Helen with the High Hand, Arnold Bennett [summer reading list .txt] 📗

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 facade 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