Mr. Bonsor was a small, fair-haired man, prematurely bald, an indifferent speaker; but excellent in committee. Instinctively he was gentle and kind. Mrs. Bonsor disliked Patricia and Patricia was indifferent to Mrs. Bonsor. Mrs. Bonsor, however, recognised that in Patricia her husband had a remarkably good secretary, one whom it would be difficult to replace.
Mrs. Bonsor's attitude to everyone who was not in a superior position to herself was one of patronage. Patricia she looked upon as an upper servant, although she never dare show it. Patricia, on the other hand, showed very clearly that she had no intention of being treated other than as an equal by Mrs. Bonsor, and the result was a sort of armed neutrality. They seldom met; when by chance they encountered each other in the house Mrs. Bonsor would say, "Good morning, Miss Brent; I hope you walked across the Park." Patricia would reply, "Yes, most enjoyable; I invariably walk across the Park when I have time"; and with a forced smile Mrs. Bonsor would say, "That is very wise of you."
Never did Mrs. Bonsor speak to Patricia without enquiring if she had walked across the Park. One day Patricia anticipated Mrs. Bonsor's inevitable question by announcing, "I walked across the Park this morning, Mrs. Bonsor, it was most delightful," and Mrs. Bonsor had glared at her, but, remembering Patricia's value to her husband, had made a non-committal reply and passed on. Henceforth, Mrs. Bonsor dropped all reference to the Park.
On the first day of Patricia's entry into the Bonsor household, Mrs. Bonsor had remarked, "Of course you will stay to lunch," and Patricia had thanked her and said she would. But when she found that her luncheon was served on a tray in the library, where Mr. Bonsor did his work, she had decided that henceforth exercise in the middle of the day was necessary for her, and she lunched out.
Mr. Bonsor had married beneath him. His father, a land-poor squire in the north of England, had impressed upon all his sons that money was essential as a matrimonial asset, and Mr. Bonsor, not having sufficient individuality to starve for love, had determined to follow the parental decree. How he met Miss Triggs, the daughter of the prosperous Streatham builder and contractor, Samuel Triggs, nobody knew, but his father had congratulated him very cordially about having contrived to marry her. Miss Triggs's friends to a woman were of the firm conviction that it was Miss Triggs who had married Mr. Bonsor. "'Ettie's so ambitious." remarked her father soon after the wedding, "that it's almost a relief to get 'er married."
Mr. Bonsor was scarcely back from his honeymoon before he was in full possession of the fact that Mrs. Bonsor had determined that he should become famous. She had read how helpful many great men's wives had been in their career, and she determined to be the power behind the indeterminate Arthur Bonsor. Poor Mr. Bonsor, who desired nothing better than a peaceable life and had looked forward to a future of ease and prosperity when he married Miss Triggs, discovered when too late that he had married not so much Miss Triggs, as an abstract sense of ambition. Domestic peace was to be purchased only by an attitude of entire submission to Mrs. Bonsor's schemes. He was not without brains, but he lacked that impetus necessary to "getting on." Mrs. Bonsor, who was not lacking in shrewdness, observed this and determined that she herself would be the impetus.
Mr. Bonsor came to dread meal-times, that is meal-times tête-à-tête. During these symposiums he was subjected to an elaborate cross-examination as to what he was doing to achieve greatness. Mrs. Bonsor insisted upon his being present at every important function to which he could gain admittance, particularly the funerals of the illustrious great. Egged on by her he became an inveterate writer of letters to the newspapers, particularly The Times. Sometimes his letters appeared, which caused Mrs. Bonsor intense gratification: but editors soon became shy of a man who bombarded them with letters upon every conceivable subject, from the submarine menace to the question of "should women wear last year's frocks?"
Mr. Triggs had once described his daughter very happily: "'Ettie's one of them that ain't content with pressing a bell, but she must keep 'er thumb on the bell-push." That was Mrs. Bonsor all over; she lacked restraint, both physical and artistic, and she conceived that if you only make noise enough people will, sooner or later, begin to take notice.
Within three years of his marriage, Mr. Bonsor entered the House of Commons. He had first of all fought in a Radical constituency and been badly beaten; but the second time he had, by some curious juggling of chance, been successful in an almost equally strong Radical division, much to the delight of Mrs. Bonsor. The success had been largely due to her idea of flooding the constituency with pretty girl-canvassers; but she had been very careful to keep a watchful eye on Mr. Bonsor.
One of her reasons for engaging Patricia, for really Mrs. Bonsor was responsible for the engagement, had been that she had decided that Patricia was indifferent to men, and she decided that Mr. Bonsor might safely be trusted with Patricia Brent for long periods of secretarial communion.
Mr. Bonsor, although not lacking in susceptibility, was entirely devoid of that courage which subjugates the feminine heart. Once he had permitted his hand to rest upon Patricia's; but he never forgot the look she gave him and, for weeks after, he felt a most awful dog, and wondered if Patricia would tell Mrs. Bonsor.
When she married, Mrs. Bonsor saw that it would be necessary to drop her family, that is as far as practicable. It could not be done entirely, because her father was responsible for the allowance which made it possible for the Bonsors to live in Eaton Square. The old man was not lacking in shrewdness, and he had no intention of being thrown overboard by his ambitious daughter. It occasionally happened that Mr. Triggs would descend upon the Bonsor household and, although Mrs. Bonsor did her best to suppress him, that is without in any way showing she was ashamed of her parent, he managed to make Patricia's acquaintance and, from that time, made a practice of enquiring for and having a chat with her.
Mrs. Bonsor was grateful to providence for having removed her mother previous to her marriage. Mrs. Triggs had been a homely soul, with a marked inclination to be "friendly." She overflowed with good-humour, and was a woman who would always talk in an omnibus, or join a wedding crowd and compare notes with those about her. She addressed Mr. Triggs as "Pa," which caused her daughter a mental anguish of which Mrs. Triggs was entirely unaware. It was not until Miss Triggs was almost out of her teens that her mother was persuaded to cease calling her "Girlie."
In Mrs. Bonsor the reforming spirit was deeply ingrained; but she had long since despaired of being able to influence her father's taste in dress. She groaned in spirit each time she saw him, for his sartorial ideas were not those of Mayfair. He leaned towards checks, rather loud checks, trousers that were tight about the calf, and a coat that was a sporting conception of the morning coat, with a large flapped pocket on either side. He invariably wore a red tie and an enormous watch-chain across his prosperous-looking figure. His hat was a high felt, an affair that seemed to have set out in life with the ambition of being a top hat, but losing heart had compromised.
If Mrs. Bonsor dreaded her father's visits, Patricia welcomed them. She was genuinely fond of the old man. Mr. Triggs radiated happiness from the top of his shiny bald head, with its fringe of sandy-grey hair, to his square-toed boots that invariably emitted little squeaks of joy. He wore a fringe of whiskers round his chubby face, otherwise he was clean-shaven, holding that beards were "messy" things. He had what Patricia called "crinkly" eyes, that is to say each time he smiled there seemed to radiate from them hundreds of little lines.
He always addressed Patricia as "me dear," and not infrequently brought her a box of chocolates, to the scandal of Mrs. Bonsor, who had once expostulated with him that that was not the way to treat her husband's secretary.
"Tut, tut, 'Ettie," had been Mr. Triggs's response. "She's a fine gal. If I was a bit younger I shouldn't be surprised if there was a second Mrs. Triggs."
"Father!" Mrs. Bonsor had expostulated in horror. "Remember that she is Arthur's secretary."
Mr. Triggs had almost choked with laughter; mirth invariably seemed to interfere with his respiration and ended in violent and wheezy coughings and gaspings. Had Mrs. Bonsor known that he repeated the conversation to Patricia, she would have been mortified almost to the point of discharging her husband's secretary.
"You see, me dear," Mr. Triggs had once said to Patricia, "'Ettie's so busy bothering about aitches that she's got time for nothing else. She ain't exactly