XX

Two years had pa.s.sed, and the grand old shop was plainly going down.

It could not satisfy chance customers; it had begun to lose its staunchest supporters. Gradually and fatally, cruel words were going round the town and far out into the country villages. "It isn't what it used to be.... It has had its day.... Nothing lasts forever."

Fewer and fewer carriages of the local gentry were to be seen standing outside its doors. Farmers' wives, who for more than a decade had driven into Mallingbridge and spent Sat.u.r.day afternoons picking and choosing at Thompson's, now did all their shopping somewhere else. The whole world seemed to be discovering that you could get whatever you wanted quite as well and more cheaply somewhere else. And from somewhere else, your goods--no matter where you lived, whether far or near--were delivered free of charge, with marvellous celerity, and "returnable if damaged."

Inside the sinking shop every a.s.sistant too well knew that horrid expression, "Somewhere else."

It paralysed the tongues of the shop girls; it struck them stupid. Each time they heard it, their courage waned, their hopes drooped; they gave up struggling.

"Thank you, I won't trouble you any more."

"Not the least trouble, I a.s.sure you."

"No, you're very good--but I'm in a hurry. I'll try somewhere else."

"Very well, madam."

A lost customer--no more to be done.

Yet the a.s.sistants had before their eyes a fine example of unflagging courage. Of one of the partners at least, it could not be said that there was supineness, neglect, or bungling practices to account for the long-continued and increasing depression that all the employees were feeling so severely.

Of the other partner, the less said the better. They could not indeed find words adequate for the expression of their opinions in regard to _him_.

When Mrs. Marsden, bravely facing the situation and calmly acknowledging the logic of facts, had declared that it was imperatively necessary to reduce what in railway management are called running expenses, and at all hazards bring expenditure and receipts again to a proper working ratio, the dominant partner selfishly jumped at the idea, converted it into a fresh weapon of destruction, and used it with wicked force.

Cut down the staff? Yes, this is a luminous notion. Where there have been five a.s.sistants at a counter, let us have three--or only two. "We must weed 'em out, Mears. No more cats than can catch mice! I'll soon weed 'em out."

It seemed to the people behind the counters that he took a diabolical pleasure in the weeding-out process. Instead of getting through his dismissals as quickly as possible, he kept the poor souls in suspense--giving the sack to two or three every day; so that these black weeks were a reign of terror, during which one rose each morning with the dreadful doubt whether one would survive till night.

When at last the executions ceased, almost every one of the important heads had fallen. Why pay high wages for subordinate chieftains when the over-lords can supervise for nothing? Mrs. Marsden received instructions to keep an eye on all departments; shop-walkers were made by giving counter-hands additional duties without additional pay; and Mr. Mears and Miss Woolfrey could respectively be considered as remaining in managerial charge of the whole ground floor and the whole first floor.

The gigantic bas.e.m.e.nt was in charge of darkness, damp, and the cold spirit of failure. Marsden never spoke of it himself, and might not be reminded about it by others. He wished to forget the deep hole into which he had poured so much irretrievable gold.

Miss Woolfrey could not boast of having been promoted: she had merely survived: she obtained neither recompense nor praise for doing the extra work that a stern master had pushed into her way. If Mr. Mears had not been driven out into the street, it was because Marsden, whose selfish folly was sometimes tempered by a certain shrewd cunning, had definitely come to the conclusion that, bad as things were, they would be worse if he deprived himself of the help of this faithful servant. Mears had stood up to him; Mears had convinced him; Mears would never be dismissed, because Mears could never be replaced.

It was perhaps some slight comfort to Mrs. Marsden to know now that her oldest shop friend would be allowed to keep his promise, and to stick to her as long as he cared to do so.

Soon after the reduction of the staff, Marsden introduced another economy. Without warning he started an entirely new system of payment.

Hitherto all wages had been at fixed rates, with progressive rises; and the staff, feeling security in their situations and able to look to an a.s.sured future, had worked loyally without the stimulus of commission.

But Marsden said these methods were antiquated, exploded; they did very well before Noah's flood, but they wouldn't do nowadays. Henceforth everybody's screw must depend upon the commissions earned: in other words, the basis for the calculation of wages must be the amount of the shop's receipts.

Mears, protesting but submitting, carried the new order into effect.

"I've no objection on principle," said Mears heavily; "but you have chosen a queer time to do it, sir--just when takings have dropped to their lowest, and there's no movement in any line."

Resentment, murmuring, discontent followed; half a dozen sufferers went into voluntary exile; then there was silence.

And then Marsden thought of a third economy. Thompson's had ever been famed for keeping a generous table. You were sure of good sound grub, and as much of it as you could stow away, to sustain you in your toil.

The kitchens and dining-rooms were controlled by a man and his wife, with four cook-maids and three waitresses; and for many years these people had given the utmost satisfaction, both to their employer and her daily guests. Now Mr. Marsden swept the lot of them out of doors. He had entered into an agreement with the cheap and nasty restaurant in High Street; and henceforth the staff would be catered for at starvation prices--so much, or rather so little, per head per meal.

This was a fresh and a great misery--short commons bang on top of mutilated salaries,--almost more than one could bear.

Marsden, however, felt thoroughly pleased; and was willing to believe that by the aid of his drastic remedies he had cured the evil which afflicted him. For the end of each of these two years showed a substantial profit.

It was quite useless for Mrs. Marsden and Mears to point out the dangers that lay ahead, to hint that profits now were essentially fict.i.tious, to warn him that what he had grasped at as income should more properly be described as realisation of capital, to sigh and shake their heads, and to plead for prompt renewal of diminished stock. He was too well contented with immediate results. To-day is to-day; to-morrow can take care of itself. He had given the business another ferocious squeeze; and, under the pressure, it had yielded what he wanted--some cash to keep him going.

The turf was again engaging his attention; but he pursued his amus.e.m.e.nt in a far less splendid manner than during those glorious days of fine clothes and full pockets after the honey-moon.

His nose had thickened, his whole face had become coa.r.s.er and grosser; and flesh round his eyes showed an unhealthy puffiness, and his neck bulged large above an often dirty collar. He wore a brown bowler hat, a weather-proof overcoat, and heavy field boots; crumpled newspapers protruded from his breast, and a gla.s.s in a soiled and battered leather case was negligently slung over his shoulders. In fact he looked now like the typical racing man of the third or fourth cla.s.s; and directly he reached London he mingled with and was lost in a crowd of exactly similar ruffians, hurrying together to make a train-load of disreputability and scoundrelism for Hurst Park or Kempton. But at Mallingbridge he was always noticeable. He produced a wretched impression in the shop each time that, dressed for sport, he pa.s.sed through it; he was its secret destroyer and its visible disgrace; his mere appearance was sufficient to send thousands of customers somewhere else.

While the cash lasted, the house saw little of him. As soon as the cash gave out, the house again groaned under his presence. Till he could set his hands on more cash, he must be lodged and boarded by the stay-at-home partner.

Many were the dark and dismal days to be remembered, if his wife ever made a retrospect of two years' suffering; humiliations, griefs--darkness with but few gleams of light. Visits from Enid with the child and her nurse--an hour rescued from a long month--formed spots of brightness to look back at. But, for the rest, there was black gloom, as of moonless, starless nights.

Perhaps his most malignant cruelty was the driving away of Yates. The doomed wretch struggled so hard not to be torn from the side of her beloved mistress. Mrs. Marsden knew that the struggle was futile, begged her to go; but still she tried to stay--accepting insults and abuse, and only piteously smiling at her persecutor.

A cruel, most cruel hour, when one evening the shabby old trunks stood corded and waiting at the foot of the stairs, and Yates in her bonnet and shawl came into the drawing-room to say good-bye. That was the final smashing of a home, for the mistress as well as for the maid. All that made the house endurable to Mrs. Marsden had now gone from it--no sound of a friendly voice to welcome her as she came through the door of communication; no solace after the exhausting day; a strange face to meet her, unfamiliar, clumsy hands to wait upon her at the lonely supper.

She never really learned to know the faces of her new servants. They changed so often. No servant would stop with them for long. The work was heavier than it used to be; after Yates had gone the mistress could not afford to keep a maid-housekeeper; in these hard times a cook and a housemaid must suffice for the establishment. Departing servants said the mistress gave little trouble; she was patient and kind; they had no fault to find with her--but the master was "a fair terror."

Yet he had promised, when consummating the sacrifice of Yates, that he would refrain from again upsetting the domestic arrangements. But what promises would he not make? What promise had he ever failed to break?

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 Sat.u.r.days 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 circ.u.mspect.

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 s.l.u.ts 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 Gla.s.s, 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 a.s.sistants! 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 pa.s.sing 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."