He was, too, a moral man. He despised those weaknesses into which humanity is so frequently and unhappily betrayed. He was incapable, for example, of thinking of any woman but his wife. Though Harriet was an invalid she was in effect his wife. His wife. He despised the grosser appetites of men; rich food and wines, overeating, overdrinking, oversleeping, luxury, sensuality, all the excesses of bodily indulgence were abhorrent to him. He ate plainly and usually drank water. He did not smoke. Though his suit was always well made and of good material, he had few clothes and no vanity for dress.
He had his pride, of course, the natural pride of a liberal, enlightened man. He knew himself as a man of position and substance; he was a mine owner, the owner of the Neptune, whose family had worked the Neptune pits for just one hundred years. He took a real satisfaction in the family succession, beginning with Peter Barras who in 1805 had originally sunk No. 1 shaft into the Snook, known now as the Old Neptune, leaving a tidy little pit to his son William who in his turn had sunk shafts Nos. 2 and 3. As for Peter William, Richard’s own father, he had bored No. 4, a shrewd and well-judged stroke from which Richard was now benefiting hugely. The foundation of the family name and fortune by these shrewd, hard-headed men gratified Richard deeply. He prided himself on inheriting, on developing the qualities of his forebears, on his own shrewdness and hard-headedness, his ability to drive a hard bargain.
Socially, he was not openly aspiring. When, in conversation, the name of some county notable cropped up Barras had a way of calmly interjecting: “And what’s he worth?” inferring with a mild amusement that his neighbour’s financial position was contemptible. Thus while he enjoyed the deference of his banker and his lawyer he was not a snob — he despised the pettiness of the word. Though Harriet Wandless was of a county family he had not married Harriet for the distinction of her pedigree. He had married Harriet to make Harriet his wife.
The suggestion of a passion arises here. Yet Barras was a man of no apparent passions. The strength of his personality was terrific; but it was a static, a glacial strength. He had no violence, no towering passions, no gusts of fiery emotion. What was alien to him he rejected; what was not alien he possessed. The evidence of Harriet, taken in camera, is, positively, the clue. But Harriet, on the mornings which succeeded these regular nocturnal idylls, merely ate a large breakfast soulfully — with the placid satisfaction of a cow that had been successfully milked. Such visible biological evidence as Harriet’s modesty afforded was both positive and negative. But the examination of Harriet’s stomach contents would undoubtedly have revealed cud.
Richard himself gave a few clues. He was a secret man. This secrecy was definitely a quality. Not the ordinary banal secrecy of concealment, but a subtler secrecy, a secrecy which sternly resented prying and froze all familiarity with a look. He seemed icily to say, I am myself and will be myself but that is no concern of any one but myself. And to continue, I dominate myself but I will be dominated by no one but myself. The static glacier again.
It must not be assumed, however, that Richard’s qualities were cast entirely in this out-size arctic mould. Barras had some very individual characteristics. His love of organ music, of Handel, of the Messiah in particular. His devotion to art, to sound established art as manifested in the expensive pictures upon his walls. His loyalty to the domestic unities. His inveterate neatness and precision. And finally his acquisitiveness.
Here, at last, lies the hidden intention of Richard’s soul, the very core of the man himself. He loved his possessions passionately, his pit, his house, his pictures, his property, everything that was his This accounted for his abomination of waste, of which the pale reflection was Aunt Carrie’s acquired inability “to throw anything out.” Aunt Carrie often protested this openly and Barras was always pleased. Barras himself never threw anything out. Papers, documents, receipts, records of transactions, everything — all neatly docketed and locked away in Barras’s desk. It was almost a religion, this docketing and locking away. It had a spiritual quality. It was most exemplary. It rang in harmony with his love of Handel. It had, like Handel, impressive breadth and depth and a kind of impenetrable religiosity, but it had its basis in simple avarice. For, beyond everything, the secret and consuming passion of Barras’s soul was his love of money. Though he masked it cleverly, deceiving even himself, he adored money. He hugged it to him and nourished it, the glowing scene of his wealth, his own substance.
Meanwhile Hilda had finished with Handel. At least she had finished with Water Music. And in the normal way she would have restored her music to the long piano stool and gone straight upstairs. But to-night Hilda seemed determined to propitiate. Staring straight at the keyboard she said:
“Would you like Largo, father?”
It was his favourite piece, the piece which impressed him beyond all others, the piece which made Hilda wish to scream.
She played it slowly and with sonorous rhythm.
There was a silence. Without removing his hand from his forehead he said:
“Thank you, Hilda.”
She got off the stool, stood on the other side of the table. Though her face wore the familiar forbidding look, she was trembling inside. She said:
“Father!”
“Well, Hilda!” His voice appeared reasonable.
She took a long breath. For weeks she had been nerving herself to take that breath. She said:
“I’m nearly twenty, now, father. It’s nearly three years since I came home from school. All that time I’ve been at home doing nothing. I’m tired of doing nothing. I want to do something for a change. I want you to let me go away and do something.”
He uncovered his eyes and measured her curiously. He repeated:
“Do something?”
“Yes, do something,” she said violently. “Let me train for something. Get some position.”
“Some position?” The same remote tone of wonder. “What position?”
“Any position. To be your secretary. To be a nurse. Or let me go in for medicine. I’d like that best of all.”
He studied her again, still pleasantly ironic.
“And what,” he said, “is to happen when you marry?”
“I’ll never get married,” she burst out. “I’d hate to get married. I’m far too ugly ever to get married.”
Coldness crept into his face but his tone did not change. He said:
“You have been reading the papers, Hilda.”
His penetration brought the blood to her sallow face. It was true. She had read the morning paper. The day before there had been a raid by suffragists on Downing Street, during a Cabinet meeting, and violent scenes when some women attempted to rush the House of Commons. It had brought Hilda’s brooding to a head.
“An attempt was made to rush,” he quoted musingly, “to rush… the House of Commons.” He made it sound the last insanity.
She bit her lip fiercely. She said:
“Father, let me go away and study medicine. I want to be a doctor.”
He said:
“No, Hilda.”
“Let me go, father,” she said.
He said:
“No, Hilda.”
“Let me.” An almost frantic intercession in her voice.
He said nothing.
A silence fell. Her face had gone chalky white now. He contemplated the ceiling with an air of absent interest. For about a minute they remained like this, then, quite undramatically, she turned and went out of the room.