The Partnership (9 page)

“I think we must all have got out on the wrong side of our beds this morning,” he suggested with his most ministerial air.

“Very like,” agreed Wilfred, morose.

The ensuing pause was broken by a tremendous clatter of falling silver and crashing glass. All three exclaimed, “Annice!” in tones of varying alarm, and sprang to their feet. Lydia turned in time to see the girl stagger and sink to the ground; her eyes were half-closed, and her limp hands had relaxed their grasp; she was undoubtedly fainting.

“Poor child!” cried Lydia, running across the room to her.

Louise, however, was, for once, there before her; she caught the girl in her arms and lowered her gently to the ground. As she fell, Annice's black dress flew back and revealed her round young limbs; Louise drew down the dress with a maternal gesture, while Lydia hung over the prostrate girl, murmuring expressions of sympathy and feeling very useless.

“Open the window, Charles,” ordered Louise sharply. “Fan her with that newspaper, Lydia. She'll be all right in a minute.”

Annice's red cheeks had indeed lost scarcely any of their brightness, and as she lay there in an easy posture she looked simply cosily asleep. Lydia's heart yearned over her, and she longed to take her in her arms and mother her.

“Poor child!” she repeated. “Poor little thing! She's been working too hard, I suppose.”

Louise said nothing. In a moment or two, as she had prophesied, Annice stirred; she moved her arms slightly and opened her eyes with a bewildered air.

“You're all right, dear,” Louise at once assured her.

An expression of alarm came over Annice's face; she struggled into a sitting position and passed one hand over her eyes, and her cheeks seemed to turn paler. She murmured something about it being silly of her, and something to the effect that she was quite all right now. Louise's arm was still about her waist, supporting her, and Louise's short-sighted eyes were gazing full into her face. Annice averted her head and stared at the carpet.

“Just help me to get her on the sofa, Wilfred,” commanded Louise.

Wilfred, anxious to be of use, came gladly forward; but at this the colour returned to Annice's cheeks with a rush; she observed that she could get up quite well by herself, and with the aid of chair-backs and Lydia's arm managed to reach the sofa, where she seated herself on the very edge and glared at them all rather defiantly. After a while she suddenly stood up and began to collect the scattered silver. To Lydia's remonstrance she replied haughtily that she was all right now and would get the supper at once.

“Oh no, Annice!” protested Lydia. “I'll do it.”

“You'd much better go to bed, Annice,” observed Louise at this point, dryly.

To Lydia's astonishment, Annice dropped the forks at once and vanished without a word.

Lydia proceeded to complete Annice's preparations for supper, and the four ate the meal rather silently together, haunted by the pathetic recollection of the unconscious girl. Nor did the evening become more cheerful for some time. Louise's sombre mood was now too plain to be missed even by her husband, to whom the shadow seemed to have extended itself; while Wilfred's face was still set in lines of such angry determination that his uncle presently felt called upon to make another remonstrance.

“You need to keep a stern watch on your temper, my boy,” he told him in a joking tone.

“Aye, so it seems,” returned Wilfred, savagely. His uncle looking interrogative, he explained: “I had Eric nearly crying this afternoon.”

“What was the matter?” demanded Charles with some severity.

“Oh, he'd forgotten something I'd told him to see after,” said Wilfred in a disgusted tone. “You wouldn't understand the details. But you know, Uncle Charles, Eric really doesn't do as he should either in the mill or at home. He's frightfully careless; for instance, he always puts the car out of order if I let him so much as touch it. And he has a head like a sieve; and this afternoon I just told him so, that's all.”

His voice sounded aggrieved, and he was obviously deeply hurt by his brother's absurd reception, as he considered it, of a kindly fraternal
rebuke. Lydia could not forbear a soft laugh; Wilfred caught the sound and looked at her in angry astonishment. After a moment or two, however, a smile stole unwillingly over his face. “I reckon you're right, Lydia,” he observed in a tone of dry admiration which brought the colour to Lydia's cheeks.

“‘Let not the sun go down upon your wrath,'” Charles seized the opportunity to admonish him.

“Sunset's at four o'clock to-day, Uncle Charles,” riposted Wilfred.

His facetiousness, which in earlier days had mildly irritated Lydia, now had a kind of physical dominion over her; alarmed by the sudden intensity of her feelings towards him, she veiled her eyes, sat very still, and said nothing. Her thin breast rose and fell under the stress of this new revelation, and she felt choked by the heat of the room. Wilfred looked at her from time to time with a certain grim satisfaction; suddenly he was in tremendous spirits, and threw off a series of lively sarcastic anecdotes, which he told, if he had only known it, with exactly his father's cynical air. His sallies were interrupted by the sudden entrance of Eric, looking rather miserable; he had found, he said, the front door unlatched and come right in. “Quite right too,” said Charles encouragingly. Eric continued to look unhappy and nervous, and, standing uncomfortably on one leg, explained that his father had sent him across. It appeared that the driver of the mill lorry had telephoned to say that he had
had an accident down by the bridge; and something would have to be done about rescuing the wagon and the pieces which formed its load.

“The front wheel's off,” concluded Eric, addressing his brother. “And father thinks you'd better go down and see about it.”

“I dare say he does,” said Wilfred, as grimly as was possible with his mouth full. He got up at once, however. “What I should like to know,” he continued, pushing his chair roughly under the table, “is this: why wasn't I told the man hadn't got back from Bradford before I left the mill?”

“I forgot,” snuffled Eric, hanging his head sheepishly.

“Forgot! You'll forget your head next,” said his brother in affectionate contempt, pushing him from the room. “What's the man think he's doing, anyhow, coming home at this time of the night?”

Eric could be heard in the hall explaining, in the prevaricating and procrastinating manner peculiar to weak souls who have made a mistake and are afraid to admit it, that the driver had had difficulties with the wheel before, in Bradford, and had had to wait there to have it put right.

“Why didn't he telephone and say so, then?” demanded Wilfred, taking down his coat.

“He did,” admitted Eric feebly. “That's what I forgot to tell you.”

“Nay!” said the exasperated Wilfred. “You really are the limit, Eric. You really are. Did
you tell anyone?” Eric gave a negative sniff. “How did you think he was going to get into the mill-yard, then, I should like to know? Eh?”

“I'm very sorry, Willie,” said the hapless Eric. “As a matter of fact,” he added with a kind of weak desperation, “it was the mill-yard gate he ran into.”

“What!” shouted Wilfred.

“He thought it would be open, you see,” pursued Eric in trembling tones. “I'm awfully sorry.”

“Sorry!” snorted Wilfred. “Sorry! Good heavens! I dare say you are sorry. Much good that does. However, the thing's done now; it's no use crying about it. The lorry was getting towards the end, anyway. I haven't got the keys,” he pursued thoughtfully. “I shall have to telephone…. I can't think why on earth you don't have a telephone, Uncle Charles,” he shouted crossly through the door.

“We don't live such a busy life as you, my boy,” replied Charles soothingly from the table. “We don't need it.”

“You're regular back numbers in this house,” grumbled Wilfred. “That's what you are.” He appeared in the doorway. “Well, good-bye,” he said ungraciously. “Thank you for the supper, Aunt Louise.”

“You're very welcome,” replied Charles to this, waving a hospitable hand to mitigate his wife's silence.

“Good-bye, Lydia,” pursued Wilfred in a
rather more cheerful tone, bending a dark and fiery glance on her. “I dare say I'll be round again to-morrow night.”

Lydia could not raise her eyes to meet the fire of his, but to show her sympathy with him she observed in her light superior tones: “I hope the lorry isn't badly damaged.”

“Oh no!” said Wilfred, good-humouredly sarcastic. “Not at all! A wheel off, and the busiest time of the year for us—that's nothing!” He gave one of his frank wide smiles. “I'll be round to-morrow night,” he said. “Good night, everybody.”

He departed, pushing Eric in front of him with cheerful brotherly jeers.

Charles, having said grace, went to the fire, and, arranging the long square flaps of his clerical coat, put one foot on the fender thoughtfully. Lydia began to put the plates together, somewhat hampered by her mother, who remained sitting at the table, lost in a dream.

“Wilfred is very like his father at times,” mused Charles.

Lydia and Louise said nothing.

“Astonishing how he seems to have inherited his father's technical ability,” pursued Charles, “while Eric so entirely lacks it.”

“It's not in the least astonishing,” snapped Louise, suddenly coming to life. “Wilfred inherits it from both sides, that's all. I've always understood that his mother was an excellent weaver.”

“Was she a weaver?” said Lydia, surprised
both by this information and the tone in which it was delivered.

Charles and Louise exchanged glances.

“I'm sure, my dear Lydia,” Charles rolled out sonorously, “that you won't think any the worse of her or of Wilfred on that account.”

“Of course not,” returned Lydia impatiently. “I've never heard it mentioned before, that's all. Wilfred's parentage is nothing to me.”

Her manner of uttering this last sentence revealed rather too clearly her feeling against Mr. Dyson, and Charles looked grave.

“I hope,” he observed after a minute, ostensibly addressing Louise, “that Wilfred will try to be more tactful with Herbert in future.”

“Why, father?” demanded Lydia in some resentment. “Surely the right is on Wilfred's side.”

Charles paused a moment to lend his words more weight.

“I think we must admit, Lydia,” he then said gravely, “that Eric is your uncle's favourite son. That being so, if Wilfred thwarts or annoys his father too seriously, he may have to leave the business and try his luck elsewhere.”

“Perhaps that would be a good thing,” suggested Lydia mutinously, collecting spoons. “He mentioned some other post he'd heard of, didn't he?”

“You want to be parted from your cousin, then?” said Charles. “You want him to leave Hudley?” He did not expect answers to these
questions, and continued at once: “Perhaps at some future period it might be well for Wilfred to leave his father, but he ought not to be encouraged to do so, I think, till other aspects of his future are more settled than they are at present—that lorry,” he went on without a pause, “might have come a very nasty cropper if the wheel had fallen off in mid-career.”

He continued to make conversation about the lorry till Lydia had filled a tray with supper-things and carried it from the room, when he fell silent and smiled at his wife with an air which he thought knowing.

As the girl passed along the hall towards the kitchen she heard Louise say in a troubled voice:

“Don't encourage her to count too much on Wilfred, Charles.”

Lydia, pierced to the heart, stood still and listened.

“Why not?” demanded Mr. Mellor sharply.

In an agony of suspense Lydia strained her ears for the reply, but she heard nothing from her mother except a sigh. Charles pressed his question, but Louise was obdurately silent; and after a few long moments their daughter moved on into the kitchen and put down the tray. Her arms trembled from the strain of holding it, and her heart seemed to beat unduly fast. She leaned against the table for support. Louise's sombre mood, which now seemed to connect itself definitely with the Dysons, Annice's inexplicable illness, the glimpse Wilfred had afforded her that
evening of a world where men lost their tempers and quarrelled with their fathers about money—all these wove themselves into something menacing and sinister of which Lydia felt afraid. If Wilfred lived in a world like that—a world so different from the serene and affectionate purlieus of number seven—how could she hope to keep his love, even if she had aroused it? In a flash of insight she saw her own personality as narrow, bloodless, insipid, and unsatisfying; there was nothing in her strong enough for a man to love. Louise evidently shared this view. But that was nonsense, nonsense, Lydia told herself in swift revulsion, as she remembered Wilfred's parting glance; surely he loved her as she loved him, and nothing Dyson could do could part them. Nothing
should
part them, she resolved; Wilfred was her man, her master, her hope of life, and she would cleave to him as long as she should live. She returned to the dining-room and tried to fathom Louise's brooding look; but nothing more was said which bore upon the events of the evening.

Not unnaturally Lydia passed a restless and unhappy night. Sleep was long in coming, and when it came it seemed full of gloomy fantasies, momentary glimpses of a world where everything seemed shadowed by some monstrous secret known only to Louise. At last Lydia fell into a more coherent dream. She was standing in a crowd outside a carved ecclesiastical door, and her heart was broken. There was no doubt about that, for the pain went through her like a sword,
and all the bystanders seemed to agree that it was a pity. They seemed to agree, too—or at any rate a high unearthly tune was sounding through the air to that effect—that she had come there to tell the king the sky was falling. Presently the carved doors opened, and forth came, with every ceremonial proper to a wedding, Wilfred, a bride upon his arm. He looked haggard and unhappy; and Lydia, with that absence of decorum which characterizes dreams, threw herself before him and reproached him for deserting her. “Well, it was your fault,” said a voice beside them. Lydia turned fiercely upon the bride, who had now put back her veil, and saw to her horror that the hated creature bore the round rosy face of Annice. The bystanders—who seemed to act the part of Greek chorus very well, as Lydia was able to observe with amusement, though her heart was undoubtedly broken—uttered some kind of appropriate wail, and Lydia awoke to hear Annice's voice telling her that it was time to get up.