(I)
Mrs. Partington and Gertie had many of those mysterious conversations that such women have, full of "he's" and "she's" and nods and becks and allusions and broken sentences, wholly unintelligible to the outsider, yet packed with interest to the talkers. The Major, Mr. Partington (still absent), and Frank were discussed continually and exhaustively; and, so far as the subjects themselves ranged, there was hardly an unimportant detail that did not come under notice, and hardly an important fact that did. Gertie officially passed, of course, as Mrs. Trustcott always.
A couple of mornings after Frank had begun his work at the jam factory, Mrs. Partington, who had stepped round the corner to talk with a friend for an hour or so, returned to find Gertie raging. She raged in her own way; she was as white as a sheet; she uttered ironical and unintelligible sentences, in which Frank's name appeared repeatedly, and it emerged presently that one of the Mission-ladies had been round minding other folks' business, and that Gertie would thank that lady to keep her airs and her advice to herself.
Now Mrs. Partington knew that Gertie was not the Major's wife, and Gertie knew that she knew it; and Mrs. Partington knew that Gertie knew that she knew it. Yet, officially, all was perfectly correct; Gertie wore a wedding-ring, and there never was the hint that she had not a right to it. It was impossible, therefore, for Mrs. Partington to observe out loud that she understood perfectly what the Mission-lady had been talking about. She said very little; she pressed her thin lips together and let Gertie alone. The conversations that morning were of the nature of disconnected monologues from Gertie with long silences between.
It was an afternoon of silent storm. The Major was away in the West End somewhere on mysterious affairs; the children were at school, and the two women went about, each knowing what was in the mind of the other, yet each resolved to keep up appearances.
At half-past five o'clock Frank abruptly came in for a cup of tea, and Mrs. Partington gave it him in silence. (Gertie could be heard moving about restlessly overhead.) She made one or two ordinary remarks, watching Frank when he was not looking. But Frank said very little. He sat up to the table; he drank two cups of tea out of the chipped enamel mug, and then he set to work on his kippered herring. At this point Mrs. Partington left the room, as if casually, and a minute later Gertie came downstairs.
She came in with an indescribable air of virtue, rather white in the face, with her small chin carefully thrust out and her eyelids drooping. It was a pose she was accustomed to admire in high-minded and aristocratic barmaids. Frank nodded at her and uttered a syllable or two of greeting.
She said nothing; she went round to the window, carrying a white cotton blouse she had been washing upstairs, and hung it on the clothes-line that ran inside the window. Then, still affecting to be busy with it, she fired her first shot, with her back to him.
"I'll thank you to let my business alone...."
(Frank put another piece of herring into his mouth.)
"... And not to send round any more of your nasty cats," added Gertie after a pause.
There was silence from Frank.
"Well?" snapped Gertie.
"How dare you talk like that!" said Frank, perfectly quietly.
He spoke so low that Gertie mistook his attitude, and, leaning her hands on the table, she poured out the torrent that had been gathering within her ever since the Mission-lady had left her at eleven o'clock that morning. The lady had not been tactful; she was quite new to the work, and quite fresh from a women's college, and she had said a great deal more than she ought, with an earnest smile upon her face that she had thought conciliatory and persuasive. Gertie dealt with her faithfully now; she sketched her character as she believed it to be; she traced her motives and her attitude to life with an extraordinary wealth of detail; she threw in descriptive passages of her personal appearance, and she stated, with extreme frankness, her opinion of such persons as she had thought friendly, but now discovered to be hypocritical parsons in disguise. Unhappily I have not the skill to transcribe her speech in full, and there are other reasons, too, why her actual words are best unreported: they were extremely picturesque.
Frank ate on quietly till he had finished his herring; then he drank his last cup of tea, and turned a little in his chair towards the fire. He glanced at the clock, perceiving that he had still ten minutes, just as Gertie ended and stood back shaking and pale-eyed.
"Is that all?" he asked.
It seemed it was not all, and Gertie began again, this time on a slightly higher note, and with a little color in her face. Frank waited, quite simply and without ostentation. She finished.
After a moment's pause Frank answered.
"I don't know what you want," he said. "I talked to you myself, and you wouldn't listen. So I thought perhaps another woman would do it better—"
"I did listen—"
"I beg your pardon," said Frank instantly. "I was wrong. You did listen, and very patiently. I meant that you wouldn't do what I said. And so I thought—"
Gertie burst out again, against cats and sneaking hypocrites, but there was not quite the same venom in her manner.
"Very good," said Frank. "Then I won't make the mistake again. I am very sorry—not in the least for having interfered, you understand, but for not having tried again myself." (He took up his cap.) "You'll soon give in, Gertie, you know. Don't you think so yourself?"
Gertie looked at him in silence.
"You understand, naturally, why I can't talk to you while the Major's here. But the next time I have a chance—"
The unlatched door was pushed open and the Major came in.