It was now hoped, through the channel of the railway strike, that Government would convince the body of workers how, not the cost of living regulates wages, but wages control the cost of living. The lesson seemed half learned, the battle three parts won — then came the bombshell of another defeat for reason, and before I left London, the newsboys were shouting, “End of the Strike!” “Victory for the Railway Men!”
I had little time to consider these things at this moment, however, and my task was to secure a motor car sufficiently powerful to accomplish the journey of two hundred and twenty miles to South Brent at the highest speed possible by night. I calculated to be off by seven o’clock and judged that somewhere between one and two of the following morning I might reach Grimwood, if all went well.
The car proved very difficult to secure, but promise of a big fee presently produced a raking and speedy machine of high engine power and a driver who had been greatly honored for his work during the war. I dined well and bought myself a big fur coat and gloves, for the night was very cold and my vehicle offered little protection against it. We drew out at about half past seven and I purchased a newspaper or two containing particulars of the terms with the railway men. They recorded that the strikers had won all along the line — and, indeed, all along every Line. Their large success was obvious, even to those least versed in the details. My soldier chauffeur voiced a part of the irritation already spreading through London.
“Next time,” he said, “they’ll want the volunteers again no doubt; but next time the volunteers will see the Government damned first. Twenty thousand men have been working like giants for the country during the last three weeks. They won’t do that again — not good enough for a Cabinet of Spaniels!”
My splendid car made light of the tremendous journey; but progress proved slower than we had hoped, for the reason that all the great arteries of roadway traffic were congested with every sort of oil-driven vehicle, large and small. A ceaseless stream of motor cars, omnibuses and lorries rolled steadily out of London, and another stream as dense rolled back. It thinned by the time we had passed Reading, but at no point under condition of night was it possible to put the car to its full speed. We ran, however, at an average of nearly thirty miles an hour and having reached Exeter about two in the morning, proceeded with increased speed over comparatively empty roads, reaching Brent about an hour and ten minutes later.
I recollected the way, and at half past three we turned into the great gates of Grimwood, slipped down through the avenue of elms, sounded our horn, to denote that we had arrived, and soon drew up before the ivy-mantled entrance.
The doors were open; a light shone from within, and Sir Bruce himself, with his man, Timothy Bassett, stood at the portals to welcome me. Bassett took my place in the car and directed the driver to the garage, while Sir Bruce welcomed me in the heartiest possible manner. He had made ample preparations for my meal and walked up and down his study, where it had been served, while I enjoyed it. A big fire blazed and he had mulled a bottle of claret, that I might win warmth from it. He praised my industry and expressed the greatest possible pleasure at seeing me. He was indeed grateful and expressed his thanks with monotonous and needless iteration. But I readily perceived that he was speaking mechanically and thinking of something far removed from me and my supper, while he declared how good it was of me to respond thus swiftly.
He inquired after details of my journey and apparently enjoyed an account of it, but, to my amazement, even when I had finished eating and drinking and drawn to the fire, Sir Bruce gave no indication whatever of his reason for putting this considerable task upon me.
Finding him unprepared to speak, and guessing that he designed to postpone his desires until the next morning, I prepared to go to bed, declaring that he must sit up no longer. Then I noted my newspapers, which reminded me of the incident of the night before.
“The strike is broken,” I said. “The railway men go back to work.”
At this news he fell upon my evening journals with very keen interest and their contents awoke him into instant excitement. Until now he had been slow of speech and evidently much preoccupied; but it appeared that the particulars which I had brought banished from his mind every other consideration.
He was furious: I had not seen him so angry, so hopeless and disappointed. He permitted himself the utmost indignation and heaped upon the head of the Hon. Erskine Owen a torrent of scornful vituperation and reproach. I stood amazed before such bitter invective, for never had I seen Sir Bruce so swept by strong feeling, or so indifferent to conceal his emotions.
“The accursed wretch has filled his cup of iniquity!” he cried. “It runs over, to poison the fountains of honor and weaken the foundations of our liberties. This is a nail — another nail in the coffin of the Constitution. He has abused his trust, defied authority and broken his oaths to his country and his king!”
For a long time he raved thus, and I tried in vain to temper his passion and save the nervous energy he was losing in this futile display. But I argued to no purpose and could make nothing of him.
He talked himself tired, and then came back to himself and his duties as a host. He perceived my weariness and ceased his lamentations. He blamed himself for allowing these incidents to intrude at such an hour, and then conducted me to my room.
Only at his leave-taking did he make an indirect, though none the less sinister, allusion to the purpose for which he had summoned me.
“Sleep in peace,” he said; “and sleep well, for after tomorrow, your soul may not know peace for many days.”
He was now kind and solicitous for my comfort. He mended the fire that burned in my bedroom, asked me if I would take any further refreshment, thanked me once more for my swift response to his summons and then bade me good night and left me.
Thoroughly worn out, I slept as I have seldom slept; and evidently by Sir Bruce’s order I was not called next morning but allowed to have my slumbers out. Not until eleven did I awake, and guessed that it had been his wish I should begin the day in possession of all my wits and strength. But no ordeal awaited me, for after breakfasting alone, according to former custom, I waited in vain for Sir Bruce to appear.
Bassett informed me that his master might descend at any moment. But at luncheon my host was still invisible and the gong brought no response.
A suggestion that he should be summoned was rejected by his man.
“Against all rules, my dear,” he said in his familiar vernacular. “If Sir Bruce be minded to take his meat with you, he’ll come down along; and if he ban’t, then he’ll bide up over. Us be forbade to call him at any time.”
CHAPTER XIII
FACE TO FACE
I FELT somewhat alarmed at an event to have been so little expected, and was as much concerned for myself as the master of Grimwood. My time possessed value; and yet it seemed that he had utterly forgotten, both me and the fact that I must now be waiting his pleasure, to the detriment of my own affairs. Such discourtesy was so unlike my friend and delay at this moment so opposed to the urgent quality of the message which had brought me to Devonshire, that I could think of no explanation of an innocent nature.
I approached Timothy Bassett and his wife, to find that neither shared my tribulation. They repeated their assurances that Sir Bruce often absented himself in this fashion and strongly advised me not to challenge him, as I now desired to do.
“He’s got his ways,” said Timothy, who evidently knew all about his master. “He’ll often keep up there for a day and a night together. If we was to break in upon Sir Bruce, there would be a proper tantara, and he’d send me and my wife and daughter going. It would be as much as my place was worth. Once I tried it, so I know.”
His confidence restored my own. I determined that I would stop at Grimwood until the following morning and then, if Sir Bruce declined to appear, abandon him. I was somewhat indignant at such lack of consideration; but my anger turned into alarm as the day wore on.
I l
unched alone, with Timothy and his wife to entertain me; but though amusing in a bucolic fashion, I could learn but little about their master from them. They would talk of anything and everything save Sir Bruce. Him they exalted into a great personality; but they declined to give any details. The man led me to suspect, however, that he was a little frightened of his employer, and his wife, Nancy Bassett, did not hide the fact that she was also.
“A wonnerful gentleman,” she told me. “He knows more’n us common folk, and that’s because he lived in India, no doubt, where there’s a lot more wisdom than in these parts. He’s got an Indian saying for most everything that happens. He don’t like Devonshire people very much. He says they be only your friends so long as you’ve got a stick in your hand, and that you’ll find weevils in a stone afore you’ll find sense in the farm laborers about here.”
I laughed, and seeing that she amused me, the old woman proceeded.
“Sir Bruce says, ‘if you’ve never seen a tiger, look at a cat, and if you’ve never seen a rascal, look at my husband.’ That’s his fun, of course, for Timothy’s his right hand. And Sir Bruce says that the lawyers and the tailors be too sharp for the Angel of Death, and that God alone knows how to catch ‘em. He don’t like lawyers, nor yet tailors, you see; and he says also that you should change your washerwoman when you change your linen, because a new one always washes clean.”
She prattled on, while I ate my luncheon; and still Sir Bruce gave no sign. When the meal was over, I sent for the big car in which I had come, and the driver, weary of doing nothing, proved very glad to take me to Plymouth. The distance was but ten miles, and I determined to pass an hour there, send a telegram or two to London and Chislehurst, read the papers and learn the latest information concerning the end of the strike.
We were quickly at our destination and, turning into a newspaper shop, I was staggered to hear tragic news. England had been startled to its very heart within that hour, for now, the time being about half past three o’clock, telegrams came through announcing that the Hon. Erskine Owen was dead. He had died suddenly one hour earlier, but the manner of his end was not as yet known.
At the office of a local newspaper I shouldered my way into the crowd surrounding the window, and presently won a little further information. The record was scanty, but it seemed that on the Premier’s arrival at the House of Commons, he did not alight briskly as usual, and a policeman looking into his private car discovered Owen lying back motionless and apparently insensible. He was found to be dead. He had traveled from Downing Street alone, and the car, as the driver explained, had not been stopped upon the way.
Acute alarm shook me before this dreadful information. Argue as I might it was impossible to help connecting it with other matters in my thoughts. I found myself linking the tragedy with Sir Bruce, and recollected very vividly his storm of anger on the previous evening. Yet I felt some hope, and reason soon supported my conviction that I was allowing false fear to alarm me without cause. Doubtless the truth of the Prime Minister’s death would be known before the end of the day. That such a man might succumb to heart failure, under the tempest of abuse which had broken upon him that morning in the newspapers, seemed quite possible to me. For not a journal which I was able to peruse, but censured him in unmeasured terms for an action charged with gravest peril to the Nation. Many papers prophesied a future as dismal as Sir Bruce’s own prediction. They declared that nothing but the most terrible industrial disaster would follow, and foretold that revolution was practically assured by the terms of Owen’s surrender.
Hoping against hope that natural, physical causes would presently account for this sensational end of a great career, I went to a hotel presently for a cup of tea. There was a tape machine in the vestibule of this place and no small crowd assembled around it. Men broke off the trickling message foot by foot, and handed it for others to read after they had done so.
And then it was, while I took refreshment, that there came the dark news which many besides myself had already anticipated. I recollect the laconic wording of the tape.
“Owen murdered by the unknown. Wound in back — no evidence of how delivered.”
Deep emotions mastered me at this statement, and I remember that my first instinct was to return straightway to London in my car and not go back to Grimwood. For a time my excited intelligence associated Sir Bruce directly with the assassination and refused even to weigh the practical impossibility of such a thing. Conviction above logic urged me away from the old man and his country home. I felt positive that he could not be there; and that, even if I desired to see him, he would not be found at Grimwood; but with a calmer mind I argued against this panic determination and resolved to return instantly. For it appeared to me that my own honor must now, more than ever, depend upon so doing. No proof as yet existed to support any suspicions; and even if subsequent events did so, then to keep in touch with Sir Bruce might prove a national duty. If, indeed, he had done this appalling thing, then one could only suppose that he was mad; and a madman with the powers that he appeared to possess might threaten civilization within the next few hours. I was almost crushed under the weight of the possible obligations now thrust upon me, but acted as I believed for the best and, within the space of five minutes, was on my way back to Grimwood. I found myself in a state of nervous excitation altogether beyond my experience, yet strove to keep myself in hand and considered how best I might act if the future put Sir Bruce into my power.
The winter night had closed down and our headlights flashed before us as we left the main road and penetrated the network of lanes to Grimwood. My driver had taken good note of the way and, thanks to a rare sense of locality, made no mistakes. The car swiftly returned, but it was now night and the rolling woods that hemmed in the manor had already sunk into amorphous gloom as we descended the avenue into the cup below. The frost of the previous day had broken and a mild evening was misted by light fog that rose from the earth and filtered tenuously through the tree stems. Into this vapor we threw a great fan of illumination that marked the immediate course of our way, then faded upon surrounding darkness. The mist was heavier below and extended in white layers over the meadow lands — their pallor breaking through the night.
And then, directing my driver to take the car to its place, I strolled to the front of the house and perceived that Sir Bruce’s rooms were illuminated. Steady lights shone in the upper storey of Grimwood, and whether indeed he had been absent or not during the morning, he was now certainly returned. I strove to believe that he had never left Grimwood and hoped that he would now descend to welcome me, if he were not already downstairs. I forced myself into a conviction that my apprehensions lacked any solid basis; I even told myself that Sir Bruce would share the world’s horror when I broke the news of Owen’s death. It was now five o’clock, and remembering that the Prime Minister had perished about half past two, it appeared obvious that my host could have had no direct hand in an event still barely two and a half hours old. Fortified by this thought I entered the house, rang for Bassett and inquired of him whether he had seen Sir Bruce and where his master might be.
“He is in,” I said, “his lights are burning.”
Timothy seemed surprised.
“Course he’s in, master! He haven’t been out. Us have got our own electricity, you see, and I’m clever enough to look after it. No doubt, when the dark came down, Sir Bruce lit up.”
“You haven’t seen him?”
“No, he ain’t been about. I reckon he’ll come to dinner bimeby; but if he don’t, there’s no call to be vexed. You mind his ways in the summer. He has his own ideas.”
“But he telegraphed especially for me to come to him,” I explained. “I motored down last night at great personal trouble on his account, and he assured me that today he would tell me all he wanted me to know.”
“Then be sure he will do so,” promised the old fellow. “He’s a terrible truthful gentleman, Sir Bruce is, and he won’t tell you no lies. But he has his own
ideas; and all us have got to do be to fall in with ‘em, and keep our mouths shut and ax no questions. He’s difficult to please sometimes, but who ain’t? Life’s life, whatever you be called to serve, and us all know that sparks are the lot of the blacksmith’s legs.”
I considered this. Bassett’s saying was evidently a little bit of his master’s Indian lore, for an English blacksmith would not expose his legs to sparks, while an Indian one doubtless might do so. Timothy was cautious and secretive as a rule; yet he had admitted that Sir Bruce proved not always easy to satisfy.
“‘Life is life,’ as you say,” I answered. “We must be patient, I suppose. Shall you call Sir Bruce to dinner?”
“Certainly not, sir. I’ve told you he’ll never be disturbed, and he don’t allow nobody in his rooms, except in the bedchamber; and only there when he’s out of it. He’s got his ideas, and if he wants to eat his dinner along with you, he’ll come down house and do so when the gong sounds at eight o’clock; and if he don’t, he won’t. It ain’t no business of ours.”
“It is my business, however,” I replied, “and if Sir Bruce declines to remember my existence this evening, then I shall leave at an early hour tomorrow.”
“You’ll do just what you think right, I’m sure, my dear,” was all he answered.
The uncompromising old chap annoyed me. I felt that he was making a fool of Sir Bruce’s guest, though really the suspicion proved unjust. Indeed, in response to my next speech, he became a little more communicative.
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