The Master Craftsman

When we assembled for early dinner on Monday I looked to see some effect of our little afternoon voyage and talk on Isabel. Alas! the cloud hung again over her head—a visible, dark cloud. She sat timidly glancing at her lover, who was also her liege and lord; more timidly, perhaps, because Robert had now begun to put off his silent habit and to talk at dinner—one result of his West End experience. This astonished and rather terrified her, because words from Robert were generally words of admonition; and more uneasily, perhaps, because he was talking about persons of whom she understood nothing. I say persons: so great was the change already that Robert talked of persons as well as principles; and he, who was formerly as chary of his laughter as Saturn or as a Scottish divine, had now begun to laugh readily and cheerfully.

For my own part, the talk of Saturday afternoon and the revelation of the girl’s unhappiness so mightily impressed me—one can never bear to see a girl in sorrow—that I had been thinking ever since how Isabel’s life might be bettered for her. I could only think of two ways: first, to lighten her work; secondly, to introduce a little change. As for the former, she was housekeeper, and kept the household accounts, which was enough for one girl to attempt; also, she was accountant to ‘Burnikel and Burnikel,’ and kept the books of the house and paid the men. Keeping the books meant a laborious and old-fashioned system of double book-keeping, which took a great deal of her time. This alone was enough for one girl to attempt. She was, further, private secretary; she hunted up passages, copied passages, made notes, and wrote all Robert’s letters. This alone was quite enough for one girl to attempt; and, lastly, she had to look after her own dress, and I am sure that this is, by itself, quite enough to occupy all the time of a conscientious girl. As regards getting some change of scene, the only way was to bring the change to her, and that, I saw clearly, must be my task.

It is a delicate thing to interfere between a man and his mistress, even when the mistress is not the object of any fondling and nonsense—even when she is also accountant, secretary, and housekeeper. I therefore approached the subject diplomatically.

‘Boat-building,’ I said, working round to it by an unexpected path, ‘is a business of selling as well as of making, isn’t it?’

‘Go on,’ he replied cheerfully; ‘what are you driving at?’

‘This, first: I am getting on very well with the craft, but I don’t know much about the trade.’

‘You know very little about the trade, and I fear you never will; because, George, though you may make me a gentleman—to look at—no one will ever make you a tradesman.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’ve been brought up different. You haven’t our feeling for money. Every coin with us means money saved, or money won. A sovereign means victory in a pitched battle. With you it comes out of an inexhaustible bag. See now. If you want to go anywhere, you take a cab. It comes natural to you. Lord! I laugh when I see you calling a cab. We take a penny ’bus. If we must take a cab, we give him a shilling, reckoning up the fare and measuring the distance; we grudge that shilling. You toss him half a crown, and think nothing of it. You tip waiters and porters with sixpences and shillings; we never tip anybody at all if we can help it. When you want to have anything, you order it without asking the price; we cast about to get it cheap, or we do without it. When you do ask the price you pay at once whatever they tell you, or you have it put down. We know better; we know that a price means what they can get, not what they please to ask: we beat them down. Then you go to the dearest people to buy things. We know that the dear people are no better than the cheap, because the same workmen make for both. We study the pence; you throw away the pounds.’

‘My dear cousin, the period approaches when I shall have nothing but pence to study. However, what I wanted to say was this: The time seems to have come when I ought to learn something of the trade side.’

‘Well, I will tell you what you please.’

‘There are the prices of materials, the cost of labour, rent, taxes, selling prices—all these things. The best way for me to learn is not to worry you, but to read and examine your books. Everything is there, of course.’

Robert did not reply for a few moments. It is the instinct of a man of business to wish his affairs to loom large in the imagination of humanity. His books alone conceal the real truth.

‘If it was any other man,’ he said, ‘or for any other purpose—but as it’s you, take the books and examine them. They are in the safe over the way. Isabel has the key.’

‘Thank you. With her help I will not only look at them, but, for a term, keep them for you.’

‘You can’t keep them. You don’t know book-keeping by double entry.’

‘Isabel shall teach me, and your books cannot be very complicated.’

‘Very well. Have it your own way.’

So that was done. I could thus take a great load off the girl’s frail shoulders. Then I went on to the other points.

‘Isabel,’ I said, ‘is not looking well.’

‘She looks exactly the same to-day as she did six months ago.’

‘No; she is not looking at all well. She is not naturally, I should say, a strong girl. If I were you, Robert, I would speak to someone about her.’

‘Why?’ he answered impatiently. ‘She hasn’t told me she was ill. What is the matter with her?’

‘Too much confinement; too little change.’

‘I’ve noticed nothing wrong.’

‘No, you see her every day; you would hardly notice a gradual change. Can’t you see, however, that she is pale and nervous?’

‘She is always pale and nervous. Is she more pale and nervous than usual?’

‘There is a furrow in her forehead; there are black lines under her eyes; and her cheek is thin.’

‘This,’ said the fond but injured lover, ‘comes of having women about one. Why can’t she tell me if she is not well?’

‘You must have noticed how silent she is—and how she droops her head.’

‘She is always silent. She knows that I don’t like chatter. As for drooping her head, I suppose she carries her head as she likes.’

‘No doubt. At the same time, Robert, she is in a bad way. I am certain of it.’

‘Well’—he hesitated—‘what am I to do? Look here, George, you know more than I do about women. It’s no use talking to the Captain, and there’s only the cook besides: what am I to do?’

‘I should say, give her, first, more fresh air, less work, more amusement, change of scene.’

‘Good Lord, man! how am I to give her change of scene? You don’t mean that I am to give up my work just now, when the Election may be sprung upon us at any moment, in order to go dawdling and dangling about with a woman?’

‘Well, I’ll help a bit, if you agree.’

‘Agree? I should think I would agree! Go on.’

‘I have taken over the books of the Firm. That will be a great relief to her. As for you, don’t give her, just now, things to copy; write your own letters. Then she will have nothing left but the housekeeping, which is a simple matter.’

‘Well, and what about the change of scene?’

‘I was thinking—if you don’t mind—that I could take her out occasionally—on Saturdays or Sundays—and perhaps in the long evenings.’

‘If you would, and if it would do her any good. I don’t want to be hard on the girl, George. You know how busy I am, and what a lot I have to think about. She’s a good and obedient girl on the whole. I can’t, you see, be worrying myself continually about the day by day looks of my clerks and people.’

‘Isabel is hardly a “clerk and people,” is she?’

‘Of course not. But you know what I mean.’

‘I believe I know what you mean. Your thoughts are always concerned with things that seem to you of far more importance than a woman’s health.’

‘That is so,’ he replied, impervious to the shaft of satire.

‘Well, Robert, I will do what I can. While we are talking about Isabel, there is another thing on my mind. We may assume, I suppose, that you are going to succeed.’

‘You may certainly assume so much. Why, else, do I take all this trouble?’

‘Well, when you are a great man—a man of society—it will be a matter of some importance that your wife should hold her own in society.’

Robert coloured. ‘Why shouldn’t Isabel hold her own? A woman has got nothing to do but to sit down and take what comes.’

‘There are many ways of sitting down.’

‘You mean, I suppose, that her case is—like my own. Do you want to send Isabel into Piccadilly to learn manners?’

‘Her case is not so bad as yours,’ I told him plainly. ‘But it is a case of the same kind.’

‘I always thought she was a quiet, modest kind of girl, else I could never have promised to marry her; but I dare say you are right. After my own experiences—I am a good bit wiser than I was—I suppose that there are ways and customs that a woman should know—that can’t be learned in this corner of the world.’

‘She wants manner—that is the only thing she wants, except happiness, perhaps. I cannot impart manner to her, but I can show her women who have it. Remember, Robert, it may be of the utmost importance to you, at some future time, that your wife should show by her manner that she is accustomed to society.’

I knew, of course, while I spoke, that such a thing is absolutely impossible. A girl brought up as Isabel had been could never acquire the real air and manner which belongs to the gentlewoman born and bred. All kinds of virtues, graces, charms, attractions, allurements, arts, and accomplishments, may be acquired by a woman, but this one quality she inherits or develops from infancy. Not that it is a charm above all others, as some women fondly believe. By no means. For my own part, I have learned that a woman may lack this charm as she may lack other things, and yet be above and beyond all other women in the world in the eyes of her lover.

‘I suppose,’ said Robert, ‘that you are right.’

‘Very good. Then I will sometimes take her where she will see well-dressed women. You shall see, after a bit, how her pale cheeks will put on roses, and her listless manner will become cheerful. Oh! and there is something else. She must practise her music more—she is starved for want of music. She must practise in the day-time. Perhaps she might sing a little. It won’t disturb you.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Oh! it’s all right. Have it your own way. Perhaps you’d like the workmen over the way to sing a chorus while she strums the piano? Perhaps you’d like to do a breakdown in the road? Only make her get well, George, without troubling me. And don’t look as if it’s my fault that she’s a bit pale.’

That day, after dinner, Robert went his way as usual. The Captain went another way. Isabel, the cloth being removed, spread out her books upon the table and sat down with a little sigh.

I sat down on the other side, leaning my elbows on the table.

‘Isabel,’ I said, ‘you’ve got to be obedient to your Physician.’

‘I must go on with my master’s work, please, Physician. When that is done I will be obedient.’

I took the books from her, shut them up, and put my hand upon them. ‘There!’ I said; ‘now you are not going to trouble yourself about these books any more. Thus saith the Healer.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I have spoken to the Commander-in-Chief. He graciously consents that I shall take over these books for the future. All you have to do is to show me how you book-keep by double entry. He further consents to write his own letters with his own hand—letters about his borough and all. He will give no more extracts, arguments, and illustrations to copy out for his speeches. You are released. He thinks further that, if you housekeep with diligence, and look after your dress with zeal, and make yourself look pretty and desirable, you will have quite enough to do.’

She blushed a rosy red. ‘Robert didn’t say that! Oh, impossible!’

‘He didn’t exactly say so, in so many words’—in fact, it was impossible—‘but I have no doubt that he really meant it.’

‘It was you who said it, and meant it, too,’ she murmured.

‘The Commander-in-Chief further expresses his desire that you should practise your playing all day long, if you like, and your singing too, if you can sing. Nothing is better for the chest than singing.’

‘I have never learned. I only sing in church.’

‘I will get you some songs and some new music. Plenty of music, that is my first prescription; plenty of singing, that is the second prescription; laughing, if you can find anything to laugh at. You can laugh at me if you like; I wish you would. You don’t know the good it would do you. Dancing, if there is anyone to dance with; you can dance with me if you like; I wish you would. Flowers for the windows, and to brighten up this old house. Change of air and of scene. You shall go with me somewhere next Saturday.’

She stared in amazement. ‘What does all this mean?’ she asked.

‘It means, Isabel, that Robert is seriously concerned about your looks, and it means that we have considered together what to do with you, and that these are the measures we have adopted.’

‘Robert seriously concerned about me? Robert anxious about my looks?’

She covered her face with her hands to hide the tears that arose. ‘It would matter nothing to Robert if I were dying. He would notice nothing, and he would care nothing. I belong to him, that is all; so does his chair. Oh, it is you—you who have done this. It is all your kindness—yours—and I am almost a stranger to you. And Robert, who is to be my husband, has never all the time said one word of kindness—not one word of kindness. And as to——’ She stopped, with sobbing.

‘Nay, Isabel; take all this as an act of kindness. It is not his way to say words of affection.’

She shook her head. ‘Not one word of kindness. Robert cares nothing for me—nothing.’

‘And you?’

‘Oh, I tremble day and night to think that I must marry him. George, you asked me for my secret; that is my secret. If I could go away anywhere—to be housemaid even—I would go. But I cannot—I cannot; and he will never give me up unless—— Oh, I pray night and morning that he may find another woman and fall in love with her. But he will not—oh, he cannot; he does not know what love means; his heart is as hard as a stone, and he thinks of nothing but himself.’

‘I will keep your secret, Isabel,’ I replied gravely. ‘Let us never speak of it again; and perhaps, when he gets on in the world, he will soften.’

She shook her head again.

‘Play me something, my child, and soothe your own soul while you play.’