Chapter XIV

What was to be done? An inspiration came to her in the shape of a pamphlet. Life Assurance! Ah, that was it. Scottish Widows' Fund! How peculiarly apposite the title. If her mother could be guaranteed a couple of thousand pounds, Death would lose its sting. Salvina carefully worked out all the arithmetical points involved, and discovered to her surprise that life assurance was a form of gambling. The Company wagered her that she would live to a certain age, and she wagered that she would not. But after a world of trouble in filling up documents and getting endorsers, when she went before the Company's Doctor she was refused. The bet was not good enough. "Heart weak," was the ruthless indictment. "You ought not to teach," the Doctor even told her privately, and amid all her consternation Salvina was afraid lest by some mysterious brotherhood he should communicate with the Board Doctor and rob her of her situation. She began praying to God extemporaneously, in English. That was, for her, an index of impotence. She was at the end of her resources. She could see only a blank wall, and the wall was a great gravestone on which was chiselled: "_Hic jacet_, Salvina Brill, School Board Teacher, Undergraduate of London University. Unloved and unhappy."

She wept over the inscription, being still romantic. Poor mother, poor Kitty, what a blow her death would be to them! Even Lazarus would be sorry. And in the thought of them she drifted away from the rare mood of self-pity and wondered again how she could get together enough money before she died to secure her mother's future. But no suggestion came even in answer to prayer. Once she thought of the Stock Exchange, but it seemed to her vaguely wicked to conjure with stocks and shares. She had read articles against it. Besides, what did she understand? True, she understood as much as her father. But who knew whether his money really came from this source? She dismissed the Stock Exchange despairingly.

And meanwhile Mrs. Brill continued peevish and lachrymose, and Salvina found it more and more difficult to hide her own melancholy. One day, as she was leaving the school-premises, Sugarman the Shadchan accosted her. "Do make a beginning," he said winningly. "Only a sixteenth of a ticket. You can't lose."

Sugarman still never thought of her even as a refuge for impecunious bachelors, but with that shameless pertinacity which was the secret of his success, both as British marriage-maker and continental lottery agent, he had never ceased cajoling her toward his other net. He was now destined to a success which surprised even himself. Her scrupulous conscientiousness undermined by her analysis of the Assurance System, Salvina inquired eagerly as to the prizes, and bought three whole tickets at a quarter of the price of one Assurance instalment.

Sugarman made a careful note of the numbers, and so did Salvina. But it was unnecessary in her case. They were printed on her brain, graven on her heart, repeated in her prayers; they hovered luminous across her day-dreams, and if they distracted feverishly her dreams of the night, yet they tinged the school-routine pleasantly and made her mother's fretfulness endurable. They actually improved her health, and as the May sunshine warmed the earth, Salvina felt herself bourgeoning afresh, and she told herself her fears were morbid.

Nevertheless there was one thing she was resolved to complete, in case she were truly doomed, and that was her mother's education in reading, so often begun, so often foiled by her mother's pertinacious subsidence into contented ignorance. Of what use even to assure Mrs. Brill's physical future, if her mind were to be left a pauper, dependent on others? How, without the magic resource of books, could she get through the long years of age, when decrepitude might confine her to the chimney-corner? Already her talk groaned with aches and pains.

Since the servant had been installed, the reading lessons had dropped off and finally been discontinued. Now that Salvina persisted in continuing, she found that her mother's brain had retained nothing. Mrs. Brill had to begin again at the alphabet, and all the old routine of audacious guessing recommenced. Again a fat cow ate in a mug, for though Mrs. Brill had no head at all for corrections, she had a wonderful memory for her own mistakes, and took the whole sentence at a confident jump. It was an old friend.

One evening, in the kitchen to which Mrs. Brill always gravitated when the servant was away, she paused between her misreadings to dilate on the inconsiderateness of the servant in having this day out, though she was paid for the full week, and though the mistress had to stick at home and do all the work. As Salvina seemed to be spiritless this evening, and allowed the domestic to go undefended, this topic was worn out more quickly than usual, but the never failing subject of Mrs. Brill's aches and pains provided more pretexts for dodging the hard words. And meantime in a chair beside hers, poor Salvina, silent as to her own aches and pains, and the faintness which was coming over her, strained her attention to follow in correction on the heels of her mother's reading; but do what she would, she could not keep her eyes continuously on the little primer, and whenever Mrs. Brill became aware that Salvina's attention had relaxed, she scampered along at a breakneck speed, taking trisyllables as unhesitatingly as a hunter a three-barred gate. But every now and again Salvina would struggle back into concentration, and Mrs. Brill would tumble at the first ditch.

At last, Mrs. Brill, to her content, found herself cantering along, unimpeded, for a great stretch. Salvina lay back in her chair, dead.

"The broken dancer only merry danger," read Mrs. Brill, at a joyous gallop. Suddenly the knocker beat a frantic tattoo on the street door. Up jumped Mrs. Brill, in sheer nervousness.

Salvina lay rigid, undisturbed.

"She's fallen asleep," thought her mother, guiltily conscious of having taken advantage of her slumbers. "All the same, she might spare my aged bones the trouble of dragging upstairs." But, being already on her feet, she mounted the stairs, and opened the door on Sugarman's beaming, breathless face.

"Your daughter--Number 75,814," he gasped.

Mrs. Brill, who knew nothing of Salvina's speculations, took some seconds to catch his drift.

"What, what?" she cried, trembling.

"I have won her a hundred thousand marks--the great prize!"

"The great prize!" screamed Mrs. Brill. "Salvina! Salvina! Come up," and not waiting for her reply, and overturning the flower-pots on the hall-table, she flew downstairs, helter-skelter. "Salvina!" she shook her roughly. "Wake up! You have won the great prize!"

But Salvina did not wake up, though she had won the great prize.