The Partnership (12 page)

“But father—” began Eric

Various people, pursued Wilfred, had various ways of regarding Eric's particular fault. Uncle Charles and Lydia, for instance, would no doubt take the religious view. He himself was not particularly religious, somehow; but in his view and in that of every decent person to get a girl into a hole and leave her like that was impossible, simply impossible.

“You'd never be able to sleep again with that on your conscience, you know, Eric, love,” said Wilfred persuasively. “Now would you?”

Eric gave a dubious sigh.

“Annice is a right down good girl,” pursued Wilfred, “and nice-looking, too.”

“I don't need you to tell me anything about Annice,” flashed Eric with sudden spirit, giving his brother an angry glance.

“Well, then, there you are!” agreed Wilfred, nevertheless somewhat disconcerted by this show of force from one whom he regarded as a mere boy. “If you're really fond of her, what more do you want? As for her being not so well educated, and all that, I make nothing of it. We're not so grand ourselves. We must see about a licence and all that sort of thing. The sooner it's done the better.”

“But father!” protested Eric again; and he described the truly appalling scene he had had
with Dyson the night before. “He won't let me marry her,” he wailed.

“Of course” said Wilfred sensibly, “father's naturally angry with you just now, and disappointed, and so on, but he'll come round presently, and want you to do the right thing.”

Eric shook his head. “He won't,” he said with conviction. “You didn't hear him.”

So emphatic was he on this point of his father's opposition that at length Wilfred said impatiently: “Well, I'll speak to him myself.”

He was as good as his word that same evening, but he did not try the experiment again. The fury of his father's tone and manner as he shouted “That's enough!” at his son's first words daunted even Wilfred; and when he consulted with Charles on the matter, his uncle advised him emphatically not to mention the subject to his father again. He, Charles, would himself bring home Dyson's duty to his conscience.

In pursuance of this plan Charles interviewed Dyson at all possible times and places, and warned him with every possible ministerial solemnity that if he persisted in his present course he would be responsible for the loss of two immortal souls. His brother-in-law received him with sardonic politeness, laughed at his reproofs with apparent good humour, mentioned that the money was waiting for Annice when she wanted it, patted Charles on the back and showed him out. Finding remonstrance of no avail, Charles began after a while to use the threat of exposure;
at this Dyson's brow grew black, and he said that two could play at that game—there was such a thing as the law of libel. The unworldly Charles did not know what to make of this; he felt checked and impotent, and his inability to cope with the situation pained him terribly. He was the more miserable just then because Louise had a bad attack of rheumatism—so bad that she had to retire to bed, and Lydia stayed at home to nurse her. Any indisposition on Louise's part always sent Charles into the depth of depression; and combined with his present trouble it was altogether too much for him. As the days went on and Dyson remained obdurate he began to look pale and haggard, and wore a permanent expression of distress. Lydia grew worried about him, and the kind-hearted Wilfred commented sympathetically on his changed look.

“Why don't you tell Uncle Charles not to bother any more?” said he to Lydia one day as he was arranging an extension of the wireless into Louise's room upstairs. “He won't do any good. I don't think father will ever give in and let Eric marry Annice.”

“I don't think he will,” agreed Lydia despairingly.

“But he'd forgive him soon enough if he
had
married her,” pursued Wilfred.

“Do you think so?” queried Lydia, painfully conscious that she knew more of Dyson's mind than Wilfred did.

“Well, of course!” replied Wilfred rather
bitterly. “What else do you think? Father dotes on Eric—can't bear him out of his sight. He couldn't do without him long. He'd forgive them soon enough if once it was done—couldn't help himself. The best thing for Eric and Annice to do is to get married on their own. After all, Eric's twenty-one. That's what I'm always telling him; they ought simply to go off and get married without asking anybody's permission.”

He told it him, indeed, so frequently and with such force that at length the harassed Eric agreed to marry Annice at the Registrar's, without his father's knowledge. Charles, too, was to be left ignorant of the affair till it was over, for fear his conscience would compel him to inform Dyson; nor was the bedridden Louise, who could never keep a secret, told about the scheme, though when skilfully questioned she was able to impart much useful information about other such weddings she had known. Annice gave a monosyllabic assent to the plan, but would not bestir herself in its service, while, Eric was nearly distracted by opposing fears; so that the onus of the arrangements fell on Wilfred and Lydia. Letters passed back and forth securing the written consent of Annice's mother, the girl being under age; Wilfred accompanied Eric to the Registrar's to give the requisite notice; Lydia sewed diligently so that Annice might not be cast destitute on her father-in-law's mercies; in a word, they were both so busy preparing, sustaining, and making smooth the way for the younger couple, that they had
not a moment for their own affairs. At times Lydia was glad of this, for she was heartily sick of love as demonstrated by Eric and Annice; but there were other times when she felt resentful at being thus pushed to one side to make room for another woman's story, and at such times Wilfred's matter-of-fact and unlover-like demeanour annoyed her. Her irritation then was rather aggravated than otherwise by Annice's occasional murmurs that it was very good of Mr. Wilfred to take so much trouble.

At last the harassing weeks during which Lydia prepared Annice, nursed Louise, and kept the secret from Charles came to an end, and Annice's wedding day arrived one bright wintry morning. The ceremony, such as it was, was to take place at half-past twelve; and there was a good deal of nervous flurry in number seven just before that hour. The unsuspecting Charles was safely occupied with a pupil in the study while Lydia helped Annice to dress in her new clothes; but every time his voice rose in explanation her heart jumped, the more so as Louise's customary insight suddenly seemed to give her some presage of what was about to happen that morning, and she began to put the most searching questions about Annice and Eric whenever her daughter entered the room. Lydia evaded these questions by avoiding her presence, but their nearness to the truth agitated her; and when presently the taxi containing Eric and Wilfred—the car had suffered at Eric's hands a day or two ago and was
absent for repairs—drew up at the back door as had been arranged, and the two girls went out to meet it, feelings of suspense, guilt, worry, and determination jostled each other roughly in Lydia's mind and drew her earnest features into a painful expression of uncertainty and distress. Wilfred, too, looked busy, hurried, and rather dirty, but Eric was spruce and seemed to be enjoying himself—he positively wore a flower in his buttonhole, his hair was for once well-groomed, and he greeted Annice with an eager smile. Annice stepped into the vehicle with her usual air of demure reserve; but as Lydia seated herself beside her she glanced up at the elder girl with a dimple in her cheek and a sparkle in her eye which showed that she too was enjoying the occasion. Lydia, not to dishearten the child on what was after all her wedding day, forced a smile in response and wished earnestly that the taxi, which was impotently throbbing, would begin to move. There was a long minute of suspense, during which all four conspirators felt that the eyes of Cromwell Place, and indeed of all Hudley, were fixed upon them; then the vehicle started forward with a jerk and bore them rapidly past Boothroyd House out of the Place and into the main road.

“Well,” observed the invincibly commonplace Wilfred cheerfully, “we've got a fine day for it, anyhow.” He threw himself back in his seat with an air of satisfaction, but Lydia's heart was in her mouth as they threaded the teeming
traffic. Surely, she thought every other second, that figure there was Dyson's. But no such calamity befell; the taxi turned off into a quieter street and drew up before a brass-plated door without being accosted by any angry father; and a few minutes later, in an upper room, Eric and Annice were formally made man and wife. They seemed remarkably happy about it, and descended the stairs hand in hand. Lydia, on the contrary, now that the excitement was over, felt cross, bored and cynical. It struck her forcibly, as the man shut the door of the taxi behind them, that the Mellors were now without a maid. She must go home at once and resume her household duties. Charles and Louise would shortly require a meal, and shortly after that another meal. Pans must be put on the fire, coals brought up, and registry offices approached; while Annice—she did not exactly know what Annice and Eric would be doing in the near future, but supposed that Wilfred would come round and tell her the result of their post-marital interview with Dyson.

She did not, however, have to wait as long as that for news, for they encountered her uncle on his own doorstep. Lydia was the first to see him. Wilfred had descended and was helping her out of the car when over his shoulder she caught a glimpse of Dyson's hard red face. He was wearing the thick dark overcoat he affected in the winter, and he carried his usual handsome stick; he was obviously just returning from the mill for his midday meal. Lydia's exclamation made Wilfred
turn his head, and he remained in that position as though turned to stone by the sight of his father. Lydia stepped down and stood beside him, and for a moment it might easily have been supposed that it was this pair which had just been through a clandestine ceremony—indeed, from Dyson's arched eyebrows and cynical smile he evidently suspected them of something of that kind. He leaned on his stick and surveyed them with a certain grim amusement.

“Well, Willie!” he observed in a bantering tone. (Lydia hated to hear Wilfred called by this diminutive.) “This is what you do when you leave the mill early to call round by the bank about the wages, is it? I thought it was a cock-and-bull story when you told it me.”

Just then Eric, not realizing what was going on, mildly poked his head out of the taxi. The change in Dyson's expression was so terrible that Lydia involuntarily exclaimed, and Eric shrank back behind the door.

“Eric! What are you hiding behind there for?” shouted Dyson, striking his stick against the paving stones. “Come out of that! Eric!” His son timidly appeared in the doorway again. “What in the name of God are you wearing that for?” demanded Dyson with intense disgust, pointing his stick at the flower in Eric's buttonhole. Eric, pale and trembling, could not find a word to say.

“What have you three been up to?” pursued his father, glaring with angry suspicion at each
in turn. “Come! Out with it! You, Wilfred! Can't you speak? You've usually plenty to say for yourself—and so have the Mellors,” he added bitingly to Lydia.

At this point Annice, pushing Eric aside with that affectionate contempt which was so marked a feature of her treatment of him, stepped serenely out of the taxi and confronted her father-in-law. The blood rushed to Dyson's face, he shook his stick threateningly in the air, and for a moment or two a furious torrent of oaths and abuse poured madly from his lips. Lydia, horrified by the violence of his speech and voice, suggested primly that they had better go into the house.

“Hold your tongue!” barked Dyson furiously. “It's all your fault for bringing the baggage here—damn her!”

“It's no good you going on like that, father,” observed Wilfred at this, reprovingly. “Eric and Annice were married this morning. We've just seen it done.”

There was an awful pause, during which the taxi, whose driver evidently thought he was
de trop,
prosaically chugged away down the short drive and halted at the gate.

“By God!” said Dyson at last with the most intense feeling, his face twitching with passion: “Then it's a bad morning for you, Wilfred Dyson. He'd never have done it without you pushing him into it. I know that well enough. Who called on you to interfere? What had it got to do with you, I'd like to know?”

“It was the right thing for Eric to do, father,” said Wilfred soberly.

“Oh, it was, was it?” shouted Dyson, advancing upon him. “You think so, do you? Then let me tell you we've had enough of that sort of right thing in this family. I did the right thing by
your
mother, Master Wilfred, and I got five years' hell out of it until she drank herself to death. It ruined my whole life—I've never ceased to regret it. And now you come along and push Eric into the same ghastly blunder.”

“I didn't push Eric into making love to Annice,” protested Wilfred, turning very pale.

“No; that was Lydia's fault; we've Lydia to thank for that,” said Dyson savagely, turning on his niece his bloodshot eyes and working face. “Perhaps you remember what I said to your father on that subject, do you? Well, I meant it, every word; and so you'll find before you're very much older.”

“Father knows nothing about the marriage, Uncle Herbert,” the trembling Lydia plucked up courage to say.

“Does Uncle Charles know what you told me just now about my mother?” demanded Wilfred in a strained tone.

“Why, you fool!” shouted his father, losing all control, “it was he who drove me into doing it. He said it was the right thing to do, just like you've done now to poor Eric here. I should never have done it but for him, I can tell you; I'd more sense.”

“If my mother wasn't good enough for you, I reckon I'm not,” cried the maddened Wilfred suddenly.