The Partnership (15 page)

2

Five years passed in which this prayer was more or less granted, for the Mellors' news of the Dysons was obtained by hearsay only. Announcements of the birth of Annice's children appeared in the
Hudley News
at regular intervals, and Charles was aware that he had two great-nephews—Herbert Eric and John Francis, respectively—and a great-niece, Dorothea. He had never, however, seen these infants in the flesh. Lydia occasionally caught sight of Annice across the street in Hudley, wheeling a pram and conducting an untidy, heavy-faced child or so by one hand; but on these occasions Lydia always withdrew down a side-street till they passed by. As regards Dyson during this period, rumour said at rather frequent intervals that he was “not so well”; and he certainly retired from the Hudley Choral Society without any other apparent cause. The wagons of Messrs. Herbert Dyson & Co. occasionally thundered up and down Ribourne Hill on their proper errands; and as time went on Lydia received a vague impression that their paint was rather less glossy than of yore and the piles of pieces which they carried rather less high. Wilfred continued to be lost in the void, and other news of the Dysons there was none.

To the Mellors nothing whatever happened except the passage of time and the inevitable changes it brought. Louise's rheumatism became
a settled fact; Lydia gave up any idea of paid work in the daytime and instead managed the household and carried on such good works as were not incompatible with the care of Louise. Charles was invited to stay a second term at Ribourne, and accepted; he was happy there, and was glad not to have to cope with a new charge. He had already begun to feel that his many extraneous activities were more than he could manage in addition to his ministerial duties, and gradually gave most of them up. This diminished the family income rather tiresomely, and Lydia was glad to supplement it by various evening activities—for instance, by speaking to small local societies on serious social subjects. Her addresses, delivered in her light monotonous tones, were sound and accurate, but dull; she was much respected, but not, perhaps, very much enjoyed.

For by the end of the five years following Wilfred's departure, Lydia, in the opinion of those who met her, belonged definitely to a certain well-known type of spinster. Abstinence had indeed sown its sand over her whole personality. Her manner was prim and colourless—she had practised that, to conceal the secret of her grief, so long that it had become a habit with her; and she was so conscious of her own undeserved suffering that her simple face wore a rather naively superior expression. Her olive complexion was fading into sallow; her figure, instead of becoming rounded with maturity, had settled into an
angular sharpness; her gait was now always the rather absurdly jerky and hurried one so detested by her uncle. Her brown eyes were still large and fine, but they looked out from between rather scanty and dusty eyelashes. These years, too, had thinned her abundant dark hair and given it a somewhat straggling appearance; friends were constantly “taking the liberty to suggest” that she should wear it short; but Lydia thought short hair undignified—Annice had short hair. Lydia had never had good taste in millinery, and this refusal to conform to current styles in hairdressing made things worse, for her hats balanced themselves precariously on her head at an angle which lent itself to ridicule. She refused to conform, too, to many of the current conventions in dress, saying that they were indecent and outrageous and really too absurd. (She had lately taken, for instance, to wearing glasses, and she characteristically objected to all the latest types and clung to an uncomfortable and out-of-date shape which she defended against all comers.) These various idiosyncrasies caused her, in spite of her personal spotlessness, to look like a rather frowsy print from a Victorian fashion paper, and she was as severe about modern manners as about modern dress. Yet whenever she gave vent to these caustic criticisms of hers she felt a deep hurt within herself, a sharp stabbing pain which made her all the more irritable and obstinate in defending them. If she had only known it, this rage against modernity
was really her protest against the way the youthful Annice had elbowed her aside from life. Sometimes at night in the silence of her room she admitted to herself that she did not really think as badly of the young people of the day as she pretended; with tears she would repent of her harshness and vow to be particularly kind on the morrow. When she had thus taken herself to task she could control her actions, but her words she could not control, and in spite of herself when the morrow came some biting saying would fly out at the slim young thing talking to her, whose love affair was perhaps going so well just then. Lydia had indeed a complex about love affairs; whenever one was mentioned a dark angry flood of pain seemed to rise in her heart—Annice had a child, but Lydia had never had even a kiss from her lover—she longed to say something cruel, with a great effort restrained herself, forced her lips into a bitter smile and began some artificially kindly remark which turned acid before the end of the sentence. Afterwards she was ashamed of herself and would go out of her way to do a kindness to the young people concerned. She had similar complexes about the words “uncle” and “cousin”; she was not fond of talking about West Riding choirs until Dyson resigned from the Choral Society, when her interest in the Yorkshire love of music increased wonderfully; while any allusion to Scotland rankled in her bosom for the day. It was, in fact, generally understood in Ribourne that Miss Mellor had a
sharp tongue but a heart of gold—what a pity, said the Ribourne elders, that she had never married! She would have made some man such a good wife. As it was, of course, she was obviously marked out by destiny to be an old maid.

1

It was on one of the wettest nights of an exceptionally wet winter that communications between the Mellor and Dyson families were resumed. There was a ring at the Mellors' front-door bell; as it chanced the maid was out, and Lydia rose from the game of draughts she was playing with her father to go to the door. When she opened it the figure of Annice, with a child in her arms, was revealed against a background of dripping buildings and driving rain. The scene was so like that of the return of a prodigal that Lydia's heart was instantly touched; she exclaimed, “Come in!” with a cordial inflexion, and stood aside to let Annice pass. Annice stepped in, and was seen to be soaked. Lydia noticed at once that her figure was fuller and her features heavier than of yore; she was rather shabbily dressed in a purple coat, much too tight for her, and a faded straw hat, both of which now glistened with rain. In one arm she enfolded a bundle, pinned with a heavy brooch into a bedraggled grey shawl; from its shape this was presumably Dorothea.
In the other hand she carried a battered brown attaché case which seemed on the point of disintegrating, under the assaults of the rain, into the paper of which it was originally composed.

“How wet you are! and the baby!” exclaimed Lydia, full of solicitude. She touched the grey bundle gingerly. “Come to the fire,” she invited, and urged the pair towards the dining-room. “It's Annice, father,” she explained, ushering them in.

“Annice!” exclaimed Charles in astonishment, while Louise gave an eager smile. Charles coloured and rose. “Is Eric here, then?” he asked, looking rather bewildered.

“No—Eric hasn't come,” observed Annice serenely. After a pause she added with her most matter-of-fact air: “I've come to spend the night with you.”

The three Mellors stared at her open-mouthed, too surprised to speak. Charles was the first to recover himself.

“You are always welcome here, Annice, of course,” he observed in stately tones.

“I was obliged to bring Dorothy,” said Annice rather defiantly, as if she suspected Charles of excluding the child from his welcome.

“Of course, of course!” said Charles.

“I couldn't leave her at home,” pursued Annice.

“No, no!” agreed Charles heartily. “Of course not. Take off your things, my dear, and sit down. Your aunt will hold the child for you, no doubt.”

At this the gold brooch was unpinned, and
Dorothea was unrolled from the shawl and deposited on Louise's knee, who stretched out eager hands to receive her. The child was revealed as possessing dark downy hair and a rose-leaf complexion; one soft cheek was deeply flushed from resting against her mother's arm, and her eyes were closed in sleep. Unfortunately she was revealed also as wearing a cheap and dirty muslin frock, with her little feet encased in “gym” shoes so filthy that their original white was barely discernible. Louise removed these instantly, and running an exploring hand over the child's underwear, exchanged a glance of distress with her daughter. She then began, while Annice removed her dripping coat, to ruminate aloud on the question of beds for the visitors. Every possible shred of equipment owned by the Mellors which was suitable for babies had gone to Annice long before at the birth of her first child, and had, of course, not been returned, so that Louise was in a difficulty.

“I'll sleep with Lydia,” announced Annice abruptly.

“Oh, certainly, dear,” agreed the fluttered Louise. “But what about baby?”

“She'll sleep with me, of course,” said Annice with an air of surprise. “She always does.”

Louise, shocked, demurred at this as terribly unhygienic, but eventually was obliged to agree. Lydia, too, though a dark flush rose to her cheeks at the suggestion and she had to bite her lips to keep back an angry refusal to harbour
Annice and her child, did not see what else could be done, considering the lateness of the hour and the unexpectedness of their guest's arrival. No guest of the Mellors could be put between unaired sheets, and particularly no child. Nor, she reflected, could any guest of the Mellors be sent supperless to bed, and she rather stiffly offered Annice a meal. The younger woman accepted, saying that she seemed to have been travelling all day.

“Travelling?” queried Charles.

Annice observed with her customary effect of vagueness and reserve that she had been to Barnsley for the day, but she had told Eric not to meet her at the station next morning, so that would be all right. The Mellors puzzled over this in silence for a while, and each presently came to the same conclusion about Annice's meaning—Eric obviously thought his wife was spending the night at Barnsley with her relations, and Annice had deceived him and come to the Mellors instead. She must have had some definite purpose in so doing. Charles sighed, and lines of worry corrugated his fine brow. As Annice sat at the table eating he began to ply her gently with questions, not rude, pressing questions—Charles's standard of hospitality was much too high for that—but vague easy observations of an interrogative kind, which she could answer briefly or fully according to her inclination. He elicited the information that Eric was fairly well, that Bertie (the eldest child)
was very well, and Jack (the second) very well, except for a sore finger. Dyson, whom she called “father”—at which for some reason Lydia rather winced—was reported to be much as usual. What did that mean, the Mellors wondered; and Charles had thrown back his head to inquire when he was interrupted by Dorothea, who suddenly awoke and cried as if her heart would break. Her eyes were revealed as being a bright blue, like those of her mother; at present they wore an expression of pained and incredulous surprise. She cried on a high, sustained, monotonous note of rage; her small soft features were contorted and tears stood on her rounded cheeks.

“What's the matter with her?” demanded Lydia in alarm, bending over Louise's lap to get a better view of these manifestations.

“No doubt it's long past her bedtime,” pronounced Charles oracularly.

Annice, with a muttered exclamation, swooped down on Louise and snatched up the child. Holding her against her shoulder, she made for the door.

“Is it the same room you used to have, Miss Lydia?” she demanded.

“Go up with her, Lydia, and put on the gas fire,” said Louise.

Lydia obeyed, then came down again to collect the grey shawl and the attaché-case. When she returned, Annice had drawn up a low chair to the fire and was suckling her child. Lydia,
somewhat unnerved by this spectacle, so new to her, sat down abruptly and watched the operation. There was a smile of perfect happiness on Annice's face as she bent over her baby; and Dorothea, too, in the intervals when she paused for breath, raised her blue eyes to her mother's with a look of ecstasy. By the time the child was satisfied Lydia had fallen in love with her, and had forgiven her mother all her sins.

“She'll sleep now,” said Annice comfortably, rearranging her dress. She drew the attaché-case to her with her disengaged hand and began to prepare the child for the night. Lydia drew nearer and looked on. Dorothea was sketchily attired in clothes which were in every case ill-fitting, often dirty, and sometimes torn; nor were her soft round limbs themselves in as perfectly clean and healthy a condition as was desirable.

“You don't keep your baby very nicely, Annice,” said Lydia reproachfully, thinking how spotless
she
would have kept a child if Fate had vouchsafed her one.

“Well, I've no money to get her things,” returned Annice sharply.

“No money!” cried Lydia, aghast. “What do you mean?”

“That's what I've come to see you about,” said Annice. She rose and laid Dorothea gently in the bed. “Stay up here and talk to me,” she added then abruptly, turning to Lydia. “I can tell you easier nor Mr. Mellor.”

Lydia's heart sank—Annice's confidences had
proved so disastrous in the past that she had no wish to cope with them alone.

“What about the baby?” she suggested timidly. “Won't it wake her?”

“She'll be all right if I put the light out,” replied Annice.

She suited the action to the word and returned to her chair by the fire, which glowed redly in the darkness. Lydia crouched down beside her, and ventured softly: “Isn't Eric kind to you?”