South Riding (51 page)

She kept ferns in a pot instead of an aspidistra, and her piano was open with music on the stand—“The Rustle of Spring,” a very difficult piece, but she had once been able to play it until her hands were stiffened by rheumatism. Now she preferred hymn tunes, dabbing at the keys with vindictive fingers rather as though she were smacking them because they had displeased her.

She was thus engaged when her husband entered.

“Hallo, Nell! Tea not ready yet?”

This was so obvious that comment annoyed her.

“You’re early.”

“Yes. I’ve got some friends coming in.”

“Friends?”

Her eyes dilated in horror and indignation. The slightly enlarged goitre above her collarless bodice throbbed.

“Only to talk business—after tea.”

“Oh. I see. . . . You might have told me.”

Huggins looked at his wife.

Her most distinctive article of attire, when she had removed her hat, was a circular hair-net of dark solid mesh bound by an elastic around her head, imprisoning her polished prominent brow and mouse-coloured hair. So obvious and aggressive was this tribute to respectability that one hardly noticed her pinched delicate features, her soft upturned pink nose and china blue slightly protruding eyes. Over her tweed skirt she wore a cardigan of grey wool, held together at the throat with a cameo brooch. She was not beautiful. She did not rest Huggins’ eyes. But once she had been a pretty woman. Once she had charmed her husband by her fragile and genteel femininity. Now that earlier Nellie was completely lost to him, enchained behind that hateful imprisoning net.

Again and again he had wanted to tell her how deeply he hated it; but he never could.

“I suppose,” she said, “I had better light a fire in the other room, if you want to talk to your friends.” The other room was a dank unusued little place on the far side of the passage. It smelled of furniture polish and black-beetles, but Nellie preferred it to the kitchen. It was not vulgar.

“Very well, my dear. If you like, I’ll do that.” Alfred was handier in a house than one would have thought him. He enjoyed lighting fires and laying meals. He whistled as he broke the damp green sticks, and watched the smoke curl round his balls of rolled newspaper.

“I ought to have a maid. I can’t be expected to do all this work single-handed,” Nellie complained for the fiftieth time when they sat down to tea.

“All right, my lass. You shall have one.”

“Yes. When we’re all in our graves, worn out with worry.”

He glanced at her half humorously.

“Much sooner than that—if you can keep from falling off your perch for a bit longer—the Lord willing,” he added piously.

The piety was sincere.

He helped her to move the pots into the kitchen and was still out there when the front door-bell skirled shrilly under the twist of an impatient hand.

She went. She found Mr. Drew and Mr. Tadman and ushered them both into the drawing-room.

“It’s the girl’s evening out,” she explained, saving her pride.

She retired to tell her husband.

He stood in guttering candle-light in the small scullery, adjusting a clean collar and whistling to himself. The tune was unfamiliar to Nellie.

“Nymphs and Shepherds, come away, come away!”

In that uncertain light he towered formidable, big, bearded, jolly, not at all refined. The flame caught his watch chain in a noose of gold. His full red lips were pursed exultantly.

“With music! With dancing!”

He did not even know what he was whistling; he only knew that the weight which had oppressed him during the past eighteen months was about to be lifted; that he was excited, that he was gloriously confident.

A natural gambler, sensualist and adventurer, his religion had diverted his temperamental appetites, but now it was providing an outlet for them. He was gambling on faith. He trusted in the Lord.

“Well?”

Nellie Huggins had been about to make one of her astringent protests, but that glowing vigour checked her. She announced meekly, “They’re here. Drew and Tadman.”

“Good,” said her lord and (for the moment) master, and, as he passed her on his way to the front entrance, absent-mindedly pinched her bony backside, forgetting that she was his wife, remembering only that she was a female lurking with due docility in the shadows.

He swaggered into the drawing-room, on the top of the world.

“Hallo, Tadman. ’Evening, Drew. Got the stuff there?”

They had. Drew, the estate agent, produced a leather brief case, and from it a set of plans which Huggins recognised. He had seen something like them once in the big library of Snaith’s house.

Drew had been down to the Wastes. He had seen the progress of the new Skerrow-Kiplington road. He had talked to Astell. He had attended a meeting at which the Socialist alderman had presided while three of his Labour friends from Kingsport had denounced the slums there. Housing. Housing. “We’ve got to make the whole Riding housing-conscious,” Astell had said.

“That’s a good phrase,” commented Huggins. “Housing-conscious. Have you talked to Stillman?”

“Yes. He’s fed up right enough. He says there’s going to be difficulty collecting interest on his mortgage from those Aythornes. He told me if he’d known what sort of a slut the woman was and how she was going to neglect that little shop of theirs, he’d never have taken it on.”

“He’ll part, then?”

“He’ll part.”

“Good. Then, Tadman, you’d like to take that on, I suppose?”

The grocer grunted.

“I want to be safe,” he said. “I’m a family man.”

“We’re all family men here.”

“But what are you putting in?”

“I’ll tell you. I’m so sure of this thing,” declared Huggins, “I’m withdrawing my insurance policy and buying up this here.”

He took his pencil and drew a ring round a plot of land east of Stillman’s.

“Why don’t you take up Stillman’s mortgage?”

“Purely personal reasons. I tell you—I’ve preached in Dollstall. I’ve known those young people.” Candour beamed from his shining eyes, his friendly face. “Why, I even helped to put ’em in touch with Stillman. I don’t want to get mixed up in their affairs—see? It might look as if I’d done it all out of self-interest.”

That seemed good enough. They accepted that.

“How much land is covered by the mortgage?”

“Twenty acres, freehold. And of course the sheds. I’ll tell you something. If you put machinery in them, you can claim higher compensation from the council when they take the ground over,” explained Drew.

“How much did you say Kingsport Corporation paid for their land east of Fleetmire Dock?”

“£240 an acre—and that needed draining too. You ought not to get twopence less than £230 here—even if it goes to arbitration.”

“Well—well.” Tadman hesitated, turning his money over in his pockets. “I don’t pretend it isn’t tempting. Twenty acres—at £240—that’s £4,800.”

“And dirt cheap at that,” put in Huggins. “Mind you, I’m a councillor. I’m a keen housing man. I’ve thrashed this out with Astell. I want houses built for the poor and I want ’em cheap and I’d give my life’s blood to see ’em done soon and reasonable. That’s why I dare to gamble. I’m putting all my own savings into this.”

“You’re not on the Town Planning Committee yourself, are you?” asked Tadman.

“Yes and no. It’s like this. I’m on the big Housing Committee of the Council. I’m not on the small joint subcommittee with Kingsport Corporation that’s discussing this particular housing estate. That’s why I’m free to act. All open and above board.”

“But you trust Astell?”

“To the last farthing. Astell and Snaith—why—Snaith . . .”

But he did not explain that he felt he was acting here almost as Snaith’s agent. Snaith had prompted him. Snaith had trusted him. He saw now everything quite clearly. Snaith had been testing him out when he gave him that five hundred pounds. Like the master who gave his servants sums of money, one talent, two talents, all the rest of it. He was not meant to bury it in a napkin. He had been meant to use it. And he was going to use it. He was going to make the present profit on Tadman’s brilliant deal; he was going to make a nice little sum on his own bit of property. He was going to return Snaith his original loan with interest, to quit himself of all responsibility to Reg and Bessy; to send them off to London or Canada or somewhere with a nice little nest egg, and to free himself for ever from the handicap of poverty. He would go to Snaith redeemed, strengthened, invigorated. And Snaith would say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant. I made thee steward over a few things and thou hast become ruler over many things. Enter then into the joy of thy Lord.”

It was the Lord’s doing. Huggins had been a sinner. All right. He had confessed it, hadn’t he? Confessed and been forgiven.

Forgiveness implies the power and opportunity to make reparation. Huggins had prayed for these. They had been granted him. He had first of all been guided to Snaith, and Snaith had helped him. Snaith had lent him £500 to pay off Bessy. He had hinted to him about the sheds on the Waste, and Huggins had been quick enough to take his hint and use it. Aythorne had bought the sheds and mortgaged them to Stillman. Then, being what he was, he and Bessy had refused to pay the interest and Stillman was displeased with his investment. Now Snaith, still acting as the Lord’s deputy, had shown Huggins how to persuade Tadman to relieve the undertaker of his mortgage, how to make a deal himself on rising land-values, how to make ten per cent, commission on Tadman’s profit of four thousand pounds; how to impress Drew, who would have the remunerative handling of all the various transactions; how to do good in the South Riding while reaping a few little incidental profits for himself.

The magical accumulations of Big Business, the conjuring of profits out of the naked air, enchanted Huggins. They confirmed his faith. Faith was, after all, the redeeming virtue. He thought of Abraham offering Isaac on the altar; he thought of Moses leading the children of Israel out of Egypt; he thought of Daniel in the den of lions; he thought of his life-savings paid to the Ramington Panel Company for thirty-two acres of Leame Ferry Waste, and he knew that all acts of faith in God were justified, though they might be performed by men who had once been sinners.

The interview was at an end. Tadman’s remaining doubts were satisfied. The two callers climbed into their car.

Drew pressed the self-starter. The engine had grown cold in the frosty air; three times it gurgled and was silent, then its splutters settled into an easy purr, its headlights streamed down on to the wayside path, and it moved away.

But Huggins did not go in.

He remained outside his door gazing up into the star-filled sky. The stars seemed enormous in the keen autumn air. Huggins faced them without shame or misgiving. He could stand up now before their naked challenge.

Already he was free, already victorious. Debt, dishonour, guilt and apprehension left him. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth on his way weeping, and beareth forth good seed, shall doubtless come again with joy and bring his sheaves with him.

He ought to go round the buildings and shut up for the night. His nailed boots struck sparks on the flinty cobbles. He rattled chains, tugged bolts, stooped down and caressed the old toothless retriever bitch who drowsed with her head hanging out of the wooden kennel.

Loving-kindness, elation and triumph warmed his soul. When the Lord turned the captivity of Zion, then were we like unto them that dream. The evening stars sang together above him. The dark sheltered village slept at his feet. He felt extraordinary tenderness towards it. Oh, rest in the Lord, troubled souls, anxious and encumbered with small afflictions. Lie down and rest, have faith. He careth for you. I waited on the Lord and He inclined unto me. His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

From the house he could hear muffled music. Nellie was back at the piano. She had resumed, as a protest against his earlier interruption, her solitary service of song.

He stole back softly and saw her, the hymn book open before her, the dried grasses and paper asters in the piano vase trembling as she struck the easy chords, her head tilted backwards.

She was singing, but she started and stopped when her husband entered the room.

“All right. Go on, lass,” he said kindly.

She gave him one scornful glance, then, as though to contrast the human with the divine love, began in her reedy soprano:

“The King of love my shepherd is,

His goodness faileth never.

I nothing lack if I am His,

And He is mine for ever.”

That was a snub for Alfred. She had better friends than he. He need not think that he was her only hope. Her lacks—of a maid, of water laid on, of a private motor-car in which to be driven to Kingsport, were his fault; but the divine goodness never failed.

“Perverse and foolish oft I stray’d.”

Alfred had joined in now, his rich vibrating bass sweet as brown treacle.

“And yet in love He sought me.