Chapter Eighteen.
Ned in Trouble.
When Ned Talbot arrived a fortnight later, his face showed that his anxiety had been no imaginary thing. He looked, indeed, so worn and aged, that his friends were shocked to see him, and tears of commiseration rose in Lilias’s pretty eyes. The consciousness that Ned looked to her for consolation roused a natural womanly tenderness in her heart, and nothing could have been sweeter than her behaviour on the day of his arrival. As for Ned himself, fresh from the grim northern town, with the everlasting clang of machinery sounding in his ears, it seemed a very foretaste of paradise to find himself in the fragrant southern garden, seated beneath the shade of the trees, with Lilias’s lovely face smiling upon him. He told her as much in lover-like fashion, and she protested modestly, and smiled more angelically than ever for the rest of the evening, in order to live up to her reputation.
“We won’t talk about disagreeable things to-night! We will just be happy!” she said coaxingly; and Ned assented, only too thankful to banish anxiety for a few hours, and to talk sweet nothings among the flowers. Lilias was the most delightful plaything in the world, and queened it over him with such amusing little airs of sovereignty, that he asked nothing better than to play the part of adoring slave. So the first evening passed happily enough; but the next day brought the lovers face to face with reality. When a great anxiety is tugging at a man’s heart, it is not possible to banish it for more than a few hours at a time, and Ned yearned for his sweetheart’s sympathy, and felt a corresponding chilling of heart when she persistently checked his confidences, and tried to continue the playful banter of the first interview. He could not respond, could not laugh and jest and pay compliments; the cloud of coming disaster seemed to blot out the sunshine, and the light words jarred upon his ears.
“It is no use, dear; I am sorry to be such a doleful companion, but I cannot pretend to be cheerful. You must bear with me, for my anxiety is on your account even more than my own,” he told the girl tenderly. “I cannot bear to think of bringing anxiety upon you, when I had hoped instead to have shielded you from it all your life; but trouble is said to draw hearts more closely together, and if we stand shoulder to shoulder now we may find unexpected sweetness in the midst of our trial.”
He looked at Lilias entreatingly, and she gave a forced little smile.
“I should like to know exactly what the trial is, Ned. You have said a good deal about being unhappy in your letters, but nothing really definite. I can understand that, after being your own master, it is trying to accept a subordinate position, and that many little things jar and fret you, just because it is a new thing to be under subjection. It is certain to be trying at first, but if you have patience—”
Ned stopped her with an exclamation, half amused, half irritated.
“Patience—patience! My dear girl, you don’t understand of what you are talking! You surely don’t imagine that it is about my own dignity that I am anxious! I should not allow any personal slight to disturb my equanimity, for I did not make this change without counting the cost.”
“But it is so different when it comes to the test. However brave you have resolved to be, you cannot help being annoyed and fretted. I know! Oh, I know quite well,” declared Lilias, with an elaborate forbearance which seemed to have an irritating effect upon the hearer. He drew in his lips, as if struggling against a hasty reply, and when he spoke it was in a tone of studied moderation.
“Come and sit down, dear, and let me thrash this out! It is your right to know exactly how matters stand, and I will try to explain them to you. What affects me affects you now, so I look to you to advise and counsel. No one can help me as you can; no one has so much right to speak; so let me begin at the beginning, and try to make all clear to your dear little mind. You know that at my father’s death I had to give up my own dream of going into a profession, in order to carry on the Works for the benefit of the family. It had been decided that Frank, the second boy, should take this place, but he was still a youngster, and could not then have taken so responsible a post. It was a blow to me, for it was anything but the sphere which I should have chosen, and it was hard to have to give up all my own dreams—”
“It must have been! I can sympathise with you, for I know the feeling. Nothing tries me more than to have my plans upset, and it is constantly happening in a house like this, where there are so many others to consider. And it must have been bad for the business too, for you knew nothing about it, and had no experience—”
Ned coloured, and made an uneasy movement with his shoulders. As a matter of fact, his early days of authority had been accompanied by mistakes which he had been glad to forget, though he had mastered the details of the business in a surprisingly short space of time. It was not pleasant to hear a reminder of his inexperience from the lips of his fiancée, and he could not stifle a reflection that it would have been kinder on her part to have spared him even so covert a reproach. He tried to hide all signs of annoyance, but there was an edge in his voice as he replied—
“I was inexperienced, no doubt, though perhaps not so much so as you imagine. All my life I had been accustomed to spend a great deal of time at the Works, and as I grew up my father had taken me into his confidence about his growing anxieties, for even in his days he was beginning to feel the strain of competing with the bigger firms. The day for small men is over, Lilias, and one by one the private manufacturers go under, ruined by the struggle to compete with the great firms who are backed by practically unlimited capital. It was a dying cause which I had to fight, and I became more and more convinced of the folly of holding on until everything was lost; and then, in the very nick of time, as it seemed, our most powerful rivals stepped forward and offered to take over our business and to give me the post of manager. There could be no doubt about accepting such an offer, and all my friends rejoiced with me in the belief that the lean days were over, and that a long lease of prosperity lay ahead.”
“But why did they make you such an offer when your business was so bad as you say? I can understand that it was a capital thing for you, but where did they come in? They must have had an idea that it was for their advantage as well as for yours, or they would not have tried to get you,” said Lilias, with a shrewdness that brought the smiles back to her lover’s face.
“Why, what a cute little woman!” he cried fondly. “She grasps the position at once! Yes, of course, they made the offer for their own advantage, not mine, for, you see, dear, there were a certain number of good old-fashioned customers who still kept to us, and their business was well worth having, though not valuable enough to make our Works pay when the smaller orders dropped off. By taking over our connection they made a considerable addition to their profits, even allowing for the handsome salary given to me. Looking at the offer from a business point of view, I saw no reason to doubt its good faith, but six months’ experience has raised some ugly doubts. More than once of late I have felt convinced—”
“Of what? What are your doubts? What do you believe they mean to do?”
Ned jumped to his feet, and stood facing the girl, with clenched hands and a face convulsed with emotion. His eyes flashed, the veins stood out upon his forehead.
“I believe that they mean to suck my brains,—to get all they can out of me,—experience, introductions, connections, to suck me dry as they would an orange, and then throw me on one side! I believe that the salary was a bait to bribe me to give up my independence, and that it did not matter to them that it was unusually large, since at the very moment of offering it they had determined that my lease of office should be of precious short duration. They cannot, for shame’s sake, for their own reputation’s sake, dismiss me already, but in a hundred ways they are bringing pressure to bear; in a hundred ways which you could not understand, they are making it impossible for me to go on,—forcing me into resignation—”
“Oh, hush, hush! Don’t get excited. You frighten me when you are so fierce. I am sure you are mistaken. You are worn out after all these years of anxiety, and imagine what is not true. I am sure they do not want to get rid of you; and if they did, what does it matter, since you say yourself they dare not dismiss you? Come, be a good boy, and be happy with me, and forget all about this horrid old business. All men have worries, but they should try to forget them when they come home! I give you full notice that I shall forbid business to be mentioned in our house when we get one.”
The glance which accompanied these words was meant to be irresistibly coaxing; but, so far from being sobered yet, Ned seemed goaded into fresh irritation.
“Worries! Worries! You call it by a contemptible little name like that, when I am face to face with ruin,—when our whole future is trembling in the balance? Don’t you understand that there are things that a man may not do, and that orders may be put upon him which he cannot obey and preserve his self-respect? He may be forced to resign even when he would gladly work his fingers to the bone, if by any fair means he could keep his post?”
“Ah-ah!” cried Lilias, with a deep, indrawn breath, as if now, at last, she had come to the real pivot on which the question hung. “Ah, yes, Ned, I understand that if you once get the idea in that romantic head of yours that you are being coerced to do what is not according to your lights, there is an end of all peace until you are undeceived! We have known you so long, remember, and heard all about your college days from Jim. ‘Don Quixote,’ they called you, because you were always taking up high-flown notions of duty. It was delightful at Oxford, and such a good example to the other men; but in business—you can’t keep it up in business, Ned! I am only a girl, but I hear people talk, and I know quite well how it is. It is impossible to make a living at all, if you are too particular what you do, and are always stopping to consider other people besides yourself. You say that you were beaten by the other firms when you were managing your father’s Works, and now you will let yourself be beaten again, if you give way to these foolish prejudices and scruples.”
Lilias finished with a breathless gasp, and Ned stood looking down at her in silence. An expression of
absolute horror had grown in his eyes as he listened to her words, and now he threw himself down on the chair beside her, and grasped her hands in appeal.
“Lilias! Lilias!—don’t! Don’t speak like that, darling! My little white girl, don’t turn pleader against me! You are to be my helpmeet, my good angel, the inspiration of my life; don’t begin by wishing me to do less than my best! I am not imagining difficulties—you know I am not—but even if I were, would it not be better to lose something for conscience’ sake, than deliberately to sell myself for gain? I am in great perplexity, Lilias, and need all my courage. I beseech you not to discourage me!”
His words were, in effect, a repetition of Mrs Rendell’s on the same subject, and now, as then, Lilias was shocked into a softer, more unselfish frame of mind. The ready tears started to her eyes, and her voice quivered with emotion.
“Indeed, indeed, I long to help you! I would not hinder you for the world. I was trying to reconcile you to your position—to save you, if possible, from worse trouble in the future. I know you will never consent to do what is wrong, but if you are firm and patient, all may still be well. It is worth trying, at least, for if you threw up this post what is to happen next? You would have nothing to do.”
“I could always earn a salary of a few hundreds a year. If they have done nothing else, these last years have given me a thorough technical knowledge of my own business, and that has a marketable value nowadays. With the influence of the old name to back me up, I could find some firm ready to take me in and give me a subordinate post. If I had only myself to think of, I should not worry my head, for I have never had any ambition to be a rich man; and the mater has her private income—I need not be anxious about her. The change would fall heaviest on you, and it is of you I think. I meant to give you a home worthy of yourself, with every luxury and comfort, but that may not be possible now. Can you forgive me, dear, for bringing all this trouble upon you?”
He looked wistfully into the lovely face, and Lilias pressed her lips together, staring fixedly at the ground. At that moment she could not bring herself to say that she forgave him, or to express any complaisance at the thought of the future. Imagination ran riot, and she saw as in a picture a little house in a smoky manufacturing town, and shrank with distaste from its narrow walls and meagre furnishings. Yes, indeed! Ned might well declare that she was the greatest sufferer, and it was only right that he should pity her. If this breakdown had happened three months before, her parents would not have consented to her engagement, and it should have been his duty to be well assured of his position before involving another, as she was now involved. The swelling of resentment grew so strong, that, against her better judgment, it forced itself into speech.
“You seem fated to misfortune! It follows you wherever you go. But this cannot all have sprung up within the last two months. You must have known something about it in March,—in April,—before you spoke to me!”
From the flash in Ned’s eyes she feared that he was about to make some hot reply, but he checked himself, and answered with gentle forbearance. Only, if she had had eyes to see it, the shadow had fallen deeper than ever over his face, and his shoulders bent, as if an additional burden had fallen upon them.
“No, Lilias, I knew nothing! I would never have proposed to you if I had not honestly believed in my good prospects. The difficulty has arisen since then; but don’t be afraid, I shall not urge you to any sacrifices on my behalf. I will work hard, and you shall stay at home until I can give you all you desire. I will not ask you to share a poverty which you dread so much.”
“I wouldn’t mind it for myself. It is of you I think!” murmured Lilias sweetly. “I should love nothing so much as to help you, Ned, but I am such a useless little thing that I should only be a drag. If it had been Maud, it would have been different. Maud is cut out for a poor man’s wife, and would be blissfully happy living on twopence-halfpenny a week, and making it go as far as half a crown, but I am so stupid. My money seems to fly away, and I could not be economical if my life depended on it.”
Ned sighed, and looked round the garden with a wistful air.
“I wish Maud were at home!” he said. “She is always so good and helpful. It puts new strength in a man to hear her talk. The house does not seem like itself when Maud is away!”