Mrs. Thompson: A Novel

by W. B. Maxwell

In these days, at the dawn of her success, Mrs. Thompson was not without obvious personal attraction. She was fair and plump, with light wavy hair, kind grey eyes beneath well-marked eyebrows, and good colour warmly brightening a clean white skin;—she "looked nice" in her widow's black, smiling at a hard world and so bravely tackling her life problem. Quite a large number of well-to-do citizens were smilingly rejected by the buxom widow. Pretenders were slow to believe in the finality of her refusals; as the success became more patent, they tried their luck again, and again, but always with the same emptiness of result. Indeed it was a town joke, as well as an unquestionable fact, that old Chambers the wine-merchant regularly proposed three times a year to nice-looking Mrs. Thompson.

She wanted no second husband. The fight and the child were enough for her. Those deep and unsapped springs of love that might have gushed forth to make a fountain stream of happiness for Alderman Brown or Councillor Jones flowed calmly and steadfastly now in a concentrated channel of motherly affection. To work for the child, to love and tend the child—that was henceforth her destiny. And she felt strong enough to watch in her own face the blurring destructive print of time, if she might watch in her girl's face time's unfolding glories.

For the cruel years took from her irrevocably those physical seductions of neatly rounded form and smooth pinkness and whiteness. The colour that had been sufficient became too much, plumpness changed to stoutness—once, for a year, she was fat. But she tackled this trouble too, bravely and unflinchingly,—went to London for Swedish exercises; banted; brought herself down, down, down, until Dr. Eldridge told her she must stop, or she would kill herself. After that she settled to a steady solidness, a well-maintained amplitude of contour; and the years seemed to leave her untouched as the wide-breasted, rotund-hipped, stalwart Mrs. Thompson of a decade—red-cheeked, bright-eyed, gallant and strong.

Yet still she had suitors. The physical charm was gone, but other charm was present—that blending of kindness and power which wins men's hearts, if it does not stir their pulses, gave her a dominating personality, and made the circle of her influence exactly as large as the circle of her acquaintance. People at the circumference of the circle seemed to be surely drawn, by a straight or vacillating radius, to its centre. The better you knew her, the more you thought about her. So that old friends after years of thought now and then surprised her by suggesting that friendship should be exchanged for a closer bond; pointing out the advantages of a common-sense union, the marriage of convenience, sympathy, and mutual regard, that becomes appropriate when the volcano glow of youth has faded; and inviting her to name an early day for going to St. Saviour's Church with them.

In the shop, among all grades of employees, there had ever been a dread of St. Saviour's Church and wedding bells. They got on so well with their mistress that the idea of a master was extraordinarily abhorrent to them. But one day, a day now long past, Mrs. Thompson told Mr. Mears authoritatively that joy bells would never sound for her again; Mr. Mears, by permission, or in the exercise of his own discretion, passed on the glad tidings; and the only dark thought that could worry a contented staff was removed.

"No, Mr. Mears, I don't say that I have never contemplated the possibility of such an event; but I can say emphatically I have decided that in my case it is impossible."

That was sufficient. What Mrs. Thompson said Mrs. Thompson meant. A decision with her was a decision.

Of all her trusty subordinates none had served her so loyally as big Mr. Mears. His whole life had been spent in Thompson's. Once he had been boy messenger, window-cleaner, boot-blacker; and now, at the age of sixty, he had risen to managerial rank. He was the acknowledged chief of the staff, Mrs. Thompson's right-hand man; and he was as proud of his position and the culminating grandeurs of his career as if he had been a successful general, a prime-minister, or a pope. Mrs. Thompson knew and openly told him that he was invaluable to her. Such words were like wine and music: they intoxicated and enchanted him. Truly he was whole-hearted, faithful, devoted, with a deep veneration for his mistress; with an intense and almost passionate esteem for her skill, her comprehension, her vigour, and for her herself—perhaps too with a love that he scarcely himself understood.

Anyhow this heavy grey-haired shopman and his employer were very close allies, generally thinking as one, and always acting as one, able to talk together with a nearly absolute freedom on any question, however intimately private in its character.

"You see, Mr. Mears, if I ever meant to do it, I should have done it ages ago. Now that my daughter is growing up, her claims for attention are becoming stronger every day."