The Partnership (18 page)

“Where's Bertie?” demanded Annice, looking round.

Lydia explained, and just then the child came back to say that grandpa wanted to see Evan.

“Well, he can't,” said Annice snappishly.

Bertie, astonished, raised his heavy eyelids and said that grandpa had seen the lorry in the yard from his window, and wanted to talk to Evan.

“Well, he can't,” repeated Annice with decision. “Go into the dining-room, Lydia, and I'll make you some tea.”

She almost pushed the dismayed Lydia from the room.

On the following Wednesday, when the Dysons and Lydia were collected round the fire at Boothroyd House, Wilfred observed that he wished they could afford to keep a nurse for his father. (Wilfred had seen his father once while he was asleep, was distressed by the change in him and very earnest for his comfort.)

“Couldn't you find some woman who would come and sit with him a bit, Annice?” he suggested.

Annice raised her eyes and glowered at him.

“Why?” she demanded sullenly. “What does he want a woman for?”

“It's not suitable for him to be left in the house alone,” said Wilfred, “and of course you're obliged to leave him sometimes, Annice.”

“I never leave him,” threw out Annice in a sombre tone.

A dark flush spread over Wilfred's face, and he said no more. Lydia surmised that he had had an experience similar to her own; and as they left the house together that night she discovered that it was so. He had twice called at night and been
unable to get any answer. Inquiries next day had revealed that Eric had been to a music-hall; Annice, however, was supposed to have remained at Boothroyd House.

“It isn't good enough, Lydia,” said Wilfred in conclusion. “Here they expect me to do all the work, and they take pretty well all the money—of course I don't object to that; Eric's a married man with a family, and there's father, and the house, and all—but I do think they might look after father decently. I get pretty sick of it sometimes, I can tell you. It's no sort of a life for me, and won't be for two or three years yet. I had a good job in Scotland, you know; it wasn't all pleasure to me to leave it.”

”
We
know how good you are, Wilfred,” said Lydia with fervour, feeling that he was hinting to her that they could not marry as yet.

“If it wasn't for you and Uncle Charles I shouldn't stay,” muttered Wilfred. “Sometimes even as it is I don't feel as though I could stand it.”

“Oh, Wilfred!” exclaimed Lydia in great distress. “Don't say that. Don't, don't!”

Wilfred growled, but seemed somewhat appeased. From that time onward, however, he often tentatively returned to the subject of a nurse; often, too, he urged Eric to go up and attend to his father himself. This was unfortunate, because while to Lydia and Annice it showed clearly enough Wilfred's distrust of Annice, to Eric it seemed as though his brother thought his wife
ill-treated and overworked, and this maddened him. His jealous love for Annice could brook no interference, and his irritation against his brother was naturally very much increased by the treatment he was receiving from Annice herself. To Lydia, therefore, Annice's neglect of Dyson and coldness to Eric, bad enough in themselves, seemed really appalling in their wanton and destructive perversity, because they threatened the friendly relations between Wilfred and Eric, on which she had such an enormous stake—her whole life's happiness.

Just now, for instance, her heart had contracted painfully. The three Dysons and Lydia herself were seated round the dining-table in Boothroyd House, just finishing supper, when an angry thumping from above showed that Mr. Dyson required attention. Annice rose rather slowly to go to him, and Wilfred said with some irritation: “Why don't
you
go to father, Eric? You never go.” At this Annice observed contemptuously that it was no use
Eric
going; if he went he wouldn't be any use; she'd have to go herself in the end, anyhow. As might be imagined, this did not tend to smooth either Wilfred's or Eric's brow. Wilfred frowned and seemed about to make some critical remark; Eric coloured, shot an angry glance at his brother, and left the room in a pet. While he was absent all three were silent, abandoning themselves to reflections, of which, to judge by the expressions on their faces, Annice's aone seemed pleasant. When Eric
returned he left the door, as usual, open. Annice, without looking at him, briefly bade him shut it. Her tone was so peremptory as to be really insulting, but Eric meekly obeyed without a word of expostulation, as though he were used to being addressed like that.

“Father had heard our voices,” he explained, returning to his place at the table, “and wanted to know who was here. I told him it was Evan.”

Annice started and seemed annoyed. “That was silly,” she observed in a scathing tone. “He'll be wanting to see him next.”

“Say I
am
silly, then,” threw out Eric, colouring angrily. “What's it matter to you, Annice?”

“A good deal,” returned Annice with emphasis. Lydia looked at her with a smile, expecting to see an answering smile on her lips, but the younger woman's face was sombre, and her eyes were cast down. Disconcerted, Lydia turned to Eric and inquired: “Who
is
Evan?”

“He drives the lorry at the mill,” explained Wilfred rather impatiently. “Though goodness only knows why Eric took him on.”

“He's a good driver,” contended Eric peevishly.

“Good enough,” conceded Wilfred. “But the other man had been with father twenty years or more; he knew every firm in the place and was as good as a traveller for us. However, it's done now, along with a lot of other things. But what should father want to see Evan for, Annice?” he continued with a disapproving air.

“I don't know,” said Annice rudely, averting her head.

“Oh, Annice!” objected Eric in his high childish tones, “how can you say that when you know perfectly well? Father likes to talk to him,” he explained to Wilfred. “He's a very respectable man, you know, very superior, and been about a good deal.”

“Yes, I've noticed all that,” said Wilfred rather dryly. “But he doesn't know the ropes like the other fellow. However!” He dismissed that part of the subject, and inquired: “When did you get him?”

“Oh, five or six months ago, I should think,” replied Eric. “Yes; just a few months before you came.”

“If you've finished, Eric,” threw in Annice here in her new tone of contempt, “I'll clear away.”

“Oh! all right!” agreed Eric, offended. He scrambled from his chair, adding to Wilfred: “Annice knew him before.”

“Oh, really,” observed Wilfred, still more dryly.

His tone maddened the already irritated Eric. “If you think,” he shouted suddenly, thrusting his face within an inch of his brother's, “that I'm ashamed of making a friend of my own lorry-driver, you're wrong, Wilfred Dyson.”

“All right, all right!” said Wilfred soothingly, rising and drawing out his pipe. “
I
don't care who you have for your friends. The fellow's as
good as we are, I dare say, and I've noticed he can talk. All I meant was, if he's going to see father from time to time you'll have to warn him not to mention me.'

“I didn't think of that,” said Eric, mollified.

“You never think of anything,” observed Annice roughly, reaching across the table to collect the china. “
I
did, and I told him myself he was to be careful.”

Wilfred's eye flashed at the tone in which she spoke to his brother, but he controlled himself, and observed cheerfully: “That's all right then.”

Annice was now piling the supper-things upon a tray. When she had finished, she turned to her husband and sharply bade him carry the tray into the kitchen for her. Eric started forward and obeyed. Annice, picking up a large dish which would not fit upon the tray, followed him; and Wilfred and Lydia were left together.

“Why does she talk to him like that?” demanded Wilfred with annoyance, filling his pipe. “No wife ought to talk to her husband like that in public. No fellow with any sense would stand it.” He gave his wide pleasant smile and added jokingly: “Now mind what I say, Lydia; I'm warning you.”

“It's very kind of you, I'm sure,” replied Lydia in the same tone, nevertheless very happy.

“Couldn't you say something to Annice?” suggested Wilfred, his face darkening again. Then, as Lydia looked perplexed and doubtful:
“You used to have a lot of influence over her,” he pursued reproachfully.

“I'll try if you think it wise,” said Lydia, hesitating.

“Yes, do,” urged Wilfred. “Perhaps she doesn't realize how bad it sounds. It isn't right of her, really.”

Accordingly as Lydia went along to the kitchen to help Annice with the supper-things she revolved in her mind suitable openings to this subject so near her heart. She did not need to use any of them, however. As she entered the kitchen Eric was saying to his wife: “Shall I stay and help you?”

“No!” replied Annice curtly. Eric retired, discomfited, and Annice, turning with a smile to Lydia, observed as she tied on an apron: “He's more trouble than he's worth in the kitchen, is Eric.”

“You're not always very kind to Eric, I think, Annice,” began Lydia, seizing the opportunity thus offered her.

“Well!” said Annice on a long-drawn-out note of humorous depreciation, “who would be?”

“Annice!” said Lydia, troubled, “why do you say such dreadful things?”

Annice began to transfer the china to the tin bowl in the scullery sink, with more speed than care. “Well, if you really come to it,” she observed—she seemed quite to have recovered her good temper—“Eric's more trouble than he's worth, anywhere.”

“His wife ought not to say so,” Lydia rebuked her, with some heat.

“And what kind of a husband is he to me, Miss Lydia?” demanded Annice in a tone of mild grievance. “He can't even keep his own wife and children. If we'd to depend on him for a living we should all be in the street.”

“You didn't speak like that of him when you came to see me a few months ago,” contended Lydia, much distressed to find that the trouble between Annice and Eric, with all its dreaded consequences, was more deep-seated than she had feared.

“I was sorry for him then,” said Annice on a kindlier note. “But he's all right now; with Wilfred at home he won't want for anything.”

Lydia sighed. “I don't know what to make of you, Annice,” she said despairingly.

“Best not try to make anything, then,” Annice advised her, with a mocking sparkle in her blue eyes. She turned a tap, and hot water rushed into the bowl; rolling her sleeves up her firm round arms, she snatched a dishcloth and began to wash the china vigorously. In the resulting clatter conversation became impossible for a while, and Lydia, meekly drying crockery, could only sigh again and reflect that Annice had always been an enigmatical girl, always—ever since the very first day she had met her. She began unconsciously to explore her memories of that first encounter, which had had such large consequences
in her life, and as a result of this exploration she observed thoughtfully, when the clatter had somewhat subsided and their task was nearly done:

“Annice, do you remember that soldier you knew at the seaside?”

Annice gave her an intent look. After a pause she demanded: “What about him?”

“I sometimes think I did wrong to take you away from him,” suggested Lydia timidly. “Perhaps you could have cared more for him than you do for Eric.”

There was another pause, while Annice wrung out the dishcloth.

“How do you mean, take me away from him?” she demanded then.

“That afternoon when I met you on the front and persuaded you to come with me,” Lydia reminded her.

“Oh!” said Annice in her bluntest tones. “Then! He'd gone then.”

“Gone!” cried Lydia. “Gone!”

“Yes, he'd gone that morning,” explained Annice harshly. “He'd got into trouble, you know, with being out with me—you have to do what you're told in the army.” She added: “If he'd still been there I shouldn't have come with you.”

“Well!” said Lydia, overwhelmed. “Why
did
you come with me then, Annice?” she demanded when she had recovered her powers of speech.

Annice looked at her and gave her a merry,
affectionate smile. “
I
don't know, Miss Lydia,” she said flippantly. “I don't remember.”

“Oh, Annice!” sighed Lydia. Then in spite of herself she smiled. However perverse Annice was, she reflected, one could not help loving her. Just then the sounds of a child's crying became distinctly audible.

“There!” exclaimed Annice, flinging plates into the cupboard with a careless and rapid hand, “that's Dorothea, and her bottle isn't ready.” She threw some milk into a pan, and approached the fire. The crying continued, and took on a more insistent note. “You go up to her, Lydia,” urged Annice, looking up from the fire with a hot face. “Do! Or she'll wake your uncle. I'll come as soon as I can.”

Lydia hastily obeyed and, led by the sound of crying, found Dorothea in a cot beside Annice's bed. She picked up the child—rather awkwardly—and began to walk about with her in the traditional manner. She had not been in Annice's room since her establishment at Boothroyd House, and she glanced about her curiously. The place looked quite uncommonly dirty and dishevelled. Articles of children's wear were scattered about the chairs; the furniture had the kicked and battered look peculiar to houses where lively children follow their own sweet will all day long; the dressing-table had obviously not been dusted for a considerable period, and was strewn with odds and ends of a heterogeneous character. Among these lay the clumsy brooch which
so often fastened Dorothea's shawl. Lydia's fingers, mechanically straightening out the jumble, closed upon it; she took it up for a closer inspection, and immediately became very thoughtful. It was a long time since she had seen the badge of which it was a copy, but she did not need a book of crests to tell her to which regiment it belonged. It was possible that she held in her hand the clue to Annice's enigmatical behaviour towards Eric. Her heart sank at the dismal prospect which opened before her if this were true.