Helen with the High Hand Part 22

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 s.h.i.+llings, _and_ paper it!"

"Where is your luggage, sir?" asked a muscular demon with s.h.i.+ny 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 antic.i.p.ation 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, G.o.d-like tone of utter beneficence: "La.s.s, 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 p.r.o.nouncement, 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 s.p.a.cious 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, pa.s.sing 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 be asked where was the twenty-six pounds so generously given to her by a loving uncle, the reply is that the whole sum, together with much else, was in the coffers of Ezra Brunt, the draper and costumier at Hanbridge; and the reply further is that Helen was in debt. I have hitherto concealed Helen's tendency to debts, but it was bound sooner or later to come out. And here it is.

After an adventurous journey by bridge over the North Staffords.h.i.+re Railway, and by bridge over the Shrops.h.i.+re Union Ca.n.a.l, and by bridge over the foaming cataract of the Shaws Brook, and down the fearful slants of Oldcastle-street, and through the arduous terrific denies of Oldcastle-road, the van had arrived at the portals of Wilbraham Hall. It would have been easy, by opening wide the portals, to have introduced the van and the horses too into the hall of Wilbraham Hall. But this course was not adopted.

Helen and Georgiana had preceded the van, and they both stood at the door to receive the goods. Georgiana was in one of Georgiana's ap.r.o.ns, and Helen also was in one of Georgiana's ap.r.o.ns. Uncle James had followed the van. He had not let it out of his sight. The old man's attachment to even the least of his goods was touching, and his attachment to the greatest of his goods carried pathos into farce. The greatest of his goods was, apparently, the full-rigged s.h.i.+p and tempestuous ocean in a gla.s.s box which had stood on the table in the front room of the other house for many years. No one had suspected his esteem for that gla.s.s box and its contents. He had not suspected it himself until the moment for packing it had come. But he seemed to love it more than his bits of Spode china or his concertina; and, taking it with him, he had quitted with a softened regret the quant.i.ty of over-blown blue roses which, in their eternal bloom, had enlivened his existence during a longer period even than the s.h.i.+p and ocean.

The s.h.i.+p and ocean was the last thing put into the van and the first thing taken out, and James Ollerenshaw introduced the affair, hugged against his own breast, into the house of his descendants. The remainder of the work of transference was relatively unimportant. Two men accomplished it easily while the horses ate a late dinner. And then the horses and the van and the men went off, and there was nothing left but a few wisps of straw and so forth, on the magnificent sweep of gravel, to indicate that they had ever been there. And Uncle James, and Helen, and Georgiana felt rather forlorn and abandoned. They stood in the hall and looked at each other a little blankly, like gipsies camping out in an abandoned cathedral. An immense fire was burning in the immense fireplace of the hall, and similar fires were burning in the state bedroom, in a little drawing-room beyond the main drawing-room, in another bedroom, in the giant's kitchen, and in one of the attics. These fires and a certain amount of cleaning were the only preparations which Helen had permitted herself to make. Even the expense of the coal had startled James, and she proposed to get him safely in the cage before commencing the serious business which would shatter all his nerves. By a miracle of charm and audacity she had obtained from him the control of a sum of seven hundred and fifty pounds. This sum, now lying nominally to her credit at one of James's various banks, represented the difference between eight thousand pounds (at which James had said Wilbraham Hall would be cheap) and seven thousand two hundred and fifty pounds (at which James had succeeded in buying Wilbraham Hall).

To the left of the hall, near the entrance, was quite a small room (originally, perhaps, a butler's lair), and James was obstinate in selecting this room as his office. He had his desk carried there, and everything that personally affected him except his safe and the simple necessaries of his bedroom. These were taken, not to the state bedroom, which he had declined, after insincere pressure from Helen to accept it, but to a much smaller sleeping-chamber. The numerous family of Windsor chairs, together with other ancient honesties, were sent up to attics--too old at forty! Georgiana was established in a glorious attic; the state bedroom was strewn with Helen's gear; and scarcely anything remained unniched in the Hall save the s.h.i.+p and ocean. They all rested from their labours, and Helen was moved by one of her happiest inspirations.

"Georgiana," she said, "go and make some tea. Bring a cup for yourself."

"Yes, miss. Thank you, miss."

On removal days miserable distinctions of cla.s.s are invariably lost in the large-heartedness of mutual endeavour.

It was while the trio were thus drinking tea together, standing, and, as it were, with loins still girt after the pilgrimage, that the first visitor to the new owners of Wilbraham Hall rang its great bell and involved Georgiana in her first ceremonial duty. Georgiana was quite nervous as she went to the door.