Part 2 (1/2)

And Councillor Batchgrew, with his crimson s.h.i.+ny face, and the vermilion rims round his unsteady eyes, and his elephant ears, and the absurd streaming of his white whiskers, and his mult.i.tudinous noisiness, and his black kid gloves, strode half theatrically past her, sniffing.

To Rachel he was an object odious, almost obscene. In truth, she had little mercy on old men in general, who as a cla.s.s struck her as fussy, ridiculous, and repulsive. And beyond all the old men she had ever seen, she disliked Councillor Batchgrew. And about Councillor Batchgrew what she most detested was, perhaps strangely, his loose, wrinkled black kid gloves. They were ordinary, harmless black kid gloves, but she counted them against him as a supreme offence.

”Conceited, self-conscious, horrid old brute!” she thought, discreetly drawing the door to, and then going into the kitchen. ”He's interested in nothing and n.o.body but himself.” She felt protective towards Mrs.

Maldon, that simpleton who apparently could not see through a John Batchgrew!... So Mrs. Maldon had been giving him good accounts of the new lady companion, had she!

VII

”Well, Lizzie Maldon,” said Councillor Batchgrew as he crossed the sitting-room, ”how d'ye find yourself?... Sings!” he went on, taking Mrs. Maldon's hand with a certain negligence and at the same time fixing an unfriendly eye on the gas.

Mrs. Maldon had risen to welcome him with the punctilious warmth due to an old gentleman, a trustee, and a notability. She told him as to her own health and inquired about his. But he ignored her smooth utterances, in the ardour of following his nose.

”Sings worse than ever! Very unhealthy too! Haven't I told ye and told ye? You ought to let me put electricity in for you. It isn't as if it wasn't your own house.... Pay ye! Pay ye over and over again!”

He sat down in a chair by the table, drew off his loose black gloves, and after letting them hover irresolutely over the enc.u.mbered table, deposited them for safety in the china slop-basin.

”I dare say you're quite right,” said Mrs. Maldon with grave urbanity.

”But really gas suits me very well. And you know the gas-manager complains so much about the compet.i.tion of electricity. Truly it does seem unfair, doesn't it, as they both belong to the town! If I gave up gas for electricity I don't think I could look the poor man in the face at church. And all these changes cost money! How is dear Enid?”

Mr. Batchgrew had now stretched out his legs and crossed one over the other; and he was twisting his thumbs on his diaphragm.

”Enid? Oh! Enid! Well, I did hear she's able to nurse the child at last.” He spoke of his grand-daughter-in-law as of one among a multiplicity of women about whose condition vague rumours reached him at intervals.

Mrs. Maldon breathed fervently--”I'm so thankful! What a blessing that is, isn't it?”

”As for costing money, Elizabeth,” Mr. Batchgrew proceeded, ”you'll be all right now for money.” He paused, sat up straight with puffings, and leaned sideways against the table. Then he said, half fiercely-- ”I've settled up th' Brougham Street mortgage.”

”You don't say so!” Mrs. Maldon was startled.

”I do!”

”When?”

”To-day.”

”Well--”

”That's what I stepped in for.”

Mrs. Maldon feebly murmured, with obvious emotion--

”You can't imagine what a relief it is to me!” Tears shone in her dark, mild eyes.

”Look ye!” exclaimed the trustee curtly.

He drew from his breast pocket a bank envelope of linen, and then, glancing at the table, pushed cups and saucers abruptly away to make a clear s.p.a.ce on the white cloth. The newspaper slipped rustling to the floor on the side near the window. Already his gloves were abominable in the slop-basin, and now with a single gesture he had destroyed the symmetry of the set table. Mrs. Maldon with surpa.s.sing patience smiled sweetly, and a.s.sured herself that Mr. Batchgrew could not help it. He was a coa.r.s.e male creature at large in a room highly feminized. It was his habit thus to pa.s.s through orderly interiors, distributing havoc, like a rough soldier. You might almost hear a sword clanking in the scabbard.

”Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty,” he began in his heavily rolling voice to count out one by one a bundle of notes which he had taken from the envelope. He generously licked his thick, curved-back thumb for the separating of the notes, and made each note sharply click, in the manner of a bank cas.h.i.+er, to prove to himself that it was not two notes stuck together. ”... Five-seventy, five-eighty, five-ninety, six hundred. These are all tens. Now the fives: Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five.” He counted up to three hundred and sixty-five. ”That's nine-sixty-five altogether. The odd sixty-five's arrear of interest. I'm investing nine hundred again to-morrow, and th' interest on th' new investment is to start from th' first o' this month. So instead of being out o'pocket, you'll be in pocket, missis.”

The notes lay in two irregular filmy heaps on the table.