Part 32 (2/2)

He said it was a hard-boiled fact this time. One of the profligate brothers had died; the widow was taking his money out of the business; and Archibald Bence, deprived of capital without which he could not sc.r.a.pe along, would go phutt at any minute.

”There, old girl, I thought it would buck you up to hear such news, so I ran in to tell you. But now I must be off.”

And then, in his unusual good temper, he noticed the difficulties under which she was labouring.

”I say, you don't seem very comfortable with all your papers spread out on chairs like that. It looks so infernally messy--but I suppose you haven't s.p.a.ce for them on your table.”

”I could do with more s.p.a.ce, certainly.”

”Very well. You can sit at my desk--when I am not here. But don't fiddle about with anything in the drawers;” and he laughed. ”You'd better not pry among my papers, or you may get your fingers snapped off. The whole d.a.m.ned thing shut up with a bang when I was looking for something in a hurry the other day.”

She wondered if there could be any valid reason for the persistent recurrence of these stories of financial shakiness behind their rival's outward show of prosperity. Were these little puffs of smoke, appearing and disappearing so frequently, indicative of latent fire? She asked Mr.

Mears what he thought about the gossip carried in such triumph by her credulous husband.

Mears did not believe a word of it.

”We've heard such yarns for ten years, haven't we?” And Mears nodded his head in the direction of the street. ”I've used my eyes, and I don't see any signs of it--and I think Mr. Marsden shouldn't reckon on it.”

”No, I quite agree with you.”

”Although,” said Mears, ”it would be very convenient to us, if it _did_ happen--and if it _is_ going to happen, the sooner it happens the better.”

”It won't happen,” said Mrs. Marsden, sadly and wearily. ”The wish is father to the thought--there's no real sense in it.”

At this time she often thought of Archibald Bence; and of how, when alluding to his idle spendthrift brothers, he used to say with quaintly candid self-pity, ”There's a leak in my shop.”

Well, there was a leak on each side of the street, now.

Availing herself of her husband's permission, she came out of the corner, and was generally to be seen seated in the chair of honour at the tricky American desk.

Little by little she was resuming control over the ordinary routine management of the shop; and, although in its greater and more momentous affairs she remained practically impotent, she was allowed full opportunities to supervise and encourage its daily traffic.

Once or twice as Mears stood by her chair in the office and watched her knitted brows while she considered the questions of the hour, he thought and felt that it was quite like old times.

But this was a transient thought. Old times could never really come again. Stooping to take the papers on which she had scrawled her brief and rapid directions, he noticed the coa.r.s.e grey strands in the hair that such a little while ago used to be so smooth, so glossy, and to his mind so pretty. He could see, too, the differences in her whole face.

The face was slightly smaller; the florid colours were fading so fast that occasionally she seemed sallow; the lines of the kind mouth had grown harder; and there was a curious, pa.s.sive, subdued look where once there had been outpouring vitality. And the bodice of the black dress hung loose, in small folds and creases, on the shoulders that used to fill it with such handsome thoroughness.

But instinctively Mears understood that behind the narrower and less glowing mask the inward force was not extinguished--the indomitable spirit was there still, not yet quenched, and perhaps unquenchable.

He watched her--with a veneration deeper than he had ever felt in the easy prosperous past--while she went on quietly, bravely working, day by day, week after week.

One Sat.u.r.day evening, after an uneventful but laborious week, when she had supped alone and was reading by the dining-room fire, Marsden came in and abruptly asked her for money.

”This is serious, Jane--no rot about it. I'm stuck for a couple of hundred, and I must have it.”

”Really, d.i.c.k, I cannot--”

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