Countess, and the Countess’s face was full in the picture.  It presented, too, an excellently appreciative account of Denry’s speech, and it congratulated Denry on his first appearance in the public life of the Five Towns. (In parenthesis it sympathised with Sir Jee in his indisposition.) In short, Denry’s triumph obliterated the memory of his previous triumphs.  It obliterated, too, all rumours adverse to the Thrift Club.  In a few days he had a thousand new members.  Of course, this addition only increased his liabilities; but now he could obtain capital on fair terms, and he did obtain it.  A company was formed.  The Countess had a few shares in this company.  So (strangely) had Jock and his companion the coachman.  Not the least of the mysteries was that when Denry reached his mother’s cottage on the night of the tea with the Countess, his arm was not in a sling, and showed no symptom of having been damaged.

CHAPTER VIII

RAISING A WIGWAM

I

A still young man—­his age was thirty—­with a short, strong beard peeping out over the fur collar of a vast overcoat, emerged from a cab at the snowy corner of St Luke’s Square and Brougham Street, and paid the cabman with a gesture that indicated both wealth and the habit of command.  And the cabman, who had driven him over from Hanbridge through the winter night, responded accordingly.  Few people take cabs in the Five Towns.  There are few cabs to take.  If you are going to a party you may order one in advance by telephone, reconciling yourself also in advance to the expense, but to hail a cab in the street without forethought and jump into it as carelessly as you would jump into a tram—­this is by very few done.  The young man with the beard did it frequently, which proved that he was fundamentally ducal.

He was encumbered with a large and rather heavy parcel as he walked down Brougham Street, and, moreover, the footpath of Brougham Street was exceedingly dirty.  And yet no one acquainted with the circumstances of his life would have asked why he had dismissed the cab before arriving at his destination, because every one knew.  The reason was that this ducal person, with the gestures of command, dared not drive up to his mother’s door in a cab oftener than about once a month.  He opened that door with a latch-key (a modern lock was almost the only innovation that he had succeeded in fixing on his mother), and stumbled with his unwieldy parcel into the exceedingly narrow lobby.

“Is that you, Denry?” called a feeble voice from the parlour.

“Yes,” said he, and went into the parlour, hat, fur coat, parcel, and all.

Mrs Machin, in a shawl and an antimacassar over the shawl, sat close to the fire and leaning towards it.  She looked cold and ill.  Although the parlour was very tiny and the fire comparatively large, the structure of the grate made it impossible that the room should be warm, as all the heat went up the chimney.  If Mrs Machin had sat on the roof and put her hands over the top of the chimney, she would have been much warmer than at the grate.