"But how can you create a supply of better cla.s.s people?" asked Alvina mockingly.
James took on his refined, abstracted look, as if he were preoccupied on higher planes. It was the look of an obstinate little boy who poses on the side of the angels--or so the women saw it.
Miss Pinnegar was prepared to combat him now by sheer weight of opposition. She would pitch her dead negative will obstinately against him. She would not speak to him, she would not observe his presence, she was stone deaf and stone blind: there _was_ no James.
This nettled him. And she miscalculated him. He merely took another circuit, and rose another flight higher on the spiral of his spiritual egotism. He believed himself finely and sacredly in the right, that he was frustrated by lower beings, above whom it was his duty to rise, to soar. So he soared to serene heights, and his Private Hotel seemed a celestial injunction, an erection on a higher plane.
He saw the architect: and then, with his plans and schemes, he saw the builder and contractor. The builder gave an estimate of six or seven hundred--but James had better see the plumber and fitter who was going to instal the new hot water and sanitary system. James was a little dashed. He had calculated much less. Having only a few hundred pounds in possession after Throttle-Ha"penny, he was prepared to mortgage Manchester House if he could keep in hand a sufficent sum of money for the running of his establishment for a year. He knew he would have to sacrifice Miss Pinnegar"s work-room.
He knew, and he feared Miss Pinnegar"s violent and unmitigated hostility. Still--his obstinate spirit rose--he was quite prepared to risk everything on this last throw.
Miss Allsop, daughter of the builder, called to see Alvina. The Allsops were great Chapel people, and Ca.s.sie Allsop was one of the old maids. She was thin and nipped and wistful looking, about forty-two years old. In private, she was tyrannously exacting with the servants, and spiteful, rather mean with her motherless nieces.
But in public she had this nipped, wistful look.
Alvina was surprised by this visit. When she found Miss Allsop at the back door, all her inherent hostility awoke.
"Oh, is it you, Miss Allsop! Will you come in."
They sat in the middle room, the common living room of the house.
"I called," said Miss Allsop, coming to the point at once, and speaking in her Sunday-school-teacher voice, "to ask you if you know about this Private Hotel scheme of your father"s?"
"Yes," said Alvina.
"Oh, you do! Well, we wondered. Mr. Houghton came to father about the building alterations yesterday. They"ll be awfully expensive."
"Will they?" said Alvina, making big, mocking eyes.
"Yes, very. What do _you_ think of the scheme?"
"I?--well--!" Alvina hesitated, then broke into a laugh. "To tell the truth I haven"t thought much about it at all."
"Well I think you should," said Miss Allsop severely. "Father"s sure it won"t pay--and it will cost I don"t know how much. It is bound to be a dead loss. And your father"s getting on. You"ll be left stranded in the world without a penny to bless yourself with. I think it"s an awful outlook for you."
"Do you?" said Alvina.
Here she was, with a bang, planked upon the shelf among the old maids.
"Oh, I do. Sincerely! I should do all I could to prevent him, if I were you."
Miss Allsop took her departure. Alvina felt herself jolted in her mood. An old maid along with Ca.s.sie Allsop!--and James Houghton fooling about with the last bit of money, mortgaging Manchester House up to the hilt. Alvina sank in a kind of weary mortification, in which _her_ peculiar obstinacy persisted devilishly and spitefully. "Oh well, so be it," said her spirit vindictively. "Let the meagre, mean, despicable fate fulfil itself." Her old anger against her father arose again.
Arthur Witham, the plumber, came in with James Houghton to examine the house. Arthur Witham was also one of the Chapel men--as had been his common, interfering, uneducated father before him. The father had left each of his sons a fair little sum of money, which Arthur, the eldest, had already increased ten-fold. He was sly and slow and uneducated also, and spoke with a broad accent. But he was not bad-looking, a tight fellow with big blue eyes, who aspired to keep his "h"s" in the right place, and would have been a gentleman if he could.
Against her usual habit, Alvina joined the plumber and her father in the scullery. Arthur Witham saluted her with some respect. She liked his blue eyes and tight figure. He was keen and sly in business, very watchful, and slow to commit himself. Now he poked and peered and crept under the sink. Alvina watched him half disappear--she handed him a candle--and she laughed to herself seeing his tight, well-shaped hind-quarters protruding from under the sink like the wrong end of a dog from a kennel. He was keen after money, was Arthur--and bossy, creeping slyly after his own self-importance and power. He wanted power--and he would creep quietly after it till he got it: as much as he was capable of. His "h"s" were a barbed-wire fence and entanglement, preventing his unlimited progress.
He emerged from under the sink, and they went to the kitchen and afterwards upstairs. Alvina followed them persistently, but a little aloof, and silent. When the tour of inspection was almost over, she said innocently:
"Won"t it cost a great deal?"
Arthur Witham slowly shook his head. Then he looked at her. She smiled rather archly into his eyes.
"It won"t be done for nothing," he said, looking at her again.
"We can go into that later," said James, leading off the plumber.
"Good morning, Miss Houghton," said Arthur Witham.
"Good morning, Mr. Witham," replied Alvina brightly.
But she lingered in the background, and as Arthur Witham was going she heard him say: "Well, I"ll work it out, Mr. Houghton. I"ll work it out, and let you know tonight. I"ll get the figures by tonight."
The younger man"s tone was a little off-hand, just a little supercilious with her father, she thought. James"s star was setting.
In the afternoon, directly after dinner, Alvina went out. She entered the shop, where sheets of lead and tins of paint and putty stood about, varied by sheets of gla.s.s and fancy paper. Lottie Witham, Arthur"s wife, appeared. She was a woman of thirty-five, a bit of a shrew, with social ambitions and no children.
"Is Mr. Witham in?" said Alvina.
Mrs. Witham eyed her.
"I"ll see," she answered, and she left the shop.
Presently Arthur entered, in his shirt-sleeves: rather attractive-looking.
"I don"t know what you"ll think of me, and what I"ve come for," said Alvina, with hurried amiability. Arthur lifted his blue eyes to her, and Mrs. Witham appeared in the background, in the inner doorway.
"Why, what is it?" said Arthur stolidly.
"Make it as dear as you can, for father," said Alvina, laughing nervously.
Arthur"s blue eyes rested on her face. Mrs. Witham advanced into the shop.
"Why? What"s that for?" asked Lottie Witham shrewdly.
Alvina turned to the woman.
"Don"t say anything," she said. "But we don"t want father to go on with this scheme. It"s bound to fail. And Miss Pinnegar and I can"t have anything to do with it anyway. I shall go away."
"It"s bound to fail," said Arthur Witham stolidly.
"And father has no money, I"m sure," said Alvina.
Lottie Witham eyed the thin, nervous face of Alvina. For some reason, she liked her. And of course, Alvina was considered a lady in Woodhouse. That was what it had come to, with James"s declining fortunes: she was merely _considered_ a lady. The consideration was no longer indisputable.
"Shall you come in a minute?" said Lottie Witham, lifting the flap of the counter. It was a rare and bold stroke on Mrs. Witham"s part.
Alvina"s immediate instinct was to refuse. But she liked Arthur Witham, in his shirt sleeves.
"Well--I must be back in a minute," she said, as she entered the embrasure of the counter. She felt as if she were really venturing on new ground. She was led into the new drawing-room, done in new peac.o.c.k-and-bronze brocade furniture, with gilt and bra.s.s and white walls. This was the Withams" new house, and Lottie was proud of it.
The two women had a short confidential chat. Arthur lingered in the doorway a while, then went away.
Alvina did not really like Lottie Witham. Yet the other woman was sharp and shrewd in the uptake, and for some reason she fancied Alvina. So she was invited to tea at Manchester House.