The World From Rough Stones Page 8

  "Stevenson!"

  Stevenson turned.

  "Excellent man," Thornton clapped him heartily on the back. "I'm so pleased. Let me be the first to shake your hand!"

  "Until the good reverend doctor had his say!"

  "His say? It was my suggestion! Didn't I tell you last night? Didn't I tell them this morning? That always happens to me. My suggestions are ignored; then someone else makes them…"

  "More eloquently?" Stevenson suggested.

  "…with greater expenditure in wind and effort, and gets called a 'genius' for

  his theft!"

  His complaint was too good-natured to need more than a wry smile from Stevenson. "But," Thornton went on, "that is principally what I wanted to discuss with you. Will you walk a little into Manchester as we talk? I must get there by 1.30 for the Earlestown train; I'm off to London this afternoon."

  "Are you?" Stevenson was surprised. "Am I to begin on Summit Tunnel on my own?"

  Thornton shot him a crafty glance and smiled. "In a way. And in a way not. In a way I shall be there—or my support. This is my proposal. I have a few savings and a small inheritance put by. I could stand a thousand on top of your ten."

  It cost Stevenson all his resolve to refuse the offer. Before he had started on this venture, he had decided that if ever his ambition were realized, he would on no account contract a debt or an avoidable obligation—or at least one that he could not repay and so discharge—to any engineer or company servant. He had seen too many come to grief that way; the company must seek and court the contractor or no good would come of their work together. Yet the opportunist in him forbade him to make an outright refusal.

  "Thank you, Mr. Thornton, very kind. But if ever I seek a loan, it'll be from strength. Not weakness."

  It sounded plausible. Noble even.

  But Thornton laughed. "Ah! I didn't mean a loan. I meant it as equity. I'll wager an oriental fortune you're going to come out nicely on this. It'll make my four hundred a year look quite paltry. I think a thousand in your hands would go far to supplement it."

  In a flash Stevenson saw it was the answer to his dilemma. If Thornton's bankers could speak for the offer, he, Stevenson, could easily find a local banker to use such an offer as basis for a further guarantee. That would keep Thornton's name out of it as far as the Manchester & Leeds were concerned. And if his stage payments plan worked as expected, he would never have to call on Thornton's cash and so—ostensibly—would not be beholden to him. Stevenson succeeded in being nonchalant. "That'd take some thinking on. I'm not saying no, mind you. But I couldn't yet say yes, d'ye see? Why must you go south?"

  "Oh! As to that, you may congratulate me. I have a fortnight's leave of absence. I'm to be married this Friday."

  His boyish enthusiasm was infectious. Briefly, and sentimentally, Stevenson hankered for his own lost innocence. "Then I do congratulate you," he said. "Heartily. I hope you may be very happy. Ye'll be bringing Mrs. Thornton back here?"

  He wondered what sort of a woman Thornton would take as a wife. The thought of Nora came into his mind. He saw her face with its equivocal share of guile and ingenuousness…her strong, lean hands marshalling figures with a royal sense of command…her unsleeping sense of self-interest. A long way after these he thought of her prettiness, her body, the frankness of her lust. He wished he had caught the 1.10.

  "We have rented a house at Todmorden," Thornton said. "But first, I'm taking advantage of the new line beyond Wigan to Preston to enjoy a week by the seashore."

  "The west coast."

  "A village called Blackpool. It has quite a reputation among younger people of the better sort, you know. Mrs. Thornton—as she then will be—is of a romantic disposition and I considered that a brief spell on some remote shore that is both wild and deserted—yet not entirely devoid of civilized appointments—would please both her and myself."

  "Most thoughtful…er…" Stevenson thought that perhaps enough time had gone by between Thornton's offer of the thousand and a casual closure on it. "When you're down there, you might ask your bankers to send a note of hand to my bankers here in Manchester—Hunter in Piccadilly—in case…while you're away…"

  Thornton, as expected, looked dubious. "Well, now…" he was clearly embarrassed.

  "Not a transfer of funds, you understand." Stevenson was all assurance. "That can await your return. Just a note. By way of precaution."

  "In that case…" Thornton's relief was so open that Stevenson began to wonder whether he really had the money. Perhaps it was in trust until his marriage? "In that case, no difficulty. But remember—nec quicquam acrius quam pecuniae damnum stimulat!"

  He hardly expected Stevenson to understand, so it was with some shock that he heard the man…the contractor, as he now was, reply, with no trace of accent, not even that of the educated northerner the Board had met: "I have always thought Cicero wiser than Livy—Vitam regit fortuna, non sapientia."

  It stopped Thornton in his tracks; he stared at his companion open-jawed.

  "You'll be late if you stop."

  "Yes." Thornton, jerked back into the present, began again to hurry. He shook his head in bewilderment as he said. "Ye're a damned odd fish, Stevenson, A damned odd fish!"

  Stevenson gripped his arm, to take leave without hindering him. Now he spoke again in deliberately broad West Riding. "Fare tha well, Mr. Thornton, sir! We s'll lewk after't tunnel while tha comes back."

  Thornton laughed aloud, frightening a horse out of his nose-bag, as he drew ahead of Stevenson and strode purposefully out toward Liverpool Road. Stevenson sauntered on some way, watching him almost out of sight. What moved the engineer? What was his especial greed? Though they had worked closely for six months and would now spend most of every day practically in one another's pockets, Stevenson still had no idea of an answer to his questions.

  As he turned to make his way back to the station, a Stanhope drawn by a large bay cut across the road toward him. It was almost upon him before he recognized the Reverend Prendergast at the reigns.

  "Whoa!" he called, as much to Stevenson as his horse. He saw the contractor eyeing the carriage. "What's your opinion?"

  "Pray the horse doesn't fall to his knees," Stevenson answered, determined not to grease the cleric's vanity.

  "Oh?" Prendergast was not amused.

  "If the front cross spring yields on these, the back one offers no resistance— and the riders are pitched out. It's the same fault on all."

  An urchin came up, hoping for the commission to hold the horse. He nodded wisely at Stevenson's criticism as if to say that he had always had that opinion of Stanhopes. Prendergast lowered his whip, resting it on the horse's flank.

  "Climb aboard," he said. "See if we can oblige."

  "I s'll go back to Littleborough," Stevenson said, standing his ground.

  "You shall take luncheon with me."

  Stevenson inclined his head and stepped up into the carriage. The urchin turned away and walked on.

  "I trust my…ah…little extra condition will not prove impossible to…" he said as he whipped up the bay.

  "I think it will not, sir."

  "I'm damn sure it will not. In fact, to make certain double certain, here is a note in my own hand—a genuine note. Take it to my bankers and they will furnish the necessary guarantees."

  He passed Stevenson a folded slip of notepaper, unsealed. He took it, unfolded it, and read. It was an instruction to the banker to guarantee the thousand. Prendergast must have written it only moments earlier.

  "A thousand pounds!" Stevenson feigned a different kind of astonishment. "That is most generous, Doctor. Ye do me great honour…"

  "Oh," Prendergast's laugh was cold. "I doubt whether honour comes much into it!" He did not look at Stevenson; in all this time, his eyes had been upon the road.

  "But I have, in a way, already raised the sum, d'ye see."

  That made the cleric look. In fact, he pulled the horse up sharply, forcing a brewery dray to draw wide
ly around them. He turned full face to Stevenson. "The devil you have!"

  "Young Thornton…" Stevenson began, letting the rest hang delicately.

  The other recovered his possession very quickly. "Well! He's either a lot more stupid or greatly more astute than I had imagined."

  Stevenson laughed. "No, Doctor. Not Thornton. I was about to say he had offered, too. And I turned him down."

  It was about time to fire his second broadside—the one he had not needed at the meeting. He drew from an inside pocket the note on the Duke of Somerset's paper. It had lost the crispness of last night; already it looked as if he had carried it for years. With justifiable pride he handed it to the clergyman, pausing in sudden thought just as the other's hand closed upon it. "Before I let you have sight of this, sir, I'd welcome your assurance, as a gentleman of the cloth, that you'll never divulge what you're about to read."

  "Ye have it!" Prendergast's smile was solid assurance. "There's my hand on it…" He even took off his glove. "Ye have it."

  Stevenson knew at once he had blundered, for Prendergast took no pains to conceal his skepticism. He peered closely at the broken seal, fitting its parts together and turning it this way and that. Then he uttered a loud "Hah!" and turned on Stevenson a radiant smile.

  The horse must have thought he said Hup! for it started with a jolt that nearly unseated both men. Prendergast did not rein it in. He was too keen to press forward with what he had in mind. "It's your misfortune, Stevenson, not to have known…" He became absorbed in the contents of the letter. Dumbly, for he could only wait now, Stevenson took the reins. "I declare this is most excellently done! You have a worthy talent…Yes!" He sighed. "The misfortune not to have known that I am related by marriage to the Duke of Somerset."

  Stevenson was too practised a deceiver not to play his part with utter conviction

  still, though he knew well enough the game was up. "What luck, sir! Then as you see, we, too, are somewhat related!"

  Prendergast, freed of the reins, never took his eyes from Stevenson's face. "I think not," he said at last. Stevenson made as if to speak but was cut short. "What is more to the point, I also happen to know that Robert Bolitho, of Bolitho and Chambers in Dowgate, has been dead these six months past and so could not have signed the note you showed us. A note dated a mere twenty days ago."

  "Dead!" Now the immediate panic was over Stevenson, as always, found something to relish in his desperate corner. He coolly admired his own simulation of honest sincerity. For an instant, the thought possessed him that winning or losing hardly mattered; the perfection of the act was worth pursuing for its own sake. It was the purpose of it all. He quickly shrugged off the notion. He had to shake Prendergast's confidence; that was the purpose of it all.

  "Oh, but this is easily explained. I confess it is fully a year since I asked Bolitho and Chambers—and they were certainly both living then unless a pair of very substantial ghosts occupied my morning." He laughed. Prendergast joined in, not pleasantly. "Fully a year that I asked them to prepare such a note and hold it against my immediate need. They must have signed it then and left the date until dispatch."

  For some reason Prendergast was delighted. It was as if Stevenson were a pupil who had just done something exceptionally well. The clergyman reached for the reins, which Stevenson, disingenuous confidence outside, defeat within, yielded up to him.

  "Good, good! But ye show lamentable ignorance of the ways of banks if ye say that."

  The fact that Prendergast was obviously not going to drive him straight to the nearest lock-up was no encouragement. Stevenson wondered glumly what was to follow, though he continued to speak with that same honest conviction. "It cannot be, Doctor. It is beyond my understanding. My London agent, you see, sent me that note not ten days since…" He paused in midflight as a new line of defence opened up. "Ah! But what if he is playing tricks with me. I was always warned for being too trustful! And what if he has…deceived me into deceiving you!"

  Prendergast chuckled. "What'll ye do, man, eh? Fly posthaste to London? Seek him out? Drag him back here by the ears to explain?"

  "Indeed. Indeed. We may still catch the connection to London."

  "And vanish forever from human ken! No, Stevenson. I had to see you under

  stress. I had to see if you were glass or diamond. But now to serious things. My club's just round here."

  "But do let me assure you…" Stevenson began, determined to keep his end up to the last.

  "You can drop all that, Mr. Stevenson. You've joined a bigger game than you thought. That's all."

  They turned into Fennel Street and reined to a halt just before Hanging Ditch. Prendergast's "club" was a luncheon and supper house for merchants at the corner of Toad Lane.

  They took luncheon in a private room. Throughout the meal, while the servants were present, Prendergast acted as if they were two casual business acquaintances with no very pressing reason to dine together. Stevenson was forced to admire the man's skill, though he burned to know what kind of blackmail— and it could only be blackmail—was intended. But he did learn something from their seemingly idle talk: Prendergast was exceedingly well connected in the new world of railroads. There was hardly a director of any important line—and of any line north of Derby—whom he did not personally know. He knew their foibles and weaknesses. And he knew their strengths. Over salmon cutlets, during boiled sheep's head, tongue, and brains, and through the ginger creams, he made quite sure that Stevenson understood how intimate was his knowledge, how wide his connections.

  By the time the port and cigars were set upon the table, Stevenson had almost forgotten their true purpose here.

  "Dear-dear-dear!" Prendergast said. "I do hate to see a good cigar lit from the gas. It so spoils the flavour."

  "My years below stairs have dulled my tastes," Stevenson admitted.

  "You can withdraw," Prendergast said sharply by way of thanks to the servant who had waited on them through the meal. Impassively the man left them. Prendergast looked steadily at the door, as if he could see through it. "Damn servants! They grow more surly by the week."

  "Unrest is widespread," Stevenson confirmed. "I see it at first hand."

  Prendergast looked quickly back at him. "No trouble on Summit Tunnel—or the line? What?"

  "Not so far," he said.

  But Prendergast was hardly listening. Instead, he was preparing once again to broach the subject the servant's presence had prevented them from discussing. He breathed in sharply several times as if about to speak, looked quizzically at

  Stevenson, rolled his cigar, puffed it, wheezed, and drained his glass.

  "Port's with you," he said at last. And then, emboldened at the sound of his own voice, continued: "Now see here, Stevenson…"

  It was going to be the friendly tack.

  "I have no real desire to know your true past—though I take you for a consummate forger. But I feel sure you have no ten thousand pounds." He waved away words that Stevenson had not been going to utter. His was now a waiting game. "Yet, now I know you somewhat better, I also believe you would not have embarked on this venture rashly. You truly think you can fulfill this contract? I see you're obviously not another Skelm, but there's many ways of coming to grief. Can you see it through?"

  Stevenson paused before replying. He looked at Prendergast as if wondering whether to risk the truth. "If," he stressed, "if the Board pay me as I propose." He knew well enough that going back on that undertaking was not in the other's mind; but he wanted to suggest an inability on his part to understand where all this was leading.

  Prendergast chuckled, genuinely. Dinner had mellowed him; Stevenson noted the fact against future need. "Yes—that was one of the cleverest moves I've witnessed. I doubt they'll ever realize you walked a circle around them. Deftly done."

  Still pretending to incomprehension, Stevenson tried a frontal assault. "What is your interest, Doctor? Since you claim to be undeceived."

  Prendergast snorted a laugh into
his glass. "Oh no—to be undeceived one must first be deceived—and that I never was. I could…" There was just the hint of a threat as he changed tack. "Let me put it differently. You have done well. Between the explosion yesterday (and how fortunate that was, too!)…between that and your appointment today, you have done marvels. Yet you have made two bad blunders. You signed a dead man's name—a capital offence if you knew him to be dead—and you forged a peer's signature and seal. Transportable, as I'm sure you know."

  "Are you seeking to blackmail me, Doctor? Let's be perfectly blunt."

  Prendergast besought the heavens as if Stevenson had just made some unpardonable social blunder. "That is precisely what I wish to avoid. A blackmailer is a parasite. A leech. He takes his blood whether his host be healthy or not. For me it is quite the reverse. Let me suggest to you," he was suddenly very earnest, "that if you are to avoid future blunders, you need a partner. You very much need a partner. One not as astute as yourself perhaps, but one who"—he sought for the exact phrasing—"who has not been so long from the world of gentlemen and of wealth. One with position. One with connections."