"It"s not Julian, is it?"
In a peculiar tone Louis replied--
"Looks like him, doesn"t it?" And then impulsively he yelled "Hi!"
The figure kept on its way.
"Seeing that the inimitable Julian"s still in South Africa, it can"t very well be him. And, anyhow, I"m not going to run after him."
"No, of course it can"t," Rachel a.s.sented.
Presently the returning procession was re-formed. Louis pushed the bicycle on its front wheel, and Rachel tried to help him to support the weight of the suspended part. He had attempted in vain to take the pedal off the crank.
"It"s perhaps a good thing you fell just then," said Louis. "Because old Batch is coming in to-night, and we"d better not be late."
"But you never told me!"
"Didn"t I? I forgot," he said blandly.
"Oh, Louis!... He"s not coming for supper, I hope?"
"My child, if there"s a chance of a free meal, old Batch will be on the spot."
The unaccustomed housewife foretold her approaching shame, and proclaimed Louis to be the author of it. She began to quicken her steps.
"You certainly ought to have let me know sooner, dearest," she said seriously. "You really are terrible."
Hard knocks had not hurt her. But she was hurt now. And Louis"
smile was very constrained. Her grave manner of saying "dearest" had disquieted him.
CHAPTER X
THE CHASM
I
It is true that Rachel held Councillor Thomas Batchgrew in hatred, that she had never pardoned him for the insult which he had put upon her in the Imperial Cinema de Luxe; and that, indeed, she could never pardon him for simply being Thomas Batchgrew. Nevertheless, there was that evening in her heart a little softening towards him. The fact was that the councillor had been flattering her. She would have denied warmly that she was susceptible to flattery; even if authoritatively informed that no human being whatever is unsusceptible to flattery, she would still have protested that she at any rate was, for, like numerous young and inexperienced women, she had persuaded herself that she was the one exception to various otherwise universal rules.
It remained that Thomas Batchgrew had been flattering her. On arrival he had greeted her with that tinge of deference which from an old man never fails to thrill a girl. Rachel"s pride as a young married woman was tigerishly alert and hungry that evening. Thomas Batchgrew, little by little, tamed and fed it very judiciously at intervals, until at length it seemed to purr content around him like a cat. The phenomenon was remarkable, and the more so in that Rachel was convinced that, whereas she was as critical and inimical as ever, old Batchgrew had slightly improved. He behaved "heartily," and everybody appreciates such behaviour in the Five Towns. He was by nature far too insensitive to notice that the married lovers were treating each other with that finished courtesy which is the symptom of a tiff or of a misunderstanding. And the married lovers, noticing that he noticed nothing, were soon encouraged to make peace; and by means of certain tones and gestures peace was declared in the very presence of the unperceiving old brute, which was peculiarly delightful to the contracting parties.
Rachel had less difficulty with the supper than she feared, whereby also her good-humour was fostered. With half a cold leg of mutton, some cheeses, and the magnificent fancy remains of an At Home tea, arrayed with the d"oyleys and embroidered cloths which brides always richly receive in the Five Towns, a most handsome and impressive supper can be concocted. Rachel was astonished at the splendour of her own table. Mr. Batchgrew treated this supper with unsurpa.s.sable tact.
The adjectives he applied to it were short and emphatic and spoken with a full mouth. He ate the supper; he kept on eating it; he pa.s.sed his plate with alacrity; he refused naught. And as the meal neared its end he emitted those natural inarticulate noises from his throat which in Persia are a sign of high breeding. Useless for Rachel in her heart to call him a glutton--his att.i.tude towards her supper was impeccable.
And now the solid part of the supper was over. One extremity of the Chesterfield had been drawn closer to the fire--an operation easily possible in its new advantageous position--and Louis as master of the house had mended the fire after his own method, and Rachel sat upright (somewhat in the manner of Mrs. Maldon) in the arm-chair opposite Mr.
Batchgrew, extended half-reclining on the Chesterfield. And Mrs. Tams entered with coffee.
"You"ll have coffee, Mr. Batchgrew?" said the hostess.
"Nay, missis! I canna" sleep after it."
Secretly enchanted by the sweet word "missis," Rachel was nevertheless piqued by this refusal.
"Oh, but you must have some of Louise"s coffee," said Louis, standing negligently in front of the fire.
Already, though under a month old as a husband, Louis, following the eternal example of good husbands, had acquired the sure belief that his wife could achieve a higher degree of excellence in certain affairs than any other wife in the world. He had selected coffee as Rachel"s speciality.
"Louise"s?" repeated old Batchgrew, puzzled, in his heavy voice.
Rachel flushed and smiled.
"He calls me Louise, you know," said she.
"Calls you Louise, does he?" Batchgrew muttered indifferently. But he took a cup of coffee, stirred part of its contents into the saucer and on to the Chesterfield, and began to sup the remainder with a prodigious splutter of ingurgitation.
"And you must have a cigarette, too," Louis carelessly insisted. And Mr. Batchgrew agreed, though it was notorious that he only smoked once in a blue moon, because all tobacco was apt to be too strong for him.
"You can clear away," Rachel whispered, in the frigid tones of one accustomed to command cohorts of servants in the luxury of historic castles.
"Yes, ma"am," Mrs. Tams whispered back nervously, proud as a major-domo, though with less than a major-domo"s aplomb.
No pride, however, could have outcla.s.sed Rachel"s. She had had a full day, and the evening was the crown of the day, because in the evening she was entertaining privately for the first time. She was the one lady of the party; for these two men she represented woman, and they were her men. They depended on her for their physical well-being, and not in vain. She was the hostess; hers to command; hers the complex responsibility of the house. She had begun supper with painful timidity, but the timidity had now nearly vanished in the flush of social success. Critical as only a young wife can be, she was excellently well satisfied with Louis" performance in the role of host. She grew more than ever sure that there was only one Louis. See him manipulate a cigarette--it was the perfection of worldliness and agreeable, sensuous grace! See him hold a match to Mr. Batchgrew"s cigarette!
Now Mr. Batchgrew smoked a cigarette clumsily. He seemed not to be able to decide whether a cigarette was something to smoke or something to eat. Mr. Batchgrew was more ungainly than ever, stretched in his characteristic att.i.tude at an angle of forty-five degrees; his long whiskers were more absurdly than ever like two tails of a wire-haired white dog; his voice more coa.r.s.ely than ever rolled about the room like undignified thunder. He was an old, old man, and a sinister. It was precisely his age that caressed Rachel"s pride. That any man so old should have come to her house for supper, should be treating her as an equal and with the directness of allusion in conversation due to a married woman but improper to a young girl--this was very sweet to Rachel. The subdued stir made by Mrs. Tams in clearing the table was for Rachel a delicious background to the scene. The one flaw in it was her short skirt, which she had not had time to change. Louis had protested that it was entirely in order, and indeed admirably coquettish, but Rachel would have preferred a long train of soft drapery disposed with art round the front of her chair.
"What you want here is electricity," said Thomas Batchgrew, gazing at the incandescent gas; he could never miss a chance, and was never discouraged in the pursuit of his own advantage.
"You think so?" murmured Louis genially.
"I could put ye in summat as "u"d----"
Rachel broke in a clear, calm decision--
"I don"t think we shall have any electricity just yet."
The gesture of the economical wife in her was so final that old Batchgrew raised his eyebrows with a grin at Louis, and Louis humorously drew down the corners of his mouth in response. It was as if they had both said, in awe--
"She has spoken!"
And Rachel, still further flattered and happy, was obliged to smile.
When Mrs. Tams had made her last tiptoe journey from the room and closed the door with due silent respect upon those great ones, the expression of Thomas Batchgrew"s face changed somewhat; he looked round, as though for spies, and then drew a packet of papers from his pocket. And the expression of the other two faces changed also. For the true purpose of the executor"s visit was now to be made formally manifest.
"Now about this statement of account--_re_ Elizabeth Maldon, deceased," he growled deeply.
"By the way," Louis interrupted him. "Is Julian back?"