“Yes, Mrs. Purvis, but what is the proper time?”
“Well,” she said, “after all, there is ‘Is father, isn’t there? And ‘Is father is not as young as ‘e used to be, is ‘e?” She was silent for a moment, diplomatically allowing the tactful inference to sink in by itself. “Well, sir,” she concluded very quietly, “I mean to say, sir, a time will come, sir, won’t it?”
“Yes, Mrs. Purvis,” George persisted, “but will it? I mean, can you be sure? You know, you hear all sorts of things—even a stranger like myself hears them. For one thing, you hear he doesn’t want it very much, and then, of course, there is his brother, isn’t there?”
“Oh, ‘im,” said Mrs. Purvis, “‘im!” For a brief interval she remained silent, but had she filled an entire dictionary with the vocabulary of bitter and unyielding hostility, she could not have said more than she managed to convey in the two letters of that mutilated little pronoun “‘im.”
“Yes,” George persisted somewhat cruelly, “but after all, he wants it, doesn’t he?”
“‘E does,” said Mrs. Purvis grimly.
“And he is married, isn’t he?”
“‘E is,” said Mrs. Purvis, if anything a trifle more grimly than before.
“And he has children, hasn’t he?”
“‘E ‘as, yes,” said Mrs. Purvis, somewhat more gently. In fact, for a moment her face glowed with its look of former tenderness, but it grew grim again very quickly as she went on: “But ‘im! Not ‘im!” She was deeply stirred by this imagined threat to the ascendancy of her idol. Her lips worked tremulously, then she shook her head with a quick movement of inflexible denial and said: “Not ‘im.” She was silent for a moment more, as if a struggle were going on between her desire to speak and the cool barrier of her natural reserve. Then she burst out: “I tell you, sir, I never liked the look of ‘im! Not that one—no!” She shook her head again in a half-convulsive movement; then, in a tone of dark confidingness, she almost whispered: “There’s somethin’ sly about ‘is face that I don’t like! ‘E’s a sly one, ‘e is, but ‘e don’t fool me!” Her face was now deeply flushed, and she nodded her head with the air of a person who had uttered her grim and final judgment and would not budge from it. “That’s my opinion, if you ask me, sir! That’s the way I’ve always felt about ‘im. And ‘er. ‘Er! She wouldn’t like it, would she? Not ‘arf she wouldn’t!” She laughed suddenly, the bitter and falsetto laugh of an angry woman. “Not ‘er! Why, it’s plain as clay, it’s written all over ‘er! But a lot of good it’ll do ‘em,” she said grimly. “We know what’s what!” She shook her head again with grim decision. “The people know. They can’t be fooled. So let ‘em git along with it!”
“You don’t think, then, that they----”
“Them!” said Mrs. Purvis strongly. “Them! Not in a million years, sir! Never! Never!...‘E”—her voice fairly soared to a cry of powerful conviction—“‘E’s the one! ‘E’s always been the one! And when the time comes, sir, ‘E—‘E will be King!”
In the complete and unquestioning loyalty of her character, Mrs. Purvis was like a large and gentle dog. Indeed, her whole relation to life was curiously animal-like. She had an intense concern for every member of brute creation, and when she saw dogs or horses in the streets she always seemed to notice first the animal and then the human being that it belonged to. She had come to know and recognise all the people in Ebury Street through the dogs they owned. When George questioned her one clay about a distinguished-looking old gentleman with a keen hawk’s face whom he had passed several times on the street, Mrs. Purvis answered immediately, with an air of satisfaction:
“Ah-h, yes. ‘E’s the one that ‘as the rascal in 27. Ah-h, and ‘e is a rascal, too,” she cried, shaking her head and laughing with affectionate remembrance. “Big, shaggy fellow ‘e is, you know, comin’ along, swingin’ ‘is big shoulders, and looking’ as if butter wouldn’t melt in ‘is mouth. ‘E is a rascal.”
George was a little bewildered by this time and asked her if she meant the gentleman or the dog.
“Oh, the dog,” cried Mrs. Purvis. “The dog! A big Scotch shepherd ‘e is. Belongs to the gentleman you were speakin’ of. Gentleman’s some sort of scholar or writer or professor, I believe. Used to be up at Cambridge. Retired now. Lives in 27.”
Or again, looking out of the window one day into the pea-soup drizzle of the street, George saw an astonishingly beautiful girl pass by upon the other side. He called Mrs. Purvis quickly, pointed out the girl, and excitedly demanded:
“Who is she? Do you know her? Does she live here on the street?”