The Quality of Mercy - By Barry Unsworth Page 0,54
top of the structure there was Neptune riding a whale, out of whose nostrils the water glittered and jetted through small openings.
“Ingenious, ain’t it?” Spenton said again. “You see the figures but not the devices that set the whole thing going. There are cisterns behind the pillars, a three-level frame, pumps, jacks, weights, springs, piping, a whole mechanical world. You don’t see them, they are concealed by the brightness of the light.”
He had spoken with a liveliness of interest quite at odds with his usual nonchalance of manner. Turning toward him, Kemp saw his face full in the light and was again aware of that strange mixture of delicacy and brutality in it. At this moment Spenton, still gazing raptly at the endless forming and dissolving of the images, said, “I believe your bank is prepared to advance me a loan.”
It was not in such garish light, nor with before him an image of Hercules drawing a bow at a hissing, water-jetting dragon, that Kemp had envisaged conducting the discussion now finally arrived at, but he took the opportunity that was presented and set out as clearly as he could what the bank was prepared to offer. Spenton’s request would be granted—he was asking for a loan of five thousand pounds; he would be given five years to repay the money, and no interest would be charged. These terms were conditional upon the bank being granted a twenty-year lease on Spenton’s mine at a cost to the lessee of a thousand pounds a year, payable annually in advance. The bank would be responsible for the running of the mine, and the profits on the coal would go to the bank.
“Yes, yes, I see,” Spenton said. “We should return now, I think. The best of the show is over.”
Hercules had now been replaced by a fiery bird revolving on an axle. They turned away from the light and began to go back the way they had come. For some minutes they walked side by side without speaking. Kemp was beginning to think that the offer had not pleased Spenton. More favorable terms than this the bank could not offer.
They turned onto the avenue known as the Grove, where the lights were sparser and the shadows longer, designed for the use of those who might wish for a more solitary and meditative promenading. Quite suddenly Spenton said, “Well, I find it a generous offer on the bank’s part, and I am quite ready to accept it. If you would be kind enough to give me some of your time and visit me the day after tomorrow, in the morning, we will have the agreement drawn up in the presence of my attorney. Then I hope you will come up to Durham as my guest and have a look round. I am intending to go up there next week. I have to talk to my tenants, and there is the annual handball match with the neighboring colliery village—I never miss that. We have a particularly promising champion this year, I am told.”
The casualness of this acceptance, coming after the silence and mixed as it was with talk of tenants and handball, struck Kemp as extraordinary, so different was it from his own style when anything concerning money was being talked about. Unexpected too the wave of relief and jubilation he experienced at hearing the words—he had not altogether realized how much his heart had been set on obtaining the lease.
He was looking toward the river as they walked. From the darkness that lay over the water a fiery bolt of light rose into the sky and burst there, descending in a golden shower. Where have I read or been told about a shower of gold falling on a girl? he wondered. A naked girl … The rocket was followed by another, then another. The bright shower of their descent filled the sky. Of course, it was a hanging day; there were always fireworks on hanging days in the spring and summer months.
At some prompting that he was afterward to think of as not due to chance alone, he turned to look toward the line of trees bordering the avenue. The glow of gold lay on the foliage of those more distant. He saw a group of people pass through this zone of radiance. One of them was a young woman, who raised her face to the sky just as a rocket burst and a shower of gold began to descend. In these few