The Partnership (16 page)

“Oh yes!” replied Annice in a tone of affectionate contempt. “He's
kind
all right. It isn't that.” She paused, and added with immense sincerity, shaking her head: “It's a pity Mr. Wilfred ever went away.”

Lydia jumped as though a red-hot needle had been driven through her nerves.

“What does that matter to you, Annice?” she gasped angrily.

Annice, in her usual jerky and inadequate style, began to tell her.

Lydia would remember, she said, the day of her wedding, when they all had that quarrel on the steps of Mr. Dyson's house. Lydia, with some bitterness, replied that she did. Well, explained Annice, it all began then. Mr. Dyson was furiously angry, so angry that he did himself an injury—a slight stroke it was, at least so the doctor said. Then on that day when he came to see Eric and Annice and the baby—Bertie, of course, she meant, not Dorothea—in Barnsley, he had another stroke.

“Another!” said Lydia. “How was that?”

Annice could hardly say. He didn't seem to like her mother's house much, she opined. There had come a knock at the door. She had been sitting by the fire feeding the baby, and Eric—who had just come in from his work and had his overalls on—was sitting beside her. Eric called out, “Come in!” and the door opened and Mr. Dyson appeared. They were so astounded that for a moment they could not speak, but sat silently looking at him, and Mr. Dyson muttered some sort of exclamation—he seemed angry—and then stumbled forward and sat down rather heavily in the rocking-chair. He looked ill, Annice thought, and seemed to breathe in a queer way; she wanted to make a cup of tea for him, but he would not hear of it. No! He wanted them to pack up and leave the house instantly. Instantly! He sent Eric out at once to fetch a taxi, and in less than an hour they were all driving away to the station. Eric had wanted to know how he had found them, and Mr. Dyson said: “From the notice in the paper, of course.” Eric had been puzzled, but Annice guessed that Mr. Mellor had sent it—Mr. Mellor was always so good—though she did not say so to her father-in-law. It was better not, especially as he looked so queer just then. In the train he kept looking at one hand, feeling at it, as it were, as though it were stiff or something; and he said to Eric: “I don't feel so well. I reckon I've had another
stroke.” Then Eric said: “Another?”—just as Lydia had done—and Mr. Dyson told them about the first one, and he finished up: “Yes, I reckon I've had another. Yon Annice of yours'll have to nurse me.”

Annice looked impressively at Lydia as she finished this part of her tale, and Lydia gave an exclamation of pity for her uncle. Since the departure of Wilfred she had demanded and received from Charles the full story of Dyson's early life, and she felt she understood his second illness only too well. The house of Annice's mother stood, doubtless, in a squalid little row; and the room in which Mr. Dyson discovered his favourite son in overalls was probably a stuffy, untidy little place such as he had known only too well in his youth—dirty plates and mugs probably stood chaotically on the coverless table, and an indeterminate swarm of Annice's brothers and sisters, no doubt, squalled and tumbled about the floor. That after all his efforts to raise himself out of that squalor his son—Fanny's son—should come to this, was shock enough to make Mr. Dyson's illness quite understandable. No wonder he was bitter against those whom he considered responsible for Eric's marriage!

“Did he say anything about Wilfred?” queried Lydia.

“Oh yes,” replied Annice in a tone of awe. “He went on about him terribly.”

“Well, go on,” Lydia urged her impatiently.

“Yon Annice of yours will have to nurse me,” Mr. Dyson had said, and so, of course, Annice
did
nurse him. He was not, she said, looking stolidly at Lydia, like Mr. Mellor, of course. (Lydia guessed that her uncle was an extremely bad patient.) But still he was very kind to Annice, and wonderfully fond of the children—would do anything for them. He often nursed Dorothea, for instance, while Annice was busy about the house.

“Is he still ill now?” said Lydia in surprise.

“Oh yes!” replied Annice, her surprise at Lydia's question equalling Lydia's at her answer. “He keeps getting worse, you know. And so,” she added in a tone of finality, as though she had now told the whole story, “he doesn't go to the mill much.”

By this time Charles and Louise had surmised that the two young women were not coming down again, and had decided to retire themselves. They could be heard mounting the stairs; then Louise opened the door of Lydia's room with infinite precaution and inquired in a gentle whisper if the visitors had everything they wanted. On receiving an affirmative reply Louise withdrew; in a moment her door closed, and Lydia and Annice were left alone to their confidences.

“He must be very trying for you,” said Lydia sympathetically, referring to her uncle.

Annice gave her a queer look, and explained that that wasn't the trouble—she didn't mind that. Averting her head, she then jerked out a
string of short and ill-formed sentences which brought before Lydia's alarmed eyes a vivid picture of growing financial stress. The doctor had kept Dyson at home for a time, during which Eric, of course, was in charge of the business. Then, even when Dyson returned to work, he did not seem to have quite the same grasp of it as formerly; he forgot things and made mistakes, and business tired him, and so by slow degrees Eric was left more and more often in charge, until now Mr. Dyson never went near the mill at all. Consequently, for the whole of the past three years, as you might say, continued Annice, Boothroyd Mills had lost money and lost money, until now there seemed to be nothing left to live on, somehow. The car and the housekeeper had long since departed; the woodwork of Boothroyd House was cracking for want of paint, and even the furniture somehow had got shabby. In some ways it was a good thing that Mr. Dyson lived mostly in his bedroom nowadays; but of course his doctor's bills made a heavy item. There was an overdraft at the bank, too, which worried Eric a good deal. He could hardly sleep at nights for it, and Annice was right down sorry for him.

“But why has Eric let it get like that?” demanded Lydia indignantly.

“
He
can't help it,” said Annice with complete tolerance. “Some people can't be good at business, however hard they try. Besides, there's been the slump.”

“And does Uncle Herbert know how bad it is?” inquired Lydia.

Annice shook her head.

“Well! this is terrible, Annice!” said Lydia, overwhelmed. “But what good can
we
do? Nothing that my father has is enough to be of any real use.”

“I thought you might write to Mr. Wilfred,” brought out Annice, so promptly that this was obviously the real motive of her visit.

“Write to Wilfred!” cried Lydia bitterly. “I can't—I don't know his address.”

“I do,” said Annice. Lydia stared at her, her cheeks crimsoning. “That is, I know the firm he's with in Dumfries,” pursued Annice. “A man who comes round to the mill told Eric—I think it was him who told Mr. Wilfred to go to Hawick, before.”

“Then why don't you write to him yourself?” demanded Lydia in a fury. “You or Eric. I've nothing to do with the affair. It's no concern of mine at all. What would be the good of writing to him, in any case?”

“He might come home and manage the business, before it's too late,” said Annice mildly. She rummaged about in the attaché-case and produced a crumpled piece of paper, which she held to the vague glow of the fire. “Yes, this is it,” she said. “I wrote it down.” She handed it to Lydia.

In spite of herself Lydia felt her heart beat fast as she bent to decipher Annice's large unformed scrawl.

“He might not be there now,” she muttered, reading the address.

“The man would have told us if he'd moved,” Annice reassured her. “He comes round regularly, you know.”

“But why doesn't Eric write himself?” persisted Lydia.

“Oh, Eric wouldn't write,” said Annice vaguely.

“Why not?” persisted Lydia again, arguing on principle against her own chance of happiness.

Annice sighed, as though daunted by the prospect of the explanation before her. Slowly and hesitatingly she then revealed to Lydia that Eric was jealous of Wilfred.

“Jealous!” cried Lydia, revolted. “How, pray?”

He always had been, Annice thought. Wilfred was so much cleverer in every way than Eric—at business, with the wireless, at all games, even at carving and little things like that. And Wilfred
managed
Eric. He
managed
him, she repeated.

“Well, it was for his own good,” said Lydia hotly.

Oh, of course; Annice admitted that. Annice had nothing but good to say of Mr. Wilfred—nothing. She had a great deal to be grateful to Mr. Wilfred for, and she knew it. But even that, you see—that was when Eric's jealousy had really begun. Mr. Wilfred was always praising Annice to Eric and urging him to marry her, and Eric was irritated; he didn't see why his love affairs should be managed for him as well
as everything else. Then, that day when there was the quarrel on the steps, Annice had spoken up for Wilfred to Mr. Dyson—perhaps Lydia would remember. And that seemed to make Eric really angry. He had grumbled about it for long enough afterwards. In fact, even now, when they had a bit of a row about something, he would throw it up at her. He never could keep anything to himself, couldn't Eric, or else Annice was sure he would never have told her what the man said about Wilfred's address. Then, too, Annice would have been glad enough—for Lydia's sake, she hinted—to bring Mr. Dyson round to liking Wilfred again. For instance, once when Mr. Dyson was in bed he wanted the wireless made longer so that he could hear it in his bedroom, and Eric couldn't do it, and Mr. Dyson had grumbled and grumbled, and Annice had seized the opportunity to put in a word or two for Mr. Wilfred, saying that
he
could have done it easy. Well! Unfortunately Mr. Dyson had “gone on” about what she said to Eric, and Eric, instead of backing her up, had turned on her and made a dreadful scene, almost crying, and saying all manner of things against Mr. Wilfred; and Mr. Dyson had sat by, listening and nodding his head, well pleased, with all his angry notions about his eldest son confirmed.

Lydia sighed. “I'm sorry to hear that, Annice,” she said in as disinterested a tone as she could command. “I hoped that in time those two would be friends again.”

“Oh! they'll never be that, Miss Lydia,” said Annice with conviction. “Mr. Dyson's got an idea in his head about Mr. Wilfred, and he'll never get it out again. At one time I used to say to him—whenever he seemed pleased, like, I used to say: ‘Well, father, you wouldn't have had me for a nurse if it hadn't been for Mr. Wilfred.' But he didn't seem to follow it somehow, and now the doctor says we aren't to excite him by mentioning it. You see, Mr. Dyson isn't like he used to be, Miss Lydia,” she concluded.

“How do you mean?” demanded Lydia.

Annice threw out a few details about Mr. Dyson's condition—his loss of weight, his troubled nights, his capricious appetite and confused speech—which brought before Lydia a vivid picture of a failing man.

“But if Eric is so against Wilfred,” she said dubiously, “what's the good of sending for him? Won't Eric resent it?”

“If it was you who sent for him,” Annice opined, “it would seem natural, you know.” She paused, and added: “He'd be glad enough of Wilfred at the mill, I dare say.”

A hot resentment flooded Lydia's heart. No doubt Eric
would
be glad enough to have his brother back, earning the Dysons' living for them, provided Eric were not required to sink his envious feelings and humble himself so far as to ask Wilfred to come. “I shan't write,” she said in a determined tone.

“But Miss Lydia!” protested Annice at this,
opening her blue eyes wide, “if you don't we shall all be on the streets.”

“Nonsense!” said Lydia firmly, in her best Tolefree style. “Eric must learn to manage better.”

Annice shook her head slowly. “He never will,” she said. “And there's the children.”

At this Lydia's glance involuntarily turned towards the sleeping child. She sighed. “Well, let's go to bed,” she suggested. “We can speak of it again in the morning.”

Annice agreed, and the two women silently undressed and lay down beside Dorothea. Annice's calm regular breathing soon proclaimed her asleep, but Lydia lay awake for a long hour. She tried to debate within herself her respective duties to Wilfred and the other Dysons, but her mind would keep slipping back to the story of Annice's life during the past five years. Annice had three children, a jealously devoted husband who was daily sliding nearer bankruptcy, and an ailing father-in-law of a passionate and intractable disposition. How much life there seemed in the mere description of her circumstances! How much had happened to Annice in the past five years while Lydia had simply stood still and marked time! As long as Annice's life marched on without hindrance, it appeared, Lydia was doomed to quiet and inaction, but whenever disaster threatened she was called on to step out and take a part—some people, as she had observed on Annice's wedding-day, were born to live, and
others to make it possible for them to do so. She sighed, and moved her body restlessly—she was not fond of sleeping with a companion. Annice stirred, and Lydia lay still again; all that was beside the point, she told herself wearily; she must consider seriously the question of the recall of Wilfred. Would it be fair to him to ask him to return and take up the burden of providing for the Dyson family? Considering how little his father and Eric loved him, she rather doubted it. She brought all the force of the Tolefree conscience to bear on the question, but it was still undecided when at last she fell asleep.