Helen with the High Hand Part 23

The caller was Emanuel Prockter.

"Mother thought I might perhaps be able to help you," said he, in the slightly simpering tone which he adopted in delicate situations, and which he thought suited him. What made the situation delicate, to him, was Helen's ap.r.o.n--quite agreeable though the ap.r.o.n was. He felt, with his unerring perceptiveness, that young ladies do not care to receive young gentlemen in the ap.r.o.n of a Georgiana. His own attire was, as usual, fabulously correct; the salient features of it being a pair of light yellow chamois gloves, loose-fitting and unb.u.t.toned, with the gauntlets negligently turned back. These gloves were his method of expressing the fact that the visit was a visit of usefulness and not a kid-glove visit. But Helen seemed quite composed behind Georgiana's ap.r.o.n.

"Yes," he repeated, with smiling inanity, after he had shaken hands.

"Mother thought I might help you."

("What a fool that woman is!" reflected James. "And what a fool _he_ is to put it on to his mother instead of keeping it to himself!")

"And what did _you_ think, Mr. Prockter?" Helen demanded. "Another cup and saucer, Georgiana."

Helen's question was one of her insolent questions.

("Perhaps his mother ain't such a fool!" reflected James. And he perceived, or imagined he perceived, that their fears of Helen marrying Emanuel were absurd.)

Emanuel sniffed humour in the air. He never understood humour; but he was, at any rate, sufficiently gifted with the wisdom of the simple to smile vaguely and amiably when he sniffed humour.

And then Helen said, with cordial kindliness: "It's awfully good of you--awfully good of you. Here we are, you see!"

And the degree of cordiality was such that the fear of her marrying Emanuel suddenly seemed less absurd to James. The truth was that James never had a moment's peace of mind with Helen. She was continually proving that as a student in the University of Human Nature he had not even matriculated.

Georgiana appeared with an odd cup and saucer, and a giggling statement that she had not been able to discover any more teaspoons.

"Never mind," said Helen. "Mr. Prockter shall have mine."

("Well, I'm hanged!" reflected James.)

Whereupon Georgiana departed, bearing her own tea, into the giant's kitchen. The miserable distinctions of cla.s.s had been mysteriously established.

CHAPTER XXI

SHIP AND OCEAN

The host, the hostess, and the guest all remained on their feet in the n.o.ble hall of the Wilbrahams, it not being good etiquette to sit at removals, even when company calls. Emanuel, fortunately for him, was adept at perambulation with a full cup of tea in one hand and a hat or so in the other. There were two things which he really could do--one was to sing a sentimental song without laughing, and the other was to balance a cup of tea. And it was only when he was doing the one or the other that he genuinely lived. During the remainder of his existence he was merely a vegetable inside a waistcoat. He held his cup without a tremor while Helen charmingly introduced into it her teaspoon and stirred up the sugar. Then, after he had sipped and p.r.o.nounced the result excellent, he began to admire the Hall and the contents of the Hall. A proof of his real Christian charity was that, whereas he had meant to have that Hall for himself, he breathed no word of envy nor discontent. He praised everything; and presently he arrived at the ship and ocean, and praised that. He particularly praised the waves.

The heart of James instantly and instinctively softened towards him. For the realism of those foaming waves had always struck James as the final miracle of art. And, moreover, this was the first time that any of Helen's haughty "set" had ever deigned to recognise the merits of the ship and ocean.

"Where shouldst hang it, Master Prockter?" James genially asked.

"Hang it, uncle?" exclaimed Helen. "Are you going to hang it? Aren't you going to keep it on the table in your own room?"

She was hoping that it might occupy a position not too prominent. She did not intend it to be the central decorative attraction of the palace.

"It ought to be hung," said Emanuel. "See, here are the little iron things for the nails."

This gift of observation pleased James. Emanuel was indeed beginning to show quite an intelligent interest in the ship and ocean.

"Of course it must be hung," said he.

He was very human, was Jimmy Ollerenshaw. For at least twenty-five years he had possessed the ship and ocean, and cherished it, always meaning one day to hang it against the wall as it deserved. And yet he had never arrived at doing so, though the firm resolution to do so had not a whit weakened in his mind. And now he was absolutely decided, with the whole force of his will behind him, to hang the ship and ocean at once.

"There! under the musicians' gallery wouldn't be a bad place, would it, Mr. Ollerenshaw?" Emanuel suggested, respectfully.

James trained his eye on the spot. "The very thing, lad!" said he, with enthusiasm.

"Lad!" Helen had not recovered from a private but extreme astonishment at this singular mark of paternal familiarity to Emanuel when there was another and a far louder ring at the door.

Georgiana minced and tripped out of her retreat, and opened the majestic portal to a still greater surprise for Helen. The ringer was Mr. Andrew Dean--Mr. Andrew Dean with his dark, quasi-hostile eyes, and his heavy shoulders, and his defiant, suspicious bearing--Mr. Andrew Dean in workaday clothes and with hands that could not be called clean. Andrew stared about him like a scout, and then advanced rapidly to Helen and seized her hand, hurting it.

"I was just pa.s.sing," said he, in a hoa.r.s.e voice. "I expected you'd be in a bit of a mess, so I thought I might be useful. How d'ye do, Mr.

Ollerenshaw?" And he hurt James's hand also.

"It's very kind of you," Helen remarked, flushing.

"How do, Prockter?" Andrew jerked out at Emanuel, not taking his hand.

This abstention on Andrew's part from physical violence was capable of two interpretations. The natural interpretation was that Andrew's social methods were notoriously casual and capricious. The interesting interpretation was that a failure of the negotiations between Emanuel and Andrew for a partnership--a failure which had puzzled Bursley--had left rancour behind it.

Emanuel, however, displayed no symptom of being disturbed. His blandness remained intact. Nevertheless, the atmosphere was mysteriously electric.

Helen felt it to be so, and an atmosphere which is deemed to be electric by even one person only, _ipso facto_, is electric. As for James Ollerenshaw, he was certainly astonished by the visit of Andrew Dean; but, being absorbed in the welfare of his ship and ocean, he permitted his astonishment to dissolve in a vague satisfaction that, anyhow, Helen's unexplained quarrel with Andrew Dean was really at an end. This call was a.s.suredly Andrew's way of expiatory repentance.

"The very thing!" he repeated, glancing at Emanuel as if in expectation.

Emanuel did not seem to comprehend that aught was expected of him. He amiably stood, with hands still appropriately gloved, and his kindly glance wandered between the ship and ocean and the spot which he had hit on for the ship and ocean's last resting-place.

"Where's the steps, Helen?" James inquired, and, after a brief silence: "Georgiana!" he yelled.

The girl flew in.

"Bring us a pair o' steps," said he.

Followed an unsuccessful search for the pair of steps, which Andrew Dean ultimately discovered in a corner of the hall itself, lying flat behind a vast roll of carpet which was included in the goods purchased for seven thousand two hundred and fifty pounds. The steps being found, Georgiana explained at length how she distinctly remembered seeing one of the men put them behind the roll of carpet.

"Now, what is it?" Andrew vigorously questioned. He was prepared, evidently, to do anything that a man may do with a pair of steps. When the operation was indicated to him, his first act was to take off his coat, which he threw on the floor.

"Hammer! Nails!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. And Georgiana, intimidated by his tone, contrived to find both hammer and nails. It is true that the hammer was a coal hammer.

And in a remarkably short s.p.a.ce of time he was balanced on the summit of the steps with a nail in one hand, a hammer in the other, a pencil behind his ear, and another nail in his mouth. The other three encircled him from below, with upturned faces and open mouths, like young birds expecting food. (Not that young birds expecting food wear gloves so appropriate to the occasion as were Emanuel's.) James Ollerenshaw was impressed by the workmanlike manner in which Andrew measured the width of the gla.s.s box and marked it off on the wall before beginning to knock nails. The presence of one nail in Andrew's mouth while he was knocking in the other with a coal hammer, prevented him from outraging the social code when the coal hammer embraced his fingers as well as the nail in the field of its activity. Unhappily, when it came to the second nail, no such hindrance operated.

The nails, having been knocked in, were duly and satisfactorily tested.

Then solemnly James seized the gla.s.s box containing the ship and ocean, and bore it with all possible precautions to the pair of steps in front of the great doors. Andrew descended two storeys, and, bending his body, received the box from James as a parson receives a baby at the font. He then remounted. The steps rocked.

"I'd happen better hold 'em," said James.

"It'll be all right," said Andrew.