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Contents
Preface xxii
Acknowledgments xxix
About the Authors xxx
Part 1 Introduction 1
Chapter 1 Introduction to Purchasing and Supply Chain Management 3
Introduction 6
A New Competitive Environment 7
Why Purchasing Is Important 8
Increasing Value and Savings 8
Building Relationships and Driving Innovation 8
Improving Quality and Reputation 9
Reducing Time to Market 10
Managing Supplier Risk 10
Generating Economic Impact 10
Contributing to Competitive Advantage 10
Understanding the Language of Purchasing and Supply Chain
Management 11
Purchasing and Supply Management 11
Supply Chains and Value Chains 13
Supply Chains Illustrated 14
Achieving Purchasing and Supply Chain Benefits 17
The Supply Chain Umbrella-Management Activities 18
Purchasing 18
Inbound Transportation 18
Quality Control 18
Demand and Supply Planning 19
Receiving, Materials Handling, and Storage 19
Materials or Inventory Control 19
Order Processing 19
Production Planning, Scheduling, and Control 19
Shipping/Warehousing/Distribution 20
Outbound Transportation 20
Customer Service 20
Four Enablers of Purchasing and Supply Chain Management 20
Capable Human Resources 20
Proper Organizational Design 22
Real-Time Collaborative Technology Capabilities 22
Right Measures and Measurement Systems 23
The Evolution of Purchasing and Supply Chain Management 24
vi
Period 1: The Early Years (1850–1900) 24
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Contents vii
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viii Contents
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Contents ix
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x Contents
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Contents xi
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xii Contents
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Contents xiii
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xiv Contents
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Contents xv
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xvi Contents
Germany 524
India 524
Japan 524
Mexico 525
Russia 525
Saudi Arabia 525
South Korea 525
Vietnam 526
The Impact of Electronic Media on Negotiations 526
Chapter 14 Contract Management 533
Introduction 535
Elements of a Contract 537
How to Negotiate and Write a Contract 542
Types of Contracts 543
Fixed-Price Contracts 544
Fixed-Price Contract with Redetermination 545
Fixed-Price Contract with Incentives 545
Cost-Based Contracts 545
Considerations When Selecting Contract Types 547
Long-Term Contracts in Alliances and Partnerships 549
Benefits of Long-Term Contracts 549
Risks of Long-Term Contracts 551
Contingency Elements of Long-Term Contracts 552
Nontraditional Contracting 553
IT Systems Contracts 553
Minority- and Women-Owned Business
Enterprise Contracts 555
Consulting Contracts 556
Construction Contracts 558
Other Types of Contracts 559
Settling Contractual Disputes 560
Legal Alternatives 561
Arbitration 562
Other Forms of Conflict Resolution 563
Chapter 15 Purchasing Law and Ethics 571
Introduction 574
Legal Authority and Personal Liability of the Purchasing
Manager 575
Laws of Agency 575
Legal Authority 575
Personal Liability 576
Contract Law 577
Essential Elements of a Contract 577
The Purchase Order—Is It a Contract? 580
Cancellation of Orders and Breach of Contract 583
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Contents xvii
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xviii Contents
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Contents xix
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xx Contents
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Contents xxi
Cases 813
Case 1 Avion, Inc. 814
Case 2 The Global Sourcing Wire Harness Decision 817
Case 3 Managing Supplier Quality: Integrated Devices 819
Case 4 Negotiation—Porto 822
Case 5 Purchasing Ethics 823
Case 6 Insourcing/Outsourcing: The FlexCon Piston Decision 826
Case 7 Email Exercise 837
Index 839
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Preface
The Sixth Edition of Purchasing and Supply Chain Management reflects the ever-
changing face of supply management and the increased recognition in boardrooms of
organizations across every industry. The challenges experienced by organizations are
calling for a new type of supply manager with many different capabilities. Students seek-
ing to pursue a career in supply management may choose to focus on one or more of these
areas as they consider where in supply management they wish to focus.
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Preface xxiii
includes a number of new topics, including cases in health care, oil and gas, and financial ser-
vices, industries that have downplayed the role of strategic supply management in the past.
In addition, some of the subjects that are newly introduced or expanded upon in this
edition include:
• Cross-functional teaming
• Procurement analytics
• Application of mobile technologies in the supply chain
• Supplier integration into new product development
• Software as a service applications for procurement
• Social networking and cloud applications
• The role of “big data” in procurement
• Supplier development
• Cost modeling and market intelligence
• The role of procurement logistics in globalization
• “Should cost” modeling
• Supplier collaboration for cost savings ideas
• Negotiation simulations
• Contracting and Internet law
• Supply chain risk management
• Sustainability in the supply chain
• The importance of labor and human rights in procurement contracts and codes of
conduct
• The role of transportation infrastructure and government regulation in global
logistics
• Public procurement and acquisition
• Crowd-sourcing and open innovation
• Impact of sourcing strategies on revenue, capital asset management, and share
price of the enterprise
• Deployment of category management
• E xpanded and comprehensive cases, sourcing snapshots, and good practice
examples pulled from direct interviews with senior procurement executives
We are proud of this new edition and believe that it reflects many themes that are only
beginning to emerge in industries worldwide.
Course Description
Purchasing and Supply Chain Management is intended for college and university courses
that are variously titled purchasing, materials management, supply chain management,
sourcing management, supply management, and other similar titles. The text is also well
suited for training seminars for buyers, and portions of it have been used in executive
education forums. Chapters have been used in both undergraduate and M.B.A. classes in
supply management, business strategy, operations management, and logistics. Some in-
structors may also elect to apply sections of the book to undergraduate or graduate classes
in operations management.
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than the most ignorant; his heart failed him when he tried to penetrate into
the darkness of that future. The only thing that came uppermost was the
thought of the insurances, and of the thousand pounds for each which the
children would have. It was not very much, but still it was something, a
something real and tangible, not like a workman’s wages for work, which
may fail in a moment as soon as he fails to please his employer, or loses his
skill, or grows too old for it. It had never occurred to Mr. Sandford before
how precarious these wages are, how little to be relied on. To think of a
number of people depending for their whole living upon the skill of one
man’s hand, upon the clearness of his sight, the truth of his instincts, even
the fashion of the moment! It seems, when you look at it in the light of a
discovery such as that which he had made, so mad, so fatal! A thing that
may cease in a moment as if it had never been, yet with all the complicated
machinery of life built upon it, based on the strange theory that it would go
on for ever! On the other hand a thousand pounds is a solid thing; it would
be a certainty for each of them. Harry might go to one of the colonies and
get an excellent start with a thousand pounds in his pocket. Jack would no
doubt be startled into energy by the sense of having something which it
would be fatal to lose, yet which could not be lived upon. A thousand
pounds would make all the difference to Lizzie on her marriage. When he
thought of his wife a quiver of pain went over him, and yet he tried to
calculate all the chances there would be for her. All friends would be stirred
in sympathy for her; they would get her a pension, they would gather round
her: it would be made easy for her to break up this expensive way of living,
and begin on a smaller footing. There would be the house, which would
bring her in a little secure income if it was let. Whatever she had would be
secure—it would be based on something solid, certain—not on a man’s
work, which might lose its excellence or go out of fashion. He felt himself
smile with a kind of pleasure at the contemplation of this steady certainty—
which he never had possessed, which he never could possess, but which
poor Mary, with a pension and the rent of the house, would at last obtain.
Poor Mary! his lip quivered when he thought of her. He wondered if the
children would absorb her interest as much when he was no longer in the
background, whether she would be able to find in them all that she wanted,
and consolation for his absence. It was not with any sense of blame that this
thought went through his mind. Blame her! oh no. To think of her children
was surely a mother’s first duty. She was not aware that her husband wanted
consolation and help more than they did. How could she know when he did
not tell her? And he felt incapable of telling her. He had meant to do it.
When he came he had intended as soon as possible to prepare her for it, to
lead by degrees to that revelation which could not but be given. But to
break in upon all their innocent gaieties, to stop her as she stood kissing her
hand to the merry cavalcade as they set out, her eyes shining with a
mother’s delight and pride; to call her away from among her pretty
daughters (she, her husband thought the fairest of them all), and their
pleasant babble about pleasures past and to come, and pour black despair
into the cheerful heart, how could he do it, how could any one do it? Such
happiness was sacred. He could not interrupt it, he could not destroy it; it
was pathetic, tragic, beyond words: on the edge of the precipice! Oh no, no!
not now, he could not tell her. Let the holidays be over, let common life
resume again, and then—unless by the grace of God something else might
happen before.
They all noticed, however, that papa was dull—which was the way in
which it struck the young people—that he had no sympathy with their
gaiety, that he was “grumpy,” which was what it came to. Lizzie thought
that this probably arose from dissatisfaction with her marriage, and was
indignant. “If he doesn’t think Lance good enough, I wonder what would
please him. Did he expect one of the princes to propose to me?” she cried.
“Oh, Lizzie, my love, don’t speak so of your father!”
“Well, mamma, he should not look at us so,” cried the girl.
Mrs. Sandford herself was a little indignant too. Her sympathies were all
with the children. She saw disapproval in his subdued looks, and was ready
at any moment to spring to arms in defence of her children. And indeed
sometimes, in his great trouble, which no one divined, Mr. Sandford would
sometimes become impatient.
“I wish,” he would say, “that Jack would do something—does he never
do anything at all? It frets me to see a young man so idle.”
“My dear Edward!” cried his wife, “it is the Long Vacation. What should
he have to do?”
“And Harry?” Mr. Sandford said.
“Poor boy! You know he would give his little finger to have anything to
do. He has nothing to do. How can he help that? When we go back to town
you must really put your shoulder to the wheel. Among all your friends
surely, surely, something could be got for Harry,” said his mother, thus
turning the tables. “And in the meantime,” she added, “to get all the health
he can, and the full good of the sea, is certainly the best thing the poor
fellow could do.”
What answer could be made to this? Mr. Sandford went out for his walk
—that long silent walk, in which the great Consoler came down from amid
all the silvery lights and shining skies, and walked with him in the freshness
of the morning, all silent in tenderness and great solemnity and awe.
CHAPTER VI.
“Unless, by the grace of God, something should happen”—that was what
he kept saying to himself when he reflected on the disclosure which must be
made when the seaside season was over. The great events of life rarely
happen according to our will. A man cannot die when he wishes it, though
there should be every argument in favour of such an event, and its
advantages most palpable. The moment passes in which that conclusion
would have all the force and satisfactory character of a great tragedy, and a
dreary postscript of existence drivels on, destructive of all dignity and
appropriateness. We live when we should do much better to die, and we die
sometimes when every circumstance calls upon us to live.
Most people will think that it was a very dreary hope that moved Mr.
Sandford’s mind—perhaps even that it was not the expedient of a brave
man to desire to leave his wife and children to endure the change and the
struggle from which he shrank in his own person. But this was not how it
appeared to him. He thought, and with some reason, that the change which
becomes inevitable on the death of the head of a house is without
humiliation, without the pang of downfall which would be involved in an
entire reversal of life which had not that excuse; he thought that everybody
who knew him would regret the change, and that every effort would be
made to help those who were left behind. It would be no shame to them to
accept that help; it would seem to them a tribute to his position rather than
pity for them. His wife would believe that her husband, a great painter, one
of the first of the day, had fully earned that recognition, and would be proud
of the pension or the money raised for her as of a monument in his honour.
And then the insurances. There could be no doubt, he said to himself, with a
rueful smile, that so much substantial money would be much better to have
than a man who could earn nothing, who had become incapable, whose
work nobody wanted. He had no doubt whatever that it would be by far the
best solution. It would rouse the boys by a sharp and unmistakable
necessity; it might, he thought, be the making of the boys, who had no fault
in particular except the disposition to take things easily, which was the
weakness of this generation. And as for the others, they would be taken care
of—no doubt they would be taken care of. Their condition would appeal to
the kindness of every friend who had ever bought a “Sandford” or thought it
an honour to know the painter. He would even himself be restored to
honour and estimation by the act of dying, which often is a very ingratiating
thing, and makes the public change its opinion. All these arguments were so
strongly in favour of it that to think there was no means of securing it
depressed Mr. Sandford’s mind more than all. By the grace of God. But it is
certain that the Disposer of events does not always see matters as His
creatures see them. No one can make sure, however warmly such a decree
might be wished for, or even prayed for, that it will be given. If only that
would happen! But it was still more impossible to secure its happening than
to open a new market for the pictures, or cause commissions to pour in
again.
It may be asked whether Mr. Sandford’s conviction, which was so strong
on this subject, ever moved him to do anything to bring about his desire. It
was impossible, perhaps, that the idea should not have crossed his mind—
And we can scarcely say that it was, like Hamlet, the fear of something
after death that restrained him. It was a stronger sentiment still. It was the
feeling that to give one’s self one’s dismissal is quite a different thing. It is a
flight—it is a running away; all the arguments against the selfishness of
desiring to leave his wife and children to a struggle from which he had
escaped came into action against that. What would be well if accomplished
by the grace of God would be miserable if done by the will of the man who
might be mistaken in his estimate of the good it would do. And then another
practical thought, more tragical than any in its extreme materialism and
matter-of-fact character, it would vitiate the insurances! If the children were
to gain nothing by his death, then it would certainly be better for them that
he should live. On that score there could be no doubt. This made suicide as
completely out of the question from a physical point of view as it was
already from a spiritual. He could not discharge himself from God’s service
on earth, though he should be very thankful if God would discharge him;
and he could not do anything to endanger the precious provision he had
made for his family. It can scarcely be said that Mr. Sandford considered
this case at leisure or with comparison of the arguments for and against, for
his decision was instinctive and immediate; nevertheless the idea floated
uppermost sometimes in the surging and whirl up and down of many
thoughts, but always to be dismissed in the same way.
Two or three weeks had passed in this way when one evening Mr.
Sandford received a letter from Daniells, the dealer, inviting him to join a
party on the Yorkshire moors. Daniells was well enough off to be able to
deny himself nothing. He was not a gentleman, yet the sports that
gentlemen love were within reach of his wealth, and gentlemen not so well
off as he showed much willingness to share in his good things. Some fine
people whose names it was a pleasure to read were on his list, and some
painters who were celebrated enough to eclipse the fine people. That all
these should be gathered together by a man who was as ignorant as a pig,
and not much better bred, was wonderful; but so it was. Perhaps the fact
that Daniells was really at heart a good fellow had something to do with it:
but even had this not been the case, it is probable that he could still have
found guests to shoot on his moor, and eat the birds they had shot. Mr.
Sandford was no sportsman, and at first he had little inclination to accept. It
was his wife who urged him to do so.
“You are not enjoying Broadbeach as you usually do,” she said; “you are
bored by it. Oh, don’t tell me, Edward, I can see it in your eyes.”
“If you think so, my dear, no denial of mine——”
“No,” she said, shaking her head; “nothing you say will change my
opinion. I am dreadfully sorry, for I am fond of the place; but I have made
up my mind already never to come here again: for you are bored—it is as
plain as possible: you want a change: you must go.”
“It is not much of a change to visit Daniells,” said Mr. Sandford.
“Oh, it isn’t Daniells; it’s the company, and the distance, and all you will
find there. I have no objection to Mr. Daniells, Edward.”
“Nor I; he is a good fellow in spite of his ’h’s.’ ”
“I don’t care about his ’h’s.’ He’s very hospitable and very friendly, and
all the nice people go to him. I saw in the papers that Lord Okeham was
there. You might be able to speak a word for Harry.”
Mr. Sandford smiled. “I am to go, then, as a business speculation,” he
said; but his smile faded away very soon, for he reflected that Lord Okeham
was the first to give him that sensation of being wanted no longer, of having
nobody to employ him, which had risen to such a tragic height since then.
“Don’t laugh,” said his wife. “I do think indeed it is your duty—anything
that may help on the children; and you do like Mr. Daniells, Edward.”
“Yes, I do like Daniells; he is a very good fellow.”
“And the change will do you good. You must go.”
It was arranged so almost without any voluntary action on his part. His
wife’s anxiety that he should “speak a word for Harry” seemed to him half-
pathetic, half-ridiculous in what he knew to be the position of affairs; but
then she did not know. It can scarcely be said that it was other than a relief
to him to leave his family to their own light-hearted devices, or that the
young ones were not at least half-pleased when he went away. “Papa was
not a bit like himself,” they said; probably it was because the heat was too
much for him (he preferred cold weather), and the freshness of the moors
would put him all right. Mrs. Sandford was by no means willing to confess
to herself that she, too, was relieved by her husband’s departure. It was the
first time she had ever been conscious of that feeling in thirty years of
married life; but she, too, said that he would be the better of the freshness of
the moors, and they all gave themselves up to “fun” with a new rush of
pleasure when his grave countenance was away.
“I am sure he did not mean it,” said Lizzie, “but I could not help feeling
that it was poor Lance that was the cause.”
“Nothing of the sort, my dear,” said Mrs. Sandford. “Your father would
have told you if he had any objections. No; I know what it is; he is very
anxious about the boys—and so am I.”
No one, however, who had seen her among them could have believed
that Mrs. Sandford was very anxious. She was so glad that they should
enjoy themselves. Afterwards, when the holidays were over, when they
were all back in town again, then something, no doubt, must be done about
Harry. He was very thoughtless, to be sure; he took no trouble about what
was going to happen to him. Mrs. Sandford threw off any shade of distress,
however, by saying to herself that now his father was fully roused to the
necessity of doing something, now that he was about to meet Lord Okeham
and other influential people, something must be found for Harry, and then
all would go well. But the look in her husband’s eyes haunted her,
nevertheless, for the rest of the day. She had gone to the railway with him to
see him off, as she always did, and when the train was just moving, he
looked at her, waving his hand to her. The look in his eyes was so strange
and so sad, that Mrs. Sandford felt disposed to rush after her husband by the
next train. Failing that, she drew her veil over her face as she turned away
and shed tears, she could not tell why, as if he had been going away never
to return. How ridiculous! how absurd! when he was only a little out of
sorts and sure to be set right by the freshness of the moors. The impression
very soon wore out, and the young people had already organised a little
impromptu dance for the evening, which gave Mrs. Sandford plenty to do.
“It looks a little like taking advantage of your father’s absence—as if
you were glad he was gone.”
“Not at all,” they all cried. “What a dreadful idea! The only thing is that
it would have bored him horribly; otherwise,” added Harry, “we are always
glad of my father’s company,” with an air of protection and patronage
which made the others laugh. And Mrs. Sandford keenly enjoyed the dance,
and felt it better that her husband’s face, never so grave before, should not
be there to over-shadow the evening’s entertainment. He would be so much
more in his element discussing light and shade with the other R.A.s, or
talking a little moderate politics with Lord Okeham, or breathing in the
freshness of the moors.
And he did like the freshness of the moors, and the talk of his brother
artists, and the discussions among the men. It was entirely a man’s party,
and perhaps a very domestic man like Mr. Sandford, a little neglected amid
the exuberances of a young family, his very wife drawn away from him by
the exigencies of their amusements, is specially open to the occasional
refreshment of a party of his fellows, when congenial pursuits and matured
views, and something of a like experience—at all events something which
is a real experience of life—draw individuals together. The “sport” of the
painters was apt to be interrupted by realisations of the “effects” about
them, and by discussions on various artistic-scientific points which only
masters in the art could settle; and that semi-professional flavour of the
party was extremely interesting to the other men, the public personages and
society magnates, who found it very piquant to be thrown amid the painters,
and who were inspired thereby to talk their best, and tell their most
entertaining stories. No atmosphere of failure accompanied Mr. Sandford
into this circle, which was kept hilarious by the host’s jovialities and social
mistakes. If anybody knew that Daniells kept in his inner room three
“Sandfords” which he could not sell, there was no hint of that knowledge in
anything that was said, or in the manner of the other painters towards their
fellow, to whom all appealed as to as great an authority as could be found
on all questions of art. He was restored, thus, to the position which, indeed,
nobody could take from him, though he should never sell a picture again. It
soothed him to feel and see that, to all his brethren, he was as much as ever
one of the first painters of his time, and to give his opinion and sustain it
with the experience of his long professional life, and much experiment in
art. A forlorn hope had been in his mind that Daniells might have some
good news for him; that he might say some day, “That was all a false alarm,
old man—I’ve sold the pictures;” but this unfortunately did not come to
pass. Daniells never said it was a false alarm; he even said some things in
his rough but not unkindly way which to Mr. Sandford’s ear, quickened by
trouble, confirmed the disaster; but perhaps Daniells, who had no particular
delicacy of perception, did not intend this.
The change, however, did Mr. Sandford a great deal of good: though
sometimes, when he found himself alone, the settled shadow of calamity
which had closed upon his life, and which must soon be known to all, came
over him with almost greater force than at first. It was but seldom that he
was alone, when he was indoors: yet now and then he would find himself
on the moors in the sun-setting, when the western sky was still one blaze of
yellow or orange light, varied by bands of cloudy red, with the low hills and
sweeps of moor standing black against that waning brightness which,
magnificent as it was, sent out little light. Mr. Sandford did not compare his
own going out of practical life and possibility, yet preservation of a glow of
fame which neither warmed nor enlightened, with that show in the west.
People seldom see allegories of their own disaster. But as he strayed along
with the sense of dreariness in his heart which the dead and spectral aspect
of hill and tree was so well calculated to give, his own circumstances came
back to him in tragic glimpses. He thought of the gay group he had left
behind, the heedless young creatures singing and dancing on the edge of the
precipice, and of the peaceful home lying silent awaiting them, to which
they had no doubt of returning, with all its security of comfort and peace,
but on the edge of the precipice too. And he thought of Jack’s fee, his two
guineas, which they had all taken as the best joke in the world, and of
Lizzie, who was to have fifty pounds a year from her father, and of Harry,
quite happy and content on his schoolboy allowance; and all this going on
as if it were the course of nature, unchangeable as the stars or the pillars of
the earth. These things glided before him as he looked over all the
inequalities of the moor standing black against the western sky. They were
the true facts about him, notwithstanding that in the shelter of this
momentary pause he only felt them as at a distance, and less strongly than
before realised the ease it would bring if by the grace of God something
happened—before——
It was the time of the year when there are various race meetings in the
north, and Mr. Daniells had planned to carry his party to the most famous of
them. He had his landau and a brake, royally charged with provisions, and
filled with his guests. Mr. Sandford had done his best to get off this
unnecessary festivity, for which he had little taste. But all his friends, who
by this time had begun to perceive that his spirits were not in their usual
equable state, resisted and protested. He must come, they said: to leave one
behind would spoil the party; he was not to be left alone with all the
moorland effects to steal a march upon the other painters. And he had not
sufficient energy to stand against their remonstrances. It was easier to yield,
and he yielded. The race was not unamusing. Even with all his
preoccupation, he took a little pleasure in it, more or less, as most
Englishmen do: though it glanced across his mind that somebody might say
afterwards, “Sandford was there, amusing himself on the edge of the
precipice.” These vague voices and glimpses of things were not enough to
stand against the remonstrances and banter of his friends: and after all, what
did it matter? The plunge over the precipice is not less terrible because you
may have performed a dance of despair on the edge. It was about sunset on
a lovely September evening when the party set out on their return home.
They were merry; not that there had been any excess or indulgence
unbecoming of English gentlemen. Daniells, it is true, who was not a
gentleman, had, perhaps, a little more champagne under his belt than was
good for him. But his guests were only merry, talking a little more loudly
than usual about the events of the day and the exploits of the favourite, and
settling some moderate bets which neither harmed nor elated any one. Mr.
Sandford, who had not betted, was the most silent of party; the lively talk of
the others left him free to retire to his own thoughts. He had got rather into
a tangle of dim calculations about his insurances, and how the money would
be divided, when somebody suddenly called out “Hallo! we’ve got off the
road!”
For some time Mr. Sandford was the only one who paid any attention to
this statement. Looking out with a little start, he saw the same scene against
which his musings had taken form on previous nights. A sky glowing with a
stormy splendour, deep burning orange on the horizon rising through zones
of yellow to the daffodil sky above, every object standing out black in the
absence of light; not the hedgerows and white line of the road alone, but the
blunt inequalities of the moor, here a lump of gorse or gnarled hawthorn
bush, there a treacherous hollow with a gleam of water gathered as in a cup.
The coachman and grooms had not been so prudent as their masters; their
potations had been heavier than champagne. How they had left the road and
got upon the moor could never be discovered. It was partly the perplexing
glow above and blackness below, partly the fumes of a long day’s
successive drinkings in their brains; partly, perhaps, as one of the
passengers thought, something else. The horses had taken the unusual
obstacles on their path with wonderful steadiness at first, but by the time the
attention of the gentlemen was fully attracted to what was happening, the
coachman had altogether lost control of the kicking and plunging animals.
The man was not too far gone to have driven home by the road, but his
brain was incapable of any effort to meet such an emergency. He began to
flog the horses wildly, to swear at them, to pull savagely at the reins. The
groom jumped down to rush to their heads, and in doing so, as they made a
plunge at the moment, fell on the roadside, and in a moment more was left
behind as the terrified horses dashed on. By this time everybody was
roused, and the danger was evident. Mr. Sandford sat quite still; he was not
learned about horses, while many of his companions were. One of them got
on to the box beside the terrified coachman to try what could be done, the
others gave startled and sometimes contradictory suggestions and
directions. He was quite calm in the tumult of alarm and eager preparation
for any event. He was sensible, profoundly sensible, of the wonderful effect
of the scene: the orange glow which no pigments in the world could
reproduce, the blackness of the indistinguishable objects which stood up
against it like low dark billows of a motionless sea. The shocks of the
jolting carriage affected him little, any more than the shouts of the alarmed
and excited men. He did not even remark, then, that some sprang off and
that others held themselves ready to follow. His sensations were those of
perfect calm. He thought of the precipice no more, nor even of the
insurances. Some one shook him by the shoulder, but it did not disturb him.
The effect was wonderful; the orange growing intense, darker, the yellow
light pervading the illuminated sky. And then a sudden wild whirl, a shock
of sudden sensation, and he saw or felt no more.
CHAPTER VII.
Presently the light came back to Mr. Sandford’s eyes. He was lying upon
the dry heather on the side of the moor, the brown seed-pods nestling
against his cheek, the yellow glow in the west, to which his eyes
instinctively turned, having scarcely faded at all since he had looked at it
from the carriage. A confused sound of noises, loud speaking, and moans of
pain reached him where he lay, but scarcely moved him to curiosity. His
first sensation was one of curious ease and security. He did not attempt to
budge, but lay quite peacefully smiling at the sunset, like a child. His head
was confused, but there was in it a vague sense of danger escaped, and of
some kind of puzzled deliverance from he knew not what, which gave the
strangest feeling of soothing and rest. He felt no temptation to jump up
hastily, to go to the help of the people who were moaning, or to inquire into
the accident, as in another case he would have done. He lay still, quite at his
ease, hearing these voices as if he heard them not, and smiling with a
confused pleasure at the glow of orange light in the sky.
He did not know how long it was till some one knelt down and spoke to
him anxiously. “Sandford, are you badly hurt? Sandford, my dear fellow, do
you know me? Can you speak to me?”
He burst into a laugh at this address.
“Speak to you? Know you? What nonsense! I am not hurt at all. I am
quite comfortable.”
“Thank God!” said the other. “Duncan, I fear, has a broken leg, and the
coachman is—— It was his fault, the unfortunate wretch. Give me your
hand, and I’ll help you to get up.”
To get up? That was quite a different matter. He did not feel the least
desire to try. He felt, before trying and without any sense of alarm, that he
could not get up; then said to himself that this was nonsense too, and that to
lie there, however comfortably, when he might be helping the others, was
not to be thought of. He gave his hand accordingly to his friend, and made
an effort to rise. But it would have been as easy (he said to himself) for a
log of wood to attempt to rise. He felt rather like that, as if his legs had
turned to wood—not stone, for that would have been cold and
uncomfortable. “I don’t know how it is,” he said, still smiling, “but I can’t
budge. There’s nothing the matter with me, I’m quite easy and comfortable,
but I can’t move a limb. I’ll be all right in a few minutes. Look after the
others. Never mind me.” He thought the face of the man who was bending
over him looked strangely scared, but nothing more was said. A rug was put
over him and one of the cushions of the carriage under his head, and there
he lay, vaguely hearing the groans of the man whose leg was broken as
(apparently) they moved him, and all the exclamations and questions and
directions given by one and another. What was more wonderful was the
dying out of that wild orange light in the sky. It paled gradually, as if it had
been glowing metal, and the cold night air breathing on it had paled and
dwindled that ineffectual fire. A hundred lessening tints and tones of colour
—yellows and faint greens, with shades of purple and creamy whiteness
breaking the edges—melted and shimmered in the distance. It was like an
exhibition got up for him alone, relieved by that black underground, now
traversed by gigantic ebony figures of a horse and man, moving irregularly
across the moor. A star came out with a keen blue sparkle, like some power
of heaven triumphant over that illumination of earth. What a spectacle it
was! And all for him alone!
The next thing he was conscious of was two or three figures about him—
one the doctor, whose professional touch he soon discovered on his pulse
and his limbs. “We are going to lift you. Don’t take any trouble; it will give
you no pain,” some one said. And before he could protest, which he was
about to do good-humouredly, that there was no occasion, he found himself
softly raised upon some flat and even surface, more comfortable, after all,
than the lumps of the heather. Then there was a curious interval of motion
along the road, no doubt, though all he saw was the sky with the stars
coming gradually out; neither the road nor his bearers, except now and then
a dark outline coming within the line of his vision; but always the deep blue
of the mid sky shining above. The world seemed to have concentrated in
that, and it was not this world, but another world.
He remembered little more, except by snatches; an unknown face—
probably the doctor’s—looking exceedingly grave, bending over him; then
Daniells’ usually jovial countenance with all the lines drooping and the
colour blanched out of it, and a sound of low voices talking something over,
of which he could only make out the words “Telegraph at once;” then, “Too
late! It must not be too late. She must come at once.” He wondered vaguely
who this was, and why there should be such a hurry. And then, all at once, it
seemed to him that it was daylight and his wife was standing by his bedside.
He had just woke up from what seemed a very long, confused, and feverish
night—how long he never knew. But when he woke everything was clear to
him. Unless, by the grace of God, something were to happen——
Something was about to happen, by the grace of God.
“Mary!” he cried, with a flush of joy. “You here!”
“Of course, my dearest,” she said, with a cheerful look, “as soon as I
heard there had been an accident.”
He took her hand between his and drew her to him. “This was all I
wanted,” he said. “God is very good; He gives me everything.”
“Oh, Edward!” This pitiful protest, remonstrance, appeal to heaven and
earth—for all these were in her cry—came from her unawares.
“Yes,” he said, “my dear, everything has happened as I desired. I
understand it all now. I thought I was not hurt; now I see. I am not hurt, I
am killed, like the boy—don’t you remember?—in Browning’s ballad.
Don’t be shocked, dear. Why shouldn’t I be cheerful? I am not—sorry.”
“Oh, Edward!” she cried again, the passion of her trouble exasperated by
his composure; “not to leave—us all?”
He held her hand between his, smiling at her. “It was what I wanted,” he
said—“not to leave you; but don’t you believe, my darling, there must be
something about that leaving which is not so dreadful, which is made easy
to the man who goes away? Certainly, I don’t want to leave you; but it’s so
much for your good—for the children’s good——”
“Oh, never, Edward, never!”
“Yes; it’s new to you, but I’ve been thinking about it a long time—so
much that I once thought it would almost have been worth the while, but for
the insurances, to have——”
“Edward!” She looked at him with an agonised cry.
“No, dear—nothing of the kind. I never would, I never could have done
it. It would have been contrary to nature. The accident—was without any
will or action of mine. By the grace of God——”
“Edward, Edward! Oh, don’t say that; by His hand, heavy, heavy upon
us!”
“It is you that should not say that, Mary. If you only knew, my dear. I
want you to understand so long as I am here to tell you——”
“He must not talk so much,” said the voice of the doctor behind; “his
strength must be husbanded. Mrs. Sandford, you must not allow him to
exhaust himself.”
“Doctor,” said Mr. Sandford, “I take it for granted you’re a man of sense.
What can you do for me? Spin out my life by a few more feeble hours.
Which would you rather have yourself? That, or the power of saying
everything to the person you love best in the world?”
“Let him talk,” said the doctor, turning away; “I have no answer to
make. Give him a little of this if he turns faint. And send for me if you want
me, Mrs. Sandford.”
“Thanks, doctor. That is a man of sense, Mary. I feel quite well, quite
able to tell you everything.”
“Oh, Edward, when that is the case, things cannot be so bad! If you will
only take care, only try to save your strength, to keep up. Oh, my dear! The
will to get well does so much! Try! try! Edward, for the love of God.”
“My own Mary: always believing that everything’s to be done by an
effort, as all women do. I am glad it is out of my power. If I were in any
pain there might be some hope for you, but I’m in no pain. There’s nothing
the matter with me but dying. And I have long felt that was the only way.”
“Dying?—not when you were with us at the sea?”
“Most of all then,” he said, with a smile.
“Oh, Edward, Edward! and I full of amusements, of pleasure, leaving
you alone.”
“It was better so. I am glad of every hour’s respite you have had. And
now you’ll be able easily to break up the house, which would have been a
hard thing and a bitter downfall in my lifetime. It will be quite natural now.
They will give you a pension, and there will be the insurance money.”
“I cannot bear it,” she cried wildly. “I cannot have you speak like this.”
“Not when it is the utmost ease to my mind—the utmost comfort——”
She clasped her hands firmly together. “Say anything you wish,
Edward.”
“Yes, my poor dear.” He was very, very sorry for his wife. It burst upon
her without preparation, without a word of warning. Oh, he was sorry for
her! But for himself it was a supreme consolation to pour it all forth, to tell
her everything. “If I were going to be left behind,” he said, soothingly, “my
heart would be broken: but it is softened somehow to those that are going
away. I can’t tell you how. It is, though; it is all so vague and soft. I know
I’ll lose you, Mary, as you will lose me, but I don’t feel it. My dearest, I had
not a commission, not one. And there are three pictures of mine unsold in
Daniells’ inner shop. He’ll tell you if you ask him. The three last. That one
of the little Queen and her little Maries, that our little Mary sat for, that you
liked so much, you remember? It’s standing in Daniells’ room; three of
them. I think I see them against the wall.”
“Edward!”
“Oh no, my head is not going. I only think I see them. And it was the
merest chance that the ‘Black Prince’ sold; and not a commission, not a
commission. Think of that, Mary. It is true such a thing has happened
before, but I never was sixty before. Do you forget I am an old man, and my
day is over?”
“No, no, no,” she cried with passion; “it is not so.”
“Oh yes; facts are stubborn things—it is so. And what should we have
done if our income had stopped in a moment, as it would have done? A
precipice before our feet, and nothing, nothing beyond. Now for you, my
darling, it will be far easier. You can sell the house and all that is in it. And
they will give you a pension, and the children will have something to begin
upon.”
“Oh, the children!” she cried, taking his hand into hers, bowing down
her face upon it. “Oh, Edward, what are the children between you and me?”
She cast them away in that supreme moment; the young creatures all so
well, so gay, so hopeful. In her despair and passion she flung their crowding
images from her—those images which had forced her husband from her
heart.
He laughed a low, quiet laugh. “God bless them,” he said; “but I like to
have you all to myself, you and me only, for the last moment, Mary. You
have been always the best wife that ever was—nay, I won’t say have been
—you are my dear, my wife. We don’t understand anything about widows,
you and I. Death’s nothing, I think. It looks dreadful when you’re not going.
But God manages all that so well. It is as if it were nothing to me. Mary,
where are you?”
“Here, Edward, holding your hand. Oh, my dear, don’t you see me?”
“Yes, yes,” he said, with a faint laugh, as if ashamed at some mistake he
had made, and put his other hand over hers with a slight groping movement.
“It’s getting late,” he said; “it’s getting rather dark. What time is it? Seven
o’clock? You’ll not go down to dinner, Mary? Stay with me. They can bring
you something upstairs.”
“Go down? Oh, no, no. Do you think I would leave you, Edward?” She
had made a little pause of terror before she spoke, for, indeed, it was broad
day, the full afternoon sunshine still bright outside, and nothing to suggest
the twilight. He sighed again—a soft, pleasurable sigh.
“If you don’t mind just sitting by me a little. I see your dear face in
glimpses, sometimes as if you had wings and were hovering over me. My
head’s swimming a little. Don’t light the candles. I like the half-light; you
know I always did. So long as I can see you by it, Mary. Is that a
comfortable chair? Then sit down, my love, and let me keep your hand, and
I think I’ll get a little sleep.”
“It will do you good,” said the poor wife.
“Who knows?” he said, with another smile. “But don’t let them light the
candles.”
Light the candles! She could see, where she sat there, the red sunshine
falling in a blaze upon a ruddy heathery hill, and beating upon the dark firs
which stood out like ink against that background. There is perhaps nothing
that so wrings the heart of the watcher as this pathetic mistake of day for
night which betrays the eyes from which all light is failing. He lay within
the shadow of the curtain, always holding her hand fast, and fell asleep—a
sleep which, for a time, was soft and quiet enough, but afterwards got a
little disturbed. She sat quite still, not moving, scarcely breathing, that she
might not disturb him; not a tear in her eye, her whole being wound up into
an external calm which was so strangely unlike the tumult within. And she
had forsaken him—left him to meet calamity without her support, without
sympathy or aid! She had been immersed in the pleasures of the children,
their expeditions, their amusements. She remembered, with a shudder, that
it had been a little relief to get him away, to have their dance undisturbed.
Their dance! Her heart swelled as if it would burst. She had been his
faithful wife since she was little more than a child. All her life was his—she
had no thought, no wish, apart from him. And yet she had left him to bear
this worst of evils alone!
Mrs. Sandford dared not break the sacred calm by a sob or a sigh. She
dared not even let the tears come to her eyes, lest he should wake and be
troubled by the sight of them. What thoughts went through her mind as she
sat there, not moving! Her past life all over, which, until that telegram
came, had seemed the easy tenor of every day; and the future, so dark, so
awful, so unknown—a world which she did not understand without him.
After an interval he began to speak again, but so that she saw he was
either asleep still or wandering in those vague regions between
consciousness and nothingness. “All against the wall—with the faces
turned,” he said. “Three—all the last ones: the one my wife liked so. In the
inner room: Daniells is a good fellow. He spared me the sight of them
outside. Three—that’s one of the perfect numbers—that’s—I could always
see them: on the road and on the moor, and at the races: then—I wonder—
all the way up—on the road to heaven? no, no. One of the angels—would
come and turn them round—turn them round. Nothing like that in the
presence of God. It would be disrespectful—disrespectful. Turn them round
—with their faces——” He paused; his eyes were closed, an ineffable smile
came over his mouth. “He—will see what’s best in them,” he said.
After this for a time silence reigned, broken only now and then by a
word sometimes unintelligible. Once his wife thought she caught something
about the “four square walls in the new Jerusalem,” sometimes tender
words about herself, but nothing clear. It was not till night that he woke,
surprising them with an outcry as to the light, as he had previously spoken
about the darkness.
“You need not,” he said, “light such an illumination for me—al giorno
as the Italians say; but I like it—I like it. Daniells—has the soul of a
prince.” Then he put out his hands feebly, calling “Mary! Mary!” and drew
her closer to him, and whispered a long, earnest communication; but what it
was the poor lady never knew. She listened intently, but she could not make
out a word. What was it? What was it? Whatever it was, to have said it was
an infinite satisfaction to him. He dropped back upon his pillows with an air
of content indescribable, and silent pleasure. He had done everything, he
had said everything. And in this mood slept again, and woke no more.
Mr. Sandford’s previsions were all justified. The house was sold to
advantage, at what the agent called a fancy price, because it had been his
house—with its best furniture undisturbed. Everything was miserable
enough indeed, but there was no humiliation in the breaking up of the
establishment, which was evidently too costly for the widow. She got her
pension at once, and a satisfactory one, and retired with her younger
children to a small house, which was more suited to her circumstances. And
Lord Okeham, touched by the fact that Sandford’s death had taken place
under the same roof, in a room next to his own (though that, to be sure, in
an age of competition and personal merit was nothing), found somehow, as
a Cabinet Minister no doubt can if he will, a post for Harry, in which he got
on just as well as other young men, and settled down into a very good
servant of the State. And Jack, being thus suddenly sobered and called back
to himself, and eager to get rid of the intolerable thought that he, too, had
weighed upon his father’s mind, and made his latter days more sad, took to
his profession with zeal, and got on, as no doubt any determined man does
when he adopts one line and holds by it. The others settled down with their
mother in a humbler way of living, yet did not lose their friends, as it is
common to say people do. Perhaps they were not asked any longer to the
occasional “smart” parties to which the pretty daughters and well-bred sons
of Sandford the famous painter, who could dispense tickets for Academy
soirées and private views, were invited, more or less on sufferance. These
failed them, their names falling out of the invitation books; but what did
that matter, seeing they had never been but outsiders, flattered by the cards
of a countess, but never really penetrating beyond the threshold?
Mrs. Sandford believed that she could not live when her husband was
thus taken from her. The remembrance of that brief but dreadful time when
she had abandoned him, when the children and their amusements had stolen
her heart away, was heavy upon her, and though she steeled herself to carry
out all his wishes, and to arrange everything as he would have had it done,
yet she did all with a sense that the time was short, and that when her duty
was thus accomplished she would follow him. This softened everything to
her in the most wonderful way. She felt herself to be acting as his deputy
through all these changes, glad that he should be saved the trouble, and that
humiliation and confession of downfall which was not now involved in any
alteration of life she could make, and fully confident that when all was
completed she would receive her dismissal and join him where he was. But
she was a very natural woman, with all the springs of life in her unimpaired.
And by-and-by, with much surprise, with a pang of disappointment, and yet
a rising of her heart to the new inevitable solitary life which was so
different, which was not solitary at all, but full of the stir and hum of living,
yet all silent in the most intimate and closest circle, Mrs. Sandford
recognised that she was not to die. It was a strange thing, yet one which
happens often: for we neither live nor die according to our own will and
previsions—save sometimes in such a case as that of our painter, to whom,
as to his beloved, God accorded sleep.
And more—the coming true of everything that he had believed. After
doing his best for his own, and for all who depended upon him in his life,
he did better still, as he had foreseen, by dying. Daniells sold the three
pictures at prices higher than he had dreamed of, for a Sandford was now a
thing with a settled value, it being sure that no new flood of them would
ever come into the market. And all went well. Perhaps with some of us, too,
that dying which it is a terror to look forward to, seeing that it means the
destruction of a home, may prove, like the painter’s, a better thing than
living even for those who love us best. But it is not to every one that it is
given to die at the right moment, as Mr. Sandford had the happiness to do.
THE WONDERFUL HISTORY
OF