CHAPTER XV

LOADED DICE

HALF the customary household labours seemed to Wilmot but Moloch worship; consequently, she allowed neither herself nor any other woman to offer up youth and strength to clothes, furniture, and, above all, to floors. For no one, said she, has yet ever accurately calculated the back-aching produced by the mere sweeping of carpets; the image should have been that of a woman with a dustpan, not a man with a muck-rake, for the one is far commoner than the other. The den-drawing-room one could not call it-of the mistress of Dashpers was, therefore, a shock to all the susceptibilities of Challacombe. Uncarpeted, with papers everywhere, and with sketches of fish pinned to the walls, it belonged to a woman who refused to join that class of true-born Englishwomen, who worship the "home," in the sense of preferring a stuffy sitting-room to all the glories of the Pitti palace.

In this room Wilmot was sitting with eyes fixed on the Regiswear Gazette, but with inward gaze evidently directed to something behind the printed page. Before her was an article on the water supply of Challacombe, an article in which she recognized the work of two minds, for Dr. Borlace was evidently behind the editor. John Patient of the Gazette, had his own method of leading, which consisted in waiting till more than half his so-called followers were ahead of him. Just now this system was apparent; evidently the new water supply was a foregone conclusion. Nothing could stand against it, if the future of the town as a health resort was to be considered. Next day the Urban

District Council would give their vote for it, if Patient were the mouthpiece of the majority, as was usually the case.

And still not a word of the real issue, the question of the method of piping to be adopted, was allowed to appear. Evidently this was to be slurred over, or only, at most, to occur in the reports of the meetings. Wilmot asked herself to whom was that omission to be ascribed. Was Tony hedging in the matter, and leaving the ultimate decision to the chance of the hour when it came? For the doctor was certainly behind the editor, and in all the talk she had heard, only Captain Penrice had referred to the real issue, but he had been explicit. She began to walk restlessly up and down, pausing abstractedly to pin a sketch straighter. Another thought was always before her, ominous in view of the idea in her mind, the fact that in his references to the matter, the doctor had still resolutely kept silence even to herself over the real difficulty.

Just at that moment she heard that a caller was being shown into the dining-room. It was Councillor Meech, as she knew from his resonant voice. Both doors were ajar, and from where she stood she could hear distinctly. Builders of small houses have much to answer for; the results of incompatible tempers shut up in rooms twelve feet by twelve are not all shown in the divorce courts. It was not the water and the crust that drove love out of the door, but merely the size of the rooms. Better link yourself to a fiend incarnate in a roomy mansion than to a person of ordinary irascibility in a four-roomed cot.

In this case the builder of Dashpers had to answer for something other than nervous irritation, for Wilmot stood where she was, intent on the answer to the questions she had just asked herself. She scarcely paused for selfjustification, for it was enough to know that Tony shut her out of the confidence he shared with Captain Penrice.

Councillor Meech would one day be Mayor of Challacombe; at present he was postman, councillor, and Poor Law guardian. His great characteristic was a breathless energy that drove his head and shoulders far ahead of his feet, though these were by no means lagging members. His spare form flew up and down the streets, his thin face worked itself into a thousand wrinkles by the pressure of the steam always kept up by the nerves within. His voice was always loudest in the decision of affairs: at one moment he would be pushing a cart loaded with mail-bags; at another, busily hustling paupers on the way they should go—namely, gravewards; at another, inspecting the tramps' lodging-house. His great idea was sanitary science, and his standpoint an acceptance of the "facs" of life, especially the ugly ones.

"No use running in blinkers," was the phrase most often on his lips, whether it was concerning the housing of professions that seek the slums or the cost of paupers to the town. Councillor Meech got through an enormous amount of work in the day, and some of it was excellent, which is more than can be said for most of us. And if he did occasionally chuck a loud-voiced, buxom inmate of the House under the chin, was not that also an acceptance of the inevitable? "Homo sum," said Councillor Meech. Just now the worthy man felt that the future prosperity of Challacombe lay on his shoulders, and that now the moment had come for him to seize affairs by the forelock. The new railway, the new water supply, the flaunting of the town in the face of tourists by the newspapers-and he could rely on a journalist son for that-the simultaneous happening of all these must not be stopped by any nonsensical philandering on the part of Dr. Tony. Councillor Meech looked at the affair of the piping as "a practical man." The town could not afford anything but lead, iron being too troublesome and health-pipes too dear, so that the alternatives were:

no water supply and the good name of the town gone, or lead pipes and a few cases of obscure symptoms about which no one, save the doctors, need know anything.

No sane man could think twice as to the alternative he would choose. Besides, if large towns found lead pipes good enough, why should not Challacombe? "Local conditions, indeed," sniffed the councillor to himself as he pushed his way head foremost up the hill to Dashpers. "Who should know more about local conditions than I, who have lived in the place for forty years?"

It was the day before the meeting of the Water Committee, and the doctor knew no more what his ultimate decision would be than he had months ago; in fact, there could be no decision in the proper sense of the word, since it is never intellectual choice that decides when the full current of desire pulls in a certain direction. We choose in small things; in great we are driven by the series of choosings that have gone before.

It was the councillor's cue to assume that there had been no discussion of the point at issue in anybody's mind; besides, having once decided for himself, it really seemed of little importance to him whether others had made up what they called their minds. The doctor had spoken plainly to him, however, for he knew that Mr. Meech was the thinking part of the assembly that, for the time being, ruled the destinies of Challacombe. Gain him, you gained all.

"Well," began Mr. Meech, rubbing his fingers longways, as if to restore a sluggish circulation, though he was the last man to suffer from this complaint. Perhaps he did it on the same principle that makes very thin people feed on toast. "Well, doctor, so we shall do the job of this water business. I've talked to Varcoe and Poad and a few others, and they'll carry it through, I make no doubt." Dr. Borlace may have relaxed a muscle or two somewhere

near his mouth, but Mr. Meech's bright eyes were twinkling all over the room, and he never noticed that.

"We'll get out the contract notices," continued the councillor comfortably, "straight away. It'll be a race between the town and the railway to see who'll get through first. But I'm for doing it first-hand and not by contractcheaper in the long run I always say."

He rather calculated he was taking away Dr. Tony's breath by the ease with which he was gliding over the main point, like a fine lady who never mentions freckles, but talks about the more elegant "sunburn."

"But," said the doctor, pushing back his chair with a grating sound, "what about the piping?"

"Oh, the usual thing-iron mains and lead connections with the houses; everything else is out of the question, you know. I've sounded everybody, and they all agree that we couldn't entertain any other idea for a moment. Out of the question for a little place like this."

"You know what I told you," said Dr. Tony, gazing out of the window with absorbing interest, "about that town that shall be nameless, and girls that come in from the country getting white and bloodless in a few weeks, and children ditto. What do you make of it, eh?”

"Oh, they think it fine, the sluts," said the councillor cheerfully, "pinching their waists, drinking vinegar, putting stuff on their cheeks-that's what that means. Don't you tell me! I wasn't born yesterday."

The councillor's nose began to waggle, as it always did when he was irritated or found himself facetious.

The doctor was silent; he felt like an indignant constituent when the member he has voted for fritters away an important Bill by jests on the temperature, or the place of woman-the wit-producing points of the British Parliament.

The councillor felt he must speak more plainly.