The Disappearance of George Driffell

Part I

Driffell Hall in the Midlands is not a ' show place,' not because it is lacking in picturesqueness or even a certain grandeur, but because it is too modern. The Driffells are an old family, as families go, but they are not a ' county family.' This dis tinction has been withheld from them because, from father to son for several generations, they have been ' connected with trade.' George Driffell, the head of the family when I first came to know it, so far from being ashamed of this fact, took pride in it. B THE DISAPPEAKANCE OF 2 Upon the whole, I think he would have preferred being the architect of his own fortunes, rather than, if it had been possible, to have had any progenitors at all. No one could have been prouder of his ancestral acres than Driffell was of his, provided, as they were, with all the newest inventions of science.

Some of them he had suggested himself, and was always adding new improvements to the machinery of his mill. The Hall was handsomely furnished, quite in the modern style, without any pretence of æstheticism or particularity of any kind ; but what it possessed in the way of art was both choice and rare. There were not a few graceful statues and many pictures, most of them by artists of high repute. There was also a fine library, chiefly drawn from modern authors, and — what seemed curious in the house of so clever a mechani cian — mostly poets and novelists. But George Driffell was a many-sided man. It was only as a boy, a friend of his son Laurence, at that time, like myself, about fifteen years old, that I first knew him ; but his character impressed me even at that early age when character must be striking indeed to produce impression.

He was a fair man, well-built, very good-looking, and in appearance about six-and-thirty, though I have reason to believe he was some years older. Of course I could not foresee that he was destined to be the most interesting person I had ever come across, the talk of all his neighbours, the puzzle of the countryside for years ; but I well remember overhearing a remark made about him by Dr. Garden to Mr. Chorley, the clergyman of our parish. ' He is all you say, my dear sir, and more ; I have a very high opinion of his intelligence ; indeed, what rather alarms me about him sometimes, is that he seems capable of such possibilities.' I did not quite understand what he meant by this at the time, but it struck me later on as being a very far-sighted description of the man. It attracted my attention because Dr. Garden was a person of great reputation for intelligence.

Mr. Driffell and he were great friends. They would sit for hours together in the billiard room without B touching a cue, in close conversation over their tobacco — the visitor with his pipe, the host with a cigar, mild, but of the finest brand. Mr. Driffell was also very particular about his coffee, and there his love of luxury ended. His tastes in other respects were extremely simple, and I remember that Mrs. Driffell found it very difficult to make him dress for dinner, even when people came to dine with them. Perhaps I did not notice these matters at the time ; but afterwards, when circum stances took place which rendered his peculiarities of the highest interest, I recalled them. His wife was about his own age, but not so young-looking. She had, I was told, been a very pretty girl, which, when a woman is six-and-thirty and a boy fifteen, it is hard for the latter to believe.

I once heard the Rector say that they were the handsomest young couple he had ever joined together. Her hair was still plentiful, and of a brilliant brown ; her figure had not fallen away ; but her face, though it could not be called haggard, bore the autograph of care upon it. The pair did not live unhappily together ; her husband was uniformly kind, and even at times tender, in his manner to her ; but this was almost always after some little disagreement with her — a not unusual occurrence — and proceeded, I think, from remorse ; not, that is to say, from any deep-seated sense of wrong-doing, but from repentance at having vexed her. He was unconscious of having ever really behaved ill to her, nor, indeed, so far as I know, had he ever done so ; but I think it was that he did not love her as she deserved.

Perhaps it was because she knew this, that she had not succeeded in retaining the affection he once had for her, that her brow had become so clouded. Immersed in business and devoted to its details as he was, her love was not so necessary to him as his was to her. With men, as a great writer says, ' Love is much or little ; with women it is everything.' She did not understand him ; not only was the business side of his character incomprehensible to her, but what was of far more consequence, the sentimental side. She was not stupid, far from it ; but she had little imagination, and did not sympathise with his love for poetry and fiction. Still less did she share his admiration for Shakespeare, to whom he was more devoted than any man I ever met. He had formed a little Shakespeare Club, as he liked to call it, comprising, however, only a very few members, and we met once a fortnight at the Hall in the winter to read a play.

Dr. and Mrs. Garden, Mr. Chorley, Mr. Sandeman, the family lawyer, who was a near neighbour, and his wife, were the most regular attendants, with Mr. and Mrs. Driffell and we two boys. These evenings were a great trial to Mrs. Driffell, who would much rather have been a spectator than one of the dramatis persona. She was not fitted to sustain characters of great im portance, and her failure to do so always annoyed her husband, especially as Mrs. Garden, an ex ceptionally intelligent woman, came on these occasions into favourable comparison with her. I am almost inclined to think that Mr. Sandeman, an acute solicitor enough, but not given to the dramatic art, would have preferred to have his dinner at the Hall without the intellectual enter tainment that followed it. As for Laurence, he confided to me with characteristic frankness that he thought the Shakespeare evenings ' Tommy Rot.' Whatever game one plays well at, no matter what it is, is attractive to the player, and it is no wonder that Mr. Driffell, on the other hand, was fond of these readings ; whatever part fell to his share he performed it well, but his favourite roles were those of impulse and passion.

I was too young, of course, to perceive how strangely this was at variance with his character, as it was generally understood by his neighbours. He was by them considered not only a long headed, but a hard-headed man, devoted to business, and, so far as they understood it, to science, and little given to the softer emotions. Yet I felt that, in this last opinion at least, they were mistaken. Laurence, as his son, was of course an object of far greater interest to him than myself, but he was, so to speak, his mother's boy and not his father's ; he had, necessarily at so early an age, no particular devotion to business ; he was not averse to the part he knew he must one day play in the world as the master of the mill, a great employer of labour, and the leading manufacturer of the district ; but he preferred for the present to think as little of that as possible.

He liked riding, and even shooting, for he had been indulged with a gun of his very own, and was distinguished in all athletic sports, of his excel lence in which his mother was very proud, while Mr. Driffell took no sort of interest in them ; the intellectual side of Laurence's character (though he by no means wanted for wits) was, on the other hand, little developed, and of imagination he had very little. He loved books, though he had a turn for mathematics, as a dog loves a whip, and no better. It was not to my credit that my tastes, on the other hand, were literary. I was born in India, and like many children under the same circum stances, was delicate and disinclined for outdoor sports. My mother had died when I was very young, and my father, a general officer in the Indian Army, the year after I had been sent for my health to England.

The rector, who had been made my guardian, and his wife (who how ever died shortly afterwards) supplied, so far as it was possible, the place of my parents. They were very kind and indulgent to me, and perhaps more careful in seeing that I was exposed to no dangers than if I had been their own son ; their sense of responsibility was, I fear, a source of anxiety to them. I was not permitted to go to school, but received probably as good an education at the hands of Mr. Chorley as I should have done anywhere. I was a questioning boy, a type which is not encouraged at schools, and never questioned my dear guardian in vain. What I lacked was such advantages as come from the society of other boys. Laurence was the only young friend I had, and I was with him but during the holidays. Thus I mixed almost entirely with my elders, and to some extent grew out of the boy in tone and manner before my time.

My guardian looked after my studies as far as learning was concerned but, as is the case with every boy with any independence of character, the books that I naturally turned to formed my real education, and I was permitted to read pretty much what I pleased. This was chiefly poetry and fiction. In Luxton, the town near which we lived, and in which Mr. Driffell's mill was situated, this class of literature was not popular. People who read at all did so for the avowed purpose of improving their minds, and not for pleasure. I discovered, however, a kindred spirit where I certainly had not expected to do so. On returning one afternoon from Luxton I was overtaken by Mr. Driffell, who was on his way home, as usual, from the mill. ' Well, Gresham,' he exclaimed, at the same time clapping me on the back, ' what have been your studies to-day ?

Have you been a good boy ? ' I replied, laughingly, that as Mr. Chorley had been absent at a clerical meeting I had been reading ' Nicholas Nickleby ' instead of the ancient classics. ' Do you mean really reading it,' he answered, in his short, sharp way, ' or only glancing through it after the manner of your kind ? ' ' I have read every word of it,' I replied, a little indignantly, ' and almost know it by heart.' ' Those be brave words, Master Gresham,' said he ; ' then tell me about Mr. Bonney.' ' Mr. Bonney,' I repeated ; ' there is nothing about any person of that name.' Mr. Driffell laughed in his dry way, but by no means ill-naturedly ; he was not, perhaps, displeased with his own better memory. ' What, have you forgotten already the Chair man of the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company ? ' ' Dear me, how stupid of me ! ' I said, ' and he was in the very first chapter, with Sir Matthew Pupker.' ' No, he was not, sir, he was in the second ; but that's a detail.

Whatever is worth reading at all, my lad,' he added gently, for he saw that I was sadly put out, ' is worth reading with attention.' Then he began talking about the book, and of Dickens, who, with the exception of Brunei (the engineer), was, he said, the greatest man alive. ' Mr. Chorley will probably put him after the Duke of Wellington, but there are some matters in which even the good rector is mistaken.' There was something in Mr. Driffell's manner that often made me in doubt whether he was speaking seriously or not ; and it prevented me on this occasion from assuring him, of what I was very certain, that my guardian thought a good many people beside the Duke of Wellington (including the bishop of the diocese) superior to Dickens. From that time forth — I cannot tell why, and, indeed, there were many things that puzzled me, and were fated to be many more about him — Mr. Driffell often conversed with me upon literary topics ; it seemed to please him that I was enthusiastic about this and that author, of whom he knew much more than I did.

But these conversations never took place till after business hours, during which, I believe, he never thought of anything save what concerned his calling. I got into the habit of meeting him at some point or another on his road home, in the late afternoon, and he seemed to be glad of my com panionship. About this time, however, a circumstance occurred which monopolised all his attention and caused great excitement in Luxton. A strike was threatened in that part of the country, and though, when such things had occurred before, Mr. Driffell's mill, thanks to his excellent government and the general esteem in which he was held, had been excepted, it was now included. I went in and out of the Hall like a tame cat, and heard a good deal of talk between Mr. Driffell and his manufacturing friends upon this matter.

They were all for stand ing firm and resisting what they described as the unreasonable demands of their workpeople ; but he, to my surprise, took a different view. ' I shall give in if they compel me to do so,' he said ; ' but I do not think they will compel me.' This speech was taken very ill by the others, first, because it seemed to desert the cause, and secondly, because they thought it assumed a certain superiority over them as regarded popularity with the men. But he was quite firm, and refused to join anything in the nature of a lock-out until he had seen how his men behaved to him. As it turned out, hia resolve, from his own point of view, was a correct one, but the others never forgave him; it created a rift between him and his neigh bours, and after a certain mysterious event, in which his character was deeply implicated, caused many uncharitable remarks and surmises.

I am not sure that personally he was excep tionally popular with his workpeople. They knew him to be a just, and by no means a grinding man, but there was no great intimacy between them. He was open-handed enough ; but his wife was his almoner, and it was through her that they bene fited, when in sickness or distress, by his liberality. In the Midlands, as in the North country, the relations between employer and employed are different from those in the South. The mechanic is far more independent than the labourer ; he dislikes patronage, and resents interference of any kind. Though with his workmen he was familiar enough, Mr. Driffell knew nothing of their wives and families. It was not his business, as he would have expressed it, to do so, nor would they have welcomed his intrusion. A certain circumstance, therefore, which took place about this time, though commonplace and unimportant in itself, made some impression upon me.

The country close to Luxton would have been picturesque but for the havoc made with it by the various manufacturing processes of the town. Scores of chimneys vomited forth all kinds of unwholesome exhala tions, which fell like a blight upon vegetation. But a few miles off, where Driffell Hall was situated, the landscape improved greatly. I was returning home one afternoon with the rector, along a footpath through the meadow, which was never much frequented, when we noticed in a field ahead of us two persons standing by the stile. They were very close together, and talking, as it seemed, confidentially. ' The old, old story,' remarked Mr. Chorley, with his pleasant smile. ' Yes,' I agreed, ' it looks very much like it But, when we came nearer, what was our surprise to recognise in one of the two persons Mr. Driffell.

The other was a young girl, Esther Kean, the step-daughter of one of his factory hands. She was well known to the rector, and had not a very happy home : he had been called in on more than one occasion to settle certain domestic differences concerning which Esther had not been in fault ; she had an excellent character, and was diligent and hardworking. We were quite sure when we identified the couple that our diagnosis of them had been incorrect ; but as we came on, the girl walked swiftly away, and Mr. Driffell waited quietly for us at the stile. He did not allude in any way to his late companion, and was evidently quite undisturbed as to any con clusion that might be drawn from her meeting with him. But, in fact, we drew none, though the circumstance was doubtless strange from his never, as I have said, concerning himself with the families of his workpeople ; we felt it impossible that he could be associated with anything in the nature of a flirtation with a factory girl.

I was fated to see him that same evening playing a part that befitted him much better, and was, in fact, characteristic of him in the highest degree. Laurence and I were in the billiard room, when Mr. Driffell came in, cigar in mouth as usual, and watched our very unscientific game ; when it was finished he took up a cue and showed us, with great patience, how certain strokes were to be made. While thus engaged, Merton, the butler, entered the room and told his master that some ' persons ' had called and wished to see him. We all knew by his face that they were not callers that would be welcomed, because he looked so pleased. I believe the man had really a liking for his employer and the family generally, but I never saw anyone so charmed with having bad news to c tell. When a couple of men had one day met with their deaths by accident at the mill, he told his mistress of it in my presence with a relish that would have befitted congratulations on her birthday, and when she exclaimed with emotion, ' Oh, Merton, how dreadful !

How did it happen ? ' ' Well, they do say, mum,' he replied with an engaging smile, ' that it was through our unfenced machinery.' On the present occasion, under his master's eye, he knew better than to grin ; but I saw him furtively rub his hands. ' Oh, there are " persons " here, are there ? ' said Mr. Driffell. ' How many persons ? ' ' Well, sir, I think there's half a dozen at least. They calls themselves a deputation from the mill, I believe.' ' Very good,' said Mr. Driffell, executing a very difficult canon, ' show the " persons " in.' I rose to go, but he said, ' You may stay if you like, Gresham ; and as to you, Laurence, I wish you to stay, What you hear will be worth your while to listen to, as a lesson in later life, when the mill will have passed out of my hands.' There was a noise without of trampling feet, heavy and slow, and then a stoppage as though the visitors were not anxious to take precedence of one another in entering the room.

However, the door opened and six mill hands presented themselves. I knew two or three of them by sight : one was Robert Saken, the stepfather of Esther Kean ; an ill-favoured fellow with a slouch in his gait and a slink in his eye. The others were well-set, resolute-looking fellows, but on the present occasion with a certain doggedness of manner due, no doubt, to the nature of their errand. Mr. Driffell, leaning on his billiard-cue, cigar in mouth, regarded them with an easy air. ' Well,' he said, ' what is it, my men ? ' There was a moment's pause, and then Saken, admonished by sundry nudges from behind, took on himself the role of spokesman. ' Well, you see, it's about present rates, sir, that is, of wages ; we think, considering the business as is being done, that we ought to be better ♦ c paid.

That is what is thought in the other Luxton mills, and they are going to strike about it.' ' And you are going to join them, eh ? ' said Mr. Driffell, his face growing very set. ' Is that what you mean ? ' ' Well, we are sorry ; you have been a good master, we don't deny it. But we must look to ourselves. It's a chance, you see, as don't come every day.' (Mr. Driffell removed his cigar to emit a not very pleasant laugh, and put it back again.) ' I mean, there's a good many orders on hand.' ' I see, then, you mean to strike, do you ? Just so ; you will, however, listen to a word I have to say upon the matter, I suppose, or you would hardly have taken the trouble to call.' ' We are very glad to listen, sir ; you have, as I says, been always a good master to us,' said Saken ; ' it's no pleasure to us ' ' You have had your say,' interposed Mr. Driffell, impatiently, ' now let me have mine.

I have had the mill in my hands these ten years, and my father had it before me for three times ten.' ' That is so,' put in one of the oldest men. ' I've been more than forty years with the two of you.' ' Now, has anyone here, or any man that you know of, been treated by me or mine otherwise than justly ? Have we been hard upon you in hard times, or taken advantage of our opportunities in any way to get the better of you ? ' ' We don't deny as you have been a just master — ay, and a kind one,' said the men in a sort of chorus ; ' but we have ourselves to look to,' added Saken. ' Quite right,' said Mr. Driffell ; ' nothing more natural. We all do that ; but sometimes we are mistaken as to what is good for us, that is, in the end. There have been strikes now and again, in this neighbourhood, but not in our mill.

Not one, I believe, in forty years.' ' No, not one,' murmured the men. ' It's a long record of good will on both sides, and it seems a pity to break it. But, as Saken yonder has said, a chance has just now happened that does not occur every day. My necessity has become your opportunity ; you have got me in a cleft stick, and if you insist upon your demands, if they were even greater than this one — I give you that in — I am compelled, however ungrateful I may think your conduct, to submit. That is pretty much your view of the case, I take it ? ' ' Well, yes,' said the men (two of them grinning, though by no means maliciously), ' that is about it.' ' Very good ; now you shall have my view. If you insist, as I say, you must have your way. But, remember, this mill of mine will not in that case be carried on upon the old lines.

My motto will henceforth be ' Hard and Fast.' It is very profitable at present, but that, as you well know, cannot always last. It will be less so one day. Now take it from me, and you know I am a man of my word, there will then be no consideration about hard times ; I will have my pound of flesh whatever happens. My turn will come round — to day for you, to-morrow for me ; and when it does, I will have my rights to the uttermost farthing. I know all about this matter. It is only a few of you— and those not here — who have picked this quarrel ; but if they think they are going to get the better of me in the end, whatever they may do just at present, they don't know George Driffell. That is my last word.' He threw away his cigar and confronted them with resolute eyes, just a trace of colour in his usually pale cheeks, but with no other sign of anger.

There was a significant silence among the deputation, broken by a cough or two, then a whispered conference, after which their spokesman, Saken, observed, with some pomposity, that the deputation would make its report upon the inter view to the committee, which would in their turn inform Mr. Driffell what determination they should resolve on respecting the strike. Then, with a ' Good-night ' in a tone meant, I thought, to be conciliatory, on the part of the men, and a nod from the master of a less genial character, the deputation withdrew. It was a curious experience for one of my age to have had, and it made a strong impression on me. Such sympathies as I had on the matter were for the 'hands,' and not for their employer ; but his attitude and behaviour interested me very much. Without the least harshness, or even hardness, he struck me as the very type of firmness, nor was the confidence he evidently felt in his own position, and which he had already expressed to others, misplaced ; so far as he was concerned there was no more trouble about the strike.

He was not at all triumphant about it, but, this cause of anxiety being removed, he more than ever devoted himself to business affairs. It was significant of his frank and masterful nature that he spoke of them, no matter who was present, or however little they might be expected to sympathise with him, provided there was even one person who was supposed to understand them. If Mr. Sandeman, the lawyer, for example, happened to be at the Hall — and he was a frequent visitor — he discussed these things regardless of the fact that the rest of his audience were women and boys. It was touching — for it was so evident that even I could perceive it — how Mrs. Driffell strove to interest herself in these topics, and most lamentably failed. Laurence listened with an enforced attention which was a considerable strain upon him, but which an occasional reference to himself rendered necessary. ' You must re member this, my boy,' his father would say to him after some rather abstruse statement regarding financial matters, and poor Laurence would nod his head and break into a profuse perspiration from a consciousness that he understood nothing about it.

It was a subject even more foreign to me than to him, but I gathered that Mr. Driffell's property was by no means entirely in his own hands, and that when Laurence came to be twenty-five years of age, some deed would have to be executed by father and son to set free some considerable sum which was at present locked up. It was an immense nuisance, Mr. Driffell said — though the lawyer did not seem wholly to agree with him — since it prevented a great extension of his present business under most favourable circumstances. Even as it was, he ap peared to contemplate the expenditure of a great deal of money in the purchase of a certain patent, which would involve the introduction of much new machinery. It was not a topic that would have been received with rapture in any drawing-room, and it was little less than painful to watch Mrs. Driffell's countenance during its discussion.

She would, as it seemed to me, have been so pleased if she could have shown some intelligent interest in it, but it was simply impossible ; nor, it was clear, did her husband in the least expect that she should do so, which, instead of mitigating her distress, strangely enough increased it. ' He has given up,' she seemed to be saying to herself, ' any expectation of my being able to sympa thise with what he has most at heart ; he is content, but only as one who makes the best of a bad bar gain.' This may perhaps have been an afterthought of mine, suggested by subsequent events, and put into my mind by older heads ; but, boy as I was, I had such a regard for Mrs. Driffell, from whom I had received a constant and unstinted kindness, that I think I could enter into her feelings. A person with whom one would have thought Mr. Driffell would have preferred to discuss his affairs, rather than with Mr. Sandeman, was Mr. Baird, his manager at the mill, who had also, though to a very small extent, a pecuniary interest in it.