The accommodating, acquiescent dame, with scarcely strength to speak, was defeating all three of them on that one point.
"What is it?" asked George confidentially.
"Oh! I don't suppose it's anything, really."
II
That George should collect the tea-things together on the tray, and brush and fold the cloth, and carry the loaded tray downstairs into the scullery, was sufficiently strange. But it was very much more strange that he should have actually had the idea of washing-up the tea-things himself. In his time, in the domestic crises of Bursley, he had boyishly helped ladies to wash-up, and he reckoned that he knew all about the operation. There he stood, between the kitchen and the scullery, elegantly attired, with an inquiring eye upon the kettle of warm water on the stove, debating whether he should make the decisive gesture of emptying the kettle into the large tin receptacle that lay on the slop-stone. Such was the miraculous effect on him of Mrs. Haim's simplicity, her weakness, and her predicament. Mrs. Haim was a different woman for him now that he had carried her upstairs and laid her all limp and girlish on the solemn conjugal bed! He felt quite sure that old Haim was incapable of washing-up. He assuredly did not want to be caught in the act of washing-up, but he did want to be able to say in his elaborately nonchalant manner, answering a question about the disappearance of the tea-things: "I thought I might as well wash-up while I was about it." And he did want Mrs. Haim to be put in a flutter by the news that Mr. George Cannon had washed-up for her. The affair would positively cause a sensation.
He was about to begin, taking the risks of premature discovery, when he heard a noise above. It was Mr. Haim at last descending the stairs to the ground floor. George started. He had been alone in the lower parts of the house for a period which seemed long. (Mr. Prince had gone to the
studio, promising to return later.) The bedroom containing Mr. and Mrs. Haim had become for him the abode of mystery. The entity of the enchanted house had laid hold of his imagination. He had thought of Marguerite as she used to pervade the house, and of his approaching interview with her at the Manresa Road studio. He had thought very benevolently of Marguerite and also of, Mr. and Mrs. Haim. He had involved them all three, in his mind, in a net of peace and goodwill. He saw the family quarrel as something inevitable, touching, absurd—the work of a maleficent destiny which he might somehow undo and exorcise by the magic act of washing-up, to be followed by other acts of a more diplomatic and ingenious nature. And now the dull, distant symptoms of Mr. Haim on the stairs suddenly halted him at the very outset of his benignant machinations. He listened. If the peace of the world had depended upon his washing-up he could not have permitted himself to be actually seen in the rôle of kitchen-girl by Mr. Haim—so extreme was his lack of logic and right reason. There was a silence, a protracted silence, and then Mr. Haim unmistakably came down the basement stairs, and George thanked God that he had not allowed his impulse to wash-up run away with his discretion, to the ruin of his dignity.
Mr. Haim, hesitating in the kitchen doorway, peered in front of him as if at a loss. George had shifted the kitchen lamp from its accustomed place.
"I'm here," said George, moving slightly in the dim light. "I thought I might as well make myself useful and clear the table for you. How is she going on?" He spoke cheerfully, even gaily, and he expected Mr. Haim to be courteously appreciative—perhaps enthusiastic in gratitude.
"Mrs. Haim is quite recovered, thank you. It was only a passing indisposition," said Mr. Haim, using one of his ridiculously stilted phrases. His tone was strange; it was very strange.