Page:A Pair of Silk Stockings.pdf/2



HE brothers Heckmondwyke were the sons of a large and well-to-do manufacturer, a stocking maker, in Yorkshire. The stockings and socks and other goods in stockingette of Messrs. Heckmondwyke and Sons were known in the trade everywhere. Old Heckmondwyke was dead, and the firm would henceforth have to be called Heckmondwyke Brothers. Of these brothers there were but two, Philip, the elder, unmarried, and Hezekiah, the younger, married. Because Heckmondwyke the father was dead, therefore the sons wore black, and because he had died recently, the black was new, and the glazed calico backing the waistcoat of Hezekiah crackled, and was not set in formal furrows.

In consequence of the death of their father and the factory being left equally between the brothers, some consultation and arrangement between them had been necessary. There had been no hitch, no ruffle of spirit, in the administration of their father’s affairs and disposal of his estate. Everything had been left to the brothers to divide equally, where division was necessary, to keep together where partnership was advisable.

The house in which old Mr. Heckmondwyke had lived was that in which he had been born. It did not adjoin the factory, it was some way from it. It was one in a crescent, Wentworth Crescent, No. 1. As he had met with annoyance from a neighbour in No. 2, Mr. Heckmondwyke had seized the occasion of the neighbour’s leaving to buy that house, and for some time it remained empty, because he preferred having no neighbour near him, that is, shoulder to shoulder. His former neighbour had three daughters who practised on the piano all the evening, and he would not run the risk of having inhabitants next door who might irritate his nerves by strumming.

Finally, when his younger son Hezekiah married, he allowed him to enter and inhabit No. 2; he calculated that many years would elapse before piano practice would be a nuisance to him again, for in the event of a daughter being born, the child would not learn the piano till it was six or seven, and then would only play on it in the mornings, when he, her grandfather, would be at the factory.

The child was born, a little girl, but was not old enough as yet to meddle with music. Penelope Lætitia was her name. She was still in the nursery at the top of the house, and her only instrument was a silver coral with bells, the present of her godfather, her uncle, Philip Heckmondwyke.

Philip had remained with his father in No. 1 Wentworth Crescent when Hezekiah moved into No. 2. When the brothers came to consider the partition of their father’s property into equal halves, then it had been settled between them that Philip, as the elder, and as in possession, should remain in No. 1, and that Hezekiah, with wife and child should remain in No. 2.

“Unless, brother,” said Hezekiah, “you could be persuaded to live with us. I am sure you would be more comfortable, and Bessie” (his wife) “is very much attached to you.”

Philip shook his head.

“It is kind of you to offer this, Hez, but I am a confirmed old bachelor. I like to have my own way in everything, and to have everything in the house go by clockwork. With a wife this is not always possible nor desirable.”

“Then you will look on my house as your home. You keep a latch key to No. 2 and run in and out as you like. There will always be a cover for you at dinner and an arm-chair by the fire.”

“Thank you kindly, Hez. I accept the key, and will use it as you desire.”