Helen with the High Hand Part 18

He said nothing. He was furious. It was her birthday, and he had given her six-and-twenty pounds--ten shillings a week for a year--and she had barely kissed him. And now, instantly after that amazing and mad generosity, she had the face to look cross because he would not buy Wilbraham Hall! It was inconceivable; it was unutterable. So he said nothing.

"Why shouldn't you, after all?" she resumed. "You've got an income of nearly five thousand a year." (Now he hated her for the mean manner in which she had wormed out of him secrets that previously he had shared with no one.) "You don't spend the twentieth part of it. What are you going to do with it? _What are you going to do with it_? You're getting an old man." (Cold horrors!) "You can't take it with you when you leave the Five Towns, you know. Whom shall you leave your money to? You'll probably die worth a hundred thousand pounds, at this rate. You'll leave it to me, of course. Because there's n.o.body else for you to leave it to.

Why can't you use it now, instead of wasting it in old stockings?"

"I bank my money, wench," he hissingly put in.

"Old stockings!" she repeated, loudly. "We could live splendidly at Wilbraham Hall on two thousand a year, and you would still be saving nearly three thousand a year."

He said nothing.

"Do you suppose I gave up my position at school in order to live in a poky little hole at eighteen pounds a year? What do you think I can do with myself all day in Trafalgar-road? Why, nothing. There's no room even for a piano, and so my fingers are stiffening every day. It's not life at all. Naturally, it's a great privilege," she pursued, with a vicious inflection that reminded him perfectly of Susan, "for a girl like me to live with an old man like you, all alone, with one servant and no sitting-room. But some privileges cost too dear. The fact is, you never think of me at all." (And he had but just given her six-and-twenty pounds.) "You think you've got a cheap housekeeper in me--but you haven't. I'm a very good housekeeper--especially in a very large house--but I'm not cheap."

She spoke as if she had all her life been accustomed to living in vast mansions. But James knew that, despite her fine friends, she had never lived in anything appreciably larger than his own dwelling. He knew there was not a house in Sneyd-road, Longshaw, worth more than twenty-five pounds a year. The whole outbreak was shocking and disgraceful. He scarcely recognised her.

He said nothing. And then suddenly he said: "I shall buy no Wilbraham Hall, la.s.s." His voice was final.

"You could sell it again at a profit," said she. "You could turn it into a building estate" (parrot-cry caught from himself or from Emanuel), "and later on we could go and live somewhere else."

"Yes," said he; "Buckingham Palace, likely!"

"I don't--" she began.

"I shall buy no Wilbraham Hall," he reiterated. Greek had met Greek.

The tram surged along and swallowed up the two Greeks. They were alone in the tram, and they sat down opposite each other. The conductor came and took James's money, and the conductor had hardly turned his back when Helen snapped, with nostrils twitching:

"You're a miser, that's what you are! A regular old miser! Every one knows that. Every one calls you a miser. If you aren't a miser, I should like you to tell me why you live on about three pounds a week when your income is ninety pounds a week. I thought I might do you some good. I thought I might get you out of it. But it seems I can't."

"All!" he snorted. It was a painful sight. Other persons boarded the car.

At tea she behaved precisely like an angel. Not the least hint of her demeanour of the ineffable affray of the afternoon. She was so sweet that he might have given her twenty-six Wilbraham Halls instead of twenty-six pounds. He spoke not. He was, in a very deep sense, upset.

She spent the evening in her room.

"Good-bye," she said the next morning, most amiably. It was after breakfast. She was hatted, gloved and sunshaded.

"What?" he exclaimed.

"Au revoir," she said. "All my things are packed up. I shall send for them. I think I can go back to the school. If I can't, I shall go to mother in Canada. Thank you very much for all your kindness. If I go to Canada, of course I shall come and see you before I leave." He let her shake his hand.

For two days he was haunted by memories of kidney omelettes and by the word "miser." Miser, eh? Him a miser! Him! Ephraim Tellwright was a miser--but _him_!

Then the natty servant gave notice, and Mrs. b.u.t.t called and suggested that she should resume her sway over him. But she did not employ exactly that phrase.

He longed for one of Helen's meals as a drunkard longs for alcohol.

Then Helen called, with the casual information that she was off to Canada. She was particularly sweet. She had the tact to make the interview short. The one blot on her conduct of the interview was that she congratulated him on the possible return of Mrs. b.u.t.t, of which she had heard from the natty servant.

"Good-bye, uncle," she said.

"Good-bye."

She had got as far as the door, when he whispered, brokenly: "La.s.s--"

Helen turned quickly towards him.

CHAPTER XVII

DESCENDANTS OF MACHIAVELLI

Yes, she turned towards him with a rapid, impulsive movement, which expressed partly her sympathy for her old uncle, and partly a feeling of joy caused by the sudden hope that he had decided to give way and buy Wilbraham Hall after all.

And the fact was that, in his secret soul, he had decided to give way; he had decided that Helen, together with Helen's cooking, was worth to him the price of Wilbraham Hall. But when he saw her brusque, eager gesture, he began to reflect. His was a wily and profound nature; he reckoned that he could read the human soul, and he said to himself:

"The wench isn't so set on leaving me as I thought she was."

And instead of saying to her: "Helen, la.s.s, if you'll stop you shall have your Wilbraham Hall," in tones of affecting, sad surrender, he said:

"I'm sorry to lose thee, my girl; but what must be must."

And when he caught the look in her eyes, he was more than ever convinced that he would be able to keep Helen without satisfying her extremely expensive whim.

Helen, for her part, began to suspect that if she played the fish with sufficient skill, she would capture it. Thus they both, in a manner of speaking, got out their landing-nets.

"I don't say," James Ollerenshaw proceeded, in accents calculated to prove to her that he had just as great a horror of sentimentality as she had--"I don't say as you wouldn't make a rare good mistress o' Wilbraham Hall. I don't say as I wouldn't like to see you in it. But when a man reaches my age, he's fixed in his habits like. And, what's more, supposing I _am_ saving a bit o' money, who am I saving it for, if it isn't for you and your mother? You said as much yourself. I might pop off any minute--"

"Uncle!" Helen protested.

"Ay, any minute!" he repeated, firmly. "I've known stronger men nor me pop off as quick as a bottle o' ginger-beer near the fire." Here he gazed at her, and his gaze said: "If I popped off here and now, wouldn't you feel ashamed o' yerself for being so hard on your old uncle?"

"You'll live many and many a year yet," Helen smiled.

He shook his head pessimistically. "I've set my heart," he continued, "on leaving a certain sum for you and yer mother. I've had it in mind since I don't know when. It's a fancy o' mine. And I canna' do it if I'm to go all around th' Five Towns buying barracks."

Helen laughed. "What a man you are for exaggerating!" she flattered him.

Then she sat down.

He considered that he was gradually winding in his line with immense skill. "Ay," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, with an absent air, "it's a fancy o' mine."

"How much do you want to leave?" Helen questioned, faintly smiling.

"Don't you bother your head about that," said he. "You may take it from me as it's a tidy sum. And when I'm dead and gone, and you've got it all, then ye can do as ye feel inclined."