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ROUTINE DYNAMICS IN ACTION
RESEARCH IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF
ORGANIZATIONS
Series Editor: Michael Lounsbury
Recent Volumes:
ROUTINE DYNAMICS IN
ACTION: REPLICATION AND
TRANSFORMATION
EDITORS
MARTHA S. FELDMAN
University of California, USA
LUCIANA D’ADDERIO
Strathclyde Business School, UK
KATHARINA DITTRICH
Warwick Business School, UK
PAULA JARZABKOWSKI
Cass Business School, City, University of London, UK
&
University of Queensland Business School, Australia.
United Kingdom – North America – Japan
India – Malaysia – China
Emerald Publishing Limited
Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK
Contributor Biographies
Acknowledgments
Index
LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES
TABLES
Introduction Table 1 Overview of Papers and Themes in this
Volume.
Chapter 1 Table 1 People Involved in the Project.
Chapter 3 Table 1 Novelspeed’s Ventures.
Table 2 List of Interviews.
Table 3 Venture Creation at Novelspeed (Idealized).
Chapter 4 Table 1 Passenger Service on Delta 139.
Chapter 5 Table 1 Data Sources.
Chapter 6 Table 1 Details of Interviewees.
Table 2 Key Events and Initiatives.
Table 3 Strategizing Routines.
Table 4 Settings for Executive Management’s Routine
Enactment.
Chapter 7 Table 1 Overview of Data Sources Dutch Cleaners.
Table A1 Action Patterns Identified at Dutch Cleaners.
FIGURES
Chapter 1 Fig. 1 Remounting a Show Approached as a
Replication Process.
Fig. 2 Dynamic of Sub-routines Replication.
Chapter 2 Fig. 1 Flexible Routine Transfer (Transfer-as-
Adaptation) in the Case of EuroCo and
AsiaCo.
Fig. 2 A Simplified Model of a Flexible Routine
Transfer (Transfer-as-Adaptation).
Chapter 3 Fig. 1 Coding Scheme.
Fig. 2 Replicating Entrepreneurial Innovation.
Chapter 4 Fig. 1 Bird’s Eye View of Interdependence between
Subunits.
Fig. 2 Menu Card for a Trans-Atlantic Flight.
Fig. 3 Visualizing Interdependence within and
between Routines: (A) Four Routines and (B)
One Routines.
Chapter 5 Fig. 1 (a) Phases of Romeo Pimp Routine
Emergence.
(b) Pimp/Woman Role Sets.
Fig. 2 Trajectory of Role Set Transitions and Phases
of Romeo Pimp Routine Emergence.
Chapter 6 Fig. 1 Mapping Deal-making between 1987 and
2004.
Chapter 8 Fig. 1 Laparoscopic Surgery.
Fig. 2 Robotic System Installation Steps.
Fig. 3 Practitioners during the Debriefing Session.
Fig. 4 Practitioners Confronted with Video
Recordings of their Surgical Acts in the Or.
Chapter 9 Fig. 1 The Interdependence of Professional
Interactions and Tasks.
Fig. 2 Sequences of Interdependent Action Patterns
Associated with a Telehealth Routine.
CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES
The editors would like to thank the routine dynamics community and
the participants of the 2017 EGOS (European Community of
Organization Studies) sub-theme on routine dynamics. They also
thank the co-organizers of the EGOS Standing Working Group on
Routine Dynamics, Nathalie Lazaric and Brian Pentland, as well as
the organizers of the 2017 EGOS conference.
INTRODUCTION: ROUTINE DYNAMICS
IN ACTION
Martha S. Feldman, Luciana D’Adderio, Katharina
Dittrich and Paula Jarzabkowski*
INTRODUCTION
Organizational routines are fundamental building blocks of
organizations and organizing (Cyert & March, 1963; Feldman &
Pentland, 2003; March & Simon, 1958; Nelson & Winter, 1982).
Commonly defined as repetitive, recognizable patterns of
interdependent actions (Feldman & Pentland, 2003, p. 95), routines
underpin everyday work in organizations, such as hiring and training
(Feldman, 2000) or producing goods and services (Kremser &
Schreyögg, 2016; Lazaric & Denis, 2005). Recent empirical research
shows how the dynamics of routines contribute to organizational
stability and change (e.g., Danner-Schröder & Geiger, 2016; Feldman,
2000; Pentland & Rueter, 1994; Turner & Rindova, 2012), to how
organizational members solve organizational problems (e.g., Feldman,
2003; Rerup & Feldman, 2011), and to the processes of
organizational replication (D’Adderio, 2014, 2017) and innovation
(e.g., Sele & Grand, 2016; Sonenshein, 2016). Through these
empirical studies the field of routine dynamics has emerged as a
useful lens to analyze and explain themes and phenomena that
researchers and practitioners alike care about (Feldman, Pentland,
D’Adderio, & Lazaric, 2016; Parmigiani & Howard-Grenville, 2011).
Routine dynamics offers methodological sensitivities (e.g., a focus on
actions) and theoretical tools (e.g., practice theory) that prove useful
in exploring a wide range of organizational phenomena. The papers
in this volume build on this tradition and show how routine dynamics
can illuminate areas such as strategy (Grand & Bartel, this volume),
entrepreneurship (Schmidt, Braun, & Sydow, this volume), human
resources (van Mierlo, Bondarouk, & Loohuis, this volume), health
care (Kho, Spee, & Gillespie, this volume; Kiwan & Lazaric, this
volume), social policy (Eberhard, Frost, & Rerup, this volume), and
the arts (Blanche & Cohendet, this volume).
This volume highlights four themes that are important in analyzing
and theorizing routine dynamics and that help us think about the
empirical phenomenon we care about. These themes are (1)
replication and transfer, (2) ecologies and interdependence, (3) action
and the generation of novelty, and (4) technology and
sociomateriality. Researchers can use these themes as an entry point
into exploring and theorizing particular phenomena.
INTERDEPENDENCE
The second theme addresses the fact that a routine is always related
to other routines (Howard-Grenville, 2005), both inside and outside
the organization. Recent research has thus explored how multiple
routines interact in closely-knit clusters (Kremser & Schreyögg, 2016),
loose bundles (Sele & Grand, 2016), and wider ecologies (Turner &
Rindova, 2012). These studies show how routines intersect, interact,
and become interdependent and embedded in many different ways.
For example, routines are connected through the traveling of human
and non-human actors (Sele & Grand, 2016), through iterative and
ad hoc ways of connecting (Spee, Jarzabkowski, & Smets, 2016) and
through recombining parts of different routines (Cohendet & Simon,
2016). Actors take into account the performances of other routines,
both inside and outside an organization, and anticipate or respond to
the consequences of these performances as they perform, adjust or
change a focal routine (Deken, Carlile, Berends, & Lauche, 2016).
Rather than being fixed or automatic, the interdependence and
embeddedness of routines is usefully understood as a situated and
effortful accomplishment. Exploring how the connections between
routines are accomplished has illuminated why routines are more or
less innovative (Sele & Grand, 2016), how they balance customization
and standardization (Spee et al., 2016), and how they enable or
restrict flexibility and change in organizations (Kremser & Schreyögg,
2016; Turner & Rindova, 2012). In this volume interdependence is a
primary theme for two chapters (Kremser, Pentland & Brunswicker,
this volume; Eberhard, Frost & Rerup, this volume) and an important
secondary theme for five other chapters (see Table 1).
Kremser, Pentland, and Brunswicker (this volume) explore
interdependence within and between routines and introduce the
concept of performative boundaries. Taking the example of the
beverage service on a transatlantic flight they illustrate the
multiplicity and fluidity of routine boundaries and show us why it is
useful to theorize boundaries as a performative process rather than
as fixed or given. They discuss the role of interdependence as
fundamental to the process of creating and recreating patterns of
action or what they and others call patterning.
Eberhard, Frost, and Rerup (this volume) provide a disturbing look
at a different kind of interdependence and a different kind of
dynamic. They show how a routine can develop between two actors
(in their case between a pimp and a person who eventually becomes
a sex worker) and how deceit can be used to entangle one person in
the designs of the other. The chapter describes the dynamics of the
roles as the routine is enacted by both the consciously deceitful pimp
and the victim of the routine who is not conscious of the deceit and is
fooled by it. They show how a relatively stable routine requires
significant changes in the roles of both perpetrator and victim in
order to produce the perpetrator’s intended outcome.
ACTION AND THE GENERATION OF NOVELTY
Our third theme, examining the role of action in generating novelty, is
informed by various social practice theories that explain the
interaction between action and social structure (e.g., Bourdieu, 1990;
Giddens, 1984; Schatzki, 2002). Such theories seek to explain the
consequentiality of action both empirically in what people do – their
actions – and theoretically in the premise that the patterning of
collective practice that we label as “strategy,” “organization,” or
“routine” is continuously produced within multiple people’s actions
distributed across time and space (Feldman, 2015, 2016; Feldman &
Orlikowski, 2011; Feldman & Worline, 2016). Thus, people’s actions
cannot be separated from the continuous unfolding or becoming of
social order – the patterning – that is brought about within those
actions (Langley, Smallman, Tsoukas, & van de Ven, 2013; Tsoukas &
Chia, 2002). There is a recursiveness to this mutual constitution of
people’s actions and the patterns that they generate that predisposes
stability (Giddens, 1984; Jarzabkowski, 2004) and can raise queries
about how novelty arises (Bucher & Langley, 2016; Deken et al.,
2016). Yet action is never so “over-socialized” that it conforms only to
those patterns (Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011; Feldman & Pentland,
2003; Jarzabkowski, 2004). Rather, each action is an “effortful
accomplishment” (Feldman, 2000; Pentland & Rueter, 1994) that
contains within it the potential for variations by any individual actor in
performing any particular task. This focus on action has been critical
for understanding routines as a source of not only stability but also
change (Bucher & Langley, 2016; Dittrich, Guérard, & Seidl, 2016;
Feldman, 2000; Feldman et al., 2016; Feldman & Pentland, 2003;
Howard-Grenville, 2005). For example, Feldman and Pentland (2003)
show the routine dynamics through which hiring routines change
within the specific actions of different actors. Hence, in order to study
novelty in routines, we need to study the generative nature of actions
in producing continuous modifications to their patterning that often
appear in the first instance to be minor but frequently have
considerable implications for the ways organizations operate and for
what they produce (see, e.g., Bucher & Langley, 2016; D’Adderio,
2014; Deken et al., 2016; Dittrich et al., 2016; Howard-Grenville,
2005; Jarzabkowski, Lê, & Balogun, 2018; Jarzabkowski, Lê, &
Feldman, 2012; Rerup & Feldman, 2011).
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ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors enter the world of ballet to be
inspired by artistic teams. This original point of view proposes a
complementary understanding of the dynamics of routines
replication where preserving the authenticity of the project’s
intent is emphasized over economic efficiency considerations.
The authors propose that analyzing the remounting of a ballet
as an in-depth extreme case study provides an opportunity to
learn more about other aspects that can be relevant in transfer
stories: the importance accorded to the intent of the routine to
be transferred; the existence of a dialogical dynamic that
engages artifacts and memories of this intent; the existence of
a meta-routine that structures and enables the transfer of sub-
routines across geographical distance in another context. The
authors will see that, in this case, routines replication is also
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Language: English
Old Comrades
BY
AGNES GIBERNE
AUTHOR OF
"LIFE-TANGLES," "IDA'S SECRET," "WON AT LAST,"
"THE EARLS OF THE VILLAGE," ETC.
LONDON
48 PATERNOSTER ROW
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. A CHRISTMAS CARD
VII. INTRODUCTIONS
X. A PARK ENCOUNTER
XVIII. A MISTAKE
OLD COMRADES
CHAPTER I
A CHRISTMAS CARD
"DOROTHEA!"
The voice was deep-toned, verging on gruffness, and it lingered over the name, not
affectionately, but as if the speaker's mind were absent.
No answer came in words from the girl seated beyond the round table. She lowered the
book in her hands, and waited.
"Dorothea!"
"The Encyclopædia?"
"Britannica, of course."
"That long row of big volumes! I think I saw the first volume upstairs."
"Then, my dear, it ought not to be. Everything should always be in its right place."
Colonel Tracy spoke with the air of one enunciating a profound truth, disembosomed by
himself for the first time in the history of the world. He was a grey-haired veteran, with
large features, a complexion of deep-red rust, and solid though not tall figure. Fifteen
years of "retired" life had not undone his Indian military training. When giving an order
to daughter or domestic, he was apt still to give it as to a Sepoy. "Ready! Present! Fire!"
was the Colonel's style. Domestics were disposed to rebel, where the daughter had to
endure.
Dorothea laid down her book, and stood up slowly. There was a controlled stillness
about her movements, unusual in girls of eighteen, and not too common in women of
middle age. She did not remind her father that he, not she, had conveyed the volume to
its present resting-place. One week at home—if this could fairly be called "home"—had
shown Dorothea that whatever went wrong would be the fault of anybody rather than of
the Colonel. So she left that question alone, and vanished.
The Colonel lifted his head, and looked after her. "Quiet!" he muttered in a gratified
tone. "Good thing, too! I hate your bouncing women, slamming the doors, and shaking
the house at every step." He had himself a heavy footfall, and he was given to loud
shutting of doors, but these were exclusive privileges, not to be accorded to anybody
else.
The room which Dorothea left was not attractive. Carpet and curtains were faded; wall-
paper and furniture were ugly; ornaments were cheap and in bad taste. There were no
dainty knick-knacks on brackets or side-tables. An old-fashioned round table stood in
the centre, and was strewn with books—dull books in dull bindings.
London lodgings are not wont to be attractive, especially the second-rate sort. This was
the "upstairs parlour" of a very second-rate sort, situated in a side-street of exceptional
dreariness.
All the houses on either side of the street were exactly like all the rest. Each had a
porch with steps; each had an area with more steps; each had one window of a small
dining-room beside the porch, and two windows of a little drawing-room above; each
had two bedroom windows yet higher, and most had two garret holes at the top. Each
was discoloured with smoke, dingy and dismal. Each had white blinds to the bedroom
windows, which seemed to keep up a futile struggle after cleanliness.
These particulars would have been patent in daylight; but daylight vanishes early on a
December afternoon in town. Night had drawn its pall over the big city an hour before.
A tall candle burnt upon the table, close to the Colonel. He was so used to read and
write alone by the light of a single candle, that the need of a second for his daughter
had not occurred to him.
She came in, carrying the big volume, laid it down, and stood for a moment beside him,
as if to await further orders.
There was nothing "school-girlish" about Dorothea, in the ordinary sense of the word,
though she had left school but one week earlier. Of good height, she had a pretty figure,
the effect of which was somewhat spoilt by the forward carriage of her head, almost
amounting to a poke, and due to short sight. Her face was rounded and pale, and in
repose was serious. The wistful eyes looked through a pair of "pincer" glasses, balanced
on a neat little nose.
Colonel Tracy was making voluminous notes from a decrepit brown volume, which had
lost half its binding. He wrote an atrocious hand, which fact had mattered little hitherto,
since nobody needed to read it except himself. Now that he was beginning to wake up
to the possession of a daughter who might be useful, a new element came into the
question.
"Humph!" was doubtless meant for thanks, and the girl went towards her seat. But
before she could reach it, a supplementary order was issued: "Ha! No! It's not here!
Second volume."
Colonel Tracy glanced up, and really did say "Thanks!" with even a suspicion of apology
in the tone.
Dorothea ran down the narrow staircase this time, instead of up. She had to light a
candle, and take it into the dining-room. Having found the required volume, some
impulse led her to the window, where she peeped through the lowered venetians.
A hansom was dashing past; and two ladies on the pavement seemed to be carrying
home an armful of packages. Dorothea could detect a merry ring in their voices as they
went. Then came a boy, bearing a big bunch of holly. For this was Christmas Eve.
The Colonel had bought no holly. "Nonsense," he had said that morning, when Dorothea
petitioned for some. "You are not a child now, my dear; and I have no money to throw
away on rubbish."
Was it rubbish? Dorothea considered the question, as she leant against the window,
forgetting for the moment the volume which had to be taken to her father.
"He does not, seem to care much about Christmas," she thought. "I used to feel it dull
to stay at school; but this seems more dull. Did Mrs. Kirkpatrick guess how it would be,
when she told me I should have worries? She said I must try to draw out my father's
sympathies, because he has been so long alone. But how? What can I do? He does not
care to talk. I can see that it only bothers him. And he seems to have no friends.
Nobody calls to see him, not even any letters come. Will it always be so?"
"Mrs. Kirkpatrick, I dare say! She will not forget me," the girl said joyously, hastening
out.
But the one letter handed to her was addressed "Colonel Tracy."
"I shall hear to-morrow. I did not really expect it sooner," she thought, and she ran
lightly upstairs.
Colonel Tracy looked up. "Christmas card!" he repeated. "Where is the volume?"
"The Encyclopædia! O how stupid of me! The postman came, and I forgot. I'll get it at
once."
"Make haste!" hurried her steps. She would have liked to wait and see the envelope
opened. Expeditious as she was, that process was over by the time she returned. The
Colonel sat bolt upright, gazing at something in his hand, with a singular expression on
his sunburnt face. It was a Christmas card, as Dorothea had guessed, and she came
fearlessly near, to gaze also. There was a background of dull pale blue, and across the
background flew a white dove, bearing in its beak a bunch of leaves—presumably an
olive-branch. "Peace and Good-Will" in golden letters occupied one corner.
"Why, father, it is quite an old card," Dorothea exclaimed merrily, anxious to throw
herself into his interests. "Look at the soiled edges; and a crease all down the middle. It
might be years old."
The Colonel was not communicative. He glanced at her with the same odd expression,
and said, "Yes."
"No!" decisively.
"Do tell me more," she said. "It is Christmas Eve, and I have nobody else to talk to."
"There is nothing to tell. We had a—a trifling disagreement," said the Colonel. "What
makes you wear spectacles?"
"I had forgotten. Well, I shall put this away," said the Colonel.
"Not strange at all. We have done so for some years—eight or nine, I think—
alternately."
"Yes."
Dorothea was silent for a moment. Then she said, "If you met, you would be friends
again."
"Not I."
"And when you first got it, did you wait a whole year to send it back?"
"Certainly."
The wonder in Dorothea's tone was lost upon the gallant Colonel.
"And you will wait a whole year now! Not write a letter, or—"
Thereupon, he pushed the little messenger of peace into a square envelope, wrote upon
it, "Christmas Card—Erskine—" and hid it away in his desk.
"Colonel Erskine. We were in the same regiment. He was my senior, slightly; and I
believe, he retired first."
Dorothea subsided into her chair and into silence. She was not timid, but she did not
wish to worry him. Besides, she had something fresh to think about, in the slow
progress of reconciliation between the two veterans. "But to have gone on all these
years!" she said to herself. "And I wish my father had been the first to send the card."
CHAPTER II
THINGS NOT IN THE COLONEL'S LINE
LONDON is commonly counted a lively place, with plenty to do, and abundance to see;
even though it has its little drawbacks in the shape of noise, soot, and fog. But the
compensating liveliness seemed unlikely to enter into Dorothea Tracy's town existence.
If a man wishes for freedom from society, he is as likely to get what he wants in London
as in the tiniest village—perhaps more so. Colonel Tracy had never been a man of
society. He detested the generality of human beings, hated company, abhorred teas,
dinners, and conversation.
In earlier life, he had had one friend—the quondam comrade of the olive-leaf card!—and
had lost that friend. He had also had a wife, and had lost that wife.
Thenceforward, habits of seclusion had grown upon him apace. As years went on, he
troubled himself to see less and less of his child; though always looking forward,
curiously, to the time when he would have her to live with him. Now that time was
come, and it found him a confirmed hermit. He had no friends. He associated with no
one, called upon no one. As a natural corollary, no one called upon, or associated with
him. He did not even belong to a club, for a club means acquaintances, and the Colonel
wanted no acquaintances. He lived in a huge overgrown parish, the work of which could
never be overtaken by the toiling clergy. A call from one of the curates, some months
earlier, had met with no gracious reception, and had not yet been repeated.
The manner of life which might suit the tastes of a retired veteran was not precisely
fitted for a young girl. This as yet did not cause the Colonel concern; if indeed it
occurred to him. He expected to go on as he had done hitherto, with merely the little
addition of a silent and useful daughter. He expected Dorothea to conform
unquestionably to his will.
She had come "home," as she called it—or rather, as she had called it beforehand—full
of young hopes and dreams. At eighteen, one is apt to see future life through rosy
spectacles. In one short week, the glasses had gained a leaden hue, borrowed from the
leaden atmosphere around. The hopes were dying; the dreams were fading. Dorothea
had had, and would have, some rebellious struggles before settling down to the dead
level of existence which seemed inevitable. Thus far, the effect of her surroundings was
rather to stupefy than to excite. Everything was so different from the previous
expectations of the school-girl, that she did not know what to make of her own position.
A girl naturally wishes for companions. Beyond her father, Dorothea had none; and
Colonel Tracy was far too self-absorbed a man to render satisfying companionship.
Below the rugged surface, he was in the main kind-hearted; but he lacked the mighty
gift of sympathy. He neither understood his daughter, nor troubled himself to be
understood by her. Each was more or less of an enigma to the other.
He had his own notions of propriety, and after his own fashion, he was careful. "You are
too young to walk out alone at present in London," he had said to Dorothea, the day
following her arrival. "I always take my constitutional after breakfast, and you may
accompany me. I hope you are a good walker. If it should be necessary for you to leave
the house at any time when I am otherwise engaged, you must have Mrs. Stirring for a
companion. She has promised me to attend to your wants."
Mrs. Stirring was the lodging-house keeper: a highly respectable little woman, "genteel"
to a degree in her own estimation, but apt to be plaintive in tone and behindhand in
work. So she was not always an available "companion," and when available she was not
too cheerful.
The morning "constitutional" became a daily event, regular as breakfast itself when
weather permitted. Happily, Dorothea was a very good walker. The Colonel went fast
and far; and he never thought of asking whether pace or distance suited his daughter's
capabilities. Dorothea enjoyed the rapid motion and the comparative freshness of the
morning air. She would have enjoyed some conversation likewise; but the Colonel was
seldom in a talkative mood. If she spoke, he grunted; if she asked a question, he
answered it, and that was all.
How to fill the remaining hours of the day became, even in one week, something of a
problem to Dorothea. She had work in hand, but it is dull, at the age of eighteen, to sit
and work with no one to take any interest in the progress of the needle. She dearly
loved reading, but the Colonel's books were such as to put that love to a pretty severe
test. She could have spent hours happily any day in writing to Mrs. Kirkpatrick and her
favourite schoolfellows; but her father's pet economy was in the matter of paper and
stamps. So time threatened to hang upon Dorothea's hands.
Nine years had elapsed since the death of Dorothea's mother; and the greater part of
those nine years had been spent by her in a small Yorkshire school, kept by Mrs.
Kirkpatrick. That had grown to be Dorothea's real "home." She hardly realised the fact
while there, loyally reserving the term for future life with her father, and sometimes
counting it a little hard to spend so many of her holidays at school. But now that the
long-expected life with her father had begun, she knew well enough which was the real
home.
Through the nine years Colonel Tracy had lived more or less in London, often going
abroad for a while. It had happened curiously often—almost regularly—that he had to
go abroad just before Dorothea's holidays, so that he was "quite unable to receive her."
Whether the more correct word would not have been "unwilling" may be doubted. He
was a man who disliked trouble; and he had no notion of doing on principle that which
he disliked, for the sake of others.
About once a year, he had commonly arranged to spend a fortnight at some northern
watering-place with Dorothea: this being the least troublesome mode he could devise
for amusing a school-girl. From the age of twelve to the age of eighteen, she had never
been to London. "Too expensive a journey," the Colonel said, though he made nothing
of going himself north or south, travelling first-class. He liked to have Dorothea always
within easy reach of Mrs. Kirkpatrick, that he might get her off his hands without
difficulty when he found the girlish spirits too much.
Dorothea's recollections of his manner of life in town, seen before her thirteenth
birthday, had grown somewhat dim, and perhaps were embellished by distance.
Moreover, he had often changed his headquarters since those days, so her recollections
were the less important. Certainly she did not expect what she found. The first glimpse
of the dingy apartments, which for more than a year, he had made his home, gave a
shock. Had the Colonel been aware of her sensations, he would have counted them
unreasonable. He had "done his duty by her" in the matter of education. He expected
now that she should "do her duty by him" in the matter of submission and usefulness.
Dorothea was a girl of too much character not to be useful, of too much principle to
indulge in discontent. Still, this week had been a week of "deadly dulness"; and what
there was for her to do, she had, as yet, failed to discover.
The Colonel arranged everything, ordered dinner, interviewed the landlady, and
undertook to procure fish and vegetables. He piqued himself upon his intimate
acquaintance with household details. He needed neither advice nor help. Dorothea was
a mere adjunct in his existence thus far, less important than the said fish, less
necessary than the said vegetables. She felt like a stranded boat, cast upon a mudbank,
out of reach of the tide of life which surged and roared around. This, in a London street,
where cabs and hansoms dashed past, where the sound of the great human Babel
never ceased.
******
"I shall hear from Mrs. Kirkpatrick to-day," thought Dorothea cheerily. "Will my father
go to Church with me?"
He had excused himself the Sunday before on the plea of bad weather and
"indigestion." "Bad weather" did not keep the Colonel in when he wanted to secure
fresh fish for dinner; but Church was another matter. Dorothea had had to content
herself with Mrs. Stirring's companionship. The Church was very near, so near that she
meant soon to plead for leave to go alone.
"Good morning, father," she said, in her brightest tone, when he came into the dining-
room. He was punctual to the moment, yet Dorothea was before him.
An indistinct grunt served for "good morning." The Colonel was exercised in mind, to
think that Dorothea should have already made the tea. It was no small trial to give up
his tea-making to her, which he had done as in duty bound, he being man and she
woman; and he liked to stand close by, watching with critical eyes, as she measured out
each spoonful. On the Colonel's plate lay a neat white package, tied round with blue
ribbon. He was far too much absorbed in the tea-question to notice it.
"Three, father. One for you, one for me, and one for the teapot. Mrs. Kirkpatrick always
said—"
"Full spoons, but not piled up?" demanded the Colonel, wrinkling anxiously the skin of
his face.
Dorothea nodded. She had to bite her lips to keep from laughing, as the Colonel lifted
the lid and peered in.
"Too much water! A great deal too much water!" he said solemnly.
"No, I don't think so indeed. It will all come right," Dorothea assured him with
audacious confidence. "O father, never mind the tea. See what Mrs. Kirkpatrick has sent
me."
The Colonel did not wish to receive the article in question, but Dorothea put it resolutely
in his hands. He found himself dangling helplessly a small blue satin pincushion, with
"Happy Christmas" worked in white beads.
"Eh, what? yes. Very pretty," said the Colonel. "Yes, quite smart."
"Eh? Yes,—uncommonly pretty. What's the use of them all?" demanded the Colonel,
merely because he was at a loss what else to say.
Dorothea stood opposite him, smiling; the light falling full upon her glasses, with the
gentle light eyes behind.
"Don't they all do what yours did last night? Don't they all speak of 'peace and good-
will'?"
This was a shade too personal, and the Colonel dropped Dorothea's pincushion in a
hurry.
"Yes, yes, of course,—all right, no doubt. But such things are not in my line, I'm afraid.
Too much trouble for a busy man to bother about a lot of cards."
Did Dorothea hear him? She was looking towards the window wistfully, dreamily; a
moist glitter showing through her glasses.
"I'm not sure," she said as if to herself, "but I almost think Christmas cards are a sort of
carrying on of the angels' song. A sort of echo of it. Don't you think so, father?"
"My dear, I'll trouble you to ring the bell. Mrs. Stirring will over-do the cutlets, and it's
time the tea was poured out. Brewed long enough. You'd better take all that rubbish off
the table. What's this?"
Any amount of notes of admiration might have been written after the question.
Dorothea watched him, smiling, though she rebelled internally against the word
"rubbish."
Colonel Tracy looked extremely uncomfortable. He had had presents from Dorothea
from time to time; but always as it happened by post; little bits of pretty handiwork,
which he could smile over grimly, and consign to a lumber-drawer, only wishing that
they would not come because he had to compose a sentence of thanks in his next letter.
But for years he had received no present in public, so to speak,—with a witness to his
manner of reception. That the giver should be seated opposite was embarrassing, and
that he should be expected to show pleasure was more embarrassing still. His red rust
complexion grew redder than usual, and an awkward laugh broke from him, as he took
refuge in blowing his nose. Still Dorothea looked expectant, and the parcel had to be
opened.
"I'm much obliged, I'm sure. But you see this sort of thing isn't in my line," said the
Colonel.
"Well, well, of course I use—something," said the Colonel, shoving his new possession
aside, to make room for cutlets and hot plates. "Yes, of course; but you had better not
waste pretty things upon me in future, my dear. You see, they're not in my line. Other
people appreciate them better."
She was a little hurt and disappointed; no doubt more so than she would admit even to
herself. It was evident that her well-meant effort merely bored the Colonel. "I hope you
don't expect Christmas presents from me," the Colonel went on, helping himself
vigorously. He noted her words, and was alarmed lest something sentimental should
follow. "You see, I was not brought up to the sort of thing; and really I could not be
troubled to choose. But if you would care to get something for yourself, I have no
objection to give you five shillings."
"Anything you'd care to do to-day? Take a 'bus and go into the country, if you like?" said
the Colonel, meaning that they would do it together.
"Oh, ah,—yes, I forgot! No doubt,—quite correct. By-the-bye, I'm not sure about Mrs.
Stirring, whether she can escort you, I mean. Turkey and plum-pudding, you know.
Couldn't leave them, could she?" The Colonel was old-fashioned, and stuck to early
dinner through all vicissitudes of fashion. "So I think you'll have to come out with me
this morning, and be content to go to Church in the evening,—eh, my dear?"
"Father, I always go, morning and evening. I could not stay away. Won't you come too?"
"If Mrs. Stirring cannot go, I must go alone." She spoke in a resolute low voice. "It is so
near; there cannot be any harm. I could not stay away on Christmas Day,—for no real
reason."
"I shall want to go often, when Mrs. Stirring is not free. Please don't make any difficulty.
Let me have that one happiness," she pleaded. "Only two streets, and such quiet
streets. And I look older than I am."
"Well, well!" the Colonel foresaw agitation, and feminine agitation was his abhorrence.
"Well, well,—I suppose I must say yes. But mind, nowhere else, and never after dark.
Not after dusk. The distance isn't much, as you say. Take another cutlet?"
"No? Why, you don't half eat." He landed the rejected article on his own plate, and
disposed of the eatable portions in four mouthfuls. "Coming for a walk this morning?"
"You're like your mother. She was just such another Church-goer," said the Colonel, as if
remarking on an idiosyncrasy of character.
Dorothea could be interested now. She felt relieved and free. "Was my mother like me
in other ways?"
"Pretty well. Pretty well," said the Colonel, wiping his moustache.
"Did she know the Erskines?" This question came suddenly, almost surprising Dorothea
herself.
"Well—yes. She and Mrs. Erskine were great friends—at one time."
"Well, not after our—little difference. No, we didn't keep up intercourse. What makes
you bother about the Erskines?"
"I don't know. I like to think about them? Do tell me one thing, father,—are there any
Erskine girls?"
"I'm sure I don't know. There was one, of course," said Colonel Tracy, getting up.
"Done, my dear? For I have to be off. Why, of course! Same name, both of you."
"Dorothea?"
"Yes, Dorothea. Just ring the bell; I want to speak to Mrs. Stirring. She roasted the
turkey to a rag last Christmas, and I can't have it happen again. Yes, you were both
called Dorothea,—a fancy of the two mothers. Great nonsense, of course; but when
women take a notion into their heads, there's an end of it. What a time that girl is! Ring
again. The morning will be gone, before I am able to start."
"O! I should like to know if Dorothea Erskine is alive still," cried Dorothea.
CHAPTER III
USING OPPORTUNITIES
"AND you going out alone, Miss Tracy! And the Colonel that particular! As he wouldn't
hear of you crossing the road by yourself."
Mrs. Stirring was manifestly uneasy, counting herself in some sort responsible. She
looked upon this motherless young lady as a charge upon her conscience,—otherwise,
as one of the many burdens in her life. Mrs. Stirring was a person who professed to
carry a great many burdens. She always had been, and always would be, laden with
cares; not so much because she had really more cares than other people, as because
she had less pluck and endurance for the bearing of them. Where Dorothea would have
looked up and smiled, Mrs. Stirring looked down and sighed. The difference was in the
individuals themselves; not in the weight of the burdens laid upon them.
To be sure, Mrs. Stirring was a widow, which sounds sad. There are women, however, to
whom widowhood comes as a merciful release from unhappy wifehood, and Mrs.
Stirring was one of these. She had married in haste, and had repented at leisure. When
her husband was taken from her, she had been conscious in her heart of relief from a
bitter thraldom, though much too correct a little person to let any such feeling appear
through her showers of weeping,—for Mrs. Stirring was a person who had always tears
at command. Still—there the consciousness was.
Now for years, she had been a successful lodging-house keeper, and was not only
paying her way, but was laying by a nice little sum for the future. She had one child, a
pretty winning little girl, and one faithful though uncouth domestic. This was not
altogether a bad state of things. Nevertheless, Mrs. Stirring talked on plaintively of her
trials and burdens, making capital of the widowhood which had been a release.
"And you going out alone, Miss!" she reiterated, coming upon Dorothea dressed for
walking. Mrs. Stirring was apt to be untidy at this hour, and her cap had dropped awry;
while Dorothea was the very pink of dainty neatness, in a costume of dark brown, with
brown hat to match, relieved by a suggestion of red, the glasses over her happy eyes
balanced as usual over the little nose.
"To Church," Dorothea said, smiling. "I wish you could go too."
"There's the turkey and plum-pudden, Miss," she said, in unconscious echo of the
Colonel. "Dear me! Why if I was to leave them to Susanna, I don't think your Pa 'd stay
a day longer under my roof; I don't, really. He's that particular about the roasting. I'm
all of a quake now with the thought of it—if I shouldn't do it right. And there's the
stuffing, and the gravy, and the sauce! And the pudden, as I've boiled six hours
yesterday, and it's been on again these two hours. Dear me! No; I couldn't go to
church! A poor widow like me 's got to stay at home and mind the dinner."
"Now don't you put him up to that—don't you, Miss Tracy. Late dinner means a deal of
work. If your papa dined late, he'd dine early too—that's what gentlemen come to. No, I
wouldn't wish that. But if I was a lady—like yourself, Miss—and hadn't to be at work all
the morning, why I'd be glad enough to put on my best, and go off to Church with the
rest of the folks. And take Minnie too."
"Minnie! O I never thought of that! Why should not Minnie go with me?"
"It's like you to think of it, Miss." Mrs. Stirring was evidently gratified. "And I'm sure
she'd have been glad enough, for she does fret, being kept in. But the bells 'll stop this
minute, and she's in her curl-papers."
"Curl-papers. Can't you pull them out, and smooth her hair, and put on her hat and
jacket?"
Mrs. Stirring was injured.
"Dear me! No! My Minnie don't go to Church without she's dressed suitable. I couldn't
get her ready under twenty minutes. She's in her oldest frock, and not a tucker to it;
and I wouldn't have her go without—not for nothing. And them curls do take a lot of
time. Not as I grudge it, if it's a duty."
"A duty! But what do curls and tuckers matter?" cried Dorothea. "What does it matter
how she is dressed, if only she is there? We don't go to Church to show off our best
dresses. At least, I hope not. Let me have Minnie as she is, only with her hair smooth. If
I don't care, who else will mind? Curls don't signify. Do let her come! It seems so sad to
stay away for nothing on Christmas Day."
No; Mrs. Stirring scouted the proposal. Minnie to go to Church in an old frock and
uncurled hair! She was scandalised. What would the neighbours think? Dorothea had to
give in, and turn away.
Shutting the hall door, she went briskly down the street, with a delicious feeling of
freedom. She would not have felt so free, perhaps, if even Minnie had been her
companion.
It was a sharp day, and for London tolerably clear. Something of wintry haze hung
overhead, of course; but a red sun made efforts to pierce it. Puddles in the road were
frozen, and here and there a slippery slide might be seen upon the pavement, perilous
for elderly people.
The parting interview with Mrs. Stirring had almost made Dorothea late. As she drew
near the bells stopped, and her pace became something like a run. She gained the
nearest side-door and went softly in.
The Church, a large red brick building, was already crowded, and Dorothea, glancing
round, saw no vacant seat; but somebody beckoned to her, and room was made.
Almost immediately the choir burst into the old Christmas hymn, "Hark! the herald
angels sing," and the congregation joined with heartiness.
Among all that mass of people, Dorothea knew not a single person, and not a single
person knew her. She was a stray unit from a distance dropped into their midst.
Yet the lonely and forlorn sensations which had so often assailed her during the past
week did not assail her here. Strangers though these people were to her, and she to
them, they were one in a Divine fellowship, they served the same Master, they prayed
the same prayers, they sang the same hymns; nay, with many of the throng, she would
soon be united yet more closely, for they would "partake" of the same "holy food."
How could she be lonely? A realisation of this union, and a glow of happy love, crept
into Dorothea's heart, as she lifted her eyes from the hymn-book and looked around.
The angelic message of "Peace and good-will" had been to all of them alike.
"If only I could do something for somebody—not live for myself alone," was the next
thought.
Then just across the aisle she saw a little old lady in mourning, distressfully fumbling for
something which she could not find. Dorothea's quick glance detected a pair of glasses
lying on the floor. In a moment she had stepped out of her place, picked up the glasses,
and given them to their owner.
"Thanks," came in a whisper of relief, with a very sweet smile. Dorothea stepped back,
blushing slightly to feel that she had done a rather prominent thing; yet she would have
done it over again, if required.
The sermon was short, earnest, spirited, mainly about the duty of rejoicing. Not
rejoicing only on Christmas Day, only when things seem cheery and to one's mind, but
always,—on dark days as well as bright ones, amid anxieties as well as pleasures.
"That is for me, I am sure," Dorothea told herself, looking back to some troubled hours
in the past week.
CHAPTER IV
MRS. EFFINGHAM
COMING out of Church, Dorothea found the hour later than she had expected. A very
large number had stayed, and it was already past the Colonel's dinner-hour.
"I must make haste," Dorothea thought. As she said the words to herself, she dreamily
noted the little old lady in mourning a few yards distant, in the act of crossing the road.
"I wonder what her name is? Oh!"
Dorothea's "Oh!" was hardly audible; indeed she felt rather than said it. The old lady
had stepped on a slippery spot, or slide, and went down in a helpless heap, just at the
instant that a hansom dashed round the nearest corner.
Whether instinct or thought guided Dorothea, she could not afterwards have told.
Before she knew what she meant to do, the deed was done.
Two or three ladies near shrieked; and two or three men not so near rushed towards
the scene of action. But shrieks were useless, and the men could not be in time.