"I thought I heard somebody. Did you hear her, then?"

"No, she rang for me afterwards. There's a little electric bell over my bed, from her room."

"And I heard that too," said Louis.

"Will you ask Dr. Yardley to come at once?"

"I'm off," said he. "What a good thing I wasn't in bed!"

"What a good thing you're here at all!" Rachel murmured, suddenly smiling.

He was waiting anxiously for her to leave the room again. But instead of leaving it she came to the fireplace and looked behind the screen.

He trembled.

"Oh! That kettle _is_ there! I thought it must be!" And picked it up.

Then, with the kettle in one hand, she went to a large cupboard let into the wall opposite the door, and opened it.

"You know Park Road, I suppose?" she turned to him.

"Yes, yes, I'm off!"

He was obliged to go, surrendering the room to her. As he descended the stairs he heard her come out of the room. She was following him downstairs. "Don't bang the door," she whispered. "I'll come and shut it after you."

The next moment he had undone the door and was down the front steps and in the solitude of Bycars Lane. He ran up the street, full of the one desire to accomplish his errand and be back again in the spare bedroom alone. The notes were utterly safe where they lay, and yet--astounding events might happen. Was it not a unique coincidence that on this very night and no other his aunt should fall ill, and that as a result Rachel should take him unawares at the worst moment of his dilemma? And further, could it be the actual fact, as he had been wildly guessing only a few minutes earlier, that his aunt had at last missed the notes? Could it be that it was this discovery which had upset her and brought on an attack?... An attack of what?

He swerved at the double into Park Road, which was a silent desert watched over by forlorn gaslamps. He saw the yellow gate. The yellow gate clanked after him. He searched in the deep shadow of the porch for the b.u.t.ton of the night bell, and had to strike a match in order to find it. He rang; waited and waited, rang again; waited; rang a third time, keeping his finger hard on the b.u.t.ton. Then arose and expired a flickering light in the hall of the house.

"That'll do! That'll do! You needn't wear the bell out." He could hear the irritated accents through the glazed front door.

A dim figure in a dressing-gown opened.

"Are you Dr. Yardley?" Louis gasped between rapid breaths.

"What is it?" The question was savage.

With his extraordinary instinctive amiability Louis smiled naturally and persuasively.

"You're wanted at Mrs. Maldon's, Bycars. Awfully sorry to disturb you."

"Oh!" said the dressing-gown in a changed, interested tone. "Mrs.

Maldon's! Right. I'll follow you."

"You'll come at once?" Louis urged.

"I shall come at once."

The door was curtly closed.

"So that's how you call a doctor in the middle of the night!" thought Louis, and ran off. He had scarcely deciphered the man's face.

The return, being chiefly downhill, was less exhausting. As he approached his aunt's house he saw that there was a light on the ground floor as well as in the front bedroom. The door opened as he swung the gate. The lobby gas had been lighted. Rachel was waiting for him. Her hair was tied up now. The girl looked wise, absurdly so.

It was as though she was engaged in the act of being equal to the terrible occasion.

"He's coming," said Louis.

"You've been frightfully quick!" said she, as if triumphantly. She appeared to glory in the crisis.

He pa.s.sed within as she held the door. He was frantic to rush upstairs to the fireplace in his room; but he had to seem deliberate.

"And what next?" he inquired.

"Well, nothing. It'll be best for you to sit in your bedroom for a bit. That's the only place where there's a fire--and it's rather chilly at this time of night."

"A fire?" he repeated, incredulous and yet awe-struck.

"I knew you wouldn't mind," said she. "It just happened there wasn't two drops of methylated spirits left in the house, and as there was a fire laid in your room, I put a match to it. I must have hot water ready, you see. And Mrs. Maldon only has one of those old-fashioned gas-stoves in her bedroom--"

"I see," he agreed.

They mounted the steps together. The grate in his room was a ma.s.s of pleasant flames, in the midst of which gleamed the bright kettle.

"How is she now?" He asked in a trance. And he felt as though it was another man in his own body who was asking.

"Oh! It's not very serious, I hope," said Rachel, kneeling to coax the fire with a short, wiry poker. "Only you never know. I'm just going in again.... She seems to lose all her vitality--that's what's apt to frighten you."

The girl looked wise--absurdly, deliciously wise. The spectacle of her engaged in the high act of being equal to the occasion was exquisite.

But Louis had no eye for it.

CHAPTER V

NEWS OF THE NIGHT

I

The next morning, Mrs. Tarns, the charwoman whom Rachel had expressly included in the dogma that all charwomen are alike, was cleaning the entranceway to Mrs. Maldon's house. She had washed and stoned the steep, uneven flight of steps leading up to the front door, and the flat s.p.a.ce between them and the gate; and now, before finishing the step down to the footpath, she was wiping the grimy ledges of the green iron gate itself.

Mrs. Tarns was a woman of nearly sixty, stout and--in appearance--untidy and dirty. The wet wind played with grey wisps of her hair, and with her coa.r.s.e brown ap.r.o.n, beneath which her skirt was pinned up. Human eye so seldom saw her without a coa.r.s.e brown ap.r.o.n that, ap.r.o.nless, she would have almost seemed (like Eve) to be unattired. It and a pail were the insignia of her vocation.

She was accomplished and conscientious; she could be trusted; despite appearances, her habits were cleanly. She was also a woman of immense experience. In addition to being one of the finest exponents of the art of step-stoning and general housework that the Five Towns could show, she had numerous other talents. She was thoroughly accustomed to the supreme spectacles of birth and death, and could a.s.sist thereat with dignity and skill. She could turn away the wrath of rent-collectors, rate-collectors, school-inspectors, and magistrates.

She was an adept in enticing an inebriated husband to leave a public-house. She could feed four children for a day on sevenpence, and rise calmly to her feet after having been knocked down by one stroke of a fist. She could go without food, sleep, and love, and yet thrive. She could give when she had nothing, and keep her heart sweet amid every contagion. Lastly, she could coax extra sixpences out of a p.a.w.nbroker. She had never had a holiday, and almost never failed in her duty. Her one social fault was a tendency to talk at great length about babies, corpses, and the qualities of rival soaps. All her children were married. Her husband had gone in a box to a justice whose anger Mrs. Tam's simple tongue might not soothe. She lived alone. Six half-days a week she worked about the house of Mrs.

Maldon from eight to one o'clock, for a shilling per half-day and her breakfast. But if she chose to stay for it she could have dinner--and a good one--on condition that she washed up afterwards. She often stayed. After over forty years of incessant and manifold expert labour she was happy and content in this rich reward.

A long automobile came slipping with noiseless stealth down the hill, and halted opposite the gate, in silence, for the engine had been stopped higher up. Mrs. Tams, intimidated by the august phenomenon, ceased to rub, and in alarm watched the great Thomas Batchgrew struggle unsuccessfully with the handle of the door that imprisoned him. Mrs. Tams was a born serf, and her nature was such that she wanted to apologize to Thomas Batchgrew for the naughtiness of the door. For her there was something monstrous in a personage like Thomas Batchgrew being balked in a desire, even for a moment, by a perverse door-catch. Not that she really respected Thomas Batchgrew! She did not, but he was a member of the sacred governing cla.s.s. The chauffeur--not John's Ernest, but a professional--flashed round the front of the car and opened the door with obsequious haste. For Thomas Batchgrew had to be appeased. Already a delay of twenty minutes--due to a defective tire and to the inexcusable absence of the spanner with which the spare wheel was manipulated--had aroused his just anger.