Masterman and Son

by W. J. Dawson

VII

ENTER SCALES

August had come with its heavy, brooding heat, and the idyllic weather had disappeared. There were no more fresh breezes, tempering the hot sunlight, no more cool nights of lingering twilight; over the weary city spread a pall of stifling haze, and the atmosphere had the flatness of an unaired room. The trees turned brown, and the leaves began to fall, as though it were autumn, not summer. The greenness of the parks had vanished, and the pleasant sward had become a dirty gray, upon which vast tribes of ragged children camped. August in London, when from countless miles of brick walls and stone pavements heat is radiated; when roads steam beneath the casual visitations of the water-cart, and barefooted urchins paddle in the gutters, and the city sprawls like a languid drab too tired to be conscious of her dishevelment; August, when a million hearts feel a dull ache of yearning for green fields and open spaces, and in fortunate homes guide-books are being studied, routes of travel discussed, boxes packed, fishing-tackle and golf-clubs overhauled, and carriages, piled high with trunks, with pale, excited children gazing from their windows, day by day roll down every street, and converge at last in the wild pandemonium of the great terminal stations which are the doorways of the country.

In Eagle House such preparations were in process, but it was a joyless business. Masterman had informed his family that there would be no Scotland for them this year; times were hard, and they must make the best they could of Brighton.

"I'm sure Brighton will cost just as much as Scotland," objected his daughter.

"It's near London, and I can't afford to be far from town this year," he replied.

"We don't know any one there, father. All the people we know are going north. Why can't we?"

For this young lady was accustomed to get her own way in most things, and to consider every one her enemy who opposed her. There was not much of her physically; she was petite and graceful, with irregular features, pretty hair, and shallow blue eyes which showed no evidence of a soul; but like many small persons, she had a wonderful gift of obstinacy. As a rule, she could do as she liked with her father in small ways, by means of a childish wheedling manner, which concealed her obstinacy; but every now and again she came upon a hard strata in his nature which turned the edge of her assaults, and it was so now. Of course, she did not so much as perceive the grim lines that had written themselves upon his tired face during the past two months. Neither did she believe his plea of poverty. It was merely a selfish whim of his to be near London through August, and she must needs be sacrificed to his whim.

"At any rate, you might choose a better place than Brighton," she retorted petulantly.

"I might choose, but I don't," he retorted. "There's a good train service to Brighton, and it suits me. It will have to suit you, too."

"I'm sure I would just as soon stay in London," Arthur interrupted; and he was rewarded by a glance of intense disdain from his sister's eyes.

"No; you'll go to Brighton with the others." And Masterman, not knowing the private thoughts of Arthur, was gratified with his remark. He saw in it the evidence of that serious sense of duty which was presently to make him the kind of man for whom business is an imperious master. "You see, we must go somewhere. If we didn't, folk might talk. I've had a pretty hard time, my boy, but it's nearly over now. And I want you to go to Brighton for a reason of my own. There are some people there I'd like you to meet."

"Of course I'll do as you wish, father."

"That's the proper spirit," he replied kindly.

But when Masterman left the room, Helen turned upon her brother spitefully.

"Oh! you needn't think I don't know why you want to stop in London," she cried. "I know where you spend your evenings. You're not nearly so clever as you think you are."

"Do you?" he replied, trying in vain to subdue the hot blood that rushed to his cheeks.

"Yes, I do. And you just wait until father knows. I've a great mind to tell him."

"You can tell him anything you wish," he replied proudly.

"And do you wish it?"

And with this Parthian shot she drew her small figure up in anger, and left the room.

But the Parthian arrow left its wound, for it was tipped with subtle poison. Magic months are exquisite experiences; but the pity of it is that the magic is rarely so complete that the outlines of the plain world are totally obliterated. Helen's words were a sword that slashed a great rent in the purple curtains of young love, and the outer world lay visible. No use to turn the eyes away or to patch the rent; there lay the fact of things, palpable enough. Did he wish his father to know his love for Elizabeth? He had never yet faced the question. But the moment it was asked he saw with fatal prescience all that it implied. He had chosen not alone Elizabeth, but with her a path of life, an ideal of conduct. That path led out into a strange, uncharted world, the very existence of which his father had not so much as surmised. And he knew that his father never could be brought to see it.

He knew this, but he knew also that he himself had reached a clearness of vision of which nothing could deprive him. He had seen the land very far off, and henceforth his eyes could see no other. He was vowed to the highest, as men had been in days of knighthood, and he must follow the gleam wheresoever it led. To his father it would all seem the wildest folly; no doubt in that forgotten dream-time of the world, to men bartering in the market-place or reaping in the fields, young Sir Galahad must have seemed mad as he rode past singing, into the haunted forest. It would be no better now; nay, it would be far worse, for was not the world one vast clamorous marketplace, no longer merely disdainful but actively antagonistic to the dreamer? Not that he was worthy to rank himself with the Sir Galahads; he was merely a boy, intoxicated with the new wine of love and life; but nevertheless he had his ideal of what life should be, and he meant to pursue it. To one thing at least he had attained—he was not afraid of poverty. Hilary Vickars had taught him that, by showing him how little outward circumstance can affect the inner peace of the soul. And when all things are said and done, perhaps that is the greatest truth that a youth can learn, for if it does not necessarily produce heroism, it at least makes it possible. For it is through fear of poverty that men sell their souls; and not until that ignoble fear is gone does the soul have a chance to live.

But he did not wish to challenge his father to the conflict till the proper hour came. The clash must come, but he would leave the foreseen moment in the hands of time. It could not be long delayed, but he would not anticipate it. And in so determining he was thinking of his father rather than himself. His father might be wholly wrong in his method of life, but that old sense of his father's bigness still dominated him. Primeval, proud, scarred with savage conflict, he saw his father rise before him; he could not but admire even while he censured; and simply because he knew that it was in his power to wound the giant in a vital part, he was afraid to strike.

So in the first week of August the Masterman household accomplished its annual exodus, and Arthur found himself one of five hundred tenants in a vast hotel at Brighton. Brighton is not precisely a pleasant place in August—"a sea without a ship, and a shore without a tree"—but undeniably it has at all seasons a certain strong glitter of life, and its shipless sea is an inexhaustible reservoir of tonic breezes. But poetry does not breathe in the air of Brighton, and Arthur's heart was at the stage when poetry is indispensable to happiness. He could have been relatively happy in some deep Scotch glen, whipping a stream for the infrequent trout, and listening unconsciously to the wind-music in the fir-tops; for though he would still have been separated from Elizabeth, he would have seen her face mirrored in the stream, and heard her voice in the wind, and have felt her presence in the wide peacefulness. But the hard materialism of Brighton jarred upon his senses. It was London over again, a cleaner and a meaner London. The same kind of face met him everywhere—the heavy, soulless face of men who have their portion in this world. In the men it was a clean-shaved, rubicund face, in the women it was puffed and sometimes rouged; and this face was reduplicated everywhere—in the hotel, on the parade, on the pier, till it became a persecution such as one suffers in dreams. Looking at these faces, Arthur had not only a strong repulsion, but he knew the cause of it; these faces were the mirror of unclean souls. There was something dark and turbid in them, a mire of sin washed up from the abhorred depth of life; these eyes all had the same expression, something of greed and glassy insolence and vulpine shrewdness, and the mouths had the same looseness of sensual thirst. Perhaps he did not see with entire justice, for Elizabeth's face hung like a picture in his heart, before which he had built a shrine and lit a lamp of faith; or perhaps he did see with perfect lucidity the souls of these fellow creatures of his, simply because that lamp of pure love in his heart gave him light. At all events, he hated Brighton, and betook himself daily to the green empty Downs, and sometimes as far as Chantlebury Ring, where the width of the world could be felt once more, and the shy voice of love might be heard, like a cuckoo-note, in the great sylvan silences.

Helen had soon found friends, and was now quite reconciled to Brighton; his mother, more fragile than ever in appearance, was content to sit still all day, looking at the smooth sea-plain with its gem-like glitter. More than once he was moved to open all his heart to his mother, and there were times when her eyes seemed to invite his confidence; but always between them was that gulf of silence, for which speech could frame no bridge. He wondered much about this silence of hers. It was scarcely apathy; no eyes could be as bright as hers if the heart were apathetic. It seemed rather to be a resolved incuriousness about things around her, a turning away of the face from life, as from something dreadful, that had only pain to offer her. Could one imagine a human creature, with "a bright, sunshiny day after shipwreck," sitting beside an empty sea, willing to think of nothing that came before or after, but just to breathe, and watch, and wait—that was the kind of impression Mrs. Masterman made upon the mind. Arthur was always delicately tender with her. He hung about her chair, arranged her shawl or pillows, was quick to perceive her wishes; but in the very kiss with which she rewarded him there was restraint. The time was to come when he was to know what it meant, but that time was not yet. Now, as in all the later years which he could recall, her one wish seemed to be to efface herself, and to take up as little room in life and in the thoughts of others as possible.

He was greatly surprised one night, when he came back to the hotel from a long walk over the Downs, to find his father in conference with Scales. There was a mass of papers lying on the table, and it was clear the two men were deeply interested in them.

"Come in," said Masterman. "We're busy, you see, but we'll soon be through now."

Scales greeted him with his usual smooth civility, and, as usual, it was a little overdone.

"Shall I wait?" said Arthur.

"No. You'd better dress for dinner. Scales is going to spend the night here. I have something to say to you later on."

Arthur left the room without remark; but as he was dressing the thought suddenly took hold on him, What did his father want with Scales?

He knew that his father did not like the man, and that made their present relation the more unintelligible. He had heard his father speak with brusque scorn of Scales' plan to punish John Clark, by getting him off to the Holy Land, and then starting a church revolution in his absence. That the man was false was beyond doubt. Falsity looked out of his narrow, deprecating eyes, falsity breathed in his smooth voice, falsity declared itself in his obsequious manners. Under no possible circumstances could such a man play fair either as friend or foe. Judas was such another as Elisha Scales, and Judas was an apostle as Scales was a deacon.

And here Arthur laughed at the absurdity of the suggestion.

"He'll find it hard to betray father," he said.

But not the less he was uneasy. There was something in the man that was sinister, supple, diabolically adroit, and he felt instinctively that his presence in his father's room boded no good for any one. Suddenly there recurred to his memory his father's statement that there were persons in Brighton he wanted him to meet, and he felt sure that it was to Scales he referred. Yes, it must be so, because no one else who could claim his father's acquaintance had appeared in Brighton; and, if it were so, it argued some kind of compact or pre-arrangement with Scales.

That night, however, nothing was said that could illumine the situation. Scales spent the night in the hotel, was closeted late with his father, and accompanied him to London on the following day.

Another day passed, and then his father sent for him.

"Arthur," he began, "I'm not going to interfere with our compact. I gave you till the end of September to make your mind up about the business, and I don't want you to speak a word until then. But there's a matter of business on which I want your help now."

"I'm not much good at business, father. I don't think I ever shall be."

Masterman ignored the confession.

"You don't know that until you try."

"Of course, if there's anything in which I can help you, father, I'll do my best."

"Well, you're old enough to use your eyes, and that's all I want of you. Sit down, and let me explain."

Thereupon he explained. It seemed that Scales had got wind in the broker's office where he was managing clerk of a certain amalgamation of several brick companies which was likely to come off before long. One of these companies was in Sussex, not far from Brighton. It was in difficulties, had been a long time, and might be bought cheap. Masterman proposed to buy it, and then resell to the trust when it should be formed. Properly handled, there might be a fortune in the transaction.

"I thought you didn't trust Scales," said Arthur quietly.

"And I don't. Not an inch farther than I can see him. I know very well he'd sell the shirt off my back if he got a chance."

"Of course he's not working for nothing."

"Certainly not. If he were, I should distrust him still more. You'll find that in business no one does anything for nothing."

"But I don't see anything I can do, father."

"That's the point I am coming to. I dare not go to look at this Sussex property. I'm known. If I appeared upon the scene, they'd spring the price at once. But you can go to see it. It's at Leatham, not more than twenty miles away. What I want you to do is to go to the village, stop at the inn for a few days, make all the inquiries you can, quietly, and then report to me. Will you do it?"

How could he refuse? It was at least a break in the dull monotony of Brighton. And he was really touched, too, by his father's faith in him.

"But I have no expert knowledge, father, and surely that is what you need."

"Not at all. They'd suspect an expert. All that is wanted is a pair of good eyes, and good commonsense. I think you have these."

"Very well, father, I will go. When do you want me to start?"

"At once. You can't be too quick."

"I will start this morning, sir."

"That's the spirit I like," said Master-man. "It will be the first bit of business you ever did for me, and it won't be the last."

On that pious hope Arthur made no comment. He could not refuse to do what his father asked, and he did it the more readily because in his own mind he knew it would be likely to prove both the first and the last act of the kind he would perform.

"I daresay Scales will turn up at Leatham. Behave to him as civilly as you can."

"I'll try, sir." But he said it with so wry a smile that his father laughed.

"He'll be civil enough to you, never fear."

Of course, thought Arthur. Judas was no doubt a pleasant-mannered gentleman, and the very pattern of civility—until he bared his fangs.

So Arthur went to Leatham, and for the first time found himself in contact with that mysterious world of business in which his father lived. At first this contact produced an almost pleasurable sensation, such as the swimmer feels when the sting of the salt water thrills his nerves. It was all so new, this contact with rough reality. He found the owner of the brickfield an old man, as skilled in craft as Ulysses. The old man came to see him in the village inn, and played the game of cross-purposes with inimitable subtlety. He supposed the young gentleman wanted to settle there? No? Well, it was a fine neighbourhood, few better, and the sport was considered good. Interested in business? Well, for a safe paying business there was few things like bricks. People must have bricks, because they must have houses. He was an old man, and had an idea of retiring. If the young gentleman was interested in bricks, he'd like him to come over the works some day. Not that it could be supposed he was interested. Bookish, wasn't he? Been to college? Well, lots of college men went into business now, and even titled ladies kept bonnet-shops. So he'd heard. He was really an amusing old man, and Arthur enjoyed his company more than could have been supposed of a young Sir Galahad.

His father had not been mistaken when he had credited him with a pair of good eyes and cool commonsense, and the more he used his eyes the less he thought of the possibilities of the Leatham brick-works. It was clearly a bankrupt concern. It was handicapped by being four miles from the rail. It had been able to do a small local trade for several years, and that was about all it was ever likely to do. If there was a fortune in it, it was of such microscopic proportions that it needed keener eyes than Arthur's to discover it.

On the Saturday night Scales came down, deferential and obsequious as usual, but clearly a little ill at ease. Arthur dined with him in the old-fashioned inn-parlour, and after dinner came at once to the point. He said bluntly that he believed the Leatham Brick Manufacturing Co. was a worthless property.

Scales smiled enigmatically.

"You appear to dissent," said Arthur.

"No, not altogether. I never thought much of it myself."

"Then why do you want my father to buy it?"

"Why, to resell it, of course."

"If it's worthless, you can't resell it."

"It won't be worthless if your father gets it. If it's worthless now, it's because it hasn't been developed. The present owner hasn't had the money to put into it. Your father will develop it."

"And then?

"Make it a company."

"And then?"

"Resell it to the Amalgamated Brick Trust."

"And if the Amalgamated doesn't want it?"

"But they will. It's my business to look after that."

"Then why not let the present owner sell it to the Amalgamated? He's worked it all his life. If there's a fortune to be made out of it, as my father seemed to think, it's that poor old man who ought to get it—not my father."

"That's not the way business is done."

"It seems to me the way it should be done. It's the only honest way."

Thereupon Scales entered on an exposition of the methods of modern business, according to which it seemed that fortunes were only made by snatching advantages from the weak who could not hold them. Arthur listened in silence, and as Scales proceeded the boy's face had a curious likeness to his father's in his grimmest mood.

"It's no good," he broke out at length. "If that is what business means, it seems to me to be nothing better than organised theft. I'm sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Scales—for no doubt you hope to make something yourself out of this fine scheme—but my father expects me to report honestly what I think, and I shall report against the purchase."

"You'll regret it if you do."

"I should regret it all my life if I didn't."

"Think over it. Don't act hastily."

And as he spoke there was something like a tremor of anger in the suave voice.

"I've done my thinking already," said Arthur. "There's only one thing more I want to say. If the transaction were never so honest, there's a weak place in your scheme which I think my father will appreciate. It is that he has only your word for it, Mr. Scales, that the Amalgamated will, buy the property, and, to be quite frank, I don't trust your word."

He left the room and went to bed. The next morning he returned to Brighton. The first thing that met his eyes as he entered his room was a letter from Elizabeth.