UNKNOTTING AND KNOTTING
When Mrs. Prockter arrived it was obvious to Helen, in spite of her
wonderful calm upon discovering James Ollerenshaw's butler and page,
that the lady was extremely ill-at-ease. And Helen, though preoccupied
herself by matters of the highest personal importance, did what she
could to remedy a state of affairs so unusual. Probably nobody, within
the memory of that generation, had ever seen Mrs. Prockter ill-at-ease.
Helen inquired as to the health of the sick relative at Nottingham, and
received a reply in which vagueness was mingled with hesitancy and a
blush. It then became further obvious to the perspicuous Helen that Mrs.
Prockter must have heard of her stepson's singular adventure, and either
resented Helen's share in it, or was ashamed of Emanuel's share in it.
"You know that Emanuel is here?" said Helen, with her most diplomatic
and captivating smile.
But Mrs. Prockter did not know. "I thought Mr. Ollerenshaw wanted me,"
Mrs. Prockter explained, "so I came as quickly as I could."
"It was I who wanted to speak to you," said Helen. "The truth is that
Emanuel is lying on uncle's bed, unwell or something, and he expressed a
wish to see you. He was singing at the concert----"
"So sorry I wasn't able to be here," Mrs. Prockter inserted, with
effusive anxiety.
"We missed you awfully," Helen properly responded. "The rector was
inconsolable. So was everybody," she added, feeling that as a compliment
the rector's grief might be deemed insufficient. "And he had a
breakdown."
"Who? Emanuel?"
"Yes. I was accompanying him, and I am afraid it was my fault. Anyhow,
he didn't finish his song. And then we missed him. He had asked the
butler to let him lie down somewhere, and uncle found him in his
bedroom. I hope it's nothing serious."
"Oh, my dear girl," said Mrs. Prockter, regaining somewhat her natural
demeanour in a laugh, "if it's only one of Emanuel's singing breakdowns,
we needn't worry. Can I go up and talk sense to him? He's just like a
child, you know."
"Let me take you up," cried Helen.
And the two women ascended the grand staircase. It was the first time
the grand staircase had been used with becoming dignity since Mrs.
Prockter had used it on her visit of inspection. That staircase and
Mrs. Prockter were made for each other.
No sooner had they disappeared than James popped out of his lair, where
he had been hiding, and gazed up the staircase like a hunter stalking
his prey. The arrival of the page in sixpences put him out of
countenance for a moment, especially when the page began to feed the
hall-fire in a manner contrary to all James's lifelong notions of
feeding fires. However, he passed the time by giving the page a lesson.
Helen tapped at the bedroom door, left Mrs. Prockter to enter, and
descended the stairs again.
"Is her up there with him?" James asked, in a whisper.
Helen nodded.
"Ye'd better ask her stop and have something to eat wi' us," said James.
Helen had to reconcile James Ollerenshaw to the new scale of existence
at Wilbraham Hall. She had to make him swallow the butler, and the page,
and the other servants, and the grand piano--in themselves a heavy
repast--without counting the evening dinner. Up to the present he had
said nothing, because there had been no fair opportunity to say
anything. But he might start at any moment. And Helen had no reason to
believe that he had even begun the process of swallowing. She argued,
with a sure feminine instinct and a large experience of mankind, that
if he could only be dodged into tacitly accepting the new scale for
even a single meal, her task would be very much simplified. And what an
ally Mrs. Prockter would be!
"Tell cook there will be three to dinner," she said to the page, who
fled gleefully.
After a protracted interval Mrs. Prockter reappeared.
She began by sighing. "The foolish boy is seriously damaged," said she.
"Not hurt?" Helen asked.
"Yes. But only in his dignity. He pretends it's his throat, but it
isn't. It's only his dignity. I suppose all singers are children, like
that. I'm really ashamed to have to ask you to let him lie there a
little, dear Miss Rathbone; but he is positively sure that he can't get
up. I've been through these crises with him before, but never one quite
so bad."
She laughed. They all laughed.
"I'll let him lie there on one condition," Helen sweetly replied. "And
that is that you stay to dinner. I am relying on you. And I won't take a
refusal."
Mrs. Prockter looked sharply at James, and James blushed.
"James," she exclaimed, "you've told her. And you promised you wouldn't
till to-morrow."
"Nay!" said James. "I've said nowt! It's you as has let it out, _now_,
missis!"
"Told me what, Mrs. Prockter?" Helen asked, utterly unexpectant of the
answer she was to get.
"My dear girl," said the elder dame, "do not call me Mrs. Prockter. I am
Mrs. Ollerenshaw. I am the property that your uncle has been buying at
Derby. And he is my sick relative at Nottingham. We preferred to do it
like that. We could not have survived engagements and felicitations."
"Oh, you wicked sinners! You--you terrible darlings!" Helen burst out as
soon as she could control her voice.
Mrs. Ollerenshaw wept discreetly.
"Bless us! Bless us!" murmured James, not to beseech a benediction, but
simply to give the impression (quite false) that, in his opinion, much
fuss was being made about nothing.
The new scale of existence was definitely accepted. And in private Mrs.
Ollerenshaw entirely agreed with Helen as to the merits of the butler.
After dinner James hurried to his lair to search for a book. The book
was not where he had left it, on his original entry into Wilbraham Hall.
Within two minutes, the majority of the household staff was engaged in
finding that book. Ultimately the butler discovered it; the butler had
been reading it.
"Ay!" said James, opening the volume as he stood in front of the rich,
expensive fire in the hall. "Dickens--Charles Dickens--that's the chap's
name. I couldn't think of it when I was telling you about th' book th'
other day. I mun' go on wi" that."
"Couldn't you play us something?" responded his wife.
In the triumph of concertinas over grand pianos, poor Emanuel, lying
wounded upstairs, was forgotten. At five minutes to nine Helen stole,
unperceived, away from the domestic tableau. She had by no means
recovered from her amazement; but she had screened it off by main force
in her mind, and she was now occupied with something far more important
than the blameless amours of the richest old man in Hillport.
By Wilbraham Water a young man was walking to and fro in the deep autumn
night. He wore a cap and a muffler, but no overcoat, and his hands were
pushed far down into the pockets of his trousers. He regarded the ground
fixedly, and stamped his feet at every step. Then a pale grey figure,
with head enveloped in a shawl, and skirts carefully withdrawn from the
ground, approached him.
He did not salute the figure, he did not even take his hands out of his
pockets. He put his face close to hers, and each could see that the
other's features were white and anxious.
"So you've come," said he, glumly.
"What do you want?" Helen coldly asked.
"I want to speak to you. That's what I want. If you care for Emanuel
Prockter, why did you play that trick on him this afternoon?"
"What trick?"
"You know perfectly well what I mean. So I'll thank you not to beat
about the bush. The plain fact is that you don't care a pin for
Prockter."
"I never said I did."
"You've made every one believe you did, anyhow. You've even made me
think so, though all the time I knew it was impossible. An ass like
that!"
"What do you want?" Helen repeated.
They were both using a tone intended to indicate that they were enemies
from everlasting to everlasting, and that mere words could not express
the intensity of their mutual hatred and scorn. The casual distant
observer might have conceived the encounter to be a love idyll.
There was a short silence.
"I broke off my engagement last night," Andrew Dean muttered,
ferociously.
"Really!" Helen commented.
"You don't seem to care."
"I don't see what it has to do with me. But if you talked to Lilian
Swetnam in the same nice agreeable manner that you talk to me, I can't
say I'm surprised to hear that she broke with you."
"Who told you _she_ broke?" Andrew demanded.
"I guessed," said Helen. "You'd never have had the courage to break it
off yourself."
Andrew made a vicious movement.
"If you mean to serve me as you served Emanuel," she remarked, with
bitter calm, "please do it as gently as you can. And don't throw me far.
I can only swim a little."
Andrew walked away.
"Good-night," she called.
"Look here!" he snarled coming back to her "What's the matter with you?
I know I oughtn't to have asked Lilian to marry me. Everybody knows
that. It's universally agreed. But are you going to make that an excuse
for spoiling the whole show? What's up with you is pride."
"And what is up with you?" she inquired.
"Pride," said he. "How could I know you were in love with me all the
time? How could----"
"You couldn't," said Helen. "I wasn't. No more than you were with me."
"If you weren't in love with me, why did you try to make me jealous?"
"Me try to make you jealous!" she exclaimed, disdainfully. "You flatter
yourself, Mr. Dean!"
"I can stand a good deal, but I can't stand lies, and I won't!" he
exploded. "I say you did try to make me jealous."
He then noticed that she was crying.
The duologue might have extended itself indefinitely if her tears had
not excited him to uncontrollable fury, to that instinctive cruelty that
every male is capable of under certain conditions. Without asking her
permission, without uttering a word of warning, he rushed at her and
seized her in his arms. He crushed her with the whole of his very
considerable strength. And he added insult to injury by kissing her
about forty seven times. Women are such strange, incalculable creatures.
Helen did not protest. She did not invoke the protection of Heaven. She
existed, passively and silently, the unremonstrating victim of his
disgraceful violence.
Then he held her at arm's length. "Will you marry me?"
"Yes," she said.
"Did you try to make me jealous?"
"Yes."
Later, as they walked by the lake, he ejaculated: "I'm an awful brute!"
"I like you as you are," she replied.
But the answer was lacking in precision, for at that moment he was being
as tender as only an awful brute can be.
"Of course," she said, "we mustn't say anything about it yet."
"No," he agreed. "To let it out at once might make unpleasantness
between you and the Swetnams."
"Oh!" she said, "I wasn't thinking of that. But there's another
love-affair in the house, and no house will hold two at once. It would
be nauseating."
That is how they talk in the Five Towns. As if one could have too much
love, even in a cottage--to say nothing of a Wilbraham Hall! Mrs.
Ollerenshaw placidly decided that she and James would live at the Hall,
though James would have preferred something a size smaller. As I have
already noticed, the staircase suited her; James suited her, too. No one
could guess why, except possibly James. They got on together, as the
Five Towns said, "like a house afire."
Helen and Andrew Dean were satisfied with a semi-detached villa in
Park-road, with a fine view of the gold angel. Women vary, capricious
beings! Helen is perfectly satisfied with one servant. But she dresses
rather better than ever.
THE END
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