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(U.S. title: Denry the audacious)
(Originally published in The Times weekly
(1910-feb-04 to apr-22))
CHAPTER VIII
Raising a Wigwam
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I. A STILL young man — his age was thirty — with a short, strong beard peeping out over the fur collar of a vast overcoat, emerged from a cab at the snowy corner of St. Luke's Square and Brougham Street, and paid the cabman with a gesture that indicated both wealth and the habit of command. And the cabman, who had driven him over from Hanbridge through the winter night responded accordingly. Few people take cabs in the Five Towns. There are few cabs to take. If you are going to a party you may order one in advance by telephone, reconciling yourself also in, advance to the expense, but to hail a cab in the street without forethought and jump into it as carelessly as you would jump into a tram — this is by very few done. The young man with the beard did it frequently, which proved that he was fundamentally ducal. He was encumbered with a large and rather heavy parcel as he walked down Brougham Street, and, moreover, the footpath of Brougham Street was exceedingly dirty. And yet no one acquainted with the circumstances of his life would have asked why he had dismissed the cab before arriving at his destination, because every one knew. The reason was that this ducal person, with the gestures of command, dared not drive up to his mother's door in a cab oftener than about once a month. He opened that door with a latch-key (a modern lock was almost the only innovation that he had succeeded in fixing on his mother), and stumbled with his unwieldy parcel into the exceedingly narrow lobby. "Is that you, Denry?" called a feeble voice from the parlour. "Yes," said he, and went into the parlour, hat, fur coat, parcel, and all. Mrs. Machin, in a shawl and an antimacassar over the shawl, sat close to the fire and leaning towards it. She looked cold and ill. Although the parlour was very tiny and the fire comparatively large, the structure of the grate made it impossible that the room should be warm, as all the heat went up the chimney. If Mrs. Machin had sat on the roof and put her hands over the top of the chimney, she would have been much warmer than at the grate. "You aren't in bed?" Denry queried. "Can't you see?" said his mother. And, indeed, to ask a woman who was obviously sitting up in a chair whether she was in bed, did seem somewhat absurd. She added, less sarcastically: "I was expecting ye every minute. Where have ye had your tea?" "Oh!" he said lightly, "in Hanbridge." An untruth! He had not had his tea anywhere. But he had dined richly at the new Hôtel Métropole, Hanbridge. "What have ye got there?" asked his mother. "A present for you," said Denry. "It's your birthday tomorrow." "I don't know as I want reminding of that," murmured Mrs. Machin. But when he had undone the parcel and held up the contents before her, she exclaimed: "Bless us!" The staggered tone was an admission that for once in a way he had impressed her. It was a magnificent sealskin mantle, longer than sealskin mantles usually are. It was one of those articles the owner of which can say: "Nobody can have a better than this — I don't care who she is." It was worth in monetary value all the plain, shabby clothes on Mrs. Machin's back, and all her very ordinary best clothes upstairs, and all the furniture in the entire house, and perhaps all Denry's dandiacal wardrobe too, except his fur coat. If the entire contents of the cottage, with the aforesaid exception, had been put up to auction, they would not have realised enough to pay for that sealskin mantle. Had it been anything but a sealskin mantle, and equally costly, Mrs. Machin would have upbraided. But a sealskin mantle is not "showy". It "goes with" any and every dress and bonnet. And the most respectable, the most conservative, the most austere woman may find legitimate pleasure in wearing it. A sealskin mantle is the sole luxurious ostentation that a woman of Mrs. Machin's temperament — and there are many such in the Five Towns and elsewhere — will conscientiously permit herself. "Try it on," said Denry. She rose weakly and tried it on. It fitted as well as a sealskin mantle can fit. "My word — it's warm!" she said. This was her sole comment. "Keep it on," said Denry. His mother's glance withered the suggestion. "Where are you going?" he asked, as she left the room. "To put it away," said she. "I must get some moth-powder tomorrow." He protested with inarticulate noises, removed his own furs, which he threw down on to the old worn-out sofa, and drew a windsor chair up to the fire. After a while his mother returned, and sat down in her rocking-chair, and began to shiver again under the shawl and the antimacassar. The lamp on the table lighted up the left side of her face and the right side of his. "Look here, mother," said he, "you must have a doctor." "I shall have no doctor." "You've got influenza, and it's a very tricky business — influenza is; you never know where you are with it." "Ye can call it influenza if ye like," said Mrs. Machin. "There was no influenza in my young days. We called a cold a cold." "Well," said Denry, "you aren't well, are you?" "I never said I was," she answered grimly. "No," said Denry, with the triumphant ring of one who is about to devastate an enemy. "And you never will be in this rotten old cottage." "This was reckoned a very good class of house when your father and I came into it. And it's always been kept in repair. It was good enough for your father, and it's good enough for me. I don't see myself flitting. But some folks have gotten so grand. As for health, old Reuben next door is ninety-one. How many people over ninety are there in those gimcrack houses up by the Park, I should like to know?" Denry could argue with any one save his mother. Always, when he was about to reduce her to impotence, she fell on him thus and rolled him in the dust. Still, he began again. "Do we pay four-and-sixpence a week for this cottage, or don't we?" he demanded. "And always have done," said Mrs. Machin. "I should like to see the landlord put it up," she added, formidably, as if to say: "I'd landlord him, if he tried to put my rent up!" "Well," said Denry, "here we are living in a four-and-six-a-week cottage, and do you know how much I'm making? I'm making two thousand pounds a year. That's what I'm making." A second wilful deception of his mother! As Managing Director of the Five Towns Universal Thrift Club, as proprietor of the majority of its shares, as its absolute autocrat, he was making very nearly four thousand a year. Why could he not as easily have said four as two to his mother? The simple answer is that he was afraid to say four. It was as if he ought to blush before his mother for being so plutocratic, his mother who had passed most of her life in hard toil to gain a few shillings a week. Four thousand seemed so fantastic! And in fact the Thrift Club, which he had invented in a moment, had arrived at a prodigious success, with its central offices in Hanbridge and its branch offices in the other four towns, and its scores of clerks and collectors presided over by Mr. Penkethman. It had met with opposition. The mighty said that Denry was making an unholy fortune under the guise of philanthropy. And to be on the safe side the Countess of Chell had resigned her official patronage of the club and given her shares to the Pirehill Infirmary, which had accepted the high dividends on them without the least protest. As for Denry, he said that he had never set out to be a philanthropist nor posed as one, and that his unique intention was to grow rich by supplying a want, like the rest of them, and that anyhow there was no compulsion to belong to his Thrift Club. Then letters in his defence from representatives of the thousands and thousands of members of the club rained into the columns of the Signal, and Denry was the most discussed personage in the county. It was stated that such thrift clubs, under various names, existed in several large towns in Yorkshire and Lancashire. This disclosure rehabilitated Denry completely in general esteem, for whatever obtains in Yorkshire and Lancashire must be right for Staffordshire; but it, rather dashed Denry, who was obliged to admit to himself that after all he had not invented the Thrift Club. Finally the hundreds of tradesmen who had bound themselves to allow a discount of twopence in the shilling to the club (sole source of the club's dividends) had endeavoured to revolt. Denry effectually cowed them by threatening to establish coöperative stores — there was not a single coöperative store in the Five Towns. They knew he would have the wild audacity to do it. Thenceforward the progress of the
Thrift Club had been unruffled. Denry waxed amazingly
in importance. His mule died. He dared not buy a
proper horse and dogcart, because he dared not bring
such an equipage to the front door of his mother's
four-and-sixpenny cottage. So he had taken to cabs. In
all exterior magnificence and lavishness he equalled
even the great Harold Etches, of whom he had once been
afraid; and like Etches he became a famous
habitué of Llandudno pier. But whereas
*Etches lived with his wife in a superb house at
Bleakridge, Denry lived with his mother in a
ridiculous cottage in ridiculous Brougham Street. He
had a regiment of acquaintances and he accepted a lot
of hospitality, but he could not return it at Brougham
Street. His greatness fizzled into nothing in Brougham
Street. It stopped short and sharp at the corner of
St. Luke's Square, where he left his cabs. He could do
nothing with his mother. If she was not still going
out as a sempstress the reason was, not that she was
not ready to go out, but that her old clients had
ceased to send for her. And could they be blamed for
not employing at three shillings a day the mother of a
young man who wallowed in thousands sterling? Denry
had essayed over and over again to instil reason into
his mother, and he had invariably failed. She was In fact, they were a remarkable pair.
On this eve of her birthday he had
meant to cajole her into some step, to win her by an
appeal, basing his argument on her indisposition. But
he was being beaten off once more. The truth was that
a cajoling, caressing tone could not be long employed
towards Mrs. Machin. She was not persuasive herself,
nor favourable to persuasiveness in others.
"Well," said she, "if you're making
two thousand a year, ye can spend it or save it, as ye
like, though ye'd better save it. Ye never know what
may happen in these days. There was a man dropped
half-a-crown down a grid opposite only the day before
yesterday."
Denry laughed.
"Ay!" she said; "ye can laugh."
"There's no doubt about one thing," he
said, "you ought to be in bed. You ought to stay in
bed for two or three days at least."
"Yes," she said. "And who's going to
look after the house while I'm moping between
blankets?"
"You can have Rose Chudd in," he said.
"No," said she. "I'm not going to have
any woman rummaging about my house, and thee in bed."
"You know perfectly well she's been
practically starving since her husband died, and as
she's going out charing, why
can't you have her and put a bit of bread into her
mouth?"
"Because I won't have her! Neither her
nor any one. There's naught to prevent you giving her
some o' your two thousand a year if you've a mind. But
I see no reason for my house being turned upside down
by her, even if I have got a bit of a cold."
"You're an unreasonable old woman,"
said Denry.
"Happen I am!" said she. "There can't
be two wise ones in a family. But I'm not going to
give up this cottage, and as long as I am standing on
my feet I'm not going to pay any one for doing what I
can do better myself." A pause. "And so you needn't
think it! You can't come round me with a fur mantle."
She retired to rest. On the following morning he was
very glum.
"You needn't be so glum," she said.
But she was rather pleased at his
glumness. For in him glumness was a sign that he
recognised defeat.
II.
The next episode between them was
curiously brief. Denry had influenza. He said that
naturally he had caught hers.
He went to bed and stayed there. She
nursed him all day, and grew angry in a vain attempt
to force him to eat. Towards night he tossed furiously
on the little bed in the little bedroom, complaining
of fearful headaches. She remained by his side most of
the night. In the morning he was easier. Neither of
them mentioned the word "doctor". She spent the day
largely on the stairs. Once more towards night he grew
worse, and she remained most of the second night by
his side.
In the sinister winter dawn Denry
murmured in a feeble tone:
"Mother, you'd better send for him."
"Doctor?" she said. And secretly she
thought that she had better send for the
doctor, and that there must be after all some
difference between influenza and a cold.
"No," said Denry; "send for young
Lawton."
"Young Lawton!" she exclaimed. "What
do you want young Lawton to come here for?"
"I haven't made my will," Denry
answered.
"Pooh!" she retorted.
Nevertheless she was the least bit in
the world frightened. And she sent for Dr. Stirling,
the aged Harrop's Scotch partner.
Dr. Stirling, who was full-bodied and
left little space for anybody else in the tiny, shabby
bedroom of the man with four thousand a year, gazed at
Mrs. Machin, and he gazed also at Denry.
"Ye must go to bed this minute," said
he.
"But he's in bed," cried Mrs.
Machin.
"I mean yerself," said Dr. Stirling.
She was very nearly at the end of her
resources. And the proof was that she had no strength
left to fight Dr. Stirling. She did go to bed. And
shortly afterwards Denry got up. And a little later,
Rose Chudd, that prim and efficient young widow from
lower down the street, came into the house and
controlled it as if it had been her own. Mrs. Machin,
whose constitution was hardy, arose in about a week,
cured, and duly dismissed Rose with wages and without
thanks. But Rose had been. Like the
Signal's burglars, she had "effected an
entrance." And the house had not been turned upside
down. Mrs. Machin, though she tried, could not find
fault with the result of Rose's uncontrolled
activities.
III.
One morning — and not very long afterwards, in
such wise did Fate seem to favour the young at the
expense of the old — Mrs. Machin received two
letters which alarmed and disgusted her. One was from
her landlord, announcing that he had sold the house in
which she lived to a Mr. Wilbraham of London, and that
in future she must pay the rent to the said Mr.
Wilbraham or his legal representatives. The other was
from a firm of London solicitors announcing that their
client, Mr. Wilbraham, had bought the house, and that
the rent must be paid to their agent, whom they would
name later.
Mrs. Machin gave vent to her emotion
in her customary manner: "Bless us!"
And she showed the impudent letters to
Denry.
"Oh!" said Denry. "So he has bought
them, has he? I heard he was going to."
"Them?" exclaimed Mrs. Machin. "What
else has he bought?"
"I expect he's bought — all the
five — this and the four below, as far as
Downes's. I expect you'll find that the other four
have had notices just like these. You know all this
row used to belong to the Wilbrahams. You surely must
remember that, mother?"
"Is he one of the Wilbrahams of
Hillport, then?"
"Yes, of course he is."
"I thought the last of 'em was Cecil,
and when he'd beggared himself here he went to
Australia and died of drink. That's what I always
heard. We always used to say as there wasn't a
Wilbraham left."
"He did go to Australia, but he didn't
die of drink. He disappeared, and when he'd made a
fortune he turned up again in Sydney, so it seems. I
heard he's thinking of coming back here to settle.
Anyhow, he's buying up a lot of the Wilbraham
property. I should have thought you'd have heard of
it. Why, lots of people have been talking about it."
"Well," said Mrs. Machin, "I don't
like it."
She objected to a law which permitted
a landlord to sell a house over the head of a tenant
who had occupied it for more than thirty years. In the
course of the morning she discovered that Denry was
right — the other tenants had received notices
exactly similar to hers.
Two days later Denry arrived home for
tea with a most surprising article of news. Mr. Cecil
Wilbraham had been down to Bursley from London, and
had visited him, Denry. Mr. Cecil Wilbraham's local
information was evidently quite out of date, for he
had imagined Denry to be a rent-collector and estate
agent, whereas the fact was that Denry had abandoned
this minor vocation years ago. His desire had been
that Denry should collect his rents and watch over his
growing interests in the district.
"So what did you tell him?" asked Mrs.
Machin.
"I told him I'd do it," said Denry.
"Why?"
"I thought it might be safer for
you," said Denry, with a certain emphasis.
"And, besides, it looked as if it might be a bit of a
lark. He's a very peculiar chap."
"Peculiar?"
"For one thing, he's got the largest
moustaches of any man I ever saw. And there's
something up with his left eye. And then I think he's
a bit mad."
"Mad?"
"Well, touched. He's got a notion
about building a funny sort of a house for himself on
a plot of land at Bleakridge. It appears he's fond of
living alone, and he's collected all kinds of dodges
for doing without servants and still being
comfortable."
"Ay! But he's right there!" breathed
Mrs. Machin in deep sympathy. As she said about once a
week, "She never could abide the idea of servants."
"He's not married, then?" she added
"He told me he'd been a widower three
times, but he'd never had any children," said Denry.
"Bless us!" murmured Mrs. Machin.
Denry was the one person in the town
who enjoyed the acquaintance and the confidence of the
thrice-widowed stranger with long moustaches. He had
descended without notice on Bursley, seen Denry (at
the branch office of the Thrift Club), and then
departed. It was understood that later he would
permanently settle in the district. Then the wonderful
house began to rise on the plot of land at Bleakridge.
Denry had general charge of it, but always subject to
erratic and autocratic instructions from London.
Thanks to Denry, who, since the historic episode at
Llandudno, had remained very friendly with the
Cotterill family, Mr. Cotterill had the job of
building the house; the plans came from London. And
though Mr. Cecil Wilbraham proved to be exceedingly
watchful against any form of imposition, the job was a
remunerative one for Mr. Cotterill, who talked a great
deal about the originality of the residence. The town
judged of the wealth and importance of Mr. Cecil
Wilbraham by the fact that a person so wealthy and
important as Denry should be content to act as his
agent. But then the Wilbrahams had been magnates in
the Bursley region for generations, up till the final
Wilbraham smash in the late seventies. The town
hungered to see those huge moustaches and that
peculiar eye. In addition to Denry, only one person
had seen the madman, and that person was Nellie
Cotterill, who had been viewing the half-built house
with Denry one Sunday morning when the madman had most
astonishingly arrived upon the scene, and after a few
minutes vanished. The building of the house
strengthened greatly the friendship between Denry and
the Cotterills. Yet Denry neither liked Mr. Cotterill
nor trusted him.
The next incident in these happenings
was that Mrs. Machin received notice from the London
firm to quit her four-and-sixpence-a-week cottage. It
seemed to her that not merely Brougham Street, but the
world, was coming to an end. She was very angry with
Denry for not protecting her more successfully. He was
Mr. Wilbraham's agent, he collected the rent, and it
was his duty to guard his mother from unpleasantness.
She observed, however, that he was remarkably
disturbed by the notice, and he assured her that Mr.
Wilbraham had not consulted him in the matter at all.
He wrote a letter to London, which she signed,
demanding the reason of this absurd notice flung at an
ancient and perfect tenant. The reply was that Mr.
Wilbraham intended to pull the houses down, beginning
with Mrs. Machin's, and rebuild.
"Pooh!" said Denry. "Don't you worry
your head, mother; I shall arrange it. He'll be down
here soon to see his new house it's practically
finished, and the furniture is coming in — and
I'll just talk to him."
But Mr. Wilbraham did not come, the
explanation doubtless being that he was mad. On the
other hand, fresh notices came with amazing frequency.
Mrs. Machin just handed them over to Denry. And then
Denry received a telegram to say that Mr. Wilbraham
would be at his new house that night and wished to see
Denry there. Unfortunately, on the same day, by the
afternoon post, while Denry was at his offices, there
arrived a sort of supreme and ultimate notice from
London to Mrs. Machin, and it was on blue paper. It
stated, baldly, that as Mrs. Machin had failed to
comply with all the previous notices, had, indeed,
ignored them, she and her goods would now be ejected
into the street, according to the law. It gave her
twenty-four hours to flit. Never had a respectable
dame been so insulted as Mrs. Machin was insulted by
that notice. The prospect of camping out in Brougham
Street confronted her. When Denry reached home that
evening, Mrs. Machin, as the phrase is, "gave it him."
Denry admitted frankly that he was
nonplussed, staggered, and outraged. But the thing was
simply another proof of Mr. Wilbraham's madness. After
tea he decided that his mother must put on her best
clothes, and go up with him to see Mr. Wilbraham and
firmly expostulate — in fact, they would arrange
the situation between them; and if Mr. Wilbraham was
obstinate they would defy Mr. Wilbraham. Denry
explained to his mother that an Englishwoman's cottage
was her castle, that a landlord's minions had no right
to force an entrance, and that the one thing that Mr.
Wilbraham could do was to begin unbuilding the cottage
from the top outside . . . And he would like to see
Mr. Wilbraham try it on!
So the sealskin mantle (for it was
spring again) went up with, Denry to Bleakridge.
IV.
The moon shone in the chill night. The house stood
back from Trafalgar Road in the moonlight — a
squarish block of a building.
"Oh!" said Mrs. Machin, "it isn't so
large."
"No! He didn't want it large. He only
wanted it large enough," said Denry, and pushed a
button to the right of the front door. There was no
reply, though they heard the ringing of the bell
inside. They waited. Mrs. Machin was very nervous, but
thanks to her sealskin mantle she was not cold.
"This is a funny doorstep," she
remarked, to kill time.
"It's of marble," said Denry.
"What's that for?" asked his mother.
"So much easier to keep clean," said
Denry.
"Well," said Mrs. Machin, "it's pretty
dirty now, anyway."
It was.
"Quite simple to clean," said Denry,
bending down. "You just turn this tap at the side. You
see, it's so arranged that it sends a flat jet along
the step. Stand off a second."
He turned the tap, and the step was
washed pure in a moment.
"How is it that that water steams?"
Mrs. Machin demanded.
"Because it's hot," said Denry. "Did
you ever know water steam for any other reason?"
"Hot water outside?"
"Just as easy to have hot water
outside as inside, isn't it?" said Denry.
"Well, I never!" exclaimed Mrs.
Machin. She was impressed.
"That's how everything's dodged up in
this house," said Denry. He shut off the water.
And he rang once again. No answer! No
illumination within the abode!
"I'll tell you what I shall do," said
Denry at length. "I shall let myself in. I've got a
key of the back door."
"Are you sure it's all right?"
"I don't care if it isn't all right,"
said Denry, defiantly. "He asked me to be up here, and
he ought to be here to meet me. I'm not going to stand
any nonsense from anybody."
In they went, having skirted round the
walls of the house.
Denry closed the door, pushed a
switch, and the electric light shone. Electric light
was then quite a novelty in Bursley. Mrs. Machin had
never seen it in action. She had to admit that it was
less complicated than oil-lamps. In the kitchen the
electric light blazed upon walls tiled in grey and a
floor tiled in black and white. There was a gas range
and a marble slopstone with two taps. The woodwork was
dark. Earthenware saucepans stood on a shelf. The
cupboards were full of gear chiefly in earthenware.
Denry began to exhibit to his mother a tank provided
with ledges and shelves and grooves, in which he said
that everything except knives could be washed and
dried automatically.
"Hadn't you better go and find your
Mr. Wilbraham?" she interrupted.
"So I had," said Denry; "I was
forgetting him."
She heard him wandering over the house
and calling in divers tones upon Mr. Wilbraham. But
she heard no other voice. Meanwhile she examined the
kitchen in detail, appreciating some of its devices
and failing to comprehend others.
"I expect he's missed the train," said
Denry, coming back. "Anyhow, he isn't here. I may as
well show you the rest of the house now."
He led her into the hall, which was
radiantly lighted.
"It's quite warm here," said Mrs.
Machin.
"The whole house is heated by steam,"
said Denry. "No fireplaces."
"No fireplaces!"
"No! No fireplaces. No grates to
polish, ashes to carry down coals to carry up,
mantelpieces to dust, fire-irons to clean, fenders to
polish, chimneys to sweep."
"And suppose he wants a bit of fire
all of a sudden in summer?"
"Gas stove in every room for
emergencies," said Denry.
She glanced into a room.
"But," she cried, "it's all complete,
ready! And as warm as toast."
"Yes," said Denry, "he gave orders. I
can't think why on earth he isn't here."
At that moment an electric bell rang
loud and sharp, and Mrs. Machin jumped.
"There he is!" said Denry, moving to
the door.
"Bless us! What will he think of us
being here like?" Mrs. Machin mumbled.
"Pooh!" said Denry, carelessly. And he
opened the door.
V.
Three persons stood on the
newly-washed marble step — Mr. and Mrs. Cotterill
and their daughter.
"Oh! Come in! Come in! Make yourselves
quite at home. That's what we're doing," said
Denry in blithe greeting and added, "I suppose he's
invited you too?"
And it appeared that Mr. Cecil
Wilbraham had indeed invited them too. He had written
from London saying that he would be glad if Mr. and
Mrs. Cotterill would "drop in" on this particular
evening. Further, he had mentioned that, as he had
already had the pleasure of meeting Miss Cotterill,
perhaps she would accompany her parents.
"Well, he isn't here," said Denry,
shaking hands. "He must have missed his train or
something. He can't possibly be here now till
tomorrow. But the house seems to be all ready for him
. . ."
"Yes, my word! And how's yourself,
Mrs. Cotterill?" put in Mrs. Machin.
"So we may as well look over it in its
finished state. I suppose that's what he asked us up
for," Denry concluded.
Mrs. Machin explained quickly and
nervously that she had not been comprised in any
invitation; that her errand was pure business.
"Come on upstairs," Denry called out,
turning switches and adding radiance to radiance.
"Denry!" his mother protested, "I'm
sure I don't know what Mr. and Mrs. Cotterill will
think of you! You carry on as if you owned everything
in the place. I wonder at you!"
"Well," said Denry, "if anybody in
this town is the owner's agent I am. And Mr. Cotterill
has built the blessed house. If Wilbraham wanted to
keep his old shanty to himself, he shouldn't send out
invitations. It's simple enough not to send out
invitations. Now, Nellie!"
He was hanging over the balustrade at
the curve of the stairs.
The familiar ease with which he said,
"Now, Nellie," and especially the spontaneity of
Nellie's instant response, put new thoughts into the
mind of Mrs. Machin. But she neither pricked up her
ears, nor started back, nor accomplished any of the
acrobatic feats which an ordinary mother of a wealthy
son would have performed under similar circumstances.
Her ears did not even tremble. And she just said:
"I like this balustrade knob being of
black china."
"Every knob in the house is of black
china," said Denry. "Never shows dirt. But if you
should take it into your head to clean it, you can do
it with a damp cloth in a second."
Nellie now stood beside him. Nellie
had grown up since the Llandudno episode. She did not
blush at a glance. When spoken to suddenly she could
answer without torture to herself. She could, in fact,
maintain a conversation without breaking down for a
much longer time than a few years ago, she had been
able to skip without breaking down. She no longer
imagined that all the people in the street were
staring at her, anxious to find faults in her
appearance. She had temporarily ruined the lives of
several amiable and fairly innocent young men by
refusing to marry them. (For she was pretty, and her
father cut a figure in the town, though her Mother did
not.) And yet, despite the immense accumulation of her
experiences and the weight of her varied knowledge of
human nature, there was something very girlish and
timidly roguish about her as she stood on the stairs
near Denry, waiting for the elder generation to
follow. The old, Nellie still lived in her.
The party passed to the first floor.
And the first floor exceeded the
ground floor in marvels. In each bedroom two aluminium
taps poured hot and cold water respectively into a
marble basin, and below the marble basin was a sink.
No porterage of water anywhere in the house. The water
came to you, and every room consumed its own slops.
The bedsteads were of black enamelled iron and very
light. The floors were covered with linoleum, with a
few rugs that could be shaken with one hand. The walls
were painted with grey enamel. Mrs. Cotterill, with
her all-seeing eye, observed a detail that Mrs. Machin
had massed. There were no sharp corners anywhere.
Every corner, every angle between wall and floor or
wall and wall, was rounded, to facilitate cleaning."
And every wall, floor, ceiling, and fixture could be
washed, and all the furniture was enamelled and could
be wiped with a cloth in a moment instead of having to
be polished with three cloths and many odours in a day
and a half. The bathroom was absolutely waterproof;
you could spray it with a hose, and by means of a gas
apparatus you could produce an endless supply of hot
water independent of the general supply. Denry was
apparently familiar with each detail of Mr.
Wilbraham's manifold contrivances, and he explained
them with an enormous gusto.
"Bless us!" said Mrs. Machin.
"Bless us!" said Mrs. Cotterill
(doubtless the force of example).
They descended to the dining-room,
where a supper-table had been laid by order of the
invisible Mr. Cecil Wilbraham. And there the ladies
lauded Mr. Wilbraham's wisdom in eschewing silver.
Everything of the table service that could be of
earthenware was of earthenware. The forks and spoons
were electroplate.
"Why," Mrs. Cotterill said, "I could
run this house without a servant and have myself tidy
by ten o'clock in a morning."
And Mrs. Machin nodded.
"And then when you want a regular
turn-out, as you call it," said Denry, "there's the
vacuum-cleaner."
The vacuum-cleaner was at that period
the last word of civilisation, and the first agency
for it was being set up in Bursley. Denry explained
the vacuum-cleaner to the housewives, who had got no
further than a Ewbank. And they again called down
blessings on themselves.
"What price this supper?" Denry
exclaimed. "We ought to eat it. I'm sure he'd like us
to eat it. Do sit down, all of you. I'll take the
consequences."
Mrs. Machin hesitated even more than
the other ladies.
"It's really very strange, him not
being here." She shook her head.
"Don't I tell you he's quite mad,"
said Denry.
"I shouldn't think he was so mad as
all that," said Mrs. Machin, dryly. "This is the most
sensible kind of a house I've ever seen."
"Oh! Is it?" Denry answered. "Great
Scott! I never noticed those three bottles of wine on
the sideboard."
At length he succeeded in seating them
at the table. Thenceforward there was no difficulty.
The ample and diversified cold supper began to
disappear steadily, and the wine with it. And as the
wine disappeared so did Mr. Cotterill (who had been
pompous and taciturn) grow talkative, offering to the
company the exact figures of the cost of the house,
and so forth. But ultimately the sheer joy of life
killed arithmetic.
Mrs. Machin, however, could not quite
rid herself of the notion that she was in a dream that
outraged the proprieties. The entire affair, for an
unromantic spot like Bursley, was too fantastically
and wickedly romantic.
"We must be thinking about home,
Denry," said she.
"Plenty of time," Denry replied.
"What! All that wine gone! I'll see if there's any
more in the sideboard."
He emerged, with a red face, from
bending into the deeps of the enamelled sideboard, and
a wine bottle was in his triumphant hand. It had
already been opened.
"Hooray!" he proclaimed, pouring a
white wine into his glass and raising the glass:
"here's to the health of Mr. Cecil Wilbraham."
He made a brave tableau in the
brightness of the electric light.
Then he drank. Then he dropped the
glass, which broke.
"Ugh! What's that?" he demanded, with
the distorted features of a gargoyle.
His mother, who was seated next to
him, seized the bottle. Denry's hand, in clasping the
bottle, had hidden a small label, which said:
POISON. — Nettleship's Patent Enamel- Confusion! Only Nellie Cotterill
seemed to be incapable of realising that a grave
accident had occurred. She had laughed throughout the
supper, and she still laughed, hysterically, though
she had drunk scarcely any wine. Her mother silenced
her.
Denry was the first to recover.
"It'll be all right," said he, leaning
back in his chair. "They always put a bit of poison in
those things. It can't hurt me, really. I never
noticed the label."
Mrs. Machin smelt at the bottle. She
could detect no odour, but the fact that she could
detect no odour appeared only to increase her alarm.
"You must have an emetic instantly,"
she said.
"Oh no!" said Denry. "I shall be all,
right." And he did seem to be suddenly restored.
"You must have an emetic instantly,"
she repeated.
"What can I have?" he grumbled. "You
can't expect to find emetics here."
"Oh yes, I can," said she. "I saw a
mustard tin in a cupboard in the kitchen. Come along
now, and don't be silly."
Nellie's hysteric mirth surged up
again.
Denry objected to accompanying his
mother into the kitchen. But he was forced to submit.
She shut the door on both of them. It is probable that
during the seven minutes which they spent mysteriously
together in the kitchen, the practicability of the
kitchen apparatus for carrying off waste products was
duly tested. Denry came forth, very pale and very
cross, on his mother's arm.
"There's no danger now," said his
mother, easily.
Naturally the party was at an end. The
Cotterills sympathised, and prepared to depart, and
inquired whether Denry could walk home.
Denry replied, from a sofa, in a weak,
expiring voice, that he was perfectly incapable of
walking home, that his sensations were in the highest
degree disconcerting, that he should sleep in that
house, as the bedrooms were ready for occupation, and
that he should expect his mother to remain also.
And Mrs. Machin had to concur. Mrs.
Machin sped the Cotterills from the door as though it
had been her own door. She was exceedingly angry and
agitated. But she could not impart her feelings to the
suffering Denry. He moaned on a bed for about
half-an-hour, and then fell asleep. And in the middle
of the night, in the dark, strange house, she also
fell asleep.
VI.
The next morning she arose and went forth, and in
about half-an-hour returned. Denry was still in bed,
but his health seemed to have resumed its normal
excellence. Mrs. Machin burst upon him in such a state
of complicated excitement as he had never before seen
her in.
"Denry," she cried, "what do you
think?"
"What?" said he.
"I've just been down home, and they're
— they're pulling the house down. All the
furniture's out, and they've got all the tiles off the
roof, and the windows out. And there's a regular crowd
watching."
Denry sat up.
"And I can tell you another piece of
news," said he. "Mr. Cecil Wilbraham is dead."
"Dead!" she breathed.
"Yes," said Denry. "I think he's
served his purpose. As we're here, we'll stop
here. Don't forget it's the most sensible kind of a
house you've ever seen. Don't forget that Mrs.
Cotterill could run it without a servant and have
herself tidy by ten o'clock in a morning."
Mrs. Machin perceived then, in a flash
of terrible illumination, that there never had been
any Cecil Wilbraham; that Denry had merely invented
him and his long moustaches and his wall eye for the
purpose of getting the better of his mother. The whole
affair was an immense swindle upon her. Not a Mr.
Cecil Wilbraham, but her own son had bought her
cottage over her head and jockeyed her out of it
beyond any chance of getting into it again. And to
defeat his mother the rascal had not simply perverted
the innocent Nellie Cotterill to some coöperation
in his scheme, but he had actually bought four other
cottages, because the landlord would not sell one
alone, and he was actually demolishing property to the
sole end of stopping her from reëntering it!
Of course, the entire town soon knew
of the upshot of the battle, of the year-long battle,
between Denry and his mother, and the means adopted by
Denry to win. The town also had been hoodwinked, but
it did not mind that. It loved its Denry the more, and
seeing that he was now properly established in the
most remarkable house in the district, it soon
afterwards made him a Town Councillor at some reward
for his talent in amusing it.
And Denry would say to himself:
"Everything went like clockwork,
except the mustard and water. I didn't bargain for the
mustard and water. And yet, if I was clever enough to
think of putting a label on the bottle and to have the
beds prepared, I ought to have been clever enough to
keep mustard out of the house." It would be wrong to
mince the unpleasant fact that the sham poisoning
which he had arranged to the end that he and his
mother should pass the night in the house had finished
in a manner much too realistic for Denry's pleasure.
Mustard and water, particularly when mixed by Mrs.
Machin, is mustard and water.
She had that consolation.
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(End of this chapter.)