SEEING A LADY HOME
Those words of Helen's began a fresh chapter in the life of her
great-stepuncle, James Ollerenshaw. They set up in him a feeling, or
rather a whole range of feelings, which he had never before experienced.
At tea, Helen had hinted at the direction of Mrs. Prockter's cap. That
was nothing. He could not be held responsible for the direction of Mrs.
Prockter's cap. He could laugh at that, even though he faintly blushed.
But to be caught sitting in the dark with Mrs. Prockter, after ten
o'clock at night, in his own house; to have the fact pointed out to him
in such a peculiar, meaningful tone as Helen employed--here was
something that connected him and Mrs. Prockter in a manner just a shade
too serious for mere smiling. Here was something that had not before
happened to him in his career as rent-collector and sage.
Not that he minded! No, he did not mind. Although he had no intention
whatever of disputing the possession of Mrs. Prockter with her stepson,
he did not object to all the implication in Helen's remarkable tone. On
the contrary, he was rather pleased. Why should not he sit with a lady
in the dark? Was he not as capable as any man of sitting with a lady in
the dark? He was even willing that Helen should credit him, or pretend
to credit him, with having prearranged the dark.
Ah! People might say what they chose! But what a dog he might have been
had he cared to be a dog! Here he was, without the slightest preliminary
practice, successfully sitting with a lady in the dark, at the first
attempt! And what lady? Not the first-comer! Not Mrs. Butt! Not the
Mayoress! But the acknowledged Queen of Bursley, the undisputed leader
of all that was most distinguished in Bursley society! And no difficulty
about it either! And she had squeezed his hand. She had continued to
squeeze it. She, in her rich raiment, with her fine ways, and her
correct accent, had squeezed the hand of Jimmy Ollerenshaw, with his
hard old clothes and his Turkish cap, his simple barbarisms, his lack of
style, and his uncompromising dialect! Why? Because he was rich? No.
Because he was a man, because he was the best man in Bursley, when you
came down to essentials.
So his thoughts ran.
His interest in Helen's heart had become quite a secondary interest, but
she recalled him to a sense of his responsibilities as great-stepuncle
of a capricious creature like her.
"What are you and Mrs. Prockter talking about?" she questioned him in a
whisper, holding the candle towards his face and scrutinising it, as
seemed to him, inimically.
"Well," he said, "if you must know, about you and that there Andrew
Dean."
She made a brusque movement. And then she beckoned him to follow her
along the corridor, out of possible earshot of Mrs. Prockter.
"Do you mean to say, uncle," she demanded, putting the candle down on a
small table that stood under a large oil-painting of Joshua and the Sun
in the corridor, "that you've been discussing my affairs with Mrs.
Prockter?"
He saw instantly that he had not been the sage he imagined himself to
be. But he was not going to be bullied by Helen, or any other woman
younger than Mrs. Prockter. So he stiffly brazened it out.
"Ay!" he said.
"I never heard of such a thing!" she exploded, but still whispering.
"You said as I must help ye, and I'm helping ye," said he.
"But I didn't mean that you were to go chattering about me all over
Bursley, uncle," she protested, adopting now the pained, haughty, and
over-polite attitude.
"I don't know as I've been chattering all over Bursley," he rebutted
her. "I don't know as I'm much of a chatterer. I might name them as
could give me a start and a beating when it comes to talking the nose
off a brass monkey. Mrs. Prockter came in to inquire about what had
happened here this afternoon, as well she might, seeing as Emanuel went
home with a couple o' gallons o' my water in his pockets. So I told her
all about it. Her's a very friendly woman. And her's promised to do what
her can for ye."
"How?"
"Why, to get Andrew Dean for ye, seeing as ye're so fixed on him, wi' as
little gossip as maybe."
"Oh! So Mrs. Prockter has kindly consented to get Andrew Dean for me!
And how does she mean to do it?"
James had no alternative; he was obliged to relate how Mrs. Prockter
meant to do it.
"Now, uncle," said Helen, "just listen to me. If Mrs. Prockter says a
single word about me to any one, I will never speak either to her or you
again. Mind! A single word! A nice thing that she should go up to
Swetnam's, and hint that Andrew and Emanuel have been fighting because
of me! What about my reputation? And do you suppose that I want the
leavings of Lilian Swetnam? Me! The idea is preposterous!"
"You wanted 'em badly enough this afternoon," said he.
"No, I didn't," she contradicted him passionately. "You are quite
mistaken. You misunderstood me, though I'm surprised that you should
have done. Perhaps I was a little excited this afternoon. Certainly you
were thinking about other things. I expect you were expecting Mrs.
Prockter this evening. It would have been nicer of you to have told me
she was coming."
"Now, please let it be clearly understood," she swept on. "You must go
down and tell Mrs. Prockter at once that you were entirely in error, and
that she is on no account to breathe a word about me to any one.
Whatever you were both thinking of I cannot imagine! But I can assure
you I'm extremely annoyed. Mrs. Prockter putting her finger in the
pie!... Let her take care that I don't put my finger into _her_ pie! I
always knew she was a gossiping old thing, but, really--"
"Mr. Ollerenshaw!" A prettily plaintive voice rose from the black depths
below.
"There! she's getting impatient for you!" Helen snapped. "Run off to her
at once. To think that if I hadn't happened to hear the bell ring, and
come out to see what was the matter, I should have been the talk of
Bursley before I was a day older!"
She picked up the candle.
"I must have a light!" said James, somewhat lamely.
"Why?" Helen asked, calmly. "If you could begin in the dark, why can't
you finish in the dark? You and she seem to like being in the dark."
"Mr. Ollerenshaw!" The voice was a little nearer.
"Her's coming!" James ejaculated.
Helen seemed to lose her courage before that threat.
"Here! Take this one, then!" said she, giving James her candle, and
fleeing down the corridor.
James had the sensation of transacting a part in a play at a theatre
where the scenery was absolutely realistic and at the same time of a
romantic quality. Moonlight streaming in through the windows of the
interminable corridor was alone wanting to render the illusion perfect.
It was certainly astonishing--what you could buy with seven thousand two
hundred and fifty pounds! Perhaps the most striking portion of the
scenery was Helen's peignoir. He had not before witnessed her in a
peignoir. The effect of it was agreeable; but, indeed, the modern taste
for luxury was incredible! He wondered if Mrs. Prockter practised
similar extravagances.
While such notions ran through his head he was hurrying to the stairs,
and dropping a hail of candle-grease on the floor. He found Mrs.
Prockter slowly and cautiously ascending the stairway. If he was at the
summit of Mont Blanc she had already reached Les Grands Mulets.
"What is it?" she asked, pausing, and looking up at him with an
appealing gesture.
"What's what?"
"Why have you been so long?" It was as if she implied that these minutes
without him were an eternity of ennui. He grew more and more conceited.
He was already despising Don Juan as a puling boy.
"Helen heard summat, and so she had come out of her bedroom. Her's
nervous i' this big house."
"Did you tell her I was here, Mr. Ollerenshaw?"
By this time he had rejoined her at Les Grands Mulets.
"No," he said, without sufficiently reflecting.
"She didn't hear me call out, then?"
"Did ye call out?" If he was in a theatre, he also could act.
"Perhaps it's just as well," said Mrs. Prockter, after a momentary
meditation. "Under the circumstances she cannot possibly suspect our
little plot."
Their little plot! In yielding to the impulse to tell her that Helen was
unaware of her presence in the house he had forgotten that he had made
it excessively difficult for him to demolish the said plot. He could not
one moment agree with enthusiasm to the plot, and the next moment say
that the plot had better be abandoned. Some men, doubtless, could. But
he could not. He was scarcely that kind of man. His proper course would
have been to relate to Mrs. Prockter exactly what had passed between
himself and Helen, and trust to her common sense. Unhappily, with the
intention of pleasing her, or reassuring her, or something equally
silly, he had lied to her and rendered the truth impracticable. However,
he did not seem to care much. He had already pushed Helen's affairs back
again to quite a secondary position.
"I suppose ye think it'll be all right, missis," he said,
carelessly--"ye going up to Mrs. Swetnam's o' that 'n, and--"
"Rely on me," said she, silencing him. Thus, without a pang, he left
Helen to her fate. They had touched the ground-floor. "Thank you very
much, Mr. Ollerenshaw," said Mrs. Prockter. "Good-night. I'll make the
best of my way home."
Curious, how sorry he felt at this announcement! He had become quite
accustomed to being a conspirator with her in the vast house lighted by
a single candle, and he did not relish the end of the performance.
"I'll step along wi' ye," said he.
"Oh, no!" she said. "I really can't allow--"
"Allow what?"
"Allow you to inconvenience yourself like that for me."
"Pooh!" said he.
And he, who had never in his life seen a lady to her door, set out on
the business as though he had done nothing else every night of his life,
as though it was an enterprise that did not require practice.
He opened the door, and put the candle on the floor behind it, where he
could easily find it on returning. "I'll get a box o' matches from
somewhere while I'm out," said he.
He was about to extinguish the candle when she stopped him. "Mr.
Ollerenshaw," she said, firmly, "you haven't got your boots on. Those
slippers are not thick enough for this weather."
He gazed at her. Should he yield to her? The idea of yielding to her,
for the mere sake of yielding to her, presented itself to him as a
charming idea. So he disappeared with the candle, and reappeared in his
boots.
"You won't need a muffler?" she suggested.
Now was the moment to play the hardy Norseman. "Oh, no!" he laughed.
This concern for his welfare, coming from such a royal creature, was,
however, immensely agreeable.
She stood out on the steps; he extinguished the candle, and then joined
her and banged the door. They started. Several hundred yards of winding
pitch-dark drive had to be traversed.
"Will you kindly give me your arm?" she said.
She said it so primly, so correctly, and with such detachment, that they
might have been in church, and she saying: "Will you kindly let me look
over your Prayer Book?"
When they arrived at the gas-lit Oldcastle-road he wanted to withdraw
his arm, but he did not know how to begin withdrawing it. Hence he was
obliged to leave it where it was.
And as they were approaching the front gate of the residence of Mr.
Buchanan, the Scotch editor of the _Signal_, a perfect string of people
emerged from that front gate. Mrs. Buchanan had been giving a whist
drive. There were sundry Swetnams among the string. And the whole string
was merry and talkative. It was a fine night. The leading pearls of the
string bore down on the middle-aged pair, and peered, and passed.
"Good-night, Mrs. Prockter. Good-night, Mr. Ollerenshaw."
Then another couple did the same. "Good-night, Mrs. Prockter.
Good-night, Mr. Ollerenshaw."
And so it went on. And the string, laughing and talking, gradually
disappeared diminuendo in the distance towards Bursley.
"I suppose you know you've done it this time?" observed Mrs. Prockter.
It was a dark saying, but James fully understood it. He felt as though
he had drunk champagne. "As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb!" he said
to himself. And deliberately squeezed the royal arm.
Nothing violent happened. He had rather expected the heavens to fall, or
that at least Mrs. Prockter would exclaim: "Unhand me, monster!" But
nothing violent happened.
"And this is me, James Ollerenshaw!" he said to himself, still
squeezing.