be raised, like everything else. If we haven't got enough power, we must increase it. I've thought of that, too, as a matter of fact."

"You can't increase what the river will do; but, of course, you can get a stronger steam engine."

"Not so sure about the river. There's a new thing—American, of course—called a turbine. But no hurry for that. We've got all the power we want for the minute. That's one virtue of some of the new machinery: it doesn't demand so much power in some cases."

But Best was very sceptical on this point. They discussed other matters and Raymond detailed his ideas as to the alteration of hours and wages. For the most part his foreman had no objections to offer, and when he did question the figures, he was overruled. But he felt constrained to praise.

"It's wonderful how you've gone into it," he said. "I never should have thought you'd have had such a head for detail, Mister Raymond."

"No more should I, John. I surprised myself. But when you are working for another person—that's one thing; when you are working for yourself—that's another thing. Not much virtue in what I've done, as it is for myself in the long run. When you tell them, explain that I'm not a philanthropist—only a man of business in future. But before all things fair and straight. I mean to be fair to them and to the machinery, too. And to the machinery I look to make all our fortunes. I should have done a little more to start with—for the people I mean; but the death duties are the devil. In fact, I start crippled by them. Tell them that and make them understand what they mean on an enterprise of this sort."

They went through the works together presently and it was clear that the new owner fixed a gulf between the past and the future. His old easy manner had vanished—and, while friendly enough, he made it quite clear that a vast alteration had come into his mind and manners. It seemed incredible that six months before Raymond was chaffing the girls and bringing them fruit. He called them by their names as of yore; but they knew in a moment he had moved with his fortunes and their own manner instinctively altered.

He was kind and pleasant, but far more interested in their work than them; and they drew conclusions from the fact. They judged his attitude with gloom and were the more agreeably surprised when they learned what advantages had been planned for them. Levi Baggs and Benny Cogle, the engineman, grumbled that more was not done; but the women, who judged Raymond from his treatment of Sabina and hoped nothing from his old promises, were gratified and astonished at what they heard. An improved sentiment towards the new master was manifest. The instinct to judge people at your own tribunal awoke, and while Sally Groves and old Mrs. Chick held out for morals, the other women did not. Already they had realised that the idle youth they could answer was gone. And with him had gone the young man who amused himself with a spinner. Of course, he could not be expected to marry Sabina. Such things did not happen out of story books; and if you tried to be too clever for your situation, this was the sort of thing that befell you.

So argued Nancy Buckler and Mercy Gale; nor did Sarah Northover much differ from them. None had been fiercer for Sabina than Nancy, yet her opinion, before the spectacle of Raymond himself and after she heard his intentions, was modified. To see him so alert, so aloof from the girls, translated to a higher interest, had altered Nancy. Despite her asperity and apparent independence of thought, her mind was servile, as the ignorant mind is bound to be. She paid the unconscious deference of weakness to power.

Raymond lunched at North Hill House—now his property. He had not seen Waldron since the great change in his fortunes and Arthur, with the rest, was quick to perceive the difference. They met in friendship and Estelle kissed Raymond as she was accustomed to do; but the alteration in him, while missed by her, was soon apparent to her father. It took the shape of a more direct and definite method of thinking. Raymond no longer uttered his opinions inconsiderately, as though confessing they were worthless even while he spoke them. He weighed his words, jested far less often, and did not turn serious subjects into laughter.

Waldron suggested certain things to his new landlord that he desired should be done; but he was amused in secret that some work Raymond had blamed Daniel for not doing, he now refused to do himself.

"I've no objection, old chap—none at all. The other points you raise I shall carry out at my own expense; but the French window in the drawing-room, while an excellent addition to the room, is not a necessity. So you must do that yourself." Thus he spoke and Arthur agreed.

Estelle only found him unchanged. Before her he was always jovial and happy. He liked to hear her talk and listen to her budding theories of life and pretty dreams of what the world ought to be, if people would only take a little more trouble for other people. But Estelle was painfully direct. She thought for herself and had not yet learned to hide her ideas, modify their shapes, or muffle their outlines when presenting them to another person. Mr. Churchouse and her father were responsible for this. They encouraged her directness and, while knowing that she outraged opinion sometimes, could not bring themselves to warn her, or stain the frankness of her views, with the caution that good manners require thought should not go nude.

Now the peril of Estelle's principles appeared when lunch was finished and the servants had withdrawn.

"I didn't speak before Lucy and Agnes," she said, "because they might talk about it afterwards."

"Bless me! How cunning she's getting!" laughed Raymond. But he did not laugh long. Estelle handed him his coffee and lit a match for his cigar; while Arthur, guessing what was coming, resigned himself helplessly to the storm.

"Sabina is fearfully unhappy, Ray. She loves you so much, and I hope you will change your mind and marry her after all, because if you do, she'll love her baby, too, and look forward to it very much. But if you don't, she'll hate her baby. And it would be a dreadful thing for the poor little baby to come into the world hated."

To Waldron's intense relief Raymond showed no annoyance whatever. He was gentle and smiled at Estelle.

"So it would, Chicky—it would be a dreadful thing for a baby to come into the world hated. But don't you worry. Nobody's going to hate it."

"I'll tell Sabina that. Sabina's sure to have a nice baby, because she's so nice herself."

"Sure to. And I shall be a very good friend to the baby without marrying
Sabina."

"If she knows that, it ought to comfort her," declared Estelle. "And I shall be a great friend to it, too."

Her father bade the child be off on an errand presently and expressed his regrets to the guest when she was gone.

"Awfully sorry, old chap, but she's so unearthly and simple; and though
I've often told myself to preach to her, I never can quite do it."

"Never do. She'll learn to hide her thoughts soon enough. Nothing she can say would annoy me. For that matter she's only saying what a great many other people are thinking and haven't the pluck to say. The truth is this, Arthur; when I was a poor man I was a weak man, and I should have married Sabina and we should both have had a hell of a life, no doubt. Now the death of Daniel has made me a strong man, and I'm not doing wrong as the result; I'm doing right. I can afford to do right and not mind the consequences. And the truth about life is that half the people who do wrong, only do it because they can't afford to do right."

"That's a comforting doctrine—for the poor."

"It's like this. Sabina is a very dear girl, and I loved her tremendously, and if she'd gone on being the same afterwards, I should have married her. But she changed, and I saw that we could never be really happy together as man and wife. There are things in her that would have ruined my temper, and there are things in me she would have got to hate more and more. As a matter of brutal fact, Arthur, she got to dislike me long before things came to a climax. She had to hide it, because, from her standpoint and her silly mother's, marriage is the only sort of salvation. Whereas for us it would have been damnation. It's very simple; she's got to think as I think and then she'll be all right."

"You can't make people think your way, if they prefer to think their own."

"It's merely the line of least resistance and what will pay her best. I want you to grasp the fact that she had ceased to like me before there was any reason why she should cease to like me. I'll swear she had. My first thought and intention, when I heard what had happened, was to marry her right away. And what changed my feeling about it, and showed me devilish clear it would be a mistake, was Sabina herself. We needn't go over that. But I'm not going to marry her now under any circumstances whatever, while recognising very clearly my duty to her and the child. And though you may say it's humbug, I'm thinking quite as much for her as myself when I say this."

"I don't presume to judge. You're not a humbug—no good sportsman is in my experience. If you do everything right for the child, I suppose the world has no reason to criticise."

"As long as I'm right with myself, I don't care one button what the world says, Arthur. There's nothing quicker opens your eyes, or helps you to take larger views, than independence."

"I see that."

"All the same, it's a steadying thing if you're honest and have got brains in your head. People thought I was a shallow, easy, good-natured and good-for-nothing fool six months ago. Well, they thought wrong. But don't think I'm pleased with myself, or any nonsense of that sort. Only a fool is pleased with himself. I've wasted my life till now, because I had no ambition. Now I'm beginning it and trying to get things into their proper perspective. When I had no responsibilities, I was irresponsible. Now they've come, I'm stringing myself up to meet them."

"Life's given you your chance."

"Exactly; and I hope to show I can take it. But I'm not going to start by making an ass of myself to please a few old women."

"Where shall you live?"

"Nowhere in particular for the minute. I shall roam and see all that's being done in my business and take John Best with me for a while. Then it depends. Perhaps, if things go as I expect about machinery, I shall ask you for a corner again in the autumn."

Mr. Waldron nodded; but he was not finding himself in complete agreement with Raymond.

"Always welcome," he said.

"Perhaps you'd rather not? Well—see how things go. Estelle may bar me. I'm at Bridport to-night and return to London to-morrow. But I shall be back again in a week."

"Shall you play any cricket this summer?"

"I should like to if I have time; but it's very improbable. I'm not going to chuck sport though. Next year I may have more leisure."

"You're at 'The Seven Stars,' I hear—haven't forgiven Dick Gurd he tells me."

"Did we quarrel? I forget. Seems funny to think I had enough time on my hands to wrangle with an innkeeper. But I like Missis Northover's. It's quiet."

"Shall I come in and dine this evening?"

"Wait till I'm back again. I've got to talk to my Aunt Jenny to-night.
She's one of the old brigade, but I'm hoping to make her see sense."

"When sense clashes with religion, old man, nobody sees sense. I'm afraid your opinions won't entirely commend themselves to Miss Ironsyde."

"Probably not. I quite realise that I shall have to exercise the virtue of patience at Bridport and Bridetown for a year or two. But while I've got you for a friend, Arthur, I'm not going to bother."

Waldron marked the imperious changes and felt somewhat bewildered. Raymond left him not a little to think about, and when the younger had ridden off, Arthur strolled afield with his thoughts and strove to bring order into them. He felt in a vague sort of way that he had been talking to a stranger, and his hope, if he experienced a hope, was that the new master of the Mill might not take himself too seriously. "People who do that are invariably one-sided," thought Waldron.

Upon Ironsyde's attitude and intentions with regard to Sabina, he also reflected uneasily. What Raymond had declared sounded all right, yet Arthur could not break with old rooted opinions and the general view of conduct embodied in his favourite word. Was it "sporting"? And more important still, was it true? Had Ironsyde arrived at his determination from honest conviction, or thanks to the force of changed circumstances? Mr. Waldron gave his friend the benefit of the doubt.

"One must remember that he is a good sportsman," he reflected, "and he can't have enough brains to make him a bad sportsman."

For the thinker had found within his experience, that those who despised sport, too often despised also the simple ethics that he associated with sportsmanship. In fact, Arthur, after one or two painful experiences, had explicitly declared that big brains often went hand in hand with a doubtful sense of honour. He had also, of course, known numerous examples of another sort of dangerous people who assumed the name and distinction of "sportsman" as a garment to hide their true activities and unworthy selves.