The Quality of Mercy - By Barry Unsworth Page 0,131
have no great objection, as far as I can see, to the road being built, provided of course that the costs are met by the lessee.”
“None at all, my dear sir, good heavens, no,” Spenton said, and Kemp detected in his voice and look the complacent knowledge that profits deriving from the road would continue to accrue long after the lease had run out. He had considered the matter after all, without appearing to. He was far from indifferent to his own interests, despite the assumption of vagueness. This was the knowledge that Kemp bore away from the interview, a certain sense of duplicity on Spenton’s part, together with the conviction that the dislike thus revealed between them would prove to be lasting.
He would have to return to Durham sooner than he had intended, more or less immediately in fact, and endeavor to come to terms with this Michael Bordon, if possible buy him out. He would stay at an inn somewhere within a few miles, he would go nowhere near Wingfield. But he had to see Jane before leaving. The need for her to know at once of this new development was urgent with him; without this, without her blessing on the enterprise, he would be weaker. On arriving home again, he at once sent Hudson with a note asking if he might be allowed some minutes of her company, and obtained an appointment for that afternoon. She had paid—as always when she knew she was to see him—particular attention to the details of her appearance, and Kemp was smitten anew by the radiant pallor of her face, the beauty of her eyes and brows, the alluring grace of her movements in the lilac-colored taffeta gown, close-fitting at the waist and hips, as was then becoming fashionable.
“He has never shown any real interest in the running of the mine,” he said. “In all the time I have known him he has never shown much interest in anything but sopranos and waterworks and clockwork toys and handball.”
It smarted still that Spenton should have waited so long, sported with him, before coming out with the fact that a piece of the Dene had been bought. Kemp had begun with this news, wanting her to know at once the blow to his plans. “Buffooneries of that sort,” he said with contempt. “I shall have to return to Durham as soon as possible. This Michael Bordon is young and illiterate, he has never known anything but laboring in a pit. He may not realize the value of the land he has bought. If I can get to him in time, I may be able to prevail upon him to sell at a reasonable price.”
“But I understand that he bought the land as a gift for his father, to free him from the mine. This being so, he is not likely to sell it, surely—it would be like a kind of betrayal, wouldn’t it, changing his mind like that and taking money instead?”
“No, I forgot to tell you, the father is dead. I thought at first that the deed was in his name and that it might be possible to have it annulled with his death, but unfortunately it is made out to the son.”
“Forgot to tell me?” Jane looked closely at him, as if there might be something in his expression, some quality of sympathy or regret not evident in his words. But she could see nothing of the sort there, only the look she had always found so compelling, the dark, level brows, the eyes brilliant, full of light, the mouth firm set as if there were something to be resisted or endured, but not mean or ungenerous. It was the look that came to her mind when she thought of being with him, sharing his life. “But it is the most important thing of all,” she said. “He will want to keep the pact, keep faith with his father. He will want to fulfill his father’s wishes for the land by cultivating it himself, growing the things his father wanted to grow. He would be right to do that, surely?”
Her face was alight with approval for such a course, the love and duty it would show. “How fine it would be,” she said, and saw a smile appear on his face of the kind she had seen on other men’s faces when she had gone so far as to express enthusiasm for some cause or idea thought to be eccentric, a