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And I had to go out of the house by the front and the lamplighter climbed over the back gate for me and let me into the yard so that I could get the key again. That might have happened last night. Some one might have shaken the key out, and pulled it under the door with a bit of wire or something." "That won't do," Thomas Batchgrew stopped her. "You said the key was in the door on the inside."
I must have Mr. Batchgrew here at once. Didn't you hear me call and call to you?" "That I didn't, ma'am! I was beating the feather bed in the back bedroom. Nay, not a step lower do you go, ma'am, not if I lose me job for it." Thomas Batchgrew and Louis were already out in the hall. Half-way down the stairs stood Mrs. Maldon, supporting herself by the banisters and being supported by Mrs. Tams.
Batchgrew, after hesitating and clearing his throat, proceeded up the steps, defiling them. As he did so Mrs. Tams screwed together all her features and clenched her hands as if in agony, and stared horribly at the open front door, which was blowing to. It seemed that she was trying to arrest the front door by sheer force of muscular contraction. She did not succeed.
Batchgrew snorted, and glanced at Rachel for an explanation. "Yes. It's all gone," proceeded Mrs. Maldon with calm resignation. "But I'm too old to worry. Please listen to me. We lost my serviette and ring last evening at supper. Couldn't find it anywhere. And in the night it suddenly occurred to me where it was. I've remembered everything now, almost, and I'm quite sure.
In the almost senile face she could see ambushed the face of the youth that Thomas Batchgrew had been perhaps half a century before. "Ye're a fine wench," said he, with a note of careless but genuine admiration. "I'll not deny it. Don't ye go and throw yerself away. Keep out o' mischief."
"You mean that 'Garden of the Hesperides' affair for up here, do you?" said Louis. Rachel gazed round the bedchamber. A memory of what it had been shot painfully through her mind. For the room was profoundly changed in character. Two narrow bedsteads given by Thomas Batchgrew, and described by Mrs. Tarns, in a moment of daring, as "flighty," had taken the place of Mrs.
"We both thought we saw him." "Happen he is if he aeroplaned it!" said Batchgrew, and fumbled nervously with the papers. "It couldn't have been Julian," said Louis, confidently, to Rachel. "No, it couldn't," said Rachel. But neither conjured away the secret uneasiness of the other.
This festival attire Mrs. Maldon now fully beheld for the first time. It, indeed, honoured herself, for she had ordained a festive evening: but at the same time she was surprised and troubled by it. As for Mr. Batchgrew, he entirely ignored the vision.
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.
Then in the lounge, with Cuban cigar-smoke in his eyes, and Krupp discoursing to him of all conceivable Atlantic liners, he wrote a letter to Thomas Batchgrew and marked it "Very urgent" which was simple prudence on his part, for he had drawn a cheque for ten pounds on a non-existent bank-balance. At last, as Mr. Gibbs had not arrived, he said he should stroll up to the Majestic.
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