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diff --git a/12779-0.txt b/12779-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..03bbe1c --- /dev/null +++ b/12779-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6789 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12779 *** + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + + +_NOVELS_ + + A MAN FROM THE NORTH + ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS + LEONORA + A GREAT MAN + SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE + WHOM GOD HATH JOINED + BURIED ALIVE + THE OLD WIVES' TALE + THE GLIMPSE + HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND + CLAYHANGER + THE CARD + HILDA LESSWAYS + THE REGENT + THE PRICE OF LOVE + +_FANTASIAS_ + + THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL + THE GATES OF WRATH + TERESA OF WATLING STREET + THE LOOT OF CITIES + HUGO + THE GHOST + THE CITY OF PLEASURE + + +_SHORT STORIES_ + + TALES OF THE FIVE TOWNS + THE GRIM SMILE OF THE FIVE TOWNS + THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS + + +_BELLES-LETTRES_ + + JOURNALISM FOR WOMEN + FAME AND FICTION + HOW TO BECOME AN AUTHOR + THE TRUTH ABOUT AN AUTHOR + THE REASONABLE LIFE + HOW TO LIVE ON 24 HOURS A DAY + THE HUMAN MACHINE + LITERARY TASTE + THE FEAST OF ST. FRIEND + THOSE UNITED STATES + THE PLAIN MAN AND HIS WIFE + PARIS NIGHTS + THE AUTHOR'S CRAFT + LIBERTY + + +_DRAMA_ + + POLITE FARCES + CUPID AND COMMON SENSE + WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS + THE HONEYMOON + THE GREAT ADVENTURE + + +(_In collaboration with Eden Phillpotts_) + + THE SINEWS OF WAR: A Romance + THE STATUE: A Romance + + +(_In collaboration with Edward Knoblauch_) + + MILESTONES + + + + +HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND + +_IDYLLIC DIVERSION_ + +BY ARNOLD BENNETT + +AUTHOR OF "THE OLD WIVES TALE," ETC. + +_A NEW EDITION_ + +HODDER AND STOUGHTON + +LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO + +1915 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAP. + +I BEGINNING OF THE IDYLL + +II AN AFFAIR OF THE SEVENTIES + +III MARRYING OFF A MOTHER + +IV INVITATION TO TEA + +V A SALUTATION + +VI MRS. BUTT'S DEPARTURE + +VII THE NEW COOK + +VIII OMELETTE + +IX A GREAT CHANGE + +X A CALL + +XI ANOTHER CALL + +XII BREAKFAST + +XIII THE WORLD + +XIV SONG, SCENE AND DANCE + +XV THE GIFT + +XVI THE HALL AND ITS RESULT + +XVII DESCENDANTS OF MACHIAVELLI + +XVIII CHICANE + +XIX THE TOSSING + +XX THE FLITTING + +XXI SHIP AND OCEAN + +XXII CONFESSIONAL + +XXIII NOCTURNAL + +XXIV SEEING A LADY HOME + +XXV GIRLISH CONFIDENCES + +XXVI THE CONCERT + +XXVII UNKNOTTING AND KNOTTING + + + + +CHAPTER I + +BEGINNING OF THE IDYLL + + +In the Five Towns human nature is reported to be so hard that you can +break stones on it. Yet sometimes it softens, and then we have one of +our rare idylls of which we are very proud, while pretending not to be. +The soft and delicate South would possibly not esteem highly our idylls, +as such. Nevertheless they are our idylls, idyllic for us, and reminding +us, by certain symptoms, that though we never cry there is concealed +somewhere within our bodies a fount of happy tears. + +The town park is an idyll in the otherwise prosaic municipal history of +the Borough of Bursley, which previously had never got nearer to romance +than a Turkish bath. It was once waste ground covered with horrible +rubbish-heaps, and made dangerous by the imperfectly-protected shafts of +disused coal-pits. Now you enter it by emblazoned gates; it is +surrounded by elegant railings; fountains and cascades babble in it; +wild-fowl from far countries roost in it, on trees with long names; tea +is served in it; brass bands make music on its terraces, and on its +highest terrace town councillors play bowls on billiard-table greens +while casting proud glances on the houses of thirty thousand people +spread out under the sweet influence of the gold angel that tops the +Town Hall spire. The other four towns are apt to ridicule that gold +angel, which for exactly fifty years has guarded the borough and only +been regilded twice. But ask the plumber who last had the fearsome job +of regilding it whether it is a gold angel to be despised, and--you will +see! + +The other four towns are also apt to point to their own parks when +Bursley mentions its park (especially Turnhill, smallest and most +conceited of the Five); but let them show a park whose natural situation +equals that of Bursley's park. You may tell me that the terra-cotta +constructions within it carry ugliness beyond a joke; you may tell me +that in spite of the park's vaunted situation nothing can be seen from +it save the chimneys and kilns of earthenware manufactories, the +scaffoldings of pitheads, the ample dome of the rate-collector's +offices, the railway, minarets of non-conformity, sundry undulating +square miles of monotonous house-roofs, the long scarves of black smoke +which add such interest to the sky of the Five Towns--and, of course, +the gold angel. But I tell you that before the days of the park lovers +had no place to walk in but the cemetery; not the ancient churchyard of +St. Luke's (the rector would like to catch them at it!)--the borough +cemetery! One generation was forced to make love over the tombs of +another--and such tombs!--before the days of the park. That is the +sufficient answer to any criticism of the park. + +The highest terrace of the park is a splendid expanse of gravel, +ornamented with flower-beds. At one end is the north bowling-green; at +the other is the south bowling-green; in the middle is a terra-cotta and +glass shelter; and at intervals, against the terra-cotta balustrade, are +arranged rustic seats from which the aged, the enamoured, and the +sedentary can enjoy the gold angel. + +Between the southernmost seat and the south bowling-green, on that +Saturday afternoon, stood Mr. James Ollerenshaw. He was watching a man +who earned four-and-sixpence a day by gently toying from time to time +with a roller on the polished surface of the green. Mr. James +Ollerenshaw's age was sixty; but he looked as if he did not care. His +appearance was shabby; but he did not seem to mind. He carried his hands +in the peculiar horizontal pockets of his trousers, and stuck out his +figure, in a way to indicate that he gave permission to all to think of +him exactly what they pleased. Those pockets were characteristic of the +whole costume; their very name is unfamiliar to the twentieth century. +They divide the garment by a fissure whose sides are kept together by +many buttons, and a defection on the part of even a few buttons is apt +to be inconvenient. James Ollerenshaw was one of the last persons in +Bursley to defy fashion in the matter of pockets. His suit was of a +strange hot colour--like a brick which, having become very dirty, has +been imperfectly cleaned and then powdered with sand--made in a hard, +eternal, resistless cloth, after a pattern which has not survived the +apprenticeship of Five Towns' tailors in London. Scarcely anywhere save +on the person of James Ollerenshaw would you see nowadays that cloth, +that tint, those very short coat-tails, that curved opening of the +waistcoat, or those trouser-pockets. The paper turned-down collar, and +the black necktie (of which only one square inch was ever visible), and +the paper cuffs, which finished the tailor-made portion of Mr. +Ollerenshaw, still linger in sporadic profusion. His low, flat-topped +hat was faintly green, as though a delicate fungoid growth were just +budding on its black. His small feet were cloistered in small, thick +boots of glittering brilliance. The colour of his face matched that of +his suit. He had no moustache and no whiskers, but a small, stiff grey +beard was rooted somewhere under his chin. He had kept a good deal of +his hair. He was an undersized man, with short arms and legs, and all +his features--mouth, nose, ears, blue eyes--were small and sharp; his +head, as an entirety, was small. His thin mouth was always tightly +shut, except when he spoke. The general expression of his face was one +of suppressed, sarcastic amusement. + +He was always referred to as Jimmy Ollerenshaw, and he may strike you as +what is known as a "character," an oddity. His sudden appearance at a +Royal Levée would assuredly have excited remark, and even in Bursley he +diverged from the ordinary; nevertheless, I must expressly warn you +against imagining Mr. Ollerenshaw as an oddity. It is the most difficult +thing in the world for a man named James not to be referred to as Jimmy. +The temptation to the public is almost irresistible. Let him have but a +wart on his nose, and they will regard it as sufficient excuse for +yielding. I do not think that Mr. Ollerenshaw was consciously set down +as an oddity in his native town. Certainly he did not so set down +himself. Certainly he was incapable of freakishness. By the town he was +respected. His views on cottage property, the state of trade, and the +finances of the borough were listened to with a respectful absence of +comment. He was one of the few who had made cottage property pay. It was +said he owned a mile of cottages in Bursley and Turnhill. It was said +that, after Ephraim Tellwright, he was the richest man in Bursley. There +was a slight resemblance of type between Ollerenshaw and Tellwright. But +Tellwright had buried two wives, whereas Ollerenshaw had never got +within arm's length of a woman. The town much preferred Ollerenshaw. + +After having duly surveyed the majestic activities of the ground-man on +the bowling-green, and having glanced at his watch, Mr. Ollerenshaw sat +down on the nearest bench; he was waiting for an opponent, the captain +of the bowling-club. It is exactly at the instant of his downsitting +that the drama about to be unfolded properly begins. Strolling along +from the northern extremity of the terrace to the southern was a young +woman. This young woman, as could be judged from her free and +independent carriage, was such a creature as, having once resolved to do +a thing, is not to be deterred from doing it by the caprices of other +people. She had resolved--a resolution of no importance whatever--to +seat herself on precisely the southernmost bench of the terrace. There +was not, indeed, any particular reason why she should have chosen the +southernmost bench; but she had chosen it. She had chosen it, afar off, +while it was yet empty and Mr. Ollerenshaw was on his feet. When Mr. +Ollerenshaw dropped into a corner of it the girl's first instinctive +volition was to stop, earlier than she had intended, at one of the other +seats. + +Despite statements to the contrary, man is so little like a sheep that +when he has a choice of benches in a park he will always select an empty +one. This rule is universal in England and Scotland, though elsewhere +exceptions to it have been known to occur. But the girl, being a girl, +and being a girl who earned her own living, and being a girl who brought +all conventions to the bar of her reason and forced them to stand trial +there, said to herself, proudly and coldly: "It would be absurd on my +part to change my mind. I meant to occupy that bench, and why should I +not? There is amply sufficient space for the man and me too. He has +taken one corner, and I will take the other. These notions that girls +have are silly." She meant the notion that she herself had had. + +So she floated forward, charmingly and inexorably. She was what in the +Five Towns is called "a stylish piece of goods." She wore a +black-and-white frock, of a small check pattern, with a black belt and +long black gloves, and she held over her serenity a black parasol richly +flounced with black lace--a toilet unusual in the district, and as +effective as it was unusual. She knew how to carry it. She was a tall +girl, and generously formed, with a complexion between fair and dark; +her age, perhaps, about twenty-five. She had the eye of an empress--and +not an empress-consort either, nor an empress who trembles in secret at +the rumour of cabals and intrigues. Yes, considered as a decoration of +the terrace, she was possibly the finest, most dazzling thing that +Bursley could have produced; and Bursley doubtless regretted that it +could only claim her as a daughter by adoption. + +Approaching, step by dainty and precise step, the seat invested by Mr. +James Ollerenshaw, she arrived at the point whence she could distinguish +the features of her forestaller; she was somewhat short-sighted. She +gave no outward sign of fear, irresolution, cowardice. But if she had +not been more afraid of her own contempt than of anything else in the +world, she would have run away; she would have ceased being an empress +and declined suddenly into a scared child. However, her fear of her own +contempt kept her spine straight, her face towards the danger, and her +feet steadily moving. + +"It's not my fault," she said to herself. "I meant to occupy that bench, +and occupy it I will. What have I to be ashamed of?" + +And she did occupy that bench. She contrived to occupy it without seeing +Mr. Ollerenshaw. Each separate movement of hers denied absolutely the +existence of Mr. Ollerenshaw. She arranged her dress, and her parasol, +and her arms, and the exact angle of her chin; and there gradually fell +upon her that stillness which falls upon the figure of a woman when she +has definitively adopted an attitude in the public eye. She was gazing +at the gold angel, a mile off, which flashed in the sun. But what a +deceptive stillness was that stillness! A hammer was hammering away +under her breast with what seemed to her a reverberating sound. Strange +that that hammering did not excite attention throughout the park! Then +she had the misfortune to think of the act of blushing. She violently +willed not to blush. But her blood was too much for her. It displayed +itself in the most sanguinary manner first in the centre of each cheek, +and it increased its area of conquest until the whole of her visible +skin--even the back of her neck and her lobes--had rosily yielded. And +she was one of your girls who never blush! The ignominy of it! To blush +because she found herself within thirty inches of a man, an old man, +with whom she had never in her life exchanged a single word! + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AN AFFAIR OF THE SEVENTIES + + +Having satisfied her obstinacy by sitting down on the seat of her +choice, she might surely--one would think--have ended a mysteriously +difficult situation by rising again and departing, of course with due +dignity. But no! She could not! She wished to do so, but she could not +command her limbs. She just sat there, in horridest torture, like a +stoical fly on a pin--one of those flies that pretend that nothing +hurts. The agony might have been prolonged to centuries had not an +extremely startling and dramatic thing happened--the most startling and +dramatic thing that ever happened either to James Ollerenshaw or to the +young woman. James Ollerenshaw spoke, and I imagine that nobody was more +surprised than James Ollerenshaw by his brief speech, which slipped out +of him quite unawares. What he said was: + +"Well, lass, how goes it, like?" + +If the town could have heard him, the town would have rustled from +boundary to boundary with agitated and delicious whisperings. + +The young woman, instead of being justly incensed by this monstrous +molestation from an aged villain who had not been introduced to her, +gave a little jump (as though relieved from the spell of an +enchantment), and then deliberately turned and faced Mr. Ollerenshaw. +She also smiled, amid her roses. + +"Very well indeed, thank you," she replied, primly, but nicely. + +Upon this, they both of them sought to recover--from an affair that had +occurred in the late seventies. + +In the late seventies James Ollerenshaw had been a young-old man of +nearly thirty. He had had a stepbrother, much older and much poorer than +himself, and the stepbrother had died, leaving a daughter, named Susan, +almost, but not quite, in a state of indigence. The stepbrother and +James had not been on terms of effusive cordiality. But James was +perfectly ready to look after Susan, his stepniece. Susan, aged +seventeen years, was, however, not perfectly ready to be looked after. +She had a little money, and she earned a little (by painting asters on +toilet ware), and the chit was very rude to her stepuncle. In less than +a year she had married a youth of twenty, who apparently had not in him +even the rudiments of worldly successfulness. James Ollerenshaw did his +avuncular duty by formally and grimly protesting against the marriage. +But what authority has a stepuncle? Susan defied him, with a maximum of +unforgettable impoliteness; and she went to live with her husband at +Longshaw, which is at the other end of the Five Towns. The fact became +public that a solemn quarrel existed between James and Susan, and that +each of them had sworn not to speak until the other spoke. James would +have forgiven, if she had hinted at reconciliation. And, hard as it is +for youth to be in the wrong, Susan would have hinted at reconciliation +if James had not been so rich. The riches of James offended Susan's +independence. Not for millions would she have exposed herself to the +suspicion that she had broken her oath because her stepuncle was a +wealthy and childless man. She was, of course, wrong. Nor was this her +only indiscretion. She was so ridiculously indiscreet as to influence +her husband in such a way that he actually succeeded in life. Had James +perceived them to be struggling in poverty, he might conceivably have +gone over to them and helped them, in an orgy of forgiving charity. But +the success of young Rathbone falsified his predictions utterly, and +was, further, an affront to him. Thus the quarrel slowly crystallised +into a permanent estrangement, a passive feud. Everybody got thoroughly +accustomed to it, and thought nothing of it, it being a social +phenomenon not at all unique of its kind in the Five Towns. When, +fifteen years later, Rathbone died in mid-career, people thought that +the feud would end. But it did not. James wrote a letter of condolence +to his niece, and even sent it to Longshaw by special messenger in the +tramcar; but he had not heard of the death until the day of the funeral, +and Mrs. Rathbone did not reply to his letter. Her independence and +sensitiveness were again in the wrong. James did no more. You could not +expect him to have done more. Mrs. Rathbone, like many widows of +successful men, was "left poorly off." But she "managed." Once, five +years before the scene on the park terrace, Mrs. Rathbone and James had +encountered one another by hazard on the platform of Knype Railway +Station. Destiny hesitated while Susan waited for James's recognition +and James waited for Susan's recognition. Both of them waited too long. +Destiny averted its head and drew back, and the relatives passed on +their ways without speaking. James observed with interest a girl of +twenty by Susan's side--her daughter. This daughter of Susan's was now +sharing the park bench with him. Hence the hidden drama of their +meeting, of his speech, of her reply. + +"And what's your name, lass?" + +"Helen." + +"Helen what?" + +"Helen, great-stepuncle," said she. + +He laughed; and she laughed also. The fact was that he had been aware +of her name, vaguely. It had come to him, on the wind, or by some bird's +wing, although none of his acquaintances had been courageous enough to +speak to him about the affair of Susan for quite twenty years past. +Longshaw is as far from Bursley, in some ways, as San Francisco from New +York. There are people in Bursley who do not know the name of the Mayor +of Longshaw--who make a point of _not_ knowing it. Yet news travels even +from Longshaw to Bursley, by mysterious channels; and Helen Rathbone's +name had so travelled. James Ollerenshaw was glad that she was just +Helen. He had been afraid that there might be something fancy between +Helen and Rathbone--something expensive and aristocratic that went with +her dress and her parasol. He illogically liked her for being called +merely Helen--as if the credit were hers! Helen was an old Ollerenshaw +name--his grandmother's (who had been attached to the household of +Josiah Wedgwood), and his aunt's. Helen was historic in his mind. And, +further, it could not be denied that Rathbone was a fine old Five Towns +name too. + +He was very illogical that afternoon; he threw over the principles of a +lifetime, arguing from particulars to generals exactly like a girl. He +had objected, always, to the expensive and the aristocratic. He was +proud of his pure plebeian blood, as many plebeians are; he gloried in +it. He disliked show, with a calm and deep aversion. He was a plain man +with a simple, unostentatious taste for money. The difference between +Helen's name and her ornamental raiment gave him pleasure in the name. +But he had not been examining her for more than half a minute when he +began to find pleasure in her rich clothes (rich, that is, to him!). +Quite suddenly he, at the age of sixty, abandoned without an effort his +dear prejudice against fine feathers, and began, for the first time, to +take joy in sitting next to a pretty and well-dressed woman. And all +this, not from any broad, philosophic perception that fine feathers have +their proper part in the great scheme of cosmic evolution; but because +the check dress suited her, and the heavy, voluptuous parasol suited +her, and the long black gloves were inexplicably effective. Women grow +old; women cease to learn; but men, never. + +As for Helen, she liked him. She had liked him for five years, ever +since her mother had pointed him out on the platform of Knype Railway +Station. She saw him closer now. He was older than she had been +picturing him; indeed, the lines on his little, rather wizened face, and +the minute sproutings of grey-white hair in certain spots on his reddish +chin, where he had shaved himself badly, caused her somehow to feel +quite sad. She thought of him as "a dear old thing," and then as "a dear +old darling." Yes, old, very old! Nevertheless, she felt maternal +towards him. She felt that she was much wiser than he was, and that she +could teach him a great deal. She saw very clearly how wrong he and her +mother had been, with their stupidly terrific quarrel; and the notion of +all the happiness which he had missed, in his solitary, unfeminised, +bachelor existence, nearly brought into her eyes tears of a quick and +generous sympathy. + +He, blind and shabby ancient, had no suspicion that his melancholy state +and the notion of all the happiness he had missed had tinged with sorrow +the heart within the frock, and added a dangerous humidity to the glance +under the sunshade. It did not occur to him that he was an object of +pity, nor that a vast store of knowledge was waiting to be poured into +him. The aged, self-satisfied wag-beard imagined that he had conducted +his career fairly well. He knew no one with whom he would have changed +places. He regarded Helen as an extremely agreeable little thing, with +her absurd air of being grown-up. Decidedly in five years she had +tremendously altered. Five years ago she had been gawky. Now ... Well, +he was proud of her. She had called him great-stepuncle, thus conferring +on him a sort of part-proprietorship in her; and he was proud of her. +The captain of the bowling-club came along, and James Ollerenshaw gave +him just such a casual nod as he might have given to a person of no +account. The nod seemed to say: "Match this, if you can. It's mine, and +there's nothing in the town to beat it. Mrs. Prockter herself hasn't got +more style than this." (Of this Mrs. Prockter, more later.) + +Helen soon settled down into a condition of ease, which put an end to +blushing. She knew she was admired. + +"What are you doing i' Bosley?" James demanded. + +"I'm living i' Bosley," she retorted, smartly. + +"Living here!" He stopped, and his hard old heart almost stopped too. If +not in mourning, she was in semi-mourning. Surely Susan had not had the +effrontery to die, away in Longshaw, without telling him! + +"Mother has married again," said Helen, lightly. + +"Married!" He was staggered. The wind was knocked out of him. + +"Yes. And gone to Canada!" Helen added. + +You pick up your paper in the morning, and idly and slowly peruse the +advertisements on the first page, forget it, eat some bacon, grumble at +the youngest boy, open the paper, read the breach of promise case on +page three, drop it, and ask your wife for more coffee--hot--glance at +your letters again, then reopen the paper at the news page, and find +that the Tsar of Russia has been murdered, and a few American cities +tumbled to fragments by an earthquake--you know how you feel then. +James Ollerenshaw felt like that. The captain of the bowling-club, +however, poising a bowl in his right hand, and waiting for James +Ollerenshaw to leave his silken dalliance, saw nothing but an old man +and a young woman sitting on a Corporation seat. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +MARRYING OFF A MOTHER + + +"Yes," said Helen Rathbone, "mother fell in love. Don't you think it was +funny?" + +"That's as may be," James Ollerenshaw replied, in his quality of the +wiseacre who is accustomed to be sagacious on the least possible +expenditure of words. + +"We both thought it was awfully funny," Helen said. + +"Both? Who else is there?" + +"Why, mother and I, of course! We used to laugh over it. You see, mother +is a very simple creature. And she's only forty-four." + +"She's above forty-four," James corrected. + +"She _told_ me she was thirty-nine five years ago," Helen protested. + +"Did she tell ye she was forty, four years ago?" + +"No. At least, I don't remember." + +"Did she ever tell ye she was forty?" + +"No." + +"Happen she's not such a simple creature as ye thought for, my lass," +observed James Ollerenshaw. + +"You don't mean to infer," said Helen, with cold dignity, "that my +_mother_ would tell me a lie?" + +"All as I mean is that Susan was above thirty-nine five years ago, and I +can prove it. I had to get her birth certificate when her father died, +and I fancy I've got it by me yet." And his eyes added: "So much for +that point. One to me." + +Helen blushed and frowned, and looked up into the darkling heaven of her +parasol; and then it occurred to her that her wisest plan would be to +laugh. So she laughed. She laughed in almost precisely the same manner +as James had heard Susan laugh thirty years previously, before love had +come into Susan's life like a shell into a fortress, and finally blown +their fragile relations all to pieces. A few minutes earlier the sight +of great-stepuncle James had filled Helen with sadness, and he had not +suspected it. Now her laugh filled James with sadness, and she did not +suspect it. In his sadness, however, he was glad that she laughed so +naturally, and that the sombre magnificence of her dress and her gloves +and parasol did not prevent her from opening her rather large mouth and +showing her teeth. + +"It was just like mother to tell me fibs about her age," said Helen, +generously (it is always interesting to observe the transformation of a +lie into a fib). "And I shall write and tell her she's a horrid mean +thing. I shall write to her this very night." + +"So Susan's gone and married again!" James murmured, reflectively. + +Helen now definitely turned the whole of her mortal part towards James, +so that she fronted him, and her feet were near his. He also turned, in +response to this diplomatic advance, and leant his right elbow on the +back of the seat, and his chin on his right palm. He put his left leg +over his right leg, and thus his left foot swayed like a bird on a twig +within an inch of Helen's flounce. The parasol covered the faces of the +just and the unjust impartially. + +"I suppose you don't know a farmer named Bratt that used to have a farm +near Sneyd?" said Helen. + +"I can't say as I do," said James. + +"Well, that's the man!" said Helen. "He used to come to Longshaw +cattle-market with sheep and things." + +"Sheep and things!" echoed James. "What things?" + +"Oh! I don't know," said Helen, sharply. "Sheep and things." + +"And what did your mother take to Longshaw cattle-market?" James +inquired. "I understood as she let lodgings." + +"Not since I've been a teacher," said Helen, rather more sharply. +"Mother didn't take anything to the cattle-market. But you know our +house was just close to the cattle-market." + +"No, I didn't," said James, stoutly. "I thought as it was in +Aynsley-street." + +"Oh! that's years ago!" said Helen, shocked by his ignorance. "We've +lived in Sneyd-road for years--years." + +"I'll not deny it," said James. + +"The great fault of our house," Helen proceeded, "was that mother +daren't stir out of it on cattle-market days." + +"Why not?" + +"Cows!" said Helen. "Mother simply can't look at a cow, and they were +passing all the time." + +"She should ha' been thankful as it wasn't bulls," James put in. + +"But I mean bulls too!" exclaimed Helen. "In fact, it was a bull that +led to it." + +"What! Th' farmer saved her from a mad bull, and she fell in love with +him? He's younger than her, I lay!" + +"How did you know that?" Helen questioned. "Besides, he isn't. They're +just the same age." + +"Forty-four?" Perceiving delicious danger in the virgin's face, James +continued before she could retort, "I hope Susan wasn't gored?" + +"You're quite wrong. You're jumping to conclusions," said Helen, with an +air of indulgence that would have been exasperating had it not been +enchanting. "Things don't happen like that except in novels." + +"I've never read a novel in my life," James defended himself. + +"Haven't you? How interesting!" + +"But I've known a woman knocked down by a bull." + +"Well, anyhow, mother wasn't knocked down by a bull. But there was a mad +bull running down the street; it had escaped from the market. And Mr. +Bratt was walking home, and the bull was after him like a shot. Mother +was looking out of the window, and she saw what was going on. So she +rushed to the front door and opened it, and called to Mr. Bratt to run +in and take shelter. And they only just got the door shut in time." + +"Bless us!" muttered James. "And what next?" + +"Why, I came home from school and found them having tea together." + +"And ninety year between them!" James reflected. + +"Then Mr. Bratt called every week. He was a widower, with no children." + +"It couldn't ha' been better," said James. + +"Oh yes, it could," said Helen. "Because I had the greatest difficulty +in marrying them; in fact, at one time I thought I should never do it. +I'm always in the right, and mother's always in the wrong. She's +admitted that for years. She's had to admit it. Yet she _would_ go her +own way. Nothing would ever cure mother." + +"She used to talk just like that of your grandfather," said James. +"Susan always reckoned as she'd got more than her fair share of sense." + +"I don't think she thinks that now," said Helen, calmly, as if to say: +"At any rate I've cured her of _that_." Then she went on: "You see, Mr. +Bratt had sold his farm--couldn't make it pay--and he was going out to +Manitoba. He said he would stop in England. Mother said she wouldn't let +him stop in England where he couldn't make a farm pay. She was quite +right there," Helen admitted, with careful justice. "But then she said +she wouldn't marry him and go out to Manitoba, because of leaving me +alone here to look after myself! Can you imagine such a reason?" + +James merely raised his head quickly several times. The gesture meant +whatever Helen preferred that it should mean. + +"The idea!" she continued. "As if I hadn't looked after mother and kept +her in order, and myself, too, for several years! No. She wouldn't marry +him and go out there! And she wouldn't marry him and stay here! She +actually began to talk all the usual conventional sort of stuff, you +know--about how she had no right to marry again, and she didn't believe +in second marriages, and about her duty to me. And so on. You know. I +reasoned with her--I explained to her that probably she had another +thirty years to live. I told her she was quite young. She _is_. And why +should she make herself permanently miserable, _and_ Mr. Bratt, _and_ +me, merely out of a quite mistaken sense of duty? No use! I tried +everything I could. No use!" + +"She was too much for ye?" + +"Oh, _no_!" said Helen, condescendingly. "I'd made up my _mind_. I +arranged things with Mr. Bratt. He quite agreed with me. He took out a +licence at the registrar's, and one Saturday morning--it had to be a +Saturday, because I'm busy all the other days--I went out with mother to +buy the meat and things for Sunday's dinner, and I got her into the +registrar's office--and, well, there she was! Now, what do you think?" + +"What?" + +"Her last excuse was that she couldn't be married because she was +wearing her third-best hat. Don't you think it's awfully funny?" + +"That's as may be," said James. "When was all this?" + +"Just recently," Helen answered. "They sailed from Glasgow last Thursday +but two. And I'm expecting a letter by every post to say that they've +arrived safely." + +"And Susan's left you to take care of yourself!" + +"Now, please don't begin talking like mother," Helen said, frigidly. +"I've certainly got less to take care of now than I had. Mother quite +saw that. But what difficulty I had in getting her off, even after I'd +safely married her! I had to promise that if I felt lonely I'd go and +join them. But I shan't." + +"You won't?" + +"No. I don't see myself on a farm in Manitoba. Do you?" + +"I don't know as I do," said James, examining her appearance, with a +constant increase of his pride in it. "So ye saw 'em off at Glasgow. I +reckon she made a great fuss?" + +"Fuss?" + +"Cried." + +"Oh yes, of course." + +"Did you cry, miss?" + +"Of course I cried," said Helen, passionately, sitting up straight. "Why +do you ask such questions?" + +"And us'll never see Susan again?" + +"Of course I shall go over and _see_ them," said Helen. "I only meant +that I shouldn't go to stop. I daresay I shall go next year, in the +holidays." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +INVITATION TO TEA + + +They were most foolishly happy as they sat there on the bench, this man +whose dim eyes ought to have been waiting placidly for the ship of death +to appear above the horizon, and this young girl who imagined that she +knew all about life and the world. When I say that they were foolishly +happy, I of course mean that they were most wisely happy. Each of them, +being gifted with common sense, and with a certain imperviousness to +sentimentality which invariably accompanies common sense, they did not +mar the present by regretting the tragic stupidity of a long +estrangement; they did not mourn over wasted years that could not be +recalled. It must be admitted, in favour of the Five Towns, that when +its inhabitants spill milk they do not usually sit down on the pavement +and adulterate the milk with their tears. They pass on. Such passing on +is termed callous and cold-hearted in the rest of England, which loves +to sit down on pavements and weep into irretrievable milk. + +Nor did Helen and her great-stepuncle mar the present by worrying about +the future; it never occurred to them to be disturbed by the possibility +that milk not already spilt might yet be spilt. + +Helen had been momentarily saddened by private reflections upon what +James Ollerenshaw had missed in his career; and James had been saddened, +somewhat less, by reminiscences which had sprung out of Helen's laugh. +But their melancholies had rapidly evaporated in the warmth of the +unexpected encounter. They liked one another. She liked him because he +was old and dry; and because he had a short laugh, and a cynical and +even wicked gleam of the eye that pleased her; and because there was an +occasional tone in his voice that struck her as deliciously masculine, +ancient, and indulgent; and because he had spoken to her first; and +because his gaze wandered with an admiring interest over her dress and +up into the dome of her sunshade; and because he put his chin in his +palm and leant his head towards her; and because the skin of his hand +was so crinkled and glossy. And he liked her because she was so +exquisitely fresh and candid, so elegant, so violent and complete a +contrast to James Ollerenshaw; so absurdly sagacious and sure of +herself, and perhaps because of a curve in her cheek, and a mysterious +suggestion of eternal enigma in her large and liquid eye. When she +looked right away from him, as she sometimes did in the conversation, +the outline of her soft cheek, which drew in at the eye and swelled out +again to the temple, resembled a map of the coast of some smooth, +romantic country not mentioned in geographies. When she looked _at_ +him--well, the effect on him astonished him; but it enchanted him. He +was discovering for the first time the soul of a girl. If he was a +little taken aback he is to be excused. Younger men than he have been +taken aback by that discovery. But James Ollerenshaw did not behave as a +younger man would have behaved. He was more like some one who, having +heard tell of the rose for sixty years, and having paid no attention to +rumour, suddenly sees a rose in early bloom. At his age one knows how to +treat a flower; one knows what flowers are for. + +It was no doubt this knowledge of what flowers are for that almost led +to the spilling of milk at the very moment when milk-spilling seemed in +a high degree improbable. + +The conversation had left Susan and her caprices, and had reached Helen +and her solid wisdom. + +"But you haven't told me what you're doing i' Bosley," said the old man. + +"I've told you I'm living here," said Helen. "I've now been living here +for one week and one day. I'm teaching at the Park Road Board School. I +got transferred from Longshaw. I never liked Longshaw, and I always +like a change." + +"Yes," said Ollerenshaw, judiciously, "of the two I reckon as Bosley is +the frying-pan. So you're teaching up yonder?" He jerked his elbow in +the direction of the spacious and imposing terra-cotta Board School, +whose front looked on the eastern gates of the park. "What dost teach?" + +"Oh, everything," Helen replied. + +"You must be very useful to 'em," said James. "What do they pay you for +teaching everything?" + +"Seventy-two pounds," said Helen. + +"A month? It 'ud be cheap at a hundred, lass; unless there's a whole +crowd on ye as can teach everything. Can you sew?" + +"Sew!" she exclaimed. "I've given lessons in sewing for years. _And_ +cookery. _And_ mathematics. I used to give evening lessons in +mathematics at Longshaw secondary school." + +Great-stepuncle James gazed at her. It was useless for him to try to +pretend to himself that he was not, secretly, struck all of a heap by +the wonders of the living organism in front of him. He was. And this +shows, though he was a wise man and an experienced, how ignorant he was +of the world. But I do not think he was more ignorant of the world than +most wise and experienced men are. He conceived Helen Rathbone as an +extraordinary, an amazing creature. Nothing of the kind. There are +simply thousands of agreeable and good girls who can accomplish +herring-bone, omelettes, and simultaneous equations in a breath, as it +were. They are all over the kingdom, and may be seen in the streets and +lanes thereof about half-past eight in the morning and again about five +o'clock in the evening. But the fact is not generally known. Only the +stern and _blasé_ members of School Boards or Education Committees know +it. And they are so used to marvels that they make nothing of them. + +However, James Ollerenshaw had no intention of striking his flag. + +"Mathematics!" he murmured. "I lay you can't tell me the interest on +eighty-nine pounds for six months at four and a half per cent." + +Consols happened to be at eighty-nine that day. + +Her lips curled. "I'm really quite surprised you should encourage me to +gamble," said she. "But I'll bet you a shilling I can. And I'll bet you +one shilling against half-a-crown that I do it in my head, if you like. +And if I lose I'll pay." + +She made a slight movement, and he noticed for the first time that she +was carrying a small purse as black as her glove. + +He hesitated, and then he proved what a wise and experienced man he was. + +"No," he said, "I'll none bet ye, lass." + +He had struck his flag. + +It is painful to be compelled to reinforce the old masculine statement +that women have no sense of honour. But have they? Helen clearly saw +that he had hauled down his flag. Yet did she cease firing? Not a bit. +She gave him a shattering broadside, well knowing that he had +surrendered. Her disregard of the ethics of warfare was deplorable. + +"Two pounds and one half-penny--to the nearest farthing," said she, a +faint blush crimsoning her cheek. + +Mr. Ollerenshaw glanced round at the bowling-green, where the captain in +vain tried to catch his eye, and then at the groups of children playing +on the lower terraces. + +"I make no doubt ye can play the piano?" he remarked, when he had +recovered. + +"Certainly," she replied. "Not that we have to teach the piano. No! But +it's understood, all the same, that one or another of us can play +marches for the children to walk and drill to. In fact," she added, "for +something less than thirty shillings a week we do pretty nearly +everything, except build the schools. And soon they'll be expecting us +to build the new schools in our spare time." She spoke bitterly, as a +native of the Congo Free State might refer to the late King of the +Belgians. + +"Thirty shillings a _wik_!" said James, acting with fine histrionic +skill. "I thought as you said seventy-two pounds a month!" + +"Oh no, you didn't!" she protested, firmly. "So don't try to tease me. I +never joke about money. Money's a very serious thing." + +("Her's a chip o' th' owd block," he told himself, delighted. When he +explained matters to himself, and when he grew angry, he always employed +the Five Towns dialect in its purest form.) + +"You must be same as them hospital nurses," he said, aloud. "You do it +because ye like it--for love on it, as they say." + +"Like it! I hate it. I hate any sort of work. What fun do you suppose +there is in teaching endless stupid children, and stuffing in classrooms +all day, and correcting exercises and preparing sewing all night? Of +course, they can't help being stupid. It's that that's so amazing. You +can't help being kind to them--they're so stupid." + +"If ye didn't do that, what should ye do?" James inquired. + +"I shouldn't do anything unless I was forced," said she. "I don't want +to do anything, except enjoy myself--read, play the piano, pay visits, +and have plenty of _really_ nice clothes. Why should I want to do +anything? I can tell you this--if I didn't need the money I'd never go +inside that school again, or any other!" + +She was heated. + +"Dun ye mean to say," he asked, with an ineffable intonation, "that +Susan and that there young farmer have gone gadding off to Canada and +left you all alone with nothing?" + +"Of course they haven't," said Helen. "Why, mother is the most generous +old thing you can possibly imagine. She's left all her own income to +me." + +"How much?" + +"Well, it comes to rather over thirty shillings a week." + +"And can't a single woman live on thirty shillings a _wik_? Bless us! I +don't spend thirty shillings a wik myself." + +Helen raised her chin. "A single woman can live on thirty shillings a +week," she said. "But what about her frocks?" + +"Well, what about her frocks?" he repeated. + +"Well," she said, "I like frocks. It just happens that I can't do +without frocks. It's just frocks that I work for; I spend nearly all I +earn on them." And her eyes, descending, seemed to say: "Look at the +present example." + +"Seventy pounds a year on ye clothes! Ye're not serious, lass?" + +She looked at him coldly. "I am serious," she said. + +Experienced as he was, he had never come across a fact so incredible as +this fact. And the compulsion of believing it occupied his forces to +such an extent that he had no force left to be wise. He did not observe +the icy, darting challenge in her eye, and he ignored the danger in her +voice. + +"All as I can say is you ought to be ashamed o' yourself, lass!" he +said, sharply. The reflection was blown out of him by the expansion of +his feelings. Seventy pounds a year on clothes!... He too was serious. + +Now, James Ollerenshaw was not the first person whom Helen's passion for +clothes had driven into indiscretions. Her mother, for example, had done +battle with that passion, and had been defeated with heavy loss. A +head-mistress and a chairman of a School Board (a pompous coward) had +also suffered severely. And though Helen had been the victor, she had +not won without some injury to her nerves. Her campaigns and conquests +had left her, on this matter, "touchy"--as the word is used in the Five +Towns. + +"I shall be very much obliged if you will not speak to me in that tone," +said she. "Because I cannot permit it either from you or any other man. +When I venture to criticise your private life I shall expect you to +criticise mine--and not before. I don't want to be rude, but I hope you +understand, great-stepuncle." + +The milk was within the twentieth of an inch of the brim. James +Ollerenshaw blushed as red as Helen herself had blushed at the +beginning of their acquaintance. A girl, the daughter of the chit Susan, +to address him so! She had the incomparable insolence of her mother. +Yes, thirty years ago Susan had been just as rude to him. But he was +thirty years younger then; he was not a sage of sixty then. He continued +to blush. He was raging. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to assert +that his health was momentarily in peril. He glanced for an instant at +Helen, and saw that her nostrils were twitching. Then he looked +hurriedly away, and rose. The captain of the bowling club excusably +assumed that James was at length going to attack the serious business of +the day. + +"Now, Mr. Ollerenshaw!" the captain called out; and his tone implied, +gently: "Don't you think you've kept me waiting long enough? Women are +women; but a bowling-match is a bowling-match." + +James turned his back on the captain, moved off, and then--how can one +explain it? He realised that in the last six words of Helen's speech +there had been a note, a hint, a mere nothing, of softness, of regret +for pain caused. He realised, further, the great universal natural law +that under any circumstances--no matter what they may be--when any +man--no matter who he may be--differs from any pretty and well-dressed +woman--no matter who she may be--he is in the wrong. He saw that it was +useless for serious, logical, high-minded persons to inveigh against the +absurdity of this law, and to call it bad names. The law of gravity is +absurd and indefensible when you fall downstairs; but you obey it. + +He returned to Helen, who bravely met his eyes. "I'm off home," he said, +hoarsely. "It's my tea-time." + +"Good-afternoon," she replied, with amiability. + +"Happen you'll come along with me, like?" + +The use of that word "like" at the end of an interrogative sentence, in +the Five Towns, is a subject upon which a book ought to be written; but +not this history. The essential point to observe is that Helen got up +from the bench and said, with adorable sweetness: + +"Why, I shall be charmed to come!" + +("What a perfect old darling he is!" she said to herself.) + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A SALUTATION + + +As they walked down Moorthorne-road towards the town they certainly made +a couple piquant enough, by reason of the excessive violence of the +contrast between them, to amuse the eye of the beholder. A young and +pretty woman who spends seventy pounds a year on her ornamentations, +walking by the side of a little old man (she had the better of him by an +inch) who had probably not spent seventy pounds on clothes in sixty +years--such a spectacle must have drawn attention even in the least +attentive of towns. And Bursley is far from the least attentive of +towns. James and his great-stepniece had not got as far as the new +Independent Chapel when it was known in St. Luke's-square, a long way +farther on, that they were together; a tramcar had flown forward with +the interesting fact. From that moment, of course, the news, which +really was great news, spread itself over the town with the rapidity of +a perfume; no corner could escape it. All James's innumerable tenants +seemed to sniff it simultaneously. And that evening in the mouth of the +entire town (I am licensing myself to a little poetical exaggeration) +there was no word but the word "Jimmy." + +Their converse, as they descended into the town, was not effective. It +was, indeed, feeble. They had fought a brief but bitter duel, and James +Ollerenshaw had been severely wounded. His dignity bled freely; he made, +strange to say, scarcely any attempt to staunch the blood, which might +have continued to flow for a considerable time had not a diversion +occurred. (It is well known that the dignity will only bleed while you +watch it. Avert your eyes, and it instantly dries up.) The diversion, +apparently of a trifling character, had, in truth, an enormous +importance, though the parties concerned did not perceive this till +later. It consisted in the passing of Mrs. Prockter and her stepson, +Emanuel Prockter, up Duck Bank as James and Helen were passing down Duck +Bank. + +Mrs. Prockter (who by reason of the rare "k" in her name regarded +herself as the sole genuine in a district full of Proctors) may be +described as the dowager of Bursley, the custodian of its +respectability, and the summit of its social ladder. You could not climb +higher than Mrs. Prockter. She lived at Hillport, and even in that +haughty suburb there was none who dared palter with an invitation from +Mrs. Prockter. She was stout and deliberate. She had waving flowers in +her bonnet and pictures of flowers on her silken gown, and a grey +mantle. Much of her figure preceded her as she walked. Her stepson had a +tenor voice and a good tailor; his age was thirty. + +Now, Mrs. Prockter was simply nothing to James Ollerenshaw. They knew +each other by sight, but their orbits did not touch. James would have +gone by Mrs. Prockter as indifferently as he would have gone by a +policeman or a lamp-post. As for Emanuel, James held him in mild, +benignant contempt. But when, as the two pairs approached one another, +James perceived Emanuel furtively shifting his gold-headed cane from his +right hand to his left, and then actually raise his hat to Helen, James +swiftly lost his indifference. He also nearly lost his presence of mind. +He was utterly unaccustomed to such crises. Despite his wealthy +indifference to Mrs. Prockter, despite his distinguished scorn of +Emanuel, despite the richness of Helen's attire, he was astounded, and +deeply impressed, to learn that Helen had the acquaintance of people +like the Prockters. Further, except at grave-sides, James Ollerenshaw +had never in his life raised his hat. Hat-raising formed no part of his +code of manners. In his soul he looked upon hat-raising as affected. He +believed that all people who raised hats did so from a snobbish desire +to put on airs. Hat-raising was rather like saying "please," only worse. + +Happily, his was one of those strong, self-reliant natures that can, +when there is no alternative, face the most frightful situations with +unthumping heart. He kept his presence of mind, and decided in the +fraction of a second what he must do. The faculty of instant decision is +indispensable to safety in these swift-rising crises. + +He raised his hat, praying that Helen would not stop to speak. Not +gracefully, not with the beauteous curves of an Emanuel did he raise his +hat--but he raised it. His prayer was answered. + +"There!" his chest said to Helen. "If you thought I didn't know how to +behave to your conceited acquaintances, you were mistaken." + +And his casual, roving eye pretended that hat-raising was simply the +most ordinary thing on earth. + +Such was the disturbing incident which ended the bleeding of his +dignity. In order to keep up the pretence that hat-raising was a normal +function of his daily life he was obliged to talk freely; and he did +talk freely. But neither he nor Helen said a word as to the Prockters. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MRS. BUTT'S DEPARTURE + + +James Ollerenshaw's house was within a few hundred yards of the top of +Trafalgar-road, on the way from Bursley to Hanbridge. I may not indicate +the exact house, but I can scarcely conceal that it lay between Nos. 160 +and 180, on the left as you go up. It was one of the oldest houses in +the street, and though bullied into insignificance by sundry detached +and semi-detached villas opposite--palaces occupied by reckless persons +who think nothing of paying sixty or even sixty-five pounds a year for +rent alone--it kept a certain individuality and distinction because it +had been conscientiously built of good brick before English domestic +architecture had lost trace of the Georgian style. First you went up two +white steps (white in theory), through a little gate in a wrought-iron +railing painted the colour of peas after they have been cooked in a bad +restaurant. You then found yourself in a little front yard, twelve feet +in width (the whole width of the house) by six feet in depth. The yard +was paved with large square Indian-red tiles, except a tiny circle in +the midst bordered with black-currant-coloured tiles set endwise with a +scolloped edge. This magical circle contained earth, and in the centre +of it was a rhododendron bush which, having fallen into lazy habits, had +forgotten the art of flowering. Its leaves were a most pessimistic +version of the tint of the railing. + +The façade of the house comprised three windows and a door--that is to +say, a window and a door on the ground floor and two windows above. The +brickwork was assuredly admirable; James had it "pointed" every few +years. Over the windows the bricks, of special shapes, were arranged as +in a flat arch, with a keystone that jutted slightly. The panes of the +windows were numerous and small; inside, on the sashes, lay long thin +scarlet sausages of red cloth and sawdust, to keep out the draughts. The +door was divided into eight small panels with elaborate beadings, and +over it was a delicate fanlight--one of about a score in Bursley--to +remind the observer of a lost elegance. Between the fanlight and the +upstairs window exactly above it was a rusty iron plaque, with vestiges +in gilt of the word "Phoenix." It had been put there when fire insurance +had still the fancied charm of novelty. At the extremity of the façade +farthest from the door a spout came down from the blue-slate roof. This +spout began with a bold curve from the projecting horizontal spout under +the eaves, and made another curve at the ground into a hollow +earthenware grid with very tiny holes. + +Helen looked delicious in the yard, gazing pensively at the slothful +rhododendron while James Ollerenshaw opened his door. She was seen by +two electric cars-full of people, for although James's latchkey was very +highly polished and the lock well oiled, he never succeeded in opening +his door at the first attempt. It was a capricious door. You could not +be sure of opening it any more than Beau Brummel could be sure of tying +his cravat. It was a muse that had to be wooed. + +But when it did open you perceived that there were no half measures +about that door, for it let you straight into the house. To open it was +like taking down part of the wall. No lobby, hall, or vestibule behind +that door! One instant you were in the yard, the next you were in the +middle of the sitting-room, and through a doorway at the back of the +sitting-room you could see the kitchen, and beyond that the scullery, +and beyond that a back yard with a whitewashed wall. + +James Ollerenshaw went in first, leaving Helen to follow. He had learnt +much in the previous hour, but there were still one or two odd things +left for him to learn. + +"Ah!" he breathed, shut the door, and hung up his hard hat on the inner +face of it. "Sit ye down, lass." + +So she sat her down. It must be said that she looked as if she had made +a mistake and got on to the wrong side of Trafalgar-road. The +sitting-room was a crowded and shabby little apartment (though clean). +There was a list carpet over the middle of the floor, which was tiled, +and in the middle of the carpet a small square table with flap-sides. On +this table was a full-rigged ship on a stormy sea in a glass box, some +resin, a large stone bottle of ink, a ready reckoner, Whitaker's +Almanack (paper edition), a foot-rule, and a bright brass candlestick. +Above the table there hung from the ceiling a string with a ball of +fringed paper, designed for the amusement of flies. At the window was a +flat desk, on which were transacted the affairs of Mr. Ollerenshaw. When +he stationed himself at it in the seat of custom and of judgment, +defaulting tenants, twirling caps or twisting aprons, had a fine view of +the left side of his face. He usually talked to them while staring out +of the window. Before this desk was a Windsor chair. There were eight +other Windsor chairs in the room--Helen was sitting on one that had not +been sat upon for years and years--a teeming but idle population of +chairs. A horsehair arm-chair seemed to be the sultan of the seraglio of +chairs. Opposite the window a modern sideboard, which might have cost +two-nineteen-six when new, completed the tale of furniture. The general +impression was one of fulness; the low ceiling, and the immense harvest +of overblown blue roses which climbed luxuriantly up the walls, +intensified this effect. The mantelpiece was crammed with brass +ornaments, and there were two complete sets of brass fire-irons in the +brass fender. Above the mantelpiece a looking-glass, in a wan frame of +bird's-eye maple, with rounded corners, reflected Helen's hat. + +Helen abandoned the Windsor chair and tried the arm-chair, and then +stood up. + +"Which chair do you recommend?" she asked, nicely. + +"Bless ye, child! I never sit here, except at th' desk. I sit in the +kitchen." + +A peculiarity of houses in the Five Towns is that rooms are seldom +called by their right names. It is a point of honour, among the +self-respecting and industrious classes, to prepare a room elaborately +for a certain purpose, and then not to use it for that purpose. Thus +James Ollerenshaw's sitting-room, though surely few apartments could +show more facilities than it showed for sitting, was not used as a +sitting-room, but as an office. The kitchen, though it contained a +range, was not used as a kitchen, but as a sitting-room. The scullery, +though it had no range, was filled with a gas cooking-stove and used as +a kitchen. And the back yard was used as a scullery. This arrangement +never struck anybody as singular; it did not strike even Helen as +singular. Her mother's house had exhibited the same oddness until she +reorganised it. If James Ollerenshaw had not needed an office, his +sitting-room would have languished in desuetude. The fact is that the +thrifty inhabitants of the Five Towns save a room as they save money. If +they have an income of six rooms they will live on five, or rather in +five, and thereby take pride to themselves. + +Somewhat nervous, James feigned to glance at the rent books on the desk. + +Helen's eye swept the room. "I suppose you have a good servant?" she +said. + +"I have a woman as comes in," said James. "But her isn't in th' house at +the moment." + +This latter statement was a wilful untruth on James's part. He had +distinctly caught a glimpse of Mrs. Butt's figure as he entered. + +"Well," said Helen, kindly, "it's quite nice, I'm sure. You must be very +comfortable--for a man. But, of course, one can see at once that no +woman lives here." + +"How?" he demanded, naïvely. + +"Oh," she answered, "I don't know. But one can." + +"Dost mean to say as it isn't clean, lass?" + +"The _brasses_ are very clean," said Helen. + +Such astonishing virtuosity in the art of innuendo is the privilege of +one sex only. + +"Come into th' kitchen, lass," said James, after he had smiled into a +corner of the room, "and take off them gloves and things." + +"But, great-stepuncle, I can't stay." + +"You'll stop for tea," said he, firmly, "or my name isn't James +Ollerenshaw." + +He preceded her into the kitchen. The door between the kitchen and the +scullery was half-closed; in the aperture he again had a momentary, but +distinct, glimpse of the eye of Mrs. Butt. + +"I do like this room," said Helen, enthusiastically. + +"Uninterrupted view o' th' back yard," said Ollerenshaw. "Sit ye down, +lass." + +He indicated an article of furniture which stood in front of the range, +at a distance of perhaps six feet from it, cutting the room in half. +This contrivance may be called a sofa, or it may be called a couch; but +it can only be properly described by the Midland word for it--squab. No +other term is sufficiently expressive. Its seat--five feet by two--was +very broad and very low, and it had a steep, high back and sides. All +its angles were right angles. It was everywhere comfortably padded; it +yielded everywhere to firm pressure; and it was covered with a grey and +green striped stuff. You could not sit on that squab and be in a +draught; yet behind it, lest the impossible should arrive, was a heavy +curtain, hung on an iron rod which crossed the room from wall to wall. +Not much imagination was needed to realise the joy and ecstasy of +losing yourself on that squab on a winter afternoon, with the range fire +roaring in your face, and the curtain drawn abaft. + +Helen assumed the mathematical centre of the squab, and began to arrange +her skirts in cascading folds; she had posed her parasol in a corner of +it, as though the squab had been a railway carriage, which, indeed, it +did somewhat resemble. + +"By the way, lass, what's that as swishes?" James demanded. + +"What's what?" + +"What's that as swishes?" + +She looked puzzled for an instant, then laughed--a frank, gay laugh, +light and bright as aluminium, such as the kitchen had never before +heard. + +"Oh!" she said. "It's my new silk petticoat, I suppose. You mean that?" +She brusquely moved her limbs, reproducing the unique and delicious +rustle of concealed silk. + +"Ay!" ejaculated the old man, "I mean that." + +"Yes. It's my silk petticoat. Do you like it?" + +"I havena' seen it, lass." + +She bent down, and lifted the hem of her dress just two inches--the +discreetest, the modestest gesture. He had a transient vision of +something fair--it was gone again. + +"I don't know as I dislike it," said he. + +He was standing facing her, his back to the range, and his head on a +level with the high narrow mantelpiece, upon which glittered a row of +small tin canisters. Suddenly he turned to the corner to the right of +the range, where, next to an oak cupboard, a velvet Turkish smoking cap +depended from a nail. He put on the cap, of which the long tassel curved +down to his ear. Then he faced her again, putting his hands behind him, +and raising himself at intervals on his small, well-polished toes. She +lifted her two hands simultaneously to her head, and began to draw pins +from her hat, which pins she placed one after another between her lips. +Then she lowered the hat carefully from her head, and transfixed it anew +with the pins. + +"Will you mind hanging it on that nail?" she requested. + +He took it, as though it had been of glass, and hung it on the nail. + +Without her hat she looked as if she lived there, a jewel in a +pipe-case. She appeared to be just as much at home as he was. And they +were so at home together that there was no further necessity to strain +after a continuous conversation. With a vague smile she gazed round and +about, at the warm, cracked, smooth red tiles of the floor; at the +painted green walls, at a Windsor chair near the cupboard--a solitary +chair that had evidently been misunderstood by the large family of +relatives in the other room and sent into exile; at the pair of bellows +that hung on the wall above the chair, and the rich gaudiness of the +grocer's almanac above the bellows; at the tea-table, with its coarse +grey cloth and thick crockery spread beneath the window. + +"So you have all your meals here?" she ventured. + +"Ay," he said. "I have what I call my meals here." + +"Why," she cried, "don't you enjoy them?" + +"I eat 'em," he said. + +"What time do you have tea?" she inquired. + +"Four o'clock," said he. "Sharp!" + +"But it's a quarter to, now!" she exclaimed, pointing to a clock with +weights at the end of brass chains and a long pendulum. "And didn't you +say your servant was out?" + +"Ay," he mysteriously lied. "Her's out. But her'll come back. Happen +her's gone to get a bit o' fish or something." + +"Fish! Do you always have fish for tea?" + +"I have what I'm given," he replied. "I fancy a snack for my tea. +Something tasty, ye know." + +"Why," she said, "you're just like me. I adore tea. I'd sooner have tea +than any other meal of the day. But I never yet knew a servant who +could get something tasty every day. Of course, it's quite easy if you +know how to do it; but servants don't--that is to say, as a rule--but I +expect you've got a very good one." + +"So-so!" James murmured. + +"The trouble with servants is that they always think that if you like a +thing one day you'll like the same thing every day for the next three +years." + +"Ay," he said, drily. "I used to like a kidney, but it's more than three +years ago." He stuck his lips out, and raised himself higher than ever +on his toes. + +He did not laugh. But she laughed, almost boisterously. + +"I can't help telling you," she said, "you're perfectly lovely, +great-stepuncle. Are we both going to drink out of the same cup?" In +such manner did the current of her talk gyrate and turn corners. + +He approached the cupboard. + +"No, no!" She sprang up. "Let me. I'll do that, as the servant is so +long." + +And she opened the cupboard. Among a miscellany of crocks therein was a +blue-and-white cup and saucer, and a plate to match underneath it, that +seemed out of place there. She lifted down the pile. + +"Steady on!" he counselled her. "Why dun you choose that?" + +"Because I like it," she replied, simply. + +He was silenced. "That's a bit o' real Spode," he said, as she put it on +the table and dusted the several pieces with a corner of the tablecloth. + +"It won't be in any danger," she retorted, "until it comes to be washed +up. So I'll stop afterwards and wash it up myself. There!" + +"Now you can't find the teaspoons, miss!" he challenged her. + +"I think I can," she said. + +She raised the tablecloth at the end, discovered the knob of a drawer, +and opened it. And, surely, there were teaspoons. + +"Can't I just take a peep into the scullery?" she begged, with a +bewitching supplication. "I won't stop. It's nearly time your servant +was back, if she's always so dreadfully prompt as you say. I won't touch +anything. Servants are so silly. They always think one wants to +interfere with them." + +Without waiting for James's permission, she burst youthfully into the +scullery. + +"Oh," she exclaimed, "there's some one here!" + +Of course there was. There was Mrs. Butt. + +Although the part played by Mrs. Butt in the drama was vehement and +momentous, it was nevertheless so brief that a description of Mrs. Butt +is hardly called for. Suffice it to say that she had so much waist as to +have no waist, and that she possessed both a beard and a moustache. +This curt catalogue of her charms is unfair to her; but Mrs. Butt was +ever the victim of unfairness. + +James Ollerenshaw looked audaciously in at the door. "It's Mrs. Butt," +said he. "Us thought as ye were out." + +"Good-afternoon, Mrs. Butt," Helen began, with candid pleasantness. + +A pause. + +"Good-afternoon, miss." + +"And what have you got for uncle's tea to-day? Something tasty?" + +"I've got this," said Mrs. Butt, with candid unpleasantness. And she +pointed to an oblate spheroid, the colour of brick, but smoother, which +lay on a plate near the gas-stove. It was a kidney. + +"H'm!"--from James. + +"It's not cooked yet, I see," Helen observed. "And--" + +The clock finished her remark. + +"No, miss, it's not cooked," said Mrs. Butt. "To tell ye the honest +truth, miss, I've been learning, 'stead o' cooking this 'ere kidney." +She picked up the kidney in her pudding-like hand and gazed at it. "I'm +glad the brasses is clean, miss, at any rate, though the house _does_ +look as though there was no woman about the place, and servants _are_ +silly. I'm thankful to Heaven as the brasses is clean. Come into my +scullery, and welcome." + +She ceased, still holding up the kidney. + +"H'm!"--from Uncle James. + +This repeated remark of his seemed to rouse the fury in her. "You may +'h'm,' Mester Ollerenshaw," she glared at him. "You may 'h'm' as much as +yo'n a mind." Then to Helen: "Come in, miss; come in. Don't be afraid of +servants." And finally, with a striking instinct for theatrical effect: +"But I go out!" + +She flung the innocent and yielding kidney to the floor, snatched up a +bonnet, cast off her apron, and departed. + +"There!" said James Ollerenshaw. "You've done it!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE NEW COOK + + +Ten minutes later Mr. James Ollerenshaw stood alone in his +kitchen-sitting-room. And he gazed at the door between the +kitchen-sitting-room and the scullery. This door was shut; that is to +say, it was nearly shut. He had been turned out of the scullery; not +with violence--or, rather, with a sort of sweet violence that he liked, +and that had never before been administered to him by any human soul. An +afternoon highly adventurous--an afternoon on which he had permitted +himself to be insulted, with worse than impunity to the insulter, by the +childish daughter of that chit Susan--an afternoon on which he had +raised his hat to Mrs. Prockter--a Saturday afternoon on which he had +foregone, on account of a woman, his customary match at bowls--this +afternoon was drawing to a close in a manner which piled thrilling event +on thrilling event. + +Mrs. Butt had departed. For unnumbered years Mrs. Butt had miscooked his +meals. The little house was almost inconceivable without Mrs. Butt. And +Mrs. Butt had departed. Already he missed her as one misses an ancient +and supersensitive corn--if the simile may be permitted to one; it is a +simile not quite nice, but, then, Mrs. Butt was not quite nice either. +The fault was not hers; she was born so. + +The dropping of the kidney with a _plop_, by Mrs. Butt, on the hard, +unsympathetic floor of the scullery, had constituted an extremely +dramatic moment in three lives. Certainly Mrs. Butt possessed a wondrous +instinct for theatrical effect. Helen, on the contrary, seemed to +possess none. She had advanced nonchalantly towards the kidney, and +delicately picked it up between finger and thumb, and turned it over, +and then put it on a plate. + +"That's a veal kidney," she had observed. + +"Art sure it isn't a sheep's kidney, lass?" James had asked, carefully +imitating Helen's nonchalance. + +"Yes," she had said. "I gather you are not passionately fond of kidneys, +great-stepuncle?" she had asked. + +"I was once. What art going to do, lass?" + +"I'm going to get our tea," she had said. + +At the words, _our_ tea, the antique James Ollerenshaw, who had never +thought to have such a sensation again, was most distinctly conscious of +an agreeable, somewhat disturbing sensation of being tickled in the +small of his back. + +"Well," he had asked her, "what can I do?" + +"You can go out," she had replied. "Wouldn't it be a good thing for you +to go out for a walk? Tea will be ready at half-past four." + +"I go for no walk," he said, positively.... + +"Yes, that's all right," she had murmured, but not in response to his +flat refusal to obey her. She had been opening the double cupboard and +the five drawers which constituted the receptacles of the +scullery-larders; she had been spying out the riches and the poverty of +the establishment. Then she had turned to him, and, instead of engaging +him in battle, she had just smiled at him, and said: "Very well. As you +wish. But do go into the front room, at any rate." + +And there he was in the middle room, the kitchen, listening to her +movements behind the door. He heard the running of water, and then the +mild explosion of lighting the second ring of the gas-stove; the first +had been lighted by Mrs. Butt. Then he heard nothing whatever for years, +and when he looked at the clock it was fourteen minutes past four. In +the act of looking at the clock, his eye had to traverse the region of +the sofa. On the sofa were one parasol and two gloves. Astonishing, +singular, disconcerting, how those articles--which, after all, bore no +kind of resemblance to any style of furniture or hangings--seemed, +nevertheless, to refurnish the room, to give the room an air of being +thickly inhabited which it never had before! + +Then she burst into the kitchen unexpectedly, with a swish of silk that +was like the retreat of waves down the shingle of some Atlantic shore. + +"My dear uncle," she protested, "please do make yourself scarce. You are +in my way, and I'm very busy." + +She went to the cupboard and snatched at some plates, two of which she +dropped on the table, and three of which she took into the kitchen. + +"Have ye got all as ye want?" he questioned her politely, anxious to be +of assistance. + +"Everything!" she answered, positively, and with just the least hint of +an intention to crush him. + +"Have ye indeed!" + +He did not utter this exclamation aloud; but with it he applied balm to +his secret breast. For he still remembered, being an old man, her +crushing him in the park, and the peril of another crushing roused the +male in him. And it was with a sardonic and cruel satisfaction that he +applied such balm to his secret breast. The truth was, he knew that she +had not got all she wanted. He knew that, despite her extraordinary +capableness (of which she was rather vain), despite her ability to +calculate mentally the interest on eighty-nine pounds for six months at +four-and-a-half per cent., she could not possibly prepare the tea +without coming to him and confessing to him that she had been mistaken, +and that she had _not_ got everything she wanted. She would be compelled +to humble herself before him--were it ever so little. He was a hard old +man, and the prospect of this humbling gave him pleasure (I regret to +say). + +You cannot have tea without tea-leaves; and James Ollerenshaw kept the +tea-leaves in a tea-caddy, locked, in his front room. He had an +extravagant taste in tea. He fancied China tea; and he fancied China tea +that cost five shillings a pound. He was the last person to leave China +tea at five shillings a pound to the economic prudence of a Mrs. Butt. +Every day Mrs. Butt brought to him the teapot (warmed) and a teaspoon, +and he unlocked the tea-caddy, dispensed the right quantity of tea, and +relocked the tea-caddy. + +There was no other tea in the house. So with a merry heart the callous +fellow (shamefully delighting in the imminent downfall of a +fellow-creature--and that a woman!) went into the front room as he had +been bidden. On one of the family of chairs, in a corner, was a black +octagonal case. He opened this case, which was not locked, and drew from +it a concertina, all inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Then he went to the +desk, and from under a pile of rent books he extracted several pieces +of music, and selected one. This selected piece he reared up on the +mantelpiece against two brass candlesticks. It was obvious, from the +certainty and ease of his movements, that he had the habit of lodging +pieces of music against those two brass candlesticks. The music bore the +illustrious name of George Frederick Handel. + +Then he put on a pair of spectacles which were lying on the mantelpiece, +and balanced them on the end of his nose. Finally he adjusted his little +hands to the straps of the concertina. You might imagine that he would +instantly dissolve into melody. Not at all. He glanced at the page of +music first through his spectacles, and then, bending forward his head, +_over_ his spectacles. Then he put down the concertina, gingerly, on a +chair, and moved the music half-an-inch (perhaps five-eighths) to the +left. He resumed the concertina, and was on the very point of song, when +he put down the concertina for the second time, and moved the tassel of +his Turkish cap from the neighbourhood of his left ear to the +neighbourhood of his right ear. Then, with a cough, he resumed the +concertina once more, and embarked upon the interpretation of Handel. + +It was the Hallelujah Chorus. + +Any surprise which the musical reader may feel on hearing that James +Ollerenshaw was equal to performing the Hallelujah Chorus on a +concertina (even one inlaid with mother-of-pearl) argues on the part of +that reader an imperfect acquaintance with the Five Towns. In the Five +Towns there are (among piano scorners) two musical instruments, the +concertina and the cornet. And the Five Towns would like to see the +composer clever enough to compose a piece of music that cannot be +arranged for either of these instruments. It is conceivable that +Beethoven imagined, when he wrote the last movement of the C Minor +Symphony, that he had produced a work which it would be impossible to +arrange for cornet solo. But if he did he imagined a vain thing. In the +Five Towns, where the taste for classical music is highly developed, the +C Minor Symphony on a single cornet is as common as "Robin Adair" on a +full brass band. + +James Ollerenshaw played the Hallelujah Chorus with much feeling and +expression. He understood the Hallelujah Chorus to its profoundest +depths; which was not surprising in view of the fact that he had been +playing it regularly since before Helen was born. (The unfading charm of +classical music is that you never tire of it.) + +Nevertheless, the grandeur of his interpretation of the Hallelujah +Chorus appeared to produce no effect whatever in the scullery; neither +alarm nor ecstasy! And presently, in the midst of a brief pianissimo +passage, James's sensitive ear caught the distant sound of chopping, +which quite marred the soft tenderness at which he had been aiming. He +stopped abruptly. The sound of chopping intrigued his curiosity. What +could she be chopping? He advanced cautiously to the doorway; he had +left the door open. The other door--between the kitchen and the +scullery--which had previously been closed, was now open, so that he +could see from the front room into the scullery. His eager, inquisitive +glance noted a plate of beautiful bread and butter on the tea-table in +the kitchen. + +She was chopping the kidney. Utterly absorbed in her task, she had no +suspicion that she was being overlooked. After the chopping of the +kidney, James witnessed a series of operations the key to whose +significance he could not find. + +She put a flat pan over the gas, and then took it off again. Then she +picked up an egg, broke it into a coffee-cup, and instantly poured it +out of the coffee-cup into a basin. She did the same to another egg, and +yet another. Four eggs! The entire household stock of eggs! It was +terrible! Four eggs and a kidney among two people! He could not divine +what she was at. + +Then she got some butter on the end of a knife and dropped it into the +saucepan, and put the saucepan over the gas; and then poured the +plateful of kidney-shreds into the saucepan. Then she began furiously +to beat the four eggs with a fork, glancing into the saucepan +frequently, and coaxing it with little touches. Then the kidney-shreds +raised a sound of frizzling, and bang into the saucepan went the +contents of the basin. All the time she had held her hands and her +implements and utensils away from her as much as possible, doubtless out +of consideration for her frock; not an inch of apron was she wearing. +Now she leant over the gas-stove, fork in hand, and made baffling +motions inside the saucepan with the fork; and while doing so she +stretched forth her left hand, obtained some salt, and sprinkled the +saucepan therewith. The business seemed to be exquisitely delicate and +breathless. Her face was sternly set, as though the fate of continents +depended on her nerve and audacity in this tremendous crisis. But what +she was doing to the interior of the saucepan James Ollerenshaw could +not comprehend. She stroked it with a long gesture; she tickled it, she +stroked it in a different direction; she lifted it and folded it on +itself. + +Anyhow, he knew it was not scrambled eggs, because you have to stir +scrambled eggs without ceasing. + +Then she stopped and stood quite still, regarding the saucepan. + +"You've watched me quite long enough," she said, without moving her +head. She must have known all the time that he was there. + +So he shuffled away, and glanced out of the window at the stir and +traffic of Trafalgar-road. + +"Tea's ready," she said. + +He went into the kitchen, smiling, enchanted, but disturbed. She had not +come to him and confessed that she could not make tea without +tea-leaves. Yet there was the teapot steaming and puffing on the table! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +OMELETTE + + +The mystery lay on a plate in the middle of the table. In colour it +resembled scrambled eggs, except that it was tinted a more brownish, or +coppery, gold--rather like a first-class Yorkshire pudding. He suspected +for an instant that it might be a Yorkshire pudding according to the +new-fangled recipe of Board Schools. But four eggs! No! He was sure that +so small a quantity of Yorkshire pudding could not possibly have +required four eggs. + +He picked up the teapot, after his manner, and was in the act of +pouring, when she struck him into immobility with a loud cry: + +"Milk first!" + +He understood that she had a caprice for pouring the tea on the top of +the milk instead of the milk on the top of the tea. + +"What difference does it make?" he demanded defiantly. + +"What!" she cried again. "You think yourself a great authority on China +tea, and yet you don't know that milk ought to be poured in first! Why, +it makes quite a different taste!" + +How in the name of Confucius did she know that he thought himself a +great authority on China tea? + +"Here!" she said. "If you don't mind, I'll pour out the tea. Thank you. +Help yourself to this." She pointed to the mystery. "It must be eaten +while it's hot, or it's worse than useless." + +"What is it?" he asked, with false calm. + +"It's a kidney omelette," she replied. + +"Omelette!" he repeated, rather at a loss. He had never tasted an +omelette; he had never seen an omelette. Omelettes form no part of the +domestic cuisine of England. "Omelette!" he repeated. How was he +familiar with the word--the word which conveyed nothing to his mind? +Then he remembered: "You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs." +Of course she had broken eggs. She had broken four eggs--she had broken +the entire household stock of eggs. And he had employed that proverb +scores, hundreds of times! It was one of half-a-dozen favourite proverbs +which he flung at the less sagacious and prudent of his tenants. And yet +it had never occurred to him to wonder what an omelette was! Now he +knew. At any rate, he knew what it looked like; and he was shortly to +know what it tasted like. + +"Yes," she said. "Cut it with a knife. Don't be frightened of it. +You'll eat _it_; it won't eat you. And please give me very little. I ate +a quarter of a pound of chocolates after dinner." + +He conveyed one-third of the confection to his plate, and about a sixth +to hers. + +And he tasted--just a morsel, with a dash of kidney in the centre of it, +on the end of his fork. He was not aware of the fact, but that was the +decisive moment of his life--sixty though he was! + +Had she really made this marvel, this dream, this idyll, this +indescribable bliss, out of four common fresh eggs and a veal kidney +that Mrs. Butt had dropped on the floor? He had come to loathe kidney. +He had almost come to swearing that no manifestation or incarnation of +kidney should ever again pass between his excellent teeth. And now he +was ravished, rapt away on the wings of paradisaical ecstasy by a +something that consisted of kidney and a few eggs. This omelette had all +the finer and nobler qualities of Yorkshire pudding and scrambled eggs +combined, together with others beyond the ken of his greedy fancy. Yes, +he was a greedy man. He knew he was greedy. He was a greedy man whose +evil passion had providentially been kept in check for over a quarter of +a century by the gross unskilfulness, the appalling monotony, of a Mrs. +Butt. Could it be that there existed women, light and light-handed +creatures, creatures of originality and resource, who were capable of +producing prodigies like this kidney omelette on the spur of the moment? +Evidently! Helen existed. And the whole omelette, from the melting of +the butter to the final steady glance into the saucepan, had not +occupied her more than six minutes--at most. She had tossed it off as he +might have tossed off a receipt for a week's rent. And the exquisite +thought in his mind, the thought of penetrating sweetness, was that +whence this delicacy had come, other and even rarer delicacies might +have come. All his past life seemed to him to be a miserable waste of +gloomy and joyless years. + +"Do you like it?" she inquired. + +He paused, as though reflecting whether he liked it or not. "Ay," he +said, judicially, "it's none so bad. I could do a bit more o' that." + +"Well," she urged him, "do help yourself. Take it all. I shan't eat any +more." + +"Sure?" he said, trembling lest she might change her mind. + +Then he ate the remaining half of the omelette, making five-sixths in +all. He glanced at her surreptitiously, in her fine dress, on which was +not a single splash or stain. He might have known that so extraordinary +and exotic a female person would not concoct anything so trite as a +Yorkshire pudding or scrambled eggs. + +Not till the omelette was an affair of the past (so far as _his_ plate +was concerned) did he begin to attend to his tea--his tea which +sustained a mystery as curious as, and decidedly more sinister than, the +mystery of the omelette. + +He stared into the cup; then, to use the Five Towns phrase, he supped it +up. + +There could be no doubt; it was his special China tea. It had a peculiar +flavour (owing, perhaps, to the precedence given to milk), but it was +incontestably his guarded and locked tea. How had she got it? + +"Where didst find this tea, lass?" he asked. + +"In the little corner cupboard in the scullery," she said. "I'd no idea +that people drank such good China tea in Bursley." + +"Ah!" he observed, concealing his concern under a mask of irony, "China +tea was drunk i' Bursley afore your time." + +"Mother would only drink Ceylon," said she. + +"That doesna' surprise me," said he, as if to imply that no vagary on +the part of Susan could surprise him. And he proceeded, reflectively: +"In th' corner cupboard, sayst tha?" + +"Yes, in a large tin box." + +A large tin box. This news was overwhelming. He rose abruptly and went +into the scullery. Indubitably there was a large tin box, pretty nearly +half full of his guarded tea, in the corner cupboard. + +He returned, the illusion of half a lifetime shattered. "That there +woman was a thief!" he announced. + +"What woman?" + +"Mrs. Butt." + +And he explained to Helen all his elaborate precautions for the +preservation of his China tea. Helen was wholly sympathetic. The utter +correctness of her attitude towards Mrs. Butt was balm to him. Only one +theory was conceivable. The wretched woman must have had a key to his +caddy. During his absence from the house she must have calmly helped +herself to tea at five shillings a pound--a spoonful or so at a time. +Doubtless she made tea for her private consumption exactly when she +chose. It was even possible that she walked off from time to time with +quantities of tea to her own home. And he who thought himself so clever, +so much cleverer than a servant! + +"You can't have her back, as she isn't honest, even if she comes back," +said Helen. + +"Oh, her won't come back," said James. "Fact is, I've had difficulties +with her for a long time now." + +"Then what shall you do, my poor dear uncle?" + +"Nay," said he, "I mun ask you that. It was you as was th' cause of her +going." + +"Oh, uncle!" she exclaimed, laughing. "How can you say such a thing?" +And she added, seriously: "You can't be expected to cook for yourself, +can you? And as for getting a new one--" + +He noticed with satisfaction that she had taken to calling him simply +uncle, instead of great-stepuncle. + +"A new 'un!" he muttered, grimly, and sighed in despair. + +"I shall stay and look after your supper," she said, brightly. + +"Yes, and what about to-morrow?" He grew gloomier. + +"To-morrow's Sunday. I'll come to-morrow, for breakfast." + +"Yes, and what about Monday?" His gloom was not easily to be dispersed. + +"I'll come on Monday," she replied, with increasing cheerfulness. + +"But your school, where ye teach everything, lass?" + +"Of course, I shall give up school," said she, "at once. They must do +without me. It will mean promotion for some one. I can't bother about +giving proper notice. Supposing you had been dangerously ill, I should +have come, and they would have managed without me. Therefore, they _can_ +manage without me. Therefore, they must." + +He kept up a magnificent gloom until she left for the night. And then he +danced a hornpipe of glee--not with his legs, but in his heart. He had +deliberately schemed to get rid of Mrs. Butt by means of Helen Rathbone. +The idea had occurred to him as he entered the house. That was why he +had encouraged her to talk freely about servants by assuring her that +Mrs. Butt was not in the scullery, being well aware that Mrs. Butt was +in the scullery. He had made a tool of the unsuspecting, good-natured +Helen, smart though she was! He had transitory qualms of fear about the +possible expensiveness of Helen. He had decidedly not meant that she +should give up school and nearly thirty shillings a week. But, still, he +had managed her so far, and he reckoned that he could continue to manage +her. + +He regretted that she had not praised his music. And Helen wrote the +same evening to her mother. From a very long and very exciting letter +the following excerpts may be culled: + +"I saw the fat old servant in the scullery at once. But uncle thought +she wasn't there. He is a funny old man--rather silly, like most old +men----but I like him, and you can say what you please. He isn't silly +really. I instantly decided that I would get rid of that servant. And I +did do, and poor uncle never suspected. In a few days I shall come to +live here. It's much safer. Supposing he was taken ill and died, and +left all his money to hospitals and things, how awfully stupid that +would be! I told him I should leave the school, and he didn't turn a +hair. He's a dear, and I don't care a fig for his money--except to spend +it for him. His tiny house is simply lovely, terrifically clean, and in +the loveliest order. But I've no intention that we shall stay here. I +think I shall take a large house up at Hillport. Uncle is only old in +some ways; in many ways he's quite young. So I hope he won't mind a +change. By the way, he told me about your age. My dearest mother, how +could you--" etc. + +In such manner came Helen Rathbone to keep house for her +great-stepuncle. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A GREAT CHANGE + + +"Helen Rathbone," said Uncle James one Tuesday afternoon, "have ye been +meddling in my cashbox?" + +They were sitting in the front room, Helen in a light-grey costume that +cascaded over her chair and half the next chair, and James Ollerenshaw +in the deshabille of his Turkish cap. James was at his desk. It is +customary in the Five Towns, when you feel combative, astonished, or +ironic towards another person, to address that other person by his full +name. + +"You left the key in your cashbox this morning, uncle," said Helen, +glancing up from a book, "while you were fiddling with your safe in your +bedroom." + +He did not like the word "fiddling." It did not suit either his dignity +or the dignity of his huge Milner safe. + +"Well," he said, "and if I did! I wasn't upstairs more nor five minutes, +and th' new servant had na' come! There was but you and me in th' +house." + +"Yes. But, you see, I was in a hurry to go out marketing, and I +couldn't wait for you to come down." + +He ignored this remark. "There's a tenpun' note missing," said he. +"Don't play them tricks on me, lass; I'm getting an oldish man. Where +hast hidden it? I mun go to th' bank." He spoke plaintively. + +"My dear uncle," she replied, "I've not hidden your ten-pound note. I +wanted some money in a hurry, so I took it. I've spent some of it." + +"Spent some of it!" he exclaimed. "How much hast spent?" + +"Oh, I don't know. But I make up my accounts every night." + +"Lass," said he, staring firmly out of the window, "this won't do. I let +ye know at once. This wunna' do." He was determined to be master in his +own house. She also was determined to be master in his own house. +Conflict was imminent. + +"May I ask what you mean, uncle?" + +He hesitated. He was not afraid of her. But he was afraid of her +dress--not of the material, but of the cut of it. If she had been Susan +in Susan's dowdy and wrinkled alpaca, he would have translated his just +emotion into what critics call "simple, nervous English"--that is to +say, Shakespearean prose. But the aristocratic, insolent perfection of +Helen's gown gave him pause. + +"Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded. + +"I merely didn't think of it," she said. "I've been very busy." + +"If you wanted money, why didn't you ask me for it?" he demanded. + +"I've been here over a week," said she, "and you've given me a pound and +a postal order for ten shillings, which I had to ask for. Surely you +must have guessed, uncle, that even if I'd put the thirty shillings in +the savings bank we couldn't live on the interest of it, and that I was +bound to want more. Something like seventy meals have been served in +this house since I entered it." + +"I gave Mrs. Butt a pound a wik," he observed. + +"But think what a good manager Mrs. Butt was!" she said, with the +sweetness of a saint. + +He was accustomed to distributing satire, but not to receiving it. And, +receiving this snowball full in the mouth, he did not quite know what to +do with it; whether to pretend that he had received nothing, or to call +a policeman. He ended by spluttering. + +"It's easy enough to ask for money when you want it," he said. + +"I hate asking for money," she said. "All women do." + +"Then am I to be inquiring every morning whether you want money?" he +questioned, sarcastically. + +"Certainly, uncle," she answered. "How else are you to know?" + +Difficult to credit that that girl had been an angel of light all the +week, existing in a paradise which she had created for herself, and for +him! And now, to defend an action utterly indefensible, she was +employing a tone that might be compared to some fiendish instrumental +device of a dentist. + +But James Ollerenshaw did not wish his teeth stopped, nor yet extracted. +He had excellent teeth. And, in common with all men who have never taken +thirty consecutive repasts alone with the same woman, he knew how to +treat women, how to handle them--the trout! + +He stood up. He raised all his body. Helen raised only her eyebrows. + +"Helen Rathbone!" Such was the exordium. As an exordium, it was +faultless. But it was destined to remain a fragment. It goes down to +history as a perfect fragment, like the beginning of a pagan temple that +the death of gods has rendered superfluous. + +For a dog-cart stopped in front of the house at that precise second, +deposited a lady of commanding mien, and dashed off again. The lady +opened James's gate and knocked at James's front door. She could not be +a relative of a tenant. James was closely acquainted with all his +tenants, and he had none of that calibre. Moreover, Helen had caused a +small board to be affixed to the gate: "Tenants will please go round to +the back." + +"Bless us!" he murmured, angrily. And, by force of habit, he went and +opened the door. Then he recognised the lady. It was Sarah Swetnam, +eldest child of the large and tumultuously intellectual Swetnam family +that lived in a largish house in a largish way higher up the road, and +as to whose financial stability rumour always had something interesting +to say. + +"Is Miss Rathbone here?" + +Before he could reply, there was an ecstatic cry behind him: "Sally!" +And another in front of him: "Nell!" + +In the very nick of time he slipped aside, and thus avoided the +inconvenience of being crushed to pulp between two locomotives under +full steam. It appeared that they had not met for some years, Sally +having been in London. The reunion was an affecting sight, and such a +sight as had never before been witnessed in James's house. The little +room seemed to be full of fashionable women, to be all gloves, frills, +hat, parasol, veil, and whirling flowers; also scent. They kissed, +through Sally's veil first, and then she lifted the veil, and four +vermilion lips clung together. Sally was even taller than Helen, with a +solid waist; and older, more brazen. They both sat down. Fashionable +women have a manner of sitting down quite different from that of +ordinary women, such as the wives of James's tenants. They only touch +the back of the chair at the top. They don't loll, but they only escape +lolling by dint of gracefulness. It is an affair of curves, slants, +descents, nicely calculated. They elaborately lead your eye downwards +over gradually increasing expanses, and naturally you expect to see +their feet--and you don't see their feet. The thing is apt to be +disturbing to unhabituated beholders. + +Then fashionable women always begin their conversation right off. There +are no modest or shy or decently awkward silences at the start. They +slip into a conversation as a duck into water. In three minutes Helen +had told Sarah Swetnam everything about her leaving the school, and +about her establishment with her great-stepuncle. And Sarah seemed +delighted, and tapped the tiles of the floor with the tip of her +sunshade, and gazed splendidly over the room. + +"And there are your books there, I see!" she said, in her positive, calm +voice, pointing to a few hundred books that were stacked in a corner. +"How lovely! You remember you promised to lend me that book of +Thoreau's--what did you call it?--and you never did!" + +"Next time you come I'll find it for you," said Helen. + +Next time she came! This kind of visit would occur frequently, then! +They were talking just as if James Ollerenshaw had been in Timbuctoo, +instead of by the mantelpiece, when Sally suddenly turned on him. + +"It must be very nice for you to have Nell like this!" She addressed him +with a glowing smile. + +They had never been introduced! A week ago they had passed each other in +St. Luke's-square without a sign. Of the Swetnam family, James "knew" +the father alone, and him slightly. What chiefly impressed him in Sarah +was her nerve. He said nothing; he was tongue-tied. + +"It's a great change for you," proceeded Sarah. + +"Ay," he agreed; "it's that." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +A CALL + + +The next moment the two fluffy women had decided, without in the least +consulting James, that they would ascend to Helen's bedroom to look at a +hat which, James was surprised to learn, Helen had seen in Brunt's +window that morning and had bought on the spot. No wonder she had been +in a hurry to go marketing; no wonder she had spent "some" of his +ten-pound note! He had seen hats in Brunt's marked as high as two +guineas; but he had not dreamt that such hats would ever enter his +house. While he had been labouring, collecting his rents and arranging +for repairs, throughout the length and the breadth of Bursley and +Turnhill, she, under pretence of marketing, had been flinging away +ten-pound notes at Brunt's. The whole business was fantastic, simply and +madly fantastic; so fantastic that he had not yet quite grasped the +reality of it! The whole business was unheard of. He saw, with all the +clearness of his masculine intellect, that it must cease. The force with +which he decided within himself that it must cease--and +instanter!--bordered upon the hysterical. As he had said, plaintively, +he was an oldish man. His habits, his manners, and his notions, +especially his notions about money, were fixed and set like plaster of +Paris in a mould. Helen's conduct was nothing less than dangerous. It +might bring him to a sudden death from heart disease. Happily, he had +had a very good week indeed with his rents. He trotted about all day on +Mondays and on Tuesday mornings, gathering his rents, and on Tuesday +afternoons he usually experienced the assuaged content of an alligator +after the weekly meal. Otherwise there was no knowing what might not +have been the disastrous consequences of Helen's barefaced robbery and +of her unscrupulous, unrepentant defence of that robbery. For days and +days he had imagined himself in heaven with a seraph who was also a good +cook. He had forty times congratulated himself on catching Helen. And +now...! + +But it must stop. + +Then he thought of the cooking. His mouth remembered its first taste of +the incomparable kidney omelette. What an ecstasy! Still, a ten-pound +note for even a kidney omelette jarred on the fineness of his sense of +values. + +A feminine laugh--Helen's--came down the narrow stairs and through the +kitchen.... No, the whole house was altered, with well-bred, +distinguished women's laughter floating about the stairs like that. + +He called upon his lifelong friend and comforter--the concertina. That +senseless thing of rose-wood, ivory, ebony, mother-of-pearl, and leather +was to him what a brother, a pipe, a bull terrier, a trusted confidant, +might have been to another James. And now, in the accents of the +Hallelujah Chorus, it yielded to his squeezings the secret and sublime +solace which men term poetry. + +Then there was a second, and equally imperious, knock at the door. + +He loosed his fingers from his friend, and opened the door. + +Mr. Emanuel Prockter stood on the doorstep. Mr. Emanuel Prockter wore a +beautiful blue suit, with a white waistcoat and pale gold tie; yellow +gloves, boots with pointed toes, a glossy bowler hat, a cane, and an +eyeglass. He was an impeccable young man, and the avowed delight of his +tailor, whose bills were paid by Mrs. Prockter. + +"Is Miss Rathbone at home?" asked Emanuel, after a cough. + +"Helen?" + +"Ye-es." + +"Ay," said James, grimly. "Her's quite at home." + +"Can I see her?" + +James opened more widely the door. "Happen you'd better step inside," +said he. + +"Thanks, Mr. Ollerenshaw. What--er--fine weather we're having!" + +James ignored this quite courteous and truthful remark. He shut the +door, went into the kitchen, and called up the stairs: "Helen, a young +man to see ye." + +In the bedroom, Helen and Sarah Swetnam had exhausted the Brunt hat, and +were spaciously at sea in an enchanted ocean of miscellaneous gossip +such as is only possible between two highly-educated women who scorn +tittle-tattle. Helen had the back bedroom; partly because the front +bedroom was her uncle's, but partly also because the back bedroom was +just as large as and much quieter than the other, and because she +preferred it. There had been no difficulty about furniture. Even so good +a landlord as James Ollerenshaw is obliged now and then to go to +extremes in the pursuit of arrears of rent, and the upper part of the +house was crowded with choice specimens of furniture which had once +belonged to the more magnificent of his defaulting tenants. Helen's +bedroom was not "finished"; nor, since she regarded it as a temporary +lodging rather than a permanent habitation, was she in a mind to finish +it. Still, with her frocks dotted about, the hat on the four-post bed, +and her silver-mounted brushes and manicure tools on the dressing-table, +it had a certain stylishness. Sarah shared the bed with the hat. Helen +knelt at a trunk. + +"Whatever made you think of coming to Bursley?" Sarah questioned. + +"Don't you think it's better than Longshaw?" said Helen. + +"Yes, my darling child. But that's not why you came. If you ask me, I +believe it was your deliberate intention to capture your great-uncle. +Anyhow, I congratulate you on your success." + +"Ah!" Helen murmured, smiling to herself, "I'm not out of the wood yet." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Well, you see, uncle and I haven't quite decided whether he is to have +his way or I am to have mine; we were both thinking about it when you +happened to call." And then, as there was a little pause: "Are people +talking about us much?" + +She did not care whether people were talking much or little, but she had +an obscure desire to shift ever so slightly the direction of the +conversation. + +"I've only been here a day or two, so I can scarcely judge," said Sarah. +"But Lilian came in from the art school this morning with an armful of +chatter." + +"Let me see, I forget," Helen said. "Is Lilian the youngest, or the next +to the youngest?" + +"My dearest child, Lilian is the youngest but one, of course; but she's +grown up now--naturally." + +"What! When I saw her last, that day when she was with you at Knype, +she had a ribbon in her hair, and she looked ten." + +"She's eighteen. And haven't you heard?" + +"Heard what?" + +"Do you mean to say you've been in Bursley a week and more, and haven't +heard? Surely you know Andrew Dean?" + +"I know Andrew Dean," said Helen; and she said nothing else. + +"When did you last see him?" + +"Oh, about a fortnight ago." + +"It was before that. He didn't tell you? Well, it's just like him, that +is; that's Andrew all over!" + +"What is?" + +"He's engaged to Lilian. It's the first engagement in the family, and +she's the youngest but one." + +Helen shut the trunk with a snap, then opened it and shut it again. And +then she rose, smoothing her hair. + +"I scarcely know Lilian," she said, coldly. "And I don't know your +mother at all. But I must call and congratulate the child. No, Andrew +Dean didn't breathe a word." + +"I may tell you as a dreadful secret, Nell, that we aren't any of us in +the seventh heaven about it. Aunt Annie said yesterday: 'I don't know +that I'm so set up with it as all that, Jane' (meaning mother). We +aren't so set up with it as all that." + +"Why not?" + +"Oh, we aren't. I don't know why. I pretend to be, lest Lilian should +imagine I'm jealous." + +It was at this point that the voice of James Ollerenshaw announced a +young man. + +The remainder of that afternoon was like a bewildering dream to James +Ollerenshaw. His front room seemed to be crowded with a multitude of +peacocks, that would have been more at home under the sun of Mrs. +Prockter's lawns up at Hillport. Yet there were only three persons +present besides himself. But decidedly they were not of his world; they +were of the world that referred to him as "old Jimmy Ollerenshaw," or +briefly as "Jimmy." And he had to sit and listen to them, and even to +answer coherently when spoken to. Emanuel Prockter was brilliant. He had +put his hat on one chair and his cane across another, and he conversed +with ducal facility. The two things about him that puzzled the master of +the house were--first, why he was not, at such an hour, engaged in at +any rate the pretence of earning his living; and, second, why he did not +take his gloves off. No notion of work seemed to exist in the minds of +the three. They chattered of tennis, novels, music, and particularly of +amateur operatic societies. James acquired the information that Emanuel +was famous as a singer of songs. The topic led then naturally to James's +concertina; the talk lightly caressed James's concertina, and then +Emanuel swept it off to the afternoon tea-room of the new Midland Grand +Hotel at Manchester, where Emanuel had lately been. And that led to the +Old Oak Tree tea-house in Bond-street, where, not to be beaten by +Emanuel, Sarah Swetnam had lately been. + +"Suppose we have tea," said Helen. + +And she picked up a little brass bell which stood on the central table +and tinkled it. James had not noticed the bell. It was one of the many +little changes that Helen had introduced. Each change by itself was a +nothing--what is one small bell in a house?--yet in the mass they +amounted to much. The bell was obviously new. She must have bought it; +but she had not mentioned it to him. And how could they all sit at the +tiny table in the kitchen? Moreover, he had no fancy for entertaining +the whole town of Bursley to meals. However, the immediate prospect of +tea produced in James a feeling of satisfaction, even though he remained +in perfect ignorance of the methods by which Helen meant to achieve the +tea. She had rung the bell, and gone on talking, as if the tea would +cook itself and walk in on its hind legs and ask to be eaten. + +Then the new servant entered with a large tray. James had never seen +such a servant, a servant so entirely new. She was wearing a black frock +and various parts of the frock, and the top of her head, were covered +with stiffly-starched white linen--or was it cotton? Her apron, which +had two pockets, was more elaborate than an antimacassar. Helen coolly +instructed her to place the tray on his desk; which she did, brushing +irreverently aside a number of rent books. + +On the tray there was nothing whatever to eat but a dozen slices of the +thinnest conceivable bread and butter. + +Helen rose. Emanuel also rose. + +Helen poured out the tea. Emanuel took a cup and saucer in one hand and +the plate of bread and butter in the other, and ceremoniously approached +Sarah Swetnam. Sarah accepted the cup and saucer, delicately chose a +piece of bread and butter and lodged it on her saucer, and went on +talking. + +Emanuel returned to the table, and, reladen, approached old Jimmy, and +old Jimmy had to lodge a piece of bread and butter on his saucer. Then +Emanuel removed his gloves, and in a moment they were all drinking tea +and nibbling bread and butter. + +What a fall was this from kidney omelettes! And four had struck! Did +Helen expect her uncle to make his tea off a slice of bread and butter +that weighed about two drachms? + +When the alleged tea was over James got on his feet, and silently slid +into the kitchen. The fact was that Emanuel Prockter and the manikin +airs of Emanuel Prockter made him positively sick. He had not been in +the kitchen more than a minute before he was aware of amazing matters +in the conversation. + +"Yes," said Helen; "it's small." + +"But, my child, you've always been used to a small house, surely. I +think it's just as quaint and pretty as a little museum." + +"Would you like to live in a little museum?" + +A laugh from Emanuel, and the voice of Helen proceeding: + +"I've always lived in a small house, just as I've taught six hours a day +in a school. But not because I wanted to. I like room. I daresay that +uncle and I may find another house one of these days." + +"Up at Hillport, I hope," Emanuel put in. James could see his mincing +imbecile smile through the kitchen wall. + +"Who knows?" said Helen. + +James returned to the front room. "What's that ye're saying?" he +questioned the company. + +"I was just saying how quaint and pretty your house is," said Sarah, and +she rose to depart. More kissings, flutterings, swishings! Emanuel +bowed. + +Emanuel followed Miss Swetnam in a few minutes. Helen accompanied him to +the gate, where she stayed a little while talking to him. James was in +the blackest gloom. + +"And now, you dear old thing," said Helen, vivaciously bustling into the +house, "you shall have your _tea_. You've behaved like a perfect +angel." + +And she kissed him on the cheek, very excitedly, as he thought. + +She gave him another kidney omelette for his tea. It was even more +adorable than the former one. With the taste of it in his mouth, he +could not recur to the question of the ten-pound note all at once. When +tea was over she retired upstairs, and remained in retirement for ages. +She descended at a quarter to eight, with her hat and gloves on. It +appeared to him that her eyes were inflamed. + +"I'm going out," she said, with no further explanation. + +And out she went, leaving the old man, stricken daft by too many +sensations, to collect his wits. + +He had not even been to the bank! + +And the greatest sensation of all the nightmarish days was still in +reserve for him. At a quarter-past eight some one knocked at the door. +He opened it, being handier than the new servant. He imagined himself +ready for anything; but he was not ready for the apparition which met +him on the threshold. + +Mrs. Prockter, of Hillport, asked to be admitted! + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ANOTHER CALL + + +Mrs. Prockter was compelled to ask for admission, because James, struck +moveless and speechless by the extraordinary sight of her, offered no +invitation to enter. He merely stood in front of the half-opened door. + +"May I come in, Mr. Ollerenshaw?" she said, very urbanely. "I hope you +will excuse this very informal call. I've altered my dinner hour in +order to pay it." + +And she smiled. The smile seemed to rouse him from a spell. + +"Come in, missis, do!" he conjured her, warmly. + +He was James; he was even Jimmy; but he was also a man, very much a man, +though the fact had only recently begun to impress itself on him. Mrs. +Prockter, while a dowager--portly, possibly fussy, perhaps slightly +comic to a younger generation--was still considerably younger than +James. With her rich figure, her excellent complexion, her +carefully-cherished hair, and her apparel, she was a woman to captivate +a man of sixty, whose practical experience of the sex extended over +nine days. + +"Thank you," said she, gratefully. + +He shut the front door, as if he were shutting a bird in a cage; and he +also shut the door leading to the kitchen--a door which had not been +shut since the kitchen fire smoked in the celebrated winter of 1897. She +sat down at once in the easy-chair. + +"Ah!" she exclaimed, in relief. And then she began to fan herself with a +fan which was fastened to her person by a chain that might have moored a +steamer. + +James, searching about for something else to do while he was collecting +his forces, drew the blind and lighted the gas. But it was not yet dark. + +"I wonder what you will think of me, calling like this?" she said, with +a sardonic smile. + +It was apparent that, whatever he thought of her, she would not be +disturbed or abashed. She was utterly at her ease. She could not, +indeed, have recalled the moment when she had not been at her ease. She +sat in the front room with all the external symptoms of being at home. +This was what chiefly surprised James Ollerenshaw in his grand +guests--they all took his front room for granted. They betrayed no +emotion at its smallness or its plainness, or its eccentricities. He +would somehow have expected them to signify, overtly or covertly, that +that kind of room was not the kind of room to which they were +accustomed. + +"Anyhow, I'm glad to see ye, Mrs. Prockter," James returned. + +A speech which did not in the least startle Mrs. Prockter, who was +thoroughly used to people being glad to see her. But it startled James. +He had uttered it instinctively; it was the expression of an instinctive +gladness which took hold of him and employed his tongue on its own +account, and which rose superior even to his extreme astonishment at the +visit. He _was_ glad to see her. She was stout and magnificent, in her +silk and her ribbons. He felt that he preferred stout women to thin; and +that, without being aware of it, he had always preferred stout women to +thin. It was a question of taste. He certainly preferred Mrs. Prockter +to Sarah Swetnam. Mrs. Prockter's smile was the smile of a benevolently +cynical creature whose studies in human nature had reached the advanced +stage. James was reassured by this, for it avoided the necessity for +"nonsense."....Yes, she was decidedly better under a roof and a gas-jet +than in the street. + +"May I ask if your niece is in?" she said, in a low voice. + +"She isn't." + +He had been sure that she had called about Helen, if not to see Helen. +But there was a conspiratorial accent in her question for which he was +unprepared. So he sat down at last. + +"Well," said Mrs. Prockter, "I'm not sorry she isn't. But if she had been +I should have spoken just the same--not to her, but to you. Now, Mr. +Ollerenshaw, I think you and I are rather alike in some things. I hate +beating about the bush, and I imagine that you do." + +He was flattered. And he was perfectly eased by her tone. She was a +woman to whom you could talk sense. And he perceived that, though a +casual observer might fail to find the points of resemblance between +them, they _were_ rather alike. + +"I expect," said he, "it's pretty well known i' this town as I'm not one +that beats about the bush." + +"Good!" said she. "You know my stepson, Emanuel?" + +"He was here a bit since," James replied. + +"What do you think of him?" + +"How?" + +"As a man?" + +"Well, missis, as we are na' beating about the bush, I think he's a +foo'." + +"Now that's what I like!" she exclaimed, quite ravished. "He _is_ a +fool, Mr. Ollerenshaw--between ourselves. I can see that you and I will +get on together splendidly! Emanuel is a fool. I can't help it. I took +him along with my second husband, and I do my best for him. But I'm not +responsible for his character. As far as that goes, he isn't responsible +for it, either. Not only is he a fool, but he is a conceited fool, and +an idle fool; and he can't see a joke. At the same time he is quite +honest, and I think he's a gentleman. But being a gentleman is no excuse +for being a fool; indeed, I think it makes it worse." + +"Nothing can make it worse," James put in. + +She drew down the corners of her lips and stroked her fine grey hair. + +"You say Emanuel has been here to-day?" + +"Ay!" said James. "He came in an' had a sup o' tea." + +"Do you know why he came?" + +"Maybe he felt faintlike, and slipped in here, as there's no public +nearer than the Queen Adelaide. Or maybe he thought as I was getting on +in years, and he wanted for to make my acquaintance afore I died. I +didna' ask him." + +"I see you understand," said Mrs. Prockter. "Mr. Ollerenshaw, my stepson +is courting your niece." + +"Great-stepniece," James corrected; and added: "Is he now? To tell ye +th' truth I didn't know till th' other day as they were acquainted." + +"They haven't been acquainted long," Mrs. Prockter informed him. "You +may have heard that Emanuel is thinking of going into partnership with +Mr. Andrew Dean--a new glaze that Mr. Dean has invented. The matter may +turn out well, because all that Mr. Dean really wants is a sleeping +partner with money. Emanuel has the money, and I think he can be +guaranteed to sleep. Your stepniece met Emanuel by accident through Mr. +Dean some weeks ago, over at Longshaw. They must have taken to each +other at once. And I must tell you that not merely is my stepson +courting your niece, but your niece is courting my stepson." + +"You surprise me, missis!" + +"I daresay I do. But it is the fact. She isn't a Churchwoman; at least, +she wasn't a Churchwoman at Longshaw; she was Congregational, and not +very much at that. You aren't a Churchman, either; but your niece now +goes to St. Luke's every Sunday. So does my stepson. Your niece is out +to-night. So is my stepson. And if they are not together somewhere I +shall be very much astonished. Of course, the new generation does as it +likes." + +"And what next?" James inquired. + +"I'll tell you what next," cried the mature lady, with the most charming +vivacity. "I like your niece. I've met her twice at the St. Luke's +Guild, and I like her. I should have asked her to come and see me, only +I'm determined not to encourage her with Emanuel. Mr. Ollerenshaw, I'm +not going to have her marrying Emanuel, and that's why I've come to see +you." + +The horror of his complicated situation displayed itself suddenly to +James. He who had always led a calm, unworried life, was about to be +shoved into the very midst of a hullabaloo of women and fools. + +His wizened body shrank; and he was not sure that his pride was quite +unhurt. Mrs. Prockter noticed this. + +"Oh!" she resumed, with undiminished vivacity, "it's not because I think +your niece isn't good enough for Emanuel; it's because I think she's a +great deal too good! And yet it isn't that, either. The truth is, Mr. +Ollerenshaw, I'm a purely selfish woman. I'm the last person in the +world to stand in the way of my poor stepson getting a better wife than +he deserves. And if the woman chooses to throw herself away on him, +that's not my affair. What I scent danger in is that your stepniece +would find my stepson out. At present she's smitten by his fancy +waistcoat. But she would soon see through the fancy waistcoat--and then +there would be a scandal. If I have not misjudged your stepniece, there +would be a scandal, and I do not think that I have misjudged her. She is +exactly the sort of young woman who, when she had discovered she had +made a mistake, would walk straight out of the house." + +"She is!" James agreed with simple heartiness of conviction. + +"And Emanuel, having no sense of humour, would leave nothing undone to +force her back again. Imagine the scandal, Mr. Ollerenshaw! Imagine my +position; imagine yours! _Me_, in an affair like that! I won't have +it--that is to say, I won't have it if I can stop it. Now, what can we +do?" + +Despite the horror of the situation, he had sufficient loose, unemployed +sentiment (left over from pitying himself) to be rather pleased by her +manner of putting it: What can _we_ do? + +But he kept this pleasure to himself. + +"Nowt!" he said, drily. + +He spoke to her as one sensible person speaks to another sensible person +in the Five Towns. Assuredly she was a very sensible person. He had in +past years credited, or discredited, her with "airs." But here she was +declaring that Helen was too good for her stepson. If his pride had +momentarily suffered, through a misconception, it was now in the full +vigour of its strength. + +"You think we can do nothing?" she said, reflectively, and leant forward +on her chair towards him, as if struck by his oracular wisdom. + +"What can us do?" + +"You might praise Emanuel to her--urge her on." She fixed him with her +eye. + +Sensible? She was prodigious. She was the serpent of serpents. + +He took her gaze twinkling. "Ay!" he said. "I might. But if I'm to urge +her on, why didna' ye ask her to your house like, and chuck 'em at each +other?" + +She nodded several times, impressed by this argument. "You are quite +right, Mr. Ollerenshaw," she admitted. + +"It's a dangerous game," he warned her. + +She put her lips together in meditation, and stared into a corner. + +"I must think it over"--she emerged from her reflections. "I feel much +easier now I've told you all about it. And I feel sure that two +common-sense, middle-aged people like you and me can manage to do what +we want. Dear me! How annoying stepsons are! Obviously, Emanuel ought to +marry another fool. And goodness knows there are plenty to choose from. +And yet he must needs go and fall in love with almost the only sensible +girl in the town! There's no end to that boy's foolishness. He actually +wants me to buy Wilbraham Hall, furniture, and everything! What do you +think it's worth, Mr. Ollerenshaw?" + +"Worth? It's worth what it'll fetch." + +"Eight thousand?" + +"Th' land's worth that," said James. + +"It's a silly idea. But he put it into my head. Now will you drop in one +day and see me?" + +"No," said James. "I'm not much for tea-parties, thank ye." + +"I mean when I'm alone," she pleaded, delightfully; "so that we can +talk over things, and you can tell me what is going on." + +He saw clearly all the perils of such a course, but his instinct seized +him again. + +"Happen I may look in some morning when I'm round yonder." + +"That will be very nice of you," she flattered him, and rose. + +Helen came home about ten o'clock, and went direct to bed. Never before +had James Ollerenshaw felt like a criminal, but as Helen's eyes dwelt +for a moment on his in bidding him good-night, he could scarcely +restrain the blush of the evildoer. And him sixty! Turn which way he +would he saw nothing but worry. What an incredible day he had lived +through! And how astounding was human existence! + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +BREAKFAST + + +He had an unsatisfactory night--that is to say, in the matter of sleep. +In respect of sagacity he rose richer than he had lain down. He had +clearly perceived, about three a.m., that he was moving too much in +circles which were foreign to him, and which called him "Jimmy." And at +five a.m., when the first workmen's car woke bumpily the echoes of the +morn, he had perceived that Mrs. Prockter's plan for separating Emanuel +and Helen by bringing them together was not a wise plan. Of course, +Helen must not marry Emanuel Prockter. The notion of such a union was +ludicrous. (In spite of all the worry she was heaping upon him, he did +not see any urgent reason why she should marry anybody.) But the proper +method of nipping the orange-blossom in the bud was certainly to have a +plain chat with Helen, one of those plain chats which can only occur, +successfully, between plain, common-sense persons. He was convinced +that, notwithstanding Mrs. Prockter's fears, Helen had not for an +instant thought of Emanuel as a husband. It was inconceivable that she, +a girl so utterly sensible, should have done so. And yet--girls! And +Mrs. Prockter was no fool, come to think of it. A sterling creature. Not +of his world, but nevertheless--At this point he uneasily dozed. + +However, he determined to talk with Helen that morning at breakfast. He +descended at half-past seven, as usual, full of a diplomatic intention +to talk to Helen. She was wholly sensible; she was a person to whom you +_could_ talk. Still, tact would be needed. Lack of sleep had rendered +his nervous system such that he would have preferred to receive tact +rather than to give it. But, happily, he was a self-controlled man. + +His post, which lay scattered on the tiles at the foot of the front +door, did not interest him. He put it aside, in its basket. Nor could he +work, according to his custom, at his accounts. Even the sight of the +unfilled-in credit-slips for the bank did not spur him to industry. +There can be no doubt that he was upset. + +He walked across the room to the piles of Helen's books against the +wall, and in sheer absence of mind picked one up, and sat on a chair, on +which he had never before sat, and began to read the volume. + +Then the hurried, pretentious striking of the kitchen clock startled +him. Half-an-hour had passed in a moment. He peeped into the kitchen. +Not a sign of breakfast! Not a sign of the new servant, with her +starched frills! And for thirty years he had breakfasted at eight +o'clock precisely. + +And no Helen! Was Helen laughing at him? Was Helen treating him as an +individual of no importance? It was unimaginable that his breakfast +should be late. If anybody thought that he was going to--No! he must not +give way to righteous resentment. Diplomacy! Tact! Forbearance! + +But he would just go up to Helen's room and rap, and tell her of the +amazing and awful state of things on the ground-floor. As a fact, she +herself was late. At that moment she appeared. + +"Good-morning, uncle." + +She was cold, prim, cut off like China from human intercourse by a wall. + +"Th' servant has na' come," said he, straining to be tolerant and +amicable. He did his best to keep a grieved astonishment out of his +voice; but he could not. + +"Oh!" she murmured, calmly. It was nothing to her, then, that James's +life should be turned upside down! And she added, with icy detachment: +"I'm not surprised. You'll never get servants to be prompt in the +morning when they don't sleep in the house. And there's no room for +Georgiana to sleep in the house." + +Georgiana! Preposterous name! + +"Mrs. Butt was always prompt. I'll say that for her," he replied. + +This, as he immediately recognised, was a failure in tact on his part. +So when she said quickly: "I'm sure Mrs. Butt would be delighted to come +back if you asked her," he said nothing. + +What staggered his intellect and his knowledge of human nature was that +she remained absolutely unmoved by this appalling, unprecedented, and +complete absence of any sign of breakfast at after eight o'clock. + +Just then Georgiana came. She had a key to the back door, and entered +the house by way of the scullery. + +"Good-morning, Georgiana," Helen greeted her, going into the +scullery--much more kindly than she had greeted her uncle. Instead of +falling on Georgiana and slaying her, she practically embraced her. + +A gas cooking-stove is a wondrous gift of Heaven. You do not have to +light it with yesterday's paper, damp wood, and the remains of last +night's fire. In twelve minutes not merely was the breakfast ready, but +the kitchen was dusted, and there was a rose in a glass next to the +bacon. James had calmed himself by reading the book, and the period of +waiting had really been very short. As he fronted the bacon and the +flower, Helen carefully shut the scullery door. The _Manchester +Guardian_ lay to the left of his plate. Thoughtful! Altogether it was +not so bad. + +Further, she smiled in handing him his tea. She, too, he observed, +must have slept ill. Her agreeable face was drawn. But her +blue-and-white-striped dress was impeccably put on. It was severe, and +yet very smooth. It suited her mood. It also suited his. They faced each +other, as self-controlled people do face each other at breakfast after +white nights, disillusioned, tremendously sensible, wise, gently +cynical, seeing the world with steady and just orbs. + +"I've been reading one o' your books, lass," he began, with superb +amiability. "It's pretty near as good as a newspaper. There's summat +about a law case as goes on for ever. It isna' true, I suppose, but it +might be. The man as wrote that knew what he was talking about for once +in a way. It's rare and good." + +"You mean Jarndyce _v_. Jarndyce?" she said, with a smile--not one of +her condescending smiles. + +"Ay," he said, "I believe that _is_ the name. How didst know, lass?" + +"I just guessed," she answered. "I suppose you don't have much time for +reading, uncle?" + +"Not me!" said he. "I'm one o' th' busiest men in Bosley. And if ye +don't know it now, you will afore long." + +"Oh!" she cried, "I've noticed that. But what can you expect? With all +those rents to collect yourself! Of course, I think you're quite right +to collect them yourself. Rent-collectors can soon ruin a property." Her +tone was exceedingly sympathetic and comprehending. He was both +surprised and pleased by it. He had misjudged her mood. It was certainly +comfortable to have a young woman in the house who understood things as +she did. + +"Ye're right, lass," he said. "It's small houses as mean trouble. You're +never done--wi' cottage property. Always summat!" + +"It's all small, isn't it?" she went on. "About how much do the rents +average? Three-and-six a week?" + +"About that," he said. She was a shrewd guesser. + +"I can't imagine how you carry the money about," she exclaimed. "It must +be very heavy for you." + +"I'll tell you," he explained. "I've got my own system o' collecting. If +I hadn't, I couldna' get through. In each street I've one tenant as I +trust. And the other tenants can leave their rent and their rent books +there. When they do that regular for a month, I give 'em twopence apiece +for their children. If they do it regular for a year, I mak' 'em a +present of a wik's rent at Christmas. It's cheaper nor rent-collectors." + +"What a good idea!" she said, impressed. "But how _do_ you carry the +money about?" + +"I bank i' Bosley, and I bank i' Turnhill, too. And I bank once i' +Bosley and twice i' Turnhill o' Mondays, and twice i' Bosley o' +Tuesdays. Only yesterday I was behind. I reckon as I can do all my +collecting between nine o'clock Monday and noon Tuesday. I go to th' +worst tenants first--be sure o' that. There's some o' 'em, if you don't +catch 'em early o' Monday, you don't catch 'em at all." + +"It's incredible to me how you can do it all in a day and a half," she +pursued. "Why, how many houses are there?" + +"Near two hundred and forty i' Bosley," he responded. "Hast forgotten +th' sugar this time, lass?" + +"And in Turnhill?" she said, passing the sugar. "I think I'll have that +piece of bacon if you don't want it." + +"Over a hundred," said he. "A hundred and twenty." + +"So that, first and last, you have to handle about sixty pounds each +week, and all in silver and copper. Fancy! What a weight it must be!" + +"Ay!" he said, but with less enthusiasm. + +"That's three thousand a-year," she continued. + +Her tone was still innocuously sympathetic. She seemed to be talking of +money as she might have talked of counters. Nevertheless, he felt that +he had been entrapped. + +"I expect you must have saved at the very least thirty thousand pounds +by this time," she reflected, judicially, disinterestedly--speaking as a +lawyer might have spoken. + +He offered no remark. + +"That means another thirty pounds a week," she resumed. Decidedly she +was marvellous at sums of interest. + +He persisted in offering no remark. + +"By the way," she said, "I must look into my household accounts. How +much did you tell me you allowed Mrs. Butt a week for expenses?" + +"A pound," he replied, shortly. + +She made no comment. "You don't own the house, do you?" she inquired. + +"No," he said. + +"What's the rent?" + +"Eighteen pounds," he said. Reluctant is a word that inadequately +describes his attitude. + +"The worst of this house is that it has no bathroom," she remarked. +"Still, eighteen pounds a year is eighteen pounds a year." + +Her tone was faultless, in its innocent, sympathetic common sense. The +truth was, it was too faultless; it rendered James furious with a fury +that was dangerous, because it had to be suppressed. + +Then suddenly she left the table. + +"The Kiel butter at a shilling a pound is quite good enough, Georgiana," +he heard her exhorting the servant in the scullery. + +Ten minutes later, she put ten sovereigns in front of him. + +"There's that ten-pound note," she said, politely (but not quite +accurately). "I've got enough of my own to get on with." + +She fled ere he could reply. + +And not a word had he contrived to say to her concerning Emanuel. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE WORLD + + +A few days later James Ollerenshaw was alone in the front room, checking +various accounts for repairs of property in Turnhill, when twin letters +fell into the quietude of the apartment. The postman--the famous old +postman of Bursley, who on fine summer days surmounted the acute +difficulty of tender feet by delivering mails in worsted slippers--had +swiftly pushed the letters, as usual, through the slit in the door; but, +nevertheless, their advent had somehow the air of magic, as, indeed, the +advent of letters always had. Mr. Ollerenshaw glanced curiously from his +chair, over his spectacles, at the letters as they lay dead on the +floor. Their singular appearance caused him to rise at once and pick +them up. They were sealed with a green seal, and addressed in a large +and haughty hand--one to Helen and the other to himself. Obviously they +came from the world which referred to him as "Jimmy." He was not used to +being thrilled by mere envelopes, but now he became conscious of a +slight quickening of pulsation. He opened his own envelope--the paper +was more like a blanket than paper, and might have been made from the +material of a child's untearable picture-book. He had to use a stout +paper-knife, and when he did get into the envelope he felt like a +burglar. + +The discerning and shrewd ancient had guessed the contents. He had +feared, and he had also hoped, that the contents would comprise an +invitation to Mrs. Prockter's house at Hillport. They did; and more than +that. The signature was Mrs. Prockter's, and she had written him a +four-page letter. "My dear Mr. Ollerenshaw." "Believe me, yours most +cordially and sincerely, Flora Prockter." + +Flora! + +The strangest thing, perhaps, in all this strange history is that he +thought the name suited her. + +He had no intention of accepting the invitation. Not exactly! But he +enjoyed receiving it. It constituted a unique event in his career. And +the wording of it was very agreeable. Mrs. Prockter proceeded thus: "In +pursuance of our plan"--our plan!--"I am also inviting your niece. +Indeed, I have gathered from Emanuel that he considers her as the prime +justification of the party. We will throw them together. She will hear +him sing. She has never heard him sing. If this does not cure her, +nothing will, though he has a nice voice. I hope it will be a fine +night, so that we may take the garden. I did not thank you half enough +for the exceedingly kind way in which you received my really +unpardonable visit the other evening," etc. + +James had once heard Emanuel Prockter sing, at a concert given in aid of +something which deserved every discouragement, and he agreed with Mrs. +Prockter; not that he pretended to know anything about singing. + +He sat down again, to compose a refusal to the invitation; but before he +had written more than a few words it had transformed itself into an +acceptance. He was aware of the entire ridiculousness of his going to an +evening party at Mrs. Prockter's; still an instinct, powerful but +obscure (it was the will-to-live and naught else), persuaded him by +force to say that he would go. + +"Have you had an invitation from Mrs. Prockter?" Helen asked him at tea. + +"Yes," said he. "Have you?" + +"Yes," said she. "Shall you go?" + +"Ay, lass, I shall go." + +She seemed greatly surprised. + +"Us'll go together," he said. + +"I don't think that I shall go," said she, hesitatingly. + +"Have ye written to refuse?" + +"No." + +"Then I should advise ye to go, my lass." + +"Why?" + +"Unless ye want to have trouble with me," said he, grimly. + +"But, uncle----" + +"It's no good butting uncle," he replied. "If ye didna' mean to go, why +did ye give young Prockter to understand as ye would go? I'll tell ye +why ye changed your mind, lass. It's because you're ashamed o' being +seen there with yer old uncle, and I'm sorry for it." + +"Uncle!" she protested. "How can you say such a thing? You ought to know +that no such idea ever entered my head." + +He did know that no such idea had ever entered her head, and he was +secretly puzzling for the real reason of her projected refusal. But, +being determined that she should go, he had employed the surest and the +least scrupulous means of achieving his end. + +He tapped nervously on the table, and maintained the silence of the +wounded and the proud. + +"Of course, if you take it in that way," she said, after a pause, "I +will go." + +And he went through the comedy of gradually recovering from a wound. + +His boldness in accepting the invitation and in compelling Helen to +accompany him was the audacity of sheer ignorance. He had not surmised +the experiences which lay before him. She told him to order a cab. She +did not suggest the advisability of a cab. She stated, as a platitude, +the absolute indispensability of a cab. He had meant to ride to Hillport +in the tramcar, which ran past Mrs. Prockter's gates. However, he +reluctantly agreed to order a cab, being fearful lest she might, after +all, refuse to go. It was remarkable that, after having been opposed to +the policy of throwing Helen and Emanuel together, he was now in favour +of it. + +On the evening, when at five minutes past nine she came into the front +room clad for Mrs. Prockter's party, he perceived that the tramcar would +have been unsuitable. A cab might hold her. A hansom would certainly not +have held her. She was all in white, and very complicated. No hat; +simply a white, silver-spangled bandage round her head, neck, and +shoulders! + +She glanced at him. He wore his best black clothes. "You look very +well," said she, surprisingly. "That old-fashioned black necktie is +splendid." + +So they went. James had the peculiar illusion that he was going to a +belated funeral, for except at funerals he had never in his life ridden +in a cab. + +When he descended with his fragile charge in Mrs. Prockter's illuminated +porch, another cab was just ploughing up the gravel of the drive in +departure, and nearly the whole tribe of Swetnams was on the doorstep; +some had walked, and were boasting of speed. There were Sarah Swetnam, +her brother Ted, the lawyer, her brother Ronald, the borough surveyor, +her brother Adams, the bank cashier, and her sister Enid, aged +seventeen. This child was always called "Jos" by the family, because +they hated the name "Enid," which they considered to be "silly." Lilian, +the newly-affianced one, was not in the crowd. + +"Where's Lilian?" Helen asked, abruptly. + +"Oh, she came earlier with the powerful Andrew," replied the youthful +and rather jealous Jos. "She isn't an ordinary girl now." + +Sarah rapidly introduced her brothers and sisters to James. They were +all very respectful and agreeable; and Adams Swetnam pressed his hand +quite sympathetically, and Jos's frank smile was delicious. What +surprised him was that nobody seemed surprised at his being there. None +of the girls wore hats, he noticed, and he also noticed that the three +men (all about thirty in years) wore silk hats, white mufflers, and blue +overcoats. + +A servant--a sort of special edition of James's Georgiana--appeared, and +robbed everybody of every garment that would yield easily to pulling. +And then those lovely creatures stood revealed. Yes, Sarah herself was +lovely under the rosy shades. The young men were elegantly slim, and +looked very much alike, except that Adams had a beard--a feeble beard, +but a beard. It is true that in their exact correctness they might have +been mistaken for toast-masters, or, with the slight addition of silver +neck-chains, for high officials in a costly restaurant. But +great-stepuncle James could never have been mistaken for anything but a +chip of the early nineteenth century flicked by the hammer of Fate into +the twentieth. His wide black necktie was the secret envy of the Swetnam +boys. + +The Swetnam boys had the air of doing now what they did every night of +their lives. With facile ease, they led the way through the long hall to +the drawing-room. James followed, and _en route_ he observed at the +extremity of a side-hall two young people sitting with their hands +together in a dusky corner. "Male and female created He them!" reflected +James, with all the tolerant, disdainful wisdom of his years and +situation. + +A piano was then heard, and as Ronald Swetnam pushed open the +drawing-room door for the women to enter, there came the sound of a +shocked "S-sh!" + +Whereupon the invaders took to the tips of their toes and crept in as +sinners. At the farther end a girl was sitting at a grand piano, and in +front of the piano, glorious, effulgent, monarchical, stood Emanuel +Prockter, holding a piece of music horizontally at the level of his +waist. He had a white flower in his buttonhole, and, adhering to a +quaint old custom which still lingers in the Five Towns, and possibly +elsewhere, he showed a crimson silk handkerchief tucked in between his +shirt-front and his white waistcoat. He had broad bands down the sides +of his trousers. Not a hair of his head had been touched by the +accidental winds of circumstance. He surveyed the couple of dozen people +in the large, glowing room with a fixed smile and gesture of benevolent +congratulation. + +Mrs. Prockter was close to the door. "Emanuel is just going to sing," +she whispered, and shook hands silently with James Ollerenshaw first. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +SONG, SCENE AND DANCE + + +Every head was turned. Emanuel coughed, frowned, and put his left hand +between his collar and his neck, as though he had concealed something +there. The new arrivals slipped cautiously into chairs. James was +between Helen and Jos. And he distinctly saw Jos wink at Helen, and +Helen wink back. The winks were without doubt an expression of +sentiments aroused by the solemnity of Emanuel's frown. + +The piano tinkled on, and then Emanuel's face was observed to change. +The frown vanished and a smile of heavenly rapture took its place. His +mouth gradually opened till its resemblance to the penultimate vowel was +quite realistic, and simultaneously, by a curious muscular +co-ordination, he rose on his toes to a considerable height in the air. + +The strain was terrible--like waiting for a gun to go off. James was +conscious of a strange vibration by his side, and saw that Jos Swetnam +had got the whole of a lace handkerchief into her mouth. + +The gun went off--not with a loud report, but with a gentle and lofty +tenor piping, somewhere in the neighbourhood of F, or it might have been +only E (though, indeed, a photograph would have suggested that Emanuel +was singing at lowest the upper C), and the performer slowly resumed his +normal stature. + +"O Love!" he had exclaimed, adagio and sostenuto. + +Then the piano, in its fashion, also said: "O Love!" + +"O Love!" Emanuel exclaimed again, with slight traces of excitement, and +rising to heights of stature hitherto undreamt of. + +And the piano once more, in turn, called plaintively on love. + +It would be too easy to mock Emanuel's gift of song. I leave that to +people named Swetnam. There can be no doubt Emanuel had a very taking +voice, if thin, and that his singing gave pleasure to the majority of +his hearers. More than any one else, it pleased himself. When he sang he +seemed to be inspired by the fact, to him patent, that he was conferring +on mankind a boon inconceivably precious. If he looked a fool, his looks +seriously misinterpreted his feelings. He did not spare himself on that +evening. He told his stepmother's guests all about love and all about +his own yearnings. He hid nothing from them. He made no secret of the +fact that he lived for love alone, that he had known innumerable loves, +but none like one particular variety, which he described in full detail. +As a confession, and especially as a confession uttered before many +maidens, it did not err on the side of reticence. Presently, having +described a kind of amorous circle, he came again to: "O Love!" But this +time his voice cracked: which made him angry, with a stern and +controlled anger. Still singing, he turned slowly to the pianist, and +fiercely glared at the pianist's unconscious back. The obvious inference +was that if his voice had cracked the fault was the pianist's. The +pianist, poor thing, utterly unaware of the castigation she was +receiving, stuck to her business. Less than a minute later, Emanuel's +voice cracked again. This time he turned even more deliberately to the +pianist. He was pained. He stared during five complete bars at the back +of the pianist, still continuing his confession. He wished the audience +to understand clearly where the blame lay. Finally, when he thought the +pianist's back was sufficiently cooked, he faced the audience. + +"I hope the pianist will not be so atrociously clumsy as to let my voice +crack again," he seemed to be saying. + +Evidently his reproof to the pianist's back was effectual, for his voice +did not crack again. + +And at length, when Jos had communicated her vibration to all her +family, and every one had ceased to believe that the confession would +ever end, the confession did end. It ended as it had begun, in an even, +agreeable tenor piping. Emanuel was much too great an artist to allow +himself to be carried away by his emotion. The concluding words were, +"Oh, rapture!" and Emanuel sang them just as if he had been singing +"One-and-eleven-pence three-farthings." + +"Oh, rats!" said Jos, under cover of the impassioned applause. + +"It was nearly as long as Jarndyce _v_. Jarndyce," observed Adams, under +the same cover. + +"What!" cried James, enchanted. "Have you been reading that too?" + +Adams Swetnam and great-stepuncle James had quite a little chat on the +subject of Jarndyce _v_. Jarndyce. Several other people, including the +hostess, joined in the conversation, and James was surprised at the +renown which Jarndyce _v._ Jarndyce seemed to enjoy; he was glad to +find his view shared on every hand. He was also glad, and startled, to +discover himself a personality in the regions of Hillport. He went +through more formal introductions in ten minutes than he had been +through during the whole of his previous life. It was a hot evening; he +wiped his brow. Then iced champagne was served to him. Having fluttered +round him, in her ample way, and charmingly flattered him, Mrs. Prockter +left him, encircled chiefly by young women, in order to convey to later +arrivals that they, and they alone, were the authentic objects of her +solicitude. Emanuel Prockter, clad in triumph, approached, and +questioned James, as one shrewd man of business may question another, +concerning the value in the market of Wilbraham Hall. + +Shortly afterwards a remarkable occurrence added zest to the party. +Helen had wandered away with Sarah and Jos Swetnam. She reentered the +drawing-room while James and Emanuel were in discussion, and her +attitude towards Emanuel was decidedly not sympathetic. Then Sarah +Swetnam came in alone. And then Andrew Dean came in alone. + +"Oh, here's Andrew, Helen!" Sarah exclaimed. + +Andrew Dean had the air of a formidable personage. He was a tall, heavy, +dark young man, with immense sloping shoulders, a black moustache, and +incandescent eyes, which he used as though he were somewhat suspicious +of the world in general. If his dress had been less untidy, he would +have made a perfect villain of melodrama. He smiled the unsure smile of +a villain as he awkwardly advanced, with out-stretched hand, to Helen. + +Helen put her lips together, kept her hands well out of view, and +offered him a bow that could only have been properly appreciated under a +microscope. + +The episode was quite negative; but it amounted to a scene--a scene at +one of Mrs. Prockter's parties! A scene, moreover, that mystified +everybody; a scene that implied war and the wounded! + +Some discreetly withdrew. Of these was Emanuel, who had the +sensitiveness of an artist. + +Andrew Dean presently perceived, after standing for some seconds like an +imbecile stork on one leg, that the discretion of the others was worthy +to be imitated. At the door he met Lilian, and they disappeared together +arm in arm, as betrothed lovers should. Three people remained in that +quarter of the drawing-room--Helen, her uncle, and Sarah Swetnam. + +"Why, Nell," said Sarah, aghast, "what's the matter?" + +"Nothing," said Helen, calmly. + +"But surely you shake hands with Andrew when you meet him, don't you?" + +"That depends how I feel, my dear," said Helen. + +"Then something _is_ the matter?" + +"If you want to know," said Helen, with haughtiness, "in the hall, just +now--that is--I--I overheard Mr. Dean say something about Emanuel +Prockter's singing which I consider very improper." + +"But we all----" + +"I'm going out into the garden," said Helen. + +"A pretty how-d'ye-do!" James muttered inaudibly to himself as he +meandered to and fro in the hall, observing the manners and customs of +Hillport society. Another couple were now occupying the privacy of the +seat at the end of the side-hall, and James noticed that the heads of +this couple had precisely the same relative positions as the heads of +the previous couple. "Bless us!" he murmured, apropos of the couple, +who, seeing in him a spy, rose and fled. Then he resumed his silent +soliloquy. "A pretty how-d'ye-do! The chit's as fixed on that there +Emanuel Prockter as ever a chit could be!" And yet James had caught the +winking with Jos Swetnam during the song! As an enigma, Helen grew +darker and darker to him. He was almost ready to forswear his former +belief, and to assert positively that Helen had no sense whatever. + +Mrs. Prockter loomed up, disengaged. "Ah, Mr. Ollerenshaw," she said, +"everybody seems to be choosing the garden. Shall we go there? This +way." + +She led him down the side-hall. "By the bye," she murmured, with a +smile, "I think our plan is succeeding." + +And, without warning him, she sat down in the seat, and of course he +joined her, and she put her head close to his, evidently in a +confidential mood. + +"Bless us!" he said to himself, apropos of himself and Mrs. Prockter, +glancing about for spies. + +"It's horrid of me to make fun of poor dear Emanuel's singing," pursued +Mrs. Prockter. "But how did she take it? If I am not mistaken, she +winked." + +"Her winked," said James; "yes, her winked." + +"Then everything's all right." + +"Missis," said he, "if you don't mind what ye're about, you'll have a +daughter-in-law afore you can say 'knife'!" + +"Not Helen?" + +"Ay, Helen." + +"But, Mr. Ollerenshaw----" + +Here happened an interruption--a servant with a tray of sustenance, +comprising more champagne. James, prudent, would have refused, but under +the hospitable urgency of Mrs. Prockter he compromised--and yielded. + +"I'll join ye." + +So she joined him. Then a string of young people passed the end of the +side-hall, and among them was Jos Swetnam, who capered up to the old +couple on her long legs. + +"Oh, Mrs. Prockter," she cried, "what a pity we can't dance on the +lawn!" + +"I wish you could, my dear," said Mrs. Prockter. + +"And why can't ye?" demanded James. + +"No music!" said Jos. + +"You see," Mrs. Prockter explained, "the lawn is at the far end of the +garden, and it is impossible to hear the piano so far off. If it were +only a little piano we could move it about, but it's a grand piano." + +In James's next speech was to be felt the influence of champagne. "Look +here," he said, "it's nobbut a step from here to the Green Man, is it?" + +"The Green Man!" echoed Mrs. Prockter, not comprehending. + +"Ay, the pub!" + +"I believe there is an inn at the bend," said Mrs. Prockter; "but I +don't think I've ever noticed the sign." + +"It's the Green Man," said James. "If you'll send some one round there, +and the respex of Mr. Ollerenshaw to Mr. Benskin--that's the +land-lord--and will he lend me the concertina as I sold him last +Martinmas?" + +"Oh, Mr. Ollerenshaw!" shrieked Jos. "Can you play for dancing? How +perfectly lovely it would be!" + +"I fancy as I can keep _your_ trotters moving, child," said he, gaily. + +Upon this, two spinsters, the Misses Webber, wearing duplicates of one +anxious visage, supervened, and, with strange magic gestures, beckoned +Mrs. Prockter away. News of the episode between Andrew Dean and Helen +had at length reached them, and they had deemed it a sacred duty to +inform the hostess of the sad event. They were of the species of woman +that spares neither herself nor others. Their fault was, that they were +too compassionate for this world. Promising to send the message to Mr. +Benskin, Mrs. Prockter vanished to her doom. + +Within a quarter of an hour a fête unique in the annals of Hillport had +organised itself on the lawn in the dim, verdurous retreats behind Mrs. +Prockter's house. The lawn was large enough to be just too small for a +tennis-court. It was also of a pretty mid-Victorian irregularity as +regards shape, and guarded from the grim horizons of the Five Towns by a +ring of superb elms. A dozen couples, mainly youngish, promenaded upon +its impeccable surface in obvious expectation; while on the borders, in +rustic chairs, odd remnants of humanity, mainly oldish, gazed in ecstasy +at the picturesque ensemble. In the midst of the lawn was Mrs. +Prockter's famous weeping willow, on whose branches Chinese lanterns had +been hung by a reluctant gardener, who held to the proper gardener's +axiom that lawns are made to be seen and not hurt. The moon aided these +lanterns to the best of her power. Under the tree was a cane chair, and +on the cane chair sat an ageing man with a concertina between his hands. +He put his head on one side and played a few bars, and the couples posed +themselves expectantly. + +"Hold on a bit!" the virtuoso called out. "It's a tidy bit draughty +here." + +He put the concertina on his knees, fumbled in his tail-pocket, and drew +forth a tasselled Turkish cap, which majestically he assumed; the tassel +fell over his forehead. He owned several Turkish caps, and never went +abroad without one. + +Then he struck up definitely, and Mrs. Prockter's party had resolved +itself, as parties often do, into a dance. In the blissful excitation +caused by the ancient and jiggy tunes which "Jimmy" played, the sad +episode of Helen Rathbone and Andrew Dean appeared to be forgotten. +Helen danced with every man except Andrew, and Andrew danced with every +woman except Helen. But Mrs. Prockter had not forgotten the episode; nor +had the Misses Webber. The reputation of Mrs. Prockter's entertainments +for utter correctness, and her own enormous reputation for fine tact, +were impaired, and Mrs. Prockter was determined that that which ought to +happen should happen. + +She had a brief and exceedingly banal interview with Helen, and another +with Andrew. And an interval having elapsed, Andrew was observed to +approach Helen and ask her for a polka. Helen punctiliously accepted. +And he led her out. The outraged gods of social decorum were appeased, +and the reputations of Mrs. Prockter and her parties stood as high as +ever. It was well and diplomatically done. + +Nevertheless, the unforeseen came to pass. For at the end of the polka +Helen fainted on the grass; and not Andrew but Emanuel was first to +succour her. It was a highly disconcerting climax. Of course, Helen, +being Helen, recovered with singular rapidity. But that did not lighten +the mystery. + +In the cab, going home, she wept. James could scarcely have believed it +of her. + +"Oh, uncle," she half whispered, in a voice of grief, "you fiddled while +Rome was burning!" + +This obscure saying baffled him, the more so that he had been playing a +concertina and not a fiddle at all. His feelings were vague, and in some +respects contradictory; but he was convinced that Mrs. Prockter's scheme +for separating Helen and the Apollo Emanuel was not precisely +succeeding. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE GIFT + + +After that night great-stepuncle James became more than a celebrity--he +became a notoriety in Bursley. Had it not been for the personal +influence of Mrs. Prockter with the editor of the _Signal_, James's +exploits upon the concertina under weeping willows at midnight would +have received facetious comment in the weekly column of gossip that +appears in the great daily organ of the Five Towns on Saturdays. James, +aided by nothing but a glass or two of champagne, had suddenly stepped +into the forefront of the town's life. He was a card. He rather liked +being a card. + +But within his own heart the triumph and glory of James Ollerenshaw were +less splendid than outside it. Helen, apparently ashamed of having wept +into his waistcoat, kept him off with a kind of a rod of stiff +politeness. He could not get near her, and for at least two reasons he +was anxious to get near her. He wanted to have that frank, confidential +talk with her about the general imbecility of her adorer, Emanuel +Prockter--that talk which he had failed to begin on the morning when +she had been so sympathetic concerning his difficulties in collecting a +large income. Her movements from day to day were mysterious. Facts +pointed to the probability that she and Emanuel were seeing each other +with no undue publicity. And yet, despite facts, despite her behaviour +at the party, he could scarcely believe that shrewd Helen had not +pierced the skin of Emanuel and perceived the emptiness therein. At any +rate, Emanuel had not repeated his visit to the house. The only visitors +had been Sarah Swetnam and her sister Lilian, the fiancée of Andrew +Dean. The chatter of the three girls had struck James as being almost +hysterically gay. But in the evening Helen was very gloomy, and he +fancied a certain redness in her eyes. Though Helen was assuredly the +last woman in the world to cry, she had, beyond doubt, cried once, and +he now suspected her of another weeping. + +Even more detrimental to his triumph in his own heart was the affair of +the ten-pound note, which she had stolen (or abstracted if you will) and +then restored to him with such dramatic haughtiness. That ten pounds was +an awful trial to him. It rankled, not only with him, but (he felt sure) +with her. Still, if she had her pride, he also had his. He reckoned that +she had not rightly behaved in taking the note without his permission, +and that in returning the full sum, and pretending that he had made it +necessary for her to run the house on her own money, she had treated him +meanly. The truth was, she had wounded him--again. Instincts of +astounding generosity were budding in him, but he was determined to +await an advance from her. He gave her money for housekeeping, within +moderation, and nothing more. + +Then one evening she announced that the morrow would be her birthday. +James felt uneasy. He had never given birthday presents, but he well +knew that presents were the correct things on birthdays. He went to bed +in a state of the most absurd and causeless mental disturbance. He did +not know what to do. Whereas it was enormously obvious what to do. + +He woke up about one o'clock, and reflected, with an air of discovery: +"Her tone was extremely friendly when she told me it was her birthday +to-morrow. She meant it as an advance. I shall take it as an advance." + +About half-past one he said to himself: "I'll give her a guinea to spend +as she likes." It did genuinely seem to him a vast sum. A guinea to +fritter away! + +However, towards three o'clock its vastness had shrunk. + +"Dashed if I don't give the wench a fiver!" he exclaimed. It was +madness, but he had an obscure feeling that he might have had more +amusement if he had begun being mad rather earlier in life. + +Upon this he slept soundly till six o'clock. + +His mind then unfortunately got entangled in the painful episode of the +ten-pound note. He and Helen had the same blood in their veins. They +were alike in some essential traits. He knew that neither of them could +ever persuade himself, or herself, to mention that miserable ten-pound +note again. + +"If I gave her a tenner," he said, "that would make her see as I'd +settled to forget that business, and let bygones _be_ bygones. I'll give +her a tenner." + +It was preposterous. She could not, of course, spend it. She would put +it away. So it would not be wasted. + +Upon this he rose. + +Poor simpleton! Ever since the commencement of his relations with Helen, +surprise had followed surprise for him. And the series was not ended. + +The idea of giving a gift made him quite nervous. He fumbled in his +cashbox for quite a long time, and then he called, nervously: + +"Helen!" + +She came out of the kitchen into the front room. (Dress: White +muslin--unspeakable extravagance in a town of smuts.) + +"It's thy birthday, lass?" + +She nodded, smiling. + +"Well, tak' this." + +He handed her a ten-pound note. + +"Oh, thank you, uncle!" she cried, just on the calm side of +effusiveness. + +At this point the surprise occurred. + +There was another ten-pound note in the cashbox. His fingers went for a +stroll on their own account and returned with that note. + +"Hold on!" he admonished her for jumping to conclusions. "And this!" And +he gave her a second note. He was much more startled than she was. + +"Oh, _thank_ you, uncle!" And then, laughing: "Why, it's nearly a +sovereign for every year of my life!" + +"How old art?" + +"Twenty-six." + +"I'm gone dotty!" he said to his soul. "I'm gone dotty!" And his eyes +watched his fingers take six sovereigns out of the box, and count them +into her small white hand. And his cheek felt her kiss. + +She went off with twenty-six pounds--twenty-six pounds! The episode was +entirely incredible. + +Breakfast was a most pleasing meal. Though acknowledging himself an +imbecile, he was obliged to acknowledge also that a certain pleasure +springs from a certain sort of imbecility. Helen was adorable. + +Now that same morning he had received from Mrs. Prockter a flattering +note, asking him, if he could spare the time, to go up to Hillport and +examine Wilbraham Hall with her, and give her his expert advice as to +its value, etc. He informed Helen of the plan. + +"I'll go with you," she said at once. + +"What's in the wind?" he asked himself. He saw in the suggestion a +device for seeing Emanuel. + +"The fact is," she added, "I want to show you a house up at Hillport +that might do for us." + +He winced. She had said nothing about a removal for quite some time. He +hated the notion of removal. ("Flitting," he called it.) It would mean +extra expense, too. As for Hillport, he was sure that nothing, except +cottages, could be got in Hillport for less than fifty pounds a year. If +she thought he was going to increase his rent by thirty-two pounds a +year, besides rates, she was in error. The breakfast finished in a +slight mist. He hardened. The idea of her indicating houses to him! The +idea of her assuming that----Well, no use in meeting trouble half-way! + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE HALL AND ITS RESULT + + +"Yes," said Mrs. Prockter, gazing about her, to James Ollerenshaw, "it +certainly is rather spacious." + +"Rather spacious!" James repeated in the secret hollows of his mind. It +was not spacious; it was simply fantastic. They stood, those two--Mrs. +Prockter in her usual flowered silk, and James in his usual hard, +rent-collecting clothes--at the foot of the double staircase, which +sprang with the light of elegance of wings from the floor of the +entrance-hall of Wilbraham Hall. In front of them, over the great door, +was a musicians' gallery, and over that a huge window. On either side of +the great door were narrow windows which looked over stretches of green +country far away from the Five Towns. For Wilbraham Hall was on the +supreme ridge of Hillport, and presented only its back yard, so to +speak, to the Five Towns. And though the carpets were rolled up and tied +with strings, and though there were dark rectangular spaces on the walls +showing where pictures had been, the effect of the hall was quite a +furnished effect. Polished oak and tasselled hangings, and monstrous +vases and couches and chairs preserved in it the appearance of a home, +if a home of giants. + +Decidedly it was worthy of the mighty reputations of the extinct +Wilbrahams. The Wilbrahams had gradually risen in North Staffordshire +for two centuries. About the Sunday of the Battle of Waterloo they were +at their apogee. Then for a century they had gradually fallen. And at +last they had extinguished themselves in the person of a young-old fool +who was in prison for having cheated a pawnbroker. This young-old fool +had nothing but the name of Wilbraham to his back. The wealth of the +Wilbrahams, or what remained of it after eight decades of declension, +had, during the course of a famous twenty years' law-suit between the +father of the said young-old fool and a farming cousin in California, +slowly settled like golden dust in the offices of lawyers in +Carey-street, London. And the house, grounds, lake, and furniture (save +certain portraits) were now on sale by order of the distant winner of +the law-suit. And both Mrs. Prockter and James could remember the time +when the twin-horsed equipage of the Wilbrahams used to dash about the +Five Towns like the chariot of the sun. The recollection made Mrs. +Prockter sad, but in James it produced no such feeling. To Mrs. +Prockter, Wilbraham Hall was the last of the stylish port-wine estates +that in old days dotted the heights around the Five Towns. To her it was +the symbol of the death of tone and the triumph of industrialism. +Whereas James merely saw it as so much building land upon which streets +of profitable and inexpensive semi-detached villas would one day rise at +the wand's touch of the man who had sufficient audacity for a prodigious +speculation. + +"It 'ud be like living in th' covered market, living here," James +observed. + +The St. Luke's Market is the largest roof in Bursley. And old +inhabitants, incapable of recovering from the surprise of marketing +under cover instead of in an open square, still, after thirty years, +refer to it as the covered market. + +Mrs. Prockter smiled. + +"By the way," said James, "where's them childer?" + +The old people looked around. Emanuel and Helen, who had entered the +proud precincts with them, had vanished. + +"I believe they're upstairs, ma'am," said the fat caretaker, pleating +her respectable white apron. + +"You can go," said Mrs. Prockter, curtly, to this vestige of grandeur. +"I will see you before I leave." + +The apron resented the dismissal, and perhaps would have taken it from +none but Mrs. Prockter. But Mrs. Prockter had a mien, and a flowered +silk, before which even an apron of the Wilbrahams must quail. + +"I may tell you, Mr. Ollerenshaw," she remarked, confidentially, when +they were alone, "that I have not the slightest intention of buying this +place. Emanuel takes advantage of my good nature. You've no idea how +persistent he is. So all you have to do is to advise me firmly not to +buy it. That's why I've asked you to come up. He acknowledges that +you're an authority, and he'll be forced to accept your judgment." + +"Why didn't ye say that afore, missis?" asked James bluntly. + +"Before when?" + +"Before that kick-up (party) o' yours. He got out of me then as I +thought it were dirt cheap at eight thousand." + +"But I don't want to move," pleaded Mrs. Prockter. + +"I'm asking ye why ye didn't tell me afore?" James repeated. + +Mrs. Prockter looked at him. "Men are trying creatures!" she said. "So +it seems you can't tell a tarradiddle for me?" And she sighed. + +"I don't know as I object to that. What I object to is contradicting +mysen." + +"Why did you bring Helen?" Mrs. Prockter demanded. + +"I didna'. She come hersen." + +They exchanged glances. + +"And now she and Emanuel have run off." + +"It looks to me," said James, "as if your plan for knocking their two +heads together wasna' turning out as you meant it, missis." + +"And what's more," said she, "I do believe that Emanuel wants me to buy +this place so that when I'm gone he can make a big splash here with your +niece and your money, Mr. Ollerenshaw! What do you think of that?" + +"He may make as much splash as he's a mind to, wi' my niece," James +answered. "But he won't make much of a splash with my money, I can +promise ye." His orbs twinkled. "I can promise ye," he repeated. + +"To whom do you mean to leave it, then?" + +"Not to _his_ wife." + +"H'm! Well, as we're here, I suppose we may as well see what there is to +be seen. And those two dreadful young people must be found." + +They mounted the stairs. + +"Will you give me your arm, Mr. Ollerenshaw?" + +To such gifts he was not used. Already he had given twenty-six pounds +that day. The spectacle of Jimmy ascending the state staircase of +Wilbraham Hall with all the abounding figure of Mrs. Prockter on his arm +would have drawn crowds had it been offered to the public at sixpence a +head. + +They inspected the great drawing-room, the great dining-room, the great +bedroom, and all the lesser rooms; the galleries, the balconies, the +panellings, the embrasures, the suites and suites and suites of Georgian +and Victorian decaying furniture; the ceilings and the cornices; the +pictures and engravings (of which some hundreds remained); the +ornaments, the clocks, the screens, and the microscopic knick-knacks. +Both of them lost count of everything, except that before they reached +the attics they had passed through forty-five separate apartments, not +including linen closets. It was in one of the attics, as empty as +Emanuel's head, that they discovered Emanuel and Helen, gazing at a +magnificent prospect over the moorlands, with the gardens, the paddock, +and Wilbraham Water immediately beneath. + +"We've been looking for you everywhere," Helen burst out. "Oh, Mrs. +Prockter, do come with me to the end of the corridor, and look at three +old distaffs that I've found in a cupboard!" + +During the absence of the women, James Ollerenshaw contradicted himself +to Emanuel for the sweet sake of Emanuel's stepmother. Little by little +they descended to the earth, with continual detours and halts by Helen, +who was several times lost and found. + +"I've told him," said James, quietly and proudly. "I've told him it's no +use to you unless you want to turn it into a building estate." + +They separated into two couples at the gate, with elaborate formalities +on the part of Emanuel, which Uncle James more or less tried to imitate. + +"Well?" murmured James, sighing relief, as they waited for the electric +tram in that umbrageous and aristocratic portion of the Oldcastle-road +which lies nearest to the portals of Wilbraham Hall. He was very pleased +with himself, because, at the cost of his own respect, he had pleased +Mrs. Prockter. + +"Well?" murmured Helen, in response, tapping on the edge of the pavement +the very same sunshade in whose company James had first made her +acquaintance. She seemed nervous, hesitating, apprehensive. + +"What about that house as ye've so kindly chosen for me?" he asked, +genially. He wanted to humour her. + +She looked him straight in the eyes. "You've seen it," said she. + +"What!" he snorted. "When han I seen it?" + +"Just now," she replied. "It's Wilbraham Hall. I knew that Mrs. Prockter +wouldn't have it. And, besides, I've made Emanuel give up all idea of +it." + +He laughed, but with a strange and awful sensation in his stomach. + +"A poor joke, lass!" he observed, with the laugh dead in his throat. + +"It isn't a poor joke," said she. "It isn't a joke at all." + +"Didst thou seriously think as I should buy that there barracks to +please thee?" + +"Certainly," she said, courageously. "Just that--to please me." + +"I'm right enough where I am," he asserted, grimly. "What for should I +buy Wilbraham Hall? What should I do in it?" + +"Live in it." + +"Trafalgar-road's good enough for me." + +"But it isn't good enough for me," said she. + +"I wouldna' ha' minded," he said, savagely--"I wouldna' ha' minded going +into a house a bit bigger, but--" + +"Nothing is big enough for me except Wilbraham Hall," she said. + +He said nothing. He was furious. It was her birthday, and he had given +her six-and-twenty pounds--ten shillings a week for a year--and she had +barely kissed him. And now, instantly after that amazing and mad +generosity, she had the face to look cross because he would not buy +Wilbraham Hall! It was inconceivable; it was unutterable. So he said +nothing. + +"Why shouldn't you, after all?" she resumed. "You've got an income of +nearly five thousand a year." (Now he hated her for the mean manner in +which she had wormed out of him secrets that previously he had shared +with no one.) "You don't spend the twentieth part of it. What are you +going to do with it? _What are you going to do with it_? You're getting +an old man." (Cold horrors!) "You can't take it with you when you leave +the Five Towns, you know. Whom shall you leave your money to? You'll +probably die worth a hundred thousand pounds, at this rate. You'll leave +it to me, of course. Because there's nobody else for you to leave it to. +Why can't you use it now, instead of wasting it in old stockings?" + +"I bank my money, wench," he hissingly put in. + +"Old stockings!" she repeated, loudly. "We could live splendidly at +Wilbraham Hall on two thousand a year, and you would still be saving +nearly three thousand a year." + +He said nothing. + +"Do you suppose I gave up my position at school in order to live in a +poky little hole at eighteen pounds a year? What do you think I can do +with myself all day in Trafalgar-road? Why, nothing. There's no room +even for a piano, and so my fingers are stiffening every day. It's not +life at all. Naturally, it's a great privilege," she pursued, with a +vicious inflection that reminded him perfectly of Susan, "for a girl +like me to live with an old man like you, all alone, with one servant +and no sitting-room. But some privileges cost too dear. The fact is, you +never think of me at all." (And he had but just given her six-and-twenty +pounds.) "You think you've got a cheap housekeeper in me--but you +haven't. I'm a very good housekeeper--especially in a very large +house--but I'm not cheap." + +She spoke as if she had all her life been accustomed to living in vast +mansions. But James knew that, despite her fine friends, she had never +lived in anything appreciably larger than his own dwelling. He knew +there was not a house in Sneyd-road, Longshaw, worth more than +twenty-five pounds a year. The whole outbreak was shocking and +disgraceful. He scarcely recognised her. + +He said nothing. And then suddenly he said: "I shall buy no Wilbraham +Hall, lass." His voice was final. + +"You could sell it again at a profit," said she. "You could turn it into +a building estate" (parrot-cry caught from himself or from Emanuel), +"and later on we could go and live somewhere else." + +"Yes," said he; "Buckingham Palace, likely!" + +"I don't--" she began. + +"I shall buy no Wilbraham Hall," he reiterated. Greek had met Greek. + +The tram surged along and swallowed up the two Greeks. They were alone +in the tram, and they sat down opposite each other. The conductor came +and took James's money, and the conductor had hardly turned his back +when Helen snapped, with nostrils twitching: + +"You're a miser, that's what you are! A regular old miser! Every one +knows that. Every one calls you a miser. If you aren't a miser, I should +like you to tell me why you live on about three pounds a week when your +income is ninety pounds a week. I thought I might do you some good. I +thought I might get you out of it. But it seems I can't." + +"All!" he snorted. It was a painful sight. Other persons boarded the +car. + +At tea she behaved precisely like an angel. Not the least hint of her +demeanour of the ineffable affray of the afternoon. She was so sweet +that he might have given her twenty-six Wilbraham Halls instead of +twenty-six pounds. He spoke not. He was, in a very deep sense, upset. + +She spent the evening in her room. + +"Good-bye," she said the next morning, most amiably. It was after +breakfast. She was hatted, gloved and sunshaded. + +"What?" he exclaimed. + +"Au revoir," she said. "All my things are packed up. I shall send for +them. I think I can go back to the school. If I can't, I shall go to +mother in Canada. Thank you very much for all your kindness. If I go to +Canada, of course I shall come and see you before I leave." He let her +shake his hand. + + * * * * * + +For two days he was haunted by memories of kidney omelettes and by the +word "miser." Miser, eh? Him a miser! Him! Ephraim Tellwright was a +miser--but _him_! + +Then the natty servant gave notice, and Mrs. Butt called and suggested +that she should resume her sway over him. But she did not employ exactly +that phrase. + +He longed for one of Helen's meals as a drunkard longs for alcohol. + +Then Helen called, with the casual information that she was off to +Canada. She was particularly sweet. She had the tact to make the +interview short. The one blot on her conduct of the interview was that +she congratulated him on the possible return of Mrs. Butt, of which she +had heard from the natty servant. + +"Good-bye, uncle," she said. + +"Good-bye." + +She had got as far as the door, when he whispered, brokenly: "Lass--" + +Helen turned quickly towards him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +DESCENDANTS OF MACHIAVELLI + + +Yes, she turned towards him with a rapid, impulsive movement, which +expressed partly her sympathy for her old uncle, and partly a feeling of +joy caused by the sudden hope that he had decided to give way and buy +Wilbraham Hall after all. + +And the fact was that, in his secret soul, he had decided to give way; +he had decided that Helen, together with Helen's cooking, was worth to +him the price of Wilbraham Hall. But when he saw her brusque, eager +gesture, he began to reflect. His was a wily and profound nature; he +reckoned that he could read the human soul, and he said to himself: + +"The wench isn't so set on leaving me as I thought she was." + +And instead of saying to her: "Helen, lass, if you'll stop you shall +have your Wilbraham Hall," in tones of affecting, sad surrender, he +said: + +"I'm sorry to lose thee, my girl; but what must be must." + +And when he caught the look in her eyes, he was more than ever +convinced that he would be able to keep Helen without satisfying her +extremely expensive whim. + +Helen, for her part, began to suspect that if she played the fish with +sufficient skill, she would capture it. Thus they both, in a manner of +speaking, got out their landing-nets. + +"I don't say," James Ollerenshaw proceeded, in accents calculated to +prove to her that he had just as great a horror of sentimentality as she +had--"I don't say as you wouldn't make a rare good mistress o' Wilbraham +Hall. I don't say as I wouldn't like to see you in it. But when a man +reaches my age, he's fixed in his habits like. And, what's more, +supposing I _am_ saving a bit o' money, who am I saving it for, if it +isn't for you and your mother? You said as much yourself. I might pop +off any minute--" + +"Uncle!" Helen protested. + +"Ay, any minute!" he repeated, firmly. "I've known stronger men nor me +pop off as quick as a bottle o' ginger-beer near the fire." Here he +gazed at her, and his gaze said: "If I popped off here and now, wouldn't +you feel ashamed o' yerself for being so hard on your old uncle?" + +"You'll live many and many a year yet," Helen smiled. + +He shook his head pessimistically. "I've set my heart," he continued, +"on leaving a certain sum for you and yer mother. I've had it in mind +since I don't know when. It's a fancy o' mine. And I canna' do it if I'm +to go all around th' Five Towns buying barracks." + +Helen laughed. "What a man you are for exaggerating!" she flattered him. +Then she sat down. + +He considered that he was gradually winding in his line with immense +skill. "Ay," he ejaculated, with an absent air, "it's a fancy o' mine." + +"How much do you want to leave?" Helen questioned, faintly smiling. + +"Don't you bother your head about that," said he. "You may take it from +me as it's a tidy sum. And when I'm dead and gone, and you've got it +all, then ye can do as ye feel inclined." + +"I shall beat her, as sure as eggs!" he told himself. + +"All this means that he'll give in when it comes to the point," she told +herself. + +And aloud she said: "Have you had supper, uncle?" + +"No," he replied. + +The next development was that, without another word, she removed her +gloves, lifted her pale hands to her head, and slowly drew hatpins from +her hat. Then she removed her hat, and plunged the pins into it again. +He could scarcely refrain from snatching off his own tasselled Turkish +cap and pitching it in the air. He felt as if he had won the Battle of +Hastings, or defeated the captain of the bowling club in a single-handed +match. + +"And to think," he reflected, "that I should ha' given in to her by this +time if I hadn't got more sense in my little finger than--" etc. + +"I think I'll stay and cook you a bit of supper," said Helen. "I suppose +Georgiana is in the kitchen?" + +"If her isn't, her's in the back entry," said Jimmy. + +"What's she doing in the back entry?" + +"Counting the stars," said Jimmy; "and that young man as comes with the +bread helping her, most like." + +"I must talk to that girl." Helen rose. + +"Ye may," said Jimmy; "but th' baker's man'll have th' last word, or +times is changed." + +He was gay. He could not conceal his gaiety. He saw himself freed from +the menace of the thraldom of Mrs. Butt. He saw himself gourmandising +over the meals that Helen alone could cook. He saw himself trotting up +and down the streets of Bursley with the finest, smartest lass in the +Five Towns by his side. And scarcely a penny of extra expenditure! And +all this happy issue due to his diplomatic and histrionic skill! The +fact was, Helen really liked him. There could be no doubt about that. +She liked him, and she would not leave him. Also, she was a young woman +of exceptional common sense, and, being such, she would not risk the +loss of a large fortune merely for the sake of indulging pique +engendered by his refusal to gratify a ridiculous caprice. + +Before she had well quitted the room he saw with clearness that he was +quite the astutest man in the world, and that Helen was clay in his +hands. + +The sound of crockery in the scullery, and the cheerful little explosion +when the gas-ring was ignited, and the low mutter of conversation that +ensued between Helen and Georgiana--these phenomena were music to the +artist in him. He extracted the concertina from its case and began to +play "The Dead March in Saul." Not because his sentiments had a +foundation in the slightest degree funereal, but because he could +perform "The Dead March in Saul" with more virtuosity than any other +piece except "The Hallelujah Chorus." And he did not desire to insist +too much on his victory by filling Trafalgar-road with "The Hallelujah +Chorus." He was discretion itself. + +When she came back to the parlour (astoundingly natty in a muslin apron +of Georgiana's) to announce supper, she made no reference to the concert +which she was interrupting. He abandoned the concertina gently, +caressing it into its leather shell. He was full to the brim with +kindliness. It seemed to him that his life with Helen was commencing +all over again. Then he followed the indications of his nose, which +already for some minutes had been prophesying to him that in the +concoction of the supper Helen had surpassed herself. + +And she had. There was kidney ... No, not in an omelette, but impaled on +a skewer. A novel species of kidney, a particularity in kidneys! + +"Where didst pick this up, lass?" he asked. + +"It's the kidneys of that rabbit that you've bought for to-morrow," said +she. + +Now, he had no affection for rabbit as an article of diet, and he had +only bought the rabbit because the rabbit happened to be going past his +door (in the hands of a hawker) that morning. His perfunctory purchase +of it showed how he had lost interest in life and meals since Helen's +departure. And lo! she had transformed a minor part of it into something +wondrous, luscious, and unforgettable. Ah, she was Helen! And she was +his! + +"I've asked Georgiana to make up my bed," Helen said, after the divine +repast. + +"I'll tell ye what I'll do," he said, in an ecstasy of generosity, "I'll +buy thee a piano, lass, and we'll put it in th' parlour against the wall +where them books are now." + +She kept silence--a silence which vaguely disturbed him. + +So that he added: "And if ye're bent on a bigger house, there's one up +at Park-road, above th' Park, semi-detached--at least, it's the end of a +terrace--as I can get for thirty pounds a year." + +"My dearest uncle," she said, in a firm, even voice, "what _are_ you +talking about? Didn't I tell you when I came in that I had settled to go +to Canada? I thought it was all decided. Surely you don't think I'm +going to live in a poky house in Park-road--the very street where my +school was, too! I perfectly understand that you won't buy Wilbraham +Hall. That's all right. I shan't pout. I hate women who pout. We can't +agree, but we're friends. You do what you like with your money, and I do +what I like with myself. I had a sort of idea I would try to make you +beautifully comfortable just for the last time before I left England, +and that's why I'm staying. I do hope you didn't imagine anything else, +uncle. There!" + +She kissed him, not as a niece, but as a wise, experienced nurse might +have kissed a little boy. For she too, in her way, reckoned herself +somewhat of a diplomatist and a descendant of Machiavelli. She had +thought: "It's a funny thing if I can't bring him to his knees with a +tasty supper--just to make it clear to him what he'll lose if he loses +me." + +James Ollerenshaw had no sleep that night. And Helen had but little. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CHICANE + + +He came downstairs early, as he had done after a previous sleepless +night--also caused by Helen. + +That it would be foolish, fatuous, and inexcusable to persevere further +in his obstinacy against Helen, this he knew. He saw clearly that all +his arguments to her about money and the saving of money were +ridiculous; they would not have carried conviction even to the most +passive intelligence, and Helen's intelligence was far from passive. +They were not even true in fact, for he had never intended to leave any +money to Helen's mother; he had never intended to leave any money to +anybody, simply because he had not cared to think of his own decease; he +had made no plans about the valuable fortune which, as Helen had too +forcibly told him, he would not be able to bear away with him when he +left Bursley for ever; this subject was not pleasant to him. All his +rambling sentences to Helen (which he had thought so clever when he +uttered them) were merely an excuse for not parting with money--money +that was useless to him. + +On the other hand, what Helen had said was both true and convincing; at +any rate, it convinced him. + +He was a miser; he admitted it. Being a miser, he saw, was one way of +enjoying yourself, but not the best way. Again, if he really desired to +enrich Helen, how much better to enrich her at once than at an uncertain +date when he would be dead. Dead people can't be thanked. Dead people +can't be kissed. Dead people can't have curious dainties offered to them +for their supper. He wished to keep Helen; but Helen would only stay on +one condition. That condition was a perfectly easy condition for him to +fulfil. After paying eight thousand pounds (or a bit less) for Wilbraham +Hall, he would still have about ten times as much money as he could +possibly require. Of course, eight thousand pounds was a lot of coin. +But, then, you can't measure women (especially when they are good cooks) +in terms of coin. For instance, it happened that he had exactly £8,000 +in shares of the London and North Western Railway Company. The +share-certificates were in his safe; he could hold them in his hand; he +could sell them and buy Wilbraham Hall with the proceeds. That is to +say, he could exchange them for Helen. Now, it would be preposterous to +argue that he would not derive more satisfaction from Helen than from +those crackling share-certificates. + +Wilbraham Hall, once he became its owner, would be a worry--an awful +worry. Well, would it? Would not Helen be entirely capable of looking +after it, of superintending it in every way? He knew that she would! As +for the upkeep of existence in Wilbraham Hall, had not Helen proved to +him that its cost was insignificant when compared to his income? She +had. + +And as to his own daily manner of living, could he not live precisely as +he chose at Wilbraham Hall? He could. It was vast; but nothing would +compel him to live in all of it at once. He could choose a nice little +room, and put a notice on the door that it was not to be disturbed. And +Helen could run the rest of the mansion as her caprice dictated. + +The process of argument was over when Helen descended to put the +finishing touches to a breakfast which she had evidently concocted with +Georgiana the night before. + +"Breakfast is ready, uncle," she called to him. + +He obeyed. Flowers on the table once more! The first since her +departure! A clean cloth! A general, inexplicable tuning-up of the +meal's frame. + +You would now, perhaps, have expected him to yield, as gracefully as an +old man can. He wanted to yield. He hungered to yield. He knew that it +was utterly for his own good to yield. But if you seriously expected +him to yield, your knowledge of human nature lacks depth. Something far +stronger than argument, something far stronger than desire for his own +happiness, prevented him from yielding. Pride, a silly self-conceit, the +greatest enemy of the human race, forbade him to yield. For, on the +previous night, Helen had snubbed him--and not for the first time. He +could not accept the snub with meekness, though it would have paid him +handsomely to do so, though as a Christian and a philosopher he ought to +have done so. He could not. + +So he put on a brave face, pretended to accept the situation with +contented calm, and talked as if Canada was the next street, and as if +her going was entirely indifferent to him. Helen imitated him. + +It was a lovely morning; not a cloud in the sky--only in their hearts. + +"Uncle!" she said after breakfast was done and cleared away. + +He was counting rents in his cashbox in the front parlour, and she had +come to him, and was leaning over his shoulder. + +"Well, lass?" + +"Have you got twenty-five pounds in that box?" + +It was obvious that he had. + +"I shouldna' be surprised," said he. + +"I wish you'd lend it me." + +"What for?" + +"I want to go over to Hanbridge and book my berth, definitely, and I've +no loose cash." + +Now here was a chance to yield. But no. + +"Dost mean to say," he exclaimed, "as ye havena' booked your berth? When +does th' steamer sail?" + +"There's one from Glasgow next Saturday," said she--"the _Saskatchewan_. +I secured the berth, but I didn't pay for it." + +"It's a rare lot of money," he observed. + +"Oh," she said, "I didn't want all that for the fare. I've other things +to pay for--railway to Glasgow, etc. You will lend it me, won't you?" + +Her fingers were already in the cashbox. She was behaving just like a +little girl, like a spoilt child. It was remarkable, he considered, how +old and mature Helen could be when she chose, and how kittenish when she +chose. + +She went off with four five-pound notes and five sovereigns. "Will you +ask me to come back and cook the dinner?" she smiled, ironically, +enchantingly. + +"Ay!" he said. He was bound to smile also. + +She returned in something over two hours. + +"There you are!" she said, putting a blue-green paper into his hand. +"Ever seen one of these before?" + +It was the ticket for the steamer. + +This staggered him. A sensible, determined woman, who disappears to buy +a steamer-ticket, may be expected to reappear with a steamer-ticket. And +yet it staggered him. He could scarcely believe it. She was going, then! +She was going! It was inevitable now. + +"The boat leaves the Clyde at ten in the morning," she said, resuming +possession of the paper, "so we must go to Glasgow on Friday, and stop +the night at an hotel." + +"We?" he murmured, aghast. + +"Well," she said, "you surely won't let me travel to Glasgow all alone, +will you?" + +"Her's a caution, her is!" he privately reflected. + +"You can come back on Saturday," she said; "so that you'll be in time to +collect your rents. There's an express to Glasgow from Crewe at 1.15, +and to catch that we must take the 12.20 at Shawport." + +She had settled every detail. + +"And what about my dinner?" he inquired. + +"I'm going to set about it instantly," laughed she. + +"I mean my dinner on Friday?" he said. + +"Oh, _that_!" she replied. "There's a restaurant-car from Crewe. So we +can lunch on the train." + +This idea of accompanying her to Glasgow pleased him intensely. +"Glasgow isna' much i' my line," he said. "But you wenches do as ye +like, seemingly." + +Thus, on the Friday morning, he met her down at Shawport Station. He was +in his best clothes, but he had walked. She arrived in a cab, that +carried a pagoda of trunks on its fragile roof; she had come straight +from her lodgings. There was a quarter of an hour before train-time. He +paid for the cab. He also bought one second-class single and one +second-class return to Glasgow, while she followed the porter who +trundled her luggage. When he came out of the booking-office (minus +several gold pieces), she was purchasing papers at the bookstall, and +farther up the platform the porter had seized a paste-brush, and was +opening a cupboard of labels. An extraordinary scheme presented itself +to James Ollerenshaw's mind, and he trotted up to the porter. + +"I've seen to the baggage myself," said Helen, without looking at him. + +"All right," he said. + +The porter touched his cap. + +"Label that luggage for Crewe," he whispered to the porter, and passed +straight on, as if taking exercise on the platform. + +"Yes, sir," said the porter. + +When he got back to Helen of course he had to make conversation with a +nonchalant air, in order to hide his guilty feelings. + +"So none of 'em has come to see you off!" he observed. + +"None of whom?" + +"None o' yer friends." + +"No fear!" she said. "I wouldn't have it for anything. I do hate and +loathe good-byes at a railway station. Don't you?" + +"Never had any," he said. + +The train was prompt, but between Shawport and Crewe it suffered delays, +so that there was not an inordinate amount of time to spare at the +majestic junction. + +Heedless, fly-away creature that she was, Helen scurried from the North +Stafford platform to the main-line platform without a thought as to her +luggage. She was apparently so preoccupied with her handbag, which +contained her purse, that she had no anxiety left over for her heavy +belongings. + +As they hastened forward, he saw the luggage being tumbled out on to the +platform. + +The Glasgow train rolled grandiosely in, and the restaurant-car came to +a standstill almost exactly opposite the end of the North Stafford +platform. They obtained two seats with difficulty. Then, as there was +five minutes to wait, Jimmy descended from the car to the asphalte and +peeped down the North Stafford platform. Yes, her luggage was lying +there, deserted, in a pile. He regained the carriage. + +"I suppose the luggage will be all right?" Helen said, calmly, just as +the guard whistled. + +"Ay!" said he, with the mien of a traveller of vast experience. "I saw +'em bringing all th' N.S. luggage over. It were th' fust thing I thought +of." + +As a liar he reckoned he was pretty good. + +He glanced from the window as the train slid away from Crewe, and out of +the tail of his eye, in the distance, over the heads of people, he had a +momentary glimpse of the topmost of Helen's trunks safely at rest on the +North Stafford platform. + +He felt safe. He felt strangely joyous. He ate largely, and made very +dry, humorous remarks about the novelty of a restaurant on wheels. + +"Bless us!" he said, as the express flashed through Preston without +stopping. "It's fust time as I've begun a bottle o' Bass in one town and +finished it in another." + +He grew positively jolly, and the journey seemed to be accomplished with +the rapidity of a dream. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE TOSSING + + +"You said you'd seen it into the van," pouted Helen--she who never +pouted! + +"Nay, lass," he corrected her, "I said I'd seen 'em bringing all th' +luggage over." + +The inevitable moment of reckoning had arrived. They stood together on +the platform of St. Enoch's, Glasgow. The last pieces of luggage were +being removed from the guard's van under the direction of passengers, +and there was no sign whatever of Helen's trunks. This absence of +Helen's trunks did not in the least surprise James Ollerenshaw; he was +perfectly aware that Helen's trunks reposed, at that self-same instant, +in the lost luggage office at Crewe; but, of course, he had to act +surprise. In case of necessity he could act very well. It was more +difficult for him to act sorrow than to act surprise; but he did both to +his own satisfaction. He climbed into the van and scanned its +corners--in vain. Then, side by side, they visited the other van at the +head of the train, with an equal result. + +The two guards, being Scotch, responded to inquiries with extreme +caution. All that they would answer for was that the trunks were not in +the train. Then the train was drawn out of the station by a toy-engine, +and the express engine followed it with grave dignity, and Helen and +Jimmy were left staring at the empty rails. + +"Something must be done," said Helen, crossly. + +"Ay!" Jimmy agreed. "It's long past my tea-time. We must find out if +there's anything to eat i' Scotland." + +But Helen insisted on visiting the stationmaster. Now, the stationmaster +at St. Enoch's is one of the most important personages north of the +Tweed, and not easily to be seen. However, Helen saw him. He pointed out +that the train came from London in two portions, which were divided in +Scotland, one going to Edinburgh, and his suggestion was that +conceivably the luggage had been put into the Edinburgh van in mistake +for the Glasgow van. Such errors did occur sometimes, he said, implying +that the North Western was an English railway, and that surprising +things happened in England. He said, also, that Helen might telephone to +Edinburgh and inquire. + +She endeavoured to act on this counsel, but came out of the telephone +cabin saying that she could not get into communication with Edinburgh. + +"Better go over to Edinburgh and see for yourself," said Jimmy, +tranquilly. + +"Yes, and what about my steamer?" Helen turned on him. + +"Scotland canna' be so big as all that," said Jimmy. "Not according to +th' maps. Us could run over to Edinburgh to-night, and get back to +Glasgow early to-morrow." + +She consented. + +Just as he was taking two second returns to Edinburgh (they had snatched +railway eggs and railway tea while waiting for a fast train) he stopped +and said: + +"Unless ye prefer to sail without your trunks, and I could send 'em on +by th' next steamer?" + +"Uncle," she protested, "I do wish you wouldn't be so silly. The idea of +me sailing without my trunks! Why don't you ask me to sail without my +head?" + +"All right--all right!" he responded. "But don't snap mine off. Two +second returns to Edinburgh, young man, and I'll thank ye to look slippy +over it." + +In the Edinburgh train he could scarcely refrain from laughing. And +Helen, too, seemed more in a humour to accept the disappearance of five +invaluable trunks, full of preciosities, as a facetious sally on the +part of destiny. + +He drew out a note-book which he always carried, and did mathematical +calculations. + +"That makes twenty-seven pounds eighteen and ninepence as ye owe me," he +remarked. + +"What? For railway tickets?" + +"Railway tickets, tips, and that twenty-five pounds I lent ye. I'm +making ye a present o' _my_ fares, and dinner, and tea and so forth." + +"Twenty-five pounds that you lent me!" she murmured. + +"Yes," he said. "Tuesday morning, while I was at my cashbox." + +"Oh, _that_!" she ejaculated. "I thought you were giving me that. I +never thought you'd ask me for it again, uncle. I'd completely forgotten +all about it." + +She seemed quite sincere in this amazing assertion. + +His acquaintance with the ways of women was thus enlarged, suddenly, and +at the merely nominal expense of twenty-five pounds. It was a wondrous +proof of his high spirits and his general contentedness with himself +that he should have submitted to the robbery without a groan. + +"What's twenty-five pun'?" he reflected. "There'll be no luggage for her +at Edinburgh; that steamer'll go without her; and then I shall give in. +I shall talk to her about the ways o' Providence, and tell her it's +borne in upon me as she must have Wilbraham Hall if she's in a mind to +stay. I shall save my face, anyhow." + +And he further decided that, in case of necessity, in case of Helen at a +later stage pushing her inquiries as to the luggage inconveniently far +he would have to bribe the porter at Shawport to admit to her that he, +the porter, had made a mistake in the labelling. + +When they had satisfied themselves that Edinburgh did not contain +Helen's trunks--no mean labour, for the lost luggage office was closed, +and they had to move mountains in order to get it opened on the plea of +extremest urgency--Jimmy Ollerenshaw turned to Susan's daughter, saying +to himself that she must be soothed regardless of cost. Miracles would +not enable her to catch the steamer now, and the hour was fast +approaching when he would benevolently offer her the gift of Wilbraham +Hall. + +"Well, lass," he began, "I'm right sorry. What's to be done?" + +"There's nothing at all to be done," she replied, smiling sadly. She +might have upbraided him for carelessness in the matter of the luggage. +She might have burst into tears and declared passionately that it was +all _his_ fault. But she did not. "Except, of course, that I must cable +to mother. She's coming to Quebec to meet me." + +"That'll do to-morrow," he said. "What's to be done to-night? In th' way +o' supper, as ye might say?" + +"We must go to an hotel. I believe the station hotel is the best." She +pointed to a sign and a directing black hand which said: "To the hotel." + +In a minute James Ollerenshaw found himself in the largest and most +gorgeous hotel in Scotland. + +"Look here, wench," he said. "I don't know as this is much in my line. +Summat a thought less gaudy'll do for my old bones." + +"I won't move a step farther this night!" Helen declared. "I'm ready to +drop." + +He remembered that she must be soothed. + +"Well," he said, "here goes!" + +And he strode across the tessellated pavement under the cold, +scrutinizing eye of menials to a large window marked in gold letters: +"Bureau." + +"Have ye gotten a couple of bedrooms like?" he asked the clerk. + +"Yes, sir," said the clerk (who was a perfect lady). "What do you want?" + +"Don't I tell ye as we want a couple o' bedrooms, miss?" + +After negotiations she pushed across the counter to him--two discs of +cardboard numbered 324 and 326, each marked 6s. 6d. He regarded the +price as fantastic, but no cheaper rooms were to be had, and Helen's +glance was dangerous. + +"Why," he muttered, "I've got a four-roomed cottage empty at Turnhill as +I'd let for a month for thirteen shillings, _and_ paper it!" + +"Where is your luggage, sir?" asked a muscular demon with shiny sleeves. + +"That's just what we want to know, young feller," said Jimmy. "For the +present, that's all as we can lay our hands on." And he indicated +Helen's satchel. + +His experiences in the lift were exciting, and he suggested the laying +of a tramway along the corridor of the fourth floor. The beautiful +starched creature who brought in his hot water (without being asked) +found him in the dark struggling with the electric light, which he had +extinguished from curiosity and had not been able to rekindle, having +lost the location of the switch. + +At 10.30 the travellers were seated at a table in the immense +dining-room, which was populated by fifteen waiters of various European +nationalities, and six belated guests including themselves. The one item +on the menu which did not exceed his comprehension was Welsh rarebit, +and he ordered it. + +It was while they were waiting in anticipation of this dish that he +decided to commence operations upon Helen. The fact was, he was becoming +very anxious to put affairs on a definite footing. "Well, my girl," he +said, "cheer up. If ye tak' my advice ye'll make up yer mind to stop i' +owd England with yer owd uncle." + +"Of course I will," she answered, softly; and added: "If you'll do as I +want." + +"Buy that barracks?" + +She nodded. + +He was on the very point of yielding; he was on the very point of +saying, with grandfatherly, god-like tone of utter beneficence: "Lass, +ye shall have it. I wouldn't ha' given it ye, but it's like as if what +must be--this luggage being lost. It's like as if Providence was in it." +He was on the very point of this decisive pronouncement, when a novel +and dazzling idea flashed into his head. + +"Listen here," he said, bending across the table towards her, "I'll toss +thee." + +"Toss me?" she exclaimed, startled. + +"Ay! I'll toss thee, if thou'lt stay. Heads I buy the barracks; tails I +don't, and you live with me in a _house_." + +"Very well," she agreed, lightly. + +He had not really expected her to agree to such a scheme. But, then, +young women named Helen can be trusted absolutely to falsify +expectation. + +He took a sixpence from his pocket. + +"Heads I win, eh?" he said. + +She acquiesced, and up went the sixpence. + +It rolled off the table on to the Turkey carpet (Jimmy was not so adroit +as he had been in his tossing days), and seven Austrians, Germans, and +Swiss sprang towards it with a simultaneous impulse to restore it to its +owner. + +Jimmy jumped to his feet. + +"Don't touch it!" he cried, and bent over it. + +"Nay, nay!" he muttered, "I've lost. Th' old man's lost, after all!" + +And he returned to the table, having made a sensation in the room. + +Helen was in paradise. "I'm surprised you were ready to toss, uncle," +said she. "However, it's all right; we can get the luggage to-morrow. +It's at Crewe." + +"How dost know it's at Crewe?" he demanded. + +"Because I had it labelled for Crewe. You _were_ silly to imagine that I +was going to leave you. But I thought I'd just leave nothing undone to +make you give way. I made sure I was beaten. I made sure I should have +to knuckle under. And now you are goose enough to toss, and you've lost, +you've lost! Hurrah!" She clapped her hands softly. + +"Do ye mean to tell me," Jimmy thundered, "as ye've been playing a game +wi' me all this time?" + +"Of course." She had no shame. + +"And bought th' steamer-ticket without meaning to go?" + +"Well," she said, "it's no good half-playing when you're playing for +high stakes. Besides, what's fifteen pounds?" + +He did not let her into the secret that he also had ordered the luggage +to be labelled for Crewe. They returned to the Five Towns the following +morning. And by mutual tacit agreement they never spoke of that +excursion to Scotland. + +In such manner came Helen Rathbone to be the mistress of Wilbraham Hall. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE FLITTING + + +Before the spacious crimson façade of Wilbraham Hall upon an autumn day +stood Mr. Crump's pantechnicon. That is to say, it was a pantechnicon +only by courtesy--Mr. Crump's courtesy. In strict adherence to truth it +was just a common furniture-removing van, dragged over the earth's +surface by two horses. On the outer walls of it were an announcement +that Mr. Crump removed goods by road, rail or steamer, and vast coloured +pictures of Mr. Crump removing goods by road, rail and steamer. One saw +the van in situations of grave danger--travelling on an express train +over a lofty viaduct at sixty miles an hour, or rolling on the deck of a +steamer in a stormy sea. One saw it also in situations of impressive +natural beauty--as, for instance, passing by road through terrific +mountain defiles, where cataracts rushed and foamed. The historic fact +was that the van had never been beyond the Five Towns. Nevertheless, Mr. +Crump bound himself in painted letters six inches high to furnish +estimates for any removal whatsoever; and, what is more, as a special +boon to the Five Towns, to furnish estimates free of charge. In +this detail Mr. Crump had determined not to lag behind his +fellow-furniture-removers, who, one and all, persist in refusing to +accept even a small fee for telling you how much they demand for their +services. + +In the van were the entire worldly possessions of James Ollerenshaw +(except his houses, his investments, a set of bowls up at the bowling +club, and the clothes he wore), and the entire worldly possessions of +Helen Rathbone (except the clothes she wore). If it be asked where was +the twenty-six pounds so generously given to her by a loving uncle, the +reply is that the whole sum, together with much else, was in the coffers +of Ezra Brunt, the draper and costumier at Hanbridge; and the reply +further is that Helen was in debt. I have hitherto concealed Helen's +tendency to debts, but it was bound sooner or later to come out. And +here it is. + +After an adventurous journey by bridge over the North Staffordshire +Railway, and by bridge over the Shropshire Union Canal, and by bridge +over the foaming cataract of the Shaws Brook, and down the fearful +slants of Oldcastle-street, and through the arduous terrific denies of +Oldcastle-road, the van had arrived at the portals of Wilbraham Hall. It +would have been easy, by opening wide the portals, to have introduced +the van and the horses too into the hall of Wilbraham Hall. But this +course was not adopted. + +Helen and Georgiana had preceded the van, and they both stood at the +door to receive the goods. Georgiana was in one of Georgiana's aprons, +and Helen also was in one of Georgiana's aprons. Uncle James had +followed the van. He had not let it out of his sight. The old man's +attachment to even the least of his goods was touching, and his +attachment to the greatest of his goods carried pathos into farce. The +greatest of his goods was, apparently, the full-rigged ship and +tempestuous ocean in a glass box which had stood on the table in the +front room of the other house for many years. No one had suspected his +esteem for that glass box and its contents. He had not suspected it +himself until the moment for packing it had come. But he seemed to love +it more than his bits of Spode china or his concertina; and, taking it +with him, he had quitted with a softened regret the quantity of +over-blown blue roses which, in their eternal bloom, had enlivened his +existence during a longer period even than the ship and ocean. + +The ship and ocean was the last thing put into the van and the first +thing taken out, and James Ollerenshaw introduced the affair, hugged +against his own breast, into the house of his descendants. The remainder +of the work of transference was relatively unimportant. Two men +accomplished it easily while the horses ate a late dinner. And then the +horses and the van and the men went off, and there was nothing left but +a few wisps of straw and so forth, on the magnificent sweep of gravel, +to indicate that they had ever been there. And Uncle James, and Helen, +and Georgiana felt rather forlorn and abandoned. They stood in the hall +and looked at each other a little blankly, like gipsies camping out in +an abandoned cathedral. An immense fire was burning in the immense +fireplace of the hall, and similar fires were burning in the state +bedroom, in a little drawing-room beyond the main drawing-room, in +another bedroom, in the giant's kitchen, and in one of the attics. These +fires and a certain amount of cleaning were the only preparations which +Helen had permitted herself to make. Even the expense of the coal had +startled James, and she proposed to get him safely in the cage before +commencing the serious business which would shatter all his nerves. By a +miracle of charm and audacity she had obtained from him the control of a +sum of seven hundred and fifty pounds. This sum, now lying nominally to +her credit at one of James's various banks, represented the difference +between eight thousand pounds (at which James had said Wilbraham Hall +would be cheap) and seven thousand two hundred and fifty pounds (at +which James had succeeded in buying Wilbraham Hall). + +To the left of the hall, near the entrance, was quite a small room +(originally, perhaps, a butler's lair), and James was obstinate in +selecting this room as his office. He had his desk carried there, and +everything that personally affected him except his safe and the simple +necessaries of his bedroom. These were taken, not to the state bedroom, +which he had declined, after insincere pressure from Helen to accept it, +but to a much smaller sleeping-chamber. The numerous family of Windsor +chairs, together with other ancient honesties, were sent up to +attics--too old at forty! Georgiana was established in a glorious attic; +the state bedroom was strewn with Helen's gear; and scarcely anything +remained unniched in the Hall save the ship and ocean. They all rested +from their labours, and Helen was moved by one of her happiest +inspirations. + +"Georgiana," she said, "go and make some tea. Bring a cup for yourself." + +"Yes, miss. Thank you, miss." + +On removal days miserable distinctions of class are invariably lost in +the large-heartedness of mutual endeavour. + +It was while the trio were thus drinking tea together, standing, and, as +it were, with loins still girt after the pilgrimage, that the first +visitor to the new owners of Wilbraham Hall rang its great bell and +involved Georgiana in her first ceremonial duty. Georgiana was quite +nervous as she went to the door. + +The caller was Emanuel Prockter. + +"Mother thought I might perhaps be able to help you," said he, in the +slightly simpering tone which he adopted in delicate situations, and +which he thought suited him. What made the situation delicate, to him, +was Helen's apron--quite agreeable though the apron was. He felt, with +his unerring perceptiveness, that young ladies do not care to receive +young gentlemen in the apron of a Georgiana. His own attire was, as +usual, fabulously correct; the salient features of it being a pair of +light yellow chamois gloves, loose-fitting and unbuttoned, with the +gauntlets negligently turned back. These gloves were his method of +expressing the fact that the visit was a visit of usefulness and not a +kid-glove visit. But Helen seemed quite composed behind Georgiana's +apron. + +"Yes," he repeated, with smiling inanity, after he had shaken hands. +"Mother thought I might help you." + +("What a fool that woman is!" reflected James. "And what a fool _he_ is +to put it on to his mother instead of keeping it to himself!") + +"And what did _you_ think, Mr. Prockter?" Helen demanded. "Another cup +and saucer, Georgiana." + +Helen's question was one of her insolent questions. + +("Perhaps his mother ain't such a fool!" reflected James. And he +perceived, or imagined he perceived, that their fears of Helen marrying +Emanuel were absurd.) + +Emanuel sniffed humour in the air. He never understood humour; but he +was, at any rate, sufficiently gifted with the wisdom of the simple to +smile vaguely and amiably when he sniffed humour. + +And then Helen said, with cordial kindliness: "It's awfully good of +you--awfully good of you. Here we are, you see!" + +And the degree of cordiality was such that the fear of her marrying +Emanuel suddenly seemed less absurd to James. The truth was that James +never had a moment's peace of mind with Helen. She was continually +proving that as a student in the University of Human Nature he had not +even matriculated. + +Georgiana appeared with an odd cup and saucer, and a giggling statement +that she had not been able to discover any more teaspoons. + +"Never mind," said Helen. "Mr. Prockter shall have mine." + +("Well, I'm hanged!" reflected James.) + +Whereupon Georgiana departed, bearing her own tea, into the giant's +kitchen. The miserable distinctions of class had been mysteriously +established. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +SHIP AND OCEAN + + +The host, the hostess, and the guest all remained on their feet in the +noble hall of the Wilbrahams, it not being good etiquette to sit at +removals, even when company calls. Emanuel, fortunately for him, was +adept at perambulation with a full cup of tea in one hand and a hat or +so in the other. There were two things which he really could do--one was +to sing a sentimental song without laughing, and the other was to +balance a cup of tea. And it was only when he was doing the one or the +other that he genuinely lived. During the remainder of his existence he +was merely a vegetable inside a waistcoat. He held his cup without a +tremor while Helen charmingly introduced into it her teaspoon and +stirred up the sugar. Then, after he had sipped and pronounced the +result excellent, he began to admire the Hall and the contents of the +Hall. A proof of his real Christian charity was that, whereas he had +meant to have that Hall for himself, he breathed no word of envy nor +discontent. He praised everything; and presently he arrived at the ship +and ocean, and praised that. He particularly praised the waves. + +The heart of James instantly and instinctively softened towards him. For +the realism of those foaming waves had always struck James as the final +miracle of art. And, moreover, this was the first time that any of +Helen's haughty "set" had ever deigned to recognise the merits of the +ship and ocean. + +"Where shouldst hang it, Master Prockter?" James genially asked. + +"Hang it, uncle?" exclaimed Helen. "Are you going to hang it? Aren't you +going to keep it on the table in your own room?" + +She was hoping that it might occupy a position not too prominent. She +did not intend it to be the central decorative attraction of the palace. + +"It ought to be hung," said Emanuel. "See, here are the little iron +things for the nails." + +This gift of observation pleased James. Emanuel was indeed beginning to +show quite an intelligent interest in the ship and ocean. + +"Of course it must be hung," said he. + +He was very human, was Jimmy Ollerenshaw. For at least twenty-five years +he had possessed the ship and ocean, and cherished it, always meaning +one day to hang it against the wall as it deserved. And yet he had never +arrived at doing so, though the firm resolution to do so had not a whit +weakened in his mind. And now he was absolutely decided, with the whole +force of his will behind him, to hang the ship and ocean at once. + +"There! under the musicians' gallery wouldn't be a bad place, would it, +Mr. Ollerenshaw?" Emanuel suggested, respectfully. + +James trained his eye on the spot. "The very thing, lad!" said he, with +enthusiasm. + +"Lad!" Helen had not recovered from a private but extreme astonishment +at this singular mark of paternal familiarity to Emanuel when there was +another and a far louder ring at the door. + +Georgiana minced and tripped out of her retreat, and opened the majestic +portal to a still greater surprise for Helen. The ringer was Mr. Andrew +Dean--Mr. Andrew Dean with his dark, quasi-hostile eyes, and his heavy +shoulders, and his defiant, suspicious bearing--Mr. Andrew Dean in +workaday clothes and with hands that could not be called clean. Andrew +stared about him like a scout, and then advanced rapidly to Helen and +seized her hand, hurting it. + +"I was just passing," said he, in a hoarse voice. "I expected you'd be +in a bit of a mess, so I thought I might be useful. How d'ye do, Mr. +Ollerenshaw?" And he hurt James's hand also. + +"It's very kind of you," Helen remarked, flushing. + +"How do, Prockter?" Andrew jerked out at Emanuel, not taking his hand. + +This abstention on Andrew's part from physical violence was capable of +two interpretations. The natural interpretation was that Andrew's social +methods were notoriously casual and capricious. The interesting +interpretation was that a failure of the negotiations between Emanuel +and Andrew for a partnership--a failure which had puzzled Bursley--had +left rancour behind it. + +Emanuel, however, displayed no symptom of being disturbed. His blandness +remained intact. Nevertheless, the atmosphere was mysteriously electric. +Helen felt it to be so, and an atmosphere which is deemed to be electric +by even one person only, _ipso facto_, is electric. As for James +Ollerenshaw, he was certainly astonished by the visit of Andrew Dean; +but, being absorbed in the welfare of his ship and ocean, he permitted +his astonishment to dissolve in a vague satisfaction that, anyhow, +Helen's unexplained quarrel with Andrew Dean was really at an end. This +call was assuredly Andrew's way of expiatory repentance. + +"The very thing!" he repeated, glancing at Emanuel as if in expectation. + +Emanuel did not seem to comprehend that aught was expected of him. He +amiably stood, with hands still appropriately gloved, and his kindly +glance wandered between the ship and ocean and the spot which he had hit +on for the ship and ocean's last resting-place. + +"Where's the steps, Helen?" James inquired, and, after a brief silence: +"Georgiana!" he yelled. + +The girl flew in. + +"Bring us a pair o' steps," said he. + +Followed an unsuccessful search for the pair of steps, which Andrew Dean +ultimately discovered in a corner of the hall itself, lying flat behind +a vast roll of carpet which was included in the goods purchased for +seven thousand two hundred and fifty pounds. The steps being found, +Georgiana explained at length how she distinctly remembered seeing one +of the men put them behind the roll of carpet. + +"Now, what is it?" Andrew vigorously questioned. He was prepared, +evidently, to do anything that a man may do with a pair of steps. When +the operation was indicated to him, his first act was to take off his +coat, which he threw on the floor. + +"Hammer! Nails!" he ejaculated. And Georgiana, intimidated by his tone, +contrived to find both hammer and nails. It is true that the hammer was +a coal hammer. + +And in a remarkably short space of time he was balanced on the summit of +the steps with a nail in one hand, a hammer in the other, a pencil +behind his ear, and another nail in his mouth. The other three encircled +him from below, with upturned faces and open mouths, like young birds +expecting food. (Not that young birds expecting food wear gloves so +appropriate to the occasion as were Emanuel's.) James Ollerenshaw was +impressed by the workmanlike manner in which Andrew measured the width +of the glass box and marked it off on the wall before beginning to knock +nails. The presence of one nail in Andrew's mouth while he was knocking +in the other with a coal hammer, prevented him from outraging the social +code when the coal hammer embraced his fingers as well as the nail in +the field of its activity. Unhappily, when it came to the second nail, +no such hindrance operated. + +The nails, having been knocked in, were duly and satisfactorily tested. + +Then solemnly James seized the glass box containing the ship and ocean, +and bore it with all possible precautions to the pair of steps in front +of the great doors. Andrew descended two storeys, and, bending his body, +received the box from James as a parson receives a baby at the font. He +then remounted. The steps rocked. + +"I'd happen better hold 'em," said James. + +"It'll be all right," said Andrew. + +"I'll hold them," said Emanuel, hastening forward. + +The precise cause of the accident will probably never be known, but no +sooner did Emanuel lay his gloved hand on the steps than the whole +edifice, consisting of steps, Andrew, and ship and ocean tottered and +fell. + +"Clumsy fool!" Andrew was distinctly heard to exclaim during his swift +passage to the floor. + +The ship and ocean were incurably disintegrated into a mess of coloured +cardboard, linen, and sticks. + +And catastrophes even more dreadful might have occurred had it not been +for the calm and wise tact of Helen. Where a person is pleased by an +event, that person can usually, without too much difficulty, exercise a +calm and wise tact upon other persons whom the event has not pleased. +And Helen was delighted by the catastrophe to the ship and ocean. The +ship and ocean had formed no part in her scheme for the decoration of +the hall; her one poor solace had been that the relative proportions of +the hall and of the ship and ocean were such that even a careful +observer might have spent hours in the former without discovering the +latter; on the other hand, some blundering ninny might have lighted +instantly on the ship and ocean, and awkwardly inquired what it was +doing there. So Helen was really enchanted by the ruin. She handled her +men with notable finesse: Uncle James savage and vindictive, but +uncertain upon whom to pour out his anger; Emanuel nursing his injured +innocence; and Andrew Dean nursing his elbow, his head, and vengeance. +She also found a moment in which to calm Georgiana, who had run flying +and hysterical into the hall at the sound of the smash. + +Even the steps were broken. + +After a time harmony was established, both Uncle James and Emanuel +being, at bottom, men of peace. But it was undeniable that Uncle James +had lost more than gold, and that Emanuel had been touched in a perilous +place--his conceit of himself. + +Then Georgiana swept up the ship and ocean, and James retired to his own +little room, where he assumed his Turkish cap, and began to arrange his +personal effects in a manner definite and final, which would be a law +for ever to the servants of Wilbraham Hall. + +Left with the two young men, Helen went from triumph to triumph. In +quite a few minutes she had them actually talking to each other. And she +ended by speeding them away together. And by the time they departed each +was convinced that Georgiana's apron, on Helen, was one of the most +bewitching manifestations of the inexpressibly feminine that he had ever +been privileged to see. + +They took themselves off by a door at the farther end of the hall behind +the stairs, whence there was a short cut through the undulating grounds +to the main road. + +Helen ascended to the state bedroom, where there was simply everything +to be done; Georgiana followed her, after having made up the fires, and, +while helping to unpack boxes, offered gossamer hints--fluffy, scarcely +palpable, elusive things--to her mistress that her real ambition had +always been to be a lady's-maid, and to be served at meals by the third, +or possibly the fourth, house-maid. And the hall of Wilbraham Hall was +abandoned for a space to silence and solitude. + +Now, the window of Uncle James's little room was a little window that +lived modestly between the double pillars of the portico and the first +window of the great dining-room. Resting from his labours of sorting and +placing, he gazed forth at his domain, and mechanically calculated what +profit would accrue to him if he cut off a slip a hundred and fifty feet +deep along by the Oldcastle-road, and sold it in lots for villas, or +built villas and sold them on ninety-nine-year leases. He was engaged in +his happy exercise of mental arithmetic when he heard footsteps +crunching the gravel, and then a figure, which had evidently come round +by the north side from the back of the Hall, passed across the field of +James's vision. This figure was a walking baptism to the ground it trod. +It dripped water plenteously. It was, in a word, soaked, and its +garments clung to it. Its yellow chamois gloves clung to its hands. It +had no hat. It hesitated in front of the entrance. + +Uncle James pushed up his window. "What's amiss, lad?" he inquired, with +a certain blandness of satisfaction. + +"I fell into the Water," said Emanuel, feebly, meaning the sheet known +as Wilbraham Water, which diversified the park-like splendours of +Wilbraham Hall. + +"How didst manage that?" + +"The path is very muddy and slippery just there," said Emanuel. + +"Hadn't you better run home as quick as may be?" James suggested. + +"I can't," said Emanuel. + +"Why not?" + +"I've got no hat, and I'm all wet. And everybody in Oldcastle-road will +see me. Can you lend me a hat and coat?" + +And all the while he was steadily baptising the gravel. + +Uncle James's head disappeared for a moment, and then he threw out of +the window a stiff yellow mackintosh of great age. It was his +rent-collecting mackintosh. It had the excellent quality of matching the +chamois gloves. + +Emanuel thankfully took it. "And what about a cap or something?" he +plaintively asked. + +"Tak' this," said Uncle James, with remarkable generosity whipping the +Turkish cap from his own head, and handing it to Emanuel. + +Emanuel hesitated, then accepted; and, thus uniquely attired, sped away, +still baptising. + +At tea (tea proper) James recounted this episode to a somewhat taciturn +and preoccupied Helen. + +"He didn't fall into the Water," said Helen, curtly. "Andrew Dean pushed +him in." + +"How dost know that?" + +"Georgiana and I saw it from my bedroom window. It was she who first saw +them fighting, or at any rate arguing. Then Andrew Dean 'charged' him +in, as if they were playing football, and walked on; and Emanuel +Prockter scrambled out." + +"H'm!" reflected James. "Well, if ye ask me, lass, Emanuel brought that +on himsen. I never seed a man look a bigger foo' than Emanuel looked +when he went off in my mackintosh and Turkish cap." + +"Your Turkish cap?" + +"One of 'em." + +"With the tassel?" + +"Ay!" + +"It's a great shame! That's what it is! I'm sure he didn't look a fool! +He's been very badly treated, and I'll--" + +She rose from the table, in sudden and speechless indignation. + +"You should ha' seen him, lass!" said James, and added: "I wish ye had!" +He tried to be calm. But she had sprung on him another of her +disconcerting surprises. Was it, after all, possible, conceivable, that +she was in love with Emanuel? + +She sat down again. "I know why you say that, uncle"--she looked him in +the face, and put her elbows on the table. "Now, just listen to me!" + +Highly perturbed, he wondered what was coming next. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +CONFESSIONAL + + +"What's the matter with Emanuel Prockter?" Helen asked; meaning, what +were the implied faults of Emanuel Prockter. + +There was defiance in her tone. She had risen from the table, and she +had sat down again, and she seemed by her pose to indicate that she had +sat down again with a definite purpose, a purpose to do grievous harm to +the soul's peace of anybody who differed from the statements which she +was about to enunciate, or who gave the wrong sort of answers to her +catechism. She was wearing her black mousseline dress (theoretically +"done with"), which in its younger days always had the effect of rousing +the _grande dame_ in her. She laid her ringless hands, lightly clasped, +on a small, heavy, round mahogany table which stood in the middle of the +little drawing-room, and she looked over James's shoulder into the +vistas of the great drawing-room. The sombre, fading magnificence of the +Wilbrahams--a magnificence of dark woods, tasselled curtains, reps, and +gilt--was her theatre, and the theatre suited her mood. + +Still, Jimmy Ollerenshaw, somewhat embittered by the catastrophe of the +afternoon, conceived that he was not going to be brow-beaten. + +"What's the matter with Emanuel Prockter," said he, "is as he's probably +gotten a cold by this." + +"Yes, and you're glad!" Helen retorted. "You think he looked a fool +after he'd been in the water. And you were glad." + +"I dunna think," said James, "I'm sure." + +"But why should you be glad? That's what I want to know." + +James could not sagaciously reply to this query. He merely scratched his +head, tilting one of his Turkish caps to that end. + +"The fact is," she cried, with a grammatical carelessness which was +shocking in a woman who had professed to teach everything, "every one +has got their knives into Emanuel Prockter. And it's simply because he's +good-looking and well-dressed and sings beautifully." + +"Good-looking!" murmured James. + +"Well, isn't he?" + +"He's pretty," said James. + +"No one ever said he had a lot of brains--" + +"I never did," James put in. + +"But what does that matter? He _is_ polite. He does know how to behave +himself in polite society. If Andrew Dean pushed him into the water, +that wasn't his fault. Andrew is stronger than he is, but that's no +credit to Andrew Dean. It's to his discredit. Andrew Dean is nothing but +a bully--we all know that. He might have pushed you into the water, or +me." + +"He might," James admitted, "if I'd been silly enough to get between the +water and him." + +"And I should like to know who looked a fool when Andrew Dean fell off +those steps. And just listen to the language the man used. I will say +this for Emanuel Prockter--I never heard him swear." + +"No," said James. "He wears gloves. He even wears 'em when he takes his +bath of a November afternoon." + +"I don't care who knows it," Helen observed, hotly, "I like Emanuel +Prockter." + +"There's nobody as dunna' know it," said James. "It's the talk of Bosley +as you've set your cap at him." + +"I don't wear caps," said Helen. "I'm not a servant." + +"Hat, then," James corrected himself. "Ye'll not deny as you wear hats, +I reckon. I've seen ye in forty." + +"I know who started that tale," Helen exploded. "Andrew Dean started +that tale." + +"No," said James. "It was Mrs. Prockter, I'm thinking." + +"Has Mrs. Prockter spoken to you about me and--and Emanuel?" + +James hesitated. But the devil-may-care, agreeably vicious Ollerenshaw +impulses were afoot in him, and he did not hesitate long. + +"Her has," said he. + +"What a ridiculous, fat old woman she is, with her fancies!" + +Frankly, James did not like this. He was in a mind to resent it, and +then a certain instinct of self-preservation prompted him to seek cover +in silence. But in any battle of the sexes silence is no cover to the +male, as he ought to have known. + +Helen pursued him behind his cover. "I wonder who _she's_ setting her +cap at! I suppose you'll not deny that _she_ wears a cap?" + +It was quite a long time since James Ollerenshaw had blushed; but he +blushed at these words. Nothing could have been more foolish, inept, on +his part. Why should he blush because Helen expressed a vague, hostile +curiosity as to the direction of Mrs. Prockter's cap? What had the +direction of Mrs. Prockter's cap to do with him? Yet blush he did. He +grew angry, not--curiously enough--with Helen, but with himself and with +Mrs. Prockter. His anger had the strange effect of making him an arrant +coward. He got up from his chair, having pushed away his cup towards the +centre of the table. As tea was over he was within his rights in doing +so. + +"I mun be getting to work again," he muttered. + +"Please do wait a minute, uncle," she said, imperiously. "Can't you see +I want to talk to you? Can't you see I've got something on my mind?" + +Deliberately challenged in this way, the formidable James was no more +than a sheep to the shearer. Until he met Helen, he had perhaps never +received deliberate, audacious challenges, and even now he was far from +being accustomed to them. So he just stood foolishly near his chair. + +"I can't talk to you while you're standing up," she said. + +So he sat down. How simple it ought to have been for him to exert +authority over Helen, to tell her fiercely that he had no intention of +being talked to like that, and that if she persisted in such tactics the +front door was at her entire disposal! She had no claim on him. Yet he +ate his humble pie and sat down. + +"So they are saying that there is something between Emanuel Prockter and +me, are they?" she recommenced, in a new, mollified voice, a voice that +waved the white flag over her head. + +"It wouldna' surprise me to hear as they were," said James. + +"And supposing there _was_ something between us, uncle, should you +mind?" + +"I don't know as I should mind," said he. "And I don't know as it 'ud +matter a brass button if I did mind." + +"What should you do, uncle?" + +"I should do as I've always done," said he; "eat and sleep and take my +walks abroad. Them as wants to marry will marry, and they will marry +what suits 'em. But I shall tak' my meat and drink as usual." + +"Would you come to the wedding?" + +"I've only got a funeral suit," said he. "But I'd buy me some togs if +Emanuel 'ud tak' this place off my hands at what I gave." + +"Would you give me a wedding-present?" + +"I'd give thee some advice. It's what thou'rt most in need of." + +His tone was gloomy and resigned. + +She slipped round the table and sat on the arm of his chair. + +"You are a horrid old thing," she told him--not for the first time. "I +_am_ in need of advice. And there's no one can give it me but you." + +"Nay, nay!" he recoiled. "There's Sarah Swetnam. You're as thick as +thieves." + +"She's the very last person I can go to," said Helen. + +"And why?" + +"Why! Because Andrew is engaged to her sister, of course. That's the +awful part of it." + +"Ay?" he questioned. + +"Yes. Because, you see, it's Andrew Dean that I'm in love with." + +She said it in very pert and airy accents. And then the next moment she +put James into terrible consternation by crying, and clutching his arm. +He saw that she was serious. Light beat down upon him. He had to blink +and collect himself. + +"I' thy place, lass," he said, "I should keep that to mysen." + +"But I can't, uncle. That is, I haven't done. Andrew knows. You don't +understand how much I'm in love with him. I've--he's--" + +"Thou'st not kissed him?" + +"Not exactly--but--" + +"He's been kissing you in mistake for his other young woman?" + +Helen nodded. + +"Helen, what 'ud thy mother say?" + +"It was because of Andrew Dean that I came to live in Bursley," said +she. "I knew I shouldn't see him often enough if I stayed in Longshaw. +So I came here. You know we had always liked each other, I _think_, ever +since he spent two years at Longshaw at Spitz Brothers'. Then I didn't +see him for some time. You know how rude and awkward he is. Well, there +was a coolness. And then we didn't see each other for another long time. +And then when I next saw him I knew I really _was_ in love with him. (Of +course, I never said anything to mother. One doesn't, you know. And she +was so taken up with her own affairs, poor dear!) And I thought he was +really fond of me. I thought so because he was so cross and queer. He's +like that, you know. And, after all, it was not that that made him cross +and queer. It was just because he was as good as engaged to Lilian, and +he didn't like to tell me. And I never knew. How could I guess? I'd +never heard there was anything between him and Lilian. And besides, +although he was cross and queer, he said things to me that he oughtn't +to have said, considering how he was carrying on with Lilian. It was +then that I settled on coming to Bursley. There was no _reason_ why I +should stay in Longshaw. I saw him again in Longshaw, _after_ he was +engaged to Lilian, and yet he never told me! And then, when I come here, +the first thing I hear is that he's engaged to Lilian. It was that +afternoon when Sarah called; do you remember, uncle?" + +He remembered. + +"I saw Mr. Dean that night, and somehow I told him what I thought of +him. I don't know how it began; but I did. He said he couldn't help +being engaged to Lilian. He said it was one of those engagements that go +on by themselves, and you can't stop them. He wanted to stop it. But he +was engaged before he knew where he was--so he says. He said he +preferred me, and if he'd known--So of course I was obliged to be very +angry with him. That was why I didn't speak to him at first at Mrs. +Prockter's; at least, that was partly why. The other reason was that he +had accused me of running after Emanuel--of all people! I had been, you +know. But what had that got to do with Andrew, seeing that he was +engaged to Lilian? Besides, I'd been doing it on purpose. And he was so +_insolent_. And then, to crown all, Mrs. Prockter makes me dance with +him. No wonder I fainted! He is the rudest, _rudest_, crudest man I ever +knew." + +She wiped her eyes. + +"H'm!" mused James. + +"He'll simply kill poor little Lilian!" She sobbed. + +"What's that got to do with you, if you and Emanuel has got nothing to +do with him? It isn't you as'll be hung when Lilian's murdered." + +"Can't you see he mustn't marry Lilian?" Helen burst out. "Silly little +thing! How can she understand him? She's miles beneath him." + +"Is there anybody as does understand him?" James asked. + +"I do," said she. "And that's flat. And I've got to marry him, and you +must help me. I wanted to tell you, and now I've told you. Don't you +think I've done right in being quite open with you? Most girls are so +foolish in these things. But I'm not. Aren't you glad, uncle?" + +"Glad inna' the word," said he. + +"_You must help me_," she repeated. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +NOCTURNAL + + +Many things which previously had not been plain to James Ollerenshaw +were plain to him that night, as, in the solitude of his chosen room, he +reflected upon the astonishing menu that Helen had offered him by way of +supplement to his tea. But the chief matter in his mind was the great, +central, burning, blinding fact of the endless worry caused to him by +his connection with the chit. He had bought Wilbraham Hall under her +threat to leave him if he did not buy it. Even at Trafalgar-road she had +filled the little house with worry. And now, within a dozen hours of +arriving in it, she had filled Wilbraham Hall with worry--filled it to +its farthest attic. If she had selected it as a residence, she would +have filled the Vatican with worry. All that James demanded was a quiet +life; and she would not let him have it. He wished he was back again in +Trafalgar-road. He wished he had never met Helen and her sunshade in the +park. + +That is to say, he asserted to himself positively that he wished he had +never met Helen. But he did not mean it. + +And so he was to help her to wrest Andrew Dean from Lilian Swetnam! He +was to take part in a shameful conspiracy! He was to assist in ruining +an innocent child's happiness! And he was deliberately to foster the raw +material of a scandal in which he himself would be involved! He, the +strong, obstinate, self-centred old man who had never, till Helen's +advent, done anything except to suit his own convenience! + +The one bright spot was that Helen had no genuine designs on Emanuel +Prockter. As a son-in-law, Andrew Dean would be unbearable; but Emanuel +Prockter would have been--well, impossible. Andrew Dean (he mused) was +at any rate a man whom you could talk to and look at without feeling +sick. + +When he had gazed at the affair from all points of view, and repeated to +himself the same deep moral truths (such as "There's no doing nowt wi' a +young woman afore she's forty") about thirty-nine times, and pitied +himself from every quarter of the compass, he rose to go to bed; he did +not expect to sleep. But the gas was not yet in order, and he had only +one candle, which was nearly at its latter end. The ladies--Helen and +Georgiana--had retired long since. + +He left his little room, and was just setting forth on the adventure of +discovering his bedchamber, when a bell rang in the bowels of the +house. His flesh crept. It was as if-- + + The clock struck twelve, and shook the silent tower. + +Then he collected his powers of memory and of induction, and recognised +in the sound of the bell the sound of the front door bell. Some one must +be at the front door. The singular and highly-disturbing phenomena of +distant clanging, of thrills, and of flesh-creepings were all resolved +into the simple fact that some one was at the front door. + +He went back into his little room; instead of opening the front door +like a man, he opened the window of the little room, and stuck out the +tassel of his cap. + +"Who's there?" he demanded. + +"It's I, Mr. Ollerenshaw," said a voice, queenly and nervous. + +"Not Mrs. Prockter?" he suggested. + +"Yes." + +"I reckon ye'd like to come in," he said. + +She admitted the desire with a laugh which struck him as excessively +free. He did not know whether to be glad or sorry that Helen had +departed to bed. He did not even know whether to be glad or sorry that +Mrs. Prockter had called. But he vividly remembered what Helen had said +about caps. + +Naturally, he had to let her in. He held the candle in his left hand, +as he opened the door with his right, and the tassel of his cap was over +his eye. + +"You'll think I'm in the habit of calling on you at night," said Mrs. +Prockter, as she slid through the narrow space which James allotted to +her, and she laughed again. "Where is dear Helen?" + +"She's gone to bed, missis," said James, holding high the candle and +gazing at the generous vision in front of him. It wore a bonnet, and a +rich Paisley shawl over its flowered silk. + +"But it's only ten o'clock!" Mrs. Prockter protested. + +"Yes. But her's gone to bed." + +"Why," Mrs. Prockter exclaimed, changing the subject wilfully, "you are +all straight here!" (For the carpets had been unrolled and laid.) + +And she sat down on a massive Early Victorian mahogany chair about +fifteen feet from the dying fire, and began to fan herself with her +hands. She was one of your women who are never cold. + +James, having nothing to say, said nothing, following his custom. + +"I'm not ill-pleased," said Mrs. Prockter, "that Helen is out of the +way. The fact is--it was you that I wanted to have a word with. You'll +guess what about?" + +"Mr. Emanuel?" James hazarded. + +"Precisely. I had to put him to bed. He is certainly in for a very +serious cold, and I trust--I fervently trust--it may not be bronchitis. +That would mean nurses, and nothing upsets a house more than nurses. +What happened, Mr. Ollerenshaw?" + +James set the candle down on another Early Victorian chair, there being +no occasional table at hand, and very slowly lowered himself to a +sitting posture on a third. + +"I'll tell you what happened, missis," he said, putting his hands on his +knees. + +And he told her, beginning with the loss of the ship and ocean, and +ending with Helen's ever memorable words: "You must help me." + +"That's what happened, missis," he said, grimly. + +She had punctuated his recital by several exclamations, and when he had +finished she gave rein to her sentiments. + +"My _dear_ Mr. Ollerenshaw," she said, in the kindest manner +conceivable, "how I sympathise with you! How I wish I could help you!" + +Her sympathy was a genuine comfort to him. He did not, in that instant, +care a fig for Helen's notion about the direction of caps. He was simply +and humanly eased by the sweet tones of this ample and comely dame. +Besides, the idea of a woman such as Mrs. Prockter marrying a man such +as him was (he knew) preposterous. She belonged to a little world which +called him "Jimmy," whereas he belonged to a little world of his own. +True, he was wealthy; but she was not poor--and no amount of money (he +thought) could make a bridge to join those two worlds. Nevertheless, +here she was, talking to him alone at ten o'clock at night--and not for +the first time, either! Obviously, then, there was no nonsense about +_her_, whatever nonsensical world she belonged to. + +She ran over with sympathy. Having no further fear of Helen making +trouble in her own family, she had all her feelings at liberty to +condone with James. + +The candle, throwing a small hemisphere of feeble radiance in the +vastness of the dim hall, sat on its chair between them. + +"I _can_ help you," she said, suddenly, after grunts from James. "I'm +calling on the Swetnams the day after to-morrow. I'll tell them +about--about to-day, and when Mrs. Swetnam asks me for an explanation of +it, I will be mysterious. If Lilian is there, Mrs. Swetnam will +certainly get her out of the room. Then I will just give the faintest +hint that the explanation is merely jealousy between Emanuel and Mr. +Dean concerning--a certain young lady. I shall treat it all as a joke; +you can rely on me. Immediately I am gone Lilian will hear about it. She +will quarrel with Andrew the next time she sees him; and if he _wishes_ +to be free, he may be." + +She smiled the arch, naughty, pleasantly-malign smile of a terribly +experienced dowager. And she seemed positively anxious that James should +have Andrew Dean for a son-in-law. + +James, in his simplicity, was delighted. It appeared to him a +Mephistophelian ingenuity. He thought how clever women were, on their +own ground, and what an advantage they had in their immense lack of +scruple. + +"Of course," said she, "I have always said that a marriage between +Andrew Dean and Lilian would be a mistake--a very serious mistake. They +are quite unsuited to each other. She isn't in love with him--she's only +been flattered by his attentions into drawing him on. I feel sorry for +the little thing." + +At a stroke, she had converted a shameful conspiracy into an act of the +highest virtue. And her smile changed, too--became a _good_ smile, a +smile on which a man might depend. His heart went out to her, and he +contemplated the smile in a pleased, beatific silence. + +Just then the candle--a treacherous thing--flamed up and went out. + +"Oh!" cried Mrs. Prockter. + +And James had not a match. He never smoked. And without an atlas of the +Hall, showing the location of match-boxes, he saw no hope of finding a +match. + +The fire was as good as gone. A few cinders burnt red under the ash, +showing the form of the chimney-piece, but no more. + +"An ye got a match?" he asked her. + +"No," she said, drily, "I don't carry matches. But I can tell you I +don't like being in the dark at all." Her voice came to him out of +nothing, and had a most curious effect on his spine. "Where are you, Mr. +Ollerenshaw?" + +"I'm a-sitting here," he replied. + +"Well," said she, "if _you_ can't find a match, I think you had better +lead me to the door. I certainly can't find my way there myself. Where +is your hand?" + +Then a hand touched his shoulder and burnt him. "Is that you?" asked the +voice. + +"Ay!" he said. + +And he took the hand, and the hand squeezed his hand--squeezed it +violently. It may have been due to fear, it may have been due to mere +inadvertence on the part of the hand; but the hand did, with +unmistakable, charming violence, squeeze his hand. + +And he rose. + +"What's that light there?" questioned the voice, in a whisper. + +"Where?" he whispered also. + +"There--behind." + +He turned. A luminance seemed to come from above, from the unseen +heights of the magnificent double staircase. As his eyes grew accustomed +to the conditions, he gradually made out the details of the staircase. + +"You'd better go and see," the whispering voice commanded. + +He dropped the hand and obeyed, creeping up the left wing of the +staircase. As he faced about at the half-landing, he saw Helen, in an +orange-tinted peignoir, and her hair all down her back, holding a +candle. She beckoned to him. He ascended to her. + +"Who's there?" she inquired, coldly. + +"Mrs. Prockter," he murmured. + +"And are you sitting together in the dark?" she inquired, coldly. + +The story that the candle had expired seemed feeble in the extreme. And +for him the word "cap" was written in letters of fire on the darkness +below. + +He made no attempt to answer her question. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +SEEING A LADY HOME + + +Those words of Helen's began a fresh chapter in the life of her +great-stepuncle, James Ollerenshaw. They set up in him a feeling, or +rather a whole range of feelings, which he had never before experienced. +At tea, Helen had hinted at the direction of Mrs. Prockter's cap. That +was nothing. He could not be held responsible for the direction of Mrs. +Prockter's cap. He could laugh at that, even though he faintly blushed. +But to be caught sitting in the dark with Mrs. Prockter, after ten +o'clock at night, in his own house; to have the fact pointed out to him +in such a peculiar, meaningful tone as Helen employed--here was +something that connected him and Mrs. Prockter in a manner just a shade +too serious for mere smiling. Here was something that had not before +happened to him in his career as rent-collector and sage. + +Not that he minded! No, he did not mind. Although he had no intention +whatever of disputing the possession of Mrs. Prockter with her stepson, +he did not object to all the implication in Helen's remarkable tone. On +the contrary, he was rather pleased. Why should not he sit with a lady +in the dark? Was he not as capable as any man of sitting with a lady in +the dark? He was even willing that Helen should credit him, or pretend +to credit him, with having prearranged the dark. + +Ah! People might say what they chose! But what a dog he might have been +had he cared to be a dog! Here he was, without the slightest preliminary +practice, successfully sitting with a lady in the dark, at the first +attempt! And what lady? Not the first-comer! Not Mrs. Butt! Not the +Mayoress! But the acknowledged Queen of Bursley, the undisputed leader +of all that was most distinguished in Bursley society! And no difficulty +about it either! And she had squeezed his hand. She had continued to +squeeze it. She, in her rich raiment, with her fine ways, and her +correct accent, had squeezed the hand of Jimmy Ollerenshaw, with his +hard old clothes and his Turkish cap, his simple barbarisms, his lack of +style, and his uncompromising dialect! Why? Because he was rich? No. +Because he was a man, because he was the best man in Bursley, when you +came down to essentials. + +So his thoughts ran. + +His interest in Helen's heart had become quite a secondary interest, but +she recalled him to a sense of his responsibilities as great-stepuncle +of a capricious creature like her. + +"What are you and Mrs. Prockter talking about?" she questioned him in a +whisper, holding the candle towards his face and scrutinising it, as +seemed to him, inimically. + +"Well," he said, "if you must know, about you and that there Andrew +Dean." + +She made a brusque movement. And then she beckoned him to follow her +along the corridor, out of possible earshot of Mrs. Prockter. + +"Do you mean to say, uncle," she demanded, putting the candle down on a +small table that stood under a large oil-painting of Joshua and the Sun +in the corridor, "that you've been discussing my affairs with Mrs. +Prockter?" + +He saw instantly that he had not been the sage he imagined himself to +be. But he was not going to be bullied by Helen, or any other woman +younger than Mrs. Prockter. So he stiffly brazened it out. + +"Ay!" he said. + +"I never heard of such a thing!" she exploded, but still whispering. + +"You said as I must help ye, and I'm helping ye," said he. + +"But I didn't mean that you were to go chattering about me all over +Bursley, uncle," she protested, adopting now the pained, haughty, and +over-polite attitude. + +"I don't know as I've been chattering all over Bursley," he rebutted +her. "I don't know as I'm much of a chatterer. I might name them as +could give me a start and a beating when it comes to talking the nose +off a brass monkey. Mrs. Prockter came in to inquire about what had +happened here this afternoon, as well she might, seeing as Emanuel went +home with a couple o' gallons o' my water in his pockets. So I told her +all about it. Her's a very friendly woman. And her's promised to do what +her can for ye." + +"How?" + +"Why, to get Andrew Dean for ye, seeing as ye're so fixed on him, wi' as +little gossip as maybe." + +"Oh! So Mrs. Prockter has kindly consented to get Andrew Dean for me! +And how does she mean to do it?" + +James had no alternative; he was obliged to relate how Mrs. Prockter +meant to do it. + +"Now, uncle," said Helen, "just listen to me. If Mrs. Prockter says a +single word about me to any one, I will never speak either to her or you +again. Mind! A single word! A nice thing that she should go up to +Swetnam's, and hint that Andrew and Emanuel have been fighting because +of me! What about my reputation? And do you suppose that I want the +leavings of Lilian Swetnam? Me! The idea is preposterous!" + +"You wanted 'em badly enough this afternoon," said he. + +"No, I didn't," she contradicted him passionately. "You are quite +mistaken. You misunderstood me, though I'm surprised that you should +have done. Perhaps I was a little excited this afternoon. Certainly you +were thinking about other things. I expect you were expecting Mrs. +Prockter this evening. It would have been nicer of you to have told me +she was coming." + +"Now, please let it be clearly understood," she swept on. "You must go +down and tell Mrs. Prockter at once that you were entirely in error, and +that she is on no account to breathe a word about me to any one. +Whatever you were both thinking of I cannot imagine! But I can assure +you I'm extremely annoyed. Mrs. Prockter putting her finger in the +pie!... Let her take care that I don't put my finger into _her_ pie! I +always knew she was a gossiping old thing, but, really--" + +"Mr. Ollerenshaw!" A prettily plaintive voice rose from the black depths +below. + +"There! she's getting impatient for you!" Helen snapped. "Run off to her +at once. To think that if I hadn't happened to hear the bell ring, and +come out to see what was the matter, I should have been the talk of +Bursley before I was a day older!" + +She picked up the candle. + +"I must have a light!" said James, somewhat lamely. + +"Why?" Helen asked, calmly. "If you could begin in the dark, why can't +you finish in the dark? You and she seem to like being in the dark." + +"Mr. Ollerenshaw!" The voice was a little nearer. + +"Her's coming!" James ejaculated. + +Helen seemed to lose her courage before that threat. + +"Here! Take this one, then!" said she, giving James her candle, and +fleeing down the corridor. + +James had the sensation of transacting a part in a play at a theatre +where the scenery was absolutely realistic and at the same time of a +romantic quality. Moonlight streaming in through the windows of the +interminable corridor was alone wanting to render the illusion perfect. +It was certainly astonishing--what you could buy with seven thousand two +hundred and fifty pounds! Perhaps the most striking portion of the +scenery was Helen's peignoir. He had not before witnessed her in a +peignoir. The effect of it was agreeable; but, indeed, the modern taste +for luxury was incredible! He wondered if Mrs. Prockter practised +similar extravagances. + +While such notions ran through his head he was hurrying to the stairs, +and dropping a hail of candle-grease on the floor. He found Mrs. +Prockter slowly and cautiously ascending the stairway. If he was at the +summit of Mont Blanc she had already reached Les Grands Mulets. + +"What is it?" she asked, pausing, and looking up at him with an +appealing gesture. + +"What's what?" + +"Why have you been so long?" It was as if she implied that these minutes +without him were an eternity of ennui. He grew more and more conceited. +He was already despising Don Juan as a puling boy. + +"Helen heard summat, and so she had come out of her bedroom. Her's +nervous i' this big house." + +"Did you tell her I was here, Mr. Ollerenshaw?" + +By this time he had rejoined her at Les Grands Mulets. + +"No," he said, without sufficiently reflecting. + +"She didn't hear me call out, then?" + +"Did ye call out?" If he was in a theatre, he also could act. + +"Perhaps it's just as well," said Mrs. Prockter, after a momentary +meditation. "Under the circumstances she cannot possibly suspect our +little plot." + +Their little plot! In yielding to the impulse to tell her that Helen was +unaware of her presence in the house he had forgotten that he had made +it excessively difficult for him to demolish the said plot. He could not +one moment agree with enthusiasm to the plot, and the next moment say +that the plot had better be abandoned. Some men, doubtless, could. But +he could not. He was scarcely that kind of man. His proper course would +have been to relate to Mrs. Prockter exactly what had passed between +himself and Helen, and trust to her common sense. Unhappily, with the +intention of pleasing her, or reassuring her, or something equally +silly, he had lied to her and rendered the truth impracticable. However, +he did not seem to care much. He had already pushed Helen's affairs back +again to quite a secondary position. + +"I suppose ye think it'll be all right, missis," he said, +carelessly--"ye going up to Mrs. Swetnam's o' that 'n, and--" + +"Rely on me," said she, silencing him. Thus, without a pang, he left +Helen to her fate. They had touched the ground-floor. "Thank you very +much, Mr. Ollerenshaw," said Mrs. Prockter. "Good-night. I'll make the +best of my way home." + +Curious, how sorry he felt at this announcement! He had become quite +accustomed to being a conspirator with her in the vast house lighted by +a single candle, and he did not relish the end of the performance. + +"I'll step along wi' ye," said he. + +"Oh, no!" she said. "I really can't allow--" + +"Allow what?" + +"Allow you to inconvenience yourself like that for me." + +"Pooh!" said he. + +And he, who had never in his life seen a lady to her door, set out on +the business as though he had done nothing else every night of his life, +as though it was an enterprise that did not require practice. + +He opened the door, and put the candle on the floor behind it, where he +could easily find it on returning. "I'll get a box o' matches from +somewhere while I'm out," said he. + +He was about to extinguish the candle when she stopped him. "Mr. +Ollerenshaw," she said, firmly, "you haven't got your boots on. Those +slippers are not thick enough for this weather." + +He gazed at her. Should he yield to her? The idea of yielding to her, +for the mere sake of yielding to her, presented itself to him as a +charming idea. So he disappeared with the candle, and reappeared in his +boots. + +"You won't need a muffler?" she suggested. + +Now was the moment to play the hardy Norseman. "Oh, no!" he laughed. + +This concern for his welfare, coming from such a royal creature, was, +however, immensely agreeable. + +She stood out on the steps; he extinguished the candle, and then joined +her and banged the door. They started. Several hundred yards of winding +pitch-dark drive had to be traversed. + +"Will you kindly give me your arm?" she said. + +She said it so primly, so correctly, and with such detachment, that they +might have been in church, and she saying: "Will you kindly let me look +over your Prayer Book?" + +When they arrived at the gas-lit Oldcastle-road he wanted to withdraw +his arm, but he did not know how to begin withdrawing it. Hence he was +obliged to leave it where it was. + +And as they were approaching the front gate of the residence of Mr. +Buchanan, the Scotch editor of the _Signal_, a perfect string of people +emerged from that front gate. Mrs. Buchanan had been giving a whist +drive. There were sundry Swetnams among the string. And the whole string +was merry and talkative. It was a fine night. The leading pearls of the +string bore down on the middle-aged pair, and peered, and passed. + +"Good-night, Mrs. Prockter. Good-night, Mr. Ollerenshaw." + +Then another couple did the same. "Good-night, Mrs. Prockter. +Good-night, Mr. Ollerenshaw." + +And so it went on. And the string, laughing and talking, gradually +disappeared diminuendo in the distance towards Bursley. + +"I suppose you know you've done it this time?" observed Mrs. Prockter. + +It was a dark saying, but James fully understood it. He felt as though +he had drunk champagne. "As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb!" he said +to himself. And deliberately squeezed the royal arm. + +Nothing violent happened. He had rather expected the heavens to fall, or +that at least Mrs. Prockter would exclaim: "Unhand me, monster!" But +nothing violent happened. + +"And this is me, James Ollerenshaw!" he said to himself, still +squeezing. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +GIRLISH CONFIDENCES + + +One afternoon Sarah Swetnam called, and Helen in person opened the great +door to the visitor. + +"I saw that frock in Brunt's three days ago," Helen began, kissing the +tall, tightbound, large-boned woman. + +"I know you did, Nell," Sarah admitted. "But you needn't tell me so. +Don't you like it?" + +"I think it's a dream," Helen replied, quickly. "Turn round." But there +was a certain lack of conviction in her voice, and in Sarah's manner +there was something strained. Accordingly, they both became +extravagantly effusive--or, at any rate, more effusive than usual, +though each was well aware that the artifice was entirely futile. + +"All alone?" Sarah asked, when she had recovered from the first shock of +the hall's magnificence. + +"Yes," said Helen. "It's Georgiana's afternoon out, and uncle's away, +and I haven't got any new servants yet." + +"Mr. Ollerenshaw away! No one ever heard of such a thing! If you knew +him as well as we do, you'd have fainted with surprise. It ought to be +in the paper. Where's he gone to?" + +"He's gone to Derby, to try to buy some property that he says is going +very cheap there. He's been gone three days now. He got a letter at +breakfast, and said he must go to Derby at once. However, he had to +finish his rents. The trouble is that his rents never are finished, and +I'm bothered all the time by people coming with three and sixpence, or +four shillings, and a dirty rent-book! Oh! and the dirt on the coins! My +dear, you can't imagine! There's one good thing. He will have to come +back for next week's rents. Not that I'm sorry he's gone. It gives me a +chance, you see. By the time he returns I shall have my servants in." + +"Do tell me what servants you're going to have?" + +"Well, I went to that agency at Oldcastle. I've got a German butler. He +speaks four languages, and has beautiful eyes." + +"A German butler!" + +If it had been a German prince Sarah could not have been more startled +nor more delighted. + +"Yes, and a cook, and two other maids; and a gardener and a boy. I shall +keep Georgiana as my own maid." + +"My child, you're going it!" + +"My child, I came here to go it." + +"And--and Mr. Ollerenshaw is really pleased?" + +Helen laughed. "Uncle never goes into raptures, you know. But I hope he +will be pleased. The fact is, he doesn't know anything about these new +servants yet. He'll find them installed when he returns. It will be a +little treat for him. My piano came this morning. Care to try it?" + +"Rather!" said Sarah. "Well, I never saw anything like it!" This was in +reference to her first glimpse of the great drawing-room. "How you've +improved it, you dear thing!" + +"You see, I have my own cheque-book; it saves worry." + +"I see!" said Sarah, meaningly, putting her purse on the piano, her +umbrella on a chair, and herself on the music-stool. + +"Shall we have tea?" Helen suggested, after Sarah had performed on the +Bechstein. + +"Yes. Let me help you, do, dearest." + +They wandered off to the kitchens, and while they were seated at the +kitchen-table, sipping tea, side by side, Sarah said: + +"Now if you want an idea, I've got a really good one for you." + +"For me? What sort of an idea?" + +"I'll tell you. You know Mrs. Wiltshire is dead." + +"I don't. I didn't even know there was a Mrs. Wiltshire." + +"Well, there was, and there isn't any longer. Mrs. Wiltshire was the +main social prop of the old rector. And the annual concert of the St. +Luke's Guild has always been held at her house, down at Shawport, you +know. Awfully poky! But it was the custom since the Flood, and no one +ever dared to hint at a change. Now the concert was to have been next +week but one, and she's just gone and died, and the rector is wondering +where he can hold it. I met him this morning. Why don't you let him hold +it here? That would be a splendid way of opening your house--Hall, I beg +its pardon. And you could introduce the beautiful eyes of your German +butler to the entire neighbourhood. Of course, I don't know whether Mr. +Ollerenshaw would like it." + +"Oh!" said Helen, without blenching, "uncle would do as I wish." + +She mused, in silence, during a number of seconds. + +"The idea doesn't appeal to you?" Sarah queried, disappointment in her +tones. + +"Yes, it does," said Helen. "But I must think it over. Now, would you +care to see the rest of the house?" + +"I should love to. Oh dear, I've left my handkerchief with my purse in +the drawing-room." + +"Have mine!" said Helen, promptly. + +But even after this final proof of intimate friendship, there still +remained an obstinate trifle of insincerity in their relations that +afternoon. Helen was sure that Sarah Swetnam had paid the call specially +to say something, and that the something had not yet been said. And the +apprehension of an impending scene gradually took possession of her +nerves and disarranged them. When they reached the attics, and were +enjoying the glorious views of the moorland in the distance and of +Wilbraham Water in the immediate foreground, Helen said, very suddenly: + +"Will the rector be in this afternoon?" + +"I should say so. Why?" + +"I was thinking we might walk down there together, and I could suggest +to him at once about having the concert here." + +Sarah clapped her hands. "Then you've decided?" + +"Certainly." + +"How funny you are, Nell, with your decisions!" + +In Helen's bedroom, amid her wardrobe, there was no chance of dangerous +topics, the attention being monopolised by one subject, and that a safe +one. + +At last they went out together, two models of style and deportment, and +Helen pulled to the great front door with a loud echoing clang. + +"Fancy that place being all empty. Aren't you afraid of sleeping there +while your uncle is away?" + +"No," said Helen. "But I _should_ be afraid if Georgiana wasn't afraid." + +After this example of courageous introspection, a silence fell upon the +pair; the silence held firm while they got out of the grounds and +crossed Oldcastle-road, and took to the Alls field-path, from which a +unique panorama of Bursley--chimneys, kilns, canals, railways, and +smoke-pall--is to be obtained. Helen was determined not to break the +silence. And then came the moment when Sarah Swetnam could no longer +suffer the silence; and she began, very cautiously: + +"I suppose you've heard all about Andrew and Emanuel Prockter?" + +Helen perceived that she had not been mistaken, and that the scene was +at hand. "No," said she. "What about them?" + +"You don't mean to say you've not heard?" + +"No. What about?" + +"The quarrel between those two?" + +"Emanuel and Mr. Dean?" + +"Yes. But you must have heard?" + +"I assure you, Sally, no one has told me a word about it." (Which was +just as true as it was untrue.) + +"But they quarrelled up here. I _did_ hear that Andrew threw Emanuel +into your lake." + +"Who told you that?" + +"It was Mrs. Prockter. She was calling on the mater yesterday, and she +seemed to be full of it--according to the mater's account. Mrs. +Prockters' idea was that they had quarrelled about a woman." + +("Mrs. Prockter shall be repaid for this," said Helen to herself.) + +"Surely Emanuel hasn't been falling in love with Lilian, has he?" said +Helen, aloud. She considered this rather clever on her part. And it was. + +"Oh, no!" replied Sally, positively. "It's not Lilian." And there was +that in her tone which could not be expressed in ten volumes. "You know +perfectly well who the woman is," Helen seemed to hear her say. + +Then Helen said: "I think I can explain it. They were both at our house +the day we removed." + +"Oh, _were_ they?" murmured Sarah, in well-acted surprise. + +"And Mr. Dean fell off some steps that Emanuel was supposed to be +holding. I _thought_ he was furious--but not to that point. That's +probably the secret of the whole thing. As for Mr. Dean having pushed +Emanuel into the lake, I don't believe a word of it." + +"Then how was it that Emanuel had a cold and had to stay in bed?" + +"My dear, to have a cold it isn't necessary to have been thrown into +Wilbraham Water!" + +"That's true," Sarah admitted. + +"However," Helen calmly proceeded, "I'll find out all about it and let +you know." + +"How shall you find out?" + +"I shall make Emanuel tell me. He will tell me anything. And he's a dear +boy." + +"Do you see him often up here?" Sarah inquired. + +"Oh, yes!" This was not true. "We get on together excellently. And I'm +pretty sure that Emanuel is not--well--interested in any other woman. +That's why I should say that they have not been quarrelling about a +woman. Unless, of course, the woman is myself." She laughed, and added: +"But I'm not jealous. I can trust Emanuel." + +And with marvellous intrepidity she looked Sarah Swetnam in the face. + +"Then," Sarah stammered, "you and Emanuel--you don't mean----" + +"My dear Sally, don't you think Emanuel is a perfectly delightful boy?" + +"Oh, _yes_!" said Sarah. + +"So do I," said Helen. + +"But are you----" + +"Between ourselves," Helen murmured. "Mind you, between _ourselves_--I +could imagine stranger things happening." + +"Well," said Sarah, "this _is_ news." + +"Mind, not a syllable!" + +"Oh, of course not." + +"By the way," Helen asked, "when are Andrew and Lilian going to get +married?" + +"I don't know. No one knows. One confidence for another, my dear; they +don't always hit it off." + +"What a pity!" Helen remarked. "Because if ever two people were suited +to each other in this world, they are. But I hope they'll shake down." + +They arrived at the rector's. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE CONCERT + + +On another afternoon a middle-aged man and a young-hearted woman emerged +together from Bursley Railway Station. They had a little luggage, and a +cab from the Tiger met them by appointment. Impossible to deny that the +young-hearted one was wearing a flowered silk under a travelling mantle. +The man, before getting into the cab, inquired as to the cost of the +cab. The gold angel of the Town Hall rose majestically in front of him, +and immediately behind him the Park, with the bowling-green at the top, +climbed the Moorthorne slope. The bowling season was of course over, but +even during the season he had scarcely played. He was a changed person. +And the greatest change of all had occurred that very morning. +Throughout a long and active career he had worn paper collars. Paper +collars had sufficed him, and they had not shocked his friends. But now +he wore a linen collar, and eleven other linen collars were in his +carpet-bag. Yet it has been said, by some individual who obviously +lacked experience of human nature, that a man never changes the style +of his collar after forty. + +The cab drove up to Hillport, and deposited flowered silk and one bag at +the residence of Mrs. Prockter. It then ascended higher, passing into +the grounds of Wilbraham Hall, and ultimately stopping at the grandiose +portals thereof, which were wide open. + +The occupant of the cab was surprised to see two other cabs just +departing. The next moment he was more than surprised--he was startled. +A gentleman in evening dress stood at the welcoming doors, and on +perceiving him this gentleman ran down the steps, and, with a sort of +hurried grace, took his carpet-bag from him, addressing him in broken +English, and indicating by incomprehensible words and comprehensible +signs that he regarded him, the new arrival, as the light of his eyes +and the protector of the poor and of the oppressed. And no sooner had he +got the new arrival safe into the hall than he stripped him of hat, +coat, and muffler, and might have proceeded to extremes had not his +attention been distracted by another vehicle. + +This vehicle contained the aged rector of Bursley. + +"Ha! Mr. Ollerenshaw!" cried the divine. "Your niece told me only +yesterday that you were still in Derby buying property, and would not be +back." + +"I've bought it, parson," said James. + +"Ha! ha!" said the divine, rubbing his hands. He stooped habitually, +which gave him the air of always trying to glimpse at his toes over the +promontory of his waist. And as James made no reply to the remark, he +repeated: "Ha! ha! So you decided to come to my concert, eh?" + +"I only heard of it yesterday," said James. + +"Well," said the divine, "I'm afraid they'll be waiting for me. Ha! ha! +This way, isn't it? Fine place you've got here. Very fine! Noble!" + +And he disappeared through the double doors that led to the +drawing-room, which doors were parted for him by a manikin whose clothes +seemed to be held together by new sixpences. During the brief instant of +opening, a vivacious murmur of conversation escaped like gas from the +drawing-room into the hall. + +James glanced about for his bag--it was gone. The gentleman in evening +dress was out on the steps. Disheartened by the mysterious annihilation +of his old friend the bag, James, weary with too much and too various +emotion, went slowly up the grand staircase. In his bedroom the first +thing he saw was his bag, which had been opened and its contents +suitably bestowed. Thus his hair-brushes were on the dressing-table. +This miracle completed his undoing. He sat down on an easy-chair, drew +the eider-down off the bed, and put it on his knees, for the +temperature was low. He did not intend to go to sleep. But he did go to +sleep. It was simply a case of nature recovering from emotions. + +He slept about an hour, and then, having brushed his wispish hair, he +descended the stairs, determined to do or die. Perhaps he would not have +plumped himself straight into the drawing-room had not the manikin clad +in sixpences assumed that the drawing-room was his Mecca and thrown open +the doors. + +A loud "Hush!" greeted him. The splendid chamber was full of women's +hats and men's heads; but hats predominated. And the majority of the +audience were seated on gilt chairs which James had never before seen. +Probably there were four or five score gilt chairs. At the other end of +the room the aged rector sat in an easy-chair. Helen herself was perched +at the piano, and in front of the piano stood Emanuel Prockter. Except +that the room was much larger, and that, instead of a faultless evening +dress, Emanuel wore a faultless frock-coat (with the rest of a suit), +the scene reminded James of a similar one on the great concertina night +at Mrs. Prockter's. + +Many things had happened since then. Still, history repeats itself. + +"O Love!" exclaimed Emanuel Prockter, adagio and sostenuto, thus +diverting from James a hundred glances which James certainly was +delighted to lose. + +And Helen made the piano say "O Love!" in its fashion. + +And presently Emanuel was launched upon the sea of his yearnings, and +voyaging behind the hurricane of passion. And, as usual, he hid nothing +from his hearers. Then he hove to, and, as it were, climbed to the +main-topgallant-sail in order to announce: + +"O Love!" + +It was not surprising that his voice cracked. Emanuel ought to have been +the last person to be surprised at such a phenomenon. But he was +surprised. To him the phenomenon of that cracking was sempiternally +novel and astounding. It pained and shocked him. He wondered whose the +fault could be? And then, according to his habit, he thought of the +pianist. Of course, it was the fault of the pianist. And, while +continuing to sing, he slowly turned and gazed with sternness at the +pianist. The audience must not be allowed to be under any +misapprehension as to the identity of the culprit. Unfortunately, +Emanuel, wrapped up, like the artist he was, in his performance, had +himself forgotten the identity of the culprit. Helen had ceased to be +Helen; she was merely his pianist. The thing that he least expected to +encounter when gazing sternly at the pianist was the pianist's gaze. He +was accustomed to flash his anger on the pianist's back. But Helen, who +had seen other pianists at work for Emanuel, turned as he turned, and +their eyes met. The collision disorganised Emanuel. He continued to +glare with sternness, and he ceased to sing. A contretemps had happened. +For the fifth of a second everybody felt exceedingly awkward. Then Helen +said, with a faint, cold smile, in a voice very low and very clear: + +"What's the matter with you, Mr. Prockter? It wasn't my voice that +cracked." + +The minx! + +There was a half-hearted attempt at the maintenance of the proprieties, +and then Wilbraham Hall rang with the laughter of a joke which the next +day had become the common precious property of all the Five Towns. When +the aged rector had restored his flock to a sense of decency Mr. Emanuel +Prockter had vanished. In that laughter his career as a singer reached +an abrupt and final conclusion. The concert also came to an end. And the +collection, by which the divine always terminated these proceedings, was +the largest in the history of the Guild. + +A quarter of an hour or twenty minutes later all the guests, members, +and patrons of the St. Luke's Guild had left, most of them full of kind +inquiries after Mr. Ollerenshaw, the genial host of that so remarkably +successful entertainment. The appearances and disappearances of Mr. +Ollerenshaw had been a little disturbing. First it had been announced +that he was detained in Derby, buying property. Indeed, few persons were +unaware that, except for a flying visit in the middle, of two days, to +collect his rents, James had spent a fortnight in Derby purchasing +sundry portions of Derby. Certainly Helen had not expected him. Nor had +she expected Mrs. Prockter, who two days previously had been called away +by telegram to the bedside of a sick cousin in Nottingham. Nor had she +expected Lilian Swetnam, who was indisposed. The unexpected ladies had +not arrived; but James had arrived, as disconcerting as a ghost, and +then had faded away with equal strangeness. None of the departing +audience had seen even the tassel of his cap. + +Helen discovered him in his little room at the end of the hall. She was +resplendent in black and silver. + +"So here you are, uncle!" said she, and kissed him. "I'm so glad you got +back in time. Can you lend me sixpence?" + +"What for, lass?" + +"I want to give it to the man who's taking away the chairs I had to +hire." + +"What's become of that seven hundred and seventy pound odd as ye had?" + +"Oh," she said, lightly, "I've spent that." She thought she might as +well have done with it, and added: "And I'm in debt--lots. But we'll +talk about that later. Sixpence, please." + +He blenched. But he, too, had been expensive in the pursuit of delight. +He, too, had tiresome trifles on his mind. So he produced the sixpence, +and accepted the dissipation of nearly eight hundred pounds in less than +a month with superb silence. + +Helen rang the bell. "You see, I've had all the bells put in order," she +said. + +The gentleman in evening dress entered. + +"Fritz," said she, "give this sixpence to the man with the chairs." + +"Yes, miss," Fritz dolefully replied. "A note for you, miss." + +And he stretched forth a charger on which was a white envelope. + +"Excuse me, uncle," said she, tearing the envelope. + +"Dinna' mind me, lass," said he. + +The note ran: + + "I must see you by the Water to-night at nine o'clock. Don't fail, + or there will be a row.-- + + A.D." + +She crushed it. + +"No answer, Fritz," said she. "Tell cook, dinner for two." + +"Who's he?" demanded James when Fritz had bowed himself out. + +"That's our butler," said Helen, kindly. "Don't you like his eyes?" + +"I wouldna' swop him eyes," said James. He could not trust himself to +discuss the butler's eyes at length. + +"Don't be late for dinner, will you, uncle?" she entreated him. + +"Dinner!" he cried. "I had my dinner at Derby. What about my tea?" + +"I mean tea," she said. + +He went upstairs again to his room, but did not stay there a moment. In +the corridor he met Helen, swishing along. + +"Look here, lass," he stopped her. "A straight question deserves a +straight answer. I'm not given to curiosity as a rule, but what is +Emanuel Prockter doing on my bed?" + +"Emanuel Prockter on your bed!" Helen repeated, blankly. He saw that she +was suffering from genuine surprise. + +"On my bed!" he insisted. + +The butler appeared, having heard the inquiry from below. He explained +that Mr. Prockter, after the song, had come to him and asked where he +could lie down, as he was conscious of a tendency to faint. The butler +had indicated Mr. Ollerenshaw's room as the only masculine room +available. + +"Go and ask him how he feels," Helen commanded. + +Fritz obeyed, and returned with the message that Mr. Prockter had "one +of his attacks," and desired his mother. + +"But he can't have his mother," said Helen. "She's at Nottingham. He +told me so himself. He must be delirious." And she laughed. + +"No, her isn't," James put in. "Her's at wum" (home). + +"How do you know, uncle?" + +"I know," said James. "Her'd better be sent for." + +And she was sent for. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +UNKNOTTING AND KNOTTING + + +When Mrs. Prockter arrived it was obvious to Helen, in spite of her +wonderful calm upon discovering James Ollerenshaw's butler and page, +that the lady was extremely ill-at-ease. And Helen, though preoccupied +herself by matters of the highest personal importance, did what she +could to remedy a state of affairs so unusual. Probably nobody, within +the memory of that generation, had ever seen Mrs. Prockter ill-at-ease. +Helen inquired as to the health of the sick relative at Nottingham, and +received a reply in which vagueness was mingled with hesitancy and a +blush. It then became further obvious to the perspicuous Helen that Mrs. +Prockter must have heard of her stepson's singular adventure, and either +resented Helen's share in it, or was ashamed of Emanuel's share in it. + +"You know that Emanuel is here?" said Helen, with her most diplomatic +and captivating smile. + +But Mrs. Prockter did not know. "I thought Mr. Ollerenshaw wanted me," +Mrs. Prockter explained, "so I came as quickly as I could." + +"It was I who wanted to speak to you," said Helen. "The truth is that +Emanuel is lying on uncle's bed, unwell or something, and he expressed a +wish to see you. He was singing at the concert----" + +"So sorry I wasn't able to be here," Mrs. Prockter inserted, with +effusive anxiety. + +"We missed you awfully," Helen properly responded. "The rector was +inconsolable. So was everybody," she added, feeling that as a compliment +the rector's grief might be deemed insufficient. "And he had a +breakdown." + +"Who? Emanuel?" + +"Yes. I was accompanying him, and I am afraid it was my fault. Anyhow, +he didn't finish his song. And then we missed him. He had asked the +butler to let him lie down somewhere, and uncle found him in his +bedroom. I hope it's nothing serious." + +"Oh, my dear girl," said Mrs. Prockter, regaining somewhat her natural +demeanour in a laugh, "if it's only one of Emanuel's singing breakdowns, +we needn't worry. Can I go up and talk sense to him? He's just like a +child, you know." + +"Let me take you up," cried Helen. + +And the two women ascended the grand staircase. It was the first time +the grand staircase had been used with becoming dignity since Mrs. +Prockter had used it on her visit of inspection. That staircase and +Mrs. Prockter were made for each other. + +No sooner had they disappeared than James popped out of his lair, where +he had been hiding, and gazed up the staircase like a hunter stalking +his prey. The arrival of the page in sixpences put him out of +countenance for a moment, especially when the page began to feed the +hall-fire in a manner contrary to all James's lifelong notions of +feeding fires. However, he passed the time by giving the page a lesson. + +Helen tapped at the bedroom door, left Mrs. Prockter to enter, and +descended the stairs again. + +"Is her up there with him?" James asked, in a whisper. + +Helen nodded. + +"Ye'd better ask her stop and have something to eat wi' us," said James. + +Helen had to reconcile James Ollerenshaw to the new scale of existence +at Wilbraham Hall. She had to make him swallow the butler, and the page, +and the other servants, and the grand piano--in themselves a heavy +repast--without counting the evening dinner. Up to the present he had +said nothing, because there had been no fair opportunity to say +anything. But he might start at any moment. And Helen had no reason to +believe that he had even begun the process of swallowing. She argued, +with a sure feminine instinct and a large experience of mankind, that +if he could only be dodged into tacitly accepting the new scale for +even a single meal, her task would be very much simplified. And what an +ally Mrs. Prockter would be! + +"Tell cook there will be three to dinner," she said to the page, who +fled gleefully. + +After a protracted interval Mrs. Prockter reappeared. + +She began by sighing. "The foolish boy is seriously damaged," said she. + +"Not hurt?" Helen asked. + +"Yes. But only in his dignity. He pretends it's his throat, but it +isn't. It's only his dignity. I suppose all singers are children, like +that. I'm really ashamed to have to ask you to let him lie there a +little, dear Miss Rathbone; but he is positively sure that he can't get +up. I've been through these crises with him before, but never one quite +so bad." + +She laughed. They all laughed. + +"I'll let him lie there on one condition," Helen sweetly replied. "And +that is that you stay to dinner. I am relying on you. And I won't take a +refusal." + +Mrs. Prockter looked sharply at James, and James blushed. + +"James," she exclaimed, "you've told her. And you promised you wouldn't +till to-morrow." + +"Nay!" said James. "I've said nowt! It's you as has let it out, _now_, +missis!" + +"Told me what, Mrs. Prockter?" Helen asked, utterly unexpectant of the +answer she was to get. + +"My dear girl," said the elder dame, "do not call me Mrs. Prockter. I am +Mrs. Ollerenshaw. I am the property that your uncle has been buying at +Derby. And he is my sick relative at Nottingham. We preferred to do it +like that. We could not have survived engagements and felicitations." + +"Oh, you wicked sinners! You--you terrible darlings!" Helen burst out as +soon as she could control her voice. + +Mrs. Ollerenshaw wept discreetly. + +"Bless us! Bless us!" murmured James, not to beseech a benediction, but +simply to give the impression (quite false) that, in his opinion, much +fuss was being made about nothing. + +The new scale of existence was definitely accepted. And in private Mrs. +Ollerenshaw entirely agreed with Helen as to the merits of the butler. + +After dinner James hurried to his lair to search for a book. The book +was not where he had left it, on his original entry into Wilbraham Hall. +Within two minutes, the majority of the household staff was engaged in +finding that book. Ultimately the butler discovered it; the butler had +been reading it. + +"Ay!" said James, opening the volume as he stood in front of the rich, +expensive fire in the hall. "Dickens--Charles Dickens--that's the chap's +name. I couldn't think of it when I was telling you about th' book th' +other day. I mun' go on wi" that." + +"Couldn't you play us something?" responded his wife. + +In the triumph of concertinas over grand pianos, poor Emanuel, lying +wounded upstairs, was forgotten. At five minutes to nine Helen stole, +unperceived, away from the domestic tableau. She had by no means +recovered from her amazement; but she had screened it off by main force +in her mind, and she was now occupied with something far more important +than the blameless amours of the richest old man in Hillport. + +By Wilbraham Water a young man was walking to and fro in the deep autumn +night. He wore a cap and a muffler, but no overcoat, and his hands were +pushed far down into the pockets of his trousers. He regarded the ground +fixedly, and stamped his feet at every step. Then a pale grey figure, +with head enveloped in a shawl, and skirts carefully withdrawn from the +ground, approached him. + +He did not salute the figure, he did not even take his hands out of his +pockets. He put his face close to hers, and each could see that the +other's features were white and anxious. + +"So you've come," said he, glumly. + +"What do you want?" Helen coldly asked. + +"I want to speak to you. That's what I want. If you care for Emanuel +Prockter, why did you play that trick on him this afternoon?" + +"What trick?" + +"You know perfectly well what I mean. So I'll thank you not to beat +about the bush. The plain fact is that you don't care a pin for +Prockter." + +"I never said I did." + +"You've made every one believe you did, anyhow. You've even made me +think so, though all the time I knew it was impossible. An ass like +that!" + +"What do you want?" Helen repeated. + +They were both using a tone intended to indicate that they were enemies +from everlasting to everlasting, and that mere words could not express +the intensity of their mutual hatred and scorn. The casual distant +observer might have conceived the encounter to be a love idyll. + +There was a short silence. + +"I broke off my engagement last night," Andrew Dean muttered, +ferociously. + +"Really!" Helen commented. + +"You don't seem to care." + +"I don't see what it has to do with me. But if you talked to Lilian +Swetnam in the same nice agreeable manner that you talk to me, I can't +say I'm surprised to hear that she broke with you." + +"Who told you _she_ broke?" Andrew demanded. + +"I guessed," said Helen. "You'd never have had the courage to break it +off yourself." + +Andrew made a vicious movement. + +"If you mean to serve me as you served Emanuel," she remarked, with +bitter calm, "please do it as gently as you can. And don't throw me far. +I can only swim a little." + +Andrew walked away. + +"Good-night," she called. + +"Look here!" he snarled coming back to her "What's the matter with you? +I know I oughtn't to have asked Lilian to marry me. Everybody knows +that. It's universally agreed. But are you going to make that an excuse +for spoiling the whole show? What's up with you is pride." + +"And what is up with you?" she inquired. + +"Pride," said he. "How could I know you were in love with me all the +time? How could----" + +"You couldn't," said Helen. "I wasn't. No more than you were with me." + +"If you weren't in love with me, why did you try to make me jealous?" + +"Me try to make you jealous!" she exclaimed, disdainfully. "You flatter +yourself, Mr. Dean!" + +"I can stand a good deal, but I can't stand lies, and I won't!" he +exploded. "I say you did try to make me jealous." + +He then noticed that she was crying. + +The duologue might have extended itself indefinitely if her tears had +not excited him to uncontrollable fury, to that instinctive cruelty that +every male is capable of under certain conditions. Without asking her +permission, without uttering a word of warning, he rushed at her and +seized her in his arms. He crushed her with the whole of his very +considerable strength. And he added insult to injury by kissing her +about forty seven times. Women are such strange, incalculable creatures. +Helen did not protest. She did not invoke the protection of Heaven. She +existed, passively and silently, the unremonstrating victim of his +disgraceful violence. + +Then he held her at arm's length. "Will you marry me?" + +"Yes," she said. + +"Did you try to make me jealous?" + +"Yes." + +Later, as they walked by the lake, he ejaculated: "I'm an awful brute!" + +"I like you as you are," she replied. + +But the answer was lacking in precision, for at that moment he was being +as tender as only an awful brute can be. + +"Of course," she said, "we mustn't say anything about it yet." + +"No," he agreed. "To let it out at once might make unpleasantness +between you and the Swetnams." + +"Oh!" she said, "I wasn't thinking of that. But there's another +love-affair in the house, and no house will hold two at once. It would +be nauseating." + +That is how they talk in the Five Towns. As if one could have too much +love, even in a cottage--to say nothing of a Wilbraham Hall! Mrs. +Ollerenshaw placidly decided that she and James would live at the Hall, +though James would have preferred something a size smaller. As I have +already noticed, the staircase suited her; James suited her, too. No one +could guess why, except possibly James. They got on together, as the +Five Towns said, "like a house afire." + +Helen and Andrew Dean were satisfied with a semi-detached villa in +Park-road, with a fine view of the gold angel. Women vary, capricious +beings! Helen is perfectly satisfied with one servant. But she dresses +rather better than ever. + + + +THE END + + * * * * * + +PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, BRUNSWICK ST., +STAMFORD ST., S.E., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) +by Arnold Bennett + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12779 *** |