Helen with the High Hand Part 13

"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, la.s.s?"

"And in Turnhill?" she said, pa.s.sing 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. b.u.t.t 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 att.i.tude.

"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 b.u.t.ter at a s.h.i.+lling 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 const.i.tuted 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, la.s.s, 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 la.s.s."

"Why?"