Helen with the High Hand by Arnold Bennett (free ebook reader .txt) 📖

be asked where was the twenty-six pounds so generously given to her by a loving uncle, the reply is that the whole sum, together with much else, was in the coffers of Ezra Brunt, the draper and costumier at Hanbridge; and the reply further is that Helen was in debt. I have hitherto concealed Helen's tendency to debts, but it was bound sooner or later to come out. And here it is.

After an adventurous journey by bridge over the North Staffordshire Railway, and by bridge over the Shropshire Union Canal, and by bridge over the foaming cataract of the Shaws Brook, and down the fearful slants of Oldcastle-street, and through the arduous terrific denies of Oldcastle-road, the van had arrived at the portals of Wilbraham Hall. It would have been easy, by opening wide the portals, to have introduced the van and the horses too into the hall of Wilbraham Hall. But this course was not adopted.

Helen and Georgiana had preceded the van, and they both stood at the door to receive the goods. Georgiana was in one of Georgiana's aprons, and Helen also was in one of Georgiana's aprons. Uncle James had followed the van. He had not let it out of his sight. The old man's attachment to even the least of his goods was touching, and his attachment to the greatest of his goods carried pathos into farce. The greatest of his goods was, apparently, the full-rigged ship and tempestuous ocean in a glass box which had stood on the table in the front room of the other house for many years. No one had suspected his esteem for that glass box and its contents. He had not suspected it himself until the moment for packing it had come. But he seemed to love it more than his bits of Spode china or his concertina; and, taking it with him, he had quitted with a softened regret the quantity of over-blown blue roses which, in their eternal bloom, had enlivened his existence during a longer period even than the ship and ocean.

The ship and ocean was the last thing put into the van and the first thing taken out, and James Ollerenshaw introduced the affair, hugged against his own breast, into the house of his descendants. The remainder of the work of transference was relatively unimportant. Two men accomplished it easily while the horses ate a late dinner. And then the horses and the van and the men went off, and there was nothing left but a few wisps of straw and so forth, on the magnificent sweep of gravel, to indicate that they had ever been there. And Uncle James, and Helen, and Georgiana felt rather forlorn and abandoned. They stood in the hall and looked at each other a little blankly, like gipsies camping out in an abandoned cathedral. An immense fire was burning in the immense fireplace of the hall, and similar fires were burning in the state bedroom, in a little drawing-room beyond the main drawing-room, in another bedroom, in the giant's kitchen, and in one of the attics. These fires and a certain amount of cleaning were the only preparations which Helen had permitted herself to make. Even the expense of the coal had startled James, and she proposed to get him safely in the cage before commencing the serious business which would shatter all his nerves. By a miracle of charm and audacity she had obtained from him the control of a sum of seven hundred and fifty pounds. This sum, now lying nominally to her credit at one of James's various banks, represented the difference between eight thousand pounds (at which James had said Wilbraham Hall would be cheap) and seven thousand two hundred and fifty pounds (at which James had succeeded in buying Wilbraham Hall).

To the left of the hall, near the entrance, was quite a small room (originally, perhaps, a butler's lair), and James was obstinate in selecting this room as his office. He had his desk carried there, and everything that personally affected him except his safe and the simple necessaries of his bedroom. These were taken, not to the state bedroom, which he had declined, after insincere pressure from Helen to accept it, but to a much smaller sleeping-chamber. The numerous family of Windsor chairs, together with other ancient honesties, were sent up to attics--too old at forty! Georgiana was established in a glorious attic; the state bedroom was strewn with Helen's gear; and scarcely anything remained unniched in the Hall save the ship and ocean. They all rested from their labours, and Helen was moved by one of her happiest inspirations.

"Georgiana," she said, "go and make some tea. Bring a cup for yourself."

"Yes, miss. Thank you, miss."

On removal days miserable distinctions of class are invariably lost in the large-heartedness of mutual endeavour.

It was while the trio were thus drinking tea together, standing, and, as it were, with loins still girt after the pilgrimage, that the first visitor to the new owners of Wilbraham Hall rang its great bell and involved Georgiana in her first ceremonial duty. Georgiana was quite nervous as she went to the door.

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 apron--quite agreeable though the apron was. He felt, with his unerring perceptiveness, that young ladies do not care to receive young gentlemen in the apron 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 unbuttoned, 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 apron.

"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 class had been mysteriously established.


CHAPTER XXI


SHIP AND OCEAN

The host, the hostess, and the guest all remained on their feet in the noble 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 pronounced 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 passing," said he, in a hoarse 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