“‘I’ve been a bad husband to you, Susan,’ begins he.
“‘I could have told you that,’ she answers. ‘What I asked you was what you wanted.’
“‘I want for us to let bygones be bygones,’ says he.
“‘That’s quite my own idea,’ says she, ‘and if you don’t allude to the past, I shan’t.’
“‘You’re an angel, Susan,’ says he.
“‘I’ve told you once,’ answers she, ‘that my name’s Mrs. Wrench. I’m Susan to my friends, not to every broken-down tramp looking for a job.’
“‘Ain’t I your husband?’ says he, trying a bit of dignity.
“She got up and took a glance through the glass-door to see that nobody was there to overhear her.
“‘For the first and last time,’ says she, ‘let you and me understand one another. I’ve been eleven years without a husband, and I’ve got used to it. I don’t feel now as I want one of any kind, and if I did it wouldn’t be your sort. Eleven years ago I wasn’t good enough for you, and now you’re not good enough for me.’
“‘I want to reform,’ says he.
“‘I want to see you do it,’ says she.
“‘Give me a chance,’ says he.
“‘I’m going to,’ says she; ‘but it’s going to be my experiment this time, not yours. Eleven years ago I didn’t give you satisfaction, so you turned me out of doors.’
“‘You went, Susan,’ says he; ‘you know it was your own idea.’
“‘Don’t you remind me too much of the circumstances,’ replies she, turning on him with a look in her eyes that was probably new to him, ‘I went because there wasn’t room for two of us; you know that. The other kind suited you better. Now I’m going to see whether you suit me,’ and she sits herself again in her landlady’s chair.
“‘In what way?’ says he.
“‘In the way of earning your living,’ says she, ‘and starting on the road to becoming a decent member of society.’
“He stood for a while cogitating.
“‘Don’t you think,’ says he at last, ‘as I could manage this hotel for you?’
“‘Thanks,’ says she; ‘I’m doing that myself.’
“‘What about looking to the financial side of things,’ says he, ‘and keeping the accounts? It’s hardly your work.’
“‘Nor yours either,’ answers she drily, ‘judging by the way you’ve been keeping your own.’
“‘You wouldn’t like me to be head-waiter, I suppose?’ says he. ‘It would be a bit of a come-down.’
“‘You’re thinking of the hotel, I suppose,’ says she. ‘Perhaps you are right. My customers are mostly an old-fashioned class; it’s probable enough they might not like you. You had better suggest something else.’
“‘I could hardly be an under-waiter,’ says he.
“‘Perhaps not,’ says she; ‘your manners strike me as a bit too familiar for that.’
“Then he thought he’d try sarcasm.
“‘Perhaps you’d fancy my being the boots,’ says he.
“‘That’s more reasonable,’ says she. ‘You couldn’t do much harm there, and I could keep an eye on you.’
“‘You really mean that?’ says he, starting to put on his dignity.
“But she cut him short by ringing the bell.
“‘If you think you can do better for yourself,’ she says, ‘there’s an end of it. By a curious coincidence the place is just now vacant. I’ll keep it open for you till to-morrow night; you can turn it over in your mind.’ And one of the page boys coming in she just says ‘Good-morning,’ and the interview was at an end.
“Well, he turned it over, and he took the job. He thought she’d relent after the first week or two, but she didn’t. He just kept that place for over fifteen months, and learnt the business. In the house he was James the boots, and she Mrs. Wrench the landlady, and she saw to it that he didn’t forget it. He had his wages and he made his tips, and the food was plentiful; but I take it he worked harder during that time than he’d ever worked before in his life, and found that a landlady is just twice as difficult to please as the strictest landlord it can be a man’s misfortune to get under, and that Mrs. Wrench was no exception to the rule.
“At the end of the fifteen months she sends for him into the office. He didn’t want telling by this time; he just stood with his hat in his hand and waited respectful like.
“‘James,’ says she, after she had finished what she was doing, ‘I find I shall want another waiter for the coffee-room this season. Would you care to try the place?’
“‘Thank you, Mrs. Wrench,’ he answers; ‘it’s more what I’ve been used to, and I think I’ll be able to give satisfaction.’
“‘There’s no wages attached, as I suppose you know,’ continues she; ‘but the second floor goes with it, and if you know your business you ought to make from twenty-five to thirty shillings a week.’
“Thank you, Mrs. Wrench; that’ll suit me very well,’ replies he; and it was settled.
“He did better as a waiter; he’d got it in his blood, as you might say; and so after a time he worked up to be head-waiter. Now and then, of course, it came about that he found himself waiting on the very folks that he’d been chums with in his classy days, and that must have been a bit rough on him. But he’d taken in a good deal of sense since then; and when one of the old sort, all rings and shirt-front, dining there one Sunday evening, started chaffing him, Jimmy just shut him up with a quiet: ‘Yes, I guess we were both a bit out of our place in those days. The difference between us now is that I have got back to mine,’ which cost him his tip, but must have been a satisfaction to him.
“Altogether he worked in that hotel for some three and a half years, and then Mrs. Wrench sends for him again into the office.
“‘Sit down, James,’ says she.
“‘Thank you, Mrs. Wrench,’ says James, and sat.
“‘I’m thinking of giving up this hotel, James,’ says she, ‘and taking another near Dover, a quiet place with just such a clientele as I shall like. Do you care to come with me?’
“‘Thank you,’ says he, ‘but I’m thinking, Mrs. Wrench, of making a change myself.’
“‘Oh,’ says she, ‘I’m sorry to hear that, James. I thought we’d been getting on very well together.’
“‘I’ve tried to do my best, Mrs. Wrench,’ says he, ‘and I hope as I’ve given satisfaction.’
“‘I’ve nothing to complain of, James,’ says she.
“‘I thank you for saying it,’ says he, ‘and I thank you for the opportunity you gave me when I wanted it. It’s been the making of me.’
“She didn’t answer for about a minute. Then says she: ‘You’ve been meeting some of your old friends, James, I’m afraid, and they’ve been persuading you to go back into the City.’
“‘No, Mrs. Wrench,’ says he; ‘no more City for me, and no more neighbourhood of Grosvenor Square, unless it be in the way of business; and that couldn’t be, of course, for a good long while to come.’
“‘What do you mean by business?’ asks she.
“‘The hotel business,’ replies he. ‘I believe I know the bearings by now. I’ve saved a bit, thanks to you, Mrs. Wrench, and a bit’s come in from the wreck that I never hoped for.’
“‘Enough to start you?’ asks she.
“‘Not quite enough for that,’ answers he. ‘My idea is a small partnership.’
“‘How much is it altogether?’ says she, ‘if it’s not an impertinent question.’
“‘Not at all,’ answers he. ‘It tots up to 900 pounds about.’
“She turns back to her desk and goes on with her writing.
“‘Dover wouldn’t suit you, I suppose?’ says she without looking round.
“‘Dover’s all right,’ says he, ‘if the business is a good one.’
“‘It can be worked up into one of the best things going,’ says she, ‘and I’m getting it dirt cheap. You can have a third share for a thousand pounds, that’s just what it’s costing, and owe me the other hundred.”
“‘And what position do I take?’ says he.
“‘If you come in on those terms,’ says she, ‘then, of course, it’s a partnership.’
“He rose and came over to her. ‘Life isn’t all business, Susan,’ says he.
“‘I’ve found it so mostly,’ says she.
“‘Fourteen years ago,’ says he, ‘I made the mistake; now you’re making it.’
“‘What mistake am I making?’ says she.
“‘That man’s the only thing as can’t learn a lesson,’ says he.
“‘Oh,’ says she, ‘and what’s the lesson that you’ve learnt?’
“‘That I never get on without you, Susan,’ says he.
“‘Well,’ says she, ‘you suggested a partnership, and I agreed to it. What more do you want?’
“‘I want to know the name of the firm,’ says he.
“‘Mr. and Mrs. Wrench,’ says she, turning round to him and holding out her hand. ‘How will that suit you?’
“‘That’ll do me all right,’ answers he. ‘And I’ll try and give satisfaction,’ adds he.
“‘I believe you,’ says she.
“And in that way they made a fresh start, as it were.”
THE WOOING OF TOM SLEIGHT’S WIFE
It’s competition,” replied Henry, “that makes the world go round. You never want a thing particularly until you see another fellow trying to get it; then it strikes you all of a sudden that you’ve a better right to it than he has. Take barmaids: what’s the attraction about ‘em? In looks they’re no better than the average girl in the street; while as for their temper, well that’s a bit above the average – leastways, so far as my experience goes. Yet the thinnest of ‘em has her dozen, making sheep’s-eyes at her across the counter. I’ve known girls that on the level couldn’t have got a policeman to look at ‘em. Put ‘em behind a row of tumblers and a shilling’s-worth of stale pastry, and nothing outside a Lincoln and Bennett is good enough for ‘em. It’s the competition that’s the making of ‘em.
“Now, I’ll tell you a story,” continued Henry, “that bears upon the subject. It’s a pretty story, if you look at it from one point of view; though my wife maintains – and she’s a bit of a judge, mind you – that it’s not yet finished, she arguing that there’s a difference between marrying and being married. You can have a fancy for the one, without caring much about the other. What I tell her is that a boy isn’t a man, and a man isn’t a boy. Besides, it’s five years ago now, and nothing has happened since: though of course one can never say.”
“I would like to hear the story,” I ventured to suggest; “I’ll be able to judge better afterwards.”
“It’s not a long one,” replied Henry, “though as a matter of fact it began seventeen years ago in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He was a wild young fellow, and always had been.”
“Who was?” I interrupted.
“Tom Sleight,” answered Henry, “the chap I’m telling you about. He belonged to a good family, his father being a Magistrate for Monmouthshire; but there had been no doing anything with young Tom from the very first. At fifteen he ran away from school at Clifton, and with everything belonging to him tied up in a pocket-handkerchief made his way to Bristol Docks. There he shipped as boy on board an American schooner, the Cap’n not pressing for any particulars, being short-handed, and the boy himself not volunteering much. Whether his folks made much of an effort to get him back, or whether they didn’t, I can’t tell you. Maybe, they thought a little roughing it would knock some sense into him. Anyhow, the fact remains that for the next seven or eight years, until the sudden death of his father made him a country gentleman, a more or less jolly sailor-man he continued to be. And it was during that period – to be exact, three years after he ran away and four years before he returned – that, as I have said, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he married, after ten days’ courtship, Mary Godselle, only daughter of Jean Godselle, saloon keeper of that town.”
“That makes him just eighteen,” I remarked; “somewhat young for a bridegroom.”
“But a good deal older than the bride,” was Henry’s comment, “she being at the time a few months over fourteen.”
“Was it legal?” I enquired.
“Quite legal,” answered Henry. “In New Hampshire, it would seem, they encourage early marriages. ‘Can’t begin a good thing too soon,’ is, I suppose, their motto.”
“How did the marriage turn out?” was my next question. The married life of a lady and gentleman, the united ages of whom amounted to thirty-two, promised interesting developments.
“Practically speaking,” replied Henry, “it wasn’t a marriage at all. It had been a secret affair from the beginning, as perhaps you can imagine. The old man had other ideas for his daughter, and wasn’t the sort of father to be played with. They separated at the church door, intending to meet again in the evening. Two hours later Master Tom Sleight got knocked on the head in a street brawl. If a row was to be had anywhere within walking distance he was the sort of fellow to be in it. When he came to his senses he found himself lying in his bunk, and the ‘Susan Pride’ – if that was the name of the ship; I think it was – ten miles out to sea. The Captain declined to put the vessel about to please either a loving seaman or a loving seaman’s wife; and to come to the point, the next time Mr. Tom Sleight saw Mrs. Tom Sleight was seven years later at the American bar of the Grand Central in Paris; and then he didn’t know her.”
“But what had she been doing all the time?” I queried. “Do you mean to tell me that she, a married woman, had been content to let her husband disappear without making any attempt to trace him?”
“I was making it short,” retorted Henry, in an injured tone, “for your benefit; if you want to have the whole of it, of course you can. He wasn’t a scamp; he was just a scatterbrain – that was the worst you could say against him. He tried to communicate with her, but never got an answer. Then he wrote to the father, and told him frankly the whole story. The letter came back six months later, marked – ‘Gone away; left no address.’ You see, what had happened was this: the old man died suddenly a month or two after the marriage, without ever having heard a word about it. The girl hadn’t a relative or friend in the town, all her folks being French Canadians. She’d got her pride, and she’d got a sense of humour not common in a woman. I was with her at the Grand Central for over a year, and came to know her pretty well. She didn’t choose to advertise the fact that her husband had run away from her, as she thought, an hour after he had married her. She knew he was a gentleman with rich relatives somewhere in England; and as the months went by without bringing word or sign of him, she concluded he’d thought the matter over and was ashamed of her. You must remember she was merely a child at the time, and hardly understood her position. Maybe later on she would have seen the necessity of doing something. But Chance, as it were, saved her the trouble; for she had not been serving in the Cafe more than a month when, early one afternoon, in walked her Lord and Master. ‘Mam’sell Marie,’ as of course we called her over there, was at that moment busy talking to two customers, while smiling at a third; and our hero, he gave a start the moment he set eyes on her.”
“You told me that when he saw her there he didn’t know her,” I reminded Henry.
“Quite right, sir,” replied Henry, “so I did; but he knew a pretty girl when he saw one anywhere at any time – he was that sort, and a prettier, saucier looking young personage than Marie, in spite of her misfortunes, as I suppose you’d call ‘em, you wouldn’t have found had you searched Paris from the Place de la Bastille to the Arc de Triomphe.”
“Did she,” I asked, “know him, or was the forgetfulness mutual?”
“She recognised him,” returned Henry, “before he entered the Cafe, owing to catching sight of his face through the glass door while he was trying to find the handle. Women on some points have better memories than men. Added to which, when you come to think of it, the game was a bit one-sided. Except that his moustache, maybe, was a little more imposing, and that he wore the clothes of a gentleman in place of those of an able-bodied seaman before the mast, he was to all intents and purposes the same as when they parted six years ago outside the church door; while she had changed from a child in a short muslin frock and a ‘flapper,’ as I believe they call it, tied up in blue ribbon, to a self-possessed young woman in a frock that might have come out of a Bond Street show window, and a Japanese coiffure, that being then the fashion.
“She finished with her French customers, not hurrying herself in the least – that wasn’t her way; and then strolling over to her husband, asked him in French what she could have the pleasure of doing for him. His education on board the ‘Susan Pride’ and others had, I take it, gone back rather than forward. He couldn’t understand her, so she translated it for him into broken English, with an accent. He asked her how she knew he was English. She told him it was because Englishmen had such pretty moustaches, and came back with his order, which was rum punch. She kept him waiting about a quarter of an hour before she returned with it. He filled up the time looking into the glass behind him when he thought nobody was observing him.
“One American drink, as they used to concoct it in that bar, was generally enough for most of our customers, but he, before he left, contrived to put away three; also contriving, during the same short space of time, to inform ‘Mam’sel Marie’ that Paris, since he had looked into her eyes, had become the only town worth living in, so far as he was concerned, throughout the whole universe. He had his failings, had Master Tom Sleight, but shyness wasn’t one of them. She gave him a smile when he left that would have brought a less impressionable young man than he back again to that Cafe; but for the rest of the day I noticed ‘Mam’sel Marie’ frowned to herself a good deal, and was quite unusually cynical in her view of things in general.
“Next afternoon he found his way to us again, and much the same sort of thing went on, only a little more of it. A sailor-man, so I am told, makes love with his hour of departure always before his mind, and so gets into the habit of not wasting time. He gave her short lessons in English, for which she appeared to be grateful, and she at his request taught him the French for ‘You are just charming! I love you!’ with which, so he explained, it was his intention, on his return to England, to surprise his mother. He turned up again after dinner, and the next day before lunch, when after that I looked up and missed him at his usual table, the feeling would come to me that business was going down. Marie always appeared delighted to see him, and pouted when he left; but what puzzled me at the time was, that though she fooled him to the top of his bent, she flirted every bit as much, if not more, with her other customers – leastways with the nicer ones among them. There was one young Frenchman in particular – a good-looking chap, a Monsieur Flammard, son of the painter. Up till then he’d been making love pretty steadily to Miss Marie, as, indeed, had most of ‘em, without ever getting much forrarder; for hitherto a chat about the weather, and a smile that might have meant she was in love with you or might have meant she was laughing at you – no man could ever tell which, – was all the most persistent had got out of her. Now, however, and evidently to his own surprise, young Monsieur Flammard found himself in clover. Provided his English rival happened to be present and not too far removed, he could have as much flirtation as he wanted, which, you may take it, worked out at a very tolerable amount. Master Tom could sit and scowl, and for the matter of that did; but as Marie would explain to him, always with the sweetest of smiles, her business was to be nice to all her customers, and to this, of course, he had nothing to reply: that he couldn’t understand a word of what she and Flammard talked and laughed about didn’t seem to make him any the happier.
“Well, this sort of thing went on for perhaps a fortnight, and then one morning over our dejeune, when she and I had the Cafe entirely to ourselves, I took the opportunity of talking to Mam’sel Marie like a father.
“She heard me out without a murmur, which showed her sense; for liking the girl sincerely, I didn’t mince matters with her, but spoke plainly for her good. The result was, she told me her story much as I have told it to you.
“‘It’s a funny tale,’ says I when she’d finished, ‘though maybe you yourself don’t see the humour of it.’
“‘Yes, I do,’ was her answer. ‘But there’s a serious side to it also,’ says she, ‘and that interests me more.’
“‘You’re sure you’re not making a mistake?’ I suggested.
“‘He’s been in my thoughts too much for me to forget him,’ she replied. ‘Besides, he’s told me his name and all about himself.’
“‘Not quite all,’ says I.
“‘No, and that’s why I feel hard toward him,’ answers she.
“‘Now you listen to me,’ says I. ‘This is a very pretty comedy, and the way you’ve played it does you credit up till now. Don’t you run it on too long, and turn it into a problem play.’
“‘How d’ye mean?’ says she.
“‘A man’s a man,’ says I; ‘anyhow he’s one. He fell in love with you six years ago when you were only a child, and now you’re a woman he’s fallen in love with you again. If that don’t convince you of his constancy, nothing will. You stop there. Don’t you try to find out any more.’
“‘I mean to find out one thing, answers she: ‘whether he’s a man – or a cad.’
“‘That’s a severe remark,’ says I, ‘to make about your own husband.’
“‘What am I to think?’ says she. ‘He fooled me into loving him when, as you say, I was only a child. Do you think I haven’t suffered all these years? It’s the girl that cries her eyes out for her lover; we learn to take ‘em for what they’re worth later on.’
“‘But he’s in love with you still,’ I says. I knew what was in her mind, but I wanted to lead her away from it if I could.
“‘That’s a lie,’ says she, ‘and you know it.’ She wasn’t choosing her words; she was feeling, if you understand. ‘He’s in love with a pretty waitress that he met for the first time a fortnight ago.’
“‘That’s because she reminds him of you,’ I replied, ‘or because you remind him of her, whichever you prefer. It shows you’re the sort of woman he’ll always be falling in love with.’