The Pandervils (36 page)

For three days Lily Colebrook maintained a stern silence. Then necessity—aided, perhaps, by irresolution—sent her to buy groceries at Pandervil's Stores. Harold might be a scoundrel, but that was no reason why Lily's poor mother should be deprived of her bacon for breakfast, was it? And though there were other grocers' shops in Farringay she did not recall the fact until too late. Besides, it would serve Harold right to be forced to hand her a pound of rashers, politely, across the counter, and to see her eyes studiously avoiding his. It would show him how utterly indifferent she was. All things considered, we must allow a hundred good reasons for Lily's calling at Pandervil's Stores, and not a single one against that enterprise. Perhaps Egg was shrewd enough to divine how her mind worked, for he hadn't, we must suppose, lived seventy years with his eyes shut; and perhaps he knew that the sight of himself behind the counter—where Harold was so often to be found—was something of a shock to the girl. He could not forbear to glance at her with amused, twinkling eyes, though he veiled their light the moment after with a look of sympathetic consideration. She was, after all, a very young thing; young, and proud, and to Egg's mind pathetic. He half-wished her a better husband than Harold seemed likely to prove, yet he wished Harold to
have her and love her and falsify his dismal forebodings.

‘Well, Lily?'

‘Good evening, Mr Pandervil. A pound of Mother's rashers, if you please.'

‘Certainly, my dear.' There was a touch of gallantry as well as solicitude in his smile. ‘Now I was hoping you might pay us a visit.' Lily did her best to look sullen, but succeeded only in looking wistful. ‘Because,' went on Egg, after a silence, ‘I wanted to have a little talk with you.'

Lily met his glance timidly. ‘Did you, Mr Pandervil?'

‘I did,' said Egg.

You might have supposed, by his demeanour, that Mr Pandervil had reached the conclusion of the whole matter. He closed his lips tightly and addressed himself to the task of cutting slices of bacon as though there were no more to be said. But when the mounting pile of rashers at last turned the scale he placed his long knife carefully beside them, and remarked, a trifle too cheerfully: ‘So you've sent my young scamp about his business, have you Lily?'

‘Meaning Harold?' asked Lily superflously, her cheeks a deep scarlet.

‘Meaning Harold,' agreed Egg, with but the faintest inflection of irony in his tone. He leaned on his elbows across the counter. ‘And you've done right, my dear. He's got what he deserves, and that's nothing. Leastways not a good wife. He doesn't deserve that, not by a long way. A good-for-nothing
idle lout, that's what he is; and he'll come to a bad end, depend upon it. You're well rid of him, Lily Colebrook.'

The girl stared in surprise at this prodigious parent, so ruthless in judgment of his son.

‘He's a fair misery about the house nowadays,' resumed Egg, after a meditative silence. ‘Moping and moping and not a word to say. As for appetite, the mere sight of food makes him
sick
, by the look of it. And serve him right, I say, for he's a perfect scandalous disgrace. He's brought it all on himself by his own wickedness and he'll get no sympathy from me. If I was a younger man I'd take a stick to him I would.'

Lily studied to conceal whatever of consternation she may have been feeling; but it is certain that she had never before seen the mild Mr Pandervil in such a towering rage. In Farringay he was accounted a genial old fellow, for a new generation had grown up knowing nothing of the story of how Mr Pandervil had hurled his own wife's mother into a cab, or of that other story, better authenticated, of how he had punched the nose of a glossy gentleman who had kindly offered to buy his business from him. Lily knew him only as a highly respected deacon of the Ebenezer Chapel, and as the father of her errant Harold.

‘Mind you,' said Mr Pandervil, ‘I won't say there's not the
making
of a man in him, if some good girl was to take him in hand. He's got an affectionate nature, and he'd learn, he'd learn. But who,' asked Mr Pandervil indignantly, ‘who
would have anything to say to such a young rip! Not you, Lily. It's too great a sacrifice.' Mr Pandervil dismissed the subject with a sigh, and turning to the rashers of bacon, as for comfort, he wrapped them in grease paper and slipped them into a paper-bag on which was printed
Pandervil for Purity Value and Fair Dealing
. He paused, for perhaps the ten thousandth time, to regret that flamboyant inscription, in respect of which, though he privately thought it vulgar, he had allowed himself to be overruled by its author, his brother Algernon. Quite a balloon of a fellow now, having for many years waxed fat in prosperity and geniality, Algy still paid an occasional welcome visit to his younger brother, ‘dear old Eggie'. And on the last such occasion but one—three years ago, just before poor Minnie took and died—he had set about bringing Egg's business methods up to date. ‘Pandervil for Purity—that goes well, boy! Glad I thought of that. Nice little bit of allitration. Pandervil for Purity—I should just think so indeed! That'll fetch 'em. And Value and Fair Dealing, that means they're getting their money's worth, and a bit over. A bit over, Eggie old son, hey? Here, gimme a spare bag, will you, and I'll get this little affair sketched out. Like this.' He sucked his pencil thoughtfully, staring into distance at his visionary design before committing it to black and white. ‘How'd it be to say “the original Farringay grocer” or “the shop your grandmother patronized?” Nor' Another pause. The artist is in labour with his creation. Then he rises to his
feet, his eyes sparkle. ‘I've got it, Eggie! By George I've got it. Pandervil for Purity, Value, and Fair Dealing. The man that put the gay in Farringay. … What d'you say to that, my boy!' Egg tried to conceal his alarm; but he need not have bothered, for Algy was in no mood to observe it. ‘I don't somehow think that last bit'll do, Algy. Nothing very gay about grocery after all. Besides people wouldn't quite like the sound of it.' Algy, on the point of looking offended, checked himself and cried with a laugh: ‘Ah, boy, trouble with you is you've no imagination. The best fellow in the world, Eggie, but no imagination old man. And no jolly old GO, if you see what I mean. As for nothing gay about grocery, well why not, that's my answer to that. Whose fault is it, Eggie? Not mine, old boy, I assure you. ‘Pon my word, no. If I'd
my
way this little shop of yours 'ud be the brightest little spot in Farringay.' Egg, unable to bear his brother's disappointment, broke out into praises of the earlier part of the scripture. ‘That's an idea, Algy, that is. But as for the gay part— honestly I'm afraid of it. My deacons, y'know, they'd think it a bit on the fast side.' Algy, warm with friendliness and self-approbation, wagged his head sagaciously. ‘Know what you mean, old man. Concubines and such. I know the kind of thing, trust me. … Well well, I'm not one to take offence. You know that. We'll leave it at Pandervil for Purity, as you say. Though I don't mind telling you, Eggie, that to my way of thinking that last bit's the best of all. Never mind.
Never mind. I won't say another word about it.' One sees the frustrated man struggling not to say another word about it. His face was sombre for perhaps half a minute. Then, heroically, he remarked with an effort: ‘Pandervil for Purity— why, old man, that'll be worth fifty pun a year to you, or I'm a Dutchman.' Egg gasped with relief to be let off so lightly. ‘Yes, Algy, a good notion, that was. Glad you thought of it.' Whereupon Algy was quite himself again. ‘Oh I get these little ideas, y'know,' he said airily, dismissing the trifle with a nod. ‘They just sort of pop into my nut, y'know.'

Egg, counting out Lily Colebrook's change, recalled how very different Algernon's demeanour had been on his subsequent visit. Poor old Algy, he thought, 'twas a terrible blow to him when Min went. And swift on that thought followed another: It'll be my turn soon … But resolutely shaking free of his reverie he remembered Lily Colebrook and his errand with her. ‘What I intend to do, my dear, is just this. He shall have what he deserves, Harold shall. And since
you
won't have him I'll make him do the right thing by Sleena.'

Lily's mouth fell open in alarm. ‘Not marry her, Mr Pandervil! You'll not let him marry her!'

‘Let him! Let him!' cried Mr Pandervil, with a laugh that was almost sinister. ‘I'll
make
him, that's what I'll do. The lad's made his bed and he must lie on it.' With the words out of his
mouth he became suddenly afflicted by a sense of their possible indelicacy, and had to seek sanctuary in a fit of coughing, after which he reiterated his decision and added serenely: ‘And a wretched life he'll have of it, you may be sure, my dear.' Nodding at her grimly he turned away and retired to the back of the shop.

He listened gravely, two days later, to Harold's excited confidences. ‘She's changed her mind, Dad.'

‘Has she indeed! Now which way is it this time, Harold? She's changed her mind so often, I've lost count.'

‘She's … forgiven me. She'll have me.' With a flicker of complacency he added: ‘I thought I'd manage somehow to bring her round.'

‘Ah, you're a clever lad, Harold!' said his father; and seeing the boy wince under his lash he went on quickly: ‘Well, we'd better get the bells ringing before she changes her mind again, eh?' He began unfolding some of his plans. ‘I suppose you and Lily'd be content to carry on the shop here, wouldn't you?'

Harold met him with a puzzled face. ‘What about you? Not feeling ill or anything, are you?'

‘Never mind about me, my boy. I'm not going to die if that's what you mean. Leastways not before my time comes. But suppose I wanted a bit of a change, country air and so on, would you and Lily take over the business from me?'

For a few minutes they discussed ways and means. But Harold abruptly ended the discussion
by blurting out: ‘And what's to happen about Sleena?'

Misunderstanding him, Egg answered: ‘As to that, we'll let bygones be bygones.'

‘Yes, but
she
won't,' said Harold, rather impatiently. ‘Sleena won't. Nor will Lily, I daresay. Can't have Sleena in the house with us, can we now!'

Egg's face fell. ‘I never thought of that.'

‘You see what I mean?' said Harold.

Egg nodded. ‘This'll need thinking over. Funny thing, it never once came into my head. But it certainly
is
a difficulty.'

The thought of this difficulty induced a kind of fever in him as the days went by. Impatient to put his plans into effect, he could brook no delay. He began to cast sidelong anxious glances at Selina,. vexing himeslf with the thought of her stubborn resolution to make trouble if she could. Sometimes he came near to hating her, but an inconvenient sense of justice intervened to remind him that her malice, though deplorable and wicked and a nuisance, was not a thing to be wondered at. Perhaps even in this salutary reflection, which he encouraged by way of self-admonition, there was a touch of pious make-believe; for indeed he did marvel, always had marvelled, at the spectacle of human malice, which, as he might have told you in a moment of intimate confidence, didn't after all seem to make anybody much happier. He tried to harden his heart against Selina, but the attempt did not avail. Frequently, when she was not looking,
he shot at her a scowling glance that was in effect a malediction; but he didn't seriously entertain the possibility of turning her adrift. His house had sheltered her too long for that, and, now that he came to think about it, he discovered in himself a proprietary affection for her. He liked her—tiresome as she now was, and ugly in her new mood— because she was dependent on him, because in a quiet and more than half unconscious fashion she had been loyal to him, and good to his children, through more than one domestic crisis, and because —well, because, simply, he was used to seeing her about the place. He brooded, sometimes anxiously, sometimes wrathfully; but he could not escape the fact that somehow or other she had got to be taken into account. He couldn't just say: ‘Look you here, Sleena, Harold and Lily are getting married, and I'm afraid you'll have to take a month's notice. Of course if you want a reference—well I'll say all I can for you, my girl.' He tried this over, this eminently reasonable and sensible speech, and instantly recognized it as baseness and treachery; for it was his profound conviction—which he had never tried to express in words—that in this world of mortal creatures all unkindness is a sort of treachery, and he sometimes wondered if even God himself could be quite so unkind as his fellow-Ebenezerites believed. Into his perplexed mind there flashed at last the beacon thought of Mabel Finch, his depressed, middle-aged, prolific daughter, the wife of a cadaverous fishmonger considerably her senior, and the mother of (so far)
five children, whose noses not the fondest grandfather in the world could have regarded with unmixed pleasure. Following the gleam of his new idea, he paid a rare visit to Albert Avenue.

Mabel, I don't know why, had become conspicuously ample in her person. She was not, her neighbours fancied, very happy in her marriage; and her temperament did not match her appearance. Her figure was of the build called ‘comfortable', the figure that goes with a bright eye and a bustling cheerful manner. But Mabel, if she bustled at all, bustled drearily; her eyes were tired; and though she rarely uttered a word of complaint, having better uses for such energy as was left to her, her voice was always complaining. She had become, by reason of her altered appearance and diminishing appetite for quarrelling, even more of a stranger to her father than she had been during her mother's lifetime. He could hardly, poor man, believe that he and no other had begotten her. The sight of her invariably saddened and humiliated him by quickening his sense of having, as a father, failed her. In her infancy he had been too ready to regard her as merely an appendage to Carrie and another potential cause of disagreement in the house, and that Carrie had consistently forced this attitude upon him was insufficient now to secure him an acquittal from his own tender conscience. He sometimes shamefacedly slipped half a sovereign into Mabe's hand at parting, for he guessed that she was kept short
of money by her tippling husband; and he would have given a substantial sum, ill as he could spare it, had he had any confidence in its power to redeem her house from the squalid odour that filled it—an odour, pungent and nauseating, that floated across the threshold to meet him the moment Mabel, drearily hushing her children as she shuffled up the passage to admit him, opened the door six inches and vigilantly inserted her large nose in the narrow aperture. But Mr Pandervil was notoriously a bit of a crank about fresh air, being one of those eccentric bodies who even in winter, and with no medical journalists to prompt them, slept with their bedroom windows visibly open. He was ashamed of so profoundly disliking the smell of his daughter's house; and, indeed, it was probably no worse than that of the others in her row.