The Price of Love by Arnold Bennett (best books to read non fiction TXT) 📖

voice was imperfectly under control.

Rachel replied curtly--

"I dare say she is."

To herself she said--

"Of course if he's going to sulk about last night--well, he must sulk. Really and truly he got much less than he deserved. He had no business at all to have suggested me going to the cinematograph with him. The longer he sulks the better I shall be pleased."

And in fact she was relieved at his sullenness. She tossed her proud head, but with primness. And she fervently credited to the full Mrs. Maldon's solemn insinuations against the disturber.

Louis hesitated a second, then stepped in. Rachel marched processionally upstairs, and with the detachment of a footman announced to Mrs. Maldon that Mr. Fores waited below. "Oh, please bring him up," said Mrs. Maldon, with a mild and casual benevolence that surprised the girl; for Rachel, in the righteous ferocity of her years, vaguely thought that an adverse moral verdict ought to be swiftly followed by something in the nature of annihilation.

"Will you please come up," she invited Louis, from the head of the stairs, adding privately--"I can be as stiff as you can--and stiffer. How mistaken I was in you!"

She preceded him into the bedroom, and then with ostentatious formality left aunt and nephew together. Nobody should ever say any more that she encouraged the attentions of Louis Fores.

"What is the matter, dear?" Mrs. Maldon inquired from her bed, perceiving the signs of emotion on Louis' face.

"Has Mr. Batchgrew been here yet?" Louis demanded.

"No. Is he coming?"

"Yes, he's just been to my digs. Came in his car. Auntie, do you know that he's accusing me of stealing your money--and--and--all sorts of things! I don't want to hide anything from you. It's true I was with Rachel at the cinematograph last night, but--"

Mrs. Maldon raised her enfeebled, shaking hand.

"Louis!" she entreated. His troubled, ingenuous face seemed to torture her.

"I know it's a shame to bother you, auntie. But what was I to do? He's coming up here. I only want to tell you I've not got your money. I've not stolen it. I'm absolutely innocent--absolutely. And I'll swear it on anything you like." His voice almost broke under the strain of its own earnestness. His plaintive eyes invoked justice and protection. Who could have doubted that he was sincere in this passionate, wistful protestation of innocence?

"Louis!" Mrs. Maldon entreated again, committing herself to naught, taking no side, but finding shelter beneath the enigmatic, appealing repetition of his name. It was the final triumph of age over crude youth. "Louis!"


IV


Rachel stood expectant and watchful in the kitchen. She was now filled with dread. She wanted to go up and waken Mrs. Tams, but was too proud. The thought had come into her mind: "His coming like this has something to do with the money. Perhaps he wasn't sulking with me after all. Perhaps ..." But what it was that she dreaded she could not have defined. And then she caught the sound of an approaching automobile. The car threw its shadow across the glazed front door, which she commanded from the kitchen, and stopped. And the front-door bell rang uncannily over her head. She opened the door to Councillor Batchgrew, whose breathing was irregular and rapid.

"Has Louis Fores been here?" Batchgrew asked.

"He's upstairs now with Mrs. Maldon."

Without warning, Thomas Batchgrew strode into the house and straight upstairs. His long whiskers sailed round the turn of the stairs and disappeared. Rachel was somewhat discomfited, and very resentful. But her dread was not thereby diminished. "They'll kill the old lady between them if they don't take care," she thought.

The next instant Louis appeared at the head of the stairs. With astounding celerity Rachel slipped into the parlour. She could not bear to encounter him in the lobby--it was too narrow. She heard Louis come down the stairs, saw him take his hat from the oak chest and heard him open the front gate. In the lobby he had looked neither to right nor left. "How do, Ernest!" she heard him greet the amateur chauffeur-in-chief of the Batchgrew family. His footfalls on the pavement died away into the general silence of the street. Overhead she could hear old Batchgrew walking to and fro. Without reflection she went upstairs and hovered near the door of Mrs. Maldon's bedroom. She said to herself that she was not eavesdropping. She listened, while pretending not to listen, but there was no sign of conversation within the room. And then she very distinctly heard old Batchgrew exclaim--

"And they go gallivanting off together to the cinema!"

Upon which ensued another silence.

Rachel flushed with shame, fury, and apprehension. She hated Batchgrew, and Louis, and all gross masculine invaders.

The mysterious silence within the room persisted. And then old Batchgrew violently opened the door and glared at Rachel. He showed no surprise at seeing her there on the landing.

"Ye'd better keep an eye on missis," he said gruffly. "She's gone to sleep seemingly."

And with no other word he departed.

Before the car had given its warning hoot Rachel was at Mrs. Maldon's side. The old lady lay in all tranquillity on her left arm. She was indeed asleep, or she was in a stupor, and the peculiar stertorous noise of her breathing had recommenced.

Rachel's vague dread vanished as she gazed at the worn features, and gave place to a new and definite fright.

"They have killed her!" she muttered.

And she ran into the next room and called Mrs. Tams.

"Who's below?" asked Mrs. Tarns, as, wide awake, she came out on to the landing.

"Nobody," said Rachel. "They've gone."

But the doctor was below. Mr. Batchgrew had left the front door open.

"What a good thing!" cried Rachel.

In the bedroom Dr. Yardley, speaking with normal loudness, just as though Mrs. Maldon had not been present, said to Rachel--

"I expected this this morning. There's nothing to be done. If you try to give her food she'll only get it into the lung. It's very improbable that she'll regain consciousness."

"But are you sure, doctor?" Rachel asked.

The doctor answered grimly--

"No, I'm not--I'm never sure. She _may_ recover."

"She's been rather disturbed this afternoon."

The doctor lifted his shoulders.

"That's got nothing to do with it," said he. "As I told you, she's had an embolus in one artery of the brain. It lessened at first for a bit--they do sometimes--and now it's enlarging, that's all. Nothing external could affect it either way."

"But how long--?" asked Rachel, recoiling.


V


Her chief sensation that evening was that she was alone, for Mrs. Tams was not a companion, but a slave. She was alone with a grave and strange responsibility, which she could not evade. Indeed, events had occurred in such a manner as to make her responsibility seem natural and inevitable, to give it the sanction of the most correct convention. Between 4.30 and 6 in the afternoon four separate calls of inquiry had been made at the house, thus demonstrating Mrs. Maldon's status in the town. One lady had left a fine bunch of grapes. To all these visitors Rachel had said the same things, namely, that Mrs. Maldon had been better on the Saturday, but was worse; that the case was very serious; that the doctor had been twice that day and was coming again, that Councillor Batchgrew was fully informed and had seen the patient; that Mr. Louis Fores, Mrs. Maldon's only near relative in England, was constantly in and out; that she herself had the assistance of Mrs. Tams, who was thoroughly capable, and that while she was much obliged for offers of help, she could think of no way of utilizing them.

So that when the door closed on the last of the callers, Rachel, who a month earlier had never even seen Mrs. Maldon, was left in sole rightful charge of the dying-bed. And there was no escape for her. She could not telegraph--the day being Sunday. Moreover, except Thomas Batchgrew, there was nobody to whom she might telegraph. And she did not want Mr. Batchgrew. Though Mr. Batchgrew certainly had not guessed the relapse, she felt no desire whatever to let him have news. She hated his blundering intrusions; and in spite of the doctor's statements she would insist to herself that he and Louis between them had somehow brought about the change in Mrs. Maldon. Of course she might fetch Louis. She did not know his exact address, but he could be discovered. At any rate, Mrs. Tams might be sent for him. But she could not bring herself to make any advance towards Louis.

At a little after six o'clock, when the rare chapel-goers had ceased to pass, and the still rarer church-goers were beginning to respond to distant bells, Mrs. Tams informed her that tea was ready for her in the parlour, and she descended and took tea, utterly alone. Mrs. Tams had lighted the fire, and had moved the table comfortably towards the fire--act of astounding initiative and courage, in itself a dramatic proof that Mrs. Maldon no longer reigned at Bycars. Tea finished, Rachel returned to the sick-room, where there was nothing whatever to do except watch the minutes recede. She thought of her father and brother in America.

Then Mrs. Tams, who had been clearing away the tea-things, came into the bedroom and said--

"Here's Mr. Fores, miss."

Rachel started.

"Mr. Fores! What does he want?" she asked querulously.

Mrs. Tams preserved her blandness.

"He asked for you, miss."

"Didn't he ask how Mrs. Maldon is?"

"No, miss."

"Well, I don't want to see him. You might run down and tell him what the doctor said, Mrs. Tams." She tried to make her voice casually persuasive.

"Shall I, miss?" said Miss Tams doubtfully, and turned to the door.

Rachel was again full of fear and resentment. Louis had committed the infamy of luring her into the cinematograph. It was through him that she had "got herself talked about." Mrs. Maldon's last words had been a warning against him. He and Mr. Batchgrew had desecrated the sick-room with their mysterious visitations. And now Louis was come again. From what catastrophes had not Mrs. Maldon's warning saved her!

"Here! I'll go," said Rachel, in a sudden resolve.

"I'm glad on it," said Mrs. Tams simply.

In the parlour Louis stood in front of the fire. Although the blinds were drawn, the gas had not been lighted; but the fire and the powerful street lamp together sufficed to give clearness to every object in the room. The table had been restored to its proper situation. The gift of grapes ornamented the sideboard.

"Good-evening," said Rachel sullenly, as if pouting. She avoided looking at Louis, and sat down on the Chesterfield.

Louis broke forth in a cascade of words--

"I say, I'm most awfully sorry. I hadn't the faintest notion this afternoon she was any worse--not the faintest. Otherwise I shouldn't have dreamt--I met the doctor just now in Moorthorne Road, and he told me."

"What did he tell you?" asked Rachel, still with averted head, picking at her frock.

"Well, he gave me to understand there's very little hope, and nothing to be done. If I'd had the faintest notion--"

"You needn't worry about that," said Rachel. "Your coming made no difference. The doctor said so." And she asked herself why she should go out of her way