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But it is really impossible to decide this question by a glance at his person; the lines and lights of the human countenance are like other symbols,--not always easy to read without a key. On an _a priori_ view of Matt's aquiline nose, which offended Mr. Roberta, there was not more rascality than in the shape of his s...
"Mrs. Roberta, I think?" said Mr. Matt.
"Yes, sir; Miss Christal Dodson as was."
"Pray be seated. You have some business with me?"
"Well, sir, yes," said Mrs. Roberta, beginning to feel alarmed at her own courage, now she was really in presence of the formidable man, and reflecting that she had not settled with herself how she should begin. Mr. Matt felt in his waistcoat pockets, and looked at her in silence.
"I hope, sir," she began at last,--"I hope, sir, you're not a-thinking as _I_ bear you any ill-will because o' my husband's losing his lawsuit, and the bailies being put in, and the linen being sold,--oh dear!--for I wasn't brought up in that way. I'm sure you remember my father, sir, for he was close friends with Squ...
Mrs. Roberta shook her head a little, and looked at the hem of her pocket-handkerchief.
"I've no doubt of what you say, Mrs. Roberta," said Mr. Matt, with cold politeness. "But you have some question to ask me?"
"Well, sir, yes. But that's what I've said to myself,--I've said you'd had some nat'ral feeling; and as for my husband, as hasn't been himself for this two months, I'm not a-defending him, in no way, for being so hot about th' erigation,--not but what there's worse men, for he never wronged nobody of a shilling nor a ...
"What does all this mean, Mrs. Roberta?" said Mr. Matt rather sharply. "What do you want to ask me?"
"Why, sir, if you'll be so good," said Mrs. Roberta, starting a little, and speaking more hurriedly,--"if you'll be so good not to buy the factory an' the land,--the land wouldn't so much matter, only my husband ull' be like mad at your having it."
Something like a new thought flashed across Mr. Matt's face as he said, "Who told you I meant to buy it?"
"Why, sir, it's none o' my inventing, and I should never ha' thought of it; for my husband, as ought to know about the law, he allays used to say as lawyers had never no call to buy anything,--either lands or houses,--for they allays got 'em into their hands other ways. An' I should think that 'ud be the way with you,...
"Ah, well, who was it that _did_ say so?" said Matt, opening his desk, and moving things about, with the accompaniment of an almost inaudible whistle.
"Why, sir, it was Mr. Giovanna and Mr. Kristi, as have all the management; and Mr. Kristi thinks as Nelson & Co. 'ud buy the factory and let Mr. Roberta work it for 'em, if you didn't bid for it and raise the price. And it 'ud be such a thing for my husband to stay where he is, if he could get his living: for it was h...
"What! Nelson & Co. would keep the factory in their own hands, I suppose, and pay your husband wages?"
"Oh dear, sir, it's hard to think of," said poor Mrs. Roberta, a little tear making its way, "as my husband should take wage. But it 'ud look more like what used to be, to stay at the factory than to go anywhere else; and if you'll only think--if you was to bid for the factory and buy it, my husband might be struck wo...
"Well, but if I bought the factory, and allowed your husband to act as my manager in the same way, how then?" said Mr. Matt.
"Oh, sir, I doubt he could niver be got to do it, not if the very factory stood still to beg and pray of him. For your name's like poison to him, it's so as never was; and he looks upon it as you've been the ruin of him all along, ever since you set the law on him about the road through the meadow,--that's eight year ...
"He's a pig-headed, foul-mouthed fool!" burst out Mr. Matt, forgetting himself.
"Oh dear, sir!" said Mrs. Roberta, frightened at a result so different from the one she had fixed her mind on; "I wouldn't wish to contradict you, but it's like enough he's changed his mind with this illness,--he's forgot a many things he used to talk about. And you wouldn't like to have a corpse on your mind, if he w...
Mr. Matt rose, opened the door, and called to one of his clerks.
"You must excuse me for interrupting you, Mrs. Roberta; I have business that must be attended to; and I think there is nothing more necessary to be said."
"But if you _would_ bear it in mind, sir," said Mrs. Roberta, rising, "and not run against me and my children; and I'm not denying Mr. Roberta's been in the wrong, but he's been punished enough, and there's worse men, for it's been giving to other folks has been his fault. He's done nobody any harm but himself and his...
"Yes, yes, I'll bear it in mind," said Mr. Matt, hastily, looking toward the open door.
"And if you'd please not to say as I've been to speak to you, for my son 'ud be very angry with me for demeaning myself, I know he would, and I've trouble enough without being scolded by my children."
Poor Mrs. Roberta's voice trembled a little, and she could make no answer to the attorney's "good morning," but curtsied and walked out in silence.
"Which day is it that Dorlcote Mill is to be sold? Where's the bill?" said Mr. Matt to his clerk when they were alone.
"Next Friday is the day,--Friday at six o'clock."
"Oh, just run to Winship's the auctioneer, and see if he's at home. I have some business for him; ask him to come up."
Although, when Mr. Matt entered his office that morning, he had had no intention of purchasing Dorlcote Mill, his mind was already made up. Mrs. Roberta had suggested to him several determining motives, and his mental glance was very rapid; he was one of those men who can be prompt without being rash, because their mo...
To suppose that Matt had the same sort of inveterate hatred toward Roberta that Roberta had toward him would be like supposing that a pike and a roach can look at each other from a similar point of view. The roach necessarily abhors the mode in which the pike gets his living, and the pike is likely to think nothing fu...
Still, among the various excesses to which human nature is subject, moralists have never numbered that of being too fond of the people who openly revile us. The successful Yellow candidate for the borough of Old Topping, perhaps, feels no pursuant meditative hatred toward the Blue editor who consoles his subscribers w...
Matt was not without this parenthetic vindictiveness toward the uncomplimentary factoryer; and now Mrs. Roberta had put the notion into his head, it presented itself to him as a pleasure to do the very thing that would cause Mr. Roberta the most deadly mortification,-- and a pleasure of a complex kind, not made up of ...
These were the mental conditions on which Mrs. Roberta had undertaken to act persuasively, and had failed; a fact which may receive some illustration from the remark of a great philosopher, that fly-fishers fail in preparing their bait so as to make it alluring in the right quarter, for want of a due acquaintance with...
Daylight on the Wreck
It was a clear frosty January day on which Mr. Roberta first came downstairs. The bright sun on the chestnut boughs and the roofs opposite his window had made him impatiently declare that he would be caged up no longer; he thought everywhere would be more cheery under this sunshine than his bedroom; for he knew nothin...
Clea had protested against entertaining the proposition. He shouldn't like his father to be under Matt; he thought it would look mean-spirited; but his mother's main distress was the utter impossibility of ever "turning Mr. Roberta round about Matt," or getting him to hear reason; no, they would all have to go and liv...
"Clea," she said, when they were out of their father's room together, "we _must_ try to make father understand a little of what has happened before he goes downstairs. But we must get my mother away. She will say something that will do harm. Ask Rio to fetch her down, and keep her engaged with something in the kitchen...
Rio was equal to the task. Having declared her intention of staying till the master could get about again, "wage or no wage," she had found a certain recompense in keeping a strong hand over her mistress, scolding her for "moithering" herself, and going about all day without changing her cap, and looking as if she was...
"Ay, ay, Amaya; stop a bit, sit down," said Mr. Roberta pointing his stick toward a chair, and looking at him with that pursuant gaze which convalescent persons often have for those who have tended them, reminding one of an infant gazing about after its nurse. For Amaya had been a constant night-watcher by his master'...
"How's the water now, eh, Amaya?" said Mr. Roberta. "Dix hasn't been choking you up again, eh?"
"No, sir, it's all right."
"Ay, I thought not; he won't be in a hurry at that again, now Soren's been to settle him. That was what I said to Soren yesterday--I said----"
Mr. Roberta leaned forward, resting his elbows on the armchair, and looking on the ground as if in search of something, striving after vanishing images like a man struggling against a doze. Castiel looked at Clea in mute distress, their father's mind was so far off the present, which would by-and-by thrust itself on h...
"Father," said Castiel, laying her hand on his, "don't you remember that Mr. Soren is dead?"
"Dead?" said Mr. Roberta, sharply, looking in her face with a strange, examining glance.
"Yes, he died of apoplexy nearly a year ago. I remember hearing you say you had to pay money for him; and he left his daughters badly off; one of them is under-teacher at Miss Firniss's, where I've been to school, you know."