We speak of our individuality as if such a thing really existed--as
if we were actually ourselves, forgetting that we are but the sum of
various qualities belonging to ancestors, most of whom are dead and gone
and forgotten. The shrewd business-man in the City imagines that his
keen instincts are all his own; he does not recognize the fact that
those admirable attributes which enable him to form a joint-stock
company helped an ancestor in the Middle Ages to loot a town, or a
highwayman of a later day to relieve a fellow-subject of a full purse on
an empty heath.
Edna Sartwell possessed one visible, undeniable, easily recognized token
of heredity: she had her father’s eyes, but softened and luminous and
disturbingly beautiful--eyes to haunt a man’s dreams. They had none
of the searching rapier-like incisiveness that made her father’s eyes
weapons of offence and defence; but they were his, nevertheless, with a
kindly womanly difference, and in that difference lived again the dead
mother.
“Edna,” said her father, when they were alone, “you must not come to
this office again.”
There was more sharpness in his tone than he was accustomed to use
toward his daughter, and she looked up at him quickly.
“Have I interrupted an important conference?” she asked. “What did the
young man want, father?”
“He wanted something I was unable to grant.”
“Oh, I am so sorry! He did appear disappointed. Was it a situation?”
“Something of the sort.”
“And why couldn’t you give it to him? Wasn’t he worthy?”
“No, no. No, no!”
“He seemed to me to have such a good face--honest and straightforward.”
“Good gracious! child, what do you know about faces? Do not interfere
in business matters; you don’t understand them. Don’t chatter, chatter,
chatter. One woman who does that is enough in a family--all a man can
stand.”
The daughter became silent; the father pigeonholed some papers, took
them out again, rearranged them, and placed them back. He was regaining
control over himself. He glanced at his daughter, and saw tears in her
eyes.
“There, there, Edna,” he said. “It is all right. I’m a little worried
to-night, that’s all. I’m afraid there’s going to be trouble with the
men. It is a difficult situation, and I have to deal with it alone. A
strike seems inevitable, and one never can tell where it will end.”
“And is he one of the strikers? It seems impossible.”
A look of annoyance swept over her father’s face.
“He? Why the----Edna, you return to a subject with all the persistency
of a woman. Yes. He will doubtless go on strike to-morrow with all
the rest of the fools. He is a workman, if you want to know; and
furthermore, he is going on strike when he doesn’t believe in it--going
merely because the others go. He admitted it to me shortly before you
came in. So you see how much you are able to read in a man’s face.”
“I shouldn’t have thought it,” said the girl, with a sigh. “Perhaps if
you had given him what he wanted he would not go on strike.”
“Oh, now you are making him out worse than even I think him. I don’t
imagine he is bribable, you know.”
“Would that be bribery?”
“Suspiciously like it; but he can strike or not as he wishes--one more
or less doesn’t matter to me. I hope, if they go, they will go in
a body; a few remaining would only complicate things. Now that you
understand all about the situation, are you satisfied? It isn’t every
woman I would discuss it with, you know, so you ought to be flattered.”
Sartwell was his own man once more, and he was mentally resolving not to
be thrown off the centre again.
“Yes, father, and thank you,” said the girl. “The cab is waiting,”
she added, more to let him know that so far as she was concerned the
discussion was ended, than to impart the information conveyed in her
words.
“Let it wait. That’s what cabs are for. The cabby usually likes it
better than hurrying. Sit down a moment, Edna; I’ll be ready presently.”
The girl sat down beside her father’s table. Usually Mr. Sartwell
preferred his desk to his table, for the desk was tall where a man
stands when he writes. This desk had three compartments, with a lid to
each. These were always locked, and Sartwell’s clerks had keys to two
of them. The third was supposed to contain the manager’s most private
papers, as no one but himself ever saw the inside of it. The lid locked
automatically when it was shut, and the small key that opened it dangled
at Sartwell’s watch-chain.
Edna watched her father as he unlocked one after another of the
compartments and apparently rearranged his papers. There was always
about his actions a certain well-defined purpose, but the girl could not
help noticing that now he appeared irresolute and wavering. He seemed to
be marking time rather than making progress with any definite work. She
wondered if the coming strike was worrying him more than he had been
willing to admit. She wished to help, but knew that nothing would be
more acceptable to him than simply leaving him alone. She also knew that
when her father said he would be ready to go home with her at a certain
hour he usually was ready when that hour came. Why, then, did he delay
his departure?
At last Sartwell closed down the lid of one desk and locked it as if he
were shutting in his wavering purpose, then he placed the key from his
watch-guard in the third lock and threw back the cover. An electric
light dangling by a cord from the ceiling, threw down into the desk rays
reflected by a circular opal shade that covered the lamp. The manager
gazed for a few moments into the desk, then turning to his daughter,
said:
“Edna, you startled me when you came in tonight.”
“I am very sorry, father. Didn’t you expect me?”
“Yes, but not at that moment, as it happened. You are growing very like
your mother, my girl.”
There was a pause, Edna not knowing what to say. Her father seldom spoke
of his dead wife, and Edna could not remember her mother.
“Somehow I did not realize until to-night--that you were growing up. You
have always been my baby to me. Then--suddenly--you came in. Edna, she
was only four years older than you when she died. You see, my dear,
although I grow older, she always remains young--but I sometimes think
that the young man who was her husband is dead too, for there is not
much likeness to him in me.”
Sartwell had been drumming lightly with his fingers on the desk top as
he spoke; now he reached up and turned off the electric light as if
its brilliancy troubled him. The lamp in the centre of the room was
sufficient, and it left him in the shadow.
“I suppose there comes a time in the life of every father, when he
learns, with something of a shock, that the little girl who has been
playing about his knee is a young woman. It is like when a man hears
himself alluded to as old for the first time. I well remember how it
made me catch my breath when I first heard myself spoken of as an old
man.”
“But you are not old,” cried the girl, with a little indignant half sob
in her voice. She wished to go to her father and put her arms around his
neck, but she felt intuitively that he desired her to stay where she was
until he finished what he had to say.
“I am getting on in that direction. None of us grows younger, but the
dead. I suppose a daughter is as blind to her father’s growing old,
as he to her advancing womanhood. But we won’t talk of my age. We are
welcoming the coming, rather than speeding the going, to-night. You and
I, Edna, must realize that we, in a measure, begin life on a new line
with each other. We are both grown-up people. When your mother was a
little older than you are, I had her portrait painted. She laughed at
me and called me extravagant. You see, we were really very poor, and
she thought, poor girl, that a portrait of herself was not exactly a
necessity. I have thought since that it was the one necessary thing I
ever bought. I had it copied, when I got richer, by a noted painter, who
did it more as a favour to me than for the money, for painters do not
care to copy other men’s work. Curiously enough he made a more striking
likeness of her than the original was. Come here, my girl.”
Edna sprang to her father’s side and rested her hand lightly on his
shoulder. Sartwell turned on the electric light. At the bottom of the
desk lay a large portrait of a most beautiful woman. The light shone
down on the face, and the fine eyes looked smilingly up at them.
“That was your mother, Edna,” said the father, almost in a whisper,
speaking with difficulty.
The girl was crying softly, trying not to let her father know it. Her
hand stole from the shoulder next her to the other, his hand caressed
her fair hair.
“Poor father!” she said, trying to speak bravely.
“How lonely you must have been. I seem to--to understand things--that I
didn’t before--as if I had suddenly grown old.”
They looked at the picture for some time together in silence, then she
said:
“Why did you never show me the portrait before?”
“Well, my dear, it was here and not at the house, and when you were a
small girl, you did not come to the office, you know. Then, you
see, your stepmother had the responsibility of bringing you
up--and--and--somehow I thought it wouldn’t be giving her a fair chance.
The world is rather hard on stepmothers.” He hurriedly closed the desk.
“Come, come,” he cried, brusquely, “this won’t do, you know, Edna.
But this is what I want to say. I want you to remember--to understand
rather--that you and I are, as it were, alone in the world; there is a
bond between us in that, as well as in the fact that we are father and
daughter. I want you always to feel that I am your best friend, and
there must never come any misunderstanding between us.”
“There never could, father,” said the girl, solemnly.
“That’s right, that’s right. Now if anything should happen to trouble
you, I want you to come to me and tell me all about it. I wish there to
be complete confidence between us. If anything perplexes you, tell me;
if it is trivial I want to know, and if it is serious I want to know.
Sometimes an apparently trivial problem is really a serious one, and
vice-versa; and remember, it is almost as important to classify your
problem as to solve it. That’s where I can help you; for even if I could
not disentangle the skein, I could perhaps show you that it was not
worth unravelling.”
The girl regarded her father earnestly while he spoke, and then, as if
to show that woman’s intuition will touch the spot around which a man’s
reason is elaborately circling, she startled him by saying:
“Father, something has happened concerning me, that has made you anxious
on my account. What is it? I think I should know. Has my step-mother
been saying----”
“No no, my child, your step-mother has been saying nothing about you.
And if she had I would not--that is, I would have given it my best
attention, and would have no hesitation in letting you know what it was.
You mustn’t jump at conclusions; perhaps I am talking with unnecessary
seriousness; all I wish to impress upon you is that although I am
seemingly absorbed in business, you are much more important to me than
anything else--that, in fact, since your mother died, you are the
only person who has been of real importance to me, and so if you
want anything, let me know--a new frock, for instance, of exceptional
expensiveness. I think you will find that where your happiness is
concerned, I shall not allow any prejudices of mine to stand in the
way.”
The girl looked up at her father with a smile.
“I don’t think my happiness will be endangered for lack of a new gown,”
she said.
“Well, dress is very important, Edna, we mustn’t forget that; though
I merely instanced dress for fear you would take me too seriously.
And now, my girl, let us get home. This is our last conference in this
office, you know, and there has somehow entered into it the solemnity
that pertains to all things done for the last time. Now if you are
ready, I am.”
“Not quite, father. You see, I like this office--I always did,--and
now--after to-night--it will always seem sacred to me. All this talk has
been about an insignificant person and her clothes--but what impresses
me, father, is how much alone you have been nearly all your life. I
never realized that before. Now after this you must talk over your
business with me; I may not be able to help, at first, but later on, who
can tell? Then it will flatter me by making me think our compact is not
one-sided. Is it a bargain, father?”
“It is a bargain, Edna.”
The father drew the daughter towards him and the bargain was sealed. He
turned out the lights, and they hurried down the stair to the slumbering
cabman. The fog had reached down almost to the top of his head.
“Waterloo Station, Main Line,” cried Sartwell, sharply.
“Yessir,” said the cabby, exceedingly wide awake, as he gathered up the
reins. The porter opened the gates.
“Everything all right, Perkins?”
“All right, sir,” answered the porter, touching his cap.
“Keep a sharp look-out, you know.”
“Yes, sir.”
The rapidly lessening rattle of the hansom down the narrow street came
back to Perkins as he closed the big gates for the night.