Chapter X

EVEN when she had made up her mind to speak to James, Mary did not find it easy to do so. She believed that she had long ago put aside, estimating it at its right trivial value, James's reception of her last efforts to discuss the subject. It would be ridiculous, unkind, to store up such slight evidence. But she found now that the incident seemed to have left behind it a permanent unwillingness to run any risk of its repetition--an inclination to let sleeping dogs lie. It was as if she feared something, like a ghost, in which she did not believe.

What kept her back, she tried to persuade herself, was not this intangible fancy but the robuster growth of her own vanity. She was afraid, very much afraid, of appearing stupid, clumsy, ridiculous, before James. James had always treated her as something precious and charming and delicate, he had respected her feelings, her instincts, her intuitions, and she had always tried very hard to enable him to do so. But now she was bringing him not a quick feeling but a position laboriously built by reasoning. How could he respect it when he knew how slender, how untried its foundations were?

This thought haunted her. She tried to dismiss it by reminding herself that it was selfish. Half the business was hers, in the last resort the responsibility was hers. These girls had a right, if it was true that they weren't being justly treated, to everything of hers that might help them--her brains as well as her kind intentions, even, if necessary, her costly dignity. She believed that they were not receiving an adequate return for their work. She did not believe it simply because she had been reading books about poverty; she believed it because she had seen for herself that their wages would not secure their health and their well-being. The books had only given her the use of her mind with which to consider the facts she knew, the right words, the right outlook, the right appliances.

Nevertheless it was a fortnight before she could force herself to interview James.

He saw that she was nervous as she sat down opposite him and expressed her wish for a talk, and in his heart he was a little pleased at this proof of her admiration. But he remembered, too, that he hadn't been very kind to her the last time they talked together, and he resolved not to hurry over his answers but to give her pathetic little ideas every chance of impressing him favourably.

"Well, the old lady!" he said, in a very kind voice, "is this the great outburst?"

Mary shivered a little and smoothed out a fold in the lilac satin that lay across her knees. As a matter of fact it was the great outburst, but she wished he had not spoken of it like that.

"Yes, I suppose so," she said. "I've wondered a good deal whether I'd trouble you, but there really is something I want to know, and I felt that you would wish me, as it's serious, to ask you about it." She looked up at him. James's face was bent to hers with grave attention.

"Of course I wish it," he assured her. "I hope you will never shut me out from your perplexities. What is it, my dear?"

She kept her eyes on his, though it was difficult, because she wanted him to feel that she was facing him squarely. "Would it be possible, with the business as it is now, to pay the waitresses higher wages?" she asked.

James lay back in his chair and stroked his beard. He considered her question not because he was in any doubt as to the purport of his answer, but because he wished her to have a full and satisfactory explanation.

"No, I don't think it would," he told her at last. "That is to say, I should not feel justified in running the risk that such a course would entail. I don't mean that it would be actually impossible, at this moment, to raise their wages by a shilling, or even two shillings, a week. But you must remember, it would not be like parting with a capital sum, it would be a constant drain on our resources. The business is, I think, efficiently organised, and the girls already do a fair day's work. We can't do with less of them. There's no way, so far as I can see, in which we could extract a return for the extra money."

"The girls' health would be better, they would stay with you longer--be more attached to you," Mary put in, as he had paused.

He answered her with the same weighty deliberation. "I can't think so, my dear--not to any great extent. They are earning as good wages with us as they could at any other unskilled trade, better in fact. The majority of them leave us to marry. An employer of unmarried female labour cannot expect to keep his workers for long, and of course there's no possible doubt that they would spend most of the extra money on feathers and evenings out. But I want you to consider this for a minute. At any moment the price of our raw materials may go up. Or the union may get hold of our cooks and persuade them to strike. More than half our people are not waitresses you know, and I don't see how you'd explain to them why they shouldn't get more wages too! Or one of our confidential employees may embezzle a large sum of money. It's a sound business principle to be prepared for any disaster that might occur. Then when it does occur you need not exhaust your powers by worrying about it."

Mary moved uneasily in her chair. "I felt sure that this must be the case," she said presently, "because you would give as good wages as you could afford. But, James, I've been looking through my accounts, and I find that in the last twelve months you've invested for me over £10,000."

James nodded.

"And then there's the amount that goes to Laura and what you keep back for this house and Kings Leigh, and Julius's allowance."

James agreed. "Yes, of course." He did not know what she was driving at.

"Well, wouldn't that be enough, even if we didn't touch Laura's and Julius's money, to make a substantial increase in their wages? I would willingly give it for that!" She bent forward, her hands tightly clasped, her eyes fixed appealingly on him.

James succeeded in avoiding any display of emotion. "You understand, of course," he said slowly, "that this would mean a change in our way of living. I don't know that I could keep up both houses on my income alone." This was not true, but Mary hastened to assent. "Oh, yes, I quite understand that it would be as much your gift as mine, James,--more in fact, because, you know, these big houses are a nuisance to run. It would really be a holiday for me. I hope you don't mind my proposing it--I have been seeing a good deal of the girls lately, and I am certain that the money is really needed."

James still wished to gain time. "My dear," he told her, "of course I don't mind--on the contrary I'm glad to understand how much you have the matter at heart."

Mary looked at him gratefully. He was not angry. How kind he was! How easy he had made her avowal! Of course she didn't expect him to consent at once, but if he gave himself time to consider the matter fairly she knew that his generous heart would respond to her appeal. How interesting it would be, how delightful, if she and James could join together in brightening the lives of those poor girls! She looked round her in the ease of her relief at the polished surfaces of the great room--the morocco, the mahogany, the glass doors of the bookshelves, the silver and brass on James's desk--and noticed how they reflected the light of the fire. What an amount of servants' work there was in this room alone! She would be happier in some smaller place.

Meanwhile James was assuring himself in vain that it would be far the best plan to postpone his answer for a day so as to give it an added solemnity when it came. His instinct for quick speech, for decided action, overbore his unaccustomed prudence. It was James's habit to disconcert his opponent by a rush of talk while he himself made certain of his next move. Nothing flusters a man more, James considered, than to brush aside his attempts to explain himself. But now the arguments, the things he could say to Mary, were springing up, were marshalling themselves in his mind, demanding expression. His endeavour to treat her as a comrade failed before the essential need that her foolish ideas should be crushed. He fidgeted for a moment, and then broke out into words.

"My dear," he said, in a kind and soothing voice, "I hope you won't think me prejudiced or ungenerous if I don't agree to your plan straight off, without considering it." Here he looked across at his wife. The fixed, bright regard of her eyes changed, as they met his, to painful appeal. If he had given himself time to think the evident depth of her anxiety would have checked him. But his mind was not free, at the moment, to consider her point of view, and he went on. "Of course I am prepared to give the matter every possible consideration--I've the greatest respect, as you know, for any idea of yours, little mother,--but I've no doubt that it has already occurred to you that if such a very simple measure could solve modern industrial difficulties someone else would have hit on it!" He smiled indulgently.

Mary clasped her hands and her lips moved, but she did not speak, nor take her eyes from his face. She wished he would not answer now, she was afraid of his words and of their effect on him. James did not like going back from what he had said. But she knew that it would be no use trying to interrupt him.

"You see," he explained, "a business is not just a process of making money. It's more than that, it's a thing in itself, an organisation, an entity. You won't misunderstand me I'm sure, if I put it a little fancifully and say that it has a life of its own, almost an individuality. It's a thing that we shape to our own ends I'll admit, and that we make use of, but we can only do that by respecting the essential laws that govern its working. We can't interfere with it suddenly from the outside and expect it to make no difference. Now consider your plan, my dear. You want to take about ten thousand a year from the profits of the business and use it to increase wages. You say that the money is yours, and that the whole thing is purely a private affair. But it isn't,"--his hand came down heavily on the arm of his chair--"it's nothing of the sort! You understand, of course, that if you once adopted such a procedure you would have to stick to it--"

"Oh, yes, indeed--" She was so anxious to reassure him that she even broke in on his sentence.

"Very well, that would mean that a business that used to make, let us say, £30,000 a year suddenly becomes a business that is only making £20,000 a year. Now you know such a change as that can't take place without its affecting more people than just you and me. We'll put aside the few shares held by your relations, and we'll put aside the girls. I've no doubt Rosemary would like nothing better than to live in a garden suburb and be a heroine to all her Socialist friends. Though of course there are Hastings's people to be considered. Still we could manage to give Rosemary enough to live on. And Laura is a comparatively wealthy woman. She could do just as well without the allowance you make her. It never did your mother any harm, my dear, having to go to your father for money, and it wouldn't do Laura any harm to go to her husband. But I want you for a moment to think of Trent. He has his faults, but all the same he is a son we can be proud of. And I don't suppose it has occurred to you that if we do as you suggest we shall make it absolutely impossible for Trent to marry the woman he's in love with."

He paused, and Mary felt that he expected her to say something.

"I don't--" she began. "Why--" but she could not frame a coherent thought.

"I'm sure you must see," her husband went on, "that it makes all the difference to Trent. He has told old Lady Iredale what his position is, and what his expectations are. Even so, she doesn't think he's a good enough match. Well, it won't increase her approval if she's suddenly told that he's worth potentially £10,000 a year less!"

Mary said nothing. She had thought of this money as their private income--hers and James's--not as so much prospective importance and eligibility for Trent. "How horrible money is," she thought, "how it crushes you!" Then with nervous quickness she turned her thoughts back to James, who had more to say.

"There's another aspect of the matter as well," he was telling her--it seemed to him that there were twenty other aspects, all equally conclusive. "I think I've seen you reading some Political Economy lately. In that case you will understand"--his glance bore down on her as though defying her to doubt that the very essence of Political Economy was distilling itself through his lips--"that there comes a period in the growth of every private company when its directors have to consider carefully the question of calling in more capital. You cannot say in modern commerce, 'we are big enough, let us stop here.' Nowadays, with the present commercial system, a business must grow or die. But if it is to grow, we who are responsible for it must be able to seize every opportunity, occupy every vacant position, leave nothing to chance or to our rivals. The fact is, my dear, I have been meaning to tell you, if ever you did speak to me on the subject, that in my judgment the moment has come when the Imperial should be turned into a public company. I am quite ready to discuss the matter with you in detail and of course the whole thing is still in the air. But sooner or later some such step will have to be taken. And then don't you see the difference it will make if we go to the public with a £20,000 profit instead of £30,000? This money that we draw is not simply profit, Mary, it's credit, it's reputation, it's success! 'Why,' people ask, 'does the Imperial show a much smaller profit than other companies with the same number of branches?' You say, 'They pay higher wages,' and people throw back at you 'bad management.' I'm not a sweating employer. I pay my hands as well as anyone. I don't give them charity, I don't give them higher wages than they're worth, because I don't believe in money doled out in that fashion. I don't mind paying higher wages if my competitors will do the same. But no man can carry on his business with a millstone of unnecessary expenditure round his neck--" He pulled himself up with an effort. "Do you see, my dear?"

Mary longed to be able to say that she saw, that she took his word for it and was satisfied. She knew that if she still stood out it would make James angry, it would make him feel that she was unreasonable. But she had not yet stated her case--it was her duty to the girls to do her best!

"Of course," she said, "I hadn't thought of all that; you see, I'm not fond of the business in the way you are, James dear. I'm afraid it has been only a process of making money to me. But there is--you will, won't you, think of the other side? I don't blame you in any way, please don't think I have any idea of that sort!" She paused for an instant--a fear born of nothing she had consciously realised was rising to the surface of her mind, breaking it, blurring its images, throwing her back on herself. Then the disturbance passed, and with an added hesitation she went on, "Those girls do need the money, James! They work very hard, and I can't feel that they are getting a proper return. They often go home exhausted, and they don't have good enough clothes to go home in, or good enough food when they get there----"

James, whose disinclination to hear Mary arguing was hardening to impatience, found it impossible not to interrupt her, for by this time his own stock of arguments had replenished itself.

"My dear," he said, "I know how good your intentions are, and believe me I feel for the girls, though perhaps not as deeply as a sympathetic woman does. It isn't really there that we differ, that is why I said nothing about it. Everyone admits, nowadays, that the condition of society is far from perfect, I'm with you there; but when it comes to a concrete remedy I can't help feeling that I understand the position better than you do. What good would it do those girls if we gave them more wages and Harris got all our trade away, by undercutting us? That is just what he'd do when he heard we had raised wages. The girls wouldn't thank you for depriving them of their livelihood. No, no, my dear,"--his voice by this time had become falsely good-humoured,--"what you're up against is not the sins of the Imperial, it's poverty in general. If those girls' fathers were better paid--and for that they'd have to be worth more wages--the girls would have happier lives. You're overlooking the fact, you know, that we don't pretend to support them entirely. And yet in spite of that we pay better wages than many other trades. You're trying to use your money the wrong way. You can't remedy poverty by stopping up little holes here and there in a sieve. You must go to the root of the matter, you must extend the principle of insurance, and then you want trade schools and that sort of thing. If these girls want better wages they should go into service, then there would be fewer of them to compete for other posts. This question of women in industry is very serious!"

He could have gone on for some time, but Mary felt that she could bear it no longer. "James!" she said, "let me speak for a moment. I can't argue with you, I can't explain, I never could, but in spite of all that you've said, I still feel that it is wicked and unjust to live as we do while we are paying these girls so badly. I'll think it over again if you like, but if I don't change my mind will you let me give the money back to them? I beg you to--I make no reserves, James, this is the most important thing I have ever asked you. If you refuse me I believe that it will make a serious difference in my feelings towards you." She ended, trembling and breathless, on a sob.

James stared at her, a mask of severe disapproval. "I can't think," he said, "that you realise what you are asking. You want me to give up my private judgment, to place myself entirely in your hands! I have no choice but to refuse." He got up from his chair and walked to the mantelpiece, turning his back to her. "And when you think it over more calmly," he went on after a minute, "I am sure you will see that I am only doing my duty in putting the welfare of the business before this very-suddenly-arrived-at conclusion of yours!"

Mary got up too and went to him. "You're angry with me," she said, and was about to lay her hand on his arm when she checked herself. She did not want to appeal to his instinctive affection.

James turned round at once when he heard her voice, brisk again now that she showed signs of yielding. "My dear little woman," he said, "I'm not angry with you in the least, I haven't the slightest doubt that you are perfectly sincere in your opinion. And you'll remember that when we first discussed this matter we agreed to differ. Well, I agree, and all I ask of you is that you shall agree too."

Mary felt as though she were a sheep and James a very large and efficient sheep-dog. "I can't!" she brought out at last. "I feel too deeply about it."

James turned back to his mantelpiece with a jerk. "Then we must differ without agreeing!" He wished to see the matter disposed of.

Mary moved back a step, and then, as his eyes were still turned away, she stood silently looking at him. This was James, this man in front of her, bending over an ash-tray. That face was the face that she knew best in the world. When he was younger she had often smoothed out that wrinkle on his forehead, and told him that if he frowned so deeply it would make his look cross. He had worn his hair differently then, too, in the past that they shared together. This was James--the man that she loved--the only man that she had ever loved. She loved him--she told herself again--wasn't that enough--wasn't that the only thing that mattered in spite of all this froth of disagreement and discussion? Wasn't she being a fool to endanger her love by irrelevant outside things? She longed suddenly to kiss his face again, to throw her arms round his neck as she had thrown them when she was young and beautiful, to feel, if she couldn't know it, that James loved her better than anything else in the world.

She moved forward and lifted her hands, and then she remembered that however closely she held him that would not be true. She knew now that James did not care first of all for her. He cared first for his work, for the business. It was natural that he should put first what had cost him such great and such continuing effort. He loved her, he felt certain of her, but when she interfered with the business she was a nuisance.... Here again she pulled herself up. It was not time yet to give way to such thoughts as these. She must still think not of herself but of the girls--how could James be expected to listen to a woman who pleaded her cause so badly!

"Of course," she said presently, "it must be very difficult for you to think that a woman can understand anything about such matters."

James interrupted her at once. "My dear Mary, it's just because you are a woman that your ideas interest me. I assure you that if this scheme had come from a man, I shouldn't have considered it for a moment. I should simply have said, 'My dear fellow, you're talking nonsense!'"

Mary did not feel able to determine whether this was true or not. She was feeling tired and very cold. "Then you have settled absolutely?" she asked him.

He hesitated for a moment, and decided to laugh. "Yes, my dear, I have," he told her, and then, with one finger, he stroked her cheek.

"You needn't have done that!" she said, and burst into tears.

James found himself, for the moment, very much at a loss. What had he done to make her behave like this? He had been extraordinarily patient with her, it couldn't be that. She wasn't a person who usually cried because she had made a mistake! Then light came. The fact was that like a good, dear, tender-hearted little goose she had planned a great sacrifice, and she was disappointed because she couldn't carry it out. Women were like that, and in her chagrin she didn't quite know what she was saying. Poor little mother!

Without any more ado he went up to her and drew her into his arms. "My little darling," he told her, "listen to me! Try now to put all this perplexing thing right out of your mind. Lift up your poor worried head--yes--like that--and look at me. How can you look at me when you're crying? Yes, that's better! I'm not as handsome as I was, little woman, nor as young, but I love you more then ever. I want you to forget everything else now, and just to remember that I love you. Is that all right, little silly thing? Have you remembered it yet?"

In the warm circle of his arms, too tired to resist him, Mary smiled.

"Then say after me, 'James, I love you!'" She said it, and then, defeated, let her head sink on his shoulder.

James bent over her. This unexpected uprising of hers, her daring, her provocation, seemed to have coloured and intensified his impression of her. He saw her more clearly, he thought, than he had ever seen her before--funny brave little thing. He tightened the clasp of his arms. "Twenty years ago," he said, "I would have picked you up and carried you off without mercy--but now--" He paused. A sudden regret rose in him for the brutal strength, the boldness, the imperious desires of youth. "Well," he went on, "now I'm an old man, and Mr. Trent might meet us on the stairs, so you must run along by yourself, little sweetheart." He pushed her away from him gently, and held her for a moment at arm's length.

Mary collected herself as best she could to face his glance, but when he saw her he was shocked into solicitude. "My dear, you're white--I can feel you trembling--this has been too much for you, you'd better go to bed at once!" He led her to the door. "Shall I come up with you?--No?--then kiss me first--just affectionately--and show me brighter cheeks in the morning."

He shut the door behind her with a sigh.

Mary went slowly upstairs to her room and there sat down. She did not even remember that James had told her to go to bed. She was tired and shaken, but she knew that she must do her best to think.

It would have been easy not to think but merely to feel, to be unhappy without understanding why, and to find comfort in tears. This quiet resignation, this acceptance of failure, would have been for her a natural and a familiar notion. Only by a violent contraction of her consciousness could she turn from it.

Even then long minutes passed by before the desire for mental life, for action, came back to her. She sat in a heavy stupor, unable to check or to consider the images that formed themselves in her mind. To one idea, she told herself, she was holding fast--the idea of some hard, yet undiscovered duty that lay before her. "I must," she said presently, "I must." The spoken words recalled her to a sense of the present.

She moved to put some more coal on to her sinking fire. Then, with an effort, she made herself face the question of facts. What had happened? Where was she? What had she got to do?

To begin with, she had failed in her interview--not only in the achievement of her object but in the manner of her attempt. She had imagined herself watching James very carefully, suiting her speech and her behaviour to the mood she discerned in him. She had not done that. She had not even been able to watch herself, she did not know now what she had said or left unsaid, except that she had felt at the time that everything she said was wrong. As for James, his mood was a blank to her, it had baffled her, repulsed her, thrown her into confusion, but she had no key to it. She had hoped for a clear, close argument, for a fair interchange of opinion, for a new understanding of James's point of view, a sharing with him of that harvest of thought and emotion which she had been gathering together in her soul. Instead their intercourse had been a muddle, a hostile muddle. Then James had kissed her--how horrible it was!

She knew now that she had not expected James to accept her actual scheme. She would have been content if he had thought kindly of its spirit. Then, his sympathy engaged, she had hoped that he would bring forward a plan of his own, as much more just and wise than hers as James was greater and wiser than she. She would have received it joyfully, they would have worked at it together.

But James had not shown kindness or sympathy, except on the outside, in his manner. He had left her to struggle with her difficulties alone. He had thrown her back again on her own poor resources, her single wit, her feeble perseverance, the strength she valued so low. With these she must make shift--in spite of James.

For a moment, here, her thoughts scattered in confusion. She could not bring herself to think coolly of defying James. She got up from her chair and went over to the window. Behind the curtains, for a moment, it was dark, then her sight cleared, and she could see the branches of the trees in the square moving slowly across the lamplight.

Tired as she was she longed suddenly to change her dress, to be rid of her satin and lace and to go out into the echoing streets. She would walk quickly along in the night, a shadow passing unnoticed under the lamps, until she came to the country, to some great open space where only a passing cloud could shut her out from the black sky and the stars. The wind would blow round her, blowing clean air from the uplands and the sea. There in the cold and the loneliness her soul would be free; it would not be the soul of a rich woman, or of an ageing woman, nor the soul of James's wife. All these weary things would have slipped from it, discarded, put aside, and she would rejoice in her nakedness, a voice crying out to God.

For a moment she stood there, hands clasped and eyes straining through the darkness, then, with a shiver of fatigue, she went back to the fire. Who was she to speak with God?--she had never loved Him! She had loved James, served James, and now she knew that the love of James's life was not for her.

She set herself, angry with her own exaltation, to realise this. There was nothing monstrous about it, she told herself, nothing more strange, nothing more unbelievable, than that she had been a fool. James cared for the thing he had created, for his achievement, his title to respect in the eyes of the world. Any man can marry a wife, any man can beget children, but James had built up this business with the strength of his manhood, and now the business made James a powerful man. She kept him happy at home--he was kind and not very critical, any gentle honest woman could have done that. And now, when she was trying, with what ability she possessed, to be more, to think, to feel, to respond to the world in an individual way, James had no welcome for this new personality. He left her either to deny it or to find its scope and its place for herself. Why shouldn't he?--what right had she to expect more?--to suffer?

The poor lady found herself unable now not to cry.

Presently a footstep on the stairs made her remember that she must go to bed. She sponged her smarting eyes and rang for her maid. With the woman, coming quietly and confidently into the room, Mary discerned the spirit of everyday life. After all, she felt, while Penn was taking the little black velvet ribbon from her hair, after all she was not left to the dulness of empty sorrow. She had work to do, an object for her desires. Somehow she must get the money back to those girls. She fell asleep at last revolving her philanthropic plans.