MARY woke next morning to a feeling of uneasiness, so that she knew, before she could remember why, that she must brace herself to meet a disagreeable day. Then the sight of her maid, trim and composed, looping back her window curtains, reminded her of Florrie's letter. That was bad enough, but she soon realised that she could only turn from it to other anxieties. What had happened to the poor pretty child, what was James thinking, and what was Mary herself going to say to Miss Percival?
She tried to dismiss this last annoyance by telling herself that she was a coward. Miss Percival, as a secretary, could not seem curious about what her employers, in their Olympian privacy, had said to one another, and she must necessarily put the best face on what she was told. But this was small relief to Mary, who had so little need to dread harsh words that she had trained herself to reckon with thoughts. She now felt the weight of Miss Percival's private disappointment more severely than that lady seemed likely to feel it for herself. But after all, this was nothing compared to her disloyalty to James. She had pretended that she did not hear James when he opened her door last night, and he had gone away, believing that she was asleep. She dressed quickly now, to avoid meeting James in her own room. In the dining-room she would be better able to persuade herself that she hadn't, practically, deceived him. Keeping back Florrie's letter she did not consider deceit; she was accustomed to use her judgment in the matter of shielding James from worry, but the other affected their emotional relations.
In the dining-room she found Rosemary, unexpectedly in time for breakfast. It was one of Rosemary's charming gifts that she could saunter downstairs at noon with the air of dewy freshness proper to an Arcadian milkmaid. Trent was there too, for Trent counterbalanced his sister's masculine carelessness of time by a beautiful punctuality. Their presence shielded Mary from the affection which James, had they been by themselves, would certainly have shown. After her first relief it seemed terrible to Mary that she should be thus welcoming obstacles between herself and the display of James's love. She tried in vain to assure herself that she didn't feel guilty, that her heart beat faster not for James, but for poor little Florrie, that if it cost her an effort to look up from her coffee pot it was merely because she did not wish to trouble her daughter with the anxieties that destroyed her own appetite. She knew all the same that somewhere, in her thoughts, in her actions, she had overstepped an ancient boundary; if she was not yet disloyal she was running the risk of disloyalty. At any rate she was allowing herself, unknown to James, a new attitude of mind which, when he came to realise it, he might not share.
In a moment James would be there! Mary forced her mind back to the table in front of her, poured herself out some coffee, put in two lumps of the sugar she detested, drank it, and then blushed crimson at the proof she found of her own preoccupation. She looked up, instinctively, but no one had noticed her. Rosemary was eating bacon; Trent was reading theTimeswith an air of kindly tolerance. Trent would dearly have loved to be a Unionist, for the Unionist assumptions soothed his gentlemanly instincts, but he could not see his way to anything but loss from a protective tariff. Trent dealt in luxuries; if he charged more for his cakes his customers would eat fewer. He could picture them, in all their plebeian meanness, eyeing the dish and stilling their appetites with the saw that too many sweet things are bad for the teeth. But the article he was reading did not allude to this cause of stumbling, and his complacent smile turned Mary's uneasiness to a wave of irritation. Why, she asked herself, had she a fool for a son? What was there wrong with him, or with his surroundings, that after twenty-six years of life, with health, with plenty of money, his mind should have acquired nothing from experience but the simple cunning of an animal? She seemed, for the moment, to detach herself from Trent, to see him as coolly as though she were not his mother, pledged to admire him. His fault, poor youth, was that of being slow to receive impressions. He had will and capacity and application, good qualities that came from within, but the walls of his mind had no windows. His dogmas, his attitudes, he took from the children with whom he had been at school; when Trent was an old man his spirit would still be that of a little boy in a lower form. Other women congratulated her upon having a son so handsome, with such good brains, who would deign to become his father's right hand and live quietly at home. Other women's sons went into the army, at best, or they brushed their hair back from their foreheads and spent money in ways their mothers couldn't approve, or, having brains, they caused great anxiety by thinking with them.... Mary had always pitied the mothers of these young men, but now, with a pang, she realised that beneath their smoothness they might have pitied her, have thanked heaven that their boys weren't sticks like poor Mrs. Heyham's.
At this point Trent put down hisTimesand asked her pleasantly for some more coffee. Mary, as she took his cup, felt a wave of self-reproach. What had happened that she should be bitter like this? He was a good boy, a dear boy, as handsome as possible, and as fond of her, and for his affection she had given him secret contempt. She was, as a matter of fact, the luckiest woman she knew. She looked across at Rosemary, to fortify this feeling, and was rewarded by a pleasant picture. The blue dress the child wore showed the clear tones of her skin and the long lines of her chin and throat. Mary loved Rosemary's chin; there was a soft place underneath it where she had always kissed her when she was a baby. The engagement ring Mary hated was out of sight. That was a pretty thing to have at one's breakfast table—Mary felt that she must talk and be cheerful instead of letting the meal pass in silence. "Have either of you seen your father?" she said, to this end.
Rosemary looked up. "He's gone. He had something to see to down at the works. He had breakfast at eight. And he wants your car at twelve as Trent is using his to-day."
To Mary this came as a fresh proof of her own unkindness. Poor James, away working for them all before she was down, gone without a kiss or a good-bye because he was considerate of her sleep! Gone without a suspicion that his wife had been criticising him and practically lying to him! Mary's impulse to talk passed. She was humbled; she hardly felt relieved when she realised that she would not have to face him until a day lay between her and her deceit.
Meanwhile Rosemary had come to the end of the table and was bending down to kiss her mother. "Good-bye, darling!" she was saying, "I'll be back to dinner on Monday. I'm going for a walk in the Mendips with Margaret, you know. I've never seen them; they ought to be lovely in this weather."
Mary kissed Rosemary and Trent frowned. Trent did not approve of girls going for walks by themselves. At least, if she let them go, Mary should have spoken a word of caution!
Rosemary saw the frown and left the room with a cheerful smile.
Mary followed her. It had not been at all a cosy breakfast.
When she went into her room she found that Miss Percival, that perfect young woman, was already waiting.
"There's something I want you to see," Mary told her, and showed her Florrie's letter. Miss Percival read the letter slowly, without moving the muscles of her face. Then she gave it back. "I'm afraid it looks like the usual thing!" she said, in a voice that took the place of a shrug.
This cynicism affected Mary painfully. "The car is coming in a minute," she said, with a grave look. "I thought we had better go to Exe Street at once and see what has happened for ourselves. I've looked up your notes, and I see that Florrie Wilson is living with an invalid mother who is a widow with some means of her own. She said that her mother is a lady, but I expect that was only her way of saying that they had seen better days."
"Or it might just be her idea of good form," suggested Miss Percival. "One has, after all, in Florrie's walk of life, to be one's own College of Heralds."
Mary looked surprised. Then she retired to put on her hat and to ponder a sentence that clashed with her notions of Miss Percival.
No. 100 Exe Street was a dirty little house in a dirty and depressing street. The few inches of garden in front of it were ornamented with two large white shells and various old tin cans. Its windows were shut, and as much light as possible kept out by torn lace curtains. It did not look like the house of one whose acquaintance with better days had been at all intimate.
Mary would not let the chauffeur ring the bell; she could not be as sure of his manners as of her own, and she waited with Miss Percival for several minutes before anyone in the house responded to her gentle pull. Then the door opened a little, and they could see a strip of a woman with bright red cheeks. She stared at the two visitors suspiciously, then she stared, with more interest, at the car. Finally, when Mary had asked her twice whether Florrie was in, she replied that they could go upstairs if they liked, and see. Top landing, back room. She shuffled along the passage in front of them and disappeared down the stairs that led to the odours of the basement.
Mary dismissed the car, since James wanted it, and went into the house. She wished to think well of Florrie, but as she climbed the two flights of stairs she was assailed by a doubt as to whether Florrie could be a truthful girl. She had said that she lived with her mother in a nice little house, and here she was, apparently a lodger in a house whose stairs were the stalest Mary had ever smelt and kept by a most disagreeable looking woman.
Mary knocked at the door of the back room on the top floor, and a voice that was not Florrie's told them to come in. For a moment, when they were inside, Mary thought that they must have made a mistake, for as she turned towards the window she saw a bed in which a stout woman was sitting, a shawl over her shoulders and some work in her hands. The stout woman however seemed to expect her. "You've come for my Florrie," she said politely. "She'll be back in a minute. Won't you sit down, ma'm? Florrie was expecting you, and she's got the room straight, but she didn't think, being gentry, you'd be 'ere so soon."
Mary stared at her for a moment. She was fascinated. The woman's face was not stout, it was puffy, livid, swollen. It cost her an effort to say thank you and to find herself a chair. There were only two chairs in the room; Mary took the sound one and Miss Percival the one with a hole in its seat.
Meanwhile Mrs. Wilson continued to address them, but as she spoke bitterness overtook her and her voice reverted to its natural sharpness. "She's gone round to Moses's," she went on. "She seems to 'ave some maggit in 'er 'ead about it's not being safe. I tell 'er it's safe enough, a sight too safe, and we shall be lucky if every stick we got ain't safe the same way soon. So she goes and looks in the winder to see if it's out for sale." Mrs. Wilson's words gathered speed and her crochet-hook jerked rapidly backwards and forwards. "To lose a good place like that, ma'm, with me dependent on 'er, when she might 'a' married a gentleman too! And look at us now—where are we—with 'er character gone, and nothing put by for the rent? It isn't as if I could do anything with me 'ealth so bad, and the pain keeping me awake all night so I don't sleep a wink. And there's no market for crochet now, along of them niggers!"
Mrs. Wilson's shawl heaved, showing glimpses of pink flannelette.
Mary was puzzled. "But what is it that has happened?" she said. "I don't understand. What is Moses's and what has Florrie done? And I thought you and she had money of your own that you lived on? Money your husband left you?"
Mrs. Wilson's reply was not coherent, but Mary gathered that Wilson had never left nothing to nobody but worry and trouble. What money Mrs. Wilson had she made, a shilling or two a week it would be when the Turks allowed one to make anything. Further, Florrie had lost her place, owing to a bracelet and to a man she didn't never ought to have had nothing to do with. And Mrs. Wilson had once been second housemaid in a very good house, where she had been very differently brought up to what girls were nowadays. The end of this explanation was confused by large tears which rolled down the poor woman's distorted face and needed to be wiped away with the corner of the blanket.
Mary tried to express a reassuring interest while she turned her eyes politely from this intimate and unpleasant misery. Mrs. Wilson mustn't distress herself, Mary was only there to see what could be done. She would find some way out—there could be no doubt about it—it was only a question of taking courage for an hour or so. If Miss Percival had not been there Mary might have gone across to the creature who was sobbing so wretchedly, so grotesquely, on the bed, but her volition was paralysed by the thought of Miss Percival alert to take everything down. She looked round her, waiting uncomfortably for some lull in the snorts and groans which were shaking the opposite corner of the room, and tried in this interval of inaction, to collect her impressions and to clear her mind.
The one thing, up to this point, that admitted no doubt, was that poor little Florrie, whatever else she might be, was also a liar. She had deceived Mary, and Mary could not help feeling that she had also deceived Mrs. Black. James selected his managers with care; he would not have put Mrs. Black into the position she held unless she could be trusted to keep the firm's most important regulations. Very well then, Florrie must have obtained her own post under false pretences,—that legal phrase, slipping unbidden into Mrs. Heyham's mind, seemed to shed an even deeper gloom over the affair.
But as she examined the room where Florrie lived, while the primitive woe of Florrie's mother offended her ears, Mary's hatred of deceit became less uncompromising. It was a small room, and the stains made by damp on the walls and ceiling were freshly reinforced. The window was small, and shut, and some torn muslin was held across its lower half by a sagging tape. There was a varnished table in the middle of the floor, a cupboard at one end of it, and a packing-case by the fireplace covered with odds and ends of bedroom china. The wall-paper was yellowish brown, and on the mantelpiece there were some ancient ornaments and two scarlet paper fans. It wasn't a place, in its dreary stuffiness, where ascetic virtues would make a strong appeal. Mary began to understand why Florrie, armed for the conquest of life by a becoming cap and apron, had invented this romance of a lady mother. She felt that even she herself would have needed something to shield her from the realities of such a home. She scanned the room again for traces of the girl's presence. Florrie's best hat hung on a nail on the wall, and a petticoat hung beneath it, but Mary could see no signs of any other bed. It was some moments before she realised, with a sense of shock, that pretty Florrie slept in the bed in the corner side by side with the diseased woman who had bad nights.
This was hideous, it was revolting—nothing in the world could make it right! Mary shivered with the intensity of her repugnance. A sudden picture of Rosemary came into her mind. The two girls were the same age, and what gulfs lay between Rosemary and such contact with corruption!
She turned her eyes again to the shameful bed, drawn by the fascination of her own horror. She saw then what her agitation had not let her notice, that Miss Percival had left her seat and was bending over Mrs. Wilson. Miss Percival's reserve had gone; for a moment, as she stood motionless, her shadowed face revealed a conquering passion. Its wide eyes, staring across the room, saw nothing; she was shaken by an emotion that closed the avenues of sense. Then, as Mary's surprise was growing into wonder, the drawn muscles quivered and relaxed, and Miss Percival turned, with a swift movement of pity, to slip her arm round the huddled woman on the bed.
"Poor mother," she said, stroking the swollen hands, "don't cry, my dear, don't cry! You're not alone now; we're going to stand by your Florrie and help her face the trouble. You mustn't be too hard on her; she's a good girl, you know! See how well she looks after you, and how clean she keeps the room! A great many girls wouldn't do that, with the hard day's work she has. She may have done wrong, poor tired little thing, the world's too hard for us all sometimes, but think how pretty she is, and how bright, and how she's stuck by you and stood up for you! Why, she won't even have it that you're poor and ill; she always tells people what a fine mother she has, a lady she said you were, and that's because she's fond of you, and won't have others look down on you!"
Mrs. Wilson could not have heard half of these rapid words, but they succeeded in changing the current of her thoughts. Her moans ceased; Mary saw her pull the shawl together across her chest and turn to the young woman stooping over her. "Pretty?" she said earnestly. "She's as pretty as a summer's day, my Florrie is! They men's been after her ever since she left school! It's a wonder to me she's kep' straight the way she 'as. But she should 'a' known—" here the unhappy creature was shaken by fresh sobs—"as that swine wasn't after no good with 'is dimon' bracelet! What would 'e be givin' 'er a dimon' bracelet for? A dirty little cur like 'im? Stands to reason!"
Miss Percival smoothed back the hair that hung over the woman's face. "So Florrie took his bracelet, did she?" she asked softly. "But why did she lose her place? Was he a customer? If that's all I'm sure we can put it right!"
But Florrie's mother did not seem able to answer. She covered her face with her hands and bent over her matted blanket. Miss Percival seemed to think it enough that she was crying more quietly, for she said no more, but stood, still with her arm round Mrs. Wilson's shoulder, looking steadily at the wall.
Mary, if she had been alone, could have hidden her own face in her hands for self-contempt. She was the leader in this adventure, she was the mother, she the woman of age and experience, the woman who had taken credit for keen perceptions and ready sympathy. And here she had sat, hard, cruel, disgusted, shutting out kindness and pity from her heart while a girl, her paid secretary, had taken her place. She had despised these poor creatures because their ugliness and their sin were spread before her, but what of the sin, the deceit and pride she had been hiding in her own heart? She had despised Trent a few hours ago because his mind was shut to everything that did not accord with itself, and now what was she doing but thrusting out her own notions, her prejudices and daintinesses to shield her from the suffering that came with a knowledge of suffering? It was nothing unusual that was happening here; it was unusual to her only because she had escaped her share of the world's misery.... Mary's conscience was always ready to accept a conviction of sin.
But after a time even Mary sought for relief. As she sat stiffly on her chair, her head bent, her hands clasped, rigid with the pain of thought, a little quick idea ran across her mind—the Insurance Act! She caught at it, embraced it with relief. Five shillings a week for life—meant for such cases as this! Her own housekeeping cost her fifty pounds a week, but just now her mind was tuned to a different scale. She smiled, she raised her head, leaned forward hopefully. "Miss Percival, what about the Insurance Act? Couldn't we get Mrs. Wilson into an approved society? She ought to be getting disablement benefit!"
The sound of her employer's voice made Miss Percival start. She had not been thinking about the Insurance Act. When she looked round to face Mary's hopeful expression she did not look as if her thoughts had been pleasant. "Mrs. Wilson is not an employed person," she said, as briefly as if she had been speaking to a fool, "and anyway, no society would take her with her health like this." Then she turned back to the wall with her look of dislike accentuated. Mrs. Wilson, who had been recovering, groaned feebly.
Mary flushed, and then leaned back again. She would accept the snub, but she must think it over. She could see now that the Insurance Act would not help Mrs. Wilson, but that was only an accident, a matter of dates. It would help the Mrs. Wilsons of the future. Her mind felt eased. She wished she knew more about the Act. She was resolving to buy a sixpenny book about it when her honesty reminded her, uncomfortably, that there was little to ease her mind in an Act which she had done nothing to bring about—an Act of which she hadn't, as a matter of fact, approved. She had obeyed the law, but she felt that it was hard on the servants—she wished she could feel sure that poor Florrie had obeyed the law!
The room was quiet now, Mrs. Wilson had stopped crying, and Mary's mind, confused by the unaccustomed nature of the facts presented to it, and their incompleteness, wandered foolishly between the problem of her own responsibility for the distress of the poor and the probable nature of Florrie's offence. She was also harassed by a recurring recognition of the stuffiness of the room.
She had decided, vaguely, that there must always be rich and poor, because there isn't enough money to go round—though we ought to do more than we do—and also that Miss Percival was probably right, and Florrie had been detected taking presents from customers, when Florrie came in. Mary did not recognise her for an instant—the figure in the doorway lacked the good looks of the girl at Chelsea—then she saw that Florrie was merely looking shabby and ill.
"Good morning, my dear," she said, resolved now, at least, to do more than her duty, "I'm glad you've come back."
Florrie came forward into the middle of the room. Her expression, Mary thought, was almost sullen. She jerked her head towards her mother. "She told you?" she asked.
"Nothing that I could understand. Your mother is very unhappy, Florrie!"
"That you may well say, ma'm, me own daughter treating me like this!" added Mrs. Wilson, who had assumed an air of self-righteousness and freed herself from the shelter of Miss Percival's arm.
Mary spoke hastily to interrupt her. "I am sure you will prefer to tell us yourself."
Florrie took off her hat and put it down on the table. Then she arranged the tips of her fingers in a neat line along a crack in the wood. Finally, without looking up, she began to speak. "'E's been followin' me 'ome every night for the last month," she said. "Time and again I've asked 'im not to, an' I've tried to run away from 'im, an' once I took the bus, but 'e knew I couldn't go on with that. An' none of the others don't come my way. An' 'e's offered me everything you can think of, jewels an' choclits and take me to the theatre, an' a glace silk dress, an' I wouldn't take one, because I saw what 'e was after, the dirty beast. An' I never 'ad no drinks with 'im, only once an ice off a barrer. That was fore I knew 'im well. An' I've cried in the street, I've been that wild with 'im. 'E knew I'd no one could do anything to 'im. 'E's called at the 'ouse even, an' told 'er downstairs I'd invited 'im! Me invite fellows up 'ere!" Florrie looked up at this. Her eyes were red.
She did not go on for a minute, her hands were trembling, though she was pressing them against the table to keep them still.
The silence was broken by Mrs. Wilson. Mrs. Wilson seemed excited; she was leaning forward, her shawl dragged tightly round her shoulders, nodding eagerly at each of Florrie's phrases.
"Don't you stop, Florrie," she said. "You tell the ladies, me girl. Jus' you tell them what 'e done!"
Florrie looked slowly at her mother, then turning away she told them.
"Then one day 'e came and said I'd broken 'is 'eart, and 'e were goin' away and I shouldn't never see 'im again. An' 'e'd brought me a partin' gift, an' when I'd taken it 'e'd go, only not before. An' I was that bucked at gettin' rid of 'im I was fool enough to take it. It was a dimon' bracelet in a real leather case. An' 'e said good-bye, an' would I think of 'im sometimes, an' I said not if I could 'elp it, an' we parted. An' mother 'avin' been so bad I took it straight roun' to Moses's that night. I suppose 'e must 'a' followed me, for 'e waits a day or two, till I'd spent the money, an' there 'e was at the corner wanting to know if I were ready to do my part of the bargain. I told 'im there weren't no bargain, told 'im I wouldn't go with 'im for a hundred dimon' bracelets, and then 'e said—" she stopped again.
"You go on—you say it, darlin'!" Mrs. Wilson's excitement was growing.
"'E said I'd stole it, an' if I didn't give it back 'e'd 'ave me put away!"
After that nobody spoke for a moment. Mary was trembling, Miss Percival was white, Mrs. Wilson looked from one to the other of them, nodding her head with an air almost of triumph.
Then Mary remembered that there was more to hear. "My dear," she said quickly, "my poor little girl, you mustn't trouble about that; we'll get the bracelet back, and if you like we'll call it a loan and you can return it when you have the money," Mary did not want to crush Florrie with a sense of obligation—"but how was it that you lost your place? Did the man tell his story to the manager?"
Florrie stood quite still and did not answer. Mary waited for a minute and then glanced across at Mrs. Wilson. The invalid had assumed a piteous expression; she looked back mysteriously and shook her head, but when, after a considerable silence, Florrie still did not speak, she could bear the silence no longer, and she turned upon her daughter. "Now then," she admonished her, "you tell them! Don't you go shirkin' the 'ard part! If the ladies is to 'elp us they must know the 'ole truth!" She looked at Mary for approval.
Florrie, whose attention had been caught by her mother's tone, saw the glance. "Well, then, I won't tell them!" she cried. "I'm not going to! Tell them yourself as you seem to enjoy it!" She flung herself into Miss Percival's chair, her face turned away from them over its back, and Mary could see that her shoulders were shaking.
Mrs. Wilson tried to look shocked. "Well, if she's got one of 'er wicked tempers, ma'm, an' won't tell you, then I must!" she said, "though far from enjoyin' it! Well, then, 'e came after 'er, worryin' every day, till she felt desprit, as she must get the money, so—that I should 'ave to say it—she tried to see if some ole keys we 'ad would unlock the box where Mrs. Black keeps the silver. An' not only they wouldn', but Mrs. Black catches 'er at it, so of course she couldn't see 'er way to keepin' 'er, so now she's lost 'er place, and no character, any foot on the stair may be the police, and we've 'ad nothin' to eat but a cup o' tea since yesterday dinner time and the rent owing, and the Lord 'ave mercy on us, for I don't know what we're to do!"
So that was it—Florrie was a thief. An hour ago Mary would have been shocked by this, now she was angry, giddy with anger. This world in which she had been happy for so long had become intolerable, and Mary resented it. It was monstrous that these things should happen, and that no one should care. Mary's indignation consumed all thought of guilt or care of responsibility. She turned to Miss Percival with a decision which the morning had not yet found in her. "What are we to do?" she said. "They must have something to eat, and I suppose we'd better get back that bracelet without loss of time?"
Miss Percival agreed. "I wish," she added, "that we could get hold of the man!"
Mary shivered. To face a man like that was more, she thought, than she could do.
Then she went over to Florrie. "My dear," she said, "if you'll put on your hat and show us where the bracelet is, we'll get it back for you, and we must bring a pie or something for your dinner." Mary had a vague feeling that poor people generally eat pork pies for dinner.
Florrie stood up. She looked stupid, as though she did not quite understand. "'E's outside!" she said. "Followed me 'ome."
Mary was startled. She could hardly believe that the unspeakable evil thing was so close. "He won't hurt you when we're with you," she told Florrie, but her heart beat faster. The girl put on her hat and they left the room without another thought of Mrs. Wilson. She was lying back against her pillow, her swollen face pale and distorted, and she did not speak.
When they reached the street Mary looked round her fearfully, almost as though she had a sense of guilt. She felt as if she were taking a furtive peep at an indecent picture. There was no one near the garden gate of No. 100, but some way off on the other side of the street a man was leaning wearily against a lamp-post. "That's 'im!" said Florrie. "'E'll follow us—you see!"
They turned off down the street and Mary knew for the first time the choking excitement of the chase. She would not look round to see whether the man was following, every instinct forbade it, but she could not help wishing that Florrie would do it for her. This did not seem likely; Florrie's eyes were fixed far ahead, and every line of her shoulders expressed an unyielding singleness of purpose. It was extraordinary that she did not seem to mind whether the man were there or not. Even the bold Miss Percival was looking at the ground. Mary's nervousness increased—he might, for all they knew, be quite close to them! Finally, at a corner, she found that she had looked round without meaning to. The man was there, about twenty paces behind. He was little and young and fair and very unhappy, not at all the red, gross creature he ought to have been and that Mary had expected. She covered the rest of the distance in a tumult of nerves that did not allow her to see where she was going.
It was only as they entered the door of a shop that she made an effort to recover her self-command. This, of course, must be the pawnbroker's.
Mary had never been into a pawn-shop before, and she expected to find it an interesting place. It was not. Neither the empty counter before them nor the walls of the compartment that hemmed them in presented any features of interest. The young man behind the counter was not even, as it happened, a Jew.
Meanwhile, Florrie, trembling and intense, had produced her ticket. The young man took it in a perfectly ordinary way. Mary realised suddenly that he was accustomed to pawn-tickets.
"Thirty-five bob," he said.
Mary looked at him with astonishment. She would hardly have been surprised if he had asked for so many pounds. Florrie at her side gave a little soft sob of agonised suspense—Florrie was wondering whether it was too much.
Mary put back the cheque-book she had been innocently taking from her bag, and brought out the necessary money. As she put it on the counter Florrie caught hold of Miss Percival's arm to steady herself. The assistant was gone now and the shop was spinning round Florrie in circles of yellow light. There was a fine dancing halo, especially, obscuring the door through which he had disappeared.
He was not away long, and when he came back he was unwrapping a little parcel. Florrie, shaking all over, held out her hand for it. Inside the parcel was a leather case; the young man, as he handed it to Mary, opened it.
There lay the bracelet. Not even a lady, Florrie felt, could deny its glories. It was a golden snake with a beautiful pattern of scales on its back, and in his eyes there sparkled two small diamonds.
"A pretty thing," said the young man, in a sociable tone. "Real gold, nine carat." Before he had finished Florrie was out of the shop and Mary was obliged to follow her without replying. It was a corner shop, and Florrie had turned into the little side street instead of the busier way by which they had come. As Mary came out she saw that the fair young man was staring into the window of a tobacconist next door. When he saw Florrie coming he hesitated and then stepped forward to meet her with a nervous smile.—"So you've got it—" he was beginning, but she did not let him finish. "Take that, you muck!" she said, and threw it at him. Then she turned her back on him with a laugh of triumph.
The little man did not seem to have felt the leather case which had hit him on the chin. For a moment he stood still, staring after Florrie, then, suddenly, he pulled his cuff across his eyes.
"She's gone!" he said to himself, and when he raised his head, Mary, disgusted, could see that he was crying.
The little man did not mind Mary. He cried for a little and wiped his eyes again, and then stooped to pick up the bracelet that had fallen out of the case at his feet. He did not look at it, but slipped it into his pocket, and then walked away down the street, still sniffing. He was a miserable little man; Mary, immorally, felt sorry for him.
She was recalled to more fitting sentiments by Miss Percival's voice in her ear.
"Don't you think Florrie had better have something to eat at once?" she said urgently. "She's hysterical!"
Mary agreed, and they moved away to an eating-house known to Florrie.
The interior of the eating-house, unlike the pawn-shop, was full of interest, but Mary forgot to study the people seated at its tables; nor did she drink the milk, which, to put Florrie at her ease, she had ordered for herself and Miss Percival. She was very much puzzled by the fair young man. He ought to have shown forth his wickedness on his face, he ought to have filled Mary's soul with a shudder of loathing, and he had not. She had meant to banish the subject as quickly as possible from Florrie's mind, but she could not help—when Florrie had finished her soup—asking her a few questions.
"Why couldn't he have offered to marry you, my dear?" she said. "Is he married?"
Florrie was feeling better now. She put her spoon down neatly like a lady, and answered with some of her old deference:
"No, he's not married, ma'm, but he's a gentleman. He's a merchant in his father's office and he lives at home and gets a pound a week. His father would have turned him out if he'd married me. Or he would have, he told me so. But I wouldn't never have married 'im. He wasn't my sort." Her attention wavered to the sausages which the waiter was putting before her.
This composed reply added to Mary's discomfort. If the villain who had tried to wreck Florrie's soul lived on a pound a week, he must have saved up to buy the bracelet. Or perhaps he hadn't paid for it, perhaps he wanted to take it back to the shop himself. Mary couldn't believe that that feeble little man would ever have prosecuted Florrie. She reminded herself that he hadn't been too feeble, all the same, to drive the poor child to stealing. What a horrible tangle it was! She left the table hastily and went to the counter, where she bought eggs and sandwiches for Mrs. Wilson. She realised that she was, more or less, in charge of Mrs. Wilson and suddenly she felt very tired. But Mrs. Wilson's future was a burden that Mary was to be spared. When they arrived on the doorstep of No. 100, they found the landlady was in the hall waiting for them. She was full of importance, of mystery, almost of triumph. She addressed herself to Florrie. "Your ma's been took bad," she said, "just after you gone out. I 'eard 'er shriek, as it 'appened, an' I sent for the doctor. But it wer'n't no good, the poor thing were gone before he came. It's a miracle she lived so long, 'e said!"
Mary was conscious of a great relief.
IT was a day of tears. Poor Mrs. Wilson and Florrie had every right to cry, the landlady had cried because it seemed the proper thing to do, the little man had cried, presumably because he could not help it, and when she reached home Mary had cried without any definite excuse. It was true that she had realised for the first time how gay, how clean, how spacious, her own house was, how refreshing warm water is, and plenty of soap, but a sensible person need hardly have made these an occasion for weeping. As a matter of fact she was crying where a more energetic woman would have rejoiced. Miss Percival, though she was coldly above the weakness of tears, had taken Florrie home. There was a spare bedroom in her flat for which she didn't consider Florrie too immoral, and in it the child was to spend the day which, in this industrious age, is sufficient concession to the filial grief of the lower classes. Afterwards she was to be apprenticed to a friend of Miss Percival's who was a dressmaker. Mary would pay for her support, for the necessary instruction, and for the funeral. The dressmaker was a lady with theories and perfectly able, said Miss Percival, to cope with such a poor attempt at a thief. Mary ought to have been gratified at the good her money was doing. Even Mrs. Wilson might be said to have come well out of the adventure. She herself had admitted that since heathens in Asia had learned to make crochet lace their rivals in England must feel themselves better dead; and as far as this one case went Mary agreed with her. The coarseness, the subservience, and the cruelty of Mrs. Wilson had shocked Mary. That being so, there was no one for whom to feel pity but the unhappy little man, and as a right-minded woman she knew that he deserved heavier punishment than a passing pang of sorrow. He was a wicked little man. Nevertheless she cried very heartily, and only recovered her self-control when she remembered that James might well be home early and would certainly be upset by visible traces of tears.
She did not now dread the return of James; the unwonted emotions of the day had exhausted her capacity for worrying herself. Florrie's cruder troubles made the subtleties of her former uneasiness seem a little ridiculous. She forgot that she had meant to greet James with a special compensating tenderness; she only felt a little excited when she realised that for once she had something of real importance to talk to him about.
But James had not forgotten. As soon as business released his mind he remembered that he wanted to be particularly loving. He hadn't had a chance that morning of kissing and reassuring poor little Mary; all the more reason to hurry home now and put an end to whatever thoughts might still be distressing her. He knew from experience that Mary, with no other imperative claims on her attention, let her mind dwell too long on such trifles. She would suffer all day because she had done or said something that had left his mind when the first thought of his day's work entered it. He had always tried to be very tender with her, since she was so harsh with herself—his last night's bad temper had been inexcusable. He could not imagine now what had provoked it. Nothing that she, poor darling, was responsible for, but that wouldn't have kept her—he knew her—from persuading herself all this time that it was entirely her own fault and nothing to do with him.
He hurried through the last batch of waiting papers, and decided to forego even his walk home. It was a sacrifice, because he felt in need of exercise. Instead he drove to a florist's and bought some roses. When he had first become able to afford it he had bought Mary rings. She had charming, slender fingers, and he had a taste for rings. But after some time he had noticed that though she thanked him delightfully she seldom wore them. She was afraid, she said, of losing them. So he had been forced to fall back on flowers. The dear little thing was fond of flowers.
He bought enough flowers to-day to satisfy five or six ladies of Mary's size. It was one of the troubles of being rich that she could, undoubtedly, procure roses for herself if she really wanted them. But he liked to think, so strong was the instinct that had made him give up his walk, that the roses he gave her were different from those that she merely ordered.
She was in her room when he reached home, and when he had thrown aside the florist's wrappings he went up to it. He didn't want to give her just an immense unwieldy roll of paper. She was to see, as soon as she saw him, the beauty which he had chosen to be the token of his love. She was leaning on the mantelpiece as he came through the door. There! Red eyes!—just as he had thought!
She seemed perfectly pleased, however, with him and his roses, and her mouth, as she lifted it to be kissed, had no wistful droop.
"How lovely, darling!" she told him, and rang the bell. "I particularly wanted some to-day. I've had no time to get any and the others are dying. And I'm so glad to see you so early, because really, James, it has been an extraordinary day, and I do want to hear what you think of it all!" She looked at him anxiously.
He stroked her hair, and then put a finger beneath her chin. "I don't think I like you to go through extraordinary days if they leave you looking like this—tired out, and red round your dear grey eyes! But as you are in this state it's quite right to tell me all about it!" He made her sit down on the sofa and sat down by her.
Mary, for once, was too full of her tale to notice that he looked a little disappointed. She did not usually entrust to a servant flowers that were his special personal gift. It was quite right—as he had said—that she should be eager to give him her confidence, but he had wanted to-day to be welcomed for himself, affectionately, intimately, not merely as a friendly audience. Nor did her story, when she told it, astonish him as much as it astonished her. He was accustomed to the idea that the lives of the poor are often tragic, and he was angry with these people for dragging Mary into their sordid affairs. When she came to the account of Mrs. Wilson's death he interrupted her.
"Poor little mother, no wonder you are distressed! You're not accustomed to these painful occurrences. But there's one thing I must say, you're not asking me, I hope, to take the girl back?" He softened the effect of his speech by stroking her hand.
Mary relieved his mind. "Oh no, of course I understand that you couldn't."
He might have left it at that, but it seemed a pity to waste arguments he had ready. "Because even if it were not for her dishonesty, my dear, a girl who had lied in that fashion would have to go. After all, the inquiries we make are just as much for the girls' own sakes as for ours. We owe it to those who come from decent homes that they shouldn't be asked to associate with girls of a lower class. From our point of view of course this business of the man, and of her having tried to steal, is a complete justification of the rule. The whole thing must be gone into. I'm not sure that the manager is free from blame. She ought to have reported the case. I'll send someone down to Chelsea to-morrow."
Mary gave a little cry of dismay. "Oh, James! please don't let anyone get into trouble through me! It would be dreadful! They'd think of me as a sort of spy! I shall never be able to do anything for them again!"
James did not see her point. "The getting into trouble, my dear, is my affair. And as for spying, surely this young woman doesn't imagine that you and I are dissociated, that you have secrets from me? She had no business to go to you at all, I didn't send you there to stand between thieves and their punishment, but as she has, she must take the consequences!"
This was impossible! James must be made to see—anything rather than this! "James!" she took his chin between her hands and turned his head towards her so that he was looking her in the face. "James—don't you understand? She came to me because she was in despair. She didn't think of me as Mrs. Heyham, only as someone who could help. And I'm not asking you to take her back, or to show anything but the most extreme official disapproval. What I've done for her I've done as a private person, because I was sorry for her. You mustn't—I can't have my sympathy turned into the means of disgracing poor Mrs. Black!"
James looked down for a moment on her urgent eyes, on the distressed quiver of her mouth. Then he turned away, pretending that he did not feel the faint pressure of the fingers that lay against his cheek.
"My dear," he said patiently, "I admit it's an awkward position for you, but put yourself in my place for a minute. You aren't asking me to take the girl back, I know, but you must see that you're asking something far more important. Mrs. Black is a manager, in a position of power and trust. I must know whether she has been deliberately winking at a serious breach of the rules. You can't expect me to leave her there without even knowing whether she is deceiving me!"
Mary tried another tack. "I don't see how you are to find out!"
"That's not the point. The point is that I must try. Even if I find nothing it will frighten her."
Mary did not speak, and after a moment he went on. "You know me well enough to know that I don't like punishing people. I had rather they did their duty honestly and simply, so that I could reward them for it. But on the day that I began, from whatever reason, to comply with abuses, to overlook corruption of this sort, the downfall of the business would begin. It is Mrs. Black's duty to see that the girls she employs are of good character and come from respectable homes. We don't take girls whose wages are their only means of support, for obvious reasons. Still less do we take girls who are supporting other people. Of course, we make it up to those we employ in other ways: they don't come to us merely to earn a living, but that is not the point. The point is that either Mrs. Black's methods of inquiry are at fault, so that she has allowed herself to be deceived, or that she has become party to a conspiracy to deceive the firm. It's clear that something is wrong, for she had no right to dismiss Wilson for theft without reporting the case."
Mary, bewildered, tried to gain time. Perhaps it had been reported without his noticing it.
James smiled. "We don't dismiss people for theft every day, my dear, and when we do we make a full enquiry. It is only fair to the culprit. Besides a trouble of that sort is often a sign of something wrong."
"Perhaps she was sorry for Florrie—she knew that if she reported her Florrie would be ruined. It's a great responsibility, James, and after all she hadn't actually stolen anything."
James turned to her again, but not, this time, to study the entreaty of her face, he wished to give force, on the contrary, to his own attitude. "Really you're not very logical, Mary! The only responsibility of my managers is to perform the duties that I pay them for. I undertake that my employees shall not be dismissed unjustly, and it is for me to decide whether or not they shall be prosecuted. And as for not actually stealing, I gather from you that by the girl's own admission she was caught in the act of trying to open a cash-box. Five minutes later she might have opened it. For all I know she did—you'll hardly ask me to place much faith in the word of a person who lies so fluently. You told me that she told lies even to you, and her story of the man and the bracelet strikes me as a pure fabrication. It's exactly the sort of story such a girl would be likely to invent; if there was a man and a bracelet at all she probably stole it from him. If she was innocent, why was she so much afraid of being charged? It's not probable, to say the least of it, that an honest girl would commit a real theft—and a theft on her employer—in order to escape being charged with one that she hadn't committed." Mary did not speak, and, after a moment, he left the sofa and walked over to the window. There he felt more at ease; the near presence of her emotion had troubled him. It was creditable emotion, and though in this case he could not give way to it he would deal with it as gently as he could. His face cleared, "I understand your feeling, little mother. You are sorry for her, and you don't want it to seem that you have taken advantage of her confidence. But if you think it over you will see that the results of my action can't now affect Wilson, and I undertake that your name shall not be connected with the matter in any way. You can't seriously have thought that I should bring you into it. And as a concession to you I am prepared to behave with every possible leniency towards Mrs. Black. Beyond that I think you must leave it to me."
Mary looked up at him as he stood dark against the waning light. Her protest against his words was mingled with the excitement of a discovery. She had been right last night—the mood she had chanced upon had neither been an accident nor unimportant. It had sprang from some deep essential in his mind. To-day it was overlaid with patience and with kindness, but none the less it shut him away from her, made him impervious to her entreaties, insensitive to whatever truth might lie in her point of view.
She felt now that she had suspected all her life the existence of this baffling quality. It was what she had feared when she had not wished to touch his business life. She had not only been afraid of herself, she had been afraid of him. As she had known him he had made her, their children, their relation to one another, the pivot of his life; here she was discovering another principle of loyalty, another axis round which his judgment and his ideals might revolve. He didn't misunderstand her now because he wished to wound her, or even because he would not take the trouble to examine what she said. Her wishes, potent as they were, had run counter to something stronger than themselves—she had not merely then to persuade him, she had to overcome his resistance.
Her mind was so busied with this thought that for a moment or two she did not speak. James, believing that she was considering the force of his words, did not hurry her. Then she made one more attempt to reach him.
"Perhaps I didn't explain very well, James. I didn't mean that what I minded was Mrs. Black's knowing that I had betrayed her to you, if it turns out that I have. I should mind that, because it would make all these women hate me when I only wished to do them a kindness. But what I mind most is being used, in actual fact, as an instrument of misfortune, as the channel of your displeasure—you force me to become a spy in fact, whether anyone knows it or not. And, you know, I resent it, I'm not prepared to be made use of in such a manner. It's a thing between me and you James, not between me and them—" She stopped, her eyes fixed on his face for some sign of comprehension.
James turned away a little, evading her gaze. "I'm very sorry," he said, "I'm exceedingly sorry. I had no more idea than you that this unhappy position would arise. Normally one couldn't have supposed that information of this sort would come into your possession. But since it has I do not see that I can be expected to disregard it. This girl must have known perfectly well that in telling you she was as good as telling me."
"I don't suppose, poor little thing, that she thought about it!"
James was annoyed. It seemed to him that for Mary after what he had said, to call Florrie a poor little thing was to display a wilful, provocative obstinacy. But he had determined not to give way to irritation, so he said nothing. After all, these lying impostors were new to Mary.
Mary, meanwhile, thinking the matter over, had resolved to make one more effort. She too got up, as these things are more easily said when one is standing, and went over to him. "Will you do one thing for me," she asked, "will you, before you take action, consult Trent, and let me, if I want to, tell him what I feel about it? I'm almost sure, though I don't know why, that he will agree with me."
James paused. Then he took her hands. "Yes," he said, "I'll do that, if you'd like me to. But look here, little woman, you put it to yourself fairly. Have you, even for a minute, tried to look at this thing from my point of view?"
Mary looked down at the floor for an instant's reflection. What he said was perfectly true. She had made no attempt to consider his position. Then she looked up and met his eyes. "No," she admitted, "I haven't."
He said no more, but kissed her and left her to think it over.
It did not occur to him that his leaving her would annoy Mary. He had acted instinctively upon the principle of making the most of an advantage. Moreover, he was tired, he had had a long day's work, and he had not expected to find an argument of such gravity awaiting his return.
Mary, unfortunately, was annoyed. She had not finished telling James about her adventures, and it hurt her to feel that he took no interest in what she had been doing. He would have taken all the interest she could wish if she had made them into a funny story; he liked what he called her witty way of commenting on events, but as it was true and important and serious he only considered its possible effect upon his business.
She tried to conquer her displeasure by telling herself that this was very natural. If a man has worked hard at a business for thirty years one should not be astonished that it has dominated his mind—one should be grateful if he has any mind left to be dominated.
Mary set herself to consider this, so that she might turn from her sense of personal grievance. What would she feel if she had spent the years of her working life serving, not individual people, whose happiness was a simple and obvious end, but an elaborate machine? In James's case the use of the machine was easy to see, people must be fed, and in some ways James fed them better than they had ever been fed before. But that, and he would have admitted it, wasn't the reason why he fed them. He had provided tea-shops because he saw in them the chance of a business opening. Other business men jumped just as eagerly at a chance to make cotton blankets and paper boots, even the tea-shops encouraged women to gad about and spend money instead of making their jams and jellies at home.
He didn't do his work to serve the country,—after all, if James hadn't built his shops one of his rivals would have built them instead,—but neither, Mary felt sure, did he work purely from a love of money. He liked money, but he had as much money now as he would ever care to spend. He liked a beautiful house, and a beautiful garden, he used a car to make journeys more convenient, he liked all the things that join with these to make life run free from hampering anxiety. And it cost money, immense sums of money, to have fresh air and flowers and cleanliness and books. But these, after all, did not provide a bottomless pit for wealth; in Rosemary's ideal state—Mary smiled—they were to be the common pleasures of the crowd. And these were, on the whole, all that James wanted. He had not been vulgarised to the point of demanding a hundred servants or jewels in the heels of his women's shoes.
He worked, in the long run, she supposed, for power, and for the flush of success. He did not trouble very much about ultimate aims, he found happiness in the achievement of transient immediate ends that sprang up in the course of events, and were accepted without question. Chance had thrown him into a factory; being there, he made the best of it and proceeded to think in terms of factories. He wanted a clean factory—an efficient factory—a larger factory—then some tea-shops, some more tea-shops, more and more, this site, that site, a distinctive appearance, a reputation for the best tea—so it went on. Of course he came to care about it, to depend on its success. Of course he came to regard the human beings who worked with him as factors in its success. He saw it as an end to be furthered for its own sake, not as a means to the building up of happy lives—though he liked, of course, after dinner, to dwell on its national usefulness.
It was all very obvious, she had known it all for years, but she had not, until that moment, taken it into account. She had thought of the business remotely as the source of their income, as a career for Trent, and immediately as a source of worries, a disturber of James's meals. She had never considered it as a great influence on James's mind, teaching him to look away from the primitive things of life to which women sit close, teaching him to think first of methods, of institutions, of organisations, the moulds and forms into which human emotion and energy are poured.
That was what Miss Percival must have meant when she talked of a man's world. It was a world that cared more for things, for arrangements, than for people. Women didn't come so easily to care for things. She thought of women she knew who were restless, and whose husbands gave them diamonds to keep them quiet. They had no children, or the world had taken their children away from them, spoiled them perhaps—or, worst of all, they had lost the gift of loving. There they were, unhappy—not that it mattered much to anyone. They had no work, no broad enthusiasms, to carry them over their personal failures. She had felt the poverty and insecurity of that when she had given Laura and Rosemary a better education than most girls of their class. She had trained their intellects to give them a second, a firmer hold on life. And they, having got it, were of opinion, that they should have more. They wanted, through politics, to regain their hold on a world that the modern craving for size and complexity had taken away from women. She had never troubled to follow them there. She had said that she wanted a vote because James believed that she ought to have one, and Trent believed she ought not. Anyhow, that, for the moment, was a side issue. What she was faced with now was this discovery that James and she held different points of view. He wanted the business to be a success, and, to his credit, an honest success; she wanted that too, but she wanted more that it should make the people who worked for it happy. How were they—James and she—going to surmount these opposing attitudes?
As she wondered she was overcome by her old timidity. The best thing to do, probably, would be for her to drop the whole thing. Already she and James had been more divided by it than she could remember their having been by anything. They had differed before, but not in this fundamental way. It wasn't worth it—better let all the girls in London be overworked than lose the happiness of her love for James.
She might have acted on this impulse, so much was she afraid of her own reflections, if she had not remembered that, as a matter of fact, half of the business was hers. It had been given to her, and she had enjoyed its profits for years. She had left it to James, and he had been willing that she should leave it—to his eyes it was a man's, not a woman's work—but then she had not realised that anything more than James's brains were needed. Now it seemed to her quite probable that her brains were needed too. She was responsible whether she washed her hands of it or not. She wished with all her heart that her father had given James the whole concern. Then she need have had nothing to do with it. But he hadn't, he had given it to her; she would not gain anything worth gaining by being selfish.
She differed from James; very well, then, she differed. She must accept it. But she needn't differ irritatingly, ignorantly. As long as she had meant to let her own ideas follow her husband's, she had refrained from seeking information from other people. Now that she saw that she and James might very well not agree she decided that she had better know what she was talking about. When Rosemary came back she would find out the names of some books. After all, something might come of this—if she were forced to dispute with James she might find a closer relation to Rosemary.
Meanwhile James was losing his temper with Trent. There was no sensitiveness in Trent that need be considered, a little sarcasm did the young man good, and James was ruffled at having to consult him. However, he had said he would, and no use would be served by putting the matter off. If Trent had wanted his father in a better humour he needn't have entered the door at the moment when James was passing through the hall.
"Trent," he called, "come into the library for a moment!"
Trent came, lamblike but dignified.
"Your mother has unearthed a pretty condition of affairs at C. L." James had his back to the fireplace and his chin in the air.
Trent was attentive. "Yes?"
"The manager—name of Black—there engaged a girl called Wilson, who seems to have had no references but a bedridden mother without means, and subsequently the girl tried to steal money out of the cash-box, says she got herself tangled up with a man, pawned a bracelet he gave her, or she stole from him, and wanted the money to redeem it because he threatened to prosecute her. The girl wrote to your mother, who went down to see her, and found her living in one room with an old woman and almost starving. I suppose your mother is seeing after her now, but the point is, what are we to do about Black?"
Trent did not understand why he had been brought into the matter. It was not the sort of thing that would normally have needed any discussion. "Why do you ask me?" he said.
"I told your mother I would."
That did not make things any clearer.
"My mother has some definite idea as to what should be done?"
"Your mother does not want anything done."
"About Black?"
James did not answer for a minute. Even if Mary had not been convinced by his arguments she might have kept up a decent pretence of agreement—she need not have sent him to Trent to explain that his father and mother had fallen out. James couldn't imagine now why he had been such an idiot as to undertake this unpleasant task. Mary was not, as a rule, so careless of his dignity.
"I don't find you very intelligent this evening," he said.
Meanwhile Trent had had time to understand.
"When you said 'unearth' you meant 'unearth by accident'—I see—" he began.
"What the devil does it matter how she found it out?—it certainly wasn't by accident. The girl came to her and told her—you can't call that an accident!"
Trent squared his shoulders with the priggish, dogmatic air that his family disliked in him. "I can quite understand that my mother doesn't want to get the woman into trouble," he said.
"Don't preach at me, sir!" would have relieved James's mind, but it would also have been to admit himself in the wrong. He drove back the tempting phrase.
"Your mother never wants to get anyone into trouble—that's not the point," he retorted. "The point is"—he spoke with a vague, oppressive sense of repetition—"that I am in possession of some valuable information about one of the managers—and I am asked to become an accessory to at least one crime, possibly to a number, by ignoring it!"
Trent laughed.
"Well, what should we be doing but acquiescing in deceit and dishonesty?" James was furious.
Trent told himself that his father was showing signs of age. He was behaving absurdly, a thing he did not often do. Trent was not offended or frightened by this ridiculous conduct because he felt himself safe on ground where his judgment could not be challenged. Trent had received an education which enabled him to know when a thing was honourable and when it wasn't. He felt perfectly sure of himself.
"Quite so!" he said. "But look at the other side of the thing for a moment. If Wilson had been a lady you wouldn't have doubted that what she said was said in confidence. We shouldn't have felt it possible to act on it."
James said nothing.
"As a matter of fact," his son went on, "if it had been anyone but my mother I shouldn't have thought much of that. We don't treat our work people as our social equals for the best of reasons. They aren't. And they wouldn't understand it if we did. I've very little doubt that Wilson meant to get Black into trouble for dismissing her."
James stirred—why hadn't he thought of that?
"But as it is I think we had better do nothing. We don't want to make my mother feel that she has been forced into an act she considers cruel, or even dishonourable. After all she has no experience of these people; she doesn't understand that the standards of cultured society don't apply to them. And really, it won't make much practical difference. We've only got to keep an eye on Black. If she's up to anything we shall soon catch her out. After all, Wilson's story isn't to be relied on there more than anywhere else!"
"But this isn't a question of Wilson's story, your mother saw the girl's home for herself!"
"Oh, well, as I've said, it needn't make any difference. I'll tell Forbes that he must give special attention to C. L. I don't think there can be anything much wrong. The returns are all right!"
James conceded the point. "Very well, very well," he said in a tone of dismissal, for he did not wish to prolong a disagreeable encounter. He wanted to tell Trent that he despised him for his manners, his morals, and his point of view, but his own manners would not let him. Moreover, in a sort of way, Trent had got him out of a difficulty. What he had said about Black was perfectly true, and it would be a relief, for once, to give way to Mary. When Mary considered a matter a point of honour she was as tenacious as he would have been himself.
Nevertheless it was an unpleasant business. As he sat thinking in his chair, after Trent had left the room, he realised how very unpleasant it was. Trent had lectured him in that damned superior way that roused all James's worst feelings, James himself had lost his temper, and Mary was probably sitting up there telling herself that her husband was a monster. And the thing that was to solve it all was Trent's assumption that the working classes weren't fit to lick his boots. James knew better. When he first went to his factory he had known a good many of his workmen intimately. They had their code of honour—James felt at this moment that it was as good a code as young Master Trent's, any day—and he had always flattered himself that they knew him for a man of honour, too. But this wasn't a matter of dealing as one man to another. For one thing Black was a woman, and though one does one's best to be generous to women it is not possible always to be square with them. But what was really the main point was that James was hardly, in this, a private man. He represented the business, the prosperity of the business. And the business had the right to demand honesty from all its employees, and constant, unswerving efforts from him to secure their honesty. Mary and Trent didn't seem to see that there was a principle involved. Mary was unable to look beyond the softness of her own heart—nobody expected Mary to understand business life, but she might have trusted him—and Trent thought nothing mattered as long as Black was found out before long. Meanwhile what of the impression in the minds of all the people who knew that the firm was being hoodwinked? No, no, what they ought to have had was a thorough inquiry, and then have shown mercy to the culprits afterwards.
This was only one trouble, but for all he knew it might be the first of a series. His faith in Mary's judgment was shaken. She ought to have realised that this was a matter for him. Perhaps after all his hands would be strengthened by following out a scheme that had been in his mind for some time, and turning the business into a public company. One is in a very satisfactory position when one represents not merely one's own opinions but the all-powerful interests of one's shareholders.
He was considering this plan with a fresh interest when he was interrupted by the dressing-bell.