The Quality of Mercy - By Barry Unsworth Page 0,130

he saw no difference? It seemed possible from her knowledge of him.

“And you think the cause is thereby made less worthy?” Ashton said.

It was a way out, and in her confusion she took it gratefully. “No, I do not think that.”

On this note of compromise they fell silent. And when they resumed their talk it was of other things.

35

When Kemp thought afterward about his conversation with Lord Spenton, and went over in his mind the words exchanged between them, what struck him as least supportable was the way in which he was allowed to go on at such length and enter into such detail about his idea for a road through the Dene before Spenton raised a hand in languid fashion—rather in the manner of one requesting less volume of sound—to announce that a piece of the Dene was no longer in his ownership.

“Not for the next forty years, at least,” he said, and Kemp, in the midst of his consternation, saw that he looked quite unperturbed as he spoke. There was even a slight smile on his face.

“How can that be?”

He listened, staring straight ahead, while Spenton explained how it had come to pass that Michael Bord on was now the owner of a piece of land adjoining the stream, about halfway through the Dene. It was a saga, as he related it: the offer of reward, the young man’s very affecting wish to acquire the land for his father with the money, and then, following hard upon this, the father’s death in an accident at the pit. “He was dead when they got to him,” he said. “It seems that he was killed outright by the fall. Even if they had reached him sooner, it would have been to no avail.”

But Kemp had no thought to spare for this obscure and irrelevant death. “You sold the land without so much as consulting me, the lessee?” There was fury in his face and his voice. The agreements for the lease had been drawn up and signed; he was no longer Spenton’s guest, there was no need now to countenance the man’s follies. “You have done a most ill-considered thing, sir,” he said. “And for the idlest of reasons.”

Spenton’s face did not change, but his voice was colder when he answered. “I suppose you do not think I should refer to you for my reasons? They seemed sufficient to me. The Dene does not form part of the mine. You are not thinking clearly, Kemp. How on earth was I to know that you had this plan in mind? You chose not to broach the subject while you were staying with me. Do you think I am a mindreader?”

There was justice in this, he was compelled to recognize; the caution that had kept him silent had been needless, due only to inveterate habit. But the knowledge did nothing to lessen the rage he was laboring under. Spenton’s smile had deepened with this last question; it seemed that in some outrageous and incomprehensible way he was finding the situation humorous. And not only that: it was clear that his sympathies lay with this miserable pitman rather than his partner in business. “There is no great harm done,” he said now.

“What can you mean? There is no other route than the bed of the stream. The land ends in cliffs on either side. The slopes of the ravine are too steep—we could not build a road that would be safe from slipping under such heavy loads.”

“The young man is far from stupid. No doubt you will be able to reach some settlement with him. It will involve you in expenses, of course, but that is no great objection, as far as I can see.”

There had been a note of contempt in this, quite undisguised, and Kemp knew as he got up to leave that Spenton too saw no further need for conciliation between them, knew that just as he resented the nobleman for the privilege that surrounded him, for his air of immunity to the common struggle, so Spenton disliked him for the fact that he had been through that struggle and acquired wealth from it—wealth in the form of capital, not land. The nonchalance of manner was a form of hostility, expressing disdain for the mercantile class Kemp knew himself to represent, which grew always richer, always more threatening to the power and influence of the landed gentry. “At least,” he said, repeating the other’s words with deliberate sarcasm, “you will