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Updated: May 7, 2025
If the rancour of Rachel's judgment had been fierce enough to strike him to the floor, assuredly his years would not have saved him! And yet Mrs. Maldon gazed at him with submissive and apologetic gentleness! Foolish saint! Rachel longed to stiffen her with some backing of her own harsh common sense. And her affection for Mrs. Maldon grew passionate and half maternal. Thomas Batchgrew was saying
She faced Thomas Batchgrew, though not with a tranquillity perfectly maintained, and she still enjoyed his appreciation of her, but she did not seem to care whether he guessed that she was lying or not. "I'm sorry, lass!" he said simply, sniffing. "The lad's a fool. It isn't as if I've got to go hawking seven per cent. debentures to get rid of 'em and in a concern like that, too!
How mistaken I was in you!" She preceded him into the bedroom, and then with ostentatious formality left aunt and nephew together. Nobody should ever say any more that she encouraged the attentions of Louis Fores. "What is the matter, dear?" Mrs. Maldon inquired from her bed, perceiving the signs of emotion on Louis' face. "Has Mr. Batchgrew been here yet?" Louis demanded. "No. Is he coming?"
Then Batchgrew beckoned her into a very small, queerly shaped room furnished with a table and a chair and a single electric lamp that hung by a cord from a rough hook in the ceiling. A boy stood near the door holding three tin boxes one above another in his arms, and keeping the top one in position with his chin. These boxes were similar to that in which Louis' tickets had been dropped.
Then she was sitting by John's Ernest's side in the big motor-car, with her possessions at her feet. The enthronement had happened in a few moments. John's Ernest was going to Hanbridge. "Ye can run Mrs. Fores up home on yer way," Thomas Batchgrew had suggested. "But Bycars Lane is miles out of your way!" Rachel had cried. Both men had smiled.
I've never come across aught like this before, and I'm going to get to the bottom of it." Rachel slipped out of the door into the hall. "Please wait a moment, Mr. Batchgrew," she whispered timidly. "What for?" "Till I've told Mrs. Maldon." "But if her's asleep?" "I must waken her. I couldn't think of letting you go to the police-station without letting her know after what she said this morning."
Batchgrew condescendingly. "Why?" demanded Mrs. Maldon with an eager smile of hope. "Have they caught them, then? Has Superintendent Snow " "They have their hands on them. To-morrow there'll be some arrests," Mr. Batchgrew answered, exuding authority. For he was not merely a Town Councillor, he was brother-in-law to the Superintendent of the Borough Police.
He had no immediate resources beyond the twenty pounds, but he would telegraph to Batchgrew, who ad not yet transferred to him the inheritance, to pay money into his bank early on Tuesday; if he were compelled to draw a cheque he would cross it, and then it could not possibly be presented before Wednesday morning. At all costs he would go.
Finally, they came to the grand total of Louis' inheritance, which Rachel had known by heart for several days past; yet Batchgrew rolled it out as a piece of tremendous news, and immediately afterwards hinted that the sum represented less than the true worth of Louis' inheritance, and that he, Batchgrew, as well as his lifelong friend the valuer, had been influenced by a partiality for Louis.
Rachel waited. Mr. Batchgrew glanced aside. "Here! Come here!" said Mr. Batchgrew in a different tone. The fact was that, put to the proof, he dared not, for all his autocratic habit, openly disobey the injunction of the benignant, indifferent, helpless Mrs. Maldon. "Come here!" he repeated coarsely. Rachel obeyed, shamefaced despite herself. Batchgrew shut the door.
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