The Helpmate

by May Sinclair

A woman of marvellous ingenuity and tact. For she had kept Lawson straight without his knowing it. She had played off one of Lawson's little weaknesses against the other; had set, for instance, his fantastic love of eating against his sordid little tendency to drink. Lawson was now a model of sobriety.

And as she kept Lawson straight without his knowing it, she helped Majendie, too, without his knowing it, to hold his miserable head up. She ignored, resolutely, his attitude of dejection. She reminded him that if he could make nothing else out of his life he could make money. She convinced him that life, the life of a prosperous ship-owner in Scale, was worth living, as long as he had Edith and Anne and Peggy to make money for, especially Peggy.

And Majendie became more and more absorbed in his business, and more and more he found his pleasure in it; in making money, that is to say, for the persons whom he loved.

He had come even to find pleasure in making it for a person whom he did not love, and hardly knew. He provided himself with one punctual and agreeable sensation every week when he sent off the cheque for the small sum that was poor Maggie's allowance. Once a week (he had settled it), not once a month. For Maggie might (for anything he knew) be thriftless. She might feast for three days, and then starve; and so find her sad way to the street.

But Maggie was not thriftless. First at irregular intervals, weeks it might be, or months, she had sent him various diminutive sums towards the payment of her debt. Maggie was strictly honourable. She had got a little work, she said, and hoped soon to have it regularly. And soon she began to return to him, weekly, the half of her allowance. These sums he put by for her, adding the interest. Some day there would be a modest hoard for Maggie. He pleased himself, now and then, by wondering what the girl would do with it. Buy a wedding-gown perhaps, when she married Mr. Mumford. Time, he felt, was Mr. Mumford's best ally. In time, when she had forgotten Gorst, Maggie would marry him.

Maggie's small business entailed a correspondence out of all proportion to it. He had not yet gone to see her. Some day, he supposed, he would have to go, to see whether the girl, as he phrased it vaguely, was "really all right." With little creatures like Maggie you never could be sure. There would always be the possibility of Gorst's successor, and he had no desire to make Maggie's maintenance easier for him. He had made her independent of all iniquitous sources of revenue.

At last, suddenly, the postal orders and the letters ceased; for three weeks, four, five weeks. Then Majendie began to feel uneasy. He would have to look her up.

Then one morning, early in September, a letter was brought to him at the office (Maggie's letters were always addressed to the office, never to his house). There was no postal order with it. For three weeks Maggie had been ill, then she had been very poorly, very weak, too weak to sit long at work. And so she had lost what work she had; but she hoped to get more when she was strong again. When she was strong the repayments would begin again, said Maggie. She hoped Mr. Majendie would forgive her for not having sent any for so long. She was very sorry. But, if it wasn't too much to ask, she would be very glad if Mr. Majendie would come some day and see her.

He sent her an extra remittance by the bearer, and went to see her the next day. His conscience reproached him for not having gone before.

Mrs. Morse, the landlady, received him with many appearances of relief. In her mind he was evidently responsible for Maggie. He was the guardian, the benefactor, the sender of rent.