The Partnership (24 page)

“Bertie!” exclaimed Annice in mild exasperation to her eldest child, who had put his foot on one of Dorothea's garments, “mind now! Take your foot off that!”

Bertie, however, was too much occupied in arguing with Jack to heed what his mother said to him; so Annice leaned forward, and exclaiming, “See!” gave them each a hearty slap or two. This had the effect of releasing Dorothea's vest, but
did not depress her brothers in the least; Bertie held on to his mother's elbow to aid his balance while he raised the offending foot, and Jack, folding his arms, leaned against Annice's knee and began to shout a song of his own composition to the baby. Annice and her children made thus a perfect group, a picture of radiant motherhood is it might have been depicted by an artist with a realistic brush; and Lydia felt her heart swell with envy. Yes, it was only too true, she told herself bitterly; some people were born to live, and others to make it possible for them to do so.

“Breakfast is ready, Annice,” she said coldly.

Annice raised her blue eyes quickly to Lydia's face, then lowered them again to Dorothea.

“You're very good,” she murmured with her usual air of shyness and reserve. “I don't know where we should be without you, Miss Lydia, I'm sure.”

And suddenly Lydia thought she saw that she was wrong in regarding herself as a minor character in life's drama. After all, that young life about Annice's knees had come from Annice's meeting with Lydia in the train. Annice had lived and loved, borne children, and would do so again; Annice had had life, richly coloured, full, teeming, and had passed it on. But what an important part Lydia had borne in that life! Annice's story would have been impossible but for Lydia. “It is indeed a nice point,” she remembered reading, “to decide which of the two is the greater, the man who thinks of the way in which to do
things or the man who does them; but we may safely conclude that the inventor and the exploiter are necessary to each other, since the one without the other would be useless.” Was not that true, too, of herself and Annice, and of the myriads in the world who fell into rank behind them? Annice, indeed, had lived, had exploited life to the full, but it was Lydia who had made it possible for her to do so. If it was good that there should be life and love—and Lydia felt that it was good—then those who made such life possible were not without their value, spinsterish, dull, and duty-ridden though they might seem. And at this her mother's favourite platitude—“it takes all sorts to make a world”—beat upon Lydia's mind with new force. It did, indeed, take all sorts to
make
a world; Annice and she between them had
made
Annice's rich and exciting life, had made possible the younger generation clustering about Annice's knees. Lydia had shared with Annice in the creation of Annice's life and in the handing of it on to the next generation; there was a bond of common achievement, a partnership between them.

“Come, children,” said Lydia then in her high light tones, stooping to take a hand of each of the boys: “Don't worry mother now. Come downstairs with me.”

Annice looked up at her with another brief flash of gratitude; and Lydia, leaving the room with the children's hands in hers, felt that perhaps she was not altogether dissatisfied with the partnership.

Phyllis Bentley was born in 1894 in Halifax, West Yorkshire, where she was educated until she attended Cheltenham Ladies College, Gloucestershire.
In 1932 her best-known work,
Inheritance
, was published to widespread critical acclaim and commercial success. This was in contrast to her previous efforts, a collection of short stories entitled
The World's Bane
and several poor-selling novels. The triumph of
Inheritance
made her the most successful English regional novelist since Thomas Hardy, and she produced two more novels to create a trilogy;
The Rise of Henry Morcar
and
A Man of His Time
. This accomplishment made her a much demanded speaker and she became an expert on the Brontë family.
Over her career Bentley garnered many awards; an honorary DLitt from Leeds University (1949); a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (1958); awarded an OBE (1970). She died in 1977.

Discover books by Phyllis Bentley published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/PhyllisBentley
A Man of His Time
A Modern Tragedy
Crescendo
Gold Pieces
Inheritance
Love and Money
Noble in Reason
Ring in the New
Sleep in Peace
Tales of the West Riding
Take Courage
The Adventures of Tom Leigh
The Partnership
The Rise of Henry Morcar

For copyright reasons, any images not belonging to the original author have been
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This electronic edition published in 2013 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square,
London WC1B 3DP
First published in Great Britain 1928 by Ernest Benn Ltd.
Copyright © 1928 Phyllis Bentley
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eISBN: 9781448210923
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