The Hireling Read Online Free Page B

knowing! He couldn’t have known, for I was very gay in those days. I can’t remember what I was like, I seem to be a different person now, but I know I didn’t comment upon life, I lived. And I was younger, much younger than he was. You see I was half-persuaded into the marriage - I was very young, and they all thought it would be a good match for me. I didn’t really want to at the time; I was half frightened of the money.’ (Odd thing to be frightened of, thought Leadbitter. I bet she counted every penny of it.) ‘If someone said, as I’m sure they have, that I married him for his money, it wouldn’t be true; but if they said, as I’m sure they have, that I married him without being in love with him, it would be true in a way; but I did come to love him afterwards. Not perhaps as you love someone who isn’t ill and hasn’t to be taken care of - but I did love him, and people tell me I was a good wife to him, and that he must have known what I felt for him. But I don’t think he did. He only knew _ if he knew anything at the last, while he was dying - that I had gone to a cocktail party. I went to many cocktail parties - he didn’t care about them. Is there anything in life that matters - really matters - except that somebody you love should know you love them?’
    Lady Franklin seemed to expect an answer. Leadbitter, whom nobody loved and who assuredly loved nobody, was at a loss.
    ‘If it’s a question of telling people what you think of them,’ he said, and began to feel on firmer ground, ‘if it’s a question of telling people what you think of them,’ he repeated grimly, ‘I admit there’s some satisfaction in that.’
    Lady Franklin smiled.
    ‘Oh yes, there is. But as you know, that wasn’t what I meant. I think, wouldn’t you agree? that one’s hostility to people can be taken for granted’ (Leadbitter violently disagreed but didn’t say so), ‘but not one’s love. In spite of Blake’ - she saw that Blake’s name didn’t register, and with a little flutter of her hands dismissed him - ‘Blake thought the opposite - I think that love should always be told. I didn’t tell mine.’
    Would he have believed her if she had? thought Leadbitter. Would he have been taken in by all this guff? But you couldn’t say that to a customer.
    ‘Actions speak louder than words, they say, my lady,’ he remarked.
    Lady Franklin shook her head.
    ‘Sometimes they do, generally they do, but not always. If I wanted to say what a beautiful driver you are, the best I have ever known, how could I say it by an action? I could only tell you.’
    Leadbitter saw the force of this, and rather unwillingly swallowed the compliment.
    ‘If there’s ever anything you want to tell anyone,’ said Lady Franklin, earnestly, but more to herself than to him, ‘tell them. Don’t wait till it’s too late or it may spoil your life, as it has mine.’
    Her underlip came forward, trembling, and a look of sadness, shroudedness, inaccessibility to outside impressions, closed her face like a shutter.
    Leadbitter could think of nothing that he wanted to tell anyone, certainly nothing that they would want to hear. Tell them off, yes; in that sense of telling, there were a few things he could have said to Lady Franklin herself. Such as: ‘If you changed places with a working woman, my lady, you wouldn’t be trying to send messages to a dead husband, you’d be nagging a live one.’ His mind still muddled by sleepiness, he forgot that a working woman might also be a widow. And: ‘He may be thanking his stars he’s out of reach of your tongue.’
    These imagined retorts gave him some satisfaction: but all he said was, ‘Would you like the wireless on now, my lady?’
    ‘I don’t think so, thank you,’ said Lady Franklin, ‘we’re nearly there. Let’s have it on the way back.’ Afraid that she had sounded snubbing, she added, ‘I’ll tell you why I’m going to Canterbury.’ All at once she felt she had been talking