When he had left the room Miss Alicia stood upon the hearth- rug as the dog-cart drove away, and she was pale. Her simple and easily disturbed brain was in a whirl. She could scarcely remember what she had heard, and could not in the least comprehend what it had seemed intended to imply, except that there had been concealed in the suggestions some disparagement of her best beloved.
Singular as it was that Pearson should return without being summoned, when she turned and found that he mysteriously stood inside the threshold again, as if she had called him, she felt a great sense of relief.
"Pearson," she faltered, "I am rather upset by certain things which Captain Palliser has said. I am afraid I do not understand."
She looked at him helplessly, not knowing what more to say. She wished extremely that she could think of something definite.
The masterly finish of Pearson"s reply lay in its neatly restrained hint of un.o.btrusively perceptive sympathy.
"Yes, Miss. I was afraid so. Which is why I took the liberty of stepping into the room again. I myself do not understand, but of course I do not expect to. If I may be so bold as to say it, Miss, whatever we don"t understand, we both understand Mr. Temple Barholm.
My instructions were to remind you, Miss, that everything would be all right."
Miss Alicia took up her letter from the table where she had laid it down.
"Thank you, Pearson," she said, her forehead beginning to clear itself a little. "Of course, of course. I ought not to-- He told me not to-- get rattled," she added with plaintive ingenuousness, "and I ought not to, above all things."
"Yes, Miss. It is most important that you should not."
CHAPTER x.x.xV
The story of the adventures, experiences, and journeyings of Mr.
Joseph Hutchinson, his daughter, and the invention, if related in detail, would prove reading of interest; but as this is merely a study of the manner in which the untrained characteristics and varied limitations of one man adjusted or failed to adjust themselves to incongruous surroundings and totally unprepared-for circ.u.mstances, such details, whatsoever their potential picturesqueness, can be touched upon but lightly. No new idea of value to the world of practical requirements is presented to the public at large without the waking of many sleeping dogs, and the stirring of many snapping fish, floating with open ears and eyes in many pools. An uneducated, bl.u.s.tering, obstinate man of one idea, having resentfully borne discouragement and wounded egotism for years, and suddenly confronting immense promise of success, is not unlikely to be prey easily harpooned. Joseph Hutchinson"s rebound from despair to high and well- founded hope made of him exactly what such a man is always made by such rebound. The testimony to his genius and judgment which acknowledgment of the value of his work implied was naturally, in his opinion, only a proper tribute which the public had been a bull-headed fool not to lay at his feet years before. So much time lost, and so much money for it, as well as for him, and served "em all d.a.m.ned well right, he said. If Temple Barholm hadn"t come into his money, and hadn"t had more sense than the rest of them, where would they all have been? Perhaps they"d never have had the benefit of the thing he"d been telling them about for years. He prided himself immensely on the possession of a business shrewdness which was an absolute defense against any desire on the part of the iniquitous to overreach him. He believed it to be a peculiarly Lancashire characteristic, and kept it in view constantly.
"Lancashire"s not easy to do," he would say hilariously, "Them that can do a Lancashire chap has got to look out that they get up early in the morning and don"t go to bed till late."
Smooth-mannered and astute men of business who knew how to make a man talk were given diffuse and loud-voiced explanations of his methods and long-acknowledged merits and characteristics. His life, his morals, and his training, or rather lack ot it, were laid before them as examples of what a man might work himself up to if "he had it in him." Education didn"t do it. He had never been to naught but a village school, where he"d picked up precious little but the three R"s. It had to be born in a man. Look at him! His invention promised to bring him in a fortune like a duke"s, if he managed it right and kept his eyes open for sharpers. This company and that company were after him, but Lancashire didn"t snap up things without going into "em, and under "em, and through "em, for the matter of that.
The well-mannered gentlemen of business stimulated him greatly by their appreciative attention. He sometimes lost his head a trifle and almost bullied them, but they did not seem to mind it. Their apparently old- time knowledge of and respect for Lancashire business sagacity seemed invariably a marked thing. Men of genius and powerful character combined with practical shrewdness of outlook they intimated, were of enormous value to the business world. They were to be counted upon as important factors. They could see and deal with both sides of a proposal as those of weaker mind could not.
"That they can," Hutchinson would admit, rolling about in his chair and thrusting his hands in his pockets. "They"ve got some bottom to stand on." And he would feel amenable to reason.
Little Ann found her duties and responsibilities increasing daily.
Many persons seemed to think it necessary to come and talk business, and father had so much to think of and reason out, so that he could be sure that he didn"t make any mistakes. In a quiet, remote, and darkened corner of her mind, in which were stored all such things as it was well to say little or nothing about, there was discreetly kept for reference the secretly acquired knowledge that father did not know so much about business ways and business people as he thought he did.
Mother had learned this somewhat important fact, and had secluded it in her own private mental store-room with much affectionate delicacy.
"Father"s a great man and a good man, Ann love," she had confided to her, choosing an occasion when her husband was a hundred miles away, "and he IS right-down Lancashire in his clever way of seeing through people that think themselves sharp; but when a man is a genius and n.o.ble-minded he sometimes can"t see the right people"s faults and wickedness. He thinks they mean as honest as he does. And there"s times when he may get taken in if some one, perhaps not half as clever as he is, doesn"t look after him. When the invention"s taken up, and everybody"s running after him to try to cheat him out of his rights, if I"m not there, Ann, you must just keep with him and watch every minute. I"ve seen these sharp, tricky ones right-down flinch and quail when there was a nice, quiet-behaved woman in the room, and she just fixed her eye steady and clear-like on them and showed she"d took in every word and was like to remember. You know what I mean, Ann; you"ve got that look in your own eye."
She had. The various persons who interviewed Mr. Hutchinson became familiar with the fact that he had an unusual intimacy with and affection for his daughter. She was present on all occasions. If she had not been such a quiet and entirely un.o.btrusive little thing, she might have been an obstacle to freedom of expression. But she seemed a childish, unsophisticated creature, who always had a book with her when she waited in an office, and a trifle of sewing to occupy herself with when she was at home. At first she so obliterated herself that she was scarcely noticed; but in course of time it became observed by some that she was curiously pretty. The face usually bent over her book or work was tinted like a flower, and she had quite magnificent red hair. A stout old financier first remarked her eyes. He found one day that she had quietly laid her book on her lap, and that they were resting upon him like unflinching crystals as he talked to her father.
Their serenity made him feel annoyed and uncomfortable. It was a sort of recording serenity. He felt as though she would so clearly remember every word he had said that she would be able to write it down when she went home; and he did not care to have it written down. So he began to wander somewhat in his argument, and did not reach his conclusions.
"I was glad, Father, to see how you managed that gentleman this afternoon," Little Ann said that night when Hutchinson had settled himself with his pipe after an excellent dinner.
"Eh?" he exclaimed. "Eh?"
"The one," she exclaimed, "that thought he was so sure he was going to persuade you to sign that paper. I do wonder he could think you"d listen to such a poor offer, and tie up so much. Why, even I could see he was trying to take advantage, and I know nothing in the world about business."
The financier in question had been a brilliant and laudatory conversationalist, and had so soothed and exhilarated Mr. Hutchinson that such perils had beset him as his most lurid imaginings could never have conceived in his darkest moments of believing that the entire universe had ceased all other occupation to engage in that of defrauding him of his rights and dues. He had been so uplifted by the admiration of his genius so properly exhibited, and the fluency with which his future fortunes had been described, that he had been huffed when the arguments seemed to dwindle away. Little Ann startled him, but it was not he who would show signs of dismay at the totally unexpected expression of adverse opinion. He had got into the habit of always listening, though inadvertently, as it were, to Ann as he had inadvertently listened to her mother.
"Rosenthal?" he said. "Are you talking about him?"
"Yes, I am," Little Ann answeered, smiling approvingly over her bit of sewing. "Father, I wish you"d try and teach me some of the things you know about business. I"ve learned a little by just listening to you talk; but I should so like to feel as if I could follow you when you argue. I do so enjoy hearing you argue. It"s just an education."
"Women are not up to much at business," reflected Hutchinson. "If you"d been a boy, I"d have trained you same as I"ve trained myself.
You"re a sharp little thing, Ann, but you"re a woman. Not but what a woman"s the best thing on earth," he added almost severely in his conviction--"the best thing on earth in her place. I don"t know what I"d ever have done without you, Ann, in the bad times."
He loved her, blundering old egotist, just as he had loved her mother.
Ann always knew it, and her own love for him warmed all the world about them both. She got up and went to him to kiss him, and pat him, and stuff a cushion behind his stout back.
"And now the good times have come," she said, bestowing on him two or three special little pats which were caresses of her own invention, "and people see what you are and always have been, as they ought to have seen long ago, I don"t want to feel as if I couldn"t keep up with you and understand your plans. Perhaps I"ve got a little bit of your cleverness, and you might teach me to use it in small ways. I"ve got a good memory you know, Father love, and I might recollect things people say and make bits of notes of them to save you trouble. And I can calculate. I once got a copy of Bunyan"s `Pilgrim"s Progress" for a prize at the village school just for sums."
The bald but unacknowledged fact that Mr. Hutchinson had never exhibited gifts likely to ent.i.tle him to receive a prize for "sums"
caused this suggestion to be one of some practical value. When business men talked to him of per cents., and tenth shares or net receipts, and expected him to comprehend their proportions upon the spot without recourse to pencil and paper, he felt himself grow hot and nervous and red, and was secretly terrified lest the party of the second part should detect that he was tossed upon seas of horrible uncertainty. T. Tembarom in the same situation would probably have said, "This is the place where T. T. sits down a while to take breath and count things up on his fingers. I am not a sharp on arithmetic, and I need time--lots of it."
Mr. Hutchinson"s way was to bl.u.s.ter irritatedly.
"Aye, aye, I see that, of course, plain enough. I see that." And feel himself breaking into a cold perspiration. "Eh, this English climate is a damp un," he would add when it became necessary to mop his red forehead somewhat with his big clean handkerchief.
Therefore he found it easy to receive Little Ann"s proposition with favor.
"There"s summat i" that," he acknowledged graciously, dropping into Lancashire. "That"s one of the little things a woman can do if she"s sharp at figures. Your mother taught me that much. She always said women ought to look after the bits of things as was too small for a man to bother with."
"Men have the big things to look after. That"s enough for anybody,"
said Little Ann. "And they ought to leave something for women to do.
If you"ll just let me keep notes for you and remember things and answer your letters, and just make calculations you"re too busy to attend to, I should feel right-down happy, Father."
"Eh!" he said relievedly, "tha art like thy mother."
"That would make me happy if there was nothing else to do it," said Ann, smoothing his shoulder.
"You"re her girl," he said, warmed and supported.
"Yes, I"m her girl, and I"m yours. Now, isn"t there some little thing I could begin with? Would you mind telling me if I was right in what I thought you thought about Mr. Rosenthal"s offer?"
"What did you think I thought about it?" He was able to put affectionate condescension into the question.
She went to her work-basket and took out a sheet of paper. She came back and sat cozily on the arm of his chair.
"I had to put it all down when I came home," she said. "I wanted to make sure I hadn"t forgotten. I do hope I didn"t make mistakes."
She gave it to him to look at, and as he settled himself down to its careful examination, she kept her blue eyes upon him. She herself did not know that it was a wonderful little doc.u.ment in its neatly jotted down notes of the exact detail most important to his interests.
There were figures, there were calculations of profits, there were records of the gist of his replies, there were things Hutchinson himself could not possibly have fished out of the jumbled rag-bag of his uncertain recollections.
"Did I say that?" he exclaimed once.