CHAPTER XVII.
A FLOWER.
But at last it was evident that the acquaintance between Haworth and Ffrench had advanced with great rapidity. Ffrench appeared at the Works, on an average, three or four times a week, and it had become a common affair for Haworth to spend an evening with him and his daughter. He was more comfortable in his position of guest in these days. Custom had given him greater ease and self-possession. After two visits he had begun to give himself up to the feverish enjoyment of the hour. His glances were no longer furtive and embarrassed. At times he reached a desperate boldness.
"There's something about her," he said to Murdoch, "that draws a fellow on and holds him off both at the same time. Sometimes I nigh lose my head when I'm with her."
He was moody and resentful at times, but he went again and again, and held his own after a manner. On the occasion of the first dinner Mr. Ffrench gave to his old friends, no small excitement was created by Haworth's presence among the guests. The first man who, entering the room with his wife and daughters, caught sight of his brawny frame and rather dogged face, faltered and grew nervous, and would have turned back if he had possessed the courage to be the first to protest. Everybody else lacked the same courage, it appeared, for nobody did protest openly, though there were comments enough made in private, and as much coldness of manner as good breeding would allow.
Miss Ffrench herself was neither depressed nor ill at ease. It was reluctantly admitted that she had never appeared to a greater advantage nor in better spirits.
Before the evening was half over it was evident to all that she was not resenting the presence of her father's new found friend. She listened to his attempts at conversation with an attentive and suave little smile. If she was amusing herself at his expense, she was at the same time amusing herself at the expense of those who looked on, and was delicately defying their opinion.
Jem Haworth went home that night excited and exultant. He lay awake through the night, and went down to the Works early.
"I didn't get the worst of it, after all," he said to Murdoch. "Let 'em grin and sert if they will—'them laughs that wins.' She—she never was as handsome in her life as she was last night, and she never treated me as well. She never says much. She only lets a fellow come nigh and talk; but she treated me well—in her way."
"I'm going to send for my mother," he said afterward, somewhat shamefacedly. "I'm goin' to begin a straight life; I want naught to stand agin me. And if she's here they'll come to see her. I want all the chances I can get."
He wrote the letter to his mother the same day.
"The old lady will be glad enough to come," he said, when he had finished it. "The finery about her will trouble her a bit at first, but she'll get over it."
His day's work over, Murdoch did not return home at once. His restless habit of taking long rambles across the country had asserted itself with unusual strength, of late. He spent little time in the house. To-night he was later than usual. He came in fagged and mud-splashed. Christian was leaving the room as he entered it, but she stopped with her hand upon the door.
"We have had visitors," she said.
"Who?" he asked.
"Mr. Ffrench and his daughter. Mr. Ffrench wanted to see you. She did not come in, but sat in the carriage outside."
She shut the door and came back to the hearth.
"She despises us all!" she said. "She despises us all!"
He had flung himself into a chair and lay back, clasping his hands behind his head and looking gloomily before him.
"Sometimes I think she does," he said. "But what of that?"
She answered without looking at him.
"To be sure," she said. "What of that?"
After a little she spoke again.
"There is something I have thought of saying to you," she said. "It is this. I am happier here than I ever was before."
"I am very glad," he answered.
"I never thought of being happy," she went on, "or like other women in anything. I—I was different."
She said the words with perfect coldness.
"I was different."
"Different!" he echoed absently, and then checked himself. "Don't say that," he said. "Don't think it. It won't do. Why shouldn't you be as good and happy as any woman who ever lived?"
She remained silent. But her silence only stirred him afresh.
"It is a bad beginning," he said. "I know it is because I have tried it. I have said to myself that I was different from other men, too."
He ended with an impatient movement and a sound half like a groan.
"Here I am," he cried, "telling myself it is better to battle against the strongest feeling of my life because I am 'different'—because there is a kind of taint in my blood. I don't begin as other men do by hoping. I begin by despairing, and yet I can't give up. How it will end, God knows!"
"I understand you better than you think," she said.
Something in her voice startled him.
"What!" he exclaimed. "Has my mother——"
He stopped and gazed at her, wondering. Some powerful emotion he could not comprehend expressed itself in her face.
"She does not speak of it often," she said. "She thinks of it always."
"Yes," he answered. "I know that. She is afraid. She is haunted by her dread of it—and," his voice dropping, "so am I."
He felt it almost unnatural that he should speak so freely. He had found it rather difficult to accustom himself to her presence in the house, sometimes he had even been repelled by it, and yet, just at this moment, he felt somehow as if they stood upon the same platform and were near each other.
"It will break loose some day," he cried. "And the day is not far off. I shall run the risk and either win or lose. I fight hard for every day of dull quiet I gain. When I look back over the past I feel that perhaps I am holding a chained devil; but when I look forward I forget, and doubt seems folly."
"In your place," she said, "I would risk my life upon it!"
The passion in her voice amazed him. He comprehended even less clearly than before.
"I know what it has cost," she said. "No one better. I am afraid to pass the door of the room where it lies, in the dark. It is like a dead thing, always there. Sometimes I fancy it is not alone and that the door might open and show me some one with it."
"What do you mean?" he said. "You speak as if——"
"You would not understand if I should tell you," she answered a little bitterly. "We are not very good friends—perhaps we never shall be—but I will tell you this again, that in your place I would never give it up—never! I would be true to him, if all the world were against me!"
She went away and shortly afterward he left the room himself, intending to go upstairs.
As he reached the bottom of the staircase, a light from above fell upon his face and caused him to raise it. The narrow passage itself was dark, but on the topmost stair his mother stood holding a lamp whose light struck upon him. She did not advance, but waited as he came upward, looking down at him, not speaking. Then they passed each other, going their separate ways.
The next day Ffrench appeared in the engine-room itself. He had come to see Murdoch, and having seen him went away in most excellent humor.
"What's he after?" inquired Floxham, when he was gone.
"He wants me at his house," said Murdoch. "He says he needs my opinion in some matter."
He went to the house the same evening, and gave his opinion upon the matter in question, and upon several others also. In fact, Mr. Ffrench took possession of him as he had taken possession of the young man from Manchester, and the Cumberland mechanic, though in this case he had different metal to work upon. He was amiable, generous and talkative. He exhibited his minerals, his plans for improved factories and workmen's dwelling-houses, his little collection of models which had proved impracticable, and his books on mechanics and manufactures. He was as generous as Haworth himself in the matter of his library; it was at his visitor's service whenever he chose.
As they talked Rachel Ffrench remained in the room. During the evening she went to the piano and sitting down played and sung softly as if for no other ears than her own. Once, on her father's leaving the room, she turned and spoke to Murdoch.
"You were right in saying I should outlive my terror of what happened to me," she said. "It has almost entirely worn away."
"I am glad," he answered.
She held in her belt a flower like the one which had attracted Granny Dixon's attention. As she crossed the room shortly afterward it fell upon the floor. She picked it up but, instead of replacing it, laid it carelessly upon the table at Murdoch's side.
After he had risen from his chair, when on the point of leaving, he stood near this table and almost unconsciously took the flower up, and when he went out of the house he held it in his fingers.
The night was dark and his mood was preoccupied. He scarcely thought of the path before him at all, and on passing through the gate he came, without any warning, upon a figure standing before it. He drew back and would have spoken had he been given the time.
"Hush," said Haworth's voice. "It's me, lad."
"What are you doing here?" asked Murdoch. "Are you going in?"
"No," surlily, I'm not."
Murdoch said no more. Haworth turned with him and strode along by his side. But he got over his ill-temper sufficiently to speak after a few minutes.
"It's the old tale," he said. "I'm making a fool of myself. I can't keep away. I was there last night, and to-night the fit came upon me so strong that I was bound to go. But when I got there I'd had time to think it over and I couldn't make up my mind to go in. I knew I'd better give her a rest. What did Ffrench want of you?"
Murdoch explained.
"Did you see—her?"
"Yes."
"Well," restlessly, "have you naught to say about her?"
"No," coldly. "What should I have to say of her? It's no business of mine to talk her over."
"You'd talk her over if you were in my place," said Haworth. "You'd be glad enow to do it. You'd think of her night and day, and grow hot and cold at the thought of her. You—you don't know her as I do—if you did——"
They had reached the turn of the lane, and the light of the lamp which stood there fell upon them. Haworth broke off his words and stopped under the blaze. Murdoch saw his face darken with bitter passion.
"Curse you!" he said. "Where did you get it?"
"Without comprehending him Murdoch looked down at his own hand at which the man was pointing, and saw in it the flower he had forgotten he held.
"This?" he said, and though he did not know why, the blood leaped to his face.
"Ay," said Haworth. "You know well enow what I mean. Where did you get it? Do you think I don't know the look on it?"
"You may, or you may not," answered Murdoch. "That is nothing to me. I took it up without thinking of it. If I had thought of it I should have left it where it was. I have no right to it—nor you either."
Haworth drew near to him.
"Give it here!" he demanded, hoarsely.
They stood and looked each other in the eye. Externally Murdoch was the calmer of the two, but he held in check a fiercer heat than he had felt for many a day.
"No," he answered. "Not I. Think over what you are doing. You will not like to remember it to-morrow. It is not mine to give nor yours to take. I have done with my share of it—there it is." And he crushed it in his hand, and flung it, exhaling its fragrance, upon the ground; then turned and went his way. He had not intended to glance backward, but he was not as strong as he thought. He did look backward before he had gone ten yards, and doing so saw Haworth bending down and gathering the bruised petals from the earth.