Strategic Information System Agility From Theory To Practices Abdelkebir Sahid
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- 6. Strategic Information System Agility
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- 8. Strategic Information System Agility: FromTheory to Practices BY ABDELKEBIR SAHID University Hassan 1st, Morocco YASSINE MALEH University Sultan Moulay Slimane, Morocco MUSTAPHA BELAISSAOUI University Hassan 1st, Morocco United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China
- 9. Emerald Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2021 Copyright © 2021 Emerald Publishing Limited Reprints and permissions service Contact: permissions@emeraldinsight.com No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-80043-811-8 (Print) ISBN: 978-1-80043-810-1 (Online) ISBN: 978-1-80043-812-5 (Epub)
- 10. In loving memory of my aunt Essadia Sahid Abdelkebir Sahid In loving memory of my mother Yassine Maleh To my family Mustapha Belaissaoui
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- 12. Contents List of Figures xi List of Tables xiii List of Acronyms xv Preface xvii Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Context1 1.2 Why Agility Now?2 1.3 The Agility Role3 1.4 IT as a Business Agility Obstacle4 1.5 IT at the Service of Business Agility5 1.6 Research Objective5 1.7 Research Design6 1.8 Contributions and Relevance6 1.9 Book Organization7 Chapter 2 Understanding Agility Concept 9 2.1 Introduction9 2.2 Background of Significant Changes Underlying Agility10 2.3 Production Method Trends13 2.3.1 Lean Manufacturing14 2.3.2 Total Quality Management17 2.4 Agile Management Paradigm Evolution18 2.4.1 Change Management18 2.4.2 Change and Uncertainty Mastering in the Entrepreneurial Organization21 2.4.3 Work on Agility 21 2.4.4 Agile Continuous Delivery Methods25 2.4.4.1 Scrum25 2.4.4.2 Agile Manifesto26
- 13. viii Contents 2.4.4.3 DevOps26 2.4.4.4 Toyota Kata26 Summary27 Chapter 3 Information System Evolution 29 3.1 Introduction29 3.2 Information System Definition and Objective32 3.3 Information System Concept33 3.4 Concepts of Enterprise Application35 3.5 Features of Enterprise Applications35 3.6 Autonomy36 3.7 Distribution37 3.8 Heterogeneity37 3.9 Dynamism38 3.10 EIS and Company Strategy38 3.11 Enterprise Information Systems’ Complexity40 3.12 Complexity Factors40 3.13 Evolution of EISs41 3.14 EIS Governance42 3.14.1 COBIT47 3.14.2 LIBRARY (ITIL) 51 3.14.3 Structure of ITIL v4 52 3.14.4 CMMI 54 3.14.5 Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO)55 3.15 Urbanization57 3.15.1 The Metaphor of the City 57 3.15.2 The Urbanization of Information System59 3.16 Flexibility60 3.17 Agility61 3.17.1 IS organizational Design64 3.17.2 Competencies and Skills of IS professionals65 3.17.3 IS Development65 3.17.4 Design of IT Infrastructure66 Summary66 Chapter 4 The Conceptual Model for IS Agility 67 4.1 Introduction67 4.2 Literature Review68 4.3 Literature Methodology71
- 14. Contents ix 4.4 IS Agility Frameworks72 4.4.1 Zhang and Sharifi (2000)72 4.4.2 Gunasekaran and Yusuf (2002)72 4.4.3 Crocitto and Youssef (2003)73 4.4.4 Lin, Chiu, and Tseng (2006)74 4.4.5 Swafford, Ghosh, and Murthy (2008)75 4.4.6 Ramesh, Mohan, and Cao (2012)75 4.4.7 Atapattu and Sedera (2014)76 4.4.8 Park, El Sawy, and Fiss (2017)78 4.4.9 Morton, Stacey, and Mohn (2018)78 4.4.10 Wu (2019)78 4.5 Discussion and Critic’s79 4.5.1 Discussion79 4.5.2 Critic’s80 4.6 Agility Components81 4.7 Agility Drivers81 4.8 Capability81 4.9 The Proposed Conceptual Model to Achieve Strategic Agility84 4.9.1 Sensing85 4.9.2 DBPA87 4.9.3 The Level of Agility Need88 4.9.4 Security Policy89 4.9.5 The Proposed Model Contribution89 Summary90 Chapter 5 Strategic Agility for IT Service Management: A Case Study 93 5.1 Introduction93 5.2 IT Service Management ITSM95 5.2.1 Agility in ITSM96 5.3 The Proposed ITSM Framework99 5.3.1 Framework Overview99 5.3.2 Framework Maturity profile99 5.3.3 The Attainment Model102 5.3.4 Agility Management103 5.4 Use Case106 Summary115 Chapter 6 Cloud Computing as a Drive for Strategic Agility in Organizations 117 6.1 Introduction117 6.2 Goals and Objectives of the Research Study119 6.3 Literature Review120
- 15. x Contents 6.4 The Theoretical Foundation121 6.4.1 Combining DOI and TOE125 6.5 Research Model and Hypotheses128 6.5.1 The Innovation Characteristics129 6.5.2 Technological Readiness131 6.5.3 The Organization Context132 6.5.4 The Environmental Context133 6.6 Research Methods133 6.7 Quantitative Methodology135 6.7.1 Measurement Model135 6.7.2 Data Collect135 6.7.3 Results135 6.7.4 Finding136 6.7.5 Technology Readiness141 6.7.6 Organizational Context141 6.7.7 Environmental Context142 6.7.8 Discussion and Interpretations142 6.7.9 Qualitative Study142 6.7.10 Hypobook145 6.7.11 Results148 6.7.12 Result Discussion149 Summary150 Appendix153 Reference159 Index185
- 16. List of Figures Fig. 1. The Overall Structure of the Book. 7 Fig. 2. The Production Modes Development and Agility Paradigm. 12 Fig. 3. The Evolution of Production Modes. 15 Fig. 4. The Manufacturing Trilogy of JIT, TQ, and TI. 16 Fig. 5. A Model of a TQM System Source. 17 Fig. 6. The First Strategic Change Process. 18 Fig. 7. The Second Strategic Change Process. 19 Fig. 8. Agile Entreprise. 22 Fig. 9. AM Structure. 23 Fig. 10. The Structure of an AM Enterprise. 24 Fig. 11. A Progression of Manufacturing Paradigms. 24 Fig. 12. Common Attributes and Skills. 25 Fig. 13. The Evolution of Information Systems. 31 Fig. 14. Systemic View of the Company and the Environment. 32 Fig. 15. Information System Structure. 33 Fig. 16. A Systemic View of an IS. 35 Fig. 17. Concept of Application. 36 Fig. 18. Dimensions of Enterprise Applications. 36 Fig. 19. What is the Strategy? 38 Fig. 20. Extended IT Governance Model. 45 Fig. 21. The ERM Model Proposed by COSO. 56 Fig. 22. EIS Urbanization and Alignment. 60 Fig. 23. Factors Influencing Information Systems. 71 Fig. 24. The Proposed Model to Achieve Agility in Manufacturing. 73 Fig. 25. Agile Manufacturing Paradigm. 73 Fig. 26. Model of Organizational Agility. 74 Fig. 27. Conceptual Model for an Agile Enterprise. 75 Fig. 28. Conceptual Model for Supply Chain Agility. 76 Fig. 29. POIRE Agility Evaluation Approach. 77 Fig. 30. Business Agility through CRM for Customer Satisfaction. 77 Fig. 31. Producing Agility through IT Configuration. 78 Fig. 32. A Framework for Executive IT Leaders to Strategic Agility. 79 Fig. 33. IS Integration to Improve Supply Chain Agility. 80 Fig. 34. Agility Types of Research Components. 83 Fig. 35. A Conceptual Model to Achieve IS Agility. 84 Fig. 36. Sensing Phase. 88
- 17. xii List of Figures Fig. 37. DevOps Agility: Aligning People, Technology, and Process for Continuous Improvement. 104 Fig. 38. DevOps ITSM Maturity Model for Continues the Organization’s Measure and Improvement. 107 Fig. 39. The Proposed Agile ITSM Framework. 108 Fig. 40. Assessment Score. 110 Fig. 41. ITSM Maturity Score. 111 Fig. 42. Continual IT Improvement. 114 Fig. 43. The Proposed Model for Cloud Adoption in Organizations. 129 Fig. 44. Research Design. 134 Fig. 45. Cloud Usage by Type. 148 Fig. 46. Cloud Usage by Deployment Model. 148 Fig. 47. Combined Frequency Distributions for Responses to Aggregated IS Agility Categories. 149
- 18. List ofTables Table 1. Research Questions. 6 Table 2. The Dimension of the IT Governance Model. 46 Table 3. IS Agility Research Streams. 62 Table 4. Agility Definitions. 69 Table 5. Agility Drivers Types. 82 Table 6. Sensing Types. 86 Table 7. The Proposed Framework Capabilities. 100 Table 8. New Skills and Attitudes Required for an Efficient ITSM. 105 Table 9. Organization Staff and Turnover. 109 Table 10. Participants’ Demographics. 109 Table 11. Continual Quality Improvement. 110 Table 12. Target Objectives of Phase 1 (Months 0–12) to Achieve the Target Maturity Level. 112 Table 13. Cloud Computing Studies. 122 Table 14. Summary of the Factors Studied Influencing Cloud Adoption. 126 Table 15. Participants’ Demographics. 136 Table 16. Quantitative Factors that Influence the Adoption of Cloud Computing. 137 Table 17. Mean and Standard Deviation of Full and Subsamples. 140 Table 18. Sample Size Calculation Using the G* Power Software. 143 Table 19. The Interview Questions Sample. 144 Table 20. Cloud Computing’s Impact on Information Systems Agility. 146
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- 20. List of Acronyms AM Agility Management APO Align, Plan, and Organise BAI Build, Acquire, and Implement BSC Balanced Scorecard ISO/IEC International Standards Organization/International Electrotech- nical Commission CEO Chief of Enterprise Officer CG Corporate Governance CIA Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability CIO Chief of Information Officer CMDB Configuration Management Database CMMI Capability Maturity Model Integration COBIT Control Objectives for Information and related Technology COSO Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission DOI Diffusion of Innovation theory DSS Deliver, Service, and Support DIS Direction of information systems DBPA Data Base Agility Drivers EDA Exploratory Data Analysis EDM Evaluate, Direct, and Monitor EUROSAI European Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions EIS Enterprise Information Systems ERP Enterprise Resources Planning DSR Design Science Research EG Enterprise Governance IT Information Technology ITG Information Technology Governance ITGI Information Technology Governance Institute ITIL Information Technology Infrastructure Library ITSM Information Technology Service Management IS Information Systems SLA Service Level Agreement ISO Information Security Officer ISMS Information Security Management System ISG Information Security Governance
- 21. xvi List of Acronyms ISSP Information Systems Security Policy ITIL Information Technology Infrastructure Library ISACA Information Systems Audit and Control Association JIT Just-in-Time (manufacturing philosophy) KPI Key Performance Indicator MEA Monitor, Evaluate, and Assess MENA Middle East and North Africa NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology OLA Operational Level Agreement OA Organizational Agility PDCA Plan-Do-Check-Act PCM Process Capability Model PMBOK Project Management Body of Knowledge PSIS Policy Security for Information Systems SLM Service Level Management SMEs Small and medium-sized enterprises SOX Sarbanes-Oxley Act SPOC Single Point of Contact TQM Total Quality Management TQC Total Quality Control VE Virtual Enterprise UTAUT Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology
- 22. Preface In the last decade, the use of information systems as a strategic tool has contrib- uted significantly to the Information Technology revolution. However, the adop- tion of information systems is rarely successful without adequate precautions and attention. IT systems’ deployment is both a risky and profitable choice for an increasingly rapid and evolving economic context. Nowadays, organizations increasingly require a reactive and proactive response to uncertain internal and external events and opportunities, demonstrating agil- ity of action to reach a company’s operational performance. The issue is that organizations are generally not prepared to deal with significant uncertainties and unpredictability. Likewise, information systems are not developed to cope with change and unpredictability. Consequently, for many companies, IT signifies a constraining factor to business agility requirements. Strategically, agility implied conquering new markets, taking risks, and con- sidering new social and environmental challenges. Thus, in operational strategy, this means integrating stakeholders into the company’s practices and improving its understanding by re-evaluating all links in chain value to create a competitive advantage. In other words, agility necessarily requires strategy and, more specifically, organization, culture, and business model to convey the need for responsiveness as effectively as possible. Faced with the various transformations, and needs of the internal and/or exter- nal environment, it is essential to structure the company’s information system (EIS) to facilitate its evolution and modify its positioning, structure, and skills. All this in harmony with the company’s strategic development, while ensuring global consist- ency in terms of permanent IT alignment with the global strategy, interoperability, integration, autonomy, and flexibility. In other words, the EIS must be agile. The book’s purpose is to analyze and explain the impact of IT systems’ strate- gic agility on organizations’ business performance in response to highly uncertain and unexpected events potentially significant. The present book aims to create an explanatory framework that illustrates how and under what conditions IT helps organizations to detect and respond to uncertain events supported by learning capabilities. The main question of this book is the following: What is the role and impact of strategic IS agility on the operational agility of organizations in response to uncertain events? This book delivers comprehensive coverage of the elements necessary for the development and the implementation of effective Information systems’ strategic
- 23. xviii Preface agility. The book dissertation includes the concept, theory, modeling, and archi- tecture of an agile information system. It covers state of the art, concepts, and methodologies for developing information system strategies taking into account the environment, the current development of information technologies, and the general trend of IS agility. The book should help companies to formulate the information systems’ processes of the twenty-first century to grow in the com- petitiveness of its area. Abdelkebir Sahid Yassine Maleh Mstapha Belaissaoui
- 24. Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Context Nowadays, managers increasingly require a proactive and reactive response to uncertain internal and external events and opportunities, demonstrating flexibility and agility of action to match the company’s operational performance. The issue is that organizations are generally not prepared to deal with significant uncertain- ties and unpredictability. Usually, business practices were certain and predictable (Kidd, 1995). Likewise, information systems are not developed to cope with change and unpredictability. Consequently, for many companies, information technology (IT) is a significant factor that constraints business agility requirement. A study by Tucci, Mitchell, and Goddard (2007) shows that less than half of chief executive officers’ CEOs trust IT to contribute to the success of their busi- ness. An MIT study of 1,500 IT managers shows that 71% of American compa- nies are in phase 1 or 2 of enterprise architecture maturity (Ross Beath, 2006), which explains why IT is a barrier to business agility in many organizations. The lack of agility hurts the company’s performance, for example, due to delays in the launch of new products. Thus, according to Foster and Kaplan (2001), a six- month delay in the product launch in the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industry has decreased the product’s turnover by more than 30% over its lifetime. Another example is General Electric’s plan to save $10 billion with real-time information in its GE cockpits for monitoring the company’s performance and rapidly adapting to changes required (Melarkode, From-Poulsen, Warnakulasuriya, 2004). There are significant differences between companies’ ability to detect uncer- tain and unexpected events in different sectors of activity to react quickly by changing their operations and business processes. With this quality, the company can cope with surprising and unavoidable changes by expanding (or reducing) these specific capacities or reducing cycle times beyond current levels of flexibility (Sengupta Masini, 2008). These two examples highlight the benefits of IT in improving responsiveness and agility. This book analyzes the role and impact of IT agility on operational agility to help organizations deal with uncertain and unpredictable consecutive events. Today, agility has become a necessary quality, especially in an always unstable economic environment, making it mandatory, even indispensable (Conboy, 2009; Imache, Izza, Ahmed-Nacer, 2012; Sharifi Zhang, 1999; Zhang Sharifi, 2000). Strategic Information System Agility: From Theory to Practices, 1–8 Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved doi:10.1108/978-1-80043-810-120211002
- 25. 2 Strategic Information System Agility Likewise, IT agility has become the primary purpose of any information systems’ department, a quality that any company must have, to meet the customers’ needs, face competitiveness challenges and rapid technological evolution. Faced with the various transformations and needs of the internal and/or exter- nal environment, it is essential to structure the company’s information system (EIS) to facilitate its evolution and modify its positioning, structure, and skills. All this in harmony with the company’s strategic development, while ensuring global consist- ency in terms of permanent IT alignment with the global strategy, interoperability, integration, autonomy, and flexibility. In other words, the EIS must be agile. 1.2 Why Agility Now? The following chapter introduces the topic and provides an overview of the research contributions included in this book. We ask, “Why agility now?” We believe there are at least three answers. First, it is becoming increasingly diffi- cult to survive and succeed in today’s business environment. Being agile, able to detect and react to predictable and unpredictable situations is a promising strat- egy in times of change and uncertainty. Recently, an essential activity on agility has promoted in the form of agile software development, agile manufacturing, agile modeling, and agile iterations. The diffusion of IT is a process that takes time and effort. Many IT projects succeed in developing a product, but fail to achieve goals. The importance of information systems’ agility for rapidly chang- ing business environments was recognized, particularly in the digitalization age. In this field, agility refers to the ability to provide solutions promptly and to adapt quickly to changing requirements. For a long time, the business environment has been relatively stable, with grad- ual changes. In the event of a radical change, the rate tends to remain relatively slow without being quickly followed by other significant changes. In this relatively stable environment, organizations were not encouraged to be proactive in their response to internal and external events promptly. More specifi- cally, as a communication and transaction infrastructure, the Internet has caused (and will continue to create) turbulence and uncertainty in business and consumer markets, as well as its ability to connect everyone and everything. Changes and events in the economic environment were generally predictable. Nevertheless, technology, innovation, public policy changes, and deregulation are destabilizing the business landscape and redesigning this world (Hagel Brown, 2003). Friedman (2005) argues that the twenty-first-century globalized world has flat- tened the world. Radical “non-linear changes,” leading to a different order are becoming more frequent. Moreover, the pace of change is significantly faster. Business-networks are becoming more sophisticated and interconnected. The boundaries of the industry are becoming blurred (finance, media, telecoms, and IT converge) (Bradley Nolan, 1998). However, re-intermediation has created new stakeholders with new capacities, delivering new services to end clients. Regulatory changes and external requirements for accountability, sustain- ability, and security have a significant impact on the products, processes, and
- 26. Introduction 3 organization’s resources. To maintaining its competitiveness and perseverance over time, a company must be able to detect uncertain events, react quickly, and learn from experience (Dove, 2002). Agility gives organizations the ability to quickly detect and respond to unpre- dictable events, and meet changing customer demands. This ability is essential in today’s business world. New technologies and business practices are continuously introduced to create or change global market demands (Sengupta Masini, 2008). Two examples illustrate this. An example to understand the role of agility is the agility of IT services’ companies, which was challenged during the latest financial crisis in 2008. When “IceSafe” Bank, an Icelandic bank, encountered financial problems, its customers no longer had access to their savings’ accounts over the Internet from one day to the next, which caused a major panic among IceSafe and other bank customers in Europe. Consumers are seeking assurance that their funds are always safe and accessible through the Internet. The “IceSafe” bank’s website and account information were no longer accessible to customers, consequently a traffic spike on other banks’ websites. IT firms that provide IT hosting capacity and maintenance services for banks such as “IceSafe” should react quickly to maintain online banking services for their customers. Another example is Volvo’s sales and IT initiative to manage the development and implementation of an agile supply chain in the aftermarket. Volvo has devel- oped a platform, web services and a web portal for selling spare parts on the Internet. Indeed, the difficulties related to the creation and the integration of a new platform are accentuated by the pressure of establishing new relationships in the field of global logistics for Spare Parts. Volvo’s work illustrates agility by continuously working on scenario development and ensuring that projects are deployed correctly to support learning. In the “Icesafe” Bank example, using intelligent agent software helps IT ser- vice firms by allowing them to identify a possible disruption of their web hosting services proactively. As a result, a response process was initiated to avoid a pos- sible online banking suspension. Through these two examples, IT can improve IS responsiveness and agility. 1.3 The Agility Role Companies must increase their reactivity levels to cope with globalization and various internal and external challenges. Flexibility allows reactivity into organi- zations, processes, and systems, on a limited number of measures only. Except for that combined flexibility in a system, from the beginning, becomes costly. A new concept is needed to survive in a turbulent environment and cope with market changes. This concept, called agility, was introduced in the American automo- tive industry in the early 1990s. The Department of Defense requested that Lehigh University researchers develop a vision, a conceptual framework, and recommendations to create an effective industrial infrastructure. As a result of this work, the report entitled “21st Century Manufacturing Enterprise
- 27. 4 Strategic Information System Agility Strategy” (Nagel Dove, 1991) was published by the Iacocca Institute at Lehigh University (Kidd, 1994). Following this first report, the Agility Forum is created to explore the agility concept in more depth. Agile manufacturing was developed as a new manufacturing paradigm to address customer requirements in volatile markets. Agile Manufacturing incor- porates the full range of flexible production technologies, the lessons learned from total quality management, “just-in-time” production, and “lean” produc- tion (Goldman, 1994). Goldman and Nagel (1993) defined agility as the ability to succeed in a continu- ally changing and unpredictable competitive environment and to react quickly to unforeseenchangesinglobalmarkets,wheredemandforlow-cost,high-performance, high-quality products, and services is paramount for customers. Several publications on agile manufacturing and agile enterprises (Dove, 2002; Kidd, 1994, 1995) followed the work of Goldman and Nagel (1993) and Goldman, Nagel, and Preiss (1995). Subsequently, the concept was extended to supply chains and business networks (Mason-Jones Towill, 1999; Swafford, 2004; Towill Christopher, 2002; Van Hoek, Harrison, Christopher, 2001; Yusuf, Gunasekaran, Adeleye, Sivayoganathan, 2004). Recently, many researchers have analyzed how IT can support business agility and how agility can improve information systems performance (Desouza Awazu, 2006; Sambamurthy, Bharadwaj, Grover, 2003). IT constitutes a key business agility asset and a significant capability that can hinder or facilitate business agility. Over the years, IT has considerably developed and achieved considerable maturity to optimize the use of limited and costly tech- nological resources, roles and relationships have been defined (Hagel Brown, 2001). IT has become standardized and shared knowledge through the years, reducing prices due to economies of scale. The literature presents three research streams with different perspectives on the relationship between IT capabilities and organizational agility (performance). According to the first trend, IT capacity is not essential and does not hinder the company’s agility performance. The other view is that IT capabilities contribute to strengthening the company’s agility (performance). For the third stream, IT capabilities contribute to improving the company’s agility (performance), but under certain limited conditions and circumstances. This doctoral book will pro- vide additional research resources related to the third stream. 1.4 IT as a Business Agility Obstacle For decades, many studies have revealed conflicting, sometimes divergent, results regarding IT’s effects on the organization’s responsiveness and flexibility. In a sur- vey of many business process re-engineering cases, Attaran (2004) found that “IT was the main obstacle to rapid and radical change, with the profound transforma- tion of the IS requiring a redesign of the IS.” Cabled IT architectures, where busi- ness rules are incorporated into information systems, are a significant obstacle to rapid change. IT departments in large companies seem unresponsive and lacking in agility (Kearney et al., 2005). Among the main barriers to this unreliability are existing information systems, the excessive complexity of the IT architecture, and
- 28. Introduction 5 the reduced interaction between the company and IT; (flat Business-IT alignment) moreover, differences between Top Management and IT managers regarding the importance of IT and the appropriate time for new technology adoption. IT infrastructure and application complexity prevents the rapid development and deployment of new systems to support business agility. 1.5 IT at the Service of Business Agility IT can increase organizational agility through open standards-based information systems (which facilitate transformation between partners), involving the best functional areas and being flexible for change, due to lack of time, and low costs (Klapwijk, 2004). IT agility increasingly promotes business adaptability (i.e., busi- ness agility). Automation has moved from the back office (the 1980s) to the front office (the 1990s) to the automation of the IT infrastructure’s ability to adapt to each business decision. Also, functional (vertical) IT architectures are replaced by horizontal (Large-enterprise) designs. Over the decades, IT protectionists and vendors have developed concepts and strategies to assist companies in achieving IT and organizational agility. As a result, a variety of organizational models and agile IT solutions were designed to reach business agility and cope with unexpected changes. In the research, many books and papers were addressed the information technologies’ role to promote organizational reactivity. The purpose is to have an agile organization able to configure IT and human resources in a fast and flexible way to detect and respond to evolving demands, through the IS capacity in general and the IT infrastructure in particular (Pearlson Saunders, 2006). Today, CEOs increasingly recognize the importance of being agile, proactive, or reactive – in responding to internal and external uncertain events and oppor- tunities. However, the challenge is that organizations are generally not designed to cope with severe uncertainty and unpredictability. Economic practices are founded upon certainty and predictability (Kidd, 2000). Also, information sys- tems are not intended to deal with changes and unpredictability. 1.6 Research Objective The objective of the book is to create an explanatory framework that illustrates how and under what conditions IT helps organizations to detect and respond to uncertain events, supported by learning capabilities. The principal research ques- tion of this book is: Which are the role and impact of IT systems’ strategic agility in responding to uncertain events? Table 1 presents an overview of the sub-research questions in this study and the chapter(s) in which they are addressed.
- 29. 6 Strategic Information System Agility 1.7 Research Design The research plan for this book consists of two Sections. The first section includes an in-depth literature review and analysis of existing case studies in Chapters 2 and 3. The result is a global research model. In the second section, a general analysis of the concept of agility is conducted in different industries and sectors based on the worldwide research model. It will be the subject of Chapters 4 and 5. 1.8 Contributions and Relevance This book aims to serve the scientific and business community. The contributions will allow knowing how IT can improve business agility. Promote understand- ing of the relationship between IT service management agility and organization responding to uncertainty in the agile era. As a practical contribution, this book purposes providing managers with an overview of events requiring agility, in which conditions IT should assist the organization to respond and learning, to leverage personal and organization capabilities through practice frameworks to reach agility in IT asset and service information systems, management, and strategic. Results should allow decision- makers to determine perspectives, face compromises, and manage IT to drive Information systems’ strategic agility. As applied research, this study attempts to help address the strategic gap in IT agility that has been identified as a significant, real, global problem. In high- lighting the “know and do” gap underlying this study, we have tried to tackle this problem boldly. Research overcomes some challenges in researching new areas of corporate governance and IT agility. The foundations have been laid for industry and scholarly literature in this field to contribute to knowledge. This book makes the following significant contributions to IT agility in the literature: ⦁ ⦁ The first contribution of this research is the literature review on IT agility. It is clear that while there is significant literature on IT agility and its forms, there is a shortage of literature on IT agility and the importance of internal and exter- nal factors on IT investment decision-making. ⦁ ⦁ The second contribution is identifying essential aspects that define the agile practical framework for IT service management ITSM. It was gathered from a theoretical and empirical research study that generated answers to secondary level research questions and feedback from the analysis of best practice experi- ence in organizations. Table 1. Research Questions. Research Question Chapter Number How to achieve agility in Enterprise Information Systems? 4 How does agility impact IT service management? 5 How can cloud computing adoption increase IT agility? 6
- 30. Introduction 7 ⦁ ⦁ The third contribution identifies the determinants of cloud computing adoption based on the characteristics of innovation and the technological, organizational, and environmental contexts of organizations, and assesses how cloud computing is changing IS agility. 1.9 Book Organization The overall structure of the book is described in Fig. 1. Chapter 2 presents a review of research related to agility by analyzing the different types of the research proposed, from the craft industry to the emergence of agility. Chapter 3 presents an overview of information systems’ evolution based on three inter- dependent phases. Chapter 4 gives a combination illustrating the development of agility within information systems and provides a conceptual framework to adopt agility in the organization’s information systems. Chapter 5 proposes an agile IT service management through a case study in a large organization. The proposed framework will impact all aspects of IT-oriented user productivity Chapter I Introduction Chapter VI Cloud Computing as a Drive for Strategic Agility in Organizations Chapter V Strategic Agility for IT Service Management: A Case Study Chapter IV The conceptual model for IS Agility General Introduction Conclusion and open research Chapter II Understanding Agility Concept Part 1: Introduction Part 2: Review of literature and practice Part 3: IS Agility Frameworks Part 4: Conclusion and Future Works Chapter III Information Systems Evolution Fig. 1. The Overall Structure of the Book.
- 31. 8 Strategic Information System Agility and will implement an agile approach to managing all these aspects. Chapter 6 proposes recommendations on when and how cloud computing is a useful tool and outlines the limitations of recent studies and future research perspectives. Its primary objective is to explore how agility influences decision-making to adopt cloud computing technology, and how the cloud can increase IT agility. A survey was conducted in the Middle East and North Africa region covering medium and large organization from the manufacturing and service industries. Finally, we discuss the key findings of this book, the limitations, the contribu- tions to the academic and the business world and some recommendations for future research.
- 32. Chapter 2 Understanding Agility Concept Abstract Manufacturers have experienced many stages of evolution and paradigm shift. The paradigm shifts from crafts to mass production, then to lean pro- duction, and finally to agile manufacturing (AM). Agility will reduce the time to market for appropriate products and services. Twenty-first century companies must meet a demanding customer base that will increasingly seek high quality, low-cost products adapted to their specific and continually evolving needs. It is time for companies to compete, and “push the bounda- ries” in response to delivery, product quality, and overall excellence in cus- tomer service and satisfaction. For addressing these challenges, a new way to manage businesses was proposed called “Agility,” AM is defined as the ability to survive in a competitive environment characterized by the con- tinual and unpredictable changes, by responding effectively to the changing markets with products and services designed by the customer. This chapter presents a review of research related to the agility concept through an analy- sis of the variously proposed studies. This analysis was conducted based on a meta-model of three words (Agility, Management, and Organization). 2.1 Introduction Numerous studies have suggested an explanation of the agility concept; they define agility as the ability to operate and compete in a continuous and dynamic change context. The Advanced Research Programs Agency and the Agility Forum define agility as The ability to succeed in continuous and often unexpected environ- mental change. The agility concept constitutes a part of a program established by a diverse set of industrial companies to improve and maintain the competitive advantage of the U.S. manufacturing base. (Sarkis, 2001) Strategic Information System Agility: From Theory to Practices, 9–27 Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved doi:10.1108/978-1-80043-810-120211003
- 33. 10 Strategic Information System Agility Agility, lean, and flexibility are strategic organizational philosophies that have attracted researchers’ attention recently. ⦁ ⦁ Lean manufacturing: Eliminates waste and minimizes resource use. ⦁ ⦁ Flexible manufacturing: This is a structure rather than a strategy to facilitate the reconfiguration and customization of the production chain. ⦁ ⦁ Agile manufacturing (AM): A Strategy that includes lean and flexible manu- facturing to develop world Corporation and competitiveness. According to these definitions, the Lean and flexibility concepts are a part of agility scope; other researches argue that they constitute distinct and separable philosophies. Also, numerous academic and practical studies have treated flexibil- ity and lean of manufacturing, providing specific elements and definitions with analytical models to assign it (Evans, 1991; Narain, Yadav, Sarkis, Cordeiro, 2000; Upton, 1994). Lean Manufacturing is the result of various practices. First, it was presented by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as part of a fundamental study of international practices in the automotive industry (Womack, Womack, Jones, Roos, 1990). Links and roles between agility, flex- ibility, and lean can provide a partial agility definition. To respond to Industry requirements for agility appeared firstly in the report of the twenty-first Century Manufacturing Enterprise Strategy (Nagel Dove, 1991). Agility includes four main dimensions: inputs, outputs, external influences, and internaloperations(GoldmanNagel,1993;Yusuf,Sarhadi,Gunasekaran,1999): ⦁ ⦁ Outputs: “solution” products that enrich the customer. ⦁ ⦁ Inputs: cooperate to enhance competitiveness. ⦁ ⦁ External influences: unpredictable changes and social values. ⦁ ⦁ Internal operations: leveraging on human capital and information impact. For Dove (1995), agility factors emerge through the relationships between organizational entities. These factors include the relationship between opportun- istic customers and adaptable producers, known as opportunity management. Another critical factor for environmental uncertainty is the relationship between flexible producers and the relentless technology defined as innovation management. 2.2 Background of Significant Changes Underlying Agility To explain the agility development, it is necessary to draw up a chronology of production methods’ evolution. Initially, agility was developed in the manufac- turing field, and in 1991 the term agility and/or agile spread between management and organizations. Three dominant paradigms have affected industrial production in the modern world (Hormozi, 2001; Tidd Bessant, 1997). Artisanal production appeared in Europe before the eighteenth century. In this mode, producers, mainly (Craftsmen), contracted and completed individual projects. Consumer demands were generally for unique products and vary around the pre-manufactured product (Hormozi, 2001). This paradigm is characterized by a low production volume and a broad product variety (S. Brown Bessant, 2003). The second is mass production,
- 34. Understanding Agility Concept 11 actively developed in the United States between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – following the discovery of the steam engine developed at the end of the seventeenth century (Boyer, 2004). This phase recognizes growth amplified with the advent of Taylorism and Henry Ford’s assembly lines, which was the moment when “all-purpose” products left the production line at full speed, thus respond- ing to increasingly intense consumer demands. The latest is Lean Manufacturing, which is developed in Japan, and it was not until the late 1990s that it was accepted as a viable production alternative (Hormozi, 2001), although Boyer (2004) situates the development of Lean as early as 1945. Lean manufacturing attempts to use the benefits of mass production in conjunction with just in time (JIT) principles and waste disposal to minimize the total cost of producing a product (Hormozi, 2001). The latter paradigm is therefore characterized by large quantities produced and more varieties of products than those offered by mass production (Hormozi, 2001). Fig. 2 provides a synopsis of the development of these three paradigms. With each paradigm shift in production methods, pro-active countries toward these significant changes have reaped the benefits of their market leadership (Hormozi, 2001). For example, North America and Europe’s inability to adopt Lean to compete in the 1980s cost them valuable profits and market shares in some vital industries. Examples include the automobile, metal industry, consumer electronics, and household appliances (Boyer, 2004). They have tried to beat their competitors with massive investments in automation, often generating very costly failures (Hormozi, 2001). Based on this observation, many researchers and practitioners gathered in the United States in 1991 to propose a new production method, AM (Nagel Dove, 1991). Since 1991, many authors have taken this shift by proposing the bases of this new paradigm, or simply by admitting it (Bottani, 2009; Brown Bessant, 2003; Goldman Nagel, 1993; Gunasekaran, 1999; Gunasekaran Yusuf, 2002; Hormozi, 2001; Ramasesh et al., 2001; Ren, Yusuf, Burns, 2003; Sharifi Zhang, 1999; Tidd Bessant, 1997; Yusuf, Gunasekaran, Adeleye, Sivayoga- nathan, 2004; Yusuf Schmidt, 2013; Zhang Sharifi, 2000). However, while the literature has been massively oriented toward the acceptance of a new para- digm, two articles temper this evolution. Indeed, for Vázquez-Bustelo, Avella, and Fernández (2007), AM is not fundamentally different from previous produc- tion paradigms and models. While Lean manufacturing has been perceived as an improvement of the mass production model, Vázquez-Bustelo et al (2007) argue, however, that AM breaks with the mass model due to the production of highly customized products and its focus on operational proactivity rather than reactiv- ity. For Sarkis (2001), agility seems to be a paradigm at the meta-paradigm level. Its engagement for waste disposal. This is achieved by combining work in cross-functional teams dedicated to an activity, sharing information, and focusing on continuous improvement and qual- ity aspects. All unnecessary tasks are eliminated, and all steps are aligned in a continuous flow of activity. This allows the design, development, and distribution of products with a minimum of human effort, tools, and overall expenses. (Sarkis, 2001)
- 35. 12 Strategic Information System Agility Agile Manifesto 2001 DevOps 2007 LEAN -JIT END OF 20 Centry CRAFT PRODUCTI ON Befor 18Centry TOYOTA KATA 2001 Scrum 1995 MASS PRODUCTI ON 19th-20 th Centry INDUSTRY 4.0 2011 Fig. 2. The Production Modes Development and Agility Paradigm.
- 36. Understanding Agility Concept 13 Therefore, if the emergence of AM is above all correlated with changes in production methods, it is necessary first to characterize them quickly and then to highlight other social phenomena and their consequences in the business world. Indeed, today’s world is undergoing profound changes that need clarification and goes beyond production methods. Over recent years, fast-paced developments in information and communication technologies and their integration into supply chains have led to the advent of the fourth industrial revolution – “Industry 4.0”(Dalenogare, Benitez, Ayala, Frank, 2018; Frank, Dalenogare, Ayala, 2019). Business competition has increased as a result of technological innovations and evolving customer requirements. This changing transformation in business ecosystems will deeply influence operational frameworks/models and management strategies to respond and adopt the new chal- lenges in an evolving ecosystem (Barreto, Scheunemann, Fraga, Siqueira, 2017). Since the emergence of Industry 4.0, a growing number of enterprises have inte- grated new industrial revolution principles and technologies to improve their pro- ductivity and performance (Barreto, Scheunemann et al., 2017; Wagire, Rathore, Jain, 2019). The main strength of Industry 4.0 lies in its significant impact on many aspects of society. Seen from the perspective of the typical user, the influence of Industry 4.0 is most clearly visible in the professional, domestic, and social spheres. Smart homes, smart cities and offices, and e-health systems are just a few examples of likely scenarios of how the new paradigm will transform the world (Marston, Bandyopadhyay, Ghalsasi, 2011). Similarly, the most noticeable impact of Industry 4.0 is estimated to be in the areas of industrial manufacturing and management, supply chain, and business process management (Strange Zucchella, 2017). In today’s competitive and fast-growing business environment (Pereira Romero, 2017; Wu, Yue, Jin, Yen, 2016), companies must adopt emerging technologies in their business processes and manage the increasing data flow in their value chain for efficient management. Industry 4.0 includes automated systems that enable the customization, agility, and responsiveness of manufacturing and service operations by providing data from a diverse range of devices, sensors, and tools (Deloitte, 2015; Strange Zucchella, 2017). This leads to new capabilities in many fields, including new product design, prototyping and development, remote control, testing and diagnostics, preventive and predictive maintenance, traceability, needed health monitoring systems, planning, innovation, real-time applications, and agility (Strange Zucchella, 2017). Industry 4.0 delivers significant business benefits, including product customization, real-time data analysis, autonomous monitor- ing and control, development and dynamic product design, and increased pro- ductivity (Dalenogare et al., 2018). 2.3 Production Method Trends As previously mentioned, manufacturing methods have evolved over the past 200 years. Also, the research argues that global performance is continuously chang- ing, which requires attention and, above all, constant effort (Hormozi, 2001; Sanchez Nagi, 2001).
- 37. 14 Strategic Information System Agility While economies of scale and the permanent quest for maximum efficiency regarding production capacity constitute a rule for organizations to generate profits, this mode of production creates rigid capabilities that lead to difficul- ties in reconfiguring plants. This rigidity will gradually become a constraint to changing production methods, particularly in Japan with Lean. Indeed, since the early 1980s, organizations have considered the search for flexibility in production, waste disposal, time reduction, and production cycles as priorities. The economic and marketplace conditions have led to an increase in the vari- ety of products and services required. Due to this phenomenon, markets appear, change, and disappear at an alarming rate (Goldman Nagel, 1993). These changes need organizations to maintain productivity and cost improvement while monitoring emerging demands and being able to re-engineer the production sys- tem’s organization (McCarthy Tsinopoulos, 2003) rapidly. Thus, production has become more than just a transformation of primary materials into marketable products. It is about a transformation of information (customer needs, design data, data production, etc.), geographical transforma- tion (“logistics”), and availability transformation (“stock and deadline control”). Indeed, manufacturing is today the process of transforming an idea into a physi- cal and desirable product (McCarthy Tsinopoulos, 2003). The concept of AM is first appeared in the Lehigh University report entitled “21st Century Manufacturing Enterprise Strategy”: An Industry-Led View (Nagel Dove, 1991), then several articles of different types (research and popularization) were published to develop the concept or accept it (Gunasekaran, 1999; Gunasekaran Yusuf, 2002; Sharifi Zhang, 1999; Zhang Sharifi, 2000). In summary, manufacturing systems are complex adaptive systems, whose con- figurations have evolved through different modes such as artisanal production, mass production, lean manufacturing, and agile production. Fig. 3 proposes a synopsis of the changes in the various production methods and their associated characteristics. 2.3.1 Lean Manufacturing Japanese experts (Ohno, 1988) have taken the world of manufacturing by storm, as well as continuous research since the 1970s that have identified the advantages of lean manufacturing management practices (James-Moore Gibbons, 1997). As a result, value-added production can provide managers with a way to structure their manufacturing facilities (and the organization as a whole) to become more productive and efficient (Womack et al., 1990). Its engagement for waste disposal. This is achieved by combining work in cross-functional teams dedicated to an activity, sharing information and focusing on continuous improvement and qual- ity aspects. All unnecessary tasks are eliminated and all steps are aligned in a continuous flow of activity. This allows the design, development and distribution of products with a minimum of human effort, tools and overall expenses. (Womack et al., 1990)
- 38. Understanding Agility Concept 15 The Lean Manufacturing has been defined by Bamber, Hides, and Sharp (2000) as a set of principles and practices that aim to eliminate all waste from the system and is based on the maximum use of resources by focusing on the reduc- tion or elimination of waste and activities without added value in the system (Bamber, Hides et al., 2000) in a study on reducing lean meat consumption. Many manufacturing players have promoted Japanese manufacturing meth- ods such as JIT, Kaizen, Total Quality Control, and worker incentives such as total employee participation have revolutionized the business world (Csillag, 1988; Dertouzos, Lester, Solow, 1989; Willmott, 1994). However, Womack et al. (1990) have shown that, based on research on Japanese manufacturing firms, it is clear that the Japanese production paradigm did not happen overnight. Other researchers in the manufacturing field (Bicheno, 1994; Cheng Podolsky, 1996; Cusumano, 1994) go so far as to assert that the gradual transition between extreme. Tayloristic mindsets in planning material requirements and inspecting buffered systems, a lean manufacturing system structured according to tasks, con- tinuous improvement, JIT and quality assurance, and the multi-skilled worker from one production to another could have predicted. The limitations of lean manufacturing regarding adverse effects, including the lack of young workers willing to work in factories, excessive product variety, and extreme pressure on suppliers, were highlighted by Cusumano (1994). Neverthe- less, Japanese experts (Ohno, 1988) have worked closely with major companies such as Toyota, acting as pioneers, to develop lean manufacturing. According to Bicheno (1994), these Japanese experts knew that the organizations should satisfy the JIT, Total Quality (TQ), and Team Involvement (TI) (Sharp, Irani, Desai, 1999) to become a world-class factory manufacturing. The trilogy is presented in Fig. 4. Where we can see that beyond factory production, a Flexible Specialized Comprehensive Reconfigurable Fig. 3. The Evolution of Production Modes.
- 39. 16 Strategic Information System Agility lean company also requires supplier participation, distribution logistics, efficient design, and attention to service. Therefore, as shown in Fig. 4, JIT can be con- sidered to take place mainly within the plant, and lean manufacturing pushes the boundaries regarding supply chain mechanics. According to Bicheno (1994), the objective of the JIT is to continuously elimi- nate waste and reduce delays at each stage, from raw material to end customer and from concept to market. On the other hand, lean manufacturing aims to design and produce products and support services that exceed customer expecta- tions regarding quality, cost, and time. Also, Womack et al. (1990) discuss waste reduction using lean thinking as being primarily focused on the following achiev- able objectives: ⦁ ⦁ the use of half the space; ⦁ ⦁ the use of half of the investment in tools; ⦁ ⦁ reduce human effort by half; ⦁ ⦁ reduce time less than half; ⦁ ⦁ use less than half of the inventory; ⦁ ⦁ reduce the defects less than half; ⦁ ⦁ increase product variety; and ⦁ ⦁ improve customer service. TQ JIT TEAMS LEAN MANUFACTURING Distribution COSTUMER THE TRILOGY MANUFACTURING Supply Fig. 4. The Manufacturing Trilogy of JIT, TQ, and TI.
- 40. Understanding Agility Concept 17 To understand the lean production paradigm, Sharp et al. (1999) developed a list of lean production characteristics, based on a review of the lean production literature, as follows: ⦁ ⦁ a focus on the client’s interests; ⦁ ⦁ collaborate closely with suppliers in all areas; ⦁ ⦁ share the gains and benefits of collaboration; ⦁ ⦁ respect all functional and operational areas and personnel of the company and its suppliers; ⦁ ⦁ the skills and contributions of all people are highly rated and valued; ⦁ ⦁ design and manufacturing functions collaborate on an ongoing basis, in par- ticular, to support, or promote the cause of quality, or to reflect the interests of the customer; and ⦁ ⦁ the development and operation of production processes are oriented toward the continuous improvement of operational efficiency and the prevention of defects. 2.3.2 Total Quality Management The concept of Total Quality Management (TQM) depends on the total commit- ment of each employee within the company and cannot be achieved through qual- ity systems alone (Atkinson, 1990). This view prevails because quality systems traditionally focus on quality assurance and quality control rather than TQM (Bam- ber, Hides et al., 2000). Also, Atkinson (1990) added that while it is important to have quality systems, such as the ISO 9000 series of standards on quality management sys- tems, it is essential not to stop there, but to continuously improve quality, beyond the requirements of the standards by creating cultural change. Continuous improvement and culture are therefore defined in TQM’s literature as the key to organizational success. There are diverging views on what constitutes a TQM organization, for example Crosby (1979) defines the four pillars on which a quality program is based, management involvement, professional quality management, original programs, and recognition, while McNally (1993) has defined in more detail a framework, shown in Fig. 5, that includes a more rigorous vision of TQM than Crosby definition. DeToro and Teener (1992) state in their QM model that leadership, qual- ity, policy, communication, recognition, measurement, education, training, and Fig. 5. A Model of a TQM System Source.
- 41. 18 Strategic Information System Agility support structure are key elements of QM. The model also incorporates the concept of three total quality principles: total participation, process improve- ment, and customer focus, which are universally recognized as catalysts for TQM and are discussed in the literature (Crosby, 1979; Deming, 2000; Ishikawa, 1985; Juran, 1986; Xiao, Ford, Feigenbaum, 2013). Fig. 5 provides a quality management framework that requires responsible managers and effective leadership, values, attitudes, and behaviors that support quality policy, communication, teamwork, recognition, internships, and training to implement quality management. 2.4 Agile Management Paradigm Evolution In their paper, Rattner and Reid (1994) present increased global competition as the main reason for developing a new approach to production management that integrates agility into work processes. Therefore, in 1969, Skinner (1969) led the way by considering that a manufacturing strategy should be the primary driver of a competitive business strategy and that it was the missing link in the business improvement efforts of many organizations. Beyond the perceived underlying trend of change, the emergence of a new business era has given way to the emer- gence of a new commercial era. 2.4.1 Change Management Change management has already mentioned as necessary for organizations to remain competitive. Ho (1999b) Argues that a change in an organization would lead to a change in organizational culture in the long term. A typical example is a leading organization, where people are enthusiastic about trying new ideas and recognize that failure is an essential part of success. The traditional process of strategic change that can be summarized in five key steps (Ho, 1999b) and illustrated in Fig. 6 shows the previous relationships of deploying the vision of an organization, whose mission is the vehicle for behavior and changing actions to cultural development in the organization. Fig. 6 presents a new paradigm suggested in a later publication by Ho (1999a), which provides the same elements in the process of cultural change, but the ele- mentary precedents are different, that is, action now becomes the starting point for cultural change. In the same way as this proposed new paradigm for strategic change manage- ment, the work of Peters and Waterman (1984) has learned from more than 46 suc- cessful companies that most of them choose “action”as the first step in their quest for excellence. The new idea advocated by Ho (1999a), illustrated in Fig. 7, is that action leads to a change in employee’s behavior and a change in culture follows. Vision Mission Behavior Action Culture Fig. 6. The First Strategic Change Process.
- 42. Understanding Agility Concept 19 This results from the leadership process, and as Revans (1983) said: “There is no learning without action and no action without learning.” This could provide the argument that learning and change are synonymous. Ho (1999b) discusses in more detail that if learning has been successful, organizational behavior will be taken to a dynamic and challenging level, which will give the organization a culture of continuous improvement. The concept of continuous improvement is an example of what strategy theo- rists have called “dynamic capacity” (Teece Pisano, 1994). In their paper, Tidd and Bessant (1997) suggest that dynamic capacity through continuous improve- ment (the advantage of innovation) over price alone is no longer a viable strategy for most companies and, therefore, Meredith and Francis (2000) have suggested that “competitive advantage is increasingly based on a dynamic ability to be com- petitive, in an environment of frequent difficult, and often unpredictable change.” Also, have a capacity to learning provides mechanisms for a high organizational proportion, participates in its innovation, and adapts to processes supporting competitiveness. Numerous authors consider the ability and capacity of an organization to successfully foster and manage change through innovation and continuous learn- ing to be a significant strategic advantage. For example, Bessant and Francis (1999) explained that when a large proportion of an organization engages in learning and innovation processes: Its strategic advantage is essential as a group of behavioral rou- tines - but this also explains why it offers a considerable competi- tive potential, because these behavioral patterns take time to learn and institutionalize, and are difficult to copy or transfer. Also, Sharp et al. (1999) and Castka et al. (1991) discussed participation in the change process as a factor in reducing resistance to change and improvement, indicating a strong link between learning and innovation participation and suc- cessful organizational change. Rattner and Reid (1994) presented the development of increased global com- petition as the primary responsibility for developing a new production manage- ment approach that integrates agility into work processes (Rattner Reid, 1994). Therefore, Skinner (1969) had already led the way in 1969 by considering that a manufacturing strategy should be the primary driver of a competitive busi- ness strategy and that it was the missing link in the business improvement efforts of many organizations. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the underlying trend toward perceived change has laid the foundations for the emergence of a new commercial era beyond traditional sectors such as mass production, world- class manufacturing principles, and lean manufacturing. Action Behavior Mission Vision Culture Fig. 7. The Second Strategic Change Process.
- 43. 20 Strategic Information System Agility A new manufacturing paradigm, known as “agility,” was described in a report published by the Iacocca Institute at Lehigh University in 1991 “21 Century Manufacturing Enterprise Strategy: An industry-led perspective” (Nagel, 1992). The purpose of the twenty-first century Enterprise Manufacturing Strategy Report was to identify the american industry’s needs in terms of restoring manu- facturing competitiveness. It concluded that the gradual improvement of current production systems in 1991 would not be sufficient to become competitive in the current global market (Nagel, 1992). Based on this early concept of agility, Lehigh University has led the way in developing the AM paradigm through research, focus groups, and industrial collaboration (Dove, 1995). The Agility Forum’s work, ini- tially focused on agility, has evolved as follows the early developments of agility as a concept and has contributed significantly to AM theory (Kidd, 1996). Being agile means mastering change – and allowing an organization to do whatever it wants to do whenever it wants. The agility is dynamic, contextually appropriate, aggressively changing, and growth-oriented (Dove, 2002). It is not a question of improving efficiency, reducing costs, or blocking the company’s hatches to overcome the fierce storms of competition. The challenge is to succeed and win profits, the market share, and customers at the very heart of the competi- tive storms that many companies are worried today (Goldman Nagel, 1993). Agility is the organization ability to respond quickly and effectively to unfore- seen opportunities and develop proactive solutions to potential needs. They result from the fact that an organization’s and/or its members cooperate in the interest of the individual, the organization, and their clients (Nelson Harvey, 1995). Kidd defines Agility as the capacity to prosper and thrive in a competitive envi- ronment characterized by continuous and unpredicted change, to react quickly to rapidly changing markets through customer-focused product and/or service evaluation. The upcoming business system will replace today’s mass production companies (Kidd, 1996). These definitions describe agility in terms of results; therefore, do not precisely define agility or how it can be implemented, although the work of the American Forum on Agility has done much to provide operationalized features of agility. According to research conducted by the Agility Forum, “AM” is defined as the ability to thrive in a competitive environment characterized by continuous and unexpected changes to respond quickly to rapidly changing markets with customer-specific products and services (Dove, 2002). Consequently, underlying agility is the ability to adapt or reconfigure quickly in response to changes in the business environment, which involves controlling change as described by the Agile Forum (Goldman Nagel, 1993); or the ability to change as described in a publication by Kidd (1996) to manage significant uncertainties and unpredictable events. Therefore, researchers at Lehigh University (Sarkis, 2001) have expressed AM as having four main underlying dimensions of ⦁ ⦁ aformof changemanagementanduncertainty(anentrepreneurialorganization); ⦁ ⦁ enrich customers, products, and solutions (provide global solutions); ⦁ ⦁ capitalize on people through knowledge and information; and ⦁ ⦁ co-operate to improve competitiveness – virtual partnerships (collaboration).
- 44. Understanding Agility Concept 21 2.4.2 Change and Uncertainty Mastering in the Entrepreneurial Organization Agile competitiveness requires the ability to thrive on change, unpredictability, and uncertainty. Companies with traditional hierarchical and bureaucratic struc- tures with command and control management were seen as unable to respond quickly to the needs of a changing environment. Many experts argue that for an agile enterprise, the structure should work as flat as possible to be dynamic, progress toward agility and thereby control change and unpredictability. Organizations must learn how quickly mobilize their people by adopting a flatter and more entrepreneurial organizational strategy. To achieve this, people must have broader responsibilities than a traditional line organization and have the authority and empowerment needed to respond to clients’ changing needs. An agile approach to manufacturing faces the reality of a dynamic business environment, where customers and markets are increasingly fragmented and spe- cialized. Companies evolving in turbulent markets have developed an inherent and agile capacity, particularly in the design of manufacturing processes, using rapid prototyping and simultaneous engineering techniques. Therefore, Dove (1995) has demonstrated that rapid prototyping can be used in some cases to provide a strategic competitive advantage, by winning market share through the capacity to reduce at least 75% of the design-to-market time. 2.4.3 Work on Agility The research on agility produced by the Iacocca Institute (Dove, 1995) and subse- quently produced and tested an infrastructure framework for AM has continued to develop. This framework was developed from a set of competitive foundations and common characteristics, system elements, and enabling subsystems for agil- ity, which were developed based on industry-led research. These are represented in Fig. 8 as infrastructure for and have been the subject of much research and improvement within the industry (Dove, 1995; Goldman Nagel, 1993). As illustrated in Fig. 8, the Agility Forum developed the theory of agility in a framework that incorporates concepts from many disciplines into a coherent set of business elements. In her review of these elements of the company, Termini (1996) suggests that they contribute to the core competencies of the: ⦁ ⦁ appropriate and consistent technological innovation; ⦁ ⦁ ability to proactively identify market opportunities; ⦁ ⦁ ability to develop and maintain a diverse and educated workforce; ⦁ ⦁ enhancement of communication and data processing networks; ⦁ ⦁ capacity to provide low-cost and customized market products; and ⦁ ⦁ capacity to provide market-oriented products. In their paper, Hooper and Steeple (1997) draw the structure of AM and its inter- relationship with other manufacturing methodologies and, like Fig. 8 of the Agility Forum framework, suggest that AM should be considered as a general expression
- 45. 22 Strategic Information System Agility that encompasses the integration of several diverse systems, technologies, and phi- losophies. The structure of AM is a customer-focused manufacturing model and is broadly similar to the TQM; however, the concept of virtual enterprises and decentralized organization are elements. In their paper (Hooper Steeple, 1997), researchers provide a model structure, for agile enterprise Fig. 9, which seems insuf- ficient as a framework for entrepreneurial activity since the search for opportunities in new markets is not represented. However, it is taken into account in the model of the agility, Fig. 8 as involved enabling subsystems. For an organization, continuous awareness of the operating environment is required to assess the business’s potential risk, as demonstrated by the agile business framework illustrated by Dove (1995) and presented in Fig. 9. In this context, Meredith and Francis (2000) discussed the need for a thorough environmental scan, which organizations need to identify market opportunities. According to Kidd (1996), the fundamental resource of an agile enterprise is “knowledge” and, like the main dimension of the agility of the American agile forum, the “mobilization of human resources through knowledge and informa- tion,” he suggests, if people and knowledge are exploited. Fig. 8. Agile Entreprise.
- 46. Understanding Agility Concept 23 The resulting agility offers a competitive advantage, responding quickly to market changes while exploiting a fundamental resource: knowledge. It is necessary to bring people together in dynamic teams formed according to clearly focused market opportunities to take advantage of each other’s knowledge. Through this process, we seek to transform knowledge into new goods and services. (Kidd, 1996) In its report, Kidd (1996) suggested that AM can be considered as the integra- tion organization, highly qualified, and knowledgeable personnel and advanced technologies to achieve cooperation and innovation in response to the need to provide customers with high quality customized products. This concept is cen- tral to his book “Agile Manufacturing: Forging New Frontiers” and is illustrated in Fig. 10. Therefore (Kidd, 1995), each organization must develop a method- ology to integrate the organization, staff, and technology to enable these three primary resources to adapt through a coordinated and interdependent system. Fig. 11 shows the structure of an AM Enterprise. A new manufacturing paradigm, known as “agility,” has been proposed as a winning concept through which companies maintain their competitive advantage into this new era. Agility concept includes two factors: Flexible Human Resource Flexible Manufacturing systems Decentralization Organization Supplier Virtual Companies Competitors Core Business Customer wants and needs Customer Solutions Fig. 9. AM Structure.
- 47. 24 Strategic Information System Agility ⦁ ⦁ respond to changes (planned or unexpected) in an appropriate and timely man- ner and ⦁ ⦁ leverage change as an opportunity. Agile Lean Mass Craft Past Present Future Fig. 11. A Progression of Manufacturing Paradigms. Fig. 10. The Structure of an AM Enterprise.
- 48. Understanding Agility Concept 25 There are many unities between lean and agility, such as the effective best prac- tice use of tools and techniques, to improve the company’s effectiveness and effi- ciency, as shown in Fig. 12. Initially, agility focuses on economies of scope rather than economies of scale (Dove, 2002). Lean operations are generally associated with the efficient use of resources. The concept expresses an effective response to a changing environment while being productive. Agile organizations are not just able to implement changes, but also react to premeditate and unforeseen environmental events in just time. 2.4.4 Agile Continuous Delivery Methods 2.4.4.1 Scrum. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the fast-moving and highly competitive world of new commercial product development is essential, as is speed and agility. Companies are increasingly aware that the old sequential approach to new product development is simply inefficient. In contrast, com- panies in Japan and the United States use a holistic rugby-inspired method, where the ball is passed into the team as it moves up the pitch (Imai, Nonaka, Takeuchi, 1984; Pittman Russell, 1998). The research focus started to be attracted by the recognition that there was a new product development game (Takeuchi Nonaka, 1986) that focused on a more flexible and iterative approach to thinking. The increased use of the Internet in the early 2000s simply increased the pressure for rapid time-to-market, which acted as a further catalyst for a revision of the orientation of alliterative and incremental development with agility. In 1995, Beck and Boehm (2003) presented Scrum for the first time at the OOP- SLA conference in Austin, Texas. They were struggling with the status quo in software development, particularly with regard to waterfall project management approaches. At that time, the projects and companies they were involved in were failing and due to the pressure, they felt compelled to move in a different direction. Meanwhile, lean management and control of empirical processes as well as iterative and progressive development practices were beginning to emerge. Influ- enced by this emergence, the works of Takeuchi and Babatunde Ogunnaike, which described the key elements of success in new product development (self-organized Craft Skills Agility Lean Fig. 12. Common Attributes and Skills.
- 49. 26 Strategic Information System Agility project teams, overlapping development phases, multiple learning, and transfer of learning) and referred to the game of rugby when they summarized it as “moving the Scrum downfield” Ken and Jeff accordingly labeled their approach “Scrum.” Therefore, Ken and Jeff named their approach “Scrum.” (Maximini, Maximini, Rauscher, 2018). In 2001, the first book on Scrum entitled “Agile Software Development with Scrum” was published, followed by “Agile Project Management with Scrum” in 2004, which outlines the ideas in more detail. In 2011, as Scrum co-creators, Ken and Jeff are writing and publishing the Scrum Guide. Since then, this 16-page document has become the official guide to Scrum (Maximini et al., 2018). 2.4.4.2 Agile Manifesto. In 2001, the Agile Manifesto was created by 17 of the world’s leading software development thinkers. Their vision was to establish a set of values and principles lightweight against cumbersome software development processes such as Cascade Development and methodologies as Rational Unified Process. One of the main objectives was to “deliver functional software at regular intervals, ranging from two weeks to two months, favoring the shortest possible lead time,” emphasizing the need for small batch sizes, progressive releases rather than large cascade releases. Other principles highlighted the need to have small, motivated teams working in a high-confidence management framework. Agility is credited with dramatically improving productivity of many development organi- zations (Maximini et al., 2018). 2.4.4.3 DevOps. In 2009, at the O’Reilly Velocity Conference, two Flickr employees, John Allspaw, Senior Vice President of Technical Operations, and Paul Hammond, Director of Engineering, delivered a now-famous presentation enti- tled “10+ Deploys per Day: Co-operation between Developers and Flickr Opera- tions” (Ebert, Gallardo, Hernantes, Serrano, 2016; Maximini et al., 2018). They emphasis how they created common goals between Dev and Ops and used ongo- ing integration practices to integrate deployment as part of everyone’s daily work. Later, at 2009 the first DevOpsDays was organized in Ghent, Belgium. There the term “DevOps” was coined. Based on the development discipline of continuous build, test, and integration, Jez Humble and David Farley (2016) have extended the concept to continuous delivery, which defines the role of a “deployment pipeline” to ensure that code and infrastructure are always in a deployable state, and that all code stored in the trunk can be safely deployed into production (Read, Report, and Takeaways). DevOps also extends and develops the practices of the infrastructure as code, which work of Operations is automated and treated as application code, consequently that modern development practices can be applied to the entire devel- opment workflow. This further enables a rapid deployment workflow, including continuous integration (Jacobson, Booch, Rumbaugh, 1999) continuous delivery (Humble Farley, 2010) and continuous deployment. 2.4.4.4 Toyota Kata. In 2009, Mike Rother authored “Toyota Kata”: Man- aging People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results book, which summarizes his 20 years of experience to understand and codify the Toyota pro- duction system (Rother, 2009). Rother concluded that the Lean community lack- ing the most significant practice of all, which he named the improvement kata. According to Rother, every organization has work routines, and that improvement
- 50. Understanding Agility Concept 27 kata requires the creation of a structure for the quotidian and habitual practice of enhancement work, because it is the daily practice that improves results. The con- tinuous cycle of establishing target future states, setting weekly goals and improv- ing daily work is what has driven Toyota’s improvement (Soltero Boutier, 2017). Summary Today, changes are faster than ever. Turbulence and uncertainty in the business environment have become the primary cause of manufacturing industry failures (Small Downey, 1996). The perception of a need for change to initiate the emer- gence toward a new commercial era goes beyond traditional sectors (mass pro- duction and lean manufacturing) (Dove, 1991). A new manufacturing paradigm, known as “agility,” has been proposed as a strategy to maintain a competitive advantage in this era. The paradigm expresses the organization’s ability to cope with crisis times, unexpected changes, survive to modern environmental threats, and take advantage of change as opportunities (Goldman et al., 1995). The concept of agility has emerged from the flexibility and lean manufacturing (Dove, 2002; Kidd, 1995) and was adopted by software organizations in the form of agile system development (Aoyama, 1998; Beck et al., 2001). Until emerging as a key function of information systems. Industry 4.0 is an inevitable revolution covering a wide range of innovative technologies such as cyber-physical systems, Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) technologies, IoT, cloud computing, big data analytics, and advanced robotics. The Industry 4.0 paradigm is transforming business in many industries; for example automotive, logistics, aerospace, defense, and energy sectors. A grow- ing amount of academic research is focusing on Industry 4.0 technologies and implementation issues (Frank, Dalenogare, Ayala, 2019; Ghobakhloo, 2018). Industry 4.0 enables real-time planning and control, allowing companies to be flex- ible and agile in responding to rapidly changing conditions; for example reducing planning cycles and frozen periods by faster reacting to changes in demand, sup- ply, and prices (Oztemel Gursev, 2020). Business analytics approaches provide the capability of predicting future events and patterns such as customer behavior, delivery time, and manufacturing output. Real-time delivery routing and tracking also enables organization’s flexibility, efficiency, and agility (Barreto, Amaral, Pereira, 2017; Cui, Kara, Chan, 2020). In Chapter 3, we discuss the development of information systems until intro- ducing the agility concept.
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- 52. Chapter 3 Information System Evolution Abstract This chapter presents an analysis illustrating the evolution of information systems’ development based on three interdependent phases. In the first period, information systems were mainly considered as a strictly technical dis- cipline. Information technology (IT) was used to automate manual processes; each application was treated as a separate entity with the overall objective of leveraging IT to increase productivity and efficiency, primarily in an organiza- tional context. Secondly, the introduction of networking capabilities and per- sonal computers (instead of fictitious terminals) has laid the foundations for a new and broader use of information technologies while paving the way for a transition from technology to its actual use. During the second phase, typical applications were intended to support professional work, while many systems became highly integrated. The most significant change introduced during the third era was the World Wide Web, which transcended the boundaries of the Internet and the conventional limits of IT use. Since then, applications have become an integral part of business strategies while creating new opportu- nities for alliances and collaborations. Across organizational and national boundaries, this step saw a transformation of IT in the background. These new ready-to-use applications are designed to help end-users in their daily activities. The end-user experience has become an essential design factor. 3.1 Introduction First generation information systems were mainly considered as a strictly technical discipline. To automate existing manual processes, each application is considered a separate entity, and its use aims to increase organizational productivity and effi- ciency. As a result, the primary efforts of IT professionals have been to develop new methods for modeling organizational information; hence, database management was the “killer application” (Chen, 1976; Halpin, 2001). Also, the possibility of networking and advent of personal computers (instead of terminals) has provided the cornerstone for a new and broader use of information technology (IT), which Strategic Information System Agility: From Theory to Practices, 29–66 Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved doi:10.1108/978-1-80043-810-120211004
- 53. 30 Strategic Information System Agility promotes a transition in the use of technology and its use. However, the second phase’s conceptual challenge was to manage the information rather than merely collect it and store it in a central database. (Aiken, Liu Sheng, Vogel, 1991; Batra, Hoffer, Bostrom, 1988; Dennis, George, Jessup, Nunamaker, Jr, Vogel, 1988; Drucker, 1995; Gallupe, DeSanctis, Dickson, 1988; Olson, 1985; Zwass, 1992). The designation of the services reflected this commitment to support management rather than office work: most IT services became management services and were coordinated by IT system managers (Couger, Zawacki, Oppermann, 1979). However, during this period, the most of Information System (IS) activities focused primarily on data management, with little attention to information man- agement needs (Goodhue, Quillard, Rockart, 1988; Senn, 1978). Since the 1980s to the early 1990s, research has focused more on identifying relevant IT applications, which has led to new applications, supported through generic system types, in data processing systems and management information system (MIS). CIOs realized that it is possible to effectively leverage the advanced information content of MIS applications in support of top management’s deci- sion-making processes. Thus, during the second phase, a new concept was devel- oped, including decision support systems (Kasper, 1996), expert systems (Yoon, Guimaraes, O’Neal, 1995), data warehousing (Chenoweth, Corral, Demir- kan, 2006), intelligent system (Gregor Benbasat, 1999), knowledge manage- ment systems (Alavi Leidner, 2001), and executive information systems (Walls, Widmeyer, El Sawy, 1992). The management services were renamed information systems’ services. The primary objective of which was to make information accessible to all departments of the organization. Issues of inter-connectivity, scalability, and reliability of the information system have become essential. Also, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software is emerging with an exponential increase in installations in large organizations (Beatty Smith, 1987; Hayes, Hunton, Reck, 2001; Scheer Habermann, 2000; Sharif, Irani, Love, 2005). In the third phase, the most critical change introduced was the emergence of global networks and the World Wide Web, which have overcome the traditional limitations of IT use. Since then, applications have become an integral part of business strategies and created new opportunities to develop alliances and collaborations beyond organizational and national boundaries (Lyytinen Rose, 2003; Walters, 2001). Many researchers perceive Internet computing as a significant computer revo- lution that has changed previous computer concepts (Isakowitz, Stohr, Balasu- bramanian, 1995), in different ways, mainly how a computer service is developed and compiled. A new concept marked this phase: the “digital enterprise” (Bauer, Poirier, Lapide, Bermudez, 2001). The Internet has enabled new digital relationships to be established through inter-organizational systems, taking advantage of e-commerce and e-business trends (Allen, 2003; Daniel White, 2005; Shore, 2006), electronic markets (Albrecht, Dean, Hansen, 2005; Bakos et al., 2005), new application services and Customer Relationship Management (CRM), other services (Currie, Mcco- nnell, Parr, McClean, Khan, 2014; Ma, Pearson, Tadisina, 2005; Susarla, Barua, Whinston, 2006). The Internet has allowed the emergence of new
- 54. Information System Evolution 31 business models that support organizational operations based on the degree of digitization of their products, or services sold, their business processes or the delivery agent (Oetzel, 2004; Turban, 2007). Meanwhile, organizations have become aware of the strategic importance of information systems. While some initially considered IT as “necessary evil,” IT had emerged as a necessary part of staying in business, and most companies see it as an essential source of strategic opportunities, proactively trying to determine in what way it can help them gain a competitive advantage. Strategic information systems have been developed to support strategy for- mulation and planning, particularly in uncertain and highly competitive environ- ments (Buhalis, 2004; Newkirk Lederer, 2006). The third phase marks the technological development in terms of miniaturiza- tion of the devices and increasing processing capacity, which ultimately allowed them to be commercially exploited in line with their functions. The manifestation of IT devices in physical space makes it possible to offer new applications and services that target a much larger and more diverse group of users. Traditionally, users had to be trained in the functionalities of the infor- mation system. This training process could be supplemented either formally or through repeated trial and error. The Vision of “everyday computing” requires that information technologies can be used, literally, by everyone, regardless of their knowledge and experience in computing. Wireless sensors can detect and process information about the indi- vidual and trigger the system response based on certain dynamic or predefined events. User-system interactions are extended beyond the desktop concept. Envi- ronmentally driven technologies (Hand-gesture recognition) (Alewine, Ruback, Deligne, 2004; Sawhney Schmandt, 2000) encourage more realistic commu- nication with the new IS class. Fig. 13 illustrates the evolution of information systems. Fig. 13. The Evolution of Information Systems.
- 55. Random documents with unrelated content Scribd suggests to you:
- 56. telling poor Mrs. Hesketh not to walk, but to go out in a carriage every day. Perhaps that would make her quite well, poor thing. It would make the beggar at the corner quite well if he had turtle soup and champagne like father. And we must stop even the turtle soup and the champagne. He will not have them; they make him angry now that he has come to himself. Cannot you see, Miss Bethune,” cried Dora with youthful superiority, as if such a thought could never have occurred to her friend, “that we can only do things which we can do—that there are some things that are impossible? Oh!” she said suddenly, perceiving for the first time young Gordon with a start of annoyance and surprise. “I did not know,” cried Dora, “that I was discussing our affairs before a gentleman who can’t take any interest in them.” “Dora, is that all you have to say to one that shared our watch last night —that has just come, as it were, from her that is gone? Have you no thought of that poor lady, and what took place so lately? Oh, my dear, have a softer heart.” “Miss Bethune,” said Dora with dignity, “I am very sorry for the poor lady of last night. I was a little angry because I was made to deceive father, but my heart was not hard. I was very sorry. But how can I go on thinking about her when I have father to think of? I could not be fond of her, could I? I did not know her—I never saw her but once before. If she was my mother’s sister, she was—she confessed it herself—father’s enemy. I must —I must be on father’s side,” cried Dora. “I have had no one else all my life.” Miss Bethune and her visitor looked at each other,—he with a strange painful smile, she with tears in her eyes. “It is just the common way,” she said,—“just the common way! You look over the one that loves you, and you heap love upon the one that loves you not.” “It cannot be the common way,” said Gordon, “for the circumstances are not common. It is because of strange things, and relations that are not natural. I had no right to that love you speak of, and Dora had. But I have got all the advantages of it for many a year. There is no injustice if she who has the natural right to it gets it now.” “Oh, my poor boy,” cried Miss Bethune, “you argue well, but you know better in your heart.”
- 57. “I have not a grudge in my heart,” he exclaimed, “not one, nor a complaint. Oh, believe me!—except to be put away as if I were nobody, just at this moment when there was still something to do for her,” he said, after a pause. Dora looked from one to the other, half wondering, half impatient. “You are talking of Mr. Gordon’s business now,” she said; “and I have nothing to do with that, any more than he has to do with mine. I had better go back to father, Miss Bethune, if you will tell Dr. Roland that he is cruel—that he ought to have waited till father was stronger—that it was wicked—wicked —to go and pour out all that upon him without any preparation, when even I was out of the way.” “Indeed, I think there is reason in what you say, Dora,” said Miss Bethune, as the girl went away. “It will not matter,” said Gordon, after the door was closed. “That is one thing to be glad of, there will be no more want of money. Now,” he said, rising, “I must go back again. It has been a relief to come and tell you everything, but now it seems as if I had a hunger to go back: and yet it is strange to go back. It is strange to walk about the streets and to know that I have nobody to go home to, that she is far away, and unmoved by anything that can happen to me.” He paused a moment, and added, with that low laugh which is the alternative of tears: “Not to say that there is no home to go back to, nothing but a room in a hotel which I must get out of as soon as possible, and nobody belonging to me, or that I belong to. It is so difficult to get accustomed to the idea.” Miss Bethune gave a low cry. It was inarticulate, but she could not restrain it. She put out both her hands, then drew them back again; and after he had gone away, she went on pacing up and down the room, making this involuntary movement, murmuring that outcry, which was not even a word, to herself. She put out her hands, sometimes her arms, then brought them back and pressed them to the heart which seemed to be bursting from her breast. “Oh, if it might still be that he were mine! Oh, if I might believe it (as I do—I do!) and take him to me whether or no!” Her thoughts shaped themselves as their self-repression gave way to that uncontrollable tide. “Oh, well might he say that it was not the common way! the woman that had been a mother to him, thinking no more of him the moment her own comes in! And might I be like that? If I took him to my heart, that I think
- 58. must be mine, and then the other, the true one—that would know nothing of me! And he, what does he know of me?—what does he think of me?—an old fool that puts out my arms to him without rhyme or reason. But then it’s to me he comes when he’s in trouble; he comes to me, he leans his head on me, just by instinct, by nature. And nature cries out in me here.” She put her hands once more with unconscious dramatic action to her heart. “Nature cries out—nature cries out!” Unconsciously she said these words aloud, and herself startled by the sound of her own voice, looked up suddenly, to see Gilchrist, who had just come into the room, standing gazing at her with an expression of pity and condemnation which drove her mistress frantic. Miss Bethune coloured high. She stopped in a moment her agitated walk, and placed herself in a chair with an air of hauteur and loftiness difficult to describe. “Well,” she said, “were you wanting anything?” as if the excellent and respectable person standing before her had been, as Gilchrist herself said afterwards, “the scum of the earth. “No’ much, mem,” said Gilchrist; “only to know if you were—poor Gilchrist was so frightened by her mistress’s aspect that she invented reasons which had no sound of truth in them—“going out this morning, or wanting your seam or the stocking you were knitting.” “Did you think I had all at once become doited, and did not know what I wanted?” asked Miss Bethune sternly. Gilchrist made no reply, but dropped her guilty head. “To think,” cried the lady, “that I cannot have a visitor in the morning—a common visitor like those that come and go about every idle person,—nor take a thought into my mind, nor say a word even to myself, but in comes an intrusive serving-woman to worm out of me, with her frightened looks and her peety and her compassion, what it’s all about! Lord! if it were any other than a woman that’s been about me twenty years, and had just got herself in to be a habit and a custom, that would dare to come with her soft looks peetying me!” Having come to a climax, voice and feeling together, in those words, Miss Bethune suddenly burst into the tempest of tears which all this time had been gathering and growing beyond any power of hers to restrain them. “Oh, my dear leddy, my dear leddy!” Gilchrist said; then, gradually drawing nearer, took her mistress’s head upon her ample bosom till the fit
- 59. was over. When Miss Bethune had calmed herself again, she pushed the maid away. “I’ll have no communication with you,” she said. “You’re a good enough servant, you’re not an ill woman; but as for real sympathy or support in what is most dear, it’s no’ you that will give them to any person. I’m neither wanting to go out nor to take my seam. I will maybe read a book to quiet myself down, but I’m not meaning to hold any communication with you.” “Oh, mem!” said Gilchrist, in appeal: but she was not deeply cast down. “If it was about the young gentleman,” she added, after a moment, “I just think he is as nice a young gentleman as the world contains.” “Did I not tell you so?” cried the mistress in triumph. “And like the gracious blood he’s come of,” she said, rising to her feet again, as if she were waving a flag of victory. Then she sat down abruptly, and opened upside down the book she had taken from the table. “But I’ll hold no communication with you on that subject,” she said.
- 60. CHAPTER XVIII. Mr. Mannering had got into his sitting-room the next day, as the first change for which he was able in his convalescent state. The doctor’s decree, that he must give up work for a year, and spend the winter abroad, had been fulminated forth upon him in the manner described by Dora, as a means of rousing him from the lethargy into which he was falling. After Dr. Roland had refused to permit of his speedy return to the Museum, he had become indifferent to everything except the expenses, concerning which he was now on the most jealous watch, declining to taste the dainties that were brought to him. “I cannot afford it,” was his constant cry. He had ceased to desire to get up, to dress, to read, which, in preparation, as he hoped, for going out again, he had been at first so eager to do. Then the doctor had delivered his full broadside. “You may think what you like of me, Mannering; of course, it’s in your power to defy me and die. You can if you like, and nobody can stop you: but if you care for anything in this world,— for that child who has no protector but you,—here the doctor made a pause full of force, and fixed the patient with his eyes,—“you will dismiss all other considerations, and make up your mind to do what will make you well again, without any more nonsense. You must do it, and nothing less will do.” “Tell the beggar round the corner to go to Italy for the winter,” said the invalid; “he’ll manage it better than I. A man can beg anywhere, he carries his profession about with him. That’s, I suppose, what you mean me to do.” “I don’t care what you do,” cried Dr. Roland, “as long as you do what I say.” Mr. Mannering was so indignant, so angry, so roused and excited, that he walked into his sitting-room that afternoon breathing fire and flame. “I shall return to the Museum next week,” he said. “Let them do what they please, Dora. Italy! And what better is Italy than England, I should like to know? A blazing hot, deadly cold, impudently beautiful country. No repose in it, always in extremes like a scene in a theatre, or else like chill desolation, misery, and death. I’ll not hear a word of Italy. The South of France is worse; all the exaggerations of the other, and a volcano underneath. He may
- 61. rave till he burst, I will not go. The Museum is the place for me—or the grave, which might be better still.” “Would you take me there with you, father?” said Dora. “Child!” He said this word in such a tone that no capitals in the world could give any idea of it; and then that brought him to a pause, and increased the force of the hot stimulant that already was working in his veins. “But we have no money,” he cried,—“no money—no money. Do you understand that? I have been a fool. I have been going on spending everything I had. I never expected a long illness, doctors and nurses, and all those idiotic luxuries. I can eat a chop—do you hear, Dora?—a chop, the cheapest you can get. I can live on dry bread. But get into debt I will not— not for you and all your doctors. There’s that Fiddler and his odious book— three pounds ten—what for? For a piece of vanity, to say I had the 1490 edition: not even to say it, for who cares except some of the men at the Museum? What does Roland understand about the 1490 edition? He probably thinks the latest edition is always the best. And I—a confounded fool—throwing away my money—your money, my poor child!—for I can’t take you with me, Dora, as you say. God forbid—God forbid!” “Well, father,” said Dora, who had gone through many questions with herself since the conversation in Miss Bethune’s room, “suppose we were to try and think how it is to be done. No doubt, as he is the doctor, however we rebel, he will make us do it at the last.” “How can he make us do it? He cannot put money in my pocket, he cannot coin money, however much he would like it; and if he could, I suppose he would keep it for himself.” “I am not so sure of that, father.” “I am sure of this, that he ought to, if he is not a fool. Every man ought to who has a spark of sense in him. I have not done it, and you see what happens. Roland may be a great idiot, but not so great an idiot as I.” “Oh, father, what is the use of talking like this? Let us try and think how we are to do it,” Dora cried. His renewed outcry that he could not do it, that it was not a thing to be thought of for a moment, was stopped by a knock at the door, at which, when Dora, after vainly bidding the unknown applicant come in, opened it, there appeared an old gentleman, utterly unknown to both, and whose
- 62. appearance was extremely disturbing to the invalid newly issued from his sick room, and the girl who still felt herself his nurse and protector. “I hope I do not come at a bad moment,” the stranger said. “I took the opportunity of an open door to come straight up without having myself announced. I trust I may be pardoned for the liberty. Mr. Mannering, you do not recollect me, but I have seen you before. I am Mr. Templar, of Gray’s Inn. I have something of importance to say to you, which will, I trust, excuse my intrusion.” “Oh,” cried Dora. “I am sure you cannot know that my father has been very ill. He is out of his room for the first time to-day.” The old gentleman said that he was very sorry, and then that he was very glad. “That means in a fair way of recovery,” he said. “I don’t know,” he added, addressing Mannering, who was pondering over him with a somewhat sombre countenance, “whether I may speak to you about my business, Mr. Mannering, at such an early date: but I am almost forced to do so by my orders: and whether you would rather hear my commission in presence of this young lady or not.” “Where is it we have met?” Mannering said, with a more and more gloomy look. “I will tell you afterwards, if you will hear me in the first place. I come to announce to you, Mr. Mannering, the death of a client of mine, who has left a very considerable fortune to your daughter, Dora Mannering—this young lady, I presume: and with it a prayer that the young lady, to whom she leaves everything, may be permitted to—may, with your consent——” “Oh,” cried Dora, “I know! It is the poor lady from South America!” And then she became silent and grew red. “Father, I have hid something from you,” she said, faltering. “I have seen a lady, forgive me, who was your enemy. She said you would never forgive her. Oh, how one’s sins find one out! It was not my fault that I went, and I thought you would never know. She was mamma’s sister, father.” “She was—who?” Mr. Mannering rose from his chair. He had been pale before, he became now livid, yellow, his thin cheek-bones standing out, his hollow eyes with a glow in them, his mouth drawn in. He towered over the two people beside him—Dora frightened and protesting, the visitor very calm and observant—looking twice his height in his extreme leanness and gauntness. “Who—who was it? Who?” His whole face asked the question.
- 63. He stood a moment tottering, then dropped back in complete exhaustion into his chair. “Father,” cried Dora, “I did not know who she was. She was very ill and wanted me. It was she who used to send me those things. Miss Bethune took me, it was only once, and I—I was there when she died.” The recollection choked her voice, and made her tremble. “Father, she said you would not forgive her, that you were never to be told; but I could not believe,” cried Dora, “that there was any one, ill or sorry, and very, very weak, and in trouble, whom you would not forgive.” Mr. Mannering sat gazing at his child, with his eyes burning in their sockets. At these words he covered his face with his hands. And there was silence, save for a sob of excitement from Dora, excitement so long repressed that it burst forth now with all the greater force. The visitor, for some time, did not say a word. Then suddenly he put forth his hand and touched the elbow which rested like a sharp point on the table. He said softly: “It was the lady you imagine. She is dead. She has led a life of suffering and trouble. She has neither been well nor happy. Her one wish was to see her child before she died. When she was left free, as happened by death some time ago, she came to England for that purpose. I can’t tell you how much or how little the friends knew, who helped her. They thought it, I believe, a family quarrel.” Mr. Mannering uncovered his ghastly countenance. “It is better they should continue to think so.” “That is as you please. For my own part, I think the child at least should know. The request, the prayer that was made on her deathbed in all humility, was that Dora should follow her remains to the grave.” “To what good?” he cried, “to what good?” “To no good. Have you forgotten her, that you ask that? I told her, if she had asked to see you, to get your forgiveness——” “Silence!” cried Mr. Mannering, lifting his thin hand as if with a threat. “But she had not courage. She wanted only, she said, her own flesh and blood to stand by her grave.” Mannering made again a gesture with his hand, but no reply. “She has left everything of which she died possessed—a considerable, I may say a large fortune—to her only child.”
- 64. “I refuse her fortune!” cried Mannering, bringing down his clenched hand on the table with a feverish force that made the room ring. “You will not be so pitiless,” said the visitor; “you will not pursue an unfortunate woman, who never in her unhappy life meant any harm.” “In her unhappy life!—in her pursuit of a happy life at any cost, that is what you mean.” “I will not argue. She is dead. Say she was thoughtless, fickle. I can’t tell. She did only what she was justified in doing. She meant no harm.” “I will allow no one,” cried Mr. Mannering, “to discuss the question with me. Your client, I understand, is dead,—it was proper, perhaps, that I should know,—and has left a fortune to my daughter. Well, I refuse it. There is no occasion for further parley. I refuse it. Dora, show this gentleman downstairs.” “There is only one thing to be said,” said the visitor, rising, “you have not the power to refuse it. It is vested in trustees, of whom I am one. The young lady herself may take any foolish step—if you will allow me to say so—when she comes of age. But you have not the power to do this. The allowance to be made to her during her minority and all other particulars will be settled as soon as the arrangements are sufficiently advanced.” “I tell you that I refuse it,” repeated Mr. Mannering. “And I repeat that you have no power to do so. I leave her the directions in respect to the other event, in which you have full power. I implore you to use it mercifully,” the visitor said. He went away without any further farewell—Mannering, not moving, sitting at the table with his eyes fixed on the empty air. Dora, who had followed the conversation with astonished uncomprehension, but with an acute sense of the incivility with which the stranger had been treated, hurried to open the door for him, to offer him her hand, to make what apologies were possible. “Father has been very ill,” she said. “He nearly died. This is the first time he has been out of his room. I don’t understand what it all means, but please do not think he is uncivil. He is excited, and still ill and weak. I never in my life saw him rude to any one before.” “Never mind,” said the old gentleman, pausing outside the door; “I can make allowances. You and I may have a great deal to do with each other,
- 65. Miss Dora. I hope you will have confidence in me?” “I don’t know what it all means,” Dora said. “No, but some day you will; and in the meantime remember that some one, who has the best right to do so, has left you a great deal of money, and that whenever you want anything, or even wish for anything, you must come to me.” “A great deal of money?” Dora said. She had heard him speak of a fortune—a considerable fortune, but the words had not struck her as these did. A great deal of money? And money was all that was wanted to make everything smooth, and open out vistas of peace and pleasure, where all had been trouble and care. The sudden lighting up of her countenance was as if the sun had come out all at once from among the clouds. The old gentleman, who, like so many old gentlemen, entertained cynical views, chuckled to see that even at this youthful age, and in Mannering’s daughter, who had refused it so fiercely, the name of a great deal of money should light up a girl’s face. “They are all alike,” he said to himself as he went downstairs. When Dora returned to the room, she found her father as she had left him, staring straight before him, seeing nothing, his head supported on his hands, his hollow eyes fixed. He did not notice her return, as he had not noticed her absence. What was she to do? One of those crises had arrived which are so petty, yet so important, when the wisest of women are reduced to semi-imbecility by an emergency not contemplated in any moral code. It was time for him to take his beef tea. The doctor had commanded that under no circumstances was this duty to be omitted or postponed; but who could have foreseen such circumstances as these, in which evidently matters of life and death were going through his mind? After such an agitating interview he wanted it more and more, the nourishment upon which his recovery depended. But how suggest it to a man whose mind was gone away into troubled roamings through the past, or still more troubled questions about the future? It could have been no small matters that had been brought back to Mr. Mannering’s mind by that strange visit. Dora, who was not weak-minded, trembled to approach him with any prosaic, petty suggestion. And yet how did she dare to pass it by? Dora went about the room very quietly, longing to rouse yet unwilling to disturb him. How was she to speak of such a small matter as his beef tea? And yet it was not a
- 66. small matter. She heard Gilchrist go into the other room, bringing it all ready on the little tray, and hurried thither to inquire what that experienced woman would advise. “He has had some one to see him about business. He has been very much put out, dreadfully disturbed. I don’t know how to tell you how much. His mind is full of some dreadful thing I don’t understand. How can I ask him to take his beef tea? And yet he must want it. He is looking so ill. He is so worn out. Oh, Gilchrist, what am I to do?” “It is just a very hard question, Miss Dora. He should not have seen any person on business. He’s no’ in a fit state to see anybody the first day he is out of his bedroom: though, for my part, I think he might have been out of his bedroom three or four days ago,” Gilchrist said. “As if that was the question now! The question is about the beef tea. Can I go and say, ‘Father, never mind whatever has happened, there is nothing so important as your beef tea’? Can I tell him that everything else may come and go, but that beef tea runs on for ever? Oh, Gilchrist, you are no good at all! Tell me what to do.” Dora could not help being light-hearted, though it was in the present circumstances so inappropriate, when she thought of that “great deal of money—money that would sweep all bills away, that would make almost everything possible. That consciousness lightened more and more upon her, as she saw the little bundle of bills carefully labelled and tied up, which she had intended to remove surreptitiously from her father’s room while he was out of it. With what comfort and satisfaction could she remove them now! “Just put it down on the table by his side, Miss Dora,” said Gilchrist. “Say no word, just put it there within reach of his hand. Maybe he will fly out at you, and ask if you think there’s nothing in the world so important as your confounded—— But no, he will not say that; he’s no’ a man that gets relief in that way. But, on the other hand, he will maybe just be conscious that there’s a good smell, and he will feel he’s wanting something, and he will drink it off without more ado. But do not, Miss Dora, whatever you do, let more folk on business bother your poor papaw, for I could not answer for what might come of it. You had better let me sit here on the watch, and see that nobody comes near the door.” “I will do what you say, and you can do what you like,” said Dora. She could almost have danced along the passage. Poor lady from America, who was dead! Dora had been very sorry. She had been much troubled by the
- 67. interview about her which she did not understand: but even if father were pitiless, which was so incredible, it could do that poor woman no harm now: and the money—money which would be deliverance, which would pay all the bills, and leave the quarter’s money free to go to the country with, to go abroad with! Dora had to tone her countenance down, not to look too guiltily glad when she went in to where her father was sitting in the same abstraction and gloom. But this time he observed her entrance, looking up as if he had been waiting for her. She had barely time to follow Gilchrist’s directions when he stretched out his hand and took hers, drawing her near to him. He was very grave and pale, but no longer so terrible as before. “Dora,” he said, “how often have you seen this lady of whom I have heard to-day?” “Twice, father; once in Miss Bethune’s room, where she had come. I don’t know how.” “In this house?” he said with a strong quiver, which Dora felt, as if it had been communicated to herself. “And the night before last, when Miss Bethune took me to where she was living, a long way off, by Hyde Park. I knelt at the bed a long time, and then they put me in a chair. She said many things I did not understand—but chiefly,” Dora said, her eyes filling with tears—the scene seemed to come before her more touchingly in recollection than when, to her wonder and dismay, it took place, “chiefly that she loved me, that she had wanted me all my life, and that she wished for me above everything before she died.” “And then?” he said, with a catch in his breath. “I don’t know, father; I was so confused and dizzy with being there so long. All of a sudden they took me away, and the others all came round the bed. And then there was nothing more. Miss Bethune brought me home. I understood that the lady—that my poor—my poor aunt—if that is what she was—was dead. Oh, father, whatever she did, forgive her now!” Dora for the moment had forgotten everything but the pity and the wonder, which she only now began to realise for the first time, of that strange scene. She saw, as if for the first time, the dark room, the twinkling lights, the ineffable smile upon the dying face: and her big tears fell fast upon her father’s hand, which held hers in a trembling grasp. The quiver that was in him ran through and through her, so that she trembled too.
- 68. “Dora,” he said, “perhaps you ought to know, as that man said. The lady was not your aunt: she was your mother—my—there seemed a convulsion in his throat, as though he could not pronounce the word—“my wife. And yet she was not to blame, as the world judges. I went on a long expedition after you were born, leaving her very young still, and poor. I did not mean her to be poor. I did not mean to be long away. But I went to Africa, which is terrible enough now, but was far more terrible in those days. I fell ill again and again. I was left behind for dead. I was lost in those dreadful wilds. It was more than three years before I came to the light of day at all, and it seemed a hundred. I had been given up by everybody. The money had failed her, her people were poor, the Museum gave her a small allowance as to the widow of a man killed in its service. And there was another man who loved her. They meant no harm, it is true. She did nothing that was wrong. She married him, thinking I was dead.” “Father!” Dora cried, clasping his arm with both her hands: his other arm supported his head. “It was a pity that I was not dead—that was the pity. If I had known, I should never have come back to put everything wrong. But I never heard a word till I came back. And she would not face me—never. She fled as if she had been guilty. She was not guilty, you know. She had only married again, which the best of women do. She fled by herself at first, leaving you to me. She said it was all she could do, but that she never, never could look me in the face again. It has not been that I could not forgive her, Dora. No, but we could not look each other in the face again.” “Is it she,” said Dora, struggling to speak, “whose picture is in your cabinet, on its face? May I take it, father? I should like to have it.” He put his other arm round her and pressed her close. “And after this,” he said, “my little girl, we will never say a word on this subject again.”
- 69. CHAPTER XIX. The little old gentleman had withdrawn from the apartment of the Mannerings very quietly, leaving all that excitement and commotion behind him; but he did not leave in this way the house in Bloomsbury. He went downstairs cautiously and quietly, though why he should have done so he could not himself have told, since, had he made all the noise in the world, it could have had no effect upon the matter in hand in either case. Then he knocked at Miss Bethune’s door. When he was bidden to enter, he opened the door gently, with great precaution, and going in, closed it with equal care behind him. “I am speaking, I think, to Mrs. Gordon Grant?” he said. Miss Bethune was alone. She had many things to think of, and very likely the book which she seemed to be reading was not much more than a pretence to conceal her thoughts. It fell down upon her lap at these words, and she looked at her questioner with a gasp, unable to make any reply. “Mrs. Gordon Grant, I believe?” he said again, then made a step farther into the room. “Pardon me for startling you, there is no one here. I am a solicitor, John Templar, of Gray’s Inn. Precautions taken with other persons need not apply to me. You are Mrs. Gordon Grant, I know.” “I have never borne that name,” she said, very pale. “Janet Bethune, that is my name.” “Not as signed to a document which is in my possession. You will pardon me, but this is no doing of mine. You witnessed Mrs. Bristow’s will?” She gave a slight nod with her head in acquiescence. “And then, to my great surprise, I found this name, which I have been in search of for so long.” “You have been in search of it?” “Yes, for many years. The skill with which you have concealed it is wonderful. I have advertised, even. I have sought the help of old friends who must see you often, who come to you here even, I know. But I never found the name I was in search of, never till the other day at the signing of
- 70. Mrs. Bristow’s will—which, by the way,” he said, “that young fellow might have signed safely enough, for he has no share in it.” “Do you mean to say that she has left him nothing—nothing, Mr. Templar? The boy that was like her son!” “Not a penny,” said the old gentleman—“not a penny. Everything has gone the one way—perhaps it was not wonderful—to her own child.” “I could not have done that!” cried the lady. “Oh, I could not have done it! I would have felt it would bring a curse upon my own child.” “Perhaps, madam, you never had a child of your own, which would make all the difference,” he said. She looked at him again, silent, with her lips pressed very closely together, and a kind of defiance in her eyes. “But this,” he said again, softly, “is no answer to my question. You were a witness of Mrs. Bristow’s will, and you signed a certain name to it. You cannot have done so hoping to vitiate the document by a feigned name. It would have been perfectly futile to begin with, and no woman could have thought of such a thing. That was, I presume, your lawful name?” “It is a name I have never borne; that you will very easily ascertain.” “Still it is your name, or why should you have signed it—in inadvertence, I suppose?” “Not certainly in inadvertence. Has anything ever made it familiar to me? If you will know, I had my reasons. I thought the sight of it might put things in a lawyer’s hands, would maybe guide inquiries, would make easier an object of my own.” “That object,” said Mr. Templar, “was to discover your husband?” She half rose to her feet, flushed and angry. “Who said I had a husband, or that to find him or lose him was anything to me?” Then, with a strong effort, she reseated herself in her chair. “That was a bold guess,” she said, “Mr. Templar, not to say a little insulting, don’t you think, to a respectable single lady that has never had a finger lifted upon her? I am of a well-known race enough. I have never concealed myself. There are plenty of people in Scotland who will give you full details of me and all my ways. It is not like a lawyer—a cautious man, bound by his profession to be careful—to make such a strange attempt upon me.”
- 71. “I make no attempt. I only ask a question, and one surely most justifiable. You did not sign a name to which you had no right, on so important a document as a will; therefore you are Mrs. Gordon Grant, and a person to whom for many years I have had a statement to make.” She looked at him again with a dumb rigidity of aspect, but said not a word. “The communication I had to make to you,” he said, “was of a death— not one, so far as I know, that could bring you any advantage, or harm either, I suppose. I may say that it took place years ago. I have no reason, either, to suppose that it would be the cause of any deep sorrow.” “Sorrow?” she said, but her lips were dry, and could articulate no more. “I have nothing to do with your reasons for having kept your marriage so profound a secret,” he said. “The result has naturally been the long delay of a piece of information which perhaps would have been welcome to you. Mrs. Grant, your husband, George Gordon Grant, died nearly twenty years ago.” “Twenty years ago!” she cried, with a start, “twenty years?” Then she raised her voice suddenly and cried, “Gilchrist!” She was very pale, and her excitement great, her eyes gleaming, her nerves quivering. She paid no attention to the little lawyer, who on his side observed her so closely. “Gilchrist,” she said, when the maid came in hurriedly from the inner room in which she had been, “we have often wondered why there was no sign of him when I came into my fortune. The reason is he was dead before my uncle died.” “Dead?” said Gilchrist, and put up at once her apron to her eyes, “dead? Oh, mem, that bonnie young man!” “Yes,” said Miss Bethune. She rose up and began to move about the room in great excitement. “Yes, he would still be a bonnie young man then —oh, a bonnie young man, as his son is now. I wondered how it was he made no sign. Before, it was natural: but when my uncle was dead—when I had come into my fortune! That explains it—that explains it all. He was dead before the day he had reckoned on came.” “Oh, dinna say that, now!” cried Gilchrist. “How can we tell if it was the day he had reckoned on? Why might it no’ be your comfort he was aye thinking of—that you might lose nothing, that your uncle might keep his faith in you, that your fortune might be safe?”
- 72. “Ay, that my fortune might be safe, that was the one thing. What did it matter about me? Only a woman that was so silly as to believe in him—and believed in him, God help me, long after he had proved what he was. Gilchrist, go down on your knees and thank God that he did not live to cheat us more, to come when you and me made sure he would come, and fleece us with his fair face and his fair ways, till he had got what he wanted, —the filthy money which was the end of all.” “Oh, mem,” cried Gilchrist, again weeping, “dinna say that now. Even if it were true, which the Lord forbid, dinna say it now!” But her mistress was not to be controlled. The stream of recollection, of pent-up feeling, the brooding of a lifetime, set free by this sudden discovery of her story, which was like the breaking down of a dyke to a river, rushed forth like that river in flood. “I have thought many a time,” she cried, —“when my heart was sick of the silence, when I still trembled that he would come, and wished he would come for all that I knew, like a fool woman that I am, as all women are,—that maybe his not coming was a sign of grace, that he had maybe forgotten, maybe been untrue; but that it was not at least the money, the money and nothing more. To know that I had that accursed siller and not to come for it was a sign of grace. I was a kind of glad. But it was not that!” she cried, pacing to and fro like a wild creature, —“it was not that! He would have come, oh, and explained everything, made everything clear, and told me to my face it was for my sake!—if it had not been that death stepped in and disappointed him as he had disappointed me!” Miss Bethune ended with a harsh laugh, and after a moment seated herself again in her chair. The tempest of personal feeling had carried her away, quenching even the other and yet stronger sentiment, which for so many years had been the passion of her life. She had been suddenly, strangely driven back to a period which even now, in her sober middle age, it was a kind of madness to think of—the years which she had lived through in awful silence, a wife yet no wife, a mother yet no mother, cut off from everything but the monotonous, prolonged, unending formula of a girlhood out of date, the life without individuality, without meaning, and without hope, of a large-minded and active woman, kept to the rôle of a child, in a house where there was not even affection to sweeten it. The recollection of those terrible, endless, changeless days, running into years as indistinguishable, the falsehood of every circumstance and appearance, the
- 73. secret existence of love and sacrifice, of dread knowledge and disenchantment, of strained hope and failing illusion, and final and awful despair, of which Gilchrist alone knew anything,—Gilchrist, the faithful servant, the sole companion of her heart,—came back upon her with all that horrible sense of the intolerable which such a martyrdom brings. She had borne it in its day—how had she borne it? Was it possible that a woman could go through that and live? her heart torn from her bosom, her baby torn from her side, and no one, no one but Gilchrist, to keep a little life alive in her heart! And it had lasted for years—many, many, many years,—all the years of her life, except those first twenty which tell for so little. In that rush of passion she did not know how time passed, whether it was five minutes or an hour that she sat under the inspection of the old lawyer, whom this puzzle of humanity filled with a sort of professional interest, and who did not think it necessary to withdraw, or had any feeling of intrusion upon the sufferer. It was not really a long time, though it might have been a year, when she roused herself and took hold of her forces, and the dread panorama rolled away. Gradually the familiar things around her came back. She remembered herself, no despairing girl, no soul in bondage, but a sober woman, disenchanted in many ways, but never yet cured of those hopes and that faith which hold the ardent spirit to life. Her countenance changed with her thoughts, her eyes ceased to be abstracted and visionary, her colour came back. She turned to the old gentleman with a look which for the first time disturbed and bewildered that old and hardened spectator of the vicissitudes of life. Her eyes filled with a curious liquid light, an expression wistful, flattering, entreating. She looked at him as a child looks who has a favour to ask, her head a little on one side, her lips quivering with a smile. There came into the old lawyer’s mind, he could not tell how, a ridiculous sense of being a superior being, a kind of god, able to confer untold advantages and favours. What did the woman want of him? What—it did not matter what she wanted—could he do for her? Nothing that he was aware of: and a sense of the danger of being cajoled came into his mind, but along with that, which was ridiculous, though he could not help it, a sense of being really a superior being, able to grant favours, and benignant, as he had never quite known himself to be. “Mr. Templar,” she said, “now all is over there is not another word to say: and now the boy—my boy——”
- 74. “The boy?” he repeated, with a surprised air. “My child that was taken from me as soon as he was born, my little helpless bairn that never knew his mother—my son, my son! Give me a right to him, give me my lawful title to him, and there can be no more doubt about it—that nobody may say he is not mine.” The old lawyer was more confused than words could say. The very sense she had managed to convey to his mind of being a superior being, full of graces and gifts to confer, made his downfall the more ludicrous to himself. He seemed to tumble down from an altitude quite visionary, yet very real, as if by some neglect or ill-will of his own. He felt himself humiliated, a culprit before her. “My dear lady,” he said, “you are going too fast and too far for me. I did not even know there was any—— Stop! I think I begin to remember.” “Yes,” she said, breathless,—“yes!” looking at him with supplicating eyes. “Now it comes back to me,” he said. “I—I—am afraid I gave it no importance. There was a baby—yes, a little thing a few weeks, or a few months old—that died.” She sprang up again once more to her feet, menacing, terrible. She was bigger, stronger, far more full of life, than he was. She towered over him, her face full of tragic passion. “It is not true—it is not true!” she cried. “My dear lady, how can I know? What can I do? I can but tell you the instructions given to me; it had slipped out of my mind, it seemed of little importance in comparison. A baby that was too delicate to bear the separation from its mother—I remember it all now. I am very sorry, very sorry, if I have conveyed any false hopes to your mind. The baby died not long after it was taken away.” “It is not true,” Miss Bethune said, with a hoarse and harsh voice. After the excitement and passion, she stood like a figure cut out of stone. This statement, so calm and steady, struck her like a blow. Her lips denied, but her heart received the cruel news. It may be necessary to explain good fortune, but misery comes with its own guarantee. It struck her like a sword, like a scythe, shearing down her hopes. She rose into a brief blaze of fury, denying it. “Oh, you think I will believe that?” she cried,—“me that have followed him in my thoughts through every stage, have seen him grow and blossom, and come to be a man! Do you think there would have been no
- 75. angel to stop me in my vain imaginations, no kind creature in heaven or earth that would have breathed into my heart and said, ‘Go on no more, hope no more’? Oh no—oh no! Heaven is not like that, nor earth! Pain comes and trouble, but not cruel fate. No, I do not believe it—I will not believe it! It is not true.” “My dear lady,” said the old gentleman, distressed. “I am no dear lady to you. I am nothing to you. I am a poor, deserted, heartbroken woman, that have lived false, false, but never meant it: that have had no one to stand by me, to help me out of it. And now you sit there calm, and look me in the face, and take away my son. My baby first was taken from me, forced out of my arms, new-born: and now you take the boy I’ve followed with my heart these long, long years, the bonnie lad, the young man I’ve seen. I tell you I’ve seen him, then. How can a mother be deceived? We’ve seen him, both Gilchrist and me. Ask her, if you doubt my word. We have seen him, can any lie stand against that? And my heart has spoken, and his heart has spoken; we have sought each other in the dark, and taken hands. I know him by his bonnie eyes, and a trick in his mouth that is just my father over again: and he knows me by nature, and the touch of kindly blood.” “Oh, mem,” Gilchrist cried, “I warned ye—I warned ye! What is a likeness to lippen to? And I never saw it,” the woman said, with tears. “And who asked ye to see it, or thought ye could see it, a serving- woman, not a drop’s blood to him or to me? It would be a bonnie thing,” said Miss Bethune, pausing, looking round, as if to appeal to an unseen audience, with an almost smile of scorn, “if my hired woman’s word was to be taken instead of his mother’s. Did she bear him in pain and anguish? Did she wait for him, lying dreaming, month after month, that he was to cure all? She got him in her arms when he was born, but he had been in mine for long before; he had grown a man in my heart before ever he saw the light of day. Oh, ask her, and there is many a fable she will tell ye. But me!—she calmed down again, a smile came upon her face,—“I have seen my son. Now, as I have nobody but him, he has nobody but me: and I mean from this day to take him home and acknowledge him before all the world.” Mr. Templar had risen, and stood with his hand on the back of his chair. “I have nothing more to say,” he said. “If I can be of any use to you in any
- 76. way, command me, madam. It is no wish of mine to take any comfort from you, or even to dispel any pleasing illusion.” “As if you could!” she said, rising again, proud and smiling. “As if any old lawyer’s words, as dry as dust, could shake my conviction, or persuade me out of what is a certainty. It is a certainty. Seeing is believing, the very vulgar say. And I have seen him—do you think you could make me believe after that, that there is no one to see?” He shook his head and turned away. “Good-morning to you, ma’am,” he said. “I have told you the truth, but I cannot make you believe it, and why should I try? It may be happier for you the other way.” “Happier?” she said, with a laugh. “Ay, because it’s true. Falsehood has been my fate too long—I am happy because it is true.” Miss Bethune sat down again, when her visitor closed the door behind him. The triumph and brightness gradually died out of her face. “What are you greetin’ there for, you fool?” she said, “and me the happiest woman, and the proudest mother! Gilchrist,” she said, suddenly turning round upon her maid, “the woman that is dead was a weak creature, bound hand and foot all her life. She meant no harm, poor thing, I will allow, but yet she broke one man’s life in pieces, and it must have been a poor kind of happiness she gave the other, with her heart always straying after another man’s bairn. And I’ve done nothing, nothing to injure any mortal. I was true till I could be true no longer, till he showed all he was; and true I have been in spite of that all my life, and endured and never said a word. Do you think it’s possible, possible that yon woman should be rewarded with her child in her arms, and her soul satisfied?—and me left desolate, with my very imaginations torn from me, torn out of me, and my heart left bleeding, and all my thoughts turned into lies, like myself, that have been no better than a lie?—turned into lies?” “Oh, mem!” cried Gilchrist—“oh, my dear leddy, that has been more to me than a’ this world! Is it for me to say that it’s no’ justice we have to expect, for we deserve nothing; and that the Lord knows His ain reasons; and that the time will come when we’ll get it all back—you, your bairn, the Lord bless him! and me to see ye as happy as the angels, which is all I ever wanted or thought to get either here or otherwhere!”
- 77. CHAPTER XX. There was nothing more said to Mr. Mannering on the subject of Mr. Templar’s mission, neither did he himself say anything, either to sanction or prevent his child from carrying out the strange desire of her mother—her mother! Dora did not accept the thought. She made a struggle within herself to keep up the fiction that it was her mother’s sister—a relation, something near, yet ever inferior to the vision of a benignant, melancholy being, unknown, which a dead mother so often is to an imaginative girl. It pleased her to find, as she said to herself, “no likeness” to the suffering and hysterical woman she had seen, in that calm, pensive portrait, which she instantly secured and took possession of—the little picture which had lain so long buried with its face downward in the secret drawer. She gazed at it for an hour together, and found nothing—nothing, she declared to herself with indignant satisfaction, to remind her of the other face—flushed, weeping, middle-aged—which had so implored her affection. Had it been her mother, was it possible that it should have required an effort to give that affection? No! Dora at sixteen believed very fully in the voice of nature. It would have been impossible, her heart at once would have spoken, she would have known by some infallible instinct. She put the picture up in her own room, and filled her heart with the luxury, the melancholy, the sadness, and pleasure of this possession—her mother’s portrait, more touching to the imagination than any other image could be. But then there began to steal a little shadow over Dora’s thoughts. She would not give up her determined resistance to the idea that this face and the other face, living and dying, which she had seen, could be one; but when she raised her eyes suddenly, to her mother’s picture, a consciousness would steal over her, an involuntary glance of recognition. What more likely than that there should be a resemblance, faint and far away, between sister and sister? And then there came to be a gleam of reproach to Dora in those eyes, and the girl began to feel as if there was an irreverence, a want of feeling, in turning that long recluse and covered face to the light of day, and carrying on all the affairs of life under it, as if it were a common thing. Finally she arranged over it a little piece of drapery, a morsel of faded embroidered silk which was among her treasures, soft and faint in its colours—a veil which she could draw in
- 78. her moments of thinking and quiet, those moments which it would not be irreverent any longer to call a dead mother or an angelic presence to hallow and to share. But she said nothing when she was called to Miss Bethune’s room, and clad in mourning, recognising with a thrill, half of horror, half of pride, the crape upon her dress which proved her right to that new exaltation among human creatures—that position of a mourner which is in its way a step in life. Dora did not ask where she was going when she followed Miss Bethune, also in black from head to foot, to the plain little brougham which had been ordered to do fit and solemn honour to the occasion; the great white wreath and basket of flowers, which filled up the space, called no observation from her. They drove in silence to the great cemetery, with all its gay flowers and elaborate aspect of cheerfulness. It was a fine but cloudy day, warm and soft, yet without sunshine; and Dora had a curious sense of importance, of meaning, as if she had attained an advanced stage of being. Already an experience had fallen to her share, more than one experience. She had knelt, troubled and awe-stricken, by a death-bed; she was now going to stand by a grave. Even where real sorrow exists, this curious sorrowful elation of sentiment is apt to come into the mind of the very young. Dora was deeply impressed by the circumstances and the position, but it was impossible that she could feel any real grief. Tears came to her eyes as she dropped the shower of flowers, white and lovely, into the darkness of that last abode. Her face was full of awe and pity, but her breast of that vague, inexplainable expansion and growth, as of a creature entered into the larger developments and knowledge of life. There were very few other mourners. Mr. Templar, the lawyer, with his keen but veiled observation of everything, serious and businesslike; the doctor, with professional gravity and indifference; Miss Bethune, with almost stern seriousness, standing like a statue in her black dress and with her pale face. Why should any of these spectators care? The woman was far the most moved, thinking of the likeness and difference of her own fate, of the failure of that life which was now over, and of her own, a deeper failure still, without any fault of hers. And Dora, wondering, developing, her eyes full of abstract tears, and her mind of awe. Only one mourner stood pale with watching and thought beside the open grave, his heart aching with loneliness and a profound natural vacancy and pain. He knew that she had neglected him, almost wronged him at the last,
- 79. cut him off, taking no thought of what was to become of him. He felt even that in so doing this woman was unfaithful to her trust, and had done what she ought not to have done. But all that mattered nothing in face of natural sorrow, natural love. She had been a mother to him, and she was gone. The ear always open to his boyish talk and confidence, always ready to listen, could hear him no more; and, almost more poignant, his care of her was over, there was nothing more to do for her, none of the hundred commissions that used to send him flying, the hundred things that had to be done. His occupation in life seemed to be over, his home, his natural place. It had not perhaps ever been a natural place, but he had not felt that. She had been his mother, though no drop of her blood ran in his veins; and now he was nobody’s son, belonging to no family. The other people round looked like ghosts to Harry Gordon. They were part of the strange cutting off, the severance he already felt; none of them had anything to do with her, and yet it was he who was pushed out and put aside, as if he had nothing to do with her, the only mother he had ever known! The little sharp old lawyer was her representative now, not he who had been her son. He stood languid, in a moment of utter depression, collapse of soul and body, by the grave. When all was over, and the solemn voice which sounds as no other voice ever does, falling calm through the still air, bidding earth return to earth, and dust to dust, had ceased, he still stood as if unable to comprehend that all was over—no one to bid him come away, no other place to go to. His brain was not relieved by tears, or his mind set in activity by anything to do. He stood there half stupefied, left behind, in that condition when simply to remain as we are seems the only thing possible to us. Miss Bethune had placed Dora in the little brougham, in rigorous fulfilment of her duty to the child. Mr. Templar and the doctor had both departed, the two other women, Mrs. Bristow’s maid and the nurse who had accompanied her, had driven away: and still the young man stood, not paying any attention. Miss Bethune waited for a little by the carriage door. She did not answer the appeal of the coachman, asking if he was to drive away; she said nothing to Dora, whose eyes endeavoured in vain to read the changes in her friend’s face; but, after standing there for a few minutes quite silent, she suddenly turned and went back to the cemetery. It was strange to her to hesitate in anything she did, and from the moment she left the carriage door all uncertainty was over. She went back with a quick step,
- 80. treading her way among the graves, and put her hand upon young Gordon’s arm. “You are coming home with me,” she said. The new, keen voice, irregular and full of life, so unlike the measured tones to which he had been listening, struck the young man uneasily in the midst of his melancholy reverie, which was half trance, half exhaustion. He moved a step away, as if to shake off the interruption, scarcely conscious what, and not at all who it was. “My dear young man, you must come home with me,” she said again. He looked at her, with consciousness re-awakening, and attempted to smile, with his natural ready response to every kindness. “It is you,” he said, and then, “I might have known it could only be you.” What did that mean? Nothing at all. Merely his sense that the one person who had spoken kindly to him, looked tenderly at him (though he had never known why, and had been both amused and embarrassed by the consciousness), was the most likely among all the strangers by whom he was surrounded to be kind to him now. But it produced an effect upon Miss Bethune which was far beyond any meaning it bore. A great light seemed suddenly to blaze over her face; her eyes, which had been so veiled and stern, awoke; every line of a face which could be harsh and almost rigid in repose, began to melt and soften; her composure, which had been almost solemn, failed; her lip began to quiver, tears came dropping upon his arm, which she suddenly clasped with both her hands, clinging to it. “You say right,” she cried, “my dear, my dear!—more right than all the reasons. It is you and nature that makes everything clear. You are just coming home with me.” “I don’t seem,” he said, “to know what the word means.” “But you will soon learn again. God bless the good woman that cherished you and loved you, my bonnie boy. I’ll not say a word against her —oh, no, no! God’s blessing upon her as she lies there. I will never grudge a good word you say of her, never a regret. But now—she put her arm within his with a proud and tender movement, which so far penetrated his languor as to revive the bewilderment which he had felt before—“now you are coming home with me.” He did not resist; he allowed himself to be led to the little carriage and packed into it, which was not quite an easy thing to do. On another occasion
- 81. he would have laughed and protested, but on this he submitted gravely to whatever was required of him, thankful, in the failure of all motive, to have some one to tell him what to do, to move him as if he were an automaton. He sat bundled up on the little front seat, with Dora’s wondering countenance opposite to him, and that other inexplicable face, inspired and lighted up with tenderness. He had not strength enough to inquire why this stranger took possession of him so; neither could Dora tell, who sat opposite to him, her mind awakened, her thoughts busy. This was the almost son of the woman who they said was Dora’s mother. What was he to Dora? Was he the nearer to her, or the farther from her, for that relationship? Did she like him better or worse for having done everything that it ought, they said, have been her part to do? These questions were all confused in Dora’s mind, but they were not favourable to this new interloper into her life—he who had known about her for years while she had never heard of him. She sat very upright, reluctant to make room for him, yet scrupulously doing so, and a little indignant that he should thus be brought in to interfere with her own claims to the first place. The drive to Bloomsbury seemed very long in these circumstances, and it was indeed a long drive. They all came back into the streets after the long suburban road with a sense almost of relief in the growing noise, the rattle of the causeway, and sound of the carts and carriages—which made it unnecessary, as it had been impossible for them, to say anything to each other, and brought back the affairs of common life to dispel the influences of the solemn moment that was past. When they had reached Miss Bethune’s rooms, and returned altogether to existence, and the sight of a table spread for a meal, it was a shock, but not an ungrateful one. Miss Bethune at once threw off the gravity which had wrapped her like a cloak, when she put away her black bonnet. She bade Gilchrist hurry to have the luncheon brought up. “These two young creatures have eaten nothing, I am sure, this day. Probably they think they cannot: but when food is set before them they will learn better. Haste ye, Gilchrist, to have it served up. No, Dora, you will stay with me too. Your father is a troubled man this day. You will not go in upon him with that cloud about you, not till you are refreshed and rested, and have got your colour and your natural look back. And you, my bonnie man!” She could not refrain from touching, caressing his shoulder as she passed him; her
- 82. eyes kept filling with tears as she looked at him. He for his part moved and took his place as she told him, still in a dream. It was a curious meal, more daintily prepared and delicate than usual, and Miss Bethune was a woman who at all times was “very particular,” and exercised all the gifts of the landlady, whose other lodgers demanded much less of her. And the mistress of the little feast was still less as usual. She scarcely sat down at her own table, but served her young guests with anxious care, carving choice morsels for them, watching their faces, their little movements of impatience, and the gradual development of natural appetite, which came as the previous spell gradually wore off. She talked all the time, her countenance a little flushed and full of emotion, her eyes moist and shining, with frequent sallies at Gilchrist, who hovered round the table waiting upon the young guests, and in her excitement making continual mistakes and stumblings, which soon roused Dora to laugh, and Harry to apologise. “It is all right,” he cried, when Miss Bethune at last made a dart at her attendant, and gave her, what is called in feminine language, “a shake,” to bring her to herself. “Are you out of your wits, woman?” Miss Bethune exclaimed. “Go away and leave me to look after the bairns, if ye cannot keep your head. Are you out of your wits?” “Indeed, mem, and I have plenty of reason, Gilchrist said, weeping, and feeling for her apron, while the dish in her hand wavered wildly; and then it was that Harry Gordon, coming to himself, cried out that it was all right. “And I am going to have some of that,” he added, steadying the kind creature, whose instinct of service had more effect than either encouragement or reproof. And this little touch of reality settled him too. He began to respond a little, to rouse himself, even to see the humour of the situation, at which Dora had begun to laugh, but which brought a soft moisture, in which was ease and consolation, to his eyes. It was not until about an hour later that Miss Bethune was left alone with the young man. He had begun by this time to speak about himself. “I am not so discouraged as you think,” he said, “I don’t seem to be afraid. After all, it doesn’t matter much, does it, what happens to a young fellow all alone in the world? It’s only me, anyhow. I have no wife,” he said, with a faint laugh, “no sister to be involved—nothing but my own rather useless person,
- 83. a thing of no account. It wasn’t that that knocked me down. It was just the feeling of the end of everything, and that she was laid there that had been so good to me—so good—and nothing ever to be done for her any more.” “I can forgive you that,” said Miss Bethune, with a sort of sob in her throat. “And yet she was ill to you, unjust at the last.” “No, not that. I have had everything, too much for a man capable of earning his living to accept—but then it seemed all so natural, it was the common course of life. I was scarcely waking up to see that it could not be.” “And a cruel rousing you have had at last, my poor boy.” “No,” he said steadily, “I will never allow it was cruel; it has been sharp and effectual. It couldn’t help being effectual, could it? since I have no alternative. The pity is I am good for so little. No education to speak of.” “You shall have education—as much as you can set your face to.” He looked up at her with a little air of surprise, and shook his head. “No,” he said, “not now. I am too old. I must lose no more time. The thing is, that my work will be worth so much less, being guided by no skill. Skill is a beautiful thing. I envy the very scavengers,” he said (who were working underneath the window), “for piling up their mud like that, straight. I should never get it straight.” The poor young fellow was so near tears that he was glad from time to time to have a chance of a feeble laugh, which relieved him. “And that is humble enough! I think much the best thing for me will be to go back to South America. There are people who know me, who would give me a little place where I could learn. Book-keeping can’t be such a tremendous mystery. There’s an old clerk or two of my guardians— here he paused to swallow down the climbing sorrow—“who would give me a hint or two. And if the pay was very small at first, why, I’m not an extravagant fellow.” “Are you sure of that?” his confidante said. He looked at her again, surprised, then glanced at himself and his dress, which was not economical, and reddened and laughed again. “I am afraid you are right,” he said. “I haven’t known much what economy was. I have lived like the other people; but I am not too old to learn, and I should not mind in the least what I looked like, or how I lived, for a time. Things would get better after a time.”
- 84. They were standing together near the window, for he had begun to roam about the room as he talked, and she had risen from her chair with one of the sudden movements of excitement. “There will be no need,” she said, —“there will be no need. Something will be found for you at home.” He shook his head. “You forget it is scarcely home to me. And what could I do here that would be worth paying me for? I must no more be dependent upon kindness. Oh, don’t think I do not feel kindness. What should I have done this miserable day but for you, who have been so good to me—as good as—as a mother, though I had no claim?” She gave a great cry, and seized him by both his hands. “Oh, lad, if you knew what you were saying! That word to me, that have died for it, and have no claim! Gilchrist, Gilchrist!” she cried, suddenly dropping his hands again, “come here and speak to me! Help me! have pity upon me! For if this is not him, all nature and God’s against me. Come here before I speak or die!”
- 85. CHAPTER XXI. It was young Gordon himself, alarmed but not excited as by any idea of a new discovery which could affect his fate, who brought Miss Bethune back to herself, far better than Gilchrist could do, who had no art but to weep and entreat, and then yield to her mistress whatever she might wish. A quelque chose malheur est bon. He had been in the habit of soothing and calming down an excitable, sometimes hysterical woman, whose accès des nerfs meant nothing, or were, at least, supposed to mean nothing, except indeed nerves, and the ups and downs which are characteristic of them. He was roused by the not dissimilar outburst of feeling or passion, wholly incomprehensible to him from any other point of view, to which his new friend had given way. He took it very quietly, with the composure of use and wont. The sight of her emotion and excitement brought him quite back to himself. He could imagine no reason whatever for it, except the sympathetic effect of all the troublous circumstances in which she had been, without any real reason, involved. It was her sympathy, her kindness for himself and for Dora, he had not the least doubt, which, by bringing her into those scenes of pain and trouble, and associating her so completely with the complicated and intricate story, had brought on this “attack.” What he had known to be characteristic of the one woman with whom he had been in familiar intercourse for so long a period of his life seemed to Harry characteristic of all women. He was quite equal to the occasion. Dr. Roland himself, who would have been so full of professional curiosity, so anxious to make out what it was all about, as perhaps to lessen his promptitude in action, would scarcely have been of so much real use as Harry, who had no arrière pensée, but addressed himself to the immediate emergency with all his might. He soothed the sufferer, so that she was soon relieved by copious floods of tears, which seemed to him the natural method of getting rid of all that emotion and excitement, but which surprised Gilchrist beyond description, and even Miss Bethune herself, whose complete breakdown was so unusual and unlike her. He left her quite at ease in his mind as to her condition, having persuaded her to lie down, and recommended Gilchrist to darken the room, and keep her mistress in perfect quiet.
- 86. “I will go and look after my things,” he said, “and I’ll come back when I have made all my arrangements, and tell you everything. Oh, don’t speak now! You will be all right in the evening if you keep quite quiet now: and if you will give me your advice then, it will be very, very grateful to me.” He made a little warning gesture, keeping her from replying, and then kissed her hand and went away. He had himself pulled down the blind to subdue a little of the garish July daylight, and placed her on a sofa in the corner— ministrations which both mistress and maid permitted with bewilderment, so strange to them was at once the care and the authority of such proceedings. They remained, Miss Bethune on the sofa, Gilchrist, open- mouthed, staring at her, until the door was heard to close upon the young man. Then Miss Bethune rose slowly, with a kind of awe in her face. “As soon as you think he is out of sight,” she said, “Gilchrist, we’ll have up the blinds again, but not veesibly, to go against the boy.” “Eh, mem,” cried Gilchrist, between laughing and crying, “to bid me darken the room, and you that canna abide the dark, night or day!” “It was a sweet thought, Gilchrist—all the pure goodness of him and the kind heart.” “I am not saying, mem, but what the young gentleman has a very kind heart.” “You are not saying? And what can you know beyond what’s veesible to every person that sees him? It is more than that. Gilchrist, you and all the rest, what do I care what you say? If that is not the voice of nature, what is there to trust to in this whole world? Why should that young lad, bred up so different, knowing nothing of me or my ways, have taken to me? Look at Dora. What a difference! She has no instinct, nothing drawing her to her poor mother. That was a most misfortunate woman, but not an ill woman, Gilchrist. Look how she has done by mine! But Dora has no leaning towards her, no tender thought; whereas he, my bonnie boy——” “Mem,” said Gilchrist, “but if it was the voice of nature, it would be double strong in Miss Dora; for there is no doubt that it was her mother: and with this one—oh, my dear leddy, you ken yoursel’——” Miss Bethune gave her faithful servant a look of flame, and going to the windows, drew up energetically the blinds, making the springs resound. Then she said in her most satirical tone: “And what is it I ken mysel’?”
- 87. “Oh, mem,” said Gilchrist, “there’s a’ the evidence, first his ain story, and then the leddy’s that convinced ye for a moment; and then, what is most o’ a, the old gentleman, the writer, one of them that kens everything: of the father that died so many long years ago, and the baby before him.” Miss Bethune put up her hands to her ears, she stamped her foot upon the ground. “How dare ye—how dare ye?” she cried. “Either man or woman that repeats that fool story to me is no friend of mine. My child, that I’ve felt in my heart growing up, and seen him boy and man! What’s that old man’s word—a stranger that knows nothing, that had even forgotten what he was put up to say—in comparison with what is in my heart? Is there such a thing as nature, or no? Is a mother just like any other person, no better, rather worse? Oh, woman!—you that are a woman! with no call to be rigid about your evidence like a man—what’s your evidence to me? I will just tell him when he comes back. ‘My bonnie man,’ I will say, ‘you have been driven here and there in this world, and them that liked you best have failed you; but here is the place where you belong, and here is a love that will never fail!’ ” “Oh, my dear leddy, my own mistress,” cried Gilchrist, “think—think before you do that! He will ask ye for the evidence, if I am not to ask for it. He’s a fine, independent-spirited young gentleman, and he will just shake his head, and say he’ll lippen to nobody again. Oh, dinna deceive the young man! Ye might find out after——” “What, Gilchrist? Do you think I would change my mind about my own son, and abandon him, like this woman, at the last?” “I never knew you forsake one that trusted in ye, I’m not saying that; but there might come one after all that had a better claim. There might appear one that even the like of me would believe in—that would have real evidence in his favour, that was no more to be doubted than if he had never been taken away out of your arms.” Miss Bethune turned round quick as lightning upon her maid, her eyes shining, her face full of sudden colour and light. “God bless you, Gilchrist!” she cried, seizing the maid by her shoulders with a half embrace; “I see now you have never believed in that story—no more than me.” Poor Gilchrist could but gape with her mouth open at this unlooked-for turning of the tables. She had presented, without knowing it, the strongest argument of all.
- 88. After this, the patient, whom poor Harry had left to the happy influences of quiet and darkness, with all the blinds drawn up and the afternoon sunshine pouring in, went through an hour or two of restless occupation, her mind in the highest activity, her thoughts and her hands full. She promised finally to Gilchrist, not without a mental reservation in the case of special impulse or new light, not to disclose her conviction to Harry, but to wait for at least a day or two on events. But even this resolution did not suffice to reduce her to any condition of quiet, or make the rest which he had prescribed possible. She turned to a number of things which had been laid aside to be done one time or another; arrangement of new possessions and putting away of old, for which previously she had never found a fit occasion, and despatched them, scarcely allowing Gilchrist to help her, at lightning speed. Finally, she took out an old and heavy jewel-box, which had stood untouched in her bedroom for years; for, save an old brooch or two and some habitual rings which never left her fingers, Miss Bethune wore no ornaments. She took them into her sitting-room as the time approached when Harry might be expected back. It would give her a countenance, she thought; it would keep her from fixing her eyes on him while he spoke, and thus being assailed through all the armour of the heart at the same time. She could not look him in the face and see that likeness which Gilchrist, unconvincible, would not see, and yet remain silent. Turning over the old- fashioned jewels, telling him about them, to whom they had belonged, and all the traditions regarding them, would help her in that severe task of self- repression. She put the box on the table before her, and pulled out the trays. Nobody in Bloomsbury had seen these treasures before: the box had been kept carefully locked, disguised in an old brown cover, that no one might even guess how valuable it was. Miss Bethune was almost tempted to send for Dora to see the diamonds in their old-fashioned settings, and that pearl necklace which was still finer in its perfection of lustre and shape. To call Dora when there was anything to show was so natural, and it might make it easier for her to keep her own counsel; but she reflected that in Dora’s presence the young man would not be more than half hers, and forbore. Never in her life had those jewels given her so much pleasure. They had given her no pleasure, indeed. She had not been allowed to have them in that far-off stormy youth, which had been lightened by such a sweet, guilty
- 89. gleam of happiness, and quenched in such misery of downfall. When they came to her by inheritance, like all the rest, these beautiful things had made her heart sick. What could she do with them—a woman whose life no longer contained any possible festival, who had nobody coming after her, no heir to make heirlooms sweet? She had locked the box, and almost thrown away the key, which, however, was a passionate suggestion repugnant to common sense, and resolved itself naturally into confiding the key to Gilchrist, in whose most secret repositories it had been kept, with an occasional furtive interval during which the maid had secretly visited and “polished up” the jewels, making sure that they were all right. Neither mistress nor maid was quite aware of their value, and both probably exaggerated it in their thoughts; but some of the diamonds were fine, though all were very old-fashioned in arrangement, and the pearls were noted. Miss Bethune pulled out the trays, and the gems flashed and sparkled in a thousand colours in the slant of sunshine which poured in its last level ray through one window, just before the sun set—and made a dazzling show upon the table, almost blinding Janie, who came up with a message, and could not restrain a little shriek of wonder and admiration. The letter was one of trouble and appeal from poor Mrs. Hesketh, who and her husband were becoming more and more a burden on the shoulders of their friends. It asked for money, as usual, just a little money to go on with, as the shop in which they had been set up was not as yet producing much. The letter had been written with evident reluctance, and was marked with blots of tears. Miss Bethune’s mind was too much excited to consider calmly any such petition. Full herself of anticipation, of passionate hope, and visionary enthusiasm, which transported her above all common things, how was she to refuse a poor woman’s appeal for the bare necessities of existence—a woman “near her trouble,” with a useless husband, who was unworthy, yet whom the poor soul loved? She called Gilchrist, who generally carried the purse, to get something for the poor little pair. “Is there anybody waiting?” she asked. “Oh ay, mem,” said Gilchrist, “there’s somebody waiting,—just him himsel’, the weirdless creature, that is good for nothing.” Gilchrist did not approve of all her mistress’s liberalities. “I would not just be their milch cow to give them whatever they’re wanting,” she said. “It’s awful bad for any person to just know where to run when they are in trouble.”
- 90. “Hold your peace!” cried her mistress. “Am I one to shut up my heart when the blessing of God has come to me?” “Oh, mem!” cried Gilchrist, remonstrating, holding up her hands. But Miss Bethune stamped her foot, and the wiser woman yielded. She found Hesketh standing at the door of the sitting-room, when she went out to give him, very unwillingly, the money for his wife. “The impident weirdless creature! He would have been in upon my leddy in another moment, pressing to her very presence with his impident ways!” cried Gilchrist, hot and indignant. The faithful woman paused at the door as she came back, and looked at her mistress turning over and rearranging these treasures. “And her sitting playing with her bonnie dies, in a rapture like a little bairn!” she said to herself, putting up her apron to her eyes. And then Gilchrist shook her head—shook it, growing quicker and quicker in the movement, as if she would have twisted it off. But Miss Bethune was “very composed” when young Gordon came back. With an intense sense of the humour of the position, which mistress and maid communicated to each other with one glance of tacit co-operation, these two women comported themselves as if the behests of the young visitor who had taken the management of Miss Bethune’s accès des nerfs upon himself, had been carried out. She assumed, almost unconsciously, notwithstanding the twinkle in her eye, the languid aspect of a woman who has been resting after unusual excitement. All women, they say (as they say so many foolish things), are actors; all women, at all events, let us allow, learn as the A B C of their training the art of taking up a rôle assigned to them, and fulfilling the necessities of a position. “You will see what I’m reduced to by what I’m doing,” she said. “As if there was nothing of more importance in life, I am just playing myself with my toys, like Dora, or any other little thing.” “So much the best thing you could do,” said young Harry; and he was eager and delighted to look through the contents of the box with her. He was far better acquainted with their value than she was, and while she told him the family associations connected with each ornament, he discussed very learnedly what they were, and distinguished the old- fashioned rose diamonds which were amongst those of greater value, with a knowledge that seemed to her extraordinary. They spent, in fact, an hour easily and happily over that box, quite relieved from graver considerations
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