Once he promised not to parade his infidelity in Mallingbridge. This was after the scandal he had caused by taking a set of bachelor rooms in the new flats near the railway station, and bringing down a London woman to occupy them from Saturdays to Mondays. Every Sunday he made himself conspicuous by flaunting about the town with this brazen creature.
Probably he was tired of his Sabbath promenades by the time that Mrs. Marsden resolutely declared that, for the sake of the business as well as for her own sake, she would not support so glaring an outrage. Anyhow he said it should cease, and swore that he would for the future be more circumspect.
But he pretended to believe that his wife had given him a letter of license, full authority to resume the habits of bachelorhood, the freedom of manners that naturally accompanies a release from the closer bonds of the marriage state. He had never for a moment thought she would mind; but he vowed that what she was pleased to consider offensive and derogatory to the reputation of herself and the shop should never occur again.
Nevertheless, it was soon known to everybody but Mrs. Marsden that he was committing more local breaches of etiquette. On idle evenings he would prowl about the streets, accosting servant girls and shop girls, loitering at corners, and laughing and chaffing with any little sluts who consented to entertain his badinage. Sense of shame and the last remembrances of shop-propriety seemed to be deserting him. Soon his own young ladies met him talking to the girls that belonged to his great trade rival. That tow-haired huzzy who regularly came mincing up St. Saviour's Court to wait for the guv'nor, was—and the thing seemed so monstrous that it was recorded in an awed whisper—neither more nor less than a ribbon girl from Bence's!
Then, after a little while, the governor told Mears that he had engaged a new hand for the upper floor. She would come in on Monday morning, and Miss Woolfrey had better put her into China and Glass, and see how she got on there. She was good at anything, and would soon pick up the hang of everything.
But what a whisper ran round the shop when the newcomer was seen by the horror-struck assistants! The tow-haired minx from over the road!
It was an open and egregious scandal, shocking everybody except the unsuspecting female partner. The shop spoke of the new girl as "Miss Bence." The governor was always trotting upstairs to murmur and chuckle with Miss Bence. Someone saw him pinching Miss Bence's ear—and so on. It was another outrage that could not be permitted to continue.
Sadly and heavily old Mears told Mrs. Marsden all about it.
The disclosure threw her into a quite unusual agitation. She seemed to be more terrified than disgusted. It was as if, in spite of all attempts to keep a bold front before the world, the mere name of their remorseless and overwhelming rival now had power to set her apprehensively trembling.
"I don't want any communications passing between Bence's and us"—And she showed that this idea was sufficient in itself to frighten her. "The girl may be a spy. She may go back there."