I
A still young man--his age was thirty--with a short, strong beard
peeping out over the fur collar of a vast overcoat, emerged from a cab
at the snowy corner of St. Luke's Square and Brougham Street, and paid
the cabman with a gesture that indicated both wealth and the habit of
command. And the cabman, who had driven him over from Hanbridge through
the winter night, responded accordingly. Few people take cabs in the
Five Towns. There are few cabs to take. If you are going to a party
you may order one in advance by telephone, reconciling yourself also in
advance to the expense, but to hail a cab in the street without
forethought and jump into it as carelessly as you would jump into a
tram--this is by very few done. The young man with the beard did it
frequently, which proved that he was fundamentally ducal.
He was encumbered with a large and rather heavy parcel as he walked down
Brougham Street, and moreover the footpath of Brougham Street was
exceedingly dirty. And yet no one acquainted with the circumstances of
his life would have asked why he had dismissed the cab before arriving
at his destination, because every one knew. The reason was that this
ducal person with the gestures of command dared not drive up to his
mother's door in a cab oftener than about once a month. He opened that
door with a latchkey (a modern lock was almost the only innovation that
he had succeeded in fixing on his mother), and stumbled with his
unwieldy parcel into the exceedingly narrow lobby.
"Is that you, Denry?" called a feeble voice from the parlour.
"Yes," said he, and went into the parlour, hat, fur coat, parcel, and
all.
Mrs. Machin, in a shawl and an antimacassar over the shawl, sat close to
the fire and leaning towards it. She looked cold and ill. Although the
parlour was very tiny and the fire comparatively large, the structure of
the grate made it impossible that the room should be warm, as all the
heat went up the chimney. If Mrs. Machin had sat on the roof and put
her hands over the top of the chimney she would have been much warmer
than at the grate.
"You aren't in bed?" Denry queried.
"Can't ye see?" said his mother. And indeed to ask a woman who was
obviously sitting up in a chair whether she was in bed did seem somewhat
absurd. She added, less sarcastically:
"I was expecting ye every minute. Where have ye had your tea?"
"Oh!" he said lightly, "in Hanbridge."
An untruth! He had not had his tea anywhere. But he had dined richly
at the new Hotel Metropole, Hanbridge.
"What have ye got there?" asked his mother.
"A present for you," said Denry. "It's your birthday to-morrow."
"I don't know as I want reminding of that," murmured Mrs. Machin.
But when he had undone the parcel and held up the contents before her
she exclaimed:
"Bless us!"
The staggered tone was an admission that for once in a way he had
impressed her.
It was a magnificent sealskin mantle, longer than sealskin mantles
usually are. It was one of those articles the owner of which can say:
"Nobody can have a better than this--I don't care who she is." It was
worth in monetary value all the plain shabby clothes on Mrs. Machin's
back, and all her very ordinary best clothes upstairs, and all the
furniture in the entire house, and perhaps all Denry's dandiacal
wardrobe too, except his fur coat. If the entire contents of the
cottage, with the aforesaid exception, had been put up to auction, they
would not have realised enough to pay for that sealskin mantle.
Had it been anything but a sealskin mantle, and equally costly, Mrs.
Machin would have upbraided. But a sealskin mantle is not "showy." It
"goes with" any and every dress and bonnet. And the most respectable,
the most conservative, the most austere woman may find legitimate
pleasure in wearing it. A sealskin mantle is the sole luxurious
ostentation that a woman of Mrs. Machin's temperament--and there are
many such in the Five Towns and elsewhere--will conscientiously permit
herself.
"Try it on," said Denry.
She rose weakly and tried it on. It fitted as well as a sealskin mantle
can fit.
"My word--it's warm!" she said. This was her sole comment.
"Keep it on," said Denry.
His mother's glance withered the suggestion.
"Where are you going?" he asked, as she left the room.
"To put it away," said she. "I must get some moth powder to-morrow."
He protested with inarticulate noises, removed his own furs, which he
threw down on to the old worn-out sofa, and drew a Windsor chair up to
the fire. After a while his mother returned, and sat down in her
rocking-chair, and began to shiver again under the shawl and the
antimacassar. The lamp on the table lighted up the left side of her
face and the right side of his.
"Look here, mother," said he. "You must have a doctor."
"I shall have no doctor."
"You 've got influenza, and it's a very tricky business--influenza is;
you never know where you are with it."
"Ye can call it influenza if ye like," said Mrs. Machin. "There was no
influenza in my young days. We called a cold a cold."
"Well," said Denry. "You are n't well, are you?"
"I never said I was," she answered grimly.
"No," said Denry, with the triumphant ring of one who is about to
devastate an enemy. "And you never will be in this rotten old cottage."
"This was reckoned a very good class of house when your father and I
came into it. And it's always been kept in repair. It was good enough
for your father, and it's good enough for me. I don't see myself
flitting. But some folks have gotten so grand. As for health, old
Reuben next door is ninety-one. How many people over ninety are there
in those grimcrack houses up by the Park, I should like to know?"
Denry could argue with any one save his mother. Always, when he was
about to reduce her to impotence, she fell on him thus and rolled him in
the dust. Still, he began again.
"Do we pay four-and-sixpence a week for this cottage, or don't we?" he
demanded.
"And always have done," said Mrs. Machin. "I should like to see the
landlord put it up!" she added, formidably, as if to say: "I 'd landlord
him, if he tried to put _my_ rent up!"
"Well," said Denry, "here we are living in a four-and-six a week
cottage, and do you know how much I 'm making? I 'm making two thousand
pounds a year. That's what I 'm making."
A second wilful deception of his mother! As managing director of the
Five Towns Universal Thrift Club, as proprietor of the majority of its
shares, as its absolute autocrat, he was making very nearly four
thousand a year. Why could he not easily have said four as two to his
mother? The simple answer is that he was afraid to say four. It was as
if he ought to blush before his mother for being so plutocratic, his
mother who had passed most of her life in hard toil to gain a few
shillings a week. Four thousand seemed so fantastic! And in fact the
Thrift Club, which he had invented in a moment, had arrived at a
prodigious success, with its central offices in Hanbridge and its branch
offices in the other four towns, and its scores of clerks and collectors
presided over by Mr. Penkethman. It had met with opposition. The
mighty said that Denry was making an unholy fortune under the guise of
philanthropy. And to be on the safe side the Countess of Chell had
resigned her official patronage of the Club and given her shares to the
Pirehill Infirmary, which had accepted the high dividends on them
without the least protest. As for Denry, he said that he had never set
out to be a philanthropist nor posed as one, and that his unique
intention was to grow rich by supplying a want, like the rest of them,
and that anyhow there was no compulsion to belong to his Thrift Club.
Then letters in his defence from representatives of the thousands and
thousands of members of the Club rained into the columns of the
_Signal_, and Denry was the most discussed personage in the county. It
was stated that such thrift clubs, under various names, existed in
several large towns in Yorkshire and Lancashire. This disclosure
rehabilitated Denry completely in general esteem, for whatever obtains
in Yorkshire and Lancashire must be right for Staffordshire; but it
rather dashed Denry, who was obliged to admit to himself that after all
he had not invented the Thrift Club. Finally the hundreds of tradesmen
who had bound themselves to allow a discount of twopence in the shilling
to the Club (sole source of the Club's dividends) had endeavoured to
revolt. Denry effectually cowed them by threatening to establish
co-operative stores--there was not a single co-operative store in the
Five Towns. They knew he would have the wild audacity to do it.
Thenceforward the progress of the Thrift Club had been unruffled. Denry
waxed amazingly in importance. His mule died. He dared not buy a
proper horse and dog-cart because he dared not bring such an equipage to
the front door of his mother's four-and-sixpenny cottage. So he had
taken to cabs. In all exterior magnificence and lavishness he equalled
even the great Harold Etches, of whom he had once been afraid; and like
Etches he became a famous habitue of Llandudno pier. But whereas Etches
lived with his wife in a superb house at Bleakridge, Denry lived with
his mother in a ridiculous cottage in ridiculous Brougham Street. He
had a regiment of acquaintances, and he accepted a lot of hospitality,
but he could not return it at Brougham Street. His greatness fizzled
into nothing in Brougham Street. It stopped short and sharp at the
corner of St. Luke's Square, where he left his cabs. He could do
nothing with his mother. If she was not still going out as a sempstress
the reason was, not that she was not ready to go out, but that her old
clients had ceased to send for her. And could they be blamed for not
employing at three shillings a day the mother of a young man who
wallowed in thousands sterling? Denry had essayed over and over again
to instil reason into his mother, and he had invariably failed. She was
too independent, too profoundly rooted in her habits; and her character
had more force than his. Of course, he might have left her and set up a
suitably gorgeous house of his own.
But he would not.
In fact, they were a remarkable pair.
On this eve of her birthday he had meant to cajole her into some step,
to win her by an appeal, basing his argument on her indisposition. But
he was being beaten off once more. The truth was that a cajoling,
caressing tone could not be long employed towards Mrs. Machin. She was
not persuasive herself, nor favourable to persuasiveness in others.
"Well," said she, "if you 're making two thousand a year, ye can spend
it or save it as ye like, though ye 'd better save it. Ye never know
what may happen in these days. There was a man dropped half-a-crown
down a grid opposite only the day before yesterday."
Denry laughed.
"Ay!" she said; "ye can laugh."
"There 's no doubt about one thing," he said, "you ought to be in bed.
You ought to stay in bed for two or three days at least."
"Yes," she said. "And who 's going to look after the house while I 'm
moping between blankets?"
"You can have Rose Chudd in," he said.
"No," said she. "I 'm not going to have any woman rummaging about my
house, and me in bed!"
"You know perfectly well she's been practically starving since her
husband died, and as she 's going out charing, why can't you have her
and put a bit of bread into her mouth?"
"Because I won't have her! Neither her nor any one. There 's naught to
prevent you giving her some o' your two thousand a year, if you 've a
mind. But I see no reason for my house being turned upside down by her,
even if I have got a bit of a cold."
"You 're an unreasonable old woman," said Denry.
"Happen I am!" said she. "There can't be two wise ones in a family.
But I 'm not going to give up this cottage, and as long as I am standing
on my feet I 'm not going to pay any one for doing what I can do better
myself." A pause. "And so you need n't think it! You can't come round
me with a fur mantle."
She retired to rest. On the following morning he was very glum.
"Ye need n't be so glum," she said.
But she was rather pleased at his glumness. For in his glumness was a
sign that he recognised defeat.
II
The next episode between them was curiously brief. Denry had influenza.
He said that naturally he had caught hers.
He went to bed and stayed there. She nursed him all day, and grew angry
in a vain attempt to force him to eat. Towards night he tossed
furiously on the little bed in the little bedroom, complaining of
fearful headaches. She remained by his side most of the night. In the
morning he was easier. Neither of them mentioned the word "doctor."
She spent the day largely on the stairs. Once more towards night he
grew worse, and she remained most of the second night by his side.
In the sinister winter dawn Denry murmured in a feeble tone:
"Mother, you 'd better send for him."
"Doctor?" she said. And secretly she thought that she _had_ better send
for the doctor, and that there must be after all some difference between
influenza and a cold.
"No," said Denry; "send for young Lawton."
"Young Lawton!" she exclaimed. "What do you want young Lawton to come
_here_ for?"
"I have n't made my will," Denry answered.
"Pooh!" she retorted.
Nevertheless she was the least bit in the world frightened. And she
sent for Dr. Stirling, the aged Harrop's Scotch partner.
Dr. Stirling, who was full-bodied and left little space for anybody else
in the tiny, shabby bedroom of the man with four thousand a year, gazed
at Mrs. Machin, and he gazed also at Denry.
"Ye must go to bed this minute," said he.
"But he 's _in_ bed," cried Mrs. Machin.
"I mean yerself," said Dr. Stirling.
She was very nearly at the end of her resources. And the proof was that
she had no strength left to fight Dr. Stirling. She did go to bed. And
shortly afterwards Denry got up. And a little later, Rose Chudd, that
prim and efficient young widow from lower down the street, came into the
house and controlled it as if it had been her own. Mrs. Machin, whose
constitution was hardy, arose in about a week, cured, and duly dismissed
Rose with wages and without thanks. But Rose had been. Like the
_Signal's_ burglars, she had "effected an entrance." And the house had
not been turned upside down. Mrs. Machin, though she tried, could not
find fault with the result of Rose's uncontrolled activities.
III
One morning--and not very long afterwards; in such wise did fate seem to
favour the young at the expense of the old--Mrs. Machin received two
letters which alarmed and disgusted her. One was from her landlord
announcing that he had sold the house in which she lived to a Mr.
Wilbraham of London, and that in future she must pay the rent to the
said Mr. Wilbraham or his legal representatives. The other was from a
firm of London solicitors announcing that their client Mr. Wilbraham had
bought the house and that the rent must be paid to their agent whom they
would name later.
Mrs. Machin gave vent to her emotion in her customary manner:
"Bless us!"
And she showed the impudent letters to Denry.
"Oh!" said Denry. "So he has bought them, has he? I heard he was going
to."
"Them?" exclaimed Mrs. Machin. "What else has he bought?"
"I expect he 's bought all the five--this and the four below, as far as
Downes's. I expect you 'll find that the other four have had notices
just like these. You know all this row used to belong to the
Wilbrahams. You surely must remember that, mother?"
"Is he one of the Wilbrahams of Hillport, then?"
"Yes, of course he is."
"I thought the last of 'em was Cecil, and when he 'd beggared himself
here he went to Australia and died of drink. That's what I always
heard. We always used to say as there was n't a Wilbraham left."
"He did go to Australia, but he did n't die of drink. He disappeared,
and when he 'd made a fortune he turned up again in Sydney, so it seems.
I heard he 's thinking of coming back here to settle. Anyhow, he 's
buying up a lot of the Wilbraham property. I should have thought you 'd
have heard of it. Why, lots of people have been talking about it."
"Well," said Mrs. Machin, "I don't like it."
She objected to a law which permitted a landlord to sell a house over
the head of a tenant who had occupied it for more than thirty years. In
the course of the morning she discovered that Denry was right--the other
tenants had received notices exactly similar to hers.
Two days later Denry arrived home for tea with a most surprising article
of news. Mr. Cecil Wilbraham had been down to Bursley from London, and
had visited him, Denry. Mr. Cecil Wilbraham's local information was
evidently quite out of date, for he had imagined Denry to be a
rent-collector and estate agent, whereas the fact was that Denry had
abandoned this minor vocation years ago. His desire had been that Denry
should collect his rents and watch over his growing interests in the
district.
"So what did you tell him?" asked Mrs. Machin.
"I told him I 'd do it," said Denry.
"Why?"
"I thought it might be safer for you" said Denry with a certain
emphasis. "And, besides, it looked as if it might be a bit of a lark.
He's a very peculiar chap."
"Peculiar?"
"For one thing, he's got the largest moustaches of any man I ever saw.
And there 's something up with his left eye. And then I think he's a
bit mad."
"Mad?"
"Well, touched. He's got a notion about building a funny sort of a
house for himself on a plot of land at Bleakridge. It appears he is
fond of living alone, and he's collected all kind of dodges for doing
without servants and still being comfortable."
"Ay! But he 's right there!" breathed Mrs. Machin in deep sympathy. As
she said about once a week, "she never could abide the idea of
servants." "He's not married, then?" she added.
"He told me he 'd been a widower three times, but he 'd never had any
children," said Denry.
"Bless us!" murmured Mrs. Machin.
Denry was the one person in the town who enjoyed the acquaintance and
the confidence of the thrice-widowed stranger with long moustaches. He
had descended without notice on Bursley, seen Denry (at the branch
office of the Thrift Club), and then departed. It was understood that
later he would permanently settle in the district. Then the wonderful
house began to rise on the plot of land at Bleakridge. Denry had general
charge of it, but always subject to erratic and autocratic instructions
from London. Thanks to Denry, who since the historic episode at
Llandudno had remained very friendly with the Cotterill family, Mr.
Cotterill had the job of building the house; the plans came from London.
And though Mr. Cecil Wilbraham proved to be exceedingly watchful against
any form of imposition, the job was a remunerative one for Mr.
Cotterill, who talked a great deal about the originality of the
residence. The town judged of the wealth and importance of Mr. Cecil
Wilbraham by the fact that a person so wealthy and important as Denry
should be content to act as his agent. But then the Wilbrahams had been
magnates in the Bursley region for generations, up till the final
Wilbraham smash in the late seventies. The town hungered to see those
huge moustaches and that peculiar eye. In addition to Denry, only one
person had seen the madman, and that person was Nellie Cotterill, who
had been viewing the half-built house with Denry one Sunday morning when
the madman had most astonishingly arrived upon the scene, and after a
few minutes vanished. The building of the house strengthened greatly
the friendship between Denry and the Cotterills. Yet Denry neither
liked Mr. Cotterill nor trusted him.
The next incident in these happenings was that Mrs. Machin received
notice from the London firm to quit her four-and-sixpence a week
cottage. It seemed to her that not merely Brougham Street, but the
world, was coming to an end. She was very angry with Denry for not
protecting her more successfully. He was Mr. Wilbraham's agent, he
collected the rent, and it was his duty to guard his mother from
unpleasantness. She observed, however, that he was remarkably disturbed
by the notice, and he assured her that Mr. Wilbraham had not consulted
him in the matter at all. He wrote a letter to London, which she
signed, demanding the reason of this absurd notice flung at an ancient
and perfect tenant. The reply was that Mr. Wilbraham intended to pull
the houses down, beginning with Mrs. Machin's, and rebuild.
"Pooh!" said Denry. "Don't you worry your head, mother; I shall arrange
it. He'll be down here soon to see his new house--it's practically
finished, and the furniture is coming in--and I 'll just talk to him."
But Mr. Wilbraham did not come, the explanation doubtless being that he
was mad. On the other hand, fresh notices came with amazing frequency.
Mrs. Machin just handed them over to Denry. And then Denry received a
telegram to say that Mr. Wilbraham would be at his new house that night
and wished to see Denry there. Unfortunately, on the same day, by the
afternoon post, while Denry was at his offices, there arrived a sort of
supreme and ultimate notice from London to Mrs. Machin, and it was on
blue paper. It stated, baldly, that as Mrs. Machin had failed to comply
with all the previous notices, had indeed ignored them, she and her
goods would now be ejected into the street according to the law. It
gave her twenty-four hours to flit. Never had a respectable dame been
so insulted as Mrs. Machin was insulted by that notice. The prospect of
camping out in Brougham Street confronted her. When Denry reached home
that evening Mrs. Machin, as the phrase is, "gave it him."
Denry admitted frankly that he was nonplussed, staggered, and outraged.
But the thing was simply another proof of Mr. Wilbraham's madness.
After tea he decided that his mother must put on her best clothes and go
up with him to see Mr. Wilbraham and firmly expostulate--in fact, they
would arrange the situation between them; and if Mr. Wilbraham was
obstinate they would defy Mr. Wilbraham. Denry explained to his mother
that an Englishwoman's cottage was her castle, that a landlord's minions
had no right to force an entrance, and that the one thing that Mr.
Wilbraham could do was to begin unbuilding the cottage from the top,
outside. And he would like to see Mr. Wilbraham try it on!
So the sealskin mantle (for it was spring again) went up with Denry to
Bleakridge.
IV
The moon shone in the chill night. The house stood back from Trafalgar
Road in the moonlight--a squarish block of a building.
"Oh!" said Mrs. Machin. "It isn't so large."
"No! He did n't want it large. He only wanted it large enough," said
Denry, and pushed a button to the right of the front door. There was no
reply, though they heard the ringing of the bell inside. They waited.
Mrs. Machin was very nervous, but thanks to her sealskin mantle she was
not cold.
"This is a funny doorstep," she remarked, to kill time.
"It's of marble," said Denry.
"What's that for?" asked his mother.
"So much easier to keep clean," said Denry. "No stoning to do."
"Well," said Mrs. Machin. "It's pretty dirty now, anyway."
It was.
"Quite simple to clean," said Denry, bending down. "You just turn this
tap at the side. You see, it's so arranged that it sends a flat jet
along the step. Stand off a second."
He turned the tap, and the step was washed pure in a moment.
"How is it that that water steams?" Mrs. Machin demanded.
"Because it's hot," said Denry. "Did you ever know water steam for any
other reason?"
"Hot water outside?"
"Just as easy to have hot water outside as inside, is n't it?" said
Denry.
"Well, I never!" exclaimed Mrs. Machin. She was impressed.
"That's how everything's dodged up in this house," said Denry. He shut
off the water.
And he rang once again. No answer! No illumination within the abode!
"I tell you what I shall do," said Denry at length. "I shall let myself
in. I 've got a key of the back door."
"Are you sure it's all right?"
"I don't care if it is n't all right," said Denry defiantly. "He asked
me to be up here, and he ought to be here to meet me. I 'm not going to
stand any nonsense from anybody."
In they went, having skirted round the walls of the house.
Denry closed the door, pushed a switch, and the electric light shone.
Electric light was then quite a novelty in Bursley. Mrs. Machin had
never seen it in action. She had to admit that it was less complicated
than oil-lamps. In the kitchen the electric light blazed upon walls
tiled in grey and a floor tiled in black and white. There was a gas
range and a marble slopstone with two taps. The woodwork was dark.
Earthenware saucepans stood on a shelf. The cupboards were full of gear
chiefly in earthenware. Denry began to exhibit to his mother a tank
provided with ledges and shelves and grooves, in which he said that
everything except knives could be washed and dried automatically.
"Had n't you better go and find your Mr. Wilbraham?" she interrupted.
"So I had," said Denry; "I was forgetting him."
She heard him wandering over the house and calling in divers tones upon
Mr. Wilbraham. But she heard no other voice. Meanwhile she examined the
kitchen in detail, appreciating some of its devices and failing to
comprehend others.
"I expect he 's missed the train," said Denry, coming back. "Anyhow, he
is n't here. I may as well show you the rest of the house now."
He led her into the hall, which was radiantly lighted.
"It's quite warm here," said Mrs. Machin.
"The whole house is heated by steam," said Denry. "No fireplaces."
"No fireplaces!"
"No! No fireplaces. No grates to polish, ashes to carry down, coals to
carry up, mantelpieces to dust, fire-irons to clean, fenders to polish,
chimneys to sweep."
"And suppose he wants a bit of fire all of a sudden in summer."
"Gas stove in every room for emergencies," said Denry.
She glanced into a room.
"But," she cried, "It's all complete, ready! And as warm as toast."
"Yes," said Denry. "He gave orders. I can't think why on earth he is
n't here."
At that moment an electric bell rang loud and sharp, and Mrs. Machin
jumped.
"There he is!" said Denry, moving to the door.
"Bless us! What will he think of us being here like?" Mrs. Machin
mumbled.
"Pooh!" said Denry carelessly.
And he opened the door.
V
Three persons stood on the newly washed marble step--Mr. and Mrs.
Cotterill and their daughter Nellie.
"Oh! Come in! Come in! Make yourselves quite at home. That's what
_we 're_ doing," said Denry in blithe greeting; and added, "I suppose he
's invited you too?"
And it appeared that Mr. Cecil Wilbraham had indeed invited them too.
He had written from London saying that he would be glad if Mr. and Mrs.
Cotterill would "drop in" on this particular evening. Further, he had
mentioned that, as he had already had the pleasure of meeting Miss
Cotterill, perhaps she would accompany her parents.
"Well, he is n't here," said Denry, shaking hands. "He must have missed
his train or something. He can't possibly be here now till to-morrow.
But the house seems to be all ready for him...."
"Yes, my word! And how 's yourself, Mrs. Cotterill?" put in Mrs.
Machin.
"So we may as well look over it in its finished state. I suppose that's
what he asked us up for," Denry concluded.
Mrs. Machin explained quickly and nervously that she had not been
comprised in any invitation; that her errand was pure business.
"Come on up-stairs," Denry called out, turning switches and adding
radiance to radiance.
"Denry!" his mother protested. "I 'm sure I don't know what Mr. and
Mrs. Cotterill will think of you! You carry on as if you owned
everything in the place. I wonder _at_ you!"
"Well," said Denry, "if anybody in this town is the owner's agent I am.
And Mr. Cotterill has built the blessed house. If Wilbraham wanted to
keep his old shanty to himself he should n't send out invitations. It's
simple enough not to send out invitations. Now Nellie!"
He was hanging over the balustrade at the curve of the stairs.
The familiar ease with which he said "Now Nellie," and especially the
spontaneity of Nellie's instant response, put new thoughts into the mind
of Mrs. Machin. But she neither pricked up her ears, nor started back,
nor accomplished any of the acrobatic feats which an ordinary mother of
a wealthy son would have performed under similar circumstances. Her
ears did not even tremble. And she just said:
"I like this balustrade knob being of black china."
"Every knob in the house is of black china," said Denry. "Never shows
dirt. But if you should take it into your head to clean it, you can do
it with a damp cloth in a second."
Nellie now stood beside him. Nellie had grown up since the Llandudno
episode. She did not blush at a glance. When spoken to suddenly she
could answer without torture to herself. She could, in fact, maintain a
conversation without breaking down for a much longer time than, a few
years ago, she had been able to skip without breaking down. She no
longer imagined that all the people in the street were staring at her,
anxious to find faults in her appearance. She had temporarily ruined
the lives of several amiable and fairly innocent young men by refusing
to marry them. (For she was pretty, and her father cut a figure in the
town, though her mother did not.) And yet, despite the immense
accumulation of her experiences and the weight of her varied knowledge
of human nature, there was something very girlish and timidly roguish
about her as she stood on the stairs near Denry, waiting for the elder
generation to follow. The old Nellie still lived in her.
The party passed to the first floor.
And the first floor exceeded the ground floor in marvels. In each
bedroom two aluminum taps poured hot and cold water respectively into a
marble basin, and below the marble basin was a sink. No porterage of
water anywhere in the house. The water came to you, and every room
consumed its own slops. The bedsteads were of black enamelled iron and
very light. The floors were covered with linoleum, with a few rugs that
could be shaken with one hand. The walls were painted with grey enamel.
Mrs. Cotterill, with her all-seeing eye, observed a detail that Mrs.
Machin had missed. There were no sharp corners anywhere. Every corner,
every angle between wall and floor or wall and wall, was rounded, to
facilitate cleaning. And every wall, floor, ceiling, and fixture could
be washed, and all the furniture was enamelled and could be wiped with a
cloth in a moment instead of having to be polished with three cloths and
many odours in a day and a half. The bathroom was absolutely
waterproof; you could spray it with a hose, and by means of a gas
apparatus you could produce an endless supply of hot water independent
of the general supply. Denry was apparently familiar with each detail
of Mr. Wilbraham's manifold contrivances, and he explained them with an
enormous gusto.
"Bless us!" said Mrs. Machin.
"Bless us!" said Mrs. Cotterill (doubtless the force of example).
They descended to the dining-room, where a supper table had been laid by
order of the invisible Mr. Cecil Wilbraham. And there the ladies lauded
Mr. Wilbraham's wisdom in eschewing silver. Everything of the table
service that could be of earthenware was of earthenware. The forks and
spoons were electro-plate.
"Why!" Mrs. Cotterill said, "I could run this house without a servant
and have myself tidy by ten o'clock in a morning."
And Mrs. Machin nodded.
"And then when you want a regular turnout, as you call it," said Denry,
"there's the vacuum cleaner."
The vacuum cleaner was at that period the last word of civilisation, and
the first agency for it was being set up in Bursley. Denry explained
the vacuum cleaner to the housewives, who had got no further than a
Ewbank. And they again called down blessings on themselves.
"What price this supper?" Denry exclaimed. "We ought to eat it. I 'm
sure he 'd like us to eat it. Do sit down, all of you. I 'll take the
consequences."
Mrs. Machin hesitated even more than the other ladies.
"It's really very strange, him not being here!" She shook her head.
"Don't I tell you he 's quite mad," said Denry.
"I should n't think he was so mad as all that," said Mrs. Machin dryly.
"This is the most sensible kind of a house I 've ever seen."
"Oh! Is it?" Denry answered. "Great Scott! I never noticed those
three bottles of wine on the sideboard."
At length he succeeded in seating them at the table. Thenceforward
there was no difficulty. The ample and diversified cold supper began to
disappear steadily, and the wine with it. And as the wine disappeared
so did Mr. Cotterill (who had been pompous and taciturn) grow talkative,
offering to the company the exact figures of the cost of the house and
so forth. But ultimately the sheer joy of life killed arithmetic.
Mrs. Machin, however, could not quite rid herself of the notion that she
was in a dream that outraged the proprieties. The entire affair, for an
unromantic spot like Bursley, was too fantastically and wickedly
romantic.
"We must be thinking about home, Denry," said she.
"Plenty of time," Denry replied. "What! All that wine gone! I 'll see
if there 's any more in the sideboard."
He emerged, with a red face, from bending into the deeps of the
enamelled sideboard, and a wine-bottle was in his triumphant hand. It
had already been opened.
"Hooray!" he proclaimed, pouring a white wine into his glass and raising
the glass: "Here 's to the health of Mr. Cecil Wilbraham."
He made a brave tableau in the brightness of the electric light.
Then he drank. Then he dropped the glass, which broke.
"Ugh! What's that?" he demanded, with the distorted features of a
gargoyle.
His mother, who was seated next to him, seized the bottle. Denry's
hand, in clasping the bottle, had hidden a small label, which said:
"_Poison. Nettleship's Patent Enamel-Cleaning Fluid. One wipe does
it._"
Confusion! Only Nellie Cotterill seemed to be incapable of realising
that a grave accident had occurred. She had laughed throughout the
supper, and she still laughed, hysterically, though she had drunk
scarcely any wine. Her mother silenced her.
Denry was the first to recover.
"It 'll be all right," said he, leaning back in his chair. "They always
put a bit of poison in those things. It can't hurt me, really. I never
noticed the label."
Mrs. Machin smelt at the bottle. She could detect no odour, but the
fact that she could detect no odour appeared only to increase her alarm.
"You must have an emetic instantly," she said.
"Oh, no!" said Denry. "I shall be all right." And he did seem to be
suddenly restored.
"You must have an emetic instantly," she repeated.
"What can I have?" he grumbled. "You can't expect to find emetics
here."
"Oh, yes, I can," said she. "I saw a mustard tin in a cupboard in the
kitchen. Come along now, and don't be silly."
Nellie's hysteric mirth surged up again.
Denry objected to accompanying his mother into the kitchen. But he was
forced to submit. She shut the door on both of them. It is probable
that during the seven minutes which they spent mysteriously together in
the kitchen, the practicability of the kitchen apparatus for carrying
off waste products was duly tested. Denry came forth, very pale and
very cross, on his mother's arm.
"There's no danger now," said his mother easily.
Naturally the party was at an end. The Cotterills sympathised, and
prepared to depart, and inquired whether Denry could walk home.
Denry replied, from a sofa, in a weak, expiring voice, that he was
perfectly incapable of walking home, that his sensations were in the
highest degree disconcerting, that he should sleep in that house, as the
bedrooms were ready for occupation, and that he should expect his mother
to remain with him.
And Mrs. Machin had to concur. Mrs. Machin sped the Cotterills from the
door as though it had been her own door. She was exceedingly angry and
agitated. But she could not impart her feelings to the suffering Denry.
He moaned on a bed for about half an hour, and then fell asleep. And in
the middle of the night, in the dark strange house, she also fell
asleep.
VI
The next morning she arose and went forth, and in about half-an-hour
returned. Denry was still in bed, but his health seemed to have resumed
its normal excellence. Mrs. Machin burst upon him in such a state of
complicated excitement as he had never before seen her in.
"Denry," she cried. "What do you think?"
"What?" said he.
"I 've just been down home, and they 're--they 're pulling the house
down. All the furniture 's out, and they 've got all the tiles off the
roof, and the windows out. And there's a regular crowd watching."
Denry sat up.
"And I can tell you another piece of news," said he. "Mr. Cecil
Wilbraham is dead."
"Dead!" she breathed.
"Yes," said Denry. "_I think he 's served his purpose_. As we 're
here, we 'll stop here. Don't forget it's the most sensible kind of a
house you 've ever seen. Don't forget that Mrs. Cotterill could run it
without a servant and have herself tidy by ten o'clock in a morning."
Mrs. Machin perceived then, in a flash of terrible illumination, that
there never had been any Cecil Wilbraham; that Denry had merely invented
him and his long moustaches and his wall eye for the purpose of getting
the better of his mother. The whole affair was an immense swindle upon
her. Not a Mr. Cecil Wilbraham, but her own son had bought her cottage
over her head and jockeyed her out of it beyond any chance of getting
into it again. And to defeat his mother the rascal had not simply
perverted the innocent Nellie Cotterill to some co-operation in his
scheme, but he had actually bought four other cottages because the
landlord would not sell one alone, and he was actually demolishing
property to the sole end of stopping her from re-entering it!
Of course, the entire town soon knew of the upshot of the battle, of the
year-long battle, between Denry and his mother, and the means adopted by
Denry to win. The town also had been hoodwinked, but it did not mind
that. It loved its Denry the more, and, seeing that he was now properly
established in the most remarkable house in the district, it soon
afterwards made him a town councillor as some reward for his talent in
amusing it.
And Denry would say to himself:
"Everything went like clockwork, except the mustard and water. I did
n't bargain for the mustard and water. And yet, if I was clever enough
to think of putting a label on the bottle and to have the beds prepared,
I ought to have been clever enough to keep mustard out of the house."
It would be wrong to mince the unpleasant fact that the sham poisoning
which he had arranged to the end that he and his mother should pass the
night in the house had finished in a manner much too realistic for
Denry's pleasure. Mustard and water, particularly when mixed by Mrs.
Machin, is mustard and water.
She had that consolation.