The Partnership (8 page)

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.”

“I admire you for that, my boy,” said Charles, heartily. “But it would be a great grief to me if you were to quarrel with your father.”

“Let him treat me fairly, then,” returned Wilfred, unappeased. “I give him good work, Uncle Charles, and I never say a word against
him; and I don't see why I should get nothing but sour looks and poor wages in return.”

Charles sighed, and a frown of discomfort ruffled his fine brow. He had seen so many mild young fellows, who regarded their father's tutelage as in all things natural, changed by a love-affair into men with minds of their own, who wanted to stand on their own feet and claim their own place in the world, that he was in no uncertainty as to what was the matter with Wilfred; and at the thought he sighed again and looked extremely unhappy. That Wilfred was now perfectly alive to his father's sarcasms he could not doubt; and, remembering suddenly the temper of Wilfred's mother, Charles began to fear that the future might hold a constant, maddening, soul-destroying clash of wills between father and son. He sighed yet again, and looked for consolation to his wife, but her face was blank and expressionless.

“What about supper, my dear?” he suggested, to relieve the tension.

Without speaking Louise leant forward and rang the bell.

“Eric has always been father's favourite,” pursued Wilfred.

“Come, come, Wilfred!” said his uncle in a tone of authority. “This won't do. You say yourself that business takes some looking for nowadays. Can't you imagine that your father's nerves are somewhat on edge during this trying time?”

“Well, that's true enough,” conceded Wilfred.
“Not that I should ever have imagined,” he observed, sarcastically borrowing his uncle's word, “that father had any nerves.”

“Now, Wilfred!” Louise mildly reproved him.

“What do you think about it all, Lydia?” demanded Wilfred abruptly, turning on her.

Lydia was taken aback and did not know what to say. She did not like her uncle, and on that account was always very scrupulous in what she permitted herself to think and say of him. Her heart was all with Wilfred, but her conscience bade her hedge. Before, however, she had time to make up her mind the door opened and Annice created a diversion by appearing with the supper things.

“Well, Annice,” observed Wilfred, turning to her, “and what's the matter with you to-night? You left me in the hall without deigning to say as much as good evening to me.”

To this Annice replied, “Good evening, sir,” dourly, and proceeded to lay the table. She had no smiles to-night, and threw the silver on the table carelessly and without gusto.

Lydia arched her eyebrows in a humorous despair, and began to ask herself whether number seven were bewitched to-night. Wilfred's brow was still black, Louise's attitude could only be called glum, and here was Annice now looking as cross as a couple of sticks. Lydia and her father were evidently alone in the possession of no private grief. She smiled across at Charles, and he, catching her thought, smiled back at her.