prized : money, position, and the excitement of many
admiring acquaintances. She found that the truth was
quickly known and she was left only with a few men
who now openly demanded some return for their ad-
miration. The women who had flattered her deserted
her. To keep her footing at all she had to indulge in
flirtation. That, at first, she was loath to do. She
disliked familiarity in men from whom she had always
exacted homage. And Jamie had been so good a lover
that the slightest betrayal was repugnant to her. How-
ever, when he accepted his disaster so cheerfully, when
he seemed even to rejoice in it, when he simply would
486 THREE SONS AND A MOTHER
not hear of making any effort to regain the position he
had lost, then she regarded herself as betrayed by him
and conquered her repugnance, liked the new excitement
and enjoyed her little revenges on the women who had
flouted her. Jamie protected her as much as he could
and was kind and still lovely to her: but she had -lost
in grace for him, he knew not exactly how, and he too
began to be unhappy.
For a short while he wanted very much to go to
London to try his luck as a journalist. He got very
good introductions and was confident that through Henry
Acomb he could find his way to the inner sanctuary
where the great ones dwelt and revealed to the English
nation the splendour of its poetry and literature.
Acomb's Hamlet had rediscovered Shakespeare and
Jamie was sure he had a fine opportunity. The theatre
had become interesting once more and London needed
critics. He made a plan and drew up a scheme. They
would go to London, exactly as people do in books.
They would live in three rooms or in a little house with
only Tibby to look after them. They would find their way
into a circle, such as there always was in London, like
Holland House, and the Shelley circle. Catherine would
not hear of it. Thrigsby was good enough for her.
People in London were a fast worthless lot who had
to turn to the North of England when they wanted
anything serious. And the sooner he got such wild
ideas out of his head the better. Certainly she would
not hear of his going alone, though, of course, if he
chose to be like some worthless men she knew of, and
desert her, he could. It would be a sin upon his con-
science to his dying day and she would perish of misery.
He had brought shame and despair enough upon her
without dragging her from pillar to post among the
MR. JOSEPH MOON AND THE SUCCESSION 487
riff-raff of London. (She also had read stories of art-
ists in London, though of a different kind.) On she
went with her talk until at last he gave in and promised
her that he would not go and would give up his rash
ideas. "You see," she said, by way of consoling him,
"writing in Thrigsby and writing in London are two
very different things and it would be a pity if you gave
up the reputation you have here. For, if we were ever
to sink so low as that, it might be valuable." - "! dare-
say," he said miserably, "I daresay we sha'n't sink so
low as that."
Worse remained, for in his elation he had confided his
plan to Tibby, who, seeing the keen happiness it gave
him, had applauded it. Now he had to confess to her
that it was shattered. "I sha'n't go after all, Tibby,"
he said. "It was a wee bit romantical," answered she.
"I suppose it was foolish and young," said he. "A
man of my years ought not to be so foolish and young."
"You'll be a great man yet, James Lawrie," said she.
"While you were in the bank you were but half a man."
"There's no one like you, Tibby," he said, "for put-
ting a heart into me." And for a moment they were
once more the boy and girl by the bridge in Scotland,
bound together in hope and understanding. "We're
fools," said she. "We're the same sort of fool, you
and I," said he, "and there seem to be few like us."
CHAPTER XXXIX
BELL, LAWRIE & CO.
THE issue out of all these afflictions was another
compromise. Having failed again to do what he
really wished to do and knew to be best for the par-
ticular kind of fool he happened to be, Jamie could not
withstand the pressure that was brought to bear upon
him. He was bullied by Margaret, by Tom, by letters
from John, by Mrs. Broadbent, and, worst cut of all,
by Doctor Broadbent. He had no one on his side. It
was impossible to explain to them that he wished to
work out his own salvation, thoroughly and, if needs
must, disastrously. He did once or twice try to make
them see how lamentably ill equipped mentally and
morally the world was for the kind of life it was lead-
ing and how each man to live in it at all must necessarily
lose his soul, since there was no work done anywhere
that did not lead to the degradation of thousands of
men and women. They said "Rubbish, and the world
is very well as it is, prosperous and Christian, with
missionaries spreading the light in the darkest corners."
"How?" they said. "And who are you to decide that
this and that is wrong? While you were in a good posi-
tion and earning a handsome income we put up with
the unpleasant things you were in the habit of saying,
for we supposed it amused you. But now that you have
488
BELL, LAWRIE & CO. 489
disgraced yourself and actually ask us to take you se-
riously, you are going too far. It is your business to
earn a living for your wife and children and we insist
on your doing so in a respectable and ordinary manner.
You don't suppose we like having to work, and who are
you that you should get out of it?" Jamie could not
explain to them that what they called work was a kind
of loafing which he abhorred. The actual work he had
ever done in a day could have been accomplished in a
couple of hours. He wanted work that called for more
concentration than was ever required in any commer-
cial activity he had known. All his objections were
waved aside, and at last he promised that he would look
out for some kind of regular commercial work that
would cause some of the immense wealth of Thrigsby
to flow into his pockets. They would not let him leave
Thrigsby and if he stayed he must act in the manner
of the Thrigsbeians, work hard, or, at least, long, shut
himself up in his house and have as little to do with
his fellows as possible. At last he consented, post-
poned his ambition to be another Coleridge and com-
promised. He took on for a time the work of a friend
of his who was ill and ordered away for a sea voyage:
he was in charge of the cotton market columns of
Thrigsby's new Conservative daily paper.
This work he enjoyed. It gave him an opportunity
to study men and manners. It meant going on 'Change
and meeting great men and strange people as Turks,
Greeks, Armenians, Germans, Italians and Jews. He
saw a great many more people than he need have done,
but he became absorbed in them and made opportuni-
ties. His romantic soul loved this patchwork of nation-
alities, the whole world in villainous little. Thrigsby
was no longer English. It was as yet, triumphantly,
490 THREE SONS AND A MOTHER
nothing, an enormous machine entirely indifferent to
race, colour, thought, feeling, individuality, variety.
His opinions and ideas were changed insensibly. He
began to admire Thrigsby, to wish to understand it. No
longer was it a dirty provincial town. It was that out-
wardly, but in spite of its repellent aspect and, on the
whole, disgusting habits, it had a powerful and a free
spirit. Its fame was world-wide. It was already some-
thing more than English. Its work depended on co-
operation with men working on the other side of the
Atlantic. It represented something new in the world,
something that at first sight appeared ugly, hostile and
destructive. It swallowed up men by the thousand,
took their children and turned them almost into a dif-
ferent race and entombed them in dirty bricks and mor-
tar, but it took from each a little of his essence and
absorbed it into its growing mighty spirit. James Law-
rie felt that and his own spirit grew big within him.
He was aware of purpose but could nowhere discern it.
There was nothing visible but the ugliness, the hos-
tility and the destructive cruelty. And the men he met
were also ugly, hostile, cruel and destructive. With
the essence gone out of them they were like insects
busily sucking the virtue out of the life of the place.
It was not the corruption of vice, not Sodom and Go-
morrah, but an active, splendid, ceaseless destructive-
ness, sucking up the rottenness of English life. De-
cidedly, thought Jamie, Thrigsby was the place to be
in and he had been romantic and a little foolish to
dream of London and the pretentiousness of letters.
Here was activity that affected the whole world, civi-
lised and uncivilised, and it was better to be destroyed
by it than elsewhere to seek to create a pleasant life.
There seemed even good reason for the Thrigsbeians
BELL, LAWRIE & CO. 491
setting their faces against the amenities of life; they
were but a clog upon it, they had lost their meaning,
they made for falseness. Life must be reshaped and it
mattered not how hard and terrible and devastating the
process might be. It must become formless and un-
gracious again if ever it were to recover form and
grace. Thrigsby became to Jamie like some huge mon-
ster of which he had become affectionately terrified.
He felt as St. George must have done when the serpent
fawned upon him and became a meek beast and
debonair. Yet there was no taming Thrigsby nor had
he any wish to try. His desire was to live in its life
and as near the terrible black heart of it as he could
get. Merely to profit by its activity was in his eyes to
impede it and to deny its virtue. It had a greater aim
and significance than the reward of cunning. Never
was he so full of theories: never had he had so excit-
ing a time. He began to love Thrigsby and to yield
entirely to its fascination. Whatever happened he would
cling to it. In a few years, he thought (being very ig-
norant of history), results would appear, the new shapes
forged for human consciousness: something entirely
splendid and wonderful, as great as or greater even than
Elizabethan England. He was so naive as to imagine
that he had but to have a clearish perception of an idea
for it to become immediately effective and in accordance
with his imagination. He expected the forces that con-
trolled the destinies of generations to work in terms
of his single life, and was so eager in his search for
evidence in favour of this expectation that very little
sufficed for him and he was rarely disappointed.
He thoroughly enjoyed his work for the paper and
was sorry when his friend returned and he had to give
it up. Then after a brief reaction during which the
492 THREE SONS AND A MOTHER
actual heavy squalor of the town weighed heavily upon
him and choked his idealism, he set about repairing his
fortunes, being driven thereto by Catherine who threat-
ened to leave him if he did not at once set about making
money.
Among his new acquaintances was that Bell who had
had the desk in Peter Leslie's room at which he had
begun his career. Bell's career was varied and he had
been a yarn agent, a commercial traveller, a manufac-
turer in a small way, a tout, an insurance broker: one
way or another he had touched almost every side of
the trade of Thrigsby, sometimes losing, sometimes
making money. When Jamie met him he was prosper-
ous, having established connections with Liverpool as a
broker. He had just made a great bid to gain a really
solid prosperity and had assumed liabilities which, un-
less all went well, were far too heavy for his resources.
This he did not tell Jamie whom he marked down as
a man whose money and connections would be useful
to him. A popular man, he had been able to help Jamie
in a number of ways, giving him introductions among
the countless mysterious middlemen whose services
seemed to be necessary to the production and distri-
bution of cotton goods. Bell was a born middleman,
shrewd, quick, unimaginative, without the least inter-
est in the work he was doing except for the profits he
could get out of it. He lived for the convivial society
of men like himself and was never so happy as at a
smoking concert of the Bowling Club of which he was
a shining light. So far as he could apprehend heaven
at all, his image of it was a square of bright smooth
turf, with heavy wooden balls, like so many worlds
rolling rather crazily across it. The fancy was Jamie's,
who when he was introduced to the game by Bell, was
BELL, LAWRIE & CO. 493
fascinated by it, and by the crazy passion which the
men who played it put into it. Nothing else in Thrigsby
had so satisfied his aesthetic sense. Perhaps it was only
the lovely turf that pleased him but he read far more
into it than that and he would talk by the hour to Bell,
who hardly understood a word of what he was saying,
but conceived a great and very humble admiration for
him. Bowls in the summer evenings and on Saturday
afternoons became Jamie's chief solace and delight, and
when Bell proposed as an adjunct to bowls and the en-
thusiasm they shared, that they should join together
in partnership in business, Jamie readily consented. Bell
prepared a statement showing his profits and how they
could be increased. The proposition was laid before
Catherine, who approved it, and so the firm of Bell,
Lawrie & Co. was founded and had its offices in Cut
Mill.
This step won general approval. It pleased Catherine
to hear Jamie speak of "his firm" and relieved her of
her dread lest he should drift into some indefinite way
of earning his living. It delighted Margaret to think
of a house being founded with the name of Lawrie upon
its doors, and Tom was of the opinion that anything
was better than the employment of labour. "You pay
a man two pounds a week," he used to say, "but you
have no means of knowing that you are getting two
pounds' worth of work out of him." And again he
would say: "There are no more fortunes to be made
without a certain element of speculation. The trade has
been so split up. There is specialisation in every branch
of it." Once he had made up his mind to retire
Tom took the gloomiest view of the prospects of South
Lancashire. Other countries would begin to compete.
The Southern States would manufacture for themselves,
494 THREE SONS AND A MOTHER
and he doubted if Thrigsby could last out another gen-
eration. He was inclined to regard the tradition as
having ended in himself, and Thrigsby without the tra-
dition could not last. Out of the fragments that were
left Jamie, he thought, might pick up a few basketfuls.
Sombrely he gave his blessing to the firm of Bell, Law-
rie & Co., visited its offices and looked enviously upon
its three clerks and a boy, and retired with Agnes to
Westmorland, there to devote his leisure to the study of
Adam Smith, Malthus and Ricardo, satisfied that, what-
ever happened, he would die a rich man, one who had
accomplished his whole duty. He put a certain amount
of work in Jamie's way, for the honour of the family,
whose fortunes at last he believed himself to have se-
cured. He was genuinely depressed by the loss of
prestige suffered by the great houses, his own among
them, and angered by the new spirit of individual suc-
cess that had no desire for honour or the respect due to
a great name. Thrigsby seemed to him to be full of ad-
ventures and he took his glory with him into retirement.
With this assistance from Tom and with a run of luck
attending Bell's ventures the new firm prospered, and
ventured still further. Catherine was very happy and
excited and became an entirely devoted wife. Her second
and third children were born in an atmosphere almost
idyllic. The arts of flirtation she had learned in the time
of her first marital crisis she practised on her husband
who responded to them with a boyish ardour. Their
marriage seemed perfect and Tibby returned, without
protest, to Margaret. She made no excuse except that
Margaret was failing and needed more than the raw
girls who entered and left her service in the intervals
of factory work. Catherine was charming to her and
said: "You know there will always be room for you
BELL, LAWRIE & CO. 495
here, Tibby." "I know that," said Tibby, "but I go
where I am needed."- -"And if you should ever think
of doing some other work, or starting a little shop, my
husband will be only too glad to help you," added
Catherine, thoroughly enjoying this gracious expression
of her relief at Tibby's departure. "I've no thought of
such a thing," answered Tibby, "and if you should ever
be in a poorer way than you are now, I would come back,
without wages, if need be." "I know you would," said
Catherine, "but Mr. Lawrie has found the work he likes
and is confident of making his fortune."
Tibby waited to see Jamie. "You'll have need of me
yet," she said. "It's not in you to be happy for long."-
"That's true," said he, "but I don't think my happiness
is of much importance. I've put my shoulder to the
wheel and I'll shove as hard as I can." "You'll never be
the same as Tom and John, however hard you try."-
"No. I believe in Thrigsby and they don't. " - Tibby
gave a peculiar inarticulate grunt and a click of her
tongue. "Have it your own way," she said, "but you'll
have need of me yet." "What are you reproaching me
for, Tibby?" "I'm no' reproaching you, Jamie. I'm
just going and I don't like going. It seems like a slip-
ping backwards." "It's your own wish." "Aye. But
the tale's not done." "I never supposed it was." "But
you're content." "For the present. Why should I not
be?" "Oh, well, I'm a foolish woman, thinking better
of you than you deserve." "You've always done that."
"Humility, James Lawrie," said she, "is not becoming
to ye."
So she went back to Margaret and with her went the
peace of Jamie's domestic life. Catherine resumed her
old arrogance and was no longer a companion. Tibby's
presence had awed her into subtlety and meekness, but
496 THREE SONS AND A MOTHER
when she found herself once more mistress without ef-
fort of her own house she assumed her power and
exercised it for the pleasure of doing so. She felt that
she had been tricked into submission, duped into happi-
ness, and she strove to abuse her husband. With her
jealous mind she went probing into his relationship with
Tibby and could make nothing of it. All she knew was
that he and Tibby would sometimes talk together for
hours, while with herself he could never keep up a con-
versation, unless it were tender, for more than twenty
minutes. She hated Tibby but could never defy or resist
her authority. Even with the children Tibby was right
and herself was wrong. Without Tibby she was rather
helpless with the children and had no instinctive knowl-
edge of their needs. They fretted her nerves and ex-
hausted her and she was ashamed of the resulting
confusion. Without Tibby there were constant mistakes
in the household arrangements: there was a constant
loss in precision and cleanliness. Tradespeople cheated
her and she was continually removing her custom from
one shop to another. Nothing went right and she visited
her exasperation upon Jamie, who was tumbled out of
the paradise in which he had been living. The armistice
came to an end and the war was resumed, the pathetic,
futile and hopeless war of the sexes.
Catherine sought to make him jealous and for her
constant companion chose a certain Mrs. Halloran, a
woman with whom whispered scandal was constantly
busy. Jamie hated scandal and refused to listen to it.
Mrs. Halloran was an amusing clever Irishwoman, hon-
est after her fashion, but driven by the heavy respectabil-
ity in which she lived into strange courses. She adored
Catherine's beauty and found it useful as a protection
from the unwelcome attentions which her notoriety drew
BELL, LAWRIE & CO. 497
upon herself. Men, with their boundless conceit, amused
her. She knew perfectly well how to defend herself and
it was a new excitement to her to defend Catherine.
Very soon Mrs. Halloran and Mrs. James Lawrie were
inseparable and the most malicious gossip was aimed at
them. They entered the social life which had a certain
very High Church for its centre and there they created
a disturbance. The young men were at Catherine's
feet, the married men at Mrs. Halloran's, and of the
doings at her house the wildest reports were circulated.
Jamie received anonymous letters but he burned them.
Once or twice he protested that he was lonely in the
evenings and Catherine said : "I am lonely all day long,"
and she would observe that as she did not object to any
of his friends he had no right to object to hers. She
was careful never to be out late and none of her obvious
duties were neglected.
At last there came a dreadful period of silence be-
tween them. For three weeks hardly a word was spoken,
certainly no word that was not absolutely necessary.
It was torture to Jamie to come home to it, yet he could
not break the silence. She was expecting him to protest.
If he protested she would defy him. At last when he
could bear it no longer he took the blame upon himself
and he apologised and tried to examine with her the
causes of their estrangement. She said that men never
understood women and expected them to put up with a
dull life with no excitement except a new dress now and
then or a visit to the Panorama, that he never considered
her worth talking to and therefore could not blame her
for going among those who thought better of her. The
root causes of their difficulties she would not approach
but she gradually forced him to patch up a truce in which
their relationship was for the first time false. There
498 THREE SONS AND A MOTHER
was a dangerous excitement in it which angered him
and filled him with dread. He felt degraded and his
world became a mockery to him. What was the good of
success in Cut Mill if day by day he had to go home to
that appalling failure? He envied Bell who had a jolly
common little wife who was content to be kept in a cheap
little house that was rather like a stable, in which Bell
ate, slept, and fulfilled his natural necessities. It was
hardly more to Bell than the boots on his feet or the
clothes on his back. A man had to have a home and he
spent as little thought and money on it as possible.
Oddly enough the arrangement also suited Mrs. Bell.
She was fond of her husband, but if she had his com-
pany for more than half-a-day she quarrelled with him,
and she was very amiable and disliked quarrels. Their
relationship was simple but entirely hard and practical
and therefore, to Jamie, odious and a profanation. Bell
in his home was intolerable, completely empty and
vulgar, without even the geniality which elsewhere and
in other transactions made him so likeable. It became
almost an obsession with Jamie that his own marriage
might descend to that level, and it seemed better to him
to allow Catherine her freedom. Better those risks than
the suppression which had made of Mrs. Bell the faded,
foolish little creature that she was. It came as no sur-
prise to him when he discovered that his partner kept
a second establishment. That seemed a necessary
corollary of marriage a la Thrigsby. The town was
reeking with a sordid joyless viciousness, like a phos-
phorescence over a swamp. He could sympathise with
Catherine. He would continue to allow her her free-
dom and would do his best to protect her. He devoted
more time to her and went with her among her friends.
The result was comically disastrous for Mrs. Halloran
BELL, LAWRIE & CO. 499
pounced on him and quickly had him entangled in a
foolish flirtation. He was no match for her, lost his
head, and relapsed into the fatuous condition to which he
had been reduced aforetime by Selina Leslie. Catherine
triumphed over him and scorned him and Mrs. Halloran
despising so easy a prey flicked him away and left him
raw with chagrin.
Jamie's domestic affairs were in a parlous state when
worse befell. Bell cleared out with the cash-box and
every realisable security, leaving only an impudent note
expressing his regret for his action which he explained to
be necessary before the storm broke. Jamie imagined
the storm to be domestic, but it was not long before he
discovered where it lay. The Southern States of
America declared their intention of seceding from the
Union and breaking away from the tyranny of the
North. War was declared and within a very few days
Jamie was faced with the fact that his business had been
swept away from him. At best, he saw when he ex-