MARY'S household were relieved when they learned next morning that she
did not feel well enough to see anyone or to leave her bed. James hoped
that she was thinking things over and growing to see them in a more
reasonable light. Trent thought that all women are always the better for
a rest. The servants welcomed an interval between the excitements of the
wedding and the discipline of their mistress's eye. Mary herself was not
so pleased. To feel ill is in itself unpleasant, and though she was glad
that she need not yet resume the routine of her life she would have
liked to have something to think about. She tried to read books and
then, as books seemed uninteresting and were troublesome to hold, she
endeavoured to fix her mind on cheerful subjects. Giles was a splendid
boy--big for his age already and growing finely. Dear Laura was very
happy, and everybody said that her looks were improved. Rosemary had
looked lovely and was having beautiful weather--Mary's prejudice against
Anthony had lessened in the night. But these dutiful attempts did not
succeed. Her carefully chosen thoughts seemed to have no cohesion, no
persistence; they melted away, even when she repeated them aloud to make
them impressive, and left her with the nervous sense of fear that
heralded--she soon learned to recognise it--a return to the problem of
her relations with James. She did not want to consider them yet; it was
not fair, she told herself, to give scope to the pessimism that comes of
lying in bed, but even when she had made every allowance she could the
more she considered them the less hopeful they seemed. There was left to
her, now, no ground at all on which she and James could take a common
stand. There was no aspect of his life of which she could think with
pride or from which she could take comfort. James, however she looked at
him, was a failure, a sham.
She did not wish to pass judgment on James, to be unkind and
unforgiving. She would forgive as soon as she could, she would do her
best to make herself forgive. But it wasn't easy, she told herself, as
she moved uneasily under the bed-clothes, to forgive such a deception as
James had practised on her. It was not so much the actual lies he must
have told, the smiles, the affection, the attitude of candour he must
have assumed--what she resented was the false conception of himself that
he had forced on her. She realised now that she had not, in her heart,
forgiven him for the surrender she had already made. Believing herself
bound by the fact that she was James's wife she had put aside her
judgment and her conscience, she had renounced her wonderful adventure
into the world of fact, of knowledge, of ordered thought. She had shut
herself again into the narrow circle of her emotional life, she had
tried to live again, at second-hand, through Laura's feelings, James's
feelings, Rosemary's feelings. That James as a husband might remain
unblemished in goodness and wisdom she had resolved to know nothing of
James the public employer.
James for his part had not so much accepted her sacrifice as not noticed
it, and now it was wasted. She knew now what her husband's goodness and
wisdom were. He was neither honest, nor loyal, nor pure--he was a loose
man, stained, unscrupulous; a man--she told herself this because it made
her suffer--a man no better than the men who preyed on Florrie Wilson.
He had dishonoured the most sacred and intimate thing in her life. He
had given a strange woman the right to jeer at her, to despise her as a
wife who was not able to keep her husband. Even now, though she wasn't
likely to be a person who lived in her memories, James's mistress might
sometimes remember and laugh to herself. "He fell so easily," the
red-haired woman could say, "I hardly needed to hold out my hand!"
Perhaps she had felt sorry for Mary.
For a moment Mrs. Heyham lay rigid, holding this picture in her mind.
Then a dread of her own thoughts came so strongly upon her that she knew
she must get up, ill or well, and find a way to banish them. She would
send for Miss Percival, she told herself, and talk to her. She would
tell her that she did not mean to go on with the Holiday Home. Perhaps
Miss Percival would have something to talk about. She might have been
reading an interesting book. She would not tell Mary, at least, that she
looked as if she needed a change, or ask her whether she wasn't feeling
lonely.
After making her resolve Mary lay for a moment or two longer without
moving. She was certainly feeling tired, though she told herself now
that the matter went no deeper than feeling, and she wanted, before she
left the subject, to make one more effort to think kindly of James. But
the nearest that she could come to kindness was an absence of hatred, a
cold instead of a passionate disgust. She was not angry with him, she
shrank from the intimacy of anger, but she told herself that his
personality, his presence, must not affect her again. She would think of
him as an indifferent person, far from her life. There was a certain
relief in the conviction which came to her that this was possible. She
felt herself, in a queer, cold fashion, free of him.
She did get up after lunch, and just as she had finished dressing she
became aware of pleasing wails in her sitting-room. She opened the door
quickly and saw, before she was noticed, Miss Percival holding Giles
while Giles's nurse condescended to stand by. The secretary's face was
not as a rule expressive of passing emotions, but now for the second
time Mary saw it transfigured. Any girl can feel a sudden tenderness for
a kitten or a pretty baby, but it was not tenderness that had broken
down Miss Percival's smooth reserve. Mary could see that, but before she
could decide what emotion it was that had made this profound disturbance
the nurse had turned to her.
"I beg your pardon, ma'am, I didn't see you!" Mary smiled at her. "How
well baby looks, nurse! He is a credit to you. And how happy he seems
with Miss Percival. She must have had plenty of practice in holding
babies."
Miss Percival started, and while the nurse acknowledged with the air of
one who confers a favour that he did look happy, she came forward and
held the baby out to his grandmother. "He is a beautiful boy," she said,
in what Mary believed was not quite her normal voice.
Mary was glad to take Giles into her arms. He at least stood for the
future, for promise, for hope. There was no more blemish yet on his life
than on his charming little body. She bent over him and kissed the
sweet-smelling shawl that sheltered his ridiculous head. Giles seemed to
share her contentment, for when he had blinked at her once or twice he
went quietly and confidently to sleep.
The three women stood for a little looking down at him while the nurse
talked in a whisper of his strength, his beauty, and his
accomplishments. "I'm certain he knows his mother already," she said,
and Mary answered, "And you too, nurse, I expect he knows you, too!"
The nurse saw fit to confirm this expectation. "There have been times
when I've thought so," she assured them. "I've never seen a more
intelligent baby, and a boy too, girls are generally sharper than boys!"
"Yes," said Miss Percival, "one of life's false beginnings, a tragedy we
don't mind because it's always there."
Mary and the nurse both looked at her, Mary with surprise and the nurse
with disapproval. There was something, to the nurse's mind, very betwixt
and between about a secretary.
Mary, as there was nothing else that she wished to say, asked carelessly
what Miss Percival had meant. The nurse looked down at her cloak. She
would not, in Mary's place, have encouraged any future expression of
what might well turn out a deplorable opinion.
Miss Percival put her hands on the table behind her and leaned back on
them a little before she spoke. "Oh, I don't know," she said then, "but
most young women seem to me such spoiled thwarted things. Girls, if
they've had any sort of chance, are fine creatures. I think they may
seem hard from the outside, but in their hearts they long to be noble
and pure and spiritual, only, poor things, they don't know what nobility
and purity are."
She paused, but Mary, holding Giles a little closer, gave her a smile
that encouraged her to go on. "Well, we don't exactly tell them, do we?"
There was a freedom, a recklessness, about Miss Percival's choice of
words that struck Mary as unusual. "Because after all, they're here in
the world to please men, and most men wouldn't know what to do with a
really noble wife. So we lie to them, and tell them to mind their
manners, and our clear bright eager little girls learn to chatter at
tea-parties. I've watched it again and again. As they grow up something
seems to go out of them. The pressure is too strong I suppose. They
can't stand up against what's wanted of them." She stopped suddenly,
though the pitch of her voice had not suggested an ending.
This time Mary did not look up. Miss Percival's words had taken Mary
back, to the youth of her own daughters. Surely Rosemary had not been
spoiled! To-day Rosemary was Tony's wife--She stared at the baby without
seeing him.
Meanwhile the nurse too was considering the problem of girls. It was one
of the wise arrangements of Providence, the nurse felt, that most girls
did want to be good, else who'd help their mothers look after the house
and mind the younger children? If they turned, later on, into giggling
gawks whose thoughts ran on nothing but the men, Providence had surely
designed that too, or no girl with a good place and her self-respect
would be fool enough to marry. Still, in one way, now that it was put to
her, the muse could see that it was a pity. Life was very different when
you came to it from what you had thought it would be. The nurse could
have married where she pleased herself, for she was a kindly,
good-looking woman and she had saved. But she had not wished to run the
risk--a man might seem steady enough while he was courting, and when you
were married he'd take to drink or waste your money, or run after other
women. There wasn't, if you looked at it squarely, much good to be got
out of men, forever misbehaving themselves or pestering you for
something.
Then her thoughts went back to the great day of her life, the day on
which she had been confirmed. She had come home and knelt down by the
bed she shared with her sister in a passion of gratitude and devotion to
God. And when her mother had called her for tea, she had found that the
boys had drawn a vulgar picture on the back of the beautiful card she
had been given by the lady from the Church. Her mother had given the
boys a clout on the head, but they had called her a sneak and a dirty
mean beast and her day had been spoiled, and after that she had gone
into service.
At this point she remembered suddenly where she was. It was startling to
find that she had been so carried away, and the sense of surprise made
her feel a need for action. She stepped forward and told Mary,
decidedly, that she ought to be taking Baby home. As she went out she
looked curiously again at Miss Percival. Miss Percival was quite
right--women in this world have a poor time of it, especially when you
consider that men will be just as well off as their wives in the next,
but it wasn't for a paid dependant to say so.
Left alone, Mary and the paid dependant did not speak for a little. Then
Miss Percival turned to her employer with a movement of decision. "Mrs.
Heyham," she said, "I've been meaning for some time to tell you that I
think I ought to resign my position."
Mary was very much taken aback, "Oh, why, Miss Percival?"
Miss Percival did not seem to find a ready answer, and when at last she
spoke, it was with an unusual effect of hesitation. "I don't feel as if
I am serving any useful purpose," she brought out.
Mary sat down and asked her companion to take a seat. She did not feel
convinced, from Miss Percival's tone, that this was her real reason, and
she wanted to know what the real reason was. "I can't agree to lose you
in this light fashion," she said, "we must talk it over. As to a
purpose, you are earning your living!"
"Oh, but, Mrs. Heyham, I don't feel that I am," she was told. "I do
nothing."
"You do more than you think--in any case, won't you let me decide how
much you do?"
Miss Percival shook her head. "It's true," she admitted, "that I have to
earn my living, but I've always determined to earn it, if I possibly
could, by doing something useful. I came to you because I thought I
should hear about tea-shops and things from a new point of view, and
because Miss Heyham--Mrs. Hastings--said it was possible you might wish
to carry out some reforms. And now I think I have learned all that I
shall learn."
"And the reforms have come to nothing!" Mary finished for her.
"Well, there are plenty of people who could do the work for the Holiday
Home better than I should. You really need someone who is thoroughly
keen about it." Miss Percival spoke with a tinge of reluctance, as
though she were trying, by her frankness, to urge herself on.
Mary was aware by this time that she would be exceedingly sorry to lose
Miss Percival. She had grown fond of the capable young woman, and she
felt that at this moment she was more than ever in need of unromantic
capacity. Moreover--it had not occurred to her before--there was now no
reason why the question of the waitresses should not be treated on its
merits. It would be as well, she told herself bitterly, if somebody
gained something from the ruin of her happiness.
"As a matter of fact," she said, "I was going to tell you, when you
sprang this mine upon me, that you must prepare yourself for being
worked very hard. I am not going on with the Holiday Home, and I haven't
given up, though I know it looked as if I had, the matter of wages. If
you desert me now, Miss Percival, you will be deserting on the eve of a
serious engagement. I never wanted you more."
But Miss Percival still seemed doubtful. "There is another difficulty,"
she said, "but it's personal. I can't very well explain--" She looked at
Mary anxiously, as if she would like to say something but was afraid of
its reception.
Mary gathered that Miss Percival's mind was troubled. She leaned forward
kindly. "Tell me anything you care to if it's a difficulty," she said;
"we have worked together for more than a year now, and you ought to know
whether it's likely that I can help you!"
Miss Percival laughed, and Mary thought the laugh was strained.
"There'll be no question of your wanting to keep me when you've heard
what I've got to say," she said. Then she looked Mary in the face. "The
fact is, I came here for a definite purpose, and I'm going because I can
see that I have made you very unhappy. I came here to make you unhappy,
really, but not in this way. When your daughter told me what you wanted
me for I thought that here at last was a chance of getting something
done. I meant to open your eyes, to make you understand the connection
between your luxury and the sweating of those underpaid exhausted girls.
Of course, you might have been a fool or a coward, or a painted lady,
but I thought that if you were a decent woman you couldn't see these
girls suffer and fold your hands again and do nothing for them. So I
came, and when I saw you I knew it would be all right, so I stayed. But
now I can see you are ill, and terribly unhappy. I don't feel that I've
done wrong in edging you on. There was a chance that those girls of
yours might gain by it, and of course, so far as that goes, you rich
people deserve to be unhappy, but I can't stay and watch you!" She
jumped up from her chair, and went to the mantelpiece, where Mary could
not see her face. "Of course, I don't pretend that you wouldn't have
found out a good deal for yourself," she went on, as Mary said nothing,
"but I feel that I've stood at your elbow the whole time, underlining it
all and rubbing it in, never letting you miss things, and now I think
that perhaps I was the wrong person, and I've done it the wrong way. I
ought to have helped you more, and tried to think out with you what
ought to be done and how we could best set about it. But I left all that
to you. I haven't helped you at all. I told myself that I didn't want to
bias you, only to show you the truth. But it wasn't that really. I was
angry and I gave way to my feelings. I expect we could have persuaded
Mr. Heyham if I had made you take me into your confidence. But I
couldn't bear that you should manipulate him and be tactful with him. I
hated him, I wanted you to fight him, and hurt him, and get the better
of him. And of course he has won, and the person who has been hurt is
you."
Mary stared at her painfully, but she could only see the back of Miss
Percival's head. "Why do you hate my husband?" she asked.
Miss Percival's reply came slowly. "I don't hate him particularly. I
hate all men when they're powerful and using their power to be cruel to
women. And that's most of them--nearly always, whether they mean to or
not." She turned abruptly. Her face was white, and to Mary, attending to
her closely, it seemed strange. It must have owed its look of firm
intelligence, Mary felt, to some trick of self-control, for now that
this was broken by emotion Miss Percival looked crudely, pitiably young.
"I have tried not to feel like that," she was saying, "I don't want to
hate them. I know--I've told myself over and over again that hate is
ugly, and clumsy, and sterile! I've tried my best to tear myself free of
it, but I haven't ever succeeded. It only comes back again. I hate
them--I hate them from the bottom of my soul."
Mary looked at her almost with respect. There never had been in her own
muddled life, she felt, a passion as compelling as this. It was wrong,
it was deplorable, but it had the dignity of defiance and revolt. She
became conscious of a sympathetic excitement that was dispelling her
weariness, filling her again with the warmth of life. In the face of
Miss Percival's rebellion she could not be afraid any more that she
herself would lack courage to protest.
"You must have some reason," she suggested, "this sort of feeling does
not come of itself!"
Miss Percival shook her head. "I don't know how it came," she said,
"though I could find a hundred reasons--I can see a fresh reason in
every man I meet! When I look at their faces in the street, in a 'bus,
anywhere, their mean stupid faces--men who get their ideals out of the
halfpenny papers, men who think about money on an office stool all day,
and then go home and treat some woman as an inferior--I wonder that any
woman has ever loved a man. They're ugly, they're greedy, they're
coarse-minded!" She shuddered, and crossed her hands across the front of
her throat. "I hate them for everything," she said, "for their cruelty,
for their insolence--look what they've done! They've taken the whole
world and made it theirs; everything we have in it is only ours, now,
because they choose to give it to us. We haven't even a right to our own
children. And if we don't like what they give, if we loathe it, if we're
in anguish, they don't care. They're not interested in us, they don't
want to know what we are in ourselves, or what we think of our lives, it
saves them trouble to call us mysteries. They're our masters, and
they're strangers to us; they're our masters, and if we show that we are
unhappy, they're bored! To one another they're civilised people, but to
us to whom they've denied their civilisation they're savages,--arrogant,
intolerant, vain, angry with anything that disturbs their comfort."
She paused for a moment and let her hands fall to her sides. When she
spoke again, she spoke more slowly. "But what I hate them most for isn't
that--I despise them for what they are. I hate them most for what
they've made of us. We love them and their children, so we are at their
mercy. We have always tried to fulfil their plans for us, to be the kind
of women who would please them. And see what has pleased them--see what
they've praised in us! I don't mean working-women, but women whose
husbands can afford to have the kind of wife they like. Look at most of
us, narrow, uneducated, barbarous, trivial, content to let life go by
while we humour from day to day a man who looks down on women. If we've
an instinct for order and organisation we use it to see that the cook
keeps the kitchen clean, if we love beauty we embroider tea-cosies or
hunt in shops for pretty dresses, if we've more emotion in us than our
man has an appetite for we're allowed to work it off, sensibly and with
moderation, in a religion he doesn't take seriously. If we were like
that in our hearts it wouldn't matter, but we're not; in our hearts we
have pity and love and understanding. But men are more cunning than we
are, and stronger, and they've all the money--and they use the best that
is in us, our religion, our love, to degrade us-- Indeed it's time that
some of us hated men!" She stood trembling for a moment, then she turned
and laid her face against the cool marble of the mantelpiece.
Mary had meant, when the secretary stopped, to say something in protest.
What Miss Percival had said was exciting and courageous, but it wasn't
fair and it wasn't true. It is one's duty to be fair. But the tired
gesture with which so much anger came to an end, the droop of Miss
Percival's defiant head, made Mary forget her protest in compassion.
"Poor child," she said, "poor child!" and crossing the room she put her
arm round the secretary's shoulders.
The young woman did not move for a moment, then she yielded, and Mary
found herself soothing a passion of tears. She was surprised, but after
a minute she was not puzzled. If Miss Percival's emotional nature had
been so stirred by holding Giles it was because, in the past, she had
loved a baby. If she hated men it was because, in the past, some man had
been cruel to her. Probably her lover, the baby's father, had deserted
her. For some reason it did not occur to Mary that Miss Percival had
been more than essentially married.
She was wrong. When presently Miss Percival recovered her self-control
and moved back a little from the shelter of Mary's shoulder, she
explained. "I beg your pardon," she said first. "I have behaved
disgracefully. It was baby, I'm afraid. He seemed such a jolly little
creature on my arm--I have wanted one so, and I never had one. I am
married really, you know, only I don't live with my husband."
Mary did not feel angry with Miss Percival for having deceived her.
Instead she moved forward as if to comfort her again, but the secretary,
who was wiping her eyes, pretended not to see the outstretched hand.
"That was what made me bitter in the beginning, I suppose," she said.
"If men cared for anything but their own pleasure and freedom they would
not let people like my husband marry girls of eighteen." She checked a
final sob and crossed the room to the table where she had left her
gloves and her leather despatch case. Then she came back to Mary. "I
know of a very good secretary who wants a place, Mrs. Heyham," she said.
"She is a most capable woman, with every qualification."
Mary broke in on her. "But, Miss Percival, are you really sure that you
need go? I really meant it when I said that I never had needed you more.
And now that I know your real opinions it makes things so much simpler."
Miss Percival shook her head. "I'm afraid it's no use, Mrs. Heyham.
After what I've said to-day you wouldn't be able to trust me. You see, I
know myself that what I feel isn't just. I'm twisted--I can't be fair--I
take things too hardly. I'm afraid I'm no good really except for finding
out abuses and stirring people up. I hate shifts and compromises. No, I
must go back to investigation. Besides I've never worked for a private
employer before, and I don't like it. I can't go on taking wages from
Mr. Heyham that he wouldn't pay if he knew what I feel about him. Most
people can accommodate themselves to any abuse as soon as they know the
doer in private life. I can't--to me a big employer who sweats his
workers is just that. When one of the girls is ill and gets into trouble
I feel that he is directly responsible. I can't shrug my shoulders and
put it all on to the system. Please, will you let me go now? I'm sorry
I've made such an idiot of myself. Of course, I know I owe you a month's
wages in lieu of notice."
This brought Mary to her feet. "My dear Miss Percival--of course not!"
she said, and then she paused. What the secretary had said was true.
Mary could not feel comfortably sure of her again. One does not want a
secretary who indulges in outbursts of undisciplined hatred, however
sorrowful may be the past that has given rise to them. Besides, what
Miss Percival had said of James applied also, in some measure, to Mary.
Even if she had handed over her judgment to James she was still
responsible. "I'm afraid you're right," she said at last, "I suppose I
must let you go. I'm exceedingly sorry to lose you--I shall miss you
very much. You'll tell me, won't you, how you are getting on, and if I
want to engage a fresh secretary, I'll write for your friend's address."
She held out her hand.
Miss Percival shook it. "I'm sorry to go," she said. "You have been very
kind to me," then she turned away and went quickly out of the room.
Mary drew her chair nearer to the fire. She felt cold again now, and
confused and disappointed. She had hoped to find strength and support
from Miss Percival, and now Miss Percival was gone. She was gone, and
she had left Mary nothing but another picture of suffering and evil.
Mary did not know what Miss Percival's story had been, but to change her
as it had clearly changed her, it must, Mary felt, have been abominable.
There was something wrong about this question of men and women,
something twisted and wrong underneath the comforting appearance of
everyday social life. She had always known that there are wicked men and
terribly wicked women, but she had always thought of them as outside,
exceptional, far away. Now, everywhere she looked, she saw ugliness and
suffering and sin. She did not know why it was so, she was ignorant, and
she felt suddenly that she did not want, she could not bear, to know the
truth. It was morbid, horrible, far removed from the decency, the
kindliness, the order, of an honourable life. Why should she fill her
mind with thoughts like these, with suspicions, with guesses at vice and
ugliness?--it was only now, it seemed to her, that she realised how
odious, how degrading such thoughts were. She would never be able to get
back, she felt, to her normal dignity and sanity. Suddenly, though she
had not been thinking of him, she was swept by a wave of anger against
James. It was James, while he pretended to love her, who had dragged her
into all this!
At this moment her maid came into the room. "It's the master on the
telephone, ma'am," she said, "and he wants to know how you are. He rang
up this morning, ma'am, but I thought you were asleep."
Mary waited for a little before she answered. James was parading this
affection, she supposed, either to impress the servants, or because,
after all these years of deceit, he had grown into a mechanical habit of
gallantry. She told Penn to thank Mr. Heyham for his message and to say
that she was up and feeling better.
The door shut behind the woman and Mary was alone with her injury. That
very evening, she reminded herself, she would have to meet James. If he
was bent on maintaining a show of smooth appearances he would certainly
come to her even if she stopped in her room. But she had not decided
what she would say when she saw him or how she would behave. She had
changed--she knew that--and with this change they would both have to
reckon. The sum of her pain and grief was not merely an anger or a
disappointment, something had grown hard in her, she thought, which
before had been facile. But how, she wondered, was she to put her
feeling into words that would make it clear to James? To make James hear
she would have to say something in set terms, something definite,
something that she could repeat in the same words when he had finished
talking--she would have to stand up, she could see, to flood after flood
of talk. And she had nothing prepared and definite, nothing but her
sense of outrage, of detachment and loss. She could not face James and
say to him, "I see you with different eyes. My compliance towards you,
my happy acceptance of you, have gone!" That would mean nothing to a man
like James. And yet if she did not speak, if she let him even for one
evening impose his own attitude and take hers for granted, he would run
away with his advantage and refuse her, ever afterwards, a chance of
meeting him fairly. Now, he did not know what he had to expect from
her--to a certain extent he was open to what she might say--but once he
had made his assumptions no words of hers would ever penetrate them, and
something must penetrate. They could not live any more as they had
lived. She had given herself up to the old James, hidden herself in him
from her own conscience and from the world; now they were separate.
The clock struck, and its four strokes reminded her that Julius Trent,
her vagabond brother, was coming to see her. He had been in town for the
wedding, and had said that he would look her up early that afternoon. A
talk with Julius meant probably a talk about money, but Mary felt to-day
that to be in the presence of his affection was worth more than a little
money. She had always believed that Julius was fond of her, although he
was so very unlucky. Julius's work in life was to show other people how
they might manage their business more efficiently than they did, and as
far as his profession went, he told Mary, he didn't do so badly--it
wasn't that. Unfortunately his instinct, so just and true where the
affairs of others were concerned, could not be trusted to an equal
extent in his own. Whenever Julius backed a horse the horse
lost--pulled, Julius said--and whenever he promoted a company it went
bankrupt before his genius for efficiency had had a fair chance of
coming into play. In these circumstances he came to see Mary two or
three times a year, generally with some scheme in his pocket for
reorganising the Imperial which he offered her free, gratis, and for
nothing from her affectionate brother. In her heart Mary was deeply
attached to Julius.
He did not come, this afternoon, as early as she expected him, and when
he did come he seemed subdued and did not produce any scheme. "How are
you, my dear?" he said. "You're not looking up to much." And then,
having settled himself in a comfortable chair, he stared thoughtfully
into the fire.
"How is Milly?" Mary asked him. Milly was the lady to whom, Julius said,
he was engaged to be married. She acted in provincial companies and
while they were trying to save enough money to marry decently Julius in
the intervals of business followed her about the country. Mary had
offered once to call upon her when she was near London but Milly, it
appeared, was proud. She wasn't going to be called upon until she could
receive Mrs. Heyham in a house of her own--being a lady, really, the
conditions of provincial touring galled her.
Julius nodded. "Ah, yes, poor old Milly!" He looked, Mary thought, a
little nervous.
"I hope there's nothing the matter with Milly?" Mary asked. "I thought
she was getting on so well!"
Julius coughed and fidgeted in his chair. "Fact is," he said, "I've
something to ask you! Now, don't you start thinking it's money this
time, it isn't! No, poor old Milly and me are going to do it at last.
She's come into a little money and we're going to be married next
month!" He looked anxiously at his sister.
Mary hastened to congratulate him. "My dear Julius, what delightful
news! I am so pleased! What is it you want to ask me? Do you want to
marry her from here, perhaps? You know I'll be only too glad to do
anything I can!" It would not matter a bit now the girls were both
married, and James had decided long ago that any marriage would be
better for Julius than this trailing about. They both believed that
responsibility sobers a man.
He shook his head. "Thanks, old girl!" he said. "It isn't that. It's
rather difficult to explain. You see--well--now she's going to get
married Milly wants to make a break with it all. She doesn't want
everyone to know that she's been on the stage and we've been engaged all
these years. She says it makes it look as if we weren't getting on, and
it makes her feel old, do you see? So the idea is that we've only been
engaged since the spring, and her name isn't Milly, it's Esther. She's
dropping her old name; you see, it was sort of half a stage name. Well,
what I wanted to know was, could you play up to that? You can't think
how it would please her! She's rather a sensitive little woman you see,
and she can't bear being crossed. Just to call her Esther and to talk as
if we'd only met this spring--she'll tell you all about her father and
all that-- Of course I know it sounds ridiculous, but actresses you
know, well they have their whims and there you are!" His anxiety, by
this time, was unconcealed.
Mary laughed. "Why shouldn't I if it will make her happy? Of course I
will!" She felt herself very tolerant, very sympathetic towards people
who were hoping to be happy. Poor old Julius! If after all these years
he still wanted his Milly why shouldn't she help to make things easy for
him?
Julius breathed deeply, leaned back, and crossed his legs. "You always
were a bit of a brick, Mary!" he told her. "You can't think what a load
that's taken off my mind! Not that you're likely to meet Esther for a
bit; we're going to be married in Liverpool, and then we're off south
for the honeymoon. But I just thought I'd put it to you at once!" His
look was now as cheerful as his smile. It had been as a matter of fact
an awkward moment. Since he had first told his sister of his romantic
engagement to Milly Milns that lady's name had come in useful for
several young women who had replaced her in his affections although he
had never been engaged to them. Running up north or down west to see
Milly had been a delightful reason for not being always where one was
expected to be. Now that he was engaged again, this time in a
business-like fashion, to Miss Esther Moss, he would have dropped the
legend of Milly, if he had not, only six weeks before when there had
seemed no chance of the excellent Esther's yielding to him, accepted a
cheque from Mary to give poor little Milly a rest by the sea after a
serious illness. It was only fair to Mary, he thought, that she should
believe she was getting something for her money. Otherwise she might
feel that the rest by the sea had been wasted. That would be a pity, for
though Esther besides her charms had a satisfying income he had found
her, so far, the sort of woman who manages her own affairs. For that
matter he wasn't a man who would care to depend altogether on his wife.
"How is James getting on with the reconstruction of the business?" he
asked now. "He seems pretty cheery about it. I offered him my help--for
nothing, too--but he said he had got it all practically arranged!"
"The reconstruction?" Mary asked, puzzled by his change of subject.
Julius stared at her. "The reconstruction of the business--turning it
into a public company. You can't mean to say that he hasn't told you
yet."
Mary interrupted him. She didn't want Julius to think that James kept
her in the dark. "Oh, yes, of course he told me--I'm rather stupid about
these things--what does a reconstruction of that sort exactly mean,
Julius? What is it? What effect does it have?"
Julius grinned. "Well, it's a way of making money, that's what it is.
Suppose I have a business that's making twenty thousand a year and is
worth £250,000 and I want to make a little money out of it! Well, I
have articles written about it to say how good it is and puff it up a
bit, and I explain that if only I had £100,000 or so to extend it a
little it would soon be making forty thousand a year and it would be
worth £500,000. And with luck I get a lot of people to buy it from me
at that valuation, and give me a salary as well as managing director and
off I go and put the money into gilt-edged securities. And there I am
you see, very comfortable, nothing to do but keep the shareholders quiet
for a year or two until something turns up trumps. Not that James is the
sort of man to take them in," he added, determined to do the handsome
thing even though James had refused to make him a director of the new
company.
Mary thought this over for a moment. "You sell it for more than it's
worth," she said.
Her brother demurred. "For what I can get--perfectly square and
above-board--legitimate business. Of course it depends a lot on how the
shares are placed on the market. That's what I said to James when I saw
him the other day--" His face clouded a little at the memory of his
interview with James.
Mary hesitated, and then decided to get what information she could.
"What happens to the staff?" she asked, "to the employees, the people
like our waitresses?"
Julius shrugged his shoulders. "Out of the frying-pan into the fire,
poor devils. Must get dividends somehow. Depends a bit on whether the
shareholders are patient or not. Interests of the shareholders come
first, of course." He sighed. Nobody could hold sounder views than he.
James had been unreasonable about the directorship considering where the
money came from. There ought to have been one of the Trents on the
Board.
Mary considered this slowly. "If the capital is larger and the profits
are the same the dividends will be smaller," she said. "I see. So there
is a temptation to get it back out of the wages."
"You may call it a temptation if you like. There's nothing else to get
it out of, in a properly run business," her brother agreed. "Mind you,
those girls only spend their money on finery. If they were to save it
now for when they get married it would be another matter. Well, well,
it's a hard world!"
Mary turned the subject to Julius's plans for his wedding and for his
subsequent life with Esther.