Two years had passed, and the grand old shop was plainly going down.
It could not satisfy chance customers; it had begun to lose its
staunchest supporters. Gradually and fatally, cruel words were going
round the town and far out into the country villages. "It isn't what it
used to be.... It has had its day.... Nothing lasts forever."
Fewer and fewer carriages of the local gentry were to be seen standing
outside its doors. Farmers' wives, who for more than a decade had driven
into Mallingbridge and spent Saturday afternoons picking and choosing at
Thompson's, now did all their shopping somewhere else. The whole world
seemed to be discovering that you could get whatever you wanted quite as
well and more cheaply somewhere else. And from somewhere else, your
goods--no matter where you lived, whether far or near--were delivered
free of charge, with marvellous celerity, and "returnable if damaged."
Inside the sinking shop every assistant too well knew that horrid
expression, "Somewhere else."
It paralysed the tongues of the shop girls; it struck them stupid. Each
time they heard it, their courage waned, their hopes drooped; they gave
up struggling.
"Thank you, I won't trouble you any more."
"Not the least trouble, I assure you."
"No, you're very good--but I'm in a hurry. I'll try somewhere else."
"Very well, madam."
A lost customer--no more to be done.
Yet the assistants had before their eyes a fine example of unflagging
courage. Of one of the partners at least, it could not be said that
there was supineness, neglect, or bungling practices to account for the
long-continued and increasing depression that all the employees were
feeling so severely.
Of the other partner, the less said the better. They could not indeed
find words adequate for the expression of their opinions in regard to
_him_.
When Mrs. Marsden, bravely facing the situation and calmly acknowledging
the logic of facts, had declared that it was imperatively necessary to
reduce what in railway management are called running expenses, and at
all hazards bring expenditure and receipts again to a proper working
ratio, the dominant partner selfishly jumped at the idea, converted it
into a fresh weapon of destruction, and used it with wicked force.
Cut down the staff? Yes, this is a luminous notion. Where there have
been five assistants at a counter, let us have three--or only two. "We
must weed 'em out, Mears. No more cats than can catch mice! I'll soon
weed 'em out."
It seemed to the people behind the counters that he took a diabolical
pleasure in the weeding-out process. Instead of getting through his
dismissals as quickly as possible, he kept the poor souls in
suspense--giving the sack to two or three every day; so that these black
weeks were a reign of terror, during which one rose each morning with
the dreadful doubt whether one would survive till night.
When at last the executions ceased, almost every one of the important
heads had fallen. Why pay high wages for subordinate chieftains when the
over-lords can supervise for nothing? Mrs. Marsden received instructions
to keep an eye on all departments; shop-walkers were made by giving
counter-hands additional duties without additional pay; and Mr. Mears
and Miss Woolfrey could respectively be considered as remaining in
managerial charge of the whole ground floor and the whole first floor.
The gigantic basement was in charge of darkness, damp, and the cold
spirit of failure. Marsden never spoke of it himself, and might not be
reminded about it by others. He wished to forget the deep hole into
which he had poured so much irretrievable gold.
Miss Woolfrey could not boast of having been promoted: she had merely
survived: she obtained neither recompense nor praise for doing the extra
work that a stern master had pushed into her way. If Mr. Mears had not
been driven out into the street, it was because Marsden, whose selfish
folly was sometimes tempered by a certain shrewd cunning, had definitely
come to the conclusion that, bad as things were, they would be worse if
he deprived himself of the help of this faithful servant. Mears had
stood up to him; Mears had convinced him; Mears would never be
dismissed, because Mears could never be replaced.
It was perhaps some slight comfort to Mrs. Marsden to know now that her
oldest shop friend would be allowed to keep his promise, and to stick to
her as long as he cared to do so.
Soon after the reduction of the staff, Marsden introduced another
economy. Without warning he started an entirely new system of payment.
Hitherto all wages had been at fixed rates, with progressive rises; and
the staff, feeling security in their situations and able to look to an
assured future, had worked loyally without the stimulus of commission.
But Marsden said these methods were antiquated, exploded; they did very
well before Noah's flood, but they wouldn't do nowadays. Henceforth
everybody's screw must depend upon the commissions earned: in other
words, the basis for the calculation of wages must be the amount of the
shop's receipts.
Mears, protesting but submitting, carried the new order into effect.
"I've no objection on principle," said Mears heavily; "but you have
chosen a queer time to do it, sir--just when takings have dropped to
their lowest, and there's no movement in any line."
Resentment, murmuring, discontent followed; half a dozen sufferers went
into voluntary exile; then there was silence.
And then Marsden thought of a third economy. Thompson's had ever been
famed for keeping a generous table. You were sure of good sound grub,
and as much of it as you could stow away, to sustain you in your toil.
The kitchens and dining-rooms were controlled by a man and his wife,
with four cook-maids and three waitresses; and for many years these
people had given the utmost satisfaction, both to their employer and her
daily guests. Now Mr. Marsden swept the lot of them out of doors. He had
entered into an agreement with the cheap and nasty restaurant in High
Street; and henceforth the staff would be catered for at starvation
prices--so much, or rather so little, per head per meal.
This was a fresh and a great misery--short commons bang on top of
mutilated salaries,--almost more than one could bear.
Marsden, however, felt thoroughly pleased; and was willing to believe
that by the aid of his drastic remedies he had cured the evil which
afflicted him. For the end of each of these two years showed a
substantial profit.
It was quite useless for Mrs. Marsden and Mears to point out the dangers
that lay ahead, to hint that profits now were essentially fictitious, to
warn him that what he had grasped at as income should more properly be
described as realisation of capital, to sigh and shake their heads, and
to plead for prompt renewal of diminished stock. He was too well
contented with immediate results. To-day is to-day; to-morrow can take
care of itself. He had given the business another ferocious squeeze;
and, under the pressure, it had yielded what he wanted--some cash to
keep him going.
The turf was again engaging his attention; but he pursued his amusement
in a far less splendid manner than during those glorious days of fine
clothes and full pockets after the honey-moon.
His nose had thickened, his whole face had become coarser and grosser;
and flesh round his eyes showed an unhealthy puffiness, and his neck
bulged large above an often dirty collar. He wore a brown bowler hat, a
weather-proof overcoat, and heavy field boots; crumpled newspapers
protruded from his breast, and a glass in a soiled and battered leather
case was negligently slung over his shoulders. In fact he looked now
like the typical racing man of the third or fourth class; and directly
he reached London he mingled with and was lost in a crowd of exactly
similar ruffians, hurrying together to make a train-load of
disreputability and scoundrelism for Hurst Park or Kempton. But at
Mallingbridge he was always noticeable. He produced a wretched
impression in the shop each time that, dressed for sport, he passed
through it; he was its secret destroyer and its visible disgrace; his
mere appearance was sufficient to send thousands of customers somewhere
else.
While the cash lasted, the house saw little of him. As soon as the cash
gave out, the house again groaned under his presence. Till he could set
his hands on more cash, he must be lodged and boarded by the
stay-at-home partner.
Many were the dark and dismal days to be remembered, if his wife ever
made a retrospect of two years' suffering; humiliations,
griefs--darkness with but few gleams of light. Visits from Enid with the
child and her nurse--an hour rescued from a long month--formed spots of
brightness to look back at. But, for the rest, there was black gloom, as
of moonless, starless nights.
Perhaps his most malignant cruelty was the driving away of Yates. The
doomed wretch struggled so hard not to be torn from the side of her
beloved mistress. Mrs. Marsden knew that the struggle was futile, begged
her to go; but still she tried to stay--accepting insults and abuse, and
only piteously smiling at her persecutor.
A cruel, most cruel hour, when one evening the shabby old trunks stood
corded and waiting at the foot of the stairs, and Yates in her bonnet
and shawl came into the drawing-room to say good-bye. That was the final
smashing of a home, for the mistress as well as for the maid. All that
made the house endurable to Mrs. Marsden had now gone from it--no sound
of a friendly voice to welcome her as she came through the door of
communication; no solace after the exhausting day; a strange face to
meet her, unfamiliar, clumsy hands to wait upon her at the lonely
supper.
She never really learned to know the faces of her new servants. They
changed so often. No servant would stop with them for long. The work was
heavier than it used to be; after Yates had gone the mistress could not
afford to keep a maid-housekeeper; in these hard times a cook and a
housemaid must suffice for the establishment. Departing servants said
the mistress gave little trouble; she was patient and kind; they had no
fault to find with her--but the master was "a fair terror."
Yet he had promised, when consummating the sacrifice of Yates, that he
would refrain from again upsetting the domestic arrangements. But what
promises would he not make? What promise had he ever failed to break?
Once he promised not to parade his infidelity in Mallingbridge. This was
after the scandal he had caused by taking a set of bachelor rooms in the
new flats near the railway station, and bringing down a London woman to
occupy them from Saturdays to Mondays. Every Sunday he made himself
conspicuous by flaunting about the town with this brazen creature.
Probably he was tired of his Sabbath promenades by the time that Mrs.
Marsden resolutely declared that, for the sake of the business as well
as for her own sake, she would not support so glaring an outrage. Anyhow
he said it should cease, and swore that he would for the future be more
circumspect.
But he pretended to believe that his wife had given him a letter of
license, full authority to resume the habits of bachelorhood, the
freedom of manners that naturally accompanies a release from the closer
bonds of the marriage state. He had never for a moment thought she would
mind; but he vowed that what she was pleased to consider offensive and
derogatory to the reputation of herself and the shop should never occur
again.
Nevertheless, it was soon known to everybody but Mrs. Marsden that he
was committing more local breaches of etiquette. On idle evenings he
would prowl about the streets, accosting servant girls and shop girls,
loitering at corners, and laughing and chaffing with any little sluts
who consented to entertain his badinage. Sense of shame and the last
remembrances of shop-propriety seemed to be deserting him. Soon his own
young ladies met him talking to the girls that belonged to his great
trade rival. That tow-haired huzzy who regularly came mincing up St.
Saviour's Court to wait for the guv'nor, was--and the thing seemed so
monstrous that it was recorded in an awed whisper--neither more nor less
than _a ribbon girl from Bence's_!
Then, after a little while, the governor told Mears that he had engaged
a new hand for the upper floor. She would come in on Monday morning, and
Miss Woolfrey had better put her into China and Glass, and see how she
got on there. She was good at anything, and would soon pick up the hang
of everything.
But what a whisper ran round the shop when the newcomer was seen by the
horror-struck assistants! The tow-haired minx from over the road!
It was an open and egregious scandal, shocking everybody except the
unsuspecting female partner. The shop spoke of the new girl as "Miss
Bence." The governor was always trotting upstairs to murmur and chuckle
with Miss Bence. Someone saw him pinching Miss Bence's ear--and so on.
It was another outrage that could not be permitted to continue.
Sadly and heavily old Mears told Mrs. Marsden all about it.
The disclosure threw her into a quite unusual agitation. She seemed to
be more terrified than disgusted. It was as if, in spite of all attempts
to keep a bold front before the world, the mere name of their
remorseless and overwhelming rival now had power to set her
apprehensively trembling.
"I don't want any communications passing between Bence's and us"--And
she showed that this idea was sufficient in itself to frighten her. "The
girl may be a spy. She may go back there."
"She won't do that," said Mears. "She was dismissed for misconduct."
Mrs. Marsden seemed relieved rather than shocked by hearing this.
"Besides," added Mears, "Bence never takes anyone back."
"I don't want people passing backwards and forwards--on any pretext. We
mustn't allow communications.... Where is Mr. Marsden? I must speak to
Mr. Marsden."
There was a terrific scene behind the glass, with Marsden, his wife, and
Mears shut in together. Presently the cashier was summoned; books were
fetched; accounts were examined. That afternoon Mrs. Marsden went round
to the bank; and next day the tow-haired girl had disappeared.
In the evening Mr. Marsden left Mallingbridge. It was understood that he
had gone to Monte Carlo. He would not be back for a fortnight at least.
Mears had said that Bence never allowed a discharged servant to return
to him, and it was equally true that he never gave back a stolen
customer. Bence's was the "somewhere else" to which Thompson & Marsden's
customers had nearly all repaired; and of the dozens, the hundreds, who,
throwing off their old allegiance, crossed the road to the opposite
pavement, not one was ever seen again.
Evidently the claims of those two bad brothers had somehow been
satisfied. The leak was stopped; Bence had weathered the storm, and was
going full speed ahead.
If there was any truth in the last story of the desperate plight to
which he had been reduced, the crisis had long since passed and he had
emerged from his difficulties stronger than ever. If one could attach
any importance to the firm belief of that sagacious solicitor, Mr.
Prentice, Bence must have found the money necessary to save him. Either
he had discovered a backer, or he had never needed one. Who could say
what was true or false in this connection? Sometimes of course a very
little money boldly hazarded will decide the fate of the very largest
enterprise; but in the business world it is precisely at such times
that it is almost impossible to meet with anyone shrewd enough and
courageous enough to risk a small loan on the off chance of making a
splendid investment. Therefore Bence had been lucky, or had not really
wanted luck.
He was safe now--obviously, too obviously safe, with money behind him
and success before him. Employees at Thompson & Marsden's, with little
else to do, watched him arrive of a morning. His twelve-year-old
daughter drove him to business in a pretty basket car with a
high-stepping, long-tailed pony; a smart groom who had been waiting on
the pavement ascended the car in the place of the happy father, and Mr.
Archibald stood smiling and kissing the tips of his fingers as the car
drove away. It was a symbol of his greatness: a triumphal car. He
himself was neat and natty, perfumed and oiled, smelling of
success--with a flower in his coat, new wash-leather gloves on his
industrious hands and a shining topper upon his clever bald head.
On window-dressing days he was up and down the street half the morning.
He stood with his back to Thompson's, studying the glorious effect of
his displays; ran quickly from window to window, and made imperative
signs to those within. He put his head one side, twirled his moustaches,
rubbed his small face with a rapidly moving paw--and looked now like a
sleek, well-fed little rat who meant to nibble away all the cake that
the town of Mallingbridge could provide.
And the windows when done--who could resist them? Is it straw hats for
ladies? Do you wish one of the new fashionable Leghorns?... Two windows
have turned yellow; from ceiling to floor nothing but the finest straw;
here are more Leghorns than you would expect to see at a big London
warehouse, more than an ignorant person would have supposed that the
city of Leghorn could manufacture in a year.... See! Already his
Leghorns have caught the eye of the public; young women are bustling;
nursemaids with their perambulators have stopped--there is a block on
the pavement, and a constable has courteously requested people to keep
moving.
There again, the constable is busy outside another window. Do you wish a
blouse of the prevailing tint? Mauve blouses, nothing except mauve, all
blouses, a window full of them--hardly to be described as for sale,
almost literally to be given away.
On advertised bargain-days four policemen are required to regulate the
traffic; for Bence opens his doors and locks them--you must wait your
turn to get inside. But on all days there is more or less of a crowd
outside and inside the triumphant shop.
At eleven A.M. the first batch of red carts go whirling away, round the
town and far out on the country roads. This is what Bence calls his
mid-day delivery. There will be two more deliveries before the day is
done.
If the afternoon proves foggy and dull, there comes a tremendous
lightning flash along the extended frontage of Bence; and for a moment
you are blinded, as you look towards his windows. Bence has turned on
the electric. He makes no appointed hour for lighting up. He will have
light whenever he desires it. With his outside arcs and his inside
incandescents he makes a light strong enough to throw the shadows of
Thompson & Marsden's window columns straight backward across the floor,
even when their poor lamps are burning at their brightest.
And no longer can one say that all the goods of Bence are rubbish.
High-class expensive articles are mingled with the cheap trash; solidity
and lasting value have now a place in his programme; he caters for the
large country house as well as for the restricted villa; he invites
patronage from prince and peasant: it is his aim to be a universal
provider.
Truly it was an appalling competition; and if it was dangerous to so big
a rival as Thompson's, it was deadly to all the lesser powers. No small
shop could live beside Bence; and it seemed that he could kill even at a
considerable distance.
After the collapse of the sadler and the bookseller, their next-door
neighbour, the ironmonger, failed; and the shell of him Bence also
swallowed. The man now next to Bence was Mr. Bennett, the
old-established butcher; beyond him was Mr. Adcock, the dispensing
chemist, and beyond him there were the baker and the auctioneer. Then
came Mr. Newall, the greengrocer, whose shop faced the far corner of
Thompson's.
One morning the greengrocer did not take down his shutters. He had
flitted in the night.
"Well," said Mr. Mears, looking sadly at the shop, "it's fortunate it
isn't alongside of Bence, or I suppose he'd grab that too."
Next day workmen erected a hoarding outside the derelict shop. Soon the
boards were painted white, and curious saunterers lingered to read the
black-lettered notice.
"_These premises are being fitted, regardless of expense, in a
thoroughly up-to-date manner._
"_They will shortly be opened again._
"_But as what?_
"_Why, just what you want._"
"That's a catchpenny vulgar dodge," said Mears, "if ever I saw one."
"I wonder what it is to be," said Miss Woolfrey. "I guess sweetstuff. It
can't be a shooting-gallery. It isn't deep enough."
In a few weeks all knew what it was. Mr. Archibald himself came to see
the last boards of the hoarding removed, and to watch the first
customers troop into Bence's Fruit & Vegetable Market!
But for a gap of seventy feet made by four ancient traders, Bence now
faced Marsden & Thompson for its whole length from end to end. Bence was
irresistible, overpowering, deadly. The hearts of many people opposite
sank into their boots.