The partnership, p.6
The Partnership, page 6
“I hardly know—” she began.
Annice smiled; her cheeks curved into dimples and her blue eyes took on a roguish sparkle.
“You go along, Miss Lydia,” she urged warmly, sitting up to press the matter with more vigour. “If you don’t, perhaps he won’t ask you again.”
“Really, Annice!” said Lydia with as much hauteur as she could command. “It’s simply a question of whether you would be afraid to be left alone or not.”
“Afraid!” repeated Annice in a tone of good-natured contempt. “Oh no! I’m not afraid, Miss Lydia.”
“Very well then,” said Lydia stiffly. “I’ll put the latch down on the front door, and we shan’t be gone long.”
“No, Miss Lydia,” agreed Annice, casting down her lashes demurely. Her smile, however, persisted, and still lingered on her lips when a few minutes later she watched Lydia and Wilfred go down the Place together.
Lydia had intended to be absent half an hour at the most, but it was after nine o’clock when she and Wilfred returned. They had gone first to a point of vantage whence Wilfred thought the moor fires would be visible across the valley—a long level open road on the slope of a hill commanding a fine view of the surrounding country, which was used by the youth of the town as a parade ground on Sunday evenings when there was no band in the park. To-night it was crowded with pairs of lovers of all ages, who paced slowly up and down with intent faces or halted in large giggling groups. Lydia, who usually felt ill at ease with pairs of lovers, to-night was quite at home amongst them, and would have been content to remain there, pacing up and down beneath the clear blue August sky, admiring the silver beauty of the evening star, gazing pleasurably at the little patches of bright flame which glowed here and there on the crest of the opposing hill, and rejoicing that Wilfred was beside her. But Wilfred was not satisfied with the view; he assured his companion that the flames had looked far finer from the top windows of Boothroyd House. Lydia, who had utterly forgotten Annice, smiled vaguely and did not suggest that they should return there. Instead she followed Wilfred obediently as he tried various points of higher ground, and when he finally suggested that they should cross the valley to the moor itself, and gain a closer view, she eagerly agreed. The hill was farther than it looked, and by the time they reached the fires the west was rosy with the threat of sunset, and the hills around were becoming silhouetted sharply against the sky. A good many other bold spirits had also come to view the flames, and Wilfred, who undoubtedly had the common touch if he could not walk with kings, strolled about amongst them collecting informative anecdotes about the fire’s origin. The young women who accompanied these other watchers of the flames looked with interest at Lydia, and Lydia was pleased to be so regarded. She was perfectly happy. The fires themselves, she thought, were less impressive here than from the other side of the valley—they flickered and were not so clear, and the acrid smoke made her cough—but then there was such an air of excitement, of romance, of friendliness, about the scene, that the walk was well worth while for that alone. Wilfred was at his best amongst these other men; she admired the hearty, cordial manner of his talk with them. On his side Wilfred was proud of Lydia’s light, cultivated tones, so superior to those of everybody else present; he was proud of the intelligence of her remarks, proud of the simple candour of her glance; and he swore to himself with great tenderness that it should always be his part to shield her high-mindedness from the world’s corrupting touch.
They hardly knew when or why it was that they left the moor and wandered slowly down the stony path to the valley. As they climbed up the other side towards Hudley, Lydia became pleasurably conscious that she was tired; and Wilfred, remorseful, put his hand beneath her elbow to help her up the slope. They reached the top to find the parade almost empty and twilight unmistakably falling; a sudden pang of conscience seemed to strike them both, and they struck out sharply for Cromwell Place.
“I hope Annice has been all right,” murmured Lydia in a troubled tone.
“Sure to be,” said Wilfred comfortingly. “Besides, won’t Uncle Charles and Aunt be in before now?”
“No,” said Lydia, still more troubled. “He’s gone to preach, you know, and they’re being entertained afterwards to supper.”
Number seven, however, when at last they reached it, looked so solid, so sedate, so like itself, that Lydia was reassured, and smiled at Wilfred as she pulled the old-fashioned bell. A long pause ensued. Lydia pulled the bell again. There was another pause. The house somehow changed its aspect and appeared silent and deserted. Lydia turned to her companion.
“Can there be anything wrong?” she said, aghast.
“Why should there be?” said Wilfred sensibly. “Let me pull that bell.”
“It sounded before,” murmured Lydia unhappily, as he gave it a strong and experienced jerk.
In the recesses of the house the bell jangled tremendously, and went on jangling and tinkling as though it would never cease. At last it died away; there was another pause; then at last there came a vague sound of footsteps; in the distance a door banged, causing Lydia to start nervously, and almost immediately Annice opened the front door with an abrupt and jerky movement.
“Well, Annice!” exclaimed Lydia, her voice sharpened by the intensity of her relief. “What do you mean by keeping us waiting all this time?”
“I was in the attic, Miss Lydia,” returned Annice in a rather sullen voice. “I came as quickly as I could.”
She certainly sounded breathless, and Lydia inwardly relented. She felt it necessary, however, to say something else of a reproving nature, and demanded severely: “What were you doing in the attic?”
“I was just going to brush my hair, Miss Lydia,” replied Annice in a rude and angry tone.
Her hair certainly looked as though it required brushing. Lydia felt that she was playing a mean and nagging part, and she thought she saw in Wilfred’s eyes that he thought so too.
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” she said soothingly. “Will you come in and have some supper, Wilfred?” she continued, turning to him.
“Well—I don’t think I will, thanks,” said he. “They’ll be wondering what’s become of me at home.”
“Very well,” said Lydia stiffly, feeling that the poetry of the evening was all gone. “Good night, then.”
“Good night,” said Wilfred.
“I’ve laid for you, Mr. Wilfred,” put in Annice suddenly. “And I told Mr. Eric you wouldn’t be home for supper.”
“Has Eric been here?” asked Wilfred in surprise.
“He came to see if you was here,” explained Annice, her good humour apparently restored. “And I told him you was out with Miss Lydia and wouldn’t be home for supper. So he went away.”
“In that case,” said Wilfred, hanging his hat on a convenient peg, “I may as well stay—if you’ll have me, Lydia.”
Lydia, smiling, intimated that she would. Forgetting how the time had flown during their walk, she hoped for a long quiet evening with him, and was rather disconcerted when Charles and Louise burst in upon them almost before they had begun supper. Charles, who was an excellent mimic, described his evening’s doings in a way which caused much hilarity; and neither Lydia’s walk nor Annice’s peccadillo about the door rose to the surface of the conversation just then.
That seemed to be the last evening of summer weather, and soon autumn was upon them with its raw winds, its ferocious rain, its heavy clouded skies. Louise’s rheumatism, which yearly cramped her hands and lamed her knee, afflicted her with rather more than its customary force. Annice showed real concern about it, coupled with a kind of surprise; she had never seen anything like that before, she explained to Lydia with a look of wonder. Most of the duties of the household fell upon her willing shoulders; and if the corners were rather dustier than before, Louise’s special dishes always received the best of Annice’s attention, and Louise herself was always kept in cheerful spirits. Annice was admirable, too, in the firm watch she kept on Charles’s boots. Charles’s mind was usually so enthusiastically fixed on the things of the spirit that he never noticed when his boots needed soling, and the results of his absent-mindedness were often disastrous to his chest. Annice kept him warm and cosy, and was adamant in the despatch of his best-loved footgear to the menders, though he often pleaded with her to spare them to him for just one more day. She refused him firmly with a sparkle in her eye, and the two laughed heartily together, standing beside the boot-rack in the kitchen. Then, too, Annice was so splendid over Lydia’s early breakfast. Lydia had a train to catch, and five minutes more or less in the appearance of her breakfast made all the difference to her comfort—it was infinitely preferable to her to have a poor breakfast punctually than a good breakfast late. No previous maid—nor, indeed, Louise herself—seemed able to grasp this essential principle, but Annice’s breakfasts were always on the tick. She had, indeed, desired to serve the meal to Lydia in bed, but her Spartan mistress refused this with disgust, and Annice yielded, reserving to herself the right of waking Lydia half an hour before the special breakfast-time. Punctually every morning she entered Lydia’s room, drew up her blinds, announced the time, and informed her what kind of a day it was and the sort of coat she ought to wear. Sometimes, it is true, she sounded a trifle breathless, as though she had had to hurry a good deal, and sometimes she seemed to be holding some of her clothes in position with one hand; but she was not often more than a few seconds late. On the rare occasions when this calamity did occur the alarmed self-reproach in her voice as she announced the time was truly wonderful.
Every day that passed, in fact, made Annice a more integral and a more indispensable part of the Mellor household, and the deepening winter deepened the affection and gratitude with which Lydia regarded her.
2
When two women have lived together in filial intimacy for a long period of time, the emotions of one communicate themselves rapidly to the other without the medium of words. Lydia never needed to be told when something had occurred to distress Louise; she was wont to tease her mother by saying that she could feel it in the air as soon as she opened the front door, and certainly she could read it in Louise’s smile, her look, her slightest action.
One winter evening she experienced this depression of her nerves. Charles had no engagement that night, and the three Mellors sat comfortably together round the hearth. Outside, the wind howled in seasonable fashion; within, an enormous fire roared in fierce red and gold up the chimney—Dyson had sent them in a cellarful of logs, and Annice, being a miner’s daughter, knew only too well how to arrange coal so that its combustion was rapid. The Tolefree ancestor looked benignly down from above the hearth, as usual. As usual, Charles, his silvery head nestling snugly into a well-placed cushion, his grey eyes sparkling with jolly malice, one plump white hand extended to shield his face from the blaze, discoursed brilliantly of things in general and wittily of people in particular, while Lydia egged him on, as usual. As usual, Louise was vaguely knitting some Christmas garment for the poor. Everything was as usual, and Lydia should have enjoyed her usual quiet content; but for some unaccountable reason her spirits began to sink. She shifted restlessly in her chair, sighed once or twice, wondered uneasily what was the matter with her, and suddenly shot a startled glance at Louise. The glance revealed that her diagnosis of her uneasiness was correct, for the face her mother bent above her work was closed and brooding. Instantly Lydia’s spirits sank to zero, and she began to rack her brain for the cause of Louise’s depression. Was her rheumatism worse? Had Charles’s cough shown disquieting symptoms? Or was Louise perhaps suffering from some casual sarcasm from an outsider or from Dyson? Charles’s stout heart was impervious to all such, but they wounded the gentler spirit of his wife; as did, too, the spectacle of any of the more cruel and debasing twists of life. It was a characteristic of her mother, as Lydia knew, to bury the cause of trouble in her heart till its first bitterness was over and she could speak of it as though she did not care. In a day or two she would no doubt casually reveal this present grief, whatever it was, and the air would clear; but meanwhile her fair face was clouded, and Lydia felt miserable. She sighed again and responded at random to one of Charles’s best anecdotes. It was astonishing, she reflected, how obtuse the male sex were to impressions of the kind she was just experiencing. Her father was undoubtedly one of the most sensitive and sympathetic of men, yet here he was, quite unconscious of the cloud which hung over Louise, chatting away in the best of spirits. Surely his cough could not be worse! Suddenly she remembered that Annice had seemed dull and quiet at tea-time. Perhaps she and Louise had had some tiff. This was very unlikely, but Lydia felt that it would be a relief to go and see; and she rose. At once Louise lifted her head.
“Where are you going?” she demanded abruptly.
Lydia, startled, replied in a mild tone that she was just going to see how Annice was getting on.
“Leave her alone,” commanded Louise peremptorily. “She’s busy with some sewing for me.”
Lydia, of course, was obliged to sit down again. Her suspicion of some discontent between Louise and Annice was confirmed, but she was rather relieved than otherwise to find such a comparatively small cause for her mother’s mood.
Half an hour later Wilfred’s step was heard along the Place. A flush of pleasure rose to Lydia’s cheeks, and her father smiled benignly. The bell sounded, Annice went to the door, and Wilfred could be heard hanging his coat up in the hall. None of the Mellors spoke, but Lydia took an intense pleasure in these phenomena of his arrival, which had lately become so customary. To-night, however, there was a slight departure from custom, for Annice vanished away into the kitchen without announcing the guest, and Wilfred had to usher in himself. A gust of cold air came in with him.
“There seems to be plenty of wind where you come from, Wilfred,” observed Charles genially.
“I dare say,” agreed the practical Wilfred, closing the door carefully behind him. “It’s pretty strong outside.”
His tone was so gloomy that Lydia looked at him in alarm, and was much disconcerted by the set and angry look on his dark face.
“Good evening, Wilfred,” she observed rather timidly.
Wilfred replied gruffly without looking at her; he then sniffed, took out his handkerchief, and seated himself heavily on a small chair, which he drew out from under the table, knocking the leg clumsily as he did so.
“That’s a grand fire you’ve got there,” he observed when he was settled, regarding it. “Those logs burn pretty well, eh?”
“Well enough,” replied Charles with emphasis. “It was very good of your father to send them in to us.”
Wilfred gave an angry grunt which caused Lydia to think that probably he had had more to do with the logs than his father. She tried to catch his eye and indicate that she at least understood this; but he avoided her glance and, folding his arms, stared moodily into the fire.
“And how’s business, Wilfred?” demanded Charles cheerfully.
He said it in the airy tone natural to one for whom business is and always has been a mere name, and Wilfred gave an exasperated sigh as he replied: “It’s bad for most people, but not too bad for us. That’s due to father, of course.”
Charles, pleased, was about to expatiate sonorously on Dyson’s business merits, when Wilfred interrupted in a determined tone: “I had a row with father this afternoon.”
“A row!” said Charles. He sat up at once, and looked unhappily at his nephew. Louise, too, gave Wilfred a quick glance, and Lydia’s heart beat nervously. “A row!” repeated Charles in a very disconcerted tone. “What about, pray?”
“It’s all very well,” burst out Wilfred in a tone of intense exasperation, “but father couldn’t get a foreman dyer for twice what he gives me, and here I am with all the responsibility of the place on my shoulders. He’s out practically all day, looking for business—and it takes some looking for nowadays, I can tell you. But there I am with the whole place to look after, and he knows it and trusts it to me. And he’s right, too; I know as much as he does about dyeing, any day of the week.”
“Your father,” observed Charles rebukingly in his grandest pulpit style, “is technically accounted, I believe, one of the most highly skilled men in the West Riding.”
“Well, and if he is?” returned Wilfred argumentatively. “I’m not denying it.” His sallow face flushed. “I know what I’m saying, Uncle Charles; and I think you know me well enough to know I’m not given to boasting.”
“That’s true,” conceded Charles.
“Well, then!” argued Wilfred. He was not, however, capable of repeating his proud assertion of a moment ago, and went on instead jerkily: “I’m not just a lad about the place now, and father ought to realize it. Only the other day I heard of a job—from a fellow who was round—not half the responsibility I have, and twice the money I’m getting. I don’t know how long father expects me to go on at this twopenny-halfpenny rate, I’m sure. Times are bad, of course; but still! A fellow has to live.”
He glared fixedly at the fire during these remarks, and apparently addressed them to the hearth, but it was sufficiently obvious to all the Mellors that his real grievance was his inability to marry on his present salary. Charles felt that there was an awkwardness in discussing this point in his daughter’s presence, and strove to give a different turn to the conversation.
“And how does Eric ‘frame,’ as they say, in the business?” he inquired.
“Eric!” exclaimed Wilfred with good-natured contempt. “He might have been brought up in a china shop for all the use he is. And yet he draws practically the same as I do. It’s not fair, you know, Uncle Charles. Besides, I’m so much older than he is, and altogether it’s different. Father’s a hard man, but he’s usually fair, and I wonder he doesn’t see it.”
“Shall I put it to him on those lines?” Charles suggested soothingly.
“No, thank you!” replied Wilfred sharply, sticking out his lower jaw. “I’ll fight my own battles, if you don’t mind, Uncle Charles.”
