vii

"well, lizzie maldon," said councillor batchgrew as he crossed the sitting-room, "how d'ye find yourself?... sings!" he went on, taking mrs. maldon's hand with a certain negligence and at the same time fixing an unfriendly eye on the gas.

mrs. maldon had risen to welcome him with the punctilious warmth due to an old gentleman, a trustee, and a notability. she told him as to her own health and inquired about his. but he ignored her smooth utterances, in the ardour of following his nose.

"sings worse than ever! very unhealthy too! haven't i told ye and told ye? you ought to let me put electricity in for you. it isn't as if it wasn't your own house.... pay ye! pay ye over and over again!"

he sat down in a chair by the table, drew off his loose black gloves, and after letting them hover irresolutely over the encumbered table, deposited them for safety in the china slop-basin.

"i dare say you're quite right," said mrs. maldon with grave urbanity. "but really gas suits me very well. and you know the gas-manager complains so much about the competition of electricity. truly it does seem unfair, doesn't it, as they both belong to the town! if i gave up gas for electricity i don't think i could look the poor man in the face at church. and all these changes cost money! how is dear enid?"

mr. batchgrew had now stretched out his legs and crossed one over the other; and he was twisting his thumbs on his diaphragm.

"enid? oh! enid! well, i did hear she's able to nurse the child at last." he spoke of his grand-daughter-in-law as of one among a multiplicity of women about whose condition vague rumours reached him at intervals.

mrs. maldon breathed fervently—"i'm so thankful! what a blessing that is, isn't it?"

"as for costing money, elizabeth," mr. batchgrew proceeded, "you'll be all right now for money." he paused, sat up straight with puffings, and leaned sideways against the table. then he said, half fiercely— "i've settled up th' brougham street mortgage."

"you don't say so!" mrs. maldon was startled.

"i do!"

"when?"

"to-day."

"well—"

"that's what i stepped in for."

mrs. maldon feebly murmured, with obvious emotion—

"you can't imagine what a relief it is to me!" tears shone in her dark, mild eyes.

"look ye!" exclaimed the trustee curtly.

he drew from his breast pocket a bank envelope of linen, and then, glancing at the table, pushed cups and saucers abruptly away to make a clear space on the white cloth. the newspaper slipped rustling to the floor on the side near the window. already his gloves were abominable in the slop-basin, and now with a single gesture he had destroyed the symmetry of the set table. mrs. maldon with surpassing patience smiled sweetly, and assured herself that mr. batchgrew could not help it. he was a coarse male creature at large in a room highly feminized. it was his habit thus to pass through orderly interiors, distributing havoc, like a rough soldier. you might almost hear a sword clanking in the scabbard.

"ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty," he began in his heavily rolling voice to count out one by one a bundle of notes which he had taken from the envelope. he generously licked his thick, curved-back thumb for the separating of the notes, and made each note sharply click, in the manner of a bank cashier, to prove to himself that it was not two notes stuck together. "... five-seventy, five-eighty, five-ninety, six hundred. these are all tens. now the fives: five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five." he counted up to three hundred and sixty-five. "that's nine-sixty-five altogether. the odd sixty-five's arrear of interest. i'm investing nine hundred again to-morrow, and th' interest on th' new investment is to start from th' first o' this month. so instead of being out o'pocket, you'll be in pocket, missis."

the notes lay in two irregular filmy heaps on the table.

having carefully returned the empty envelope to his pocket, mr. batchgrew sat back, triumphant, and his eye met the delighted yet disturbed eye of mrs. maldon, and then wavered and dodged.

mr. batchgrew with all his romantic qualities, lacked any perception of the noble and beautiful in life, and it could be positively asserted that his estimate of mrs. maldon was chiefly disdainful. but of mrs. maldon's secret opinion about john batchgrew nothing could be affirmed with certainty. nobody knew it or ever would know it. i doubt whether mrs. maldon had whispered it even to herself. in youth he had been the very intimate friend of her husband. which fact would scarcely tally with mrs. maldon's memory of her husband as the most upright and perspicacious of men—unless on the assumption that john batchgrew's real characteristics had not properly revealed themselves until after his crony's death; this assumption was perhaps admissible. mrs. maldon invariably spoke of john batchgrew with respect and admiration. she probably had perfect confidence in him as a trustee, and such confidence was justified, for the councillor knew as well as anybody in what fields rectitude was a remunerative virtue, and in what fields it was not.

indeed, as a trustee his sense of honour and of duty was so nice that in order to save his ward from loss in connection with a depreciating mortgage security, he had invented, as a town councillor, the "improvement" known as the "brougham street scheme." if this was not said outright, it was hinted. at any rate, the idea was fairly current that had not councillor batchgrew been interested in brougham street property, the brougham street scheme, involving the compulsory purchase of some of that property at the handsome price naturally expected from the munificence of corporations, would never have come into being.

mrs. maldon knew of the existence of the idea, which had been obscurely referred to by a licensed victualler (inimically prejudiced against the teetotaller in mr. batchgrew) at a council meeting reported in the signal. and it was precisely this knowledge which had imparted to her glance the peculiar disturbed quality that had caused mr. batchgrew to waver and dodge.

the occasion demanded the exercise of unflinching common sense, and mrs. maldon was equal to it. she very wisely decided that she ought not to concern herself, and could not concern herself, with an aspect of the matter which concerned her trustee alone. and therefore she gave her heart entirely up to an intense gladness at the integral recovery of the mortgage money.

for despite her faith in the efficiency of her trustee, mrs. maldon would worry about finance; she would yield to an exquisitely painful dread lest "anything should happen"—happen, that is, to prevent her from dying in the comfortable and dignified state in which she had lived. her income was not large—a little under three hundred pounds a year—but with care it sufficed for her own wants, and for gifts, subscriptions, and an occasional carriage. there would have been a small margin but for the constant rise in prices. as it was, there was no permanent margin. and to have cut off a single annual subscription, or lessened a single customary gift, would have mortally wounded her pride. the gradual declension of property values in brougham street had been a danger that each year grew more menacing. the moment had long ago come when the whole rents of the mortgaged cottages would not cover her interest. the promise of the corporation improvement scheme had only partially reassured her; it seemed too good to be true. she could not believe without seeing. she now saw, suddenly, blindingly. and her relief, beneath that stately deportment of hers, was pathetic in its simple intensity. it would have moved john batchgrew, had he been in any degree susceptible to the thrill of pathos.

"i doubt if i've seen so much money all at once before," said mrs. maldon, smiling weakly.

"happen not!" said mr. batchgrew, proud, with insincere casualness, and he added in exactly the same tone: "i'm leaving it with ye to-night."

mrs. maldon was aghast, but she feigned sprightliness as she exclaimed—

"you're not leaving all this money here to-night?"

"i am," said the trustee. "that's what i came for. evans's were three hours late in completing, and the bank was closed. i have but just got it. i'm not going home." (he lived eight miles off, near axe.) "i've got to go to a church meeting at red cow, and i'm sleeping there. john's ernest is calling here for me presently. i don't fancy driving over them moors with near a thousand pun in my pocket—and colliers out on strike—not at my age, missis! if you don't know what red cow is, i reckon i do. it's your money. put it in a drawer and say nowt, and i'll fetch it to-morrow. what'll happen to it, think ye, seeing as it hasn't got legs?" he spoke with the authority of a trustee. and mrs. maldon felt that her reputation for sensible equanimity was worth preserving. so she said bravely—

"i suppose it will be all right."

"of course!" snapped the trustee patronizingly.

"but i must tell rachel."

"rachel? rachel? oh! her! why tell any one?" mr. batchgrew sniffed very actively.

"oh! i shouldn't be easy if i didn't tell rachel," insisted mrs. maldon with firmness.

before the trustee could protest anew she had rung the bell.

viii

it was another and an apronless rachel that entered the room, a rachel transformed, magnificent in light green frock with elaborate lacy ruchings and ornamentations, and the waist at the new fashionable height. her ruddy face and hands were fresh from water, her hair very glossy and very neat: she was in high array. this festival attire mrs. maldon now fully beheld for the first time. it, indeed, honoured herself, for she had ordained a festive evening: but at the same time she was surprised and troubled by it. as for mr. batchgrew, he entirely ignored the vision. stretched out in one long inclined plane from the back of his chair down to the brass fender, he contemplated the fire, while picking his teeth with a certain impatience, and still sniffing actively. the girl resented this disregard. but, though she remained hostile to the grotesque old man with his fussy noises, the mantle of mrs. maldon's moral protection was now over councillor batchgrew, and rachel's mistrustful scorn of him had lost some of its pleasing force.

"rachel—"

mrs. maldon gave a hesitating cough.

"yes, mrs. maldon?" said rachel questioningly deferential, and smiling faintly into mrs. maldon's apprehensive eyes. against the background of the aged pair she seemed dramatically young, lithe, living, and wistful. she was nervous, but she thought with strong superiority: "what are those old folks planning together? why do they ring for me?"

at length mrs. maldon proceeded—"i think i ought to tell you, dear, mr. batchgrew is obliged to leave this money in my charge to-night."

"what money?" asked rachel.

mr. batchgrew put in sharply, drawing up his legs— "this!... here, young miss! step this way, if ye please. i'll count it. ten, twenty, thirty—" with new lickings and clickings he counted the notes all over again. "there!" when he had finished his pride had become positively naïve.

"oh, my word!" murmured rachel, awed and astounded.

"it is rather a lot, isn't it?" said mrs. maldon, with a timid laugh.

at once fascinated and repelled, the two women looked at the money as at a magic. it represented to mrs. maldon a future free from financial embarrassment; it represented to rachel more than she could earn in half a century at her wage of eighteen pounds a year, an unimaginable source of endless gratifications; and yet the mere fact that it was to stay in the house all night changed it for them into something dire and formidable, so that it inspired both of them—the ancient dame and the young girl—with naught but a mystic dread. mr. batchgrew eyed the affrighted creatures with satisfaction, appearing to take a perverse pleasure in thus imposing upon them the horrid incubus.

"i was only thinking of burglars;" said mrs. maldon apologetically. "there've been so many burglaries lately—" she ceased, uncertain of her voice. the forced lightness of her tone was almost tragic.

"there won't be any more," said mr. batchgrew condescendingly.

"why?" demanded mrs. maldon with an eager smile of hope. "have they caught them, then? has superintendent snow—"

"they have their hands on them. to-morrow there'll be some arrests," mr. batchgrew answered, exuding authority. for he was not merely a town councillor, he was brother-in-law to the superintendent of the borough police. "caught 'em long ago if th' county police had been a bit more reliable!"

"oh!" mrs. maldon breathed happily. "i knew it couldn't be mr. snow's fault. i felt sure of that. i'm so glad."

and rachel also was conscious of gladness. in fact, it suddenly seemed plain to both women that no burglar, certain of arrest on the morrow, would dare to invade the house of a lady whose trustee had married the sister of the superintendent of police. the house was invisibly protected.

"and we mustn't forget we shall have a man sleeping here to-night," said rachel confidently.

"of course! of course! i was quite overlooking that!" exclaimed mrs. maldon.

mr. batchgrew threw a curt and suspicious question— "what man?"

"my nephew julian—i should say my grand-nephew." mrs. maldon's proud tone rebuked the strange tone of mr. batchgrew. "it is his birthday. he and louis are having supper with me. and julian is staying the night."

"well, if you take my advice, missis, ye'll say nowt to nobody. lock the brass up in a drawer in that wardrobe of yours, and keep a still tongue in your head."

"perhaps you're right," mrs. maldon agreed—"as a matter of general principle, i mean. and it might make julian uneasy."

"take it and lock it up," mr. batchgrew repeated.

"i don't know about my wardrobe—" mrs. maldon began.

"anywhere!" mr. batchgrew stopped her.

"only," said rachel with careful gentleness, "please don't forget where you have put it."

but her precaution of manner was futile. twice within a minute she had employed the word "forget." twice was too often. mrs. maldon's memory was most capriciously uncertain. its lapses astonished sometimes even herself. and naturally she was sensitive on the point. she nourished the fiction, and she expected others to nourish it, that her memory was quite equal to younger memories. indeed, she would admit every symptom of old age save an unreliable memory.

composing a dignified smile, she said with reproving blandness—

"i am not in the habit of forgetting where i put valuables, rachel."

and her prominently veined fingers, clasping the notes as a preliminary to hiding them away, seemed in their nervous primness to be saying to rachael: "i have deep confidence in you, and i think that to-night i have shown it. but oblige me by not presuming. i am mrs. maldon and you are rachel. after all, i have not yet known you for a month."

ix

a very loud rasping noise, like a vicious menace, sounded from the street, shivering instantaneously the delicate placidity of mrs. maldon's home. mrs. maldon gave a start.

"that'll be john's ernest with the car," said mr. batchgrew, amused; and he began to get up from the chair. as soon as he was on his feet his nose grew active again. "you've nothing to be afraid of, missis," he added in a tone roughly reassuring and good-natured.

"oh no! of course not!" concurred mrs. maldon, further enforcing intrepidity on herself. "of course not! i only just mentioned burglars because they're so much in the paper." and she stooped to pick up the signal and folded it carefully, as if to prove that her mind was utterly collected.

councillor batchgrew, leaning over the table, peered into various vessels in search of his gloves. at length he took them finickingly from the white slop-basin as though fishing them out of a puddle. he began to put them on, and then, half-way through the process, abruptly shook hands with mrs. maldon.

"then you'll call in the morning?" she asked.

"aye! ye may count on me. i'll relieve ye on [of] it afore ten o'clock. it'll be on my way to hanbridge, ye see."

mrs. maldon ceremoniously accompanied her trustee as far as the sitting-room door, where she recommended him to the careful attention of rachel. no woman in the five towns could take leave of a guest with more impressive dignity than old mrs. maldon, whose fine southern accent always gave a finish to her farewells. in the lobby mr. batchgrew kept rachel waiting with his overcoat in her outstretched hands while he completed the business of his gloves. as, close behind him, she coaxed his stiff arms into the overcoat, she suddenly felt that after all he was nothing but a decrepit survival; and his offensiveness seemed somehow to have been increased—perhaps by the singular episode of the gloves and the slop-basin. she opened the front door, and without a word to her he departed down the steps.

two lamps like lighthouses glared fiercely along the roadway, dulling the municipal gas and giving to each loose stone on the macadam a long shadow. in the gloom behind the lamps the low form of an open automobile showed, and a dim, cloaked figure beside it. a boyish voice said with playful bullying sharpness, above the growling, irregular pulsation of the engine— "here, grandad, you've got to put this on."

"have i?" demanded uncertainly the thick, heavy voice of the old man.

"yes, you have—on the top of your other coat. if i don't look after you i shall get myself into a row!... here, let me put your fist in the armhole. it's your blooming glove that stops it.... there! now, up with you, grandad!... all right! i've got you. i sha'n't drop you."

a door snapped to; then another. the car shot violently forward, with shrieks and a huge buzzing noise, and leaped up the slope of the street. rachel, still in the porch, could see mr. batchgrew's head wagging rather helplessly from side to side, just above the red speck of the tail-lamp. then the whole vision was swiftly blotted out, and the warning shrieks of the invisible car grew fainter on the way to red cow. it pleased rachel to think of the old man being casually bullied and shaken by john's ernest.

she leaned forward and gazed down the street, not up it. when she turned into the house mrs. maldon was descending the stairs, which, being in a line with the lobby, ended opposite the front door. judging by the fixity of the old lady's features, rachel decided that she was not yet quite pardoned for the slight she had put upon the memory of her employer. so she smiled pleasantly.

"don't close the front door, dear," said mrs. maldon stiffly. "there's some one there."

rachel looked round. she had actually, in sheer absent-mindedness or negligence or deafness, been shutting the door in the face of the telegraph-boy!

"oh, dear! i do hope—!" mrs. maldon muttered as she hastily tugged at the envelope.

having read the message, she passed it on to rachel, and at the same time forgivingly responded to her smile. the excitement of the telegram had sufficed to dissipate mrs. maldon's trifling resentment.

rachel read—

"train hour late. julian."

the telegraph boy was dismissed: "no answer, thank you."

x

during the next half-hour excitement within the dwelling gradually increased. it grew out of nothing—out of mrs. maldon's admirable calm in receiving the message of the telegram—until it affected like an atmospheric disturbance the ground floor—the sitting-room where mrs. maldon was spending nervous force in the effort to preserve an absolutely tranquil mind, the kitchen where rachel was "putting back" the supper, the lobby towards which rachel's eye and mrs. maiden's ear were strained to catch any sign of an arrival, and the unlighted, unused room behind the sitting-room which seemed to absorb and even intensify the changing moods of the house.

the fact was that mrs. maldon, in her relief at finding that julian was not killed or maimed for life in a railway accident, had begun by treating a delay of one hour in all her arrangements for the evening as a trifle. but she had soon felt that, though a trifle, it was really very upsetting and annoying. it gave birth to irrational yet real forebodings as to the non-success of her little party. it meant that the little party had "started badly." and then her other grand-nephew, louis fores, did not arrive. he had been invited for supper at seven, and should have appeared at five minutes to seven at the latest. but at five minutes to seven he had not come; nor at seven, nor at five minutes past—he who had barely a quarter of a mile to walk! there was surely a fate against the party! and rachel strangely persisted in not leaving the kitchen! even after mrs. maldon had heard her fumbling for an interminable time with the difficult window on the first-floor landing, she went back to the kitchen instead of presenting herself to her expectant mistress.

at last rachel entered the sitting-room, faintly humming an air. mrs. maldon thought that she looked self-conscious. but mrs. maldon also was self-conscious, and somehow could not bring her lips to utter the name of louis fores to rachel. for the old lady had divined a connection of cause and effect between louis fores and the apparition of rachel's superlative frock. and she did not like the connection; it troubled her, and offended the extreme nicety of her social code.

there was a constrained silence, which was broken by the lobby clock striking the first quarter after seven. this harsh announcement on the part of the inhuman clock seemed to render the situation intolerable. fifteen minutes past seven, and louis not come, and not a word of comment thereon! mrs. maldon had to admit privately that she was in a high state of agitation.

then rachel, bending delicately to sweep the hearth with the brass-handled brush proper to it, remarked with an obvious affectation of nonchalance—

"your other guest's late too."

if mrs. maldon had not been able to speak his name, neither could rachel! mrs. maldon read with painful certainty all the girl's symptoms.

"yes, indeed!" said mrs. maldon.

"it's like as if what must be!" rachel murmured, employing a local phrase which mrs. maldon had ever contemned as meaningless and ungrammatical.

"fortunately it doesn't matter, as julian is late too," said mrs. maldon insincerely, for it was mattering very much. "but still—i wonder—"

rachel broke out upon her hesitation in a very startling manner—

"i'll just see if he's coming."

and she abruptly quitted the room, almost slamming the door.

mrs. maldon was dumbfounded. scared and attentive, she listened in a maze for the sound of the front door. she heard it open. but was it possible that she heard also the creak of the gate? she sprang to the bow window with surprising activity, and pulled aside a blind, one inch.... there was rachel tripping hatless and in her best frock down the street! inconceivable vision, affecting mrs. maldon with palpitation! a girl so excellent, so lovable, so trustworthy, to be guilty of the wanton caprice of a minx! supposing louis were to see her, to catch her in the brazen act of looking for him! mrs. maldon was grieved; and her gentle sorrow for rachel's incalculable lapse was so dignified, affectionate, and jealous for the good repute of human nature that it mysteriously ennobled instead of degrading the young creature.

xi

going down bycars lane amid the soft wandering airs of the september night, rachel had the delicious and exciting sensation of being unyoked, of being at liberty for a space to obey the strong, free common sense of youth instead of conforming to the outworn and tiresome code of another age. mrs. maldon's was certainly a house that put a strain on the nerves. it did not occur to rachel that she was doing aught but a very natural and proper thing. the non-appearance of louis fores was causing disquiet, and her simple aim was to shorten the period of anxiety. nor did it occur to her that she was impulsive. something had to be done, and she had done something. not much longer could she have borne the suspense. all that day she had lived forward towards supper-time, when louis fores would appear. over and over again she had lived right through the moment of opening the front door for him at a little before seven o'clock. the moments between seven o'clock and a quarter past had been a crescendo of torment, intolerable at last. his lateness was inexplicable, and he was so close to that not to look for him would have been ridiculous.

she was apprehensive, and yet she was obscurely happy in her fears. the large, inviting, dangerous universe was about her—she had escaped from the confining shelter of the house. and the night was about her. it was not necessary for her to wear three coats, like the gross batchgrew, in order to protect herself from the night! she could go forth into it with no precaution. she was young. her vigorous and confident body might challenge perils.

when she had proceeded a hundred yards she stopped and turned to look back at the cluster of houses collectively called bycars.

the distinctive bow-window of mrs. maldon's shone yellow. within the sacred room was still the old lady, sitting expectant, and trying to interest herself in the paper. strange thought!

bycars lane led in a north-easterly direction over the broad hill whose ridge separates the lane from the moorlands honeycombed with coal and iron mines. above the ridge showed the fire and vapour of the first mining villages, on the way to red cow, proof that not all colliers were yet on strike. and above that pyrotechny hung the moon. the municipal park, of which bycars lane was the north-western boundary, lay in mysterious and forbidden groves behind its spiked red wall and locked gates, and beyond it a bright tram-car was leaping down from lamp to lamp of moorthorne road towards the town. between the masses of the ragged hedge on the north side of the lane there was the thin gleam of bycars pool, lost in a vague, unoccupied region of shawdrucks and dirty pasture—the rendezvous of skaters when the frost held, louis fores had told her, and she had heard from another source that he skated divinely. she could believe it, too.

she resumed her way more slowly. she had only stopped because, though burned with the desire to see him, she yet had an instinct to postpone the encounter. she was almost minded to return. but she went on. the town was really very near. the illuminated clock of the town hall had dominion over it; the golden shimmer above the roofs to the left indicated the electrical splendour of the new cinema in moorthorne road next to the new primitive methodist chapel. he had told her about that, too. in two minutes, in less than two minutes, she was among houses again, and approaching the corner of friendly street. he would come from the moorthorne road end of friendly street. she would peep round the corner of friendly street to see if he was coming....

but before she reached the corner, her escapade suddenly presented itself to her as childish madness, silly, inexcusable; and she thought self-reproachfully, "how impulsive i am!" and sharply turned back towards mrs. maldon's house, which seemed to be about ten miles off.

a moment later she heard hurried footfalls behind her on the narrow brick pavement, and, after one furtive glance over her shoulder, she quickened her pace. louis fores in all his elegance was pursuing her! nothing had happened to him. he was not ill; he was merely a little late! after all, she would sit by his side at the supper-table! she had a spasm of shame that was excruciating. but at the same time she was wildly glad. and already this inebriating illusion of an ingenuous girl concerning a common male was helping to shape monstrous events.