"Well... A shabby old man, but with signs of race. He would hint at troubles, and she would sort of lure him on to tell her his history--"

"Yes?"

"How stupid you are! Then of course you must work it out. He might be a miser, or an uncle from China--or the husband of someone who had married again. _Is_ anyone married again?"

"No."

"Oh, well then, she _won't_ meet him! ... What about a fire? No! you had a fire in the last book. Or a flood. Is there a river anywhere handy that could flood them out?"

"There is not."

"Don't be so blighting. I'm trying to help. Could there be a lost will? It's ba.n.a.l, I know, but what can you do? Everyone writes novels, and there isn't a plot left. Even leprosy is overdone. Now if you'd bring in a few chapters about the parlourmaid I'd write them for you.

That reminds me! I was forgetting to ask you something, and it's most important. Parsons says there are two handkerchiefs short from the laundry, and the man is coming for the money, and what will I say.

Martin! what _do I_ say? What does one say when the laundry is short?

Should I be angry? How angry? I don't care a dump about the old things, but I'll pretend I do. Shall I tell him you've a cold, and have only a dozen and can't do without them? Ought I to make him leave his own? Just give me a hint, and I'll work it out. Could I demand compensation? Happy thought! Are they insured?"

Martin laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

"Domesticities again. I'm off. I believe Katrine used to dock off sixpences... Well! you will let the Raynors know that we can have the house?"

"I'll ring up Ca.s.sandra, and ask her to drive round to talk over details. Whenever I'm sorry that I married you, Martin, I'm glad again because of Ca.s.sandra. I'm a real safety valve to Ca.s.sandra. The poor dear soul had no one to grumble to before I came. A sympathetic woman listener who is not above throwing in a curse on her own account is absolutely necessary when one lives alone with a man. Now look at you--"

Martin shut the door firmly behind him, and mounted the staircase two steps at a time.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

MRS MALLISON SHOCKED.

Mrs Mallison possessed an insatiable curiosity. Its area, it is true, covered but a few square miles of country, for everything that happened outside Chumley was powerless to stir her to interest. Kingdoms might rise, kingdoms might fall, science might evolve the most marvellous of inventions, beneath a cataclysm of nature, whole provinces might be wrecked--Mrs Mallison listened to the announcement as she sipped her morning coffee, and murmured an automatic: "Dear! Dear! Tut! Tut!"

the while she continued to ponder why Mrs Gainsby was hurrying to the early train wearing her best hat! Nothing that affected her neighbours was too trifling to engage her attention, and her mind, empty of so much, was a veritable storehouse for inconvenient numbers and dates.

When the doctor's chimney went on fire, she was able to declare that to her certain knowledge the sweep had not been on duty in that house since the third of March, the day of the blizzard, when Mrs Jones wanted him at the same time, because the weight of snow made her soot fall. The doctor's wife had plainly been guilty of the folly of trying to save two-and-six. She knew to an hour the age of every one of the younger generations, and laboriously corrected lapses of memory on the part of relations or parents. It was impossible for one of her acquaintances to resurrect so much as a buckle without her instant and cordial recognition. "And the paste buckle that you had on your purple silk all those years ago--how well it comes in! 'Keep a thing a dozen years, and it comes into fashion again,' as my old mother used to say."

She remembered the Vicar's sermons when he preached them after a lapse of years, and the good man chid himself because the fact brought annoyance, rather than gratification. Not for the world would he have put it into words, but deep in his heart lay the thought that it was useless to remember precepts, which were not put into practice.

Within her own home Mrs Mallison's curiosity reached its acutest pitch, so that it became sheer torture to her to be shut out from even the smallest happening. To overhear tags of conversation was insufferable, unless she were instantly supplied with the context. Thus to come into a room and hear a daughter say, "I always thought so," was to know no peace until she had been enlightened as to the context of the statement.

"What have you always thought, Teresa? Teresa, _what_ do you always think?"

"Nothing, mother."

"My dear! Nonsense. I heard you. As I opened the door I distinctly heard you say so. What were you talking about?"

"Nothing, mother. Nothing worth repeating, at any rate. You wouldn't be interested."

"My dear, I am always interested. How could I not be interested in my children's thoughts? Wait till you are a mother yourself... You can't possibly have forgotten in this short time. What do you always think?"

Then Teresa would set her lips and look obstinate, and Mary would come to the rescue.

"Teresa said that she always thought silk wore better than satin."

There was a ferocious patience in the tone in which Mary responded to these calls, it was the patience of a wild beast which must submit or starve, but behind the submission a discerning observer might have observed the teeth and the claw. But then no discerning observer troubled about Mary Mallison. She was one of the women on whom the world turns its back.

As might naturally be expected, the arrival of the post-bag furnished Mrs Mallison with some of the most thrilling moments of her day, and her interest in the correspondence of others was even keener than in her own. If the recipient was out at the time the letter was delivered, she examined postmark and writing to discover the writer, and then set to work to antic.i.p.ate the contents.

"Mrs Fenton writing to Mary... What can she have to say?... She's at home, from the postmark... They never correspond. Dear me! ... Most peculiar! Perhaps it's a subscription... Perhaps it's a bazaar...

Mary did once help her in a sale of work. Baskets, I remember--a stall of baskets. She wore a brown dress. She must certainly refuse. Too many calls at home. What does she want gadding over to Mayfield?...

That! Madam Rose's bill again for Teresa. The third time. Papa must speak to her. Gives the house a bad name. And... er... what's this? I _know_ the writing--do I know it? Is it a man or a woman? They all write alike nowadays. No crest. On such a good paper one would expect a crest. I must explain to Teresa that on no account can I allow her to correspond with men... Perhaps it is a schoolfellow..."

It was at the breakfast table one morning that the great news came, and it was imparted in a dull, legal-looking envelope addressed to the eldest daughter. Mrs Mallison's eye caught the lawyer's name on the flap of the envelope, and pounced on the significance.

"Ratcliffe and Darsie--Miss Brewster's lawyers. She's left you a legacy. I expected it, of course. Quite the right thing. Her own G.o.dchild, but I did not think we should hear so soon. Dear me! How much? She was not rich, so you can't expect a large sum... Twenty pounds perhaps, to buy a ring. Most kind. Possibly a hundred...

_Mary_! We are all waiting! Why don't you speak? Quite a long letter.

Read it out--read it out! Most inconsiderate to keep us waiting. How much is the legacy?"

"There is no legacy."

Mrs Mallison's breath forsook her, for it might be the quarter of a minute, then returned with renewed force and violence.

"_What_? Impossible! None? Then why write? A lawyer's letter costs six and eightpence. There must be a reason. Mary--I insist!"

Mary lifted her colourless eyes, and looked her mother in the face.

"Miss Brewster left me no legacy. She left me her princ.i.p.al.

Everything she had. I shall have five hundred a year."

"G.o.d bless my soul!" cried the Major loudly. Teresa flushed scarlet over face and neck, and stared with distended eyes.

"Oh, _Mary_! I'm glad! How ripping."

"Ripping, indeed. Is that the best word you can find for your sister's good fortune?" Mrs Mallison raised her eyes in ecstatic rejoicing to the electric light ornament which decorated the centre of the ceiling.

"Thank G.o.d that I have lived to see this day! I told papa when we chose her as G.o.dmother that it might be for the child's benefit. Not likely to marry, and a settled income. We thought of your welfare, Mary, in your long clothes and see the result. And I made a point of inviting her once a year. She was devoted to you as a child--you remember the pink corals? but of late with her ill-health we have fallen apart, and she seemed indifferent. Nothing, even on your birthdays. Well! Well!

what news! What thankfulness. All things work together. Five-- hundred--a--year!" Her large body expanded in beatific realisation.

"Five hundred--pounds. It's marvellous how much a few hundreds mean after necessities have been provided. As I have said a hundred times-- after a thousand, every hundred does the work of two... What about a brougham? We have always needed a second carriage. Papa and I are getting too old to drive in the open in winter, and Teresa goes out so much at night. It would be only the initial expense, for Johnson could do the work. He might need a new livery. And the little conservatory opening out of the drawing-room... That has been a long-felt want. So cheerful,--and you could look after the plants, dear. Such agreeable work! ... Five hundred,--about forty pounds a month, ten pounds a week, nearly thirty shillings a day. My dear, what riches! Quite a little millionaire... So apropos too, with a wedding in prospect. It would have been a strain out of a regular income, and one hesitates to break in on capital. Perhaps your rich sister will give you your trousseau, Teresa, who knows! Indeed I feel sure she will wish it. It doesn't seem suitable for one sister to have so much, and the other nothing.

You may not care to halve it, Mary, perhaps halving would be too much, but a hundred a year for Teresa. Oh, certainly a hundred. It is so nice for a young wife to have pin-money of her own... What about a bra.s.s tablet in the church? Quite a nice one for forty pounds, and she worshipped there in her youth... We must wear black, of course.

Handsome black, only suitable. We could run up to town. Ah, Mary!" her voice grew arch and playful, "if it were not spring, I would remind you of my ambition for sables! Nothing looks so well as handsome black and a sable set. Never mind! Never mind. Christmas is coming! Dear me, quite a Portunatus cap! Only to wish, and the thing appears... Papa, you must tell Mary what _you_ want next!"

Then Mary spoke, and if a peal of thunder had crashed through the sunlit room, the shock could not have been half so great.

"I shall not give," said Mary slowly, "one penny to anybody. I shall keep every farthing for myself."

Major Mallison gaped, Teresa screwed up her face and stared at her sister with a vivid kindling of interest. At last! At last! the dormant spirit had roused itself from its lethargy. Teresa felt a sympathy, an excitement, which had no element of self. She braced her knees under the table, and sent forth a telegraphic message of support.

"Go it, Mary!"

"_Mary_," gasped Mrs Mallison deeply, "have you gone mad?"

"Oh, no," said Mary calmly. "I may have been mad before. I've sometimes fancied I was, but I'm sane now, I'm more than sane... I'm free! I've been only a slave--a white slave."