Hearty's curfew.

Mrs. Bindle rose and Mr. Hearty accompanied her to the street-door.

Alice was in the pa.s.sage, apparently on her way to bed.

"Good night, Mr. Hearty," said Mrs. Bindle.

"Good night, Elizabeth," and Mr. Hearty closed the door behind her.

She paused to open her umbrella, it was spotting with rain and Mrs.

Bindle was careful of her clothes.

Suddenly through the open transom she heard a surprised scream and the sound of scuffling.

"You beast," cried a feminine voice. "I'll tell missis, that I will."

And Mrs. Bindle turned and ran full-tilt into a policeman.

CHAPTER VI

MRS. BINDLE DEFENDS HER HOME

I

"Gospel bells, gospel bells, hm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm."

Mrs. Bindle accompanied her favourite hymn with bangs from the flat-iron as she strove to coax one of Bindle's shirts to smoothness.

She invariably worked to the tune of "Gospel Bells." Of the hymn itself she possessed two words, "gospel" and "bells"; but the tune was hers to the most insignificant semi-quaver, and an unlimited supply of "hms" did the rest.

Turning the shirt at the word "gospel," she brought the iron down full in the middle of what, judging from the power she put into the stroke, might have been Bindle's back.

"Bells," she sang with emphasis, and proceeded to trail off into the "hms."

With Mrs. Bindle, singing reflected her mood. When indignation or anger gripped her soul, "Gospel Bells" was rendered with a vigour that penetrated to Mrs. Grimps and Mrs. Sawney.

Then, as her mood mellowed, so would the tune soften, almost dying away until, possibly, a stray thought of Bindle brought about a crescendo pa.s.sage, capable of being developed into full forte, bra.s.s-wind and tympani.

After one of these full-throated pa.s.sages, the thought of her brother-in-law, Mr. Hearty, mellowed the stream of melody pa.s.sing through her thin, slightly parted lips.

It had reached an almost caressing softness, when a knock at the door caused her to stop suddenly. A moment later, the iron was banged upon the rest, and she glanced down at her ap.r.o.n. To use her own phrase, she was the "pink of neatness."

Walking across the kitchen and along the short pa.s.sage, she threw open the door with the air of one who was prepared to defend the sacred domestic hearth against all comers.

"I've come about the 'ouse, mum." A mild-looking little man with a dirty collar and a deprecating manner stood before her, sucking nervously at a hollow tooth, the squeak of which his friends had learned to live down.

"The house!" repeated Mrs. Bindle aggressively. "What house?"

"This 'ouse wot's to let, mum." The little man struggled to extract a newspaper from his pocket. "I'd like to take it," he added.

"Oh! you would, would you?" Mrs. Bindle eyed him with disfavour. "Well, it's not to let," and with that she banged the door in the little man's face, just as his pocket gave up the struggle and released a soiled copy of _The Fulham Signal_.

He started back, the paper falling upon the tiled-path that led from the gate to the front-door.

For nearly a minute he stood staring at the door, as if not quite realising what had happened. Then, picking up the paper, he gazed at it with a puzzled expression, turned to a marked pa.s.sage under the heading "Houses to Let," and read:

HOUSE TO LET.--Four-roomed house to let in Fulham. Easy access to bus, tram and train. Rent 15/6 a week. Immediate possession. Apply to occupier, 7 Fenton Street, Fulham, S.W.

He looked at the number on the door, back again at the paper, then once more at the number. Apparently satisfied that there was no mistake, he knocked again, a feeble, half-hearted knock that testified to the tremors within him.

He had been graded C3; but he possessed a wife who was, physically, A1.

It was the knowledge that she would demand an explanation if he failed to secure the house, after which she had sent him hot-foot, that inspired him with sufficient courage to make a second attempt to interview Mrs. Bindle.

With inward tremblings, he waited for the door to open again. As he stood, hoping against hope in his coward heart that the summons had not been heard, a big, heavily-hipped woman, in a dirty black-and-white foulard blouse, a draggled green skirt, and shapeless stays, slid through the gate and waddled up the path.

"So you got 'ere fust," she gasped, her flushed face showing that she had been hurrying. "Well, well, it can't be 'elped, I suppose, fust come fust served. I always says it and always shall."

The little man had swung round, and now stood blinking up at the new arrival, who entirely blocked his line of retreat.

"Knocked, 'ave you?" she enquired, fanning her flushed face with a folded newspaper.

He nodded; but his gaze was directed over her heaving shoulder at a man and woman, with a little girl between them, approaching from the opposite side of the way.

As the new arrivals entered the garden, the stout woman explained that "this gentleman" had already knocked.

"P'raps they ain't up yet," suggested the man with the little girl.

"Well, they ought to be," said the stout woman with conviction.

Another woman now joined the throng, her turned-up sleeves and the man's tweed cap on her head, kept in place by a long, amber-headed hat-pin, testifying to the limited time she had bestowed upon her toilette.

"Is it took?" she demanded of the woman with the little girl.

"Dunno!" was the reply. "She ain't opened the door yet."

"She opened it once," said the little man.

"Wot she say?"

"Said it wasn't to let, then banged it to in my face," was the injured response.

"'Ere, let me 'ave a try," cried the woman in the foulard blouse, as she grasped the knocker and proceeded to awaken the echoes of Fenton Street.

Corple Street at one end and Bransdon Road at the other, were included in the sound-waves that emanated from the Bindles' knocker.

Several neighbours, including Mrs. Grimps and Mrs. Sawney, came to their doors and gazed at the collection of people that now entirely blocked the pathway of No. 7. Three other women had joined the throng, together with a rag-and-bone man in dilapidated clothing, accompanied by a donkey and cart.