You might have knocked Adam down with a feather. After all these fourteen years to be even so grudgingly accepted as this, made him feel that the round world was no longer sure. He sat with his mouth wide open, wondering what topic of conversation would in the future take the place of unending proposal and refusal. Then the sense that he must leave such dark things to Providence, and do his duty in the present by himself, and Martha made him ask tremulously--
"Will you name the yappy day, my darlin'? Will you, my darlin', name the yappy day?"
Martha wiped her eyes and became more composed. "Some time afore we dies, I suppose," she said with a disconsolate whimper, "I can't promise more'n that, Adam Bate--an' don't ee see the kettle bilin'."
CHAPTER XXII
When Ned Blackborough left Cwmfairnog he left behind him also the very desire for dreams. He remained simply a rich man with no wants save for what wealth can bring. All the rest--the capacity for imagination inclusive--was mere moonshine. For the first time in his life the pompous luxury of New Park did not offend him, he drank a bottle of ludicrously high-priced champagne for supper, he smoked a good many ludicrously highly-drugged cigarettes, not as he generally did almost unconsciously, but of set purpose, taking a solid joy in the fuddled state to which they reduced him.
He woke, of course, with a headache next morning, and having had breakfast he looked at his bank-book, a thing he had not done for months. It was not exactly exhilarating to a man who had just made up his mind to enjoy what he could as a millionaire!
But, even as he looked at the balance, something in him rose up and mocked at him. How long would this phase last? How long could this pompous acquiescence in wealth as a means of pleasure last? How could eyes that had once seen, ears that had once heard, remain blind and deaf to the only realities, the only pleasures of life?
He put the question aside in an attempt to find anything but party in the politics of the morning paper, and coming to the conclusion that they were synonymous terms, he ordered the motor and went round to Egworth to St. Helena's Hospital. Woods, the little secretary, always had a tonic effect on him, and he really wanted to see how things had been going on in his absence. He found the secretary's office full up with business, and little Wood's face keener than ever.
"It is going on all right, sir, and I have kept strictly to the lines you laid down; but it involves a good deal of--of tact and correspondence"--he pulled a file towards him and fingered it. "This, for instance, contains nothing but applications to me personally for fairly fair contracts of sorts, based on secret commission. These I answer myself, as the firms sending the suggestions are really quite respectable. The minor tradesmen, and all applications made through the servants I leave to the clerks."
"You leave to the clerks," echoed Ned thoughtfully, "and some, no doubt, never come into the office at all."
Woods shrugged his high shoulders, "One can expect nothing else. It is impossible to gauge the extent to which dislike to what they call 'splitting' obtains amongst domestic servants. They will never tell on another. A great many of them, of course, refuse these monstrous suggestions for taking toll, but they would never dream of speaking to their employers about them, as they should." He sighed impatiently.
"But what can you expect? Where are the fundamental principles of fair dealing taught in England? Nowhere!"
"Hullo, Woods!" remarked Ned with a laugh, "Don't throw over '_caveat emptor_.' It is the foundation stone of England's power." Then he frowned. "By the way, how are the men down at Biggie getting on--you gave them their wage every week for a month, I suppose?"
"I did," replied Woods gravely, "There is a lot of distress down there. You see it is not like a strike; you have definitely closed the works and paid forfeit on contracts. So the unions won't help. Some of these men have drifted away; but the trade is slack all over England.
I won't say because of dumping; but the fact remains. It is slack."
Lord Blackborough looked at his secretary narrowly. "Woods!" he said, "what would you do?"
The keen face lit up. "Do," he echoed, "I know what I should dearly like to do--try an experiment. There are a lot of clever men in that factory, your lordship; I should lend them the capital to run the concern at one and a half per cent. interest, and--and await the result. Either way it would be an object-lesson."
"It would pay me," said Lord Blackborough, "if the state of affairs is to remain as bad as it has been. I'll--I'll see about it, Woods. Then I may take it that the hospital is really working on the lines I laid down?"
Woods coughed. "We are all very much on the lookout for fraud, your lordship," he said meekly, "but there must always be a percentage of error, so long as every one wishes to coin his neighbour into golden sovereigns."
"And that will be always, Woods," remarked Lord Blackborough with a laugh, "I believe it to be an entrancing occupation, and I mean to try it myself."
He sought out Helen after this, and found her also up to the ears in business.
"It is a terrible responsibility, Ned," she remarked, "and I am afraid I have to deluge poor Mr. Woods with references; but really I cannot trust to any one--I mean outside the hospital. Within it we are a picked lot and we do--fairly well."
The doubtful praise fell almost wearily from her lips.
"And how is No. 36?" he asked.
She brightened up. "Going on, Sister Ann says, splendidly. Dr. Ramsay operated on him a fortnight after we started, and it was a complete success. The doctors from St. Peter's were over seeing him yesterday, and even they allowed it was splendid."
"And how about the expenses; will the parents pay anything reasonable for board?"
She shook her head. "Mr. Woods says you cannot expect it. You see the children get their education free, very often their dinners free; so why shouldn't they get cured by charity? There isn't much responsibility left to poor parents now-a-days. It--it doesn't pay."
"And Ramsay?" asked Ned with a smile. "I hope his shirts are in decent order."
She flushed up a brilliant carmine. "Has Dr. Ramsay been complaining?"
she asked.
"Great heavens above! No!" exclaimed Ned aghast. "Has it come to that?--no--I haven't seen him yet."
"Perhaps you had better ask him yourself," she said coldly. Then she looked at him. "And about yourself, Ned. You've told me nothing."
"Because, dear," he replied lightly, "there is nothing to tell. By the way, have you heard that Aura Graham married my friend Ted Cruttenden on Valentine's Day? You hadn't? Well, it's a fact anyhow; and she has just lost her grandfather."
"Ned!" she cried rising in swift sympathy, "I--I am so sorry."
"Yes! it is rather sad," he remarked coolly. "Of course it breaks up that jolly little unconventional home. By Jove! I daresay it will have to be sold; and in that case I shouldn't mind buying it. It would remind me of rather a jolly time."
His insouciance silenced her, and he went off on his tour of inspection to Sister Ann, whom he found in the convalescent ward, very spic and span, very precise and satisfied.
"He has not had a single drawback," she said glancing complacently at No. 36, who lay looking like an angel for virtue on a wheeled bed. "If he goes on like this, he will be discharged in a month at most. Of course he will not be quite sound; he is too radically disease-sodden for that, but he will be able to make his own living and----"
"And marry," put in Lord Blackborough calmly. "It is altogether a most satisfactory business."
Sister Ann looked at him doubtfully. "So far as I am concerned it is so, certainly. I disclaim responsibility after a patient leaves my hospital."
"My dear Sister Ann," laughed Lord Blackborough, "I disclaim all responsibility for anything. It is the only possible way of feeling moral."
He found Dr. Ramsay looking a trifle _egare_ in a room of surpassing tidiness. Helen's hand was visible also in the doctor's dress. He had nothing but good to report in every way except that he had found it extremely difficult to ensure a supply of absolutely undeniable drugs.
"It is not that any one deliberately means to cheat, but that the real thing is so difficult to get," he remarked ruefully. "You see, if a fellow sells wine or spirits that isn't genuine he can be run in; but you may kill half a dozen babies by selling stale ipecacuhana wine or any other filth and no one asks questions."
He was loud in praise of his assistants, the secretary, Sister Ann.
Each and all were first-class.
"And Helen--Mrs. Tresillian, I mean?" asked Ned drily, "I hope she is satisfactory as matron."
Peter Ramsay's face showed a trifle more colour. "Satisfactory," he echoed, "she is more than satisfactory! Do you know--" his voice sank to an almost awed tone--"I believe she looks after my--my underclothes herself."
Ned Blackborough burst into a roar of laughter.
"My poor Peter!" he said, "vested interests again! It's too bad!" Then he sobered down and looked quite gravely at the doctor, who was laughing too.
"Ramsay," he said, "why don't you ask my cousin to marry you?"
"I asked her yesterday," replied the doctor gloomily.