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Edited by
Walter Wehrmeyer · Stéphanie Looser ·
Mara Del Baldo

Intrinsic CSR and

Competition
Doing well amongst
European SMEs
Intrinsic CSR and Competition
Walter Wehrmeyer · Stéphanie Looser ·
Mara Del Baldo
Editors

Intrinsic CSR
and Competition
Doing well amongst European SMEs
Editors
Walter Wehrmeyer Stéphanie Looser
Centre for Environment and Sustainability University of Surrey
University of Surrey Guildford, UK
Guildford, Surrey, UK

Mara Del Baldo

Department of Economics, Society
and Politics
University of Urbino Carlo Bo
Urbino, Italy

ISBN 978-3-030-21036-6 ISBN 978-3-030-21037-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21037-3

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse
of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by
similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained
herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with
regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Foreword

This is the kind of research that we need more in the field of Business,
Ethics and Society. It is based on good theoretical ideas, and these ideas
are developed through case analysis and illustration. The study of CSR
has been the province of large corporations for far too long, and this
volume, focusing on Central-European SMEs and family firms, devel-
ops and extends the idea of intrinsic CSR to smaller enterprises. From
the historical analysis of the Honorable Merchants to more contempo-
rary firms we see the relevance and development of key CSR ideas. The
essays cover the territory both broadly and deeply.
There is a new story of business that is emerging all over the world.
“Business as solely concerned with profits” is an idea whose time has come and
gone. As research and practice move forward we will see many more frame-
works, arguments and analyses of business that do not separate “economic”
from “social”. This book is a welcomed addition to this burgeoning literature.

April 2019 Edward R. Freeman

Darden School of Business
The University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA, US

v
 Contents

Part I Introduction: CSR Beyond Formal System

1 Overview: Formal Management Systems, Intrinsic CSR,

and the Role of Culture in Management 7
Stéphanie Looser

2 Honourable Merchants as a Role Model for Responsible

Leadership: History and Perspectives 17
Joachim Schwalbach

3 Company Case Study 1: To (Crafts)Man Up—How Swiss

SMEs Cope with CSR in Harsh Times 35
Stéphanie Looser, Philip Evans Clark and Walter Wehrmeyer

4 Company Case Study 2: Novex AG—Frustration

and the Great European Office Furniture Hunt 81
Tyler Brûlé

vii
viii      Contents

Part II Virtue Ethics

5 Overview: Virtue Ethics and Managerial Control 87

Mara Del Baldo

6 Virtue Ethics, Corporate Identity and Success 105

Mathias Schüz

7 Virtue Ethics and CSR: The Two Sides of Sustainable

Organizational Performance 119
Mihaela Constantinescu and Muel Kaptein

8 Company Case Study 3: Loccioni Between Innovation,

People and Future 133
Simonetta Recchi

9 Company Case Study 4: Boxmarche—A Heritage

of Values for a Virtuous Company 153
Mara Del Baldo

Part III Family-Run Businesses

10 Overview: Family Run Businesses and Intrinsic CSR 179

Stéphanie Looser

11 Virtue Ethics, Values of the Founders,

and Organizational Growth 185
Josh Wei-Jun Hsueh

12 Company Case Study 5: The Value of Values in Economy

of Communion Enterprises—Start Up and Governance
of Loppiano Prima 201
Maria-Gabriella Baldarelli
 Contents     ix

13 Company Case Study 6: Bertola Srl (Italy)—A Family

Business Within the Economy of Communion “Family” 215
Mara Del Baldo

Part IV Business Strategy, Innovation Management

and Growth

14 Strategies, Growth and Innovation: Are There Any

Interlinked Management Configurations? 233
Stéphanie Looser

15 Company Case Study 8: Cucinelli—A Humanistic

Enterprise for a Sustainable Growth and a Sustainable
World 241
Mara Del Baldo

16 Company Case Study 9: Virtues Circles

and Innovation in Corporate Governance of EoC
Enterprises—The Case of the First Business
Park in Brazil 261
Maria-Gabriella Baldarelli

17 Company Case Study 10: Spreading the Culture

of Sustainability—The SGR Group’s Experience (Italy) 273
Elisa Tamagnini and Mara Del Baldo

Part V Staff, Human Resources (HR) and CSR Perceptions

18 Overview: Employee Perceptions

in Innovation-Driven SMEs 299
Stéphanie Looser

19 Company Case Study 12: Employee Perceptions

in Innovation-Driven SMEs—D-Orbit 307
Giorgia Nigri and Giuseppe Lentini
x      Contents

Part VI How European Is Intrinsic CSR?

20 Overview: Intrinsic CSR Across Europe 323

Stéphanie Looser

21 Company Case Study 13: Mass Production

and Luxury Segment Partners That Meet
the Stipulation of “No-Contracts” 343
Stéphanie Looser and Seraina Mohr

Part VII Synthesis and Conclusion

22 Synthesis: The Future of Innovation, CSR

and (In-)Formal Management 367
Stéphanie Looser, Walter Wehrmeyer and Seraina Mohr

Index 381
 Notes on Contributors

Maria-Gabriella Baldarelli, Ph.D., CPA is associate professor of

Accounting, at the University of Bologna, Department of Management.
Full professor availability, CAST board member, SIDREA board mem-
ber until 2018. Visiting Professor: University of Elbassan (2018); State
University of Tirana (2017) Albania; La Trobe University Melbourne
(Campus Badora) (2015) Australia; University of Pula-Hroatia on May
2006; University of Vlore (Albania) from 12 to 15 May 2009; Visiting
professor—Teaching staff mobility at the New Bulgarian University
of Sofia—Bulgaria from 22 to 27 November 2010; University of Sao
Paulo—Brazil at the end of May–1st June 2011; University of Diocese
of Buia (UDEB)—Camerun—from 4 to 8 February 2012. Partner of
Editorial Board international Review “Economic Research” (UDK
338; ISSN 1331-677X). Research interests includes: accountability and
gambling enterprises; corporate social responsibility; ethical, social and
environmental accounting and accountability, sustainability in tourist
enterprises; responsible and accessible tourism for blind people, econ-
omy of communion enterprises; gender accounting; accounting history.
Tyler Brûlé is the editor-in-chief of Monocle magazine. He first visited
Switzerland as a teen. Now he is running his media empire from a new
xi
xii      Notes on Contributors

office in Zurich. Though his love affair with Switzerland continues, he

sees the need for some tweaks. “The Swiss can’t help themselves from
constantly renovating and rebuilding, when sometimes I think they
should just restore and preserve,” finds Brûlé.
Philip Evans Clark currently works at the Faculty of Business,
Management and Services, University of Applied Sciences and Arts
Western Switzerland. Philip does research in Financial Economics,
Entrepreneurial Economics and Business Administration. Their current
project is ‘The Role and Dynamics of CSR in Swiss SMEs’.
Dr. Mihaela Constantinescu is currently a postdoctoral research fel-
low of the Research Institute of the University of Bucharest (ICUB).
Her research interests include organizational ethics, virtue ethics
and corporate responsibility, approached within the philosophical
framework of the Aristotelian moral thought. Mihaela co-authored
the Romanian volume on Institutionalising Ethics: Mechanisms and
Instruments and is author and co-author of articles published in inter-
national volumes and scientific journals such as the Journal of Business
Ethics. She is a member of the Research Centre in Applied Ethics (www.
ccea.ro), Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest and has theoret-
ical and practical expertise in the fields of ethics management, corporate
social responsibility and public relations. With an academic background
in both philosophy and communication, Mihaela has previously worked
as a public relations consultant in the private, nongovernmental and
public sectors, while also offering ethics counselling to the latter.
Mara Del Baldo is Associate Professor (of Financial Accounting;
Economics of Sustainability and Accountability) at the University of
Urbino (Italy), Department of Economics, Society and Politics. She
was a visiting professor to the University of Vigo (Spain), the Jurai
Dobrila University of Pula (Croatia), the New Bulgarian University
of Sofia (Bulgaria), the Corvinus University in Budapest (Hungary)
and the University of Craiova (Romania). Her main research interests
include: Entrepreneurship and small businesses management; Corporate
Social Responsibility, Sustainability and entrepreneurial business ethics;
SMEs strategies of qualitative development and networking strategies;
 Notes on Contributors     xiii

financial reporting; ethical, social and environmental accounting and

accountability (SEAR); integrated reporting and accounting and gen-
der. She is a member of the European Council for Small Business,
the Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research
(CSEAR), the AFECA-ILPA (Association des Formations Européennes
à la Comptabilité et à l’Audit), the SPES Institute and the European
Business Ethics Network (EBEN) Italia, the Global Corporate
Governance Institute (USA), as well as several Italian scientific associ-
ations. She serves as editorial board member and a reviewer of a num-
ber of scientific journals. She has published in several Italian and foreign
journals as well as in national and international conference proceedings
and books, included the Springer’s Series CSR, Sustainabiliy, Ethics &
Governance.
Josh Wei-Jun Hsueh is an assistant professor at the University of St.
Gallen, Switzerland. He obtained his Ph.D. in Business Administration
and Management at Bocconi University in 2017. He was a visiting
scholar at IE Business school in 2016. He had Research Fellowship at
Bocconi University 2016–2017 and a Research scholarship at Bocconi
University 2012–2016. His research focuses on family businesses’ iden-
tities and image based on their corporate social responsibility (CSR)
strategy and performance. His publications can be found in interna-
tional journals, such as Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and Journal
of Business Ethics. Currently, he is working on the management of iden-
tities and image of family businesses. Further fields of research include
entrepreneurship, social identity and corporate image.
Prof. Muel Kaptein is a professor of business ethics and integ-
rity management at the RSM Erasmus University Rotterdam, The
Netherlands. He is also equity partner at KPMG where he supports
clients in auditing and improving their integrity and compliance. He
cofounded KPMG Integrity in 1996, which was the first consultancy
service in this field among the Big-6. Muel is author of various books
including Ethics Management (Springer, 1998), The Balanced Company
(Oxford University Press, 2002), The Six Principles for Managing with
Integrity (Articulate Press, 2005), Workplace Morality (Emerald, 2013),
The Servant of the People (Amazon, 2018) and Ethicisms and Their Risks
xiv      Notes on Contributors

(Amazon, 2018). He has published about 50 peer-reviewed articles in

international journals such as Journal of Management Studies, Journal of
Organizational Behavior, Organization Studies, Journal of Management
and Human Relations and Academy of Management Review. See for more
information: www.muelkaptein.com.
Giuseppe Lentini is a junior consultant with great interest in inte-
grated reporting. After completing his bachelor’s degree at LUMSA
University in economics he began to study corporate social responsi-
bility (CSR) with a focus on benefit corporations and their committed
forms of CSR. His master’s thesis was dedicated to this new paradigm
and he collaborated with a research team in the field before moving
onto his corporate career. His research interests lie in the area of corpo-
rate social responsibility, sustainability reporting, and integrated report-
ing. Giuseppe is also a dedicated sportsman. He is an official soccer
referee and his free time is dedicated to soccer games.
Stéphanie Looser obtained her Ph.D. in Environmental Strategy at
the University of Surrey’s Centre for Environment and Sustainability,
focusing on Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and their at
times unconventional, but sophisticated approach to Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR). She published about 40 peer-reviewed papers and
several book chapters in English, German and French. Moreover, she
frequently presents her results at state-of-the-art conferences in Europe
and Asia. Currently, she holds a Chair in “Sustainable Tourism &
Mobility” at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Institute
of Tourism ITW, as well as a Research Fellowship at the University of
Surrey. By combining these far-reaching networks, she is promoting the
design and establishment of state-of-the-art courses to educate and fos-
ter prospective change makers/leaders of the tourism and mobility sec-
tor. Thus, she guides individuals and institutions towards a sustainable
and intergenerational just future.
Seraina Mohr lectures and researches at the Lucerne University of
Applied Sciences at the Institute of Communication and Marketing,
where she heads the Competence Center for Communication
Management. She studied German language and literature and history
at the University of Zurich and completed a postgraduate course in
 Notes on Contributors     xv

service management. She has many years of professional experience as a

journalist and in the management of Internet portals.
Giorgia Nigri is a Ph.D. Student at LUMSA Università Maria SS.
Assunta di Roma in Rome, Italy, regarding Sustainability, Environmental
Impact Assessment, Sustainable Development, Society and Environment
Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Impact Assessment, Benefit
Corporations Economics.
Simonetta Recchi was born in 1990. She has done classical stud-
ies. She has a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and a master’s degree in
Philosophical Sciences.
She has obtained her Ph.D. working both with Macerata University
and with Loccioni Group, in the People Team which deals with Human
Resources. Loccioni is an Italian Company in the province of Ancona.
It is an industrial automation company where engineering solutions are
developed.
The Ph.D. programme was an industrial Ph.D. and it was about
Innovation and Corporate Social Responsibility with a focus on the role
of active ageing, employability and workplace challenges in the enter-
prises. The area of the research was Psychology, Communication and
Social Sciences.
During her Ph.D. Simonetta worked also as a Visiting Student in the
Department of Economics and Business Administration of the Vrije
University of Amsterdam.
She is engaged in collaboration with “LavoroPerLaPersona Foundation”
which is based in Offida, her hometown. For this Foundation the world
is an open, intercultural, and welcoming community where if the work
can fully express itself, it can be enhanced in all its tools, components and
dimensions.
Simonetta has a Music Theory Degree obtained at G.B. Pergolesi
Conservatory of Music of Fermo, and another Degree in Piano at Luisa
D’Annunzio Conservatory of Pescara. She plays the violin and the clar-
inet as well.
Now she is working as Human Resources Specialist at Giocamondo,
a Tour Operator focused on the organization of summer trips in Italy
xvi      Notes on Contributors

and study trips for young people in European and Extra-European des-
tinations (UK, Ireland, Scotland, Russia, Spain, Malta, USA).
Mathias Schüz studied Physics, Philosophy and Educational Theory
at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in Germany. It was in
his Ph.D. thesis on the philosophical consequences of quantum phys-
ics that he first addressed the subject of responsibility and ethics. After
finishing his postgraduate degree, he was initially employed by IBM
as a trainee and then moved on to become a key account manager at
the company. Together with insurance entrepreneur Rolf Gerling, he
later co-initiated the Gerling Akademie für Risikoforschung (Gerling
Academy for Risk Research) in Zurich, Switzerland, where he worked
for 16 years as a member of the management board, as well as taught
and conducted research. He is lecturer and professor at the School
of Management and Law at Zurich University of Applied Sciences
(ZHAW) in Winterthur ever since 2006, where he teaches and
researches the subject of business ethics and responsible leadership. He
has published numerous articles and books on these areas.
Joachim Schwalbach is Professor emeritus of International
Management at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany. From 2004
to 2006 he was the Dean of the School of Business and Economics.
He was a visiting professor at various universities like Harvard, Santa
Barbara, Stanford GSB, and Toulouse; and is visiting regularly Peking
University—Guanghua School of Management and Sun Yat-sen
Business School in Guangzhou. His research and consulting fields are:
corporate social responsibility, corporate governance, responsible lead-
ership, and executive pay, effective boards of directors, corporate and
CEO reputation management and international market entry. He is edi-
tor and associate editor for various academic book series and journals,
and has published books and many articles in leading academic journals.
Joachim Schwalbach organizes the world’s premier international con-
ference on corporate sustainability and responsibility. Every two years,
leading experts from around the world have been meeting in Berlin for
exploring the global themes of CSR (see: www.csr-hu-berlin.org).
 Notes on Contributors     xvii

Elisa Tamagnini born in Bologna (Italy) in 1982 and has a degree in

business and economics (Università Bocconi—Milan—Italy). Since
2010, he has been head of corporate social responsibility at SGR
Group, charged with drawing up and proposing guidelines for corpo-
rate social responsibility, preparing the sustainability report and oversee-
ing the educational programme for school and welfare system.
She has also been on the SGR Groups’ ethics committee since 2010.
Dr. Walter Wehrmeyer is Reader at the Centre for Environmental
Strategy at the University of Surrey, with over 20 years of experience
developing sustainable development strategies of public and private
organisations, including design of stakeholder engagement and policy
deliberation. He is a trained facilitator, having designed engagement
and risk communication strategies for the public and private sector.
As such he has been involved with relevant grants from EPSRC, EU
& national governments worth over £3m, covering topics such as risk
communication on contaminated land, developing sustainability indica-
tors for industry, foresighting and backcasting for long-term sustainable
pathways, fighting organised crime through better engagement strat-
egies, identifying barriers and drivers for successful upscaling of local
smart energy systems.
 List of Figures

Chapter 2
Fig. 1 Responsibility model honourable merchant
(Source Own representation) 29

Chapter 3
Fig. 1 Crisis matrix (Source Adapted from Gundel [2005]) 43
Fig. 2 L’EPOQuE—An emerging template of CSR in Switzerland
(Source Looser and Wehrmeyer [2015b]) 53

Chapter 6
Fig. 1 The structure of responsibility (Source Author,
cf. Schüz [2012: 9; 2019: 246]) 110
Fig. 2 Cause-loop-diagram for honesty and success
(Source Schönenberger 2017) 112

xix
xx      List of Figures

Chapter 11
Fig. 1 The dynamic between different strategic goals
of a family firm along its life stages 189

Chapter 12
Fig. 1 Evolution of loses on Ownership capital 1974–1981
and 1982–1992. Source Our elaboration 207
Fig. 2 Trend of number of donations 1973–1980.
Source Our elaboration 209
Fig. 3 Evolution of owners’ capital on invested capital
1973–1981 and 1982–1992. Source Our elaboration 212

Chapter 15
Fig. 1 Brunello Cucinelli Spa’s business model (Source
Our adaptation from Brunello Cucinelli annual
report [2016], www.brunellocucinelli.com) 247

Chapter 17
Fig. 1 SGR Group materiality matrix (Source: SGR Group
Sustainability Report [2016: 24]) 283

Chapter 18
Fig. 1 Responsibilities of human resources adapted from Hill
(2011: 605) 301

Chapter 22
Fig. 1 “Intrinsic Motivation/tacit Knowledge” visualisation
using Leximancer 376
Fig. 2 Ranking of tacit knowledge aligned with “people”
(issued by Leximancer) 377
Fig. 3 “Three-dimensional SME-CSR business model” 379
 List of Tables

Chapter 3
Table 1 Sample description 47

Chapter 6
Table 1 Comparison of compliance with integrity 113

Chapter 9
Table 1 BoxMarche features 157
Table 2 BoxMarche’s cardinal rules 159
Table 3 BoxMarche’s awards 159

Chapter 15
Table 1 Brunello Cucinelli Group’s results (2017) 243
Table 2 General principles (of the humanistic enterprise) 245
Table 3 Brunello’s awards 252

xxi
xxii      List of Tables

Chapter 17
Table 1 SGR Group’s history 276
Table 2 SGR Group today 278
Table 3 SGR Group’s mission and vision 278
Table 4 SGR Awards (2016) 279
Table 5 Distribution of value added 280
Table 6 Human resource initiatives and actions undertaken in 2016 285
Table 7 Tools and action addressed to the governance system 286
Table 8 Action addressed to energy efficiency and renewable
sources (2016) 287
Table 9 Actions addressed to energy consumption and company
waste management (2016) 288
Table 10 SGR actions undertaken in 2016 289
Table 11 SGR for School 290
Table 12 SGR Solidale’s areas of involvement 291

Chapter 19
Table 1 Benefit impact assessment worker scores extracted
from D-Orbit’s benefit impact report 314

Chapter 20
Table 1 Varieties of capitalism (Hall and Soskice 2001) 326
Table 2 DiMaggio and Powell (1983) 329
Table 3 Implicit vs. explicit CSR (Matten and Moon 2004;
Matten and Moon 2008) 330
Table 4 SWOT analysis of SMEs seen from a global comparative
point of view 340

Chapter 22
Table 1 Working steps regarding the goal to reach a meaningful
synthesis 371
Table 2 Synthesis’ results: “Ontology vs. Evolution”: ontological
aspects 373
Table 3 Synthesis’ results: “Ontology vs. Evolution”: evolutionary
aspects 375
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of
Forge and furnace: A novel
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Title: Forge and furnace: A novel

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“Oh, father, don’t, don’t! You’ll hurt him.”—Frontispiece.
FORGE AND FURNACE
 A Novel

BY
FLORENCE WARDEN
AUTHOR OF
“THE HOUSE ON THE MARSH,” “SCHEHERAZADE,” “A
PRINCE
OF DARKNESS,” ETC.

New York
NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY
156 FIFTH AVENUE

Copyright, 1896,
BY
NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY.
 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE
I. A Pair of Brown Eyes 5
II. Claire 13
III. Something Wrong at the Farm 18
IV. Claire’s Apology 21
V. Bram’s Rise in Life 31
VI. Mr. Biron’s Condescension 38
VII. Bram’s Dismissal 46
VIII. Another Step Upward 54
IX. A Call and a Dinner Party 61
X. The Fine Eyes of her Cashbox 70
XI. Bram Shows Himself in a New Light 80
XII. A Model Father 86
XIII. An Ill-matched Pair 102
XIV. The Deluge 111
XV. Parent and Lover 118
XVI. The Pangs of Despised Love 126
XVII. Bram Speaks his Mind 134
XVIII. Face to Face 143
XIX. Sanctuary 151
XX. The Furnace Fires 159
XXI. The Fire Goes Out 168
XXII. Claire’s Confession 173
XXIII. Father and Daughter 184
XXIV. Mr. Biron’s Repentance 190
XXV. Meg 200
XXVI. The Goal Reached 206
FORGE AND FURNACE;
THE ROMANCE OF A SHEFFIELD BLADE.
 CHAPTER I.
A PAIR OF BROWN EYES.

Thud, thud. Amidst a shower of hot, yellow sparks the steam

hammer came down on the glowing steel, shaking the ground under
the feet of the master of the works and his son, who stood just
outside the shed. In the full blaze of the August sunshine, which was,
however, tempered by such clouds of murky smoke as only Sheffield
can boast, old Mr. Cornthwaite, acclimatized for many a year to heat
and to coal dust, stood quite unconcerned.
Tall, thin, without an ounce of superfluous flesh on his bones, with a
fresh-colored face which seemed to look the younger and the
handsomer for the silver whiteness of his hair and of his long, silky
moustache, Josiah Cornthwaite’s was a figure which would have
arrested attention anywhere, but which was especially noticeable for
the striking contrast he made to the rough-looking Yorkshiremen at
work around him.
Like a swarm of demons on the shores of Styx, they moved about,
haggard, gaunt, uncouth figures, silent amidst the roar of the
furnaces and the whirr of the wheels, lifting the bars of red-hot steel
with long iron rods as easily and unconcernedly as if they had been
hot rolls baked in an infernal oven, heedless of the red-hot sparks
which fell around them in showers as each blow of the steam
hammer fell.
Mr. Cornthwaite, whose heart was in his furnaces, his huge revolving
wheels, his rolling mills, and his gigantic presses, watched the work,
familiar as it was to him, with fascinated eyes.
“What day was it last month that Biron turned up here?” he asked his
son with a slight frown.
This frown often crossed old Mr. Cornthwaite’s face when he and his
son were at the works together, for Christian by no means shared his
father’s enthusiasm for the works, and was at small pains to hide the
fact.
“Oh, I’m sure I don’t remember. How should I remember?” said he
carelessly, as he looked down at his hands, and wondered how
much more black coal dust there would be on them by the time the
guv’nor would choose to let him go.
A young workman, with a long, thin, pale, intelligent face, out of
which two deep-set, shrewd, gray eyes looked steadily, glanced up
quickly at Mr. Cornthwaite. He had been standing near enough to
hear the remarks exchanged between father and son.
“Well, Elshaw, what is it?” said the elder Mr. Cornthwaite with an
encouraging smile. “Any more discoveries to-day?”
A little color came into the young man’s face.
“No, sir,” said he shyly in a deep, pleasant voice, speaking with a
broad Yorkshire accent which was not in his mouth unpleasant to the
ear. “Ah heard what you asked Mr. Christian, sir, and remember it
was on the third of the month Mr. Biron came.”
“Thanks. Your memory is always to be trusted. I think you’ve got your
head screwed on the right way, Elshaw.”
“Ah’m sure, Ah hope so, sir,” said the young fellow, smiling in return
for his employer’s smile, and touching his cap as he moved away.
“Smart lad that Elshaw,” said Mr. Cornthwaite approvingly. “And
steady. Never drinks, as so many of them do.”
“Can you wonder at their drinking?” broke out Christian with energy,
“when they have to spend their lives at this infernal work? It parches
my throat only to watch them, and I’m sure if I had to pass as many
hours as they do in this awful, grimy hole I should never be sober.”
The elder Mr. Cornthwaite looked undecided whether to frown or to
laugh at this tirade, which had at least the merit of being uttered in all
sincerity by the very person who could least afford to utter it. He
compromised by giving breath to a little sigh.
“It’s very disheartening to me to hear you say so, Chris, when it has
been the aim of my life to bring you up to carry on and build up the
business I have given my life to,” he said.
Christian Cornthwaite’s face was not an expressive one. He was
extraordinarily unlike his father in almost every way, having
prominent blue eyes, instead of his father’s piercing black ones, a
fair complexion, while his father’s was dark, a figure shorter, broader,
and less upright, and an easy, happy-go-lucky walk and manner, as
different as possible from the erect, military bearing of the head of
the firm.
What little expression he could throw into his big blue eyes he threw
into them now, as he pulled his long, ragged, tawny moustache and
echoed his father’s sigh.
“Well, isn’t it disheartening for me too, sir,” protested he good-
humoredly, “to hear you constantly threatening to put me on bread
and water for the rest of my life if I don’t settle down in this beastly
hole and try to love it?”
“It ought to be natural to you to love what has brought you up in
every comfort, educated you like a prince, and made of you——”
Josiah Cornthwaite paused, and a twinkle came into his black eyes.
“Made of you,” he went on thoughtfully, “a selfish, idle vagabond,
with only wit enough to waste the money his father has made.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Chris, quite cheerfully. “If that’s the best the
works have done for me, why should I love them?”
At that moment young Elshaw passed before his eyes again, and
recalled Christian’s attention to a subject which would, he shrewdly
thought, divert the current of his father’s thoughts from his own
deficiencies.
“I wonder, sir,” he said, “that you don’t put Bram Elshaw into the
office. He’s fit for something better than this sort of thing.”
And he waved his hand in the direction of the group in the middle of
which stood Elshaw, rod in hand, with his lean, earnest face intent on
his work.
Josiah Cornthwaite’s eyes rested on the young man. Bram was a
little above the middle height, thin, sallow, with shoulders somewhat
inclined to be narrow and sloping, but with a face which commanded
attention. He had short, mouse-colored hair, high cheek bones, a
short nose, a straight mouth, and a very long straight chin; altogether
an assemblage of features which promised little in the way of
attractiveness.
And yet attractive his face certainly was. Intelligence, strength of
character, good humor, these were the qualities which even a casual
observer could read in the countenance of Bram Elshaw.
But the lad had more in him than that. He had ambition, vague as
yet, dogged tenacity of purpose, imagination, feeling, fire. There was
the stuff; of a man of no common kind in the young workman.
Josiah Cornthwaite looked at him long and critically before
answering his son’s remark.
“Yes,” said he at last slowly, “I daresay he’s fit for something better—
indeed, I’m sure of it. But it doesn’t do to bring these young fellows
on too fast. If he gets too much encouragement he will turn into an
inventor (you know the sort of chap that’s the common pest of a
manufacturing town, always worrying about some precious
‘invention’ that turns out to have been invented long ago, or to be
utterly worthless), and never do a stroke of honest work again.”
“Now, I don’t think Elshaw’s that sort of chap,” said Chris, who
looked upon Bram as in some sort his protégé, whose merit would
be reflected on himself. “Anyhow, I think it would be worth your while
to give him a trial, sir.”
“But he would never go back to this work afterwards if he proved a
failure in the office.”
“Not here, certainly.”
“And we should lose a very good workman,” persisted Mr.
Cornthwaite, who had conservative notions upon the subject of
promotion from the ranks.
“Well, I believe it would turn out all right,” said Chris.
His father was about to reply when his attention was diverted by the
sudden appearance, at the extreme end of the long avenue of sheds
and workshops, of two persons who, to judge by the frown which
instantly clouded his face, were very unwelcome.
“That old rascal again! That old rascal Theodore Biron! Come to
borrow again, of course! But I won’t see him. I won’t——”
“But, Claire, don’t be too hard on the old sinner, for the girl’s sake,
sir,” said Chris hastily, cutting short his protests.
Mr. Cornthwaite turned sharply upon his son.
“Yes, the old fox is artful enough for that. He uses his daughter to get
himself received where he himself wouldn’t be tolerated for two
minutes. And I’ve no doubt the little minx is up to every move on the
board too.”
“Oh, come, sir, you’re too hard,” protested Chris with real warmth,
and with more earnestness than he had shown on the subject either
of his own career or of Bram’s. “I’d stake my head for what it’s worth,
and I suppose you’d say that isn’t much, on the girl’s being all right.”
But this championship did not please his father at all. Josiah
Cornthwaite’s bushy white eyebrows met over his black eyes, and
his handsome, ruddy-complexioned face lost its color. Chris was
astonished, and regretted his own warmth, as his father answered in
the tones he could remember dreading when he was a small boy—
“Whether she’s all right or all wrong, I warn you not to trouble your
head about her. You may rely upon my doing the best I can for her,
on account of my relationship to her mother. But I would never
countenance an alliance between the family of that old reprobate
and mine.”
But to this Chris responded with convincing alacrity—
“An alliance! Good heavens, no, sir! We suffer quite enough at the
hands of the old nuisance already. And I have no idea, I assure you,
of throwing myself away.”
Josiah Cornthwaite still kept his shrewd black eyes fixed upon his
son, and he seemed to be satisfied with what he read in the face of
the latter, for he presently turned away with a nod of satisfaction as
Theodore Biron and his daughter, who had perhaps been lingering a
little until the great man’s first annoyance at the sight of them had
blown over, came near enough for a meeting.
“Ah, Mr. Cornthwaite, surely there’s no sight in the world to beat
this,” began the dapper little man airily as he held out a small,
slender, and remarkably well-shaped hand with a flourish, and kept
his eyes all the time upon the men at work in the nearest shed as if
the sight had too much fascination for him to be able readily to
withdraw his eyes. “This,” he went on, apparently not noticing that
Mr. Cornthwaite’s handshake was none of the warmest, “of a whole
community immersed in the noblest of all occupations, the turning of
the innocent, lifeless substances of the earth into tool and wheel,
ship and carriage! I must say that this place has a charm for me
which I have never found in the fairest spots of Switzerland; that
after seeing whatever was to be seen in California, the States, the
Himalayas, Russia, and the rest of it, I have always been ready to
say, not exactly with the poet, but with a full heart, ‘Give me
Sheffield!’ And to-day, when I came to have a look at the works,” he
wound up in a less lofty tone, “I thought I would bring my little Claire
to have a peep too.”
“Ah, Mr. Cornthwaite, surely there’s no sight in the world to beat
this.”—Page 10.
In spite of the absurdity of his harangue, Theodore Biron knew how
to throw into his voice and manner so much fervor. He spoke, he
gesticulated with so much buoyancy and effect, that his hearers
were amused and interested in spite of themselves, and were carried
away, for the time at least, into believing, or half-believing, that he
was in earnest.
Josiah Cornthwaite, always accessible to flattery on the matter of
“the works,” as the artful Theodore knew, suffered himself to smile a
little as he turned to Claire.
“And so you have to be sacrificed, and must consent to be bored to
please papa?”
“Oh, I shan’t be bored. I shall like it,” said Claire.
She spoke in a little thread of a musical, almost childish, voice, and
very shyly. But as she did so, uttering only these simple words, a
great change took place in her. Before she spoke no one would have
said more of her than that she was a quiet, modest-looking, perhaps
rather insignificant, little girl, and that her gray frock was neat and
well-fitting.
But no sooner did she open her mouth to speak or to smile than the
little olive-skinned face broke into all sorts of pretty dimples. The
black eyes made up for what they lacked in size by their sparkle and
brilliancy, and the two rows of little ivory teeth helped the dazzling
effect.
Then Claire Biron was charming. Then even Josiah Cornthwaite
forgot to ask himself whether she was not cunning. Then Chris
stroked his mustache, and told himself with complacency that he had
done a good deed in standing up for the poor, little thing.
But rough Bram Elshaw, whom Chris had beckoned to come
forward, and who stood respectfully in the background, waiting to
know for what he was wanted, felt as if he had received an electric
shock.
Bram was held very unsusceptible to feminine influences. He was
what the factory and shop lasses of the town called a hard nut to
crack, a close-fisted customer, and other terms of a like opprobrious
nature. Occupied with his books, those everlasting books, and with
his vague dreams of something indefinite and as yet far out of his
reach, he had, at this ripe age of twenty, looked down upon such
members of the frivolous sex as came in his way, and dreamed of
something fairer in the shape of womanhood, something to which a
pretty young actress whom he had seen at one of the theatres in the
part of “Lady Betty Noel,” had given more definite form.
And now quite suddenly, in the broad light of an August morning,
with nothing more romantic than the rolling mill for a background,
there had broken in upon his startled imagination the creature the
sight of whom he seemed to have been waiting for. As he stood
there motionless, his eyes riveted, his ears tingling with the very
sound of her voice, he felt that a revelation had been made to him.
As if revealed in one magnetic flash, he saw in a moment what it was
that woman meant to man; saw the attraction that the rough lads of
his acquaintance found in the slovenly, noisy girls of their own courts
and alleys; stood transfixed, coarse-handed son of toil that he was,
under the spell of love.
The voice of Chris Cornthwaite close to his ear startled him out of a
stupor of intoxication.
“What’s the matter with you, Bram? You look as if you’d been struck
by lightning. You are to go round the works with Miss Biron and
explain things, you know. And listen” (he might well have to recall
Bram’s wandering attention, for this command had thrown the lad
into a sort of frenzy, on which he found it difficult enough to suppress
all outward signs), “I have something much more important to tell
you than that.” But Bram’s face was a blank. “You are to come up to
the Park next Thursday evening, and I think you’ll find my father has
something to say to you that you’ll be glad to hear. And mind this,
Bram, it was I who put him up to it. It’s me you’ve got to thank.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Bram, touching his cap respectfully, and trying
to speak as if he felt grateful.
But he was not. He felt no emotion whatever. He was stupefied by
the knowledge that he was to go round the works with Miss Biron.