“Oh dear, T., I have been working so hard all night; and I do think you ought to let me go to sleep now, instead of scolding me.”
On the following morning the party was of course discussed in the Tappitt family under various circumstances. At the breakfast-table Mrs Rowan, with her son and daughter, were present; and then a song of triumph was sung. Everything had gone off with honour and glory, and the brewery had been immortalised for years to come. Mrs Butler Cornbury’s praises were spoken — with some little drawback of a sneer on them, because “she had made such a fuss with that girl Rachel Ray’; and then the girls had told of their partners, and Luke had declared it all to have been superb. But when the Rowans’ backs were turned, and the Tappitts were alone together, others besides old Tappitt himself had words to say in dispraise of Luke. Mrs Tappitt had been much inclined to make little of her husband’s objections to the young man while she hoped that he might possibly become her son-in-law. He might have been a thorn in the brewery, among the vats, but he would have been a flourishing young baytree in the outer world of Baslehurst. She had, however, no wish to encourage the growth of a thorn within her own premises, in order that Rachel Ray, or such as she, might have the advantage of the bay-tree. Luke Rowan had behaved very badly at her party. Not only had he failed to distinguish either of her own girls, but he had, as Mrs Tappitt said, made himself so conspicuous with that foolish girl, that all the world had been remarking it.
“Mrs Butler Cornbury seemed to think it all right,” said Cherry.
“Mrs Butler Cornbury is not everybody,” said Mrs Tappitt. “I didn’t think it right, I can assure you — and what’s more, your papa didn’t think it right.”
“And he was going on all the evening as though he were quite master in the house,” said Augusta. “He was ordering the musicians to do this and that all the evening.”
“He’ll find that he’s not master. Your papa is going to speak to him this very day.”
“What! — about Rachel?” asked Cherry, in dismay.
“About things in general,” said Mrs Tappitt. Then Mary Rowan returned to the room, and they all went back upon the glories of the ball. “I think it was nice,” said Mrs Tappitt, simpering. “I’m sure there was no trouble spared — nor yet expense.” She knew that she ought not to have uttered the last word, and she would have refrained if it had been possible to her — but it was not possible. The man who tells you how much his wine costs a dozen, knows that he is wrong while the words are in his mouth; but they are in his mouth, and he cannot restrain them.
Mr Tappitt was not about to lecture Luke Rowan as to his conduct in regard to Rachel Ray. He found some difficulty in speaking to his would-be partner, even on matters of business, in a proper tone, and with, becoming authority. As he was so much the senior, and Rowan so much the junior, some such tone of superiority was, as he thought, indispensable. But he had great difficulty in assuming it. Rowan had a way with him that was not exactly a way of submission, and Tappitt would certainly not have dared to encounter him on any such matter as his behaviour in a drawing-room. When the time came he had not even the courage to allude to those champagne bottles, and it may be as well explained that Rowan paid the little bill at Griggs’s, without further reference to the matter. But the question of the brewery management was a matter vital to Tappitt. There, among the vats, he had reigned supreme since Bungall ceased to be king, and for continual mastery there it was worth his while to make a fight. That he was under difficulties even in that fight he had already begun to know. He could not talk Luke Rowan down, and make him go about his work in an orderly, everyday, businesslike fashion. Luke Rowan would not be talked down, nor would he be orderly — not according to Mr Tappitt’s orders. No doubt Mr Tappitt, under these circumstances, could decline the partnership; and this he was disposed to do; but he had been consulting lawyers, consulting papers, and looking into old accounts, and he had reason to fear that, under Bungall’s will, Luke Rowan would have the power of exacting from him much more than he was inclined to give.
“You’d better take him into the concern,” the lawyer had said. “A young head is always useful.”
“Not when the young head wants to be master,” Tappitt had answered. “If I’m to do that the whole thing will go to the dogs.” He did not exactly explain to the lawyer that Rowan had carried his infatuation so far as to be desirous of brewing good beer, but he did make it very clear that such a partner would; in his eyes, be anything but desirable.
“Then, upon my word, I think you’ll have to give him the ten thousand pounds. I don’t even know but what the demand is moderate.”
This was very bad news to Tappitt. “But suppose I haven’t got ten thousand pounds!” Now it was very well known that the property and the business were worth money, and the lawyer suggested that Rowan might take steps to have the whole concern sold. “Probably he might buy it himself and undertake to pay you so much a year,” suggested the lawyer. But this view of the matter was not at all in accordance with Mr Tappitt’s ideas. He had been brewer in Baslehurst for nearly thirty years, and still wished to remain so. Mrs Tappitt had been of opinion that all difficulties might be overcome if only Luke would fall in love with one of her girls. Mrs Rowan had been invited to Baslehurst specially with a view to some such arrangement. But Luke Rowan, as it seemed to them both now, was an obstinate young man, who, in matters of beer as well as in matters of love, would not be guided by those who best knew how to guide him. Mrs Tappitt had watched him closely at the ball, and had now given him up altogether. He had danced only once with Augusta, and then had left her the moment the dance was over. “I should offer him a hundred and fifty pounds a year out of the concern, and if he didn’t like that let him lump it,” said Mrs Tappitt. “Lump it!” said Mr Tappitt. “That means going to a London lawyer.” He felt the difficulties of his position as he prepared to speak his mind to young Rowan on the morning after the party; but on that occasion his strongest feeling was in favour of expelling the intruder. Any lot in life would be preferable to working in the brewery with such a partner as Luke Rowan.
“I suppose your head’s hardly cool enough for business,” he said, as Luke came in and took a stool in his office. Tappitt was sitting in his customary chair, with his arm resting on a large old-fashioned leather-covered table, which was strewed with his papers, and which had never been reduced to cleanliness or order within the memory of anyone connected with the establishment. He had turned his chair round from its accustomed place so as to face Rowan, who had perched himself on a stool which was commonly occupied by a boy whom Tappitt employed in his own office.
“My head not cool!” said Rowan. “It’s as cool as a cucumber. I wasn’t drinking last night.”
“I thought you might be tired with the dancing.” Then Tappitt’s mind flew off to the champagne, and he determined that the young man before him was too disagreeable to be endured.
“Oh, dear, no. Those things never tire me. I was across here with the men before eight this morning. Do you know, I’m sure we could save a third of the fuel by altering the flues? I never saw such contrivances. They must have been put in by the coal-merchants, for the sake of wasting coal.”
“If you please, we won’t mind the flues at present.”
“I only tell you; it’s for your sake much more than my own. If you won’t believe me, do you ask Newman to look at them the first time you see him in Baslehurst.”
“I don’t care a straw for Newman.”
“He’s got the best concerns in Devonshire, and knows what he’s about better than any man in these parts.”
“I dare say. But now, if you please, we won’t mind him. The concerns, as I have managed them, have done very well for me for the last thirty years — very well I may say also for your uncle, who understood what he was doing. I’m not very keen for so many changes. They cost a great deal of money, and as far as I can see don’t often lead to much profit.”
“If we don’t go on with the world,” said Rowan, “the world will leave us behind. Look at the new machinery they’re introducing everywhere. People don’t do it because they like to spend their money. It’s competition; and there’s competition in beer as well as in other things.”
For a minute or two Mr Tappitt sat in silence collecting his thoughts, and then he began his speech. “I’ll tell you what it is, Rowan, I don’t like these new-fangled ways. They’re very well for you, I dare say. You are young, and perhaps you may see your way. I’m old, and I don’t see mine among all these changes. It’s clear to me that you and I could not go on together as partners in the same concern. I should expect to have my own way — first because I’ve a deal of experience, and next because my share in the concern would be so much the greatest.”
“Stop a moment, Mr Tappitt; I’m not quite sure that it would be much the greatest. I don’t want to say anything about that now; only if I were to let your remark pass without notice it would seem that I had assented.”
“Ah; very well. I can only say that I hope you’ll find yourself mistaken. I’ve been over thirty years in the concern, and it would be odd if I with my large family were to find myself only equal with you, who have never been in the business at all, and ain’t even married yet.”
“I don’t see what being married has to do with it.”
“Don’t you? You’ll find that’s the way we look at these things down in these parts. You’re not in London here, Mr Rowan.”
“Certainly not; but I suppose the laws are the same. This is an affair of capital.”
“Capital!” said Mr Tappitt. “I don’t know that you’ve brought in any capital.”
“Bungall did, and I’m here as his representative. But you’d better let that pass by just at present. If we can agree as to the management of the business, you won’t find me a hard man to deal with as to our relative shares.” Hereupon Tappitt scratched his head, and tried to think. “But I don’t see how we are to agree about the management,” he continued. “You won’t be led by anybody.”
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