As father and daughter approached Wimbledon a mutual silence came over
them. Perhaps this was because they had talked so much in the office.
When they passed the station gates, Sartwell said:
“We’ll have a cab, Edna, and blow the expense.”
“I don’t mind walking in the least; there is no fog here.”
“We’re late, so we’ll have a cab.” Once inside, he added, reflectively:
“I wonder why it is that a cab seems extravagance in Wimbledon and
economy in London.”
This apparently was a problem neither of them could solve, so nothing
more was said until the vehicle drew up at the door of a walled garden
in a quiet street near the breezy common. Sartwell put his key in the
door, held it open, and let his daughter pass in before him. A square
house stood about a hundred yards back from the street, surrounded
by shrubbery and flower-beds. The two walked somewhat gingerly up
the crunching gravel path, opened the front door, and entered a
dimly-lighted hall. Sartwell placed his hat on the rack, pushed open the
dining-room door and went in, this time preceding his daughter.
There were many comfortable chairs in the room, and one that was not
comfortable. On that chair sat a woman, tall and somewhat angular,
past the prime of life. She sat exceedingly upright, not allowing her
shoulders to rest against the chair back. On her face was a patient
expression of mitigated martyrdom, the expression of one who was badly
used by a callous world, but who is resolved not to allow its ill
treatment to interfere with her innate justice in dealing with her
fellows.
“I thought I heard a cab drive up and stop,” she said mildly, in the
tone of one who may be wrong and is willing to be corrected.
“You did,” said Sartwell, throwing himself down in an armchair. “Being
late, I took a cab from the station.”
“Oh!”
Much may be expressed by an apparently meaningless interjection. This
one signified that Mrs. Sartwell, while shocked at such an admission,
bowed to the inevitable, recognizing that she was mated with a man not
amenable to reason, and that, while she might say much on the influence
of unnecessary lavishness, she repressed herself, although she knew she
would have no credit for her magnanimity.
After a few moments of silence, during which Mrs. Sartwell critically
examined the sewing on which she was engaged, she looked across at her
husband, and said:
“I may ask, I suppose, if it was business kept you so late.”
“Important business.”
She sighed.
“It always is. I should know that by this time without asking. Some men
make business their god, although it will prove a god of clay to call
upon when the end comes. There is such a thing as duty as well as
business, and a man should have some little thought for his wife and his
home.”
This statement seemed so incontrovertible that Sartwell made no effort
to combat it. He sat there with his head thrown back, his eyes closed,
and his hands clasped supporting his knee. This attitude Mrs. Sartwell
always regarded as the last refuge of the scoffer--an attitude he would
be called upon to account for, as a sinner must account for evil deeds.
“Father has had more than usual to worry him at the office to-day,” said
Edna. She stood by the table, having removed her hat and gloves.
A look of mild surprise came over Mrs. Sart-well’s face. She turned her
head slowly around, and coldly scrutinized her step-daughter from head
to foot. She apparently became aware of her presence for the first time,
which may be explained by the fact that the young woman entered the room
behind her father.
“Edna,” said Mrs. Sartwell, “how often have I told you not to put your
hat and gloves on the diningroom table? There is a place for everything.
I am sure that when you visit your father’s office, which you are so
fond of doing, you find everything in its place, for he is at least
methodical. You certainly do not take your disorderly habits from him,
and everybody, except perhaps your father and yourself, admits that you
live in an orderly household. How did you get that stain on your frock?”
Edna looked quickly down at her skirt; the hansom wheel had, alas! left
its mark. Two-and-six an hour does not represent all the iniquities of a
hansom on a muddy day.
“You are my despair, Edna, with your carelessness, and no one knows how
it hurts me to say so. That frock you have had on only----”
“Edna,” cried her father, peremptorily, “are you hungry?”
“No, father.”
“Sure?”
“Quite sure. I am not in the least hungry.”
“Then go to bed.”
Edna came around the table to where her stepmother sat and kissed her on
the cheek.
“Good-night,” she said.
“Good-night, my poor child,” murmured Mrs. Sartwell, with a sigh.
The girl kissed her father, whispering as she did so, “I’m afraid I’m
your little girl again by the way you order me off to bed.”
“You will always be my little girl to me, my dear,” he said.
“Good-night.”
Mrs. Sartwell sighed again as Edna closed the door.
“I suppose,” she said, “you think it fair to me to speak in whispers to
Edna when I am in the room, or you wouldn’t do it. How you can expect
the child to have any respect for me when you allow her to whisper----”
“Is there anything to eat in the house?”
“You know there is always something to eat in the house.”
“Then will you ring, or shall I?”
“You can’t expect servants to sit up all night----”
“Very well; give me the keys and I will get something for myself.”
Mrs. Sartwell’s lips trembled as she folded her work methodically,
enclosing needle, thimble and various paraphernalia of sewing in the
bundle, placing it exactly where it should be in the workbasket. The
keys jingled at her waist as she rose.
“I am ready, and always have been, to get you what you want whenever
you want it. Perhaps I expect too much, but I think you might ask for it
civilly. If you treat your men as you do your wife, it’s no wonder they
strike.”
Sartwell made no reply, sitting there with his eyes closed until his
wife, with a quaver in her voice, told him his supper was ready. It was
a plentiful spread, with a choice of beer or spirits to drink; for one
of Sartwell’s weaknesses was the belief that to work well a man must
eat well. Although his wife did not believe in nor approve of this
pampering, she nevertheless provided well for him, for is not a woman
helpless in such a case? As the man of the house ate in silence,
she looked at him once or twice over her sewing, and finally said,
pathetically:
“I am sure Edna was hungry, but was afraid to say so, you were so gruff
with her. One would think that if you had no feeling for your wife, you
would have some for your only daughter.”
Sartwell cut another slice from the cold joint, and transferred it to
his plate.
“I am accustomed to it, I hope, by this time, but she is young and
nothing warps the character of the young like uncalled-for harshness and
unkindness. You are blind to her real faults, and then you are severe
when there is no occasion for severity. What had the child done that you
should order her off to bed in that fashion?”
There was a pause for a reply, but no reply came. Mrs. Sartwell was
accustomed to this, as she had said, for there is a brutality of silence
as well as a brutality of speech; so she scanned her adversary, as one
does who searches for a joint in the armor where the sword’s point will
enter. Then she took a firm grasp of the hilt, and pressed it gently
forward. Turning over her sewing, and sighing almost inaudibly to it,
she remarked, quietly:
“As I said to Mrs. Hope when she called----”
“Said to whom?” snapped Sartwell, turning round suddenly.
“Oh, I thought you were never interested in my callers. I suppose I am
allowed to have some private friends of my own. Still, if you wish me
to sit in the house all day alone, you have but to say so, and I will
obey.”
“Don’t talk nonsense, if you can help it. What was Mrs. Hope doing
here?”
“She was calling on me.”
“Quite so. I think I understand that much. What was her mission? What
particular fad was on this time?”
“I should think you would be ashamed to speak like that about your
employer’s wife, when she did your wife the honour to consult her----”
“About what? That is the point I want to get at.”
“About the strike.”
“Ah!” A glint of anger came into Sartwell’s eyes, and his wife looked at
him with some uneasiness.
“Mrs. Hope is a woman who goes about doing good. She is much interested
in the men at the ‘works,’ and thinks of calling on their wives and
families to see for herself how they live. She thinks perhaps something
may be done for them.”
“Does she?”
“Yes. She wonders if you are quite patient and tactful with them.”
“And came to find out? You told her, no doubt, that I studied tact from
you and was therefore all right as far as that was concerned.”
“I told her the truth,” cried Mrs. Sartwell, hotly.
“Which was----?”
“That you were an obstinate, domineering man who would brook no
opposition.”
“You hit the bull’s-eye for once. What did she say?”
“She said she hoped you considered the men’s helpless families.”
“And you answered that not having any consideration for my own, it was
not likely I would give much thought to the wives and families of the
men.”
“I didn’t say so, but I thought it.”
“Admirable self-restraint! Now look here, Sarah, you’re playing
with fire and haven’t the sense to know it. Mrs. Hope is a meddling,
hysterical fool, and----”
“You wouldn’t dare say that to your employer.”
“Now that remark shows that a woman of your calibre can live for years
with a man and not begin to understand him. The trouble is that I shall
say just that very thing to my employer, as you delight to call him, the
moment his wife puts her finger in the pie. Then what follows?”
“You will lose your situation.”
“Exactly. Or, to put it more truthfully, I resign--I walk out into the
street.”
“You surely would do nothing so foolish.”
“That follows instantly when I am compelled to give Mr. Hope my opinion
regarding his domestic relations. Then what will become of your income?
Will Mrs. Hope contribute, do you think? Do you aspire to a place on her
charity list? Whatever your opinion has been of me, privately held or
publicly expressed, you must admit that I have at least provided
money enough to keep the house going, and you have surely the sense
to appreciate that. You never could see an inch ahead of your nose, or
realize that effect follows cause as inevitably as fate. How a woman can
describe a man as obstinate and domineering, impatient of all
control, and then deliberately wag her tongue to bring about the very
interference that she must know, if she believes what she has said,
he will not stand, passes my comprehension. The result of your gossip
to-day may be that I shall be looking for another situation to-morrow.”
Mrs. Sartwell had been weeping during the latter part of this harangue.
“It is always me,” she sobbed, “that is to blame for everything wrong.
Your hasty ungovernable temper is never at fault. If you made me more of
a confidante in your affairs--other men consult their wives, better men
than you, and richer than you will ever be. Mrs. Hope says that her
husband----”
“I don’t want to hear any more about Mrs. Hope.”
“You insisted on talking about her. I didn’t want to say anything, but
you cross-questioned me till I had to, and now you blame me.”
“Very well, let it rest there. Bring me a jug of milk, if you please.”
“You are surely not going to drink milk after beer?”
“I claim the liberty of a British subject to drink any mortal thing I
choose to drink. Don’t let us have an argument about it.”
“But you won’t sleep a wink, John, if you do. It’s for your own good I
speak.”
“Everything is for my own good, Sarah; perhaps that’s what makes me so
impatient.”
“Well, you know how you are after a bad night.”
“Yes, yes. I think I have earned my bad night anyhow. Get the milk or
tell me where to get it.” Mrs. Sartwell always rose when her husband
offered to help himself from the larder. She placed the jug of milk at
his elbow.
“I’ve got a number of things to think over,” he said. “I want to be
alone.”
She stood by the table looking at him.
“Good-night, John,” she faltered at last.
“Good-night,” he answered.
She gazed at him reproachfully in silence, but he did not raise
his head, so turning at last with a deep sigh, she left him to his
meditations.
Sartwell sat there with deep anxiety on his brow. Silence fell on all
the house. At last the master roused himself and turned to the table.
He buttered two slices of bread and cut a piece of dainty cake, placing
them on a plate with a drinking glass. Lighting a candle and turning out
the gas, he set to himself the acrobatic feat of carrying plate, jug,
and candle. First he softly opened the door and kicked off his slippers.
Awkwardly laden, he mounted the stair with the stealthy tread of a
burglar, but in spite of his precautions the stairs creaked ominously in
the stillness. He noiselessly entered a room, and, placing the difficult
load on a table, softly closed the door. When the light shone on the
sleeping girl’s face she opened her eyes very wide, then covered them
with her hand, laughing a quiet, sleepy little laugh, and buried her
face in the white pillow.
“H--s--sh,” said her father.
Instantly she was wide awake.
“I was afraid you were hungry after all,” he whispered.
“I wasn’t then, really, but I am now a little.”
“That’s good.”
He placed a small round gypsy table near the bed and put the plate and
jug of milk upon it.
“You knew of course when I spoke, that--I merely wanted you to get a
long night’s rest. You were tired, you know.”
“Oh, I know that, father.”
“Then, good-night, my dear; perhaps it was foolish to wake you up, but
you will soon drop off asleep again.”
“In a minute, and this does look tempting. I just wanted a glass of
milk. It’s so good of you, father.”
She drew his head down and kissed him.
“I hope you’ll sleep well,” she added.
“I’ll be sure to.”
At the door he stopped; then after a moment, whispered cautiously:
“Edna, you’ll take the things down in the morning yourself, quietly. The
servants, you know--well, they don’t like extra trouble--sometimes.”
“Yes, father, I understand.”
Sartwell stole quietly out like a thief in the night.