ANOTHER CALL
Mrs. Prockter was compelled to ask for admission, because James, struck
moveless and speechless by the extraordinary sight of her, offered no
invitation to enter. He merely stood in front of the half-opened door.
"May I come in, Mr. Ollerenshaw?" she said, very urbanely. "I hope you
will excuse this very informal call. I've altered my dinner hour in
order to pay it."
And she smiled. The smile seemed to rouse him from a spell.
"Come in, missis, do!" he conjured her, warmly.
He was James; he was even Jimmy; but he was also a man, very much a man,
though the fact had only recently begun to impress itself on him. Mrs.
Prockter, while a dowager--portly, possibly fussy, perhaps slightly
comic to a younger generation--was still considerably younger than
James. With her rich figure, her excellent complexion, her
carefully-cherished hair, and her apparel, she was a woman to captivate
a man of sixty, whose practical experience of the sex extended over
nine days.
"Thank you," said she, gratefully.
He shut the front door, as if he were shutting a bird in a cage; and he
also shut the door leading to the kitchen--a door which had not been
shut since the kitchen fire smoked in the celebrated winter of 1897. She
sat down at once in the easy-chair.
"Ah!" she exclaimed, in relief. And then she began to fan herself with a
fan which was fastened to her person by a chain that might have moored a
steamer.
James, searching about for something else to do while he was collecting
his forces, drew the blind and lighted the gas. But it was not yet dark.
"I wonder what you will think of me, calling like this?" she said, with
a sardonic smile.
It was apparent that, whatever he thought of her, she would not be
disturbed or abashed. She was utterly at her ease. She could not,
indeed, have recalled the moment when she had not been at her ease. She
sat in the front room with all the external symptoms of being at home.
This was what chiefly surprised James Ollerenshaw in his grand
guests--they all took his front room for granted. They betrayed no
emotion at its smallness or its plainness, or its eccentricities. He
would somehow have expected them to signify, overtly or covertly, that
that kind of room was not the kind of room to which they were
accustomed.
"Anyhow, I'm glad to see ye, Mrs. Prockter," James returned.
A speech which did not in the least startle Mrs. Prockter, who was
thoroughly used to people being glad to see her. But it startled James.
He had uttered it instinctively; it was the expression of an instinctive
gladness which took hold of him and employed his tongue on its own
account, and which rose superior even to his extreme astonishment at the
visit. He _was_ glad to see her. She was stout and magnificent, in her
silk and her ribbons. He felt that he preferred stout women to thin; and
that, without being aware of it, he had always preferred stout women to
thin. It was a question of taste. He certainly preferred Mrs. Prockter
to Sarah Swetnam. Mrs. Prockter's smile was the smile of a benevolently
cynical creature whose studies in human nature had reached the advanced
stage. James was reassured by this, for it avoided the necessity for
"nonsense."....Yes, she was decidedly better under a roof and a gas-jet
than in the street.
"May I ask if your niece is in?" she said, in a low voice.
"She isn't."
He had been sure that she had called about Helen, if not to see Helen.
But there was a conspiratorial accent in her question for which he was
unprepared. So he sat down at last.
"Well," said Mrs. Prockter, "I'm not sorry she isn't. But if she had been
I should have spoken just the same--not to her, but to you. Now, Mr.
Ollerenshaw, I think you and I are rather alike in some things. I hate
beating about the bush, and I imagine that you do."
He was flattered. And he was perfectly eased by her tone. She was a
woman to whom you could talk sense. And he perceived that, though a
casual observer might fail to find the points of resemblance between
them, they _were_ rather alike.
"I expect," said he, "it's pretty well known i' this town as I'm not one
that beats about the bush."
"Good!" said she. "You know my stepson, Emanuel?"
"He was here a bit since," James replied.
"What do you think of him?"
"How?"
"As a man?"
"Well, missis, as we are na' beating about the bush, I think he's a
foo'."
"Now that's what I like!" she exclaimed, quite ravished. "He _is_ a
fool, Mr. Ollerenshaw--between ourselves. I can see that you and I will
get on together splendidly! Emanuel is a fool. I can't help it. I took
him along with my second husband, and I do my best for him. But I'm not
responsible for his character. As far as that goes, he isn't responsible
for it, either. Not only is he a fool, but he is a conceited fool, and
an idle fool; and he can't see a joke. At the same time he is quite
honest, and I think he's a gentleman. But being a gentleman is no excuse
for being a fool; indeed, I think it makes it worse."
"Nothing can make it worse," James put in.
She drew down the corners of her lips and stroked her fine grey hair.
"You say Emanuel has been here to-day?"
"Ay!" said James. "He came in an' had a sup o' tea."
"Do you know why he came?"
"Maybe he felt faintlike, and slipped in here, as there's no public
nearer than the Queen Adelaide. Or maybe he thought as I was getting on
in years, and he wanted for to make my acquaintance afore I died. I
didna' ask him."
"I see you understand," said Mrs. Prockter. "Mr. Ollerenshaw, my stepson
is courting your niece."
"Great-stepniece," James corrected; and added: "Is he now? To tell ye
th' truth I didn't know till th' other day as they were acquainted."
"They haven't been acquainted long," Mrs. Prockter informed him. "You
may have heard that Emanuel is thinking of going into partnership with
Mr. Andrew Dean--a new glaze that Mr. Dean has invented. The matter may
turn out well, because all that Mr. Dean really wants is a sleeping
partner with money. Emanuel has the money, and I think he can be
guaranteed to sleep. Your stepniece met Emanuel by accident through Mr.
Dean some weeks ago, over at Longshaw. They must have taken to each
other at once. And I must tell you that not merely is my stepson
courting your niece, but your niece is courting my stepson."
"You surprise me, missis!"
"I daresay I do. But it is the fact. She isn't a Churchwoman; at least,
she wasn't a Churchwoman at Longshaw; she was Congregational, and not
very much at that. You aren't a Churchman, either; but your niece now
goes to St. Luke's every Sunday. So does my stepson. Your niece is out
to-night. So is my stepson. And if they are not together somewhere I
shall be very much astonished. Of course, the new generation does as it
likes."
"And what next?" James inquired.
"I'll tell you what next," cried the mature lady, with the most charming
vivacity. "I like your niece. I've met her twice at the St. Luke's
Guild, and I like her. I should have asked her to come and see me, only
I'm determined not to encourage her with Emanuel. Mr. Ollerenshaw, I'm
not going to have her marrying Emanuel, and that's why I've come to see
you."
The horror of his complicated situation displayed itself suddenly to
James. He who had always led a calm, unworried life, was about to be
shoved into the very midst of a hullabaloo of women and fools.
His wizened body shrank; and he was not sure that his pride was quite
unhurt. Mrs. Prockter noticed this.
"Oh!" she resumed, with undiminished vivacity, "it's not because I think
your niece isn't good enough for Emanuel; it's because I think she's a
great deal too good! And yet it isn't that, either. The truth is, Mr.
Ollerenshaw, I'm a purely selfish woman. I'm the last person in the
world to stand in the way of my poor stepson getting a better wife than
he deserves. And if the woman chooses to throw herself away on him,
that's not my affair. What I scent danger in is that your stepniece
would find my stepson out. At present she's smitten by his fancy
waistcoat. But she would soon see through the fancy waistcoat--and then
there would be a scandal. If I have not misjudged your stepniece, there
would be a scandal, and I do not think that I have misjudged her. She is
exactly the sort of young woman who, when she had discovered she had
made a mistake, would walk straight out of the house."
"She is!" James agreed with simple heartiness of conviction.
"And Emanuel, having no sense of humour, would leave nothing undone to
force her back again. Imagine the scandal, Mr. Ollerenshaw! Imagine my
position; imagine yours! _Me_, in an affair like that! I won't have
it--that is to say, I won't have it if I can stop it. Now, what can we
do?"
Despite the horror of the situation, he had sufficient loose, unemployed
sentiment (left over from pitying himself) to be rather pleased by her
manner of putting it: What can _we_ do?
But he kept this pleasure to himself.
"Nowt!" he said, drily.
He spoke to her as one sensible person speaks to another sensible person
in the Five Towns. Assuredly she was a very sensible person. He had in
past years credited, or discredited, her with "airs." But here she was
declaring that Helen was too good for her stepson. If his pride had
momentarily suffered, through a misconception, it was now in the full
vigour of its strength.
"You think we can do nothing?" she said, reflectively, and leant forward
on her chair towards him, as if struck by his oracular wisdom.
"What can us do?"
"You might praise Emanuel to her--urge her on." She fixed him with her
eye.
Sensible? She was prodigious. She was the serpent of serpents.
He took her gaze twinkling. "Ay!" he said. "I might. But if I'm to urge
her on, why didna' ye ask her to your house like, and chuck 'em at each
other?"
She nodded several times, impressed by this argument. "You are quite
right, Mr. Ollerenshaw," she admitted.
"It's a dangerous game," he warned her.
She put her lips together in meditation, and stared into a corner.
"I must think it over"--she emerged from her reflections. "I feel much
easier now I've told you all about it. And I feel sure that two
common-sense, middle-aged people like you and me can manage to do what
we want. Dear me! How annoying stepsons are! Obviously, Emanuel ought to
marry another fool. And goodness knows there are plenty to choose from.
And yet he must needs go and fall in love with almost the only sensible
girl in the town! There's no end to that boy's foolishness. He actually
wants me to buy Wilbraham Hall, furniture, and everything! What do you
think it's worth, Mr. Ollerenshaw?"
"Worth? It's worth what it'll fetch."
"Eight thousand?"
"Th' land's worth that," said James.
"It's a silly idea. But he put it into my head. Now will you drop in one
day and see me?"
"No," said James. "I'm not much for tea-parties, thank ye."
"I mean when I'm alone," she pleaded, delightfully; "so that we can
talk over things, and you can tell me what is going on."
He saw clearly all the perils of such a course, but his instinct seized
him again.
"Happen I may look in some morning when I'm round yonder."
"That will be very nice of you," she flattered him, and rose.
Helen came home about ten o'clock, and went direct to bed. Never before
had James Ollerenshaw felt like a criminal, but as Helen's eyes dwelt
for a moment on his in bidding him good-night, he could scarcely
restrain the blush of the evildoer. And him sixty! Turn which way he
would he saw nothing but worry. What an incredible day he had lived
through! And how astounding was human existence!