The Partnership, page 9
“It gave you Wilfred,” Charles reminded him.
“Wilfred!” snorted Dyson. “I could have done very well without Wilfred, Charles, I can assure you. He belongs more to your family than to mine, Wilfred does.”
Charles coloured angrily, and his eyes flashed again. “You’ve no right to say that, Herbert,” he told him sharply. “Wilfred’s been a good son to you, and you may yet have cause to be thankful for him.”
“Well, when I have, I’ll let you know,” replied Dyson with heavy sarcasm. “Meanwhile you can make the situation clear to that girl of Lydia’s. I’ll go as far as three hundred pounds for her, provided she leaves Hudley and keeps her mouth shut; but any idea she may have of marrying Eric she can put right out of her head at once, for it won’t come to anything. So now you know.”
“And you may as well know, Herbert,” said Charles, sitting very erect and speaking very distinctly, “that I shall do everything in my power to persuade Eric to do the right thing and marry her.”
“By God, you’d better not, Charles,” said Dyson with feeling. “Now I warn you, you’d better not. You had the whip-hand of me last time in money affairs, but this time it’s mine, and I warn you I shall use it. You draw a nice little income from Boothroyd Mills, you know. If I paid you out of the business, and you had to invest your money elsewhere at the current rate of interest—well, you couldn’t live in this house.”
“If you’ve finished insulting me, Herbert,” shouted Charles, suddenly maddened out of his ministerial control, “you’d better go.”
“Oh, certainly, certainly,” said Dyson, regaining his temper as his brother-in-law lost his. “I’ve made my mind clear on the subject, so I may as well go. I hope it will be a lesson to Lydia not to pick up girls from the streets in the future.”
“Herbert!” Louise reproved him.
“Leave my house!” cried Charles, jumping to his feet, beside himself with rage.
“All right, all right—I’m just going,” said Dyson in a cheerful tone. He rose, smiled grimly, observed, “Good night to you, Charles,” and turned to go. At the door, however, he paused and turned to the Mellors again. “I shall send Eric out of the town for a while,” he said, “till all this has blown over; and I’ll give the girl up to three hundred pounds gladly; but you can take it from me, Charles, that if ever there comes a day when Eric marries her, that day will be the last of my connection with the Mellors.”
“Herbert,” broke out Louise, “where do you think Eric is now?”
“How should I know?” demanded Dyson sarcastically. “Unless he’s in your kitchen, perhaps. You don’t seem to know much of what goes on there.”
“You don’t think he will have done anything rash?” said Louise, disregarding this.
“How, rash?” demanded Dyson. “Run off with the girl, you mean?”
“No; Annice is in the kitchen, alone,” replied Louise, not without dignity. “You don’t think that Eric might be so overcome with remorse, and so afraid of you, that he might—do himself some harm?”
“What, Eric? Not likely,” replied his father with contempt. “He hasn’t got the nerve. No; he’ll come in late and try to creep upstairs without me seeing him, I expect.”
At this Lydia, who had loathed her uncle, been quelled by his force, and reluctantly pitied him, at intervals during the last half-hour, felt compassion again unwillingly rising in her breast. He had such a very clear idea of the character of his favourite Eric, and as he spoke was so extraordinarily like the elder son whom he despised, that a sense of the cruelty and strangeness of life’s devices pressed upon Lydia’s heart.
She moved aside to let him pass.
As soon as the front door closed behind him Charles, looking very pale and shaken, spoke from his station by the fire.
“Lydia,” he said, “you have heard much of your uncle’s story to-night, and no doubt have guessed more.” Lydia murmured an assent, and Charles proceeded: “Wilfred does not know it, and it will be best that he never should. I am sure you understand that.” Lydia again murmured her agreement. “And now,” continued Charles, “anything else which we may wish to say about this great trouble of ours must be postponed until the morrow. I am due to speak at Ribourne to-night at half-past seven, so I must leave the house at once.”
“Oh, father, you’re not fit to go!” cried Lydia. “Louise, don’t let him.”
“I have promised to go,” said Charles firmly, “and I have not as yet broken a promise. You will learn as you grow older, Lydia, that the daily round and the common task have to be performed even when we are labouring under a great sorrow.”
His pompous and old-fashioned pulpit diction suddenly seemed to Lydia full of pathos. “Poor father!” she thought. “Poor dear! Poor little dear!” She went to him and, putting her arms about his neck, kissed his cheek. Charles returned the caress, and seemed much moved.
“Get my coat, dear,” he said at length huskily.
Louise had already brought it, and was warming it by the fire. Lydia fetched her father’s notes, and the women between them managed to despatch Charles along Cromwell Place in time to catch the appropriate bus for Ribourne.
When he had gone, Lydia went along the hall towards the kitchen. Her heart was now soft towards Annice, and she reproached herself for her selfish and callous reception of the news of the girl’s tragedy. She reproached herself, too, most bitterly for having left Annice alone on that fatal August evening; if she had not deserted her then for Wilfred, this catastrophe might never have occurred. There was the constructing of the wireless, too; she had idled with Wilfred in the study while Eric was trifling with Annice in the kitchen. Feeling guilty and ashamed, she opened the kitchen door and found Annice sitting by the fire with her arms folded. Her expression was, as usual, serene, but she did not raise her eyes or smile, and Lydia’s sense of guilt was deepened.
“Mr. Dyson has been here, Annice,” she began gravely.
“Yes, miss,” agreed Annice without looking up. “I heard him when I came to fetch away the tea-things.”
“He wanted me to say,” pursued Lydia, “that I knew something ill of you before you came here, but I would not.”
Her tone was warm, loving and conspiratorial, and expressed her genuine feeling in the matter, which was that she had gladly sacrificed truth to friendship. Annice looked up in surprise.
“What ill could you have said?” she demanded rather defiantly.
“Why, Annice,” said Lydia, disconcerted, “do you think that your behaviour, down there at the seaside, was all that it ought to have been?”
Annice’s blue eyes became round with astonishment.
“Why, Miss Lydia,” she murmured, aggrieved, “I only did the same as you.”
Lydia, routed, left the kitchen, telling herself that it was but too true. Nor could she altogether disabuse her mind of the idea that there was a certain parallelism between herself and Annice ever since their arrival at Cromwell Place. Both had sought love; the difference was, as it had been by the sea, that the more Lydia sought it, the more she seemed to throw Annice into its arms.
3
The next few weeks were a feverish nightmare of arguments, remonstrances, pleadings, and threats. The case of Eric and Annice was the topic of the hour and came under discussion whenever two members of the families concerned encountered one another; the only person who had no views on the subject being Annice herself.
After all Dyson did not despatch Eric into solitary exile. Wilfred reached Boothroyd House next day as the two were sitting at their midday meal, and found Eric almost prostrate with nervous emotion and his father looking particularly grim. A very few words from the tearful Eric sufficed to inform Wilfred of the disaster, and he exclaimed with conviction that it was just what he had been fearing all along—he had been a fool to put such faith in Eric’s evasions.
“Well, there won’t be any more of them,” observed Dyson dryly. “Eric’s going away for a bit. Get your coat off and sit down quickly, Wilfred, if you want any dinner; we’ve a train to catch. What have you done about the wagon?”
Wilfred seated himself, sniffed thoughtfully, and infuriated his father by questioning the wisdom of sending Eric anywhere alone.
“I don’t want to discuss the matter with you,” Dyson told him grimly. “So don’t mention it to me again. And I don’t intend anyone but me to know where Eric’s going, so you needn’t bother yourself about that either.”
“All right! I hope there’s no girls handy there, that’s all,” commented Wilfred, unabashed, “or you’ll have the whole thing happening over again.”
Dyson brought his clenched fist down angrily on the table, causing the hapless Eric to give a frightened start.
“Don’t talk to me about it!” he shouted, his sanguine face suddenly empurpled. “Do you hear?”
“I hear all right,” returned Wilfred in a defiant tone. “But shouting won’t change my opinion.”
His father gave him an angry glare; but his respect for Wilfred’s common sense was only equalled by the irritation it caused him, and in the event he allowed Eric to remain at home, merely extracting from the cowed lad a promise that he would not go to his uncle’s house, and enjoining strict attendance at the mill. Thither Wilfred immediately carried his brother, extracting from him en route all the particulars of the story, from Eric’s first impression of Annice at the station to Dyson’s absolute prohibition of a marriage between them last night. Wilfred’s opinion of it was that it was a bad job, very. Lydia would be terribly upset, he was sure. Eric ought to be thoroughly ashamed of himself, and he hoped he was. Fortunately, however, Eric could make it pretty well all right by marrying Annice promptly.
“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.
