Part 41 (2/2)

No question about it or pretence of asking his visitor's wishes.

Christopher did not resent that, but he resented his growing inability to resist. He flung open the windows of his room and looked out.

Eastward there was a glow in the sky over the great sleepless city: northward a still nearer glow from a foundry, he thought, but westward the parkland was silvered with moonlight and black with shadows, which under the groups of chestnuts seemed like moving shapes.

He leant out far and the cold night air s.h.i.+vered by. That was familiar and good to feel, but the glare northward caught his eyes again, and held him fascinated. It rose and fell, now blus.h.i.+ng softly against a velvet sky, now flaring angrily to heaven. It seemed to quiver with voices that were harsh and threatening. It filled Christopher's heart with unreasonable horror against which he struggled in vain, as with the dim terror of a stranger. At last he closed the window and shut it out.

”I don't like it,” said Christopher half aloud. ”It's all right, it's only a foundry, but I hate it.”

With that he went to bed and in the dark the dance of the fires flickered before his eyes.

The next few days were spent in gathering fresh impressions and disentangling bewildering experiences, and in small encounters with the unanswerable will of his host.

He was taken to the great offices in Birmingham, and the wonderful system by which each vast machine was worked was explained to him. He was even privileged to sit with the great man in the inner sanctum and copy letters for him, though he was summarily turned out to see the sights of the great city when a visitor was announced. He explored the depths of the coal mines and finally spent a long morning at the foundry whose nightly glare still haunted his dreams. It was the latter sight that Peter Masters evidently expected would interest him most, for here were employed the most marvellous and most complicated modern machinery, colossal innovations and ingenious labour-saving inventions in vast orderly buildings; the complex whole obedient to an organisation that left no item of power incomplete or wasted. But Christopher gave but half his mind to all he was shown, the other half was on those still stranger machines, the grimy, brutal-looking workmen toiling in the hot heart of the place, the white-faced stooping forms on the outskirts. They eyed him aslant as they worked, for visitors were rare occurrences. He asked questions concerning them and received vague answers, and a new machine was offered for inspection.

Fulner, the young engineer who had been told off to show him round, understood what was expected of him and did his duty. Masters himself, though he accompanied them, apparently put himself also in Fulner's hands; he took no particular interest in the work, but his eye followed every movement of Christopher's and his ear strained to his questions. Christopher noticed that none but heads of departments paid any attention to the owner's presence, and he would have thought him unknown but for a word or two he caught as he lingered for a last look at a particularly fascinating electric lathe.

”Thinks he's master,” grinned one man, with a shrug, towards the retreating form.

”Thinks we're part of his blasted machinery,” growled his fellow worker.

Christopher pa.s.sed on and forgot the lathe.

”Where do these people live?” he asked in the comparative quiet of a store yard.

”In the--the villages round, and as near as they can,” said the engineer quietly and looked back. Mr. Masters had gone off to the store-keeper's office and was out of hearing. Fulner looked at Christopher again and apparently came to a decision.

”It is difficult, sometimes, this housing question,” he said swiftly, ”are you really interested?”

”Yes, I want to know what contrast they get to this. It's overpowering, this place.”

”If there was time----” began the other, and stopped, seeing Mr.

Masters was approaching. He was followed by a hara.s.sed-face sub-manager, who waited uneasily a few yards off.

”Christopher, I shall have to stay here an hour or two. You had better go back. You can catch the 12.40 at the station. Fulner will see you there.”

He nodded to the engineer and strode off towards the main offices.

The sub-manager exchanged a look of consternation with Fulner before he followed.

”We'll go this way,” said Fulner, leading Christopher to a new corner of the great enclosure, ”that is, if you don't mind walking.”

He did not speak again until they were outside the high walls that surrounded the works, then he looked quizzically at Christopher.

”You shall see where they live if you wish to,” he said, ”the contrast is not striking--only there is no organisation outside.”

They went down a black cindery road between high walls and presently the guide said quietly, ”Are you coming here to us, Mr. Aston?”

”No.” Christopher's voice was fervent with thankfulness.

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