THE NEW YELLOW.
All that night, after saying her prayers--in which she remembered Mr.
Werner and his wife, and all other people who were in sore
distress--Mrs. Mortomley lay awake, a strange sense of trouble
oppressing her.
It was like the old bad times come back again; it was a return of the
later evil days at Homewood, to lie in the semi-darkness of the summer
night and think of Mr. Werner ruined, Mr. Werner beggared.
How would his wife bear it? Dolly knew her friend pretty well, yet she
could not answer this question to her own satisfaction. Mrs. Werner was
a noble, generous-hearted, unselfish woman, and yet Dolly comprehended
in some vague, instinctive sort of way that wealth and position and
social consideration were very dear to this fresh bankrupt's wife.
There are some people who do not much care whether they walk or drive
through the world's thoroughfares; indeed, there are those who, given
the choice, would prefer to walk. Now Mrs. Werner's mind was not so
ill-regulated an one as all this comes to. Most emphatically she liked
her carriages and horses and servants, and all the luxuries money can
purchase. She had married for these things, as Mrs. Mortomley understood
perfectly, and Dolly did not think--no, she did not, that Leonora would
be satisfied to relinquish them.
Further, Mr. Werner had always set himself up as such a model of
business capacity and business prudence, that he really had no right to
fall into difficulties; certainly not to continue to flounder through
difficulties as, according to his own confession, had been the case for
years.
He had been living a lie, just one of the things Dolly knew his wife
would find it most difficult to forgive. Had he told her duty demanded
the sacrifice, she might--Mrs. Mortomley understood--have agreed to live
in a house at twenty pounds a year, and wear print dresses, and be
extremely strict about the tea and sugar, but she could not have done
this with a good grace.
Nevertheless, Dolly believed she could have borne that better than the
consciousness that the rich raiment she purchased, the luxurious dinner
she provided, the rare wines they drank, had been paid for by a man all
the time virtually bankrupt--a man keeping up an appearance so as to
obtain fresh credit, and defer the striking of that hour of reckoning
which could now be deferred no longer.
Mrs. Mortomley loved Mrs. Werner, and she did not love Mr. Werner, yet
certainly her sympathies were that night with the man rather than with
the woman.
One's affections are not perhaps strong for the naughty boy who is
always persecuting one's cat, and stoning one's dog, and slaying one's
chickens, or stealing one's fruit, and yet, when the wicked little
wretch comes to grief and goes home with a battered face and cut shins,
one's heart is more one with him than with the strong-minded mother, a
strict disciplinarian, who we know will lecture or beat him for his
sins, as the case may be.
I do not say it is right, for I cannot think it is, that our sympathies
should generally be with the evil-doer, but it is very difficult not to
feel sorry for the man who, being down, is struck his bitterest blow by
those of his own household; and Dolly--well, Dolly did not think if she
were in Mr. Werner's shoes she would like to tell the unvarnished truth
to Leonora.
Upon the whole Dolly decided he was wise to go abroad, instead of
remaining to face the domestic difficulty. "He will write to her," she
thought, "tell her all, and she will be very indignant, and think about
honour and honesty, and all the rest of it; but she will not, if he is
wise, know where to address a letter to him at present. Then she will
grow anxious, both about him and the future of the children, and at the
end of six months I give her this parcel, when the whole affair is
settled and she need feel no scruples about taking the money, and then
she will feel touched to remember he thought of her, and then she will
relent and we will find out where he is; perhaps he may write now and
then to me, and she will go to him, or he will come back to her, my poor
dear Lenny!"
Having completed which pleasing programme of the Werners' future, Mrs.
Mortomley ought to have gone to sleep, but she could not do so, and
towards four o'clock she became so intolerant of her own wakefulness
that she rose and, stealing into the room where Lenore lay fast asleep,
dressed herself noiselessly and went downstairs, and, letting herself
out, walked across the road and along a footpath leading to the Lea,
which crossed the field in which stood the shed where she had
established her factory.
Not a likely-looking building, and yet it is in the least pretentious
factories that fortunes are made,--successes won; and Mrs. Mortomley
thanked God every time she looked across the meadow and beheld the
red-tiled roof which covered the "Hertfordshire Colour Works" that Lang
had so strenuously and--as it turned out--so wisely advised her to
establish.
The name of Mortomley had a certain power still, and, though the
business letters were signed in Dolly's scrawl, "D. Mortomley," people
did not stop to inquire whether it was an A or a D who was able to
supply them with the colours they required.
Neither was the new company worse thought of because they were able to
supply so very little. The public, always liable to be gulled, did not
attribute this to any paucity of means of production, but rather to the
extent of orders received by the "Hertfordshire Colour Company." Acting
under Lang's advice, Dolly had taken the business bull by the horns, and
the moment she had settled upon a residence, a neat circular informed
all the customers whose names Lang could recollect, or Dolly wring at
intervals out of her husband's intermittent memory, that future orders
intended for Mortomley and Co. should be addressed to Newham, Herts.
Further, she amazed Mr. Swanland by giving directions at the post-office
that all letters intended for her husband should be forwarded to that
address; and as no fewer than three other persons had applied for the
letters, each claiming a right in them, the post-office was somewhat
perplexed. First, Mr. Swanland, who, after Dolly had proved to him by
chapter and verse that he could claim no letters after the expiration of
three months from the meeting of creditors, was forced to strike his
flag; secondly, the Thames Street clerk, who had--being trusted by Mr.
Swanland--been opening the town letters and suppressing them during the
time when the accountant had a right to their possession, and who, so
far as I know, is opening and suppressing them to this day; and, third,
Hankins, who, being a modified sort of blackguard, made all right with
the postmen who delivered at Homewood by representing himself as Mr.
Mortomley's chief in absence, and forwarded some letters and retained
others.
Dolly never got a tithe of the letters; the battle was one beyond her
strength to fight, but it was a battle any accountant worth his salt
would have prevented ever being necessary.
Still, in spite of all, the Mortomleys were prospering. The business was
a very poor and a very small affair, but, after paying Lang, who was not
a cheap coadjutor, and deducting all expenses, Dolly, even in those
early days, felt she could safely take a pound a week out of the
returns; and, my dear readers, I can assure you that if you have ever
known what it is to look nothing a year in the face, you would be very
thankful indeed to be able to reckon upon fifty-two pounds as a
certainty.
And so Dolly regarded the red-tiled shed gratefully, and did her work in
it carefully, for still, as her husband's substitute, she had her work
to do. The special amount of water required, the final grains of the
special ingredient that shed a lustre over the Mortomley colours! hers
it was to add those trifles which ensured success. Had the manipulation
been confided to any other, the secret must have passed out of
Mortomley's keeping.
Was not she faithful to her trust! Lang himself never could tell when
the magic touch was given which illumined the colours they sent to
market. Sometimes in the twilight, sometimes when the moonbeams streamed
through the skylights, sometimes in the early, early morning, but always
in due and proper time, Dolly took her slight but all-important share of
the labour, and she did so on the morning after her interview with Mr.
Werner.
As she did so some faint idea that perhaps he might be able hereafter to
help her husband, and her husband help him, crossed her mind. She did
not like Mr. Werner, but she had a vague comprehension that he was
gifted with some business quality Mortomley lacked, while Mortomley had
capabilities a man such as Henry Werner might materially assist to
develop.
Already Dolly was beginning to experience that difficulty which always
arises when labour goes into partnership with capital. Very faithfully
she believed Lang was dealing with her, but he never seemed contented.
He never lost an opportunity of letting her know he considered if she
would only put full faith in him, the business might be quadrupled.
Jealousy, which is at the root of all strikes, had taken up its abode in
Mr. Lang's bosom, and though he tried to avoid giving expression to it,
still Mrs. Mortomley knew the fire was there and smouldering.
Like a bad general she kept conceding point after point to keep him in a
good humour, and the result was greater dissatisfaction; and less
confidence in her fairness of dealing, as week after week rolled by.
She raised his wages, for he had settled wages as a matter of course.
She gave him a larger share of the profits; she allowed him unlimited
control over the buying and selling; and still Mr. Lang thought himself
hardly done by.
He could not say openly he wanted Mrs. Mortomley to place the whole of
her husband's formulae at his discretion, but that was what he really did
want; and if he had dared to make the observation, he would have
remarked that no woman ought to know so much as Mrs. Mortomley had
managed to learn about the process of manufacturing colours.
It was impossible for Dolly not to feel anxious about that future time,
when her husband and Lang must come into collision, for she knew
perfectly well he ought to have some one on whom he could depend to
share the burden with him, and she did not for an instant believe he and
her present factotum would be able to stable their horses together, even
for a couple of months.
Therefore she could not help considering, that if, when the first
trouble and worry were over, Mr. Werner and her husband liked to try to
push their fortunes together, she should not feel at all sorry. Lang
might have a present of a few recipes, and go away to make a fortune of
his own, or he might remain and, under Mr. Werner's stricter
discipline, prove more content.
Thinking in a vague rambling sort of way of all these things, Dolly
walked slowly along the field-path, a little to the left of which stood
the shed, which seemed in her eyes fair as any palace. There was peace
in all directions. The fields whence the hay had been carried were
glittering with dew, and the cows were lying with the early sun shining
upon them, chewing the cud industriously.
At the end of the field flowed the Lea, and a boat was moored to the
bank, indicating, as Dolly imagined, the presence of some ardent angler,
though she could not discern his whereabouts.
Everything was quiet--so quiet that the stillness of the hour and the
scene seemed to lay a quieting hand on Dolly's heart, which was wont
sometimes to beat too rapidly and unevenly.
It seemed as if the world and its cares could not come to such a
place,--as if there were some virtue of repose in that country Eden
into which the serpent of strife and trouble could not enter.
And so with a light buoyant step Dolly left the main path and tripped
along that leading to the shed, styled in pretentious circulars, The
Hertfordshire Colour Works.
All at once she stood still, staring like one who did not believe the
evidence of her senses, for as she neared the door of the works it was
opened cautiously, and a man's face looked out as if reconnoitring.
At sight of Mrs. Mortomley the face was withdrawn, and the door closed
with a bang.
For a second Dolly hesitated, and something as like physical fear as she
had ever experienced seemed to hold her back. Though within sight of her
house, she was utterly unprotected.
There was not a creature within call. There was a man, who certainly had
no right on the premises, within the works, and Lang was not likely to
appear for another half-hour at any rate.
Nevertheless, after that second's pause Dolly went on. She pulled out
her key and put it in the lock, and found the key would not turn because
the lock had been set on the inside. "Open the door whoever you may be,"
she cried, but there came no answer, only a sound as of some moving
about, to which there succeeded a sudden stillness, then a smash of
glass, then a rattle of loosened tiles, and finally a man running off as
fast as his legs would take him in the direction of the Lea. He jumped
into the boat she had seen moored, unloosed his rope, and seizing his
oars was fifty yards distant before Mrs. Mortomley could reach the bank
of the river.
She retraced her steps to the shed, and sat down beside the door until
Lang should arrive.
When he did, his first comment on the affair was--
"You'll get yourself murdered one of these nights or mornings, ma'am,
coming out all alone with no soul to help you if any one had a mind to
do you harm."
"I shall have protection with me for the future," she said calmly.
"Now, what do you suppose that man was doing here?"
"He was after the Yellow," pronounced Mr. Lang solemnly. "There'll be
many a one after that now it has gone to market. There'll be people, I
know, who wouldn't mind standing five hundred pounds if they could only
buy our process. Like enough that fellow has burst open the drawer and
gone away with the receipt."
"I do not think that very likely, as I never leave a paper of any
importance in the drawer," Dolly answered.
"Well, if you carry that receipt about with you I should not care, if I
was in your place, about coming across these fields alone."
"Don't talk nonsense, Lang," was the reply, "but go and get a ladder and
open the door, and let us see what the man has really been doing."
When the door was opened, they found Lang's prophecy fulfilled. The
drawer was broken open and all the parcels it contained abstracted.
"I'll be bound the fellow has spoiled all our colours too," remarked Mr.
Lang, but in this he chanced to be mistaken. Their colours then in
process of making turned out as good as ever.
"I wouldn't for fifty pounds this had happened," remarked Lang.
"Nor I, for five times fifty," Mrs. Mortomley answered; and without
uttering another word, she walked slowly and thoughtfully back to Wood
Cottage.