The Price of Love, Arnold Bennett [important of reading books .TXT] 📗

/> "The landing window."

Mr. Batchgrew, startled and delighted by this unexpected confirmation of his theory, exploded--

"Ha!... And how soon was that after ye'd been upstairs with the notes?"

"It was just afterwards."

"Ha!... I don't mind telling ye I've been suspecting that young man ever since this morning. I only learnt just now as he was in th' house all night. That made me think for a moment as he'd done it after ye'd all gone to bed. And for aught I know he may have. But done it some time he has, and you know it as well as I do, Elizabeth."

Mrs. Maldon maintained her serenity.

"We may be unjust to him. I should never forgive myself if I was. He has a very good side to him, has Louis!"

"I've never seen it," said Mr. Batchgrew, still growing in authority. "He began as a thief and he'll end as a thief, if it's no worse."

"Began as a thief?" Mrs. Maldon protested.

"Well, what d'ye suppose he left the bank for?"

"I never knew quite why he left the bank. I always understood there was some unpleasantness."

"If ye didn't know, it was because ye didn't want to know. Ye never do want to know these things. 'Unpleasantness!' There's only one sort of unpleasantness with the clerks in a bank!... _I_ know, anyhow, because I took the trouble to find out for myself, when I had that bother with him in my own office. And a nice affair that was, too!"

"But you told me at the time that his books were all right with you. Only you preferred not to keep him." Mrs. Maiden's voice was now plaintive.

Thomas Batchgrew came close to the bed and leaned on the foot of it.

"There's some things as you won't hear, Elizabeth. His books were all right, but he'd made 'em all right. I got hold of him afore he'd done more than he could undo--that's all. There's one trifle as I might ha' told ye if ye hadn't such a way of shutting folks up sometimes, missis. I'll tell ye now. Louis Fores went down on his knees to me in my office. On his knees, and all blubbing. What about that?"

Mrs. Maldon replied--

"You must have been glad ever since that you did give the poor boy another chance."

"There's nothing I've regretted more," said Thomas Batchgrew, with a grimness that became him. "I heard last week he's keeping books and handling cash for Horrocleave nowadays. I know how that'll end! I'd warn Horrocleave, but it's no business o' mine, especially as ye made me help ye to put him into Horrocleave's.... There's half a dozen people in this town and in Hanbridge that can add up Louis Fores, and have added him up! And now he's robbed ye in yer own house. But it makes no matter. He's safe enough!" He sardonically snorted. "He's safe enough. We canna' even stop the notes without telling the police, and ye won't have the police told. Oh, no! He's managed to get on th' right side o' you. However, he'll only finish in one way, that chap will, whether you and me's here to see it or not."

Mr. Batchgrew had grown really impressive, and he knew it.

"Don't let us be hard," pleaded Mrs. Maldon. And then, in a firmer, prouder voice: "There will be no scandal in my family, Mr. Batchgrew, as long as I live."

Mr. Batchgrew's answer was superb in its unconscious ferocity--

"That depends how long ye live."

His meaningless eyes rested on her with frosty impartiality, as he reflected--

"I wonder how long she'll last."

He felt strong; he felt immortal. Exactly like Mrs. Maldon, he was convinced that he was old only by the misleading arithmetic of years, that he was not really old, and that there was a subtle and vital difference between all other people of his age and himself. As for Mrs. Maldon, he regarded her as a mere poor relic of an organism.

"At our age," Mrs. Maldon began, and paused as if collecting her thoughts.

"At our age! At our age!" he repeated, sharply deprecating the phrase.

"At our age," said Mrs. Maldon, with slow insistence, "we ought not to be hard on others. We ought to be thinking of our own sins."

But, although Mrs. Maldon was perhaps the one person on earth whom he both respected and feared, Thomas Batchgrew listened to her injunction only with rough disdain. He was incapable of thinking of his own sins. While in health, he was nearly as unaware of sin as an animal.

Nevertheless, he turned uneasily in the silence of the pale room, so full of the shy and prim refinement of Mrs. Maldon's individuality. He could talk morals to others in the grand manner, and with positive enjoyment, but to be sermonized himself secretly exasperated him because it constrained him and made him self-conscious. Invariably, when thus attacked, he would execute a flank movement.

He said bluntly--

"And I suppose ye'll let him marry this Rachel girl if he's a mind to!"

Slowly a deep flush covered Mrs. Maldon's face.

"What makes you say that?" she questioned, with rising agitation.

"I have but just seen 'em together."

Mrs. Maldon moved nervously in the bed.

"I should never forgive myself if I stood by and let Louis marry Rachel," she said, and there was a sudden desperate urgency in her voice.

"Isn't she good enough for a nephew o' yours?"

"She's good enough for any man," said Mrs. Maldon quietly.

"Then it's him as isna' good enough! And yet, if he's got such a good side to him as ye say--" Mr. Batchgrew snorted.

"He's not suited to her--not at all."

"Now, missis," said Mr. Batchgrew in triumph, "at last we're getting down to your real opinion of young Fores."

"I feel I'm responsible for Rachel, and--What ought I to do about it?"

"Do? What can a body do when a respectable young woman wi' red hair takes a fancy to a youth? Nowt, Elizabeth. That young woman'll marry Louis Fores, and ye can take it from me."

"But why do you say a thing like that? I only began to notice anything myself last night."

"She's lost her head over him, that's all. I caught 'em just now.... As thick as thieves in your parlour!"

"But I'm by no means sure that he's smitten with her."

"What does it matter whether he is or not? She's lost her head over him, and she'll have him. It doesn't want a telescope to see as far as that."

"Well, then, I shall speak to her--I shall speak to her to-morrow morning, after she's had a good night's rest, when I feel stronger."

"Ay! Ye may! And what shalt say?"

"I shall warn her. I think I shall know how to do it," said Mrs. Maldon, with a certain air of confidence amid her trouble. "I wouldn't run the risk of a tragedy for worlds."

"It's no _risk_ of a tragedy, as ye call it," said Thomas Batchgrew, very pleased with his own situation in the argument. "It's a certainty. She'll believe him afore she believes you, whatever ye say. You mark me. It's a certainty."

After elaborate preparations of his handkerchief, he blew his nose loudly, because blowing his nose loudly affected him in an agreeable manner.

A few minutes later he left, saying the car would be waiting for him at the back of the Town Hall. And Mrs. Maldon lay alone until Mrs. Tams came in with a tray.

"An' I hope that's enough company for one day!" said Mrs. Tarns. "Now, sup it up, do!"


CHAPTER VII


THE CINEMA

I


That evening Rachel sat alone in the parlour, reclining on the Chesterfield over the _Signal_. She had picked up the _Signal_ in order to read about captured burglars, but the paper contained not one word on the subject, or on any other subject except football. The football season had commenced in splendour, and it happened to be the football edition of the _Signal_ that the paper-boy had foisted upon Mrs. Maldon's house. Despite repeated and positive assurances from Mrs. Maldon that she wanted the late edition and not the football edition on Saturday nights, the football edition was usually delivered, because the paper-boy could not conceive that any customer could sincerely not want the football edition. Rachel was glancing in a torpid condition at the advertisements of the millinery and trimming shops.

She would have been more wakeful could she have divined the blow which she had escaped a couple of hours before. Between five and six o'clock, when she was upstairs in the large bedroom, Mrs. Maldon had said to her, "Rachel--" and stopped. "Yes, Mrs. Maldon," she had replied. And Mrs. Maldon had said, "Nothing." Mrs. Maldon had desired to say, but in words carefully chosen: "Rachel, I've never told you that Louis Fores began life as a bank clerk, and was dismissed for stealing money. And even since then his conduct has not been blameless." Mrs. Maldon had stopped because she could not find the form of words which would permit her to impart to her paid companion this information about her grand-nephew. Mrs. Maldon, when the moment for utterance came, had discovered that she simply could not do it, and all her conscientious regard for Rachel and all her sense of duty were not enough to make her do it. So that Rachel, unsuspectingly, had been spared a tremendous emotional crisis. By this time she had grown nearly accustomed to the fact of the disappearance of the money. She had completely recovered from the hysteria caused by old Batchgrew's attack, and was, indeed, in the supervening calm, very much ashamed of it.

She meant to doze, having firmly declined the suggestion of Mrs. Tams that she should go to bed at seven o'clock, and she was just dropping the paper when a tap on the window startled her. She looked in alarm at the window, where the position of one of the blinds proved the correctness of Mrs. Maldon's secret theory that if Mrs. Maldon did not keep a personal watch on the blinds they would never be drawn properly. Eight inches of black pane showed, and behind that dark transparency something vague and pale. She knew it must be the hand of Louis Fores that had tapped, and she could feel her heart beating. She flew on tiptoe to the front door, and cautiously opened it. At the same moment Louis sprang from the narrow space between the street railings and the bow window on to the steps. He raised his hat with the utmost grace.

"I saw your head over the arm of the Chesterfield," he said in a cheerful, natural low voice. "So I tapped on the glass. I thought if I knocked at the door I might waken the old lady. How are things to-night?"

In those few words he perfectly explained his manner of announcing himself, endowing it with the highest propriety. Rachel's misgivings were soothed in an instant. Her chief emotion was an ecstatic pride--because he had come, because he could not keep away, because she had known that he would come, that he must come. And in fact was it not his duty to come? Quietly he came into the hall, quietly she closed the door, and when they were shut up together in the parlour they both spoke in hushed voices, lest the invalid