The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories Part 19

'Well, I'll see what I can do, miss,' he added abruptly, folding the paper to take away. 'You'd like them soon?'

'Yes. I was going to ask you, Mr. Turpin, whether you could do them this evening. Then I should have them for Monday morning.'

Turpin hesitated, shuffled his feet, and seemed to reflect uneasily; but he said at length that he 'would see about it,' and, with a rough bow, got out of the room. That night no hilarious sounds came from the kitchen. On Sunday morning, when Miss Rodney went into her sitting-room, she found on the table the wooden geometrical forms, excellently made, just as she wished. Mabel, who came with breakfast, was bidden to thank her father, and to say that Miss Rodney would like to speak with him again, if his leisure allowed, after tea-time on Monday. At that hour the carpenter did not fail to present himself, distrustful still, but less embarra.s.sed. Miss Rodney praised his work, and desired to pay for it. Oh! that wasn't worth talking about, said Turpin; but the lady insisted, and money changed hands. This piece of business transacted, Miss Rodney produced a Euclid, and asked Turpin to show her how far he had gone in it with his boy Harry. The subject proved fruitful of conversation. It became evident that the carpenter had a mathematical bias, and could be readily interested in such things as geometrical problems. Why should he not take up the subject again?

'Nay, miss,' replied Turpin, speaking at length quite naturally; 'I shouldn't have the heart. If my Harry had lived'

But Miss Rodney stuck to the point, and succeeded in making him promise that he would get out the old Euclid and have a look at it in his leisure time. As he withdrew, the man had a pleasant smile on his honest face.

On the next Sat.u.r.day evening the house was again quiet.

Meanwhile, relations between Mrs. Turpin and her lodger were becoming less strained. For the first time in her life the flabby, foolish woman had to do with a person of firm will and bright intelligence; not being vicious of temper, she necessarily felt herself submitting to domination, and darkly surmised that the rule might in some way be for her good. All the sluggard and the slattern in her, all the obstinacy of lifelong habits, hung back from the new things which Miss Rodney was forcing upon her acceptance, but she was no longer moved by active resentment. To be told that she cooked badly had long ceased to be an insult, and was becoming merely a worrying truism. That she lived in dirt there seemed no way of denying, and though every muscle groaned, she began to look upon the physical exertion of dusting and scrubbing as part of her lot in life. Why she submitted, Mrs.

Turpin could not have told you. And, as was presently to be seen, there were regions of her mind still unconquered, instincts of resistance which yet had to come into play.

For, during all this time, Miss Rodney had had her eye on her fellow-lodger, Mr. Rawcliffe, and the more she observed this gentleman, the more resolute she became to turn him out of the house; but it was plain to her that the undertaking would be no easy one. In the landlady's eyes Mr.

Rawcliffe, though not perhaps a faultless specimen of humanity, conferred an honour on her house by residing in it; the idea of giving him notice to quit was inconceivable to her. This came out very clearly in the first frank conversation which Miss Rodney held with her on the topic. It happened that Mr. Rawcliffe had pa.s.sed an evening at home, in the company of his friends. After supping together, the gentlemen indulged in merriment which, towards midnight, became uproarious. In the morning Mrs. Turpin mumbled a shamefaced apology for this disturbance of Miss Rodney's repose.

'Why don't you take this opportunity and get rid of him?' asked the lodger in her matter-of-fact tone.

'Oh, miss!'

'Yes, it's your plain duty to do so. He gives your house a bad character; he sets a bad example to your husband; he has a bad influence on your daughters.'

'Oh! miss, I don't think'

'Just so, Mrs. Turpin; you _don't_ think. If you had, you would long ago have noticed that his behaviour to those girls is not at all such as it should be. More than once I have chanced to hear bits of talk, when either Mabel or Lily was in his sitting-room, and didn't like the tone of it. In plain English, the man is a blackguard.'

Mrs. Turpin gasped.

'But, miss, you forget what family he belongs to.'

'Don't be a simpleton, Mrs. Turpin. The blackguard is found in every rank of life. Now, suppose you go to him as soon as he gets up, and quietly give him notice. You've no idea how much better you would feel after it.'

But Mrs. Turpin trembled at the suggestion. It was evident that no ordinary argument or persuasion would bring her to such a step. Miss Rodney put the matter aside for the moment.

She had found no difficulty in getting information about Mr. Rawcliffe. It was true that he belonged to a family of some esteem in the Wattleborough neighbourhood, but his father had died in embarra.s.sed circ.u.mstances, and his mother was now the wife of a prosperous merchant in another town. To his stepfather Rawcliffe owed an expensive education and two or three starts in life. He was in his second year of articles to a Wattle-borough solicitor, but there seemed little probability of his ever earning a living by the law, and reports of his excesses which reached the stepfather's ears had begun to make the young man's position decidedly precarious. The inc.u.mbent of St. Luke's, whom Rawcliffe had more than once insulted, took much interest in Miss Rodney's design against this common enemy; he could not himself take active part in the campaign, but he never met the High School mistress without inquiring what progress she had made. The conquest of Turpin, who now for several weeks had kept sober, and spent his evenings in mathematical study, was a most encouraging circ.u.mstance; but Miss Rodney had no thought of using her influence over her landlady's husband to a.s.sail Rawcliffe's position. She would rely upon herself alone, in this as in all other undertakings.

Only by constant watchfulness and energy did she maintain her control over Mrs. Turpin, who was ready at any moment to relapse into her old slatternly ways. It was not enough to hold the ground that had been gained; there must be progressive conquest; and to this end Miss Rodney one day broached a subject which had already been discussed between her and her clerical ally.

'Why do you keep both your girls at home, Mrs. Turpin?' she asked.

'What should I do with them, miss? I don't hold with sending girls into shops, or else they've an aunt in Birmingham, who's manageress of--'

'That isn't my idea,' interposed Miss Rodney quietly. 'I have been asked if I knew of a girl who would go into a country-house not far from here as second housemaid, and it occurred to me that Lily--'

A sound of indignant protest escaped the landlady, which Miss Rodney, steadily regarding her, purposely misinterpreted.

'No, no, of course, she is not really capable of taking such a position.

But the lady of whom I am speaking would not mind an untrained girl, who came from a decent house. Isn't it worth thinking of?'

Mrs. Turpin was red with suppressed indignation, but as usual she could not look her lodger defiantly in the face.

'We're not so poor, miss,' she exclaimed, 'that we need send our daughters into service,'

'Why, of course not, Mrs. Turpin, and that's one of the reasons why Lily might suit this lady.'

But here was another rock of resistance which promised to give Miss Rodney a good deal of trouble. The landlady's pride was outraged, and after the manner of the inarticulate she could think of no adequate reply save that which took the form of personal abuse. Restrained from this by more than one consideration, she stood voiceless, her bosom heaving.

'Well, you shall think it over,' said Miss Rodney, 'and we'll speak of it again in a day or two.'

Mrs. Turpin, without another word, took herself out of the room.

Save for that singular meeting on Miss Rodney's first night in the house, Mr. Rawcliffe and the energetic lady had held no intercourse whatever.

Their parlours being opposite each other on the ground floor, they necessarily came face to face now and then, but the High School mistress behaved as though she saw no one, and the solicitor's clerk, after one or two attempts at polite formality, adopted a like demeanour. The man's proximity caused his neighbour a ceaseless irritation; of all objectionable types of humanity, this loafing and boozing degenerate was, to Miss Rodney, perhaps the least endurable; his mere countenance excited her animosity, for feebleness and conceit, things abhorrent to her, were legible in every line of the trivial features; and a full moustache, evidently subjected to training, served only as emphasis of foppish imbecility. 'I could beat him!' she exclaimed more than once within herself, overcome with contemptuous wrath, when she pa.s.sed Mr. Rawcliffe. And, indeed, had it been possible to settle the matter thus simply, no doubt Mr. Rawcliffe's rooms would very soon have been vacant.

The crisis upon which Miss Rodney had resolved came about, quite unexpectedly, one Sunday evening. Mrs. Turpin and her daughters had gone, as usual, to church, the carpenter had gone to smoke a pipe with a neighbour, and Mr. Rawcliffe believed himself alone in the house. But Miss Rodney was not at church this evening; she had a headache, and after tea lay down in her bedroom for a while. Soon impatient of repose, she got up and went to her parlour. The door, to her surprise, was partly open; entering--the tread of her slippered feet was noiseless--she beheld an astonishing spectacle. Before her writing-table, his back turned to her, stood Mr. Rawcliffe, engaged in the deliberate perusal of a letter which he had found there. For a moment she observed him; then she spoke.

'What business have you here?'

Rawcliffe gave such a start that he almost jumped from the ground. His face, as he put down the letter and turned, was that of a gibbering idiot; his lips moved, but no sound came from them.

'What are you doing in my room?' demanded Miss Rodney, in her severest tones.

'I really beg your pardon--I really beg--'

'I suppose this is not the first visit with which you have honoured me?'

'The first--indeed--I a.s.sure you--the very first! A foolish curiosity; I really feel quite ashamed of myself; I throw myself upon your indulgence.'

The man had become voluble; he approached Miss Rodney smiling in a sickly way, his head bobbing forward.

'It's something,' she replied, 'that you have still the grace to feel ashamed. Well, there's no need for us to discuss this matter; it can have, of course, only one result. To-morrow morning you will oblige me by giving notice to Mrs. Turpin--a week's notice.'

'Leave the house?' exclaimed Rawcliffe.

'On Sat.u.r.day next--or as much sooner as you like.'

'Oh! but really--'

'As you please,' said Miss Rodney, looking him sternly in the face. 'In that case I complain to the landlady of your behaviour, and insist on her getting rid of you. You ought to have been turned out long ago. You are a nuisance, and worse than a nuisance. Be so good as to leave the room.'

Rawcliffe, his shoulders humped, moved towards the door; but before reaching it he stopped and said doggedly--

'I _can't_ give notice.'

'Why not?'

'I owe Mrs. Turpin money.'