Mrs. Thompson: A Novel

by W. B. Maxwell

Then after five years the man and his money were gone forever; the mother for whom the sacrifice had been made was herself dead; only the wife and her little child remained. Five years of dull submission to an unloved husband; five years spent in the nursing of two invalids, with the vapid meaningless monotony of wasted days broken sharply by the pains of child-birth, the agonized cares of early motherhood, and the shock of death;—and at the end of the years, a sudden call for limitless courage and almost impossible energy.

Quiet unobtrusive Mrs. Thompson answered the call fully. Deep-seated fighting instincts arose in her; unsuspected powers were put forth to meet the exigencies of the occasion; the hero-spirit that lies buried in many natures sprang nobly upward.

At first she possessed only one commercial asset, the reputation of Thompson's. For so many years Thompson's had been known as a good shop that here was a legend which might counterbalance debts, exhausted credit, antiquated stock, and incompetent staff.

The town and the country during generations had come to Thompson's for good things—not cheap things, but the things that last: dress fabrics that stand up by themselves, chairs and tables that you can leave intact to your grandchildren, carpets that unborn men will be beating when you yourself are dust.

Mrs. Thompson, in her widow's weeds, went round the big supply houses, telling the great trade chieftains that the legend was still alive, though the man who already owed them so much money was dead; saying in effect to all the people who held her fate in their hands, "Don't let old Thompson's go down. Don't smash me. Help me. Give me time to secure your twenty shillings in the pound, instead of the meagre seven and sixpence which you can get now."

The wholesale trade helped her. Little by little all the world came to her aid. Mr. Prentice the solicitor was a skilful ally. As soon as it could be seen locally that she was keeping her head above water, friends on the bank began to beckon to her. Rich aldermen, advised that there was now small risk, lent her money; and these loans rendered her independent of Trade assistance. Soon she could get whatever sums she required for the restoration and expansion of the business.

In all her dealings she won respect. The confidence that she inspired was her true commercial asset, her capital, her good-will, her everything; and it was always growing. "Very remarkable," said travellers, reporting at headquarters, "how that Mrs. Thompson has pulled the fat out of the fire at Mallingbridge. What she wants now is some sound business man for partner—and there's no knowing what she mightn't do."

Then some other and more philosophic traveller, impressed by the swift revivification of Thompson's, said enthusiastically, "The best business head in this town is on a woman's shoulders." The saying was quoted, misquoted, echoed and garbled, until it concreted itself into an easy popular formula which the whole town used freely. "The best man of business in Mallingbridge is a woman." Everyone knew who that woman was. Mrs. Thompson. And the town, speaking on important occasions through the mouth of its mayor, aldermen, and councillors, for the first time said that it was proud of her.

And then the town began to ask her hand in wedlock.