Free The Hireling by L. P. Hartley Page A

wanted to be deserted. Besides, she was beginning to feel the prick of curiosity.
    ‘They say,’ she ventured, ‘that it does one good to tell one’s troubles. It’s somehow strengthening. … I’ve … I’ve told you mine, and I’ve felt stronger for it, anyhow for a time,’
    ‘I don’t agree, my lady,’ Leadbitter said. ‘I think it’s weakening. And if other people know they take advantage, they don’t let you forget it - begging your pardon, my lady,’
    The very ungraciousness of this speech piqued Lady Franklin. Supposing it was another kind of trouble, something he was ashamed to tell her, trouble with the police?
    In that case she had been very tactless, probing him. She tried to revise her estimate of the whole situation, and said as lightly as she could:
    ‘Well, perhaps you’ll tell me the next time we go out,’
    ‘I’m afraid not, my lady,’ Leadbitter said promptly.
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Because there won’t be a next time. I shan’t have the car,’
    ‘Won’t have the car? Why not?’
    ‘Because I only have it on the h.p. and now they want it back,’
    ‘The “h.p.”?’ asked Lady Franklin.
    The glad and sorry system. Well, I’m the one that’s sorry,’
    Still Lady Franklin did not understand, but she was on her mettle and did not mean to leave the tooth half-drawn. At length she got the story out of him. Leadbitter was paying for his car by monthly instalments. He had also paid a preliminary deposit on it. Now the firm which was supplying it had got into difficulties and had informed him that unless he paid the whole of his remaining debt, or a large proportion of it, in a lump sum there and then, he would have to forfeit the car, and not only the car, but all the money he had already paid.
    ‘But can they legally do that?’ asked Lady Franklin.
    Leadbitter took a chance.
    ‘Unfortunately they can, my lady.’
    Lady Franklin tried to see what this would mean to him.
    ‘And what will you do?’
    Leadbitter shrugged his broad shoulders.
    ‘Try to get a job as driver with another car-hire firm. It won’t be very easy because they don’t like a man who’s been on his own. I’ve got my customers of course, and they’re an asset - some of them would go with me to the new firm. But I shouldn’t be able to serve them personally, same as I do now. For instance, I shouldn’t be able to serve you, my lady. You’d have to take whoever they sent, it might be me, but ten to one it wouldn’t be,’
    ‘I should be very disappointed,’ said Lady Franklin, rather grandly, ‘and so I’m sure would all your customers,’
    ‘Yes, I think they would be. They’ve got used to me, you see, and I’ve got used to them. Getting used to someone means a lot, and it takes time. I was working up a nice little business; in three years I should have had my own car, and in another couple of years I could have bought another car and hired a man to drive it. Seven years from now, if things had gone well, I might have had two men working for me. Now I’ve got to go back to being a hired man myself at four pound ten a week, and no prospect of starting again for years, if ever. The little bit of money I’d put by, my war gratuity it was, I’ve lost. Well, it’s just too bad. A man doesn’t like to think himself a failure but I’m not the only one. Several fellows I know have started on their own and had to go back to wage-earning, because they couldn’t stand the pace, but I thought I’d be lucky,’
    The saga of the Leadbitter family life unrolled itself before Lady Franklin’s eyes, the touching scenes, the developing domestic happiness, suddenly ending - how?
    ‘Will this make a great difference to your life at home?’ she asked.
    ‘Indeed it will, my lady,’ Leadbitter said grimly. ‘We shall have to look for cheaper quarters right away. I haven’t told my wife yet, though she’s guessed something is wrong, because I couldn’t eat my breakfast,’
    ‘When will you tell her?’