iv
"oh! here's the paper, mrs. maldon," said rachel, as, turning away to leave the room, she caught sight of the extra special edition of the signal, which lay a pale green on the dark green of the chesterfield.
mrs. maldon answered placidly—
"when did you bring it in? i never heard the boy come. but my hearing's not quite what it used to be, that's true. open it for me, my dear. i can't stretch my arms as i used to."
she was one of the few women in the five towns who deigned to read a newspaper regularly, and one of the still fewer who would lead the miscellaneous conversation of drawing-rooms away from domestic chatter and discussions of individualities, to political and municipal topics and even toward general ideas. she seldom did more than mention a topic and then express a hope for the best, or explain that this phenomenon was "such a pity," or that phenomenon "such a good thing," or that about another phenomenon "one really didn't know what to think." but these remarks sufficed to class her apart among her sex as "a very up-to-date old lady, with a broad outlook upon the world," and to inspire sundry other ladies with a fearful respect for her masculine intellect and judgment. she was aware of her superiority, and had a certain kind disdain for the increasing number of women who took in a daily picture-paper, and who, having dawdled over its illustrations after breakfast, spoke of what they had seen in the "newspaper." she would not allow that a picture-paper was a newspaper.
rachel stood in the empty space under the gas. her arms were stretched out and slightly upward as she held the signal wide open and glanced at the newspaper, frowning. the light fell full on her coppery hair. her balanced body, though masked in front by the perpendicular fall of the apron as she bent somewhat forward, was nevertheless the image of potential vivacity and energy; it seemed almost to vibrate with its own consciousness of physical pride.
left alone, rachel would never have opened a newspaper, at any rate for the news. until she knew mrs. maldon she had never seen a woman read a newspaper for aught except the advertisements relating to situations, houses, and pleasures. but, much more than she imagined, she was greatly under the influence of mrs. maldon. mrs. maldon made a nightly solemnity of the newspaper, and rachel naturally soon persuaded herself that it was a fine and a superior thing to read the newspaper—a proof of unusual intelligence. moreover, just as she felt bound to show mrs. maldon that her notion of cleanliness was as advanced as anybody's, so she felt bound to indicate, by an appearance of casualness, that for her to read the paper was the most customary thing in the world. of course she read the paper! and that she should calmly look at it herself before handing it to her mistress proved that she had already established a very secure position in the house.
she said, her eyes following the lines, and her feet moving in the direction of mrs. maldon— "those burglaries are still going on ... hillport now!"
"oh, dear, dear!" murmured mrs. maldon, as rachel spread the newspaper lightly over the tea-tray and its contents. "oh, dear, dear! i do hope the police will catch some one soon. i'm sure they're doing their best, but really—!"
rachel bent with confident intimacy over the old lady's shoulder, and they read the burglary column together, rachel interrupting herself for an instant to pick up mrs. maldon's ball of black wool which had slipped to the floor. the signal reporter had omitted none of the classic clichés proper to the subject, and such words and phrases as "jemmy," "effected an entrance," "the servant, now thoroughly alarmed," "stealthy footsteps," "escaped with their booty," seriously disquieted both of the women—caused a sudden sensation of sinking in the region of the heart. yet neither would put the secret fear into speech, for each by instinct felt that a fear once uttered is strengthened and made more real. living solitary and unprotected by male sinews, in a house which, though it did not stand alone, was somewhat withdrawn from the town, they knew themselves the ideal prey of conventional burglars with masks, dark lanterns, revolvers, and jemmies. they were grouped together like some symbolic sculpture, and with all their fortitude and common sense they still in unconscious attitude expressed the helpless and resigned fatalism of their sex before certain menaces of bodily danger, the thrilled, expectant submission of women in a city about to be sacked.
nothing could save them if the peril entered the house. but they would not say aloud: "suppose they came here! how terrible!" they would not even whisper the slightest apprehension. they just briefly discussed the matter with a fine air of indifferent aloofness, remaining calm while the brick walls and the social system which defended that bright and delicate parlour from the dark, savage universe without seemed to crack and shiver.
mrs. maldon, suddenly noticing that one blind was half an inch short of the bottom of the window, rose nervously and pulled it down farther.
"why didn't you ask me to do that?" said rachel, thinking what a fidgety person the old lady was.
mrs. maldon replied— "it's all right, my dear. did you fasten the window on the upstairs landing?"
"as if burglars would try to get in by an upstairs window—and on the street!" thought rachel, pityingly impatient. "however, it's her house, and i'm paid to do what i'm told," she added to herself, very sensibly. then she said, aloud, in a soothing tone—
"no, i didn't. but i will do it."
she moved towards the door, and at the same moment a knock on the front door sent a vibration through the whole house. nearly all knocks on the front door shook the house; and further, burglars do not generally knock as a preliminary to effecting an entrance. nevertheless, both women started—and were ashamed of starting.
"surely he's rather early!" said mrs. maldon with an exaggerated tranquillity.
and rachel, with a similar lack of conviction in her calm gait, went audaciously forth into the dark lobby.
v
on the glass panels of the front door the street lamp threw a faint, distorted shadow of a bowler hat, two rather protruding ears, and a pair of long, outspreading whiskers whose ends merged into broad shoulders. any one familiar with the streets of bursley would have instantly divined that councillor thomas batchgrew stood between the gas-lamp and the front door. and even rachel, whose acquaintance with bursley was still slight, at once recognized the outlines of the figure. she had seen councillor batchgrew one day conversing with mrs. maldon in moorthorne road, and she knew that he bore to mrs. maldon the vague but imposing relation of "trustee."
there are many—indeed perhaps too many—remarkable men in the five towns. thomas batchgrew was one of them. he had begun life as a small plumber in bursley market-place, living behind and above the shop, and begetting a considerable family, which exercised itself in the back yard among empty and full turpentine-cans. the original premises survived, as a branch establishment, and batchgrew's latest-married grandson condescended to reside on the first floor, and to keep a motor-car and a tri-car in the back yard, now roofed over (in a manner not strictly conforming to the building by-laws of the borough). all batchgrew's sons and daughters were married, and several of his grandchildren also. and all his children, and more than one of the grandchildren, kept motor-cars. not a month passed but some batchgrew, or some batchgrew's husband or child, bought a motor-car, or sold one, or exchanged a small one for a larger one, or had an accident, or was gloriously fined in some distant part of the country for illegal driving. nearly all of them had spacious detached houses, with gardens and gardeners, and patent slow-combustion grates, and porcelain bathrooms comprising every appliance for luxurious splashing. and, with the exception of one son who had been assisted to valparaiso in order that he might there seek death in the tankard without outraging the family, they were all teetotallers—because the old man, "old jack," was a teetotaller. the family pyramid was based firm on the old man. the numerous relatives held closely together like an alien oligarchical caste in a conquered country. if they ever did quarrel, it must have been in private.
the principal seat of business—electrical apparatus, heating apparatus, and decorating and plumbing on a grandiose scale—in hanbridge, had over its immense windows the sign: "john batchgrew & sons." the sign might well have read: "john batchgrew & sons, daughters, daughters-in-law, sons-in-law, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren." the batchgrew partners were always tendering for, and often winning, some big contract or other for heating and lighting and embellishing a public building or a mansion or a manufactory. (they by no means confined their activities to the five towns, having an address in london—and another in valparaiso.) and small private customers were ever complaining of the inaccuracy of their accounts for small jobs. people who, in the age of queen victoria's earlier widowhood, had sent for batchgrew to repair a burst spout, still by force of habit sent for batchgrew to repair a burst spout, and still had to "call at batchgrew's" about mistakes in the bills, which mistakes, after much argument and asseveration, were occasionally put right. in spite of their prodigious expenditures, and of a certain failure on the part of the public to understand "where all the money came from," the financial soundness of the batchgrews was never questioned. in discussing the batchgrews no bank-manager and no lawyer had ever by an intonation or a movement of the eyelid hinted that earthquakes had occurred before in the history of the world and might occur again.
and yet old batchgrew—admittedly the cleverest of the lot, save possibly the valparaiso soaker—could not be said to attend assiduously to business. he scarcely averaged two hours a day on the premises at hanbridge. indeed the staff there had a sense of the unusual, inciting to unusual energy and devotion, when word went round: "guv'nor's in the office with mr. john." the councillor was always extremely busy with something other than his main enterprise. it was now reported, for example, that he was clearing vast sums out of picture-palaces in wigan and warrington. also he was a religionist, being chairman of the local church of england village mission fund. and he was a politician, powerful in municipal affairs. and he was a reformer, who believed that by abolishing beer he could abolish the poverty of the poor—and acted accordingly. and lastly he liked to enjoy himself.
everybody knew by sight his flying white whiskers and protruding ears. and he himself was well aware of the steady advertising value of those whiskers—of always being recognizable half a mile off. he met everybody unflinchingly, for he felt that he was invulnerable at all points and sure of a magnificent obituary. he was invariably treated with marked deference and respect. but he was not an honest man. he knew it. all his family knew it. in business everybody knew it except a few nincompoops. scarcely any one trusted him. the peculiar fashion in which, when he was not present, people "old jacked" him—this alone was enough to condemn a man of his years. lastly, everybody knew that most of the batchgrew family was of a piece with its head.
vi
now rachel had formed a prejudice against old batchgrew. she had formed it, immutably, in a single second of time. one glance at him in the street—and she had tried and condemned him, according to the summary justice of youth. she was in that stage of plenary and unhesitating wisdom when one not only can, but one must, divide the whole human race sharply into two categories, the sheep and the goats; and she had sentenced old batchgrew to a place on the extreme left. it happened that she knew nothing against him. but she did not require evidence. she simply did "not like that man"—(she italicized the end of the phrase bitingly to herself)—and there was no appeal against the verdict. angels could not have successfully interceded for him in the courts of her mind. he never guessed, in his aged self-sufficiency, that his case was hopeless with rachel, nor even that the child had dared to have any opinion about him at all.
she was about to slip off the pinafore-apron and drop it on to the oak chest that stood in the lobby. but she thought with defiance: "why should i take my pinafore off for him? i won't. he shan't see my nice frock. let him see my pinafore. i am an independent woman, earning my own living, and why should i be ashamed of my pinafore? my pinafore is good enough for him!" she also thought: "let him wait!" and went off into the kitchen to get the modern appliance of the match for lighting the gas in the lobby. when she had lighted the gas she opened the front door with audacious but nervous deliberation, and the famous character impatiently walked straight in. he wore prominent loose black kid gloves and a thin black overcoat.
looking coolly at her, he said—
"so you're the new lady companion, young miss! well, i've heard rare accounts on ye—rare accounts on ye! missis is in, i reckon?"
his voice was extremely low, rich, and heavy. it descended on the silence like a thick lubricating oil that only reluctantly abandons the curves in which it falls.
and rachel answered, faintly, tremulously— "yes."
no longer was she the independent woman, censorious and scornful, but a silly, timid little thing. though she condemned herself savagely for school-girlishness, she could do nothing to arrest the swift change in her. the fact was, she was abashed, partly by the legendary importance of the renowned batchgrew, but more by his physical presence. his mere presence was always disturbing; for when he supervened into an environment he had always the air of an animal on a voyage of profitable discovery. his nose was an adventurous, sniffing nose, a true nose, which exercised the original and proper functions of a nose noisily. his limbs were restless, his boots like hoofs. his eyes were as restless as his limbs, and seemed ever to be seeking for something upon which they could definitely alight, and not finding it. he performed eructations with the disarming naturalness of a baby. he was tall but not stout, and yet he filled the lobby; he was the sole fact in the lobby, and it was as though rachel had to crush herself against the wall in order to make room for him.
his glance at rachel now became inquisitive, calculating, it seemed to be saying: "one day i may be able to make use of this piece of goods." but there was a certain careless good-humour in it, too. what he saw was a naïve young maid, with agreeable features, and a fine, fresh complexion, and rather reddish hair. (he did not approve of the colour of the hair.) he found pleasure in regarding her, and in the perception that he had abashed her. yes, he liked to see her timid and downcast before him. he was an old man, but like most old men—such as statesmen—who have lived constantly at the full pressure of following their noses, he was also a young man. he creaked, but he was not gravely impaired.
"is it mr. batchgrew?" rachel softly murmured the unnecessary question, with one hand on the knob ready to open the sitting-room door.
he had flopped his stiff, flat-topped felt hat on the oak chest, and was taking off his overcoat. he paused and, lifting his chin—and his incredible white whiskers with it—gazed at rachel almost steadily for a couple of seconds.
"it is," he said, as it were challengingly—"it is, young miss."
then he finished removing his overcoat and thrust it roughly down on the hat.
rachel blushed as she modestly turned the knob and pushed the door so that he might pass in front of her.
"here's mr. batchgrew, mrs. maldon," she announced, feebly endeavouring to raise and clear her voice.
"bless us!" the astonished exclamation of mrs. maldon was heard.
and councillor batchgrew, with his crimson shiny face, and the vermilion rims round his unsteady eyes, and his elephant ears, and the absurd streaming of his white whiskers, and his multitudinous noisiness, and his black kid gloves, strode half theatrically past her, sniffing.
to rachel he was an object odious, almost obscene. in truth, she had little mercy on old men in general, who as a class struck her as fussy, ridiculous, and repulsive. and beyond all the old men she had ever seen, she disliked councillor batchgrew. and about councillor batchgrew what she most detested was, perhaps strangely, his loose, wrinkled black kid gloves. they were ordinary, harmless black kid gloves, but she counted them against him as a supreme offence.
"conceited, self-conscious, horrid old brute!" she thought, discreetly drawing the door to, and then going into the kitchen. "he's interested in nothing and nobody but himself." she felt protective towards mrs. maldon, that simpleton who apparently could not see through a john batchgrew!... so mrs. maldon had been giving him good accounts of the new lady companion, had she!
