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The Pretty Lady: A Novel, a novel by Arnold Bennett |
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Chapter 7. For The Empire |
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_ Mrs. Braiding came into the drawing-room, and he wondered, paternally, why she was so fidgety and why her tranquillising mate had not appeared. To the careless observer she was a cheerful woman, but the temple of her brightness was reared over a dark and frightful crypt in which the demons of doubt, anxiety, and despair year after year dragged at their chains, intimidating hope. Slender, small, and neat, she passed her life in bravely fronting the shapes of disaster with an earnest, vivacious, upturned face. She was thirty-five, and her aspect recalled the pretty, respected lady's-maid which she had been before Braiding got her and knocked some nonsense out of her and turned her into a wife. G.J., still paternally, but firmly, took her up at once. "I say, Mrs. Braiding, what about this dish-cover?" He lifted the article, of which the copper was beginning to show through the Sheffield plating. "Yes sir. It does look rather impoverished, doesn't it?" "But I told Braiding to use the new toast-dish I bought last week but one." "Did you, sir? I was very happy about the new one as soon as I saw it, but Braiding never gave me your instructions in regard to it." She glanced at the cabinet in which the new toast-dish reposed with other antique metal-work. "Braiding's been rather upset this last few days, sir." "What about?" "This recruiting, sir. Of course, you are aware he's decided on it." "I'm not aware of anything of the sort," said G.J. rather roughly, perhaps to hide his sudden emotion, perhaps to express his irritation at Mrs. Braiding's strange habit of pretending that the most startling pieces of news were matters of common knowledge. "Well, sir, of course you were out most of yesterday, and you dined at the club. Braiding attended at a recruiting office yesterday, sir. He stood three hours in the crowd outside because there was no room inside, and then he stood over two hours in a passage inside before his turn came, and nothing to eat all day, or drink either. And when his turn came and they asked him his age, he said 'thirty-six,' and the person was very angry and said he hadn't any time to waste, and Braiding had better go outside again and consider whether he hadn't made a mistake about his age. So Braiding went outside and considered that his age was only thirty-three after all, but he couldn't get in again, not by any means, so he just came back here and I gave him a good tea, and he needed it, sir." "But he saw me last night, and he never said anything!" "Yes, sir," Mrs. Braiding admitted with pain. "I asked him if he had told you, and he said he hadn't and that I must." "Where is he now?" "He went off early, sir, so as to get a good place. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he's in the army by this time. I know it's not the right way of going about things, and Braiding's only excuse is it's for the Empire. When it's a question of the Empire, sir...." At that instant the white man's burden was Mrs. Braiding's, and the glance of her serious face showed what the crushing strain of it was. "I think he might have told me." "Well, sir. I'm very sorry. Very sorry.... But you know what Braiding is." G.J. felt that that was just what he did not know, or at any rate had not hitherto known. He was hurt by Braiding's conduct. He had always treated Braiding as a friend. They had daily discussed the progress of the war. On the previous night Braiding, in all the customary sedateness of black coat and faintly striped trousers, had behaved just as usual! It was astounding. G.J. began to incline towards the views of certain of his friends about the utter incomprehensibility of the servile classes--views which he had often annoyed them by traversing. Yes; it was astounding. All this martial imperialism seething in the depths of Braiding, and G.J. never suspecting the ferment! Exceedingly difficult to conceive Braiding as a soldier! He was the Albany valet, and Albany valets were Albany valets and naught else. Mrs. Braiding continued: "It's very inconsiderate to you, sir. That's a point that is appreciated by both Braiding and I. But let us fervently hope it won't be for long, sir. The consensus of opinion seems to be we shall be in Berlin in the spring. And in the meantime, I think"--she smiled an appeal--"I can manage for you by myself, if you'll be so good as to let me." "Oh! It's not that," said G.J. carelessly. "I expect you can manage all right." "Oh!" cried she. "I know how you feel about it, sir, and I'm very sorry. And at best it's bound to be highly inconvenient for a gentleman like yourself, sir. I said to Braiding, 'You're taking advantage of Mr. Hoape's good nature,' that's what I said to Braiding, and he couldn't deny it. However, sir, if you'll be so good as to let me try what I can do by myself--" "I tell you that'll be all right," he stopped her. Braiding, his mainstay, was irrevocably gone. He realised that, and it was a severe blow. He must accept it. As for Mrs. Braiding managing, she would manage in a kind of way, but the risks to Regency furniture and china would be grave. She did not understand Regency furniture and china as Braiding did; no woman could. Braiding had been as much a "find" as the dome bed or the unique bookcase which bore the names of "Homer" and "Virgil" in bronze characters on its outer wings. Also, G.J. had a hundred little ways about neckties and about trouser-stretching which he, G.J., would have to teach Mrs. Braiding. Still the war ... When she was gone he stood up and brushed the crumbs from his dressing-gown, and emitted a short, harsh laugh. He was laughing at himself. Regency furniture and china! Neckties! Trouser-stretching! In the next room was a youngish woman whose minstrel boy to the war had gone--gone, though he might be only in the next street! And had she said a word about her feelings as a wife? Not a word! But dozens of words about the inconvenience to the god-like employer! She had apologised to him because Braiding had departed to save the Empire without first asking his permission. It was not merely astounding--it flabbergasted. He had always felt that there was something fundamentally wrong in the social fabric, and he had long had a preoccupation to the effect that it was his business, his, to take a share in finding out what was wrong and in discovering and applying a cure. This preoccupation had worried him, scarcely perceptibly, like the delicate oncoming of neuralgia. There must be something wrong when a member of one class would behave to a member of another class as Mrs. Braiding behaved to him--without protest from him. "Mrs. Braiding!" he called out. "Yes, sir." She almost ran back into the drawing-room. "When shall you be seeing your husband?" At least he would remind her that she had a husband. "I haven't an idea, sir." "Well, when you do, tell him that I want to speak to him; and you can tell him I shall pay you half his wages in addition to your own." Her gratitude filled him with secret fury. He said to himself: "Futile--these grand gestures about wages." _ |
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