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Updated: May 7, 2025
Lastly, everybody knew that most of the Batchgrew family was of a piece with its head. Now Rachel had formed a prejudice against old Batchgrew. She had formed it, immutably, in a single second of time. One glance at him in the street and she had tried and condemned him, according to the summary justice of youth.
Tams with amused benevolence, now on old Batchgrew with lofty disgust, and now on Louis Fores with unquiet curiosity and delicious apprehension. She gave a little shudder of fright and instantly controlled it Mrs. Maldon, instead of being asleep, was looking at her.
Now and then when the room was full, and people without chairs perched on the end of the Chesterfield, she had whispered to her secret heart in a tiny, tiny voice: "These are my guests. They all treat me with special deference. I am the hostess. I am Mrs. Fores." The Batchgrew clan was well represented, no doubt by order from authority, Mrs. Yardley came, in surprising stylishness.
"What were you talking about downstairs to those two?" Mrs. Maldon went on carefully. "What d'ye suppose we were talking about?" retorted Batchgrew, still at the window. Then he turned towards her and proceeded in an outburst: "If you want to know, missis, I was asking that young wench what the secret was between you and her." "The secret? Between Rachel and me?" "Aye!
She thought of Batchgrew, not with hate, but with pity. He was a monster, but he could not help it. He alone was responsible for all slanders against Louis. He alone had put Mrs. Maldon against Louis. Louis was obviously the most innocent of beings. Mrs. Maiden's warning, "The woman who married him would suffer horribly," was manifestly absurd.
Similar experiences, however, had happened to him before; for, though as a rule people most curiously conspired with him to keep up the fiction that he was sacred, at rare intervals somebody's self-control would break down, and bitter, inconvenient home truths would resound in the ear of Thomas Batchgrew.
His footfalls on the pavement died away into the general silence of the street. Overhead she could hear old Batchgrew walking to and fro. Without reflection she went upstairs and hovered near the door of Mrs. Maldon's bedroom. She said to herself that she was not eavesdropping. She listened, while pretending not to listen, but there was no sign of conversation within the room.
Batchgrew brutally, "I should tell him straight as he might do better than to go gallivanting about the town until that there money's found." He turned towards his boxes. "I don't know what you mean, Mr. Batchgrew," said Rachel, tapping her foot and trying to be very dignified. "And I'll tell ye another thing, young miss," Batchgrew went on. "Every minute as ye spend with young Fores ye'll regret.
Also she remembered with strange clearness the admiration in the mien of the hated Batchgrew, and the memory gave her confidence. She said, with an effort after chilly detachment "I couldn't wait in the cinema alone for ever." He was perturbed. "But I assure you," he said nicely, "I was as quick as ever I could be.
The car threw its shadow across the glazed front door, which she commanded from the kitchen, and stopped. And the front-door bell rang uncannily over her head. She opened the door to Councillor Batchgrew, whose breathing was irregular and rapid. "Has Louis Fores been here?" Batchgrew asked. "He's upstairs now with Mrs. Maldon."
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