“Yes, very. What do you think of the scheme?”
“I?—well—!” Alvina hesitated, then broke into a laugh. “To tell the truth I haven’t thought much about it at all.”
“Well I think you should,” said Miss Allsop severely. “Father’s sure it won’t pay—and it will cost I don’t know how much. It is bound to be a dead loss. And your father’s getting on. You’ll be left stranded in the world without a penny to bless yourself with. I think it’s an awful outlook for you.”
“Do you?” said Alvina.
Here she was, with a bang, planked upon the shelf among the old maids.
“Oh, I do. Sincerely! I should do all I could to prevent him, if I were you.”
Miss Allsop took her departure. Alvina felt herself jolted in her mood. An old maid along with Cassie Allsop!—and James Houghton fooling about with the last bit of money, mortgaging Manchester House up to the hilt. Alvina sank in a kind of weary mortification, in which her peculiar obstinacy persisted devilishly and spitefully. “Oh well, so be it,” said her spirit vindictively. “Let the meagre, mean, despicable fate fulfil itself.” Her old anger against her father arose again.
Arthur Witham, the plumber, came in with James Houghton to examine the house. Arthur Witham was also one of the Chapel men—as had been his common, interfering, uneducated father before him. The father had left each of his sons a fair little sum of money, which Arthur, the eldest, had already increased ten-fold. He was sly and slow and uneducated also, and spoke with a broad accent. But he was not bad-looking, a tight fellow with big blue eyes, who aspired to keep his “h’s” in the right place, and would have been a gentleman if he could.
Against her usual habit, Alvina joined the plumber and her father in the scullery. Arthur Witham saluted her with some respect. She liked his blue eyes and tight figure. He was keen and sly in business, very watchful, and slow to commit himself. Now he poked and peered and crept under the sink. Alvina watched him half disappear—she handed him a candle—and she laughed to herself seeing his tight, well-shaped hind-quarters protruding from under the sink like the wrong end of a dog from a kennel. He was keen after money, was Arthur—and bossy, creeping slyly after his own self-importance and power. He wanted power—and he would creep quietly after it till he got it: as much as he was capable of. His “h’s” were a barbed-wire fence and entanglement, preventing his unlimited progress.
He emerged from under the sink, and they went to the kitchen and afterwards upstairs. Alvina followed them persistently, but a little aloof, and silent. When the tour of inspection was almost over, she said innocently: