The Partnership (14 page)

When he communicated this decision to Lydia, she wept, and reproached herself bitterly for having, by her introduction of Annice, brought ruin on the family. She was rather apt to give way to such self-reproaches nowadays; Charles always replied to them by assuring her, with absolute sincerity, that she had acted rightly, or at any rate as he would have wished his daughter to act, throughout. Lydia was also rather apt to weep nowadays, and Charles knew well to what should be attributed her frequent tears, her listlessness, her general languor, and lack of appetite. The early morning and the middle of the afternoon were for some reason the worst times for her. When she awoke in the morning she would lie still—warm, cosy, happy—until gradually a feeling of uneasiness crept into her mind, and she remembered that something was wrong. Presently, with a start, she remembered what it was. Then she began softly to cry; and, although she took herself severely in hand, rose promptly, dressed with precision and applied herself at once to some task, tears constantly filled her eyes and rolled heavily down her cheeks. Fresh air and the company of people who did not know her enabled her to conquer her weakness for a time, but in the afternoon a dreariness came over her which was almost more than she could bear. The wan, cold light of the spring afternoons, with its hint of
flowers and summer and joy to come—a summer which would mock her blighted hopes, a joy which she could not share—disturbed and depressed her; the sight of hosts of young girls moving about between the lighted shops, busy and happy, each with her own life, her own man at home to love, made Lydia wretched. She felt that she had been cast aside by life into the backwater of Cromwell Place and would never get out again; she felt that her misadventure in love was stamped upon her face and that all these lively young people saw it there and despised her for it. At times she permitted herself to dream that Wilfred would return to her, and for a few days she would live in a state of expectation, welcome the postman eagerly, stir nervously in her chair when footsteps were heard along the Place, and tell herself each night that Wilfred would be sure to come on the morrow. Then after a series of such thwarted days—for Wilfred neither came nor wrote—some slight additional disappointment would send her hopes crashing to the ground; she would spend a wakeful night of misery, tossing and sobbing through the small dark hours, and in the morning come down—her face drawn, her lips compressed—resolutely determined that she would put all that out of her life and forget Wilfred utterly. This resolution she would keep through a few stern days, and then some slight meaningless incident would occur—a young dog barked, a small bird flew from tree to tree, a heavy cloud moved swiftly across the
stormy evening sky, the lamplight was reflected in the wet streets, Louise dropped her glasses and smiled lovingly as Lydia picked them up—the merest trifle was enough; and somehow Lydia's heart was straightway warm and full of confidence. Surely he would return to her! For a day or so she was bright, happy, loving; then perhaps Eric would come whining to his uncle for more money, or Louise's knee would be more painful, and Lydia was plunged back into her dark despondency again.

Charles's cure for all this was, firstly, change of scene and work, and, secondly, to write to Wilfred. Wilfred's address was obtained through the medium of Dyson's housekeeper, the meek Mrs. Lumb, to whom he had written for his belongings; it appeared that he had really gone to Scotland, and was, in fact, in a textile mill in Hawick. He had a moderately good job there—at any rate, for a month or so he managed to send Eric money fairly regularly. At first Charles wrote to him quite often in his friendly flowing fashion, giving him Eric's various addresses, regretting his hasty departure, Begging him to keep in touch with the Mellors, offering him sound moral advice on how to get on in life, and so on. Charles was not the kind of person to inform any young man that his daughter was breaking her heart for him, but he spoke of Lydia in terms that would have made her state of mind sufficiently clear to any man who loved her. To none of these communications did he receive any reply. “Write to him
yourself, my dear,” he said to Lydia at last, beginning to fear that things were really going awry for her. Thus encouraged, Lydia took her pen in hand. But she found the letter very difficult to compose. She had nothing to say to Wilfred except that she loved him, and she did not know how to say that; so the letter, when at last it was despatched, was a stiff little affair full of facts and short sentences—to a man of deep insight it might have cried her heart aloud, but Wilfred was not that, and this letter, too, remained unanswered. About this time Eric began to complain feebly that Wilfred had not written to him for ages; and Charles's next letter to Hawick came back marked “not known here.” After that it was generally felt in the Mellor family that Wilfred was irrevocably lost, and Lydia—poor child!—would have to get over it.

Charles flattered himself that his first remedy was more potent in this respect than his second. Having applied to the Conference for reinstatement, he duly received it, and was promptly called to duties in Ribourne, a suburb which flourished on the longest and steepest of the many hills rising out of Hudley. The bustle of moving certainly roused Lydia, and both she and Louise liked their new and pleasant little house, which on one side looked on to the busy main road and on the other over steeply sloping fields to a wide panorama of rolling hills and dales. By night their view was a perfect fairyland of scattered lights, at which Louise was never tired of looking;
she decidedly preferred the heights of Ribourne to the comfort of Cromwell Place, though Charles found the hill rather trying. The previous minister, however, had lately died after a long period of illness and comparative inactivity, and Charles became immensely popular in his new charge. His sterling worth was soon recognized, his oratorical sermons were admired, his simple kindliness was loved, and his fondness for a good joke highly appreciated. Louise's rheumatism, though just now rather improved, was understood to debar her from any great participation in feminine chapel activities, and this was highly pleasing to some active spirits who had long controlled them, the general opinion being that Mrs. Mellor was terribly dreamy but so sweet and, of course,
most
refined. Lydia came in for some glory reflected from her father, and some of her own; she was found to be punctual, methodical and particular, and the older people liked her; while the younger ones accepted her as Miss Mellor, a hopelessly old-fashioned and ridiculously strict, but, of course, kindly and
most
worthy person whom one heartily respected. As Lydia had too much pride to reveal the fact that she had a grief to these new acquaintances, Charles imagined that her troubled heart was becoming soothed; but in reality her loss of Wilfred was still an open wound on which the attitude of her contemporaries struck like a lash. She kept this to herself, however, just as Charles and Louise kept their sense of lost liberty to
themselves; and the only visible disadvantages of the Mellors' new life was that Charles's hair grew thin, and he began to look much older and be rather short of breath; also he sometimes sighed as though he were very much fatigued—on Sunday nights, for example, or after a visit from Eric.

Unfortunately these were only too frequent at first. Eric soon exhausted the money Wilfred had given him on his wedding-day, and came to his uncle, almost weeping, for more. Charles, with a sigh and a little management, gave him some, and gave him also much sound advice as to getting work immediately. Eric heartily agreed; it was just what Annice was always saying, he told his uncle with a pleased smile. In a week or so he arrived at Ribourne in high glee—he had got a job. In another week he came in tears to say that he had lost it. These visits he repeated with increasing frequency, for the intervals between the jobs grew longer and the duration of them shorter as the months went on. Each time he came for a loan he seemed more astonished at his own ill-luck, and observed in slow surprised tones that it was really most unfortunate, but he was out of work and Annice wondered whether his uncle would lend them a pound or two to tide them over. Each time this sentence came out Charles, pacing anxiously up and down his tiny study, shook his silvery head and told his nephew emphatically that this must positively be the last time he lent him money. Charles couldn't afford to help
him any more. His pocket would not stand the constant strain. There was Lydia to think of. There was Louise's rheumatism, which had taken a bad turn again. Eric must learn to stand on his own feet, and provide for his own wife and family. This sort of thing was most unsatisfactory. “It's not my way, Eric,” Charles told him earnestly, “and it's not your father's way.” Eric agreed heartily that it wasn't. “If Wilfred can get a post and keep himself,” pursued Charles, “why can't you?” At the mention of Wilfred, Eric's face never failed to cloud, and he muttered something about its being all Wilfred's fault. At this Charles paused in his pacing and, looking sternly at his nephew, indicated with unmistakable plainness where the fault really lay. Eric, colouring, shifted uneasily in his chair and murmured that in that case he didn't know what they should do, really; he hadn't been employed long enough to draw the dole. At this Charles positively bounded with indignation; the dole indeed! The interview always ended in the transference of treasury notes from Charles's pocket to Eric's, for Charles felt the responsibility of his sister's son acutely. After giving his nephew a really severe lecture on his duties in life, he usually invited him to stay to the next meal; the unabashed Eric ate largely and with great good humour, and left promising to do his utmost to find work. As his father had many business connections, who were not unwilling to do Herbert Dyson a good turn and did not believe in the permanence
of his break with Eric, the lad was not without resources in this respect; but no business connection could tolerate Eric long, and each job he found seemed slightly worse than the last one. The lodgings in which he accommodated his wife naturally kept pace with the deterioration of his earnings. When Lydia went to see the pair, however—as she did from a sense of duty only, for she dreaded any reminder of Wilfred, and the thought of Annice's pregnancy was particularly distasteful to her—she always found them astonishingly happy. Their room was usually in a horrible muddle and rather dirty, and that their provisions were at a low ebb was shown by the eagerness with which they received those Lydia brought, but Annice always looked perfectly healthy and serene, and happiness positively oozed out of Eric's moist eyes and bland, childlike smile. They never snapped at one another, they never fidgeted, they never seemed in a hurry, they never grumbled; they simply took Charles's money with contented smiles and enjoyed the process of being alive. Charles and Lydia always came away from them feeling depressed and somehow as though they had been put in the wrong; Louise, on the contrary, seemed to enjoy visiting Annice thoroughly, and took a serious interest in the necessary preparations for the birth of her child. Louise's rheumatism, however, had now invaded and crippled to some extent her hands, while Annice was a poor needlewoman; so that the brunt of these preparations
fell, as usual, on Lydia, who performed the task with a savage conscientiousness.

At length one night, after a period of several weeks' unemployment, Eric turned up with a bright face and announced that he had decided to go to Barnsley—Annice's relations lived there, he explained, and knew of an opening for him. Charles looked exceedingly dubious over this proposal. What kind of an opening was it? Where did Eric propose to live? What would Annice do about her coming confinement? Eric seemed vague on these points, but said that Annice wanted to go, as though that settled it. Charles pursed his lips and shook his head; he did not like the idea of “losing the end,” as he put it, of his nephew in this way at all. Lydia, on the contrary, felt that if only Eric and Annice would remove themselves out of sight and hearing she might begin to forget Wilfred and take up the threads of life with some degree of resignation. Privately she surmised that if it came to a tussle between Charles and Annice as to the place of Eric's abode, Annice would win; and this belief was shortly afterwards justified, for the pair departed to Barnsley. Charles, of course, worried about them a good deal, and wrote long advisory letters, to which Eric occasionally replied in vague and illiterate scrawls.

Mr. Mellor had not long to be troubled by these, however. Another month brought the news of the birth of Annice's child, who, if Eric's accounts were to be believed, was an
exceptionally fine and healthy boy. With a probably accidental tactfulness Annice decreed that he should be called Herbert Eric. When Charles heard this he caused an announcement of the birth to be inserted in the Hudley paper, and sent a marked copy to Dyson with his own hand. It then appeared to the Mellors that the Dyson affair followed the normal course of such affairs, the course—as Lydia reflected bitterly—prognosticated by Wilfred; for they heard that the father had visited his erring son, inspected his grandson, become reconciled to his daughter-in-law, and brought them all three back home with him. When this story was substantiated by an authentic report that Eric, Annice and the baby were undoubtedly quartered in Boothroyd House—the pram had been seen in the garden—a sigh of relief arose from all three Mellors. Charles, indeed, was overjoyed and entertained hopes of a general reconciliation; Lydia, on the contrary, who felt that Dyson would never be reconciled with Wilfred, had no wish to be friendly with her uncle. When, therefore, a short note, probably dictated by Dyson, came from Eric, enclosing two or three pounds—probably all he dared confess to—in repayment of his uncle's loans, and saying that his father had forbidden him to have any further intercourse with the Mellors, Charles was very much upset, but Lydia rejoiced. Let her never see a Dyson or hear the name again, she prayed, and life would perhaps be just tolerable.