Mrs. Thompson: A Novel

by W. B. Maxwell

"It was my brothers—God forgive them—who had frustrated me—not bad luck—or any faults of mine. Take, take, take—whatever my work produced, out it went.... Well then, I was what she described—lying at her feet, and praying for life. So I said I'd take it—on her own terms....

"But when it was over, oh, Mr. Prentice the relief! I had lit'rally come to life again. I was safe—with money behind me,—with driving power behind me. I went home that night to Mrs. Bence and cried as if I'd been a baby—and after I'd had my cry, I slept. What's that proverb? Sleep, it is a blessed thing! I hadn't slept sound for years. Don't you see? I was certain we should go on all right now—now that the burden was on her shoulders."

And then Bence had his idiosyncratic touch of self-pity.

"I don't know whether you were aware of it, Mr. Prentice—these things get about when one is more or less a public man,—but the incessant worry had given me kidney disease. Well,—will you believe it?—from that hour I got better. The doctors reported less,—less again,—and at last, not a trace of it. I was simply another man."

"But, Bence, my dear fellow, what fills me with such amazement and admiration is the rapidity of your success from that point. You seemed to be on the crest of the wave instantaneously."

"Ah! That was the magician's wand. Instead of having our earnings snatched out the moment they reached the till, the profits were being put back into the concern. I was working on a salary—a very handsome one—with my commission; and she never took out a penny more than was absolutely necessary. There was the whole difference—and it's magic in trade. I was given scope, capital, an easy road—with no blind turnings."

"But I suppose you did it all under her direction?"

"Well, I don't know how to answer that;" and Bence grinned, and twirled his moustache. "No. I suppose I ought to say no. I had full scope—and was never interfered with.... We used to meet at Hyde & Collins's; and I reported things—just reported them. She used to look at me in that inscrutable way of hers, and say, 'I can't advise. I have nothing to do with your business—beyond having my money in it: just as I might have it in any other form of investment. But speaking merely as an outsider, I think you are going on very nice. Go on just the same, Mr. Bence.' Sometimes she did drop a word. It was always light.... Oh, she's unique, Mr. Prentice—quite unique."

Bence grinned more broadly as he went on.

"Of course it was by her orders—or I ought to say, it was acting on a hint she let fall, that I made myself so popular with the authorities. You never came to one of my dinner-parties?... No, I did ask you; but you wouldn't come.... Well, you're acquainted with Mallingbridge oratory. After dinner, when the speeches began, they used to butter me up to the skies; and I used to tell them straight—though of course they couldn't see it—that I was only a figure-head, a dummy. 'Don't praise me,' I told 'em, 'I'm nobody—just the outward sign of the enterprise and spirit that lays behind me.' Yes, and I put it straighter than that sometimes—it tickled me to give 'em the truth almost in the plainest words.... And I knew there was no risk. They'd never tumble to it."