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And to herself: "She's always trying to pretend I'm nobody, but when the least thing happens out of the way, she runs to me for all the world like a child." And as Mrs. Lessways offered no reply, but simply stood at the foot of the stairs, she asked again: "What is it?" "Well," said her mother lamentably. "It's Mr. Skellorn. Here's Mrs. Grant " "Who's Mrs. Grant?"
But she was suddenly sad, and she again found pleasure in her sadness. She was sad because her adventure was over over too soon and too easily. She thought, now, that really she would have preferred a catastrophe as the end of it. She had got what she desired; but she was no better off than she had been before the paralytic stroke of Mr. Skellorn. Domesticity had closed in on her once more.
From the flour-mill a bricked path, which separated a considerable row of new cottages from their appurtenant gardens, led straight into Lessways Street, in front of Mrs. Lessways' house. By this path Mr. Skellorn should have arrived, for he inhabited the farthest of the cottages. Hilda held Mr. Skellorn in disdain, as she held the row of cottages in disdain. It seemed to her that Mr.
He now seemed to her more like a fellow-creature, and less like a member of the inimical older generation. "So you're nearly twenty-one?" "In December," she said. "And I think under my father's will " She stopped, at a loss. "The fact is, I don't think mother will be quite able to look after the property properly, and I'm afraid you see, now that Mr. Skellorn has had this stroke " "Yes," said Mr.
Skellorn and the cottages mysteriously resembled each other in their primness, their smugness, their detestable self-complacency. Yet those cottages, perhaps thirty in all, had stood for a great deal until Hilda, glancing at them, shattered them with her scorn.
I may be a simpleton, but I'm not such a simpleton as he thinks for, nor as some other folks think for, either!" He came here o' purpose to get that rent-collecting. Well, he's got it, and he's welcome to it, for I doubt not he'll do it a sight better than poor Mr. Skellorn! But he needn't hug himself that he's been too clever for me, because he hasn't.
Skellorn, a few tradesmen, the vicar, the curate, and a sidesman or so, she never even spoke to a man from one month's end to the next. The Church choir had its annual dance, to which she was invited; but the perverse creature cared not for dancing. Her mother did not seek society, did not appear to require it. Nor did Hilda acutely feel the lack of it. She could not define her need.
"Upstairs," she answered callously. No reply from the sitting-room! At two o'clock on the last Wednesday of every month, old Mr. Skellorn, employed by Mrs. Lessways to collect her cottage-rents, called with a statement of account, and cash in a linen bag. He was now due.
And further, it was well built, generously built; and its architecture, though debased, showed some faint traces of Georgian amenity. It was admittedly the best row of houses in that newly settled quarter of the town. In coming to it out of Freehold Villas Mr. Skellorn obviously came to something superior, wider, more liberal.
Hilda inquired, with a touch of scorn, although she knew perfectly well that Mr. Skellorn had a married daughter of that name. "Hsh! Hsh!" Mrs. Lessways protested, indicating the open door of the sitting-room. "You know Mrs. Grant! It seems Mr. Skellorn has had a paralytic stroke. Isn't it terrible?" Hilda continued smoothly to descend the stairs, and followed her mother into the sitting-room.
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