Mrs. Bindle folded her hands in her lap and drew in her chin, with the air of one who scents a great injustice. The injustice of the appointment quite blotted-out from her mind all thought of Alice.
"You got quite enough to do, Alf," wheezed Mrs. Hearty as, after many ineffectual bounces, she struggled to her feet, and stood swaying slightly as she beat her breast reproachfully.
"I could have found time," said Mr. Hearty, as he picked nervously at the quicks of his finger-nails.
"Of course you could," agreed Mrs. Bindle, looking up at her sister disapprovingly.
"I"ve never once missed a choir-practice," he continued, with the air of a man who is advancing a definite claim.
"Trust you," gasped Mrs. Hearty, as she rolled towards the door. "It"s them gals," she added. "Good-night, Lizzie. Don"t be long, Alf. You always wake me getting into bed," and, with a final wheeze, she pa.s.sed out of the room.
Mr. Hearty coughed nervously behind his hand; whilst Mrs. Bindle drew in her lips and chin still further. The indelicacy of Mrs. Hearty"s remark embarra.s.sed them both.
It had always been Mr. Hearty"s wish to train the choir at the Alton Road Chapel, and when Mr. Smithers had resigned, owing to chronic bronchitis and the approach of winter, Mr. Hearty felt that the time had come when yet another of his ambitions was to be realised. There had proved, however, to be another Richmond in the field, in the shape of Mr. Coplestone, who kept an oil-shop in the New King"s Road.
By some means unknown to Mr. Hearty, his rival had managed to invest the interest of the minister and several of the deacons, with the result that Mr. Hearty had come out a very bad second.
Now, in the hour of defeat, he yearned for sympathy, and there was only one to whom he could turn, his sister-in-law, who shared so many of his earthly views and heavenly hopes. Would his sister-in-law believe----
"I call it a shame," she said for the second time, as Mr. Hearty drew a deep sigh of relief. In spite of herself, Mrs. Bindle was irritated at the way in which he picked at the quicks of his finger-nails, "and you so musical, too," she added.
"I have always been interested in music," said Mr. Hearty, with the air of one who knows that he is receiving nothing but his due. Alice and her alluring clothing were forgotten. "I had learned the Tonic Sol-fa notation by heart before I was twenty," he added.
"You would have done so much to improve the singing." Mrs. Bindle was intent only on applying balm to her hero"s wounds. She too had forgotten Alice and all her ways.
"It isn"t what it might be," he remarked. "It has been very indifferent lately. Several have noticed it. Last Sunday, they nearly broke down in "The Half Was Never Told.""
Mrs. Bindle nodded.
"They always find it difficult to get high "f"," he continued. "I should have made a point of cultivating their upper registers," he added, with the melancholy retrospection of a man who, after a fire, states that it had been his intention to insure on the morrow.
"Perhaps----" began Mrs. Bindle, then she stopped. It seemed unchristian to say that perhaps Mr. Coplestone would have to relinquish his newly acquired honour.
"I should also have tried to have the American organ tuned, I don"t think the bellows is very sound, either."
For some minutes there was silence. Mr. Hearty was preoccupied with the quicks of his finger-nails. He had just succeeded in drawing blood, and he glanced covertly at Mrs. Bindle to see if she had noticed it.
"Er----" he paused. He had been seeking an opportunity of clearing his character with his sister-in-law. Suddenly inspiration gripped him.
"I--we----" he paused. "I"m afraid Martha will have to get rid of Alice."
"And about time, with clothes like she wears," was Mrs. Bindle"s uncompromising comment.
"And she tells--she"s most untruthful," he continued eagerly; he was smarting under the recollection that Alice had on one occasion pushed aside the half-crown he had tendered, and it had required a ten shilling note to remove from her memory the thought of her "friend" with whom she had threatened him.
"I"ve been speaking about her to Martha this evening." The line of Mrs.
Bindle"s lips was still grim.
"I"m afraid she"s a bad--not a good girl," amended Mr. Hearty. "I----"
"You don"t push yourself forward enough," said Mrs. Bindle, her thoughts still on Mr. Coplestone"s victory. "Look at Bindle. He knows a lord, and look what he is." She precipitated into the last two words all the venom of years of disappointment. "And you"ve got three shops," she added inconsequently.
"I--I never had time to go out and about," stuttered Mr. Hearty, as if that explained the fact of his not possessing a lord among his acquaintance. His thoughts were still preoccupied with the Alice episode.
"You ought to, Mr. Hearty," said Mrs. Bindle with conviction. "You owe it to yourself and to what you"ve done."
"You see, Joseph is different," said Mr. Hearty, pursuing his own line of thought. "He----"
"Talks too much," said Mrs. Bindle with decision, filling in the blank inaccurately. "I tell him his fine friends only laugh up their sleeves at him. They should see him in his own home," she added.
For some moments there was silence, during which Mrs. Bindle sat, immobile as an a.s.syrian G.o.ddess, her eyes smouldering balefully.
"I should have liked to have trained the choir," he said, his mind returning to the cause of his disappointment.
"It"s that Mr. Coplestone," said Mrs. Bindle with conviction. "I never liked him, with his foxy little ways. I never deal with him."
"I have always done what I could for the chapel, too," continued Mr.
Hearty, not to be diverted from his main theme by reference to Mr.
Coplestone"s shortcomings.
"You"ve done too much, Mr. Hearty, that"s what"s the matter," she cried with conviction, loyalty to her brother-in-law triumphing over all sense of Christian charity. "It"s always the same. Look at Bindle," she added, unable to forget entirely her own domestic cross. "Think what I"ve done for him, and look at him."
"Last year I let them have all the fruit at cost price for the choir-outing," said Mr. Hearty; "but I"ll never do it again," he added, the man in him triumphing over the martyr, "and I picked it all out myself."
"The more you do, the more you may do," said Mrs. Bindle oracularly.
Mr. Hearty"s reference was to a custom prevailing among the worshippers at the Alton Road Chapel. It was an understood thing that, in placing orders, preference should always be given to members of the flock, who, on their part, undertook to supply their respective commodities at cost price. The object of this was to bring all festivities "within reach of our poorer brethren," as Mr. Sopley, a one-time minister, had expressed it when advocating the principle.
The result was hours of heart-searching for those entrusted with the feeding of the Faithful. Mr. Hearty, for instance, spent much time and thought in wrestling with figures and his conscience. He argued that "cost price" must allow for rent, rates and taxes; salaries, a knowledge of the cheapest markets (which he possessed) and interest on capital (his own).
By a curious coincidence, the actual figures came out very little above the ordinary retail price he was charging in his shops, which proved to him conclusively that he was in no sense of the term a profiteer. As a matter of fact, it showed that he was under-charging.
Other members of the chapel seemed to arrive at practically the same result as Mr. Hearty, and by similar means.
As the "poorer brethren" had no voice in the fixing of these prices, and as everyone was too interested in his own figures to think of criticising those of others, the "poorer brethren" either paid, or stayed away.
"You ought to join the choir, Elizabeth." It was Mr. Hearty"s thank-offering for sympathy.
"Oh, Mr. Hearty!" she simpered. "I"m sure I couldn"t sing well enough."
"You sing very nicely, Elizabeth. I have noticed it on Sunday evenings when you come round. You have a very good high soprano."
A quiver pa.s.sed through Mrs. Bindle. She drew herself up, and her lips seemed to take on a softer line.
"I"m sure it"s very good of you to say so," she responded gratefully.
"I shall still sing in the choir," said Mr. Hearty; "but----"
A heavy pounding overhead caused him to start violently. It was Mrs.