But at last the crash came. To pay for the new things which Mrs Griffith
felt needful to preserve her dignity, she had drawn on her husband's
savings in the bank; and he had been drawing on them himself for the
last four years without his wife's knowledge. For, as his business
declined, he had been afraid to give her less money than usual, and
every week had made up the sum by taking something out of the bank.
George only earned a pound a week--he had been made clerk to a coal
merchant by his mother, who thought that more genteel than
carpentering--and after his marriage he had constantly borrowed from his
parents. At last Mrs Griffith learnt to her dismay that their savings
had come to an end completely. She had a talk with her husband, and
found out that he was earning almost nothing. He talked of sending his
only remaining workman away and moving into a smaller place. If he kept
his one or two old customers, they might just manage to make both ends
meet.
Mrs Griffith was burning with anger. She looked at her husband, sitting
in front of her with his helpless look.
'You fool!' she said.
She thought of herself coming down in the world, living in a pokey
little house away from the High Street, unable to buy new dresses,
unnoticed by the chief people of Blackstable--she who had always held up
her head with the best of them!
George and Edith came in, and she told them, hurling contemptuous
sarcasms at her husband. He sat looking at them with his pained, unhappy
eyes, while they stared back at him as if he were some despicable,
noxious beast.
'But why didn't you say how things were going before, father?' George
asked him.
He shrugged his shoulders.
'I didn't like to,' he said hoarsely; those cold, angry eyes crushed
him; he felt the stupid, useless fool he saw they thought him.
'I don't know what's to be done,' said George.
His wife looked at old Griffith with her hard, grey eyes; the sharpness
of her features, the firm, clear complexion, with all softness blown out
of it by the east winds, expressed the coldest resolution.
'Father must get Daisy to help; she's got lots of money. She may do it
for him.'
Old Griffith broke suddenly out of his apathy.
'I'd sooner go to the workhouse; I'll never touch a penny of hers!'
'Now then, father,' said Mrs Griffith, quickly understanding, 'you drop
that, you'll have to.'
George at the same time got pen and paper and put them before the old
man. They stood round him angrily. He stared at the paper; a look of
horror came over his face.
'Go on! don't be a fool!' said his wife. She dipped the pen in the ink
and handed it to him.
Edith's steel-grey eyes were fixed on him, coldly compelling.
'Dear Daisy,' she began.
'Father always used to call her Daisy darling,' said George; 'he'd
better put that so as to bring back old times.'
They talked of him strangely, as if he were absent or had not ears to
hear.
'Very well,' replied Edith, and she began again; the old man wrote
bewilderedly, as if he were asleep. 'DAISY DARLING,-- ... Forgive me!...
I have been hard and cruel towards you.... On my knees I beg your
forgiveness.... The business has gone wrong ... and I am ruined.... If
you don't help me ... we shall have the brokers in ... and have to go
to the workhouse.... For God's sake ... have mercy on me! You can't let
me starve.... I know I have sinned towards you.--Your broken-hearted ...
FATHER.'
She read through the letter. 'I think that'll do; now the envelope,' and
she dictated the address.
When it was finished, Griffith looked at them with loathing, absolute
loathing--but they paid no more attention to him. They arranged to send
a telegram first, in case she should not open the letter,--
'_Letter coming; for God's sake open! In great distress._--FATHER.'
George went out immediately to send the wire and post the letter.