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Title: The Old Wives' Tale

Author: Arnold Bennett

Posting Date: November 28, 2011 [EBook #5247]
Release Date: March, 2004
First Posted: June 10, 2002
[Last Updated: December 8, 2011]

Language: English

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The Old Wives' Tale

Arnold Bennett




To W. W. K.




PREFACE TO THIS EDITION

In the autumn of 1903 I used to dine frequently in a restaurant in the
Rue de Clichy, Paris. Here were, among others, two waitresses that
attracted my attention. One was a beautiful, pale young girl, to whom I
never spoke, for she was employed far away from the table which I
affected. The other, a stout, middle-aged managing Breton woman, had
sole command over my table and me, and gradually she began to assume
such a maternal tone towards me that I saw I should be compelled to
leave that restaurant. If I was absent for a couple of nights running
she would reproach me sharply: "What! you are unfaithful to me?" Once,
when I complained about some French beans, she informed me roundly that
French beans were a subject which I did not understand. I then decided
to be eternally unfaithful to her, and I abandoned the restaurant. A
few nights before the final parting an old woman came into the
restaurant to dine. She was fat, shapeless, ugly, and grotesque. She
had a ridiculous voice, and ridiculous gestures. It was easy to see
that she lived alone, and that in the long lapse of years she had
developed the kind of peculiarity which induces guffaws among the
thoughtless. She was burdened with a lot of small parcels, which she
kept dropping. She chose one seat; and then, not liking it, chose
another; and then another. In a few moments she had the whole
restaurant laughing at her. That my middle-aged Breton should laugh was
indifferent to me, but I was pained to see a coarse grimace of giggling
on the pale face of the beautiful young waitress to whom I had never
spoken.

I reflected, concerning the grotesque diner: "This woman was once
young, slim, perhaps beautiful; certainly free from these ridiculous
mannerisms. Very probably she is unconscious of her singularities. Her
case is a tragedy. One ought to be able to make a heartrending novel
out of the history of a woman such as she." Every stout, ageing woman
is not grotesque--far from it!--but there is an extreme pathos in the
mere fact that every stout ageing woman was once a young girl with the
unique charm of youth in her form and movements and in her mind. And
the fact that the change from the young girl to the stout ageing woman
is made up of an infinite number of infinitesimal changes, each
unperceived by her, only intensifies the pathos.

It was at this instant that I was visited by the idea of writing the
book which ultimately became "The Old Wives' Tale." Of course I felt
that the woman who caused the ignoble mirth in the restaurant would not
serve me as a type of heroine. For she was much too old and obviously
unsympathetic. It is an absolute rule that the principal character of a
novel must not be unsympathetic, and the whole modern tendency of
realistic fiction is against oddness in a prominent figure. I knew that
I must choose the sort of woman who would pass unnoticed in a crowd.

I put the idea aside for a long time, but it was never very distant
from me. For several reasons it made a special appeal to me. I had
always been a convinced admirer of Mrs. W. K. Clifford's most precious
novel, "Aunt Anne," but I wanted to see in the story of an old woman
many things that Mrs. W. K. Clifford had omitted from "Aunt Anne."
Moreover, I had always revolted against the absurd youthfulness, the
unfading youthfulness of the average heroine. And as a protest against
this fashion, I was already, in 1903, planning a novel ("Leonora") of
which the heroine was aged forty, and had daughters old enough to be in
love. The reviewers, by the way, were staggered by my hardihood in
offering a woman of forty as a subject of serious interest to the
public. But I meant to go much farther than forty! Finally as a supreme
reason, I had the example and the challenge of Guy de Maupassant's "Une
Vie." In the nineties we used to regard "Une Vie" with mute awe, as
being the summit of achievement in fiction. And I remember being very
cross with Mr. Bernard Shaw because, having read "Une Vie" at the
suggestion (I think) of Mr. William Archer, he failed to see in it
anything very remarkable. Here I must confess that, in 1908, I read
"Une Vie" again, and in spite of a natural anxiety to differ from Mr.
Bernard Shaw, I was gravely disappointed with it. It is a fine novel,
but decidedly inferior to "Pierre et Jean" or even "Fort Comme la
Mort." To return to the year 1903. "Une Vie" relates the entire life
history of a woman. I settled in the privacy of my own head that my
book about the development of a young girl into a stout old lady must
be the English "Une Vie." I have been accused of every fault except a
lack of self-confidence, and in a few weeks I settled a further point,
namely, that my book must "go one better" than "Une Vie," and that to
this end it must be the life-history of two women instead of only one.
Hence, "The Old Wives' Tale" has two heroines. Constance was the
original; Sophia was created out of bravado, just to indicate that I
declined to consider Guy de Maupassant as the last forerunner of the
deluge. I was intimidated by the audacity of my project, but I had
sworn to carry it out. For several years I looked it squarely in the
face at intervals, and then walked away to write novels of smaller
scope, of which I produced five or six. But I could not dally forever,
and in the autumn of 1907 I actually began to write it, in a village
near Fontainebleau, where I rented half a house from a retired railway
servant. I calculated that it would be 200,000 words long (which it
exactly proved to be), and I had a vague notion that no novel of such
dimensions (except Richardson's) had ever been written before. So I
counted the words in several famous Victorian novels, and discovered to
my relief that the famous Victorian novels average 400,000 words
apiece. I wrote the first part of the novel in six weeks. It was fairly
easy to me, because, in the seventies, in the first decade of my life,
I had lived in the actual draper's shop of the Baines's, and knew it as
only a child could know it. Then I went to London on a visit. I tried
to continue the book in a London hotel, but London was too distracting,
and I put the thing away, and during January and February of 1908, I
wrote "Buried Alive," which was published immediately, and was received
with majestic indifference by the English public, an indifference which
has persisted to this day.

I then returned to the Fontainebleau region and gave "The Old Wives'
Tale" no rest till I finished it at the end of July, 1908. It was
published in the autumn of the same year, and for six weeks afterward
the English public steadily confirmed an opinion expressed by a certain
person in whose judgment I had confidence, to the effect that the work
was honest but dull, and that when it was not dull it had a regrettable
tendency to facetiousness. My publishers, though brave fellows, were
somewhat disheartened; however, the reception of the book gradually
became less and less frigid.

With regard to the French portion of the story, it was not until I had
written the first part that I saw from a study of my chronological
basis that the Siege of Paris might be brought into the tale. The idea
was seductive; but I hated, and still hate, the awful business of
research; and I only knew the Paris of the Twentieth Century. Now I was
aware that my railway servant and his wife had been living in Paris at
the time of the war. I said to the old man, "By the way, you went
through the Siege of Paris, didn't you?" He turned to his old wife and
said, uncertainly, "The Siege of Paris? Yes, we did, didn't we?" The
Siege of Paris had been only one incident among many in their lives. Of
course, they remembered it well, though not vividly, and I gained much
information from them. But the most useful thing which I gained from
them was the perception, startling at first, that ordinary people went
on living very ordinary lives in Paris during the siege, and that to
the vast mass of the population the siege was not the dramatic,
spectacular, thrilling, ecstatic affair that is described in history.
Encouraged by this perception, I decided to include the siege in my
scheme. I read Sarcey's diary of the siege aloud to my wife, and I
looked at the pictures in Jules Claretie's popular work on the siege
and the commune, and I glanced at the printed collection of official
documents, and there my research ended.

It has been asserted that unless I had actually been present at a
public execution, I could not have written the chapter in which Sophia
was at the Auxerre solemnity. I have not been present at a public
execution, as the whole of my information about public executions was
derived from a series of articles on them which I read in the Paris
Matin. Mr. Frank Harris, discussing my book in "Vanity Fair," said it
was clear that I had not seen an execution, (or words to that effect),
and he proceeded to give his own description of an execution. It was a
brief but terribly convincing bit of writing, quite characteristic and
quite worthy of the author of "Montes the Matador" and of a man who has
been almost everywhere and seen almost everything. I comprehended how
far short I had fallen of the truth! I wrote to Mr. Frank Harris,
regretting that his description had not been printed before I wrote
mine, as I should assuredly have utilized it, and, of course, I
admitted that I had never witnessed an execution. He simply replied:
"Neither have I." This detail is worth preserving, for it is a reproof
to that large body of readers, who, when a novelist has really carried
conviction to them, assert off hand: "O, that must be autobiography!"

ARNOLD BENNETT.






CONTENTS


BOOK I.

MRS. BAINES

   I. THE SQUARE

  II. THE TOOTH

 III. A BATTLE

  IV. ELEPHANT

   V. THE TRAVELLER

  VI. ESCAPADE

 VII. A DEFEAT



BOOK II.

CONSTANCE

   I. REVOLUTION

  II. CHRISTMAS AND THE FUTURE

 III. CYRIL

  IV. CRIME

   V. ANOTHER CRIME

  VI. THE WIDOW

 VII. BRICKS AND MORTAR

VIII. THE PROUDEST MOTHER



BOOK III.

SOPHIA

   I. THE ELOPEMENT

  II. SUPPER

 III. AN AMBITION SATISFIED

  IV. A CRISIS FOR GERALD

   V. FEVER

  VI. THE SIEGE

 VII. SUCCESS



BOOK IV.

WHAT LIFE IS

   I. FRENSHAM'S

  II. THE MEETING

 III. TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE

  IV. END OF SOPHIA

   V. END OF CONSTANCE






BOOK I

MRS. BAINES




CHAPTER I

THE SQUARE

I


Those two girls, Constance and Sophia Baines, paid no heed to the
manifold interest of their situation, of which, indeed, they had never
been conscious. They were, for example, established almost precisely on
the fifty-third parallel of latitude. A little way to the north of
them, in the creases of a hill famous for its religious orgies, rose
the river Trent, the calm and characteristic stream of middle England.
Somewhat further northwards, in the near neighbourhood of the highest
public-house in the realm, rose two lesser rivers, the Dane and the
Dove, which, quarrelling in early infancy, turned their backs on each
other, and, the one by favour of the Weaver and the other by favour of
the Trent, watered between them the whole width of England, and poured
themselves respectively into the Irish Sea and the German Ocean. What a
county of modest, unnoticed rivers! What a natural, simple county,
content to fix its boundaries by these tortuous island brooks, with
their comfortable names--Trent, Mease, Dove, Tern, Dane, Mees, Stour,
Tame, and even hasty Severn! Not that the Severn is suitable to the
county! In the county excess is deprecated. The county is happy in not
exciting remark. It is content that Shropshire should possess that
swollen bump, the Wrekin, and that the exaggerated wildness of the Peak
should lie over its border. It does not desire to be a pancake like
Cheshire. It has everything that England has, including thirty miles of
Watling Street; and England can show nothing more beautiful and nothing
uglier than the works of nature and the works of man to be seen within
the limits of the county. It is England in little, lost in the midst of
England, unsung by searchers after the extreme; perhaps occasionally
somewhat sore at this neglect, but how proud in the instinctive
cognizance of its representative features and traits!

Constance and Sophia, busy with the intense preoccupations of youth,
recked not of such matters. They were surrounded by the county. On
every side the fields and moors of Staffordshire, intersected by roads
and lanes, railways, watercourses and telegraph-lines, patterned by
hedges, ornamented and made respectable by halls and genteel parks,
enlivened by villages at the intersections, and warmly surveyed by the
sun, spread out undulating. And trains were rushing round curves in
deep cuttings, and carts and waggons trotting and jingling on the
yellow roads, and long, narrow boats passing in a leisure majestic and
infinite over the surface of the stolid canals; the rivers had only
themselves to support, for Staffordshire rivers have remained virgin of
keels to this day. One could imagine the messages concerning prices,
sudden death, and horses, in their flight through the wires under the
feet of birds. In the inns Utopians were shouting the universe into
order over beer, and in the halls and parks the dignity of England was
being preserved in a fitting manner. The villages were full of women
who did nothing but fight against dirt and hunger, and repair the
effects of friction on clothes. Thousands of labourers were in the
fields, but the fields were so broad and numerous that this scattered
multitude was totally lost therein. The cuckoo was much more
perceptible than man, dominating whole square miles with his resounding
call. And on the airy moors heath-larks played in the ineffaceable
mule-tracks that had served centuries before even the Romans thought of
Watling Street. In short, the usual daily life of the county was
proceeding with all its immense variety and importance; but though
Constance and Sophia were in it they were not of it.

The fact is, that while in the county they were also in the district;
and no person who lives in the district, even if he should be old and
have nothing to do but reflect upon things in general, ever thinks
about the county. So far as the county goes, the district might almost
as well be in the middle of the Sahara. It ignores the county, save
that it uses it nonchalantly sometimes as leg-stretcher on holiday
afternoons, as a man may use his back garden. It has nothing in common
with the county; it is richly sufficient to itself. Nevertheless, its
self-sufficiency and the true salt savour of its life can only be
appreciated by picturing it hemmed in by county. It lies on the face of
the county like an insignificant stain, like a dark Pleiades in a green
and empty sky. And Hanbridge has the shape of a horse and its rider,
Bursley of half a donkey, Knype of a pair of trousers, Longshaw of an
octopus, and little Turnhill of a beetle. The Five Towns seem to cling
together for safety. Yet the idea of clinging together for safety would
make them laugh. They are unique and indispensable. From the north of
the county right down to the south they alone stand for civilization,
applied science, organized manufacture, and the century--until you come
to Wolverhampton. They are unique and indispensable because you cannot
drink tea out of a teacup without the aid of the Five Towns; because
you cannot eat a meal in decency without the aid of the Five Towns. For
this the architecture of the Five Towns is an architecture of ovens and
chimneys; for this its atmosphere is as black as its mud; for this it
burns and smokes all night, so that Longshaw has been compared to hell;
for this it is unlearned in the ways of agriculture, never having seen
corn except as packing straw and in quartern loaves; for this, on the
other hand, it comprehends the mysterious habits of fire and pure,
sterile earth; for this it lives crammed together in slippery streets
where the housewife must change white window-curtains at least once a
fortnight if she wishes to remain respectable; for this it gets up in
the mass at six a.m., winter and summer, and goes to bed when the
public-houses close; for this it exists--that you may drink tea out of
a teacup and toy with a chop on a plate. All the everyday crockery used
in the kingdom is made in the Five Towns--all, and much besides. A
district capable of such gigantic manufacture, of such a perfect
monopoly--and which finds energy also to produce coal and iron and
great men--may be an insignificant stain on a county, considered
geographically, but it is surely well justified in treating the county
as its back garden once a week, and in blindly ignoring it the rest of
the time.

Even the majestic thought that whenever and wherever in all England a
woman washes up, she washes up the product of the district; that
whenever and wherever in all England a plate is broken the fracture
means new business for the district--even this majestic thought had
probably never occurred to either of the girls. The fact is, that while
in the Five Towns they were also in the Square, Bursley and the Square
ignored the staple manufacture as perfectly as the district ignored the
county. Bursley has the honours of antiquity in the Five Towns. No
industrial development can ever rob it of its superiority in age, which
makes it absolutely sure in its conceit. And the time will never come
when the other towns--let them swell and bluster as they may--will not
pronounce the name of Bursley as one pronounces the name of one's
mother. Add to this that the Square was the centre of Bursley's retail
trade (which scorned the staple as something wholesale, vulgar, and
assuredly filthy), and you will comprehend the importance and the
self-isolation of the Square in the scheme of the created universe.
There you have it, embedded in the district, and the district embedded
in the county, and the county lost and dreaming in the heart of England!

The Square was named after St. Luke. The Evangelist might have been
startled by certain phenomena in his square, but, except in Wakes Week,
when the shocking always happened, St. Luke's Square lived in a manner
passably saintly--though it contained five public-houses. It contained
five public-houses, a bank, a barber's, a confectioner's, three
grocers', two chemists', an ironmonger's, a clothier's, and five
drapers'. These were all the catalogue. St. Luke's Square had no room
for minor establishments. The aristocracy of the Square undoubtedly
consisted of the drapers (for the bank was impersonal); and among the
five the shop of Baines stood supreme. No business establishment could
possibly be more respected than that of Mr. Baines was respected. And
though John Baines had been bedridden for a dozen years, he still lived
on the lips of admiring, ceremonious burgesses as 'our honoured
fellow-townsman.' He deserved his reputation.

The Baines's shop, to make which three dwellings had at intervals been
thrown into one, lay at the bottom of the Square. It formed about
one-third of the south side of the Square, the remainder being made up
of Critchlow's (chemist), the clothier's, and the Hanover Spirit
Vaults. ("Vaults" was a favourite synonym of the public-house in the
Square. Only two of the public-houses were crude public-houses: the
rest were "vaults.") It was a composite building of three storeys, in
blackish-crimson brick, with a projecting shop-front and, above and
behind that, two rows of little windows. On the sash of each window was
a red cloth roll stuffed with sawdust, to prevent draughts; plain white
blinds descended about six inches from the top of each window. There
were no curtains to any of the windows save one; this was the window of
the drawing-room, on the first floor at the corner of the Square and
King Street. Another window, on the second storey, was peculiar, in
that it had neither blind nor pad, and was very dirty; this was the
window of an unused room that had a separate staircase to itself, the
staircase being barred by a door always locked. Constance and Sophia
had lived in continual expectation of the abnormal issuing from that
mysterious room, which was next to their own. But they were
disappointed. The room had no shameful secret except the incompetence
of the architect who had made one house out of three; it was just an
empty, unemployable room. The building had also a considerable frontage
on King Street, where, behind the shop, was sheltered the parlour, with
a large window and a door that led directly by two steps into the
street. A strange peculiarity of the shop was that it bore no
signboard. Once it had had a large signboard which a memorable gale had
blown into the Square. Mr. Baines had decided not to replace it. He had
always objected to what he called "puffing," and for this reason would
never hear of such a thing as a clearance sale. The hatred of "puffing"
grew on him until he came to regard even a sign as "puffing."
Uninformed persons who wished to find Baines's must ask and learn. For
Mr. Baines, to have replaced the sign would have been to condone, yea,
to participate in, the modern craze for unscrupulous
self-advertisement. This abstention of Mr. Baines's from indulgence in
signboards was somehow accepted by the more thoughtful members of the
community as evidence that the height of Mr. Baines's principles was
greater even than they had imagined.

Constance and Sophia were the daughters of this credit to human nature.
He had no other children.

II

They pressed their noses against the window of the show-room, and gazed
down into the Square as perpendicularly as the projecting front of the
shop would allow. The show-room was over the millinery and silken half
of the shop. Over the woollen and shirting half were the drawing-room
and the chief bedroom. When in quest of articles of coquetry, you
mounted from the shop by a curving stair, and your head gradually rose
level with a large apartment having a mahogany counter in front of the
window and along one side, yellow linoleum on the floor, many cardboard
boxes, a magnificent hinged cheval glass, and two chairs. The
window-sill being lower than the counter, there was a gulf between the
panes and the back of the counter, into which important articles such
as scissors, pencils, chalk, and artificial flowers were continually
disappearing: another proof of the architect's incompetence.

The girls could only press their noses against the window by kneeling
on the counter, and this they were doing. Constance's nose was snub,
but agreeably so. Sophia had a fine Roman nose; she was a beautiful
creature, beautiful and handsome at the same time. They were both of
them rather like racehorses, quivering with delicate, sensitive, and
luxuriant life; exquisite, enchanting proof of the circulation of the
blood; innocent, artful, roguish, prim, gushing, ignorant, and
miraculously wise. Their ages were sixteen and fifteen; it is an epoch
when, if one is frank, one must admit that one has nothing to learn:
one has learnt simply everything in the previous six months.

"There she goes!" exclaimed Sophia.

Up the Square, from the corner of King Street, passed a woman in a new
bonnet with pink strings, and a new blue dress that sloped at the
shoulders and grew to a vast circumference at the hem. Through the
silent sunlit solitude of the Square (for it was Thursday afternoon,
and all the shops shut except the confectioner's and one chemist's)
this bonnet and this dress floated northwards in search of romance,
under the relentless eyes of Constance and Sophia. Within them,
somewhere, was the soul of Maggie, domestic servant at Baines's. Maggie
had been at the shop since before the creation of Constance and Sophia.
She lived seventeen hours of each day in an underground kitchen and
larder, and the other seven in an attic, never going out except to
chapel on Sunday evenings, and once a month on Thursday afternoons.
"Followers" were most strictly forbidden to her; but on rare occasions
an aunt from Longshaw was permitted as a tremendous favour to see her
in the subterranean den. Everybody, including herself, considered that
she had a good "place," and was well treated. It was undeniable, for
instance, that she was allowed to fall in love exactly as she chose,
provided she did not "carry on" in the kitchen or the yard. And as a
fact, Maggie had fallen in love. In seventeen years she had been
engaged eleven times. No one could conceive how that ugly and powerful
organism could softly languish to the undoing of even a butty-collier,
nor why, having caught a man in her sweet toils, she could ever be
imbecile enough to set him free. There are, however, mysteries in the
souls of Maggies. The drudge had probably been affianced oftener than
any woman in Bursley. Her employers were so accustomed to an
interesting announcement that for years they had taken to saying naught
in reply but 'Really, Maggie!' Engagements and tragic partings were
Maggie's pastime. Fixed otherwise, she might have studied the piano
instead.

"No gloves, of course!" Sophia criticized.

"Well, you can't expect her to have gloves," said Constance.

Then a pause, as the bonnet and dress neared the top of the Square.

"Supposing she turns round and sees us?" Constance suggested.

"I don't care if she does," said Sophia, with a haughtiness almost
impassioned; and her head trembled slightly.

There were, as usual, several loafers at the top of the Square, in the
corner between the bank and the "Marquis of Granby." And one of these
loafers stepped forward and shook hands with an obviously willing
Maggie. Clearly it was a rendezvous, open, unashamed. The twelfth
victim had been selected by the virgin of forty, whose kiss would not
have melted lard! The couple disappeared together down Oldcastle Street.

"WELL!" cried Constance. "Did you ever see such a thing?"

While Sophia, short of adequate words, flushed and bit her lip.

With the profound, instinctive cruelty of youth, Constance and Sophia
had assembled in their favourite haunt, the show-room, expressly to
deride Maggie in her new clothes. They obscurely thought that a woman
so ugly and soiled as Maggie was had no right to possess new clothes.
Even her desire to take the air of a Thursday afternoon seemed to them
unnatural and somewhat reprehensible. Why should she want to stir out
of her kitchen? As for her tender yearnings, they positively grudged
these to Maggie. That Maggie should give rein to chaste passion was
more than grotesque; it was offensive and wicked. But let it not for an
instant be doubted that they were nice, kind-hearted, well-behaved, and
delightful girls! Because they were. They were not angels.

"It's too ridiculous!" said Sophia, severely. She had youth, beauty,
and rank in her favour. And to her it really was ridiculous.

"Poor old Maggie!" Constance murmured. Constance was foolishly
good-natured, a perfect manufactory of excuses for other people; and
her benevolence was eternally rising up and overpowering her reason.

"What time did mother say she should be back?" Sophia asked.

"Not until supper."

"Oh! Hallelujah!" Sophia burst out, clasping her hands in joy. And they
both slid down from the counter just as if they had been little boys,
and not, as their mother called them, "great girls."

"Let's go and play the Osborne quadrilles," Sophia suggested (the
Osborne quadrilles being a series of dances arranged to be performed on
drawing-room pianos by four jewelled hands).

"I couldn't think of it," said Constance, with a precocious gesture of
seriousness. In that gesture, and in her tone, was something which
conveyed to Sophia: "Sophia, how can you be so utterly blind to the
gravity of our fleeting existence as to ask me to go and strum the
piano with you?" Yet a moment before she had been a little boy.

"Why not?" Sophia demanded.

"I shall never have another chance like to-day for getting on with
this," said Constance, picking up a bag from the counter.

She sat down and took from the bag a piece of loosely woven canvas, on
which she was embroidering a bunch of roses in coloured wools. The
canvas had once been stretched on a frame, but now, as the delicate
labour of the petals and leaves was done, and nothing remained to do
but the monotonous background, Constance was content to pin the stuff
to her knee. With the long needle and several skeins of mustard-tinted
wool, she bent over the canvas and resumed the filling-in of the tiny
squares. The whole design was in squares--the gradations of red and
greens, the curves of the smallest buds--all was contrived in squares,
with a result that mimicked a fragment of uncompromising Axminster
carpet. Still, the fine texture of the wool, the regular and rapid
grace of those fingers moving incessantly at back and front of the
canvas, the gentle sound of the wool as it passed through the holes,
and the intent, youthful earnestness of that lowered gaze, excused and
invested with charm an activity which, on artistic grounds, could not
possibly be justified. The canvas was destined to adorn a gilt
firescreen in the drawing-room, and also to form a birthday gift to
Mrs. Baines from her elder daughter. But whether the enterprise was as
secret from Mrs. Baines as Constance hoped, none save Mrs. Baines knew.

"Con," murmured Sophia, "you're too sickening sometimes."

"Well," said Constance, blandly, "it's no use pretending that this
hasn't got to be finished before we go back to school, because it has."
Sophia wandered about, a prey ripe for the Evil One. "Oh," she
exclaimed joyously--even ecstatically--looking behind the cheval glass,
"here's mother's new skirt! Miss Dunn's been putting the gimp on it!
Oh, mother, what a proud thing you will be!" Constance heard swishings
behind the glass. "What are you doing, Sophia?"

"Nothing."

"You surely aren't putting that skirt on?"

"Why not?"

"You'll catch it finely, I can tell you!"

Without further defence, Sophia sprang out from behind the immense
glass. She had already shed a notable part of her own costume, and the
flush of mischief was in her face. She ran across to the other side of
the room and examined carefully a large coloured print that was affixed
to the wall.

This print represented fifteen sisters, all of the same height and
slimness of figure, all of the same age--about twenty-five or so, and
all with exactly the same haughty and bored beauty. That they were in
truth sisters was clear from the facial resemblance between them; their
demeanour indicated that they were princesses, offspring of some
impossibly prolific king and queen. Those hands had never toiled, nor
had those features ever relaxed from the smile of courts. The
princesses moved in a landscape of marble steps and verandahs, with a
bandstand and strange trees in the distance. One was in a riding-habit,
another in evening attire, another dressed for tea, another for the
theatre; another seemed to be ready to go to bed. One held a little
girl by the hand; it could not have been her own little girl, for these
princesses were far beyond human passions. Where had she obtained the
little girl? Why was one sister going to the theatre, another to tea,
another to the stable, and another to bed? Why was one in a heavy
mantle, and another sheltering from the sun's rays under a parasol? The
picture was drenched in mystery, and the strangest thing about it was
that all these highnesses were apparently content with the most
ridiculous and out-moded fashions. Absurd hats, with veils flying
behind; absurd bonnets, fitting close to the head, and spotted; absurd
coiffures that nearly lay on the nape; absurd, clumsy sleeves; absurd
waists, almost above the elbow's level; absurd scolloped jackets! And
the skirts! What a sight were those skirts! They were nothing but vast
decorated pyramids; on the summit of each was stuck the upper half of a
princess. It was astounding that princesses should consent to be so
preposterous and so uncomfortable. But Sophia perceived nothing uncanny
in the picture, which bore the legend: "Newest summer fashions from
Paris. Gratis supplement to Myra's Journal." Sophia had never imagined
anything more stylish, lovely, and dashing than the raiment of the
fifteen princesses.

For Constance and Sophia had the disadvantage of living in the middle
ages. The crinoline had not quite reached its full circumference, and
the dress-improver had not even been thought of. In all the Five Towns
there was not a public bath, nor a free library, nor a municipal park,
nor a telephone, nor yet a board-school. People had not understood the
vital necessity of going away to the seaside every year. Bishop Colenso
had just staggered Christianity by his shameless notions on the
Pentateuch. Half Lancashire was starving on account of the American
war. Garroting was the chief amusement of the homicidal classes.
Incredible as it may appear, there was nothing but a horse-tram running
between Bursley and Hanbridge--and that only twice an hour; and between
the other towns no stage of any kind! One went to Longshaw as one now
goes to Pekin. It was an era so dark and backward that one might wonder
how people could sleep in their beds at night for thinking about their
sad state.

Happily the inhabitants of the Five Towns in that era were passably
pleased with themselves, and they never even suspected that they were
not quite modern and quite awake. They thought that the intellectual,
the industrial, and the social movements had gone about as far as these
movements could go, and they were amazed at their own progress. Instead
of being humble and ashamed, they actually showed pride in their
pitiful achievements. They ought to have looked forward meekly to the
prodigious feats of posterity; but, having too little faith and too
much conceit, they were content to look behind and make comparisons
with the past. They did not foresee the miraculous generation which is
us. A poor, blind, complacent people! The ludicrous horse-car was
typical of them. The driver rang a huge bell, five minutes before
starting, that could be heard from the Wesleyan Chapel to the Cock
Yard, and then after deliberations and hesitations the vehicle rolled
off on its rails into unknown dangers while passengers shouted
good-bye. At Bleakridge it had to stop for the turnpike, and it was
assisted up the mountains of Leveson Place and Sutherland Street
(towards Hanbridge) by a third horse, on whose back was perched a tiny,
whip-cracking boy; that boy lived like a shuttle on the road between
Leveson Place and Sutherland Street, and even in wet weather he was the
envy of all other boys. After half an hour's perilous transit the car
drew up solemnly in a narrow street by the Signal office in Hanbridge,
and the ruddy driver, having revolved many times the polished iron
handle of his sole brake, turned his attention to his passengers in
calm triumph, dismissing them with a sort of unsung doxology.

And this was regarded as the last word of traction! A whip-cracking boy
on a tip horse! Oh, blind, blind! You could not foresee the hundred and
twenty electric cars that now rush madly bumping and thundering at
twenty miles an hour through all the main streets of the district!

So that naturally Sophia, infected with the pride of her period, had no
misgivings whatever concerning the final elegance of the princesses.
She studied them as the fifteen apostles of the ne plus ultra; then,
having taken some flowers and plumes out of a box, amid warnings from
Constance, she retreated behind the glass, and presently emerged as a
great lady in the style of the princesses. Her mother's tremendous new
gown ballooned about her in all its fantastic richness and
expensiveness. And with the gown she had put on her mother's
importance--that mien of assured authority, of capacity tested in many
a crisis, which characterized Mrs. Baines, and which Mrs. Baines seemed
to impart to her dresses even before she had regularly worn them. For
it was a fact that Mrs. Baines's empty garments inspired respect, as
though some essence had escaped from her and remained in them.

"Sophia!"

Constance stayed her needle, and, without lifting her head, gazed, with
eyes raised from the wool-work, motionless at the posturing figure of
her sister. It was sacrilege that she was witnessing, a prodigious
irreverence. She was conscious of an expectation that punishment would
instantly fall on this daring, impious child. But she, who never felt
these mad, amazing impulses, could nevertheless only smile fearfully.

"Sophia!" she breathed, with an intensity of alarm that merged into
condoning admiration. "Whatever will you do next?"

Sophia's lovely flushed face crowned the extraordinary structure like a
blossom, scarcely controlling its laughter. She was as tall as her
mother, and as imperious, as crested, and proud; and in spite of the
pigtail, the girlish semi-circular comb, and the loose foal-like limbs,
she could support as well as her mother the majesty of the
gimp-embroidered dress. Her eyes sparkled with all the challenges of
the untried virgin as she minced about the showroom. Abounding life
inspired her movements. The confident and fierce joy of youth shone on
her brow. "What thing on earth equals me?" she seemed to demand with
enchanting and yet ruthless arrogance. She was the daughter of a
respected, bedridden draper in an insignificant town, lost in the
central labyrinth of England, if you like; yet what manner of man,
confronted with her, would or could have denied her naive claim to
dominion? She stood, in her mother's hoops, for the desire of the
world. And in the innocence of her soul she knew it! The heart of a
young girl mysteriously speaks and tells her of her power long ere she
can use her power. If she can find nothing else to subdue, you may
catch her in the early years subduing a gate-post or drawing homage
from an empty chair. Sophia's experimental victim was Constance, with
suspended needle and soft glance that shot out from the lowered face.

Then Sophia fell, in stepping backwards; the pyramid was overbalanced;
great distended rings of silk trembled and swayed gigantically on the
floor, and Sophia's small feet lay like the feet of a doll on the rim
of the largest circle, which curved and arched above them like a
cavern's mouth. The abrupt transition of her features from assured
pride to ludicrous astonishment and alarm was comical enough to have
sent into wild uncharitable laughter any creature less humane than
Constance. But Constance sprang to her, a single embodied instinct of
benevolence, with her snub nose, and tried to raise her.

"Oh, Sophia!" she cried compassionately--that voice seemed not to know
the tones of reproof--"I do hope you've not messed it, because mother
would be so--"

The words were interrupted by the sound of groans beyond the door
leading to the bedrooms. The groans, indicating direst physical
torment, grew louder. The two girls stared, wonder-struck and afraid,
at the door, Sophia with her dark head raised, and Constance with her
arms round Sophia's waist. The door opened, letting in a much-magnified
sound of groans, and there entered a youngish, undersized man, who was
frantically clutching his head in his hands and contorting all the
muscles of his face. On perceiving the sculptural group of two prone,
interlocked girls, one enveloped in a crinoline, and the other with a
wool-work bunch of flowers pinned to her knee, he jumped back, ceased
groaning, arranged his face, and seriously tried to pretend that it was
not he who had been vocal in anguish, that, indeed, he was just passing
as a casual, ordinary wayfarer through the showroom to the shop below.
He blushed darkly; and the girls also blushed.

"Oh, I beg pardon, I'm sure!" said this youngish man suddenly; and with
a swift turn he disappeared whence he had come.

He was Mr. Povey, a person universally esteemed, both within and
without the shop, the surrogate of bedridden Mr. Baines, the unfailing
comfort and stand-by of Mrs. Baines, the fount and radiating centre of
order and discipline in the shop; a quiet, diffident, secretive,
tedious, and obstinate youngish man, absolutely faithful, absolutely
efficient in his sphere; without brilliance, without distinction;
perhaps rather little-minded, certainly narrow-minded; but what a force
in the shop! The shop was inconceivable without Mr. Povey. He was under
twenty and not out of his apprenticeship when Mr. Baines had been
struck down, and he had at once proved his worth. Of the assistants, he
alone slept in the house. His bedroom was next to that of his employer;
there was a door between the two chambers, and the two steps led down
from the larger to the less.

The girls regained their feet, Sophia with Constance's help. It was not
easy to right a capsized crinoline. They both began to laugh nervously,
with a trace of hysteria.

"I thought he'd gone to the dentist's," whispered Constance.

Mr. Povey's toothache had been causing anxiety in the microcosm for two
days, and it had been clearly understood at dinner that Thursday
morning that Mr. Povey was to set forth to Oulsnam Bros., the dentists
at Hillport, without any delay. Only on Thursdays and Sundays did Mr.
Povey dine with the family. On other days he dined later, by himself,
but at the family table, when Mrs. Baines or one of the assistants
could "relieve" him in the shop. Before starting out to visit her elder
sister at Axe, Mrs. Baines had insisted to Mr. Povey that he had eaten
practically nothing but "slops" for twenty-four hours, and that if he
was not careful she would have him on her hands. He had replied in his
quietest, most sagacious, matter-of-fact tone--the tone that carried
weight with all who heard it--that he had only been waiting for
Thursday afternoon, and should of course go instantly to Oulsnams' and
have the thing attended to in a proper manner. He had even added that
persons who put off going to the dentist's were simply sowing trouble
for themselves.

None could possibly have guessed that Mr. Povey was afraid of going to
the dentist's. But such was the case. He had not dared to set forth.
The paragon of commonsense, pictured by most people as being somehow
unliable to human frailties, could not yet screw himself up to the
point of ringing a dentist's door-bell.

"He did look funny," said Sophia. "I wonder what he thought. I couldn't
help laughing!"

Constance made no answer; but when Sophia had resumed her own clothes,
and it was ascertained beyond doubt that the new dress had not
suffered, and Constance herself was calmly stitching again, she said,
poising her needle as she had poised it to watch Sophia:

"I was just wondering whether something oughtn't to be done for Mr.
Povey."

"What?" Sophia demanded.

"Has he gone back to his bedroom?"

"Let's go and listen," said Sophia the adventuress.

They went, through the showroom door, past the foot of the stairs
leading to the second storey, down the long corridor broken in the
middle by two steps and carpeted with a narrow bordered carpet whose
parallel lines increased its apparent length. They went on tiptoe,
sticking close to one another. Mr. Povey's door was slightly ajar. They
listened; not a sound.

"Mr. Povey!" Constance coughed discreetly.

No reply. It was Sophia who pushed the door open. Constance made an
elderly prim plucking gesture at Sophia's bare arm, but she followed
Sophia gingerly into the forbidden room, which was, however, empty. The
bed had been ruffled, and on it lay a book, "The Harvest of a Quiet
Eye."

"Harvest of a quiet tooth!" Sophia whispered, giggling very low.

"Hsh!" Constance put her lips forward.

From the next room came a regular, muffled, oratorical sound, as though
some one had begun many years ago to address a meeting and had
forgotten to leave off and never would leave off. They were familiar
with the sound, and they quitted Mr. Povey's chamber in fear of
disturbing it. At the same moment Mr. Povey reappeared, this time in
the drawing-room doorway at the other extremity of the long corridor.
He seemed to be trying ineffectually to flee from his tooth as a
murderer tries to flee from his conscience.

"Oh, Mr. Povey!" said Constance quickly--for he had surprised them
coming out of his bedroom; "we were just looking for you."

"To see if we could do anything for you," Sophia added.

"Oh no, thanks!" said Mr. Povey.

Then he began to come down the corridor, slowly.

"You haven't been to the dentist's," said Constance sympathetically.

"No, I haven't," said Mr. Povey, as if Constance was indicating a fact
which had escaped his attention. "The truth is, I thought it looked
like rain, and if I'd got wet--you see--"

Miserable Mr. Povey!

"Yes," said Constance, "you certainly ought to keep out of draughts.
Don't you think it would be a good thing if you went and sat in the
parlour? There's a fire there."

"I shall be all right, thank you," said Mr. Povey. And after a pause:
"Well, thanks, I will."

III

The girls made way for him to pass them at the head of the twisting
stairs which led down to the parlour. Constance followed, and Sophia
followed Constance.

"Have father's chair," said Constance.

There were two rocking-chairs with fluted backs covered by
antimacassars, one on either side of the hearth. That to the left was
still entitled "father's chair," though its owner had not sat in it
since long before the Crimean war, and would never sit in it again.

"I think I'd sooner have the other one," said Mr. Povey, "because it's
on the right side, you see." And he touched his right cheek.

Having taken Mrs. Baines's chair, he bent his face down to the fire,
seeking comfort from its warmth. Sophia poked the fire, whereupon Mr.
Povey abruptly withdrew his face. He then felt something light on his
shoulders. Constance had taken the antimacassar from the back of the
chair, and protected him with it from the draughts. He did not
instantly rebel, and therefore was permanently barred from rebellion.
He was entrapped by the antimacassar. It formally constituted him an
invalid, and Constance and Sophia his nurses. Constance drew the
curtain across the street door. No draught could come from the window,
for the window was not 'made to open.' The age of ventilation had not
arrived. Sophia shut the other two doors. And, each near a door, the
girls gazed at Mr. Povey behind his back, irresolute, but filled with a
delicious sense of responsibility.

The situation was on a different plane now. The seriousness of Mr.
Povey's toothache, which became more and more manifest, had already
wiped out the ludicrous memory of the encounter in the showroom.
Looking at these two big girls, with their short-sleeved black frocks
and black aprons, and their smooth hair, and their composed serious
faces, one would have judged them incapable of the least lapse from an
archangelic primness; Sophia especially presented a marvellous
imitation of saintly innocence. As for the toothache, its action on Mr.
Povey was apparently periodic; it gathered to a crisis like a wave,
gradually, the torture increasing till the wave broke and left Mr.
Povey exhausted, but free for a moment from pain. These crises recurred
about once a minute. And now, accustomed to the presence of the young
virgins, and having tacitly acknowledged by his acceptance of the
antimacassar that his state was abnormal, he gave himself up frankly to
affliction. He concealed nothing of his agony, which was fully
displayed by sudden contortions of his frame, and frantic oscillations
of the rocking-chair. Presently, as he lay back enfeebled in the wash
of a spent wave, he murmured with a sick man's voice:

"I suppose you haven't got any laudanum?"

The girls started into life. "Laudanum, Mr. Povey?"

"Yes, to hold in my mouth."

He sat up, tense; another wave was forming. The excellent fellow was
lost to all self-respect, all decency.

"There's sure to be some in mother's cupboard," said Sophia.

Constance, who bore Mrs. Baines's bunch of keys at her girdle, a solemn
trust, moved a little fearfully to a corner cupboard which was hung in
the angle to the right of the projecting fireplace, over a shelf on
which stood a large copper tea-urn. That corner cupboard, of oak inlaid
with maple and ebony in a simple border pattern, was typical of the
room. It was of a piece with the deep green "flock" wall paper, and the
tea-urn, and the rocking-chairs with their antimacassars, and the
harmonium in rosewood with a Chinese paper-mache tea-caddy on the top
of it; even with the carpet, certainly the most curious parlour carpet
that ever was, being made of lengths of the stair-carpet sewn together
side by side. That corner cupboard was already old in service; it had
held the medicines of generations. It gleamed darkly with the grave and
genuine polish which comes from ancient use alone. The key which
Constance chose from her bunch was like the cupboard, smooth and
shining with years; it fitted and turned very easily, yet with a firm
snap. The single wide door opened sedately as a portal.

The girls examined the sacred interior, which had the air of being
inhabited by an army of diminutive prisoners, each crying aloud with
the full strength of its label to be set free on a mission.

"There it is!" said Sophia eagerly.

And there it was: a blue bottle, with a saffron label, "Caution.
POISON. Laudanum. Charles Critchlow, M.P.S. Dispensing Chemist. St.
Luke's Square, Bursley."

Those large capitals frightened the girls. Constance took the bottle as
she might have taken a loaded revolver, and she glanced at Sophia.
Their omnipotent, all-wise mother was not present to tell them what to
do. They, who had never decided, had to decide now. And Constance was
the elder. Must this fearsome stuff, whose very name was a name of
fear, be introduced in spite of printed warnings into Mr. Povey's
mouth? The responsibility was terrifying.

"Perhaps I'd just better ask Mr. Critchlow," Constance faltered.

The expectation of beneficent laudanum had enlivened Mr. Povey, had
already, indeed, by a sort of suggestion, half cured his toothache.

"Oh no!" he said. "No need to ask Mr. Critchlow ... Two or three drops
in a little water." He showed impatience to be at the laudanum.

The girls knew that an antipathy existed between the chemist and Mr.
Povey.

"It's sure to be all right," said Sophia. "I'll get the water."

With youthful cries and alarms they succeeded in pouring four mortal
dark drops (one more than Constance intended) into a cup containing a
little water. And as they handed the cup to Mr. Povey their faces were
the faces of affrighted comical conspirators. They felt so old and they
looked so young.

Mr. Povey imbibed eagerly of the potion, put the cup on the
mantelpiece, and then tilted his head to the right so as to submerge
the affected tooth. In this posture he remained, awaiting the sweet
influence of the remedy. The girls, out of a nice modesty, turned away,
for Mr. Povey must not swallow the medicine, and they preferred to
leave him unhampered in the solution of a delicate problem. When next
they examined him, he was leaning back in the rocking-chair with his
mouth open and his eyes shut.

"Has it done you any good, Mr. Povey?"

"I think I'll lie down on the sofa for a minute," was Mr. Povey's
strange reply; and forthwith he sprang up and flung himself on to the
horse-hair sofa between the fireplace and the window, where he lay
stripped of all his dignity, a mere beaten animal in a grey suit with
peculiar coat-tails, and a very creased waistcoat, and a lapel that was
planted with pins, and a paper collar and close-fitting paper cuffs.

Constance ran after him with the antimacassar, which she spread softly
on his shoulders; and Sophia put another one over his thin little legs,
all drawn up.

They then gazed at their handiwork, with secret self-accusations and
the most dreadful misgivings.

"He surely never swallowed it!" Constance whispered.

"He's asleep, anyhow," said Sophia, more loudly.

Mr. Povey was certainly asleep, and his mouth was very wide open--like
a shop-door. The only question was whether his sleep was not an eternal
sleep; the only question was whether he was not out of his pain for
ever.

Then he snored--horribly; his snore seemed a portent of disaster.

Sophia approached him as though he were a bomb, and stared, growing
bolder, into his mouth.

"Oh, Con," she summoned her sister, "do come and look! It's too droll!"

In an instant all their four eyes were exploring the singular landscape
of Mr. Povey's mouth. In a corner, to the right of that interior, was
one sizeable fragment of a tooth, that was attached to Mr. Povey by the
slenderest tie, so that at each respiration of Mr. Povey, when his body
slightly heaved and the gale moaned in the cavern, this tooth moved
separately, showing that its long connection with Mr. Povey was drawing
to a close.

"That's the one," said Sophia, pointing. "And it's as loose as
anything. Did you ever see such a funny thing?"

The extreme funniness of the thing had lulled in Sophia the fear of Mr.
Povey's sudden death.

"I'll see how much he's taken," said Constance, preoccupied, going to
the mantelpiece.

"Why, I do believe--" Sophia began, and then stopped, glancing at the
sewing-machine, which stood next to the sofa.

It was a Howe sewing-machine. It had a little tool-drawer, and in the
tool-drawer was a small pair of pliers. Constance, engaged in sniffing
at the lees of the potion in order to estimate its probable deadliness,
heard the well-known click of the little tool-drawer, and then she saw
Sophia nearing Mr. Povey's mouth with the pliers.

"Sophia!" she exclaimed, aghast. "What in the name of goodness are you
doing?"

"Nothing," said Sophia.

The next instant Mr. Povey sprang up out of his laudanum dream.

"It jumps!" he muttered; and, after a reflective pause, "but it's much
better." He had at any rate escaped death.

Sophia's right hand was behind her back.

Just then a hawker passed down King Street, crying mussels and cockles.

"Oh!" Sophia almost shrieked. "Do let's have mussels and cockles for
tea!" And she rushed to the door, and unlocked and opened it,
regardless of the risk of draughts to Mr. Povey.

In those days people often depended upon the caprices of hawkers for
the tastiness of their teas; but it was an adventurous age, when errant
knights of commerce were numerous and enterprising. You went on to your
doorstep, caught your meal as it passed, withdrew, cooked it and ate
it, quite in the manner of the early Briton.

Constance was obliged to join her sister on the top step. Sophia
descended to the second step.

"Fresh mussels and cockles all alive oh!" bawled the hawker, looking
across the road in the April breeze. He was the celebrated Hollins, a
professional Irish drunkard, aged in iniquity, who cheerfully saluted
magistrates in the street, and referred to the workhouse, which he
occasionally visited, as the Bastile.

Sophia was trembling from head to foot.

"What ARE you laughing at, you silly thing?" Constance demanded.

Sophia surreptitiously showed the pliers, which she had partly thrust
into her pocket. Between their points was a most perceptible, and even
recognizable, fragment of Mr. Povey.

This was the crown of Sophia's career as a perpetrator of the
unutterable.

"What!" Constance's face showed the final contortions of that horrified
incredulity which is forced to believe.

Sophia nudged her violently to remind her that they were in the street,
and also quite close to Mr. Povey.

"Now, my little missies," said the vile Hollins. "Three pence a pint,
and how's your honoured mother to-day? Yes, fresh, so help me God!"




CHAPTER II

THE TOOTH

I


The two girls came up the unlighted stone staircase which led from
Maggie's cave to the door of the parlour. Sophia, foremost, was
carrying a large tray, and Constance a small one. Constance, who had
nothing on her tray but a teapot, a bowl of steaming and balmy-scented
mussels and cockles, and a plate of hot buttered toast, went directly
into the parlour on the left. Sophia had in her arms the entire
material and apparatus of a high tea for two, including eggs, jam, and
toast (covered with the slop-basin turned upside down), but not
including mussels and cockles. She turned to the right, passed along
the corridor by the cutting-out room, up two steps into the sheeted and
shuttered gloom of the closed shop, up the showroom stairs, through the
showroom, and so into the bedroom corridor. Experience had proved it
easier to make this long detour than to round the difficult corner of
the parlour stairs with a large loaded tray. Sophia knocked with the
edge of the tray at the door of the principal bedroom. The muffled
oratorical sound from within suddenly ceased, and the door was opened
by a very tall, very thin, black-bearded man, who looked down at Sophia
as if to demand what she meant by such an interruption.

"I've brought the tea, Mr. Critchlow," said Sophia.

And Mr. Critchlow carefully accepted the tray.

"Is that my little Sophia?" asked a faint voice from the depths of the
bedroom.

"Yes, father," said Sophia.

But she did not attempt to enter the room. Mr. Critchlow put the tray
on a white-clad chest of drawers near the door, and then he shut the
door, with no ceremony. Mr. Critchlow was John Baines's oldest and
closest friend, though decidedly younger than the draper. He frequently
"popped in" to have a word with the invalid; but Thursday afternoon was
his special afternoon, consecrated by him to the service of the sick.
From two o'clock precisely till eight o'clock precisely he took charge
of John Baines, reigning autocratically over the bedroom. It was known
that he would not tolerate invasions, nor even ambassadorial visits.
No! He gave up his weekly holiday to this business of friendship, and
he must be allowed to conduct the business in his own way. Mrs. Baines
herself avoided disturbing Mr. Critchlow's ministrations on her
husband. She was glad to do so; for Mr. Baines was never to be left
alone under any circumstances, and the convenience of being able to
rely upon the presence of a staid member of the Pharmaceutical Society
for six hours of a given day every week outweighed the slight affront
to her prerogatives as wife and house-mistress. Mr. Critchlow was an
extremely peculiar man, but when he was in the bedroom she could leave
the house with an easy mind. Moreover, John Baines enjoyed these
Thursday afternoons. For him, there was 'none like Charles Critchlow.'
The two old friends experienced a sort of grim, desiccated happiness,
cooped up together in the bedroom, secure from women and fools
generally. How they spent the time did not seem to be certainly known,
but the impression was that politics occupied them. Undoubtedly Mr.
Critchlow was an extremely peculiar man. He was a man of habits. He
must always have the same things for his tea. Black-currant jam, for
instance. (He called it "preserve.") The idea of offering Mr. Critchlow
a tea which did not comprise black-currant jam was inconceivable by the
intelligence of St. Luke's Square. Thus for years past, in the
fruit-preserving season, when all the house and all the shop smelt
richly of fruit boiling in sugar, Mrs. Baines had filled an extra
number of jars with black-currant jam, 'because Mr. Critchlow wouldn't
TOUCH any other sort.'

So Sophia, faced with the shut door of the bedroom, went down to the
parlour by the shorter route. She knew that on going up again, after
tea, she would find the devastated tray on the doormat.

Constance was helping Mr. Povey to mussels and cockles. And Mr. Povey
still wore one of the antimacassars. It must have stuck to his
shoulders when he sprang up from the sofa, woollen antimacassars being
notoriously parasitic things. Sophia sat down, somewhat
self-consciously. The serious Constance was also perturbed. Mr. Povey
did not usually take tea in the house on Thursday afternoons; his
practice was to go out into the great, mysterious world. Never before
had he shared a meal with the girls alone. The situation was
indubitably unexpected, unforeseen; it was, too, piquant, and what
added to its piquancy was the fact that Constance and Sophia were,
somehow, responsible for Mr. Povey. They felt that they were
responsible for him. They had offered the practical sympathy of two
intelligent and well-trained young women, born nurses by reason of
their sex, and Mr. Povey had accepted; he was now on their hands.
Sophia's monstrous, sly operation in Mr. Povey's mouth did not cause
either of them much alarm, Constance having apparently recovered from
the first shock of it. They had discussed it in the kitchen while
preparing the teas; Constance's extraordinarily severe and dictatorial
tone in condemning it had led to a certain heat. But the success of the
impudent wrench justified it despite any irrefutable argument to the
contrary. Mr. Povey was better already, and he evidently remained in
ignorance of his loss.

"Have some?" Constance asked of Sophia, with a large spoon hovering
over the bowl of shells.

"Yes, PLEASE," said Sophia, positively.

Constance well knew that she would have some, and had only asked from
sheer nervousness.

"Pass your plate, then."

Now when everybody was served with mussels, cockles, tea, and toast,
and Mr. Povey had been persuaded to cut the crust off his toast, and
Constance had, quite unnecessarily, warned Sophia against the deadly
green stuff in the mussels, and Constance had further pointed out that
the evenings were getting longer, and Mr. Povey had agreed that they
were, there remained nothing to say. An irksome silence fell on them
all, and no one could lift it off. Tiny clashes of shell and crockery
sounded with the terrible clearness of noises heard in the night. Each
person avoided the eyes of the others. And both Constance and Sophia
kept straightening their bodies at intervals, and expanding their
chests, and then looking at their plates; occasionally a prim cough was
discharged. It was a sad example of the difference between young
women's dreams of social brilliance and the reality of life. These
girls got more and more girlish, until, from being women at the
administering of laudanum, they sank back to about eight years of
age--perfect children--at the tea-table.

The tension was snapped by Mr. Povey. "My God!" he muttered, moved by a
startling discovery to this impious and disgraceful oath (he, the
pattern and exemplar--and in the presence of innocent girlhood too!).
"I've swallowed it!"

"Swallowed what, Mr. Povey?" Constance inquired.

The tip of Mr. Povey's tongue made a careful voyage of inspection all
round the right side of his mouth.

"Oh yes!" he said, as if solemnly accepting the inevitable. "I've
swallowed it!"

Sophia's face was now scarlet; she seemed to be looking for some place
to hide it. Constance could not think of anything to say.

"That tooth has been loose for two years," said Mr. Povey, "and now
I've swallowed it with a mussel."

"Oh, Mr. Povey!" Constance cried in confusion, and added, "There's one
good thing, it can't hurt you any more now."

"Oh!" said Mr. Povey. "It wasn't THAT tooth that was hurting me. It's
an old stump at the back that's upset me so this last day or two. I
wish it had been."

Sophia had her teacup close to her red face. At these words of Mr.
Povey her cheeks seemed to fill out like plump apples. She dashed the
cup into its saucer, spilling tea recklessly, and then ran from the
room with stifled snorts.

"Sophia!" Constance protested.

"I must just--" Sophia incoherently spluttered in the doorway. "I
shall be all right. Don't----"

Constance, who had risen, sat down again.

II

Sophia fled along the passage leading to the shop and took refuge in
the cutting-out room, a room which the astonishing architect had
devised upon what must have been a backyard of one of the three
constituent houses. It was lighted from its roof, and only a wooden
partition, eight feet high, separated it from the passage. Here Sophia
gave rein to her feelings; she laughed and cried together, weeping
generously into her handkerchief and wildly giggling, in a hysteria
which she could not control. The spectacle of Mr. Povey mourning for a
tooth which he thought he had swallowed, but which in fact lay all the
time in her pocket, seemed to her to be by far the most ridiculous,
side-splitting thing that had ever happened or could happen on earth.
It utterly overcame her. And when she fancied that she had exhausted
and conquered its surpassing ridiculousness, this ridiculousness seized
her again and rolled her anew in depths of mad, trembling laughter.

Gradually she grew calmer. She heard the parlour door open, and
Constance descend the kitchen steps with a rattling tray of tea-things.
Tea, then, was finished, without her! Constance did not remain in the
kitchen, because the cups and saucers were left for Maggie to wash up
as a fitting coda to Maggie's monthly holiday. The parlour door closed.
And the vision of Mr. Povey in his antimacassar swept Sophia off into
another convulsion of laughter and tears. Upon this the parlour door
opened again, and Sophia choked herself into silence while Constance
hastened along the passage. In a minute Constance returned with her
woolwork, which she had got from the showroom, and the parlour received
her. Not the least curiosity on the part of Constance as to what had
become of Sophia!

At length Sophia, a faint meditative smile being all that was left of
the storm in her, ascended slowly to the showroom, through the shop.
Nothing there of interest! Thence she wandered towards the
drawing-room, and encountered Mr. Critchlow's tray on the mat. She
picked it up and carried it by way of the showroom and shop down to the
kitchen, where she dreamily munched two pieces of toast that had cooled
to the consistency of leather. She mounted the stone steps and listened
at the door of the parlour. No sound! This seclusion of Mr. Povey and
Constance was really very strange. She roved right round the house, and
descended creepingly by the twisted house-stairs, and listened intently
at the other door of the parlour. She now detected a faint regular
snore. Mr. Povey, a prey to laudanum and mussels, was sleeping while
Constance worked at her fire-screen! It was now in the highest degree
odd, this seclusion of Mr. Povey and Constance; unlike anything in
Sophia's experience! She wanted to go into the parlour, but she could
not bring herself to do so. She crept away again, forlorn and puzzled,
and next discovered herself in the bedroom which she shared with
Constance at the top of the house; she lay down in the dusk on the bed
and began to read "The Days of Bruce;" but she read only with her eyes.

Later, she heard movements on the house-stairs, and the familiar
whining creak of the door at the foot thereof. She skipped lightly to
the door of the bedroom.

"Good-night, Mr. Povey. I hope you'll be able to sleep."

Constance's voice!

"It will probably come on again."

Mr. Povey's voice, pessimistic!

Then the shutting of doors. It was almost dark. She went back to the
bed, expecting a visit from Constance. But a clock struck eight, and
all the various phenomena connected with the departure of Mr. Critchlow
occurred one after another. At the same time Maggie came home from the
land of romance. Then long silences! Constance was now immured with her
father, it being her "turn" to nurse; Maggie was washing up in her
cave, and Mr. Povey was lost to sight in his bedroom. Then Sophia heard
her mother's lively, commanding knock on the King Street door. Dusk had
definitely yielded to black night in the bedroom. Sophia dozed and
dreamed. When she awoke, her ear caught the sound of knocking. She
jumped up, tiptoed to the landing, and looked over the balustrade,
whence she had a view of all the first-floor corridor. The gas had been
lighted; through the round aperture at the top of the porcelain globe
she could see the wavering flame. It was her mother, still bonneted,
who was knocking at the door of Mr. Povey's room. Constance stood in
the doorway of her parents' room. Mrs. Baines knocked twice with an
interval, and then said to Constance, in a resonant whisper that
vibrated up the corridor----

"He seems to be fast asleep. I'd better not disturb him."

"But suppose he wants something in the night?"

"Well, child, I should hear him moving. Sleep's the best thing for him."

Mrs. Baines left Mr. Povey to the effects of laudanum, and came along
the corridor. She was a stout woman, all black stuff and gold chain,
and her skirt more than filled the width of the corridor. Sophia
watched her habitual heavy mounting gesture as she climbed the two
steps that gave variety to the corridor. At the gas-jet she paused,
and, putting her hand to the tap, gazed up into the globe.

"Where's Sophia?" she demanded, her eyes fixed on the gas as she
lowered the flame.

"I think she must be in bed, mother," said Constance, nonchalantly.

The returned mistress was point by point resuming knowledge and control
of that complicated machine--her household.

Then Constance and her mother disappeared into the bedroom, and the
door was shut with a gentle, decisive bang that to the silent watcher
on the floor above seemed to create a special excluding intimacy round
about the figures of Constance and her father and mother. The watcher
wondered, with a little prick of jealousy, what they would be
discussing in the large bedroom, her father's beard wagging feebly and
his long arms on the counterpane, Constance perched at the foot of the
bed, and her mother walking to and fro, putting her cameo brooch on the
dressing-table or stretching creases out of her gloves. Certainly, in
some subtle way, Constance had a standing with her parents which was
more confidential than Sophia's.

III

When Constance came to bed, half an hour later, Sophia was already in
bed. The room was fairly spacious. It had been the girls' retreat and
fortress since their earliest years. Its features seemed to them as
natural and unalterable as the features of a cave to a cave-dweller. It
had been repapered twice in their lives, and each papering stood out in
their memories like an epoch; a third epoch was due to the replacing of
a drugget by a resplendent old carpet degraded from the drawing-room.
There was only one bed, the bedstead being of painted iron; they never
interfered with each other in that bed, sleeping with a detachment as
perfect as if they had slept on opposite sides of St. Luke's Square;
yet if Constance had one night lain down on the half near the window
instead of on the half near the door, the secret nature of the universe
would have seemed to be altered. The small fire-grate was filled with a
mass of shavings of silver paper; now the rare illnesses which they had
suffered were recalled chiefly as periods when that silver paper was
crammed into a large slipper-case which hung by the mantelpiece, and a
fire of coals unnaturally reigned in its place--the silver paper was
part of the order of the world. The sash of the window would not work
quite properly, owing to a slight subsidence in the wall, and even when
the window was fastened there was always a narrow slit to the left hand
between the window and its frame; through this slit came draughts, and
thus very keen frosts were remembered by the nights when Mrs. Baines
caused the sash to be forced and kept at its full height by means of
wedges--the slit of exposure was part of the order of the world.

They possessed only one bed, one washstand, and one dressing-table; but
in some other respects they were rather fortunate girls, for they had
two mahogany wardrobes; this mutual independence as regards wardrobes
was due partly to Mrs. Baines's strong commonsense, and partly to their
father's tendency to spoil them a little. They had, moreover, a chest
of drawers with a curved front, of which structure Constance occupied
two short drawers and one long one, and Sophia two long drawers. On it
stood two fancy work-boxes, in which each sister kept jewellery, a
savings-bank book, and other treasures, and these boxes were absolutely
sacred to their respective owners. They were different, but one was not
more magnificent than the other. Indeed, a rigid equality was the rule
in the chamber, the single exception being that behind the door were
three hooks, of which Constance commanded two.

"Well," Sophia began, when Constance appeared. "How's darling Mr.
Povey?" She was lying on her back, and smiling at her two hands, which
she held up in front of her.

"Asleep," said Constance. "At least mother thinks so. She says sleep is
the best thing for him."

"'It will probably come on again,'" said Sophia.

"What's that you say?" Constance asked, undressing.

"'It will probably come on again.'"

These words were a quotation from the utterances of darling Mr. Povey
on the stairs, and Sophia delivered them with an exact imitation of Mr.
Povey's vocal mannerism.

"Sophia," said Constance, firmly, approaching the bed, "I wish you
wouldn't be so silly!" She had benevolently ignored the satirical note
in Sophia's first remark, but a strong instinct in her rose up and
objected to further derision. "Surely you've done enough for one day!"
she added.

For answer Sophia exploded into violent laughter, which she made no
attempt to control. She laughed too long and too freely while Constance
stared at her.

"_I_ don't know what's come over you!" said Constance.

"It's only because I can't look at it without simply going off into
fits!" Sophia gasped out. And she held up a tiny object in her left
hand.

Constance started, flushing. "You don't mean to say you've kept it!"
she protested earnestly. "How horrid you are, Sophia! Give it me at
once and let me throw it away. I never heard of such doings. Now give
it me!"

"No," Sophia objected, still laughing. "I wouldn't part with it for
worlds. It's too lovely."

She had laughed away all her secret resentment against Constance for
having ignored her during the whole evening and for being on such
intimate terms with their parents. And she was ready to be candidly
jolly with Constance.

"Give it me," said Constance, doggedly.

Sophia hid her hand under the clothes. "You can have his old stump,
when it comes out, if you like. But not this. What a pity it's the
wrong one!"

"Sophia, I'm ashamed of you! Give it me."

Then it was that Sophia first perceived Constance's extreme
seriousness. She was surprised and a little intimidated by it. For the
expression of Constance's face, usually so benign and calm, was harsh,
almost fierce. However, Sophia had a great deal of what is called
"spirit," and not even ferocity on the face of mild Constance could
intimidate her for more than a few seconds. Her gaiety expired and her
teeth were hidden.

"I've said nothing to mother----" Constance proceeded.

"I should hope you haven't," Sophia put in tersely.

"But I certainly shall if you don't throw that away," Constance
finished.

"You can say what you like," Sophia retorted, adding contemptuously a
term of opprobrium which has long since passed out of use: "Cant!"

"Will you give it me or won't you?"

"No!"

It was a battle suddenly engaged in the bedroom. The atmosphere had
altered completely with the swiftness of magic. The beauty of Sophia,
the angelic tenderness of Constance, and the youthful, naive, innocent
charm of both of them, were transformed into something sinister and
cruel. Sophia lay back on the pillow amid her dark-brown hair, and
gazed with relentless defiance into the angry eyes of Constance, who
stood threatening by the bed. They could hear the gas singing over the
dressing-table, and their hearts beating the blood wildly in their
veins. They ceased to be young without growing old; the eternal had
leapt up in them from its sleep.

Constance walked away from the bed to the dressing-table and began to
loose her hair and brush it, holding back her head, shaking it, and
bending forward, in the changeless gesture of that rite. She was so
disturbed that she had unconsciously reversed the customary order of
the toilette. After a moment Sophia slipped out of bed and, stepping
with her bare feet to the chest of drawers, opened her work-box and
deposited the fragment of Mr. Povey therein; she dropped the lid with
an uncompromising bang, as if to say, "We shall see if I am to be trod
upon, miss!" Their eyes met again in the looking-glass. Then Sophia got
back into bed.

Five minutes later, when her hair was quite finished, Constance knelt
down and said her prayers. Having said her prayers, she went straight
to Sophia's work-box, opened it, seized the fragment of Mr. Povey, ran
to the window, and frantically pushed the fragment through the slit
into the Square.

"There!" she exclaimed nervously.

She had accomplished this inconceivable transgression of the code of
honour, beyond all undoing, before Sophia could recover from the
stupefaction of seeing her sacred work-box impudently violated. In a
single moment one of Sophia's chief ideals had been smashed utterly,
and that by the sweetest, gentlest creature she had ever known. It was
a revealing experience for Sophia--and also for Constance. And it
frightened them equally. Sophia, staring at the text, "Thou God seest
me," framed in straw over the chest of drawers, did not stir. She was
defeated, and so profoundly moved in her defeat that she did not even
reflect upon the obvious inefficacy of illuminated texts as a deterrent
from evil-doing. Not that she cared a fig for the fragment of Mr.
Povey! It was the moral aspect of the affair, and the astounding,
inexplicable development in Constance's character, that staggered her
into silent acceptance of the inevitable.

Constance, trembling, took pains to finish undressing with dignified
deliberation. Sophia's behaviour under the blow seemed too good to be
true; but it gave her courage. At length she turned out the gas and lay
down by Sophia. And there was a little shuffling, and then stillness
for a while.

"And if you want to know," said Constance in a tone that mingled
amicableness with righteousness, "mother's decided with Aunt Harriet
that we are BOTH to leave school next term."




CHAPTER III

A BATTLE

I


The day sanctioned by custom in the Five Towns for the making of pastry
is Saturday. But Mrs. Baines made her pastry on Friday, because
Saturday afternoon was, of course, a busy time in the shop. It is true
that Mrs. Baines made her pastry in the morning, and that Saturday
morning in the shop was scarcely different from any other morning.
Nevertheless, Mrs. Baines made her pastry on Friday morning instead of
Saturday morning because Saturday afternoon was a busy time in the
shop. She was thus free to do her marketing without breath-taking
flurry on Saturday morning.

On the morning after Sophia's first essay in dentistry, therefore, Mrs.
Baines was making her pastry in the underground kitchen. This kitchen,
Maggie's cavern-home, had the mystery of a church, and on dark days it
had the mystery of a crypt. The stone steps leading down to it from the
level of earth were quite unlighted. You felt for them with the feet of
faith, and when you arrived in the kitchen, the kitchen, by contrast,
seemed luminous and gay; the architect may have considered and intended
this effect of the staircase. The kitchen saw day through a wide,
shallow window whose top touched the ceiling and whose bottom had been
out of the girls' reach until long after they had begun to go to
school. Its panes were small, and about half of them were of the "knot"
kind, through which no object could be distinguished; the other half
were of a later date, and stood for the march of civilization. The view
from the window consisted of the vast plate-glass windows of the newly
built Sun vaults, and of passing legs and skirts. A strong wire grating
prevented any excess of illumination, and also protected the glass from
the caprices of wayfarers in King Street. Boys had a habit of stopping
to kick with their full strength at the grating.

Forget-me-nots on a brown field ornamented the walls of the kitchen.
Its ceiling was irregular and grimy, and a beam ran across it; in this
beam were two hooks; from these hooks had once depended the ropes of a
swing, much used by Constance and Sophia in the old days before they
were grown up. A large range stood out from the wall between the stairs
and the window. The rest of the furniture comprised a table--against
the wall opposite the range--a cupboard, and two Windsor chairs.
Opposite the foot of the steps was a doorway, without a door, leading
to two larders, dimmer even than the kitchen, vague retreats made
visible by whitewash, where bowls of milk, dishes of cold bones, and
remainders of fruit-pies, reposed on stillages; in the corner nearest
the kitchen was a great steen in which the bread was kept. Another
doorway on the other side of the kitchen led to the first coal-cellar,
where was also the slopstone and tap, and thence a tunnel took you to
the second coal-cellar, where coke and ashes were stored; the tunnel
proceeded to a distant, infinitesimal yard, and from the yard, by ways
behind Mr. Critchlow's shop, you could finally emerge, astonished, upon
Brougham Street. The sense of the vast-obscure of those regions which
began at the top of the kitchen steps and ended in black corners of
larders or abruptly in the common dailiness of Brougham Street, a sense
which Constance and Sophia had acquired in infancy, remained with them
almost unimpaired as they grew old.

Mrs. Baines wore black alpaca, shielded by a white apron whose string
drew attention to the amplitude of her waist. Her sleeves were turned
up, and her hands, as far as the knuckles, covered with damp flour. Her
ageless smooth paste-board occupied a corner of the table, and near it
were her paste-roller, butter, some pie-dishes, shredded apples, sugar,
and other things. Those rosy hands were at work among a sticky
substance in a large white bowl.

"Mother, are you there?" she heard a voice from above.

"Yes, my chuck."

Footsteps apparently reluctant and hesitating clinked on the stairs,
and Sophia entered the kitchen.

"Put this curl straight," said Mrs. Baines, lowering her head slightly
and holding up her floured hands, which might not touch anything but
flour. "Thank you. It bothered me. And now stand out of my light. I'm
in a hurry. I must get into the shop so that I can send Mr. Povey off
to the dentist's. What is Constance doing?"

"Helping Maggie to make Mr. Povey's bed."

"Oh!"

Though fat, Mrs. Baines was a comely woman, with fine brown hair, and
confidently calm eyes that indicated her belief in her own capacity to
accomplish whatever she could be called on to accomplish. She looked
neither more nor less than her age, which was forty-five. She was not a
native of the district, having been culled by her husband from the
moorland town of Axe, twelve miles off. Like nearly all women who
settle in a strange land upon marriage, at the bottom of her heart she
had considered herself just a trifle superior to the strange land and
its ways. This feeling, confirmed by long experience, had never left
her. It was this feeling which induced her to continue making her own
pastry--with two thoroughly trained "great girls" in the house!
Constance could make good pastry, but it was not her mother's pastry.
In pastry-making everything can be taught except the "hand," light and
firm, which wields the roller. One is born with this hand, or without
it. And if one is born without it, the highest flights of pastry are
impossible. Constance was born without it. There were days when Sophia
seemed to possess it; but there were other days when Sophia's pastry
was uneatable by any one except Maggie. Thus Mrs. Baines, though
intensely proud and fond of her daughters, had justifiably preserved a
certain condescension towards them. She honestly doubted whether either
of them would develop into the equal of their mother.

"Now you little vixen!" she exclaimed. Sophia was stealing and eating
slices of half-cooked apple. "This comes of having no breakfast! And
why didn't you come down to supper last night?"

"I don't know. I forgot."

Mrs. Baines scrutinized the child's eyes, which met hers with a sort of
diffident boldness. She knew everything that a mother can know of a
daughter, and she was sure that Sophia had no cause to be indisposed.
Therefore she scrutinized those eyes with a faint apprehension.

"If you can't find anything better to do," said she, "butter me the
inside of this dish. Are your hands clean? No, better not touch it."

Mrs. Baines was now at the stage of depositing little pats of butter in
rows on a large plain of paste. The best fresh butter! Cooking butter,
to say naught of lard, was unknown in that kitchen on Friday mornings.
She doubled the expanse of paste on itself and rolled the butter
in--supreme operation!

"Constance has told you--about leaving school?" said Mrs. Baines, in
the vein of small-talk, as she trimmed the paste to the shape of a
pie-dish.

"Yes," Sophia replied shortly. Then she moved away from the table to
the range. There was a toasting-fork on the rack, and she began to play
with it.

"Well, are you glad? Your aunt Harriet thinks you are quite old enough
to leave. And as we'd decided in any case that Constance was to leave,
it's really much simpler that you should both leave together."

"Mother," said Sophia, rattling the toasting-fork, "what am I going to
do after I've left school?"

"I hope," Mrs. Baines answered with that sententiousness which even the
cleverest of parents are not always clever enough to deny themselves,
"I hope that both of you will do what you can to help your mother--and
father," she added.

"Yes," said Sophia, irritated. "But what am I going to DO?"

"That must be considered. As Constance is to learn the millinery, I've
been thinking that you might begin to make yourself useful in the
underwear, gloves, silks, and so on. Then between you, you would one
day be able to manage quite nicely all that side of the shop, and I
should be--"

"I don't want to go into the shop, mother."

This interruption was made in a voice apparently cold and inimical. But
Sophia trembled with nervous excitement as she uttered the words. Mrs.
Baines gave a brief glance at her, unobserved by the child, whose face
was towards the fire. She deemed herself a finished expert in the
reading of Sophia's moods; nevertheless, as she looked at that straight
back and proud head, she had no suspicion that the whole essence and
being of Sophia was silently but intensely imploring sympathy.

"I wish you would be quiet with that fork," said Mrs. Baines, with the
curious, grim politeness which often characterized her relations with
her daughters.

The toasting-fork fell on the brick floor, after having rebounded from
the ash-tin. Sophia hurriedly replaced it on the rack.

"Then what SHALL you do?" Mrs. Baines proceeded, conquering the
annoyance caused by the toasting-fork. "I think it's me that should ask
you instead of you asking me. What shall you do? Your father and I were
both hoping you would take kindly to the shop and try to repay us for
all the--"

Mrs. Baines was unfortunate in her phrasing that morning. She happened
to be, in truth, rather an exceptional parent, but that morning she
seemed unable to avoid the absurd pretensions which parents of those
days assumed quite sincerely and which every good child with meekness
accepted.

Sophia was not a good child, and she obstinately denied in her heart
the cardinal principle of family life, namely, that the parent has
conferred on the offspring a supreme favour by bringing it into the
world. She interrupted her mother again, rudely.

"I don't want to leave school at all," she said passionately.

"But you will have to leave school sooner or later," argued Mrs.
Baines, with an air of quiet reasoning, of putting herself on a level
with Sophia. "You can't stay at school for ever, my pet, can you? Out
of my way!"

She hurried across the kitchen with a pie, which she whipped into the
oven, shutting the iron door with a careful gesture.

"Yes," said Sophia. "I should like to be a teacher. That's what I want
to be."

The tap in the coal-cellar, out of repair, could be heard distinctly
and systematically dropping water into a jar on the slopstone.

"A school-teacher?" inquired Mrs. Baines.

"Of course. What other kind is there?" said Sophia, sharply. "With Miss
Chetwynd."

"I don't think your father would like that," Mrs. Baines replied. "I'm
sure he wouldn't like it."

"Why not?"

"It wouldn't be quite suitable."

"Why not, mother?" the girl demanded with a sort of ferocity. She had
now quitted the range. A man's feet twinkled past the window.

Mrs. Baines was startled and surprised. Sophia's attitude was really
very trying; her manners deserved correction. But it was not these
phenomena which seriously affected Mrs. Baines; she was used to them
and had come to regard them as somehow the inevitable accompaniment of
Sophia's beauty, as the penalty of that surpassing charm which
occasionally emanated from the girl like a radiance. What startled and
surprised Mrs. Baines was the perfect and unthinkable madness of
Sophia's infantile scheme. It was a revelation to Mrs. Baines. Why in
the name of heaven had the girl taken such a notion into her head?
Orphans, widows, and spinsters of a certain age suddenly thrown on the
world--these were the women who, naturally, became teachers, because
they had to become something. But that the daughter of comfortable
parents, surrounded by love and the pleasures of an excellent home,
should wish to teach in a school was beyond the horizons of Mrs.
Baines's common sense. Comfortable parents of to-day who have a
difficulty in sympathizing with Mrs. Baines, should picture what their
feelings would be if their Sophias showed a rude desire to adopt the
vocation of chauffeur.

"It would take you too much away from home," said Mrs. Baines,
achieving a second pie.

She spoke softly. The experience of being Sophia's mother for nearly
sixteen years had not been lost on Mrs. Baines, and though she was now
discovering undreamt-of dangers in Sophia's erratic temperament, she
kept her presence of mind sufficiently well to behave with diplomatic
smoothness. It was undoubtedly humiliating to a mother to be forced to
use diplomacy in dealing with a girl in short sleeves. In HER day
mothers had been autocrats. But Sophia was Sophia.

"What if it did?" Sophia curtly demanded.

"And there's no opening in Bursley," said Mrs. Baines.

"Miss Chetwynd would have me, and then after a time I could go to her
sister."

"Her sister? What sister?"

"Her sister that has a big school in London somewhere."

Mrs. Baines covered her unprecedented emotions by gazing into the oven
at the first pie. The pie was doing well, under all the circumstances.
In those few seconds she reflected rapidly and decided that to a
desperate disease a desperate remedy must be applied.

London! She herself had never been further than Manchester. London,
'after a time'! No, diplomacy would be misplaced in this crisis of
Sophia's development!

"Sophia," she said, in a changed and solemn voice, fronting her
daughter, and holding away from her apron those floured, ringed hands,
"I don't know what has come over you. Truly I don't! Your father and I
are prepared to put up with a certain amount, but the line must be
drawn. The fact is, we've spoilt you, and instead of getting better as
you grow up, you're getting worse. Now let me hear no more of this,
please. I wish you would imitate your sister a little more. Of course
if you won't do your share in the shop, no one can make you. If you
choose to be an idler about the house, we shall have to endure it. We
can only advise you for your own good. But as for this ..." She
stopped, and let silence speak, and then finished: "Let me hear no more
of it."

It was a powerful and impressive speech, enunciated clearly in such a
tone as Mrs. Baines had not employed since dismissing a young lady
assistant five years ago for light conduct.

"But, mother--"

A commotion of pails resounded at the top of the stone steps. It was
Maggie in descent from the bedrooms. Now, the Baines family passed its
life in doing its best to keep its affairs to itself, the assumption
being that Maggie and all the shop-staff (Mr. Povey possibly excepted)
were obsessed by a ravening appetite for that which did not concern
them. Therefore the voices of the Baineses always died away, or fell to
a hushed, mysterious whisper, whenever the foot of the eavesdropper was
heard.

Mrs. Baines put a floured finger to her double chin. "That will do,"
said she, with finality.

Maggie appeared, and Sophia, with a brusque precipitation of herself,
vanished upstairs.

II

"Now, really, Mr. Povey, this is not like you," said Mrs. Baines, who,
on her way into the shop, had discovered the Indispensable in the
cutting-out room.

It is true that the cutting-out room was almost Mr. Povey's sanctum,
whither he retired from time to time to cut out suits of clothes and
odd garments for the tailoring department. It is true that the
tailoring department flourished with orders, employing several tailors
who crossed legs in their own homes, and that appointments were
continually being made with customers for trying-on in that room. But
these considerations did not affect Mrs. Baines's attitude of
disapproval.

"I'm just cutting out that suit for the minister," said Mr. Povey.

The Reverend Mr. Murley, superintendent of the Wesleyan Methodist
circuit, called on Mr. Baines every week. On a recent visit Mr. Baines
had remarked that the parson's coat was ageing into green, and had
commanded that a new suit should be built and presented to Mr. Murley.
Mr. Murley, who had a genuine mediaeval passion for souls, and who
spent his money and health freely in gratifying the passion, had
accepted the offer strictly on behalf of Christ, and had carefully
explained to Mr. Povey Christ's use for multifarious pockets.

"I see you are," said Mrs. Baines tartly. "But that's no reason why you
should be without a coat--and in this cold room too. You with
toothache!"

The fact was that Mr. Povey always doffed his coat when cutting out.
Instead of a coat he wore a tape-measure.

"My tooth doesn't hurt me," said he, sheepishly, dropping the great
scissors and picking up a cake of chalk.

"Fiddlesticks!" said Mrs. Baines.

This exclamation shocked Mr. Povey. It was not unknown on the lips of
Mrs. Baines, but she usually reserved it for members of her own sex.
Mr. Povey could not recall that she had ever applied it to any
statement of his. "What's the matter with the woman?" he thought. The
redness of her face did not help him to answer the question, for her
face was always red after the operations of Friday in the kitchen.

"You men are all alike," Mrs. Baines continued. "The very thought of
the dentist's cures you. Why don't you go in at once to Mr. Critchlow
and have it out--like a man?"

Mr. Critchlow extracted teeth, and his shop sign said "Bone-setter and
chemist." But Mr. Povey had his views.

"I make no account of Mr. Critchlow as a dentist," said he.

"Then for goodness' sake go up to Oulsnam's."

"When? I can't very well go now, and to-morrow is Saturday."

"Why can't you go now?"

"Well, of course, I COULD go now," he admitted.

"Let me advise you to go, then, and don't come back with that tooth in
your head. I shall be having you laid up next. Show some pluck, do!"

"Oh! pluck--!" he protested, hurt.

At that moment Constance came down the passage singing.

"Constance, my pet!" Mrs. Baines called.

"Yes, mother." She put her head into the room. "Oh!" Mr. Povey was
assuming his coat.

"Mr. Povey is going to the dentist's."

"Yes, I'm going at once," Mr. Povey confirmed.

"Oh! I'm so GLAD!" Constance exclaimed. Her face expressed a pure
sympathy, uncomplicated by critical sentiments. Mr. Povey rapidly
bathed in that sympathy, and then decided that he must show himself a
man of oak and iron.

"It's always best to get these things done with," said he, with stern
detachment. "I'll just slip my overcoat on."

"Here it is," said Constance, quickly. Mr. Povey's overcoat and hat
were hung on a hook immediately outside the room, in the passage. She
gave him the overcoat, anxious to be of service.

"I didn't call you in here to be Mr. Povey's valet," said Mrs. Baines
to herself with mild grimness; and aloud: "I can't stay in the shop
long, Constance, but you can be there, can't you, till Mr. Povey comes
back? And if anything happens run upstairs and tell me."

"Yes, mother," Constance eagerly consented. She hesitated and then
turned to obey at once.

"I want to speak to you first, my pet," Mrs. Baines stopped her. And
her tone was peculiar, charged with import, confidential, and therefore
very flattering to Constance.

"I think I'll go out by the side-door," said Mr. Povey. "It'll be
nearer."

This was truth. He would save about ten yards, in two miles, by going
out through the side-door instead of through the shop. Who could have
guessed that he was ashamed to be seen going to the dentist's, afraid
lest, if he went through the shop, Mrs. Baines might follow him and
utter some remark prejudicial to his dignity before the assistants?
(Mrs. Baines could have guessed, and did.)

"You won't want that tape-measure," said Mrs. Baines, dryly, as Mr.
Povey dragged open the side-door. The ends of the forgotten
tape-measure were dangling beneath coat and overcoat.

"Oh!" Mr. Povey scowled at his forgetfulness.

"I'll put it in its place," said Constance, offering to receive the
tape-measure.

"Thank you," said Mr. Povey, gravely. "I don't suppose they'll be long
over my bit of a job," he added, with a difficult, miserable smile.

Then he went off down King Street, with an exterior of gay briskness
and dignified joy in the fine May morning. But there was no May morning
in his cowardly human heart.

"Hi! Povey!" cried a voice from the Square.

But Mr. Povey disregarded all appeals. He had put his hand to the
plough, and he would not look back.

"Hi! Povey!"

Useless!

Mrs. Baines and Constance were both at the door. A middle-aged man was
crossing the road from Boulton Terrace, the lofty erection of new shops
which the envious rest of the Square had decided to call "showy." He
waved a hand to Mrs. Baines, who kept the door open.

"It's Dr. Harrop," she said to Constance. "I shouldn't be surprised if
that baby's come at last, and he wanted to tell Mr. Povey."

Constance blushed, full of pride. Mrs. Povey, wife of "our Mr. Povey's"
renowned cousin, the high-class confectioner and baker in Boulton
Terrace, was a frequent subject of discussion in the Baines family,
but this was absolutely the first time that Mrs. Baines had
acknowledged, in presence of Constance, the marked and growing change
which had characterized Mrs. Povey's condition during recent months.
Such frankness on the part of her mother, coming after the decision
about leaving school, proved indeed that Constance had ceased to be a
mere girl.

"Good morning, doctor."

The doctor, who carried a little bag and wore riding-breeches (he was
the last doctor in Bursley to abandon the saddle for the dog-cart),
saluted and straightened his high, black stock.

"Morning! Morning, missy! Well, it's a boy."

"What? Yonder?" asked Mrs. Baines, indicating the confectioner's.

Dr. Harrop nodded. "I wanted to inform him," said he, jerking his
shoulder in the direction of the swaggering coward.

"What did I tell you, Constance?" said Mrs. Baines, turning to her
daughter.

Constance's confusion was equal to her pleasure. The alert doctor had
halted at the foot of the two steps, and with one hand in the pocket of
his "full-fall" breeches, he gazed up, smiling out of little eyes, at
the ample matron and the slender virgin.

"Yes," he said. "Been up most of th' night. Difficult! Difficult!"

"It's all RIGHT, I hope?"

"Oh yes. Fine child! Fine child! But he put his mother to some trouble,
for all that. Nothing fresh?" This time he lifted his eyes to indicate
Mr. Baines's bedroom.

"No," said Mrs. Baines, with a different expression.

"Keeps cheerful?"

"Yes."

"Good! A very good morning to you."

He strode off towards his house, which was lower down the street.

"I hope she'll turn over a new leaf now," observed Mrs. Baines to
Constance as she closed the door. Constance knew that her mother was
referring to the confectioner's wife; she gathered that the hope was
slight in the extreme.

"What did you want to speak to me about, mother?" she asked, as a way
out of her delicious confusion.

"Shut that door," Mrs. Baines replied, pointing to the door which led
to the passage; and while Constance obeyed, Mrs. Baines herself shut
the staircase-door. She then said, in a low, guarded voice--

"What's all this about Sophia wanting to be a school-teacher?"

"Wanting to be a school-teacher?" Constance repeated, in tones of
amazement.

"Yes. Hasn't she said anything to you?"

"Not a word!"

"Well, I never! She wants to keep on with Miss Chetwynd and be a
teacher." Mrs. Baines had half a mind to add that Sophia had mentioned
London. But she restrained herself. There are some things which one
cannot bring one's self to say. She added, "Instead of going into the
shop!"

"I never heard of such a thing!" Constance murmured brokenly, in the
excess of her astonishment. She was rolling up Mr. Povey's tape-measure.

"Neither did I!" said Mrs. Baines.

"And shall you let her, mother?"

"Neither your father nor I would ever dream of it!" Mrs. Baines
replied, with calm and yet terrible decision. "I only mentioned it to
you because I thought Sophia would have told you something."

"No, mother!"

As Constance put Mr. Povey's tape-measure neatly away in its drawer
under the cutting-out counter, she thought how serious life was--what
with babies and Sophias. She was very proud of her mother's confidence
in her; this simple pride filled her ardent breast with a most
agreeable commotion. And she wanted to help everybody, to show in some
way how much she sympathized with and loved everybody. Even the madness
of Sophia did not weaken her longing to comfort Sophia.

III

That afternoon there was a search for Sophia, whom no one had seen
since dinner. She was discovered by her mother, sitting alone and
unoccupied in the drawing-room. The circumstance was in itself
sufficiently peculiar, for on weekdays the drawing-room was never used,
even by the girls during their holidays, except for the purpose of
playing the piano. However, Mrs. Baines offered no comment on Sophia's
geographical situation, nor on her idleness.

"My dear," she said, standing at the door, with a self-conscious effort
to behave as though nothing had happened, "will you come and sit with
your father a bit?"

"Yes, mother," answered Sophia, with a sort of cold alacrity.

"Sophia is coming, father," said Mrs. Baines at the open door of the
bedroom, which was at right-angles with, and close to, the drawing-room
door. Then she surged swishing along the corridor and went into the
showroom, whither she had been called.

Sophia passed to the bedroom, the eternal prison of John Baines.
Although, on account of his nervous restlessness, Mr. Baines was never
left alone, it was not a part of the usual duty of the girls to sit
with him. The person who undertook the main portion of the vigils was a
certain Aunt Maria--whom the girls knew to be not a real aunt, not a
powerful, effective aunt like Aunt Harriet of Axe--but a poor second
cousin of John Baines; one of those necessitous, pitiful relatives who
so often make life difficult for a great family in a small town. The
existence of Aunt Maria, after being rather a "trial" to the Baineses,
had for twelve years past developed into something absolutely
"providential" for them. (It is to be remembered that in those days
Providence was still busying himself with everybody's affairs, and
foreseeing the future in the most extraordinary manner. Thus, having
foreseen that John Baines would have a "stroke" and need a faithful,
tireless nurse, he had begun fifty years in advance by creating Aunt
Maria, and had kept her carefully in misfortune's way, so that at the
proper moment she would be ready to cope with the stroke. Such at least
is the only theory which will explain the use by the Baineses, and
indeed by all thinking Bursley, of the word "providential" in
connection with Aunt Maria.) She was a shrivelled little woman, capable
of sitting twelve hours a day in a bedroom and thriving on the regime.
At nights she went home to her little cottage in Brougham Street; she
had her Thursday afternoons and generally her Sundays, and during the
school vacations she was supposed to come only when she felt inclined,
or when the cleaning of her cottage permitted her to come. Hence, in
holiday seasons, Mr. Baines weighed more heavily on his household than
at other times, and his nurses relieved each other according to the
contingencies of the moment rather than by a set programme of hours.

The tragedy in ten thousand acts of which that bedroom was the scene,
almost entirely escaped Sophia's perception, as it did Constance's.
Sophia went into the bedroom as though it were a mere bedroom, with its
majestic mahogany furniture, its crimson rep curtains (edged with
gold), and its white, heavily tasselled counterpane. She was aged four
when John Baines had suddenly been seized with giddiness on the steps
of his shop, and had fallen, and, without losing consciousness, had
been transformed from John Baines into a curious and pathetic survival
of John Baines. She had no notion of the thrill which ran through the
town on that night when it was known that John Baines had had a stroke,
and that his left arm and left leg and his right eyelid were paralyzed,
and that the active member of the Local Board, the orator, the
religious worker, the very life of the town's life, was permanently
done for. She had never heard of the crisis through which her mother,
assisted by Aunt Harriet, had passed, and out of which she had
triumphantly emerged. She was not yet old enough even to suspect it.
She possessed only the vaguest memory of her father before he had
finished with the world. She knew him simply as an organism on a bed,
whose left side was wasted, whose eyes were often inflamed, whose mouth
was crooked, who had no creases from the nose to the corners of the
mouth like other people, who experienced difficulty in eating because
the food would somehow get between his gums and his cheek, who slept a
great deal but was excessively fidgety while awake, who seemed to hear
what was said to him a long time after it was uttered, as if the sense
had to travel miles by labyrinthine passages to his brain, and who
talked very, very slowly in a weak, trembling voice.

And she had an image of that remote brain as something with a red spot
on it, for once Constance had said: "Mother, why did father have a
stroke?" and Mrs. Baines had replied: "It was a haemorrhage of the
brain, my dear, here"--putting a thimbled finger on a particular part
of Sophia's head.

Not merely had Constance and Sophia never really felt their father's
tragedy; Mrs. Baines herself had largely lost the sense of it--such is
the effect of use. Even the ruined organism only remembered fitfully
and partially that it had once been John Baines. And if Mrs. Baines had
not, by the habit of years, gradually built up a gigantic fiction that
the organism remained ever the supreme consultative head of the family;
if Mr. Critchlow had not obstinately continued to treat it as a crony,
the mass of living and dead nerves on the rich Victorian bedstead would
have been of no more account than some Aunt Maria in similar case.
These two persons, his wife and his friend, just managed to keep him
morally alive by indefatigably feeding his importance and his dignity.
The feat was a miracle of stubborn self-deceiving, splendidly blind
devotion, and incorrigible pride.

When Sophia entered the room, the paralytic followed her with his
nervous gaze until she had sat down on the end of the sofa at the foot
of the bed. He seemed to study her for a long time, and then he
murmured in his slow, enfeebled, irregular voice:

"Is that Sophia?"

"Yes, father," she answered cheerfully.

And after another pause, the old man said: "Ay! It's Sophia."

And later: "Your mother said she should send ye."

Sophia saw that this was one of his bad, dull days. He had,
occasionally, days of comparative nimbleness, when his wits seized
almost easily the meanings of external phenomena.

Presently his sallow face and long white beard began to slip down the
steep slant of the pillows, and a troubled look came into his left eye.
Sophia rose and, putting her hands under his armpits, lifted him higher
in the bed. He was not heavy, but only a strong girl of her years could
have done it.

"Ay!" he muttered. "That's it. That's it."

And, with his controllable right hand, he took her hand as she stood by
the bed. She was so young and fresh, such an incarnation of the spirit
of health, and he was so far gone in decay and corruption, that there
seemed in this contact of body with body something unnatural and
repulsive. But Sophia did not so feel it.

"Sophia," he addressed her, and made preparatory noises in his throat
while she waited.

He continued after an interval, now clutching her arm, "Your mother's
been telling me you don't want to go in the shop."

She turned her eyes on him, and his anxious, dim gaze met hers. She
nodded.

"Nay, Sophia," he mumbled, with the extreme of slowness. "I'm surprised
at ye...  Trade's bad, bad! Ye know trade's bad?" He was still
clutching her arm.

She nodded. She was, in fact, aware of the badness of trade, caused by
a vague war in the United States. The words "North" and "South" had a
habit of recurring in the conversation of adult persons. That was all
she knew, though people were starving in the Five Towns as they were
starving in Manchester.

"There's your mother," his thought struggled on, like an aged horse
over a hilly road. "There's your mother!" he repeated, as if wishful to
direct Sophia's attention to the spectacle of her mother. "Working
hard! Con--Constance and you must help her.... Trade's bad! What can I
do ... lying here?"

The heat from his dry fingers was warming her arm. She wanted to move,
but she could not have withdrawn her arm without appearing impatient.
For a similar reason she would not avert her glance. A deepening flush
increased the lustre of her immature loveliness as she bent over him.
But though it was so close he did not feel that radiance. He had long
outlived a susceptibility to the strange influences of youth and beauty.

"Teaching!" he muttered. "Nay, nay! I canna' allow that."

Then his white beard rose at the tip as he looked up at the ceiling
above his head, reflectively.

"You understand me?" he questioned finally.

She nodded again; he loosed her arm, and she turned away. She could not
have spoken. Glittering tears enriched her eyes. She was saddened into
a profound and sudden grief by the ridiculousness of the scene. She had
youth, physical perfection; she brimmed with energy, with the sense of
vital power; all existence lay before her; when she put her lips
together she felt capable of outvying no matter whom in fortitude of
resolution. She had always hated the shop. She did not understand how
her mother and Constance could bring themselves to be deferential and
flattering to every customer that entered. No, she did not understand
it; but her mother (though a proud woman) and Constance seemed to
practise such behaviour so naturally, so unquestioningly, that she had
never imparted to either of them her feelings; she guessed that she
would not be comprehended. But long ago she had decided that she would
never "go into the shop." She knew that she would be expected to do
something, and she had fixed on teaching as the one possibility. These
decisions had formed part of her inner life for years past. She had not
mentioned them, being secretive and scarcely anxious for
unpleasantness. But she had been slowly preparing herself to mention
them. The extraordinary announcement that she was to leave school at
the same time as Constance had taken her unawares, before the
preparations ripening in her mind were complete--before, as it were,
she had girded up her loins for the fray. She had been caught unready,
and the opposing forces had obtained the advantage of her. But did they
suppose she was beaten?

No argument from her mother! No hearing, even! Just a curt and haughty
'Let me hear no more of this'! And so the great desire of her life,
nourished year after year in her inmost bosom, was to be flouted and
sacrificed with a word! Her mother did not appear ridiculous in the
affair, for her mother was a genuine power, commanding by turns genuine
love and genuine hate, and always, till then, obedience and the respect
of reason. It was her father who appeared tragically ridiculous; and,
in turn, the whole movement against her grew grotesque in its
absurdity. Here was this antique wreck, helpless, useless,
powerless--merely pathetic--actually thinking that he had only to
mumble in order to make her 'understand'! He knew nothing; he perceived
nothing; he was a ferocious egoist, like most bedridden invalids, out
of touch with life,--and he thought himself justified in making
destinies, and capable of making them! Sophia could not, perhaps,
define the feelings which overwhelmed her; but she was conscious of
their tendency. They aged her, by years. They aged her so that, in a
kind of momentary ecstasy of insight, she felt older than her father
himself.

"You will be a good girl," he said. "I'm sure o' that."

It was too painful. The grotesqueness of her father's complacency
humiliated her past bearing. She was humiliated, not for herself, but
for him. Singular creature! She ran out of the room.

Fortunately Constance was passing in the corridor, otherwise Sophia had
been found guilty of a great breach of duty.

"Go to father," she whispered hysterically to Constance, and fled
upwards to the second floor.

IV

At supper, with her red, downcast eyes, she had returned to sheer
girlishness again, overawed by her mother. The meal had an unusual
aspect. Mr. Povey, safe from the dentist's, but having lost two teeth
in two days, was being fed on 'slops'--bread and milk, to wit; he sat
near the fire. The others had cold pork, half a cold apple-pie, and
cheese; but Sophia only pretended to eat; each time she tried to
swallow, the tears came into her eyes, and her throat shut itself up.
Mrs. Baines and Constance had a too careful air of eating just as
usual. Mrs. Baines's handsome ringlets dominated the table under the
gas.

"I'm not so set up with my pastry to-day," observed Mrs. Baines,
critically munching a fragment of pie-crust.

She rang a little hand-bell. Maggie appeared from the cave. She wore a
plain white bib-less apron, but no cap.

"Maggie, will you have some pie?"

"Yes, if you can spare it, ma'am."

This was Maggie's customary answer to offers of food.

"We can always spare it, Maggie," said her mistress, as usual. "Sophia,
if you aren't going to use that plate, give it to me."

Maggie disappeared with liberal pie.

Mrs. Baines then talked to Mr. Povey about his condition, and in
particular as to the need for precautions against taking cold in the
bereaved gum. She was a brave and determined woman; from start to
finish she behaved as though nothing whatever in the household except
her pastry and Mr. Povey had deviated that day from the normal. She
kissed Constance and Sophia with the most exact equality, and called
them 'my chucks' when they went up to bed.

Constance, excellent kind heart, tried to imitate her mother's tactics
as the girls undressed in their room. She thought she could not do
better than ignore Sophia's deplorable state.

"Mother's new dress is quite finished, and she's going to wear it on
Sunday," said she, blandly.

"If you say another word I'll scratch your eyes out!" Sophia turned on
her viciously, with a catch in her voice, and then began to sob at
intervals. She did not mean this threat, but its utterance gave her
relief. Constance, faced with the fact that her mother's shoes were too
big for her, decided to preserve her eyesight.

Long after the gas was out, rare sobs from Sophia shook the bed, and
they both lay awake in silence.

"I suppose you and mother have been talking me over finely to-day?"
Sophia burst forth, to Constance's surprise, in a wet voice.

"No," said Constance soothingly. "Mother only told me."

"Told you what?"

"That you wanted to be a teacher."

"And I will be, too!" said Sophia, bitterly.

"You don't know mother," thought Constance; but she made no audible
comment.

There was another detached, hard sob. And then, such is the astonishing
talent of youth, they both fell asleep.

The next morning, early, Sophia stood gazing out of the window at the
Square. It was Saturday, and all over the Square little stalls, with
yellow linen roofs, were being erected for the principal market of the
week. In those barbaric days Bursley had a majestic edifice, black as
basalt, for the sale of dead animals by the limb and rib--it was
entitled 'the Shambles'--but vegetables, fruit, cheese, eggs, and
pikelets were still sold under canvas. Eggs are now offered at five
farthings apiece in a palace that cost twenty-five thousand pounds. Yet
you will find people in Bursley ready to assert that things generally
are not what they were, and that in particular the romance of life has
gone. But until it has gone it is never romance. To Sophia, though she
was in a mood which usually stimulates the sense of the romantic, there
was nothing of romance in this picturesque tented field. It was just
the market. Holl's, the leading grocer's, was already open, at the
extremity of the Square, and a boy apprentice was sweeping the pavement
in front of it. The public-houses were open, several of them
specializing in hot rum at 5.30 a.m. The town-crier, in his blue coat
with red facings, crossed the Square, carrying his big bell by the
tongue. There was the same shocking hole in one of Mrs. Povey's
(confectioner's) window-curtains--a hole which even her recent travail
could scarcely excuse. Such matters it was that Sophia noticed with
dull, smarting eyes.

"Sophia, you'll take your death of cold standing there like that!"

She jumped. The voice was her mother's. That vigorous woman, after a
calm night by the side of the paralytic, was already up and neatly
dressed. She carried a bottle and an egg-cup, and a small quantity of
jam in a table-spoon.

"Get into bed again, do! There's a dear! You're shivering."

White Sophia obeyed. It was true; she was shivering. Constance awoke.
Mrs. Baines went to the dressing-table and filled the egg-cup out of
the bottle.

"Who's that for, mother?" Constance asked sleepily.

"It's for Sophia," said Mrs. Baines, with good cheer. "Now, Sophia!"
and she advanced with the egg-cup in one hand and the table-spoon in
the other.

"What is it, mother?" asked Sophia, who well knew what it was.

"Castor-oil, my dear," said Mrs. Baines, winningly.

The ludicrousness of attempting to cure obstinacy and yearnings for a
freer life by means of castor-oil is perhaps less real than apparent.
The strange interdependence of spirit and body, though only understood
intelligently in these intelligent days, was guessed at by sensible
mediaeval mothers. And certainly, at the period when Mrs. Baines
represented modernity, castor-oil was still the remedy of remedies. It
had supplanted cupping. And, if part of its vogue was due to its
extreme unpleasantness, it had at least proved its qualities in many a
contest with disease. Less than two years previously old Dr. Harrop
(father of him who told Mrs. Baines about Mrs. Povey), being then aged
eighty-six, had fallen from top to bottom of his staircase. He had
scrambled up, taken a dose of castor-oil at once, and on the morrow was
as well as if he had never seen a staircase. This episode was town
property and had sunk deep into all hearts.

"I don't want any, mother," said Sophia, in dejection. "I'm quite well."

"You simply ate nothing all day yesterday," said Mrs. Baines. And she
added, "Come!" As if to say, "There's always this silly fuss with
castor-oil. Don't keep me waiting."

"I don't WANT any," said Sophia, irritated and captious.

The two girls lay side by side, on their backs. They seemed very thin
and fragile in comparison with the solidity of their mother. Constance
wisely held her peace.

Mrs. Baines put her lips together, meaning: "This is becoming tedious.
I shall have to be angry in another moment!"

"Come!" said she again.

The girls could hear her foot tapping on the floor.

"I really don't want it, mamma," Sophia fought. "I suppose I ought to
know whether I need it or not!" This was insolence.

"Sophia, will you take this medicine, or won't you?"

In conflicts with her children, the mother's ultimatum always took the
formula in which this phrase was cast. The girls knew, when things had
arrived at the pitch of 'or won't you' spoken in Mrs. Baines's firmest
tone, that the end was upon them. Never had the ultimatum failed.

There was a silence.

"And I'll thank you to mind your manners," Mrs. Baines added.

"I won't take it," said Sophia, sullenly and flatly; and she hid her
face in the pillow.

It was a historic moment in the family life. Mrs. Baines thought the
last day had come. But still she held herself in dignity while the
apocalypse roared in her ears.

"OF COURSE I CAN'T FORCE YOU TO TAKE IT," she said with superb
evenness, masking anger by compassionate grief. "You're a big girl and
a naughty girl. And if you will be ill you must."

Upon this immense admission, Mrs. Baines departed.

Constance trembled.

Nor was that all. In the middle of the morning, when Mrs. Baines was
pricing new potatoes at a stall at the top end of the Square, and
Constance choosing threepennyworth of flowers at the same stall, whom
should they both see, walking all alone across the empty corner by the
Bank, but Sophia Baines! The Square was busy and populous, and Sophia
was only visible behind a foreground of restless, chattering figures.
But she was unmistakably seen. She had been beyond the Square and was
returning. Constance could scarcely believe her eyes. Mrs. Baines's
heart jumped. For let it be said that the girls never under any
circumstances went forth without permission, and scarcely ever alone.
That Sophia should be at large in the town, without leave, without
notice, exactly as if she were her own mistress, was a proposition
which a day earlier had been inconceivable. Yet there she was, and
moving with a leisureliness that must be described as effrontery!

Red with apprehension, Constance wondered what would happen. Mrs.
Baines said nought of her feelings, did not even indicate that she had
seen the scandalous, the breath-taking sight. And they descended the
Square laden with the lighter portions of what they had bought during
an hour of buying. They went into the house by the King Street door;
and the first thing they heard was the sound of the piano upstairs.
Nothing happened. Mr. Povey had his dinner alone; then the table was
laid for them, and the bell rung, and Sophia came insolently downstairs
to join her mother and sister. And nothing happened. The dinner was
silently eaten, and Constance having rendered thanks to God, Sophia
rose abruptly to go.

"Sophia!"

"Yes, mother."

"Constance, stay where you are," said Mrs. Baines suddenly to
Constance, who had meant to flee. Constance was therefore destined to
be present at the happening, doubtless in order to emphasize its
importance and seriousness.

"Sophia," Mrs. Baines resumed to her younger daughter in an ominous
voice. "No, please shut the door. There is no reason why everybody in
the house should hear. Come right into the room--right in! That's it.
Now, what were you doing out in the town this morning?"

Sophia was fidgeting nervously with the edge of her little black apron,
and worrying a seam of the carpet with her toes. She bent her head
towards her left shoulder, at first smiling vaguely. She said nothing,
but every limb, every glance, every curve, was speaking. Mrs. Baines
sat firmly in her own rocking-chair, full of the sensation that she had
Sophia, as it were, writhing on the end of a skewer. Constance was
braced into a moveless anguish.

"I will have an answer," pursued Mrs. Baines. "What were you doing out
in the town this morning?"

"I just went out," answered Sophia at length, still with eyes downcast,
and in a rather simpering tone.

"Why did you go out? You said nothing to me about going out. I heard
Constance ask you if you were coming with us to the market, and you
said, very rudely, that you weren't."

"I didn't say it rudely," Sophia objected.

"Yes you did. And I'll thank you not to answer back."

"I didn't mean to say it rudely, did I, Constance?" Sophia's head
turned sharply to her sister. Constance knew not where to look.

"Don't answer back," Mrs. Baines repeated sternly. "And don't try to
drag Constance into this, for I won't have it."

"Oh, of course Constance is always right!" observed Sophia, with an
irony whose unparalleled impudence shook Mrs. Baines to her massive
foundations.

"Do you want me to have to smack you, child?"

Her temper flashed out and you could see ringlets vibrating under the
provocation of Sophia's sauciness. Then Sophia's lower lip began to
fall and to bulge outwards, and all the muscles of her face seemed to
slacken.

"You are a very naughty girl," said Mrs. Baines, with restraint. ("I've
got her," said Mrs. Baines to herself. "I may just as well keep my
temper.")

And a sob broke out of Sophia. She was behaving like a little child.
She bore no trace of the young maiden sedately crossing the Square
without leave and without an escort.

("I knew she was going to cry," said Mrs. Baines, breathing relief.)

"I'm waiting," said Mrs. Baines aloud.

A second sob. Mrs. Baines manufactured patience to meet the demand.

"You tell me not to answer back, and then you say you're waiting,"
Sophia blubbered thickly.

"What's that you say? How can I tell what you say if you talk like
that?" (But Mrs. Baines failed to hear out of discretion, which is
better than valour.)

"It's of no consequence," Sophia blurted forth in a sob. She was
weeping now, and tears were ricocheting off her lovely crimson cheeks
on to the carpet; her whole body was trembling.

"Don't be a great baby," Mrs. Baines enjoined, with a touch of rough
persuasiveness in her voice.

"It's you who make me cry," said Sophia, bitterly. "You make me cry and
then you call me a great baby!" And sobs ran through her frame like
waves one after another. She spoke so indistinctly that her mother now
really had some difficulty in catching her words.

"Sophia," said Mrs. Baines, with god-like calm, "it is not I who make
you cry. It is your guilty conscience makes you cry. I have merely
asked you a question, and I intend to have an answer."

"I've told you." Here Sophia checked the sobs with an immense effort.

"What have you told me?"

"I just went out."

"I will have no trifling," said Mrs. Baines. "What did you go out for,
and without telling me? If you had told me afterwards, when I came in,
of your own accord, it might have been different. But no, not a word!
It is I who have to ask! Now, quick! I can't wait any longer."

("I gave way over the castor-oil, my girl," Mrs. Baines said in her own
breast. "But not again! Not again!")

"I don't know," Sophia murmured.

"What do you mean--you don't know?"

The sobbing recommenced tempestuously. "I mean I don't know. I just
went out." Her voice rose; it was noisy, but scarcely articulate. "What
if I did go out?"

"Sophia, I am not going to be talked to like this. If you think because
you're leaving school you can do exactly as you like--"

"Do I want to leave school?" yelled Sophia, stamping. In a moment a
hurricane of emotion overwhelmed her, as though that stamping of the
foot had released the demons of the storm. Her face was transfigured by
uncontrollable passion. "You all want to make me miserable!" she
shrieked with terrible violence. "And now I can't even go out! You are
a horrid, cruel woman, and I hate you! And you can do what you like!
Put me in prison if you like! I know you'd be glad if I was dead!"

She dashed from the room, banging the door with a shock that made the
house rattle. And she had shouted so loud that she might have been
heard in the shop, and even in the kitchen. It was a startling
experience for Mrs. Baines. Mrs. Baines, why did you saddle yourself
with a witness? Why did you so positively say that you intended to have
an answer?

"Really," she stammered, pulling her dignity about her shoulders like a
garment that the wind has snatched off. "I never dreamed that poor girl
had such a dreadful temper! What a pity it is, for her OWN sake!" It
was the best she could do.

Constance, who could not bear to witness her mother's humiliation,
vanished very quietly from the room. She got halfway upstairs to the
second floor, and then, hearing the loud, rapid, painful, regular
intake of sobbing breaths, she hesitated and crept down again.

This was Mrs. Baines's first costly experience of the child thankless
for having been brought into the world. It robbed her of her profound,
absolute belief in herself. She had thought she knew everything in her
house and could do everything there. And lo! she had suddenly stumbled
against an unsuspected personality at large in her house, a sort of
hard marble affair that informed her by means of bumps that if she did
not want to be hurt she must keep out of the way.

V

On the Sunday afternoon Mrs. Baines was trying to repose a little in
the drawing-room, where she had caused a fire to be lighted. Constance
was in the adjacent bedroom with her father. Sophia lay between
blankets in the room overhead with a feverish cold. This cold and her
new dress were Mrs. Baines's sole consolation at the moment. She had
prophesied a cold for Sophia, refuser of castor-oil, and it had come.
Sophia had received, for standing in her nightdress at a draughty
window of a May morning, what Mrs. Baines called 'nature's slap in the
face.' As for the dress, she had worshipped God in it, and prayed for
Sophia in it, before dinner; and its four double rows of gimp on the
skirt had been accounted a great success. With her lace-bordered mantle
and her low, stringed bonnet she had assuredly given a unique lustre to
the congregation at chapel. She was stout; but the fashions,
prescribing vague outlines, broad downward slopes, and vast amplitudes,
were favourable to her shape. It must not be supposed that stout women
of a certain age never seek to seduce the eye and trouble the
meditations of man by other than moral charms. Mrs. Baines knew that
she was comely, natty, imposing, and elegant; and the knowledge gave
her real pleasure. She would look over her shoulder in the glass as
anxious as a girl: make no mistake.

She did not repose; she could not. She sat thinking, in exactly the
same posture as Sophia's two afternoons previously. She would have been
surprised to hear that her attitude, bearing, and expression powerfully
recalled those of her reprehensible daughter. But it was so. A good
angel made her restless, and she went idly to the window and glanced
upon the empty, shuttered Square. She too, majestic matron, had
strange, brief yearnings for an existence more romantic than this;
shootings across her spirit's firmament of tailed comets; soft,
inexplicable melancholies. The good angel, withdrawing her from such a
mood, directed her gaze to a particular spot at the top of the square.

She passed at once out of the room--not precisely in a hurry, yet
without wasting time. In a recess under the stairs, immediately outside
the door, was a box about a foot square and eighteen inches deep
covered with black American cloth. She bent down and unlocked this box,
which was padded within and contained the Baines silver tea-service.
She drew from the box teapot, sugar-bowl, milk-jug, sugar-tongs,
hot-water jug, and cake-stand (a flattish dish with an arching
semicircular handle)--chased vessels, silver without and silver-gilt
within; glittering heirlooms that shone in the dark corner like the
secret pride of respectable families. These she put on a tray that
always stood on end in the recess. Then she looked upwards through the
banisters to the second floor.

"Maggie!" she piercingly whispered.

"Yes, mum," came a voice.

"Are you dressed?"

"Yes, mum. I'm just coming."

"Well, put on your muslin." "Apron," Mrs. Baines implied.

Maggie understood.

"Take these for tea," said Mrs. Baines when Maggie descended. "Better
rub them over. You know where the cake is--that new one. The best cups.
And the silver spoons."

They both heard a knock at the side-door, far off, below.

"There!" exclaimed Mrs. Baines. "Now take these right down into the
kitchen before you open."

"Yes, mum," said Maggie, departing.

Mrs. Baines was wearing a black alpaca apron. She removed it and put on
another one of black satin embroidered with yellow flowers, which, by
merely inserting her arm into the chamber, she had taken from off the
chest of drawers in her bedroom. Then she fixed herself in the
drawing-room.

Maggie returned, rather short of breath, convoying the visitor.

"Ah! Miss Chetwynd," said Mrs. Baines, rising to welcome. "I'm sure I'm
delighted to see you. I saw you coming down the Square, and I said to
myself, 'Now, I do hope Miss Chetwynd isn't going to forget us.'"

Miss Chetwynd, simpering momentarily, came forward with that
self-conscious, slightly histrionic air, which is one of the penalties
of pedagogy. She lived under the eyes of her pupils. Her life was one
ceaseless effort to avoid doing anything which might influence her
charges for evil or shock the natural sensitiveness of their parents.
She had to wind her earthly way through a forest of the most delicate
susceptibilities--fern-fronds that stretched across the path, and that
she must not even accidentally disturb with her skirt as she passed. No
wonder she walked mincingly! No wonder she had a habit of keeping her
elbows close to her sides, and drawing her mantle tight in the streets!
Her prospectus talked about 'a sound and religious course of training,'
'study embracing the usual branches of English, with music by a
talented master, drawing, dancing, and calisthenics.' Also 'needlework
plain and ornamental;' also 'moral influence;' and finally about terms,
'which are very moderate, and every particular, with references to
parents and others, furnished on application.' (Sometimes, too, without
application.) As an illustration of the delicacy of fern-fronds, that
single word 'dancing' had nearly lost her Constance and Sophia seven
years before!

She was a pinched virgin, aged forty, and not 'well off;' in her family
the gift of success had been monopolized by her elder sister. For these
characteristics Mrs. Baines, as a matron in easy circumstances, pitied
Miss Chetwynd. On the other hand, Miss Chetwynd could choose ground
from which to look down upon Mrs. Baines, who after all was in trade.
Miss Chetwynd had no trace of the local accent; she spoke with a
southern refinement which the Five Towns, while making fun of it,
envied. All her O's had a genteel leaning towards 'ow,' as ritualism
leans towards Romanism. And she was the fount of etiquette, a wonder of
correctness; in the eyes of her pupils' parents not so much 'a perfect
LADY' as 'a PERFECT lady.' So that it was an extremely nice question
whether, upon the whole, Mrs. Baines secretly condescended to Miss
Chetwynd or Miss Chetwynd to Mrs. Baines. Perhaps Mrs. Baines, by
virtue of her wifehood, carried the day.

Miss Chetwynd, carefully and precisely seated, opened the conversation
by explaining that even if Mrs. Baines had not written she should have
called in any case, as she made a practice of calling at the home of
her pupils in vacation time: which was true. Mrs. Baines, it should be
stated, had on Friday afternoon sent to Miss Chetwynd one of her most
luxurious notes--lavender-coloured paper with scalloped edges, the
selectest mode of the day--to announce, in her Italian hand, that
Constance and Sophia would both leave school at the end of the next
term, and giving reasons in regard to Sophia.

Before the visitor had got very far, Maggie came in with a lacquered
tea-caddy and the silver teapot and a silver spoon on a lacquered tray.
Mrs. Baines, while continuing to talk, chose a key from her bunch,
unlocked the tea-caddy, and transferred four teaspoonfuls of tea from
it to the teapot and relocked the caddy.

"Strawberry," she mysteriously whispered to Maggie; and Maggie
disappeared, bearing the tray and its contents.

"And how is your sister? It is quite a long time since she was down
here," Mrs. Baines went on to Miss Chetwynd, after whispering
"strawberry."

The remark was merely in the way of small-talk--for the hostess felt a
certain unwilling hesitation to approach the topic of daughters--but it
happened to suit the social purpose of Miss Chetwynd to a nicety. Miss
Chetwynd was a vessel brimming with great tidings.

"She is very well, thank you," said Miss Chetwynd, and her expression
grew exceedingly vivacious. Her face glowed with pride as she added,
"Of course everything is changed now."

"Indeed?" murmured Mrs. Baines, with polite curiosity.

"Yes," said Miss Chetwynd. "You've not heard?"

"No," said Mrs. Baines. Miss Chetwynd knew that she had not heard.

"About Elizabeth's engagement? To the Reverend Archibald Jones?"

It is the fact that Mrs. Baines was taken aback. She did nothing
indiscreet; she did not give vent to her excusable amazement that the
elder Miss Chetwynd should be engaged to any one at all, as some women
would have done in the stress of the moment. She kept her presence of
mind.

"This is really MOST interesting!" said she.

It was. For Archibald Jones was one of the idols of the Wesleyan
Methodist Connexion, a special preacher famous throughout England. At
'Anniversaries' and 'Trust sermons,' Archibald Jones had probably no
rival. His Christian name helped him; it was a luscious, resounding
mouthful for admirers. He was not an itinerant minister, migrating
every three years. His function was to direct the affairs of the 'Book
Room,' the publishing department of the Connexion. He lived in London,
and shot out into the provinces at week-ends, preaching on Sundays and
giving a lecture, tinctured with bookishness, 'in the chapel' on Monday
evenings. In every town he visited there was competition for the
privilege of entertaining him. He had zeal, indefatigable energy, and a
breezy wit. He was a widower of fifty, and his wife had been dead for
twenty years. It had seemed as if women were not for this bright star.
And here Elizabeth Chetwynd, who had left the Five Towns a quarter of a
century before at the age of twenty, had caught him! Austere,
moustached, formidable, desiccated, she must have done it with her
powerful intellect! It must be a union of intellects! He had been
impressed by hers, and she by his, and then their intellects had
kissed. Within a week fifty thousand women in forty counties had
pictured to themselves this osculation of intellects, and shrugged
their shoulders, and decided once more that men were incomprehensible.
These great ones in London, falling in love like the rest! But no! Love
was a ribald and voluptuous word to use in such a matter as this. It
was generally felt that the Reverend Archibald Jones and Miss Chetwynd
the elder would lift marriage to what would now be termed an astral
plane.

After tea had been served, Mrs. Baines gradually recovered her
position, both in her own private esteem and in the deference of Miss
Aline Chetwynd.

"Yes," said she. "You can talk about your sister, and you can call HIM
Archibald, and you can mince up your words. But have you got a
tea-service like this? Can you conceive more perfect strawberry jam
than this? Did not my dress cost more than you spend on your clothes in
a year? Has a man ever looked at you? After all, is there not something
about my situation ... in short, something...?"

She did not say this aloud. She in no way deviated from the scrupulous
politeness of a hostess. There was nothing in even her tone to indicate
that Mrs. John Baines was a personage. Yet it suddenly occurred to Miss
Chetwynd that her pride in being the prospective sister-in-law of the
Rev. Archibald Jones would be better for a while in her pocket. And she
inquired after Mr. Baines. After this the conversation limped somewhat.

"I suppose you weren't surprised by my letter?" said Mrs. Baines.

"I was and I wasn't," answered Miss Chetwynd, in her professional
manner and not her manner of a prospective sister-in-law. "Of course I
am naturally sorry to lose two such good pupils, but we can't keep our
pupils for ever." She smiled; she was not without fortitude--it is
easier to lose pupils than to replace them. "Still"--a pause--"what you
say of Sophia is perfectly true, perfectly. She is quite as advanced as
Constance. Still"--another pause and a more rapid enunciation--"Sophia
is by no means an ordinary girl."

"I hope she hasn't been a very great trouble to you?"

"Oh NO!" exclaimed Miss Chetwynd. "Sophia and I have got on very well
together. I have always tried to appeal to her reason. I have never
FORCED her ... Now, with some girls ... In some ways I look on Sophia
as the most remarkable girl--not pupil--but the most remarkable--what
shall I say?--individuality, that I have ever met with." And her
demeanour added, "And, mind you, this is something--from me!"

"Indeed!" said Mrs. Baines. She told herself, "I am not your common
foolish parent. I see my children impartially. I am incapable of being
flattered concerning them."

Nevertheless she was flattered, and the thought shaped itself that
really Sophia was no ordinary girl.

"I suppose she has talked to you about becoming a teacher?" asked Miss
Chetwynd, taking a morsel of the unparalleled jam.

She held the spoon with her thumb and three fingers. Her fourth finger,
in matters of honest labour, would never associate with the other
three; delicately curved, it always drew proudly away from them.

"Has she mentioned that to you?" Mrs. Baines demanded, startled.

"Oh yes!" said Miss Chetwynd. "Several times. Sophia is a very
secretive girl, very--but I think I may say I have always had her
confidence. There have been times when Sophia and I have been very near
each other. Elizabeth was much struck with her. Indeed, I may tell you
that in one of her last letters to me she spoke of Sophia and said she
had mentioned her to Mr. Jones, and Mr. Jones remembered her quite
well."

Impossible for even a wise, uncommon parent not to be affected by such
an announcement!

"I dare say your sister will give up her school now," observed Mrs.
Baines, to divert attention from her self-consciousness.

"Oh NO!" And this time Mrs. Baines had genuinely shocked Miss Chetwynd.
"Nothing would induce Elizabeth to give up the cause of education.
Archibald takes the keenest interest in the school. Oh no! Not for
worlds!"

"THEN YOU THINK SOPHIA WOULD MAKE A GOOD TEACHER?" asked Mrs. Baines
with apparent inconsequence, and with a smile. But the words marked an
epoch in her mind. All was over.

"I think she is very much set on it and--"

"That wouldn't affect her father--or me," said Mrs. Baines quickly.

"Certainly not! I merely say that she is very much set on it. Yes, she
would, at any rate, make a teacher far superior to the average." ("That
girl has got the better of her mother without me!" she reflected.) "Ah!
Here is dear Constance!"

Constance, tempted beyond her strength by the sounds of the visit and
the colloquy, had slipped into the room.

"I've left both doors open, mother," she excused herself for quitting
her father, and kissed Miss Chetwynd.

She blushed, but she blushed happily, and really made a most creditable
debut as a young lady. Her mother rewarded her by taking her into the
conversation. And history was soon made.

So Sophia was apprenticed to Miss Aline Chetwynd. Mrs. Baines bore
herself greatly. It was Miss Chetwynd who had urged, and her respect
for Miss Chetwynd ... Also somehow the Reverend Archibald Jones came
into the cause.

Of course the idea of Sophia ever going to London was ridiculous,
ridiculous! (Mrs. Baines secretly feared that the ridiculous might
happen; but, with the Reverend Archibald Jones on the spot, the worst
could be faced.) Sophia must understand that even the apprenticeship in
Bursley was merely a trial. They would see how things went on. She had
to thank Miss Chetwynd.

"I made Miss Chetwynd come and talk to mother," said Sophia
magnificently one night to simple Constance, as if to imply, 'Your Miss
Chetwynd is my washpot.'

To Constance, Sophia's mere enterprise was just as staggering as her
success. Fancy her deliberately going out that Saturday morning, after
her mother's definite decision, to enlist Miss Chetwynd in her aid!

There is no need to insist on the tragic grandeur of Mrs. Baines's
renunciation--a renunciation which implied her acceptance of a change
in the balance of power in her realm. Part of its tragedy was that
none, not even Constance, could divine the intensity of Mrs. Baines's
suffering. She had no confidant; she was incapable of showing a wound.
But when she lay awake at night by the organism which had once been her
husband, she dwelt long and deeply on the martyrdom of her life. What
had she done to deserve it? Always had she conscientiously endeavoured
to be kind, just, patient. And she knew herself to be sagacious and
prudent. In the frightful and unguessed trials of her existence as a
wife, surely she might have been granted consolations as a mother! Yet
no; it had not been! And she felt all the bitterness of age against
youth--youth egotistic, harsh, cruel, uncompromising; youth that is so
crude, so ignorant of life, so slow to understand! She had Constance.
Yes, but it would be twenty years before Constance could appreciate the
sacrifice of judgment and of pride which her mother had made, in a
sudden decision, during that rambling, starched, simpering interview
with Miss Aline Chetwynd. Probably Constance thought that she had
yielded to Sophia's passionate temper! Impossible to explain to
Constance that she had yielded to nothing but a perception of Sophia's
complete inability to hear reason and wisdom. Ah! Sometimes as she lay
in the dark, she would, in fancy, snatch her heart from her bosom and
fling it down before Sophia, bleeding, and cry: "See what I carry about
with me, on your account!" Then she would take it back and hide it
again, and sweeten her bitterness with wise admonitions to herself.

All this because Sophia, aware that if she stayed in the house she
would be compelled to help in the shop, chose an honourable activity
which freed her from the danger. Heart, how absurd of you to bleed!




CHAPTER IV

ELEPHANT

I


"Sophia, will you come and see the elephant? Do come!" Constance
entered the drawing-room with this request on her eager lips.

"No," said Sophia, with a touch of condescension. "I'm far too busy for
elephants."

Only two years had passed; but both girls were grown up now; long
sleeves, long skirts, hair that had settled down in life; and a
demeanour immensely serious, as though existence were terrific in its
responsibilities; yet sometimes childhood surprisingly broke through
the crust of gravity, as now in Constance, aroused by such things as
elephants, and proclaimed with vivacious gestures that it was not dead
after all. The sisters were sharply differentiated. Constance wore the
black alpaca apron and the scissors at the end of a long black elastic,
which indicated her vocation in the shop. She was proving a
considerable success in the millinery department. She had learnt how to
talk to people, and was, in her modest way, very self-possessed. She
was getting a little stouter. Everybody liked her. Sophia had developed
into the student. Time had accentuated her reserve. Her sole friend was
Miss Chetwynd, with whom she was, having regard to the disparity of
their ages, very intimate. At home she spoke little. She lacked
amiability; as her mother said, she was 'touchy.' She required
diplomacy from others, but did not render it again. Her attitude,
indeed, was one of half-hidden disdain, now gentle, now coldly bitter.
She would not wear an apron, in an age when aprons were almost
essential to decency. No! She would not wear an apron, and there was an
end of it. She was not so tidy as Constance, and if Constance's hands
had taken on the coarse texture which comes from commerce with needles,
pins, artificial flowers, and stuffs, Sophia's fine hands were seldom
innocent of ink. But Sophia was splendidly beautiful. And even her
mother and Constance had an instinctive idea that that face was, at any
rate, a partial excuse for her asperity.

"Well," said Constance, "if you won't, I do believe I shall ask mother
if she will."

Sophia, bending over her books, made no answer. But the top of her head
said: "This has no interest for me whatever."

Constance left the room, and in a moment returned with her mother.

"Sophia," said her mother, with gay excitement, "you might go and sit
with your father for a bit while Constance and I just run up to the
playground to see the elephant. You can work just as well in there as
here. Your father's asleep."

"Oh, very, well!" Sophia agreed haughtily. "Whatever is all this fuss
about an elephant? Anyhow, it'll be quieter in your room. The noise
here is splitting." She gave a supercilious glance into the Square as
she languidly rose.

It was the morning of the third day of Bursley Wakes; not the modern
finicking and respectable, but an orgiastic carnival, gross in all its
manifestations of joy. The whole centre of the town was given over to
the furious pleasures of the people. Most of the Square was occupied by
Wombwell's Menagerie, in a vast oblong tent, whose raging beasts roared
and growled day and night. And spreading away from this supreme
attraction, right up through the market-place past the Town Hall to
Duck Bank, Duck Square and the waste land called the 'playground' were
hundreds of booths with banners displaying all the delights of the
horrible. You could see the atrocities of the French Revolution, and of
the Fiji Islands, and the ravages of unspeakable diseases, and the
living flesh of a nearly nude human female guaranteed to turn the scale
at twenty-two stone, and the skeletons of the mysterious phantoscope,
and the bloody contests of champions naked to the waist (with the
chance of picking up a red tooth as a relic). You could try your
strength by hitting an image of a fellow-creature in the stomach, and
test your aim by knocking off the heads of other images with a wooden
ball. You could also shoot with rifles at various targets. All the
streets were lined with stalls loaded with food in heaps, chiefly dried
fish, the entrails of animals, and gingerbread. All the public-houses
were crammed, and frenzied jolly drunkards, men and women, lunged along
the pavements everywhere, their shouts vying with the trumpets, horns,
and drums of the booths, and the shrieking, rattling toys that the
children carried.

It was a glorious spectacle, but not a spectacle for the leading
families. Miss Chetwynd's school was closed, so that the daughters of
leading families might remain in seclusion till the worst was over. The
Baineses ignored the Wakes in every possible way, choosing that week to
have a show of mourning goods in the left-hand window, and refusing to
let Maggie outside on any pretext. Therefore the dazzling social
success of the elephant, which was quite easily drawing Mrs. Baines
into the vortex, cannot imaginably be over-estimated.

On the previous night one of the three Wombwell elephants had suddenly
knelt on a man in the tent; he had then walked out of the tent and
picked up another man at haphazard from the crowd which was staring at
the great pictures in front, and tried to put this second man into his
mouth. Being stopped by his Indian attendant with a pitchfork, he
placed the man on the ground and stuck his tusk through an artery of
the victim's arm. He then, amid unexampled excitement, suffered himself
to be led away. He was conducted to the rear of the tent, just in front
of Baines's shuttered windows, and by means of stakes, pulleys, and
ropes forced to his knees. His head was whitewashed, and six men of the
Rifle Corps were engaged to shoot at him at a distance of five yards,
while constables kept the crowd off with truncheons. He died instantly,
rolling over with a soft thud. The crowd cheered, and, intoxicated by
their importance, the Volunteers fired three more volleys into the
carcase, and were then borne off as heroes to different inns. The
elephant, by the help of his two companions, was got on to a railway
lorry and disappeared into the night. Such was the greatest sensation
that has ever occurred, or perhaps will ever occur, in Bursley. The
excitement about the repeal of the Corn Laws, or about Inkerman, was
feeble compared to that excitement. Mr. Critchlow, who had been called
on to put a hasty tourniquet round the arm of the second victim, had
popped in afterwards to tell John Baines all about it. Mr. Baines's
interest, however, had been slight. Mr. Critchlow succeeded better with
the ladies, who, though they had witnessed the shooting from the
drawing-room, were thirsty for the most trifling details.

The next day it was known that the elephant lay near the playground,
pending the decision of the Chief Bailiff and the Medical Officer as to
his burial. And everybody had to visit the corpse. No social
exclusiveness could withstand the seduction of that dead elephant.
Pilgrims travelled from all the Five Towns to see him.

"We're going now," said Mrs. Baines, after she had assumed her bonnet
and shawl.

"All right," said Sophia, pretending to be absorbed in study, as she
sat on the sofa at the foot of her father's bed.

And Constance, having put her head in at the door, drew her mother
after her like a magnet.

Then Sophia heard a remarkable conversation in the passage.

"Are you going up to see the elephant, Mrs. Baines?" asked the voice of
Mr. Povey.

"Yes. Why?"

"I think I had better come with you. The crowd is sure to be very
rough." Mr. Povey's tone was firm; he had a position.

"But the shop?"

"We shall not be long," said Mr. Povey.

"Oh yes, mother," Constance added appealingly.

Sophia felt the house thrill as the side-door banged. She sprang up and
watched the three cross King Street diagonally, and so plunge into the
Wakes. This triple departure was surely the crowning tribute to the
dead elephant! It was simply astonishing. It caused Sophia to perceive
that she had miscalculated the importance of the elephant. It made her
regret her scorn of the elephant as an attraction. She was left behind;
and the joy of life was calling her. She could see down into the Vaults
on the opposite side of the street, where working men--potters and
colliers--in their best clothes, some with high hats, were drinking,
gesticulating, and laughing in a row at a long counter.

She noticed, while she was thus at the bedroom window, a young man
ascending King Street, followed by a porter trundling a flat barrow of
luggage. He passed slowly under the very window. She flushed. She had
evidently been startled by the sight of this young man into no ordinary
state of commotion. She glanced at the books on the sofa, and then at
her father. Mr. Baines, thin and gaunt, and acutely pitiable, still
slept. His brain had almost ceased to be active now; he had to be fed
and tended like a bearded baby, and he would sleep for hours at a
stretch even in the daytime. Sophia left the room. A moment later she
ran into the shop, an apparition that amazed the three young lady
assistants. At the corner near the window on the fancy side a little
nook had been formed by screening off a portion of the counter with
large flower-boxes placed end-up. This corner had come to be known as
"Miss Baines's corner." Sophia hastened to it, squeezing past a young
lady assistant in the narrow space between the back of the counter and
the shelf-lined wall. She sat down in Constance's chair and pretended
to look for something. She had examined herself in the cheval-glass in
the showroom, on her way from the sick-chamber. When she heard a voice
near the door of the shop asking first for Mr. Povey and then for Mrs.
Baines, she rose, and seizing the object nearest to her, which happened
to be a pair of scissors, she hurried towards the showroom stairs as
though the scissors had been a grail, passionately sought and to be
jealously hidden away. She wanted to stop and turn round, but something
prevented her. She was at the end of the counter, under the curving
stairs, when one of the assistants said:

"I suppose you don't know when Mr. Povey or your mother are likely to
be back, Miss Sophia? Here's--"

It was a divine release for Sophia.

"They're--I--" she stammered, turning round abruptly. Luckily she was
still sheltered behind the counter.

The young man whom she had seen in the street came boldly forward.

"Good morning, Miss Sophia," said he, hat in hand. "It is a long time
since I had the pleasure of seeing you."

Never had she blushed as she blushed then. She scarcely knew what she
was doing as she moved slowly towards her sister's corner again, the
young man following her on the customer's side of the counter.

II

She knew that he was a traveller for the most renowned and gigantic of
all Manchester wholesale firms--Birkinshaws. But she did not know his
name, which was Gerald Scales. He was a rather short but extremely
well-proportioned man of thirty, with fair hair, and a distinguished
appearance, as became a representative of Birkinshaws. His broad, tight
necktie, with an edge of white collar showing above it, was
particularly elegant. He had been on the road for Birkinshaws for
several years; but Sophia had only seen him once before in her life,
when she was a little girl, three years ago. The relations between the
travellers of the great firms and their solid, sure clients in small
towns were in those days often cordially intimate. The traveller came
with the lustre of a historic reputation around him; there was no need
to fawn for orders; and the client's immense and immaculate
respectability made him the equal of no matter what ambassador. It was
a case of mutual esteem, and of that confidence-generating phenomenon,
"an old account." The tone in which a commercial traveller of middle
age would utter the phrase "an old account" revealed in a flash all
that was romantic, prim, and stately in mid-Victorian commerce. In the
days of Baines, after one of the elaborately engraved advice-circulars
had arrived ('Our Mr. ---- will have the pleasure of waiting upon you
on ----day next, the ---- inst.') John might in certain cases be expected to
say, on the morning of ----day, 'Missis, what have ye gotten for supper
to-night?'

Mr. Gerald Scales had never been asked to supper; he had never even
seen John Baines; but, as the youthful successor of an aged traveller
who had had the pleasure of St. Luke's Square, on behalf of
Birkinshaws, since before railways, Mrs. Baines had treated him with a
faint agreeable touch of maternal familiarity; and, both her daughters
being once in the shop during his visit, she had on that occasion
commanded the gawky girls to shake hands with him.

Sophia had never forgotten that glimpse. The young man without a name
had lived in her mind, brightly glowing, as the very symbol and
incarnation of the masculine and the elegant.

The renewed sight of him seemed to have wakened her out of a sleep.
Assuredly she was not the same Sophia. As she sat in her sister's chair
in the corner, entrenched behind the perpendicular boxes, playing
nervously with the scissors, her beautiful face was transfigured into
the ravishingly angelic. It would have been impossible for Mr. Gerald
Scales, or anybody else, to credit, as he gazed at those lovely,
sensitive, vivacious, responsive features, that Sophia was not a
character of heavenly sweetness and perfection. She did not know what
she was doing; she was nothing but the exquisite expression of a deep
instinct to attract and charm. Her soul itself emanated from her in an
atmosphere of allurement and acquiescence. Could those laughing lips
hang in a heavy pout? Could that delicate and mild voice be harsh?
Could those burning eyes be coldly inimical? Never! The idea was
inconceivable! And Mr. Gerald Scales, with his head over the top of the
boxes, yielded to the spell. Remarkable that Mr. Gerald Scales, with
all his experience, should have had to come to Bursley to find the
pearl, the paragon, the ideal! But so it was. They met in an equal
abandonment; the only difference between them was that Mr. Scales, by
force of habit, kept his head.

"I see it's your wakes here," said he.

He was polite to the wakes; but now, with the least inflection in the
world, he put the wakes at its proper level in the scheme of things as
a local unimportance! She adored him for this; she was athirst for
sympathy in the task of scorning everything local.

"I expect you didn't know," she said, implying that there was every
reason why a man of his mundane interests should not know.

"I should have remembered if I had thought," said he. "But I didn't
think. What's this about an elephant?"

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Have you heard of that?"

"My porter was full of it."

"Well," she said, "of course it's a very big thing in Bursley."

As she smiled in gentle pity of poor Bursley, he naturally did the
same. And he thought how much more advanced and broad the younger
generation was than the old! He would never have dared to express his
real feelings about Bursley to Mrs. Baines, or even to Mr. Povey (who
was, however, of no generation); yet here was a young woman actually
sharing them.

She told him all the history of the elephant.

"Must have been very exciting," he commented, despite himself.

"Do you know," she replied, "it WAS."

After all, Bursley was climbing in their opinion.

"And mother and my sister and Mr. Povey have all gone to see it. That's
why they're not here."

That the elephant should have caused both Mr. Povey and Mrs. Baines to
forget that the representative of Birkinshaws was due to call was
indeed a final victory for the elephant.

"But not you!" he exclaimed.

"No," she said. "Not me."

"Why didn't you go too?" He continued his flattering investigations
with a generous smile.

"I simply didn't care to," said she, proudly nonchalant.

"And I suppose you are in charge here?"

"No," she answered. "I just happened to have run down here for these
scissors. That's all."

"I often see your sister," said he. "'Often' do I say?--that is,
generally, when I come; but never you."

"I'm never in the shop," she said. "It's just an accident to-day."

"Oh! So you leave the shop to your sister?"

"Yes." She said nothing of her teaching.

Then there was a silence. Sophia was very thankful to be hidden from
the curiosity of the shop. The shop could see nothing of her, and only
the back of the young man; and the conversation had been conducted in
low voices. She tapped her foot, stared at the worn, polished surface
of the counter, with the brass yard-measure nailed along its edge, and
then she uneasily turned her gaze to the left and seemed to be
examining the backs of the black bonnets which were perched on high
stands in the great window. Then her eyes caught his for an important
moment.

"Yes," she breathed. Somebody had to say something. If the shop missed
the murmur of their voices the shop would wonder what had happened to
them.

Mr. Scales looked at his watch. '"I dare say if I come in again about
two--" he began.

"Oh yes, they're SURE to be in then," she burst out before he could
finish his sentence.

He left abruptly, queerly, without shaking hands (but then it would
have been difficult--she argued--for him to have put his arm over the
boxes), and without expressing the hope of seeing her again. She peeped
through the black bonnets, and saw the porter put the leather strap
over his shoulders, raise the rear of the barrow, and trundle off; but
she did not see Mr. Scales. She was drunk; thoughts were tumbling about
in her brain like cargo loose in a rolling ship. Her entire conception
of herself was being altered; her attitude towards life was being
altered. The thought which knocked hardest against its fellows was,
"Only in these moments have I begun to live!"

And as she flitted upstairs to resume watch over her father she sought
to devise an innocent-looking method by which she might see Mr. Scales
when he next called. And she speculated as to what his name was.

III

When Sophia arrived in the bedroom, she was startled because her
father's head and beard were not in their accustomed place on the
pillow. She could only make out something vaguely unusual sloping off
the side of the bed. A few seconds passed--not to be measured in
time--and she saw that the upper part of his body had slipped down, and
his head was hanging, inverted, near the floor between the bed and the
ottoman. His face, neck, and hands were dark and congested; his mouth
was open, and the tongue protruded between the black, swollen, mucous
lips; his eyes were prominent and coldly staring. The fact was that Mr.
Baines had wakened up, and, being restless, had slid out partially from
his bed and died of asphyxia. After having been unceasingly watched for
fourteen years, he had, with an invalid's natural perverseness, taken
advantage of Sophia's brief dereliction to expire. Say what you will,
amid Sophia's horror, and her terrible grief and shame, she had
visitings of the idea: he did it on purpose!

She ran out of the room, knowing by intuition that he was dead, and
shrieked out, "Maggie," at the top of her voice; the house echoed.

"Yes, miss," said Maggie, quite close, coming out of Mr. Povey's
chamber with a slop-pail.

"Fetch Mr. Critchlow at once. Be quick. Just as you are. It's father--"

Maggie, perceiving darkly that disaster was in the air, and instantly
filled with importance and a sort of black joy, dropped her pail in the
exact middle of the passage, and almost fell down the crooked stairs.
One of Maggie's deepest instincts, always held in check by the stern
dominance of Mrs. Baines, was to leave pails prominent on the main
routes of the house; and now, divining what was at hand, it flamed into
insurrection.

No sleepless night had ever been so long to Sophia as the three minutes
which elapsed before Mr. Critchlow came. As she stood on the mat
outside the bedroom door she tried to draw her mother and Constance and
Mr. Povey by magnetic force out of the wakes into the house, and her
muscles were contracted in this strange effort. She felt that it was
impossible to continue living if the secret of the bedroom remained
unknown one instant longer, so intense was her torture, and yet that
the torture which could not be borne must be borne. Not a sound in the
house! Not a sound from the shop! Only the distant murmur of the wakes!

"Why did I forget father?" she asked herself with awe. "I only meant to
tell him that they were all out, and run back. Why did I forget
father?" She would never be able to persuade anybody that she had
literally forgotten her father's existence for quite ten minutes; but
it was true, though shocking.

Then there were noises downstairs.

"Bless us! Bless us!" came the unpleasant voice of Mr. Critchlow as he
bounded up the stairs on his long legs; he strode over the pail.
"What's amiss?" He was wearing his white apron, and he carried his
spectacles in his bony hand.

"It's father--he's--" Sophia faltered.

She stood away so that he should enter the room first. He glanced at
her keenly, and as it were resentfully, and went in. She followed,
timidly, remaining near the door while Mr. Critchlow inspected her
handiwork. He put on his spectacles with strange deliberation, and
then, bending his knees outwards, thus lowered his body so that he
could examine John Baines point-blank. He remained staring like this,
his hands on his sharp apron-covered knees, for a little space; and
then he seized the inert mass and restored it to the bed, and wiped
those clotted lips with his apron.

Sophia heard loud breathing behind her. It was Maggie. She heard a
huge, snorting sob; Maggie was showing her emotion.

"Go fetch doctor!" Mr. Critchlow rasped. "And don't stand gaping there!"

"Run for the doctor, Maggie," said Sophia.

"How came ye to let him fall?" Mr. Critchlow demanded.

"I was out of the room. I just ran down into the shop--"

"Gallivanting with that young Scales!" said Mr. Critchlow, with
devilish ferocity. "Well, you've killed yer father; that's all!"

He must have been at his shop door and seen the entry of the traveller!
And it was precisely characteristic of Mr. Critchlow to jump in the
dark at a horrible conclusion, and to be right after all. For Sophia
Mr. Critchlow had always been the personification of malignity and
malevolence, and now these qualities in him made him, to her, almost
obscene. Her pride brought up tremendous reinforcements, and she
approached the bed.

"Is he dead?" she asked in a quiet tone. (Somewhere within a voice was
whispering, "So his name is Scales.")

"Don't I tell you he's dead?"

"Pail on the stairs!"

This mild exclamation came from the passage. Mrs. Baines, misliking the
crowds abroad, had returned alone; she had left Constance in charge of
Mr. Povey. Coming into her house by the shop and showroom, she had
first noted the phenomenon of the pail--proof of her theory of
Maggie's incurable untidiness.

"Been to see the elephant, I reckon!" said Mr. Critchlow, in fierce
sarcasm, as he recognized Mrs. Baines's voice.

Sophia leaped towards the door, as though to bar her mother's entrance.
But Mrs. Baines was already opening the door.

"Well, my pet--" she was beginning cheerfully.

Mr. Critchlow confronted her. And he had no more pity for the wife than
for the daughter. He was furiously angry because his precious property
had been irretrievably damaged by the momentary carelessness of a silly
girl. Yes, John Baines was his property, his dearest toy! He was
convinced that he alone had kept John Baines alive for fourteen years,
that he alone had fully understood the case and sympathized with the
sufferer, that none but he had been capable of displaying ordinary
common sense in the sick-room. He had learned to regard John Baines as,
in some sort, his creation. And now, with their stupidity, their
neglect, their elephants, between them they had done for John Baines.
He had always known it would come to that, and it had come to that.

"She let him fall out o' bed, and ye're a widow now, missis!" he
announced with a virulence hardly conceivable. His angular features and
dark eyes expressed a murderous hate for every woman named Baines.

"Mother!" cried Sophia, "I only ran down into the shop to--to--"

She seized her mother's arm in frenzied agony.

"My child!" said Mrs. Baines, rising miraculously to the situation with
a calm benevolence of tone and gesture that remained for ever sublime
in the stormy heart of Sophia, "do not hold me." With infinite
gentleness she loosed herself from those clasping hands. "Have you sent
for the doctor?" she questioned Mr. Critchlow.

The fate of her husband presented no mysteries to Mrs. Baines.
Everybody had been warned a thousand times of the danger of leaving the
paralytic, whose life depended on his position, and whose fidgetiness
was thereby a constant menace of death to him. For five thousand nights
she had wakened infallibly every time he stirred, and rearranged him by
the flicker of a little oil lamp. But Sophia, unhappy creature, had
merely left him. That was all.

Mr. Critchlow and the widow gazed, helplessly waiting, at the pitiable
corpse, of which the salient part was the white beard. They knew not
that they were gazing at a vanished era. John Baines had belonged to
the past, to the age when men really did think of their souls, when
orators by phrases could move crowds to fury or to pity, when no one
had learnt to hurry, when Demos was only turning in his sleep, when the
sole beauty of life resided in its inflexible and slow dignity, when
hell really had no bottom, and a gilt-clasped Bible really was the
secret of England's greatness. Mid-Victorian England lay on that
mahogany bed. Ideals had passed away with John Baines. It is thus that
ideals die; not in the conventional pageantry of honoured death, but
sorrily, ignobly, while one's head is turned--

And Mr. Povey and Constance, very self-conscious, went and saw the dead
elephant, and came back; and at the corner of King Street, Constance
exclaimed brightly--

"Why! who's gone out and left the side-door open?"

For the doctor had at length arrived, and Maggie, in showing him
upstairs with pious haste, had forgotten to shut the door.

And they took advantage of the side-door, rather guiltily, to avoid the
eyes of the shop. They feared that in the parlour they would be the
centre of a curiosity half ironical and half reproving; for had they
not accomplished an escapade? So they walked slowly.

The real murderer was having his dinner in the commercial room up at
the Tiger, opposite the Town Hall.

IV

Several shutters were put up in the windows of the shop, to indicate a
death, and the news instantly became known in trading circles
throughout the town. Many people simultaneously remarked upon the
coincidence that Mr. Baines should have died while there was a show of
mourning goods in his establishment. This coincidence was regarded as
extremely sinister, and it was apparently felt that, for the sake of
the mind's peace, one ought not to inquire into such things too
closely. From the moment of putting up the prescribed shutters, John
Baines and his funeral began to acquire importance in Bursley, and
their importance grew rapidly almost from hour to hour. The wakes
continued as usual, except that the Chief Constable, upon
representations being made to him by Mr. Critchlow and other citizens,
descended upon St. Luke's Square and forbade the activities of
Wombwell's orchestra. Wombwell and the Chief Constable differed as to
the justice of the decree, but every well-minded person praised the
Chief Constable, and he himself considered that he had enhanced the
town's reputation for a decent propriety. It was noticed, too, not
without a shiver of the uncanny, that that night the lions and tigers
behaved like lambs, whereas on the previous night they had roared the
whole Square out of its sleep.

The Chief Constable was not the only individual enlisted by Mr.
Critchlow in the service of his friend's fame. Mr. Critchlow spent
hours in recalling the principal citizens to a due sense of John
Baines's past greatness. He was determined that his treasured toy
should vanish underground with due pomp, and he left nothing undone to
that end. He went over to Hanbridge on the still wonderful horse-car,
and saw the editor-proprietor of the Staffordshire Signal (then a
two-penny weekly with no thought of Football editions), and on the very
day of the funeral the Signal came out with a long and eloquent
biography of John Baines. This biography, giving details of his public
life, definitely restored him to his legitimate position in the civic
memory as an ex-chief bailiff, an ex-chairman of the Burial Board, and
of the Five Towns Association for the Advancement of Useful Knowledge,
and also as a "prime mover" in the local Turnpike Act, in the
negotiations for the new Town Hall, and in the Corinthian facade of the
Wesleyan Chapel; it narrated the anecdote of his courageous speech from
the portico of the Shambles during the riots of 1848, and it did not
omit a eulogy of his steady adherence to the wise old English maxims of
commerce and his avoidance of dangerous modern methods. Even in the
sixties the modern had reared its shameless head. The panegyric closed
with an appreciation of the dead man's fortitude in the terrible
affliction with which a divine providence had seen fit to try him; and
finally the Signal uttered its absolute conviction that his native town
would raise a cenotaph to his honour. Mr. Critchlow, being unfamiliar
with the word "cenotaph," consulted Worcester's Dictionary, and when he
found that it meant "a sepulchral monument to one who is buried
elsewhere," he was as pleased with the Signal's language as with the
idea, and decided that a cenotaph should come to pass.

The house and shop were transformed into a hive of preparation for the
funeral. All was changed. Mr. Povey kindly slept for three nights on
the parlour sofa, in order that Mrs. Baines might have his room. The
funeral grew into an obsession, for multitudinous things had to be
performed and done sumptuously and in strict accordance with precedent.
There were the family mourning, the funeral repast, the choice of the
text on the memorial card, the composition of the legend on the coffin,
the legal arrangements, the letters to relations, the selection of
guests, and the questions of bell-ringing, hearse, plumes, number of
horses, and grave-digging. Nobody had leisure for the indulgence of
grief except Aunt Maria, who, after she had helped in the laying-out,
simply sat down and bemoaned unceasingly for hours her absence on the
fatal morning. "If I hadn't been so fixed on polishing my
candle-sticks," she weepingly repeated, "he mit ha' been alive and well
now." Not that Aunt Maria had been informed of the precise
circumstances of the death; she was not clearly aware that Mr. Baines
had died through a piece of neglect. But, like Mr. Critchlow, she was
convinced that there had been only one person in the world truly
capable of nursing Mr. Baines. Beyond the family, no one save Mr.
Critchlow and Dr. Harrop knew just how the martyr had finished his
career. Dr. Harrop, having been asked bluntly if an inquest would be
necessary, had reflected a moment and had then replied: "No." And he
added, "Least said soonest mended--mark me!" They had marked him. He
was commonsense in breeches.

As for Aunt Maria, she was sent about her snivelling business by Aunt
Harriet. The arrival in the house of this genuine aunt from Axe, of
this majestic and enormous widow whom even the imperial Mrs. Baines
regarded with a certain awe, set a seal of ultimate solemnity on the
whole event. In Mr. Povey's bedroom Mrs. Baines fell like a child into
Aunt Harriet's arms and sobbed:

"If it had been anything else but that elephant!"

Such was Mrs. Baines's sole weakness from first to last.

Aunt Harriet was an exhaustless fountain of authority upon every detail
concerning interments. And, to a series of questions ending with the
word "sister," and answers ending with the word "sister," the
prodigious travail incident to the funeral was gradually and
successfully accomplished. Dress and the repast exceeded all other
matters in complexity and difficulty. But on the morning of the funeral
Aunt Harriet had the satisfaction of beholding her younger sister the
centre of a tremendous cocoon of crape, whose slightest pleat was
perfect. Aunt Harriet seemed to welcome her then, like a veteran,
formally into the august army of relicts. As they stood side by side
surveying the special table which was being laid in the showroom for
the repast, it appeared inconceivable that they had reposed together in
Mr. Povey's limited bed. They descended from the showroom to the
kitchen, where the last delicate dishes were inspected. The shop was,
of course, closed for the day, but Mr. Povey was busy there, and in
Aunt Harriet's all-seeing glance he came next after the dishes. She
rose from the kitchen to speak with him.

"You've got your boxes of gloves all ready?" she questioned him.

"Yes, Mrs. Maddack."

"You'll not forget to have a measure handy?"

"No, Mrs. Maddack."

"You'll find you'll want more of seven-and-three-quarters and eights
than anything."

"Yes. I have allowed for that."

"If you place yourself behind the side-door and put your boxes on the
harmonium, you'll be able to catch every one as they come in."

"That is what I had thought of, Mrs. Maddack."

She went upstairs. Mrs. Baines had reached the showroom again, and was
smoothing out creases in the white damask cloth and arranging glass
dishes of jam at equal distances from each other.

"Come, sister," said Mrs. Maddack. "A last look."

And they passed into the mortuary bedroom to gaze at Mr. Baines before
he should be everlastingly nailed down. In death he had recovered some
of his earlier dignity; but even so he was a startling sight. The two
widows bent over him, one on either side, and gravely stared at that
twisted, worn white face all neatly tucked up in linen.

"I shall fetch Constance and Sophia," said Mrs. Maddack, with tears in
her voice. "Do you go into the drawing-room, sister."

But Mrs. Maddack only succeeded in fetching Constance.

Then there was the sound of wheels in King Street. The long rite of the
funeral was about to begin. Every guest, after having been measured and
presented with a pair of the finest black kid gloves by Mr. Povey, had
to mount the crooked stairs and gaze upon the carcase of John Baines,
going afterwards to the drawing-room to condole briefly with the widow.
And every guest, while conscious of the enormity of so thinking,
thought what an excellent thing it was that John Baines should be at
last dead and gone. The tramping on the stairs was continual, and
finally Mr. Baines himself went downstairs, bumping against corners,
and led a cortege of twenty vehicles.

The funeral tea was not over at seven o'clock, five hours after the
commencement of the rite. It was a gigantic and faultless meal, worthy
of John Baines's distant past. Only two persons were absent from
it--John Baines and Sophia. The emptiness of Sophia's chair was much
noticed; Mrs. Maddack explained that Sophia was very high-strung and
could not trust herself. Great efforts were put forth by the company to
be lugubrious and inconsolable, but the secret relief resulting from
the death would not be entirely hidden. The vast pretence of acute
sorrow could not stand intact against that secret relief and the lavish
richness of the food.

To the offending of sundry important relatives from a distance, Mr.
Critchlow informally presided over that assemblage of grave men in high
stocks and crinolined women. He had closed his shop, which had never
before been closed on a weekday, and he had a great deal to say about
this extraordinary closure. It was due as much to the elephant as to
the funeral. The elephant had become a victim to the craze for
souvenirs. Already in the night his tusks had been stolen; then his
feet disappeared for umbrella-stands, and most of his flesh had
departed in little hunks. Everybody in Bursley had resolved to
participate in the elephant. One consequence was that all the chemists'
shops in the town were assaulted by strings of boys. 'Please a pennorth
o' alum to tak' smell out o' a bit o' elephant.' Mr. Critchlow hated
boys.

"'I'll alum ye!' says I, and I did. I alummed him out o' my shop with a
pestle. If there'd been one there'd been twenty between opening and
nine o'clock. 'George,' I says to my apprentice, 'shut shop up. My old
friend John Baines is going to his long home to-day, and I'll close.
I've had enough o' alum for one day.'"

The elephant fed the conversation until after the second relay of hot
muffins. When Mr. Critchlow had eaten to his capacity, he took the
Signal importantly from his pocket, posed his spectacles, and read the
obituary all through in slow, impressive accents. Before he reached the
end Mrs. Baines began to perceive that familiarity had blinded her to
the heroic qualities of her late husband. The fourteen years of
ceaseless care were quite genuinely forgotten, and she saw him in his
strength and in his glory. When Mr. Critchlow arrived at the eulogy of
the husband and father, Mrs. Baines rose and left the showroom. The
guests looked at each other in sympathy for her. Mr. Critchlow shot a
glance at her over his spectacles and continued steadily reading. After
he had finished he approached the question of the cenotaph.

Mrs. Baines, driven from the banquet by her feelings, went into the
drawing-room. Sophia was there, and Sophia, seeing tears in her
mother's eyes, gave a sob, and flung herself bodily against her mother,
clutching her, and hiding her face in that broad crape, which abraded
her soft skin.

"Mother," she wept passionately, "I want to leave the school now. I
want to please you. I'll do anything in the world to please you. I'll
go into the shop if you'd like me to!" Her voice lost itself in tears.

"Calm yourself, my pet," said Mrs. Baines, tenderly, caressing her. It
was a triumph for the mother in the very hour when she needed a triumph.




CHAPTER V

THE TRAVELLER

I


'Equisite, 1s. 11d.'

These singular signs were being painted in shiny black on an
unrectangular parallelogram of white cardboard by Constance one evening
in the parlour. She was seated, with her left side to the fire and to
the fizzing gas, at the dining-table, which was covered with a checked
cloth in red and white. Her dress was of dark crimson; she wore a cameo
brooch and a gold chain round her neck; over her shoulders was thrown a
white knitted shawl, for the weather was extremely cold, the English
climate being much more serious and downright at that day than it is
now. She bent low to the task, holding her head slightly askew, putting
the tip of her tongue between her lips, and expending all the energy of
her soul and body in an intense effort to do what she was doing as well
as it could be done.

"Splendid!" said Mr. Povey.

Mr. Povey was fronting her at the table; he had his elbows on the
table, and watched her carefully, with the breathless and divine
anxiety of a dreamer who is witnessing the realization of his dream.
And Constance, without moving any part of her frame except her head,
looked up at him and smiled for a moment, and he could see her
delicious little nostrils at the end of her snub nose.

Those two, without knowing or guessing it, were making history--the
history of commerce. They had no suspicion that they were the forces of
the future insidiously at work to destroy what the forces of the past
had created, but such was the case. They were conscious merely of a
desire to do their duty in the shop and to the shop; probably it had
not even occurred to them that this desire, which each stimulated in
the breast of the other, had assumed the dimensions of a passion. It
was ageing Mr. Povey, and it had made of Constance a young lady
tremendously industrious and preoccupied.

Mr. Povey had recently been giving attention to the question of
tickets. It is not too much to say that Mr. Povey, to whom heaven had
granted a minimum share of imagination, had nevertheless discovered his
little parcel of imagination in the recesses of being, and brought it
effectively to bear on tickets. Tickets ran in conventional grooves.
There were heavy oblong tickets for flannels, shirting, and other
stuffs in the piece; there were smaller and lighter tickets for
intermediate goods; and there were diamond-shaped tickets (containing
nothing but the price) for bonnets, gloves, and flimflams generally.
The legends on the tickets gave no sort of original invention. The
words 'lasting,' 'durable,' 'unshrinkable,' 'latest,' 'cheap,'
'stylish,' 'novelty,' 'choice' (as an adjective), 'new,' and
'tasteful,' exhausted the entire vocabulary of tickets. Now Mr. Povey
attached importance to tickets, and since he was acknowledged to be the
best window-dresser in Bursley, his views were entitled to respect. He
dreamed of other tickets, in original shapes, with original legends. In
brief, he achieved, in regard to tickets, the rare feat of ridding
himself of preconceived notions, and of approaching a subject with
fresh, virginal eyes. When he indicated the nature of his wishes to Mr.
Chawner, the wholesale stationer who supplied all the Five Towns with
shop-tickets, Mr. Chawner grew uneasy and worried; Mr. Chawner was
indeed shocked. For Mr. Chawner there had always been certain
well-defined genera of tickets, and he could not conceive the existence
of other genera. When Mr. Povey suggested circular tickets--tickets
with a blue and a red line round them, tickets with legends such as
'unsurpassable,' 'very dainty,' or 'please note,' Mr. Chawner hummed
and hawed, and finally stated that it would be impossible to
manufacture these preposterous tickets, these tickets which would
outrage the decency of trade.

If Mr. Povey had not happened to be an exceedingly obstinate man, he
might have been defeated by the crass Toryism of Mr. Chawner. But Mr.
Povey was obstinate, and he had resources of ingenuity which Mr.
Chawner little suspected. The great, tramping march of progress was not
to be impeded by Mr. Chawner. Mr. Povey began to make his own tickets.
At first he suffered as all reformers and inventors suffer. He used the
internal surface of collar-boxes and ordinary ink and pens, and the
result was such as to give customers the idea that Baineses were too
poor or too mean to buy tickets like other shops. For bought tickets
had an ivory-tinted gloss, and the ink was black and glossy, and the
edges were very straight and did not show yellow between two layers of
white. Whereas Mr. Povey's tickets were of a bluish-white, without
gloss; the ink was neither black nor shiny, and the edges were
amateurishly rough: the tickets had an unmistakable air of having been
'made out of something else'; moreover, the lettering had not the free,
dashing style of Mr. Chawner's tickets.

And did Mrs. Baines encourage him in his single-minded enterprise on
behalf of HER business? Not a bit! Mrs. Baines's attitude, when not
disdainful, was inimical! So curious is human nature, so blind is man
to his own advantage! Life was very complex for Mr. Povey. It might
have been less complex had Bristol board and Chinese ink been less
expensive; with these materials he could have achieved marvels to
silence all prejudice and stupidity; but they were too costly. Still,
he persevered, and Constance morally supported him; he drew his
inspiration and his courage from Constance. Instead of the internal
surface of collar-boxes, he tried the external surface, which was at
any rate shiny. But the ink would not 'take' on it. He made as many
experiments as Edison was to make, and as many failures. Then Constance
was visited by a notion for mixing sugar with ink. Simple, innocent
creature--why should providence have chosen her to be the vessel of
such a sublime notion? Puzzling enigma, which, however, did not
exercise Mr. Povey! He found it quite natural that she should save him.
Save him she did. Sugar and ink would 'take' on anything, and it shone
like a 'patent leather' boot. Further, Constance developed a 'hand' for
lettering which outdid Mr. Povey's. Between them they manufactured
tickets by the dozen and by the score--tickets which, while possessing
nearly all the smartness and finish of Mr. Chawner's tickets, were much
superior to these in originality and strikingness. Constance and Mr.
Povey were delighted and fascinated by them. As for Mrs. Baines, she
said little, but the modern spirit was too elated by its success to
care whether she said little or much. And every few days Mr. Povey
thought of some new and wonderful word to put on a ticket.

His last miracle was the word 'exquisite.' 'Exquisite,' pinned on a
piece of broad tartan ribbon, appeared to Constance and Mr. Povey as
the finality of appropriateness. A climax worthy to close the year! Mr.
Povey had cut the card and sketched the word and figures in pencil, and
Constance was doing her executive portion of the undertaking. They were
very happy, very absorbed, in this strictly business matter. The clock
showed five minutes past ten. Stern duty, a pure desire for the
prosperity of the shop, had kept them at hard labour since before eight
o'clock that morning!

The stairs-door opened, and Mrs. Baines appeared, in bonnet and furs
and gloves, all clad for going out. She had abandoned the cocoon of
crape, but still wore weeds. She was stouter than ever.

"What!" she cried. "Not ready! Now really!"

"Oh, mother! How you made me jump!" Constance protested. "What time is
it? It surely isn't time to go yet!"

"Look at the clock!" said Mrs. Baines, drily.

"Well, I never!" Constance murmured, confused.

"Come, put your things together, and don't keep me waiting," said Mrs.
Baines, going past the table to the window, and lifting the blind to
peep out. "Still snowing," she observed. "Oh, the band's going away at
last! I wonder how they can play at all in this weather. By the way,
what was that tune they gave us just now? I couldn't make out whether
it was 'Redhead,' or--"

"Band?" questioned Constance--the simpleton!

Neither she nor Mr. Povey had heard the strains of the Bursley Town
Silver Prize Band which had been enlivening the season according to its
usual custom. These two practical, duteous, commonsense young and
youngish persons had been so absorbed in their efforts for the welfare
of the shop that they had positively not only forgotten the time, but
had also failed to notice the band! But if Constance had had her wits
about her she would at least have pretended that she had heard it.

"What's this?" asked Mrs. Baines, bringing her vast form to the table
and picking up a ticket.

Mr. Povey said nothing. Constance said: "Mr. Povey thought of it
to-day. Don't you think it's very good, mother?"

"I'm afraid I don't," Mrs. Baines coldly replied.

She had mildly objected already to certain words; but 'exquisite'
seemed to her silly; it seemed out of place; she considered that it
would merely bring ridicule on her shop. 'Exquisite' written upon a
window-ticket! No! What would John Baines have thought of 'exquisite'?

"'Exquisite!'" She repeated the word with a sarcastic inflection,
putting the accent, as every one put it, on the second syllable. "I
don't think that will quite do."

"But why not, mother?"

"It's not suitable, my dear."

She dropped the ticket from her gloved hand. Mr. Povey had darkly
flashed. Though he spoke little, he was as sensitive as he was
obstinate. On this occasion he said nothing. He expressed his feelings
by seizing the ticket and throwing it into the fire.

The situation was extremely delicate. Priceless employes like Mr. Povey
cannot be treated as machines, and Mrs. Baines of course instantly saw
that tact was needed.

"Go along to my bedroom and get ready, my pet," said she to Constance.
"Sophia is there. There's a good fire. I must just speak to Maggie."
She tactfully left the room.

Mr. Povey glanced at the fire and the curling red remains of the
ticket. Trade was bad; owing to weather and war, destitution was
abroad; and he had been doing his utmost for the welfare of the shop;
and here was the reward!

Constance's eyes were full of tears. "Never mind!" she murmured, and
went upstairs.

It was all over in a moment.

II

In the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel on Duck Bank there was a full and
influential congregation. For in those days influential people were not
merely content to live in the town where their fathers had lived,
without dreaming of country residences and smokeless air--they were
content also to believe what their fathers had believed about the
beginning and the end of all. There was no such thing as the unknowable
in those days. The eternal mysteries were as simple as an addition sum;
a child could tell you with absolute certainty where you would be and
what you would be doing a million years hence, and exactly what God
thought of you. Accordingly, every one being of the same mind, every
one met on certain occasions in certain places in order to express the
universal mind. And in the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, for example,
instead of a sparse handful of persons disturbingly conscious of being
in a minority, as now, a magnificent and proud majority had collected,
deeply aware of its rightness and its correctness.

And the minister, backed by minor ministers, knelt and covered his face
in the superb mahogany rostrum; and behind him, in what was then still
called the 'orchestra' (though no musical instruments except the grand
organ had sounded in it for decades), the choir knelt and covered their
faces; and all around in the richly painted gallery and on the
ground-floor, multitudinous rows of people, in easy circumstances of
body and soul, knelt in high pews and covered their faces. And there
floated before them, in the intense and prolonged silence, the clear
vision of Jehovah on a throne, a God of sixty or so with a moustache
and a beard, and a non-committal expression which declined to say
whether or not he would require more bloodshed; and this God, destitute
of pinions, was surrounded by white-winged creatures that wafted
themselves to and fro while chanting; and afar off was an obscene
monstrosity, with cloven hoofs and a tail very dangerous and rude and
interfering, who could exist comfortably in the middle of a coal-fire,
and who took a malignant and exhaustless pleasure in coaxing you by
false pretences into the same fire; but of course you had too much
sense to swallow his wicked absurdities. Once a year, for ten minutes
by the clock, you knelt thus, in mass, and by meditation convinced
yourself that you had too much sense to swallow his wicked absurdities.
And the hour was very solemn, the most solemn of all the hours.

Strange that immortal souls should be found with the temerity to
reflect upon mundane affairs in that hour! Yet there were undoubtedly
such in the congregation; there were perhaps many to whom the vision,
if clear, was spasmodic and fleeting. And among them the inhabitants of
the Baines family pew! Who would have supposed that Mr. Povey, a recent
convert from Primitive Methodism in King Street to Wesleyan Methodism
on Duck Bank, was dwelling upon window-tickets and the injustice of
women, instead of upon his relations with Jehovah and the tailed one?
Who would have supposed that the gentle-eyed Constance, pattern of
daughters, was risking her eternal welfare by smiling at the tailed
one, who, concealing his tail, had assumed the image of Mr. Povey? Who
would have supposed that Mrs. Baines, instead of resolving that Jehovah
and not the tailed one should have ultimate rule over her, was
resolving that she and not Mr. Povey should have ultimate rule over her
house and shop? It was a pew-ful that belied its highly satisfactory
appearance. (And possibly there were other pew-fuls equally deceptive.)

Sophia alone, in the corner next to the wall, with her beautiful stern
face pressed convulsively against her hands, was truly busy with
immortal things. Turbulent heart, the violence of her spiritual life
had made her older! Never was a passionate, proud girl in a harder case
than Sophia! In the splendour of her remorse for a fatal forgetfulness,
she had renounced that which she loved and thrown herself into that
which she loathed. It was her nature so to do. She had done it
haughtily, and not with kindness, but she had done it with the whole
force of her will. Constance had been compelled to yield up to her the
millinery department, for Sophia's fingers had a gift of manipulating
ribbons and feathers that was beyond Constance. Sophia had accomplished
miracles in the millinery. Yes, and she would be utterly polite to
customers; but afterwards, when the customers were gone, let mothers,
sisters, and Mr. Poveys beware of her fiery darts!

But why, when nearly three months had elapsed after her father's death,
had she spent more and more time in the shop, secretly aflame with
expectancy? Why, when one day a strange traveller entered the shop and
announced himself the new representative of Birkinshaws--why had her
very soul died away within her and an awful sickness seized her? She
knew then that she had been her own deceiver. She recognized and
admitted, abasing herself lower than the lowest, that her motive in
leaving Miss Chetwynd's and joining the shop had been, at the best,
very mixed, very impure. Engaged at Miss Chetwynd's, she might easily
have never set eyes on Gerald Scales again. Employed in the shop, she
could not fail to meet him. In this light was to be seen the true
complexion of the splendour of her remorse. A terrible thought for her!
And she could not dismiss it. It contaminated her existence, this
thought! And she could confide in no one. She was incapable of showing
a wound. Quarter had succeeded quarter, and Gerald Scales was no more
heard of. She had sacrificed her life for worse than nothing. She had
made her own tragedy. She had killed her father, cheated and shamed
herself with a remorse horribly spurious, exchanged content for misery
and pride for humiliation--and with it all, Gerald Scales had vanished!
She was ruined.

She took to religion, and her conscientious Christian virtues,
practised with stern inclemency, were the canker of the family. Thus a
year and a half had passed.

And then, on this last day of the year, the second year of her shame
and of her heart's widowhood, Mr. Scales had reappeared. She had gone
casually into the shop and found him talking to her mother and Mr.
Povey. He had come back to the provincial round and to her. She shook
his hand and fled, because she could not have stayed. None had noticed
her agitation, for she had held her body as in a vice. She knew the
reason neither of his absence nor of his return. She knew nothing. And
not a word had been said at meals. And the day had gone and the night
come; and now she was in chapel, with Constance by her side and Gerald
Scales in her soul! Happy beyond previous conception of happiness!
Wretched beyond an unutterable woe! And none knew! What was she to pray
for? To what purpose and end ought she to steel herself? Ought she to
hope, or ought she to despair? "O God, help me!" she kept whispering to
Jehovah whenever the heavenly vision shone through the wrack of her
meditation. "O God, help me!" She had a conscience that, when it was in
the mood for severity, could be unspeakably cruel to her.

And whenever she looked, with dry, hot eyes, through her gloved
fingers, she saw in front of her on the wall a marble tablet inscribed
in gilt letters, the cenotaph! She knew all the lines by heart, in
their spacious grandiloquence; lines such as:

EVER READY WITH HIS TONGUE HIS PEN AND HIS PURSE TO HELP THE CHURCH OF
HIS FATHERS IN HER HE LIVED AND IN HER HE DIED CHERISHING A DEEP AND
ARDENT AFFECTION FOR HIS BELOVED FAITH AND CREED.

And again:

HIS SYMPATHIES EXTENDED BEYOND HIS OWN COMMUNITY HE WAS ALWAYS TO THE
FORE IN GOOD WORKS AND HE SERVED THE CIRCUIT THE TOWN AND THE DISTRICT
WITH GREAT ACCEPTANCE AND USEFULNESS.

Thus had Mr. Critchlow's vanity been duly appeased.

As the minutes sped in the breathing silence of the chapel the
emotional tension grew tighter; worshippers sighed heavily, or called
upon Jehovah for a sign, or merely coughed an invocation. And then at
last the clock in the middle of the balcony gave forth the single
stroke to which it was limited; the ministers rose, and the
congregation after them; and everybody smiled as though it was the
millennium, and not simply the new year, that had set in. Then,
faintly, through walls and shut windows, came the sound of bells and of
steam syrens and whistles. The superintendent minister opened his
hymn-book, and the hymn was sung which had been sung in Wesleyan
Chapels on New Year's morn since the era of John Wesley himself. The
organ finished with a clanguor of all its pipes; the minister had a few
last words with Jehovah, and nothing was left to do except to persevere
in well-doing. The people leaned towards each other across the high
backs of the pews.

"A happy New Year!"

"Eh, thank ye! The same to you!"

"Another Watch Night service over!"

"Eh, yes!" And a sigh.

Then the aisles were suddenly crowded, and there was a good-humoured,
optimistic pushing towards the door. In the Corinthian porch occurred a
great putting-on of cloaks, ulsters, goloshes, and even pattens, and a
great putting-up of umbrellas. And the congregation went out into the
whirling snow, dividing into several black, silent-footed processions,
down Trafalgar Road, up towards the playground, along the market-place,
and across Duck Square in the direction of St. Luke's Square.

Mr. Povey was between Mrs. Baines and Constance.

"You must take my arm, my pet," said Mrs. Baines to Sophia.

Then Mr. Povey and Constance waded on in front through the drifts.
Sophia balanced that enormous swaying mass, her mother. Owing to their
hoops, she had much difficulty in keeping close to her. Mrs. Baines
laughed with the complacent ease of obesity, yet a fall would have been
almost irremediable for her; and so Sophia had to laugh too. But,
though she laughed, God had not helped her. She did not know where she
was going, nor what might happen to her next.

"Why, bless us!" exclaimed Mrs. Baines, as they turned the corner into
King Street. "There's some one sitting on our door-step!"

There was: a figure swathed in an ulster, a maud over the ulster, and a
high hat on the top of all. It could not have been there very long,
because it was only speckled with snow. Mr. Povey plunged forward.

"It's Mr. Scales, of all people!" said Mr. Povey.

"Mr. Scales!" cried Mrs. Baines.

And, "Mr. Scales!" murmured Sophia, terribly afraid.

Perhaps she was afraid of miracles. Mr. Scales sitting on her mother's
doorstep in the middle of the snowy night had assuredly the air of a
miracle, of something dreamed in a dream, of something pathetically and
impossibly appropriate--'pat,' as they say in the Five Towns. But he
was a tangible fact there. And years afterwards, in the light of
further knowledge of Mr. Scales, Sophia came to regard his being on the
doorstep as the most natural and characteristic thing in the world.
Real miracles never seem to be miracles, and that which at the first
blush resembles one usually proves to be an instance of the extremely
prosaic.

III

"Is that you, Mrs. Baines?" asked Gerald Scales, in a half-witted
voice, looking up, and then getting to his feet. "Is this your house?
So it is! Well, I'd no idea I was sitting on your doorstep."

He smiled timidly, nay, sheepishly, while the women and Mr. Povey
surrounded him with their astonished faces under the light of the
gas-lamp. Certainly he was very pale.

"But whatever is the matter, Mr. Scales?" Mrs. Baines demanded in an
anxious tone. "Are you ill? Have you been suddenly--"

"Oh no," said the young man lightly. "It's nothing. Only I was set on
just now, down there,"--he pointed to the depths of King Street.

"Set on!" Mrs. Baines repeated, alarmed.

"That makes the fourth case in a week, that we KNOW of!" said Mr.
Povey. "It really is becoming a scandal."

The fact was that, owing to depression of trade, lack of employment,
and rigorous weather, public security in the Five Towns was at that
period not as perfect as it ought to have been. In the stress of hunger
the lower classes were forgetting their manners--and this in spite of
the altruistic and noble efforts of their social superiors to relieve
the destitution due, of course, to short-sighted improvidence. When
(the social superiors were asking in despair) will the lower classes
learn to put by for a rainy day? (They might have said a snowy and a
frosty day.) It was 'really too bad' of the lower classes, when
everything that could be done was being done for them, to kill, or even
attempt to kill, the goose that lays the golden eggs! And especially in
a respectable town! What, indeed, were things coming to? Well, here was
Mr. Gerald Scales, gentleman from Manchester, a witness and victim to
the deplorable moral condition of the Five Towns. What would he think
of the Five Towns? The evil and the danger had been a topic of
discussion in the shop for a week past, and now it was brought home to
them.

"I hope you weren't--" said Mrs. Baines, apologetically and
sympathetically.

"Oh no!" Mr. Scales interrupted her quite gaily. "I managed to beat
them off. Only my elbow--"

Meanwhile it was continuing to snow.

"Do come in!" said Mrs. Baines.

"I couldn't think of troubling you," said Mr. Scales. "I'm all right
now, and I can find my way to the Tiger."

"You must come in, if it's only for a minute," said Mrs. Baines, with
decision. She had to think of the honour of the town.

"You're very kind," said Mr. Scales.

The door was suddenly opened from within, and Maggie surveyed them from
the height of the two steps.

"A happy New Year, mum, to all of you."

"Thank you, Maggie," said Mrs. Baines, and primly added:

"The same to you!" And in her own mind she said that Maggie could best
prove her desire for a happy new year by contriving in future not to
'scamp her corners,' and not to break so much crockery.

Sophia, scarce knowing what she did, mounted the steps.

"Mr. Scales ought to let our New Year in, my pet," Mrs. Baines stopped
her.

"Oh, of course, mother!" Sophia concurred with, a gasp, springing back
nervously.

Mr. Scales raised his hat, and duly let the new year, and much snow,
into the Baines parlour. And there was a vast deal of stamping of feet,
agitating of umbrellas, and shaking of cloaks and ulsters on the
doormat in the corner by the harmonium. And Maggie took away an armful
of everything snowy, including goloshes, and received instructions to
boil milk and to bring 'mince.' Mr. Povey said "B-r-r-r!" and shut the
door (which was bordered with felt to stop ventilation); Mrs. Baines
turned up the gas till it sang, and told Sophia to poke the fire, and
actually told Constance to light the second gas.

Excitement prevailed.

The placidity of existence had been agreeably disturbed (yes,
agreeably, in spite of horror at the attack on Mr. Scales's elbow) by
an adventure. Moreover, Mr. Scales proved to be in evening-dress. And
nobody had ever worn evening-dress in that house before.

Sophia's blood was in her face, and it remained there, enhancing the
vivid richness of her beauty. She was dizzy with a strange and
disconcerting intoxication. She seemed to be in a world of unrealities
and incredibilities. Her ears heard with indistinctness, and the edges
of things and people had a prismatic colouring. She was in a state of
ecstatic, unreasonable, inexplicable happiness. All her misery, doubts,
despair, rancour, churlishness, had disappeared. She was as softly
gentle as Constance. Her eyes were the eyes of a fawn, and her gestures
delicious in their modest and sensitive grace. Constance was sitting on
the sofa, and, after glancing about as if for shelter, she sat down on
the sofa by Constance's side. She tried not to stare at Mr. Scales, but
her gaze would not leave him. She was sure that he was the most perfect
man in the world. A shortish man, perhaps, but a perfect. That such
perfection could be was almost past her belief. He excelled all her
dreams of the ideal man. His smile, his voice, his hand, his
hair--never were such! Why, when he spoke--it was positively music!
When he smiled--it was heaven! His smile, to Sophia, was one of those
natural phenomena which are so lovely that they make you want to shed
tears. There is no hyperbole in this description of Sophia's
sensations, but rather an under-statement of them. She was utterly
obsessed by the unique qualities of Mr. Scales. Nothing would have
persuaded her that the peer of Mr. Scales existed among men, or could
possibly exist. And it was her intense and profound conviction of his
complete pre-eminence that gave him, as he sat there in the
rocking-chair in her mother's parlour, that air of the unreal and the
incredible.

"I stayed in the town on purpose to go to a New Year's party at Mr.
Lawton's," Mr. Scales was saying.

"Ah! So you know Lawyer Lawton!" observed Mrs. Baines, impressed, for
Lawyer Lawton did not consort with tradespeople. He was jolly with
them, and he did their legal business for them, but he was not of them.
His friends came from afar.

"My people are old acquaintances of his," said Mr. Scales, sipping the
milk which Maggie had brought.

"Now, Mr. Scales, you must taste my mince. A happy month for every tart
you eat, you know," Mrs. Baines reminded him.

He bowed. "And it was as I was coming away from there that I got into
difficulties." He laughed.

Then he recounted the struggle, which had, however, been brief, as the
assailants lacked pluck. He had slipped and fallen on his elbow on the
kerb, and his elbow might have been broken, had not the snow been so
thick. No, it did not hurt him now; doubtless a mere bruise. It was
fortunate that the miscreants had not got the better of him, for he had
in his pocket-book a considerable sum of money in notes--accounts paid!
He had often thought what an excellent thing it would be if commercials
could travel with dogs, particularly in winter. There was nothing like
a dog.

"You are fond of dogs?" asked Mr. Povey, who had always had a secret
but impracticable ambition to keep a dog.

"Yes," said Mr. Scales, turning now to Mr. Povey.

"Keep one?" asked Mr. Povey, in a sporting tone.

"I have a fox-terrier bitch," said Mr. Scales, "that took a first at
Knutsford; but she's getting old now."

The sexual epithet fell queerly on the room. Mr. Povey, being a man of
the world, behaved as if nothing had happened; but Mrs. Baines's curls
protested against this unnecessary coarseness. Constance pretended not
to hear. Sophia did not understandingly hear. Mr. Scales had no
suspicion that he was transgressing a convention by virtue of which
dogs have no sex. Further, he had no suspicion of the local fame of
Mrs. Baines's mince-tarts. He had already eaten more mince-tarts than
he could enjoy, before beginning upon hers, and Mrs. Baines missed the
enthusiasm to which she was habituated from consumers of her pastry.

Mr. Povey, fascinated, proceeded in the direction of dogs, and it grew
more and more evident that Mr. Scales, who went out to parties in
evening dress, instead of going in respectable broad-cloth to
watch night-services, who knew the great ones of the land, and who kept
dogs of an inconvenient sex, was neither an ordinary commercial
traveller nor the kind of man to which the Square was accustomed. He
came from a different world.

"Lawyer Lawton's party broke up early--at least I mean, considering--"
Mrs. Baines hesitated.

After a pause Mr. Scales replied, "Yes, I left immediately the clock
struck twelve. I've a heavy day to-morrow--I mean to-day."

It was not an hour for a prolonged visit, and in a few minutes Mr.
Scales was ready again to depart. He admitted a certain feebleness
('wankiness,' he playfully called it, being proud of his skill in the
dialect), and a burning in his elbow; but otherwise he was quite
well--thanks to Mrs. Baines's most kind hospitality ... He really
didn't know how he came to be sitting on her doorstep. Mrs. Baines
urged him, if he met a policeman on his road to the Tiger, to furnish
all particulars about the attempted highway robbery, and he said he
decidedly would.

He took his leave with distinguished courtliness.

"If I have a moment I shall run in to-morrow morning just to let you
know I'm all right," said he, in the white street.

"Oh, do!" said Constance. Constance's perfect innocence made her
strangely forward at times.

"A happy New Year and many of them!"

"Thanks! Same to you! Don't get lost."

"Straight up the Square and first on the right," called the commonsense
of Mr. Povey.

Nothing else remained to say, and the visitor disappeared silently in
the whirling snow. "Brrr!" murmured Mr. Povey, shutting the door.
Everybody felt: "What a funny ending of the old year!"

"Sophia, my pet," Mrs. Baines began.

But Sophia had vanished to bed.

"Tell her about her new night-dress," said Mrs. Baines to Constance.

"Yes, mother."

"I don't know that I'm so set up with that young man, after all," Mrs.
Baines reflected aloud.

"Oh, mother!" Constance protested. "I think he's just lovely."

"He never looks you straight in the face," said Mrs. Baines.

"Don't tell ME!" laughed Constance, kissing her mother good night.
"You're only on your high horse because he didn't praise your mince.
_I_ noticed it."

IV

"If anybody thinks I'm going to stand the cold in this showroom any
longer, they're mistaken," said Sophia the next morning loudly, and in
her mother's hearing. And she went down into the shop carrying bonnets.

She pretended to be angry, but she was not. She felt, on the contrary,
extremely joyous, and charitable to all the world. Usually she would
take pains to keep out of the shop; usually she was preoccupied and
stern. Hence her presence on the ground-floor, and her demeanour,
excited interest among the three young lady assistants who sat sewing
round the stove in the middle of the shop, sheltered by the great pile
of shirtings and linseys that fronted the entrance.

Sophia shared Constance's corner. They had hot bricks under their feet,
and fine-knitted wraps on their shoulders. They would have been more
comfortable near the stove, but greatness has its penalties. The
weather was exceptionally severe. The windows were thickly frosted
over, so that Mr. Povey's art in dressing them was quite wasted.
And--rare phenomenon!--the doors of the shop were shut. In the ordinary
way they were not merely open, but hidden by a display of 'cheap
lines.' Mr. Povey, after consulting Mrs. Baines, had decided to close
them, foregoing the customary display. Mr. Povey had also, in order to
get a little warmth into his limbs, personally assisted two casual
labourers to scrape the thick frozen snow off the pavement; and he wore
his kid mittens. All these things together proved better than the
evidence of barometers how the weather nipped.

Mr. Scales came about ten o'clock. Instead of going to Mr. Povey's
counter, he walked boldly to Constance's corner, and looked over the
boxes, smiling and saluting. Both the girls candidly delighted in his
visit. Both blushed; both laughed--without knowing why they laughed.
Mr. Scales said he was just departing and had slipped in for a moment
to thank all of them for their kindness of last night--'or rather this
morning.' The girls laughed again at this witticism. Nothing could have
been more simple than his speech. Yet it appeared to them magically
attractive. A customer entered, a lady; one of the assistants rose from
the neighbourhood of the stove, but the daughters of the house ignored
the customer; it was part of the etiquette of the shop that customers,
at any rate chance customers, should not exist for the daughters of the
house, until an assistant had formally drawn attention to them.
Otherwise every one who wanted a pennyworth of tape would be expecting
to be served by Miss Baines, or Miss Sophia, if Miss Sophia were there.
Which would have been ridiculous.

Sophia, glancing sidelong, saw the assistant parleying with the
customer; and then the assistant came softly behind the counter and
approached the corner.

"Miss Constance, can you spare a minute?" the assistant whispered
discreetly.

Constance extinguished her smile for Mr. Scales, and, turning away,
lighted an entirely different and inferior smile for the customer.

"Good morning, Miss Baines. Very cold, isn't it?"

"Good morning, Mrs. Chatterley. Yes, it is. I suppose you're getting
anxious about those--" Constance stopped.

Sophia was now alone with Mr. Scales, for in order to discuss the
unnameable freely with Mrs. Chatterley her sister was edging up the
counter. Sophia had dreamed of a private conversation as something
delicious and impossible. But chance had favoured her. She was alone
with him. And his neat fair hair and his blue eyes and his delicate
mouth were as wonderful to her as ever. He was gentlemanly to a degree
that impressed her more than anything had impressed her in her life.
And all the proud and aristocratic instinct that was at the base of her
character sprang up and seized on his gentlemanliness like a famished
animal seizing on food.

"The last time I saw you," said Mr. Scales, in a new tone, "you said
you were never in the shop."

"What? Yesterday? Did I?"

"No, I mean the last time I saw you alone," said he.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "It's just an accident."

"That's exactly what you said last time."

"Is it?"

Was it his manner, or what he said, that flattered her, that
intensified her beautiful vivacity?

"I suppose you don't often go out?" he went on.

"What? In this weather?"

"Any time."

"I go to chapel," said she, "and marketing with mother." There was a
little pause. "And to the Free Library."

"Oh yes. You've got a Free Library here now, haven't you?"

"Yes. We've had it over a year."

"And you belong to it? What do you read?"

"Oh, stories, you know. I get a fresh book out once a week."

"Saturdays, I suppose?"

"No," she said. "Wednesdays." And she smiled. "Usually."

"It's Wednesday to-day," said he. "Not been already?"

She shook her head. "I don't think I shall go to-day. It's too cold. I
don't think I shall venture out to-day."

"You must be very fond of reading," said he.

Then Mr. Povey appeared, rubbing his mittened hands. And Mrs.
Chatterley went.

"I'll run and fetch mother," said Constance.

Mrs. Baines was very polite to the young man. He related his interview
with the police, whose opinion was that he had been attacked by stray
members of a gang from Hanbridge. The young lady assistants, with ears
cocked, gathered the nature of Mr. Scales's adventure, and were
thrilled to the point of questioning Mr. Povey about it after Mr.
Scales had gone. His farewell was marked by much handshaking, and
finally Mr. Povey ran after him into the Square to mention something
about dogs.

At half-past one, while Mrs. Baines was dozing after dinner, Sophia
wrapped herself up, and with a book under her arm went forth into the
world, through the shop. She returned in less than twenty minutes. But
her mother had already awakened, and was hovering about the back of the
shop. Mothers have supernatural gifts.

Sophia nonchalantly passed her and hurried into the parlour where she
threw down her muff and a book and knelt before the fire to warm
herself.

Mrs. Baines followed her. "Been to the Library?" questioned Mrs. Baines.

"Yes, mother. And it's simply perishing."

"I wonder at your going on a day like to-day. I thought you always went
on Thursdays?"

"So I do. But I'd finished my book."

"What is this?" Mrs. Baines picked up the volume, which was covered
with black oil-cloth.

She picked it up with a hostile air. For her attitude towards the Free
Library was obscurely inimical. She never read anything herself except
The Sunday at Home, and Constance never read anything except The Sunday
at Home. There were scriptural commentaries, Dugdale's Gazetteer,
Culpepper's Herbal, and works by Bunyan and Flavius Josephus in the
drawing-room bookcase; also Uncle Tom's Cabin. And Mrs. Baines, in
considering the welfare of her daughters, looked askance at the whole
remainder of printed literature. If the Free Library had not formed
part of the Famous Wedgwood Institution, which had been opened with
immense eclat by the semi-divine Gladstone; if the first book had not
been ceremoniously 'taken out' of the Free Library by the Chief Bailiff
in person--a grandfather of stainless renown--Mrs. Baines would
probably have risked her authority in forbidding the Free Library.

"You needn't be afraid," said Sophia, laughing. "It's Miss Sewell's
Experience of Life."

"A novel, I see," observed Mrs. Baines, dropping the book.

Gold and jewels would probably not tempt a Sophia of these days to read
Experience of Life; but to Sophia Baines the bland story had the
piquancy of the disapproved.

The next day Mrs. Baines summoned Sophia into her bedroom.

"Sophia," said she, trembling, "I shall be glad if you will not walk
about the streets with young men until you have my permission."

The girl blushed violently. "I--I--"

"You were seen in Wedgwood Street," said Mrs. Baines.

"Who's been gossiping--Mr. Critchlow, I suppose?" Sophia exclaimed
scornfully.

"No one has been 'gossiping,'" said Mrs. Baines. "Well, if I meet some
one by accident in the street I can't help it, can I?" Sophia's voice
shook.

"You know what I mean, my child," said Mrs. Baines, with careful calm.

Sophia dashed angrily from the room.

"I like the idea of him having 'a heavy day'!" Mrs. Baines reflected
ironically, recalling a phrase which had lodged in her mind. And very
vaguely, with an uneasiness scarcely perceptible, she remembered that
'he,' and no other, had been in the shop on the day her husband died.




CHAPTER VI

ESCAPADE

I


The uneasiness of Mrs. Baines flowed and ebbed, during the next three
months, influenced by Sophia's moods. There were days when Sophia was
the old Sophia--the forbidding, difficult, waspish, and even hedgehog
Sophia. But there were other days on which Sophia seemed to be drawing
joy and gaiety and goodwill from some secret source, from some fount
whose nature and origin none could divine. It was on these days that
the uneasiness of Mrs. Baines waxed. She had the wildest suspicions;
she was almost capable of accusing Sophia of carrying on a clandestine
correspondence; she saw Sophia and Gerald Scales deeply and wickedly in
love; she saw them with their arms round each other's necks.... And
then she called herself a middle-aged fool, to base such a structure of
suspicion on a brief encounter in the street and on an idea, a fancy, a
curious and irrational notion! Sophia had a certain streak of pure
nobility in that exceedingly heterogeneous thing, her character.
Moreover, Mrs. Baines watched the posts, and she also watched
Sophia--she was not the woman to trust to a streak of pure
nobility--and she came to be sure that Sophia's sinfulness, if any, was
not such as could be weighed in a balance, or collected together by
stealth and then suddenly placed before the girl on a charger.

Still, she would have given much to see inside Sophia's lovely head.
Ah! Could she have done so, what sleep-destroying wonders she would
have witnessed! By what bright lamps burning in what mysterious
grottoes and caverns of the brain would her mature eyes have been
dazzled! Sophia was living for months on the exhaustless ardent
vitality absorbed during a magical two minutes in Wedgwood Street. She
was living chiefly on the flaming fire struck in her soul by the shock
of seeing Gerald Scales in the porch of the Wedgwood Institution as she
came out of the Free Library with Experience Of Life tucked into her
large astrakhan muff. He had stayed to meet her, then: she knew it!
"After all," her heart said, "I must be very beautiful, for I have
attracted the pearl of men!" And she remembered her face in the glass.
The value and the power of beauty were tremendously proved to her. He,
the great man of the world, the handsome and elegant man with a
thousand strange friends and a thousand interests far remote from her,
had remained in Bursley on the mere chance of meeting her! She was
proud, but her pride was drowned in bliss. "I was just looking at this
inscription about Mr. Gladstone." "So you decided to come out as
usual!" "And may I ask what book you have chosen?" These were the
phrases she heard, and to which she responded with similar phrases. And
meanwhile a miracle of ecstasy had opened--opened like a flower. She
was walking along Wedgwood Street by his side, slowly, on the scraped
pavements, where marble bulbs of snow had defied the spade and
remained. She and he were exactly of the same height, and she kept
looking into his face and he into hers. This was all the miracle.
Except that she was not walking on the pavement--she was walking on the
intangible sward of paradise! Except that the houses had receded and
faded, and the passers-by were subtilized into unnoticeable ghosts!
Except that her mother and Constance had become phantasmal beings
existing at an immense distance!

What had happened? Nothing! The most commonplace occurrence! The
eternal cause had picked up a commercial traveller (it might have been
a clerk or curate, but it in fact was a commercial traveller), and
endowed him with all the glorious, unique, incredible attributes of a
god, and planted him down before Sophia in order to produce the eternal
effect. A miracle performed specially for Sophia's benefit! No one else
in Wedgwood Street saw the god walking along by her side. No one else
saw anything but a simple commercial traveller. Yes, the most
commonplace occurrence!

Of course at the corner of the street he had to go. "Till next time!"
he murmured. And fire came out of his eyes and lighted in Sophia's
lovely head those lamps which Mrs. Baines was mercifully spared from
seeing. And he had shaken hands and raised his hat. Imagine a god
raising his hat! And he went off on two legs, precisely like a dashing
little commercial traveller.

And, escorted by the equivocal Angel of Eclipses, she had turned into
King Street, and arranged her face, and courageously met her mother.
Her mother had not at first perceived the unusual; for mothers, despite
their reputation to the contrary, really are the blindest creatures.
Sophia, the naive ninny, had actually supposed that her walking along a
hundred yards of pavement with a god by her side was not going to
excite remark! What a delusion! It is true, certainly, that no one saw
the god by direct vision. But Sophia's cheeks, Sophia's eyes, the curve
of Sophia's neck as her soul yearned towards the soul of the god--these
phenomena were immeasurably more notable than Sophia guessed. An
account of them, in a modified form to respect Mrs. Baines's notorious
dignity, had healed the mother of her blindness and led to that
characteristic protest from her, "I shall be glad if you will not walk
about the streets with young men," etc.

When the period came for the reappearance of Mr. Scales, Mrs. Baines
outlined a plan, and when the circular announcing the exact time of his
arrival was dropped into the letter-box, she formulated the plan in
detail. In the first place, she was determined to be indisposed and
invisible herself, so that Mr. Scales might be foiled in any possible
design to renew social relations in the parlour. In the second place,
she flattered Constance with a single hint--oh, the vaguest and
briefest!--and Constance understood that she was not to quit the shop
on the appointed morning. In the third place, she invented a way of
explaining to Mr. Povey that the approaching advent of Gerald Scales
must not be mentioned. And in the fourth place, she deliberately made
appointments for Sophia with two millinery customers in the showroom,
so that Sophia might be imprisoned in the showroom.

Having thus left nothing to chance, she told herself that she was a
foolish woman full of nonsense. But this did not prevent her from
putting her lips together firmly and resolving that Mr. Scales should
have no finger in the pie of HER family. She had acquired information
concerning Mr. Scales, at secondhand, from Lawyer Pratt. More than
this, she posed the question in a broader form--why should a young girl
be permitted any interest in any young man whatsoever? The everlasting
purpose had made use of Mrs. Baines and cast her off, and, like most
persons in a similar situation, she was, unconsciously and quite
honestly, at odds with the everlasting purpose.

II

On the day of Mr. Scales's visit to the shop to obtain orders and money
on behalf of Birkinshaws, a singular success seemed to attend the
machinations of Mrs. Baines. With Mr. Scales punctuality was not an
inveterate habit, and he had rarely been known, in the past, to fulfil
exactly the prophecy of the letter of advice concerning his arrival.
But that morning his promptitude was unexampled. He entered the shop,
and by chance Mr. Povey was arranging unshrinkable flannels in the
doorway. The two youngish little men talked amiably about flannels,
dogs, and quarter-day (which was just past), and then Mr. Povey led Mr.
Scales to his desk in the dark corner behind the high pile of twills,
and paid the quarterly bill, in notes and gold--as always; and then Mr.
Scales offered for the august inspection of Mr. Povey all that
Manchester had recently invented for the temptation of drapers, and Mr.
Povey gave him an order which, if not reckless, was nearer 'handsome'
than 'good.' During the process Mr. Scales had to go out of the shop
twice or three times in order to bring in from his barrow at the
kerb-stone certain small black boxes edged with brass. On none of these
excursions did Mr. Scales glance wantonly about him in satisfaction of
the lust of the eye. Even if he had permitted himself this freedom he
would have seen nothing more interesting than three young lady
assistants seated round the stove and sewing with pricked fingers from
which the chilblains were at last deciding to depart. When Mr. Scales
had finished writing down the details of the order with his
ivory-handled stylo, and repacked his boxes, he drew the interview to a
conclusion after the manner of a capable commercial traveller; that is
to say, he implanted in Mr. Povey his opinion that Mr. Povey was a
wise, a shrewd and an upright man, and that the world would be all the
better for a few more like him. He inquired for Mrs. Baines, and was
deeply pained to hear of her indisposition while finding consolation in
the assurance that the Misses Baines were well. Mr. Povey was on the
point of accompanying the pattern of commercial travellers to the door,
when two customers simultaneously came in--ladies. One made straight
for Mr. Povey, whereupon Mr. Scales parted from him at once, it being a
universal maxim in shops that even the most distinguished commercial
shall not hinder the business of even the least distinguished customer.
The other customer had the effect of causing Constance to pop up from
her cloistral corner. Constance had been there all the time, but of
course, though she heard the remembered voice, her maidenliness had not
permitted that she should show herself to Mr. Scales.

Now, as he was leaving, Mr. Scales saw her, with her agreeable snub
nose and her kind, simple eyes. She was requesting the second customer
to mount to the showroom, where was Miss Sophia. Mr. Scales hesitated a
moment, and in that moment Constance, catching his eye, smiled upon
him, and nodded. What else could she do? Vaguely aware though she was
that her mother was not 'set up' with Mr. Scales, and even feared the
possible influence of the young man on Sophia, she could not exclude
him from her general benevolence towards the universe. Moreover, she
liked him; she liked him very much and thought him a very fine specimen
of a man.

He left the door and went across to her. They shook hands and opened a
conversation instantly; for Constance, while retaining all her modesty,
had lost all her shyness in the shop, and could chatter with anybody.
She sidled towards her corner, precisely as Sophia had done on another
occasion, and Mr. Scales put his chin over the screening boxes, and
eagerly prosecuted the conversation.

There was absolutely nothing in the fact of the interview itself to
cause alarm to a mother, nothing to render futile the precautions of
Mrs. Baines on behalf of the flower of Sophia's innocence. And yet it
held danger for Mrs. Baines, all unconscious in her parlour. Mrs.
Baines could rely utterly on Constance not to be led away by the
dandiacal charms of Mr. Scales (she knew in what quarter sat the wind
for Constance); in her plan she had forgotten nothing, except Mr.
Povey; and it must be said that she could not possibly have foreseen
the effect on the situation of Mr. Povey's character.

Mr. Povey, attending to his customer, had noticed the bright smile of
Constance on the traveller, and his heart did not like it. And when he
saw the lively gestures of a Mr. Scales in apparently intimate talk
with a Constance hidden behind boxes, his uneasiness grew into fury. He
was a man capable of black and terrible furies. Outwardly
insignificant, possessing a mind as little as his body, easily abashed,
he was none the less a very susceptible young man, soon offended,
proud, vain, and obscurely passionate. You might offend Mr. Povey
without guessing it, and only discover your sin when Mr. Povey had done
something too decisive as a result of it.

The reason of his fury was jealousy. Mr. Povey had made great advances
since the death of John Baines. He had consolidated his position, and
he was in every way a personage of the first importance. His misfortune
was that he could never translate his importance, or his sense of his
importance, into terms of outward demeanour. Most people, had they been
told that Mr. Povey was seriously aspiring to enter the Baines family,
would have laughed. But they would have been wrong. To laugh at Mr.
Povey was invariably wrong. Only Constance knew what inroads he had
effected upon her.

The customer went, but Mr. Scales did not go. Mr. Povey, free to
reconnoitre, did so. From the shadow of the till he could catch
glimpses of Constance's blushing, vivacious face. She was obviously
absorbed in Mr. Scales. She and he had a tremendous air of intimacy.
And the murmur of their chatter continued. Their chatter was nothing,
and about nothing, but Mr. Povey imagined that they were exchanging
eternal vows. He endured Mr. Scales's odious freedom until it became
insufferable, until it deprived him of all his self-control; and then
he retired into his cutting-out room. He meditated there in a condition
of insanity for perhaps a minute, and excogitated a device. Dashing
back into the shop, he spoke up, half across the shop, in a loud, curt
tone:

"Miss Baines, your mother wants you at once."

He was launched on the phrase before he noticed that, during his
absence, Sophia had descended from the showroom and joined her sister
and Mr. Scales. The danger and scandal were now less, he perceived, but
he was glad he had summoned Constance away, and he was in a state to
despise consequences.

The three chatterers, startled, looked at Mr. Povey, who left the shop
abruptly. Constance could do nothing but obey the call.

She met him at the door of the cutting-out room in the passage leading
to the parlour.

"Where is mother? In the parlour?" Constance inquired innocently.

There was a dark flush on Mr. Povey's face. "If you wish to know," said
he in a hard voice, "she hasn't asked for you and she doesn't want you."

He turned his back on her, and retreated into his lair.

"Then what--?" she began, puzzled.

He fronted her. "Haven't you been gabbling long enough with that
jackanapes?" he spit at her. There were tears in his eyes.

Constance, though without experience in these matters, comprehended.
She comprehended perfectly and immediately. She ought to have put Mr.
Povey into his place. She ought to have protested with firm, dignified
finality against such a ridiculous and monstrous outrage as that which
Mr. Povey had committed. Mr. Povey ought to have been ruined for ever
in her esteem and in her heart. But she hesitated.

"And only last Sunday--afternoon," Mr. Povey blubbered.

(Not that anything overt had occurred, or been articulately said,
between them last Sunday afternoon. But they had been alone together,
and had each witnessed strange and disturbing matters in the eyes of
the other.)

Tears now fell suddenly from Constance's eyes. "You ought to be
ashamed--" she stammered.

Still, the tears were in her eyes, and in his too. What he or she
merely said, therefore, was of secondary importance.

Mrs. Baines, coming from the kitchen, and hearing Constance's voice,
burst upon the scene, which silenced her. Parents are sometimes
silenced. She found Sophia and Mr. Scales in the shop.

III

That afternoon Sophia, too busy with her own affairs to notice anything
abnormal in the relations between her mother and Constance, and quite
ignorant that there had been an unsuccessful plot against her, went
forth to call upon Miss Chetwynd, with whom she had remained very
friendly: she considered that she and Miss Chetwynd formed an
aristocracy of intellect, and the family indeed tacitly admitted this.
She practised no secrecy in her departure from the shop; she merely
dressed, in her second-best hoop, and went, having been ready at any
moment to tell her mother, if her mother caught her and inquired, that
she was going to see Miss Chetwynd. And she did go to see Miss
Chetwynd, arriving at the house-school, which lay amid trees on the
road to Turnhill, just beyond the turnpike, at precisely a quarter-past
four. As Miss Chetwynd's pupils left at four o'clock, and as Miss
Chetwynd invariably took a walk immediately afterwards, Sophia was able
to contain her surprise upon being informed that Miss Chetwynd was not
in. She had not intended that Miss Chetwynd should be in.

She turned off to the right, up the side road which, starting from the
turnpike, led in the direction of Moorthorne and Red Cow, two mining
villages. Her heart beat with fear as she began to follow that road,
for she was upon a terrific adventure. What most frightened her,
perhaps, was her own astounding audacity. She was alarmed by something
within herself which seemed to be no part of herself and which produced
in her curious, disconcerting, fleeting impressions of unreality.

In the morning she had heard the voice of Mr. Scales from the
showroom--that voice whose even distant murmur caused creepings of the
skin in her back. And she had actually stood on the counter in front of
the window in order to see down perpendicularly into the Square; by so
doing she had had a glimpse of the top of his luggage on a barrow, and
of the crown of his hat occasionally when he went outside to tempt Mr.
Povey. She might have gone down into the shop--there was no slightest
reason why she should not; three months had elapsed since the name of
Mr. Scales had been mentioned, and her mother had evidently forgotten
the trifling incident of New Year's Day--but she was incapable of
descending the stairs! She went to the head of the stairs and peeped
through the balustrade--and she could not get further. For nearly a
hundred days those extraordinary lamps had been brightly burning in her
head; and now the light-giver had come again, and her feet would not
move to the meeting; now the moment had arrived for which alone she had
lived, and she could not seize it as it passed! "Why don't I go
downstairs?" she asked herself. "Am I afraid to meet him?"

The customer sent up by Constance had occupied the surface of her life
for ten minutes, trying on hats; and during this time she was praying
wildly that Mr. Scales might not go, and asserting that it was
impossible he should go without at least asking for her. Had she not
counted the days to this day? When the customer left Sophia followed
her downstairs, and saw Mr. Scales chatting with Constance. All her
self-possession instantly returned to her, and she joined them with a
rather mocking smile. After Mr. Povey's strange summons had withdrawn
Constance from the corner, Mr. Scales's tone had changed; it had
thrilled her. "You are YOU," it had said, "there is you--and there is
the rest of the universe!" Then he had not forgotten; she had lived in
his heart; she had not for three months been the victim of her own
fancies! ... She saw him put a piece of folded white paper on the top
edge of the screening box and flick it down to her. She blushed
scarlet, staring at it as it lay on the counter. He said nothing, and
she could not speak.... He had prepared that paper, then, beforehand,
on the chance of being able to give it to her! This thought was
exquisite but full of terror. "I must really go," he had said, lamely,
with emotion in his voice, and he had gone--like that! And she put the
piece of paper into the pocket of her apron, and hastened away. She had
not even seen, as she turned up the stairs, her mother standing by the
till--that spot which was the conning-tower of the whole shop. She ran,
ran, breathless to the bedroom.

"I am a wicked girl!" she said quite frankly, on the road to the
rendezvous. "It is a dream that I am going to meet him. It cannot be
true. There is time to go back. If I go back I am safe. I have simply
called at Miss Chetwynd's and she wasn't in, and no one can say a word.
But if I go on--if I'm seen! What a fool I am to go on!"

And she went on, impelled by, amongst other things, an immense, naive
curiosity, and the vanity which the bare fact of his note had excited.
The Loop railway was being constructed at that period, and hundreds of
navvies were at work on it between Bursley and Turnhill. When she came
to the new bridge over the cutting, he was there, as he had written
that he would be.

They were very nervous, they greeted each other stiffly and as though
they had met then for the first time that day. Nothing was said about
his note, nor about her response to it. Her presence was treated by
both of them as a basic fact of the situation which it would be well
not to disturb by comment. Sophia could not hide her shame, but her
shame only aggravated the stinging charm of her beauty. She was wearing
a hard Amazonian hat, with a lifted veil, the final word of fashion
that spring in the Five Towns; her face, beaten by the fresh breeze,
shone rosily; her eyes glittered under the dark hat, and the violent
colours of her Victorian frock--green and crimson--could not spoil
those cheeks. If she looked earthwards, frowning, she was the more
adorable so. He had come down the clayey incline from the unfinished
red bridge to welcome her, and when the salutations were over they
stood still, he gazing apparently at the horizon and she at the yellow
marl round the edges of his boots. The encounter was as far away from
Sophia's ideal conception as Manchester from Venice.

"So this is the new railway!" said she.

"Yes," said he. "This is your new railway. You can see it better from
the bridge."

"But it's very sludgy up there," she objected with a pout.

"Further on it's quite dry," he reassured her.

From the bridge they had a sudden view of a raw gash in the earth; and
hundreds of men were crawling about in it, busy with minute operations,
like flies in a great wound. There was a continuous rattle of picks,
resembling a muffled shower of hail, and in the distance a tiny
locomotive was leading a procession of tiny waggons.

"And those are the navvies!" she murmured.

The unspeakable doings of the navvies in the Five Towns had reached
even her: how they drank and swore all day on Sundays, how their huts
and houses were dens of the most appalling infamy, how they were the
curse of a God-fearing and respectable district! She and Gerald Scales
glanced down at these dangerous beasts of prey in their yellow
corduroys and their open shirts revealing hairy chests. No doubt they
both thought how inconvenient it was that railways could not be brought
into existence without the aid of such revolting and swinish animals.
They glanced down from the height of their nice decorum and felt the
powerful attraction of similar superior manners. The manners of the
navvies were such that Sophia could not even regard them, nor Gerald
Scales permit her to regard them, without blushing.

In a united blush they turned away, up the gradual slope. Sophia knew
no longer what she was doing. For some minutes she was as helpless as
though she had been in a balloon with him.

"I got my work done early," he said; and added complacently, "As a
matter of fact I've had a pretty good day."

She was reassured to learn that he was not neglecting his duties. To be
philandering with a commercial traveller who has finished a good day's
work seemed less shocking than dalliance with a neglecter of business;
it seemed indeed, by comparison, respectable.

"It must be very interesting," she said primly.

"What, my trade?"

"Yes. Always seeing new places and so on."

"In a way it is," he admitted judicially. "But I can tell you it was
much more agreeable being in Paris."

"Oh! Have you been to Paris?"

"Lived there for nearly two years," he said carelessly. Then, looking
at her, "Didn't you notice I never came for a long time?"

"I didn't know you were in Paris," she evaded him.

"I went to start a sort of agency for Birkinshaws," he said.

"I suppose you talk French like anything."

"Of course one has to talk French," said he. "I learnt French when I
was a child from a governess--my uncle made me--but I forgot most of it
at school, and at the Varsity you never learn anything--precious
little, anyhow! Certainly not French!"

She was deeply impressed. He was a much greater personage than she had
guessed. It had never occurred to her that commercial travellers had to
go to a university to finish their complex education. And then, Paris!
Paris meant absolutely nothing to her but pure, impossible,
unattainable romance. And he had been there! The clouds of glory were
around him. He was a hero, dazzling. He had come to her out of another
world. He was her miracle. He was almost too miraculous to be true.

She, living her humdrum life at the shop! And he, elegant, brilliant,
coming from far cities! They together, side by side, strolling up the
road towards the Moorthorne ridge! There was nothing quite like this in
the stories of Miss Sewell.

"Your uncle...?" she questioned vaguely.

"Yes, Mr. Boldero. He's a partner in Birkinshaws."

"Oh!"

"You've heard of him? He's a great Wesleyan."

"Oh yes," she said. "When we had the Wesleyan Conference here, he--"

"He's always very great at Conferences," said Gerald Scales.

"I didn't know he had anything to do with Birkinshaws."

"He isn't a working partner of course," Mr. Scales explained. "But he
means me to be one. I have to learn the business from the bottom. So
now you understand why I'm a traveller."

"I see," she said, still more deeply impressed.

"I'm an orphan," said Gerald. "And Uncle Boldero took me in hand when I
was three."

"I SEE!" she repeated.

It seemed strange to her that Mr. Scales should be a Wesleyan--just
like herself. She would have been sure that he was 'Church.' Her
notions of Wesleyanism, with her notions of various other things, were
sharply modified.

"Now tell me about you," Mr. Scales suggested.

"Oh! I'm nothing!" she burst out.

The exclamation was perfectly sincere. Mr. Scales's disclosures
concerning himself, while they excited her, discouraged her.

"You're the finest girl I've ever met, anyhow," said Mr. Scales with
gallant emphasis, and he dug his stick into the soft ground.

She blushed and made no answer.

They walked on in silence, each wondering apprehensively what might
happen next.

Suddenly Mr. Scales stopped at a dilapidated low brick wall, built in a
circle, close to the side of the road.

"I expect that's an old pit-shaft," said he.

"Yes, I expect it is."

He picked up a rather large stone and approached the wall.

"Be careful!" she enjoined him.

"Oh! It's all right," he said lightly. "Let's listen. Come near and
listen."

She reluctantly obeyed, and he threw the stone over the dirty ruined
wall, the top of which was about level with his hat. For two or three
seconds there was no sound. Then a faint reverberation echoed from the
depths of the shaft. And on Sophia's brain arose dreadful images of the
ghosts of miners wandering for ever in subterranean passages, far, far
beneath. The noise of the falling stone had awakened for her the secret
terrors of the earth. She could scarcely even look at the wall without
a spasm of fear.

"How strange," said Mr. Scales, a little awe in his voice, too, "that
that should be left there like that! I suppose it's very deep."

"Some of them are," she trembled.

"I must just have a look," he said, and put his hands on the top of the
wall.

"Come away!" she cried.

"Oh! It's all right!" he said again, soothingly. "The wall's as firm as
a rock." And he took a slight spring and looked over.

She shrieked loudly. She saw him at the distant bottom of the shaft,
mangled, drowning. The ground seemed to quake under her feet. A
horrible sickness seized her. And she shrieked again. Never had she
guessed that existence could be such pain.

He slid down from the wall, and turned to her. "No bottom to be seen!"
he said. Then, observing her transformed face, he came close to her,
with a superior masculine smile. "Silly little thing!" he said
coaxingly, endearingly, putting forth all his power to charm.

He perceived at once that he had miscalculated the effects of his
action. Her alarm changed swiftly to angry offence. She drew back with
a haughty gesture, as if he had intended actually to touch her. Did he
suppose, because she chanced to be walking with him, that he had the
right to address her familiarly, to tease her, to call her 'silly
little thing' and to put his face against hers? She resented his
freedom with quick and passionate indignation.

She showed him her proud back and nodding head and wrathful skirts; and
hurried off without a word, almost running. As for him, he was so
startled by unexpected phenomena that he did nothing for a
moment--merely stood looking and feeling foolish.

Then she heard him in pursuit. She was too proud to stop or even to
reduce her speed.

"I didn't mean to--" he muttered behind her.

No recognition from her.

"I suppose I ought to apologize," he said.

"I should just think you ought," she answered, furious.

"Well, I do!" said he. "Do stop a minute."

"I'll thank you not to follow me, Mr. Scales." She paused, and scorched
him with her displeasure. Then she went forward. And her heart was in
torture because it could not persuade her to remain with him, and smile
and forgive, and win his smile.

"I shall write to you," he shouted down the slope.

She kept on, the ridiculous child. But the agony she had suffered as he
clung to the frail wall was not ridiculous, nor her dark vision of the
mine, nor her tremendous indignation when, after disobeying her, he
forgot that she was a queen. To her the scene was sublimely tragic.
Soon she had recrossed the bridge, but not the same she! So this was
the end of the incredible adventure!

When she reached the turnpike she thought of her mother and of
Constance. She had completely forgotten them; for a space they had
utterly ceased to exist for her.

IV

"You've been out, Sophia?" said Mrs. Baines in the parlour,
questioningly. Sophia had taken off her hat and mantle hurriedly in the
cutting-out room, for she was in danger of being late for tea; but her
hair and face showed traces of the March breeze. Mrs. Baines, whose
stoutness seemed to increase, sat in the rocking-chair with a number of
The Sunday at Home in her hand. Tea was set.

"Yes, mother. I called to see Miss Chetwynd."

"I wish you'd tell me when you are going out."

"I looked all over for you before I started."

"No, you didn't, for I haven't stirred from this room since four
o'clock.... You should not say things like that," Mrs. Baines added in
a gentler tone.

Mrs. Baines had suffered much that day. She knew that she was in an
irritable, nervous state, and therefore she said to herself, in her
quality of wise woman, "I must watch myself. I mustn't let myself go."
And she thought how reasonable she was. She did not guess that all her
gestures betrayed her; nor did it occur to her that few things are more
galling than the spectacle of a person, actuated by lofty motives,
obviously trying to be kind and patient under what he considers to be
extreme provocation.

Maggie blundered up the kitchen stairs with the teapot and hot toast;
and so Sophia had an excuse for silence. Sophia too had suffered much,
suffered excruciatingly; she carried at that moment a whole tragedy in
her young soul, unaccustomed to such burdens. Her attitude towards her
mother was half fearful and half defiant; it might be summed up in the
phrase which she had repeated again and again under her breath on the
way home, "Well, mother can't kill me!"

Mrs. Baines put down the blue-covered magazine and twisted her
rocking-chair towards the table.

"You can pour out the tea," said Mrs. Baines.

"Where's Constance?"

"She's not very well. She's lying down."

"Anything the matter with her?"

"No."

This was inaccurate. Nearly everything was the matter with Constance,
who had never been less Constance than during that afternoon. But Mrs.
Baines had no intention of discussing Constance's love-affairs with
Sophia. The less said to Sophia about love, the better! Sophia was
excitable enough already!

They sat opposite to each other, on either side of the fire--the
monumental matron whose black bodice heavily overhung the table, whose
large rounded face was creased and wrinkled by what seemed countless
years of joy and disillusion; and the young, slim girl, so fresh, so
virginal, so ignorant, with all the pathos of an unsuspecting victim
about to be sacrificed to the minotaur of Time! They both ate hot
toast, with careless haste, in silence, preoccupied, worried, and
outwardly nonchalant.

"And what has Miss Chetwynd got to say?" Mrs. Baines inquired.

"She wasn't in."

Here was a blow for Mrs. Baines, whose suspicions about Sophia, driven
off by her certainties regarding Constance, suddenly sprang forward in
her mind, and prowled to and fro like a band of tigers.

Still, Mrs. Baines was determined to be calm and careful. "Oh! What
time did you call?"

"I don't know. About half-past four." Sophia finished her tea quickly,
and rose. "Shall I tell Mr. Povey he can come?"

(Mr. Povey had his tea after the ladies of the house.)

"Yes, if you will stay in the shop till I come. Light me the gas before
you go."

Sophia took a wax taper from a vase on the mantelpiece, stuck it in the
fire and lit the gas, which exploded in its crystal cloister with a
mild report.

"What's all that clay on your boots, child?" asked Mrs. Baines.

"Clay?" repeated Sophia, staring foolishly at her boots.

"Yes," said Mrs. Baines. "It looks like marl. Where on earth have you
been?"

She interrogated her daughter with an upward gaze, frigid and
unconsciously hostile, through her gold-rimmed glasses.

"I must have picked it up on the roads," said Sophia, and hastened to
the door.

"Sophia!"

"Yes, mother."

"Shut the door."

Sophia unwillingly shut the door which she had half opened.

"Come here."

Sophia obeyed, with falling lip.

"You are deceiving me, Sophia," said Mrs. Baines, with fierce
solemnity. "Where have you been this afternoon?"

Sophia's foot was restless on the carpet behind the table. "I haven't
been anywhere," she murmured glumly.

"Have you seen young Scales?"

"Yes," said Sophia with grimness, glancing audaciously for an instant
at her mother. ("She can't kill me: She can't kill me," her heart
muttered. And she had youth and beauty in her favour, while her mother
was only a fat middle-aged woman. "She can't kill me," said her heart,
with the trembling, cruel insolence of the mirror-flattered child.)

"How came you to meet him?"

No answer.

"Sophia, you heard what I said!"

Still no answer. Sophia looked down at the table. ("She can't kill me.")

"If you are going to be sullen, I shall have to suppose the worst,"
said Mrs. Baines.

Sophia kept her silence.

"Of course," Mrs. Baines resumed, "if you choose to be wicked, neither
your mother nor any one else can stop you. There are certain things I
CAN do, and these I SHALL do ... Let me warn you that young Scales is a
thoroughly bad lot. I know all about him. He has been living a wild
life abroad, and if it hadn't been that his uncle is a partner in
Birkinshaws, they would never have taken him on again." A pause. "I
hope that one day you will be a happy wife, but you are much too young
yet to be meeting young men, and nothing would ever induce me to let
you have anything to do with this Scales. I won't have it. In future
you are not to go out alone. You understand me?"

Sophia kept silence.

"I hope you will be in a better frame of mind to-morrow. I can only
hope so. But if you aren't, I shall take very severe measures. You
think you can defy me. But you never were more mistaken in your life. I
don't want to see any more of you now. Go and tell Mr. Povey; and call
Maggie for the fresh tea. You make me almost glad that your father died
even as he did. He has, at any rate, been spared this."

Those words 'died even as he did' achieved the intimidation of Sophia.
They seemed to indicate that Mrs. Baines, though she had magnanimously
never mentioned the subject to Sophia, knew exactly how the old man had
died. Sophia escaped from the room in fear, cowed. Nevertheless, her
thought was, "She hasn't killed me. I made up my mind I wouldn't talk,
and I didn't."

In the evening, as she sat in the shop primly and sternly sewing at
hats--while her mother wept in secret on the first floor, and Constance
remained hidden on the second--Sophia lived over again the scene at the
old shaft; but she lived it differently, admitting that she had been
wrong, guessing by instinct that she had shown a foolish mistrust of
love. As she sat in the shop, she adopted just the right attitude and
said just the right things. Instead of being a silly baby she was an
accomplished and dazzling woman, then. When customers came in, and the
young lady assistants unobtrusively turned higher the central gas,
according to the regime of the shop, it was really extraordinary that
they could not read in the heart of the beautiful Miss Baines the words
which blazed there; "YOU'RE THE FINEST GIRL I EVER MET," and "I SHALL
WRITE TO YOU." The young lady assistants had their notions as to both
Constance and Sophia, but the truth, at least as regarded Sophia, was
beyond the flight of their imaginations. When eight o'clock struck and
she gave the formal order for dust-sheets, the shop being empty, they
never supposed that she was dreaming about posts and plotting how to
get hold of the morning's letters before Mr. Povey.




CHAPTER VII

A DEFEAT

I


It was during the month of June that Aunt Harriet came over from Axe to
spend a few days with her little sister, Mrs. Baines. The railway
between Axe and the Five Towns had not yet been opened; but even if it
had been opened Aunt Harriet would probably not have used it. She had
always travelled from Axe to Bursley in the same vehicle, a small
waggonette which she hired from Bratt's livery stables at Axe, driven
by a coachman who thoroughly understood the importance, and the
peculiarities, of Aunt Harriet.

Mrs. Baines had increased in stoutness, so that now Aunt Harriet had
very little advantage over her, physically. But the moral ascendency of
the elder still persisted. The two vast widows shared Mrs. Baines's
bedroom, spending much of their time there in long, hushed
conversations--interviews from which Mrs. Baines emerged with the air
of one who has received enlightenment and Aunt Harriet with the air of
one who has rendered it. The pair went about together, in the shop, the
showroom, the parlour, the kitchen, and also into the town, addressing
each other as 'Sister,' 'Sister.' Everywhere it was 'sister,' 'sister,'
'my sister,' 'your dear mother,' 'your Aunt Harriet.' They referred to
each other as oracular sources of wisdom and good taste. Respectability
stalked abroad when they were afoot. The whole Square wriggled uneasily
as though God's eye were peculiarly upon it. The meals in the parlour
became solemn collations, at which shone the best silver and the finest
diaper, but from which gaiety and naturalness seemed to be banished. (I
say 'seemed' because it cannot be doubted that Aunt Harriet was
natural, and there were moments when she possibly considered herself to
be practising gaiety--a gaiety more desolating than her severity.) The
younger generation was extinguished, pressed flat and lifeless under
the ponderosity of the widows.

Mr. Povey was not the man to be easily flattened by ponderosity of any
kind, and his suppression was a striking proof of the prowess of the
widows; who, indeed, went over Mr. Povey like traction-engines, with
the sublime unconsciousness of traction-engines, leaving an inanimate
object in the road behind them, and scarce aware even of the jolt. Mr.
Povey hated Aunt Harriet, but, lying crushed there in the road, how
could he rebel? He felt all the time that Aunt Harriet was adding him
up, and reporting the result at frequent intervals to Mrs. Baines in
the bedroom. He felt that she knew everything about him--even to those
tears which had been in his eyes. He felt that he could hope to do
nothing right for Aunt Harriet, that absolute perfection in the
performance of duty would make no more impression on her than a caress
on the fly-wheel of a traction-engine. Constance, the dear Constance,
was also looked at askance. There was nothing in Aunt Harriet's
demeanour to her that you could take hold of, but there was
emphatically something that you could not take hold of--a hint, an
inkling, that insinuated to Constance, "Have a care, lest peradventure
you become the second cousin of the scarlet woman."

Sophia was petted. Sophia was liable to be playfully tapped by Aunt
Harriet's thimble when Aunt Harriet was hemming dusters (for the
elderly lady could lift a duster to her own dignity). Sophia was called
on two separate occasions, 'My little butterfly.' And Sophia was
entrusted with the trimming of Aunt Harriet's new summer bonnet. Aunt
Harriet deemed that Sophia was looking pale. As the days passed,
Sophia's pallor was emphasized by Aunt Harriet until it developed into
an article of faith, to which you were compelled to subscribe on pain
of excommunication. Then dawned the day when Aunt Harriet said, staring
at Sophia as an affectionate aunt may: "That child would do with a
change." And then there dawned another day when Aunt Harriet, staring
at Sophia compassionately, as a devoted aunt may, said: "It's a pity
that child can't have a change." And Mrs. Baines also stared--and said:
"It is."

And on another day Aunt Harriet said: "I've been wondering whether my
little Sophia would care to come and keep her old aunt company a while."

There were few things for which Sophia would have cared less. The girl
swore to herself angrily that she would not go, that no allurement
would induce her to go. But she was in a net; she was in the meshes of
family correctness. Do what she would, she could not invent a reason
for not going. Certainly she could not tell her aunt that she merely
did not want to go. She was capable of enormities, but not of that. And
then began Aunt Harriet's intricate preparations for going. Aunt
Harriet never did anything simply. And she could not be hurried.
Seventy-two hours before leaving she had to commence upon her trunk;
but first the trunk had to be wiped by Maggie with a damp cloth under
the eye and direction of Aunt Harriet. And the liveryman at Axe had to
be written to, and the servants at Axe written to, and the weather
prospects weighed and considered. And somehow, by the time these
matters were accomplished, it was tacitly understood that Sophia should
accompany her kind aunt into the bracing moorland air of Axe. No smoke
at Axe! No stuffiness at Axe! The spacious existence of a wealthy widow
in a residential town with a low death-rate and famous scenery! "Have
you packed your box, Sophia?" No, she had not. "Well, I will come and
help you."

Impossible to bear up against the momentum of a massive body like Aunt
Harriet's! It was irresistible.

The day of departure came, throwing the entire household into a
commotion. Dinner was put a quarter of an hour earlier than usual so
that Aunt Harriet might achieve Axe at her accustomed hour of tea.
After dinner Maggie was the recipient of three amazing muslin aprons,
given with a regal gesture. And the trunk and the box were brought
down, and there was a slight odour of black kid gloves in the parlour.
The waggonette was due and the waggonette appeared ("I can always rely
upon Bladen!" said Aunt Harriet), and the door was opened, and Bladen,
stiff on his legs, descended from the box and touched his hat to Aunt
Harriet as she filled up the doorway.

"Have you baited, Bladen?" asked she.

"Yes'm," said he, assuringly.

Bladen and Mr. Povey carried out the trunk and the box, and Constance
charged herself with parcels which she bestowed in the corners of the
vehicle according to her aunt's prescription; it was like stowing the
cargo of a vessel.

"Now, Sophia, my chuck!" Mrs. Baines called up the stairs. And Sophia
came slowly downstairs. Mrs. Baines offered her mouth. Sophia glanced
at her.

"You needn't think I don't see why you're sending me away!" exclaimed
Sophia in a hard, furious voice, with glistening eyes. "I'm not so
blind as all that!" She kissed her mother--nothing but a contemptuous
peck. Then, as she turned away she added: "But you let Constance do
just as she likes!"

This was her sole bitter comment on the episode, but into it she put
all the profound bitterness accumulated during many mutinous nights.

Mrs. Baines concealed a sigh. The explosion certainly disturbed her.
She had hoped that the smooth surface of things would not be ruffled.

Sophia bounced out. And the assembly, including several urchins,
watched with held breath while Aunt Harriet, after having bid majestic
good-byes, got on to the step and introduced herself through the
doorway of the waggonette into the interior of the vehicle; it was an
operation like threading a needle with cotton too thick. Once within,
her hoops distended in sudden release, filling the waggonette. Sophia
followed, agilely.

As, with due formalities, the equipage drove off, Mrs. Baines gave
another sigh, one of relief. The sisters had won. She could now await
the imminent next advent of Mr. Gerald Scales with tranquillity.

II

Those singular words of Sophia's, 'But you let Constance do just as she
likes,' had disturbed Mrs. Baines more than was at first apparent. They
worried her like a late fly in autumn. For she had said nothing to any
one about Constance's case, Mrs. Maddack of course excepted. She had
instinctively felt that she could not show the slightest leniency
towards the romantic impulses of her elder daughter without seeming
unjust to the younger, and she had acted accordingly. On the memorable
morn of Mr. Povey's acute jealousy, she had, temporarily at any rate,
slaked the fire, banked it down, and hidden it; and since then no word
had passed as to the state of Constance's heart. In the great peril to
be feared from Mr. Scales, Constance's heart had been put aside as a
thing that could wait; so one puts aside the mending of linen when
earthquake shocks are about. Mrs. Baines was sure that Constance had
not chattered to Sophia concerning Mr. Povey. Constance, who understood
her mother, had too much commonsense and too nice a sense of propriety
to do that--and yet here was Sophia exclaiming, 'But you let Constance
do just as she likes.' Were the relations between Constance and Mr.
Povey, then, common property? Did the young lady assistants discuss
them?

As a fact, the young lady assistants did discuss them; not in the
shop--for either one of the principal parties, or Mrs. Baines herself,
was always in the shop, but elsewhere. They discussed little else, when
they were free; how she had looked at him to-day, and how he had
blushed, and so forth interminably. Yet Mrs. Baines really thought that
she alone knew. Such is the power of the ineradicable delusion that
one's own affairs, and especially one's own children, are mysteriously
different from those of others.

After Sophia's departure Mrs. Baines surveyed her daughter and her
manager at supper-time with a curious and a diffident eye. They worked,
talked, and ate just as though Mrs. Baines had never caught them
weeping together in the cutting-out room. They had the most
matter-of-fact air. They might never have heard whispered the name of
love. And there could be no deceit beneath that decorum; for Constance
would not deceive. Still, Mrs. Baines's conscience was unruly. Order
reigned, but nevertheless she knew that she ought to do something, find
out something, decide something; she ought, if she did her duty, to
take Constance aside and say: "Now, Constance, my mind is freer now.
Tell me frankly what has been going on between you and Mr. Povey. I
have never understood the meaning of that scene in the cutting-out
room. Tell me." She ought to have talked in this strain. But she could
not. That energetic woman had not sufficient energy left. She wanted
rest, rest--even though it were a coward's rest, an ostrich's
tranquillity--after the turmoil of apprehensions caused by Sophia. Her
soul cried out for peace. She was not, however, to have peace.

On the very first Sunday after Sophia's departure, Mr. Povey did not go
to chapel in the morning, and he offered no reason for his unusual
conduct. He ate his breakfast with appetite, but there was something
peculiar in his glance that made Mrs. Baines a little uneasy; this
something she could not seize upon and define. When she and Constance
returned from chapel Mr. Povey was playing "Rock of Ages" on the
harmonium--again unusual! The serious part of the dinner comprised
roast beef and Yorkshire pudding--the pudding being served as a sweet
course before the meat. Mrs. Baines ate freely of these things, for she
loved them, and she was always hungry after a sermon. She also did well
with the Cheshire cheese. Her intention was to sleep in the
drawing-room after the repast. On Sunday afternoons she invariably
tried to sleep in the drawing-room, and she did not often fail. As a
rule the girls accompanied her thither from the table, and either
'settled down' likewise or crept out of the room when they perceived
the gradual sinking of the majestic form into the deep hollows of the
easy-chair. Mrs. Baines was anticipating with pleasure her somnolent
Sunday afternoon.

Constance said grace after meat, and the formula on this particular
occasion ran thus--

"Thank God for our good dinner, Amen.--Mother, I must just run upstairs
to my room." ('MY room'-Sophia being far away.)

And off she ran, strangely girlish.

"Well, child, you needn't be in such a hurry," said Mrs. Baines,
ringing the bell and rising.

She hoped that Constance would remember the conditions precedent to
sleep.

"I should like to have a word with you, if it's all the same to you,
Mrs. Baines," said Mr. Povey suddenly, with obvious nervousness. And
his tone struck a rude unexpected blow at Mrs. Baines's peace of mind.
It was a portentous tone.

"What about?" asked she, with an inflection subtly to remind Mr. Povey
what day it was.

"About Constance," said the astonishing man.

"Constance!" exclaimed Mrs. Baines with a histrionic air of
bewilderment.

Maggie entered the room, solely in response to the bell, yet a thought
jumped up in Mrs. Baines's brain, "How prying servants are, to be
sure!" For quite five seconds she had a grievance against Maggie. She
was compelled to sit down again and wait while Maggie cleared the
table. Mr. Povey put both his hands in his pockets, got up, went to the
window, whistled, and generally behaved in a manner which foretold the
worst.

At last Maggie vanished, shutting the door.

"What is it, Mr. Povey?"

"Oh!" said Mr. Povey, facing her with absurd nervous brusqueness, as
though pretending: "Ah, yes! We have something to say--I was
forgetting!" Then he began: "It's about Constance and me."

Yes, they had evidently plotted this interview. Constance had evidently
taken herself off on purpose to leave Mr. Povey unhampered. They were
in league. The inevitable had come. No sleep! No repose! Nothing but
worry once more!

"I'm not at all satisfied with the present situation," said Mr. Povey,
in a tone that corresponded to his words.

"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Povey," said Mrs. Baines stiffly. This
was a simple lie.

"Well, really, Mrs. Baines!" Mr. Povey protested, "I suppose you won't
deny that you know there is something between me and Constance? I
suppose you won't deny that?"

"What is there between you and Constance? I can assure you I--"

"That depends on you," Mr. Povey interrupted her. When he was nervous
his manners deteriorated into a behaviour that resembled rudeness.
"That depends on you!" he repeated grimly.

"But--"

"Are we to be engaged or are we not?" pursued Mr. Povey, as though Mrs.
Baines had been guilty of some grave lapse and he was determined not to
spare her. "That's what I think ought to be settled, one way or the
other. I wish to be perfectly open and aboveboard--in the future, as I
have been in the past."

"But you have said nothing to me at all!" Mrs. Baines remonstrated,
lifting her eyebrows. The way in which the man had sprung this matter
upon her was truly too audacious.

Mr. Povey approached her as she sat at the table, shaking her ringlets
and looking at her hands.

"You know there's something between us!" he insisted.

"How should I know there is something between you? Constance has never
said a word to me. And have you?"

"Well," said he. "We've hidden nothing."

"What is there between you and Constance? If I may ask!"

"That depends on you," said he again.

"Have you asked her to be your wife?"

"No. I haven't exactly asked her to be my wife." He hesitated. "You
see--"

Mrs. Baines collected her forces. "Have you kissed her?" This in a cold
voice.

Mr. Povey now blushed. "I haven't exactly kissed her," he stammered,
apparently shocked by the inquisition. "No, I should not say that I had
kissed her."

It might have been that before committing himself he felt a desire for
Mrs. Baines's definition of a kiss.

"You are very extraordinary," she said loftily. It was no less than the
truth.

"All I want to know is--have you got anything against me?" he demanded
roughly. "Because if so--"

"Anything against you, Mr. Povey? Why should I have anything against
you?"

"Then why can't we be engaged?"

She considered that he was bullying her. "That's another question,"
said she.

"Why can't we be engaged? Ain't I good enough?"

The fact was that he was not regarded as good enough. Mrs. Maddack had
certainly deemed that he was not good enough. He was a solid mass of
excellent qualities; but he lacked brilliance, importance, dignity. He
could not impose himself. Such had been the verdict.

And now, while Mrs. Baines was secretly reproaching Mr. Povey for his
inability to impose himself, he was most patently imposing himself on
her--and the phenomenon escaped her! She felt that he was bullying her,
but somehow she could not perceive his power. Yet the man who could
bully Mrs. Baines was surely no common soul!

"You know my very high opinion of you," she said.

Mr. Povey pursued in a mollified tone. "Assuming that Constance is
willing to be engaged, do I understand you consent?"

"But Constance is too young."

"Constance is twenty. She is more than twenty."

"In any case you won't expect me to give you an answer now."

"Why not? You know my position."

She did. From a practical point of view the match would be ideal: no
fault could be found with it on that side. But Mrs. Baines could not
extinguish the idea that it would be a 'come-down' for her daughter.
Who, after all, was Mr. Povey? Mr. Povey was nobody.

"I must think things over," she said firmly, putting her lips together.
"I can't reply like this. It is a serious matter."

"When can I have your answer? To-morrow?"

"No--really--"

"In a week, then?"

"I cannot bind myself to a date," said Mrs. Baines, haughtily. She felt
that she was gaining ground.

"Because I can't stay on here indefinitely as things are," Mr. Povey
burst out, and there was a touch of hysteria in his tone.

"Now, Mr. Povey, please do be reasonable."

"That's all very well," he went on. "That's all very well. But what I
say is that employers have no right to have male assistants in their
houses unless they are prepared to let their daughters marry! That's
what I say! No RIGHT!"

Mrs. Baines did not know what to answer.

The aspirant wound up: "I must leave if that's the case."

"If what's the case?" she asked herself. "What has come over him?" And
aloud: "You know you would place me in a very awkward position by
leaving, and I hope you don't want to mix up two quite different
things. I hope you aren't trying to threaten me."

"Threaten you!" he cried. "Do you suppose I should leave here for fun?
If I leave it will be because I can't stand it. That's all. I can't
stand it. I want Constance, and if I can't have her, then I can't stand
it. What do you think I'm made of?"

"I'm sure--" she began.

"That's all very well!" he almost shouted.

"But please let me speak,' she said quietly.

"All I say is I can't stand it. That's all.... Employers have no
right.... We have our feelings like other men."

He was deeply moved. He might have appeared somewhat grotesque to the
strictly impartial observer of human nature. Nevertheless he was deeply
and genuinely moved, and possibly human nature could have shown nothing
more human than Mr. Povey at the moment when, unable any longer to
restrain the paroxysm which had so surprisingly overtaken him, he fled
from the parlour, passionately, to the retreat of his bedroom.

"That's the worst of those quiet calm ones," said Mrs. Baines to
herself. "You never know if they won't give way. And when they do, it's
awful--awful.... What did I do, what did I say, to bring it on?
Nothing! Nothing!"

And where was her afternoon sleep? What was going to happen to her
daughter? What could she say to Constance? How next could she meet Mr.
Povey? Ah! It needed a brave, indomitable woman not to cry out
brokenly: "I've suffered too much. Do anything you like; only let me
die in peace!" And so saying, to let everything indifferently slide!

III

Neither Mr. Povey nor Constance introduced the delicate subject to her
again, and she was determined not to be the first to speak of it. She
considered that Mr. Povey had taken advantage of his position, and that
he had also been infantile and impolite. And somehow she privately
blamed Constance for his behaviour. So the matter hung, as it were,
suspended in the ether between the opposing forces of pride and passion.

Shortly afterwards events occurred compared to which the vicissitudes
of Mr. Povey's heart were of no more account than a shower of rain in
April. And fate gave no warning of them; it rather indicated a complete
absence of events. When the customary advice circular arrived from
Birkinshaws, the name of 'our Mr. Gerald Scales' was replaced on it by
another and an unfamiliar name. Mrs. Baines, seeing the circular by
accident, experienced a sense of relief, mingled with the professional
disappointment of a diplomatist who has elaborately provided for
contingencies which have failed to happen. She had sent Sophia away for
nothing; and no doubt her maternal affection had exaggerated a molehill
into a mountain. Really, when she reflected on the past, she could not
recall a single fact that would justify her theory of an attachment
secretly budding between Sophia and the young man Scales! Not a single
little fact! All she could bring forward was that Sophia had twice
encountered Scales in the street.

She felt a curious interest in the fate of Scales, for whom in her own
mind she had long prophesied evil, and when Birkinshaws' representative
came she took care to be in the shop; her intention was to converse
with him, and ascertain as much as was ascertainable, after Mr. Povey
had transacted business. For this purpose, at a suitable moment, she
traversed the shop to Mr. Povey's side, and in so doing she had a
fleeting view of King Street, and in King Street of a familiar vehicle.
She stopped, and seemed to catch the distant sound of knocking.
Abandoning the traveller, she hurried towards the parlour, in the
passage she assuredly did hear knocking, angry and impatient knocking,
the knocking of someone who thinks he has knocked too long.

"Of course Maggie is at the top of the house!" she muttered
sarcastically.

She unchained, unbolted, and unlocked the side-door.

"At last!" It was Aunt Harriet's voice, exacerbated. "What! You,
sister? You're soon up. What a blessing!"

The two majestic and imposing creatures met on the mat, craning forward
so that their lips might meet above their terrific bosoms.

"What's the matter?" Mrs. Baines asked, fearfully.

"Well, I do declare!" said Mrs. Maddack. "And I've driven specially
over to ask you!"

"Where's Sophia?" demanded Mrs. Baines.

"You don't mean to say she's not come, sister?" Mrs. Maddack sank down
on to the sofa.

"Come?" Mrs. Baines repeated. "Of course she's not come! What do you
mean, sister?"

"The very moment she got Constance's letter yesterday, saying you were
ill in bed and she'd better come over to help in the shop, she started.
I got Bratt's dog-cart for her."

Mrs. Baines in her turn also sank down on to the sofa.

"I've not been ill," she said. "And Constance hasn't written for a
week! Only yesterday I was telling her--"

"Sister--it can't be! Sophia had letters from Constance every morning.
At least she said they were from Constance. I told her to be sure and
write me how you were last night, and she promised faithfully she
would. And it was because I got nothing by this morning's post that I
decided to come over myself, to see if it was anything serious."

"Serious it is!" murmured Mrs. Baines.

"What--"

"Sophia's run off. That's the plain English of it!" said Mrs. Baines
with frigid calm.

"Nay! That I'll never believe. I've looked after Sophia night and day
as if she was my own, and--"

"If she hasn't run off, where is she?"

Mrs. Maddack opened the door with a tragic gesture.

"Bladen," she called in a loud voice to the driver of the waggonette,
who was standing on the pavement.

"Yes'm."

"It was Pember drove Miss Sophia yesterday, wasn't it?"

"Yes'm."

She hesitated. A clumsy question might enlighten a member of the class
which ought never to be enlightened about one's private affairs.

"He didn't come all the way here?"

"No'm. He happened to say last night when he got back as Miss Sophia
had told him to set her down at Knype Station."

"I thought so!" said Mrs. Maddack, courageously.

"Yes'm."

"Sister!" she moaned, after carefully shutting the door.

They clung to each other.

The horror of what had occurred did not instantly take full possession
of them, because the power of credence, of imaginatively realizing a
supreme event, whether of great grief or of great happiness, is
ridiculously finite. But every minute the horror grew more clear, more
intense, more tragically dominant over them. There were many things
that they could not say to each other,--from pride, from shame, from
the inadequacy of words. Neither could utter the name of Gerald Scales.
And Aunt Harriet could not stoop to defend herself from a possible
charge of neglect; nor could Mrs. Baines stoop to assure her sister
that she was incapable of preferring such a charge. And the sheer,
immense criminal folly of Sophia could not even be referred to: it was
unspeakable. So the interview proceeded, lamely, clumsily,
inconsequently, leading to naught.

Sophia was gone. She was gone with Gerald Scales.

That beautiful child, that incalculable, untamable, impossible
creature, had committed the final folly; without pretext or excuse, and
with what elaborate deceit! Yes, without excuse! She had not been
treated harshly; she had had a degree of liberty which would have
astounded and shocked her grandmothers; she had been petted, humoured,
spoilt. And her answer was to disgrace the family by an act as
irrevocable as it was utterly vicious. If among her desires was the
desire to humiliate those majesties, her mother and Aunt Harriet, she
would have been content could she have seen them on the sofa there,
humbled, shamed, mortally wounded! Ah, the monstrous Chinese cruelty of
youth!

What was to be done? Tell dear Constance? No, this was not, at the
moment, an affair for the younger generation. It was too new and raw
for the younger generation. Moreover, capable, proud, and experienced
as they were, they felt the need of a man's voice, and a man's hard,
callous ideas. It was a case for Mr. Critchlow. Maggie was sent to
fetch him, with a particular request that he should come to the
side-door. He came expectant, with the pleasurable anticipation of
disaster, and he was not disappointed. He passed with the sisters the
happiest hour that had fallen to him for years. Quickly he arranged the
alternatives for them. Would they tell the police, or would they take
the risks of waiting? They shied away, but with fierce brutality he
brought them again and again to the immediate point of decision....
Well, they could not tell the police! They simply could not. Then they
must face another danger.... He had no mercy for them. And while he was
torturing them there arrived a telegram, despatched from Charing Cross,
"I am all right, Sophia." That proved, at any rate, that the child was
not heartless, not merely careless.

Only yesterday, it seemed to Mrs. Baines, she had borne Sophia; only
yesterday she was a baby, a schoolgirl to be smacked. The years rolled
up in a few hours. And now she was sending telegrams from a place
called Charing Cross! How unlike was the hand of the telegram to
Sophia's hand! How mysteriously curt and inhuman was that official
hand, as Mrs. Baines stared at it through red, wet eyes!

Mr. Critchlow said some one should go to Manchester, to ascertain about
Scales. He went himself, that afternoon, and returned with the news
that an aunt of Scales had recently died, leaving him twelve thousand
pounds, and that he had, after quarrelling with his uncle Boldero,
abandoned Birkinshaws at an hour's notice and vanished with his
inheritance.

"It's as plain as a pikestaff," said Mr. Critchlow. "I could ha' warned
ye o' all this years ago, even since she killed her father!"

Mr. Critchlow left nothing unsaid.

During the night Mrs. Baines lived through all Sophia's life, lived
through it more intensely than ever Sophia had done.

The next day people began to know. A whisper almost inaudible went
across the Square, and into the town: and in the stillness every one
heard it. "Sophia Baines run off with a commercial!"

In another fortnight a note came, also dated from London.

"Dear Mother, I am married to Gerald Scales. Please don't worry about
me. We are going abroad. Your affectionate Sophia. Love to Constance."
No tear-stains on that pale blue sheet! No sign of agitation!

And Mrs. Baines said: "My life is over." It was, though she was
scarcely fifty. She felt old, old and beaten. She had fought and been
vanquished. The everlasting purpose had been too much for her. Virtue
had gone out of her--the virtue to hold up her head and look the Square
in the face. She, the wife of John Baines! She, a Syme of Axe!

Old houses, in the course of their history, see sad sights, and never
forget them! And ever since, in the solemn physiognomy of the triple
house of John Baines at the corner of St. Luke's Square and King
Street, have remained the traces of the sight it saw on the morning of
the afternoon when Mr. and Mrs. Povey returned from their
honeymoon--the sight of Mrs. Baines getting into the waggonette for
Axe; Mrs. Baines, encumbered with trunks and parcels, leaving the scene
of her struggles and her defeat, whither she had once come as slim as a
wand, to return stout and heavy, and heavy-hearted, to her childhood;
content to live with her grandiose sister until such time as she should
be ready for burial! The grimy and impassive old house perhaps heard
her heart saying: "Only yesterday they were little girls, ever so tiny,
and now--" The driving-off of a waggonette can be a dreadful thing.




BOOK II

CONSTANCE




CHAPTER I

REVOLUTION

I


"Well," said Mr. Povey, rising from the rocking-chair that in a
previous age had been John Baines's, "I've got to make a start some
time, so I may as well begin now!"

And he went from the parlour into the shop. Constance's eye followed
him as far as the door, where their glances met for an instant in the
transient gaze which expresses the tenderness of people who feel more
than they kiss.

It was on the morning of this day that Mrs. Baines, relinquishing the
sovereignty of St. Luke's Square, had gone to live as a younger sister
in the house of Harriet Maddack at Axe. Constance guessed little of the
secret anguish of that departure. She only knew that it was just like
her mother, having perfectly arranged the entire house for the arrival
of the honeymoon couple from Buxton, to flit early away so as to spare
the natural blushing diffidence of the said couple. It was like her
mother's commonsense and her mother's sympathetic comprehension.
Further, Constance did not pursue her mother's feelings, being far too
busy with her own. She sat there full of new knowledge and new
importance, brimming with experience and strange, unexpected
aspirations, purposes, yes--and cunnings! And yet, though the very
curves of her cheeks seemed to be mysteriously altering, the old
Constance still lingered in that frame, an innocent soul hesitating to
spread its wings and quit for ever the body which had been its home;
you could see the timid thing peeping wistfully out of the eyes of the
married woman.

Constance rang the bell for Maggie to clear the table; and as she did
so she had the illusion that she was not really a married woman and a
house-mistress, but only a kind of counterfeit. She did most fervently
hope that all would go right in the house--at any rate until she had
grown more accustomed to her situation.

The hope was to be disappointed. Maggie's rather silly, obsequious
smile concealed but for a moment the ineffable tragedy that had lain in
wait for unarmed Constance.

"If you please, Mrs. Povey," said Maggie, as she crushed cups together
on the tin tray with her great, red hands, which always looked like
something out of a butcher's shop; then a pause, "Will you please
accept of this?"

Now, before the wedding Maggie had already, with tears of affection,
given Constance a pair of blue glass vases (in order to purchase which
she had been obliged to ask for special permission to go out), and
Constance wondered what was coming now from Maggie's pocket. A small
piece of folded paper came from Maggie's pocket. Constance accepted of
it, and read: "I begs to give one month's notice to leave. Signed
Maggie. June 10, 1867."

"Maggie!" exclaimed the old Constance, terrified by this incredible
occurrence, ere the married woman could strangle her.

"I never give notice before, Mrs. Povey," said Maggie, "so I don't know
as I know how it ought for be done--not rightly. But I hope as you'll
accept of it, Mrs. Povey."

"Oh! of course," said Mrs. Povey, primly, just as if Maggie was not the
central supporting pillar of the house, just as if Maggie had not
assisted at her birth, just as if the end of the world had not abruptly
been announced, just as if St. Luke's Square were not inconceivable
without Maggie. "But why--"

"Well, Mrs. Povey, I've been a-thinking it over in my kitchen, and I
said to myself: 'If there's going to be one change there'd better be
two,' I says. Not but what I wouldn't work my fingers to the bone for
ye, Miss Constance."

Here Maggie began to cry into the tray.

Constance looked at her. Despite the special muslin of that day she had
traces of the slatternliness of which Mrs. Baines had never been able
to cure her. She was over forty, big, gawky. She had no figure, no
charms of any kind. She was what was left of a woman after twenty-two
years in the cave of a philanthropic family. And in her cave she had
actually been thinking things over! Constance detected for the first
time, beneath the dehumanized drudge, the stirrings of a separate and
perhaps capricious individuality. Maggie's engagements had never been
real to her employers. Within the house she had never been, in
practice, anything but 'Maggie'--an organism. And now she was
permitting herself ideas about changes!

"You'll soon be suited with another, Mrs. Povey," said Maggie. "There's
many a--many a--" She burst into sobs.

"But if you really want to leave, what are you crying for, Maggie?"
asked Mrs. Povey, at her wisest. "Have you told mother?"

"No, miss," Maggie whimpered, absently wiping her wrinkled cheeks with
ineffectual muslin. "I couldn't seem to fancy telling your mother. And
as you're the mistress now, I thought as I'd save it for you when you
come home. I hope you'll excuse me, Mrs. Povey."

"Of course I'm very sorry. You've been a very good servant. And in
these days--"

The child had acquired this turn of speech from her mother. It did not
appear to occur to either of them that they were living in the sixties.

"Thank ye, miss."

"And what are you thinking of doing, Maggie? You know you won't get
many places like this."

"To tell ye the truth, Mrs. Povey, I'm going to get married mysen."

"Indeed!" murmured Constance, with the perfunctoriness of habit in
replying to these tidings.

"Oh! but I am, mum," Maggie insisted. "It's all settled. Mr. Hollins,
mum."

"Not Hollins, the fish-hawker!"

"Yes, mum. I seem to fancy him. You don't remember as him and me was
engaged in '48. He was my first, like. I broke it off because he was in
that Chartist lot, and I knew as Mr. Baines would never stand that. Now
he's asked me again. He's been a widower this long time."

"I'm sure I hope you'll be happy, Maggie. But what about his habits?"

"He won't have no habits with me, Mrs. Povey."

A woman was definitely emerging from the drudge.

When Maggie, having entirely ceased sobbing, had put the folded cloth
in the table-drawer and departed with the tray, her mistress became
frankly the girl again. No primness about her as she stood alone there
in the parlour; no pretence that Maggie's notice to leave was an
everyday document, to be casually glanced at--as one glances at an
unpaid bill! She would be compelled to find a new servant, making
solemn inquiries into character, and to train the new servant, and to
talk to her from heights from which she had never addressed Maggie. At
that moment she had an illusion that there were no other available,
suitable servants in the whole world. And the arranged marriage? She
felt that this time--the thirteenth or fourteenth time--the engagement
was serious and would only end at the altar. The vision of Maggie and
Hollins at the altar shocked her. Marriage was a series of phenomena,
and a general state, very holy and wonderful--too sacred, somehow, for
such creatures as Maggie and Hollins. Her vague, instinctive revolt
against such a usage of matrimony centred round the idea of a strong,
eternal smell of fish. However, the projected outrage on a hallowed
institution troubled her much less than the imminent problem of
domestic service.

She ran into the shop--or she would have run if she had not checked her
girlishness betimes--and on her lips, ready to be whispered importantly
into a husband's astounded ear, were the words, "Maggie has given
notice! Yes! Truly!" But Samuel Povey was engaged. He was leaning over
the counter and staring at an outspread paper upon which a certain Mr.
Yardley was making strokes with a thick pencil. Mr. Yardley, who had a
long red beard, painted houses and rooms. She knew him only by sight.
In her mind she always associated him with the sign over his premises
in Trafalgar Road, "Yardley Bros., Authorised plumbers. Painters.
Decorators. Paper-hangers. Facia writers." For years, in childhood, she
had passed that sign without knowing what sort of things 'Bros,' and
'Facia' were, and what was the mysterious similarity between a plumber
and a version of the Bible. She could not interrupt her husband, he was
wholly absorbed; nor could she stay in the shop (which appeared just a
little smaller than usual), for that would have meant an unsuccessful
endeavour to front the young lady-assistants as though nothing in
particular had happened to her. So she went sedately up the showroom
stairs and thus to the bedroom floors of the house--her house! Mrs.
Povey's house! She even climbed to Constance's old bedroom; her mother
had stripped the bed--that was all, except a slight diminution of this
room, corresponding to that of the shop! Then to the drawing-room. In
the recess outside the drawing-room door the black box of silver plate
still lay. She had expected her mother to take it; but no! Assuredly
her mother was one to do things handsomely--when she did them. In the
drawing-room, not a tassel of an antimacassar touched! Yes, the
fire-screen, the luscious bunch of roses on an expanse of mustard,
which Constance had worked for her mother years ago, was gone! That her
mother should have clung to just that one souvenir, out of all the
heavy opulence of the drawing-room, touched Constance intimately. She
perceived that if she could not talk to her husband she must write to
her mother. And she sat down at the oval table and wrote, "Darling
mother, I am sure you will be very surprised to hear.... She means
it.... I think she is making a serious mistake. Ought I to put an
advertisement in the Signal, or will it do if.... Please write by
return. We are back and have enjoyed ourselves very much. Sam says he
enjoys getting up late...." And so on to the last inch of the fourth
scolloped page.

She was obliged to revisit the shop for a stamp, stamps being kept in
Mr. Povey's desk in the corner--a high desk, at which you stood. Mr.
Povey was now in earnest converse with Mr. Yardley at the door, and
twilight, which began a full hour earlier in the shop than in the
Square, had cast faint shadows in corners behind counters.

"Will you just run out with this to the pillar, Miss Dadd?"

"With pleasure, Mrs. Povey."

"Where are you going to?" Mr. Povey interrupted his conversation to
stop the flying girl.

"She's just going to the post for me," Constance called out from the
region of the till.

"Oh! All right!"

A trifle! A nothing! Yet somehow, in the quiet customerless shop, the
episode, with the scarce perceptible difference in Samuel's tone at his
second remark, was delicious to Constance. Somehow it was the REAL
beginning of her wifehood. (There had been about nine other real
beginnings in the past fortnight.)

Mr. Povey came in to supper, laden with ledgers and similar works which
Constance had never even pretended to understand. It was a sign from
him that the honeymoon was over. He was proprietor now, and his ardour
for ledgers most justifiable. Still, there was the question of her
servant.

"Never!" he exclaimed, when she told him all about the end of the
world. A 'never' which expressed extreme astonishment and the liveliest
concern!

But Constance had anticipated that he would have been just a little
more knocked down, bowled over, staggered, stunned, flabbergasted. In a
swift gleam of insight she saw that she had been in danger of
forgetting her role of experienced, capable married woman.

"I shall have to set about getting a fresh one," she said hastily, with
an admirable assumption of light and easy casualness.

Mr. Povey seemed to think that Hollins would suit Maggie pretty well.
He made no remark to the betrothed when she answered the final bell of
the night.

He opened his ledgers, whistling.

"I think I shall go up, dear," said Constance. "I've a lot of things to
put away."

"Do," said he. "Call out when you've done."

II

"Sam!" she cried from the top of the crooked stairs.

No answer. The door at the foot was closed.

"Sam!"

"Hello?" Distantly, faintly.

"I've done all I'm going to do to-night."

And she ran back along the corridor, a white figure in the deep gloom,
and hurried into bed, and drew the clothes up to her chin.

In the life of a bride there are some dramatic moments. If she has
married the industrious apprentice, one of those moments occurs when
she first occupies the sacred bed-chamber of her ancestors, and the bed
on which she was born. Her parents' room had always been to Constance,
if not sacred, at least invested with a certain moral solemnity. She
could not enter it as she would enter another room. The course of
nature, with its succession of deaths, conceptions, and births, slowly
makes such a room august with a mysterious quality which interprets the
grandeur of mere existence and imposes itself on all. Constance had the
strangest sensations in that bed, whose heavy dignity of ornament
symbolized a past age; sensations of sacrilege and trespass, of being a
naughty girl to whom punishment would accrue for this shocking freak.
Not since she was quite tiny had she slept in that bed--one night with
her mother, before her father's seizure, when he had been away. What a
limitless, unfathomable bed it was then! Now it was just a bed--so she
had to tell herself--like any other bed. The tiny child that, safely
touching its mother, had slept in the vast expanse, seemed to her now a
pathetic little thing; its image made her feel melancholy. And her mind
dwelt on sad events: the death of her father, the flight of darling
Sophia; the immense grief, and the exile, of her mother. She esteemed
that she knew what life was, and that it was grim. And she sighed. But
the sigh was an affectation, meant partly to convince herself that she
was grown-up, and partly to keep her in countenance in the intimidating
bed. This melancholy was factitious, was less than transient foam on
the deep sea of her joy. Death and sorrow and sin were dim shapes to
her; the ruthless egoism of happiness blew them away with a puff, and
their wistful faces vanished. To see her there in the bed, framed in
mahogany and tassels, lying on her side, with her young glowing cheeks,
and honest but not artless gaze, and the rich curve of her hip lifting
the counterpane, one would have said that she had never heard of aught
but love.

Mr. Povey entered, the bridegroom, quickly, firmly, carrying it off
rather well, but still self-conscious. "After all," his shoulders were
trying to say, "what's the difference between this bedroom and the
bedroom of a boarding-house? Indeed, ought we not to feel more at home
here? Besides, confound it, we've been married a fortnight!"

"Doesn't it give you a funny feeling, sleeping in this room? It does
me," said Constance. Women, even experienced women, are so foolishly
frank. They have no decency, no self-respect.

"Really?" replied Mr. Povey, with loftiness, as who should say: "What
an extraordinary thing that a reasonable creature can have such
fancies! Now to me this room is exactly like any other room." And he
added aloud, glancing away from the glass, where he was unfastening his
necktie: "It's not a bad room at all." This, with the judicial air of
an auctioneer.

Not for an instant did he deceive Constance, who read his real
sensations with accuracy. But his futile poses did not in the slightest
degree lessen her respect for him. On the contrary, she admired him the
more for them; they were a sort of embroidery on the solid stuff of his
character. At that period he could not do wrong for her. The basis of
her regard for him was, she often thought, his honesty, his industry,
his genuine kindliness of act, his grasp of the business, his
perseverance, his passion for doing at once that which had to be done.
She had the greatest admiration for his qualities, and he was in her
eyes an indivisible whole; she could not admire one part of him and
frown upon another. Whatever he did was good because he did it. She
knew that some people were apt to smile at certain phases of his
individuality; she knew that far down in her mother's heart was a
suspicion that she had married ever so little beneath her. But this
knowledge did not disturb her. She had no doubt as to the correctness
of her own estimate.

Mr. Povey was an exceedingly methodical person, and he was also one of
those persons who must always be 'beforehand' with time. Thus at night
he would arrange his raiment so that in the morning it might be
reassumed in the minimum of minutes. He was not a man, for example, to
leave the changing of studs from one shirt to another till the morrow.
Had it been practicable, he would have brushed his hair the night
before. Constance already loved to watch his meticulous preparations.
She saw him now go into his old bedroom and return with a paper collar,
which he put on the dressing-table next to a black necktie. His
shop-suit was laid out on a chair.

"Oh, Sam!" she exclaimed impulsively, "you surely aren't going to begin
wearing those horrid paper collars again!" During the honeymoon he had
worn linen collars.

Her tone was perfectly gentle, but the remark, nevertheless, showed a
lack of tact. It implied that all his life Mr. Povey had been
enveloping his neck in something which was horrid. Like all persons
with a tendency to fall into the ridiculous, Mr. Povey was exceedingly
sensitive to personal criticisms. He flushed darkly.

"I didn't know they were 'horrid,'" he snapped. He was hurt and angry.
Anger had surprised him unawares.

Both of them suddenly saw that they were standing on the edge of a
chasm, and drew back. They had imagined themselves to be wandering
safely in a flowered meadow, and here was this bottomless chasm! It was
most disconcerting.

Mr. Povey's hand hovered undecided over the collar. "However--" he
muttered.

She could feel that he was trying with all his might to be gentle and
pacific. And she was aghast at her own stupid clumsiness, she so
experienced!

"Just as you like, dear," she said quickly. "Please!"

"Oh no!" And he did his best to smile, and went off gawkily with the
collar and came back with a linen one.

Her passion for him burned stronger than ever. She knew then that she
did not love him for his good qualities, but for something boyish and
naive that there was about him, an indescribable something that
occasionally, when his face was close to hers, made her dizzy.

The chasm had disappeared. In such moments, when each must pretend not
to have seen or even suspected the chasm, small-talk is essential.

"Wasn't that Mr. Yardley in the shop to-night?" began Constance.

"Yes."

"What did he want?"

"I'd sent for him. He's going to paint us a signboard."

Useless for Samuel to make-believe that nothing in this world is more
ordinary than a signboard.

"Oh!" murmured Constance. She said no more, the episode of the paper
collar having weakened her self-confidence.

But a signboard!

What with servants, chasms, and signboards, Constance considered that
her life as a married woman would not be deficient in excitement. Long
afterwards, she fell asleep, thinking of Sophia.

III

A few days later Constance was arranging the more precious of her
wedding presents in the parlour; some had to be wrapped in tissue and
in brown paper and then tied with string and labelled; others had
special cases of their own, leather without and velvet within. Among
the latter was the resplendent egg-stand holding twelve silver-gilt
egg-cups and twelve chased spoons to match, presented by Aunt Harriet.
In the Five Towns' phrase, 'it must have cost money.' Even if Mr. and
Mrs. Povey had ten guests or ten children, and all the twelve of them
were simultaneously gripped by a desire to eat eggs at breakfast or
tea--even in this remote contingency Aunt Harriet would have been
pained to see the egg-stand in use; such treasures are not designed for
use. The presents, few in number, were mainly of this character,
because, owing to her mother's heroic cession of the entire interior,
Constance already possessed every necessary. The fewness of the
presents was accounted for by the fact that the wedding had been
strictly private and had taken place at Axe. There is nothing like
secrecy in marriage for discouraging the generous impulses of one's
friends. It was Mrs. Baines, abetted by both the chief parties, who had
decided that the wedding should be private and secluded. Sophia's
wedding had been altogether too private and secluded; but the casting
of a veil over Constance's (whose union was irreproachable) somehow
justified, after the event, the circumstances of Sophia's, indicating
as it did that Mrs. Baines believed in secret weddings on principle. In
such matters Mrs. Baines was capable of extraordinary subtlety.

And while Constance was thus taking her wedding presents with due
seriousness, Maggie was cleaning the steps that led from the pavement
of King Street to the side-door, and the door was ajar. It was a fine
June morning.

Suddenly, over the sound of scouring, Constance heard a dog's low growl
and then the hoarse voice of a man:

"Mester in, wench?"

"Happen he is, happen he isn't," came Maggie's answer. She had no fancy
for being called wench.

Constance went to the door, not merely from curiosity, but from a
feeling that her authority and her responsibilities as house-mistress
extended to the pavement surrounding the house.

The famous James Boon, of Buck Row, the greatest dog-fancier in the
Five Towns, stood at the bottom of the steps: a tall, fat man, clad in
stiff, stained brown and smoking a black clay pipe less than three
inches long. Behind him attended two bull-dogs.

"Morning, missis!" cried Boon, cheerfully. "I've heerd tell as th'
mister is looking out for a dog, as you might say."

"I don't stay here with them animals a-sniffing at me--no, that I
don't!" observed Maggie, picking herself up.

"Is he?" Constance hesitated. She knew that Samuel had vaguely referred
to dogs; she had not, however, imagined that he regarded a dog as aught
but a beautiful dream. No dog had ever put paw into that house, and it
seemed impossible that one should ever do so. As for those beasts of
prey on the pavement...!

"Ay!" said James Boon, calmly.

"I'll tell him you're here," said Constance. "But I don't know if he's
at liberty. He seldom is at this time of day. Maggie, you'd better come
in."

She went slowly to the shop, full of fear for the future.

"Sam," she whispered to her husband, who was writing at his desk,
"here's a man come to see you about a dog."

Assuredly he was taken aback. Still, he behaved with much presence of
mind.

"Oh, about a dog! Who is it?"

"It's that Jim Boon. He says he's heard you want one."

The renowned name of Jim Boon gave him pause; but he had to go through
with the affair, and he went through with it, though nervously.
Constance followed his agitated footsteps to the side-door.

"Morning, Boon."

"Morning, master."

They began to talk dogs, Mr. Povey, for his part, with due caution.

"Now, there's a dog!" said Boon, pointing to one of the bull-dogs, a
miracle of splendid ugliness.

"Yes," responded Mr. Povey, insincerely. "He is a beauty. What's it
worth now, at a venture?"

"I'll tak' a hundred and twenty sovereigns for her," said Boon. "Th'
other's a bit cheaper--a hundred."

"Oh, Sam!" gasped Constance.

And even Mr. Povey nearly lost his nerve. "That's more than I want to
give," said he timidly.

"But look at her!" Boon persisted, roughly snatching up the more
expensive animal, and displaying her cannibal teeth.

Mr. Povey shook his head. Constance glanced away.

"That's not quite the sort of dog I want," said Mr. Povey.

"Fox-terrier?"

"Yes, that's more like," Mr. Povey agreed eagerly.

"What'll ye run to?"

"Oh," said Mr. Povey, largely, "I don't know."

"Will ye run to a tenner?"

"I thought of something cheaper."

"Well, hoo much? Out wi' it, mester."

"Not more than two pounds," said Mr. Povey. He would have said one
pound had he dared. The prices of dogs amazed him.

"I thowt it was a dog as ye wanted!" said Boon. "Look 'ere, mester.
Come up to my yard and see what I've got."

"I will," said Mr. Povey.

"And bring missis along too. Now, what about a cat for th' missis? Or a
gold-fish?"

The end of the episode was that a young lady aged some twelve months
entered the Povey household on trial. Her exiguous legs twinkled all
over the parlour, and she had the oddest appearance in the parlour. But
she was so confiding, so affectionate, so timorous, and her black nose
was so icy in that hot weather, that Constance loved her violently
within an hour. Mr. Povey made rules for her. He explained to her that
she must never, never go into the shop. But she went, and he whipped
her to the squealing point, and Constance cried an instant, while
admiring her husband's firmness.

The dog was not all.

On another day Constance, prying into the least details of the parlour,
discovered a box of cigars inside the lid of the harmonium, on the
keyboard. She was so unaccustomed to cigars that at first she did not
realize what the object was. Her father had never smoked, nor drunk
intoxicants; nor had Mr. Critchlow. Nobody had ever smoked in that
house, where tobacco had always been regarded as equally licentious
with cards, 'the devil's playthings.' Certainly Samuel had never smoked
in the house, though the sight of the cigar-box reminded Constance of
an occasion when her mother had announced an incredulous suspicion that
Mr. Povey, fresh from an excursion into the world on a Thursday
evening, 'smelt of smoke.'

She closed the harmonium and kept silence.

That very night, coming suddenly into the parlour, she caught Samuel at
the harmonium. The lid went down with a resonant bang that awoke
sympathetic vibrations in every corner of the room.

"What is it?" Constance inquired, jumping.

"Oh, nothing!" replied Mr. Povey, carelessly. Each was deceiving the
other: Mr. Povey hid his crime, and Constance hid her knowledge of his
crime. False, false! But this is what marriage is.

And the next day Constance had a visit in the shop from a possible new
servant, recommended to her by Mr. Holl, the grocer.

"Will you please step this way?" said Constance, with affable primness,
steeped in the novel sense of what it is to be the sole responsible
mistress of a vast household. She preceded the girl to the parlour, and
as they passed the open door of Mr. Povey's cutting-out room, Constance
had the clear vision and titillating odour of her husband smoking a
cigar. He was in his shirt-sleeves, calmly cutting out, and Fan (the
lady companion), at watch on the bench, yapped at the possible new
servant.

"I think I shall try that girl," said she to Samuel at tea. She said
nothing as to the cigar; nor did he.

On the following evening, after supper, Mr. Povey burst out:

"I think I'll have a weed! You didn't know I smoked, did you?"

Thus Mr. Povey came out in his true colours as a blood, a blade, and a
gay spark.

But dogs and cigars, disconcerting enough in their degree, were to the
signboard, when the signboard at last came, as skim milk is to hot
brandy. It was the signboard that, more startlingly than anything else,
marked the dawn of a new era in St. Luke's Square. Four men spent a day
and a half in fixing it; they had ladders, ropes, and pulleys, and two
of them dined on the flat lead roof of the projecting shop-windows. The
signboard was thirty-five feet long and two feet in depth; over its
centre was a semicircle about three feet in radius; this semicircle
bore the legend, judiciously disposed, "S. Povey. Late." All the
sign-board proper was devoted to the words, "John Baines," in gold
letters a foot and a half high, on a green ground.

The Square watched and wondered; and murmured: "Well, bless us! What
next?"

It was agreed that in giving paramount importance to the name of his
late father-in-law, Mr. Povey had displayed a very nice feeling.

Some asked with glee: "What'll the old lady have to say?"

Constance asked herself this, but not with glee. When Constance walked
down the Square homewards, she could scarcely bear to look at the sign;
the thought of what her mother might say frightened her. Her mother's
first visit of state was imminent, and Aunt Harriet was to accompany
her. Constance felt almost sick as the day approached. When she faintly
hinted her apprehensions to Samuel, he demanded, as if surprised--

"Haven't you mentioned it in one of your letters?"

"Oh NO!"

"If that's all," said he, with bravado, "I'll write and tell her
myself."

IV

So that Mrs. Baines was duly apprised of the signboard before her
arrival. The letter written by her to Constance after receiving
Samuel's letter, which was merely the amiable epistle of a son-in-law
anxious to be a little more than correct, contained no reference to the
signboard. This silence, however, did not in the least allay
Constance's apprehensions as to what might occur when her mother and
Samuel met beneath the signboard itself. It was therefore with a
fearful as well as an eager, loving heart that Constance opened her
side-door and ran down the steps when the waggonette stopped in King
Street on the Thursday morning of the great visit of the sisters. But a
surprise awaited her. Aunt Harriet had not come. Mrs. Baines explained,
as she soundly kissed her daughter, that at the last moment Aunt
Harriet had not felt well enough to undertake the journey. She sent her
fondest love, and cake. Her pains had recurred. It was these mysterious
pains which had prevented the sisters from coming to Bursley earlier.
The word "cancer"--the continual terror of stout women--had been on
their lips, without having been actually uttered; then there was a
surcease, and each was glad that she had refrained from the dread
syllables. In view of the recurrence, it was not unnatural that Mrs.
Baines's vigorous cheerfulness should be somewhat forced.

"What is it, do you think?" Constance inquired.

Mrs. Baines pushed her lips out and raised her eyebrows--a gesture
which meant that the pains might mean God knew what.

"I hope she'll be all right alone," observed Constance. "Of course,"
said Mrs. Baines, quickly. "But you don't suppose I was going to
disappoint you, do you?" she added, looking round as if to defy the
fates in general.

This speech, and its tone, gave intense pleasure to Constance; and,
laden with parcels, they mounted the stairs together, very content with
each other, very happy in the discovery that they were still mother and
daughter, very intimate in an inarticulate way.

Constance had imagined long, detailed, absorbing, and highly novel
conversations between herself and her mother upon this their first
meeting after her marriage. But alone in the bedroom, and with a clear
half-hour to dinner, they neither of them seemed to have a great deal
to impart.

Mrs. Baines slowly removed her light mantle and laid it with
precautions on the white damask counterpane. Then, fingering her weeds,
she glanced about the chamber. Nothing was changed. Though Constance
had, previous to her marriage, envisaged certain alterations, she had
determined to postpone them, feeling that one revolutionist in a house
was enough.

"Well, my chuck, you all right?" said Mrs. Baines, with hearty and
direct energy, gazing straight into her daughter's eyes.

Constance perceived that the question was universal in its
comprehensiveness, the one unique expression that the mother would give
to her maternal concern and curiosity, and that it condensed into six
words as much interest as would have overflowed into a whole day of the
chatter of some mothers. She met the candid glance, flushing.

"Oh YES!" she answered with ecstatic fervour. "Perfectly!"

And Mrs. Baines nodded, as if dismissing THAT. "You're stouter," said
she, curtly. "If you aren't careful you'll be as big as any of us."

"Oh, mother!"

The interview fell to a lower plane of emotion. It even fell as far as
Maggie. What chiefly preoccupied Constance was a subtle change in her
mother. She found her mother fussy in trifles. Her manner of laying
down her mantle, of smoothing out her gloves, and her anxiety that her
bonnet should not come to harm, were rather trying, were perhaps, in
the very slightest degree, pitiable. It was nothing; it was barely
perceptible, and yet it was enough to alter Constance's mental attitude
to her mother. "Poor dear!" thought Constance. "I'm afraid she's not
what she was." Incredible that her mother could have aged in less than
six weeks! Constance did not allow for the chemistry that had been
going on in herself.

The encounter between Mrs. Baines and her son-in-law was of the most
satisfactory nature. He was waiting in the parlour for her to descend.
He made himself exceedingly agreeable, kissing her, and flattering her
by his evidently sincere desire to please. He explained that he had
kept an eye open for the waggonette, but had been called away. His
"Dear me!" on learning about Aunt Harriet lacked nothing in conviction,
though both women knew that his affection for Aunt Harriet would never
get the better of his reason. To Constance, her husband's behaviour was
marvellously perfect. She had not suspected him to be such a man of the
world. And her eyes said to her mother, quite unconsciously: "You see,
after all, you didn't rate Sam as high as you ought to have done. Now
you see your mistake."

As they sat waiting for dinner, Constance and Mrs. Baines on the sofa,
and Samuel on the edge of the nearest rocking-chair, a small scuffling
noise was heard outside the door which gave on the kitchen steps, the
door yielded to pressure, and Fan rushed importantly in, deranging
mats. Fan's nose had been hinting to her that she was behind the times,
not up-to-date in the affairs of the household, and she had hurried
from the kitchen to make inquiries. It occurred to her en route that
she had been washed that morning. The spectacle of Mrs. Baines stopped
her. She stood, with her legs slightly out-stretched, her nose lifted,
her ears raking forward, her bright eyes blinking, and her tail
undecided. "I was sure I'd never smelt anything like that before," she
was saying to herself, as she stared at Mrs. Baines.

And Mrs. Baines, staring at Fan, had a similar though not the same
sentiment. The silence was terrible. Constance took on the mien of a
culprit, and Sam had obviously lost his easy bearing of a man of the
world. Mrs. Baines was merely thunderstruck.

A dog!

Suddenly Fan's tail began to wag more quickly; and then, having looked
in vain for encouragement to her master and mistress, she gave one
mighty spring and alighted in Mrs. Baines's lap. It was an aim she
could not have missed. Constance emitted an "Oh, FAN!" of shocked
terror, and Samuel betrayed his nervous tension by an involuntary
movement. But Fan had settled down into that titanic lap as into
heaven. It was a greater flattery than Mr. Povey's.

"So your name's Fan!" murmured Mrs. Baines, stroking the animal. "You
are a dear!"

"Yes, isn't she?" said Constance, with inconceivable rapidity.

The danger was past. Thus, without any explanation, Fan became an
accepted fact.

The next moment Maggie served the Yorkshire pudding.

"Well, Maggie," said Mrs. Baines. "So you are going to get married this
time? When is it?"

"Sunday, ma'am."

"And you leave here on Saturday?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well, I must have a talk with you before I go."

During the dinner, not a word as to the signboard! Several times the
conversation curved towards that signboard in the most alarming
fashion, but invariably it curved away again, like a train from another
train when two trains are simultaneously leaving a station. Constance
had frights, so serious as to destroy her anxiety about the cookery. In
the end she comprehended that her mother had adopted a silently
disapproving attitude. Fan was socially very useful throughout the
repast.

After dinner Constance was on pins lest Samuel should light a cigar.
She had not requested him not to do so, for though she was entirely
sure of his affection, she had already learned that a husband is
possessed by a demon of contrariety which often forces him to violate
his higher feelings. However, Samuel did not light a cigar. He went off
to superintend the shutting-up of the shop, while Mrs. Baines chatted
with Maggie and gave her L5 for a wedding present. Then Mr. Critchlow
called to offer his salutations.

A little before tea Mrs. Baines announced that she would go out for a
short walk by herself.

"Where has she gone to?" smiled Samuel, superiorly, as with Constance
at the window he watched her turn down King Street towards the church.

"I expect she has gone to look at father's grave," said Constance.

"Oh!" muttered Samuel, apologetically.

Constance was mistaken. Before reaching the church, Mrs. Baines
deviated to the right, got into Brougham Street and thence, by Acre
Lane, into Oldcastle Street, whose steep she climbed. Now, Oldcastle
Street ends at the top of St. Luke's Square, and from the corner Mrs.
Baines had an excellent view of the signboard. It being Thursday
afternoon, scarce a soul was about. She returned to her daughter's by
the same extraordinary route, and said not a word on entering. But she
was markedly cheerful.

The waggonette came after tea, and Mrs. Baines made her final
preparations to depart. The visit had proved a wonderful success; it
would have been utterly perfect if Samuel had not marred it at the very
door of the waggonette. Somehow, he contrived to be talking of
Christmas. Only a person of Samuel's native clumsiness would have
mentioned Christmas in July.

"You know you'll spend Christmas with us!" said he into the waggonette.

"Indeed I shan't!" replied Mrs. Baines. "Aunt Harriet and I will expect
you at Axe. We've already settled that."

Mr. Povey bridled. "Oh no!" he protested, hurt by this summariness.

Having had no relatives, except his cousin the confectioner, for many
years, he had dreamt of at last establishing a family Christmas under
his own roof, and the dream was dear to him.

Mrs. Baines said nothing. "We couldn't possibly leave the shop," said
Mr. Povey.

"Nonsense!" Mrs. Baines retorted, putting her lips together. "Christmas
Day is on a Monday."

The waggonette in starting jerked her head towards the door and set all
her curls shaking. No white in those curls yet, scarcely a touch of
grey!

"I shall take good care we don't go there anyway," Mr. Povey mumbled,
in his heat, half to himself and half to Constance.

He had stained the brightness of the day.




CHAPTER II

CHRISTMAS AND THE FUTURE

I


Mr. Povey was playing a hymn tune on the harmonium, it having been
decided that no one should go to chapel. Constance, in mourning, with a
white apron over her dress, sat on a hassock in front of the fire; and
near her, in a rocking-chair, Mrs. Baines swayed very gently to and
fro. The weather was extremely cold. Mr. Povey's mittened hands were
blue and red; but, like many shopkeepers, he had apparently grown
almost insensible to vagaries of temperature. Although the fire was
immense and furious, its influence, owing to the fact that the
mediaeval grate was designed to heat the flue rather than the room,
seemed to die away at the borders of the fender. Constance could not
have been much closer to it without being a salamander. The era of good
old-fashioned Christmases, so agreeably picturesque for the poor, was
not yet at an end.

Yes, Samuel Povey had won the battle concerning the locus of the family
Christmas. But he had received the help of a formidable ally, death.
Mrs. Harriet Maddack had passed away, after an operation, leaving her
house and her money to her sister. The solemn rite of her interment had
deeply affected all the respectability of the town of Axe, where the
late Mr. Maddack had been a figure of consequence; it had even shut up
the shop in St. Luke's Square for a whole day. It was such a funeral as
Aunt Harriet herself would have approved, a tremendous ceremonial which
left on the crushed mind an ineffaceable, intricate impression of shiny
cloth, crape, horses with arching necks and long manes, the drawl of
parsons, cake, port, sighs, and Christian submission to the inscrutable
decrees of Providence. Mrs. Baines had borne herself with unnatural
calmness until the funeral was over: and then Constance perceived that
the remembered mother of her girlhood existed no longer. For the
majority of human souls it would have been easier to love a virtuous
principle, or a mountain, than to love Aunt Harriet, who was assuredly
less a woman than an institution. But Mrs. Baines had loved her, and
she had been the one person to whom Mrs. Baines looked for support and
guidance. When she died, Mrs. Baines paid the tribute of respect with
the last hoarded remains of her proud fortitude, and weepingly
confessed that the unconquerable had been conquered, the inexhaustible
exhausted; and became old with whitening hair.

She had persisted in her refusal to spend Christmas in Bursley, but
both Constance and Samuel knew that the resistance was only formal. She
soon yielded. When Constance's second new servant took it into her head
to leave a week before Christmas, Mrs. Baines might have pointed out
the finger of Providence at work again, and this time in her favour.
But no! With amazing pliancy she suggested that she should bring one of
her own servants to 'tide Constance over' Christmas. She was met with
all the forms of loving solicitude, and she found that her daughter and
son-in-law had 'turned out of' the state bedroom in her favour.
Intensely flattered by this attention (which was Mr. Povey's
magnanimous idea), she nevertheless protested strongly. Indeed she
'would not hear of it.'

"Now, mother, don't be silly," Constance had said firmly. "You don't
expect us to be at all the trouble of moving back again, do you?" And
Mrs. Baines had surrendered in tears.

Thus had come Christmas. Perhaps it was fortunate that, the Axe servant
being not quite the ordinary servant, but a benefactor where a
benefactor was needed, both Constance and her mother thought it well to
occupy themselves in household work, 'sparing' the benefactor as much
as possible. Hence Constance's white apron.

"There he is!" said Mr. Povey, still playing, but with his eye on the
street.

Constance sprang up eagerly. Then there was a knock on the door.
Constance opened, and an icy blast swept into the room. The postman
stood on the steps, his instrument for knocking (like a drumstick) in
one hand, a large bundle of letters in the other, and a yawning bag
across the pit of his stomach.

"Merry Christmas, ma'am!" cried the postman, trying to keep warm by
cheerfulness.

Constance, taking the letters, responded, while Mr. Povey, playing the
harmonium with his right hand, drew half a crown from his pocket with
the left.

"Here you are!" he said, giving it to Constance, who gave it to the
postman.

Fan, who had been keeping her muzzle warm with the extremity of her
tail on the sofa, jumped down to superintend the transaction.

"Brrr!" vibrated Mr. Povey as Constance shut the door.

"What lots!" Constance exclaimed, rushing to the fire. "Here, mother!
Here, Sam!"

The girl had resumed possession of the woman's body.

Though the Baines family had few friends (sustained hospitality being
little practised in those days) they had, of course, many
acquaintances, and, like other families, they counted their Christmas
cards as an Indian counts scalps. The tale was satisfactory. There were
between thirty and forty envelopes. Constance extracted Christmas cards
rapidly, reading their contents aloud, and then propping them up on the
mantelpiece. Mrs. Baines assisted. Fan dealt with the envelopes on the
floor. Mr. Povey, to prove that his soul was above toys and gewgaws,
continued to play the harmonium.

"Oh, mother!" Constance murmured in a startled, hesitant voice, holding
an envelope.

"What is it, my chuck?"

"It's----"

The envelope was addressed to "Mrs. and Miss Baines" in large,
perpendicular, dashing characters which Constance instantly recognised
as Sophia's. The stamps were strange, the postmark 'Paris.' Mrs. Baines
leaned forward and looked.

"Open it, child," she said.

The envelope contained an English Christmas card of a common type, a
spray of holly with greetings, and on it was written, "I do hope this
will reach you on Christmas morning. Fondest love." No signature, nor
address.

Mrs. Baines took it with a trembling hand, and adjusted her spectacles.
She gazed at it a long time.

"And it has done!" she said, and wept.

She tried to speak again, but not being able to command herself, held
forth the card to Constance and jerked her head in the direction of Mr.
Povey. Constance rose and put the card on the keyboard of the harmonium.

"Sophia!" she whispered.

Mr. Povey stopped playing. "Dear, dear!" he muttered.

Fan, perceiving that nobody was interested in her feats, suddenly stood
still.

Mrs. Baines tried once more to speak, but could not. Then, her ringlets
shaking beneath the band of her weeds, she found her feet, stepped to
the harmonium, and, with a movement almost convulsive, snatched the
card from Mr. Povey, and returned to her chair.

Mr. Povey abruptly left the room, followed by Fan. Both the women were
in tears, and he was tremendously surprised to discover a dangerous
lump in his own throat. The beautiful and imperious vision of Sophia,
Sophia as she had left them, innocent, wayward, had swiftly risen up
before him and made even him a woman too! Yet he had never liked
Sophia. The awful secret wound in the family pride revealed itself to
him as never before, and he felt intensely the mother's tragedy, which
she carried in her breast as Aunt Harriet had carried a cancer.

At dinner he said suddenly to Mrs. Baines, who still wept: "Now,
mother, you must cheer up, you know."

"Yes, I must," she said quickly. And she did do.

Neither Samuel nor Constance saw the card again. Little was said. There
was nothing to say. As Sophia had given no address she must be still
ashamed of her situation. But she had thought of her mother and sister.
She ... she did not even know that Constance was married ... What sort
of a place was Paris? To Bursley, Paris was nothing but the site of a
great exhibition which had recently closed.

Through the influence of Mrs. Baines a new servant was found for
Constance in a village near Axe, a raw, comely girl who had never been
in a 'place.' And through the post it was arranged that this innocent
should come to the cave on the thirty-first of December. In obedience
to the safe rule that servants should never be allowed to meet for the
interchange of opinions, Mrs. Baines decided to leave with her own
servant on the thirtieth. She would not be persuaded to spend the New
Year in the Square. On the twenty-ninth poor Aunt Maria died all of a
sudden in her cottage in Brougham Street. Everybody was duly
distressed, and in particular Mrs. Baines's demeanour under this
affliction showed the perfection of correctness. But she caused it to
be understood that she should not remain for the funeral. Her nerves
would be unequal to the ordeal; and, moreover, her servant must not
stay to corrupt the new girl, nor could Mrs. Baines think of sending
her servant to Axe in advance, to spend several days in idle gossip
with her colleague.

This decision took the backbone out of Aunt Maria's funeral, which
touched the extreme of modesty: a hearse and a one-horse coach. Mr.
Povey was glad, because he happened to be very busy. An hour before his
mother-in-law's departure he came into the parlour with the proof of a
poster.

"What is that, Samuel?" asked Mrs. Baines, not dreaming of the blow
that awaited her.

"It's for my first Annual Sale," replied Mr. Povey with false
tranquillity.

Mrs. Baines merely tossed her head. Constance, happily for Constance,
was not present at this final defeat of the old order. Had she been
there, she would certainly not have known where to look.

II

"Forty next birthday!" Mr. Povey exclaimed one day, with an expression
and in a tone that were at once mock-serious and serious. This was on
his thirty-ninth birthday.

Constance was startled. She had, of course, been aware that they were
getting older, but she had never realized the phenomenon. Though
customers occasionally remarked that Mr. Povey was stouter, and though
when she helped him to measure himself for a new suit of clothes the
tape proved the fact, he had not changed for her. She knew that she too
had become somewhat stouter; but for herself, she remained exactly the
same Constance. Only by recalling dates and by calculations could she
really grasp that she had been married a little over six years and not
a little over six months. She had to admit that, if Samuel would be
forty next birthday, she would be twenty-seven next birthday. But it
would not be a real twenty-seven; nor would Sam's forty be a real
forty, like other people's twenty-sevens and forties. Not long since
she had been in the habit of regarding a man of forty as senile, as
practically in his grave.

She reflected, and the more she reflected the more clearly she saw that
after all the almanacs had not lied. Look at Fan! Yes, it must be five
years since the memorable morning when doubt first crossed the minds of
Samuel and Constance as to Fan's moral principles. Samuel's enthusiasm
for dogs was equalled by his ignorance of the dangers to which a young
female of temperament may be exposed, and he was much disturbed as
doubt developed into certainty. Fan, indeed, was the one being who did
not suffer from shock and who had no fears as to the results. The
animal, having a pure mind, was bereft of modesty. Sundry enormities
had she committed, but none to rank with this one! The result was four
quadrupeds recognizable as fox-terriers. Mr. Povey breathed again. Fan
had had more luck than she deserved, for the result might have been
simply anything. Her owners forgave her and disposed of these fruits of
iniquity, and then married her lawfully to a husband who was so high up
in the world that he could demand a dowry. And now Fan was a
grandmother, with fixed ideas and habits, and a son in the house, and
various grandchildren scattered over the town. Fan was a sedate and
disillusioned dog. She knew the world as it was, and in learning it she
had taught her owners above a bit.

Then there was Maggie Hollins. Constance could still vividly recall the
self-consciousness with which she had one day received Maggie and the
heir of the Hollinses; but it was a long time ago. After staggering
half the town by the production of this infant (of which she nearly
died) Maggie allowed the angels to waft it away to heaven, and
everybody said that she ought to be very thankful--at her age. Old
women dug up out of their minds forgotten histories of the
eccentricities of the goddess Lucina. Mrs. Baines was most curiously
interested; she talked freely to Constance, and Constance began to see
what an incredible town Bursley had always been--and she never
suspected it! Maggie was now mother of other children, and the
draggled, lame mistress of a drunken home, and looked sixty. Despite
her prophecy, her husband had conserved his 'habits.' The Poveys ate
all the fish they could, and sometimes more than they enjoyed, because
on his sober days Hollins invariably started his round at the shop, and
Constance had to buy for Maggie's sake. The worst of the worthless
husband was that he seldom failed to be cheery and polite. He never
missed asking after the health of Mrs. Baines. And when Constance
replied that her mother was 'pretty well considering,' but that she
would not come over to Bursley again until the Axe railway was opened,
as she could not stand the drive, he would shake his grey head and be
sympathetically gloomy for an instant.

All these changes in six years! The almanacs were in the right of it.

But nothing had happened to her. Gradually she had obtained a sure
ascendency over her mother, yet without seeking it, merely as the
outcome of time's influences on her and on her mother respectively.
Gradually she had gained skill and use in the management of her
household and of her share of the shop, so that these machines ran
smoothly and effectively and a sudden contretemps no longer frightened
her. Gradually she had constructed a chart of Samuel's individuality,
with the submerged rocks and perilous currents all carefully marked, so
that she could now voyage unalarmed in those seas. But nothing
happened. Unless their visits to Buxton could be called happenings!
Decidedly the visit to Buxton was the one little hill that rose out of
the level plain of the year. They had formed the annual habit of going
to Buxton for ten days. They had a way of saying: "Yes, we always go to
Buxton. We went there for our honeymoon, you know." They had become
confirmed Buxtonites, with views concerning St. Anne's Terrace, the
Broad Walk and Peel's Cavern. They could not dream of deserting their
Buxton. It was the sole possible resort. Was it not the highest town in
England? Well, then! They always stayed at the same lodgings, and grew
to be special favourites of the landlady, who whispered of them to all
her other guests as having come to her house for their honeymoon, and
as never missing a year, and as being most respectable, superior people
in quite a large way of business. Each year they walked out of Buxton
station behind their luggage on a truck, full of joy and pride because
they knew all the landmarks, and the lie of all the streets, and which
were the best shops.

At the beginning, the notion of leaving the shop to hired custody had
seemed almost fantastic, and the preparations for absence had been very
complicated. Then it was that Miss Insull had detached herself from the
other young lady assistants as a creature who could be absolutely
trusted. Miss Insull was older than Constance; she had a bad
complexion, and she was not clever, but she was one of your reliable
ones. The six years had witnessed the slow, steady rise of Miss Insull.
Her employers said 'Miss Insull' in a tone quite different from that in
which they said 'Miss Hawkins,' or 'Miss Dadd.' 'Miss Insull' meant the
end of a discussion. 'Better tell Miss Insull.' 'Miss Insull will see
to that.' 'I shall ask Miss Insull.' Miss Insull slept in the house ten
nights every year. Miss Insull had been called into consultation when
it was decided to engage a fourth hand in the shape of an apprentice.

Trade had improved into positive excellence. It was now admitted to
be good--a rare honour for trade! The coal-mining boom was at its
height, and colliers, in addition to getting drunk, were buying
American organs and expensive bull-terriers. Often they would come to
the shop to purchase cloth for coats for their dogs. And they would
have good cloth. Mr. Povey did not like this. One day a butty chose for
his dog the best cloth of Mr. Povey's shop--at 12s. a yard. "Will ye
make it up? I've gotten th' measurements," asked the collier. "No, I
won't!" said Mr. Povey, hotly. "And what's more, I won't sell you the
cloth either! Cloth at 12s. a yard on a dog's back indeed! I'll thank
you to get out of my shop!" The incident became historic, in the
Square. It finally established that Mr. Povey was a worthy son-in-law
and a solid and successful man. It vindicated the old pre-eminence of
"Baines's." Some surprise was expressed that Mr. Povey showed no desire
nor tendency towards entering the public life of the town. But he never
would, though a keen satirical critic of the Local Board in private.
And at the chapel he remained a simple private worshipper, refusing
stewardships and trusteeships.

III

Was Constance happy? Of course there was always something on her mind,
something that had to be dealt with, either in the shop or in the
house, something to employ all the skill and experience which she had
acquired. Her life had much in it of laborious tedium--tedium
never-ending and monotonous. And both she and Samuel worked
consistently hard, rising early, 'pushing forward,' as the phrase ran,
and going to bed early from sheer fatigue; week after week and month
after month as season changed imperceptibly into season. In June and
July it would happen to them occasionally to retire before the last
silver of dusk was out of the sky. They would lie in bed and talk
placidly of their daily affairs. There would be a noise in the street
below. "Vaults closing!" Samuel would say, and yawn. "Yes, it's quite
late," Constance would say. And the Swiss clock would rapidly strike
eleven on its coil of resonant wire. And then, just before she went to
sleep, Constance might reflect upon her destiny, as even the busiest
and smoothest women do, and she would decide that it was kind. Her
mother's gradual decline and lonely life at Axe saddened her. The cards
which came now and then at extremely long intervals from Sophia had
been the cause of more sorrow than joy. The naive ecstasies of her
girlhood had long since departed--the price paid for experience and
self-possession and a true vision of things. The vast inherent
melancholy of the universe did not exempt her. But as she went to sleep
she would be conscious of a vague contentment. The basis of this
contentment was the fact that she and Samuel comprehended and esteemed
each other, and made allowances for each other. Their characters had
been tested and had stood the test. Affection, love, was not to them a
salient phenomenon in their relations. Habit had inevitably dulled its
glitter. It was like a flavouring, scarce remarked; but had it been
absent, how they would have turned from that dish!

Samuel never, or hardly ever, set himself to meditate upon the problem
whether or not life had come up to his expectations. But he had, at
times, strange sensations which he did not analyze, and which
approached nearer to ecstasy than any feeling of Constance's. Thus,
when he was in one of his dark furies, molten within and black without,
the sudden thought of his wife's unalterable benignant calm, which
nothing could overthrow, might strike him into a wondering cold. For
him she was astoundingly feminine. She would put flowers on the
mantelpiece, and then, hours afterwards, in the middle of a meal, ask
him unexpectedly what he thought of her 'garden;' and he gradually
divined that a perfunctory reply left her unsatisfied; she wanted a
genuine opinion; a genuine opinion mattered to her. Fancy calling
flowers on a mantelpiece a 'garden'! How charming, how childlike! Then
she had a way, on Sunday mornings, when she descended to the parlour
all ready for chapel, of shutting the door at the foot of the stairs
with a little bang, shaking herself, and turning round swiftly as if
for his inspection, as if saying: "Well, what about this? Will this
do?" A phenomenon always associated in his mind with the smell of kid
gloves! Invariably she asked him about the colours and cut of her
dresses. Would he prefer this, or that? He could not take such
questions seriously until one day he happened to hint, merely hint,
that he was not a thorough-going admirer of a certain new dress--it was
her first new dress after the definite abandonment of crinolines. She
never wore it again. He thought she was not serious at first, and
remonstrated against a joke being carried too far. She said: "It's not
a bit of use you talking, I shan't wear it again." And then he so far
appreciated her seriousness as to refrain, by discretion, from any
comment. The incident affected him for days. It flattered him; it
thrilled him; but it baffled him. Strange that a woman subject to such
caprices should be so sagacious, capable, and utterly reliable as
Constance was! For the practical and commonsense side of her eternally
compelled his admiration. The very first example of it--her insistence
that the simultaneous absence of both of them from the shop for half an
hour or an hour twice a day would not mean the immediate downfall of
the business--had remained in his mind ever since. Had she not been
obstinate--in her benevolent way--against the old superstition which he
had acquired from his employers, they might have been eating separately
to that day. Then her handling of her mother during the months of the
siege of Paris, when Mrs. Baines was convinced that her sinful daughter
was in hourly danger of death, had been extraordinarily fine, he
considered. And the sequel, a card for Constance's birthday, had
completely justified her attitude.

Sometimes some blundering fool would jovially exclaim to them:

"What about that baby?"

Or a woman would remark quietly: "I often feel sorry you've no
children."

And they would answer that really they did not know what they would do
if there was a baby. What with the shop and one thing or another...!
And they were quite sincere.

IV

It is remarkable what a little thing will draw even the most regular
and serious people from the deep groove of their habits. One morning in
March, a boneshaker, an affair on two equal wooden wheels joined by a
bar of iron, in the middle of which was a wooden saddle, disturbed the
gravity of St. Luke's Square. True, it was probably the first
boneshaker that had ever attacked the gravity of St. Luke's Square. It
came out of the shop of Daniel Povey, the confectioner and baker, and
Samuel Povey's celebrated cousin, in Boulton Terrace. Boulton Terrace
formed nearly a right angle with the Baines premises, and at the corner
of the angle Wedgwood Street and King Street left the Square. The
boneshaker was brought forth by Dick Povey, the only son of Daniel, now
aged eleven years, under the superintendence of his father, and the
Square soon perceived that Dick had a natural talent for breaking-in an
untrained boneshaker. After a few attempts he could remain on the back
of the machine for at least ten yards, and his feats had the effect of
endowing St. Luke's Square with the attractiveness of a circus. Samuel
Povey watched with candid interest from the ambush of his door, while
the unfortunate young lady assistants, though aware of the performance
that was going on, dared not stir from the stove. Samuel was
tremendously tempted to sally out boldly, and chat with his cousin
about the toy; he had surely a better right to do so than any other
tradesman in the Square, since he was of the family; but his diffidence
prevented him from moving. Presently Daniel Povey and Dick went to the
top of the Square with the machine, opposite Holl's, and Dick, being
carefully installed in the saddle, essayed to descend the gentle paven
slopes of the Square. He failed time after time; the machine had an
astonishing way of turning round, running uphill, and then lying calmly
on its side. At this point of Dick's life-history every shop-door in
the Square was occupied by an audience. At last the boneshaker
displayed less unwillingness to obey, and lo! in a moment Dick was
riding down the Square, and the spectators held their breath as if he
had been Blondin crossing Niagara. Every second he ought to have fallen
off, but he contrived to keep upright. Already he had accomplished
twenty yards--thirty yards! It was a miracle that he was performing!
The transit continued, and seemed to occupy hours. And then a faint
hope rose in the breast of the watchers that the prodigy might arrive
at the bottom of the Square. His speed was increasing with his 'nack.'
But the Square was enormous, boundless. Samuel Povey gazed at the
approaching phenomenon, as a bird at a serpent, with bulging, beady
eyes. The child's speed went on increasing and his path grew
straighter. Yes, he would arrive; he would do it! Samuel Povey
involuntarily lifted one leg in his nervous tension. And now the hope
that Dick would arrive became a fear, as his pace grew still more
rapid. Everybody lifted one leg, and gaped. And the intrepid child
surged on, and, finally victorious, crashed into the pavement in front
of Samuel at the rate of quite six miles an hour.

Samuel picked him up, unscathed. And somehow this picking up of Dick
invested Samuel with importance, gave him a share in the glory of the
feat itself.

Daniel Povey same running and joyous. "Not so bad for a start, eh?"
exclaimed the great Daniel. Though by no means a simple man, his pride
in his offspring sometimes made him a little naive.

Father and son explained the machine to Samuel, Dick incessantly
repeating the exceedingly strange truth that if you felt you were
falling to your right you must turn to your right and vice versa.
Samuel found himself suddenly admitted, as it were, to the inner
fellowship of the boneshaker, exalted above the rest of the Square. In
another adventure more thrilling events occurred. The fair-haired Dick
was one of those dangerous, frenzied madcaps who are born without fear.
The secret of the machine had been revealed to him in his recent
transit, and he was silently determining to surpass himself.
Precariously balanced, he descended the Square again, frowning hard,
his teeth set, and actually managed to swerve into King Street.
Constance, in the parlour, saw an incomprehensible winged thing fly
past the window. The cousins Povey sounded an alarm and protest and ran
in pursuit; for the gradient of King Street is, in the strict sense,
steep. Half-way down King Street Dick was travelling at twenty miles an
hour, and heading straight for the church, as though he meant to
disestablish it and perish. The main gate of the churchyard was open,
and that affrighting child, with a lunatic's luck, whizzed safely
through the portals into God's acre. The cousins Povey discovered him
lying on a green grave, clothed in pride. His first words were: "Dad,
did you pick my cap up?" The symbolism of the amazing ride did not
escape the Square; indeed, it was much discussed.

This incident led to a friendship between the cousins. They formed a
habit of meeting in the Square for a chat. The meetings were the
subject of comment, for Samuel's relations with the greater Daniel had
always been of the most distant. It was understood that Samuel
disapproved of Mrs. Daniel Povey even, more than the majority of people
disapproved of her. Mrs. Daniel Povey, however, was away from home;
probably, had she not been, Samuel would not even have gone to the
length of joining Daniel on the neutral ground of the open Square. But
having once broken the ice, Samuel was glad to be on terms of growing
intimacy with his cousin. The friendship flattered him, for Daniel,
despite his wife, was a figure in a world larger than Samuel's;
moreover, it consecrated his position as the equal of no matter what
tradesman (apprentice though he had been), and also he genuinely liked
and admired Daniel, rather to his own astonishment.

Every one liked Daniel Povey; he was a favourite among all ranks. The
leading confectioner, a member of the Local Board, and a sidesman at
St. Luke's, he was, and had been for twenty-five years, very prominent
in the town. He was a tall, handsome man, with a trimmed, greying
beard, a jolly smile, and a flashing, dark eye. His good humour seemed
to be permanent. He had dignity without the slightest stiffness; he was
welcomed by his equals and frankly adored by his inferiors. He ought to
have been Chief Bailiff, for he was rich enough; but there intervened a
mysterious obstacle between Daniel Povey and the supreme honour, a
scarcely tangible impediment which could not be definitely stated. He
was capable, honest, industrious, successful, and an excellent speaker;
and if he did not belong to the austerer section of society, if, for
example, he thought nothing of dropping into the Tiger for a glass of
beer, or of using an oath occasionally, or of telling a facetious
story--well, in a busy, broad-minded town of thirty thousand
inhabitants, such proclivities are no bar whatever to perfect esteem.
But--how is one to phrase it without wronging Daniel Povey? He was
entirely moral; his views were unexceptionable. The truth is that, for
the ruling classes of Bursley, Daniel Povey was just a little too
fanatical a worshipper of the god Pan. He was one of the remnant who
had kept alive the great Pan tradition from the days of the Regency
through the vast, arid Victorian expanse of years. The flighty
character of his wife was regarded by many as a judgment upon him for
the robust Rabelaisianism of his more private conversation, for his
frank interest in, his eternal preoccupation with, aspects of life and
human activity which, though essential to the divine purpose, are not
openly recognized as such--even by Daniel Poveys. It was not a question
of his conduct; it was a question of the cast of his mind. If it did
not explain his friendship with the rector of St. Luke's, it explained
his departure from the Primitive Methodist connexion, to which the
Poveys as a family had belonged since Primitive Methodism was created
in Turnhill in 1807.

Daniel Povey had a way of assuming that every male was boiling over
with interest in the sacred cult of Pan. The assumption, though
sometimes causing inconvenience at first, usually conquered by virtue
of its inherent truthfulness. Thus it fell out with Samuel. Samuel had
not suspected that Pan had silken cords to draw him. He had always
averted his eyes from the god--that is to say, within reason. Yet now
Daniel, on perhaps a couple of fine mornings a week, in full Square,
with Fan sitting behind on the cold stones, and Mr. Critchlow ironic at
his door in a long white apron, would entertain Samuel Povey for half
an hour with Pan's most intimate lore, and Samuel Povey would not
blench. He would, on the contrary, stand up to Daniel like a little
man, and pretend with all his might to be, potentially, a perfect
arch-priest of the god. Daniel taught him a lot; turned over the page
of life for him, as it were, and, showing the reverse side, seemed to
say: "You were missing all that." Samuel gazed upwards at the handsome
long nose and rich lips of his elder cousin, so experienced, so
agreeable, so renowned, so esteemed, so philosophic, and admitted to
himself that he had lived to the age of forty in a state of comparative
boobyism. And then he would gaze downwards at the faint patch of flour
on Daniel's right leg, and conceive that life was, and must be, life.

Not many weeks after his initiation into the cult he was startled by
Constance's preoccupied face one evening. Now, a husband of six years'
standing, to whom it has not happened to become a father, is not easily
startled by such a face as Constance wore. Years ago he had frequently
been startled, had frequently lived in suspense for a few days. But he
had long since grown impervious to these alarms. And now he was
startled again--but as a man may be startled who is not altogether
surprised at being startled. And seven endless days passed, and Samuel
and Constance glanced at each other like guilty things, whose secret
refuses to be kept. Then three more days passed, and another three.
Then Samuel Povey remarked in a firm, masculine, fact-fronting tone:

"Oh, there's no doubt about it!"

And they glanced at each other like conspirators who have lighted a
fuse and cannot take refuge in flight. Their eyes said continually,
with a delicious, an enchanting mixture of ingenuous modesty and
fearful joy:

"Well, we've gone and done it!"

There it was, the incredible, incomprehensible future--coming!

Samuel had never correctly imagined the manner of its heralding. He had
imagined in his early simplicity that one day Constance, blushing,
might put her mouth to his ear and whisper--something positive. It had
not occurred in the least like that. But things are so obstinately, so
incurably unsentimental.

"I think we ought to drive over and tell mother, on Sunday," said
Constance.

His impulse was to reply, in his grand, offhand style: "Oh, a letter
will do!"

But he checked himself and said, with careful deference: "You think
that will be better than writing?"

All was changed. He braced every fibre to meet destiny, and to help
Constance to meet it.

The weather threatened on Sunday. He went to Axe without Constance. His
cousin drove him there in a dog-cart, and he announced that he should
walk home, as the exercise would do him good. During the drive Daniel,
in whom he had not confided, chattered as usual, and Samuel pretended
to listen with the same attitude as usual; but secretly he despised
Daniel for a man who has got something not of the first importance on
the brain. His perspective was truer than Daniel's.

He walked home, as he had decided, over the wavy moorland of the county
dreaming in the heart of England. Night fell on him in mid-career, and
he was tired. But the earth, as it whirled through naked space, whirled
up the moon for him, and he pressed on at a good speed. A wind from
Arabia wandering cooled his face. And at last, over the brow of Toft
End, he saw suddenly the Five Towns a-twinkle on their little hills
down in the vast amphitheatre. And one of those lamps was Constance's
lamp--one, somewhere. He lived, then. He entered into the shadow of
nature. The mysteries made him solemn. What! A boneshaker, his cousin,
and then this!

"Well, I'm damned! Well, I'm damned!" he kept repeating, he who never
swore.




CHAPTER III

CYRIL

I


Constance stood at the large, many-paned window in the parlour. She was
stouter. Although always plump, her figure had been comely, with a
neat, well-marked waist. But now the shapeliness had gone; the
waist-line no longer existed, and there were no more crinolines to
create it artificially. An observer not under the charm of her face
might have been excused for calling her fat and lumpy. The face, grave,
kind, and expectant, with its radiant, fresh cheeks, and the rounded
softness of its curves, atoned for the figure. She was nearly
twenty-nine years of age.

It was late in October. In Wedgwood Street, next to Boulton Terrace,
all the little brown houses had been pulled down to make room for a
palatial covered market, whose foundations were then being dug. This
destruction exposed a vast area of sky to the north-east. A great dark
cloud with an untidy edge rose massively out of the depths and
curtained off the tender blue of approaching dusk; while in the west,
behind Constance, the sun was setting in calm and gorgeous melancholy
on the Thursday hush of the town. It was one of those afternoons which
gather up all the sadness of the moving earth and transform it into
beauty.

Samuel Povey turned the corner from Wedgwood Street, and crossed King
Street obliquely to the front-door, which Constance opened. He seemed
tired and anxious.

"Well?" demanded Constance, as he entered.

"She's no better. There's no getting away from it, she's worse. I
should have stayed, only I knew you'd be worrying. So I caught the
three-fifty."

"How is that Mrs. Gilchrist shaping as a nurse?"

"She's very good," said Samuel, with conviction. "Very good!"

"What a blessing! I suppose you didn't happen to see the doctor?"

"Yes, I did."

"What did he say to you?"

Samuel gave a deprecating gesture. "Didn't say anything particular.
With dropsy, at that stage, you know ..."

Constance had returned to the window, her expectancy apparently
unappeased.

"I don't like the look of that cloud," she murmured.

"What! Are they out still?" Samuel inquired, taking off his overcoat.

"Here they are!" cried Constance. Her features suddenly transfigured,
she sprang to the door, pulled it open, and descended the steps.

A perambulator was being rapidly pushed up the slope by a breathless
girl.

"Amy," Constance gently protested, "I told you not to venture far."

"I hurried all I could, mum, soon as I seed that cloud," the girl
puffed, with the air of one who is seriously thankful to have escaped a
great disaster.

Constance dived into the recesses of the perambulator and extricated
from its cocoon the centre of the universe, and scrutinized him with
quiet passion, and then rushed with him into the house, though not a
drop of rain had yet fallen.

"Precious!" exclaimed Amy, in ecstasy, her young virginal eyes
following him till he disappeared. Then she wheeled away the
perambulator, which now had no more value nor interest than an
egg-shell. It was necessary to take it right round to the Brougham
Street yard entrance, past the front of the closed shop.

Constance sat down on the horsehair sofa and hugged and kissed her
prize before removing his bonnet.

"Here's Daddy!" she said to him, as if imparting strange and rapturous
tidings. "Here's Daddy come back from hanging up his coat in the
passage! Daddy rubbing his hands!" And then, with a swift transition of
voice and features: "Do look at him, Sam!"

Samuel, preoccupied, stooped forward. "Oh, you little scoundrel! Oh,
you little scoundrel!" he greeted the baby, advancing his finger
towards the baby's nose.

The baby, who had hitherto maintained a passive indifference to
external phenomena, lifted elbows and toes, blew bubbles from his tiny
mouth, and stared at the finger with the most ravishing, roguish smile,
as though saying: "I know that great sticking-out limb, and there is a
joke about it which no one but me can see, and which is my secret joy
that you shall never share."

"Tea ready?" Samuel asked, resuming his gravity and his ordinary pose.

"You must give the girl time to take her things off," said Constance.
"We'll have the table drawn, away from the fire, and baby can lie on
his shawl on the hearthrug while we're having tea." Then to the baby,
in rapture: "And play with his toys; all his nice, nice toys!"

"You know Miss Insull is staying for tea?"

Constance, her head bent over the baby, who formed a white patch on her
comfortable brown frock, nodded without speaking.

Samuel Povey, walking to and fro, began to enter into details of his
hasty journey to Axe. Old Mrs. Baines, having beheld her grandson, was
preparing to quit this world. Never again would she exclaim, in her
brusque tone of genial ruthlessness: 'Fiddlesticks!' The situation was
very difficult and distressing, for Constance could not leave her baby,
and she would not, until the last urgency, run the risks of a journey
with him to Axe. He was being weaned. In any case Constance could not
have undertaken the nursing of her mother. A nurse had to be found. Mr.
Povey had discovered one in the person of Mrs. Gilchrist, the second
wife of a farmer at Malpas in Cheshire, whose first wife had been a
sister of the late John Baines. All the credit of Mrs. Gilchrist was
due to Samuel Povey. Mrs. Baines fretted seriously about Sophia, who
had given no sign of life for a very long time. Mr. Povey went to
Manchester and ascertained definitely from the relatives of Scales that
nothing was known of the pair. He did not go to Manchester especially
on this errand. About once in three weeks, on Tuesdays, he had to visit
the Manchester warehouses; but the tracking of Scales's relative cost
him so much trouble and time that, curiously, he came to believe that
he had gone to Manchester one Tuesday for no other end. Although he was
very busy indeed in the shop, he flew over to Axe and back whenever he
possibly could, to the neglect of his affairs. He was glad to do all
that was in his power; even if he had not done it graciously his
sensitive, tyrannic conscience would have forced him to do it. But
nevertheless he felt rather virtuous, and worry and fatigue and loss of
sleep intensified this sense of virtue.

"So that if there is any sudden change they will telegraph," he
finished, to Constance.

She raised her head. The words, clinching what had led up to them, drew
her from her dream and she saw, for a moment, her mother in an agony.

"But you don't surely mean--?" she began, trying to disperse the
painful vision as unjustified by the facts.

"My dear girl," said Samuel, with head singing, and hot eyes, and a
consciousness of high tension in every nerve of his body, "I simply
mean that if there's any sudden change they will telegraph."

While they had tea, Samuel sitting opposite to his wife, and Miss
Insull nearly against the wall (owing to the moving of the table), the
baby rolled about on the hearthrug, which had been covered with a large
soft woollen shawl, originally the property of his great-grandmother.
He had no cares, no responsibilities. The shawl was so vast that he
could not clearly distinguish objects beyond its confines. On it lay an
indiarubber ball, an indiarubber doll, a rattle, and fan. He vaguely
recollected all four items, with their respective properties. The fire
also was an old friend. He had occasionally tried to touch it, but a
high bright fence always came in between. For ten months he had never
spent a day without making experiments on this shifting universe in
which he alone remained firm and stationary. The experiments were
chiefly conducted out of idle amusement, but he was serious on the
subject of food. Lately the behaviour of the universe in regard to his
food had somewhat perplexed him, had indeed annoyed him. However, he
was of a forgetful, happy disposition, and so long as the universe
continued to fulfil its sole end as a machinery for the satisfaction,
somehow, of his imperious desires, he was not inclined to remonstrate.
He gazed at the flames and laughed, and laughed because he had laughed.
He pushed the ball away and wriggled after it, and captured it with the
assurance of practice. He tried to swallow the doll, and it was not
until he had tried several times to swallow it that he remembered the
failure of previous efforts and philosophically desisted. He rolled
with a fearful shock, arms and legs in air, against the mountainous
flank of that mammoth Fan, and clutched at Fan's ear. The whole mass of
Fan upheaved and vanished from his view, and was instantly forgotten by
him. He seized the doll and tried to swallow it, and repeated the
exhibition of his skill with the ball. Then he saw the fire again and
laughed. And so he existed for centuries: no responsibilities, no
appetites; and the shawl was vast. Terrific operations went on over his
head. Giants moved to and fro. Great vessels were carried off and great
books were brought and deep voices rumbled regularly in the spaces
beyond the shawl. But he remained oblivious. At last he became aware
that a face was looking down at his. He recognized it, and immediately
an uncomfortable sensation in his stomach disturbed him; he tolerated
it for fifty years or so, and then he gave a little cry. Life had
resumed its seriousness.

"Black alpaca. B quality. Width 20, t.a. 22 yards," Miss Insull read
out of a great book. She and Mr. Povey were checking stock.

And Mr. Povey responded, "Black alpaca B quality. Width 20, t.a. 22
yards. It wants ten minutes yet." He had glanced at the clock.

"Does it?" said Constance, well knowing that it wanted ten minutes.

The baby did not guess that a high invisible god named Samuel Povey,
whom nothing escaped, and who could do everything at once, was
controlling his universe from an inconceivable distance. On the
contrary, the baby was crying to himself, There is no God.

His weaning had reached the stage at which a baby really does not know
what will happen next. The annoyance had begun exactly three months
after his first tooth, such being the rule of the gods, and it had
grown more and more disconcerting. No sooner did he accustom himself to
a new phenomenon than it mysteriously ceased, and an old one took its
place which he had utterly forgotten. This afternoon his mother nursed
him, but not until she had foolishly attempted to divert him from the
seriousness of life by means of gewgaws of which he was sick. Still;
once at her rich breast, he forgave and forgot all. He preferred her
simple natural breast to more modern inventions. And he had no shame,
no modesty. Nor had his mother. It was an indecent carouse at which his
father and Miss Insull had to assist. But his father had shame. His
father would have preferred that, as Miss Insull had kindly offered to
stop and work on Thursday afternoon, and as the shop was chilly, the
due rotation should have brought the bottle round at half-past five
o'clock, and not the mother's breast. He was a self-conscious parent,
rather apologetic to the world, rather apt to stand off and pretend
that he had nothing to do with the affair; and he genuinely disliked
that anybody should witness the intimate scene of HIS wife feeding HIS
baby. Especially Miss Insull, that prim, dark, moustached spinster! He
would not have called it an outrage on Miss Insull, to force her to
witness the scene, but his idea approached within sight of the word.

Constance blandly offered herself to the child, with the unconscious
primitive savagery of a young mother, and as the baby fed, thoughts of
her own mother flitted to and fro ceaselessly like vague shapes over
the deep sea of content which filled her mind. This illness of her
mother's was abnormal, and the baby was now, for the first time
perhaps, entirely normal in her consciousness. The baby was something
which could be disturbed, not something which did disturb. What a
change! What a change that had seemed impossible until its full
accomplishment!

For months before the birth, she had glimpsed at nights and in other
silent hours the tremendous upset. She had not allowed herself to be
silly in advance; by temperament she was too sagacious, too well
balanced for that; but she had had fitful instants of terror, when
solid ground seemed to sink away from her, and imagination shook at
what faced her. Instants only! Usually she could play the comedy of
sensible calmness to almost perfection. Then the appointed time drew
nigh. And still she smiled, and Samuel smiled. But the preparations,
meticulous, intricate, revolutionary, belied their smiles. The intense
resolve to keep Mrs. Baines, by methods scrupulous or unscrupulous,
away from Bursley until all was over, belied their smiles. And then the
first pains, sharp, shocking, cruel, heralds of torture! But when they
had withdrawn, she smiled, again, palely. Then she was in bed, full of
the sensation that the whole house was inverted and disorganized,
hopelessly. And the doctor came into the room. She smiled at the doctor
apologetically, foolishly, as if saying: "We all come to it. Here I
am." She was calm without. Oh, but what a prey of abject fear within!
"I am at the edge of the precipice," her thought ran; "in a moment I
shall be over." And then the pains--not the heralds but the shattering
army, endless, increasing in terror as they thundered across her. Yet
she could think, quite clearly: "Now I'm in the middle of it. This is
it, the horror that I have not dared to look at. My life's in the
balance. I may never get up again. All has at last come to pass. It
seemed as if it would never come, as if this thing could not happen to
me. But at last it has come to pass!"

Ah! Some one put the twisted end of a towel into her hand again--she
had loosed it; and she pulled, pulled, enough to break cables. And then
she shrieked. It was for pity. It was for some one to help her, at any
rate to take notice of her. She was dying. Her soul was leaving her.
And she was alone, panic-stricken, in the midst of a cataclysm a
thousand times surpassing all that she had imagined of sickening
horror. "I cannot endure this," she thought passionately. "It is
impossible that I should be asked to endure this!" And then she wept;
beaten, terrorized, smashed and riven. No commonsense now! No wise
calmness now! No self-respect now! Why, not even a woman now! Nothing
but a kind of animalized victim! And then the supreme endless spasm,
during which she gave up the ghost and bade good-bye to her very self.

She was lying quite comfortable in the soft bed; idle, silly: happiness
forming like a thin crust over the lava of her anguish and her fright.
And by her side was the soul that had fought its way out of her,
ruthlessly; the secret disturber revealed to the light of morning.
Curious to look at! Not like any baby that she had ever seen; red,
creased, brutish! But--for some reason that she did not examine--she
folded it in an immense tenderness.

Sam was by the bed, away from her eyes. She was so comfortable and
silly that she could not move her head nor even ask him to come round
to her eyes. She had to wait till he came.

In the afternoon the doctor returned, and astounded her by saying that
hers had been an ideal confinement. She was too weary to rebuke him for
a senseless, blind, callous old man. But she knew what she knew. "No
one will ever guess," she thought, "no one ever can guess, what I've
been through! Talk as you like. I KNOW, now."

Gradually she had resumed cognizance of her household, perceiving that
it was demoralized from top to bottom, and that when the time came to
begin upon it she would not be able to settle where to begin, even
supposing that the baby were not there to monopolize her attention. The
task appalled her. Then she wanted to get up. Then she got up. What a
blow to self-confidence! She went back to bed like a little scared
rabbit to its hole, glad, glad to be on the soft pillows again. She
said: "Yet the time must come when I shall be downstairs, and walking
about and meeting people, and cooking and superintending the
millinery." Well, it did come--except that she had to renounce the
millinery to Miss Insull--but it was not the same. No, different! The
baby pushed everything else on to another plane. He was a terrific
intruder; not one minute of her old daily life was left; he made no
compromise whatever. If she turned away her gaze from him he might pop
off into eternity and leave her.

And now she was calmly and sensibly giving him suck in presence of Miss
Insull. She was used to his importance, to the fragility of his
organism, to waking twice every night, to being fat. She was strong
again. The convulsive twitching that for six months had worried her
repose, had quite disappeared. The state of being a mother was normal,
and the baby was so normal that she could not conceive the house
without him.

All in ten months!

When the baby was installed in his cot for the night, she came
downstairs and found Miss Insull and Samuel still working, and Larder
than ever, but at addition sums now. She sat down, leaving the door
open at the foot of the stairs. She had embroidery in hand: a cap. And
while Miss Insull and Samuel combined pounds, shillings, and pence,
whispering at great speed, she bent over the delicate, intimate,
wasteful handiwork, drawing the needle with slow exactitude. Then she
would raise her head and listen.

"Excuse me," said Miss Insull, "I think I hear baby crying."

"And two are eight and three are eleven. He must cry," said Mr. Povey,
rapidly, without looking up.

The baby's parents did not make a practice of discussing their domestic
existence even with Miss Insull; but Constance had to justify herself
as a mother.

"I've made perfectly sure he's comfortable," said Constance. "He's only
crying because he fancies he's neglected. And we think he can't begin
too early to learn."

"How right you are!" said Miss Insull. "Two and carry three."

That distant, feeble, querulous, pitiful cry continued obstinately. It
continued for thirty minutes. Constance could not proceed with her
work. The cry disintegrated her will, dissolved her hard sagacity.

Without a word she crept upstairs, having carefully deposed the cap on
her rocking-chair.

Mr. Povey hesitated a moment and then bounded up after her, startling
Fan. He shut the door on Miss Insull, but Fan was too quick for him. He
saw Constance with her hand on the bedroom door.

"My dear girl," he protested, holding himself in. "Now what ARE you
going to do?"

"I'm just listening," said Constance.

"Do be reasonable and come downstairs."

He spoke in a low voice, scarcely masking his nervous irritation, and
tiptoed along the corridor towards her and up the two steps past the
gas-burner. Fan followed, wagging her tail expectant.

"Suppose he's not well?" Constance suggested.

"Pshaw!" Mr. Povey exclaimed contemptuously. "You remember what
happened last night and what you said!"

They argued, subduing their tones to the false semblance of good-will,
there in the closeness of the corridor. Fan, deceived, ceased to wag
her tail and then trotted away. The baby's cry, behind the door, rose
to a mysterious despairing howl, which had such an effect on
Constance's heart that she could have walked through fire to reach the
baby. But Mr. Povey's will held her. And she rebelled, angry, hurt,
resentful. Commonsense, the ideal of mutual forbearance, had winged
away from that excited pair. It would have assuredly ended in a
quarrel, with Samuel glaring at her in black fury from the other side
of a bottomless chasm, had not Miss Insull most surprisingly burst up
the stairs.

Mr. Povey turned to face her, swallowing his emotion.

"A telegram!" said Miss Insull. "The postmaster brought it down
himself--"

"What? Mr. Derry?" asked Samuel, opening the telegram with an
affectation of majesty.

"Yes. He said it was too late for delivery by rights. But as it seemed
very important ..."

Samuel scanned it and nodded gravely; then gave it to his wife. Tears
came into her eyes.

"I'll get Cousin Daniel to drive me over at once," said Samuel, master
of himself and of the situation.

"Wouldn't it be better to hire?" Constance suggested. She had a
prejudice against Daniel.

Mr. Povey shook his head. "He offered," he replied. "I can't refuse his
offer."

"Put your thick overcoat on, dear," said Constance, in a dream,
descending with him.

"I hope it isn't--" Miss Insull stopped.

"Yes it is, Miss Insull," said Samuel, deliberately.

In less than a minute he was gone.

Constance ran upstairs. But the cry had ceased. She turned the
door-knob softly, slowly, and crept into the chamber. A night-light
made large shadows among the heavy mahogany and the crimson, tasselled
rep in the close-curtained room. And between the bed and the ottoman
(on which lay Samuel's newly-bought family Bible) the cot loomed in the
shadows. She picked up the night-light and stole round the bed. Yes, he
had decided to fall asleep. The hazard of death afar off had just
defeated his devilish obstinacy. Fate had bested him. How marvellously
soft and delicate that tear-stained cheek! How frail that tiny, tiny
clenched hand! In Constance grief and joy were mystically united.

II

The drawing-room was full of visitors, in frocks of ceremony. The old
drawing-room, but newly and massively arranged with the finest
Victorian furniture from dead Aunt Harriet's house at Axe; two
"Canterburys," a large bookcase, a splendid scintillant table solid
beyond lifting, intricately tortured chairs and armchairs! The original
furniture of the drawing-room was now down in the parlour, making it
grand. All the house breathed opulence; it was gorged with quiet,
restrained expensiveness; the least considerable objects, in the most
modest corners, were what Mrs. Baines would have termed 'good.'
Constance and Samuel had half of all Aunt Harriet's money and half of
Mrs. Baines's; the other half was accumulating for a hypothetical
Sophia, Mr. Critchlow being the trustee. The business continued to
flourish. People knew that Samuel Povey was buying houses. Yet Samuel
and Constance had not made friends; they had not, in the Five Towns
phrase, 'branched out socially,' though they had very meetly branched
out on subscription lists. They kept themselves to themselves
(emphasizing the preposition). These guests were not their guests; they
were the guests of Cyril.

He had been named Samuel because Constance would have him named after
his father, and Cyril because his father secretly despised the name of
Samuel; and he was called Cyril; 'Master Cyril,' by Amy, definite
successor to Maggie. His mother's thoughts were on Cyril as long as she
was awake. His father, when not planning Cyril's welfare, was earning
money whose unique object could be nothing but Cyril's welfare. Cyril
was the pivot of the house; every desire ended somewhere in Cyril. The
shop existed now solely for him. And those houses that Samuel bought by
private treaty, or with a shamefaced air at auctions--somehow they were
aimed at Cyril. Samuel and Constance had ceased to be self-justifying
beings; they never thought of themselves save as the parents of Cyril.

They realized this by no means fully. Had they been accused of
monomania they would have smiled the smile of people confident in their
commonsense and their mental balance. Nevertheless, they were
monomaniacs. Instinctively they concealed the fact as much as possible;
They never admitted it even to themselves. Samuel, indeed, would often
say: "That child is not everybody. That child must be kept in his
place." Constance was always teaching him consideration for his father
as the most important person in the household. Samuel was always
teaching him consideration for his mother as the most important person
in the household. Nothing was left undone to convince him that he was a
cipher, a nonentity, who ought to be very glad to be alive. But he knew
all about his importance. He knew that the entire town was his. He knew
that his parents were deceiving themselves. Even when he was punished
he well knew that it was because he was so important. He never imparted
any portion of this knowledge to his parents; a primeval wisdom
prompted him to retain it strictly in his own bosom.

He was four and a half years old, dark, like his father; handsome like
his aunt, and tall for his age; not one of his features resembled a
feature of his mother's, but sometimes he 'had her look.' From the
capricious production of inarticulate sounds, and then a few
monosyllables that described concrete things and obvious desires, he
had gradually acquired an astonishing idiomatic command over the most
difficult of Teutonic languages; there was nothing that he could not
say. He could walk and run, was full of exact knowledge about God, and
entertained no doubt concerning the special partiality of a minor deity
called Jesus towards himself.

Now, this party was his mother's invention and scheme. His father,
after flouting it, had said that if it was to be done at all, it should
be done well, and had brought to the doing all his organizing skill.
Cyril had accepted it at first--merely accepted it; but, as the day
approached and the preparations increased in magnitude, he had come to
look on it with favour, then with enthusiasm. His father having taken
him to Daniel Povey's opposite, to choose cakes, he had shown, by his
solemn and fastidious waverings, how seriously he regarded the affair.

Of course it had to occur on a Thursday afternoon. The season was
summer, suitable for pale and fragile toilettes. And the eight children
who sat round Aunt Harriet's great table glittered like the sun. Not
Constance's specially provided napkins could hide that wealth and
profusion of white lace and stitchery. Never in after-life are the
genteel children of the Five Towns so richly clad as at the age of four
or five years. Weeks of labour, thousands of cubic feet of gas, whole
nights stolen from repose, eyesight, and general health, will disappear
into the manufacture of a single frock that accidental jam may ruin in
ten seconds. Thus it was in those old days; and thus it is to-day.
Cyril's guests ranged in years from four to six; they were chiefly
older than their host; this was a pity, it impaired his importance; but
up to four years a child's sense of propriety, even of common decency,
is altogether too unreliable for a respectable party.

Round about the outskirts of the table were the elders, ladies the
majority; they also in their best, for they had to meet each other.
Constance displayed a new dress, of crimson silk; after having mourned
for her mother she had definitely abandoned the black which, by reason
of her duties in the shop, she had constantly worn from the age of
sixteen to within a few months of Cyril's birth; she never went into
the shop now, except casually, on brief visits of inspection. She was
still fat; the destroyer of her figure sat at the head of the table.
Samuel kept close to her; he was the only male, until Mr. Critchlow
astonishingly arrived; among the company Mr. Critchlow had a
grand-niece. Samuel, if not in his best, was certainly not in his
everyday suit. With his large frilled shirt-front, and small black tie,
and his little black beard and dark face over that, he looked very
nervous and self-conscious. He had not the habit of entertaining. Nor
had Constance; but her benevolence ever bubbling up to the calm surface
of her personality made self-consciousness impossible for her. Miss
Insull was also present, in shop-black, 'to help.' Lastly there was
Amy, now as the years passed slowly assuming the character of a
faithful retainer, though she was only twenty-three. An ugly, abrupt,
downright girl, with convenient notions of pleasure! For she would rise
early and retire late in order to contrive an hour to go out with
Master Cyril; and to be allowed to put Master Cyril to bed was, really,
her highest bliss.

All these elders were continually inserting arms into the fringe of
fluffy children that surrounded the heaped table; removing dangerous
spoons out of cups into saucers, replacing plates, passing cakes,
spreading jam, whispering consolations, explanations, and sage counsel.
Mr. Critchlow, snow-white now but unbent, remarked that there was 'a
pretty cackle,' and he sniffed. Although the window was slightly open,
the air was heavy with the natural human odour which young children
transpire. More than one mother, pressing her nose into a lacy mass, to
whisper, inhaled that pleasant perfume with a voluptuous thrill.

Cyril, while attending steadily to the demands of his body, was in a
mood which approached the ideal. Proud and radiant, he combined
urbanity with a certain fine condescension. His bright eyes, and his
manner of scraping up jam with a spoon, said: "I am the king of this
party. This party is solely in my honour. I know that. We all know it.
Still, I will pretend that we are equals, you and I." He talked about
his picture-books to a young woman on his right named Jennie, aged
four, pale, pretty, the belle in fact, and Mr. Critchlow's grand-niece.
The boy's attractiveness was indisputable; he could put on quite an
aristocratic air. It was the most delicious sight to see them, Cyril
and Jennie, so soft and delicate, so infantile on their piles of
cushions and books, with their white socks and black shoes dangling far
distant from the carpet; and yet so old, so self-contained! And they
were merely an epitome of the whole table. The whole table was bathed
in the charm and mystery of young years, of helpless fragility, gentle
forms, timid elegance, unshamed instincts, and waking souls. Constance
and Samuel were very satisfied; full of praise for other people's
children, but with the reserve that of course Cyril was hors concours.
They both really did believe, at that moment, that Cyril was, in some
subtle way which they felt but could not define, superior to all other
infants.

Some one, some officious relative of a visitor, began to pass a certain
cake which had brown walls, a roof of cocoa-nut icing, and a yellow
body studded with crimson globules. Not a conspicuously gorgeous cake,
not a cake to which a catholic child would be likely to attach
particular importance; a good, average cake! Who could have guessed
that it stood, in Cyril's esteem, as the cake of cakes? He had insisted
on his father buying it at Cousin Daniel's, and perhaps Samuel ought to
have divined that for Cyril that cake was the gleam that an ardent
spirit would follow through the wilderness. Samuel, however, was not a
careful observer, and seriously lacked imagination. Constance knew only
that Cyril had mentioned the cake once or twice. Now by the hazard of
destiny that cake found much favour, helped into popularity as it was
by the blundering officious relative who, not dreaming what volcano she
was treading on, urged its merits with simpering enthusiasm. One boy
took two slices, a slice in each hand; he happened to be the visitor of
whom the cake-distributor was a relative, and she protested; she
expressed the shock she suffered. Whereupon both Constance and Samuel
sprang forward and swore with angelic smiles that nothing could be more
perfect than the propriety of that dear little fellow taking two slices
of that cake. It was this hullaballoo that drew Cyril's attention to
the evanescence of the cake of cakes. His face at once changed from
calm pride to a dreadful anxiety. His eyes bulged out. His tiny mouth
grew and grew, like a mouth in a nightmare. He was no longer human; he
was a cake-eating tiger being balked of his prey. Nobody noticed him.
The officious fool of a woman persuaded Jennie to take the last slice
of the cake, which was quite a thin slice.

Then every one simultaneously noticed Cyril, for he gave a yell. It was
not the cry of a despairing soul who sees his beautiful iridescent
dream shattered at his feet; it was the cry of the strong, masterful
spirit, furious. He turned upon Jennie, sobbing, and snatched at her
cake. Unaccustomed to such behaviour from hosts, and being besides a
haughty put-you-in-your-place beauty of the future, Jennie defended her
cake. After all, it was not she who had taken two slices at once. Cyril
hit her in the eye, and then crammed most of the slice of cake into his
enormous mouth. He could not swallow it, nor even masticate it, for his
throat was rigid and tight. So the cake projected from his red lips,
and big tears watered it. The most awful mess you can conceive! Jennie
wept loudly, and one or two others joined her in sympathy, but the rest
went on eating tranquilly, unmoved by the horror which transfixed their
elders.

A host to snatch food from a guest! A host to strike a guest! A
gentleman to strike a lady!

Constance whipped up Cyril from his chair and flew with him to his own
room (once Samuel's), where she smacked him on the arm and told him he
was a very, very naughty boy and that she didn't know what his father
would say. She took the food out of his disgusting mouth--or as much of
it as she could get at--and then she left him, on the bed. Miss Jennie
was still in tears when, blushing scarlet and trying to smile,
Constance returned to the drawing-room. Jennie would not be appeased.
Happily Jennie's mother (being about to present Jennie with a little
brother--she hoped) was not present. Miss Insull had promised to see
Jennie home, and it was decided that she should go. Mr. Critchlow, in
high sardonic spirits, said that he would go too; the three departed
together, heavily charged with Constance's love and apologies. Then all
pretended, and said loudly, that what had happened was naught, that
such things were always happening at children's parties. And visitors'
relatives asseverated that Cyril was a perfect darling and that really
Mrs. Povey must not ...

But the attempt to keep up appearance was a failure.

The Methuselah of visitors, a gaping girl of nearly eight years, walked
across the room to where Constance was standing, and said in a loud,
confidential, fatuous voice:

"Cyril HAS been a rude boy, hasn't he, Mrs. Povey?"

The clumsiness of children is sometimes tragic.

Later, there was a trickling stream of fluffy bundles down the crooked
stairs and through the parlour and so out into King Street. And
Constance received many compliments and sundry appeals that darling
Cyril should be forgiven.

"I thought you said that boy was in his bedroom," said Samuel to
Constance, coming into the parlour when the last guest had gone. Each
avoided the other's eyes.

"Yes, isn't he?"

"No."

"The little jockey!" ("Jockey," an essay in the playful, towards making
light of the jockey's sin!) "I expect he's been in search of Amy."

She went to the top of the kitchen stairs and called out: "Amy, is
Master Cyril down there?"

"Master Cyril? No, mum. But he was in the parlour a bit ago, after the
first and second lot had gone. I told him to go upstairs and be a good
boy."

Not for a few moments did the suspicion enter the minds of Samuel and
Constance that Cyril might be missing, that the house might not contain
Cyril. But having once entered, the suspicion became a certainty. Amy,
cross-examined, burst into sudden tears, admitting that the side-door
might have been open when, having sped 'the second lot,' she criminally
left Cyril alone in the parlour in order to descend for an instant to
her kitchen. Dusk was gathering. Amy saw the defenceless innocent
wandering about all night in the deserted streets of a great city. A
similar vision with precise details of canals, tramcar-wheels, and
cellar-flaps, disturbed Constance. Samuel said that anyhow he could not
have got far, that some one was bound to remark and recognize him, and
restore him. "Yes, of course," thought sensible Constance. "But
supposing--"

They all three searched the entire house again. Then, in the
drawing-room (which was in a sad condition of anticlimax) Amy exclaimed:

"Eh, master! There's town-crier crossing the Square. Hadn't ye better
have him cried?"

"Run out and stop him," Constance commanded.

And Amy flew.

Samuel and the aged town-crier parleyed at the side door, the women in
the background.

"I canna' cry him without my bell," drawled the crier, stroking his
shabby uniform. "My bell's at wum (home). I mun go and fetch my bell.
Yo' write it down on a bit o' paper for me so as I can read it, and
I'll foot off for my bell. Folk wouldna' listen to me if I hadna'
gotten my bell."

Thus was Cyril cried.

"Amy," said Constance, when she and the girl were alone, "there's no
use in you standing blubbering there. Get to work and clear up that
drawing-room, do! The child is sure to be found soon. Your master's
gone out, too."

Brave words! Constance aided in the drawing-room and kitchen. Theirs
was the woman's lot in a great crisis. Plates have always to be washed.

Very shortly afterwards, Samuel Povey came into the kitchen by the
underground passage which led past the two cellars to the yard and to
Brougham Street. He was carrying in his arms an obscene black mass.
This mass was Cyril, once white.

Constance screamed. She was at liberty to give way to her feelings,
because Amy happened to be upstairs.

"Stand away!" cried Mr. Povey. "He isn't fit to touch."

And Mr. Povey made as if to pass directly onward, ignoring the mother.

"Wherever did you find him?"

"I found him in the far cellar," said Mr. Povey, compelled to stop,
after all. "He was down there with me yesterday, and it just occurred
to me that he might have gone there again."

"What! All in the dark?"

"He'd lighted a candle, if you please! I'd left a candle-stick and a
box of matches handy because I hadn't finished that shelving."

"Well!" Constance murmured. "I can't think how ever he dared go there
all alone!"

"Can't you?" said Mr. Povey, cynically. "I can. He simply did it to
frighten us."

"Oh, Cyril!" Constance admonished the child. "Cyril!"

The child showed no emotion. His face was an enigma. It might have
hidden sullenness or mere callous indifference, or a perfect
unconsciousness of sin.

"Give him to me," said Constance.

"I'll look after him this evening," said Samuel, grimly.

"But you can't wash him," said Constance, her relief yielding to
apprehension.

"Why not?" demanded Mr. Povey. And he moved off.

"But Sam--"

"I'll look after him, I tell you!" Mr. Povey repeated, threateningly.

"But what are you going to do?" Constance asked with fear.

"Well," said Mr. Povey, "has this sort of thing got to be dealt with,
or hasn't it?" He departed upstairs.

Constance overtook him at the door of Cyril's bedroom.

Mr. Povey did not wait for her to speak. His eyes were blazing.

"See here!" he admonished her cruelly. "You get away downstairs,
mother!"

And he disappeared into the bedroom with his vile and helpless victim.

A moment later he popped his head out of the door. Constance was
disobeying him. He stepped into the passage and shut the door so that
Cyril should not hear.

"Now please do as I tell you," he hissed at his wife. "Don't let's have
a scene, please."

She descended, slowly, weeping. And Mr. Povey retired again to the
place of execution.

Amy nearly fell on the top of Constance with a final tray of things
from the drawing-room. And Constance had to tell the girl that Cyril
was found. Somehow she could not resist the instinct to tell her also
that the master had the affair in hand. Amy then wept.

After about an hour Mr. Povey at last reappeared. Constance was trying
to count silver teaspoons in the parlour.

"He's in bed now," said Mr. Povey, with a magnificent attempt to be
nonchalant. "You mustn't go near him."

"But have you washed him?" Constance whimpered.

"I've washed him," replied the astonishing Mr. Povey.

"What have you done to him?"

"I've punished him, of course," said Mr. Povey, like a god who is above
human weaknesses. "What did you expect me to do? Someone had to do it."

Constance wiped her eyes with the edge of the white apron which she was
wearing over her new silk dress. She surrendered; she accepted the
situation; she made the best of it. And all the evening was spent in
dismally and horribly pretending that their hearts were beating as one.
Mr. Povey's elaborate, cheery kindliness was extremely painful.

They went to bed, and in their bedroom Constance, as she stood close to
Samuel, suddenly dropped the pretence, and with eyes and voice of
anguish said:

"You must let me look at him."

They faced each other. For a brief instant Cyril did not exist for
Constance. Samuel alone obsessed her, and yet Samuel seemed a strange,
unknown man. It was in Constance's life one of those crises when the
human soul seems to be on the very brink of mysterious and
disconcerting cognitions, and then, the wave recedes as inexplicably as
it surged up.

"Why, of course!" said Mr. Povey, turning away lightly, as though to
imply that she was making tragedies out of nothing.

She gave an involuntary gesture of almost childish relief.

Cyril slept calmly. It was a triumph for Mr. Povey.

Constance could not sleep. As she lay darkly awake by her husband, her
secret being seemed to be a-quiver with emotion. Not exactly sorrow;
not exactly joy; an emotion more elemental than these! A sensation of
the intensity of her life in that hour; troubling, anxious, yet not
sad! She said that Samuel was quite right, quite right. And then she
said that the poor little thing wasn't yet five years old, and that it
was monstrous. The two had to be reconciled. And they never could be
reconciled. Always she would be between them, to reconcile them, and to
be crushed by their impact. Always she would have to bear the burden of
both of them. There could be no ease for her, no surcease from a
tremendous preoccupation and responsibility. She could not change
Samuel; besides, he was right! And though Cyril was not yet five, she
felt that she could not change Cyril either. He was just as
unchangeable as a growing plant. The thought of her mother and Sophia
did not present itself to her; she felt, however, somewhat as Mrs.
Baines had felt on historic occasions; but, being more softly kind,
younger, and less chafed by destiny, she was conscious of no
bitterness, conscious rather of a solemn blessedness.




CHAPTER IV

CRIME

I


"Now, Master Cyril," Amy protested, "will you leave that fire alone?
It's not you that can mend my fires."

A boy of nine, great and heavy for his years, with a full face and very
short hair, bent over the smoking grate. It was about five minutes to
eight on a chilly morning after Easter. Amy, hastily clad in blue, with
a rough brown apron, was setting the breakfast table. The boy turned
his head, still bending.

"Shut up, Ame," he replied, smiling. Life being short, he usually
called her Ame when they were alone together. "Or I'll catch you one in
the eye with the poker."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Amy. "And you know your
mother told you to wash your feet this morning, and you haven't done.
Fine clothes is all very well, but--"

"Who says I haven't washed my feet?" asked Cyril, guiltily.

Amy's mention of fine clothes referred to the fact that he was that
morning wearing his Sunday suit for the first time on a week-day.

"I say you haven't," said Amy.

She was more than three times his age still, but they had been treating
each other as intellectual equals for years.

"And how do you know?" asked Cyril, tired of the fire.

"I know," said Amy.

"Well, you just don't, then!" said Cyril. "And what about YOUR feet? I
should be sorry to see your feet, Ame."

Amy was excusably annoyed. She tossed her head. "My feet are as clean
as yours any day," she said. "And I shall tell your mother."

But he would not leave her feet alone, and there ensued one of those
endless monotonous altercations on a single theme which occur so often
between intellectual equals when one is a young son of the house and
the other an established servant who adores him. Refined minds would
have found the talk disgusting, but the sentiment of disgust seemed to
be unknown to either of the wranglers. At last, when Amy by superior
tactics had cornered him, Cyril said suddenly:

"Oh, go to hell!"

Amy banged down the spoon for the bacon gravy. "Now I shall tell your
mother. Mark my words, this time I SHALL tell your mother."

Cyril felt that in truth he had gone rather far. He was perfectly sure
that Amy would not tell his mother. And yet, supposing that by some
freak of her nature she did! The consequences would be unutterable; the
consequences would more than extinguish his private glory in the use of
such a dashing word. So he laughed, a rather silly, giggling laugh, to
reassure himself.

"You daren't," he said.

"Daren't I?" she said grimly. "You'll see. _I_ don't know where you
learn! It fair beats me. But it isn't Amy Bates as is going to be sworn
at. As soon as ever your mother comes into this room!"

The door at the foot of the stairs creaked and Constance came into the
room. She was wearing a dress of majenta merino, and a gold chain
descended from her neck over her rich bosom. She had scarcely aged in
five years. It would have been surprising if she had altered much, for
the years had passed over her head at an incredible rate. To her it
appeared only a few months since Cyril's first and last party.

"Are you all ready, my pet? Let me look at you." Constance greeted the
boy with her usual bright, soft energy.

Cyril glanced at Amy, who averted her head, putting spoons into three
saucers.

"Yes, mother," he replied in a new voice.

"Did you do what I told you?"

"Yes, mother," he said simply.

"That's right."

Amy made a faint noise with her lips, and departed.

He was saved once more. He said to himself that never again would he
permit his soul to be disturbed by any threat of old Ame's.

Constance's hand descended into her pocket and drew out a hard paper
packet, which she clapped on to her son's head.

"Oh, mother!" He pretended that she had hurt him, and then he opened
the packet. It contained Congleton butterscotch, reputed a harmless
sweetmeat.

"Good!" he cried, "good! Oh! Thanks, mother."

"Now don't begin eating them at once."

"Just one, mother."

"No! And how often have I told you to keep your feet off that fender.
See how it's bent. And it's nobody but you."

"Sorry."

"It's no use being sorry if you persist in doing it."

"Oh, mother, I had such a funny dream!"

They chatted until Amy came up the stairs with tea and bacon. The fire
had developed from black to clear red.

"Run and tell father that breakfast is ready."

After a little delay a spectacled man of fifty, short and stoutish,
with grey hair and a small beard half grey and half black, entered from
the shop. Samuel had certainly very much aged, especially in his
gestures, which, however, were still quick. He sat down at once--his
wife and son were already seated--and served the bacon with the rapid
assurance of one who needs not to inquire about tastes and appetites.
Not a word was said, except a brief grace by Samuel. But there was no
restraint. Samuel had a mild, benignant air. Constance's eyes were a
fountain of cheerfulness. The boy sat between them and ate steadily.

Mysterious creature, this child, mysteriously growing and growing in
the house! To his mother he was a delicious joy at all times save when
he disobeyed his father. But now for quite a considerable period there
had been no serious collision. The boy seemed to be acquiring virtue as
well as sense. And really he was charming. So big, truly enormous
(every one remarked on it), and yet graceful, lithe, with a smile that
could ravish. And he was distinguished in his bearing. Without
depreciating Samuel in her faithful heart, Constance saw plainly the
singular differences between Samuel and the boy. Save that he was dark,
and that his father's 'dangerous look' came into those childish eyes
occasionally, Cyril had now scarcely any obvious resemblance to his
father. He was a Baines. This naturally deepened Constance's family
pride. Yes, he was mysterious to Constance, though probably not more so
than any other boy to any other parent. He was equally mysterious to
Samuel, but otherwise Mr. Povey had learned to regard him in the light
of a parcel which he was always attempting to wrap up in a piece of
paper imperceptibly too small. When he successfully covered the parcel
at one corner it burst out at another, and this went on for ever, and
he could never get the string on. Nevertheless, Mr. Povey had unabated
confidence in his skill as a parcel-wrapper. The boy was strangely
subtle at times, but then at times he was astoundingly ingenuous, and
then his dodges would not deceive the dullest. Mr. Povey knew himself
more than a match for his son. He was proud of him because he regarded
him as not an ordinary boy; he took it as a matter of course that his
boy should not be an ordinary boy. He never, or very rarely, praised
Cyril. Cyril thought of his father as a man who, in response to any
request, always began by answering with a thoughtful, serious 'No, I'm
afraid not.'

"So you haven't lost your appetite!" his mother commented.

Cyril grinned. "Did you expect me to, mother?"

"Let me see," said Samuel, as if vaguely recalling an unimportant fact.
"It's to-day you begin to go to school, isn't it?"

"I wish father wouldn't be such a chump!" Cyril reflected. And,
considering that this commencement of school (real school, not a girls'
school, as once) had been the chief topic in the house for days, weeks;
considering that it now occupied and filled all hearts, Cyril's
reflection was excusable.

"Now, there's one thing you must always remember, my boy," said Mr.
Povey. "Promptness. Never be late either in going to school or in
coming home. And in order that you may have no excuse"--Mr. Povey
pressed on the word 'excuse' as though condemning Cyril in
advance--"here's something for you!" He said the last words quickly,
with a sort of modest shame.

It was a silver watch and chain.

Cyril was staggered. So also was Constance, for Mr. Povey could keep
his own counsel. At long intervals he would prove, thus, that he was a
mighty soul, capable of sublime deeds. The watch was the unique
flowering of Mr. Povey's profound but harsh affection. It lay on the
table like a miracle. This day was a great day, a supremely exciting
day in Cyril's history, and not less so in the history of his parents.

The watch killed its owner's appetite dead.

Routine was ignored that morning. Father did not go back into the shop.
At length the moment came when father put on his hat and overcoat to
take Cyril, and Cyril's watch and satchel, to the Endowed School, which
had quarters in the Wedgwood Institution close by. A solemn departure,
and Cyril could not pretend by his demeanour that it was not! Constance
desired to kiss him, but refrained. He would not have liked it. She
watched them from the window. Cyril was nearly as tall as his father;
that is to say, not nearly as tall, but creeping up his father's
shoulder. She felt that the eyes of the town must be on the pair. She
was very happy, and nervous.

At dinner-time a triumph seemed probable, and at tea-time, when Cyril
came home under a mortar-board hat and with a satchel full of new books
and a head full of new ideas, the triumph was actually and definitely
achieved. He had been put into the third form, and he announced that he
should soon be at the top of it. He was enchanted with the life of
school; he liked the other boys, and it appeared that the other boys
liked him. The fact was that, with a new silver watch and a packet of
sweets, he had begun his new career in the most advantageous
circumstances. Moreover, he possessed qualities which ensure success at
school. He was big, and easy, with a captivating smile and a marked
aptitude to learn those things which boys insist on teaching to their
new comrades. He had muscle, a brave demeanour, and no conceit.

During tea the parlour began, to accustom itself to a new vocabulary,
containing such words as 'fellows,' 'kept in,'m' lines,' 'rot,'
'recess,' 'jolly.' To some of these words the parents, especially Mr.
Povey, had an instinct to object, but they could not object, somehow
they did not seem to get an opportunity to object; they were carried
away on the torrent, and after all, their excitement and pleasure in
the exceeding romantic novelty of existence were just as intense and
nearly as ingenuous as their son's.

He demonstrated that unless he was allowed to stay up later than
aforetime he would not be able to do his home-work, and hence would not
keep that place in the school to which his talents entitled him. Mr.
Povey suggested, but only with half a heart, that he should get up
earlier in the morning. The proposal fell flat. Everybody knew and
admitted that nothing save the scorpions of absolute necessity, or a
tremendous occasion such as that particular morning's, would drive
Cyril from his bed until the smell of bacon rose to him from the
kitchen. The parlour table was consecrated to his lessons. It became
generally known that 'Cyril was doing his lessons.' His father scanned
the new text-books while Cyril condescendingly explained to him that
all others were superseded and worthless. His father contrived to
maintain an air of preserving his mental equilibrium, but not his
mother; she gave it up, she who till that day had under his father's
direction taught him nearly all that he knew, and Cyril passed above
her into regions of knowledge where she made no pretence of being able
to follow him.

When the lessons were done, and Cyril had wiped his fingers on bits of
blotting-paper, and his father had expressed qualified approval and had
gone into the shop, Cyril said to his mother, with that delicious
hesitation which overtook him sometimes:

"Mother."

"Well, my pet."

"I want you to do something for me."

"Well, what is it?"

"No, you must promise."

"I'll do it if I can."

"But you CAN. It isn't doing. It's NOT doing."

"Come, Cyril, out with it."

"I don't want you to come in and look at me after I'm asleep any more."

"But, you silly boy, what difference can it make to you if you're
asleep?"

"I don't want you to. It's like as if I was a baby. You'll have to stop
doing it some day, and so you may as well stop now."

It was thus that he meant to turn his back on his youth.

She smiled. She was incomprehensibly happy. She continued to smile.

"Now you'll promise, won't you, mother?"

She rapped him on the head with her thimble, lovingly. He took the
gesture for consent.

"You are a baby," she murmured.

"Now I shall trust you," he said, ignoring this. "Say 'honour bright.'"

"Honour bright."

With what a long caress her eyes followed him, as he went up to bed on
his great sturdy legs! She was thankful that school had not
contaminated her adorable innocent. If she could have been Ame for
twenty-four hours, she perhaps would not have hesitated to put butter
into his mouth lest it should melt.

Mr. Povey and Constance talked late and low that night. They could
neither of them sleep; they had little desire to sleep. Constance's
face said to her husband: "I've always stuck up for that boy, in spite
of your severities, and you see how right I was!" And Mr. Povey's face
said: "You see now the brilliant success of my system. You see how my
educational theories have justified themselves. Never been to a school
before, except that wretched little dame's school, and he goes
practically straight to the top of the third form--at nine years of
age!" They discussed his future. There could be no sign of lunacy in
discussing his future up to a certain point, but each felt that to
discuss the ultimate career of a child nine years old would not be the
act of a sensible parent; only foolish parents would be so fond. Yet
each was dying to discuss his ultimate career. Constance yielded first
to the temptation, as became her. Mr. Povey scoffed, and then, to
humour Constance, yielded also. The matter was soon fairly on the
carpet. Constance was relieved to find that Mr. Povey had no thought
whatever of putting Cyril in the shop. No; Mr. Povey did not desire to
chop wood with a razor. Their son must and would ascend. Doctor!
Solicitor! Barrister! Not barrister--barrister was fantastic. When they
had argued for about half an hour Mr. Povey intimated suddenly that the
conversation was unworthy of their practical commonsense, and went to
sleep.

II

Nobody really thought that this almost ideal condition of things would
persist: an enterprise commenced in such glory must surely traverse
periods of difficulty and even of temporary disaster. But no! Cyril
seemed to be made specially for school. Before Mr. Povey and Constance
had quite accustomed themselves to being the parents of 'a great lad,'
before Cyril had broken the glass of his miraculous watch more than
once, the summer term had come to an end and there arrived the
excitations of the prize-giving, as it was called; for at that epoch
the smaller schools had not found the effrontery to dub the breaking-up
ceremony a 'speech-day.' This prize-giving furnished a particular joy
to Mr. and Mrs. Povey. Although the prizes were notoriously few in
number--partly to add to their significance, and partly to diminish
their cost (the foundation was poor)--Cyril won a prize, a box of
geometrical instruments of precision; also he reached the top of his
form, and was marked for promotion to the formidable Fourth. Samuel and
Constance were bidden to the large hall of the Wedgwood Institution of
a summer afternoon, and they saw the whole Board of Governors raised on
a rostrum, and in the middle, in front of what he referred to, in his
aristocratic London accent, as 'a beggarly array of rewards,' the aged
and celebrated Sir Thomas Wilbraham Wilbraham, ex-M.P., last
respectable member of his ancient line. And Sir Thomas gave the box of
instruments to Cyril, and shook hands with him. And everybody was very
well dressed. Samuel, who had never attended anything but a National
School, recalled the simple rigours of his own boyhood, and swelled.
For certainly, of all the parents present, he was among the richest.
When, in the informal promiscuities which followed the prize
distribution, Cyril joined his father and mother, sheepishly, they duly
did their best to make light of his achievements, and failed. The walls
of the hall were covered with specimens of the pupils' skill, and the
headmaster was observed to direct the attention of the mighty to a map
done by Cyril. Of course it was a map of Ireland, Ireland being the map
chosen by every map-drawing schoolboy who is free to choose. For a
third-form boy it was considered a masterpiece. In the shading of
mountains Cyril was already a prodigy. Never, it was said, had the
Macgillycuddy Reeks been indicated by a member of that school with a
more amazing subtle refinement than by the young Povey. From a proper
pride in themselves, from a proper fear lest they should be secretly
accused of ostentation by other parents, Samuel and Constance did not
go near that map. For the rest, they had lived with it for weeks, and
Samuel (who, after all, was determined not to be dirt under his son's
feet) had scratched a blot from it with a completeness that defied
inquisitive examination.

The fame of this map, added to the box of compasses and Cyril's own
desire, pointed to an artistic career. Cyril had always drawn and
daubed, and the drawing-master of the Endowed School, who was also
headmaster of the Art School, had suggested that the youth should
attend the Art School one night a week. Samuel, however, would not
listen to the idea; Cyril was too young. It is true that Cyril was too
young, but Samuel's real objection was to Cyril's going out alone in
the evening. On that he was adamant.

The Governors had recently made the discovery that a sports department
was necessary to a good school, and had rented a field for cricket,
football, and rounders up at Bleakridge, an innovation which
demonstrated that the town was moving with the rapid times. In June
this field was open after school hours till eight p.m. as well as on
Saturdays. The Squire learnt that Cyril had a talent for cricket, and
Cyril wished to practise in the evenings, and was quite ready to bind
himself with Bible oaths to rise at no matter what hour in the morning
for the purpose of home lessons. He scarcely expected his father to say
'Yes' as his father never did say 'Yes,' but he was obliged to ask.
Samuel nonplussed him by replying that on fine evenings, when he could
spare time from the shop, he would go up to Bleakridge with his son.
Cyril did not like this in the least. Still, it might be tried. One
evening they went, actually, in the new steam-car which had superseded
the old horse-cars, and which travelled all the way to Longshaw, a
place that Cyril had only heard of. Samuel talked of the games played
in the Five Towns in his day, of the Titanic sport of prison-bars, when
the team of one 'bank' went forth to the challenge of another 'bank,'
preceded by a drum-and-fife band, and when, in the heat of the chase, a
man might jump into the canal to escape his pursuer; Samuel had never
played at cricket.

Samuel, with a very young grandson of Fan (deceased), sat in dignity on
the grass and watched his cricketer for an hour and a half (while
Constance kept an eye on the shop and superintended its closing).
Samuel then conducted Cyril home again. Two days later the father of
his own accord offered to repeat the experience. Cyril refused.
Disagreeable insinuations that he was a baby in arms had been made at
school in the meantime.

Nevertheless, in other directions Cyril sometimes surprisingly
conquered. For instance, he came home one day with the information that
a dog that was not a bull-terrier was not worth calling a dog. Fan's
grandson had been carried off in earliest prime by a chicken-bone that
had pierced his vitals, and Cyril did indeed persuade his father to buy
a bull-terrier. The animal was a superlative of forbidding ugliness,
but father and son vied with each other in stern critical praise of his
surpassing beauty, and Constance, from good nature, joined in the
pretence. He was called Lion, and the shop, after one or two untoward
episodes, was absolutely closed to him.

But the most striking of Cyril's successes had to do with the question
of the annual holiday. He spoke of the sea soon after becoming a
schoolboy. It appeared that his complete ignorance of the sea
prejudicially affected him at school. Further, he had always loved the
sea; he had drawn hundreds of three-masted ships with studding-sails
set, and knew the difference between a brig and a brigantine. When he
first said: "I say, mother, why can't we go to Llandudno instead of
Buxton this year?" his mother thought he was out of his senses. For the
idea of going to any place other than Buxton was inconceivable! Had
they not always been to Buxton? What would their landlady say? How
could they ever look her in the face again? Besides ... well...! They
went to Llandudno, rather scared, and hardly knowing how the change had
come about. But they went. And it was the force of Cyril's will, Cyril
the theoretic cypher, that took them.

III

The removal of the Endowed School to more commodious premises in the
shape of Shawport Hall, an ancient mansion with fifty rooms and five
acres of land round about it, was not a change that quite pleased
Samuel or Constance. They admitted the hygienic advantages, but
Shawport Hall was three-quarters of a mile distant from St. Luke's
Square--in the hollow that separates Bursley from its suburb of
Hillport; whereas the Wedgwood Institution was scarcely a minute away.
It was as if Cyril, when he set off to Shawport Hall of a morning,
passed out of their sphere of influence. He was leagues off, doing they
knew not what. Further, his dinner-hour was cut short by the extra time
needed for the journey to and fro, and he arrived late for tea; it may
be said that he often arrived very late for tea; the whole machinery of
the meal was disturbed. These matters seemed to Samuel and Constance to
be of tremendous import, seemed to threaten the very foundations of
existence. Then they grew accustomed to the new order, and wondered
sometimes, when they passed the Wedgwood Institution and the
insalubrious Cock Yard--once sole playground of the boys--that the
school could ever have 'managed' in the narrow quarters once allotted
to it.

Cyril, though constantly successful at school, a rising man, an
infallible bringer-home of excellent reports, and a regular taker of
prizes, became gradually less satisfactory in the house. He was 'kept
in' occasionally, and although his father pretended to hold that to be
kept in was to slur the honour of a spotless family, Cyril continued to
be kept in; a hardened sinner, lost to shame. But this was not the
worst. The worst undoubtedly was that Cyril was 'getting rough.' No
definite accusation could be laid against him; the offence was general,
vague, everlasting; it was in all he did and said, in every gesture and
movement. He shouted, whistled, sang, stamped, stumbled, lunged. He
omitted such empty rites as saying 'Yes' or 'Please,' and wiping his
nose. He replied gruffly and nonchalantly to polite questions, or he
didn't reply until the questions were repeated, and even then with a
'lost' air that was not genuine. His shoelaces were a sad sight, and
his finger-nails no sight at all for a decent woman; his hair was as
rough as his conduct; hardly at the pistol's point could he be forced
to put oil on it. In brief, he was no longer the nice boy that he used
to be. He had unmistakably deteriorated. Grievous! But what can you
expect when YOUR boy is obliged, month after month and year after year,
to associate with other boys? After all, he was a GOOD boy, said
Constance, often to herself and now and then to Samuel. For Constance,
his charm was eternally renewed. His smile, his frequent ingenuousness,
his funny self-conscious gesture when he wanted to 'get round'
her--these characteristics remained; and his pure heart remained; she
could read that in his eyes. Samuel was inimical to his tastes for
sports and his triumphs therein. But Constance had pride in all that.
She liked to feel him and to gaze at him, and to smell that faint,
uncleanly odour of sweat that hung in his clothes.

In this condition he reached the advanced age of thirteen. And his
parents, who despite their notion of themselves as wide-awake parents
were a simple pair, never suspected that his heart, conceived to be
still pure, had become a crawling, horrible mass of corruption.

One day the head-master called at the shop. Now, to see a head-master
walking about the town during school-hours is a startling spectacle,
and is apt to give you the same uncanny sensation as when, alone in a
room, you think you see something move which ought not to move. Mr.
Povey was startled. Mr. Povey had a thumping within his breast as he
rubbed his hands and drew the head-master to the private corner where
his desk was. "What can I do for you to-day?" he almost said to the
head-master. But he did not say it. The boot was emphatically not on
that leg. The head-master talked to Mr. Povey, in tones carefully low,
for about a quarter of an hour, and then he closed the interview. Mr.
Povey escorted him across the shop, and the head-master said with
ordinary loudness: "Of course it's nothing. But my experience is that
it's just as well to be on the safe side, and I thought I'd tell you.
Forewarned is forearmed. I have other parents to see." They shook hands
at the door. Then Mr. Povey stepped out on to the pavement and, in
front of the whole Square, detained an unwilling head-master for quite
another minute.

His face was deeply flushed as he returned into the shop. The
assistants bent closer over their work. He did not instantly rush into
the parlour and communicate with Constance. He had dropped into a way
of conducting many operations by his own unaided brain. His confidence
in his skill had increased with years. Further, at the back of his
mind, there had established itself a vision of Mr. Povey as the seat of
government and of Constance and Cyril as a sort of permanent
opposition. He would not have admitted that he saw such a vision, for
he was utterly loyal to his wife; but it was there. This unconfessed
vision was one of several causes which had contributed to intensify his
inherent tendency towards Machiavellianism and secretiveness. He said
nothing to Constance, nothing to Cyril; but, happening to encounter Amy
in the showroom, he was inspired to interrogate her sharply. The result
was that they descended to the cellar together, Amy weeping. Amy was
commanded to hold her tongue. And as she went in mortal fear of Mr.
Povey she did hold her tongue.

Nothing occurred for several days. And then one morning--it was
Constance's birthday: children are nearly always horribly unlucky in
their choice of days for sin--Mr. Povey, having executed mysterious
movements in the shop after Cyril's departure to school, jammed his hat
on his head and ran forth in pursuit of Cyril, whom he intercepted with
two other boys, at the corner of Oldcastle Street and Acre Passage.

Cyril stood as if turned into salt. "Come back home!" said Mr. Povey,
grimly; and for the sake of the other boys: "Please."

"But I shall be late for school, father," Cyril weakly urged.

"Never mind."

They passed through the shop together, causing a terrific concealed
emotion, and then they did violence to Constance by appearing in the
parlour. Constance was engaged in cutting straws and ribbons to make a
straw-frame for a water-colour drawing of a moss-rose which her
pure-hearted son had given her as a birthday present.

"Why--what--?" she exclaimed. She said no more at the moment because
she was sure, from the faces of her men, that the time was big with
fearful events.

"Take your satchel off," Mr. Povey ordered coldly. "And your
mortar-board," he added with a peculiar intonation, as if glad thus to
prove that Cyril was one of those rude boys who have to be told to take
their hats off in a room.

"Whatever's amiss?" Constance murmured under her breath, as Cyril
obeyed the command. "Whatever's amiss?"

Mr. Povey made no immediate answer. He was in charge of these
proceedings, and was very anxious to conduct them with dignity and with
complete effectiveness. Little fat man over fifty, with a wizened face,
grey-haired and grey-bearded, he was as nervous as a youth. His heart
beat furiously. And Constance, the portly matron who would never see
forty again, was just as nervous as a girl. Cyril had gone very white.
All three felt physically sick.

"What money have you got in your pockets?" Mr. Povey demanded, as a
commencement.

Cyril, who had had no opportunity to prepare his case, offered no reply.

"You heard what I said," Mr. Povey thundered.

"I've got three-halfpence," Cyril murmured glumly, looking down at the
floor. His lower lip seemed to hang precariously away from his gums.

"Where did you get that from?"

"It's part of what mother gave me," said the boy.

"I did give him a threepenny bit last week," Constance put in guiltily.
"It was a long time since he had had any money."

"If you gave it him, that's enough," said Mr. Povey, quickly, and to
the boy: "That's all you've got?"

"Yes, father," said the boy.

"You're sure?"

"Yes, father."

Cyril was playing a hazardous game for the highest stakes, and under
grave disadvantages; and he acted for the best. He guarded his own
interests as well as he could.

Mr. Povey found himself obliged to take a serious risk. "Empty your
pockets, then."

Cyril, perceiving that he had lost that particular game, emptied his
pockets.

"Cyril," said Constance, "how often have I told you to change your
handkerchiefs oftener! Just look at this!"

Astonishing creature! She was in the seventh hell of sick apprehension,
and yet she said that!

After the handkerchief emerged the common schoolboy stock of articles
useful and magic, and then, last, a silver florin!

Mr. Povey felt relief.

"Oh, Cyril!" whimpered Constance.

"Give it your mother," said Mr. Povey.

The boy stepped forward awkwardly, and Constance, weeping, took the
coin.

"Please look at it, mother," said Mr. Povey. "And tell me if there's a
cross marked on it."

Constance's tears blurred the coin. She had to wipe her eyes.

"Yes," she whispered faintly. "There's something on it."

"I thought so," said Mr. Povey. "Where did you steal it from?" he
demanded.

"Out of the till," answered Cyril.

"Have you ever stolen anything out of the till before?"

"Yes."

"Yes, what."

"Yes, father."

"Take your hands out of your pockets and stand up straight, if you can.
How often?"

"I--I don't know, father."

"I blame myself," said Mr. Povey, frankly. "I blame myself. The till
ought always to be locked. All tills ought always to be locked. But we
felt we could trust the assistants. If anybody had told me that I ought
not to trust you, if anybody had told me that my own son would be the
thief, I should have--well, I don't know what I should have said!"

Mr. Povey was quite justified in blaming himself. The fact was that the
functioning of that till was a patriarchal survival, which he ought to
have revolutionized, but which it had never occurred to him to
revolutionize, so accustomed to it was he. In the time of John Baines,
the till, with its three bowls, two for silver and one for copper (gold
had never been put into it), was invariably unlocked. The person in
charge of the shop took change from it for the assistants, or
temporarily authorized an assistant to do so. Gold was kept in a small
linen bag in a locked drawer of the desk. The contents of the till were
never checked by any system of book-keeping, as there was no system of
book-keeping; when all transactions, whether in payment or receipt, are
in cash--the Baineses never owed a penny save the quarterly wholesale
accounts, which were discharged instantly to the travellers--a system
of book-keeping is not indispensable. The till was situate immediately
at the entrance to the shop from the house; it was in the darkest part
of the shop, and the unfortunate Cyril had to pass it every day on his
way to school. The thing was a perfect device for the manufacture of
young criminals.

"And how have you been spending this money?" Mr. Povey inquired.

Cyril's hands slipped into his pockets again. Then, noticing the lapse,
he dragged them out.

"Sweets," said he.

"Anything else?"

"Sweets and things."

"Oh!" said Mr. Povey. "Well, now you can go down into the cinder-cellar
and bring up here all the things there are in that little box in the
corner. Off you go!"

And off went Cyril. He had to swagger through the kitchen.

"What did I tell you, Master Cyril?" Amy unwisely asked of him. "You've
copped it finely this time."

'Copped' was a word which she had learned from Cyril.

"Go on, you old bitch!" Cyril growled.

As he returned from the cellar, Amy said angrily:

"I told you I should tell your father the next time you called me that,
and I shall. You mark my words."

"Cant! cant!" he retorted. "Do you think I don't know who's been
canting? Cant! cant!"

Upstairs in the parlour Samuel was explaining the matter to his wife.
There had been a perfect epidemic of smoking in the school. The
head-master had discovered it and, he hoped, stamped it out. What had
disturbed the head-master far more than the smoking was the fact that a
few boys had been found to possess somewhat costly pipes,
cigar-holders, or cigarette-holders. The head-master, wily, had not
confiscated these articles; he had merely informed the parents
concerned. In his opinion the articles came from one single source, a
generous thief; he left the parents to ascertain which of them had
brought a thief into the world.

Further information Mr. Povey had culled from Amy, and there could
remain no doubt that Cyril had been providing his chums with the
utensils of smoking, the till supplying the means. He had told Amy that
the things which he secreted in the cellar had been presented to him by
blood-brothers. But Mr. Povey did not believe that. Anyhow, he had
marked every silver coin in the till for three nights, and had watched
the till in the mornings from behind the merino-pile; and the florin on
the parlour-table spoke of his success as a detective.

Constance felt guilty on behalf of Cyril. As Mr. Povey outlined his
case she could not free herself from an entirely irrational sensation
of sin; at any rate of special responsibility. Cyril seemed to be her
boy and not Samuel's boy at all. She avoided her husband's glance. This
was very odd.

Then Cyril returned, and his parents composed their faces and he
deposited, next to the florin, a sham meerschaum pipe in a case, a
tobacco-pouch, a cigar of which one end had been charred but the other
not cut, and a half-empty packet of cigarettes without a label.

Nothing could be hid from Mr. Povey. The details were distressing.

"So Cyril is a liar and a thief, to say nothing of this smoking!" Mr.
Povey concluded.

He spoke as if Cyril had invented strange and monstrous sins. But deep
down in his heart a little voice was telling him, as regards the
smoking, that HE had set the example. Mr. Baines had never smoked. Mr.
Critchlow never smoked. Only men like Daniel smoked.

Thus far Mr. Povey had conducted the proceedings to his own
satisfaction. He had proved the crime. He had made Cyril confess. The
whole affair lay revealed. Well--what next? Cyril ought to have
dissolved in repentance; something dramatic ought to have occurred. But
Cyril simply stood with hanging, sulky head, and gave no sign of proper
feeling.

Mr. Povey considered that, until something did happen, he must improve
the occasion.

"Here we have trade getting worse every day," said he (it was true),
"and you are robbing your parents to make a beast of yourself, and
corrupting your companions! I wonder your mother never smelt you!"

"I never dreamt of such a thing!" said Constance, grievously.

Besides, a young man clever enough to rob a till is usually clever
enough to find out that the secret of safety in smoking is to use
cachous and not to keep the stuff in your pockets a minute longer than
you can help.

"There's no knowing how much money you have stolen," said Mr. Povey. "A
thief!"

If Cyril had stolen cakes, jam, string, cigars, Mr. Povey would never
have said 'thief' as he did say it. But money! Money was different. And
a till was not a cupboard or a larder. A till was a till. Cyril had
struck at the very basis of society.

"And on your mother's birthday!" Mr. Povey said further.

"There's one thing I can do!" he said. "I can burn all this. Built on
lies! How dared you?"

And he pitched into the fire--not the apparatus of crime, but the
water-colour drawing of a moss-rose and the straws and the blue ribbon
for bows at the corners.

"How dared you?" he repeated.

"You never gave me any money," Cyril muttered.

He thought the marking of coins a mean trick, and the dragging-in of
bad trade and his mother's birthday roused a familiar devil that
usually slept quietly in his breast.

"What's that you say?" Mr. Povey almost shouted.

"You never gave me any money," the devil repeated in a louder tone than
Cyril had employed.

(It was true. But Cyril 'had only to ask' and he would have received
all that was good for him.)

Mr. Povey sprang up. Mr. Povey also had a devil. The two devils gazed
at each other for an instant; and then, noticing that Cyril's head was
above Mr. Povey's, the elder devil controlled itself. Mr. Povey had
suddenly had as much drama as he wanted.

"Get away to bed!" said he with dignity.

Cyril went, defiantly.

"He's to have nothing but bread and water, mother," Mr. Povey finished.
He was, on the whole, pleased with himself.

Later in the day Constance reported, tearfully, that she had been up to
Cyril and that Cyril had wept. Which was to Cyril's credit. But all
felt that life could never be the same again. During the remainder of
existence this unspeakable horror would lift its obscene form between
them. Constance had never been so unhappy. Occasionally, when by
herself, she would rebel for a brief moment, as one rebels in secret
against a mummery which one is obliged to treat seriously. "After all,"
she would whisper, "suppose he HAS taken a few shillings out of the
till! What then? What does it matter?" But these moods of moral
insurrection against society and Mr. Povey were very transitory. They
were come and gone in a flash.




CHAPTER V

ANOTHER CRIME

I


One night--it was late in the afternoon of the same year, about six
months after the tragedy of the florin--Samuel Povey was wakened up by
a hand on his shoulder and a voice that whispered: "Father!"

The thief and the liar was standing in his night-shirt by the bed.
Samuel's sleepy eyes could just descry him in the thick gloom.

"What--what?" questioned the father, gradually coming to consciousness.
"What are you doing there?"

"I didn't want to wake mother up," the boy whispered. "There's someone
been throwing dirt or something at our windows, and has been for a long
time."

"Eh, what?"

Samuel stared at the dim form of the thief and liar. The boy was tall,
not in the least like a little boy; and yet, then, he seemed to his
father as quite a little boy, a little 'thing' in a night-shirt, with
childish gestures and childish inflections, and a childish, delicious,
quaint anxiety not to disturb his mother, who had lately been deprived
of sleep owing to an illness of Amy's which had demanded nursing. His
father had not so perceived him for years. In that instant the
conviction that Cyril was permanently unfit for human society finally
expired in the father's mind. Time had already weakened it very
considerably. The decision that, be Cyril what he might, the summer
holiday must be taken as usual, had dealt it a fearful blow. And yet,
though Samuel and Constance had grown so accustomed to the
companionship of a criminal that they frequently lost memory of his
guilt for long periods, nevertheless the convention of his leprosy had
more or less persisted with Samuel until that moment: when it vanished
with strange suddenness, to Samuel's conscious relief.

There was a rain of pellets on the window.

"Hear that?" demanded Cyril, whispering dramatically. "And it's been
like that on my window too."

Samuel arose. "Go back to your room!" he ordered in the same dramatic
whisper; but not as father to son--rather as conspirator to conspirator.

Constance slept. They could hear her regular breathing.

Barefooted, the elderly gowned figure followed the younger, and one
after the other they creaked down the two steps which separated Cyril's
room from his parents'.

"Shut the door quietly!" said Samuel.

Cyril obeyed.

And then, having lighted Cyril's gas, Samuel drew the blind, unfastened
the catch of the window, and began to open it with many precautions of
silence. All the sashes in that house were difficult to manage. Cyril
stood close to his father, shivering without knowing that he shivered,
astonished only that his father had not told him to get back into bed
at once. It was, beyond doubt, the proudest hour of Cyril's career. In
addition to the mysterious circumstances of the night, there was in the
situation that thrill which always communicates itself to a father and
son when they are afoot together upon an enterprise unsuspected by the
woman from whom their lives have no secrets.

Samuel put his head out of the window.

A man was standing there.

"That you, Samuel?" The voice came low.

"Yes," replied Samuel, cautiously. "It's not Cousin Daniel, is it?"

"I want ye," said Daniel Povey, curtly.

Samuel paused. "I'll be down in a minute," he said.

Cyril at length received the command to get back into bed at once.

"Whatever's up, father?" he asked joyously.

"I don't know. I must put some things on and go and see."

He shut down the window on all the breezes that were pouring into the
room.

"Now quick, before I turn the gas out!" he admonished, his hand on the
gas-tap.

"You'll tell me in the morning, won't you, father?"

"Yes," said Mr. Povey, conquering his habitual impulse to say 'No.'

He crept back to the large bedroom to grope for clothes.

When, having descended to the parlour and lighted the gas there, he
opened the side-door, expecting to let Cousin Daniel in, there was no
sign of Cousin Daniel. Presently he saw a figure standing at the corner
of the Square. He whistled--Samuel had a singular faculty of whistling,
the envy of his son--and Daniel beckoned to him. He nearly extinguished
the gas and then ran out, hatless. He was wearing most of his clothes,
except his linen collar and necktie, and the collar of his coat was
turned up.

Daniel advanced before him, without waiting, into the confectioner's
shop opposite. Being part of the most modern building in the Square,
Daniel's shop was provided with the new roll-down iron shutter, by
means of which you closed your establishment with a motion similar to
the winding of a large clock, instead of putting up twenty separate
shutters one by one as in the sixteenth century. The little portal in
the vast sheet of armour was ajar, and Daniel had passed into the gloom
beyond. At the same moment a policeman came along on his beat, cutting
off Mr. Povey from Daniel.

"Good-night, officer! Brrr!" said Mr. Povey, gathering his dignity
about him and holding himself as though it was part of his normal habit
to take exercise bareheaded and collarless in St. Luke's Square on cold
November nights. He behaved so because, if Daniel had desired the
services of a policeman, Daniel would of course have spoken to this one.

"Goo' night, sir," said the policeman, after recognizing him.

"What time is it?" asked Samuel, bold.

"A quarter-past one, sir."

The policeman, leaving Samuel at the little open door, went forward
across the lamplit Square, and Samuel entered his cousin's shop.

Daniel Povey was standing behind the door, and as Samuel came in he
shut the door with a startling sudden movement. Save for the twinkle of
gas, the shop was in darkness. It had the empty appearance which a
well-managed confectioner's and baker's always has at night. The large
brass scales near the flour-bins glinted; and the glass cake-stands,
with scarce a tart among them, also caught the faint flare of the gas.

"What's the matter, Daniel? Anything wrong?" Samuel asked, feeling
boyish as he usually did in the presence of Daniel.

The well-favoured white-haired man seized him with one hand by the
shoulder in a grip that convicted Samuel of frailty.

"Look here, Sam'l," said he in his low, pleasant voice, somewhat
altered by excitement. "You know as my wife drinks?"

He stared defiantly at Samuel.

"N--no," said Samuel. "That is--no one's ever SAID----"

This was true. He did not know that Mrs. Daniel Povey, at the age of
fifty, had definitely taken to drink. There had been rumours that she
enjoyed a glass with too much gusto; but 'drinks' meant more than that.

"She drinks," Daniel Povey continued. "And has done this last two year!"

"I'm very sorry to hear it," said Samuel, tremendously shocked by this
brutal rending of the cloak of decency.

Always, everybody had feigned to Daniel, and Daniel had feigned to
everybody, that his wife was as other wives. And now the man himself
had torn to pieces in a moment the veil of thirty years' weaving.

"And if that was the worst!" Daniel murmured reflectively, loosening
his grip.

Samuel was excessively disturbed. His cousin was hinting at matters
which he himself, at any rate, had never hinted at even to Constance,
so abhorrent were they; matters unutterable, which hung like clouds in
the social atmosphere of the town, and of which at rare intervals one
conveyed one's cognizance, not by words, but by something scarce
perceptible in a glance, an accent. Not often is a town such as Bursley
starred with such a woman as Mrs. Daniel Povey.

"But what's wrong?" Samuel asked, trying to be firm.

And, "What is wrong?" he asked himself. "What does all this mean, at
after one o'clock in the morning?"

"Look here, Sam'l," Daniel recommenced, seizing his shoulder again. "I
went to Liverpool corn market to-day, and missed the last train, so I
came by mail from Crewe. And what do I find? I find Dick sitting on the
stairs in the dark pretty high naked."

"Sitting on the stairs? Dick?"

"Ay! This is what I come home to!"

"But--"

"Hold on! He's been in bed a couple of days with a feverish cold,
caught through lying in damp sheets as his mother had forgot to air.
She brings him no supper to-night. He calls out. No answer. Then he
gets up to go down-stairs and see what's happened, and he slips on th'
stairs and breaks his knee, or puts it out or summat. Sat there hours,
seemingly! Couldn't walk neither up nor down."

"And was your--wife--was Mrs.--?"

"Dead drunk in the parlour, Sam'l."

"But the servant?"

"Servant!" Daniel Povey laughed. "We can't keep our servants. They
won't stay. YOU know that."

He did. Mrs. Daniel Povey's domestic methods and idiosyncrasies could
at any rate be freely discussed, and they were.

"And what have you done?"

"Done? Why, I picked him up in my arms and carried him upstairs again.
And a fine job I had too! Here! Come here!"

Daniel strode impulsively across the shop--the counterflap was up--and
opened a door at the back. Samuel followed. Never before had he
penetrated so far into his cousin's secrets. On the left, within the
doorway, were the stairs, dark; on the right a shut door; and in front
an open door giving on to a yard. At the extremity of the yard he
discerned a building, vaguely lit, and naked figures strangely moving
in it.

"What's that? Who's there?" he asked sharply.

"That's the bakehouse," Daniel replied, as if surprised at such a
question. "It's one of their long nights."

Never, during the brief remainder of his life, did Samuel eat a
mouthful of common bread without recalling that midnight apparition. He
had lived for half a century, and thoughtlessly eaten bread as though
loaves grew ready-made on trees.

"Listen!" Daniel commanded him.

He cocked his ear, and caught a feeble, complaining wail from an upper
floor.

"That's Dick! That is!" said Daniel Povey.

It sounded more like the distress of a child than of an adventurous
young man of twenty-four or so.

"But is he in pain? Haven't you fetched the doctor?"

"Not yet," answered Daniel, with a vacant stare.

Samuel gazed at him closely for a second. And Daniel seemed to him very
old and helpless and pathetic, a man unequal to the situation in which
he found himself; and yet, despite the dignified snow of his age,
wistfully boyish. Samuel thought swiftly: "This has been too much for
him. He's almost out of his mind. That's the explanation. Some one's
got to take charge, and I must." And all the courageous resolution of
his character braced itself to the crisis. Being without a collar,
being in slippers, and his suspenders imperfectly fastened
anyhow,--these things seemed to be a part of the crisis.

"I'll just run upstairs and have a look at him," said Samuel, in a
matter-of-fact tone.

Daniel did not reply.

There was a glimmer at the top of the stairs. Samuel mounted, found the
gas-jet, and turned it on full. A dingy, dirty, untidy passage was
revealed, the very antechamber of discomfort. Guided by the moans,
Samuel entered a bedroom, which was in a shameful condition of neglect,
and lighted only by a nearly expired candle. Was it possible that a
house-mistress could so lose her self-respect? Samuel thought of his
own abode, meticulously and impeccably 'kept,' and a hard bitterness
against Mrs. Daniel surged up in his soul.

"Is that you, doctor?" said a voice from the bed; the moans ceased.

Samuel raised the candle.

Dick lay there, his face, on which was a beard of several days' growth,
distorted by anguish, sweating; his tousled brown hair was limp with
sweat.

"Where the hell's the doctor?" the young man demanded brusquely.
Evidently he had no curiosity about Samuel's presence; the one thing
that struck him was that Samuel was not the doctor.

"He's coming, he's coming," said Samuel, soothingly.

"Well, if he isn't here soon I shall be damn well dead," said Dick, in
feeble resentful anger. "I can tell you that."

Samuel deposited the candle and ran downstairs. "I say, Daniel," he
said, roused and hot, "this is really ridiculous. Why on earth didn't
you fetch the doctor while you were waiting for me? Where's the missis?"

Daniel Povey was slowly emptying grains of Indian corn out of his
jacket-pocket into one of the big receptacles behind the counter on the
baker's side of the shop. He had provisioned himself with Indian corn
as ammunition for Samuel's bedroom window; he was now returning the
surplus.

"Are ye going for Harrop?" he questioned hesitatingly.

"Why, of course!" Samuel exclaimed. "Where's the missis?"

"Happen you'd better go and have a look at her," said Daniel Povey.
"She's in th' parlour."

He preceded Samuel to the shut door on the right. When he opened it the
parlour appeared in full illumination.

"Here! Go in!" said Daniel.

Samuel went in, afraid. In a room as dishevelled and filthy as the
bedroom, Mrs. Daniel Povey lay stretched awkwardly on a worn horse-hair
sofa, her head thrown back, her face discoloured, her eyes bulging, her
mouth wet and yawning: a sight horribly offensive. Samuel was
frightened; he was struck with fear and with disgust. The singing gas
beat down ruthlessly on that dreadful figure. A wife and mother! The
lady of a house! The centre of order! The fount of healing! The balm
for worry, and the refuge of distress! She was vile. Her scanty
yellow-grey hair was dirty, her hollowed neck all grime, her hands
abominable, her black dress in decay. She was the dishonour of her sex,
her situation, and her years. She was a fouler obscenity than the
inexperienced Samuel had ever conceived. And by the door stood her
husband, neat, spotless, almost stately, the man who for thirty years
had marshalled all his immense pride to suffer this woman, the jolly
man who had laughed through thick and thin! Samuel remembered when they
were married. And he remembered when, years after their marriage, she
was still as pretty, artificial, coquettish, and adamantine in her
caprices as a young harlot with a fool at her feet. Time and the slow
wrath of God had changed her.

He remained master of himself and approached her; then stopped.

"But--" he stammered.

"Ay, Sam'l, lad!" said the old man from the door. "I doubt I've killed
her! I doubt I've killed her! I took and shook her. I got her by the
neck. And before I knew where I was, I'd done it. She'll never drink
brandy again. This is what it's come to!"

He moved away.

All Samuel's flesh tingled as a heavy wave of emotion rolled through
his being. It was just as if some one had dealt him a blow unimaginably
tremendous. His heart shivered, as a ship shivers at the mountainous
crash of the waters. He was numbed. He wanted to weep, to vomit, to
die, to sink away. But a voice was whispering to him: "You will have to
go through with this. You are in charge of this." He thought of HIS
wife and child, innocently asleep in the cleanly pureness of HIS home.
And he felt the roughness of his coat-collar round his neck and the
insecurity of his trousers. He passed out of the room, shutting the
door. And across the yard he had a momentary glimpse of those nude
nocturnal forms, unconsciously attitudinizing in the bakehouse. And
down the stairs came the protests of Dick, driven by pain into a
monotonous silly blasphemy.

"I'll fetch Harrop," he said, melancholily, to his cousin.

The doctor's house was less than fifty yards off, and the doctor had a
night-bell, which, though he was a much older man than his father had
been at his age, he still answered promptly. No need to bombard the
doctor's premises with Indian corn! While Samuel was parleying with the
doctor through a window, the question ran incessantly through his mind:
"What about telling the police?"

But when, in advance of old Harrop, he returned to Daniel's shop, lo!
the policeman previously encountered had returned upon his beat, and
Daniel was talking to him in the little doorway. No other soul was
about. Down King Street, along Wedgwood Street, up the Square, towards
Brougham Street, nothing but gaslamps burning with their everlasting
patience, and the blind facades of shops. Only in the second storey of
the Bank Building at the top of the Square a light showed mysteriously
through a blind. Somebody ill there!

The policeman was in a high state of nervous excitement. That had
happened to him which had never happened to him before. Of the sixty
policemen in Bursley, just he had been chosen by fate to fit the socket
of destiny. He was startled.

"What's this, what's this, Mr. Povey?" he turned hastily to Samuel.
"What's this as Mr. Councillor Povey is a-telling me?"

"You come in, sergeant," said Daniel.

"If I come in," said the policeman to Samuel, "you mun' go along
Wedgwood Street, Mr. Povey, and bring my mate. He should be on Duck
Bank, by rights."

It was astonishing, when once the stone had begun to roll, how quickly
it ran. In half an hour Samuel had actually parted from Daniel at the
police-office behind the Shambles, and was hurrying to rouse his wife
so that she could look after Dick Povey until he might be taken off to
Pirehill Infirmary, as old Harrop had instantly, on seeing him, decreed.

"Ah!" he reflected in the turmoil of his soul: "God is not mocked!"
That was his basic idea: God is not mocked! Daniel was a good fellow,
honourable, brilliant; a figure in the world. But what of his
licentious tongue? What of his frequenting of bars? (How had he come to
miss that train from Liverpool? How?) For many years he, Samuel, had
seen in Daniel a living refutation of the authenticity of the old
Hebrew menaces. But he had been wrong, after all! God is not mocked!
And Samuel was aware of a revulsion in himself towards that strict
codified godliness from which, in thought, he had perhaps been slipping
away.

And with it all he felt, too, a certain officious self-importance, as
he woke his wife and essayed to break the news to her in a manner
tactfully calm. He had assisted at the most overwhelming event ever
known in the history of the town.

II

"Your muffler--I'll get it," said Constance. "Cyril, run upstairs and
get father's muffler. You know the drawer."

Cyril ran. It behoved everybody, that morning, to be prompt and
efficient.

"I don't need any muffler, thank you," said Samuel, coughing and
smothering the cough.

"Oh! But, Sam--" Constance protested.

"Now please don't worry me!" said Samuel with frigid finality. "I've
got quite enough--!" He did not finish.

Constance sighed as her husband stepped, nervous and self-important,
out of the side-door into the street. It was early, not yet eight
o'clock, and the shop still unopened.

"Your father couldn't wait," Constance said to Cyril when he had
thundered down the stairs in his heavy schoolboy boots. "Give it to
me." She went to restore the muffler to its place.

The whole house was upset, and Amy still an invalid! Existence was
disturbed; there vaguely seemed to be a thousand novel things to be
done, and yet she could think of nothing whatever that she needed to do
at that moment; so she occupied herself with the muffler. Before she
reappeared Cyril had gone to school, he who was usually a laggard. The
truth was that he could no longer contain within himself a recital of
the night, and in particular of the fact that he had been the first to
hear the summons of the murderer on the window-pane. This imperious
news had to be imparted to somebody, as a preliminary to the thrilling
of the whole school; and Cyril had issued forth in search of an
appreciative and worthy confidant. He was scarcely five minutes after
his father.

In St. Luke's Square was a crowd of quite two hundred persons, standing
moveless in the November mud. The body of Mrs. Daniel Povey had already
been taken to the Tiger Hotel, and young Dick Povey was on his way in a
covered wagonette to Pirehill Infirmary on the other side of Knype. The
shop of the crime was closed, and the blinds drawn at the upper windows
of the house. There was absolutely nothing to be seen, not even a
policeman. Nevertheless the crowd stared with an extraordinary
obstinate attentiveness at the fatal building in Boulton Terrace.
Hypnotized by this face of bricks and mortar, it had apparently
forgotten all earthly ties, and, regardless of breakfast and a
livelihood, was determined to stare at it till the house fell down or
otherwise rendered up its secret. Most of its component individuals
wore neither overcoats nor collars, but were kept warm by a scarf round
the neck and by dint of forcing their fingers into the furthest inch of
their pockets. Then they would slowly lift one leg after the other.
Starers of infirm purpose would occasionally detach themselves from the
throng and sidle away, ashamed of their fickleness. But reinforcements
were continually arriving. And to these new-comers all that had been
said in gossip had to be repeated and repeated: the same questions, the
same answers, the same exclamations, the same proverbial philosophy,
the same prophecies recurred in all parts of the Square with an uncanny
iterance. Well-dressed men spoke to mere professional loiterers; for
this unparalleled and glorious sensation, whose uniqueness grew every
instant more impressive, brought out the essential brotherhood of
mankind. All had a peculiar feeling that the day was neither Sunday nor
week-day, but some eighth day of the week. Yet in the St. Luke's
Covered Market close by, the stall-keepers were preparing their stalls
just as though it were Saturday, just as though a Town Councillor had
not murdered his wife--at last! It was stated, and restated infinitely,
that the Povey baking had been taken over by Brindley, the second-best
baker and confectioner, who had a stall in the market. And it was
asserted, as a philosophical truth, and reasserted infinitely, that
there would have been no sense in wasting good food.

Samuel's emergence stirred the multitude. But Samuel passed up the
Square with a rapt expression; he might have been under an illusion,
caused by the extreme gravity of his preoccupations, that he was
crossing a deserted Square. He hurried past the Bank and down the
Turnhill Road, to the private residence of 'Young Lawton,' son of the
deceased 'Lawyer Lawton.' Young Lawton followed his father's
profession; he was, as his father had been, the most successful
solicitor in the town (though reputed by his learned rivals to be a
fool), but the custom of calling men by their occupations had died out
with horse-cars. Samuel caught young Lawton at his breakfast, and
presently drove with him, in the Lawton buggy, to the police-station,
where their arrival electrified a crowd as large as that in St. Luke's
Square. Later, they drove together to Hanbridge, informally to brief a
barrister; and Samuel, not permitted to be present at the first part of
the interview between the solicitor and the barrister, was humbled
before the pomposity of legal etiquette.

It seemed to Samuel a game. The whole rigmarole of police and
police-cells and formalities seemed insincere. His cousin's case was
not like any other case, and, though formalities might be necessary, it
was rather absurd to pretend that it was like any other case. In what
manner it differed from other cases Samuel did not analytically
inquire. He thought young Lawton was self-important, and Daniel too
humble, in the colloquy of these two, and he endeavoured to indicate,
by the dignity of his own demeanour, that in his opinion the proper
relative tones had not been set. He could not understand Daniel's
attitude, for he lacked imagination to realize what Daniel had been
through. After all, Daniel was not a murderer; his wife's death was due
to accident, was simply a mishap.

But in the crowded and stinking court-room of the Town Hall, Samuel
began to feel qualms. It occurred that the Stipendiary Magistrate was
sitting that morning at Bursley. He sat alone, as not one of the
Borough Justices cared to occupy the Bench while a Town Councillor was
in the dock. The Stipendiary, recently appointed, was a young man, from
the southern part of the county; and a Town Councillor of Bursley was
no more to him than a petty tradesman to a man of fashion. He was
youthfully enthusiastic for the majesty and the impartiality of English
justice, and behaved as though the entire responsibility for the safety
of that vast fabric rested on his shoulders. He and the barrister from
Hanbridge had had a historic quarrel at Cambridge, and their behaviour
to each other was a lesson to the vulgar in the art of chill and
consummate politeness. Young Lawton, having been to Oxford, secretly
scorned the pair of them, but, as he had engaged counsel, he of course
was precluded from adding to the eloquence, which chagrined him. These
three were the aristocracy of the court-room; they knew it; Samuel
Povey knew it; everybody knew it, and felt it. The barrister brought an
unexceptionable zeal to the performance of his duties; he referred in
suitable terms to Daniel's character and high position in the town, but
nothing could hide the fact that for him too his client was a petty
tradesman accused of simple murder. Naturally the Stipendiary was bound
to show that before the law all men are equal--the Town Councillor and
the common tippler; he succeeded. The policeman gave his evidence, and
the Inspector swore to what Daniel Povey had said when charged. The
hearing proceeded so smoothly and quickly that it seemed naught but an
empty rite, with Daniel as a lay figure in it. The Stipendiary achieved
marvellously the illusion that to him a murder by a Town Councillor in
St. Luke's Square was quite an everyday matter. Bail was inconceivable,
and the barrister, being unable to suggest any reason why the
Stipendiary should grant a remand--indeed, there was no reason--Daniel
Povey was committed to the Stafford Assizes for trial. The Stipendiary
instantly turned to the consideration of an alleged offence against the
Factory Acts by a large local firm of potters. The young magistrate had
mistaken his vocation. With his steely calm, with his imperturbable
detachment from weak humanity, he ought to have been a General of the
Order of Jesuits.

Daniel was removed--he did not go: he was removed, by two bare-headed
constables. Samuel wanted to have speech with him, and could not. And
later, Samuel stood in the porch of the Town Hall, and Daniel appeared
out of a corridor, still in the keeping of two policemen, helmeted now.
And down below at the bottom of the broad flight of steps, up which
passed dancers on the nights of subscription balls, was a dense crowd,
held at bay by other policemen; and beyond the crowd a black van. And
Daniel--to his cousin a sort of Christ between thieves--was hurried
past the privileged loafers in the corridor, and down the broad steps.
A murmuring wave agitated the crowd. Unkempt idlers and ne'er-do-wells
in corduroy leaped up like tigers in the air, and the policemen fought
them back furiously. And Daniel and his guardians shot through the
little living lane. Quick! Quick! For the captive is more sacred even
than a messiah. The law has him in charge! And like a feat of
prestidigitation Daniel disappeared into the blackness of the van. A
door slammed loudly, triumphantly, and a whip cracked. The crowd had
been balked. It was as though the crowd had yelled for Daniel's blood
and bones, and the faithful constables had saved him from their lust.

Yes, Samuel had qualms. He had a sickness in the stomach.

The aged Superintendent of Police walked by, with the aged Rector. The
Rector was Daniel's friend. Never before had the Rector spoken to the
Nonconformist Samuel, but now he spoke to him; he squeezed his hand.

"Ah, Mr. Povey!" he ejaculated grievously.

"I--I'm afraid it's serious!" Samuel stammered. He hated to admit that
it was serious, but the words came out of his mouth.

He looked at the Superintendent of Police, expecting the Superintendent
to assure him that it was not serious; but the Superintendent only
raised his small white-bearded chin, saying nothing. The Rector shook
his head, and shook a senile tear out of his eye.

After another chat with young Lawton, Samuel, on behalf of Daniel,
dropped his pose of the righteous man to whom a mere mishap has
occurred, and who is determined, with the lofty pride of innocence, to
indulge all the whims of the law, to be more royalist than the king. He
perceived that the law must be fought with its own weapons, that no
advantage must be surrendered, and every possible advantage seized. He
was truly astonished at himself that such a pose had ever been adopted.
His eyes were opened; he saw things as they were.

He returned home through a Square that was more interested than ever in
the facade of his cousin's house. People were beginning to come from
Hanbridge, Knype, Longshaw, Turnhill, and villages such as Moorthorne,
to gaze at that facade. And the fourth edition of the Signal,
containing a full report of what the Stipendiary and the barrister had
said to each other, was being cried.

In his shop he found customers, as absorbed in the trivialities of
purchase as though nothing whatever had happened. He was shocked; he
resented their callousness.

"I'm too busy now," he said curtly to one who accosted him.

"Sam!" his wife called him in a low voice. She was standing behind the
till.

"What is it?" He was ready to crush, and especially to crush indiscreet
babble in the shop. He thought she was going to vent her womanly
curiosity at once.

"Mr. Huntbach is waiting for you in the parlour," said Constance.

"Mr. Huntbach?"

"Yes, from Longshaw." She whispered, "It's Mrs. Povey's cousin. He's
come to see about the funeral and so on, the--the inquest, I suppose."

Samuel paused. "Oh, has he!" said he defiantly. "Well, I'll see him. If
he WANTS to see me, I'll see him."

That evening Constance learned all that was in his mind of bitterness
against the memory of the dead woman whose failings had brought Daniel
Povey to Stafford gaol and Dick to the Pirehill Infirmary. Again and
again, in the ensuing days, he referred to the state of foul discomfort
which he had discovered in Daniel's house. He nursed a feud against all
her relatives, and when, after the inquest, at which he gave evidence
full of resentment, she was buried, he vented an angry sigh of relief,
and said: "Well, SHE'S out of the way!" Thenceforward he had a mission,
religious in its solemn intensity, to defend and save Daniel. He took
the enterprise upon himself, spending the whole of himself upon it, to
the neglect of his business and the scorn of his health. He lived
solely for Daniel's trial, pouring out money in preparation for it. He
thought and spoke of nothing else. The affair was his one
preoccupation. And as the weeks passed, he became more and more sure of
success, more and more sure that he would return with Daniel to Bursley
in triumph after the assize. He was convinced of the impossibility that
'anything should happen' to Daniel; the circumstances were too clear,
too overwhelmingly in Daniel's favour.

When Brindley, the second-best baker and confectioner, made an offer
for Daniel's business as a going concern, he was indignant at first.
Then Constance, and the lawyer, and Daniel (whom he saw on every
permitted occasion) between them persuaded him that if some arrangement
was not made, and made quickly, the business would lose all its value,
and he consented, on Daniel's behalf, to a temporary agreement under
which Brindley should reopen the shop and manage it on certain terms
until Daniel regained his freedom towards the end of January. He would
not listen to Daniel's plaintive insistence that he would never care to
be seen in Bursley again. He pooh-poohed it. He protested furiously
that the whole town was seething with sympathy for Daniel; and this was
true. He became Daniel's defending angel, rescuing Daniel from Daniel's
own weakness and apathy. He became, indeed, Daniel.

One morning the shop-shutter was wound up, and Brindley, inflated with
the importance of controlling two establishments, strutted in and out
under the sign of Daniel Povey. And traffic in bread and cakes and
flour was resumed. Apparently the sea of time had risen and covered
Daniel and all that was his; for his wife was under earth, and Dick
lingered at Pirehill, unable to stand, and Daniel was locked away.
Apparently, in the regular flow of the life of the Square, Daniel was
forgotten. But not in Samuel Povey's heart was he forgotten! There,
before an altar erected to the martyr, the sacred flame of a new faith
burned with fierce consistency. Samuel, in his greying middle-age, had
inherited the eternal youth of the apostle.

III

On the dark winter morning when Samuel set off to the grand assize,
Constance did not ask his views as to what protection he would adopt
against the weather. She silently ranged special underclothing, and by
the warmth of the fire, which for days she had kept ablaze in the
bedroom, Samuel silently donned the special underclothing. Over that,
with particular fastidious care, he put his best suit. Not a word was
spoken. Constance and he were not estranged, but the relations between
them were in a state of feverish excitation. Samuel had had a cold on
his flat chest for weeks, and nothing that Constance could invent would
move it. A few days in bed or even in one room at a uniform temperature
would have surely worked the cure. Samuel, however, would not stay in
one room: he would not stay in the house, nor yet in Bursley. He would
take his lacerating cough on chilly trains to Stafford. He had no ears
for reason; he simply could not listen; he was in a dream. After
Christmas a crisis came. Constance grew desperate. It was a battle
between her will and his that occurred one night when Constance,
marshalling all her forces, suddenly insisted that he must go out no
more until he was cured. In the fight Constance was scarcely
recognizable. She deliberately gave way to hysteria; she was no longer
soft and gentle; she flung bitterness at him like vitriol; she shrieked
like a common shrew. It seems almost incredible that Constance should
have gone so far; but she did. She accused him, amid sobs, of putting
his cousin before his wife and son, of not caring whether or not she
was left a widow as the result of this obstinacy. And she ended by
crying passionately that she might as well talk to a post. She might
just as well have talked to a post. Samuel answered quietly and coldly.
He told her that it was useless for her to put herself about, as he
should act as he thought fit. It was a most extraordinary scene, and
quite unique in their annals. Constance was beaten. She accepted the
defeat, gradually controlling her sobs and changing her tone to the
tone of the vanquished. She kissed him in bed, kissing the rod. And he
gravely kissed her.

Henceforward she knew, in practice, what the inevitable, when you have
to live with it, may contain of anguish wretched and humiliating. Her
husband was risking his life, so she was absolutely convinced, and she
could do nothing; she had come to the bed-rock of Samuel's character.
She felt that, for the time being, she had a madman in the house, who
could not be treated according to ordinary principles. The continual
strain aged her. Her one source of relief was to talk with Cyril. She
talked to him without reserve, and the words 'your father,' 'your
father,' were everlastingly on her complaining tongue. Yes, she was
utterly changed. Often she would weep when alone.

Nevertheless she frequently forgot that she had been beaten. She had no
notion of honourable warfare. She was always beginning again, always
firing under a flag of truce; and thus she constituted a very
inconvenient opponent. Samuel was obliged, while hardening on the main
point, to compromise on lesser questions. She too could be formidable,
and when her lips took a certain pose, and her eyes glowed, he would
have put on forty mufflers had she commanded. Thus it was she who
arranged all the details of the supreme journey to Stafford. Samuel was
to drive to Knype, so as to avoid the rigours of the Loop Line train
from Bursley and the waiting on cold platforms. At Knype he was to take
the express, and to travel first-class.

After he was dressed on that gas-lit morning, he learnt bit by bit the
extent of her elaborate preparations. The breakfast was a special
breakfast, and he had to eat it all. Then the cab came, and he saw Amy
put hot bricks into it. Constance herself put goloshes over his boots,
not because it was damp, but because indiarubber keeps the feet warm.
Constance herself bandaged his neck, and unbuttoned his waistcoat and
stuck an extra flannel under his dickey. Constance herself warmed his
woollen gloves, and enveloped him in his largest overcoat.

Samuel then saw Cyril getting ready to go out. "Where are you off?" he
demanded.

"He's going with you as far as Knype," said Constance grimly. "He'll
see you into the train and then come back here in the cab."

She had sprung this indignity upon him. She glared. Cyril glanced with
timid bravado from one to the other. Samuel had to yield.

Thus in the winter darkness--for it was not yet dawn--Samuel set forth
to the trial, escorted by his son. The reverberation of his appalling
cough from the cab was the last thing that Constance heard.

During most of the day Constance sat in 'Miss Insull's corner' in the
shop. Twenty years ago this very corner had been hers. But now, instead
of large millinery-boxes enwrapped in brown paper, it was shut off from
the rest of the counter by a rich screen of mahogany and ground-glass,
and within the enclosed space all the apparatus necessary to the
activity of Miss Insull had been provided for. However, it remained the
coldest part of the whole shop, as Miss Insull's fingers testified.
Constance established herself there more from a desire to do something,
to interfere in something, than from a necessity of supervising the
shop, though she had said to Samuel that she would keep an eye on the
shop. Miss Insull, whose throne was usurped, had to sit by the stove
with less important creatures; she did not like it, and her underlings
suffered accordingly.

It was a long day. Towards tea-time, just before Cyril was due from
school, Mr. Critchlow came surprisingly in. That is to say, his arrival
was less of a surprise to Miss Insull and the rest of the staff than to
Constance. For he had lately formed an irregular habit of popping in at
tea-time, to chat with Miss Insull. Mr. Critchlow was still defying
time. He kept his long, thin figure perfectly erect. His features had
not altered. His hair and beard could not have been whiter than they
had been for years past. He wore his long white apron, and over that a
thick reefer jacket. In his long, knotty fingers he carried a copy of
the Signal.

Evidently he had not expected to find the corner occupied by Constance.
She was sewing.

"So it's you!" he said, in his unpleasant, grating voice, not even
glancing at Miss Insull. He had gained the reputation of being the
rudest old man in Bursley. But his general demeanour expressed
indifference rather than rudeness. It was a manner that said: "You've
got to take me as I am. I may be an egotist, hard, mean, and convinced;
but those who don't like it can lump it. I'm indifferent."

He put one elbow on the top of the screen, showing the Signal.

"Mr. Critchlow!" said Constance, primly; she had acquired Samuel's
dislike of him.

"It's begun!" he observed with mysterious glee.

"Has it?" Constance said eagerly. "Is it in the paper already?"

She had been far more disturbed about her husband's health than about
the trial of Daniel Povey for murder, but her interest in the trial was
of course tremendous. And this news, that it had actually begun,
thrilled her.

"Ay!" said Mr. Critchlow. "Didn't ye hear the Signal boy hollering just
now all over the Square?"

"No," said Constance. For her, newspapers did not exist. She never had
the idea of opening one, never felt any curiosity which she could not
satisfy, if she could satisfy it at all, without the powerful aid of
the press. And even on this day it had not occurred to her that the
Signal might be worth opening.

"Ay!" repeated Mr. Critchlow. "Seemingly it began at two o'clock--or
thereabouts." He gave a moment of his attention to a noisy gas-jet,
which he carefully lowered.

"What does it say?"

"Nothing yet!" said Mr. Critchlow; and they read the few brief
sentences, under their big heading, which described the formal
commencement of the trial of Daniel Povey for the murder of his wife.
"There was some as said," he remarked, pushing up his spectacles, "that
grand jury would alter the charge, or summat!" He laughed, grimly
tolerant of the extreme absurdity. "Ah!" he added contemplatively,
turning his head to see if the assistants were listening. They were. It
would have been too much, on such a day, to expect a strict adherence
to the etiquette of the shop.

Constance had been hearing a good deal lately of grand juries, but she
had understood nothing, nor had she sought to understand.

"I'm very glad it's come on so soon," she said. "In a sense, that is! I
was afraid Sam might be kept at Stafford for days. Do you think it will
last long?"

"Not it!" said Mr. Critchlow, positively. "There's naught in it to spin
out."

Then a silence, punctuated by the sound of stitching.

Constance would really have preferred not to converse with the old man;
but the desire for reassurance, for the calming of her own fears,
forced her to speak, though she knew well that Mr. Critchlow was
precisely the last man in the town to give moral assistance if he
thought it was wanted.

"I do hope everything will be all right!" she murmured.

"Everything'll be all right!" he said gaily. "Everything'll be all
right. Only it'll be all wrong for Dan."

"Whatever do you mean, Mr. Critchlow?" she protested.

Nothing, she reflected, could rouse pity in that heart, not even a
tragedy like Daniel's. She bit her lip for having spoken.

"Well," he said in loud tones, frankly addressing the girls round the
stove as much as Constance. "I've met with some rare good arguments
this new year, no mistake! There's been some as say that Dan never
meant to do it. That's as may be. But if it's a good reason for not
hanging, there's an end to capital punishment in this country. 'Never
meant'! There's a lot of 'em as 'never meant'! Then I'm told as she was
a gallivanting woman and no housekeeper, and as often drunk as sober.
I'd no call to be told that. If strangling is a right punishment for a
wife as spends her time in drinking brandy instead of sweeping floors
and airing sheets, then Dan's safe. But I don't seem to see Judge
Lindley telling the jury as it is. I've been a juryman under Judge
Lindley myself--and more than once--and I don't seem to see him, like!"
He paused with his mouth open. "As for all them nobs," he continued,
"including th' rector, as have gone to Stafford to kiss the book and
swear that Dan's reputation is second to none--if they could ha' sworn
as Dan wasn't in th' house at all that night, if they could ha' sworn
he was in Jericho, there'd ha' been some sense in their going. But as
it is, they'd ha' done better to stop at home and mind their business.
Bless us! Sam wanted ME to go!"

He laughed again, in the faces of the horrified and angry women.

"I'm surprised at you, Mr. Critchlow! I really am!" Constance exclaimed.

And the assistants inarticulately supported her with vague sounds. Miss
Insull got up and poked the stove. Every soul in the establishment was
loyally convinced that Daniel Povey would be acquitted, and to breathe
a doubt on the brightness of this certainty was a hideous crime. The
conviction was not within the domain of reason; it was an act of faith;
and arguments merely fretted, without in the slightest degree
disturbing it.

"Ye may be!" Mr. Critchlow gaily concurred. He was very content.

Just as he shuffled round to leave the shop, Cyril entered.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Critchlow," said Cyril, sheepishly polite.

Mr. Critchlow gazed hard at the boy, then nodded his head several times
rapidly, as though to say: "Here's another fool in the making! So the
generations follow one another!" He made no answer to the salutation,
and departed.

Cyril ran round to his mother's corner, pitching his bag on to the
showroom stairs as he passed them. Taking off his hat, he kissed her,
and she unbuttoned his overcoat with her cold hands.

"What's old Methuselah after?" he demanded.

"Hush!" Constance softly corrected him. "He came in to tell me the
trial had started."

"Oh, I knew that! A boy bought a paper and I saw it. I say, mother,
will father be in the paper?" And then in a different tone: "I say,
mother, what is there for tea?"

When his stomach had learnt exactly what there was for tea, the boy
began to show an immense and talkative curiosity in the trial. He would
not set himself to his home-lessons. "It's no use, mother," he said, "I
can't." They returned to the shop together, and Cyril would go every
moment to the door to listen for the cry of a newsboy. Presently he hit
upon the idea that perhaps newsboys might be crying the special edition
of the Signal in the market-place, in front of the Town Hall, to the
neglect of St. Luke's Square. And nothing would satisfy him but he must
go forth and see. He went, without his overcoat, promising to run. The
shop waited with a strange anxiety. Cyril had created, by his restless
movements to and fro, an atmosphere of strained expectancy. It seemed
now as if the whole town stood with beating heart, fearful of tidings
and yet burning to get them. Constance pictured Stafford, which she had
never seen, and a court of justice, which she had never seen, and her
husband and Daniel in it. And she waited.

Cyril ran in. "No!" he announced breathlessly. "Nothing yet."

"Don't take cold, now you're hot," Constance advised.

But he would keep near the door. Soon he ran off again.

And perhaps fifteen seconds after he had gone, the strident cry of a
Signal boy was heard in the distance, faint and indistinct at first,
then clearer and louder.

"There's a paper!" said the apprentice.

"Sh!" said Constance, listening.

"Sh!" echoed Miss Insull.

"Yes, it is!" said Constance. "Miss Insull, just step out and get a
paper. Here's a halfpenny."

The halfpenny passed quickly from one thimbled hand to another. Miss
Insull scurried.

She came in triumphantly with the sheet, which Constance tremblingly
took. Constance could not find the report at first. Miss Insull pointed
to it, and read--

"'Summing up!' Lower down, lower down! 'After an absence of thirty-five
minutes the jury found the prisoner guilty of murder, with a
recommendation to mercy. The judge assumed the black cap and pronounced
sentence of death, saying that he would forward the recommendation to
the proper quarter.'"

Cyril returned. "Not yet!" he was saying--when he saw the paper lying
on the counter. His crest fell.

Long after the shop was shut, Constance and Cyril waited in the parlour
for the arrival of the master of the house. Constance was in the
blackest despair. She saw nothing but death around her. She thought:
misfortunes never come singly. Why did not Samuel come? All was ready
for him, everything that her imagination could suggest, in the way of
food, remedies, and the means of warmth. Amy was not allowed to go to
bed, lest she might be needed. Constance did not even hint that Cyril
should go to bed. The dark, dreadful minutes ticked themselves off on
the mantelpiece until only five minutes separated Constance from the
moment when she would not know what to do next. It was twenty-five
minutes past eleven. If at half-past Samuel did not appear, then he
could not come that night, unless the last train from Stafford was
inconceivably late.

The sound of a carriage! It ceased at the door. Mother and son sprang
up.

Yes, it was Samuel! She beheld him once more. And the sight of his
condition, moral and physical, terrified her. His great strapping son
and Amy helped him upstairs. "Will he ever come down those stairs
again?" This thought lanced Constance's heart. The pain was come and
gone in a moment, but it had surprised her tranquil commonsense, which
was naturally opposed to, and gently scornful of, hysterical fears. As
she puffed, with her stoutness, up the stairs, that bland cheerfulness
of hers cost her an immense effort of will. She was profoundly
troubled; great disasters seemed to be slowly approaching her from all
quarters.

Should she send for the doctor? No. To do so would only be a concession
to the panic instinct. She knew exactly what was the matter with
Samuel: a severe cough persistently neglected, no more. As she had
expressed herself many times to inquirers, "He's never been what you
may call ill." Nevertheless, as she laid him in bed and possetted him,
how frail and fragile he looked! And he was so exhausted that he would
not even talk about the trial.

"If he's not better to-morrow I shall send for the doctor!" she said to
herself. As for his getting up, she swore she would keep him in bed by
force if necessary.

IV

The next morning she was glad and proud that she had not yielded to a
scare. For he was most strangely and obviously better. He had slept
heavily, and she had slept a little. True that Daniel was condemned to
death! Leaving Daniel to his fate, she was conscious of joy springing
in her heart. How absurd to have asked herself: "Will he ever come down
those stairs again?"!

A message reached her from the forgotten shop during the morning, that
Mr. Lawton had called to see Mr. Povey. Already Samuel had wanted to
arise, but she had forbidden it in the tone of a woman who is
dangerous, and Samuel had been very reasonable. He now said that Mr.
Lawton must be asked up. She glanced round the bedroom. It was 'done';
it was faultlessly correct as a sick chamber. She agreed to the
introduction into it of the man from another sphere, and after a
preliminary minute she left the two to talk together. This visit of
young Lawton's was a dramatic proof of Samuel's importance, and of the
importance of the matter in hand. The august occasion demanded
etiquette, and etiquette said that a wife should depart from her
husband when he had to transact affairs beyond the grasp of a wife.

The idea of a petition to the Home Secretary took shape at this
interview, and before the day was out it had spread over the town and
over the Five Towns, and it was in the Signal. The Signal spoke of
Daniel Povey as 'the condemned man.' And the phrase startled the whole
district into an indignant agitation for his reprieve. The district
woke up to the fact that a Town Councillor, a figure in the world, an
honest tradesman of unspotted character, was cooped solitary in a
little cell at Stafford, waiting to be hanged by the neck till he was
dead. The district determined that this must not and should not be.
Why! Dan Povey had actually once been Chairman of the Bursley Society
for the Prosecution of Felons, that association for annual eating and
drinking, whose members humorously called each other 'felons'!
Impossible, monstrous, that an ex-chairman of the 'Felons' should be a
sentenced criminal!

However, there was nothing to fear. No Home Secretary would dare to run
counter to the jury's recommendation and the expressed wish of the
whole district. Besides, the Home Secretary's nephew was M.P. for the
Knype division. Of course a verdict of guilty had been inevitable.
Everybody recognized that now. Even Samuel and all the hottest
partisans of Daniel Povey recognized it. They talked as if they had
always foreseen it, directly contradicting all that they had said on
only the previous day. Without any sense of any inconsistency or of
shame, they took up an absolutely new position. The structure of blind
faith had once again crumbled at the assault of realities, and
unhealthy, un-English truths, the statement of which would have meant
ostracism twenty-four hours earlier, became suddenly the platitudes of
the Square and the market-place.

Despatch was necessary in the affair of the petition, for the condemned
man had but three Sundays. But there was delay at the beginning,
because neither young Lawton nor any of his colleagues was acquainted
with the proper formula of a petition to the Home Secretary for the
reprieve of a criminal condemned to death. No such petition had been
made in the district within living memory. And at first, young Lawton
could not get sight or copy of any such petition anywhere, in the Five
Towns or out of them. Of course there must exist a proper formula, and
of course that formula and no other could be employed. Nobody was bold
enough to suggest that young Lawton should commence the petition, "To
the Most Noble the Marquis of Welwyn, K.C.B., May it please your
Lordship," and end it, "And your petitioners will ever pray!" and
insert between those phrases a simple appeal for the reprieve, with a
statement of reasons. No! the formula consecrated by tradition must be
found. And, after Daniel had arrived a day and a half nearer death, it
was found. A lawyer at Alnwick had the draft of a petition which had
secured for a murderer in Northumberland twenty years' penal servitude
instead of sudden death, and on request he lent it to young Lawton. The
prime movers in the petition felt that Daniel Povey was now as good as
saved. Hundreds of forms were printed to receive signatures, and these
forms, together with copies of the petition, were laid on the counters
of all the principal shops, not merely in Bursley, but in the other
towns. They were also to be found at the offices of the Signal, in
railway waiting-rooms, and in the various reading-rooms; and on the
second of Daniel's three Sundays they were exposed in the porches of
churches and chapels. Chapel-keepers and vergers would come to Samuel
and ask with the heavy inertia of their stupidity: "About pens and ink,
sir?" These officials had the air of audaciously disturbing the
sacrosanct routine of centuries in order to confer a favour.

Samuel continued to improve. His cough shook him less, and his appetite
increased. Constance allowed him to establish himself in the
drawing-room, which was next to the bedroom, and of which the grate was
particularly efficient. Here, in an old winter overcoat, he directed
the vast affair of the petition, which grew daily to vaster
proportions. Samuel dreamed of twenty thousand signatures. Each sheet
held twenty signatures, and several times a day he counted the sheets;
the supply of forms actually failed once, and Constance herself had to
hurry to the printers to order more. Samuel was put into a passion by
this carelessness of the printers. He offered Cyril sixpence for every
sheet of signatures which the boy would obtain. At first Cyril was too
shy to canvass, but his father made him blush, and in a few hours Cyril
had developed into an eager canvasser. One whole day he stayed away
from school to canvas. Altogether he earned over fifteen shillings,
quite honestly except that he got a companion to forge a couple of
signatures with addresses lacking at the end of a last sheet,
generously rewarding him with sixpence, the value of the entire sheet.

When Samuel had received a thousand sheets with twenty thousand
signatures, he set his heart on twenty-five thousand signatures. And he
also announced his firm intention of accompanying young Lawton to
London with the petition. The petition had, in fact, become one of the
most remarkable petitions of modern times. So the Signal said. The
Signal gave a daily account of its progress, and its progress was
astonishing. In certain streets every householder had signed it. The
first sheets had been reserved for the signatures of members of
Parliament, ministers of religion, civic dignitaries, justices of the
peace, etc. These sheets were nobly filled. The aged Rector of Bursley
signed first of all; after him the Mayor of Bursley, as was right; then
sundry M.P.'s.

Samuel emerged from the drawing-room. He went into the parlour, and,
later, into the shop; and no evil consequence followed. His cough was
nearly, but not quite, cured. The weather was extraordinarily mild for
the season. He repeated that he should go with the petition to London;
and he went; Constance could not validly oppose the journey. She, too,
was a little intoxicated by the petition. It weighed considerably over
a hundredweight. The crowning signature, that of the M.P. for Knype,
was duly obtained in London, and Samuel's one disappointment was that
his hope of twenty-five thousand signatures had fallen short of
realization--by only a few score. The few score could have been got had
not time urgently pressed. He returned from London a man of mark, full
of confidence; but his cough was worse again.

His confidence in the power of public opinion and the inherent virtue
of justice might have proved to be well placed, had not the Home
Secretary happened to be one of your humane officials. The Marquis of
Welwyn was celebrated through every stratum of the governing classes
for his humane instincts, which were continually fighting against his
sense of duty. Unfortunately his sense of duty, which he had inherited
from several centuries of ancestors, made havoc among his humane
instincts on nearly every occasion of conflict. It was reported that he
suffered horribly in consequence. Others also suffered, for he was
never known to advise a remission of a sentence of flogging. Certain
capital sentences he had commuted, but he did not commute Daniel
Povey's. He could not permit himself to be influenced by a wave of
popular sentiment, and assuredly not by his own nephew's signature. He
gave to the case the patient, remorseless examination which he gave to
every case. He spent a sleepless night in trying to discover a reason
for yielding to his humane instincts, but without success. As Judge
Lindley remarked in his confidential report, the sole arguments in
favour of Daniel were provocation and his previous high character; and
these were no sort of an argument. The provocation was utterly
inadequate, and the previous high character was quite too ludicrously
beside the point. So once more the Marquis's humane instincts were
routed and he suffered horribly.

On the Sunday morning after the day on which the Signal had printed the
menu of Daniel Povey's supreme breakfast, and the exact length of the
'drop' which the executioner had administered to him, Constance and
Cyril stood together at the window of the large bedroom. The boy was in
his best clothes; but Constance's garments gave no sign of the Sabbath.
She wore a large apron over an old dress that was rather tight for her.
She was pale and looked ill.

"Oh, mother!" Cyril exclaimed suddenly. "Listen! I'm sure I can hear
the band."

She checked him with a soundless movement of her lips; and they both
glanced anxiously at the silent bed, Cyril with a gesture of apology
for having forgotten that he must make no noise.

The strains of the band came from down King Street, in the direction of
St. Luke's Church. The music appeared to linger a long time in the
distance, and then it approached, growing louder, and the Bursley Town
Silver Prize Band passed under the window at the solemn pace of
Handel's "Dead March." The effect of that requiem, heavy with its own
inherent beauty and with the vast weight of harrowing tradition, was to
wring the tears from Constance's eyes; they fell on her aproned bosom,
and she sank into a chair. And though, the cheeks of the trumpeters
were puffed out, and though the drummer had to protrude his stomach and
arch his spine backwards lest he should tumble over his drum, there was
majesty in the passage of the band. The boom of the drum, desolating
the interruptions of the melody, made sick the heart, but with a lofty
grief; and the dirge seemed to be weaving a purple pall that covered
every meanness.

The bandsmen were not all in black, but they all wore crape on their
sleeves and their instruments were knotted with crape. They carried in
their hats a black-edged card. Cyril held one of these cards in his
hands. It ran thus:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF DANIEL POVEY A TOWN COUNCILLOR OF THIS TOWN
JUDICIALLY MURDERED AT 8 O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING 8TH FEBRUARY 1888 "HE
WAS MORE SINNED AGAINST THAN SINNING."

In the wake of the band came the aged Rector, bare-headed, and wearing
a surplice over his overcoat; his thin white hair was disarranged by
the breeze that played in the chilly sunshine; his hands were folded on
a gilt-edged book. A curate, churchwardens, and sidesmen followed. And
after these, tramping through the dark mud in a procession that had
apparently no end, wound the unofficial male multitude, nearly all in
mourning, and all, save the more aristocratic, carrying the memorial
card in their hats. Loafers, women, and children had collected on the
drying pavements, and a window just opposite Constance was ornamented
with the entire family of the landlord of the Sun Vaults. In the great
bar of the Vaults a barman was craning over the pitchpine screen that
secured privacy to drinkers. The procession continued without break,
eternally rising over the verge of King Street 'bank,' and eternally
vanishing round the corner into St. Luke's Square; at intervals it was
punctuated by a clergyman, a Nonconformist minister, a town crier, a
group of foremen, or a few Rifle Volunteers. The watching crowd grew as
the procession lengthened. Then another band was heard, also playing
the march from Saul. The first band had now reached the top of the
Square, and was scarcely audible from King Street. The reiterated
glitter in the sun of memorial cards in hats gave the fanciful illusion
of an impossible whitish snake that was straggling across the town.
Three-quarters of an hour elapsed before the tail of the snake came
into view, and a rabble of unkempt boys closed in upon it, filling the
street.

"I shall go to the drawing-room window, mother," said Cyril.

She nodded. He crept out of the bedroom.

St. Luke's Square was a sea of hats and memorial cards. Most of the
occupiers of the Square had hung out flags at half-mast, and a flag at
half-mast was flying over the Town Hall in the distance. Sightseers
were at every window. The two bands had united at the top of the
Square; and behind them, on a North Staffordshire Railway lorry, stood
the white-clad Rector and several black figures. The Rector was
speaking; but only those close to the lorry could hear his feeble
treble voice.

Such was the massive protest of Bursley against what Bursley regarded
as a callous injustice. The execution of Daniel Povey had most
genuinely excited the indignation of the town. That execution was not
only an injustice; it was an insult, a humiliating snub. And the worst
was that the rest of the country had really discovered no sympathetic
interest in the affair. Certain London papers, indeed, in commenting
casually on the execution, had slurred the morals and manners of the
Five Towns, professing to regard the district as notoriously beyond the
realm of the Ten Commandments. This had helped to render furious the
townsmen. This, as much as anything, had encouraged the spontaneous
outburst of feeling which had culminated in a St. Luke's Square full of
people with memorial cards in their hats. The demonstration had
scarcely been organized; it had somehow organized itself, employing the
places of worship and a few clubs as centres of gathering. And it
proved an immense success. There were seven or eight thousand people in
the Square, and the pity was that England as a whole could not have had
a glimpse of the spectacle. Since the execution of the elephant,
nothing had so profoundly agitated Bursley. Constance, who left the
bedroom momentarily for the drawing-room, reflected that the death and
burial of Cyril's honoured grandfather, though a resounding event, had
not caused one-tenth of the stir which she beheld. But then John Baines
had killed nobody.

The Rector spoke too long; every one felt that. But at length he
finished. The bands performed the Doxology, and the immense multitudes
began to disperse by the eight streets that radiate from the Square. At
the same time one o'clock struck, and the public-houses opened with
their customary admirable promptitude. Respectable persons, of course,
ignored the public-houses and hastened homewards to a delayed dinner.
But in a town of over thirty thousand souls there are sufficient dregs
to fill all the public-houses on an occasion of ceremonial excitement.
Constance saw the bar of the Vaults crammed with individuals whose
sense of decent fitness was imperfect. The barman and the landlord and
the principal members of the landlord's family were hard put to it to
quench that funereal thirst. Constance, as she ate a little meal in the
bedroom, could not but witness the orgy. A bandsman with his silver
instrument was prominent at the counter. At five minutes to three the
Vaults spewed forth a squirt of roysterers who walked on the pavement
as on a tight-rope; among them was the bandsman, his silver instrument
only half enveloped in its bag of green serge. He established an
equilibrium in the gutter. It would not have mattered so seriously if
he had not been a bandsman. The barman and the landlord pushed the
ultimate sot by force into the street and bolted the door (till six
o'clock) just as a policeman strolled along, the first policeman of the
day. It became known that similar scenes were enacting at the
thresholds of other inns. And the judicious were sad.

VI

When the altercation between the policeman and the musician in the
gutter was at its height, Samuel Povey became restless; but since he
had scarcely stirred through the performances of the bands, it was
probably not the cries of the drunkard that had aroused him.

He had shown very little interest in the preliminaries of the great
demonstration. The flame of his passion for the case of Daniel Povey
seemed to have shot up on the day before the execution, and then to
have expired. On that day he went to Stafford in order, by permit of
the prison governor, to see his cousin for the last time. His condition
then was undoubtedly not far removed from monomania. 'Unhinged' was the
conventional expression which frequently rose in Constance's mind as a
description of the mind of her husband; but she fought it down; she
would not have it; it was too crude--with its associations. She would
only admit that the case had 'got on' his mind. A startling proof of
this was that he actually suggested taking Cyril with him to see the
condemned man. He wished Cyril to see Daniel; he said gravely that he
thought Cyril ought to see him. The proposal was monstrous,
inexplicable--or explicable only by the assumption that his mind, while
not unhinged, had temporarily lost its balance. Constance opposed an
absolute negative, and Samuel being in every way enfeebled, she
overcame. As for Cyril, he was divided between fear and curiosity. On
the whole, perhaps Cyril regretted that he would not be able to say at
school that he had had speech with the most celebrated killer of the
age on the day before his execution.

Samuel returned hysterical from Stafford. His account of the scene,
which he gave in a very loud voice, was a most absurd and yet pathetic
recital, obviously distorted by memory. When he came to the point of
the entrance of Dick Povey, who was still at the hospital, and who had
been specially driven to Stafford and carried into the prison, he wept
without restraint. His hysteria was painful in a very high degree.

He went to bed--of his own accord, for his cough had improved again.
And on the following day, the day of the execution, he remained in bed
till the afternoon. In the evening the Rector sent for him to the
Rectory to discuss the proposed demonstration. On the next day,
Saturday, he said he should not get up. Icy showers were sweeping the
town, and his cough was worse after the evening visit to the Rector.
Constance had no apprehensions about him. The most dangerous part of
the winter was over, and there was nothing now to force him into
indiscretions. She said to herself calmly that he should stay in bed as
long as he liked, that he could not have too much repose after the
cruel fatigues, physical and spiritual, which he had suffered. His
cough was short, but not as troublesome as in the past; his face
flushed, dusky, and settled in gloom; and he was slightly feverish,
with quick pulse and quick breathing--the symptoms of a renewed cold.
He passed a wakeful night, broken by brief dreams in which he talked.
At dawn he had some hot food, asked what day it was, frowned, and
seemed to doze off at once. At eleven o'clock he had refused food. And
he had intermittently dozed during the progress of the demonstration
and its orgiastic sequel.

Constance had food ready for his waking, and she approached the bed and
leaned over him. The fever had increased somewhat, the breathing was
more rapid, and his lips were covered with tiny purple pimples. He
feebly shook his head, with a disgusted air, at her mention of food. It
was this obstinate refusal of food which first alarmed her. A little
uncomfortable suspicion shot up in her: Surely there's nothing the
MATTER with him?

Something--impossible to say what--caused her to bend still lower, and
put her ear to his chest. She heard within that mysterious box a rapid
succession of thin, dry, crackling sounds: sounds such as she would
have produced by rubbing her hair between her fingers close to her ear.
The crepitation ceased, then recommenced, and she perceived that it
coincided with the intake of his breath. He coughed; the sounds were
intensified; a spasm of pain ran over his face; and he put his damp
hand to his side.

"Pain in my side!" he whispered with difficulty.

Constance stepped into the drawing-room, where Cyril was sketching by
the fire.

"Cyril," she said, "go across and ask Dr. Harrop to come round at once.
And if he isn't in, then his new partner."

"Is it for father?"

"Yes."

"What's the matter?"

"Now do as I say, please," said Constance, sharply, adding: "I don't
know what's the matter. Perhaps nothing. But I'm not satisfied."

The venerable Harrop pronounced the word 'pneumonia.' It was acute
double pneumonia that Samuel had got. During the three worst months of
the year, he had escaped the fatal perils which await a man with a flat
chest and a chronic cough, who ignores his condition and defies the
weather. But a journey of five hundred yards to the Rectory had been
one journey too many. The Rectory was so close to the shop that he had
not troubled to wrap himself up as for an excursion to Stafford. He
survived the crisis of the disease and then died of toxsemia, caused by
a heart that would not do its duty by the blood. A casual death, scarce
noticed in the reaction after the great febrile demonstration! Besides,
Samuel Povey never could impose himself on the burgesses. He lacked
individuality. He was little. I have often laughed at Samuel Povey. But
I liked and respected him. He was a very honest man. I have always been
glad to think that, at the end of his life, destiny took hold of him
and displayed, to the observant, the vein of greatness which runs
through every soul without exception. He embraced a cause, lost it, and
died of it.




CHAPTER VI

THE WIDOW

I


Constance, alone in the parlour, stood expectant by the set tea-table.
She was not wearing weeds; her mother and she, on the death of her
father, had talked of the various disadvantages of weeds; her mother
had worn them unwillingly, and only because a public opinion not
sufficiently advanced had intimidated her. Constance had said: "If ever
I'm a widow I won't wear them," positively, in the tone of youth; and
Mrs. Baines had replied: "I hope you won't, my dear." That was over
twenty years ago, but Constance perfectly remembered. And now, she was
a widow! How strange and how impressive was life! And she had kept her
word; not positively, not without hesitations; for though times were
changed, Bursley was still Bursley; but she had kept it.

This was the first Monday after Samuel's funeral. Existence in the
house had been resumed on the plane which would henceforth be the
normal plane. Constance had put on for tea a dress of black silk with a
jet brooch of her mother's. Her hands, just meticulously washed, had
that feeling of being dirty which comes from roughening of the
epidermis caused by a day spent in fingering stuffs. She had been
'going through' Samuel's things, and her own, and ranging all anew. It
was astonishing how little the man had collected, of 'things,' in the
course of over half a century. All his clothes were contained in two
long drawers and a short one. He had the least possible quantity of
haberdashery and linen, for he invariably took from the shop such
articles as he required, when he required them, and he would never
preserve what was done with. He possessed no jewellery save a set of
gold studs, a scarf-ring, and a wedding-ring; the wedding-ring was
buried with him. Once, when Constance had offered him her father's gold
watch and chain, he had politely refused it, saying that he preferred
his own--a silver watch (with a black cord) which kept excellent time;
he had said later that she might save the gold watch and chain for
Cyril when he was twenty-one. Beyond these trifles and a half-empty box
of cigars and a pair of spectacles, he left nothing personal to
himself. Some men leave behind them a litter which takes months to sift
and distribute. But Samuel had not the mania for owning. Constance put
his clothes in a box to be given away gradually (all except an overcoat
and handkerchiefs which might do for Cyril); she locked up the watch
and its black cord, the spectacles and the scarf-ring; she gave the
gold studs to Cyril; she climbed on a chair and hid the cigar-box on
the top of her wardrobe; and scarce a trace of Samuel remained!

By his own wish the funeral had been as simple and private as possible.
One or two distant relations, whom Constance scarcely knew and who
would probably not visit her again until she too was dead, came--and
went. And lo! the affair was over. The simple celerity of the funeral
would have satisfied even Samuel, whose tremendous self-esteem hid
itself so effectually behind such externals that nobody had ever fully
perceived it. Not even Constance quite knew Samuel's secret opinion of
Samuel. Constance was aware that he had a ridiculous side, that his
greatest lack had been a lack of spectacular dignity. Even in the
coffin, where nevertheless most people are finally effective, he had
not been imposing--with his finicky little grey beard persistently
sticking up.

The vision of him in his coffin--there in the churchyard, just at the
end of King Street!--with the lid screwed down on that unimportant
beard, recurred frequently in the mind of the widow, as something
untrue and misleading. She had to say to herself: "Yes, he is really
there! And that is why I have this particular feeling in my heart." She
saw him as an object pathetic and wistful, not majestic. And yet she
genuinely thought that there could not exist another husband quite so
honest, quite so just, quite so reliable, quite so good, as Samuel had
been. What a conscience he had! How he would try, and try, to be fair
with her! Twenty years she could remember, of ceaseless, constant
endeavour on his part to behave rightly to her! She could recall many
an occasion when he had obviously checked himself, striving against his
tendency to cold abruptness and to sullenness, in order to give her the
respect due to a wife. What loyalty was his! How she could depend on
him! How much better he was than herself (she thought with modesty)!

His death was an amputation for her. But she faced it with calmness.
She was not bowed with sorrow. She did not nurse the idea that her life
was at an end; on the contrary, she obstinately put it away from her,
dwelling on Cyril. She did not indulge in the enervating voluptuousness
of grief. She had begun in the first hours of bereavement by picturing
herself as one marked out for the blows of fate. She had lost her
father and her mother, and now her husband. Her career seemed to be
punctuated by interments. But after a while her gentle commonsense came
to insist that most human beings lose their parents, and that every
marriage must end in either a widower or a widow, and that all careers
are punctuated by interments. Had she not had nearly twenty-one years
of happy married life? (Twenty-one years--rolled up! The sudden thought
of their naive ignorance of life, hers and his, when they were first
married, brought tears into her eyes. How wise and experienced she was
now!) And had she not Cyril? Compared to many women, she was indeed
very fortunate.

The one visitation which had been specially hers was the disappearance
of Sophia. And yet even that was not worse than the death outright of
Sophia, was perhaps not so bad. For Sophia might return out of the
darkness. The blow of Sophia's flight had seemed unique when it was
fresh, and long afterwards; had seemed to separate the Baines family
from all other families in a particular shame. But at the age of
forty-three Constance had learnt that such events are not uncommon in
families, and strange sequels to them not unknown. Thinking often of
Sophia, she hoped wildly and frequently.

She looked at the clock; she had a little spasm of nervousness lest
Cyril might fail to keep his word on that first day of their new
regular life together. And at the instant he burst into the room,
invading it like an armed force, having previously laid waste the shop
in his passage.

"I'm not late, mother! I'm not late!" he cried proudly.

She smiled warmly, happy in him, drawing out of him balm and solace. He
did not know that in that stout familiar body before him was a
sensitive, trembling soul that clutched at him ecstatically as the one
reality in the universe. He did not know that that evening meal,
partaken of without hurry after school had released him to her, was to
be the ceremonial sign of their intimate unity and their
interdependence, a tender and delicious proof that they were 'all in
all to each other': he saw only his tea, for which he was hungry--just
as hungry as though his father were not scarcely yet cold in the grave.

But he saw obscurely that the occasion demanded something not quite
ordinary, and so exerted himself to be boyishly charming to his mother.
She said to herself 'how good he was.' He felt at ease and confident in
the future, because he detected beneath her customary judicial,
impartial mask a clear desire to spoil him.

After tea, she regretfully left him, at his home-lessons, in order to
go into the shop. The shop was the great unsolved question. What was
she to do with the shop? Was she to continue the business or to sell
it? With the fortunes of her father and her aunt, and the economies of
twenty years, she had more than sufficient means. She was indeed rich,
according to the standards of the Square; nay, wealthy! Therefore she
was under no material compulsion to keep the shop. Moreover, to keep it
would mean personal superintendence and the burden of responsibility,
from which her calm lethargy shrank. On the other hand, to dispose of
the business would mean the breaking of ties and leaving the premises:
and from this also she shrank. Young Lawton, without being asked, had
advised her to sell. But she did not want to sell. She wanted the
impossible: that matters should proceed in the future as in the past,
that Samuel's death should change nothing save in her heart.

In the meantime Miss Insull was priceless. Constance thoroughly
understood one side of the shop; but Miss Insull understood both, and
the finance of it also. Miss Insull could have directed the
establishment with credit, if not with brilliance. She was indeed
directing it at that moment. Constance, however, felt jealous of Miss
Insull; she was conscious of a slight antipathy towards the faithful
one. She did not care to be in the hands of Miss Insull.

There were one or two customers at the millinery counter. They greeted
her with a deplorable copiousness of tact. Most tactfully they avoided
any reference to Constance's loss; but by their tone, their glances, at
Constance and at each other, and their heroically restrained sighs,
they spread desolation as though they had been spreading ashes instead
of butter on bread. The assistants, too, had a special demeanour for
the poor lone widow which was excessively trying to her. She wished to
be natural, and she would have succeeded, had they not all of them
apparently conspired together to make her task impossible.

She moved away to the other side of the shop, to Samuel's desk, at
which he used to stand, staring absently out of the little window into
King Street while murmurously casting figures. She lighted the gas-jet
there, arranged the light exactly to suit her, and then lifted the
large flap of the desk and drew forth some account books.

"Miss Insull!" she called, in a low, clear voice, with a touch of
haughtiness and a touch of command in it. The pose, a comical
contradiction of Constance's benevolent character, was deliberately
adopted; it illustrated the effects of jealousy on even the softest
disposition.

Miss Insull responded. She had no alternative but to respond. And she
gave no sign of resenting her employer's attitude. But then Miss Insull
seldom did give any sign of being human.

The customers departed, one after another, obsequiously sped by the
assistants, who thereupon lowered the gases somewhat, according to
secular rule; and in the dim eclipse, as they restored boxes to
shelves, they could hear the tranquil, regular, half-whispered
conversation of the two women at the desk, discussing accounts; and
then the chink of gold.

Suddenly there was an irruption. One of the assistants sprang
instinctively to the gas; but on perceiving that the disturber of peace
was only a slatternly girl, hatless and imperfectly clean, she decided
to leave the gas as it was, and put on a condescending, suspicious
demeanour.

"If you please, can I speak to the missis?" said the girl, breathlessly.

She seemed to be about eighteen years of age, fat and plain. Her blue
frock was torn, and over it she wore a rough brown apron, caught up at
one corner to the waist. Her bare forearms were of brick-red colour.

"What is it?" demanded the assistant.

Miss Insull looked over her shoulder across the shop. "It must be
Maggie's--Mrs. Hollins's daughter!" said Miss Insull under her breath.

"What can she want?" said Constance, leaving the desk instantly; and to
the girl, who stood sturdily holding her own against the group of
assistants: "You are Mrs. Hollins's daughter, aren't you?"

"Yes, mum."

"What's your name?"

"Maggie, mum. And, if you please, mother's sent me to ask if you'll
kindly give her a funeral card."

"A funeral card?"

"Yes. Of Mr. Povey. She's been expecting of one, and she thought as how
perhaps you'd forgotten it, especially as she wasn't asked to the
funeral."

The girl stopped.

Constance perceived that by mere negligence she had seriously wounded
the feelings of Maggie, senior. The truth was, she had never thought of
Maggie. She ought to have remembered that funeral cards were almost the
sole ornamentation of Maggie's abominable cottage.

"Certainly," she replied after a pause. "Miss Insull, there are a few
cards left in the desk, aren't there? Please put me one in an envelope
for Mrs. Hollins."

She gave the heavily bordered envelope to the ruddy wench, who enfolded
it in her apron, and with hurried, shy thanks ran off.

"Tell your mother I send her a card with pleasure," Constance called
after the girl.

The strangeness of the hazards of life made her thoughtful. She, to
whom Maggie had always seemed an old woman, was a widow, but Maggie's
husband survived as a lusty invalid. And she guessed that Maggie,
vilely struggling in squalor and poverty, was somehow happy in her
frowsy, careless way.

She went back to the accounts, dreaming.

II

When the shop had been closed, under her own critical and precise
superintendence, she extinguished the last gas in it and returned to
the parlour, wondering where she might discover some entirely reliable
man or boy to deal with the shutters night and morning. Samuel had
ordinarily dealt with the shutters himself, and on extraordinary
occasions and during holidays Miss Insull and one of her subordinates
had struggled with their unwieldiness. But the extraordinary occasion
had now become ordinary, and Miss Insull could not be expected to
continue indefinitely in the functions of a male. Constance had a mind
to engage an errand-boy, a luxury against which Samuel had always set
his face. She did not dream of asking the herculean Cyril to open and
shut shop.

He had apparently finished his home-lessons. The books were pushed
aside, and he was sketching in lead-pencil on a drawing-block. To the
right of the fireplace, over the sofa, there hung an engraving after
Landseer, showing a lonely stag paddling into a lake. The stag at eve
had drunk or was about to drink his fill, and Cyril was copying him. He
had already indicated a flight of birds in the middle distance; vague
birds on the wing being easier than detailed stags, he had begun with
the birds.

Constance put a hand on his shoulder. "Finished your lessons?" she
murmured caressingly.

Before speaking, Cyril gazed up at the picture with a frowning, busy
expression, and then replied in an absent-minded voice:

"Yes." And after a pause: "Except my arithmetic. I shall do that in the
morning before breakfast."

"Oh, Cyril!" she protested.

It had been a positive ordinance, for a long time past, that there
should be no sketching until lessons were done. In his father's
lifetime Cyril had never dared to break it.

He bent over his block, feigning an intense absorption. Constance's
hand slipped from his shoulder. She wanted to command him formally to
resume his lessons. But she could not. She feared an argument; she
mistrusted herself. And, moreover, it was so soon after his father's
death!

"You know you won't have time to-morrow morning!" she said weakly.

"Oh, mother!" he retorted superiorly. "Don't worry." And then, in a
cajoling tone: "I've wanted to do that stag for ages."

She sighed and sat down in her rocking-chair. He went on sketching,
rubbing out, and making queer expostulatory noises against his pencil,
or against the difficulties needlessly invented by Sir Edwin Landseer.
Once he rose and changed the position of the gas-bracket, staring
fiercely at the engraving as though it had committed a sin.

Amy came to lay the supper. He did not acknowledge that she existed.

"Now, Master Cyril, after you with that table, if you please!" She
announced herself brusquely, with the privilege of an old servant and a
woman who would never see thirty again.

"What a nuisance you are, Amy!" he gruffly answered. "Look here,
mother, can't Amy lay the cloth on that half of the table? I'm right in
the middle of my drawing. There's plenty of room there for two."

He seemed not to be aware that, in the phrase 'plenty of room for two,'
he had made a callous reference to their loss. The fact was, there WAS
plenty of room for two.

Constance said quickly: "Very well, Amy. For this once."

Amy grunted, but obeyed.

Constance had to summon him twice from art to nourishment. He ate with
rapidity, frequently regarding the picture with half-shut, searching
eyes. When he had finished, he refilled his glass with water, and put
it next to his sketching-block.

"You surely aren't thinking of beginning to paint at this time of
night!" Constance exclaimed, astonished.

"Oh YES, mother!" he fretfully appealed. "It's not late."

Another positive ordinance of his father's had been that there should
be nothing after supper except bed. Nine o'clock was the latest
permissible moment for going to bed. It was now less than a quarter to.

"It only wants twelve minutes to nine," Constance pointed out.

"Well, what if it does?"

"Now, Cyril," she said, "I do hope you are going to be a good boy, and
not cause your mother anxiety."

But she said it too kindly.

He said sullenly: "I do think you might let me finish it. I've begun
it. It won't take me long."

She made the mistake of leaving the main point. "How can you possibly
choose your colours properly by gas-light?" she said.

"I'm going to do it in sepia," he replied in triumph.

"It mustn't occur again," she said.

He thanked God for a good supper, and sprang to the harmonium, where
his paint-box was. Amy cleared away. Constance did crochet-work. There
was silence. The clock struck nine, and it also struck half-past nine.
She warned him repeatedly. At ten minutes to ten she said persuasively:

"Now, Cyril, when the clock strikes ten I shall really put the gas out."

The clock struck ten.

"Half a mo, half a mo!" he cried. "I've done! I've done!"

Her hand was arrested.

Another four minutes elapsed, and then he jumped up. "There you are!"
he said proudly, showing her the block. And all his gestures were full
of grace and cajolery.

"Yes, it's very good," Constance said, rather indifferently.

"I don't believe you care for it!" he accused her, but with a bright
smile.

"I care for your health," she said. "Just look at that clock!"

He sat down in the other rocking-chair, deliberately.

"Now, Cyril!"

"Well, mother, I suppose you'll let me take my boots off!" He said it
with teasing good-humour.

When he kissed her good night, she wanted to cling to him, so
affectionate was his kiss; but she could not throw off the habits of
restraint which she had been originally taught and had all her life
practised. She keenly regretted the inability.

In her bedroom, alone, she listened to his movements as he undressed.
The door between the two rooms was unlatched. She had to control a
desire to open it ever so little and peep at him. He would not have
liked that. He could have enriched her heart beyond all hope, and at no
cost to himself; but he did not know his power. As she could not cling
to him with her hands, she clung to him with that heart of hers, while
moving sedately up and down the room, alone. And her eyes saw him
through the solid wood of the door. At last she got heavily into bed.
She thought with placid anxiety, in the dark: "I shall have to be firm
with Cyril." And she thought also, simultaneously: "He really must be a
good boy. He MUST." And clung to him passionately, without shame! Lying
alone there in the dark, she could be as unrestrained and girlish as
her heart chose. When she loosed her hold she instantly saw the boy's
father arranged in his coffin, or flitting about the room. Then she
would hug that vision too, for the pleasure of the pain it gave her.

III

She was reassured as to Cyril during the next few days. He did not
attempt to repeat his ingenious naughtiness of the Monday evening, and
he came directly home for tea; moreover he had, as a kind of miracle
performed to dazzle her, actually arisen early on the Tuesday morning
and done his arithmetic. To express her satisfaction she had
manufactured a specially elaborate straw-frame for the sketch after Sir
Edwin Landseer, and had hung it in her bedroom: an honour which Cyril
appreciated. She was as happy as a woman suffering from a recent
amputation can be; and compared with the long nightmare created by
Samuel's monomania and illness, her existence seemed to be now a
beneficent calm.

Cyril, she thought, had realized the importance in her eyes of tea, of
that evening hour and that companionship which were for her the
flowering of the day. And she had such confidence in his goodness that
she would pour the boiling water on the Horniman tea-leaves even before
he arrived: certainty could not be more sure. And then, on the Friday
of the first week, he was late! He bounded in, after dark, and the
state of his clothes indicated too clearly that he had been playing
football in the mud that was a grassy field in summer.

"Have you been kept in, my boy?" she asked, for the sake of form.

"No, mother," he said casually. "We were just kicking the ball about a
bit. Am I late?"

"Better go and tidy yourself," she said, not replying to his question.
"You can't sit down in that state. And I'll have some fresh tea made.
This is spoilt."

"Oh, very well!"

Her sacred tea--the institution which she wanted to hallow by long
habit, and which was to count before everything with both of them--had
been carelessly sacrificed to the kicking of a football in mud! And his
father buried not ten days! She was wounded: a deep, clean, dangerous
wound that would not bleed. She tried to be glad that he had not lied;
he might easily have lied, saying that he had been detained for a fault
and could not help being late. No! He was not given to lying; he would
lie, like any human being, when a great occasion demanded such
prudence, but he was not a liar; he might fairly be called a truthful
boy. She tried to be glad, and did not succeed. She would have
preferred him to have lied.

Amy, grumbling, had to boil more water.

When he returned to the parlour, superficially cleaned, Constance
expected him to apologize in his roundabout boyish way; at any rate to
woo and wheedle her, to show by some gesture that he was conscious of
having put an affront on her. But his attitude was quite otherwise. His
attitude was rather brusque and overbearing and noisy. He ate a very
considerable amount of jam, far too quickly, and then asked for more,
in a tone of a monarch who calls for his own. And ere tea was finished
he said boldly, apropos of nothing:

"I say, mother, you'll just have to let me go to the School of Art
after Easter."

And stared at her with a fixed challenge in his eyes.

He meant, by the School of Art, the evening classes at the School of
Art. His father had decided absolutely against the project. His father
had said that it would interfere with his lessons, would keep him up
too late at night, and involve absence from home in the evening. The
last had always been the real objection. His father had not been able
to believe that Cyril's desire to study art sprang purely from his love
of art; he could not avoid suspecting that it was a plan to obtain
freedom in the evenings--that freedom which Samuel had invariably
forbidden. In all Cyril's suggestions Samuel had been ready to detect
the same scheme lurking. He had finally said that when Cyril left
school and took to a vocation, then he could study art at night if he
chose, but not before.

"You know what your father said!" Constance replied.

"But, mother! That's all very well! I'm sure father would have agreed.
If I'm going to take up drawing I ought to do it at once. That's what
the drawing-master says, and I suppose he ought to know." He finished
on a tone of insolence.

"I can't allow you to do it yet," said Constance, quietly. "It's quite
out of the question. Quite!"

He pouted and then he sulked. It was war between them. At times he was
the image of his Aunt Sophia. He would not leave the subject alone; but
he would not listen to Constance's reasoning. He openly accused her of
harshness. He asked her how she could expect him to get on if she
thwarted him in his most earnest desires. He pointed to other boys
whose parents were wiser.

"It's all very fine of you to put it on father!" he observed
sarcastically.

He gave up his drawing entirely.

When she hinted that if he attended the School of Art she would be
condemned to solitary evenings, he looked at her as though saying:
"Well, and if you are--?" He seemed to have no heart.

After several weeks of intense unhappiness she said: "How many evenings
do you want to go?"

The war was over.

He was charming again. When she was alone she could cling to him again.
And she said to herself: "If we can be happy together only when I give
way to him, I must give way to him." And there was ecstasy in her
yielding. "After all," she said to herself, "perhaps it's very
important that he should go to the School of Art." She solaced herself
with such thoughts on three solitary evenings a week, waiting for him
to come home.




CHAPTER VII

BRICKS AND MORTAR

I


In the summer of that year the occurrence of a white rash of posters on
hoardings and on certain houses and shops, was symptomatic of organic
change in the town. The posters were iterations of a mysterious
announcement and summons, which began with the august words: "By Order
of the Trustees of the late William Clews Mericarp, Esq." Mericarp had
been a considerable owner of property in Bursley. After a prolonged
residence at Southport, he had died, at the age of eighty-two, leaving
his property behind. For sixty years he had been a name, not a figure;
and the news of his death, which was assuredly an event, incited the
burgesses to gossip, for they had come to regard him as one of the
invisible immortals. Constance was shocked, though she had never seen
Mericarp. ("Everybody dies nowadays!" she thought.) He owned the
Baines-Povey shop, and also Mr. Critchlow's shop. Constance knew not
how often her father and, later, her husband, had renewed the lease of
those premises that were now hers; but from her earliest recollections
rose a vague memory of her father talking to her mother about
'Mericarp's rent,' which was and always had been a hundred a year.
Mericarp had earned the reputation of being 'a good landlord.'
Constance said sadly: "We shall never have another as good!" When a
lawyer's clerk called and asked her to permit the exhibition of a
poster in each of her shop-windows, she had misgivings for the future;
she was worried; she decided that she would determine the lease next
year, so as to be on the safe side; but immediately afterwards she
decided that she could decide nothing.

The posters continued: "To be sold by auction, at the Tiger Hotel at
six-thirty for seven o'clock precisely." What six-thirty had to do with
seven o'clock precisely no one knew. Then, after stating the name and
credentials of the auctioneer, the posters at length arrived at the
objects to be sold: "All those freehold messuages and shops and
copyhold tenements namely." Houses were never sold by auction in
Bursley. At moments of auction burgesses were reminded that the
erections they lived in were not houses, as they had falsely supposed,
but messuages. Having got as far as 'namely' the posters ruled a line
and began afresh: "Lot I. All that extensive and commodious shop and
messuage with the offices and appurtenances thereto belonging situate
and being No. 4 St. Luke's Square in the parish of Bursley in the
County of Stafford and at present in the occupation of Mrs. Constance
Povey widow under a lease expiring in September 1889." Thus clearly
asserting that all Constance's shop was for sale, its whole entirety,
and not a fraction or slice of it merely, the posters proceeded: "Lot
2. All that extensive and commodious shop and messuage with the offices
and appurtenances thereto belonging situate and being No. 3 St. Luke's
Square in the parish of Bursley in the County of Stafford and at
present in the occupation of Charles Critchlow chemist under an
agreement for a yearly tenancy." The catalogue ran to fourteen lots.
The posters, lest any one should foolishly imagine that a non-legal
intellect could have achieved such explicit and comprehensive clarity
of statement, were signed by a powerful firm of solicitors in
Hanbridge. Happily in the Five Towns there were no metaphysicians;
otherwise the firm might have been expected to explain, in the 'further
particulars and conditions' which the posters promised, how even a
messuage could 'be' the thing at which it was 'situate.'

Within a few hours of the outbreak of the rash, Mr. Critchlow abruptly
presented himself before Constance at the millinery counter; he was
waving a poster.

"Well!" he exclaimed grimly. "What next, eh?"

"Yes, indeed!" Constance responded.

"Are ye thinking o' buying?" he asked. All the assistants, including
Miss Insull, were in hearing, but he ignored their presence.

"Buying!" repeated Constance. "Not me! I've got quite enough house
property as it is."

Like all owners of real property, she usually adopted towards her
possessions an attitude implying that she would be willing to pay
somebody to take them from her.

"Shall you?" she added, with Mr. Critchlow's own brusqueness.

"Me! Buy property in St. Luke's Square!" Mr. Critchlow sneered. And
then left the shop as suddenly as he had entered it.

The sneer at St. Luke's Square was his characteristic expression of an
opinion which had been slowly forming for some years. The Square was no
longer what it had been, though individual businesses might be as good
as ever. For nearly twelve months two shops had been to let in it. And
once, bankruptcy had stained its annals. The tradesmen had naturally
searched for a cause in every direction save the right one, the obvious
one; and naturally they had found a cause. According to the tradesmen,
the cause was 'this football.' The Bursley Football Club had recently
swollen into a genuine rival of the ancient supremacy of the celebrated
Knype Club. It had transformed itself into a limited company, and
rented a ground up the Moorthorne Road, and built a grand stand. The
Bursley F.C. had 'tied' with the Knype F.C. on the Knype ground--a
prodigious achievement, an achievement which occupied a column of the
Athletic News one Monday morning! But were the tradesmen civically
proud of this glory? No! They said that 'this football' drew people out
of the town on Saturday afternoons, to the complete abolition of
shopping. They said also that people thought of nothing but 'this
football;' and, nearly in the same breath, that only roughs and
good-for-nothings could possibly be interested in such a barbarous
game. And they spoke of gate-money, gambling, and professionalism, and
the end of all true sport in England. In brief, something new had come
to the front and was submitting to the ordeal of the curse.

The sale of the Mericarp estate had a particular interest for
respectable stake-in-the-town persons. It would indicate to what
extent, if at all, 'this football' was ruining Bursley. Constance
mentioned to Cyril that she fancied she might like to go to the sale,
and as it was dated for one of Cyril's off-nights Cyril said that he
fancied he might like to go too. So they went together; Samuel used to
attend property sales, but he had never taken his wife to one.
Constance and Cyril arrived at the Tiger shortly after seven o'clock,
and were directed to a room furnished and arranged as for a small
public meeting of philanthropists. A few gentlemen were already
present, but not the instigating trustees, solicitors, and auctioneers.
It appeared that 'six-thirty for seven o'clock precisely' meant
seven-fifteen. Constance took a Windsor chair in the corner nearest the
door, and motioned Cyril to the next chair; they dared not speak; they
moved on tiptoe; Cyril inadvertently dragged his chair along the floor,
and produced a scrunching sound; he blushed, as though he had
desecrated a church, and his mother made a gesture of horror. The
remainder of the company glanced at the corner, apparently pained by
this negligence. Some of them greeted Constance, but self-consciously,
with a sort of shamed air; it might have been that they had all
nefariously gathered together there for the committing of a crime.
Fortunately Constance's widowhood had already lost its touching
novelty, so that the greetings, if self-conscious, were at any rate
given without unendurable commiseration and did not cause awkwardness.

When the official world arrived, fussy, bustling, bearing documents and
a hammer, the general feeling of guilty shame was intensified. Useless
for the auctioneer to try to dissipate the gloom by means of bright
gestures and quick, cheerful remarks to his supporters! Cyril had an
idea that the meeting would open with a hymn, until the apparition of a
tapster with wine showed him his error. The auctioneer very
particularly enjoined the tapster to see to it that no one lacked for
his thirst, and the tapster became self-consciously energetic. He began
by choosing Constance for service. In refusing wine, she blushed; then
the fellow offered a glass to Cyril, who went scarlet, and mumbled 'No'
with a lump in his throat; when the tapster's back was turned, he
smiled sheepishly at his mother. The majority of the company accepted
and sipped. The auctioneer sipped and loudly smacked, and said: "Ah!"

Mr. Critchlow came in.

And the auctioneer said again: "Ah! I'm always glad when the tenants
come. That's always a good sign."

He glanced round for approval of this sentiment. But everybody seemed
too stiff to move. Even the auctioneer was self-conscious.

"Waiter! Offer wine to Mr. Critchlow!" he exclaimed bullyingly, as if
saying: "Man! what on earth are you thinking of, to neglect Mr.
Critchlow?"

"Yes, sir; yes, sir," said the waiter, who was dispensing wine as fast
as a waiter can.

The auction commenced.

Seizing the hammer, the auctioneer gave a short biography of William
Clews Mericarp, and, this pious duty accomplished, called upon a
solicitor to read the conditions of sale. The solicitor complied and
made a distressing exhibition of self-consciousness. The conditions of
sale were very lengthy, and apparently composed in a foreign tongue;
and the audience listened to this elocution with a stoical pretence of
breathless interest.

Then the auctioneer put up all that extensive and commodious messuage
and shop situate and being No. 4, St. Luke's Square. Constance and
Cyril moved their limbs surreptitiously, as though being at last found
out. The auctioneer referred to John Baines and to Samuel Povey, with a
sense of personal loss, and then expressed his pleasure in the presence
of 'the ladies;' he meant Constance, who once more had to blush.

"Now, gentlemen," said the auctioneer, "what do you say for these
famous premises? I think I do not exaggerate when I use the word
'famous.'"

Some one said a thousand pounds, in the terrorized voice of a
delinquent.

"A thousand pounds," repeated the auctioneer, paused, sipped, and
smacked.

"Guineas," said another voice self-accused of iniquity.

"A thousand and fifty," said the auctioneer.

Then there was a long interval, an interval that tightened the nerves
of the assembly.

"Now, ladies and gentlemen," the auctioneer adjured.

The first voice said sulkily: "Eleven hundred."

And thus the bids rose to fifteen hundred, lifted bit by bit, as it
were, by the magnetic force of the auctioneer's personality. The man
was now standing up, in domination. He bent down to the solicitor's
head; they whispered together.

"Gentlemen," said the auctioneer, "I am happy to inform you that the
sale is now open." His tone translated better than words his calm
professional beatitude. Suddenly in a voice of wrath he hissed at the
waiter: "Waiter, why don't you serve these gentlemen?"

"Yes, sir; yes, sir."

The auctioneer sat down and sipped at leisure, chatting with his clerk
and the solicitor and the solicitor's clerk.

When he rose it was as a conqueror. "Gentlemen, fifteen hundred is bid.
Now, Mr. Critchlow."

Mr. Critchlow shook his head. The auctioneer threw a courteous glance
at Constance, who avoided it.

After many adjurations, he reluctantly raised his hammer, pretended to
let it fall, and saved it several times.

And then Mr. Critchlow said: "And fifty."

"Fifteen hundred and fifty is bid," the auctioneer informed the
company, electrifying the waiter once more. And when he had sipped he
said, with feigned sadness: "Come, gentlemen, you surely don't mean to
let this magnificent lot go for fifteen hundred and fifty pounds?"

But they did mean that.

The hammer fell, and the auctioneer's clerk and the solicitor's clerk
took Mr. Critchlow aside and wrote with him.

Nobody was surprised when Mr. Critchlow bought Lot No. 2, his own shop.

Constance whispered then to Cyril that she wished to leave. They left,
with unnatural precautions, but instantly regained their natural
demeanour in the dark street.

"Well, I never! Well, I never!" she murmured outside, astonished and
disturbed.

She hated the prospect of Mr. Critchlow as a landlord. And yet she
could not persuade herself to leave the place, in spite of decisions.

The sale demonstrated that football had not entirely undermined the
commercial basis of society in Bursley; only two Lots had to be
withdrawn.

II

On Thursday afternoon of the same week the youth whom Constance had
ended by hiring for the manipulation of shutters and other jobs
unsuitable for fragile women, was closing the shop. The clock had
struck two. All the shutters were up except the last one, in the midst
of the doorway. Miss Insull and her mistress were walking about the
darkened interior, putting dust-sheets well over the edges of exposed
goods; the other assistants had just left. The bull-terrier had
wandered into the shop as he almost invariably did at closing time--for
he slept there, an efficient guard--and had lain down by the dying
stove; though not venerable, he was stiffening into age.

"You can shut," said Miss Insull to the youth.

But as the final shutter was ascending to its position, Mr. Critchlow
appeared on the pavement.

"Hold on, young fellow!" Mr. Critchlow commanded, and stepped slowly,
lifting up his long apron, over the horizontal shutter on which the
perpendicular shutters rested in the doorway.

"Shall you be long, Mr. Critchlow?" the youth asked, posing the
shutter. "Or am I to shut?"

"Shut, lad," said Mr. Critchlow, briefly. "I'll go out by th' side
door."

"Here's Mr. Critchlow!" Miss Insull called out to Constance, in a
peculiar tone. And a flush, scarcely perceptible, crept very slowly
over her dark features. In the twilight of the shop, lit only by a few
starry holes in the shutters, and by the small side-window, not the
keenest eye could have detected that flush.

"Mr. Critchlow!" Constance murmured the exclamation. She resented his
future ownership of her shop. She thought he was come to play the
landlord, and she determined to let him see that her mood was
independent and free, that she would as lief give up the business as
keep it. In particular she meant to accuse him of having deliberately
deceived her as to his intentions on his previous visit.

"Well, missis!" the aged man greeted her. "We've made it up between us.
Happen some folk'll think we've taken our time, but I don't know as
that's their affair."

His little blinking eyes had a red border. The skin of his pale small
face was wrinkled in millions of minute creases. His arms and legs were
marvellously thin and sharply angular. The corners of his heliotrope
lips were turned down, as usual, in a mysterious comment on the world;
and his smile, as he fronted Constance with his excessive height,
crowned the mystery.

Constance stared, at a loss. It surely could not after all be true, the
substance of the rumours that had floated like vapours in the Square
for eight years and more!

"What...?" she began.

"Me, and her!" He jerked his head in the direction of Miss Insull.

The dog had leisurely strolled forward to inspect the edges of the
fiance's trousers. Miss Insull summoned the animal with a noise of
fingers, and then bent down and caressed it. A strange gesture proving
the validity of Charles Critchlow's discovery that in Maria Insull a
human being was buried!

Miss Insull was, as near as any one could guess, forty years of age.
For twenty-five years she had served in the shop, passing about twelve
hours a day in the shop; attending regularly at least three religious
services at the Wesleyan Chapel or School on Sundays, and sleeping with
her mother, whom she kept. She had never earned more than thirty
shillings a week, and yet her situation was considered to be
exceptionally good. In the eternal fusty dusk of the shop she had
gradually lost such sexual characteristics and charms as she had once
possessed. She was as thin and flat as Charles Critchlow himself. It
was as though her bosom had suffered from a prolonged drought at a
susceptible period of development, and had never recovered. The one
proof that blood ran in her veins was the pimply quality of her ruined
complexion, and the pimples of that brickish expanse proved that the
blood was thin and bad. Her hands and feet were large and ungainly; the
skin of the fingers was roughened by coarse contacts to the texture of
emery-paper. On six days a week she wore black; on the seventh a kind
of discreet half-mourning. She was honest, capable, and industrious;
and beyond the confines of her occupation she had no curiosity, no
intelligence, no ideas. Superstitions and prejudices, deep and violent,
served her for ideas; but she could incomparably sell silks and
bonnets, braces and oilcloth; in widths, lengths, and prices she never
erred; she never annoyed a customer, nor foolishly promised what could
not be performed, nor was late nor negligent, nor disrespectful. No one
knew anything about her, because there was nothing to know. Subtract
the shop-assistant from her, and naught remained. Benighted and
spiritually dead, she existed by habit.

But for Charles Critchlow she happened to be an illusion. He had cast
eyes on her and had seen youth, innocence, virginity. During eight
years the moth Charles had flitted round the lamp of her brilliance,
and was now singed past escape. He might treat her with what casualness
he chose; he might ignore her in public; he might talk brutally about
women; he might leave her to wonder dully what he meant, for months at
a stretch: but there emerged indisputable from the sum of his conduct
the fact that he wanted her. He desired her; she charmed him; she was
something ornamental and luxurious for which he was ready to pay--and
to commit follies. He had been a widower since before she was born; to
him she was a slip of a girl. All is relative in this world. As for
her, she was too indifferent to refuse him. Why refuse him? Oysters do
not refuse.

"I'm sure I congratulate you both," Constance breathed, realizing the
import of Mr. Critchlow's laconic words. "I'm sure I hope you'll be
happy."

"That'll be all right," said Mr. Critchlow.

"Thank you, Mrs. Povey," said Maria Insull.

Nobody seemed to know what to say next. "It's rather sudden," was on
Constance's tongue, but did not achieve utterance, being patently
absurd.

"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Critchlow, as though himself contemplating anew the
situation.

Miss Insull gave the dog a final pat.

"So that's settled," said Mr. Critchlow. "Now, missis, ye want to give
up this shop, don't ye?"

"I'm not so sure about that," Constance answered uneasily.

"Don't tell me!" he protested. "Of course ye want to give up the shop."

"I've lived here all my life," said Constance.

"Ye've not lived in th' shop all ye're life. I said th' shop. Listen
here!" he continued. "I've got a proposal to make to you. You can keep
on the house, and I'll take the shop off ye're hands. Now?" He looked
at her inquiringly.

Constance was taken aback by the brusqueness of the suggestion, which,
moreover, she did not understand.

"But how--" she faltered.

"Come here," said Mr. Critchlow, impatiently, and he moved towards the
house-door of the shop, behind the till.

"Come where? What do you want?" Constance demanded in a maze.

"Here!" said Mr. Critchlow, with increasing impatience. "Follow me,
will ye?"

Constance obeyed. Miss Insull sidled after Constance, and the dog after
Miss Insull. Mr. Critchlow went through the doorway and down the
corridor, past the cutting-out room to his right. The corridor then
turned at a right-angle to the left and ended at the parlour door, the
kitchen steps being to the left.

Mr. Critchlow stopped short of the kitchen steps, and extended his
arms, touching the walls on either side.

"Here!" he said, tapping the walls with his bony knuckles. "Here!
Suppose I brick ye this up, and th' same upstairs between th' showroom
and th' bedroom passage, ye've got your house to yourself. Ye say ye've
lived here all your life. Well, what's to prevent ye finishing up here?
The fact is," he added, "it would only be making into two houses again
what was two houses to start with, afore your time, missis."

"And what about the shop?" cried Constance.

"Ye can sell us th' stock at a valuation."

Constance suddenly comprehended the scheme. Mr. Critchlow would remain
the chemist, while Mrs. Critchlow became the head of the chief drapery
business in the town. Doubtless they would knock a hole through the
separating wall on the other side, to balance the bricking-up on this
side. They must have thought it all out in detail. Constance revolted.

"Yes!" she said, a little disdainfully. "And my goodwill? Shall you
take that at a valuation too?"

Mr. Critchlow glanced at the creature for whom he was ready to scatter
thousands of pounds. She might have been a Phryne and he the infatuated
fool. He glanced at her as if to say: "We expected this, and this is
where we agreed it was to stop."

"Ay!" he said to Constance. "Show me your goodwill. Lap it up in a bit
of paper and hand it over, and I'll take it at a valuation. But not
afore, missis! Not afore! I'm making ye a very good offer. Twenty pound
a year, I'll let ye th' house for. And take th' stock at a valuation.
Think it over, my lass."

Having said what he had to say, Charles Critchlow departed, according
to his custom. He unceremoniously let himself out by the side door, and
passed with wavy apron round the corner of King Street into the Square
and so to his own shop, which ignored the Thursday half-holiday. Miss
Insull left soon afterwards.

III

Constance's pride urged her to refuse the offer. But in truth her sole
objection to it was that she had not thought of the scheme herself. For
the scheme really reconciled her wish to remain where she was with her
wish to be free of the shop.

"I shall make him put me in a new window in the parlour--one that will
open!" she said positively to Cyril, who accepted Mr. Critchlow's idea
with fatalistic indifference.

After stipulating for the new window, she closed with the offer. Then
there was the stock-taking, which endured for weeks. And then a
carpenter came and measured for the window. And a builder and a mason
came and inspected doorways, and Constance felt that the end was upon
her. She took up the carpet in the parlour and protected the furniture
by dustsheets. She and Cyril lived between bare boards and dustsheets
for twenty days, and neither carpenter nor mason reappeared. Then one
surprising day the old window was removed by the carpenter's two
journeymen, and late in the afternoon the carpenter brought the new
window, and the three men worked till ten o'clock at night, fixing it.
Cyril wore his cap and went to bed in his cap, and Constance wore a
Paisley shawl. A painter had bound himself beyond all possibility of
failure to paint the window on the morrow. He was to begin at six a.m.;
and Amy's alarm-clock was altered so that she might be up and dressed
to admit him. He came a week later, administered one coat, and vanished
for another ten days. Then two masons suddenly came with heavy tools,
and were shocked to find that all was not prepared for them. (After
three carpetless weeks Constance had relaid her floors.) They tore off
wall-paper, sent cascades of plaster down the kitchen steps, withdrew
alternate courses of bricks from the walls, and, sated with
destruction, hastened away. After four days new red bricks began to
arrive, carried by a quite guiltless hodman who had not visited the
house before. The hodman met the full storm of Constance's wrath. It
was not a vicious wrath, rather a good-humoured wrath; but it impressed
the hodman. "My house hasn't been fit to live in for a month," she said
in fine. "If these walls aren't built to-morrow, upstairs AND
down--to-morrow, mind!--don't let any of you dare to show your noses
here again, for I won't have you. Now you've brought your bricks. Off
with you, and tell your master what I say!"

It was effective. The next day subdued and plausible workmen of all
sorts awoke the house with knocking at six-thirty precisely, and the
two doorways were slowly bricked up. The curious thing was that, when
the barrier was already a foot high on the ground-floor Constance
remembered small possessions of her own which she had omitted to remove
from the cutting-out room. Picking up her skirts, she stepped over into
the region that was no more hers, and stepped back with the goods. She
had a bandanna round her head to keep the thick dust out of her hair.
She was very busy, very preoccupied with nothings. She had no time for
sentimentalities. Yet when the men arrived at the topmost course and
were at last hidden behind their own erection, and she could see only
rough bricks and mortar, she was disconcertingly overtaken by a misty
blindness and could not even see bricks and mortar. Cyril found her,
with her absurd bandanna, weeping in a sheet-covered rocking-chair in
the sacked parlour. He whistled uneasily, remarked: "I say, mother,
what about tea?" and then, hearing the heavy voices of workmen above,
ran with relief upstairs. Tea had been set in the drawing-room, he was
glad to learn that from Amy, who informed him also that she should
'never get used to them there new walls,' not as long as she lived.

He went to the School of Art that night. Constance, alone, could find
nothing to do. She had willed that the walls should be built, and they
had been built; but days must elapse before they could be plastered,
and after the plaster still more days before the papering. Not for
another month, perhaps, would her house be free of workmen and ripe for
her own labours. She could only sit in the dust-drifts and contemplate
the havoc of change, and keep her eyes as dry as she could. The legal
transactions were all but complete; little bills announcing the
transfer of the business lay on the counters in the shop at the
disposal of customers. In two days Charles Critchlow would pay the
price of a desire realized. The sign was painted out and new letters
sketched thereon in chalk. In future she would be compelled, if she
wished to enter the shop, to enter it as a customer and from the front.
Yes, she saw that, though the house remained hers, the root of her life
had been wrenched up.

And the mess! It seemed inconceivable that the material mess could ever
be straightened away!

Yet, ere the fields of the county were first covered with snow that
season, only one sign survived of the devastating revolution, and that
was a loose sheet of wall-paper that had been too soon pasted on to new
plaster and would not stick. Maria Insull was Maria Critchlow.
Constance had been out into the Square and seen the altered sign, and
seen Mrs. Critchlow's taste in window-curtains, and seen--most
impressive sight of all--that the grimy window of the abandoned room at
the top of the abandoned staircase next to the bedroom of her girlhood,
had been cleaned and a table put in front of it. She knew that the
chamber, which she herself had never entered, was to be employed as a
storeroom, but the visible proof of its conversion so strangely
affected her that she had not felt able to go boldly into the shop, as
she had meant to do, and make a few purchases in the way of
friendliness. "I'm a silly woman!" she muttered. Later, she did
venture, timidly abrupt, into the shop, and was received with fitting
state by Mrs. Critchlow (as desiccated as ever), who insisted on
allowing her the special trade discount. And she carried her little
friendly purchases round to her own door in King Street. Trivial,
trivial event! Constance, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, did
both. She accused herself of developing a hysterical faculty in tears,
and strove sagely against it.




CHAPTER VIII

THE PROUDEST MOTHER

I


In the year 1893 there was a new and strange man living at No. 4, St.
Luke's Square. Many people remarked on the phenomenon. Very few of his
like had ever been seen in Bursley before. One of the striking things
about him was the complex way in which he secured himself by means of
glittering chains. A chain stretched across his waistcoat, passing
through a special button-hole, without a button, in the middle. To this
cable were firmly linked a watch at one end and a pencil-case at the
other; the chain also served as a protection against a thief who might
attempt to snatch the fancy waistcoat entire. Then there were longer
chains, beneath the waistcoat, partly designed, no doubt, to deflect
bullets, but serving mainly to enable the owner to haul up penknives,
cigarette-cases, match-boxes, and key-rings from the profundities of
hip-pockets. An essential portion of the man's braces, visible
sometimes when he played at tennis, consisted of chain, and the upper
and nether halves of his cuff-links were connected by chains.
Occasionally he was to be seen chained to a dog.

A reversion, conceivably, to a mediaeval type! Yes, but also the
exemplar of the excessively modern! Externally he was a consequence of
the fact that, years previously, the leading tailor in Bursley had
permitted his son to be apprenticed in London. The father died; the son
had the wit to return and make a fortune while creating a new type in
the town, a type of which multiple chains were but one feature, and
that the least expensive if the most salient. For instance, up to the
historic year in which the young tailor created the type, any cap was a
cap in Bursley, and any collar was a collar. But thenceforward no cap
was a cap, and no collar was a collar, which did not exactly conform in
shape and material to certain sacred caps and collars guarded by the
young tailor in his back shop. None knew why these sacred caps and
collars were sacred, but they were; their sacredness endured for about
six months, and then suddenly--again none knew why--they fell from
their estate and became lower than offal for dogs, and were supplanted
on the altar. The type brought into existence by the young tailor was
to be recognized by its caps and collars, and in a similar manner by
every other article of attire, except its boots. Unfortunately the
tailor did not sell boots, and so imposed on his creatures no mystical
creed as to boots. This was a pity, for the boot-makers of the town
happened not to be inflamed by the type-creating passion as the tailor
was, and thus the new type finished abruptly at the edges of the
tailor's trousers.

The man at No. 4, St. Luke's Square had comparatively small and narrow
feet, which gave him an advantage; and as he was endowed with a certain
vague general physical distinction he managed, despite the eternal
untidiness of his hair, to be eminent among the type. Assuredly the
frequent sight of him in her house flattered the pride of Constance's
eye, which rested on him almost always with pleasure. He had come into
the house with startling abruptness soon after Cyril left school and
was indentured to the head-designer at "Peel's," that classic
earthenware manufactory. The presence of a man in her abode
disconcerted Constance at the beginning; but she soon grew accustomed
to it, perceiving that a man would behave as a man, and must be
expected to do so. This man, in truth, did what he liked in all things.
Cyril having always been regarded by both his parents as enormous, one
would have anticipated a giant in the new man; but, queerly, he was
slim, and little above the average height. Neither in enormity nor in
many other particulars did he resemble the Cyril whom he had
supplanted. His gestures were lighter and quicker; he had nothing of
Cyril's ungainliness; he had not Cyril's limitless taste for sweets,
nor Cyril's terrific hatred of gloves, barbers, and soap. He was much
more dreamy than Cyril, and much busier. In fact, Constance only saw
him at meal-times. He was at Peel's in the day and at the School of Art
every night. He would dream during a meal, even; and, without actually
saying so, he gave the impression that he was the busiest man in
Bursley, wrapped in occupations and preoccupations as in a blanket--a
blanket which Constance had difficulty in penetrating.

Constance wanted to please him; she lived for nothing but to please
him; he was, however, exceedingly difficult to please, not in the least
because he was hypercritical and exacting, but because he was
indifferent. Constance, in order to satisfy her desire of pleasing, had
to make fifty efforts, in the hope that he might chance to notice one.
He was a good man, amazingly industrious--when once Constance had got
him out of bed in the morning; with no vices; kind, save when Constance
mistakenly tried to thwart him; charming, with a curious strain of
humour that Constance only half understood. Constance was
unquestionably vain about him, and she could honestly find in him
little to blame. But whereas he was the whole of her universe, she was
merely a dim figure in the background of his. Every now and then, with
his gentle, elegant raillery, he would apparently rediscover her, as
though saying: "Ah! You're still there, are you?" Constance could not
meet him on the plane where his interests lay, and he never knew the
passionate intensity of her absorption in that minor part of his life
which moved on her plane. He never worried about her solitude, or
guessed that in throwing her a smile and a word at supper he was paying
her meagrely for three hours of lone rocking in a rocking-chair.

The worst of it was that she was quite incurable. No experience would
suffice to cure her trick of continually expecting him to notice things
which he never did notice. One day he said, in the midst of a silence:
"By the way, didn't father leave any boxes of cigars?" She had the
steps up into her bedroom and reached down from the dusty top of the
wardrobe the box which she had put there after Samuel's funeral. In
handing him the box she was doing a great deed. His age was nineteen
and she was ratifying his precocious habit of smoking by this solemn
gift. He entirely ignored the box for several days. She said timidly:
"Have you tried those cigars?" "Not yet," he replied. "I'll try 'em one
of these days." Ten days later, on a Sunday when he chanced not to have
gone out with his aristocratic friend Matthew Peel-Swynnerton, he did
at length open the box and take out a cigar. "Now," he observed
roguishly, cutting the cigar, "we shall see, Mrs. Plover!" He often
called her Mrs. Plover, for fun. Though she liked him to be
sufficiently interested in her to tease her, she did not like being
called Mrs. Plover, and she never failed to say: "I'm not Mrs. Plover."
He smoked the cigar slowly, in the rocking-chair, throwing his head
back and sending clouds to the ceiling. And afterwards he remarked:
"The old man's cigars weren't so bad." "Indeed!" she answered tartly,
as if maternally resenting this easy patronage. But in secret she was
delighted. There was something in her son's favourable verdict on her
husband's cigars that thrilled her.

And she looked at him. Impossible to see in him any resemblance to his
father! Oh! He was a far more brilliant, more advanced, more
complicated, more seductive being than his homely father! She wondered
where he had come from. And yet...! If his father had lived, what would
have occurred between them? Would the boy have been openly smoking
cigars in the house at nineteen?

She laboriously interested herself, so far as he would allow, in his
artistic studies and productions. A back attic on the second floor was
now transformed into a studio--a naked apartment which smelt of oil and
of damp clay. Often there were traces of clay on the stairs. For
working in clay he demanded of his mother a smock, and she made a
smock, on the model of a genuine smock which she obtained from a
country-woman who sold eggs and butter in the Covered Market. Into the
shoulders of the smock she put a week's fancy-stitching, taking the
pattern from an old book of embroidery. One day when he had seen her
stitching morn, noon, and afternoon, at the smock, he said, as she
rocked idly after supper: "I suppose you haven't forgotten all about
the smock I asked you for, have you, mater?" She knew that he was
teasing her; but, while perfectly realizing how foolish she was, she
nearly always acted as though his teasing was serious; she picked up
the smock again from the sofa. When the smock was finished he examined
it intently; then exclaimed with an air of surprise: "By Jove! That's
beautiful! Where did you get this pattern?" He continued to stare at
it, smiling in pleasure. He turned over the tattered leaves of the
embroidery-book with the same naive, charmed astonishment, and carried
the book away to the studio. "I must show that to Swynnerton," he said.
As for her, the epithet 'beautiful' seemed a strange epithet to apply
to a mere piece of honest stitchery done in a pattern, and a stitch
with which she had been familiar all her life. The fact was she
understood his 'art' less and less. The sole wall decoration of his
studio was a Japanese print, which struck her as being entirely
preposterous, considered as a picture. She much preferred his own early
drawings of moss-roses and picturesque castles--things that he now
mercilessly contemned. Later, he discovered her cutting out another
smock. "What's that for?" he inquired. "Well," she said, "you can't
manage with one smock. What shall you do when that one has to go to the
wash?" "Wash!" he repeated vaguely. "There's no need for it to go to
the wash." "Cyril," she replied, "don't try my patience! I was thinking
of making you half-a-dozen." He whistled. "With all that stitching?" he
questioned, amazed at the undertaking. "Why not?" she said. In her
young days, no seamstress ever made fewer than half-a-dozen of
anything, and it was usually a dozen; it was sometimes half-a-dozen
dozen. "Well," he murmured, "you have got a nerve! I'll say that."
Similar things happened whenever he showed that he was pleased. If he
said of a dish, in the local tongue: "I could do a bit of that!" or if
he simply smacked his lips over it, she would surfeit him with that
dish.

II

On a hot day in August, just before they were to leave Bursley for a
month in the Isle of Man, Cyril came home, pale and perspiring, and
dropped on to the sofa. He wore a grey alpaca suit, and, except his
hair, which in addition to being very untidy was damp with sweat, he
was a masterpiece of slim elegance, despite the heat. He blew out great
sighs, and rested his head on the antimacassared arm of the sofa.

"Well, mater," he said, in a voice of factitious calm, "I've got it."
He was looking up at the ceiling.

"Got what?"

"The National Scholarship. Swynnerton says it's a sheer fluke. But I've
got it. Great glory for the Bursley School of Art!"

"National Scholarship?" she said. "What's that? What is it?"

"Now, mother!" he admonished her, not without testiness. "Don't go and
say I've never breathed a word about it!"

He lit a cigarette, to cover his self-consciousness, for he perceived
that she was moved far beyond the ordinary.

Never, in fact, not even by the death of her husband, had she received
such a frightful blow as that which the dreamy Cyril had just dealt her.

It was not a complete surprise, but it was nearly a complete surprise.
A few months previously he certainly had mentioned, in his incidental
way, the subject of a National Scholarship. Apropos of a drinking-cup
which he had designed, he had said that the director of the School of
Art had suggested that it was good enough to compete for the National,
and that as he was otherwise qualified for the competition he might as
well send the cup to South Kensington. He had added that
Peel-Swynnerton had laughed at the notion as absurd. On that occasion
she had comprehended that a National Scholarship involved residence in
London. She ought to have begun to live in fear, for Cyril had a most
disturbing habit of making a mere momentary reference to matters which
he deemed very important and which occupied a large share of his
attention. He was secretive by nature, and the rigidity of his father's
rule had developed this trait in his character. But really he had
spoken of the competition with such an extreme casualness that with
little effort she had dismissed it from her anxieties as involving a
contingency so remote as to be negligible. She had, genuinely, almost
forgotten it. Only at rare intervals had it wakened in her a dull
transitory pain--like the herald of a fatal malady. And, as a woman in
the opening stage of disease, she had hastily reassured herself: "How
silly of me! This can't possibly be anything serious!"

And now she was condemned. She knew it. She knew there could be no
appeal. She knew that she might as usefully have besought mercy from a
tiger as from her good, industrious, dreamy son.

"It means a pound a week," said Cyril, his self-consciousness
intensified by her silence and by the dreadful look on her face. "And
of course free tuition."

"For how long?" she managed to say.

"Well," said he, "that depends. Nominally for a year. But if you behave
yourself it's always continued for three years." If he stayed for three
years he would never come back: that was a certainty.

How she rebelled, furious and despairing, against the fortuitous
cruelty of things! She was sure that he had not, till then, thought
seriously of going to London. But the fact that the Government would
admit him free to its classrooms and give him a pound a week besides,
somehow forced him to go to London. It was not the lack of means that
would have prevented him from going. Why, then, should the presence of
means induce him to go? There was no logical reason. The whole affair
was disastrously absurd. The art-master at the Wedgwood Institution had
chanced, merely chanced, to suggest that the drinking-cup should be
sent to South Kensington. And the result of this caprice was that she
was sentenced to solitude for life! It was too monstrously, too
incredibly wicked!

With what futile and bitter execration she murmured in her heart the
word 'If.' If Cyril's childish predilections had not been encouraged!
If he had only been content to follow his father's trade! If she had
flatly refused to sign his indenture at Peel's and pay the premium! If
he had not turned from, colour to clay! If the art-master had not had
that fatal 'idea'! If the judges for the competition had decided
otherwise! If only she had brought Cyril up in habits of obedience,
sacrificing temporary peace to permanent security!

For after all he could not abandon her without her consent. He was not
of age. And he would want a lot more money, which he could obtain from
none but her. She could refuse....

No! She could not refuse. He was the master, the tyrant. For the sake
of daily pleasantness she had weakly yielded to him at the start! She
had behaved badly to herself and to him. He was spoiled. She had
spoiled him. And he was about to repay her with lifelong misery, and
nothing would deflect him from his course. The usual conduct of the
spoilt child! Had she not witnessed it, and moralized upon it, in other
families?

"You don't seem very chirpy over it, mater!" he said.

She went out of the room. His joy in the prospect of departure from the
Five Towns, from her, though he masked it, was more manifest than she
could bear.

The Signal, the next day, made a special item of the news. It appeared
that no National Scholarship had been won in the Five Towns for eleven
years. The citizens were exhorted to remember that Mr. Povey had gained
his success in open competition with the cleverest young students of
the entire kingdom--and in a branch of art which he had but recently
taken up; and further, that the Government offered only eight
scholarships each year. The name of Cyril Povey passed from lip to lip.
And nobody who met Constance, in street or shop, could refrain from
informing her that she ought to be a proud mother, to have such a son,
but that truly they were not surprised ... and how proud his poor
father would have been! A few sympathetically hinted that maternal
pride was one of those luxuries that may cost too dear.

III

The holiday in the Isle of Man was of course ruined for her. She could
scarcely walk because of the weight of a lump of lead that she carried
in her bosom. On the brightest days the lump of lead was always there.
Besides, she was so obese. In ordinary circumstances they might have
stayed beyond the month. An indentured pupil is not strapped to the
wheel like a common apprentice. Moreover, the indentures were to be
cancelled. But Constance did not care to stay. She had to prepare for
his departure to London. She had to lay the faggots for her own
martyrdom.

In this business of preparation she showed as much silliness, she
betrayed as perfect a lack of perspective, as the most superior son
could desire for a topic of affectionate irony. Her preoccupation with
petty things of no importance whatever was worthy of the finest
traditions of fond motherhood. However, Cyril's careless satire had no
effect on her, save that once she got angry, thereby startling him; he
quite correctly and sagely laid this unprecedented outburst to the
account of her wrought nerves, and forgave it. Happily for the
smoothness of Cyril's translation to London, young Peel-Swynnerton was
acquainted with the capital, had a brother in Chelsea, knew of
reputable lodgings, was, indeed, an encyclopaedia of the town, and
would himself spend a portion of the autumn there. Otherwise, the
preliminaries which his mother would have insisted on by means of tears
and hysteria might have proved fatiguing to Cyril.

The day came when on that day week Cyril would be gone. Constance
steadily fabricated cheerfulness against the prospect. She said:

"Suppose I come with you?"

He smiled in toleration of this joke as being a passable quality of
joke. And then she smiled in the same sense, hastening to agree with
him that as a joke it was not a bad joke.

In the last week he was very loyal to his tailor. Many a young man
would have commanded new clothes after, not before, his arrival in
London. But Cyril had faith in his creator.

On the day of departure the household, the very house itself, was in a
state of excitation. He was to leave early. He would not listen to the
project of her accompanying him as far as Knype, where the Loop Line
joined the main. She might go to Bursley Station and no further. When
she rebelled he disclosed the merest hint of his sullen-churlish side,
and she at once yielded. During breakfast she did not cry, but the
aspect of her face made him protest.

"Now, look here, mater! Just try to remember that I shall be back for
Christmas. It's barely three months." And he lit a cigarette.

She made no reply.

Amy lugged a Gladstone bag down the crooked stairs. A trunk was already
close to the door; it had wrinkled the carpet and deranged the mat.

"You didn't forget to put the hair-brush in, did you, Amy?" he asked.

"N--no, Mr. Cyril," she blubbered.

"Amy!" Constance sharply corrected her, as Cyril ran upstairs, "I
wonder you can't control yourself better than that."

Amy weakly apologized. Although treated almost as one of the family,
she ought not to have forgotten that she was a servant. What right had
she to weep over Cyril's luggage? This question was put to her in
Constance's tone.

The cab came. Cyril tumbled downstairs with exaggerated carelessness,
and with exaggerated carelessness he joked at the cabman.

"Now, mother!" he cried, when the luggage was stowed. "Do you want me
to miss this train?" But he knew that the margin of time was ample. It
was his fun!

"Nay, I can't be hurried!" she said, fixing her bonnet. "Amy, as soon
as we are gone you can clear this table."

She climbed heavily into the cab.

"That's it! Smash the springs!" Cyril teased her.

The horse got a stinging cut to recall him to the seriousness of life.
It was a fine, bracing autumn morning, and the driver felt the need of
communicating his abundant energy to some one or something. They drove
off, Amy staring after them from the door. Matters had been so
marvellously well arranged that they arrived at the station twenty
minutes before the train was due.

"Never mind!" Cyril mockingly comforted his mother. "You'd rather be
twenty minutes too soon than one minute too late, wouldn't you?"

His high spirits had to come out somehow.

Gradually the minutes passed, and the empty slate-tinted platform
became dotted with people to whom that train was nothing but a Loop
Line train, people who took that train every week-day of their lives
and knew all its eccentricities.

And they heard the train whistle as it started from Turnhill. And Cyril
had a final word with the porter who was in charge of the luggage. He
made a handsome figure, and he had twenty pounds in his pocket. When he
returned to Constance she was sniffing, and through her veil he could
see that her eyes were circled with red. But through her veil she could
see nothing. The train rolled in, rattling to a standstill. Constance
lifted her veil and kissed him; and kissed her life out. He smelt the
odour of her crape. He was, for an instant, close to her, close; and he
seemed to have an overwhelmingly intimate glimpse into her secrets; he
seemed to be choked in the sudden strong emotion of that crape. He felt
queer.

"Here you are, sir! Second smoker!" called the porter.

The daily frequenters of the train boarded it with their customary
disgust.

"I'll write as soon as ever I get there!" said Cyril, of his own
accord. It was the best he could muster.

With what grace he raised his hat!

A sliding-away; clouds of steam; and she shared the dead platform with
milk-cans, two porters, and Smith's noisy boy!

She walked home, very slowly and painfully. The lump of lead was
heavier than ever before. And the townspeople saw the proudest mother
in Bursley walking home.

"After all," she argued with her soul angrily, petulantly, "could you
expect the boy to do anything else? He is a serious student, he has had
a brilliant success, and is he to be tied to your apron-strings? The
idea is preposterous. It isn't as if he was an idler, or a bad son. No
mother could have a better son. A nice thing, that he should stay all
his life in Bursley simply because you don't like being left alone!"

Unfortunately one might as well argue with a mule as with one's soul.
Her soul only kept on saying monotonously: "I'm a lonely old woman now.
I've nothing to live for any more, and I'm no use to anybody. Once I
was young and proud. And this is what my life has come to! This is the
end!"

When she reached home, Amy had not touched the breakfast things; the
carpet was still wrinkled, and the mat still out of place. And, through
the desolating atmosphere of reaction after a terrific crisis, she
marched directly upstairs, entered his plundered room, and beheld the
disorder of the bed in which he had slept.




BOOK III

SOPHIA




CHAPTER I

THE ELOPEMENT

I


Her soberly rich dress had a countrified air, as she waited, ready for
the streets, in the bedroom of the London hotel on the afternoon of the
first of July, 1866; but there was nothing of the provincial in that
beautiful face, nor in that bearing at once shy and haughty; and her
eager heart soared beyond geographical boundaries.

It was the Hatfield Hotel, in Salisbury Street, between the Strand and
the river. Both street and hotel are now gone, lost in the vast
foundations of the Savoy and the Cecil; but the type of the Hatfield
lingers with ever-increasing shabbiness in Jermyn Street. In 1866, with
its dark passages and crooked stairs, its candles, its carpets and
stuffs which had outlived their patterns, its narrow dining-room where
a thousand busy flies ate together at one long table, its acrid
stagnant atmosphere, and its disturbing sensation of dirt everywhere
concealing itself, it stood forth in rectitude as a good average modern
hotel. The patched and senile drabness of the bedroom made an
environment that emphasized Sophia's flashing youth. She alone in it
was unsullied.

There was a knock at the door, apparently gay and jaunty. But she
thought, truly: "He's nearly as nervous as I am!" And in her sick
nervousness she coughed, and then tried to take full possession of
herself. The moment had at last come which would divide her life as a
battle divides the history of a nation. Her mind in an instant swept
backwards through an incredible three months.

The schemings to obtain and to hide Gerald's letters at the shop, and
to reply to them! The far more complex and dangerous duplicity
practised upon her majestic aunt at Axe! The visits to the Axe
post-office! The three divine meetings with Gerald at early morning by
the canal-feeder, when he had told her of his inheritance and of the
harshness of his uncle Boldero, and with a rush of words had spread
before her the prospect of eternal bliss! The nights of fear! The
sudden, dizzy acquiescence in his plan, and the feeling of universal
unreality which obsessed her! The audacious departure from her aunt's,
showering a cascade of appalling lies! Her dismay at Knype Station! Her
blush as she asked for a ticket to London! The ironic, sympathetic
glance of the porter, who took charge of her trunk! And then the
thunder of the incoming train! Her renewed dismay when she found that
it was very full, and her distracted plunge into a compartment with six
people already in it! And the abrupt reopening of the carriage-door and
that curt inquisition from an inspector: "Where for, please? Where for?
Where for?" Until her turn was reached: "Where for, miss?" and her weak
little reply: "Euston"! And more violent blushes! And then the long,
steady beating of the train over the rails, keeping time to the rhythm
of the unanswerable voice within her breast: "Why are you here? Why are
you here?" And then Rugby; and the awful ordeal of meeting Gerald, his
entry into the compartment, the rearrangement of seats, and their
excruciatingly painful attempts at commonplace conversation in the
publicity of the carriage! (She had felt that that part of the
enterprise had not been very well devised by Gerald.) And at last
London; the thousands of cabs, the fabulous streets, the general roar,
all dream-surpassing, intensifying to an extraordinary degree the
obsession of unreality, the illusion that she could not really have
done what she had done, that she was not really doing what she was
doing!

Supremely and finally, the delicious torture of the clutch of terror at
her heart as she moved by Gerald's side through the impossible
adventure! Who was this rash, mad Sophia? Surely not herself!

The knock at the door was impatiently repeated.

"Come in," she said timidly.

Gerald Scales came in. Yes, beneath that mien of a commercial traveller
who has been everywhere and through everything, he was very nervous. It
was her privacy that, with her consent, he had invaded. He had engaged
the bedroom only with the intention of using it as a retreat for Sophia
until the evening, when they were to resume their travels. It ought not
to have had any disturbing significance. But the mere disorder on the
washstand, a towel lying on one of the cane chairs, made him feel that
he was affronting decency, and so increased his jaunty nervousness. The
moment was painful; the moment was difficult beyond his skill to handle
it naturally.

Approaching her with factitious ease, he kissed her through her veil,
which she then lifted with an impulsive movement, and he kissed her
again, more ardently, perceiving that her ardour was exceeding his.
This was the first time they had been alone together since her flight
from Axe. And yet, with his worldly experience, he was naive enough to
be surprised that he could not put all the heat of passion into his
embrace, and he wondered why he was not thrilled at the contact with
her! However, the powerful clinging of her lips somewhat startled his
senses, and also delighted him by its silent promise. He could smell
the stuff of her veil, the sarsenet of her bodice, and, as it were
wrapped in these odours as her body was wrapped in its clothes, the
faint fleshly perfume of her body itself. Her face, viewed so close
that he could see the almost imperceptible down on those fruit-like
cheeks, was astonishingly beautiful; the dark eyes were exquisitely
misted; and he could feel the secret loyalty of her soul ascending to
him. She was very slightly taller than her lover; but somehow she hung
from him, her body curved backwards, and her bosom pressed against his,
so that instead of looking up at her gaze he looked down at it. He
preferred that; perfectly proportioned though he was, his stature was a
delicate point with him. His spirits rose by the uplift of his senses.
His fears slipped away; he began to be very satisfied with himself. He
was the inheritor of twelve thousand pounds, and he had won this unique
creature. She was his capture; he held her close, permittedly scanning
the minutiae of her skin, permittedly crushing her flimsy silks.
Something in him had forced her to lay her modesty on the altar of his
desire. And the sun brightly shone. So he kissed her yet more ardently,
and with the slightest touch of a victor's condescension; and her
burning response more than restored the self-confidence which he had
been losing.

"I've got no one but you now," she murmured in a melting voice.

She fancied in her ignorance that the expression of this sentiment
would please him. She was not aware that a man is usually rather
chilled by it, because it proves to him that the other is thinking
about his responsibilities and not about his privileges. Certainly it
calmed Gerald, though without imparting to him her sense of his
responsibilities. He smiled vaguely. To Sophia his smile was a miracle
continually renewed; it mingled dashing gaiety with a hint of wistful
appeal in a manner that never failed to bewitch her. A less innocent
girl than Sophia might have divined from that adorable half-feminine
smile that she could do anything with Gerald except rely on him. But
Sophia had to learn.

"Are you ready?" he asked, placing his hands on her shoulders and
holding her away from him.

"Yes," she said, nerving herself. Their faces were still very near
together.

"Well, would you like to go and see the Dore pictures?"

A simple enough question! A proposal felicitous enough! Dore was
becoming known even in the Five Towns, not, assuredly, by his
illustrations to the Contes Drolatiques of Balzac--but by his
shuddering Biblical conceits. In pious circles Dore was saving art from
the reproach of futility and frivolity. It was indubitably a tasteful
idea on Gerald's part to take his love of a summer's afternoon to gaze
at the originals of those prints which had so deeply impressed the Five
Towns. It was an idea that sanctified the profane adventure.

Yet Sophia showed signs of affliction. Her colour went and came; her
throat made the motion of swallowing; there was a muscular contraction
over her whole body. And she drew herself from him. Her glance,
however, did not leave him, and his eyes fell before hers.

"But what about the--wedding?" she breathed.

That sentence seemed to cost all her pride; but she was obliged to
utter it, and to pay for it.

"Oh," he said lightly and quickly, just as though she had reminded him
of a detail that might have been forgotten, "I was just going to tell
you. It can't be done here. There's been some change in the rules. I
only found out for certain late last night. But I've ascertained that
it'll be as simple as ABC before the English Consul at Paris; and as
I've got the tickets for us to go over to-night, as we arranged ..." He
stopped.

She sat down on the towel-covered chair, staggered. She believed what
he said. She did not suspect that he was using the classic device of
the seducer. It was his casualness that staggered her. Had it really
been his intention to set off on an excursion and remark as an
afterthought: "BY THE WAY, we can't be married as I told you at
half-past two to-day"? Despite her extreme ignorance and innocence,
Sophia held a high opinion of her own commonsense and capacity for
looking after herself, and she could scarcely believe that he was
expecting her to go to Paris, and at night, without being married. She
looked pitiably young, virgin, raw, unsophisticated; helpless in the
midst of dreadful dangers. Yet her head was full of a blank
astonishment at being mistaken for a simpleton! The sole explanation
could be that Gerald, in some matters, must himself be a confiding
simpleton. He had not reflected. He had not sufficiently realized the
immensity of her sacrifice in flying with him even to London. She felt
sorry for him. She had the woman's first glimpse of the necessity for
some adjustment of outlook as an essential preliminary to uninterrupted
happiness.

"It'll be all right!" Gerald persuasively continued.

He looked at her, as she was not looking at him. She was nineteen. But
she seemed to him utterly mature and mysterious. Her face baffled him;
her mind was a foreign land. Helpless in one sense she might be; yet
she, and not he, stood for destiny; the future lay in the secret and
capricious workings of that mind.

"Oh no!" she exclaimed curtly. "Oh no!"

"Oh no what?"

"We can't possibly go like that," she said.

"But don't I tell you it'll be all right?" he protested. "If we stay
here and they come after you...! Besides, I've got the tickets and all."

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she demanded.

"But how could I?" he grumbled. "Have we had a single minute alone?"

This was nearly true. They could not have discussed the formalities of
marriage in the crowded train, nor during the hurried lunch with a
dozen cocked ears at the same table. He saw himself on sure ground here.

"Now, could we?" he pressed.

"And you talk about going to see pictures!" was her reply.

Undoubtedly this had been a grave error of tact. He recognized that it
was a stupidity. And so he resented it, as though she had committed it
and not he.

"My dear girl," he said, hurt, "I acted for the best. It isn't my fault
if rules are altered and officials silly."

"You ought to have told me before," she persisted sullenly.

"But how could I?"

He almost believed in that moment that he had really intended to marry
her, and that the ineptitudes of red-tape had prevented him from
achieving his honourable purpose. Whereas he had done nothing whatever
towards the marriage.

"Oh no! Oh no!" she repeated, with heavy lip and liquid eye. "Oh no!"

He gathered that she was flouting his suggestion of Paris.

Slowly and nervously he approached her. She did not stir nor look up.
Her glance was fixed on the washstand. He bent down and murmured:

"Come, now. It'll be all right. You'll travel in the ladies' saloon on
the steam-packet."

She did not stir. He bent lower and touched the back of her neck with
his lips. And she sprang up, sobbing and angry. Because she was mad for
him she hated him furiously. All tenderness had vanished.

"I'll thank you not to touch me!" she said fiercely. She had given him
her lips a moment ago, but now to graze her neck was an insult.

He smiled sheepishly. "But really you must be reasonable," he argued.
"What have I done?"

"It's what you haven't done, I think!" she cried. "Why didn't you tell
me while we were in the cab?"

"I didn't care to begin worrying you just then," he replied: which was
exactly true.

The fact was, he had of course shirked telling her that no marriage
would occur that day. Not being a professional seducer of young girls,
he lacked skill to do a difficult thing simply.

"Now come along, little girl," he went on, with just a trifle of
impatience. "Let's go out and enjoy ourselves. I assure you that
everything will be all right in Paris."

"That's what you said about coming to London," she retorted
sarcastically through her sobs. "And look at you!"

Did he imagine for a single instant that she would have come to London
with him save on the understanding that she was to be married
immediately upon arrival? This attitude of an indignant question was
not to be reconciled with her belief that his excuses for himself were
truthful. But she did not remark the discrepancy.

Her sarcasm wounded his vanity.

"Oh, very well!" he muttered. "If you don't choose to believe what I
say!" He shrugged his shoulders.

She said nothing; but the sobs swept at intervals through her frame,
shaking it.

Reading hesitation in her face, he tried again. "Come along, little
girl. And wipe your eyes." And he approached her. She stepped back.

"No, no!" she denied him, passionately. He had esteemed her too
cheaply. And she did not care to be called 'little girl.'

"Then what shall you do?" he inquired, in a tone which blended mockery
and bullying. She was making a fool of him.

"I can tell you what I shan't do," she said. "I shan't go to Paris."
Her sobs were less frequent.

"That's not my question," he said icily. "I want to know what you will
do."

There was now no pretence of affectionateness either on her part or on
his. They might, to judge from their attitudes, have been nourished
from infancy on mutual hatred.

"What's that got to do with you?" she demanded.

"It's got everything to do with me," he said.

"Well, you can go and find out!" she said.

It was girlish; it was childish; it was scarcely according to the
canons for conducting a final rupture; but it was not the less
tragically serious. Indeed, the spectacle of this young girl absurdly
behaving like one, in a serious crisis, increased the tragicalness of
the situation even if it did not heighten it. The idea that ran through
Gerald's brain was the ridiculous folly of having anything to do with
young girls. He was quite blind to her beauty.

"'Go'?" he repeated her word. "You mean that?"

"Of course I mean it," she answered promptly.

The coward in him urged him to take advantage of her ignorant, helpless
pride, and leave her at her word. He remembered the scene she had made
at the pit shaft, and he said to himself that her charm was not worth
her temper, and that he was a fool ever to have dreamed that it was,
and that he would be doubly a fool now not to seize the opportunity of
withdrawing from an insane enterprise.

"I am to go?" he asked, with a sneer.

She nodded.

"Of course if you order me to leave you, I must. Can I do anything for
you?"

She signified that he could not,

"Nothing? You're sure?"

She frowned.

"Well, then, good-bye." He turned towards the door.

"I suppose you'd leave me here without money or anything?" she said in
a cold, cutting voice. And her sneer was far more destructive than his.
It destroyed in him the last trace of compassion for her.

"Oh, I beg pardon!" he said, and swaggeringly counted out five
sovereigns on to a chest of drawers.

She rushed at them. "Do you think I'll take your odious money?" she
snarled, gathering the coins in her gloved hand.

Her first impulse was to throw them in his face; but she paused and
then flung them into a corner of the room.

"Pick them up!" she commanded him.

"No, thanks," he said briefly; and left, shutting the door.

Only a very little while, and they had been lovers, exuding tenderness
with every gesture, like a perfume! Only a very little while, and she
had been deciding to telegraph condescendingly to her mother that she
was 'all right'! And now the dream was utterly dissolved. And the voice
of that hard commonsense which spake to her in her wildest moods grew
loud in asserting that the enterprise could never have come to any
good, that it was from its inception an impossible enterprise,
unredeemed by the slightest justification. An enormous folly! Yes, an
elopement; but not like a real elopement; always unreal! She had always
known that it was only an imitation of an elopement, and must end in
some awful disappointment. She had never truly wanted to run away; but
something within her had pricked her forward in spite of her protests.
The strict notions of her elderly relatives were right after all. It
was she who had been wrong. And it was she who would have to pay.

"I've been a wicked girl," she said to herself grimly, in the midst of
her ruin.

She faced the fact. But she would not repent; at any rate she would
never sit on that stool. She would not exchange the remains of her
pride for the means of escape from the worst misery that life could
offer. On that point she knew herself. And she set to work to repair
and renew her pride.

Whatever happened she would not return to the Five Towns. She could
not, because she had stolen money from her Aunt Harriet. As much as she
had thrown back at Gerald, she had filched from her aunt, but in the
form of a note. A prudent, mysterious instinct had moved her to take
this precaution. And she was glad. She would never have been able to
dart that sneer at Gerald about money if she had really needed money.
So she rejoiced in her crime; though, since Aunt Harriet would
assuredly discover the loss at once, the crime eternally prevented her
from going back to her family. Never, never would she look at her
mother with the eyes of a thief!

(In truth Aunt Harriet did discover the loss, and very creditably said
naught about it to anybody. The knowledge of it would have twisted the
knife in the maternal heart.)

Sophia was also glad that she had refused to proceed to Paris. The
recollection of her firmness in refusing flattered her vanity as a girl
convinced that she could take care of herself. To go to Paris unmarried
would have been an inconceivable madness. The mere thought of the
enormity did outrage to her moral susceptibilities. No, Gerald had most
perfectly mistaken her for another sort of girl; as, for instance, a
shop-assistant or a barmaid!

With this the catalogue of her satisfactions ended. She had no idea at
all as to what she ought to do, or could do. The mere prospect of
venturing out of the room intimidated her. Had Gerald left her trunk in
the hall? Of course he had. What a question! But what would happen to
her? London ... London had merely dazed her. She could do nothing for
herself. She was as helpless as a rabbit in London. She drew aside the
window-curtain and had a glimpse of the river. It was inevitable that
she should think of suicide; for she could not suppose that any girl
had ever got herself into a plight more desperate than hers. "I could
slip out at night and drown myself," she thought seriously. "A nice
thing that would be for Gerald!"

Then loneliness, like a black midnight, overwhelmed her, swiftly
wasting her strength, disintegrating her pride in its horrid flood. She
glanced about for support, as a woman in the open street who feels she
is going to faint, and went blindly to the bed, falling on it with the
upper part of her body, in an attitude of abandonment. She wept, but
without sobbing.

II

Gerald Scales walked about the Strand, staring up at its high narrow
houses, crushed one against another as though they had been packed,
unsorted, by a packer who thought of nothing but economy of space.
Except by Somerset House, King's College, and one or two theatres and
banks, the monotony of mean shops, with several storeys unevenly
perched over them, was unbroken, Then Gerald encountered Exeter Hall,
and examined its prominent facade with a provincial's eye; for despite
his travels he was not very familiar with London. Exeter Hall naturally
took his mind back to his Uncle Boldero, that great and ardent
Nonconformist, and his own godly youth. It was laughable to muse upon
what his uncle would say and think, did the old man know that his
nephew had run away with a girl, meaning to seduce her in Paris. It was
enormously funny!

However, he had done with all that. He was well out of it. She had told
him to go, and he had gone. She had money to get home; she had nothing
to do but use the tongue in her head. The rest was her affair. He would
go to Paris alone, and find another amusement. It was absurd to have
supposed that Sophia would ever have suited him. Not in such a family
as the Baineses could one reasonably expect to discover an ideal
mistress. No! there had been a mistake. The whole business was wrong.
She had nearly made a fool of him. But he was not the man to be made a
fool of. He had kept his dignity intact.

So he said to himself. Yet all the time his dignity, and his pride
also, were bleeding, dropping invisible blood along the length of the
Strand pavements.

He was at Salisbury Street again. He pictured her in the bedroom. Damn
her! He wanted her. He wanted her with an excessive desire. He hated to
think that he had been baulked. He hated to think that she would remain
immaculate. And he continued to picture her in the exciting privacy of
that cursed bedroom.

Now he was walking down Salisbury Street. He did not wish to be walking
down Salisbury Street; but there he was!

"Oh, hell!" he murmured. "I suppose I must go through with it."

He felt desperate. He was ready to pay any price in order to be able to
say to himself that he had accomplished what he had set his heart on.

"My wife hasn't gone out, has she?" he asked of the hall-porter.

"I'm not sure, sir; I think not," said the hall-porter.

The fear that Sophia had already departed made him sick. When he
noticed her trunk still there, he took hope and ran upstairs.

He saw her, a dark crumpled, sinuous piece of humanity, half on and
half off the bed, silhouetted against the bluish-white counterpane; her
hat was on the floor, with the spotted veil trailing away from it. This
sight seemed to him to be the most touching that he had ever seen,
though her face was hidden. He forgot everything except the deep and
strange emotion which affected him. He approached the bed. She did not
stir.

Having heard the entry and knowing that it must be Gerald who had
entered, Sophia forced herself to remain still. A wild, splendid hope
shot up in her. Constrained by all the power of her will not to move,
she could not stifle a sob that had lain in ambush in her throat.

The sound of the sob fetched tears to the eyes of Gerald.

"Sophia!" he appealed to her.

But she did not stir. Another sob shook her.

"Very well, then," said Gerald. "We'll stay in London till we can be
married. I'll arrange it. I'll find a nice boarding-house for you, and
I'll tell the people you're my cousin. I shall stay on at this hotel,
and I'll come and see you every day."

A silence.

"Thank you!" she blubbered. "Thank you!"

He saw that her little gloved hand was stretching out towards him, like
a feeler; and he seized it, and knelt down and took her clumsily by the
waist. Somehow he dared not kiss her yet.

An immense relief surged very slowly through them both.

"I--I--really--" She began to say something, but the articulation was
lost in her sobs.

"What? What do you say, dearest?" he questioned eagerly.

And she made another effort. "I really couldn't have gone to Paris with
you without being married," she succeeded at last. "I really couldn't."

"No, no!" he soothed her. "Of course you couldn't. It was I who was
wrong. But you didn't know how I felt.... Sophia, it's all right now,
isn't it?"

She sat up and kissed him fairly.

It was so wonderful and startling that he burst openly into tears. She
saw in the facile intensity of his emotion a guarantee of their future
happiness. And as he had soothed her, so now she soothed him. They
clung together, equally surprised at the sweet, exquisite, blissful
melancholy which drenched them through and through. It was remorse for
having quarrelled, for having lacked faith in the supreme rightness of
the high adventure. Everything was right, and would be right; and they
had been criminally absurd. It was remorse; but it was pure bliss, and
worth the quarrel! Gerald resumed his perfection again in her eyes! He
was the soul of goodness and honour! And for him she was again the
ideal mistress, who would, however, be also a wife. As in his mind he
rapidly ran over the steps necessary to their marriage, he kept saying
to himself, far off in some remote cavern of the brain: "I shall have
her! I shall have her!" He did not reflect that this fragile slip of
the Baines stock, unconsciously drawing upon the accumulated strength
of generations of honest living, had put a defeat upon him.

After tea, Gerald, utterly content with the universe, redeemed his word
and found an irreproachable boarding-house for Sophia in Westminster,
near the Abbey. She was astonished at the glibness of his lies to the
landlady about her, and about their circumstances generally. He also
found a church and a parson, close by, and in half an hour the
formalities preliminary to a marriage were begun. He explained to her
that as she was now resident in London, it would be simpler to
recommence the business entirely. She sagaciously agreed. As she by no
means wished to wound him again, she made no inquiry about those other
formalities which, owing to red-tape, had so unexpectedly proved
abortive! She knew she was going to be married, and that sufficed. The
next day she carried out her filial idea of telegraphing to her mother.




CHAPTER II

SUPPER

I


They had been to Versailles and had dined there. A tram had sufficed to
take them out; but for the return, Gerald, who had been drinking
champagne, would not be content with less than a carriage. Further, he
insisted on entering Paris by way of the Bois and the Arc de Triomphe.
Thoroughly to appease his conceit, it would have been necessary to
swing open the gates of honour in the Arc and allow his fiacre to pass
through; to be forced to drive round the monument instead of under it
hurt the sense of fitness which champagne engenders. Gerald was in all
his pride that day. He had been displaying the wonders to Sophia, and
he could not escape the cicerone's secret feeling: that he himself was
somehow responsible for the wonders. Moreover, he was exceedingly
satisfied with the effect produced by Sophia.

Sophia, on arriving in Paris with the ring on her triumphant finger,
had timidly mentioned the subject of frocks. None would have guessed
from her tone that she was possessed by the desire for French clothes
as by a devil. She had been surprised and delighted by the eagerness of
Gerald's response. Gerald, too, was possessed by a devil. He thirsted
to see her in French clothes. He knew some of the shops and ateliers in
the Rue de la Paix, the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin, and the Palais
Royal. He was much more skilled in the lore of frocks than she, for his
previous business in Paris had brought him into relations with the
great firms; and Sophia suffered a brief humiliation in the discovery
that his private opinion of her dresses was that they were not dresses
at all. She had been aware that they were not Parisian, nor even of
London; but she had thought them pretty good. It healed her wound,
however, to reflect that Gerald had so marvellously kept his own
counsel in order to spare her self-love. Gerald had taken her to an
establishment in the Chaussee d'Antin. It was not one of what Gerald
called les grandes maisons, but it was on the very fringe of them, and
the real haute couture was practised therein; and Gerald was remembered
there by name.

Sophia had gone in trembling and ashamed, yet in her heart courageously
determined to emerge uncompromisingly French. But the models frightened
her. They surpassed even the most fantastic things that she had seen in
the streets. She recoiled before them and seemed to hide for refuge in
Gerald, as it were appealing to him for moral protection, and answering
to him instead of to the saleswoman when the saleswoman offered remarks
in stiff English. The prices also frightened her. The simplest trifle
here cost sixteen pounds; and her mother's historic 'silk,' whose
elaborateness had cost twelve pounds, was supposed to have approached
the inexpressible! Gerald said that she was not to think about prices.
She was, however, forced by some instinct to think about prices--she
who at home had scorned the narrowness of life in the Square. In the
Square she was understood to be quite without commonsense, hopelessly
imprudent; yet here, a spring of sagacity seemed to be welling up in
her all the time, a continual antidote against the general madness in
which she found herself. With extraordinary rapidity she had formed a
habit of preaching moderation to Gerald. She hated to 'see money thrown
away,' and her notion of the boundary line between throwing money away
and judiciously spending it was still the notion of the Square.

Gerald would laugh. But she would say, piqued and blushing, but
self-sure: "You can laugh!" It was all deliciously agreeable.

On this evening she wore the first of the new costumes. She had worn it
all day. Characteristically she had chosen something which was not too
special for either afternoon or evening, for either warm or cold
weather. It was of pale blue taffetas striped in a darker blue, with
the corsage cut in basques, and the underskirt of a similar taffetas,
but unstriped. The effect of the ornate overskirt falling on the plain
underskirt with its small double volant was, she thought, and Gerald
too, adorable. The waist was higher than any she had had before, and
the crinoline expansive. Tied round her head with a large bow and
flying blue ribbons under the chin, was a fragile flat capote like a
baby's bonnet, which allowed her hair to escape in front and her great
chignon behind. A large spotted veil flew out from the capote over the
chignon. Her double skirts waved amply over Gerald's knees in the
carriage, and she leaned back against the hard cushions and put an
arrogant look into her face, and thought of nothing but the intense
throbbing joy of life, longing with painful ardour for more and more
pleasure, then and for ever.

As the carriage slipped downwards through the wide, empty gloom of the
Champs Elysees into the brilliant Paris that was waiting for them,
another carriage drawn by two white horses flashed upwards and was gone
in dust. Its only occupant, except the coachman and footman, was a
woman. Gerald stared after it.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "That's Hortense!"

It might have been Hortense, or it might not. But he instantly
convinced himself that it was. Not every evening did one meet Hortense
driving alone in the Champs Elysees, and in August too!

"Hortense?" Sophia asked simply.

"Yes. Hortense Schneider."

"Who is she?"

"You've never heard of Hortense Schneider?"

"No!"

"Well! Have you ever heard of Offenbach?"

"I--I don't know. I don't think so."

He had the mien of utter incredulity. "You don't mean to say you've
never heard of Bluebeard?"

"I've heard of Bluebeard, of course," said she. "Who hasn't?"

"I mean the opera--Offenbach's."

She shook her head, scarce knowing even what an opera was.

"Well, well! What next?"

He implied that such ignorance stood alone in his experience. Really he
was delighted at the cleanness of the slate on which he had to write.
And Sophia was not a bit alarmed. She relished instruction from his
lips. It was a pleasure to her to learn from that exhaustless store of
worldly knowledge. To the world she would do her best to assume
omniscience in its ways, but to him, in her present mood, she liked to
play the ignorant, uninitiated little thing.

"Why," he said, "the Schneider has been the rage since last year but
one. Absolutely the rage."

"I do wish I'd noticed her!" said Sophia.

"As soon as the Varietes reopens we'll go and see her," he replied, and
then gave his detailed version of the career of Hortense Schneider.

More joys for her in the near future! She had yet scarcely penetrated
the crust of her bliss. She exulted in the dazzling destiny which
comprised freedom, fortune, eternal gaiety, and the exquisite Gerald.

As they crossed the Place de la Concorde, she inquired, "Are we going
back to the hotel?"

"No," he said. "I thought we'd go and have supper somewhere, if it
isn't too early."

"After all that dinner?"

"All what dinner? You ate about five times as much as me, anyhow!"

"Oh, I'm ready!" she said.

She was. This day, because it was the first day of her French frock,
she regarded as her debut in the dizzy life of capitals. She existed in
a rapture of bliss, an ecstasy which could feel no fatigue, either of
body or spirit.

II

It was after midnight when they went into the Restaurant Sylvain;
Gerald, having decided not to go to the hotel, had changed his mind and
called there, and having called there, had remained a long time: this
of course! Sophia was already accustoming herself to the idea that,
with Gerald, it was impossible to predict accurately more than five
minutes of the future.

As the chasseur held open the door for them to enter, and Sophia passed
modestly into the glowing yellow interior of the restaurant, followed
by Gerald in his character of man-of-the-world, they drew the attention
of Sylvain's numerous and glittering guests. No face could have made a
more provocative contrast to the women's faces in those screened rooms
than the face of Sophia, so childlike between the baby's bonnet and the
huge bow of ribbon, so candid, so charmingly conscious of its own pure
beauty and of the fact that she was no longer a virgin, but the equal
in knowledge of any woman alive. She saw around her, clustered about
the white tables, multitudes of violently red lips, powdered cheeks,
cold, hard eyes, self-possessed arrogant faces, and insolent bosoms.
What had impressed her more than anything else in Paris, more even than
the three-horsed omnibuses, was the extraordinary self-assurance of all
the women, their unashamed posing, their calm acceptance of the public
gaze. They seemed to say: "We are the renowned Parisiennes." They
frightened her: they appeared to her so corrupt and so proud in their
corruption. She had already seen a dozen women in various situations of
conspicuousness apply powder to their complexions with no more ado than
if they had been giving a pat to their hair. She could not understand
such boldness. As for them, they marvelled at the phenomena presented
in Sophia's person; they admired; they admitted the style of the gown;
but they envied neither her innocence nor her beauty; they envied
nothing but her youth and the fresh tint of her cheeks.

"Encore des Anglais!" said some of them, as if that explained all.

Gerald had a very curt way with waiters; and the more obsequious they
were, the haughtier he became; and a head-waiter was no more to him
than a scullion. He gave loud-voiced orders in French of which both he
and Sophia were proud, and a table was laid for them in a corner near
one of the large windows. Sophia settled herself on the bench of green
velvet, and began to ply the ivory fan which Gerald had given her. It
was very hot; all the windows were wide open, and the sounds of the
street mingled clearly with the tinkle of the supper-room. Outside,
against a sky of deepest purple, Sophia could discern the black
skeleton of a gigantic building; it was the new opera house.

"All sorts here!" said Gerald, contentedly, after he had ordered iced
soup and sparkling Moselle. Sophia did not know what Moselle was, but
she imagined that anything would be better than champagne.

Sylvain's was then typical of the Second Empire, and particularly
famous as a supper-room. Expensive and gay, it provided, with its
discreet decorations, a sumptuous scene where lorettes, actresses,
respectable women, and an occasional grisette in luck, could satisfy
their curiosity as to each other. In its catholicity it was highly
correct as a resort; not many other restaurants in the centre could
have successfully fought against the rival attractions of the Bois and
the dim groves of the Champs Elysees on a night in August. The
complicated richness of the dresses, the yards and yards of fine
stitchery, the endless ruching, the hints, more or less incautious, of
nether treasures of embroidered linen; and, leaping over all this to
the eye, the vivid colourings of silks and muslins, veils, plumes and
flowers, piled as it were pell-mell in heaps on the universal green
cushions to the furthest vista of the restaurant, and all multiplied in
gilt mirrors--the spectacle intoxicated Sophia. Her eyes gleamed. She
drank the soup with eagerness, and tasted the wine, though no desire on
her part to like wine could make her like it; and then, seeing
pineapples on a large table covered with fruits, she told Gerald that
she should like some pineapple, and Gerald ordered one.

She gathered her self-esteem and her wits together, and began to give
Gerald her views on the costumes. She could do so with impunity,
because her own was indubitably beyond criticism. Some she wholly
condemned, and there was not one which earned her unreserved approval.
All the absurd fastidiousness of her schoolgirlish provinciality
emerged in that eager, affected torrent of remarks. However, she was
clever enough to read, after a time, in Gerald's tone and features,
that she was making a tedious fool of herself. And she adroitly shifted
her criticism from the taste to the WORK--she put a strong accent on
the word--and pronounced that to be miraculous beyond description. She
reckoned that she knew what dressmaking and millinery were, and her
little fund of expert knowledge caused her to picture a whole necessary
cityful of girls stitching, stitching, and stitching day and night. She
had wondered, during the few odd days that they had spent in Paris,
between visits to Chantilly and other places, at the massed luxury of
the shops; she had wondered, starting with St. Luke's Square as a
standard, how they could all thrive. But now in her first real glimpse
of the banal and licentious profusion of one among a hundred
restaurants, she wondered that the shops were so few. She thought how
splendid was all this expensiveness for trade. Indeed, the notions
chasing each other within that lovely and foolish head were a
surprising medley.

"Well, what do you think of Sylvain's?" Gerald asked, impatient to be
assured that his Sylvain's had duly overwhelmed her.

"Oh, Gerald!" she murmured, indicating that speech was inadequate. And
she just furtively touched his hand with hers.

The ennui due to her critical disquisition on the shortcomings of
Parisian costume cleared away from Gerald's face.

"What do you suppose those people there are talking about?" he said
with a jerk of the head towards a chattering group of three gorgeous
lorettes and two middle-aged men at the next table but one.

"What are they talking about?"

"They're talking about the execution of the murderer Rivain that takes
place at Auxerre the day after to-morrow. They're arranging to make up
a party and go and see it."

"Oh, what a horrid idea!" said Sophia.

"Guillotine, you know!" said Gerald.

"But can people see it?"

"Yes, of course."

"Well, I think it's horrible."

"Yes, that's why people like to go and see it. Besides, the man isn't
an ordinary sort of criminal at all. He's very young and good-looking,
and well connected. And he killed the celebrated Claudine...."

"Claudine?"

"Claudine Jacquinot. Of course you wouldn't know. She was a
tremendous--er--wrong 'un here in the forties. Made a lot of money, and
retired to her native town."

Sophia, in spite of her efforts to maintain the role of a woman who has
nothing to learn, blushed.

"Then she was older than he is."

"Thirty-five years older, if a day."

"What did he kill her for?"

"She wouldn't give him enough money. She was his mistress--or rather
one of 'em. He wanted money for a young lady friend, you see. He killed
her and took all the jewels she was wearing. Whenever he went to see
her she always wore all her best jewels--and you may bet a woman like
that had a few. It seems she had been afraid for a long time that he
meant to do for her."

"Then why did she see him? And why did she wear her jewels?"

"Because she liked being afraid, goose! Some women only enjoy
themselves when they're terrified. Queer, isn't it?"

Gerald insisted on meeting his wife's gaze as he finished these
revelations. He pretended that such stories were the commonest things
on earth, and that to be scandalized by them was infantile. Sophia,
thrust suddenly into a strange civilization perfectly frank in its
sensuality and its sensuousness, under the guidance of a young man to
whom her half-formed intelligence was a most diverting toy--Sophia felt
mysteriously uncomfortable, disturbed by sinister, flitting phantoms of
ideas which she only dimly apprehended. Her eyes fell. Gerald laughed
self-consciously. She would not eat any more pineapple.

Immediately afterwards there came into the restaurant an apparition
which momentarily stopped every conversation in the room. It was a tall
and mature woman who wore over a dress of purplish-black silk a vast
flowing sortie de bal of vermilion velvet, looped and tasselled with
gold. No other costume could live by the side of that garment, Arab in
shape, Russian in colour, and Parisian in style. It blazed. The woman's
heavy coiffure was bound with fillets of gold braid and crimson
rosettes. She was followed by a young Englishman in evening dress and
whiskers of the most exact correctness. The woman sailed, a little
breathlessly, to a table next to Gerald's, and took possession of it
with an air of use, almost of tedium. She sat down, threw the cloak
from her majestic bosom, and expanded her chest. Seeming to ignore the
Englishman, who superciliously assumed the seat opposite to her, she
let her large scornful eyes travel round the restaurant, slowly and
imperiously meeting the curiosity which she had evoked. Her beauty had
undoubtedly been dazzling, it was still effulgent; but the blossom was
about to fall. She was admirably rouged and powdered; her arms were
glorious; her lashes were long. There was little fault, save the
excessive ripeness of a blonde who fights in vain against obesity. And
her clothes combined audacity with the propriety of fashion. She
carelessly deposed costly trinkets on the table, and then, having
intimidated the whole company, she accepted the menu from the
head-waiter and began to study it.

"That's one of 'em!" Gerald whispered to Sophia.

"One of what?" Sophia whispered.

Gerald raised his eyebrows warningly, and winked. The Englishman had
overheard; and a look of frigid displeasure passed across his proud
face. Evidently he belonged to a rank much higher than Gerald's; and
Gerald, though he could always comfort himself by the thought that he
had been to a university with the best, felt his own inferiority and
could not hide that he felt it. Gerald was wealthy; he came of a
wealthy family; but he had not the habit of wealth. When he spent money
furiously, he did it with bravado, too conscious of grandeur and too
conscious of the difficulties of acquiring that which he threw away.
For Gerald had earned money. This whiskered Englishman had never earned
money, never known the value of it, never imagined himself without as
much of it as he might happen to want. He had the face of one
accustomed to give orders and to look down upon inferiors. He was
absolutely sure of himself. That his companion chiefly ignored him did
not appear to incommode him in the least. She spoke to him in French.
He replied in English, very briefly; and then, in English, he commanded
the supper. As soon as the champagne was served he began to drink; in
the intervals of drinking he gently stroked his whiskers. The woman
spoke no more.

Gerald talked more loudly. With that aristocratic Englishman observing
him, he could not remain at ease. And not only did he talk more loudly;
he brought into his conversation references to money, travels, and
worldly experiences. While seeking to impress the Englishman, he was
merely becoming ridiculous to the Englishman; and obscurely he was
aware of this. Sophia noticed and regretted it. Still, feeling very
unimportant herself, she was reconciled to the superiority of the
whiskered Englishman as to a natural fact. Gerald's behaviour slightly
lowered him in her esteem. Then she looked at him--at his well-shaped
neatness, his vivacious face, his excellent clothes, and decided that
he was much to be preferred to any heavy-jawed, long-nosed aristocrat
alive.

The woman whose vermilion cloak lay around her like a fortification
spoke to her escort. He did not understand. He tried to express himself
in French, and failed. Then the woman recommenced, talking at length.
When she had done he shook his head. His acquaintance with French was
limited to the vocabulary of food.

"Guillotine!" he murmured, the sole word of her discourse that he had
understood.

"Oui, oui! Guillotine. Enfin...!" cried the woman excitedly. Encouraged
by her success in conveying even one word of her remarks, she began a
third time.

"Excuse me," said Gerald. "Madame is talking about the execution at
Auxerre the day after to-morrow. N'est-ce-pas, madame, que vous parliez
de Rivain?"

The Englishman glared angrily at Gerald's officious interruption. But
the woman smiled benevolently on Gerald, and insisted on talking to her
friend through him. And the Englishman had to make the best of the
situation.

"There isn't a restaurant in Paris to-night where they aren't talking
about that execution," said Gerald on his own account.

"Indeed!" observed the Englishman.

Wine affected them in different ways.

Now a fragile, short young Frenchman, with an extremely pale face
ending in a thin black imperial, appeared at the entrance. He looked
about, and, recognizing the woman of the scarlet cloak, very discreetly
saluted her. Then he saw Gerald, and his worn, fatigued features showed
a sudden, startled smile. He came rapidly forward, hat in hand, seized
Gerald's palm and greeted him effusively.

"My wife," said Gerald, with the solemn care of a man who is determined
to prove that he is entirely sober.

The young man became grave and excessively ceremonious. He bowed low
over Sophia's hand and kissed it. Her impulse was to laugh, but the
gravity of the young man's deference stopped her. She glanced at
Gerald, blushing, as if to say: "This comedy is not my fault." Gerald
said something, the young man turned to him and his face resumed its
welcoming smile.

"This is Monsieur Chirac," Gerald at length completed the introduction,
"a friend of mine when I lived in Paris."

He was proud to have met by accident an acquaintance in a restaurant.
It demonstrated that he was a Parisian, and improved his standing with
the whiskered Englishman and the vermilion cloak.

"It is the first time you come Paris, madame?" Chirac addressed himself
to Sophia, in limping, timorous English.

"Yes," she giggled. He bowed again.

Chirac, with his best compliments, felicitated Gerald upon his marriage.

"Don't mention it!" said the humorous Gerald in English, amused at his
own wit; and then: "What about this execution?"

"Ah!" replied Chirac, breathing out a long breath, and smiling at
Sophia. "Rivain! Rivain!" He made a large, important gesture with his
hand.

It was at once to be seen that Gerald had touched the topic which
secretly ravaged the supper-world as a subterranean fire ravages a mine.

"I go!" said Chirac, with pride, glancing at Sophia, who smiled
self-consciously.

Chirac entered upon a conversation with Gerald in French. Sophia
comprehended that Gerald was surprised and impressed by what Chirac
told him and that Chirac in turn was surprised. Then Gerald laboriously
found his pocket-book, and after some fumbling with it handed it to
Chirac so that the latter might write in it.

"Madame!" murmured Chirac, resuming his ceremonious stiffness in order
to take leave. "Alors, c'est entendu, mon cher ami!" he said to Gerald,
who nodded phlegmatically. And Chirac went away to the next table but
one, where were the three lorettes and the two middle-aged men. He was
received there with enthusiasm.

Sophia began to be teased by a little fear that Gerald was not quite
his usual self. She did not think of him as tipsy. The idea of his
being tipsy would have shocked her. She did not think clearly at all.
She was lost and dazed in the labyrinth of new and vivid impressions
into which Gerald had led her. But her prudence was awake.

"I think I'm tired," she said in a low voice.

"You don't want to go, do you?" he asked, hurt.

"Well--"

"Oh, wait a bit!"

The owner of the vermilion cloak spoke again to Gerald, who showed that
he was flattered. While talking to her he ordered a brandy-and-soda.
And then he could not refrain from displaying to her his familiarity
with Parisian life, and he related how he had met Hortense Schneider
behind a pair of white horses. The vermilion cloak grew even more
sociable at the mention of this resounding name, and chattered with the
most agreeable vivacity. Her friend stared inimically.

"Do you hear that?" Gerald explained to Sophia, who was sitting silent.
"About Hortense Schneider--you know, we met her to-night. It seems she
made a bet of a louis with some fellow, and when he lost he sent her
the louis set in diamonds worth a hundred thousand francs. That's how
they go on here."

"Oh!" cried Sophia, further than ever in the labyrinth.

"'Scuse me," the Englishman put in heavily. He had heard the words
'Hortense Schneider,' 'Hortense Schneider,' repeating themselves in the
conversation, and at last it had occurred to him that the conversation
was about Hortense Schneider. "'Scuse me," he began again. "Are you--do
you mean Hortense Schneider?"

"Yes," said Gerald. "We met her to-night."

"She's in Trouville," said the Englishman, flatly.

Gerald shook his head positively.

"I gave a supper to her in Trouville last night," said the Englishman.
"And she plays at the Casino Theatre to-night."

Gerald was repulsed but not defeated. "What is she playing in to-night?
Tell me that!" he sneered.

"I don't see why I sh'd tell you."

"Hm!" Gerald retorted. "If what you say is true, it's a very strange
thing I should have seen her in the Champs Elysees to-night, isn't it?"

The Englishman drank more wine. "If you want to insult me, sir--" he
began coldly.

"Gerald!" Sophia urged in a whisper.

"Be quiet!" Gerald snapped.

A fiddler in fancy costume plunged into the restaurant at that moment
and began to play wildly. The shock of his strange advent momentarily
silenced the quarrel; but soon it leaped up again, under the shelter of
the noisy music,--the common, tedious, tippler's quarrel. It rose
higher and higher. The fiddler looked askance at it over his fiddle.
Chirac cautiously observed it. Instead of attending to the music, the
festal company attended to the quarrel. Three waiters in a group
watched it with an impartial sporting interest. The English voices grew
more menacing.

Then suddenly the whiskered Englishman, jerking his head towards the
door, said more quietly:

"Hadn't we better settle thish outside?"

"At your service!" said Gerald, rising.

The owner of the vermilion cloak lifted her eyebrows to Chirac in
fatigued disgust, but she said nothing. Nor did Sophia say anything.
Sophia was overcome by terror.

The swain of the cloak, dragging his coat after him across the floor,
left the restaurant without offering any apology or explanation to his
lady.

"Wait here for me," said Gerald defiantly to Sophia. "I shall be back
in a minute."

"But, Gerald!" She put her hand on his sleeve.

He snatched his arm away. "Wait here for me, I tell you," he repeated.

The doorkeeper obsequiously opened the door to the two unsteady
carousers, for whom the fiddler drew back, still playing.

Thus Sophia was left side by side with the vermilion cloak. She was
quite helpless. All the pride of a married woman had abandoned her. She
stood transfixed by intense shame, staring painfully at a pillar, to
avoid the universal assault of eyes. She felt like an indiscreet little
girl, and she looked like one. No youthful radiant beauty of features,
no grace and style of a Parisian dress, no certificate of a ring, no
premature initiation into the mysteries, could save her from the
appearance of a raw fool whose foolishness had been her undoing. Her
face changed to its reddest, and remained at that, and all the
fundamental innocence of her nature, which had been overlaid by the
violent experiences of her brief companionship with Gerald, rose again
to the surface with that blush. Her situation drew pity from a few
hearts and a careless contempt from the rest. But since once more it
was a question of ces Anglais, nobody could be astonished.

Without moving her head, she twisted her eyes to the clock: half-past
two. The fiddler ceased his dance and made a collection in his
tasselled cap. The vermilion cloak threw a coin into the cap. Sophia
stared at it moveless, until the fiddler, tired of waiting, passed to
the next table and relieved her agony. She had no money at all. She set
herself to watch the clock; but its fingers would not stir.

With an exclamation the lady of the cloak got up and peered out of the
window, chatted with waiters, and then removed herself and her cloak to
the next table, where she was received with amiable sympathy by the
three lorettes, Chirac, and the other two men. The party
surreptitiously examined Sophia from time to time. Then Chirac went
outside with the head-waiter, returned, consulted with his friends, and
finally approached Sophia. It was twenty minutes past three.

He renewed his magnificent bow. "Madame," he said carefully, "will you
allow me to bring you to your hotel?"

He made no reference to Gerald, partly, doubtless, because his English
was treacherous on difficult ground.

Sophia had not sufficient presence of mind to thank her saviour.

"But the bill?" she stammered. "The bill isn't paid."

He did not instantly understand her. But one of the waiters had caught
the sound of a familiar word, and sprang forward with a slip of paper
on a plate.

"I have no money," said Sophia, with a feeble smile.

"Je vous arrangerai ca," he said. "What name of the hotel? Meurice, is
it not?"

"Hotel Meurice," said Sophia. "Yes."

He spoke to the head-waiter about the bill, which was carried away like
something obscene; and on his arm, which he punctiliously offered and
she could not refuse, Sophia left the scene of her ignominy. She was so
distraught that she could not manage her crinoline in the doorway. No
sign anywhere outside of Gerald or his foe!

He put her into an open carriage, and in five minutes they had
clattered down the brilliant silence of the Rue de la Paix, through the
Place Vendome into the Rue de Rivoli; and the night-porter of the hotel
was at the carriage-step.

"I tell them at the restaurant where you gone," said Chirac,
bare-headed under the long colonnade of the street. "If your husband is
there, I tell him. Till to-morrow...!"

His manners were more wonderful than any that Sophia had ever imagined.
He might have been in the dark Tuileries on the opposite side of the
street, saluting an empress, instead of taking leave of a raw little
girl, who was still too disturbed even to thank him.

She fled candle in hand up the wide, many-cornered stairs; Gerald might
be already in the bedroom, ... drunk! There was a chance. But the
gilt-fringed bedroom was empty. She sat down at the velvet-covered
table amid the shadows cast by the candle that wavered in the draught
from the open window. And she set her teeth and a cold fury possessed
her in the hot and languorous night. Gerald was an imbecile. That he
should have allowed himself to get tipsy was bad enough, but that he
should have exposed her to the horrible situation from which Chirac had
extricated her, was unspeakably disgraceful. He was an imbecile. He had
no common sense. With all his captivating charm, he could not be relied
upon not to make himself and her ridiculous, tragically ridiculous.
Compare him with Mr. Chirac! She leaned despairingly on the table. She
would not undress. She would not move. She had to realize her position;
she had to see it.

Folly! Folly! Fancy a commercial traveller throwing a compromising
piece of paper to the daughter of his customer in the shop itself: that
was the incredible folly with which their relations had begun! And his
mad gesture at the pit-shaft! And his scheme for bringing her to Paris
unmarried! And then to-night! Monstrous folly! Alone in the bedroom she
was a wise and a disillusioned woman, wiser than any of those dolls in
the restaurant.

And had she not gone to Gerald, as it were, over the dead body of her
father, through lies and lies and again lies? That was how she phrased
it to herself.... Over the dead body of her father! How could such a
venture succeed? How could she ever have hoped that it would succeed?
In that moment she saw her acts with the terrible vision of a Hebrew
prophet.

She thought of the Square and of her life there with her mother and
Constance. Never would her pride allow her to return to that life, not
even if the worst happened to her that could happen. She was one of
those who are prepared to pay without grumbling for what they have had.

There was a sound outside. She noticed that the dawn had begun. The
door opened and disclosed Gerald.

They exchanged a searching glance, and Gerald shut the door. Gerald
infected the air, but she perceived at once that he was sobered. His
lip was bleeding.

"Mr. Chirac brought me home," she said.

"So it seems," said Gerald, curtly. "I asked you to wait for me. Didn't
I say I should come back?"

He was adopting the injured magisterial tone of the man who is
ridiculously trying to conceal from himself and others that he has
recently behaved like an ass.

She resented the injustice. "I don't think you need talk like that,"
she said.

"Like what?" he bullied her, determined that she should be in the wrong.

And what a hard look on his pretty face!

Her prudence bade her accept the injustice. She was his. Rapt away from
her own world, she was utterly dependent on his good nature.

"I knocked my chin against the damned balustrade, coming upstairs,"
said Gerald, gloomily.

She knew that was a lie. "Did you?" she replied kindly. "Let me bathe
it."




CHAPTER III

AN AMBITION SATISFIED

I


She went to sleep in misery. All the glory of her new life had been
eclipsed. But when she woke up, a few hours later, in the large,
velvety stateliness of the bedroom for which Gerald was paying so
fantastic a price per day, she was in a brighter mood, and very willing
to reconsider her verdicts. Her pride induced her to put Gerald in the
right and herself in the wrong, for she was too proud to admit that she
had married a charming and irresponsible fool. And, indeed, ought she
not to put herself in the wrong? Gerald had told her to wait, and she
had not waited. He had said that he should return to the restaurant,
and he had returned. Why had she not waited? She had not waited because
she had behaved like a simpleton. She had been terrified about nothing.
Had she not been frequenting restaurants now for a month past? Ought
not a married woman to be capable of waiting an hour in a restaurant
for her lawful husband without looking a ninny? And as for Gerald's
behaviour, how could he have acted differently? The other Englishman
was obviously a brute and had sought a quarrel. His contradiction of
Gerald's statements was extremely offensive. On being invited by the
brute to go outside, what could Gerald do but comply? Not to have
complied might have meant a fight in the restaurant, as the brute was
certainly drunk. Compared to the brute, Gerald was not at all drunk,
merely a little gay and talkative. Then Gerald's fib about his chin was
natural; he simply wished to minimize the fuss and to spare her
feelings. It was, in fact, just like Gerald to keep perfect silence as
to what had passed between himself and the brute. However, she was
convinced that Gerald, so lithe and quick, had given that great brute
with his supercilious ways as good as he received, if not better.

And if she were a man and had asked her wife to wait in a restaurant,
and the wife had gone home under the escort of another man, she would
most assuredly be much more angry than Gerald had been. She was very
glad that she had controlled herself and exercised a meek diplomacy. A
quarrel had thus been avoided. Yes, the finish of the evening could not
be called a quarrel; after her nursing of his chin, nothing but a
slight coolness on his part had persisted.

She arose silently and began to dress, full of a determination to treat
Gerald as a good wife ought to treat a husband. Gerald did not stir; he
was an excellent sleeper: one of those organisms that never want to go
to bed and never want to get up. When her toilet was complete save for
her bodice, there was a knock at the door. She started.

"Gerald!" She approached the bed, and leaned her nude bosom over her
husband, and put her arms round his neck. This method of being brought
back to consciousness did not displease him.

The knock was repeated. He gave a grunt.

"Some one's knocking at the door," she whispered.

"Then why don't you open it?" he asked dreamily.

"I'm not dressed, darling."

He looked at her. "Stick something on your shoulders, girl!" said he.
"What does it matter?"

There she was, being a simpleton again, despite her resolution!

She obeyed, and cautiously opened the door, standing behind it.

A middle-aged whiskered servant, in a long white apron, announced
matters in French which passed her understanding. But Gerald had heard
from the bed, and he replied.

"Bien, monsieur!" The servant departed, with a bow, down the obscure
corridor.

"It's Chirac," Gerald explained when she had shut the door. "I was
forgetting I asked him to come and have lunch with us, early. He's
waiting in the drawing-room. Just put your bodice on, and go and talk
to him till I come."

He jumped out of bed, and then, standing in his night-garb, stretched
himself and terrifically yawned.

"Me?" Sophia questioned.

"Who else?" said Gerald, with that curious satiric dryness which he
would sometimes import into his tone.

"But I can't speak French!" she protested.

"I didn't suppose you could," said Gerald, with an increase of dryness;
"but you know as well as I do that he can speak English."

"Oh, very well, then!" she murmured with agreeable alacrity.

Evidently Gerald had not yet quite recovered from his legitimate
displeasure of the night. He minutely examined his mouth in the glass
of the Louis Philippe wardrobe. It showed scarcely a trace of battle.

"I say!" he stopped her, as, nervous at the prospect before her, she
was leaving the room. "I was thinking of going to Auxerre to-day."

"Auxerre?" she repeated, wondering under what circumstances she had
recently heard that name. Then she remembered: it was the place of
execution of the murderer Rivain.

"Yes," he said. "Chirac has to go. He's on a newspaper now. He was an
architect when I knew him. He's got to go and he thinks himself jolly
lucky. So I thought I'd go with him."

The truth was that he had definitely arranged to go.

"Not to see the execution?" she stammered.

"Why not? I've always wanted to see an execution, especially with the
guillotine. And executions are public in France. It's quite the proper
thing to go to them."

"But why do you want to see an execution?"

"It just happens that I do want to see an execution. It's a fancy of
mine, that's all. I don't know that any reason is necessary," he said,
pouring out water into the diminutive ewer.

She was aghast. "And shall you leave me here alone?"

"Well," said he, "I don't see why my being married should prevent me
from doing something that I've always wanted to do. Do you?"

"Oh NO!" she eagerly concurred.

"That's all right," he said. "You can do exactly as you like. Either
stay here, or come with me. If you go to Auxerre there's no need at all
for you to see the execution. It's an interesting old town--cathedral
and so on. But of course if you can't bear to be in the same town as a
guillotine, I'll go alone. I shall come back to-morrow."

It was plain where his wish lay. She stopped the phrases that came to
her lips, and did her best to dismiss the thoughts which prompted them.

"Of course I'll go," she said quietly. She hesitated, and then went up
to the washstand and kissed a part of his cheek that was not soapy.
That kiss, which comforted and somehow reassured her, was the
expression of a surrender whose monstrousness she would not admit to
herself.

In the rich and dusty drawing-room, Chirac and Chirac's exquisite
formalities awaited her. Nobody else was there.

"My husband ..." she began, smiling and blushing. She liked Chirac.

It was the first time she had had the opportunity of using that word to
other than a servant. It soothed her and gave her confidence. She
perceived after a few moments that Chirac did genuinely admire her;
more, that she inspired him with something that resembled awe. Speaking
very slowly and distinctly she said that she should travel with her
husband to Auxerre; as he saw no objection to that course; implying
that if he saw no objection she was perfectly satisfied. Chirac was
concurrence itself. In five minutes it seemed to be the most natural
and proper thing in the world that, on her honeymoon, she should be
going with her husband to a particular town because a notorious
murderer was about to be decapitated there in public.

"My husband has always wanted to see an execution," she said, later.
"It would be a pity to ..."

"As psychological experience," replied Chirac, pronouncing the p of the
adjective, "it will be very interessant.... To observe one's self, in
such circumstances ..." He smiled enthusiastically.

She thought how strange even nice Frenchmen were. Imagine going to an
execution in order to observe yourself!

II

What continually impressed Sophia as strange, in the behaviour not only
of Gerald but of Chirac and other people with whom she came into
contact, was its quality of casualness. She had all her life been
accustomed to see enterprises, even minor ones, well pondered and then
carefully schemed beforehand. In St. Luke's Square there was always, in
every head, a sort of time-table of existence prepared at least one
week in advance. But in Gerald's world nothing was prearranged.
Elaborate affairs were decided in a moment and undertaken with
extraordinary lightness. Thus the excursion to Auxerre! During lunch
scarcely a word was said as to it; the conversation, in English for
Sophia's advantage, turning, as usual under such circumstances, upon
the difficulty of languages and the differences between countries.
Nobody would have guessed that any member of the party had any
preoccupation whatever for the rest of the day. The meal was delightful
to Sophia; not merely did she find Chirac comfortingly kind and
sincere, but Gerald was restored to the perfection of his charm and his
good humour. Then suddenly, in the midst of coffee, the question of
trains loomed up like a swift crisis. In five minutes Chirac had
departed--whether to his office or his home Sophia did not understand,
and within a quarter of an hour she and Gerald were driving rapidly to
the Gare de Lyon, Gerald stuffing into his pocket a large envelope full
of papers which he had received by registered post. They caught the
train by about a minute, and Chirac by a few seconds. Yet neither he
nor Gerald seemed to envisage the risk of inconvenience and annoyance
which they had incurred and escaped. Chirac chattered through the
window with another journalist in the next compartment. When she had
leisure to examine him, Sophia saw that he must have called at his home
to put on old clothes. Everybody except herself and Gerald seemed to
travel in his oldest clothes.

The train was hot, noisy, and dusty. But, one after another, all three
of them fell asleep and slept heavily, calmly, like healthy and
exhausted young animals. Nothing could disturb them for more than a
moment. To Sophia it appeared to be by simple chance that Chirac
aroused himself and them at Laroche and sleepily seized her valise and
got them all out on the platform, where they yawned and smiled, full of
the deep, half-realized satisfaction of repose. They drank nectar from
a wheeled buffet, drank it eagerly, in thirsty gulps, and sighed with
pleasure and relief, and Gerald threw down a coin, refusing change with
a lord's gesture. The local train to Auxerre was full, and with a
varied and sinister cargo. At length they were in the zone of the
waiting guillotine. The rumour ran that the executioner was on the
train. No one had seen him; no one was sure of recognizing him, but
everyone hugged the belief that he was on the train. Although the sun
was sinking the heat seemed not to abate. Attitudes grew more limp,
more abandoned. Soot and prickly dust flew in unceasingly at the open
windows. The train stopped at Bonnard, Chemilly, and Moneteau, each
time before a waiting crowd that invaded it. And at last, in the great
station at Auxerre, it poured out an incredible mass of befouled
humanity that spread over everything like an inundation. Sophia was
frightened. Gerald left the initiative to Chirac, and Chirac took her
arm and led her forward, looking behind him to see that Gerald followed
with the valise. Frenzy seemed to reign in Auxerre.

The driver of a cab demanded ten francs for transporting them to the
Hotel de l'Epee.

"Bah!" scornfully exclaimed Chirac, in his quality of experienced
Parisian who is not to be exploited by heavy-witted provincials.

But the driver of the next cab demanded twelve francs.

"Jump in," said Gerald to Sophia. Chirac lifted his eyebrows.

At the same moment a tall, stout man with the hard face of a
flourishing scoundrel, and a young, pallid girl on his arm, pushed
aside both Gerald and Chirac and got into the cab with his companion.

Chirac protested, telling him that the cab was already engaged.

The usurper scowled and swore, and the young girl laughed boldly.

Sophia, shrinking, expected her escort to execute justice heroic and
final; but she was disappointed.

"Brute!" murmured Chirac, and shrugged his shoulders, as the carriage
drove off, leaving them foolish on the kerb.

By this time all the other cabs had been seized. They walked to the
Hotel de l'Epee, jostled by the crowd, Sophia and Chirac in front, and
Gerald following with the valise, whose weight caused him to lean over
to the right and his left arm to rise. The avenue was long, straight,
and misty with a floating dust. Sophia had a vivid sense of the
romantic. They saw towers and spires, and Chirac talked to her slowly
and carefully of the cathedral and the famous churches. He said that
the stained glass was marvellous, and with much care he catalogued for
her all the things she must visit. They crossed a river. She felt as
though she was stepping into the middle age. At intervals Gerald
changed the valise from hand to hand; obstinately, he would not let
Chirac touch it. They struggled upwards, through narrow curving streets.

"Voila!" said Chirac.

They were in front of the Hotel de l'Epee. Across the street was a cafe
crammed with people. Several carriages stood in front. The Hotel de
l'Epee had a reassuring air of mellow respectability, such as Chirac
had claimed for it. He had suggested this hotel for Madame Scales
because it was not near the place of execution. Gerald had said, "Of
course! Of course!" Chirac, who did not mean to go to bed, required no
room for himself.

The Hotel de l'Epee had one room to offer, at the price of twenty-five
francs.

Gerald revolted at the attempted imposition. "A nice thing!" he
grumbled, "that ordinary travellers can't get a decent room at a decent
price just because some one's going to be guillotined to-morrow! We'll
try elsewhere!"

His features expressed disgust, but Sophia fancied that he was secretly
pleased.

They swaggered out of the busy stir of the hotel, as those must who,
having declined to be swindled, wish to preserve their importance in
the face of the world. In the street a cabman solicited them, and
filled them with hope by saying that he knew of a hotel that might suit
them and would drive them there for five francs. He furiously lashed
his horse. The mere fact of being in a swiftly moving carriage which
wayfarers had to avoid nimbly, maintained their spirits. They had a
near glimpse of the cathedral. The cab halted with a bump, in a small
square, in front of a repellent building which bore the sign, 'Hotel de
Vezelay.' The horse was bleeding. Gerald instructed Sophia to remain
where she was, and he and Chirac went up four stone steps into the
hotel. Sophia, stared at by loose crowds that were promenading, gazed
about her, and saw that all the windows of the square were open and
most of them occupied by people who laughed and chattered. Then there
was a shout: Gerald's voice. He had appeared at a window on the second
floor of the hotel with Chirac and a very fat woman. Chirac saluted,
and Gerald laughed carelessly, and nodded.

"It's all right," said Gerald, having descended.

"How much do they ask?" Sophia inquired indiscreetly.

Gerald hesitated, and looked self-conscious. "Thirty-five francs," he
said. "But I've had enough of driving about. It seems we're lucky to
get it even at that."

And Chirac shrugged his shoulders as if to indicate that the situation
and the price ought to be accepted philosophically. Gerald gave the
driver five francs. He examined the piece and demanded a pourboire.

"Oh! Damn!" said Gerald, and, because he had no smaller change, parted
with another two francs.

"Is any one coming out for this damned valise?" Gerald demanded, like a
tyrant whose wrath would presently fall if the populace did not
instantly set about minding their p's and q's.

But nobody emerged, and he was compelled to carry the bag himself.

The hotel was dark and malodorous, and every room seemed to be crowded
with giggling groups of drinkers.

"We can't both sleep in this bed, surely," said Sophia when, Chirac
having remained downstairs, she faced Gerald in a small, mean bedroom.

"You don't suppose I shall go to bed, do you?" said Gerald, rather
brusquely. "It's for you. We're going to eat now. Look sharp."

III

It was night. She lay in the narrow, crimson-draped bed. The heavy
crimson curtains had been drawn across the dirty lace curtains of the
window, but the lights of the little square faintly penetrated through
chinks into the room. The sounds of the square also penetrated,
extraordinarily loud and clear, for the unabated heat had compelled her
to leave the window open. She could not sleep. Exhausted though she
was, there was no hope of her being able to sleep.

Once again she was profoundly depressed. She remembered the dinner with
horror. The long, crowded table, with semi-circular ends, in the
oppressive and reeking dining-room lighted by oil-lamps! There must
have been at least forty people at that table. Most of them ate
disgustingly, as noisily as pigs, with the ends of the large coarse
napkins tucked in at their necks. All the service was done by the fat
woman whom she had seen at the window with Gerald, and a young girl
whose demeanour was candidly brazen. Both these creatures were
slatterns. Everything was dirty. But the food was good. Chirac and
Gerald were agreed that the food was good, as well as the wine.
"Remarquable!" Chirac had said, of the wine. Sophia, however, could
neither eat nor drink with relish. She was afraid. The company shocked
her by its gestures alone. It was very heterogeneous in appearance,
some of the diners being well dressed, approaching elegance, and others
shabby. But all the faces, to the youngest, were brutalized, corrupt,
and shameless. The juxtaposition of old men and young women was odious
to her, especially when those pairs kissed, as they did frequently
towards the end of the meal. Happily she was placed between Chirac and
Gerald. That situation seemed to shelter her even from the
conversation. She would have comprehended nothing of the conversation,
had it not been for the presence of a middle-aged Englishman who sat at
the opposite end of the table with a youngish, stylish Frenchwoman whom
she had seen at Sylvain's on the previous night. The Englishman was
evidently under a promise to teach English to the Frenchwoman. He kept
translating for her into English, slowly and distinctly, and she would
repeat the phrases after him, with strange contortions of the mouth.

Thus Sophia gathered that the talk was exclusively about
assassinations, executions, criminals, and executioners. Some of the
people there made a practice of attending every execution. They were
fountains of interesting gossip, and the lions of the meal. There was a
woman who could recall the dying words of all the victims of justice
for twenty years past. The table roared with hysteric laughter at one
of this woman's anecdotes. Sophia learned that she had related how a
criminal had said to the priest who was good-naturedly trying to screen
the sight of the guillotine from him with his body: "Stand away now,
parson. Haven't I paid to see it?" Such was the Englishman's rendering.
The wages of the executioners and their assistants were discussed, and
differences of opinions led to ferocious arguments. A young and
dandiacal fellow told, as a fact which he was ready to vouch for with a
pistol, how Cora Pearl, the renowned English courtesan, had through her
influence over a prefect of police succeeded in visiting a criminal
alone in his cell during the night preceding his execution, and had
only quitted him an hour before the final summons. The tale won the
honours of the dinner. It was regarded as truly impressive, and
inevitably it led to the general inquiry: what could the highest
personages in the empire see to admire in that red-haired Englishwoman?
And of course Rivain himself, the handsome homicide, the centre and
hero of the fete, was never long out of the conversation. Several of
the diners had seen him; one or two knew him and could give amazing
details of his prowess as a man of pleasure. Despite his crime, he
seemed to be the object of sincere idolatry. It was said positively
that a niece of his victim had been promised a front place at the
execution.

Apropos of this, Sophia gathered, to her intense astonishment and
alarm, that the prison was close by and that the execution would take
place at the corner of the square itself in which the hotel was
situated. Gerald must have known; he had hidden it from her. She
regarded him sideways, with distrust. As the dinner finished, Gerald's
pose of a calm, disinterested, scientific observer of humanity
gradually broke down. He could not maintain it in front of the
increasing license of the scene round the table. He was at length
somewhat ashamed of having exposed his wife to the view of such an
orgy; his restless glance carefully avoided both Sophia and Chirac. The
latter, whose unaffected simplicity of interest in the affair had more
than anything helped to keep Sophia in countenance, observed the change
in Gerald and Sophia's excessive discomfort, and suggested that they
should leave the table without waiting for the coffee. Gerald agreed
quickly. Thus had Sophia been released from the horror of the dinner.
She did not understand how a man so thoughtful and kindly as Chirac--he
had bidden her good night with the most distinguished courtesy--could
tolerate, much less pleasurably savour, the gluttonous, drunken, and
salacious debauchery of the Hotel de Vezelay; but his theory was, so
far as she could judge from his imperfect English, that whatever
existed might be admitted and examined by serious persons interested in
the study of human nature. His face seemed to say: "Why not?" His face
seemed to say to Gerald and to herself: "If this incommodes you, what
did you come for?"

Gerald had left her at the bedroom door with a self-conscious nod. She
had partly undressed and lain down, and instantly the hotel had
transformed itself into a kind of sounding-box. It was as if, beneath
and within all the noises of the square, every movement in the hotel
reached her ears through cardboard walls: distant shoutings and
laughter below; rattlings of crockery below; stampings up and down
stairs; stealthy creepings up and down stairs; brusque calls; fragments
of song, whisperings; long sighs suddenly stifled; mysterious groans as
of torture, broken by a giggle; quarrels and bickering,--she was spared
nothing in the strangely resonant darkness.

Then there came out of the little square a great uproar and commotion,
with shrieks, and under the shrieks a confused din. In vain she pressed
her face into the pillow and listened to the irregular, prodigious
noise of her eyelashes as they scraped the rough linen. The thought had
somehow introduced itself into her head that she must arise and go to
the window and see all that was to be seen. She resisted. She said to
herself that the idea was absurd, that she did not wish to go to the
window. Nevertheless, while arguing with herself, she well knew that
resistance to the thought was useless and that ultimately her legs
would obey its command.

When ultimately she yielded to the fascination and went to the window
and pulled aside one of the curtains, she had a feeling of relief. The
cool, grey beginnings of dawn were in the sky, and every detail of the
square was visible. Without exception all the windows were wide open
and filled with sightseers. In the background of many windows were
burning candles or lamps that the far distant approach of the sun was
already killing. In front of these, on the frontier of two mingling
lights, the attentive figures of the watchers were curiously
silhouetted. On the red-tiled roofs, too, was a squatted population.
Below, a troop of gendarmes, mounted on caracoling horses stretched in
line across the square, was gradually sweeping the entire square of a
packed, gesticulating, cursing crowd. The operation of this immense
besom was very slow. As the spaces of the square were cleared they
began to be dotted by privileged persons, journalists or law officers
or their friends, who walked to and fro in conscious pride; among them
Sophia descried Gerald and Chirac, strolling arm-in-arm and talking to
two elaborately clad girls, who were also arm-in-arm.

Then she saw a red reflection coming from one of the side streets of
which she had a vista; it was the swinging lantern of a waggon drawn by
a gaunt grey horse. The vehicle stopped at the end of the square from
which the besom had started, and it was immediately surrounded by the
privileged, who, however, were soon persuaded to stand away. The crowd
amassed now at the principal inlets of the square, gave a formidable
cry and burst into the refrain--

"Le voila! Nicolas! Ah! Ah! Ah!"

The clamour became furious as a group of workmen in blue blouses drew
piece by piece all the components of the guillotine from the waggon and
laid them carefully on the ground, under the superintendence of a man
in a black frock-coat and a silk hat with broad flat brims; a little
fussy man of nervous gestures. And presently the red columns had risen
upright from the ground and were joined at the top by an acrobatic
climber. As each part was bolted and screwed to the growing machine the
man in the high hat carefully tested it. In a short time that seemed
very long, the guillotine was finished save for the triangular steel
blade which lay shining on the ground, a cynosure. The executioner
pointed to it, and two men picked it up and slipped it into its groove,
and hoisted it to the summit of the machine. The executioner peered at
it interminably amid a universal silence. Then he actuated the
mechanism, and the mass of metal fell with a muffled, reverberating
thud. There were a few faint shrieks, blended together, and then an
overpowering racket of cheers, shouts, hootings, and fragments of song.
The blade was again lifted, instantly reproducing silence, and again it
fell, liberating a new bedlam. The executioner made a movement of
satisfaction. Many women at the windows clapped enthusiastically, and
the gendarmes had to fight brutally against the fierce pressure of the
crowd. The workmen doffed their blouses and put on coats, and Sophia
was disturbed to see them coming in single file towards the hotel,
followed by the executioner in the silk hat.

IV

There was a tremendous opening of doors in the Hotel de Vezelay, and
much whispering on thresholds, as the executioner and his band entered
solemnly. Sophia heard them tramp upstairs; they seemed to hesitate,
and then apparently went into a room on the same landing as hers. A
door banged. But Sophia could hear the regular sound of new voices
talking, and then the rattling of glasses on a tray. The conversation
which came to her from the windows of the hotel now showed a great
increase of excitement. She could not see the people at these
neighbouring windows without showing her own head, and this she would
not do. The boom of a heavy bell striking the hour vibrated over the
roofs of the square; she supposed that it might be the cathedral clock.
In a corner of the square she saw Gerald talking vivaciously alone with
one of the two girls who had been together. She wondered vaguely how
such a girl had been brought up, and what her parents thought--or knew!
And she was conscious of an intense pride in herself, of a measureless
haughty feeling of superiority.

Her eye caught the guillotine again, and was held by it. Guarded by
gendarmes, that tall and simple object did most menacingly dominate the
square with its crude red columns. Tools and a large open box lay on
the ground beside it. The enfeebled horse in the waggon had an air of
dozing on his twisted legs. Then the first rays of the sun shot
lengthwise across the square at the level of the chimneys; and Sophia
noticed that nearly all the lamps and candles had been extinguished.
Many people at the windows were yawning; they laughed foolishly after
they had yawned. Some were eating and drinking. Some were shouting
conversations from one house to another. The mounted gendarmes were
still pressing back the feverish crowds that growled at all the inlets
to the square. She saw Chirac walking to and fro alone. But she could
not find Gerald. He could not have left the square. Perhaps he had
returned to the hotel and would come up to see if she was comfortable
or if she needed anything. Guiltily she sprang back into bed. When last
she had surveyed the room it had been dark; now it was bright and every
detail stood clear. Yet she had the sensation of having been at the
window only a few minutes.

She waited. But Gerald did not come. She could hear chiefly the steady
hum of the voices of the executioner and his aids. She reflected that
the room in which they were must be at the back. The other sounds in
the hotel grew less noticeable. Then, after an age, she heard a door
open, and a low voice say something commandingly in French, and then a
'Oui, monsieur,' and a general descent of the stairs. The executioner
and his aids were leaving. "You," cried a drunken English voice from an
upper floor--it was the middle-aged Englishman translating what the
executioner had said--"you, you will take the head." Then a rough
laugh, and the repeating voice of the Englishman's girl, still pursuing
her studies in English: "You will take ze 'ead. Yess, sair." And
another laugh. At length quiet reigned in the hotel. Sophia said to
herself: "I won't stir from this bed till it's all over and Gerald
comes back!"

She dozed, under the sheet, and was awakened by a tremendous shrieking,
growling, and yelling: a phenomenon of human bestiality that far
surpassed Sophia's narrow experiences. Shut up though she was in a
room, perfectly secure, the mad fury of that crowd, balked at the
inlets to the square, thrilled and intimidated her. It sounded as if
they would be capable of tearing the very horses to pieces. "I must
stay where I am," she murmured. And even while saying it she rose and
went to the window again and peeped out. The torture involved was
extreme, but she had not sufficient force within her to resist the
fascination. She stared greedily into the bright square. The first
thing she saw was Gerald coming out of a house opposite, followed after
a few seconds by the girl with whom he had previously been talking.
Gerald glanced hastily up at the facade of the hotel, and then
approached as near as he could to the red columns, in front of which
were now drawn a line of gendarmes with naked swords. A second and
larger waggon, with two horses, waited by the side of the other one.
The racket beyond the square continued and even grew louder. But the
couple of hundred persons within the cordons, and all the inhabitants
of the windows, drunk and sober, gazed in a fixed and sinister
enchantment at the region of the guillotine, as Sophia gazed. "I cannot
stand this!" she told herself in horror, but she could not move; she
could not move even her eyes.

At intervals the crowd would burst out in a violent staccato--

"Le voila! Nicholas! Ah! Ah! Ah!"

And the final 'Ah' was devilish.

Then a gigantic passionate roar, the culmination of the mob's fierce
savagery, crashed against the skies. The line of maddened horses
swerved and reared, and seemed to fall on the furious multitude while
the statue-like gendarmes rocked over them. It was a last effort to
break the cordon, and it failed.

From the little street at the rear of the guillotine appeared a priest,
walking backwards, and holding a crucifix high in his right hand, and
behind him came the handsome hero, his body all crossed with cords,
between two warders, who pressed against him and supported him on
either side. He was certainly very young. He lifted his chin gallantly,
but his face was incredibly white. Sophia discerned that the priest was
trying to hide the sight of the guillotine from the prisoner with his
body, just as in the story which she had heard at dinner.

Except the voice of the priest, indistinctly rising and falling in the
prayer for the dying, there was no sound in the square or its environs.
The windows were now occupied by groups turned to stone with distended
eyes fixed on the little procession. Sophia had a tightening of the
throat, and the hand trembled by which she held the curtain. The
central figure did not seem to her to be alive; but rather a doll, a
marionette wound up to imitate the action of a tragedy. She saw the
priest offer the crucifix to the mouth of the marionette, which with a
clumsy unhuman shoving of its corded shoulders butted the thing away.
And as the procession turned and stopped she could plainly see that the
marionette's nape and shoulders were bare, his shirt having been slit.
It was horrible. "Why do I stay here?" she asked herself hysterically.
But she did not stir. The victim had disappeared now in the midst of a
group of men. Then she perceived him prone under the red column,
between the grooves. The silence was now broken only by the tinkling of
the horses' bits in the corners of the square. The line of gendarmes in
front of the scaffold held their swords tightly and looked over their
noses, ignoring the privileged groups that peered almost between their
shoulders.

And Sophia waited, horror-struck. She saw nothing but the gleaming
triangle of metal that was suspended high above the prone, attendant
victim. She felt like a lost soul, torn too soon from shelter, and
exposed for ever to the worst hazards of destiny. Why was she in this
strange, incomprehensible town, foreign and inimical to her, watching
with agonized glance this cruel, obscene spectacle? Her sensibilities
were all a bleeding mass of wounds. Why? Only yesterday, and she had
been, an innocent, timid creature in Bursley, in Axe, a foolish
creature who deemed the concealment of letters a supreme excitement.
Either that day or this day was not real. Why was she imprisoned alone
in that odious, indescribably odious hotel, with no one to soothe and
comfort her, and carry her away?

The distant bell boomed once. Then a monosyllabic voice sounded, sharp,
low, nervous; she recognized the voice of the executioner, whose name
she had heard but could not remember. There was a clicking noise.

She shrank down to the floor in terror and loathing, and hid her face,
and shuddered. Shriek after shriek, from various windows, rang on her
ears in a fusillade; and then the mad yell of the penned crowd, which,
like herself, had not seen but had heard, extinguished all other noise.
Justice was done. The great ambition of Gerald's life was at last
satisfied.

Later, amid the stir of the hotel, there came a knock at her door,
impatient and nervous. Forgetting, in her tribulation, that she was
without her bodice, she got up from the floor in a kind of miserable
dream, and opened. Chirac stood on the landing, and he had Gerald by
the arm. Chirac looked worn out, curiously fragile and pathetic; but
Gerald was the very image of death. The attainment of ambition had
utterly destroyed his equilibrium; his curiosity had proved itself
stronger than his stomach. Sophia would have pitied him had she in that
moment been capable of pity. Gerald staggered past her into the room,
and sank with a groan on to the bed. Not long since he had been proudly
conversing with impudent women. Now, in swift collapse, he was as
flaccid as a sick hound and as disgusting as an aged drunkard.

"He is some little souffrant," said Chirac, weakly.

Sophia perceived in Chirac's tone the assumption that of course her
present duty was to devote herself to the task of restoring her shamed
husband to his manly pride.

"And what about me?" she thought bitterly.

The fat woman ascended the stairs like a tottering blancmange, and
began to gabble to Sophia, who understood nothing whatever.

"She wants sixty francs," Chirac said, and in answer to Sophia's
startled question, he explained that Gerald had agreed to pay a hundred
francs for the room, which was the landlady's own--fifty francs in
advance and the fifty after the execution. The other ten was for the
dinner. The landlady, distrusting the whole of her clientele, was
collecting her accounts instantly on the completion of the spectacle.

Sophia made no remark as to Gerald's lie to her. Indeed, Chirac had
heard it. She knew Gerald for a glib liar to others, but she was
naively surprised when he practised upon herself.

"Gerald! Do you hear?" she said coldly.

The amateur of severed heads only groaned.

With a movement of irritation she went to him and felt in his pockets
for his purse; he acquiesced, still groaning. Chirac helped her to
choose and count the coins.

The fat woman, appeased, pursued her way.

"Good-bye, madame!" said Chirac, with his customary courtliness,
transforming the landing of the hideous hotel into some imperial
antechamber.

"Are you going away?" she asked, in surprise. Her distress was so
obvious that it tremendously flattered him. He would have stayed if he
could. But he had to return to Paris to write and deliver his article.

"To-morrow, I hope!" he murmured sympathetically, kissing her hand. The
gesture atoned somewhat for the sordidness of her situation, and even
corrected the faults of her attire. Always afterwards it seemed to her
that Chirac was an old and intimate friend; he had successfully passed
through the ordeal of seeing 'the wrong side' of the stuff of her life.

She shut the door on him with a lingering glance, and reconciled
herself to her predicament.

Gerald slept. Just as he was, he slept heavily.

This was what he had brought her to, then! The horrors of the night, of
the dawn, and of the morning! Ineffable suffering and humiliation;
anguish and torture that could never be forgotten! And after a fatuous
vigil of unguessed license, he had tottered back, an offensive beast,
to sleep the day away in that filthy chamber! He did not possess even
enough spirit to play the role of roysterer to the end. And she was
bound to him; far, far from any other human aid; cut off irrevocably by
her pride from those who perhaps would have protected her from his
dangerous folly. The deep conviction henceforward formed a permanent
part of her general consciousness that he was simply an irresponsible
and thoughtless fool! He was without sense. Such was her brilliant and
godlike husband, the man who had given her the right to call herself a
married woman! He was a fool. With all her ignorance of the world she
could see that nobody but an arrant imbecile could have brought her to
the present pass. Her native sagacity revolted. Gusts of feeling came
over her in which she could have thrashed him into the realization of
his responsibilities.

Sticking out of the breast-pocket of his soiled coat was the packet
which he had received on the previous day. If he had not already lost
it, he could only thank his luck. She took it. There were English
bank-notes in it for two hundred pounds, a letter from a banker, and
other papers. With precautions against noise she tore the envelope and
the letter and papers into small pieces, and then looked about for a
place to hide them. A cupboard suggested itself. She got on a chair,
and pushed the fragments out of sight on the topmost shelf, where they
may well be to this day. She finished dressing, and then sewed the
notes into the lining of her skirt. She had no silly, delicate notions
about stealing. She obscurely felt that, in the care of a man like
Gerald, she might find herself in the most monstrous, the most
impossible dilemmas. Those notes, safe and secret in her skirt, gave
her confidence, reassured her against the perils of the future, and
endowed her with independence. The act was characteristic of her
enterprise and of her fundamental prudence. It approached the heroic.
And her conscience hotly defended its righteousness.

She decided that when he discovered his loss, she would merely deny all
knowledge of the envelope, for he had not spoken a word to her about
it. He never mentioned the details of money; he had a fortune. However,
the necessity for this untruth did not occur. He made no reference
whatever to his loss. The fact was, he thought he had been careless
enough to let the envelope be filched from him during the excesses of
the night.

All day till evening Sophia sat on a dirty chair, without food, while
Gerald slept. She kept repeating to herself, in amazed resentment: "A
hundred francs for this room! A hundred francs! And he hadn't the pluck
to tell me!" She could not have expressed her contempt.

Long before sheer ennui forced her to look out of the window again,
every sign of justice had been removed from the square. Nothing
whatever remained in the heavy August sunshine save gathered heaps of
filth where the horses had reared and caracoled.




CHAPTER IV

A CRISIS FOR GERALD

I


For a time there existed in the minds of both Gerald and Sophia the
remarkable notion that twelve thousand pounds represented the infinity
of wealth, that this sum possessed special magical properties which
rendered it insensible to the process of subtraction. It seemed
impossible that twelve thousand pounds, while continually getting less,
could ultimately quite disappear. The notion lived longer in the mind
of Gerald than in that of Sophia; for Gerald would never look at a
disturbing fact, whereas Sophia's gaze was morbidly fascinated by such
phenomena. In a life devoted to travel and pleasure Gerald meant not to
spend more than six hundred a year, the interest on his fortune. Six
hundred a year is less than two pounds a day, yet Gerald never paid
less than two pounds a day in hotel bills alone. He hoped that he was
living on a thousand a year, had a secret fear that he might be
spending fifteen hundred, and was really spending about two thousand
five hundred. Still, the remarkable notion of the inexhaustibility of
twelve thousand pounds always reassured him. The faster the money went,
the more vigorously this notion flourished in Gerald's mind. When
twelve had unaccountably dwindled to three, Gerald suddenly decided
that he must act, and in a few months he lost two thousand on the Paris
Bourse. The adventure frightened him, and in his panic he scattered a
couple of hundred in a frenzy of high living.

But even with only twenty thousand francs left out of three hundred
thousand, he held closely to the belief that natural laws would in his
case somehow be suspended. He had heard of men who were once rich
begging bread and sweeping crossings, but he felt quite secure against
such risks, by simple virtue of the axiom that he was he. However, he
meant to assist the axiom by efforts to earn money. When these
continued to fail, he tried to assist the axiom by borrowing money; but
he found that his uncle had definitely done with him. He would have
assisted the axiom by stealing money, but he had neither the nerve nor
the knowledge to be a swindler; he was not even sufficiently expert to
cheat at cards.

He had thought in thousands. Now he began to think in hundreds, in
tens, daily and hourly. He paid two hundred francs in railway fares in
order to live economically in a village, and shortly afterwards another
two hundred francs in railway fares in order to live economically in
Paris. And to celebrate the arrival in Paris and the definite
commencement of an era of strict economy and serious search for a
livelihood, he spent a hundred francs on a dinner at the Maison Doree
and two balcony stalls at the Gymnase. In brief, he omitted nothing--no
act, no resolve, no self-deception--of the typical fool in his
situation; always convinced that his difficulties and his wisdom were
quite exceptional.

In May, 1870, on an afternoon, he was ranging nervously to and fro in a
three-cornered bedroom of a little hotel at the angle of the Rue
Fontaine and the Rue Laval (now the Rue Victor Masse), within half a
minute of the Boulevard de Clichy. It had come to that--an exchange of
the 'grand boulevard' for the 'boulevard exterieur'! Sophia sat on a
chair at the grimy window, glancing down in idle disgust of life at the
Clichy-Odeon omnibus which was casting off its tip-horse at the corner
of the Rue Chaptal. The noise of petty, hurried traffic over the bossy
paving stones was deafening. The locality was not one to correspond
with an ideal. There was too much humanity crowded into those narrow
hilly streets; humanity seemed to be bulging out at the windows of the
high houses. Gerald healed his pride by saying that this was, after
all, the real Paris, and that the cookery was as good as could be got
anywhere, pay what you would. He seldom ate a meal in the little salons
on the first floor without becoming ecstatic upon the cookery. To hear
him, he might have chosen the hotel on its superlative merits, without
regard to expense. And with his air of use and custom, he did indeed
look like a connoisseur of Paris who knew better than to herd with
vulgar tourists in the pens of the Madeleine quarter. He was dressed
with some distinction; good clothes, when put to the test, survive a
change of fortune, as a Roman arch survives the luxury of departed
empire. Only his collar, large V-shaped front, and wristbands, which
bore the ineffaceable signs of cheap laundering, reflected the shadow
of impending disaster.

He glanced sideways, stealthily, at Sophia. She, too, was still dressed
with distinction; in the robe of black faille, the cashmere shawl, and
the little black hat with its falling veil, there was no apparent
symptom of beggary. She would have been judged as one of those women
who content themselves with few clothes but good, and, greatly aided by
nature, make a little go a long way. Good black will last for eternity;
it discloses no secrets of modification and mending, and it is not
transparent.

At last Gerald, resuming a suspended conversation, said as it were
doggedly:

"I tell you I haven't got five francs altogether! and you can feel my
pockets if you like," added the habitual liar in him, fearing
incredulity.

"Well, and what do you expect me to do?" Sophia inquired.

The accent, at once ironic and listless, in which she put this
question, showed that strange and vital things had happened to Sophia
in the four years which had elapsed since her marriage. It did really
seem to her, indeed, that the Sophia whom Gerald had espoused was dead
and gone, and that another Sophia had come into her body: so intensely
conscious was she of a fundamental change in herself under the stress
of continuous experience. And though this was but a seeming, though she
was still the same Sophia more fully disclosed, it was a true seeming.
Indisputably more beautiful than when Gerald had unwillingly made her
his legal wife, she was now nearly twenty-four, and looked perhaps
somewhat older than her age. Her frame was firmly set, her waist
thicker, neither slim nor stout. The lips were rather hard, and she had
a habit of tightening her mouth, on the same provocation as sends a
snail into its shell. No trace was left of immature gawkiness in her
gestures or of simplicity in her intonations. She was a woman of
commanding and slightly arrogant charm, not in the least degree the
charm of innocence and ingenuousness. Her eyes were the eyes of one who
has lost her illusions too violently and too completely. Her gaze,
coldly comprehending, implied familiarity with the abjectness of human
nature. Gerald had begun and had finished her education. He had not
ruined her, as a bad professor may ruin a fine voice, because her moral
force immeasurably exceeded his; he had unwittingly produced a
masterpiece, but it was a tragic masterpiece. Sophia was such a woman
as, by a mere glance as she utters an opinion, will make a man say to
himself, half in desire and half in alarm lest she reads him too: "By
Jove! she must have been through a thing or two. She knows what people
are!"

The marriage was, of course, a calamitous folly. From the very first,
from the moment when the commercial traveller had with incomparable
rash fatuity thrown the paper pellet over the counter, Sophia's
awakening commonsense had told her that in yielding to her instinct she
was sowing misery and shame for herself; but she had gone on, as if
under a spell. It had needed the irretrievableness of flight from home
to begin the breaking of the trance. Once fully awakened out of the
trance, she had recognized her marriage for what it was. She had made
neither the best nor the worst of it. She had accepted Gerald as one
accepts a climate. She saw again and again that he was irreclaimably a
fool and a prodigy of irresponsibleness. She tolerated him, now with
sweetness, now bitterly; accepting always his caprices, and not
permitting herself to have wishes of her own. She was ready to pay the
price of pride and of a moment's imbecility with a lifetime of
self-repression. It was high, but it was the price. She had acquired
nothing but an exceptionally good knowledge of the French language (she
soon learnt to scorn Gerald's glib maltreatment of the tongue), and she
had conserved nothing but her dignity. She knew that Gerald was sick of
her, that he would have danced for joy to be rid of her; that he was
constantly unfaithful; that he had long since ceased to be excited by
her beauty. She knew also that at bottom he was a little afraid of her;
here was her sole moral consolation. The thing that sometimes struck
her as surprising was that he had not abandoned her, simply and crudely
walked off one day and forgotten to take her with him.

They hated each other, but in different ways. She loathed him, and he
resented her.

"What do I expect you to do?" he repeated after her. "Why don't you
write home to your people and get some money out of them?"

Now that he had said what was in his mind, he faced her with a bullying
swagger. Had he been a bigger man he might have tried the effect of
physical bullying on her. One of his numerous reasons for resenting her
was that she was the taller of the two.

She made no reply.

"Now you needn't turn pale and begin all that fuss over again. What I'm
suggesting is a perfectly reasonable thing. If I haven't got money I
haven't got it. I can't invent it."

She perceived that he was ready for one of their periodical tempestuous
quarrels. But that day she felt too tired and unwell to quarrel. His
warning against a repetition of 'fuss' had reference to the gastric
dizziness from which she had been suffering for two years. It would
take her usually after a meal. She did not swoon, but her head swam and
she could not stand. She would sink down wherever she happened to be,
and, her face alarmingly white, murmur faintly: "My salts." Within five
minutes the attack had gone and left no trace. She had been through one
just after lunch. He resented this affection. He detested being
compelled to hand the smelling-bottle to her, and he would have avoided
doing so if her pallor did not always alarm him. Nothing but this
pallor convinced him that the attacks were not a deep ruse to impress
him. His attitude invariably implied that she could cure the malady if
she chose, but that through obstinacy she did not choose.

"Are you going to have the decency to answer my question, or aren't
you?"

"What question?" Her vibrating voice was low and restrained.

"Will you write to your people?"

"For money?"

The sarcasm of her tone was diabolic. She could not have kept the
sarcasm out of her tone; she did not attempt to keep it out. She cared
little if it whipped him to fury. Did he imagine, seriously, that she
would be capable of going on her knees to her family? She? Was he
unaware that his wife was the proudest and the most obstinate woman on
earth; that all her behaviour to him was the expression of her pride
and her obstinacy? Ill and weak though she felt, she marshalled
together all the forces of her character to defend her resolve never,
never to eat the bread of humiliation. She was absolutely determined to
be dead to her family. Certainly, one December, several years
previously, she had seen English Christmas cards in an English shop in
the Rue de Rivoli, and in a sudden gush of tenderness towards
Constance, she had despatched a coloured greeting to Constance and her
mother. And having initiated the custom, she had continued it. That was
not like asking a kindness; it was bestowing a kindness. But except for
the annual card, she was dead to St. Luke's Square. She was one of
those daughters who disappear and are not discussed in the family
circle. The thought of her immense foolishness, the little tender
thoughts of Constance, some flitting souvenir, full of unwilling
admiration, of a regal gesture of her mother,--these things only
steeled her against any sort of resurrection after death.

And he was urging her to write home for money! Why, she would not even
have paid a visit in splendour to St. Luke's Square. Never should they
know what she had suffered! And especially her Aunt Harriet, from whom
she had stolen!

"Will you write to your people?" he demanded yet again, emphasizing and
separating each word.

"No," she said shortly, with terrible disdain.

"Why not?"

"Because I won't." The curling line of her lips, as they closed on each
other, said all the rest; all the cruel truths about his unspeakable,
inane, coarse follies, his laziness, his excesses, his lies, his
deceptions, his bad faith, his truculence, his improvidence, his
shameful waste and ruin of his life and hers. She doubted whether he
realized his baseness and her wrongs, but if he could not read them in
her silent contumely, she was too proud to recite them to him. She had
never complained, save in uncontrolled moments of anger.

"If that's the way you're going to talk--all right!" he snapped,
furious. Evidently he was baffled.

She kept silence. She was determined to see what he would do in the
face of her inaction.

"You know, I'm not joking," he pursued. "We shall starve."

"Very well," she agreed. "We shall starve."

She watched him surreptitiously, and she was almost sure that he really
had come to the end of his tether. His voice, which never alone
convinced, carried a sort of conviction now. He was penniless. In four
years he had squandered twelve thousand pounds, and had nothing to show
for it except an enfeebled digestion and a tragic figure of a wife. One
small point of satisfaction there was--and all the Baines in her
clutched at it and tried to suck satisfaction from it--their manner of
travelling about from hotel to hotel had made it impossible for Gerald
to run up debts. A few debts he might have, unknown to her, but they
could not be serious.

So they looked at one another, in hatred and despair. The inevitable
had arrived. For months she had fronted it in bravado, not concealing
from herself that it lay in waiting. For years he had been sure that
though the inevitable might happen to others it could not happen to
him. There it was! He was conscious of a heavy weight in his stomach,
and she of a general numbness, enwrapping her fatigue. Even then he
could not believe that it was true, this disaster. As for Sophia she
was reconciling herself with bitter philosophy to the eccentricities of
fate. Who would have dreamed that she, a young girl brought up, etc?
Her mother could not have improved the occasion more uncompromisingly
than Sophia did--behind that disdainful mask.

"Well--if that's it...!" Gerald exploded at length, puffing. And he
puffed out of the room and was gone in a second.

II

She languidly picked up a book, the moment Gerald had departed, and
tried to prove to herself that she was sufficiently in command of her
nerves to read. For a long time reading had been her chief solace. But
she could not read. She glanced round the inhospitable chamber, and
thought of the hundreds of rooms--some splendid and some vile, but all
arid in their unwelcoming aspect--through which she had passed in her
progress from mad exultation to calm and cold disgust. The ceaseless
din of the street annoyed her jaded ears. And a great wave of desire
for peace, peace of no matter what kind, swept through her. And then
her deep distrust of Gerald reawakened; in spite of his seriously
desperate air, which had a quality of sincerity quite new in her
experience of him, she could not be entirely sure that, in asserting
utter penury, he was not after all merely using a trick to get rid of
her.

She sprang up, threw the book on the bed, and seized her gloves. She
would follow him, if she could. She would do what she had never done
before--she would spy on him. Fighting against her lassitude, she
descended the long winding stairs, and peeped forth from the doorway
into the street. The ground floor of the hotel was a wine-shop; the
stout landlord was lightly flicking one of the three little yellow
tables that stood on the pavement. He smiled with his customary
benevolence, and silently pointed in the direction of the Rue Notre
Dame de Lorette. She saw Gerald down there in the distance. He was
smoking a cigar.

He seemed to be a little man without a care. The smoke of the cigar
came first round his left cheek and then round his right, sailing away
into nothing. He walked with a gay spring, but not quickly, flourishing
his cane as freely as the traffic of the pavement would permit,
glancing into all the shop windows and into the eyes of all the women
under forty. This was not at all the same man as had a moment ago been
spitting angry menaces at her in the bedroom of the hotel. It was a
fellow of blithe charm, ripe for any adventurous joys that destiny had
to offer.

Supposing he turned round and saw her?

If he turned round and saw her and asked her what she was doing there
in the street, she would tell him plainly: "I'm following you, to find
out what you do."

But he did not turn. He went straight forward, deviating at the church,
where the crowd became thicker, into the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre,
and so to the boulevard, which he crossed. The whole city seemed
excited and vivacious. Cannons boomed in slow succession, and flags
were flying. Sophia had no conception of the significance of those
guns, for, though she read a great deal, she never read a newspaper;
the idea of opening a newspaper never occurred to her. But she was
accustomed to the feverish atmosphere of Paris. She had lately seen
regiments of cavalry flashing and prancing in the Luxembourg Gardens,
and had much admired the fine picture. She accepted the booming as
another expression of the high spirits that had to find vent somehow in
this feverish empire. She so accepted it and forgot it, using all the
panorama of the capital as a dim background for her exacerbated egoism.

She was obliged to walk slowly, because Gerald walked slowly. A
beautiful woman, or any woman not positively hag-like or venerable, who
walks slowly in the streets of Paris becomes at once the cause of
inconvenient desires, as representing the main objective on earth,
always transcending in importance politics and affairs. Just as a true
patriotic Englishman cannot be too busy to run after a fox, so a
Frenchman is always ready to forsake all in order to follow a woman
whom he has never before set eyes on. Many men thought twice about her,
with her romantic Saxon mystery of temperament, and her Parisian
clothes; but all refrained from affronting her, not in the least out of
respect for the gloom in her face, but from an expert conviction that
those rapt eyes were fixed immovably on another male. She walked
unscathed amid the frothing hounds as though protected by a spell.

On the south side of the boulevard, Gerald proceeded down the Rue
Montmartre, and then turned suddenly into the Rue Croissant. Sophia
stopped and asked the price of some combs which were exposed outside a
little shop. Then she went on, boldly passing the end of the Rue
Croissant. No shadow of Gerald! She saw the signs of newspapers all
along the street, Le Bien Public, La Presse Libre, La Patrie. There was
a creamery at the corner. She entered it, asked for a cup of chocolate
and sat down. She wanted to drink coffee, but every doctor had
forbidden coffee to her, on account of her attacks of dizziness. Then,
having ordered chocolate, she felt that, on this occasion, when she had
need of strength in her great fatigue, only coffee could suffice her,
and she changed the order. She was close to the door, and Gerald could
not escape her vigilance if he emerged at that end of the street. She
drank the coffee with greedy satisfaction, and waited in the creamery
till she began to feel conspicuous there. And then Gerald went by the
door, within six feet of her. He turned the corner and continued his
descent of the Rue Montmartre. She paid for her coffee and followed the
chase. Her blood seemed to be up. Her lips were tightened, and her
thought was: "Wherever he goes, I'll go, and I don't care what
happens." She despised him. She felt herself above him. She felt that
somehow, since quitting the hotel, he had been gradually growing more
and more vile and meet to be exterminated. She imagined infamies as to
the Rue Croissant. There was no obvious ground for this intensifying of
her attitude towards him; it was merely the result of the chase. All
that could be definitely charged against him was the smoking of a cigar.

He stepped into a tobacco-shop, and came out with a longer cigar than
the first one, a more expensive article, stripped off its collar and
lighted it as a millionaire might have lighted it. This was the man who
swore that he did not possess five francs.

She tracked him as far as the Rue de Rivoli, and then lost him. There
were vast surging crowds in the Rue de Rivoli, and much bunting, and
soldiers and gesticulatory policemen. The general effect of the street
was that all things were brightly waving in the breeze. She was caught
in the crowd as in the current of a stream, and when she tried to sidle
out of it into a square, a row of smiling policemen barred her passage;
she was a part of the traffic that they had to regulate. She drifted
till the Louvre came into view. After all, Gerald had only strolled
forth to see the sight of the day, whatever it might be! She knew not
what it was. She had no curiosity about it. In the middle of all that
thickening mass of humanity, staring with one accord at the vast
monument of royal and imperial vanities, she thought, with her
characteristic grimness, of the sacrifice of her whole career as a
school-teacher for the chance of seeing Gerald once a quarter in the
shop. She gloated over that, as a sick appetite will gloat over tainted
food. And she saw the shop, and the curve of the stairs up to the
showroom, and the pier-glass in the showroom.

Then the guns began to boom again, and splendid carriages swept one
after another from under a majestic archway and glittered westward down
a lane of spotless splendid uniforms. The carriages were laden with
still more splendid uniforms, and with enchanting toilets. Sophia, in
her modestly stylish black, mechanically noticed how much easier it was
for attired women to sit in a carriage now that crinolines had gone.
That was the sole impression made upon her by this glimpse of the last
fete of the Napoleonic Empire. She knew not that the supreme pillars of
imperialism were exhibiting themselves before her; and that the eyes of
those uniforms and those toilettes were full of the legendary beauty of
Eugenie, and their ears echoing to the long phrases of Napoleon the
Third about his gratitude to his people for their confidence in him as
shown by the plebiscite, and about the ratification of constitutional
reforms guaranteeing order, and about the empire having been
strengthened at its base, and about showing force by moderation and
envisaging the future without fear, and about the bosom of peace and
liberty, and the eternal continuance of his dynasty.

She just wondered vaguely what was afoot.

When the last carriage had rolled away, and the guns and acclamations
had ceased, the crowd at length began to scatter. She was carried by it
into the Place du Palais Royal, and in a few moments she managed to
withdraw into the Rue des Bons Enfants and was free.

The coins in her purse amounted to three sous, and therefore, though
she felt exhausted to the point of illness, she had to return to the
hotel on foot. Very slowly she crawled upwards in the direction of the
Boulevard, through the expiring gaiety of the city. Near the Bourse a
fiacre overtook her, and in the fiacre were Gerald and a woman. Gerald
had not seen her; he was talking eagerly to his ornate companion. All
his body was alive. The fiacre was out of sight in a moment, but Sophia
judged instantly the grade of the woman, who was evidently of the
discreet class that frequented the big shops of an afternoon with
something of their own to sell.

Sophia's grimness increased. The pace of the fiacre, her fatigued body,
Gerald's delightful, careless vivacity, the attractive streaming veil
of the nice, modest courtesan--everything conspired to increase it.

III

Gerald returned to the bedroom which contained his wife and all else
that he owned in the world at about nine o'clock that evening. Sophia
was in bed. She had been driven to bed by weariness. She would have
preferred to sit up to receive her husband, even if it had meant
sitting up all night, but her body was too heavy for her spirit. She
lay in the dark. She had eaten nothing. Gerald came straight into the
room. He struck a match, which burned blue, with a stench, for several
seconds, and then gave a clear, yellow flame. He lit a candle; and saw
his wife.

"Oh!" he said; "you're there, are you?"

She offered no reply.

"Won't speak, eh?" he said. "Agreeable sort of wife! Well, have you
made up your mind to do what I told you? I've come back especially to
know."

She still did not speak.

He sat down, with his hat on, and stuck out his feet, wagging them to
and fro on the heels.

"I'm quite without money," he went on. "And I'm sure your people will
be glad to lend us a bit till I get some. Especially as it's a question
of you starving as well as me. If I had enough to pay your fares to
Bursley I'd pack you off. But I haven't."

She could only hear his exasperating voice. The end of the bed was
between her eyes and his.

"Liar!" she said, with uncompromising distinctness. The word reached
him barbed with all the poison of her contempt and disgust.

There was a pause.

"Oh! I'm a liar, am I? Thanks. I lied enough to get you, I'll admit.
But you never complained of that. I remember be-ginning the New Year
well with a thumping lie just to have a sight of you, my vixen. But you
didn't complain then. I took you with only the clothes on your back.
And I've spent every cent I had on you. And now I'm spun, you call me a
liar."

She said nothing.

"However," he went on, "this is going to come to an end, this is!"

He rose, changed the position of the candle, putting it on a chest of
drawers, and then drew his trunk from the wall, and knelt in front of
it.

She gathered that he was packing his clothes. At first she did not
comprehend his reference to beginning the New Year. Then his meaning
revealed itself. That story to her mother about having been attacked by
ruffians at the bottom of King Street had been an invention, a ruse to
account plausibly for his presence on her mother's doorstep! And she
had never suspected that the story was not true. In spite of her
experience of his lying, she had never suspected that that particular
statement was a lie. What a simpleton she was!

There was a continual movement in the room for about a quarter of an
hour. Then a key turned in the lock of the trunk.

His head popped up over the foot of the bed. "This isn't a joke, you
know," he said.

She kept silence.

"I give you one more chance. Will you write to your mother--or
Constance if you like--or won't you?"

She scorned to reply in any way.

"I'm your husband," he said. "And it's your duty to obey me,
particularly in an affair like this. I order you to write to your
mother."

The corners of her lips turned downwards.

Angered by her mute obstinacy, he broke away from the bed with a sudden
gesture.

"You do as you like," he cried, putting on his overcoat, "and I shall
do as I like. You can't say I haven't warned you. It's your own
deliberate choice, mind you! Whatever happens to you you've brought on
yourself." He lifted and shrugged his shoulders to get the overcoat
exactly into place on his shoulders.

She would not speak a word, not even to insist that she was indisposed.

He pushed his trunk outside the door, and returned to the bed.

"You understand," he said menacingly; "I'm off."

She looked up at the foul ceiling.

"Hm!" he sniffed, bringing his reserves of pride to combat the
persistent silence that was damaging his dignity. And he went off,
sticking his head forward like a pugilist.

"Here!" she muttered. "You're forgetting this."

He turned.

She stretched her hand to the night-table and held up a red circlet.

"What is it?"

"It's the bit of paper off the cigar you bought in the Rue Montmartre
this afternoon," she answered, in a significant tone.

He hesitated, then swore violently, and bounced out of the room. He had
made her suffer, but she was almost repaid for everything by that
moment of cruel triumph. She exulted in it, and never forgot it.

Five minutes later, the gloomy menial in felt slippers and alpaca
jacket, who seemed to pass the whole of his life flitting in and out of
bedrooms like a rabbit in a warren, carried Gerald's trunk downstairs.
She recognized the peculiar tread of his slippers.

Then there was a knock at the door. The landlady entered, actuated by a
legitimate curiosity.

"Madame is suffering?" the landlady began.

Sophia refused offers of food and nursing.

"Madame knows without doubt that monsieur has gone away?"

"Has he paid the bill?" Sophia asked bluntly.

"But yes, madame, till to-morrow. Then madame has want of nothing?"

"If you will extinguish the candle," said Sophia.

He had deserted her, then!

"All this," she reflected, listening in the dark to the ceaseless
rattle of the street, "because mother and Constance wanted to see the
elephant, and I had to go into father's room! I should never have
caught sight of him from the drawing-room window!"

IV

She passed a night of physical misery, exasperated by the tireless
rattling vitality of the street. She kept saying to herself: "I'm all
alone now, and I'm going to be ill. I am ill." She saw herself dying in
Paris, and heard the expressions of facile sympathy and idle curiosity
drawn forth by the sight of the dead body of this foreign woman in a
little Paris hotel. She reached the stage, in the gradual excruciation
of her nerves, when she was obliged to concentrate her agonized mind on
an intense and painful expectancy of the next new noise, which when it
came increased her torture and decreased her strength to support it.
She went through all the interminable dilatoriness of the dawn, from
the moment when she could scarcely discern the window to the moment
when she could read the word 'Bock' on the red circlet of paper which
had tossed all night on the sea of the counterpane. She knew she would
never sleep again. She could not imagine herself asleep; and then she
was startled by a sound that seemed to clash with the rest of her
impressions. It was a knocking at the door. With a start she perceived
that she must have been asleep.

"Enter," she murmured.

There entered the menial in alpaca. His waxen face showed a morose
commiseration. He noiselessly approached the bed--he seemed to have
none of the characteristics of a man, but to be a creature infinitely
mysterious and aloof from humanity--and held out to Sophia a visiting
card in his grey hand.

It was Chirac's card.

"Monsieur asked for monsieur," said the waiter. "And then, as monsieur
had gone away he demanded to see madame. He says it is very important."

Her heart jumped, partly in vague alarm, and partly with a sense of
relief at this chance of speaking to some one whom she knew. She tried
to reflect rationally.

"What time is it?" she inquired.

"Eleven o'clock, madame."

This was surprising. The fact that it was eleven o'clock destroyed the
remains of her self-confidence. How could it be eleven o'clock, with
the dawn scarcely finished?

"He says it is very important," repeated the waiter, imperturbably and
solemnly. "Will madame see him an instant?"

Between resignation and anticipation she said: "Yes."

"It is well, madame," said the waiter, disappearing without a sound.

She sat up and managed to drag her matinee from a chair and put it
around her shoulders. Then she sank back from weakness, physical and
spiritual. She hated to receive Chirac in a bedroom, and particularly
in that bedroom. But the hotel had no public room except the
dining-room, which began to be occupied after eleven o'clock. Moreover,
she could not possibly get up. Yes, on the whole she was pleased to see
Chirac. He was almost her only acquaintance, assuredly the only being
whom she could by any stretch of meaning call a friend, in the whole of
Europe. Gerald and she had wandered to and fro, skimming always over
the real life of nations, and never penetrating into it. There was no
place for them, because they had made none. With the exception of
Chirac, whom an accident of business had thrown, into Gerald's company
years before, they had no social relations. Gerald was not a man to
make friends; he did not seem to need friends, or at any rate to feel
the want of them. But, as chance had given him Chirac, he maintained
the connection whenever they came to Paris. Sophia, of course, had not
been able to escape from the solitude imposed by existence in hotels.
Since her marriage she had never spoken to a woman in the way of
intimacy. But once or twice she had approached intimacy with Chirac,
whose wistful admiration for her always aroused into activity her
desire to charm.

Preceded by the menial, he came into the room hurriedly,
apologetically, with an air of acute anxiety. And as he saw her lying
on her back, with flushed features, her hair disarranged, and only the
grace of the silk ribbons of her matinee to mitigate the melancholy
repulsiveness of her surroundings, that anxiety seemed to deepen.

"Dear madame," he stammered, "all my excuses!" He hastened to the
bedside and kissed her hand--a little peek according to his custom.
"You are ill?"

"I have my migraine," she said. "You want Gerald?"

"Yes," he said diffidently. "He had promised----"

"He has left me," Sophia interrupted him in her weak and fatigued
voice. She closed her eyes as she uttered the words.

"Left you?" He glanced round to be sure that the waiter had retired.

"Quitted me! Abandoned me! Last night!"

"Not possible!" he breathed.

She nodded. She felt intimate with him. Like all secretive persons, she
could be suddenly expansive at times.

"It is serious?" he questioned.

"All that is most serious," she replied.

"And you ill! Ah, the wretch! Ah, the wretch! That, for example!" He
waved his hat about.

"What is it you want, Chirac?" she demanded, in a confidential tone.

"Eh, well," said Chirac. "You do not know where he has gone?"

"No. What do you want?" she insisted.

He was nervous. He fidgetted. She guessed that, though warm with
sympathy for her plight, he was preoccupied by interests and
apprehensions of his own. He did not refuse her request temporarily to
leave the astonishing matter of her situation in order to discuss the
matter of his visit.

"Eh, well! He came to me yesterday afternoon in the Rue Croissant to
borrow some money."

She understood then the object of Gerald's stroll on the previous
afternoon.

"I hope you didn't lend him any," she said.

"Eh, well! It was like this. He said he ought to have received five
thousand francs yesterday morning, but that he had had a telegram that
it would not arrive till to-day. And he had need of five hundred francs
at once. I had not five hundred francs"--he smiled sadly, as if to
insinuate that he did not handle such sums--"but I borrowed it from
the cashbox of the journal. It is necessary, absolutely, that I should
return it this morning." He spoke with increased seriousness. "Your
husband said he would take a cab and bring me the money immediately on
the arrival of the post this morning--about nine o'clock. Pardon me for
deranging you with such a----"

He stopped. She could see that he really was grieved to 'derange' her,
but that circumstances pressed.

"At my paper," he murmured, "it is not so easy as that to--in fine----!"

Gerald had genuinely been at his last francs. He had not lied when she
thought he had lied. The nakedness of his character showed now.
Instantly upon the final and definite cessation of the lawful supply of
money, he had set his wits to obtain money unlawfully. He had, in fact,
simply stolen it from Chirac, with the ornamental addition of
endangering Chirac's reputation and situation--as a sort of reward to
Chirac for the kindness! And, further, no sooner had he got hold of the
money than it had intoxicated him, and he had yielded to the first
fatuous temptation. He had no sense of responsibility, no scruple. And
as for common prudence--had he not risked permanent disgrace and even
prison for a paltry sum which he would certainly squander in two or
three days? Yes, it was indubitable that he would stop at nothing, at
nothing whatever.

"You did not know that he was coming to me?" asked Chirac, pulling his
short, silky brown beard.

"No," Sophia answered.

"But he said that you had charged him with your friendlinesses to me!"
He nodded his head once or twice, sadly but candidly accepting, in his
quality of a Latin, the plain facts of human nature--reconciling
himself to them at once.

Sophia revolted at this crowning detail of the structure of Gerald's
rascality.

"It is fortunate that I can pay you," she said.

"But----" he tried to protest.

"I have quite enough money."

She did not say this to screen Gerald, but merely from amour-propre.
She would not let Chirac think that she was the wife of a man bereft of
all honour. And so she clothed Gerald with the rag of having, at any
rate, not left her in destitution as well as in sickness. Her assertion
seemed a strange one, in view of the fact that he had abandoned her on
the previous evening--that is to say, immediately after the borrowing
from Chirac. But Chirac did not examine the statement.

"Perhaps he has the intention to send me the money. Perhaps, after all,
he is now at the offices----"

"No," said Sophia. "He is gone. Will you go downstairs and wait for me.
We will go together to Cook's office. It is English money I have."

"Cook's?" he repeated. The word now so potent had then little
significance. "But you are ill. You cannot----"

"I feel better."

She did. Or rather, she felt nothing except the power of her resolve to
remove the painful anxiety from that wistful brow. The shame of the
trick played on Chirac awakened new forces in her. She dressed in a
physical torment which, however, had no more reality than a nightmare.
She searched in a place where even an inquisitive husband would not
think of looking, and then, painfully, she descended the long stairs,
holding to the rail, which swam round and round her, carrying the whole
staircase with it. "After all," she thought, "I can't be seriously ill,
or I shouldn't have been able to get up and go out like this. I never
guessed early this morning that I could do it! I can't possibly be as
ill as I thought I was!"

And in the vestibule she encountered Chirac's face, lightening at the
sight of her, which proved to him that his deliverance was really to be
accomplished.

"Permit me----"

"I'm all right," she smiled, tottering. "Get a cab." It suddenly
occurred to her that she might quite as easily have given him the money
in English notes; he could have changed them. But she had not thought.
Her brain would not operate. She was dreaming and waking together.

He helped her into the cab.

V

In the bureau de change there was a little knot of English, people,
with naive, romantic, and honest faces, quite different from the faces
outside in the street. No corruption in those faces, but a sort of
wondering and infantile sincerity, rather out of its element and lost
in a land too unsophisticated, seeming to belong to an earlier age!
Sophia liked their tourist stare, and their plain and ugly clothes. She
longed to be back in England, longed for a moment with violence,
drowning in that desire.

The English clerk behind his brass bars took her notes, and carefully
examined them one by one. She watched him, not entirely convinced of
his reality, and thought vaguely of the detestable morning when she had
abstracted the notes from Gerald's pocket. She was filled with pity for
the simple, ignorant Sophia of those days, the Sophia who still had a
few ridiculous illusions concerning Gerald's character. Often, since,
she had been tempted to break into the money, but she had always
withstood the temptation, saying to herself that an hour of more urgent
need would come. It had come. She was proud of her firmness, of the
force of will which had enabled her to reserve the fund intact. The
clerk gave her a keen look, and then asked her how she would take the
French money. And she saw the notes falling down one after another on
to the counter as the clerk separated them with a snapping sound of the
paper.

Chirac was beside her.

"Does that make the count?" she said, having pushed towards him five
hundred-franc notes.

"I should not know how to thank you," he said, accepting the notes.
"Truly--"

His joy was unmistakably eager. He had had a shock and a fright, and he
now saw the danger past. He could return to the cashier of his
newspaper, and fling down the money with a lordly and careless air, as
if to say: "When it is a question of these English, one can always be
sure!" But first he would escort her to the hotel. She declined--she
did not know why, for he was her sole point of moral support in all
France. He insisted. She yielded. So she turned her back, with regret,
on that little English oasis in the Sahara of Paris, and staggered to
the fiacre.

And now that she had done what she had to do, she lost control of her
body, and reclined flaccid and inert. Chirac was evidently alarmed. He
did not speak, but glanced at her from time to time with eyes full of
fear. The carriage appeared to her to be swimming amid waves over great
depths. Then she was aware of a heavy weight against her shoulder; she
had slipped down upon Chirac, unconscious.




CHAPTER V

FEVER

I


Then she was lying in bed in a small room, obscure because it was
heavily curtained; the light came through the inner pair of curtains of
ecru lace, with a beautiful soft silvery quality. A man was standing by
the side of the bed--not Chirac.

"Now, madame," he said to her, with kind firmness, and speaking with a
charming exaggerated purity of the vowels. "You have the mucous fever.
I have had it myself. You will be forced to take baths, very
frequently. I must ask you to reconcile yourself to that, to be good."

She did not reply. It did not occur to her to reply. But she certainly
thought that this doctor--he was probably a doctor--was overestimating
her case. She felt better than she had felt for two days. Still, she
did not desire to move, nor was she in the least anxious as to her
surroundings. She lay quiet.

A woman in a rather coquettish deshabille watched over her with expert
skill.

Later, Sophia seemed to be revisiting the sea on whose waves the cab
had swum; but now she was under the sea, in a watery gulf, terribly
deep; and the sounds of the world came to her through the water, sudden
and strange. Hands seized her and forced her from the subaqueous grotto
where she had hidden into new alarms. And she briefly perceived that
there was a large bath by the side of the bed, and that she was being
pushed into it. The water was icy cold. After that her outlook upon
things was for a time clearer and more precise. She knew from fragments
of talk which she heard that she was put into the cold bath by her bed
every three hours, night and day, and that she remained in it for ten
minutes. Always, before the bath, she had to drink a glass of wine, and
sometimes another glass while she was in the bath. Beyond this wine,
and occasionally a cup of soup, she took nothing, had no wish to take
anything. She grew perfectly accustomed to these extraordinary habits
of life, to this merging of night and day into one monotonous and
endless repetition of the same rite amid the same circumstances on
exactly the same spot. Then followed a period during which she objected
to being constantly wakened up for this annoying immersion. And she
fought against it even in her dreams. Long days seemed to pass when she
could not be sure whether she had been put into the bath or not, when
all external phenomena were disconcertingly interwoven with matters
which she knew to be merely fanciful. And then she was overwhelmed by
the hopeless gravity of her state. She felt that her state was
desperate. She felt that she was dying. Her unhappiness was extreme,
not because she was dying, but because the veils of sense were so
puzzling, so exasperating, and because her exhausted body was so
vitiated, in every fibre, by disease. She was perfectly aware that she
was going to die. She cried aloud for a pair of scissors. She wanted to
cut off her hair, and to send part of it to Constance and part of it to
her mother, in separate packages. She insisted upon separate packages.
Nobody would give her a pair of scissors. She implored, meekly,
haughtily, furiously, but nobody would satisfy her. It seemed to her
shocking that all her hair should go with her into her coffin while
Constance and her mother had nothing by which to remember her, no
tangible souvenir of her beauty. Then she fought for the scissors. She
clutched at some one--always through those baffling veils--who was
putting her into the bath by the bedside, and fought frantically. It
appeared to her that this some one was the rather stout woman who had
supped at Sylvain's with the quarrelsome Englishman, four years ago.
She could not rid herself of this singular conceit, though she knew it
to be absurd....

A long time afterwards--it seemed like a century--she did actually and
unmistakably see the woman sitting by her bed, and the woman was crying.

"Why are you crying?" Sophia asked wonderingly.

And the other, younger, woman, who was standing at the foot of the bed,
replied:

"You do well to ask! It is you who have hurt her, in your delirium,
when you so madly demanded the scissors."

The stout woman smiled with the tears on her cheeks; but Sophia wept,
from remorse. The stout woman looked old, worn, and untidy. The other
one was much younger. Sophia did not trouble to inquire from them who
they were.

That little conversation formed a brief interlude in the delirium,
which overtook her again and distorted everything. She forgot, however,
that she was destined to die.

One day her brain cleared. She could be sure that she had gone to sleep
in the morning and not wakened till the evening. Hence she had not been
put into the bath.

"Have I had my baths?" she questioned.

It was the doctor who faced her.

"No," he said, "the baths are finished."

She knew from his face that she was out of danger. Moreover, she was
conscious of a new feeling in her body, as though the fount of physical
energy within her, long interrupted, had recommenced to flow--but very
slowly, a trickling. It was a rebirth. She was not glad, but her body
itself was glad; her body had an existence of its own.

She was now often left by herself in the bedroom. To the right of the
foot of the bed was a piano in walnut, and to the left a chimney-piece
with a large mirror. She wanted to look at herself in the mirror. But
it was a very long way off. She tried to sit up, and could not. She
hoped that one day she would be able to get as far as the mirror. She
said not a word about this to either of the two women.

Often they would sit in the bedroom and talk without ceasing. Sophia
learnt that the stout woman was named Foucault, and the other Laurence.
Sometimes Laurence would address Madame Foucault as Aimee, but usually
she was more formal. Madame Foucault always called the other Laurence.

Sophia's curiosity stirred and awoke. But she could not obtain any very
exact information as to where she was, except that the house was in the
Rue Breda, off the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette. She recollected vaguely
that the reputation of the street was sinister. It appeared that, on
the day when she had gone out with Chirac, the upper part of the Rue
Notre Dame de Lorette was closed for repairs--(this she
remembered)--and that the cabman had turned up the Rue Breda in order
to make a detour, and that it was just opposite to the house of Madame
Foucault that she had lost consciousness. Madame Foucault happened to
be getting into a cab at the moment; but she had told Chirac
nevertheless to carry Sophia into the house, and a policeman had
helped. Then, when the doctor came, it was discovered that she could
not be moved, save to a hospital, and both Madame Foucault and Laurence
were determined that no friend of Chirac's should be committed to the
horrors of a Paris hospital. Madame Foucault had suffered in one as a
patient, and Laurence had been a nurse in another....

Chirac was now away. The women talked loosely of a war.

"How kind you have been!" murmured Sophia, with humid eyes.

But they silenced her with gestures. She was not to talk. They seemed
to have nothing further to tell her. They said Chirac would be
returning perhaps soon, and that she could talk to him. Evidently they
both held Chirac in affection. They said often that he was a charming
boy.

Bit by bit Sophia comprehended the length and the seriousness of her
illness, and the immense devotion of the two women, and the terrific
disturbance of their lives, and her own debility. She saw that the
women were strongly attached to her, and she could not understand why,
as she had never done anything for them, whereas they had done
everything for her. She had not learnt that benefits rendered, not
benefits received, are the cause of such attachments.

All the time she was plotting, and gathering her strength to disobey
orders and get as far as the mirror. Her preliminary studies and her
preparations were as elaborate as those of a prisoner arranging to
escape from a fortress. The first attempt was a failure. The second
succeeded. Though she could not stand without support, she managed by
clinging to the bed to reach a chair, and to push the chair in front of
her until it approached the mirror. The enterprise was exciting and
terrific. Then she saw a face in the glass: white, incredibly
emaciated, with great, wild, staring eyes; and the shoulders were bent
as though with age. It was a painful, almost a horrible sight. It
frightened her, so that in her alarm she recoiled from it. Not
attending sufficiently to the chair, she sank to the ground. She could
not pick herself up, and she was caught there, miserably, by her
angered jailers. The vision of her face taught her more efficiently
than anything else the gravity of her adventure. As the women lifted
her inert, repentant mass into the bed, she reflected, "How queer my
life is!" It seemed to her that she ought to have been trimming hats in
the showroom instead of being in that curtained, mysterious, Parisian
interior.

II

One day Madame Foucault knocked at the door of Sophia's little room
(this ceremony of knocking was one of the indications that Sophia,
convalescent, had been reinstated in her rights as an individual), and
cried:

"Madame, one is going to leave you all alone for some time."

"Come in," said Sophia, who was sitting up in an armchair, and reading.

Madame Foucault opened the door. "One is going to leave you all alone
for some time," she repeated in a low, confidential voice, sharply
contrasting with her shriek behind the door.

Sophia nodded and smiled, and Madame Foucault also nodded and smiled.
But Madame Foucault's face quickly resumed its anxious expression.

"The servant's brother marries himself to-day, and she implored me to
accord her two days--what would you? Madame Laurence is out. And I must
go out. It is four o'clock. I shall re-enter at six o'clock striking.
Therefore ..."

"Perfectly," Sophia concurred.

She looked curiously at Madame Foucault, who was carefully made up and
arranged for the street, in a dress of yellow tussore with blue
ornaments, bright lemon-coloured gloves, a little blue bonnet, and a
little white parasol not wider when opened than her shoulders. Cheeks,
lips, and eyes were heavily charged with rouge, powder, or black. And
that too abundant waist had been most cunningly confined in a belt that
descended beneath, instead of rising above, the lower masses of the
vast torso. The general effect was worthy of the effort that must have
gone to it. Madame Foucault was not rejuvenated by her toilette, but it
almost procured her pardon for the crime of being over forty, fat,
creased, and worn out. It was one of those defeats that are a triumph.

"You are very chic," said Sophia, uttering her admiration.

"Ah!" said Madame Foucault, shrugging the shoulders of disillusion.
"Chic! What does that do?"

But she was pleased.

The front-door banged. Sophia, by herself for the first time in the
flat into which she had been carried unconscious and which she had
never since left, had the disturbing sensation of being surrounded by
mysterious rooms and mysterious things. She tried to continue reading,
but the sentences conveyed nothing to her. She rose--she could walk now
a little--and looked out of the window, through the interstices of the
pattern of the lace curtains. The window gave on the courtyard, which
was about sixteen feet below her. A low wall divided the courtyard from
that of the next house. And the windows of the two houses, only to be
distinguished by the different tints of their yellow paint, rose tier
above tier in level floors, continuing beyond Sophia's field of vision.
She pressed her face against the glass, and remembered the St. Luke's
Square of her childhood; and just as there from the showroom window she
could not even by pressing her face against the glass see the pavement,
so here she could not see the roof; the courtyard was like the bottom
of a well. There was no end to the windows; six storeys she could
count, and the sills of a seventh were the limit of her view. Every
window was heavily curtained, like her own. Some of the upper ones had
green sunblinds. Scarcely any sound! Mysteries brooded without as well
as within the flat of Madame Foucault. Sophia saw a bodiless hand
twitch at a curtain and vanish. She noticed a green bird in a tiny cage
on a sill in the next house. A woman whom she took to be the concierge
appeared in the courtyard, deposited a small plant in the track of a
ray of sunshine that lighted a corner for a couple of hours in the
afternoon, and disappeared again. Then she heard a piano--somewhere.
That was all. The feeling that secret and strange lives were being
lived behind those baffling windows, that humanity was everywhere
intimately pulsing around her, oppressed her spirit yet not quite
unpleasantly. The environment softened her glance upon the spectacle of
existence, insomuch that sadness became a voluptuous pleasure. And the
environment threw her back on herself, into a sensuous contemplation of
the fundamental fact of Sophia Scales, formerly Sophia Baines.

She turned to the room, with the marks of the bath on the floor by the
bed, and the draped piano that was never opened, and her two trunks
filling up the corner opposite the door. She had the idea of thoroughly
examining those trunks, which Chirac or somebody else must have fetched
from the hotel. At the top of one of them was her purse, tied up with
old ribbon and ostentatiously sealed! How comical these French people
were when they deemed it necessary to be serious! She emptied both
trunks, scrutinizing minutely all her goods, and thinking of the varied
occasions upon which she had obtained them. Then she carefully restored
them, her mind full of souvenirs newly awakened.

She sighed as she straightened her back. A clock struck in another
room. It seemed to invite her towards discoveries. She had been in no
other room of the flat. She knew nothing of the rest of the flat save
by sound. For neither of the other women had ever described it, nor had
it occurred to them that Sophia might care to leave her room though she
could not leave the house.

She opened her door, and glanced along the dim corridor, with which she
was familiar. She knew that the kitchen lay next to her little room,
and that next to the kitchen came the front-door. On the opposite side
of the corridor were four double-doors. She crossed to the pair of
doors facing her own little door, and quietly turned the handle, but
the doors were locked; the same with the next pair. The third pair
yielded, and she was in a large bedroom, with three windows on the
street. She saw that the second pair of doors, which she had failed to
unfasten, also opened into this room. Between the two pairs of doors
was a wide bed. In front of the central window was a large
dressing-table. To the left of the bed, half hiding the locked doors,
was a large screen. On the marble mantelpiece, reflected in a huge
mirror, that ascended to the ornate cornice, was a gilt-and-basalt
clock, with pendants to match. On the opposite side of the room from
this was a long wide couch. The floor was of polished oak, with a skin
on either side of the bed. At the foot of the bed was a small
writing-table, with a penny bottle of ink on it. A few coloured prints
and engravings--representing, for example, Louis Philippe and his
family, and people perishing on a raft--broke the tedium of the walls.
The first impression on Sophia's eye was one of sombre splendour.
Everything had the air of being richly ornamented, draped, looped,
carved, twisted, brocaded into gorgeousness. The dark crimson
bed-hangings fell from massive rosettes in majestic folds. The
counterpane was covered with lace. The window-curtains had amplitude
beyond the necessary, and they were suspended from behind fringed and
pleated valances. The green sofa and its sateen cushions were stiff
with applied embroidery. The chandelier hanging from the middle of the
ceiling, modelled to represent cupids holding festoons, was a
glittering confusion of gilt and lustres; the lustres tinkled when
Sophia stood on a certain part of the floor. The cane-seated chairs
were completely gilded. There was an effect of spaciousness. And the
situation of the bed between the two double-doors, with the three
windows in front and other pairs of doors communicating with other
rooms on either hand, produced in addition an admirable symmetry.

But Sophia, with the sharp gaze of a woman brought up in the traditions
of a modesty so proud that it scorns ostentation, quickly tested and
condemned the details of this chamber that imitated every luxury.
Nothing in it, she found, was 'good.' And in St. Luke's Square
'goodness' meant honest workmanship, permanence, the absence of
pretence. All the stuffs were cheap and showy and shabby; all the
furniture was cracked, warped, or broken. The clock showed five minutes
past twelve at five o'clock. And further, dust was everywhere, except
in those places where even the most perfunctory cleaning could not have
left it. In the obscurer pleatings of draperies it lay thick. Sophia's
lip curled, and instinctively she lifted her peignoir. One of her
mother's phrases came into her head: 'a lick and a promise.' And then
another: "If you want to leave dirt, leave it where everybody can see
it, not in the corners."

She peeped behind the screen, and all the horrible welter of a cabinet
de toilette met her gaze: a repulsive medley of foul waters, stained
vessels and cloths, brushes, sponges, powders, and pastes. Clothes were
hung up in disorder on rough nails; among them she recognized a
dressing-gown of Madame Foucault's, and, behind affairs of later date,
the dazzling scarlet cloak in which she had first seen Madame Foucault,
dilapidated now. So this was Madame Foucault's room! This was the bower
from which that elegance emerged, the filth from which had sprung the
mature blossom!

She passed from that room direct to another, of which the shutters were
closed, leaving it in twilight. This room too was a bedroom, rather
smaller than the middle one, and having only one window, but furnished
with the same dubious opulence. Dust covered it everywhere, and small
footmarks were visible in the dust on the floor. At the back was a
small door, papered to match the wall, and within this door was a
cabinet de toilette, with no light and no air; neither in the room nor
in the closet was there any sign of individual habitation. She
traversed the main bedroom again and found another bedroom to balance
the second one, but open to the full light of day, and in a state of
extreme disorder; the double-pillowed bed had not even been made:
clothes and towels draped all the furniture: shoes were about the
floor, and on a piece of string tied across the windows hung a single
white stocking, wet. At the back was a cabinet de toilette, as dark as
the other one, a vile malodorous mess of appliances whose familiar
forms loomed vague and extraordinarily sinister in the dense obscurity.
Sophia turned away with the righteous disgust of one whose preparations
for the gaze of the world are as candid and simple as those of a child.
Concealed dirt shocked her as much as it would have shocked her mother;
and as for the trickeries of the toilet table, she contemned them as
harshly as a young saint who has never been tempted contemns moral
weakness. She thought of the strange flaccid daily life of those two
women, whose hours seemed to slip unprofitably away without any result
of achievement. She had actually witnessed nothing; but since the
beginning of her convalescence her ears had heard, and she could piece
the evidences together. There was never any sound in the flat, outside
the kitchen, until noon. Then vague noises and smells would commence.
And about one o'clock Madame Foucault, disarrayed, would come to
inquire if the servant had attended to the needs of the invalid. Then
the odours of cookery would accentuate themselves; bells rang;
fragments of conversations escaped through doors ajar; occasionally a
man's voice or a heavy step; then the fragrance of coffee; sometimes
the sound of a kiss, the banging of the front door, the noise of
brushing, or of the shaking of a carpet, a little scream as at some
trifling domestic contretemps. Laurence, still in a dressing-gown,
would lounge into Sophia's room, dirty, haggard, but polite with a
curious stiff ceremony, and would drink her coffee there. This
wandering in peignoirs would continue till three o'clock, and then
Laurence might say, as if nerving herself to an unusual and immense
effort: "I must be dressed by five o'clock. I have not a moment." Often
Madame Foucault did not dress at all; on such days she would go to bed
immediately after dinner, with the remark that she didn't know what was
the matter with her, but she was exhausted. And then the servant would
retire to her seventh floor, and there would be silence until, now and
then, faint creepings were heard at midnight or after. Once or twice,
through the chinks of her door, Sophia had seen a light at two o'clock
in the morning, just before the dawn.

Yet these were the women who had saved her life, who between them had
put her into a cold bath every three hours night and day for weeks!
Surely it was impossible after that to despise them for shiftlessness
and talkative idling in peignoirs; impossible to despise them for
anything whatever! But Sophia, conscious of her inheritance of strong
and resolute character, did despise them as poor things. The one point
on which she envied them was their formal manners to her, which seemed
to become more dignified and graciously distant as her health improved.
It was always 'Madame,' 'Madame,' to her, with an intonation of
increasing deference. They might have been apologizing to her for
themselves.

She prowled into all the corners of the flat; but she discovered no
more rooms, nothing but a large cupboard crammed with Madame Foucault's
dresses. Then she went back to the large bedroom, and enjoyed the busy
movement and rattle of the sloping street, and had long, vague
yearnings for strength and for freedom in wide, sane places. She
decided that on the morrow she would dress herself 'properly,' and
never again wear a peignoir; the peignoir and all that it represented,
disgusted her. And while looking at the street she ceased to see it and
saw Cook's office and Chirac helping her into the carriage. Where was
he? Why had he brought her to this impossible abode? What did he mean
by such conduct? But could he have acted otherwise? He had done the one
thing that he could do.... Chance! ... Chance! And why an impossible
abode? Was one place more impossible than another? All this came of
running away from home with Gerald. It was remarkable that she seldom
thought of Gerald. He had vanished from her life as he had come into
it--madly, preposterously. She wondered what the next stage in her
career would be. She certainly could not forecast it. Perhaps Gerald
was starving, or in prison ... Bah! That exclamation expressed her
appalling disdain of Gerald and of the Sophia who had once deemed him
the paragon of men. Bah!

A carriage stopping in front of the house awakened her from her
meditation. Madame Foucault and a man very much younger than Madame
Foucault got out of it. Sophia fled. After all, this prying into other
people's rooms was quite inexcusable. She dropped on to her own bed and
picked up a book, in case Madame Foucault should come in.

III

In the evening, just after night had fallen, Sophia on the bed heard
the sound of raised and acrimonious voices in Madame Foucault's room.
Nothing except dinner had happened since the arrival of Madame Foucault
and the young man. These two had evidently dined informally in the
bedroom on a dish or so prepared by Madame Foucault, who had herself
served Sophia with her invalid's repast. The odours of cookery still
hung in the air.

The noise of virulent discussion increased and continued, and then
Sophia could hear sobbing, broken by short and fierce phrases from the
man. Then the door of the bedroom opened brusquely. "J'en ai soupe!"
exclaimed the man, in tones of angry disgust. "Laisse-moi, je te prie!"
And then a soft muffled sound, as of a struggle, a quick step, and the
very violent banging of the front door. After that there was a
noticeable silence, save for the regular sobbing. Sophia wondered when
it would cease, that monotonous sobbing.

"What is the matter?" she called out from her bed.

The sobbing grew louder, like the sobbing of a child who has detected
an awakening of sympathy and instinctively begins to practise upon it.
In the end Sophia arose and put on the peignoir which she had almost
determined never to wear again. The broad corridor was lighted by a
small, smelling oil-lamp with a crimson globe. That soft, transforming
radiance seemed to paint the whole corridor with voluptuous luxury: so
much so that it was impossible to believe that the smell came from the
lamp. Under the lamp lay Madame Foucault on the floor, a shapeless mass
of lace, frilled linen, and corset; her light brown hair was loose and
spread about the floor. At the first glance, the creature abandoned to
grief made a romantic and striking picture, and Sophia thought for an
instant that she had at length encountered life on a plane that would
correspond to her dreams of romance. And she was impressed, with a
feeling somewhat akin to that of a middling commoner when confronted
with a viscount. There was, in the distance, something imposing and
sensational about that prone, trembling figure. The tragic works of
love were therein apparently manifest, in a sort of dignified beauty.
But when Sophia bent over Madame Foucault, and touched her flabbiness,
this illusion at once vanished; and instead of being dramatically
pathetic the woman was ridiculous. Her face, especially as damaged by
tears, could not support the ordeal of inspection; it was horrible; not
a picture, but a palette; or like the coloured design of a pavement
artist after a heavy shower. Her great, relaxed eyelids alone would
have rendered any face absurd; and there were monstrous details far
worse than the eyelids. Then she was amazingly fat; her flesh seemed to
be escaping at all ends from a corset strained to the utmost limit. And
above her boots--she was still wearing dainty, high-heeled, tightly
laced boots--the calves bulged suddenly out.

As a woman of between forty and fifty, the obese sepulchre of a dead
vulgar beauty, she had no right to passions and tears and homage, or
even the means of life; she had no right to expose herself
picturesquely beneath a crimson glow in all the panoply of ribboned
garters and lacy seductiveness. It was silly; it was disgraceful. She
ought to have known that only youth and slimness have the right to
appeal to the feelings by indecent abandonments.

Such were the thoughts that mingled with the sympathy of the beautiful
and slim Sophia as she bent down to Madame Foucault. She was sorry for
her landlady, but at the same time she despised her, and resented her
woe.

"What is the matter?" she asked quietly.

"He has chucked me!" stammered Madame Foucault. "And he's the last. I
have no one now!"

She rolled over in the most grotesque manner, kicking up her legs, with
a fresh outburst of sobs. Sophia felt quite ashamed for her.

"Come and lie down. Come now!" she said, with a touch of sharpness.
"You musn't lie there like that."

Madame Foucault's behaviour was really too outrageous. Sophia helped
her, morally rather than physically, to rise, and then persuaded her
into the large bedroom. Madame Foucault fell on the bed, of which the
counterpane had been thrown over the foot. Sophia covered the lower
part of her heaving body with the counterpane.

"Now, calm yourself, please!"

This room too was lit in crimson, by a small lamp that stood on the
night-table, and though the shade of the lamp was cracked, the general
effect of the great chamber was incontestably romantic. Only the
pillows of the wide bed and a small semi-circle of floor were
illuminated, all the rest lay in shadow. Madame Foucault's head had
dropped between the pillows. A tray containing dirty plates and glasses
and a wine-bottle was speciously picturesque on the writing-table.

Despite her genuine gratitude to Madame Foucault for astounding care
during her illness, Sophia did not like her landlady, and the present
scene made her coldly wrathful. She saw the probability of having
another's troubles piled on the top of her own. She did not, in her
mind, actively object, because she felt that she could not be more
hopelessly miserable than she was; but she passively resented the
imposition. Her reason told her that she ought to sympathize with this
ageing, ugly, disagreeable, undignified woman; but her heart was
reluctant; her heart did not want to know anything at all about Madame
Foucault, nor to enter in any way into her private life.

"I have not a single friend now," stammered Madame Foucault.

"Oh, yes, you have," said Sophia, cheerfully. "You have Madame
Laurence."

"Laurence--that is not a friend. You know what I mean."

"And me! I am your friend!" said Sophia, in obedience to her conscience.

"You are very kind," replied Madame Foucault, from the pillow. "But you
know what I mean."

The fact was that Sophia did know what she meant. The terms of their
intercourse had been suddenly changed. There was no pretentious
ceremony now, but the sincerity that disaster brings. The vast
structure of make-believe, which between them they had gradually built,
had crumbled to nothing.

"I never treated badly any man in my life," whimpered Madame Foucault.
"I have always been a--good girl. There is not a man who can say I have
not been a good girl. Never was I a girl like the rest. And every one
has said so. Ah! when I tell you that once I had a hotel in the Avenue
de la Reine Hortense. Four horses ... I have sold a horse to Madame
Musard.... You know Madame Musard.... But one cannot make economies.
Impossible to make economies! Ah! In 'fifty-six I was spending a
hundred thousand francs a year. That cannot last. Always I have said to
myself: 'That cannot last.' Always I had the intention.... But what
would you? I installed myself here, and borrowed money to pay for the
furniture. There did not remain to me one jewel. The men are poltroons,
all! I could let three bedrooms for three hundred and fifty francs a
month, and with serving meals and so on I could live."

"Then that," Sophia interrupted, pointing to her own bedroom across the
corridor, "is your room?"

"Yes," said Madame Foucault. "I put you in it because at the moment all
these were let. They are so no longer. Only one--Laurence--and she does
not pay me always. What would you? Tenants--that does not find itself
at the present hour.... I have nothing, and I owe. And he quits me. He
chooses this moment to quit me! And why? For nothing. For nothing. That
is not for his money that I regret him. No, no! You know, at his
age--he is twenty-five--and with a woman like me--one is not generous!
No. I loved him. And then a man is a moral support, always. I loved
him. It is at my age, mine, that one knows how to love. Beauty goes
always, but not the temperament! Ah, that--No! ... I loved him. I love
him."

Sophia's face tingled with a sudden emotion caused by the repetition of
those last three words, whose spell no usage can mar. But she said
nothing.

"Do you know what I shall become? There is nothing but that for me. And
I know of such, who are there already. A charwoman! Yes, a charwoman!
More soon or more late. Well, that is life. What would you? One exists
always." Then in a different tone: "I demand your pardon, madame, for
talking like this. I ought to have shame."

And Sophia felt that in listening she also ought to be ashamed. But she
was not ashamed. Everything seemed very natural, and even ordinary.
And, moreover, Sophia was full of the sense of her superiority over the
woman on the bed. Four years ago, in the Restaurant Sylvain, the
ingenuous and ignorant Sophia had shyly sat in awe of the resplendent
courtesan, with her haughty stare, her large, easy gestures, and her
imperturbable contempt for the man who was paying. And now Sophia knew
that she, Sophia, knew all that was to be known about human nature. She
had not merely youth, beauty, and virtue, but knowledge--knowledge
enough to reconcile her to her own misery. She had a vigorous, clear
mind, and a clean conscience. She could look any one in the face, and
judge every one too as a woman of the world. Whereas this obscene wreck
on the bed had nothing whatever left. She had not merely lost her
effulgent beauty, she had become repulsive. She could never have had
any commonsense, nor any force of character. Her haughtiness in the day
of glory was simply fatuous, based on stupidity. She had passed the
years in idleness, trailing about all day in stuffy rooms, and emerging
at night to impress nincompoops; continually meaning to do things which
she never did, continually surprised at the lateness of the hour,
continually occupied with the most foolish trifles. And here she was at
over forty writhing about on the bare floor because a boy of
twenty-five (who MUST be a worthless idiot) had abandoned her after a
scene of ridiculous shoutings and stampings. She was dependent on the
caprices of a young scamp, the last donkey to turn from her with
loathing! Sophia thought: "Goodness! If I had been in her place I
shouldn't have been like that. I should have been rich. I should have
saved like a miser. I wouldn't have been dependent on anybody at that
age. If I couldn't have made a better courtesan than this pitiable
woman, I would have drowned myself."

In the harsh vanity of her conscious capableness and young strength she
thought thus, half forgetting her own follies, and half excusing them
on the ground of inexperience.

Sophia wanted to go round the flat and destroy every crimson lampshade
in it. She wanted to shake Madame Foucault into self-respect and
sagacity. Moral reprehension, though present in her mind, was only
faint. Certainly she felt the immense gulf between the honest woman and
the wanton, but she did not feel it as she would have expected to feel
it. "What a fool you have been!" she thought; not: "What a sinner!"
With her precocious cynicism, which was somewhat unsuited to the lovely
northern youthfulness of that face, she said to herself that the whole
situation and their relative attitudes would have been different if
only Madame Foucault had had the wit to amass a fortune, as (according
to Gerald) some of her rivals had succeeded in doing.

And all the time she was thinking, in another part of her mind: "I
ought not to be here. It's no use arguing. I ought not to be here.
Chirac did the only thing for me there was to do. But I must go now."

Madame Foucault continued to recite her woes, chiefly financial, in a
weak voice damp with tears; she also continued to apologize for
mentioning herself. She had finished sobbing, and lay looking at the
wall, away from Sophia, who stood irresolute near the bed, ashamed for
her companion's weakness and incapacity.

"You must not forget," said Sophia, irritated by the unrelieved
darkness of the picture drawn by Madame Foucault, "that at least I owe
you a considerable sum, and that I am only waiting for you to tell me
how much it is. I have asked you twice already, I think."

"Oh, you are still suffering!" said Madame Foucault.

"I am quite well enough to pay my debts," said Sophia.

"I do not like to accept money from you," said Madame Foucault.

"But why not?"

"You will have the doctor to pay."

"Please do not talk in that way," said Sophia. "I have money, and I can
pay for everything, and I shall pay for everything."

She was annoyed because she was sure that Madame Foucault was only
making a pretence of delicacy, and that in any case her delicacy was
preposterous. Sophia had remarked this on the two previous occasions
when she had mentioned the subject of bills. Madame Foucault would not
treat her as an ordinary lodger, now that the illness was past. She
wanted, as it were, to complete brilliantly what she had begun, and to
live in Sophia's memory as a unique figure of lavish philanthropy. This
was a sentiment, a luxury that she desired to offer herself: the
thought that she had played providence to a respectable married lady in
distress; she frequently hinted at Sophia's misfortunes and
helplessness. But she could not afford the luxury. She gazed at it as a
poor woman gazes at costly stuffs through the glass of a shop-window.
The truth was, she wanted the luxury for nothing. For a double reason
Sophia was exasperated: by Madame Foucault's absurd desire, and by a
natural objection to the role of a subject for philanthropy. She would
not admit that Madame Foucault's devotion as a nurse entitled her to
the satisfaction of being a philanthropist when there was no necessity
for philanthropy.

"How long have I been here?" asked Sophia.

"I don't know." murmured Madame Foucault. "Eight weeks--or is it nine?"

"Suppose we say nine," said Sophia.

"Very well," agreed Madame Foucault, apparently reluctant.

"Now, how much must I pay you per week?"

"I don't want anything--I don't want anything! You are a friend of
Chirac's. You----"

"Not at all!" Sophia interrupted, tapping her foot and biting her lip.
"Naturally I must pay."

Madame Foucault wept quietly.

"Shall I pay you seventy-five francs a week?" said Sophia, anxious to
end the matter.

"It is too much!" Madame Foucault protested, insincerely.

"What? For all you have done for me?"

"I speak not of that," Madame Foucault modestly replied.

If the devotion was not to be paid for, then seventy-five francs a week
was assuredly too much, as during more than half the time Sophia had
had almost no food. Madame Foucault was therefore within the truth when
she again protested, at sight of the bank-notes which Sophia brought
from her trunk:

"I am sure that it is too much."

"Not at all!" Sophia repeated. "Nine weeks at seventy-five. That makes
six hundred and seventy-five. Here are seven hundreds."

"I have no change," said Madame Foucault. "I have nothing."

"That will pay for the hire of the bath," said Sophia.

She laid the notes on the pillow. Madame Foucault looked at them
gluttonously, as any other person would have done in her place. She did
not touch them. After an instant she burst into wild tears.

"But why do you cry?" Sophia asked, softened.

"I--I don't know!" spluttered Madame Foucault. "You are so beautiful. I
am so content that we saved you." Her great wet eyes rested on Sophia.

It was sentimentality. Sophia ruthlessly set it down as sentimentality.
But she was touched. She was suddenly moved. Those women, such as they
were in their foolishness, probably had saved her life--and she a
stranger! Flaccid as they were, they had been capable of resolute
perseverance there. It was possible to say that chance had thrown them
upon an enterprise which they could not have abandoned till they or
death had won. It was possible to say that they hoped vaguely to derive
advantage from their labours. But even then? Judged by an ordinary
standard, those women had been angels of mercy. And Sophia was
despising them, cruelly taking their motives to pieces, accusing them
of incapacity when she herself stood a supreme proof of their capacity
in, at any rate, one direction! In a rush of emotion she saw her
hardness and her injustice.

She bent down. "Never can I forget how kind you have been to me. It is
incredible! Incredible!" She spoke softly, in tones loaded with genuine
feeling. It was all she said. She could not embroider on the theme. She
had no talent for thanksgiving.

Madame Foucault made the beginning of a gesture, as if she meant to
kiss Sophia with those thick, marred lips; but refrained. Her head sank
back, and then she had a recurrence of the fit of nervous sobbing.
Immediately afterwards there was the sound of a latchkey in the
front-door of the flat; the bedroom door was open. Still sobbing very
violently, she cocked her ear, and pushed the bank-notes under the
pillow.

Madame Laurence--as she was called: Sophia had never heard her
surname--came straight into the bedroom, and beheld the scene with
astonishment in her dark twinkling eyes. She was usually dressed in
black, because people said that black suited her, and because black was
never out of fashion; black was an expression of her idiosyncrasy. She
showed a certain elegance, and by comparison with the extreme disorder
of Madame Foucault and the deshabille of Sophia her appearance, all
fresh from a modish restaurant, was brilliant; it gave her an advantage
over the other two--that moral advantage which ceremonial raiment
always gives.

"What is it that passes?" she demanded.

"He has chucked me, Laurence!" exclaimed Madame Foucault, in a sort of
hysteric scream which seemed to force its way through her sobs. From
the extraordinary freshness of Madame Foucault's woe, it might have
been supposed that her young man had only that instant strode out.

Laurence and Sophia exchanged a swift glance; and Laurence, of course,
perceived that Sophia's relations with her landlady and nurse were now
of a different, a more candid order. She indicated her perception of
the change by a single slight movement of the eyebrows.

"But listen, Aimee," she said authoritatively. "You must not let
yourself go like that. He will return."

"Never!" cried Madame Foucault. "It is finished. And he is the last!"

Laurence, ignoring Madame Foucault, approached Sophia. "You have an air
very fatigued," she said, caressing Sophia's shoulder with her gloved
hand. "You are pale like everything. All this is not for you. It is not
reasonable to remain here, you still suffering! At this hour! Truly not
reasonable!"

Her hands persuaded Sophia towards the corridor. And, in fact, Sophia
did then notice her own exhaustion. She departed from the room with the
ready obedience of physical weakness, and shut her door.

After about half an hour, during which she heard confused noises and
murmurings, her door half opened.

"May I enter, since you are not asleep?" It was Laurence's voice.
Twice, now, she had addressed Sophia without adding the formal 'madame.'

"Enter, I beg you," Sophia called from the bed. "I am reading."

Laurence came in. Sophia was both glad and sorry to see her. She was
eager to hear gossip which, however, she felt she ought to despise.
Moreover, she knew that if they talked that night they would talk as
friends, and that Laurence would ever afterwards treat her with the
familiarity of a friend. This she dreaded. Still, she knew that she
would yield, at any rate, to the temptation to listen to gossip.

"I have put her to bed," said Laurence, in a whisper, as she cautiously
closed the door. "The poor woman! Oh, what a charming bracelet! It is a
true pearl, naturally?"

Her roving eye had immediately, with an infallible instinct, caught
sight of a bracelet which, in taking stock of her possessions, Sophia
had accidentally left on the piano. She picked it up, and then put it
down again.

"Yes," said Sophia. She was about to add: "It's nearly all the
jewellery I possess;" but she stopped.

Laurence moved towards Sophia's bed, and stood over it as she had often
done in her quality as nurse. She had taken off her gloves, and she
made a piquant, pretty show, with her thirty years, and her agreeable,
slightly roguish face, in which were mingled the knowingness of a
street boy and the confidence of a woman who has ceased to be surprised
at the influence of her snub nose on a highly intelligent man.

"Did she tell you what they had quarrelled about?" Laurence inquired
abruptly. And not only the phrasing of the question, but the assured
tone in which it was uttered, showed that Laurence meant to be the
familiar of Sophia.

"Not a word!" said Sophia.

In this brief question and reply, all was crudely implied that had
previously been supposed not to exist. The relations between the two
women were altered irretrievably in a moment.

"It must have been her fault!" said Laurence. "With men she is
insupportable. I have never understood how that poor woman has made her
way. With women she is charming. But she seems to be incapable of not
treating men like dogs. Some men adore that, but they are few. Is it
not?"

Sophia smiled.

"I have told her! How many times have I told her! But it is useless. It
is stronger than she is, and if she finishes on straw one will be able
to say that it was because of that. But truly she ought not to have
asked him here! Truly that was too much! If he knew...!"

"Why not?" asked Sophia, awkwardly. The answer startled her.

"Because her room has not been disinfected."

"But I thought all the flat had been disinfected?"

"All except her room."

"But why not her room?"

Laurence shrugged her shoulders. "She did not want to disturb her
things! Is it that I know, I? She is like that. She takes an idea--and
then, there you are!"

"She told me every room had been disinfected."

"She told the same to the police and the doctor."

"Then all the disinfection is useless?"

"Perfectly! But she is like that. This flat might be very remunerative;
but with her, never! She has not even paid for the furniture--after two
years!"

"But what will become of her?" Sophia asked.

"Ah--that!" Another shrug of the shoulders. "All that I know is that it
will be necessary for me to leave here. The last time I brought
Monsieur Cerf here, she was excessively rude to him. She has doubtless
told you about Monsieur Cerf?"

"No. Who is Monsieur Cerf?"

"Ah! She has not told you? That astonishes me. Monsieur Cerf, that is
my friend, you know."

"Oh!" murmured Sophia.

"Yes," Laurence proceeded, impelled by a desire to impress Sophia and
to gossip at large. "That is my friend. I knew him at the hospital. It
was to please him that I left the hospital. After that we quarrelled
for two years; but at the end he gave me right. I did not budge. Two
years! It is long. And I had left the hospital. I could have gone back.
But I would not. That is not a life, to be nurse in a Paris hospital!
No, I drew myself out as well as I could ... He is the most charming
boy you can imagine! And rich now; that is to say, relatively. He has a
cousin infinitely more rich than he. I dined with them both to-night at
the Maison Doree. For a luxurious boy, he is a luxurious boy--the
cousin I mean. It appears that he has made a fortune in Canada."

"Truly!" said Sophia, with politeness. Laurence's hand was playing on
the edge of the bed, and Sophia observed for the first time that it
bore a wedding-ring.

"You remark my ring?" Laurence laughed. "That is he--the cousin.
'What!' he said, 'you do not wear an alliance? An alliance is more
proper. We are going to arrange that after dinner.' I said that all the
jewellers' shops would be closed. 'That is all the same to me,' he
said. 'We will open one.' And in effect ... it passed like that. He
succeeded! Is it not beautiful?" She held forth her hand.

"Yes," said Sophia. "It is very beautiful."

"Yours also is beautiful," said Laurence, with an extremely puzzling
intonation.

"It is just the ordinary English wedding-ring," said Sophia. In spite
of herself she blushed.

"Now I have married you. It is I, the cure, said he--the cousin--when
he put the ring on my finger. Oh, he is excessively amusing! He pleases
me much. And he is all alone. He asked me whether I knew among my
friends a sympathetic, pretty girl, to make four with us three for a
picnic. I said I was not sure, but I thought not. Whom do I know?
Nobody. I'm not a woman like the rest. I am always discreet. I do not
like casual relations.... But he is very well, the cousin. Brown
eyes.... It is an idea--will you come, one day? He speaks English. He
loves the English. He is all that is most correct, the perfect
gentleman. He would arrange a dazzling fete. I am sure he would be
enchanted to make your acquaintance. Enchanted! ... As for my Charles,
happily he is completely mad about me--otherwise I should have fear."

She smiled, and in her smile was a genuine respect for Sophia's face.

"I fear I cannot come," said Sophia. She honestly endeavoured to keep
out of her reply any accent of moral superiority, but she did not quite
succeed. She was not at all horrified by Laurence's suggestion. She
meant simply to refuse it; but she could not do so in a natural voice.

"It is true you are not yet strong enough," said the imperturbable
Laurence, quickly, and with a perfect imitation of naturalness. "But
soon you must make a little promenade." She stared at her ring. "After
all, it is more proper," she observed judicially. "With a wedding-ring
one is less likely to be annoyed. What is curious is that the idea
never before came to me. Yet ..."

"You like jewellery?" said Sophia.

"If I like jewellery!" with a gesture of the hands.

"Will you pass me that bracelet?"

Laurence obeyed, and Sophia clasped it round the girl's wrist.

"Keep it," Sophia said.

"For me?" Laurence exclaimed, ravished. "It is too much."

"It is not enough," said Sophia. "And when you look at it, you must
remember how kind you were to me, and how grateful I am."

"How nicely you say that!" Laurence said ecstatically.

And Sophia felt that she had indeed said it rather nicely. This giving
of the bracelet, souvenir of one of the few capricious follies that
Gerald had committed for her and not for himself, pleased Sophia very
much.

"I am afraid your nursing of me forced you to neglect Monsieur Cerf,"
she added.

"Yes, a little!" said Laurence, impartially, with a small pout of
haughtiness. "It is true that he used to complain. But I soon put him
straight. What an idea! He knows there are things upon which I do not
joke. It is not he who will quarrel a second time! Believe me!"

Laurence's absolute conviction of her power was what impressed Sophia.
To Sophia she seemed to be a vulgar little piece of goods, with dubious
charm and a glance that was far too brazen. Her movements were vulgar.
And Sophia wondered how she had established her empire and upon what it
rested.

"I shall not show this to Aimee," whispered Laurence, indicating the
bracelet.

"As you wish," said Sophia.

"By the way, have I told you that war is declared?" Laurence casually
remarked.

"No," said Sophia. "What war?"

"The scene with Aimee made me forget it ... With Germany. The city is
quite excited. An immense crowd in front of the new Opera. They say we
shall be at Berlin in a month--or at most two months."

"Oh!" Sophia muttered. "Why is there a war?"

"Ah! It is I who asked that. Nobody knows. It is those Prussians."

"Don't you think we ought to begin again with the disinfecting?" Sophia
asked anxiously. "I must speak to Madame Foucault."

Laurence told her not to worry, and went off to show the bracelet to
Madame Foucault. She had privately decided that this was a pleasure
which, after all, she could not deny herself.

IV

About a fortnight later--it was a fine Saturday in early
August--Sophia, with a large pinafore over her dress, was finishing the
portentous preparations for disinfecting the flat. Part of the affair
was already accomplished, her own room and the corridor having been
fumigated on the previous day, in spite of the opposition of Madame
Foucault, who had taken amiss Laurence's tale-bearing to Sophia.
Laurence had left the flat--under exactly what circumstances Sophia
knew not, but she guessed that it must have been in consequence of a
scene elaborating the tiff caused by Madame Foucault's resentment
against Laurence. The brief, factitious friendliness between Laurence
and Sophia had gone like a dream, and Laurence had gone like a dream.
The servant had been dismissed; in her place Madame Foucault employed a
charwoman each morning for two hours. Finally, Madame Foucault had been
suddenly called away that morning by a letter to her sick father at St.
Mammes-sur-Seine. Sophia was delighted at the chance. The disinfecting
of the flat had become an obsession with Sophia--the obsession of a
convalescent whose perspective unconsciously twists things to the most
wry shapes. She had had trouble on the day before with Madame Foucault,
and she was expecting more serious trouble when the moment arrived for
ejecting Madame Foucault as well as all her movable belongings from
Madame Foucault's own room. Nevertheless, Sophia had been determined,
whatever should happen, to complete an honest fumigation of the entire
flat. Hence the eagerness with which, urging Madame Foucault to go to
her father, Sophia had protested that she was perfectly strong and
could manage by herself for a couple of days. Owing to the partial
suppression of the ordinary railway services in favour of military
needs, Madame Foucault could not hope to go and return on the same day.
Sophia had lent her a louis.

Pans of sulphur were mysteriously burning in each of the three front
rooms, and two pairs of doors had been pasted over with paper, to
prevent the fumes from escaping. The charwoman had departed. Sophia,
with brush, scissors, flour-paste, and news-sheets, was sealing the
third pair of doors, when there was a ring at the front door.

She had only to cross the corridor in order to open.

It was Chirac. She was not surprised to see him. The outbreak of the
war had induced even Sophia and her landlady to look through at least
one newspaper during the day, and she had in this way learnt, from an
article signed by Chirac, that he had returned to Paris after a mission
into the Vosges country for his paper.

He started on seeing her. "Ah!" He breathed out the exclamation slowly.
And then smiled, seized her hand, and kissed it.

The sight of his obvious extreme pleasure in meeting her again was the
sweetest experience that had fallen to Sophia for years.

"Then you are cured?"

"Quite."

He sighed. "You know, this is an enormous relief to me, to know,
veritably, that you are no longer in danger. You gave me a fright ...
but a fright, my dear madame!"

She smiled in silence.

As he glanced inquiringly up and down the corridor, she said--

"I'm all alone in the flat. I'm disinfecting it."

"Then that is sulphur that I smell?"

She nodded. "Excuse me while I finish this door," she said.

He closed the front-door. "But you seem to be quite at home here!" he
observed.

"I ought to be," said she.

He glanced again inquiringly up and down the corridor. "And you are
really all alone now?" he asked, as though to be doubly sure.

She explained the circumstances.

"I owe you my most sincere excuses for bringing you here," he said
confidentially.

"But why?" she replied, looking intently at her door. "They have been
most kind to me. Nobody could have been kinder. And Madame Laurence
being such a good nurse----"

"It is true," said he. "That was a reason. In effect they are both very
good-natured little women.... You comprehend, as journalist it arrives
to me to know all kinds of people ..." He snapped his fingers ... "And
as we were opposite the house. In fine, I pray you to excuse me."

"Hold me this paper," she said. "It is necessary that every crack
should be covered; also between the floor and the door."

"You English are wonderful," he murmured, as he took the paper.
"Imagine you doing that! Then," he added, resuming the confidential
tone, "I suppose you will leave the Foucault now, hein?"

"I suppose so," she said carelessly.

"You go to England?"

She turned to him, as she patted the creases out of a strip of paper
with a duster, and shook her head.

"Not to England?"

"No."

"If it is not indiscreet, where are you going?"

"I don't know," she said candidly.

And she did not know. She was without a plan. Her brain told her that
she ought to return to Bursley, or, at the least, write. But her pride
would not hear of such a surrender. Her situation would have to be far
more desperate than it was before she could confess her defeat to her
family even in a letter. A thousand times no! That was a point which
she had for ever decided. She would face any disaster, and any other
shame, rather than the shame of her family's forgiving reception of her.

"And you?" she asked. "How does it go? This war?"

He told her, in a few words, a few leading facts about himself. "It
must not be said," he added of the war, "but that will turn out ill!
I--I know, you comprehend."

"Truly?" she answered with casualness.

"You have heard nothing of him?" Chirac asked.

"Who? Gerald?"

He gave a gesture.

"Nothing! Not a word! Nothing!"

"He will have gone back to England!"

"Never!" she said positively.

"But why not?"

"Because he prefers France. He really does like France. I think it is
the only real passion he ever had."

"It is astonishing," reflected Chirac, "how France is loved! And
yet...! But to live, what will he do? Must live!"

Sophia merely shrugged her shoulders.

"Then it is finished between you two?" he muttered awkwardly.

She nodded. She was on her knees, at the lower crack of the doors.

"There!" she said, rising. "It's well done, isn't it? That is all."

She smiled at him, facing him squarely, in the obscurity of the untidy
and shabby corridor. Both felt that they had become very intimate. He
was intensely flattered by her attitude, and she knew it.

"Now," she said, "I will take off my pinafore. Where can I niche you?
There is only my bedroom, and I want that. What are we to do?"

"Listen," he suggested diffidently. "Will you do me the honour to come
for a drive? That will do you good. There is sunshine. And you are
always very pale."

"With pleasure," she agreed cordially.

While dressing, she heard him walking up and down the corridor;
occasionally they exchanged a few words. Before leaving, Sophia pulled
off the paper from one of the key-holes of the sealed suite of rooms,
and they peered through, one after the other, and saw the green glow of
the sulphur, and were troubled by its uncanniness. And then Sophia
refixed the paper.

In descending the stairs of the house she felt the infirmity of her
knees; but in other respects, though she had been out only once before
since her illness, she was conscious of a sufficient strength. A
disinclination for any enterprise had prevented her from taking the air
as she ought to have done, but within the flat she had exercised her
limbs in many small tasks. The little Chirac, nervously active and
restless, wanted to take her arm, but she would not allow it.

The concierge and part of her family stared curiously at Sophia as she
passed under the archway, for the course of her illness had excited the
interest of the whole house. Just as the carriage was driving off, the
concierge came across the pavement and paid her compliments, and then
said:

"You do not know by hazard why Madame Foucault has not returned for
lunch, madame?"

"Returned for lunch!" said Sophia. "She will not come back till
to-morrow."

The concierge made a face. "Ah! How curious it is! She told my husband
that she would return in two hours. It is very grave! Question of
business."

"I know nothing, madame," said Sophia. She and Chirac looked at each
other. The concierge murmured thanks and went off muttering
indistinctly.

The fiacre turned down the Rue Laferriere, the horse slipping and
sliding as usual over the cobblestones. Soon they were on the
boulevard, making for the Champs Elysees and the Bois de Boulogne.

The fresh breeze and bright sunshine and the large freedom of the
streets quickly intoxicated Sophia--intoxicated her, that is to say, in
quite a physical sense. She was almost drunk, with the heady savour of
life itself. A mild ecstasy of well-being overcame her. She saw the
flat as a horrible, vile prison, and blamed herself for not leaving it
sooner and oftener. The air was medicine, for body and mind too. Her
perspective was instantly corrected. She was happy, living neither in
the past nor in the future, but in and for that hour. And beneath her
happiness moved a wistful melancholy for the Sophia who had suffered
such a captivity and such woes. She yearned for more and yet more
delight, for careless orgies of passionate pleasure, in the midst of
which she would forget all trouble. Why had she refused the offer of
Laurence? Why had she not rushed at once into the splendid fire of
joyous indulgence, ignoring everything but the crude, sensuous
instinct? Acutely aware as she was of her youth, her beauty, and her
charm, she wondered at her refusal. She did not regret her refusal. She
placidly observed it as the result of some tremendously powerful motive
in herself, which could not be questioned or reasoned with--which was,
in fact, the essential HER.

"Do I look like an invalid?" she asked, leaning back luxuriously in the
carriage among the crowd of other vehicles.

Chirac hesitated. "My faith! Yes!" he said at length. "But it becomes
you. If I did not know that you have little love for compliments, I--"

"But I adore compliments!" she exclaimed. "What made you think that?"

"Well, then," he youthfully burst out, "you are more ravishing than
ever."

She gave herself up deliciously to his admiration.

After a silence, he said: "Ah! if you knew how disquieted I was about
you, away there...! I should not know how to tell you. Veritably
disquieted, you comprehend! What could I do? Tell me a little about
your illness."

She recounted details.

As the fiacre entered the Rue Royale, they noticed a crowd of people in
front of the Madeleine shouting and cheering.

The cabman turned towards them. "It appears there has been a victory!"
he said.

"A victory! If only it was true!" murmured Chirac, cynically.

In the Rue Royale people were running frantically to and fro, laughing
and gesticulating in glee. The customers in the cafes stood on their
chairs, and even on tables, to watch, and occasionally to join in, the
sudden fever. The fiacre was slowed to a walking pace. Flags and
carpets began to show from the upper storeys of houses. The crowd grew
thicker and more febrile. "Victory! Victory!" rang hoarsely, shrilly,
and hoarsely again in the air.

"My God!" said Chirac, trembling. "It must be a true victory! We are
saved! We are saved! ... Oh yes, it is true!"

"But naturally it is true! What are you saying?" demanded the driver.

At the Place de la Concorde the fiacre had to stop altogether. The
immense square was a sea of white hats and flowers and happy faces,
with carriages anchored like boats on its surface. Flag after flag
waved out from neighbouring roofs in the breeze that tempered the
August sun. Then hats began to go up, and cheers rolled across the
square like echoes of firing in an enclosed valley. Chirac's driver
jumped madly on to his seat, and cracked his whip.

"Vive la France!" he bawled with all the force of his lungs.

A thousand throats answered him.

Then there was a stir behind them. Another carriage was being slowly
forced to the front. The crowd was pushing it, and crying,
"Marseillaise! Marseillaise!" In the carriage was a woman alone; not
beautiful, but distinguished, and with the assured gaze of one who is
accustomed to homage and multitudinous applause.

"It is Gueymard!" said Chirac to Sophia. He was very pale. And he too
shouted, "Marseillaise!" All his features were distorted.

The woman rose and spoke to her coachman, who offered his hand and she
climbed to the box seat, and stood on it and bowed several times.

"Marseillaise!" The cry continued. Then a roar of cheers, and then
silence spread round the square like an inundation. And amid this
silence the woman began to sing the Marseillaise. As she sang, the
tears ran down her cheeks. Everybody in the vicinity was weeping or
sternly frowning. In the pauses of the first verse could be heard the
rattle of horses' bits, or a whistle of a tug on the river. The
refrain, signalled by a proud challenging toss of Gueymard's head,
leapt up like a tropical tempest, formidable, overpowering. Sophia, who
had had no warning of the emotion gathering within her, sobbed
violently. At the close of the hymn Gueymard's carriage was assaulted
by worshippers. All around, in the tumult of shouting, men were kissing
and embracing each other; and hats went up continually in fountains.
Chirac leaned over the side of the carriage and wrung the hand of a man
who was standing by the wheel.

"Who is that?" Sophia asked, in an unsteady voice, to break the
inexplicable tension within her.

"I don't know," said Chirac. He was weeping like a child. And he sang
out: "Victory! To Berlin! Victory!"

V

Sophia walked alone, with tired limbs, up the damaged oak stairs to the
flat. Chirac had decided that, in the circumstances of the victory, he
would do well to go to the offices of his paper rather earlier than
usual. He had brought her back to the Rue Breda. They had taken leave
of each other in a sort of dream or general enchantment due to their
participation in the vast national delirium which somehow dominated
individual feelings. They did not define their relations. They had been
conscious only of emotion.

The stairs, which smelt of damp even in summer, disgusted Sophia. She
thought of the flat with horror and longed for green places and luxury.
On the landing were two stoutish, ill-dressed men, of middle age,
apparently waiting. Sophia found her key and opened the door.

"Pardon, madame!" said one of the men, raising his hat, and they both
pushed into the flat after her. They stared, puzzled, at the strips of
paper pasted on the doors.

"What do you want?" she asked haughtily. She was very frightened. The
extraordinary interruption brought her down with a shock to the scale
of the individual.

"I am the concierge," said the man who had addressed her. He had the
air of a superior artisan. "It was my wife who spoke to you this
afternoon. This," pointing to his companion, "this is the law. I regret
it, but ..."

The law saluted and shut the front door. Like the concierge, the law
emitted an odour--the odour of uncleanliness on a hot August day.

"The rent?" exclaimed Sophia.

"No, madame, not the rent: the furniture!"

Then she learnt the history of the furniture. It had belonged to the
concierge, who had acquired it from a previous tenant and sold it on
credit to Madame Foucault. Madame Foucault had signed bills and had not
met them. She had made promises and broken them. She had done
everything except discharge her liabilities. She had been warned and
warned again. That day had been fixed as the last limit, and she had
solemnly assured her creditor that on that day she would pay. On
leaving the house she had stated precisely and clearly that she would
return before lunch with all the money. She had made no mention of a
sick father.

Sophia slowly perceived the extent of Madame Foucault's duplicity and
moral cowardice. No doubt the sick father was an invention. The woman,
at the end of a tether which no ingenuity of lies could further
lengthen, had probably absented herself solely to avoid the pain of
witnessing the seizure. She would do anything, however silly, to avoid
an immediate unpleasantness. Or perhaps she had absented herself
without any particular aim, but simply in the hope that something
fortunate might occur. Perhaps she had hoped that Sophia, taken
unawares, would generously pay. Sophia smiled grimly.

"Well," she said. "I can't do anything. I suppose you must do what you
have to do. You will let me pack up my own affairs?"

"Perfectly, madame!"

She warned them as to the danger of opening the sealed rooms. The man
of the law seemed prepared to stay in the corridor indefinitely. No
prospect of delay disturbed him.

Strange and disturbing, the triumph of the concierge! He was a
locksmith by trade. He and his wife and their children lived in two
little dark rooms by the archway--an insignificant fragment of the
house. He was away from home about fourteen hours every day, except
Sundays, when he washed the courtyard. All the other duties of the
concierge were performed by the wife. The pair always looked poor,
untidy, dirty, and rather forlorn. But they were steadily levying toll
on everybody in the big house. They amassed money in forty ways. They
lived for money, and all men have what they live for. With what
arrogant gestures Madame Foucault would descend from a carriage at the
great door! What respectful attitudes and tones the ageing courtesan
would receive from the wife and children of the concierge! But beneath
these conventional fictions the truth was that the concierge held the
whip. At last he was using it. And he had given himself a half-holiday
in order to celebrate his second acquirement of the ostentatious
furniture and the crimson lampshades. This was one of the dramatic
crises in his career as a man of substance. The national thrill of
victory had not penetrated into the flat with the concierge and the
law. The emotions of the concierge were entirely independent of the
Napoleonic foreign policy.

As Sophia, sick with a sudden disillusion, was putting her things
together, and wondering where she was to go, and whether it would be
politic to consult Chirac, she heard a fluster at the front door:
cries, protestations, implorings. Her own door was thrust open, and
Madame Foucault burst in.

"Save me!" exclaimed Madame Foucault, sinking to the ground.

The feeble theatricality of the gesture offended Sophia's taste. She
asked sternly what Madame Foucault expected her to do. Had not Madame
Foucault knowingly exposed her, without the least warning, to the
extreme annoyance of this visit of the law, a visit which meant
practically that Sophia was put into the street?

"You must not be hard!" Madame Foucault sobbed.

Sophia learnt the complete history of the woman's efforts to pay for
the furniture: a farrago of folly and deceptions. Madame Foucault
confessed too much. Sophia scorned confession for the sake of
confession. She scorned the impulse which forces a weak creature to
insist on its weakness, to revel in remorse, and to find an excuse for
its conduct in the very fact that there is no excuse. She gathered that
Madame Foucault had in fact gone away in the hope that Sophia, trapped,
would pay; and that in the end, she had not even had the courage of her
own trickery, and had run back, driven by panic into audacity, to fall
at Sophia's feet, lest Sophia might not have yielded and the furniture
have been seized. From, beginning to end the conduct of Madame Foucault
had been fatuous and despicable and wicked. Sophia coldly condemned
Madame Foucault for having allowed herself to be brought into the world
with such a weak and maudlin character, and for having allowed herself
to grow old and ugly. As a sight the woman was positively disgraceful.

"Save me!" she exclaimed again. "I did what I could for you!"

Sophia hated her. But the logic of the appeal was irresistible.

"But what can I do?" she asked reluctantly.

"Lend me the money. You can. If you don't, this will be the end for me."

"And a good thing, too!" thought Sophia's hard sense.

"How much is it?" Sophia glumly asked.

"It isn't a thousand francs!" said Madame Foucault with eagerness. "All
my beautiful furniture will go for less than a thousand francs! Save
me!"

She was nauseating Sophia.

"Please rise," said Sophia, her hands fidgeting undecidedly.

"I shall repay you, surely!" Madame Foucault asseverated. "I swear!"

"Does she take me for a fool?" thought Sophia, "with her oaths!"

"No!" said Sophia. "I won't lend you the money. But I tell you what I
will do. I will buy the furniture at that price; and I will promise to
re-sell it to you as soon as you can pay me. Like that, you can be
tranquil. But I have very little money. I must have a guarantee. The
furniture must be mine till you pay me."

"You are an angel of charity!" cried Madame Foucault, embracing
Sophia's skirts. "I will do whatever you wish. Ah! You Englishwomen are
astonishing."

Sophia was not an angel of charity. What she had promised to do
involved sacrifice and anxiety without the prospect of reward. But it
was not charity. It was part of the price Sophia paid for the exercise
of her logical faculty; she paid it unwillingly. 'I did what I could
for you!' Sophia would have died sooner than remind any one of a
benefit conferred, and Madame Foucault had committed precisely that
enormity. The appeal was inexcusable to a fine mind; but it was
effective.

The men were behind the door, listening. Sophia paid out of her stock
of notes. Needless to say, the total was more and not less than a
thousand francs. Madame Foucault grew rapidly confidential with the
man. Without consulting Sophia, she asked the bailiff to draw up a
receipt transferring the ownership of all the furniture to Sophia; and
the bailiff, struck into obligingness by glimpses of Sophia's beauty,
consented to do so. There was much conferring upon forms of words, and
flourishing of pens between thick, vile fingers, and scattering of ink.

Before the men left Madame Foucault uncorked a bottle of wine for them,
and helped them to drink it. Throughout the evening she was
insupportably deferential to Sophia, who was driven to bed. Madame
Foucault contentedly went up to the sixth floor to occupy the servant's
bedroom. She was glad to get so far away from the sulphur, of which a
few faint fumes had penetrated into the corridor.

The next morning, after a stifling night of bad dreams, Sophia was too
ill to get up. She looked round at the furniture in the little room,
and she imagined the furniture in the other rooms, and dismally
thought: "All this furniture is mine. She will never pay me! I am
saddled with it."

It was cheaply bought, but she probably could not sell it for even what
she had paid. Still, the sense of ownership was reassuring.

The charwoman brought her coffee, and Chirac's newspaper; from which
she learnt that the news of the victory which had sent the city mad on
the previous day was utterly false. Tears came into her eyes as she
gazed absently at all the curtained windows of the courtyard. She had
youth and loveliness; according to the rules she ought to have been
irresponsible, gay, and indulgently watched over by the wisdom of
admiring age. But she felt towards the French nation as a mother might
feel towards adorable, wilful children suffering through their own
charming foolishness. She saw France personified in Chirac. How easily,
despite his special knowledge, he had yielded to the fever! Her heart
bled for France and Chirac on that morning of reaction and of truth.
She could not bear to recall the scene in the Place de la Concorde.
Madame Foucault had not descended.




CHAPTER VI

THE SIEGE

I


Madame Foucault came into Sophia's room one afternoon with a peculiar
guilty expression on her large face, and she held her peignoir close to
her exuberant body in folds consciously majestic, as though
endeavouring to prove to Sophia by her carriage that despite her
shifting eyes she was the most righteous and sincere woman that ever
lived.

It was Saturday, the third of September, a beautiful day. Sophia,
suffering from an unimportant relapse, had remained in a state of
inactivity, and had scarcely gone out at all. She loathed the flat, but
lacked the energy to leave it every day. There was no sufficiently
definite object in leaving it. She could not go out and look for health
as she might have looked for flowers. So she remained in the flat, and
stared at the courtyard and the continual mystery of lives hidden
behind curtains that occasionally moved. And the painted yellow walls
of the house, and the papered walls of her room pressed upon her and
crushed her. For a few days Chirac had called daily, animated by the
most adorable solicitude. Then he had ceased to call. She had tired of
reading the journals; they lay unopened. The relations between Madame
Foucault and herself, and her status in the flat of which she now
legally owned the furniture,--these things were left unsettled. But the
question of her board was arranged on the terms that she halved the
cost of food and service with Madame Foucault; her expenses were thus
reduced to the lowest possible--about eighteen francs a week. An idea
hung in the air--like a scientific discovery on the point of being made
by several independent investigators simultaneously--that she and
Madame Foucault should co-operate in order to let furnished rooms at a
remunerative profit. Sophia felt the nearness of the idea and she
wanted to be shocked at the notion of any avowed association between
herself and Madame Foucault; but she could not be.

"Here are a lady and a gentleman who want a bedroom," began Madame
Foucault, "a nice large bedroom, furnished."

"Oh!" said Sophia; "who are they?"

"They will pay a hundred and thirty francs a month, in advance, for the
middle bedroom."

"You've shown it to them already?" said Sophia. And her tone implied
that somehow she was conscious of a right to overlook the affair of
Madame Foucault.

"No," said the other. "I said to myself that first I would ask you for
a counsel."

"Then will they pay all that for a room they haven't seen?"

"The fact is," said Madame Foucault, sheepishly. "The lady has seen the
room before. I know her a little. It is a former tenant. She lived here
some weeks."

"In that room?"

"Oh no! She was poor enough then."

"Where are they?"

"In the corridor. She is very well, the lady. Naturally one must live,
she like all the world; but she is veritably well. Quite respectable!
One would never say ... Then there would be the meals. We could demand
one franc for the cafe au lait, two and a half francs for the lunch,
and three francs for the dinner. Without counting other things. That
would mean over five hundred francs a month, at least. And what would
they cost us? Almost nothing! By what appears, he is a plutocrat ... I
could thus quickly repay you."

"Is it a married couple?"

"Ah! You know, one cannot demand the marriage certificate." Madame
Foucault indicated by a gesture that the Rue Breda was not the paradise
of saints.

"When she came before, this lady, was it with the same man?" Sophia
asked coldly.

"Ah, my faith, no!" exclaimed Madame Foucault, bridling. "It was a bad
sort, the other, a...! Ah, no."

"Why do you ask my advice?" Sophia abruptly questioned, in a hard,
inimical voice. "Is it that it concerns me?"

Tears came at once into the eyes of Madame Foucault. "Do not be
unkind," she implored.

"I'm not unkind," said Sophia, in the same tone.

"Shall you leave me if I accept this offer?"

There was a pause.

"Yes," said Sophia, bluntly. She tried to be large-hearted,
large-minded, and sympathetic; but there was no sign of these qualities
in her speech.

"And if you take with you the furniture which is yours...!"

Sophia kept silence.

"How am I to live, I demand of you?" Madame Foucault asked weakly.

"By being respectable and dealing with respectable people!" said
Sophia, uncompromisingly, in tones of steel.

"I am unhappy!" murmured the elder woman. "However, you are more strong
than I!"

She brusquely dabbed her eyes, gave a little sob, and ran out of the
room. Sophia listened at the door, and heard her dismiss the would-be
tenants of the best bedroom. She wondered that she should possess such
moral ascendancy over the woman, she so young and ingenuous! For, of
course, she had not meant to remove the furniture. She could hear
Madame Foucault sobbing quietly in one of the other rooms; and her lips
curled.

Before evening a truly astonishing event happened. Perceiving that
Madame Foucault showed no signs of bestirring herself, Sophia, with
good nature in her heart but not on her tongue, went to her, and said:

"Shall I occupy myself with the dinner?"

Madame Foucault sobbed more loudly.

"That would be very amiable on your part," Madame Foucault managed at
last to reply, not very articulately.

Sophia put a hat on and went to the grocer's. The grocer, who kept a
busy establishment at the corner of the Rue Clausel, was a middle-aged
and wealthy man. He had sent his young wife and two children to
Normandy until victory over the Prussians should be more assured, and
he asked Sophia whether it was true that there was a good bedroom to
let in the flat where she lived. His servant was ill of smallpox; he
was attacked by anxieties and fears on all sides; he would not enter
his own flat on account of possible infection; he liked Sophia, and
Madame Foucault had been a customer of his, with intervals, for twenty
years. Within an hour he had arranged to rent the middle bedroom at
eighty francs a month, and to take his meals there. The terms were
modest, but the respectability was prodigious. All the glory of this
tenancy fell upon Sophia.

Madame Foucault was deeply impressed. Characteristically she began at
once to construct a theory that Sophia had only to walk out of the
house in order to discover ideal tenants for the rooms. Also she
regarded the advent of the grocer as a reward from Providence for her
self-denial in refusing the profits of sinfulness. Sophia felt
personally responsible to the grocer for his comfort, and so she
herself undertook the preparation of the room. Madame Foucault was
amazed at the thoroughness of her housewifery, and at the ingenuity of
her ideas for the arrangement of furniture. She sat and watched with
admiration sycophantic but real.

That night, when Sophia was in bed, Madame Foucault came into the room,
and dropped down by the side of the bed, and begged Sophia to be her
moral support for ever. She confessed herself generally. She explained
how she had always hated the negation of respectability; how
respectability was the one thing that she had all her life passionately
desired. She said that if Sophia would be her partner in the letting of
furnished rooms to respectable persons, she would obey her in
everything. She gave Sophia a list of all the traits in Sophia's
character which she admired. She asked Sophia to influence her, to
stand by her. She insisted that she would sleep on the sixth floor in
the servant's tiny room; and she had a vision of three bedrooms let to
successful tradesmen. She was in an ecstasy of repentance and good
intentions.

Sophia consented to the business proposition; for she had nothing else
whatever in prospect, and she shared Madame Foucault's rosy view about
the remunerativeness of the bedrooms. With three tenants who took meals
the two women would be able to feed themselves for nothing and still
make a profit on the food; and the rents would be clear gain.

And she felt very sorry for the ageing, feckless Madame Foucault, whose
sincerity was obvious. The association between them would be strange;
it would have been impossible to explain it to St. Luke's Square....
And yet, if there was anything at all in the virtue of Christian
charity, what could properly be urged against the association?

"Ah!" murmured Madame Foucault, kissing Sophia's hands, "it is to-day,
then, that I recommence my life. You will see--you will see! You have
saved me!"

It was a strange sight, the time-worn, disfigured courtesan, half
prostrate before the beautiful young creature proud and unassailable in
the instinctive force of her own character. It was almost a didactic
tableau, fraught with lessons for the vicious. Sophia was happier than
she had been for years. She had a purpose in existence; she had a fluid
soul to mould to her will according to her wisdom; and there was a
large compassion to her credit. Public opinion could not intimidate
her, for in her case there was no public opinion; she knew nobody;
nobody had the right to question her doings.

The next day, Sunday, they both worked hard at the bedrooms from early
morning. The grocer was installed in his chamber, and the two other
rooms were cleansed as they had never been cleansed. At four o'clock,
the weather being more magnificent than ever, Madame Foucault said:

"If we took a promenade on the boulevard?"

Sophia reflected. They were partners. "Very well," she agreed.

The boulevard was crammed with gay, laughing crowds. All the cafes were
full. None, who did not know, could have guessed that the news of Sedan
was scarcely a day old in the capital. Delirious joy reigned in the
glittering sunshine. As the two women strolled along, content with
their industry and their resolves, they came to a National Guard, who,
perched on a ladder, was chipping away the "N" from the official sign
of a court-tradesman. He was exchanging jokes with a circle of open
mouths. It was in this way that Madame Foucault and Sophia learnt of
the establishment of a republic.

"Vive la republique!" cried Madame Foucault, incontinently, and then
apologized to Sophia for the lapse.

They listened a long while to a man who was telling strange histories
of the Empress.

Suddenly Sophia noticed that Madame Foucault was no longer at her
elbow. She glanced about, and saw her in earnest conversation with a
young man whose face seemed familiar. She remembered it was the young
man with whom Madame Foucault had quarrelled on the night when Sophia
found her prone in the corridor; the last remaining worshipper of the
courtesan.

The woman's face was quite changed by her agitation. Sophia drew away,
offended. She watched the pair from a distance for a few moments, and
then, furious in disillusion, she escaped from the fever of the
boulevards and walked quietly home. Madame Foucault did not return.
Apparently Madame Foucault was doomed to be the toy of chance. Two days
later Sophia received a scrawled letter from her, with the information
that her lover had required that she should accompany him to Brussels,
as Paris would soon be getting dangerous. "He adores me always. He is
the most delicious boy. As I have always said, this is the grand
passion of my life. I am happy. He would not permit me to come to you.
He has spent two thousand francs on clothes for me, since naturally I
had nothing." And so on. No word of apology. Sophia, in reading the
letter, allowed for a certain exaggeration and twisting of the truth.

"Young fool! Fool!" she burst out angrily. She did not mean herself;
she meant the fatuous adorer of that dilapidated, horrible woman. She
never saw her again. Doubtless Madame Foucault fulfilled her own
prediction as to her ultimate destiny, but in Brussels.

II

Sophia still possessed about a hundred pounds, and had she chosen to
leave Paris and France, there was nothing to prevent her from doing so.
Perhaps if she had chanced to visit the Gare St. Lazare or the Gare du
Nord, the sight of tens of thousands of people flying seawards might
have stirred in her the desire to flee also from the vague coming
danger. But she did not visit those termini; she was too busy looking
after M. Niepce, her grocer. Moreover, she would not quit her
furniture, which seemed to her to be a sort of rock. With a flat full
of furniture she considered that she ought to be able to devise a
livelihood; the enterprise of becoming independent was already indeed
begun. She ardently wished to be independent, to utilize in her own
behalf the gifts of organization, foresight, commonsense and tenacity
which she knew she possessed and which had lain idle. And she hated the
idea of flight.

Chirac returned as unexpectedly as he had gone; an expedition for his
paper had occupied him. With his lips he urged her to go, but his eyes
spoke differently. He had, one afternoon, a mood of candid despair,
such as he would have dared to show only to one in whom he felt great
confidence. "They will come to Paris," he said; "nothing can stop them.
And ... then...!" He gave a cynical laugh. But when he urged her to go
she said:

"And what about my furniture? And I've promised M. Niepce to look after
him."

Then Chirac informed her that he was without a lodging, and that he
would like to rent one of her rooms. She agreed.

Shortly afterwards he introduced a middle-aged acquaintance named
Carlier, the secretary-general of his newspaper, who wished to rent a
bedroom. Thus by good fortune Sophia let all her rooms immediately, and
was sure of over two hundred francs a month, apart from the profit on
meals supplied. On this latter occasion Chirac (and his companion too)
was quite optimistic, reiterating an absolute certitude that Paris
could never be invested. Briefly, Sophia did not believe him. She
believed the candidly despairing Chirac. She had no information, no
wide theory, to justify her pessimism; nothing but the inward
conviction that the race capable of behaving as she had seen it behave
in the Place de la Concorde, was bound to be defeated. She loved the
French race; but all the practical Teutonic sagacity in her wanted to
take care of it in its difficulties, and was rather angry with it for
being so unfitted to take care of itself.

She let the men talk, and with careless disdain of their discussions
and their certainties she went about her business of preparation. At
this period, overworked and harassed by novel responsibilities and
risks, she was happier, for days together, than she had ever been,
simply because she had a purpose in life and was depending upon
herself. Her ignorance of the military and political situation was
complete; the situation did not interest her. What interested her was
that she had three men to feed wholly or partially, and that the price
of eatables was rising. She bought eatables. She bought fifty pecks of
potatoes at a franc a peck, and another fifty pecks at a franc and a
quarter--double the normal price; ten hams at two and a half francs a
pound; a large quantity of tinned vegetables and fruits, a sack of
flour, rice, biscuits, coffee, Lyons sausage, dried prunes, dried figs,
and much wood and charcoal. But the chief of her purchases was cheese,
of which her mother used to say that bread and cheese and water made a
complete diet. Many of these articles she obtained from her grocer. All
of them, except the flour and the biscuits, she stored in the cellar
belonging to the flat; after several days' delay, for the Parisian
workmen were too elated by the advent of a republic to stoop to labour,
she caused a new lock to be fixed on the cellar-door. Her activities
were the sensation of the house. Everybody admired, but no one imitated.

One morning, on going to do her marketing, she found a notice across
the shuttered windows of her creamery in the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette:
"Closed for want of milk." The siege had begun. It was in the closing
of the creamery that the siege was figured for her; in this, and in
eggs at five sous a piece. She went elsewhere for her milk and paid a
franc a litre for it. That evening she told her lodgers that the price
of meals would be doubled, and that if any gentleman thought that he
could get equally good meals elsewhere, he was at liberty to get them
elsewhere. Her position was strengthened by the appearance of another
candidate for a room, a friend of Niepce. She at once offered him her
own room, at a hundred and fifty francs a month.

"You see," she said, "there is a piano in it."

"But I don't play the piano," the man protested, shocked at the price.

"That is not my fault," she said.

He agreed to pay the price demanded for the room because of the
opportunity of getting good meals much cheaper than in the restaurants.
Like M. Niepce, he was a 'siege-widower,' his wife having been put
under shelter in Brittany. Sophia took to the servant's bedroom on the
sixth floor. It measured nine feet by seven, and had no window save a
skylight; but Sophia was in a fair way to realize a profit of at least
four pounds a week, after paying for everything.

On the night when she installed herself in that chamber, amid a world
of domestics and poor people, she worked very late, and the rays of her
candles shot up intermittently through the skylight into a black
heaven; at intervals she flitted up and down the stairs with a candle.
Unknown to her a crowd gradually formed opposite the house in the
street, and at about one o'clock in the morning a file of soldiers woke
the concierge and invaded the courtyard, and every window was suddenly
populated with heads. Sophia was called upon to prove that she was not
a spy signalling to the Prussians. Three quarters of an hour passed
before her innocence was established and the staircases cleared of
uniforms and dishevelled curiosity. The childish, impossible unreason
of the suspicion against her completed in Sophia's mind the ruin of the
reputation of the French people as a sensible race. She was extremely
caustic the next day to her boarders. Except for this episode, the
frequency of military uniforms in the streets, the price of food, and
the fact that at least one house in four was flying either the
ambulance flag or the flag of a foreign embassy (in an absurd hope of
immunity from the impending bombardment) the siege did not exist for
Sophia. The men often talked about their guard-duty, and disappeared
for a day or two to the ramparts, but she was too busy to listen to
them. She thought of nothing but her enterprise, which absorbed all her
powers. She arose at six a.m., in the dark, and by seven-thirty M.
Niepce and his friend had been served with breakfast, and much general
work was already done. At eight o'clock she went out to market. When
asked why she continued to buy at a high price, articles of which she
had a store, she would reply: "I am keeping all that till things are
much dearer." This was regarded as astounding astuteness.

On the fifteenth of October she paid the quarter's rent of the flat,
four hundred francs, and was accepted as tenant. Her ears were soon
quite accustomed to the sound of cannon, and she felt that she had
always been a citizeness of Paris, and that Paris had always been
besieged. She did not speculate about the end of the siege; she lived
from day to day. Occasionally she had a qualm of fear, when the firing
grew momentarily louder, or when she heard that battles had been fought
in such and such a suburb. But then she said it was absurd to be afraid
when you were with a couple of million people, all in the same plight
as yourself. She grew reconciled to everything. She even began to like
her tiny bedroom, partly because it was so easy to keep warm (the
question of artificial heat was growing acute in Paris), and partly
because it ensured her privacy. Down in the flat, whatever was done or
said in one room could be more or less heard in all the others, owing
to the prevalence of doors.

Her existence, in the first half of November, had become regular with a
monotony almost absolute. Only the number of meals served to her
boarders varied slightly from day to day. All these repasts, save now
and then one in the evening, were carried into the bedrooms by the
charwoman. Sophia did not allow herself to be seen much, except in the
afternoons. Though Sophia continued to increase her prices, and was now
selling her stores at an immense profit, she never approached the
prices current outside. She was very indignant against the exploitation
of Paris by its shopkeepers, who had vast supplies of provender, and
were hoarding for the rise. But the force of their example was too
great for her to ignore it entirely; she contented herself with about
half their gains. Only to M. Niepce did she charge more than to the
others, because he was a shopkeeper. The four men appreciated their
paradise. In them developed that agreeable feeling of security which
solitary males find only under the roof of a landlady who is at once
prompt, honest, and a votary of cleanliness. Sophia hung a slate near
the frontdoor, and on this slate they wrote their requests for meals,
for being called, for laundry-work, etc. Sophia never made a mistake,
and never forgot. The perfection of the domestic machine amazed these
men, who had been accustomed to something quite different, and who
every day heard harrowing stories of discomfort and swindling from
their acquaintances. They even admired Sophia for making them pay, if
not too high, still high. They thought it wonderful that she should
tell them the price of all things in advance, and even show them how to
avoid expense, particularly in the matter of warmth. She arranged rugs
for each of them, so that they could sit comfortably in their rooms
with nothing but a small charcoal heater for the hands. Quite naturally
they came to regard her as the paragon and miracle of women. They
endowed her with every fine quality. According to them there had never
been such a woman in the history of mankind; there could not have been!
She became legendary among their friends: a young and elegant creature,
surpassingly beautiful, proud, queenly, unapproachable, scarcely
visible, a marvellous manager, a fine cook and artificer of strange
English dishes, utterly reliable, utterly exact and with habits of
order...! They adored the slight English accent which gave a touch of
the exotic to her very correct and freely idiomatic French. In short,
Sophia was perfect for them, an impossible woman. Whatever she did was
right.

And she went up to her room every night with limbs exhausted, but with
head clear enough to balance her accounts and go through her money. She
did this in bed with thick gloves on. If often she did not sleep well,
it was not because of the distant guns, but because of her
preoccupation with the subject of finance. She was making money, and
she wanted to make more. She was always inventing ways of economy. She
was so anxious to achieve independence that money was always in her
mind. She began to love gold, to love hoarding it, and to hate paying
it away.

One morning her charwoman, who by good fortune was nearly as precise as
Sophia herself, failed to appear. When the moment came for serving M.
Niepce's breakfast, Sophia hesitated, and then decided to look after
the old man personally. She knocked at his door, and went boldly in
with the tray and candle. He started at seeing her; she was wearing a
blue apron, as the charwoman did, but there could be no mistaking her
for the charwoman. Niepce looked older in bed than when dressed. He had
a rather ridiculous, undignified appearance, common among old men
before their morning toilette is achieved; and a nightcap did not
improve it. His rotund paunch lifted the bedclothes, upon which, for
the sake of extra warmth, he had spread unmajestic garments. Sophia
smiled to herself; but the contempt implied by that secret smile was
softened by the thought: "Poor old man!" She told him briefly that she
supposed the charwoman to be ill. He coughed and moved nervously. His
benevolent and simple face beamed on her paternally as she fixed the
tray by the bed.

"I really must open the window for one little second," she said, and
did so. The chill air of the street came through the closed shutters,
and the old man made a noise as of shivering. She pushed back the
shutters, and closed the window, and then did the same with the other
two windows. It was almost day in the room.

"You will no longer need the candle," she said, and came back to the
bedside to extinguish it.

The benign and fatherly old man put his arm round her waist. Fresh from
the tonic of pure air, and with the notion of his ridiculousness still
in her mind, she was staggered for an instant by this gesture. She had
never given a thought to the temperament of the old grocer, the husband
of a young wife. She could not always imaginatively keep in mind the
effect of her own radiance, especially under such circumstances. But
after an instant her precocious cynicism, which had slept, sprang up.
"Naturally! I might have expected it!" she thought with blasting scorn.

"Take away your hand!" she said bitterly to the amiable old fool. She
did not stir.

He obeyed, sheepishly.

"Do you wish to remain with me?" she asked, and as he did not
immediately answer, she said in a most commanding tone: "Answer, then!"

"Yes," he said feebly.

"Well, behave properly."

She went towards the door.

"I wished only--" he stammered.

"I do not wish to know what you wished," she said.

Afterwards she wondered how much of the incident had been overheard.
The other breakfasts she left outside the respective doors; and in
future Niepce's also.

The charwoman never came again. She had caught smallpox and she died of
it, thus losing a good situation. Strange to say, Sophia did not
replace her; the temptation to save her wages and food was too strong.
She could not, however, stand waiting for hours at the door of the
official baker and the official butcher, one of a long line of frozen
women, for the daily rations of bread and tri-weekly rations of meat.
She employed the concierge's boy, at two sous an hour, to do this.
Sometimes he would come in with his hands so blue and cold that he
could scarcely hold the precious cards which gave the right to the
rations and which cost Chirac an hour or two of waiting at the mayoral
offices each week. Sophia might have fed her flock without resorting to
the official rations, but she would not sacrifice the economy which
they represented. She demanded thick clothes for the concierge's boy,
and received boots from Chirac, gloves from Carlier, and a great
overcoat from Niepce. The weather increased in severity, and provisions
in price. One day she sold to the wife of a chemist who lived on the
first floor, for a hundred and ten francs, a ham for which she had paid
less than thirty francs. She was conscious of a thrill of joy in
receiving a beautiful banknote and a gold coin in exchange for a mere
ham. By this time her total cash resources had grown to nearly five
thousand francs. It was astounding. And the reserves in the cellar were
still considerable, and the sack of flour that encumbered the kitchen
was still more than half full. The death of the faithful charwoman,
when she heard of it, produced but little effect on Sophia, who was so
overworked and so completely absorbed in her own affairs that she had
no nervous energy to spare for sentimental regrets. The charwoman, by
whose side she had regularly passed many hours in the kitchen, so that
she knew every crease in her face and fold of her dress, vanished out
of Sophia's memory.

Sophia cleaned and arranged two of the bedrooms in the morning, and two
in the afternoon. She had stayed in hotels where fifteen bedrooms were
in charge of a single chambermaid, and she thought it would be hard if
she could not manage four in the intervals of cooking and other work!
This she said to herself by way of excuse for not engaging another
charwoman. One afternoon she was rubbing the brass knobs of the
numerous doors in M. Niepce's room, when the grocer unexpectedly came
in.

She glanced at him sharply. There was a self-conscious look in his eye.
He had entered the flat noiselessly. She remembered having told him, in
response to a question, that she now did his room in the afternoon. Why
should he have left his shop? He hung up his hat behind the door, with
the meticulous care of an old man. Then he took off his overcoat and
rubbed his hands.

"You do well to wear gloves, madame," he said. "It is dog's weather."

"I do not wear them for the cold," she replied. "I wear them so as not
to spoil my hands."

"Ah! truly! Very well! Very well! May I demand some wood? Where shall I
find it? I do not wish to derange you."

She refused his help, and brought wood from the kitchen, counting the
logs audibly before him.

"Shall I light the fire now?" she asked.

"I will light it," he said.

"Give me a match, please."

As she was arranging the wood and paper, he said: "Madame, will you
listen to me?"

"What is it?"

"Do not be angry," he said. "Have I not proved that I am capable of
respecting you? I continue in that respect. It is with all that respect
that I say to you that I love you, madame.... No, remain calm, I
implore you!" The fact was that Sophia showed no sign of not remaining
calm. "It is true that I have a wife. But what do you wish...? She is
far away. I love you madly," he proceeded with dignified respect. "I
know I am old; but I am rich. I understand your character. You are a
lady, you are decided, direct, sincere, and a woman of business. I have
the greatest respect for you. One can talk to you as one could not to
another woman. You prefer directness and sincerity. Madame, I will give
you two thousand francs a month, and all you require from my shop, if
you will be amiable to me. I am very solitary, I need the society of a
charming creature who would be sympathetic. Two thousand francs a
month. It is money."

He wiped his shiny head with his hand.

Sophia was bending over the fire. She turned her head towards him.

"Is that all?" she said quietly.

"You could count on my discretion," he said in a low voice. "I
appreciate your scruples. I would come, very late, to your room on the
sixth. One could arrange ... You see, I am direct, like you."

She had an impulse to order him tempestuously out of the flat; but it
was not a genuine impulse. He was an old fool. Why not treat him as
such? To take him seriously would be absurd. Moreover, he was a very
remunerative boarder.

"Do not be stupid," she said with cruel tranquillity. "Do not be an old
fool."

And the benign but fatuous middle-aged lecher saw the enchanting vision
of Sophia, with her natty apron and her amusing gloves, sweep and fade
from the room. He left the house, and the expensive fire warmed an
empty room.

Sophia was angry with him. He had evidently planned the proposal. If
capable of respect, he was evidently also capable of chicane. But she
supposed these Frenchmen were all alike: disgusting; and decided that
it was useless to worry over a universal fact. They had simply no
shame, and she had been very prudent to establish herself far away on
the sixth floor. She hoped that none of the other boarders had
overheard Niepce's outrageous insolence. She was not sure if Chirac was
not writing in his room.

That night there was no sound of cannon in the distance, and Sophia for
some time was unable to sleep. She woke up with a start, after a doze,
and struck a match to look at her watch. It had stopped. She had
forgotten to wind it up, which omission indicated that the grocer had
perturbed her more than she thought. She could not be sure how long she
had slept. The hour might be two o'clock or it might be six o'clock.
Impossible for her to rest! She got up and dressed (in case it should
be as late as she feared) and crept down the interminable creaking
stairs with the candle. As she descended, the conviction that it was
the middle of the night grew upon her, and she stepped more softly.
There was no sound save that caused by her footfalls. With her latchkey
she cautiously opened the front door of the flat and entered. She could
then hear the noisy ticking of the small, cheap clock in the kitchen.
At the same moment another door creaked, and Chirac, with hair all
tousled, but fully dressed, appeared in the corridor.

"So you have decided to sell yourself to him!" Chirac whispered.

She drew away instinctively, and she could feel herself blushing. She
was at a loss. She saw that Chirac was in a furious rage, tremendously
moved. He crept towards her, half crouching. She had never seen
anything so theatrical as his movement, and the twitching of his face.
She felt that she too ought to be theatrical, that she ought nobly to
scorn his infamous suggestion, his unwarrantable attack. Even supposing
that she had decided to sell herself to the old pasha, did that concern
him? A dignified silence, an annihilating glance, were all that he
deserved. But she was not capable of this heroic behaviour.

"What time is it?" she added weakly.

"Three o'clock," Chirac sneered.

"I forgot to wind up my watch," she said. "And so I came down to see."

"In effect!" He spoke sarcastically, as if saying: "I've waited for
you, and here you are."

She said to herself that she owed him nothing, but all the time she
felt that he and she were the only young people in that flat, and that
she did owe to him the proof that she was guiltless of the supreme
dishonour of youth. She collected her forces and looked at him.

"You should be ashamed," she said. "You will wake the others."

"And M. Niepce--will he need to be wakened?"

"M. Niepce is not here," she said.

Niepce's door was unlatched. She pushed it open, and went into the
room, which was empty and bore no sign of having been used.

"Come and satisfy yourself!" she insisted.

Chirac did so. His face fell.

She took her watch from her pocket.

"And now wind my watch, and set it, please."

She saw that he was in anguish. He could not take the watch. Tears came
into his eyes. Then he hid his face, and dashed away. She heard a
sob-impeded murmur that sounded like, "Forgive me!" and the banging of
a door. And in the stillness she heard the regular snoring of M.
Carlier. She too cried. Her vision was blurred by a mist, and she
stumbled into the kitchen and seized the clock, and carried it with her
upstairs, and shivered in the intense cold of the night. She wept
gently for a very long time. "What a shame! What a shame!" she said to
herself. Yet she did not quite blame Chirac. The frost drove her into
bed, but not to sleep. She continued to cry. At dawn her eyes were
inflamed with weeping. She was back in the kitchen then. Chirac's door
was wide open. He had left the flat. On the slate was written, "I shall
not take meals to-day."

III

Their relations were permanently changed. For several days they did not
meet at all; and when at the end of the week Chirac was obliged at last
to face Sophia in order to pay his bill, he had a most grievous
expression. It was obvious that he considered himself a criminal
without any defence to offer for his crime. He seemed to make no
attempt to hide his state of mind. But he said nothing. As for Sophia,
she preserved a mien of amiable cheerfulness. She exerted herself to
convince him by her attitude that she bore no resentment, that she had
determined to forget the incident, that in short she was the forgiving
angel of his dreams. She did not, however, succeed entirely in being
quite natural. Confronted by his misery, it would have been impossible
for her to be quite natural, and at the same time quite cheerful!

A little later the social atmosphere of the flat began to grow
querulous, disputatious and perverse. The nerves of everybody were
seriously strained. This applied to the whole city. Days of heavy rains
followed the sharp frosts, and the town was, as it were, sodden with
woe. The gates were closed. And though nine-tenths of the inhabitants
never went outside the gates, the definite and absolute closing of them
demoralized all hearts. Gas was no longer supplied. Rats, cats, and
thorough-bred horses were being eaten and pronounced 'not bad.' The
siege had ceased to be a novelty. Friends did not invite one another to
a 'siege-dinner' as to a picnic. Sophia, fatigued by regular overwork,
became weary of the situation. She was angry with the Prussians for
dilatoriness, and with the French for inaction, and she poured out her
English spleen on her boarders. The boarders told each other in secret
that the patronne was growing formidable. Chiefly she bore a grudge
against the shopkeepers; and when, upon a rumour of peace, the
shop-windows one day suddenly blossomed with prodigious quantities of
all edibles, at highest prices, thus proving that the famine was
artificially created, Sophia was furious. M. Niepce in particular,
though he sold goods to her at a special discount, suffered
indignities. A few days later that benign and fatherly man put himself
lamentably in the wrong by attempting to introduce into his room a
charming young creature who knew how to be sympathetic. Sophia, by an
accident unfortunate for the grocer, caught them in the corridor. She
was beside herself, but the only outward symptoms were a white face and
a cold steely voice that grated like a rasp on the susceptibilities of
the adherents of Aphrodite. At this period Sophia had certainly
developed into a termagant--without knowing it!

She would often insist now on talking about the siege, and hearing
everything that the men could tell her. Her comments, made without the
least regard for the justifiable delicacy of their feelings as
Frenchmen, sometimes led to heated exchanges. When all Montmartre and
the Quartier Breda was impassioned by the appearance from outside of
the Thirty-second battalion, she took the side of the populace, and
would not credit the solemn statement of the journalists, proved by
documents, that these maltreated soldiers were not cowards in flight.
She supported the women who had spit in the faces of the Thirty-second.
She actually said that if she had met them, she would have spit too.
Really, she was convinced of the innocence of the Thirty-second, but
something prevented her from admitting it. The dispute ended with high
words between herself and Chirac.

The next day Chirac came home at an unusual hour, knocked at the
kitchen door, and said:

"I must give notice to leave you."

"Why?" she demanded curtly.

She was kneading flour and water for a potato-cake. Her potato-cakes
were the joy of the household.

"My paper has stopped!" said Chirac.

"Oh!" she added thoughtfully, but not looking at him. "That is no
reason why you should leave."

"Yes," he said. "This place is beyond my means. I do not need to tell
you that in ceasing to appear the paper has omitted to pay its debts.
The house owes me a month's salary. So I must leave."

"No!" said Sophia. "You can pay me when you have money."

He shook his head. "I have no intention of accepting your kindness."

"Haven't you got any money?" she abruptly asked.

"None," said he. "It is the disaster--quite simply!"

"Then you will be forced to get into debt somewhere."

"Yes, but not here! Not to you!"

"Truly, Chirac," she exclaimed, with a cajoling voice, "you are not
reasonable."

"Nevertheless it is like that!" he said with decision.

"Eh, well!" she turned on him menacingly. "It will not be like that!
You understand me? You will stay. And you will pay me when you can.
Otherwise we shall quarrel. Do you imagine I shall tolerate your
childishness? Just because you were angry last night----"

"It is not that," he protested. "You ought to know it is not that."
(She did.) "It is solely that I cannot permit myself to----"

"Enough!" she cried peremptorily, stopping him. And then in a quieter
tone, "And what about Carlier? Is he also in the ditch?"

"Ah! he has money," said Chirac, with sad envy.

"You also, one day," said she. "You stop--in any case until after
Christmas, or we quarrel. Is it agreed?" Her accent had softened.

"You are too good!" he yielded. "I cannot quarrel with you. But it
pains me to accept--"

"Oh!" she snapped, dropping into the vulgar idiom, "you make me sweat
with your stupid pride. Is it that that you call friendship? Go away
now. How do you wish that I should succeed with this cake while you
station yourself there to distract me?"

IV

But in three days' Chirac, with amazing luck, fell into another
situation, and on the Journal des Debats. It was the Prussians who had
found him a place. The celebrated Payenneville, second greatest
chroniqueur of his time, had caught a cold while doing his duty as a
national guard, and had died of pneumonia. The weather was severe
again; soldiers were being frozen to death at Aubervilliers.
Payenneville's position was taken by another man, whose post was
offered to Chirac. He told Sophia of his good fortune with unconcealed
vanity.

"You with your smile!" she said impatiently. "One can refuse you
nothing!"

She behaved just as though Chirac had disgusted her. She humbled him.
But with his fellow-lodgers his airs of importance as a member of the
editorial staff of the Debats were comical in their ingenuousness. On
the very same day Carlier gave notice to leave Sophia. He was
comparatively rich; but the habits which had enabled him to arrive at
independence in the uncertain vocation of a journalist would not allow
him, while he was earning nothing, to spend a sou more than was
absolutely necessary. He had decided to join forces with a widowed
sister, who was accustomed to parsimony as parsimony is understood in
France, and who was living on hoarded potatoes and wine.

"There!" said Sophia, "you have lost me a tenant!"

And she insisted, half jocularly and half seriously, that Carlier was
leaving because he could not stand Chirac's infantile conceit. The flat
was full of acrimonious words.

On Christmas morning Chirac lay in bed rather late; the newspapers did
not appear that day. Paris seemed to be in a sort of stupor. About
eleven o'clock he came to the kitchen door.

"I must speak with you," he said. His tone impressed Sophia.

"Enter," said she.

He went in, and closed the door like a conspirator. "We must have a
little fete," he said. "You and I."

"Fete!" she repeated. "What an idea! How can I leave?"

If the idea had not appealed to the secrecies of her heart, stirring
desires and souvenirs upon which the dust of time lay thick, she would
not have begun by suggesting difficulties; she would have begun by a
flat refusal.

"That is nothing," he said vigorously. "It is Christmas, and I must
have a chat with you. We cannot chat here. I have not had a true little
chat with you since you were ill. You will come with me to a restaurant
for lunch."

She laughed. "And the lunch of my lodgers?"

"You will serve it a little earlier. We will go out immediately
afterwards, and we will return in time for you to prepare dinner. It is
quite simple."

She shook her head. "You are mad," she said crossly.

"It is necessary that I should offer you something," he went on
scowling. "You comprehend me? I wish you to lunch with me to-day. I
demand it, and you are not going to refuse me."

He was very close to her in the little kitchen, and he spoke fiercely,
bullyingly, exactly as she had spoken to him when insisting that he
should live on credit with her for a while.

"You are very rude," she parried.

"If I am rude, it is all the same to me," he held out uncompromisingly.
"You will lunch with me; I hold to it."

"How can I be dressed?" she protested.

"That does not concern me. Arrange that as you can."

It was the most curious invitation to a Christmas dinner imaginable.

At a quarter past twelve they issued forth side by side, heavily clad,
into the mournful streets. The sky, slate-coloured, presaged snow. The
air was bitterly cold, and yet damp. There were no fiacres in the
little three-cornered place which forms the mouth of the Rue Clausel.
In the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, a single empty omnibus was toiling up
the steep glassy slope, the horses slipping and recovering themselves
in response to the whip-cracking, which sounded in the streets as in an
empty vault. Higher up, in the Rue Fontaine, one of the few shops that
were open displayed this announcement: "A large selection of cheeses
for New Year's gifts." They laughed.

"Last year at this moment," said Chirac, "I was thinking of only one
thing--the masked ball at the opera. I could not sleep after it. This
year even the churches, are not open. And you?"

She put her lips together. "Do not ask me," she said.

They proceeded in silence.

"We are triste, we others," he said. "But the Prussians, in their
trenches, they cannot be so gay, either! Their families and their
Christmas trees must be lacking to them. Let us laugh!"

The Place Blanche and the Boulevard de Clichy were no more lively than
the lesser streets and squares. There was no life anywhere, scarcely a
sound; not even the sound of cannon. Nobody knew anything; Christmas
had put the city into a lugubrious trance of hopelessness. Chirac took
Sophia's arm across the Place Blanche, and a few yards up the Rue Lepic
he stopped at a small restaurant, famous among the initiated, and known
as "The Little Louis." They entered, descending by two steps into a
confined and sombrely picturesque interior.

Sophia saw that they were expected. Chirac must have paid a previous
visit to the restaurant that morning. Several disordered tables showed
that people had already lunched, and left; but in the corner was a
table for two, freshly laid in the best manner of such restaurants;
that is to say, with a red-and-white checked cloth, and two other
red-and-white cloths, almost as large as the table-cloth, folded as
serviettes and arranged flat on two thick plates between solid steel
cutlery; a salt-cellar, out of which one ground rock-salt by turning a
handle, a pepper-castor, two knife-rests, and two common tumblers. The
phenomena which differentiated this table from the ordinary table were
a champagne bottle and a couple of champagne glasses. Champagne was one
of the few items which had not increased in price during the siege.

The landlord and his wife were eating in another corner, a fat,
slatternly pair, whom no privations of a siege could have emaciated.
The landlord rose. He was dressed as a chef, all in white, with the
sacred cap; but a soiled white. Everything in the place was untidy,
unkempt and more or less unclean, except just the table upon which
champagne was waiting. And yet the restaurant was agreeable,
reassuring. The landlord greeted his customers as honest friends. His
greasy face was honest, and so was the pale, weary, humorous face of
his wife. Chirac saluted her.

"You see," said she, across from the other corner, indicating a bone on
her plate. "This is Diane!"

"Ah! the poor animal!" exclaimed Chirac, sympathetically.

"What would you?" said the landlady. "It cost too dear to feed her. And
she was so mignonne! One could not watch her grow thin!"

"I was saying to my wife," the landlord put in, "how she would have
enjoyed that bone--Diane!" He roared with laughter.

Sophia and the landlady exchanged a curious sad smile at this
pleasantry, which had been re-discovered by the landlord for perhaps
the thousandth time during the siege, but which he evidently regarded
as quite new and original.

"Eh, well!" he continued confidentially to Chirac. "I have found for
you something very good--half a duck." And in a still lower tone: "And
it will not cost you too dear."

No attempt to realize more than a modest profit was ever made in that
restaurant. It possessed a regular clientele who knew the value of the
little money they had, and who knew also how to appreciate sincere and
accomplished cookery. The landlord was the chef, and he was always
referred to as the chef, even by his wife.

"How did you get that?" Chirac asked.

"Ah!" said the landlord, mysteriously. "I have one of my friends, who
comes from Villeneuve St. Georges--refugee, you know. In fine ..." A
wave of the fat hands, suggesting that Chirac should not inquire too
closely.

"In effect!" Chirac commented. "But it is very chic, that!"

"I believe you that it is chic!" said the landlady, sturdily.

"It is charming," Sophia murmured politely.

"And then a quite little salad!" said the landlord.

"But that--that is still more striking!" said Chirac.

The landlord winked. The fact was that the commerce which resulted in
fresh green vegetables in the heart of a beleagured town was notorious.

"And then also a quite little cheese!" said Sophia, slightly imitating
the tone of the landlord, as she drew from the inwardness of her cloak
a small round parcel. It contained a Brie cheese, in fairly good
condition. It was worth at least fifty francs, and it had cost Sophia
less than two francs. The landlady joined the landlord in inspecting
this wondrous jewel. Sophia seized a knife and cut a slice for the
landlady's table.

"Madame is too good!" said the landlady, confused by this noble
generosity, and bearing the gift off to her table as a fox-terrier will
hurriedly seek solitude with a sumptuous morsel. The landlord beamed.
Chirac was enchanted. In the intimate and unaffected cosiness of that
interior the vast, stupefied melancholy of the city seemed to be
forgotten, to have lost its sway.

Then the landlord brought a hot brick for the feet of madame. It was
more an acknowledgment of the slice of cheese than a necessity, for the
restaurant was very warm; the tiny kitchen opened directly into it, and
the door between the two was open; there was no ventilation whatever.

"It is a friend of mine," said the landlord, proudly, in the way of
gossip as he served an undescribed soup, "a butcher in the Faubourg St.
Honore, who has bought the three elephants of the Jardin des Plantes
for twenty-seven thousand francs."

Eyebrows were lifted. He uncorked the champagne.

As she drank the first mouthful (she had long lost her youthful
aversion for wine), Sophia had a glimpse of herself in a tilted mirror
hung rather high on the opposite wall. It was several months since she
had attired herself with ceremoniousness. The sudden unexpected vision
of elegance and pallid beauty pleased her. And the instant effect of
the champagne was to renew in her mind a forgotten conception of the
goodness of life and of the joys which she had so long missed.

V

At half-past two they were alone in the little salon of the restaurant,
and vaguely in their dreamy and feverish minds that were too
preoccupied to control with precision their warm, relaxed bodies, there
floated the illusion that the restaurant belonged to them and that in
it they were at home. It was no longer a restaurant, but a retreat and
shelter from hard life. The chef and his wife were dozing in an inner
room. The champagne was drunk; the adorable cheese was eaten; and they
were sipping Marc de Bourgogne. They sat at right angles to one
another, close to one another, with brains aswing; full of good nature
and quick sympathy; their flesh content and yet expectant. In a pause
of the conversation (which, entirely banal and fragmentary, had seemed
to reach the acme of agreeableness), Chirac put his hand on the hand of
Sophia as it rested limp on the littered table. Accidentally she caught
his eye; she had not meant to do so. They both became self-conscious.
His thin, bearded face had more than ever that wistfulness which always
softened towards him the uncompromisingness of her character. He had
the look of a child. For her, Gerald had sometimes shown the same look.
But indeed she was now one of those women for whom all men, and
especially all men in a tender mood, are invested with a certain
incurable quality of childishness. She had not withdrawn her hand at
once, and so she could not withdraw it at all.

He gazed at her with timid audacity. Her eyes were liquid.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked.

"I was asking myself what I should have done if you had refused to
come."

"And what SHOULD you have done?"

"Assuredly something terribly inconvenient," he replied, with the large
importance of a man who is in the domain of pure supposition. He leaned
towards her. "My very dear friend," he said in a different voice,
getting bolder.

It was infinitely sweet to her, voluptuously sweet, this basking in the
heat of temptation. It certainly did seem to her, then, the one real
pleasure in the world. Her body might have been saying to his: "See how
ready I am!" Her body might have been saying to his: "Look into my
mind. For you I have no modesty. Look and see all that is there." The
veil of convention seemed to have been rent. Their attitude to each
other was almost that of lover and mistress, between whom a single
glance may be charged with the secrets of the past and promises for the
future. Morally she was his mistress in that moment.

He released her hand and put his arm round her waist.

"I love thee," he whispered with great emotion.

Her face changed and hardened. "You must not do that," she said,
coldly, unkindly, harshly. She scowled. She would not abate one crease
in her forehead to the appeal of his surprised glance. Yet she did not
want to repulse him. The instinct which repulsed him was not within her
control. Just as a shy man will obstinately refuse an invitation which
he is hungering to accept, so, though not from shyness, she was
compelled to repulse Chirac. Perhaps if her desires had not been laid
to sleep by excessive physical industry and nervous strain, the sequel
might have been different.

Chirac, like most men who have once found a woman weak, imagined that
he understood women profoundly. He thought of women as the Occidental
thinks of the Chinese, as a race apart, mysterious but capable of being
infallibly comprehended by the application of a few leading principles
of psychology. Moreover he was in earnest; he was hard driven, and he
was honest. He continued, respectfully obedient in withdrawing his arm:

"Very dear friend," he urged with undaunted confidence, "you must know
that I love you."

She shook her head impatiently, all the time wondering what it was that
prevented her from slipping into his arms. She knew that she was
treating him badly by this brusque change of front; but she could not
help it. Then she began to feel sorry for him.

"We have been very good friends," he said. "I have always admired you
enormously. I did not think that I should dare to love you until that
day when I overheard that old villain Niepce make his advances. Then,
when I perceived my acute jealousy, I knew that I was loving you. Ever
since, I have thought only of you. I swear to you that if you will not
belong to me, it is already finished for me! Altogether! Never have I
seen a woman like you! So strong, so proud, so kind, and so beautiful!
You are astonishing, yes, astonishing! No other woman could have drawn
herself out of an impossible situation as you have done, since the
disappearance of your husband. For me, you are a woman unique. I am
very sincere. Besides, you know it ... Dear friend!"

She shook her head passionately.

She did not love him. But she was moved. And she wanted to love him.
She wanted to yield to him, only liking him, and to love afterwards.
But this obstinate instinct held her back. "I do not say, now," Chirac
went on. "Let me hope."

The Latin theatricality of his gestures and his tone made her sorrowful
for him.

"My poor Chirac!" she plaintively murmured, and began to put on her
gloves.

"I shall hope!" he persisted.

She pursed her lips. He seized her violently by the waist. She drew her
face away from his, firmly. She was not hard, not angry now.
Disconcerted by her compassion, he loosed her.

"My poor Chirac," she said, "I ought not to have come. I must go. It is
perfectly useless. Believe me."

"No, no!" he whispered fiercely.

She stood up and the abrupt movement pushed the table gratingly across
the floor. The throbbing spell of the flesh was snapped like a
stretched string, and the scene over. The landlord, roused from his
doze, stumbled in. Chirac had nothing but the bill as a reward for his
pains. He was baffled.

They left the restaurant, silently, with a foolish air.

Dusk was falling on the mournful streets, and the lamp-lighters were
lighting the miserable oil lamps that had replaced gas. They two, and
the lamplighters, and an omnibus were alone in the streets. The gloom
was awful; it was desolating. The universal silence seemed to be the
silence of despair. Steeped in woe, Sophia thought wearily upon the
hopeless problem of existence. For it seemed to her that she and Chirac
had created this woe out of nothing, and yet it was an incurable woe!




CHAPTER VII

SUCCESS

I


Sophia lay awake one night in the room lately quitted by Carlier. That
silent negation of individuality had come and gone, and left scarcely
any record of himself either in his room or in the memories of those
who had surrounded his existence in the house. Sophia had decided to
descend from the sixth floor, partly because the temptation of a large
room, after months in a cubicle, was rather strong; but more because of
late she had been obliged to barricade the door of the cubicle with a
chest of drawers, owing to the propensities of a new tenant of the
sixth floor. It was useless to complain to the concierge; the sole
effective argument was the chest of drawers, and even that was frailer
than Sophia could have wished. Hence, finally, her retreat.

She heard the front-door of the flat open; then it was shut with
nervous violence. The resonance of its closing would have certainly
wakened less accomplished sleepers than M. Niepce and his friend, whose
snores continued with undisturbed regularity. After a pause of
shuffling, a match was struck, and feet crept across the corridor with
the most exaggerated precautions against noise. There followed the
unintentional bang of another door. It was decidedly the entry of a man
without the slightest natural aptitude for furtive irruptions. The
clock in M. Niepce's room, which the grocer had persuaded to exact
time-keeping, chimed three with its delicate ting.

For several days past Chirac had been mysteriously engaged very late at
the bureaux of the Debats. No one knew the nature of his employment; he
said nothing, except to inform Sophia that he would continue to come
home about three o'clock until further notice. She had insisted on
leaving in his room the materials and apparatus for a light meal.
Naturally he had protested, with the irrational obstinacy of a
physically weak man who sticks to it that he can defy the laws of
nature. But he had protested in vain.

His general conduct since Christmas Day had frightened Sophia, in spite
of her tendency to stifle facile alarms at their birth. He had eaten
scarcely anything at all, and he went about with the face of a man
dying of a broken heart. The change in him was indeed tragic. And
instead of improving, he grew worse. "Have I done this?" Sophia asked
herself. "It is impossible that I should have done this! It is absurd
and ridiculous that he should behave so!" Her thoughts were employed
alternately in sympathizing with him and in despising him, in blaming
herself and in blaming him. When they spoke, they spoke awkwardly, as
though one or both of them had committed a shameful crime, which could
not even be mentioned. The atmosphere of the flat was tainted by the
horror. And Sophia could not offer him a bowl of soup without wondering
how he would look at her or avoid looking, and without carefully
arranging in advance her own gestures and speech. Existence was a
nightmare of self-consciousness.

"At last they have unmasked their batteries!" he had exclaimed with
painful gaiety two days after Christmas, when the besiegers had
recommenced their cannonade. He tried to imitate the strange, general
joy of the city, which had been roused from apathy by the recurrence of
a familiar noise; but the effort was a deplorable failure. And Sophia
condemned not merely the failure of Chirac's imitation, but the thing
imitated. "Childish!" she thought. Yet, despise the feebleness of
Chirac's behaviour as she might, she was deeply impressed, genuinely
astonished, by the gravity and persistence of the symptoms. "He must
have been getting himself into a state about me for a long time," she
thought. "Surely he could not have gone mad like this all in a day or
two! But I never noticed anything. No; honestly I never noticed
anything!" And just as her behaviour in the restaurant had shaken
Chirac's confidence in his knowledge of the other sex, so now the
singular behaviour of Chirac shook hers. She was taken aback. She was
frightened, though she pretended not to be frightened.

She had lived over and over again the scene in the restaurant. She
asked herself over and over again if really she had not beforehand
expected him to make love to her in the restaurant. She could not
decide exactly when she had begun to expect a declaration; but probably
a long time before the meal was finished. She had foreseen it, and
might have stopped it. But she had not chosen to stop it. Curiosity
concerning not merely him, but also herself, had tempted her tacitly to
encourage him. She asked herself over and over again why she had
repulsed him. It struck her as curious that she had repulsed him. Was
it because she was a married woman? Was it because she had moral
scruples? Was it at bottom because she did not care for him? Was it
because she could not care for anybody? Was it because his fervid
manner of love-making offended her English phlegm? And did she feel
pleased or displeased by his forbearance in not renewing the assault?
She could not answer. She did not know.

But all the time she knew that she wanted love. Only, she conceived a
different kind of love: placid, regular, somewhat stern, somewhat above
the plane of whims, moods, caresses, and all mere fleshly contacts. Not
that she considered that she despised these things (though she did)!
What she wanted was a love that was too proud, too independent, to
exhibit frankly either its joy or its pain. She hated a display of
sentiment. And even in the most intimate abandonments she would have
made reserves, and would have expected reserves, trusting to a lover's
powers of divination, and to her own! The foundation of her character
was a haughty moral independence, and this quality was what she most
admired in others.

Chirac's inability to draw from his own pride strength to sustain
himself against the blow of her refusal gradually killed in her the
sexual desire which he had aroused, and which during a few days
flickered up under the stimulus of fancy and of regret. Sophia saw with
increasing clearness that her unreasoning instinct had been right in
saying him nay. And when, in spite of this, regrets still visited her,
she would comfort herself in thinking: "I cannot be bothered with all
that sort of thing. It is not worth while. What does it lead to? Is not
life complicated enough without that? No, no! I will stay as I am. At
any rate I know what I am in for, as things are!" And she would reflect
upon her hopeful financial situation, and the approaching prospect of a
constantly sufficient income. And a little thrill of impatience against
the interminable and gigantic foolishness of the siege would take her.

But her self-consciousness in presence of Chirac did not abate.

As she lay in bed she awaited accustomed sounds which should have
connoted Chirac's definite retirement for the night. Her ear, however,
caught no sound whatever from his room. Then she imagined that there
was a smell of burning in the flat. She sat up, and sniffed anxiously,
of a sudden wideawake and apprehensive. And then she was sure that the
smell of burning was not in her imagination. The bedroom was in perfect
darkness. Feverishly she searched with her right hand for the matches
on the night-table, and knocked candlestick and matches to the floor.
She seized her dressing-gown, which was spread over the bed, and put it
on, aiming for the door. Her feet were bare. She discovered the door.
In the passage she could discern nothing at first, and then she made
out a thin line of light, which indicated the bottom of Chirac's door.
The smell of burning was strong and unmistakable. She went towards the
faint light, fumbled for the door-handle with her palm, and opened. It
did not occur to her to call out and ask what was the matter.

The house was not on fire; but it might have been. She had left on the
table at the foot of Chirac's bed a small cooking-lamp, and a saucepan
of bouillon. All that Chirac had to do was to ignite the lamp and put
the saucepan on it. He had ignited the lamp, having previously raised
the double wicks, and had then dropped into the chair by the table just
as he was, and sunk forward and gone to sleep with his head lying
sideways on the table. He had not put the saucepan on the lamp; he had
not lowered the wicks, and the flames, capped with thick black smoke,
were waving slowly to and fro within a few inches of his loose hair.
His hat had rolled along the floor; he was wearing his great overcoat
and one woollen glove; the other glove had lodged on his slanting knee.
A candle was also burning.

Sophia hastened forward, as it were surreptitiously, and with a
forward-reaching movement turned down the wicks of the lamp; black
specks were falling on the table; happily the saucepan was covered, or
the bouillon would have been ruined.

Chirac made a heart-rending spectacle, and Sophia was aware of deep and
painful emotion in seeing him thus. He must have been utterly exhausted
and broken by loss of sleep. He was a man incapable of regular hours,
incapable of treating his body with decency. Though going to bed at
three o'clock, he had continued to rise at his usual hour. He looked
like one dead; but more sad, more wistful. Outside in the street a fog
reigned, and his thin draggled beard was jewelled with the moisture of
it. His attitude had the unconsidered and violent prostration of an
overspent dog. The beaten animal in him was expressed in every detail
of that posture. It showed even in his white, drawn eyelids, and in the
falling of a finger. All his face was very sad. It appealed for mercy
as the undefended face of sleep always appeals; it was so helpless, so
exposed, so simple. It recalled Sophia to a sense of the inner
mysteries of life, reminding her somehow that humanity walks ever on a
thin crust over terrific abysses. She did not physically shudder; but
her soul shuddered.

She mechanically placed the saucepan on the lamp, and the noise
awakened Chirac. He groaned. At first he did not perceive her. When he
saw that some one was looking down at him, he did not immediately
realize who this some one was. He rubbed his eyes with his fists,
exactly like a baby, and sat up, and the chair cracked.

"What then?" he demanded. "Oh, madame, I ask pardon. What?"

"You have nearly destroyed the house," she said. "I smelt fire, and I
came in. I was just in time. There is no danger now. But please be
careful." She made as if to move towards the door.

"But what did I do?" he asked, his eyelids wavering.

She explained.

He rose from his chair unsteadily. She told him to sit down again, and
he obeyed as though in a dream.

"I can go now," she said.

"Wait one moment," he murmured. "I ask pardon. I should not know how to
thank you. You are truly too good. Will you wait one moment?"

His tone was one of supplication. He gazed at her, a little dazzled by
the light and by her. The lamp and the candle illuminated the lower
part of her face, theatrically, and showed the texture of her blue
flannel peignoir; the pattern of a part of the lace collar was
silhouetted in shadow on her cheek. Her face was flushed, and her hair
hung down unconfined. Evidently he could not recover from his excusable
astonishment at the apparition of such a figure in his room.

"What is it--now?" she said. The faint, quizzical emphasis which she
put on the 'now' indicated the essential of her thought. The sight of
him touched her and filled her with a womanly sympathy. But that
sympathy was only the envelope of her disdain of him. She could not
admire weakness. She could but pity it with a pity in which scorn was
mingled. Her instinct was to treat him as a child. He had failed in
human dignity. And it seemed to her as if she had not previously been
quite certain whether she could not love him, but that now she was
quite certain. She was close to him. She saw the wounds of a soul that
could not hide its wounds, and she resented the sight. She was hard.
She would not make allowances. And she revelled in her hardness.
Contempt--a good-natured, kindly, forgiving contempt--that was the
kernel of the sympathy which exteriorly warmed her! Contempt for the
lack of self-control which had resulted in this swift degeneration of a
man into a tortured victim! Contempt for the lack of perspective which
magnified a mere mushroom passion till it filled the whole field of
life! Contempt for this feminine slavery to sentiment! She felt that
she might have been able to give herself to Chirac as one gives a toy
to an infant. But of loving him...! No! She was conscious of an
immeasurable superiority to him, for she was conscious of the freedom
of a strong mind.

"I wanted to tell you," said he, "I am going away."

"Where?" she asked.

"Out of Paris."

"Out of Paris? How?"

"By balloon! My journal...! It is an affair of great importance. You
understand. I offered myself. What would you?"

"It is dangerous," she observed, waiting to see if he would put on the
silly air of one who does not understand fear.

"Oh!" the poor fellow muttered with a fatuous intonation and snapping
of the fingers. "That is all the same to me. Yes, it is dangerous. Yes,
it is dangerous!" he repeated. "But what would you...? For me...!"

She wished that she had not mentioned danger. It hurt her to watch him
incurring her ironic disdain.

"It will be the night after to-morrow," he said. "In the courtyard of
the Gare du Nord. I want you to come and see me go. I particularly want
you to come and see me go. I have asked Carlier to escort you."

He might have been saying, "I am offering myself to martyrdom, and you
must assist at the spectacle."

She despised him yet more.

"Oh! Be tranquil," he said. "I shall not worry you. Never shall I speak
to you again of my love. I know you. I know it would be useless. But I
hope you will come and wish me bon voyage."

"Of course, if you really wish it," she replied with cheerful coolness.

He seized her hand and kissed it.

Once it had pleased her when he kissed her hand. But now she did not
like it. It seemed hysterical and foolish to her. She felt her feet to
be stone-cold on the floor.

"I'll leave you now," she said. "Please eat your soup."

She escaped, hoping he would not espy her feet.

II

The courtyard of the Nord Railway Station was lighted by oil-lamps
taken from locomotives; their silvered reflectors threw dazzling rays
from all sides on the under portion of the immense yellow mass of the
balloon; the upper portion was swaying to and fro with gigantic
ungainliness in the strong breeze. It was only a small balloon, as
balloons are measured, but it seemed monstrous as it wavered over the
human forms that were agitating themselves beneath it. The cordage was
silhouetted against the yellow taffetas as high up as the widest
diameter of the balloon, but above that all was vague, and even
spectators standing at a distance could not clearly separate the summit
of the great sphere from the darkly moving sky. The car, held by ropes
fastened to stakes, rose now and then a few inches uneasily from the
ground. The sombre and severe architecture of the station-buildings
enclosed the balloon on every hand; it had only one way of escape. Over
the roofs of that architecture, which shut out the sounds of the city,
came the irregular booming of the bombardment. Shells were falling in
the southern quarters of Paris, doing perhaps not a great deal of
damage, but still plunging occasionally into the midst of some domestic
interior and making a sad mess of it. The Parisians were convinced that
the shells were aimed maliciously at hospitals and museums; and when a
child happened to be blown to pieces their unspoken comments upon the
Prussian savagery were bitter. Their faces said: "Those barbarians
cannot even spare our children!" They amused themselves by creating a
market in shells, paying more for a live shell than a dead one, and
modifying the tariff according to the supply. And as the cattle-market
was empty, and the vegetable-market was empty, and beasts no longer
pastured on the grass of the parks, and the twenty-five million rats of
the metropolis were too numerous to furnish interest to spectators, and
the Bourse was practically deserted, the traffic in shells sustained
the starving mercantile instinct during a very dull period. But the
effect on the nerves was deleterious. The nerves of everybody were like
nothing but a raw wound. Violent anger would spring up magically out of
laughter, and blows out of caresses. This indirect consequence of the
bombardment was particularly noticeable in the group of men under the
balloon. Each behaved as if he were controlling his temper in the most
difficult circumstances. Constantly they all gazed upwards into the
sky, though nothing could possibly be distinguished there save the
blurred edge of a flying cloud. But the booming came from that sky; the
shells that were dropping on Montrouge came out of that sky; and the
balloon was going up into it; the balloon was ascending into its
mysteries, to brave its dangers, to sweep over the encircling ring of
fire and savages.

Sophia stood apart with Carlier. Carlier had indicated a particular
spot, under the shelter of the colonnade, where he said it was
imperative that they should post themselves. Having guided Sophia to
this spot, and impressed upon her that they were not to move, he seemed
to consider that the activity of his role was finished, and spoke no
word. With the very high silk hat which he always wore, and a thin
old-fashioned overcoat whose collar was turned up, he made a rather
grotesque figure. Fortunately the night was not very cold, or he might
have passively frozen to death on the edge of that feverish group.
Sophia soon ignored him. She watched the balloon. An aristocratic old
man leaned against the car, watch in hand; at intervals he scowled, or
stamped his foot. An old sailor, tranquilly smoking a pipe, walked
round and round the balloon, staring at it; once he climbed up into the
rigging, and once he jumped into the car and angrily threw out of it a
bag, which some one had placed in it. But for the most part he was
calm. Other persons of authority hurried about, talking and
gesticulating; and a number of workmen waited idly for orders.

"Where is Chirac?" suddenly cried the old man with the watch.

Several voices deferentially answered, and a man ran away into the
gloom on an errand.

Then Chirac appeared, nervous, self-conscious, restless. He was
enveloped in a fur coat that Sophia had never seen before, and he
carried dangling in his hand a cage containing six pigeons whose
whiteness stirred uneasily within it. The sailor took the cage from him
and all the persons of authority gathered round to inspect the
wonderful birds upon which, apparently, momentous affairs depended.
When the group separated, the sailor was to be seen bending over the
edge of the car to deposit the cage safely. He then got into the car,
still smoking his pipe, and perched himself negligently on the
wicker-work. The man with the watch was conversing with Chirac; Chirac
nodded his head frequently in acquiescence, and seemed to be saying all
the time: "Yes, sir! Perfectly sir! I understand, sir! Yes, sir!"

Suddenly Chirac turned to the car and put a question to the sailor, who
shook his head. Whereupon Chirac gave a gesture of submissive despair
to the man with the watch. And in an instant the whole throng was in a
ferment.

"The victuals!" cried the man with the watch. "The victuals, name of
God! Must one be indeed an idiot to forget the victuals! Name of
God--of God!"

Sophia smiled at the agitation, and at the inefficient management which
had never thought of food. For it appeared that the food had not merely
been forgotten; it was a question which had not even been considered.
She could not help despising all that crowd of self-important and fussy
males to whom the idea had not occurred that even balloonists must eat.
And she wondered whether everything was done like that. After a delay
that seemed very long, the problem of victuals was solved, chiefly, as
far as Sophia could judge, by means of cakes of chocolate and bottles
of wine.

"It is enough! It is enough!" Chirac shouted passionately several times
to a knot of men who began to argue with him.

Then he gazed round furtively, and with an inflation of the chest and a
patting of his fur coat he came directly towards Sophia. Evidently
Sophia's position had been prearranged between him and Carlier. They
could forget food, but they could think of Sophia's position!

All eyes followed him. Those eyes could not, in the gloom, distinguish
Sophia's beauty, but they could see that she was young and slim and
elegant, and of foreign carriage. That was enough. The very air seemed
to vibrate with the intense curiosity of those eyes. And immediately
Chirac grew into the hero of some brilliant and romantic adventure.
Immediately he was envied and admired by every man of authority
present. What was she? Who was she? Was it a serious passion or simply
a caprice? Had she flung herself at him? It was undeniable that lovely
creatures did sometimes fling themselves at lucky mediocrities. Was she
a married woman? An artiste? A girl? Such queries thumped beneath
overcoats, while the correctness of a ceremonious demeanour was
strictly observed.

Chirac uncovered, and kissed her hand. The wind disarranged his hair.
She saw that his face was very pale and anxious beneath the swagger of
a sincere desire to be brave.

"Well, it is the moment!" he said.

"Did you all forget the food?" she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. "What will you? One cannot think of
everything."

"I hope you will have a safe voyage," she said.

She had already taken leave of him once, in the house, and heard all
about the balloon and the sailor-aeronaut and the preparations; and now
she had nothing to say, nothing whatever.

He shrugged his shoulders again. "I hope so!" he murmured, but in a
tone to convey that he had no such hope.

"The wind isn't too strong?" she suggested.

He shrugged his shoulders again. "What would you?"

"Is it in the direction you want?"

"Yes, nearly," he admitted unwillingly. Then rousing himself: "Eh,
well, madame. You have been extremely amiable to come. I held to it
very much--that you should come. It is because of you I quit Paris."

She resented the speech by a frown.

"Ah!" he implored in a whisper. "Do not do that. Smile on me. After
all, it is not my fault. Remember that this may be the last time I see
you, the last time I regard your eyes."

She smiled. She was convinced of the genuineness of the emotion which
expressed itself in all this flamboyant behaviour. And she had to make
excuses to herself on behalf of Chirac. She smiled to give him
pleasure. The hard commonsense in her might sneer, but indubitably she
was the centre of a romantic episode. The balloon darkly swinging
there! The men waiting! The secrecy of the mission! And Chirac,
bare-headed in the wind that was to whisk him away, telling her in
fatalistic accents that her image had devastated his life, while
envious aspirants watched their colloquy! Yes, it was romantic. And she
was beautiful! Her beauty was an active reality that went about the
world playing tricks in spite of herself. The thoughts that passed
through her mind were the large, splendid thoughts of romance. And it
was Chirac who had aroused them! A real drama existed, then, triumphing
over the accidental absurdities and pettinesses of the situation. Her
final words to Chirac were tender and encouraging.

He hurried back to the balloon, resuming his cap. He was received with
the respect due to one who comes fresh from conquest. He was sacred.

Sophia rejoined Carlier, who had withdrawn, and began to talk to him
with a self-conscious garrulity. She spoke without reason and scarcely
noticed what she was saying. Already Chirac was snatched out of her
life, as other beings, so many of them, had been snatched. She thought
of their first meetings, and of the sympathy which had always united
them. He had lost his simplicity, now, in the self-created crisis of
his fate, and had sunk in her esteem. And she was determined to like
him all the more because he had sunk in her esteem. She wondered
whether he really had undertaken this adventure from sentimental
disappointment. She wondered whether, if she had not forgotten to wind
her watch one night, they would still have been living quietly under
the same roof in the Rue Breda.

The sailor climbed definitely into the car; he had covered himself with
a large cloak. Chirac had got one leg over the side of the car, and
eight men were standing by the ropes, when a horse's hoofs clattered
through the guarded entrance to the courtyard, amid an uproar of sudden
excitement. The shiny chest of the horse was flecked with the classic
foam.

"A telegram from the Governor of Paris!"

As the orderly, checking his mount, approached the group, even the old
man with the watch raised his hat. The orderly responded, bent down to
make an inquiry, which Chirac answered, and then, with another exchange
of salutes, the official telegram was handed over to Chirac, and the
horse backed away from the crowd. It was quite thrilling. Carlier was
thrilled.

"He is never too prompt, the Governor. It is a quality!" said Carlier,
with irony.

Chirac entered the car. And then the old man with the watch drew a
black bag from the shadow behind him and entrusted it to Chirac, who
accepted it with a profound deference and hid it. The sailor began to
issue commands. The men at the ropes were bending down now. Suddenly
the balloon rose about a foot and trembled. The sailor continued to
shout. All the persons of authority gazed motionless at the balloon.
The moment of suspense was eternal.

"Let go all!" cried the sailor, standing up, and clinging to the
cordage. Chirac was seated in the car, a mass of dark fur with a small
patch of white in it. The men at the ropes were a knot of struggling
confused figures.

One side of the car tilted up, and the sailor was nearly pitched out.
Three men at the other side had failed to free the ropes.

"Let go, corpses!" the sailor yelled at them.

The balloon jumped, as if it were drawn by some terrific impulse from
the skies.

"Adieu!" called Chirac, pulling his cap off and waving it. "Adieu!"

"Bon voyage! Bon voyage!" the little crowd cheered. And then, "Vive la
France!" Throats tightened, including Sophia's.

But the top of the balloon had leaned over, destroying its pear-shape,
and the whole mass swerved violently towards the wall of the station,
the car swinging under it like a toy, and an anchor under the car.
There was a cry of alarm. Then the great ball leaped again, and swept
over the high glass roof, escaping by inches the spouting. The cheers
expired instantly.... The balloon was gone. It was spirited away as if
by some furious and mighty power that had grown impatient in waiting
for it. There remained for a few seconds on the collective retina of
the spectators a vision of the inclined car swinging near the roof like
the tail of a kite. And then nothing! Blankness! Blackness! Already the
balloon was lost to sight in the vast stormy ocean of the night, a
plaything of the winds. The spectators became once more aware of the
dull booming of the cannonade. The balloon was already perhaps flying
unseen amid the wrack over those guns.

Sophia involuntarily caught her breath. A chill sense of loneliness, of
purposelessness, numbed her being.

Nobody ever saw Chirac or the old sailor again. The sea must have
swallowed them. Of the sixty-five balloons that left Paris during the
siege, two were not heard of. This was the first of the two. Chirac
had, at any rate, not magnified the peril, though his intention was
undoubtedly to magnify it.

III

This was the end of Sophia's romantic adventures in France. Soon
afterwards the Germans entered Paris, by mutual agreement, and made a
point of seeing the Louvre, and departed, amid the silence of a city.
For Sophia the conclusion of the siege meant chiefly that prices went
down. Long before supplies from outside could reach Paris, the
shop-windows were suddenly full of goods which had arrived from the
shopkeepers alone knew where. Sophia, with the stock in her cellar,
could have held out for several weeks more, and it annoyed her that she
had not sold more of her good things while good things were worth gold.
The signing of a treaty at Versailles reduced the value of Sophia's two
remaining hams from about five pounds apiece to the usual price of
hams. However, at the end of January she found herself in possession of
a capital of about eight thousand francs, all the furniture of the
flat, and a reputation. She had earned it all. Nothing could destroy
the structure of her beauty, but she looked worn and appreciably older.
She wondered often when Chirac would return. She might have written to
Carlier or to the paper; but she did not. It was Niepce who discovered
in a newspaper that Chirac's balloon had miscarried. At the moment the
news did not affect her at all; but after several days she began to
feel her loss in a dull sort of way; and she felt it more and more,
though never acutely. She was perfectly convinced that Chirac could
never have attracted her powerfully. She continued to dream, at rare
intervals, of the kind of passion that would have satisfied her,
glowing but banked down like a fire in some fine chamber of a rich but
careful household.

She was speculating upon what her future would be, and whether by
inertia she was doomed to stay for ever in the Rue Breda, when the
Commune caught her. She was more vexed than frightened by the Commune;
vexed that a city so in need of repose and industry should indulge in
such antics. For many people the Commune was a worse experience than
the siege; but not for Sophia. She was a woman and a foreigner. Niepce
was infinitely more disturbed than Sophia; he went in fear of his life.
Sophia would go out to market and take her chances. It is true that
during one period the whole population of the house went to live in the
cellars, and orders to the butcher and other tradesmen were given over
the party-wall into the adjoining courtyard, which communicated with an
alley. A strange existence, and possibly perilous! But the women who
passed through it and had also passed through the siege, were not very
much intimidated by it, unless they happened to have husbands or lovers
who were active politicians.

Sophia did not cease, during the greater part of the year 1871, to make
a living and to save money. She watched every sou, and she developed a
tendency to demand from her tenants all that they could pay. She
excused this to herself by ostentatiously declaring every detail of her
prices in advance. It came to the same thing in the end, with this
advantage, that the bills did not lead to unpleasantness. Her
difficulties commenced when Paris at last definitely resumed its normal
aspect and life, when all the women and children came back to those
city termini which they had left in such huddled, hysterical throngs,
when flats were re-opened that had long been shut, and men who for a
whole year had had the disadvantages and the advantages of being
without wife and family, anchored themselves once more to the hearth.
Then it was that Sophia failed to keep all her rooms let. She could
have let them easily and constantly and at high rents; but not to men
without encumbrances. Nearly every day she refused attractive tenants
in pretty hats, or agreeable gentlemen who only wanted a room on
condition that they might offer hospitality to a dashing petticoat. It
was useless to proclaim aloud that her house was 'serious.' The
ambition of the majority of these joyous persons was to live in a
'serious' house, because each was sure that at bottom he or she was a
'serious' person, and quite different from the rest of the joyous
world. The character of Sophia's flat, instead of repelling the wrong
kind of aspirant, infallibly drew just that kind. Hope was
inextinguishable in these bosoms. They heard that there would be no
chance for them at Sophia's; but they tried nevertheless. And
occasionally Sophia would make a mistake, and grave unpleasantness
would occur before the mistake could be rectified. The fact was that
the street was too much for her. Few people would credit that there was
a serious boarding-house in the Rue Breda. The police themselves would
not credit it. And Sophia's beauty was against her. At that time the
Rue Breda was perhaps the most notorious street in the centre of Paris;
at the height of its reputation as a warren of individual
improprieties; most busily creating that prejudice against itself
which, over thirty years later, forced the authorities to change its
name in obedience to the wish of its tradesmen. When Sophia went out at
about eleven o'clock in the morning with her reticule to buy, the
street was littered with women who had gone out with reticules to buy.
But whereas Sophia was fully dressed, and wore headgear, the others
were in dressing-gown and slippers, or opera-cloak and slippers, having
slid directly out of unspeakable beds and omitted to brush their hair
out of their puffy eyes. In the little shops of the Rue Breda, the Rue
Notre Dame de Lorette, and the Rue des Martyrs, you were very close
indeed to the primitive instincts of human nature. It was wonderful; it
was amusing; it was excitingly picturesque; and the universality of the
manners rendered moral indignation absurd. But the neighbourhood was
certainly not one in which a woman of Sophia's race, training, and
character, could comfortably earn a living, or even exist. She could
not fight against the entire street. She, and not the street, was out
of place and in the wrong. Little wonder that the neighbours lifted
their shoulders when they spoke of her! What beautiful woman but a mad
Englishwoman would have had the idea of establishing herself in the Rue
Breda with the intention of living like a nun and compelling others to
do the same?

By dint of continual ingenuity, Sophia contrived to win somewhat more
than her expenses, but she was slowly driven to admit to herself that
the situation could not last.

Then one day she saw in Galignani's Messenger an advertisement of an
English pension for sale in the Rue Lord Byron, in the Champs Elysees
quarter. It belonged to some people named Frensham, and had enjoyed a
certain popularity before the war. The proprietor and his wife,
however, had not sufficiently allowed for the vicissitudes of politics
in Paris. Instead of saving money during their popularity they had put
it on the back and on the fingers of Mrs. Frensham. The siege and the
Commune had almost ruined them. With capital they might have restored
themselves to their former pride; but their capital was exhausted.
Sophia answered the advertisement. She impressed the Frenshams, who
were delighted with the prospect of dealing in business with an honest
English face. Like many English people abroad they were most strangely
obsessed by the notion that they had quitted an island of honest men to
live among thieves and robbers. They always implied that dishonesty was
unknown in Britain. They offered, if she would take over the lease, to
sell all their furniture and their renown for ten thousand francs. She
declined, the price seeming absurd to her. When they asked her to name
a price, she said that she preferred not to do so. Upon entreaty, she
said four thousand francs. They then allowed her to see that they
considered her to have been quite right in hesitating to name a price
so ridiculous. And their confidence in the honest English face seemed
to have been shocked. Sophia left. When she got back to the Rue Breda
she was relieved that the matter had come to nothing. She did not
precisely foresee what her future was to be, but at any rate she knew
she shrank from the responsibility of the Pension Frensham. The next
morning she received a letter offering to accept six thousand. She
wrote and declined. She was indifferent and she would not budge from
four thousand. The Frenshams gave way. They were pained, but they gave
way. The glitter of four thousand francs in cash, and freedom, was too
tempting.

Thus Sophia became the proprietress of the Pension Frensham in the cold
and correct Rue Lord Byron. She made room in it for nearly all her
other furniture, so that instead of being under-furnished, as pensions
usually are, it was over-furnished. She was extremely timid at first,
for the rent alone was four thousand francs a year; and the prices of
the quarter were alarmingly different from those of the Rue Breda. She
lost a lot of sleep. For some nights, after she had been installed in
the Rue Lord Byron about a fortnight, she scarcely slept at all, and
she ate no more than she slept. She cut down expenditure to the very
lowest, and frequently walked over to the Rue Breda to do her
marketing. With the aid of a charwoman at six sous an hour she
accomplished everything. And though clients were few, the feat was in
the nature of a miracle; for Sophia had to cook.

The articles which George Augustus Sala wrote under the title "Paris
herself again" ought to have been paid for in gold by the hotel and
pension-keepers of Paris. They awakened English curiosity and the
desire to witness the scene of terrible events. Their effect was
immediately noticeable. In less than a year after her adventurous
purchase, Sophia had acquired confidence, and she was employing two
servants, working them very hard at low wages. She had also acquired
the landlady's manner. She was known as Mrs. Frensham. Across the
balconies of two windows the Frenshams had left a gilded sign, "Pension
Frensham," and Sophia had not removed it. She often explained that her
name was not Frensham; but in vain. Every visitor inevitably and
persistently addressed her according to the sign. It was past the
general comprehension that the proprietress of the Pension Frensham
might bear another name than Frensham. But later there came into being
a class of persons, habitues of the Pension Frensham, who knew the real
name of the proprietress and were proud of knowing it, and by this
knowledge were distinguished from the herd. What struck Sophia was the
astounding similarity of her guests. They all asked the same questions,
made the same exclamations, went out on the same excursions, returned
with the same judgments, and exhibited the same unimpaired assurance
that foreigners were really very peculiar people. They never seemed to
advance in knowledge. There was a constant stream of explorers from
England who had to be set on their way to the Louvre or the Bon Marche.

Sophia's sole interest was in her profits. The excellence of her house
was firmly established. She kept it up, and she kept the modest prices
up. Often she had to refuse guests. She naturally did so with a certain
distant condescension. Her manner to guests increased in stiff
formality; and she was excessively firm with undesirables. She grew to
be seriously convinced that no pension as good as hers existed in the
world, or ever had existed, or ever could exist. Hers was the acme of
niceness and respectability. Her preference for the respectable rose to
a passion. And there were no faults in her establishment. Even the once
despised showy furniture of Madame Foucault had mysteriously changed
into the best conceivable furniture; and its cracks were hallowed.

She never heard a word of Gerald nor of her family. In the thousands of
people who stayed under her perfect roof, not one mentioned Bursley nor
disclosed a knowledge of anybody that Sophia had known. Several men had
the wit to propose marriage to her with more or less skilfulness, but
none of them was skilful enough to perturb her heart. She had forgotten
the face of love. She was a landlady. She was THE landlady: efficient,
stylish, diplomatic, and tremendously experienced. There was no
trickery, no baseness of Parisian life that she was not acquainted with
and armed against. She could not be startled and she could not be
swindled.

Years passed, until there was a vista of years behind her. Sometimes
she would think, in an unoccupied moment, "How strange it is that I
should be here, doing what I am doing!" But the regular ordinariness of
her existence would instantly seize her again. At the end of 1878, the
Exhibition Year, her Pension consisted of two floors instead of one,
and she had turned the two hundred pounds stolen from Gerald into over
two thousand.




BOOK IV

WHAT LIFE IS




CHAPTER I

FRENSHAM'S

I


Matthew Peel-Swynnerton sat in the long dining-room of the Pension
Frensham, Rue Lord Byron, Paris; and he looked out of place there. It
was an apartment about thirty feet in length, and of the width of two
windows, which sufficiently lighted one half of a very long table with
round ends. The gloom of the other extremity was illumined by a large
mirror in a tarnished gilt frame, which filled a good portion of the
wall opposite the windows. Near the mirror was a high folding-screen of
four leaves, and behind this screen could be heard the sound of a door
continually shutting and opening. In the long wall to the left of the
windows were two doors, one dark and important, a door of state,
through which a procession of hungry and a procession of sated solemn
self-conscious persons passed twice daily, and the other, a smaller
door, glazed, its glass painted with wreaths of roses, not an original
door of the house, but a late breach in the wall, that seemed to lead
to the dangerous and to the naughty. The wall-paper and the window
drapery were rich and forbidding, dark in hue, mysterious of pattern.
Over the state-door was a pair of antlers. And at intervals, so high up
as to defy inspection, engravings and oil-paintings made oblong patches
on the walls. They were hung from immense nails with porcelain heads,
and they appeared to depict the more majestic aspect of man and nature.
One engraving, over the mantelpiece and nearer earth than the rest,
unmistakably showed Louis Philippe and his family in attitudes of
virtue. Beneath this royal group, a vast gilt clock, flanked by
pendants of the same period, gave the right time--a quarter past seven.

And down the room, filling it, ran the great white table, bordered with
bowed heads and the backs of chairs. There were over thirty people at
the table, and the peculiarly restrained noisiness of their knives and
forks on the plates proved that they were a discreet and a correct
people. Their clothes--blouses, bodices, and jackets--did not flatter
the lust of the eye. Only two or three were in evening dress. They
spoke little, and generally in a timorous tone, as though silence had
been enjoined. Somebody would half-whisper a remark, and then his
neighbour, absently fingering her bread and lifting gaze from her plate
into vacancy, would conscientiously weigh the remark and half-whisper
in reply: "I dare say." But a few spoke loudly and volubly, and were
regarded by the rest, who envied them, as underbred.

Food was quite properly the chief preoccupation. The diners ate as
those eat who are paying a fixed price per day for as much as they can
consume while observing the rules of the game. Without moving their
heads they glanced out of the corners of their eyes, watching the
manoeuvres of the three starched maids who served. They had no
conception of food save as portions laid out in rows on large silver
dishes, and when a maid bent over them deferentially, balancing the
dish, they summed up the offering in an instant, and in an instant
decided how much they could decently take, and to what extent they
could practise the theoretic liberty of choice. And if the food for any
reason did not tempt them, or if it egregiously failed to coincide with
their aspirations, they considered themselves aggrieved. For, according
to the game, they might not command; they had the right to seize all
that was presented under their noses, like genteel tigers; and they had
the right to refuse: that was all. The dinner was thus a series of
emotional crises for the diners, who knew only that full dishes and
clean plates came endlessly from the banging door behind the screen,
and that ravaged dishes and dirty plates vanished endlessly through the
same door. They were all eating similar food simultaneously; they began
together and they finished together. The flies that haunted the
paper-bunches which hung from the chandeliers to the level of the
flower-vases, were more free. The sole event that chequered the exact
regularity of the repast was the occasional arrival of a wine-bottle
for one of the guests. The receiver of the wine-bottle signed a small
paper in exchange for it and wrote largely a number on the label of the
bottle; then, staring at the number and fearing that after all it might
be misread by a stupid maid or an unscrupulous compeer, he would
re-write the number on another part of the label, even more largely.

Matthew Peel-Swynnerton obviously did not belong to this world. He was
a young man of twenty-five or so, not handsome, but elegant. Though he
was not in evening dress, though he was, as a fact, in a very light
grey suit, entirely improper to a dinner, he was elegant. The suit was
admirably cut, and nearly new; but he wore it as though he had never
worn anything else. Also his demeanour, reserved yet free from
self-consciousness, his method of handling a knife and fork, the
niceties of his manner in transferring food from the silver dishes to
his plate, the tone in which he ordered half a bottle of wine--all
these details infallibly indicated to the company that Matthew
Peel-Swynnerton was their superior. Some folks hoped that he was the
son of a lord, or even a lord. He happened to be fixed at the end of
the table, with his back to the window, and there was a vacant chair on
either side of him; this situation favoured the hope of his high rank.
In truth, he was the son, the grandson, and several times the nephew,
of earthenware manufacturers. He noticed that the large 'compote' (as
it was called in his trade) which marked the centre of the table, was
the production of his firm. This surprised him, for Peel, Swynnerton
and Co., known and revered throughout the Five Towns as 'Peels,' did
not cater for cheap markets. A late guest startled the room, a fat,
flabby, middle-aged man whose nose would have roused the provisional
hostility of those who have convinced themselves that Jews are not as
other men. His nose did not definitely brand him as a usurer and a
murderer of Christ, but it was suspicious. His clothes hung loose, and
might have been anybody's clothes. He advanced with brisk assurance to
the table, bowed, somewhat too effusively, to several people, and sat
down next to Peel-Swynnerton. One of the maids at once brought him a
plate of soup, and he said: "Thank you, Marie," smiling at her. He was
evidently a habitue of the house. His spectacled eyes beamed the
superiority which comes of knowing girls by their names. He was
seriously handicapped in the race for sustenance, being two and a half
courses behind, but he drew level with speed and then, having
accomplished this, he sighed, and pointedly engaged Peel-Swynnerton
with his sociable glance.

"Ah!" he breathed out. "Nuisance when you come in late, sir!"

Peel-Swynnerton gave a reluctant affirmative.

"Doesn't only upset you! It upsets the house! Servants don't like it!"

"No," murmured Peel-Swynnerton, "I suppose not."

"However, it's not often _I_'m late," said the man. "Can't help it
sometimes. Business! Worst of these French business people is that
they've no notion of time. Appointments...! God bless my soul!"

"Do you come here often?" asked Peel-Swynnerton. He detested the
fellow, quite inexcusably, perhaps because his serviette was tucked
under his chin; but he saw that the fellow was one of your determined
talkers, who always win in the end. Moreover, as being clearly not an
ordinary tourist in Paris, the fellow mildly excited his curiosity.

"I live here," said the other. "Very convenient for a bachelor, you
know. Have done for years. My office is just close by. You may know my
name--Lewis Mardon."

Peel-Swynnerton hesitated. The hesitation convicted him of not 'knowing
his Paris' well.

"House-agent," said Lewis Mardon, quickly.

"Oh yes," said Peel-Swynnerton, vaguely recalling a vision of the name
among the advertisements on newspaper kiosks.

"I expect," Mr. Mardon went on, "my name is as well-known as anybody's
in Paris."

"I suppose so," assented Peel-Swynnerton.

The conversation fell for a few moments.

"Staying here long?" Mr. Mardon demanded, having added up
Peel-Swynnerton as a man of style and of means, and being puzzled by
his presence at that table.

"I don't know," said Peel-Swynnerton.

This was a lie, justified in the utterer's opinion as a repulse to Mr.
Mardon's vulgar inquisitiveness, such inquisitiveness as might have
been expected from a fellow who tucked his serviette under his chin.
Peel-Swynnerton knew exactly how long he would stay. He would stay
until the day after the morrow; he had only about fifty francs in his
pocket. He had been making a fool of himself in another quarter of
Paris, and he had descended to the Pension Frensham as a place where he
could be absolutely sure of spending not more than twelve francs a day.
Its reputation was high, and it was convenient for the Galliera Museum,
where he was making some drawings which he had come to Paris expressly
to make, and without which he could not reputably return to England. He
was capable of foolishness, but he was also capable of wisdom, and
scarcely any pressure of need would have induced him to write home for
money to replace the money spent on making himself into a fool.

Mr. Mardon was conscious of a check. But, being of an accommodating
disposition, he at once tried another direction.

"Good food here, eh?" he suggested.

"Very," said Peel-Swynnerton, with sincerity. "I was quite--"

At that moment, a tall straight woman of uncertain age pushed open the
principal door and stood for an instant in the doorway. Peel-Swynnerton
had just time to notice that she was handsome and pale, and that her
hair was black, and then she was gone again, followed by a clipped
poodle that accompanied her. She had signed with a brief gesture to one
of the servants, who at once set about lighting the gas-jets over the
table.

"Who is that?" asked Peel-Swynnerton, without reflecting that it was
now he who was making advances to the fellow whose napkin covered all
his shirt-front.

"That's the missis, that is," said Mr. Mardon, in a lower and
semi-confidential voice.

"Oh! Mrs. Frensham?"

"Yes. But her real name is Scales," said Mr. Mardon, proudly.

"Widow, I suppose?"

"Yes."

"And she runs the whole show?"

"She runs the entire contraption," said Mr. Mardon, solemnly; "and
don't you make any mistake!" He was getting familiar.

Peel-Swynnerton beat him off once more, glancing with careful,
uninterested nonchalance at the gas-burners which exploded one after
another with a little plop under the application of the maid's taper.
The white table gleamed more whitely than ever under the flaring gas.
People at the end of the room away from the window instinctively
smiled, as though the sun had begun to shine. The aspect of the dinner
was changed, ameliorated; and with the reiterated statement that the
evenings were drawing in though it was only July, conversation became
almost general. In two minutes Mr. Mardon was genially talking across
the whole length of the table. The meal finished in a state that
resembled conviviality.

Matthew Peel-Swynnerton might not go out into the crepuscular delights
of Paris. Unless he remained within the shelter of the Pension, he
could not hope to complete successfully his re-conversion from folly to
wisdom. So he bravely passed through the small rose-embroidered door
into a small glass-covered courtyard, furnished with palms, wicker
armchairs, and two small tables; and he lighted a pipe and pulled out
of his pocket a copy of The Referee. That retreat was called the
Lounge; it was the only part of the Pension where smoking was not
either a positive crime or a transgression against good form. He felt
lonely. He said to himself grimly in one breath that pleasure was all
rot, and in the next he sullenly demanded of the universe how it was
that pleasure could not go on for ever, and why he was not Mr. Barney
Barnato. Two old men entered the retreat and burnt cigarettes with many
precautions. Then Mr. Lewis Mardon appeared and sat down boldly next to
Matthew, like a privileged friend. After all, Mr. Mardon was better
than nobody whatever, and Matthew decided to suffer him, especially as
he began without preliminary skirmishing to talk about life in Paris.
An irresistible subject! Mr. Mardon said in a worldly tone that the
existence of a bachelor in Paris might easily be made agreeable. But
that, of course, for himself--well, he preferred, as a general rule,
the Pension Frensham sort of thing; and it was excellent for his
business. Still he could not ... he knew ... He compared the advantages
of what he called 'knocking about' in Paris, with the equivalent in
London. His information about London was out of date, and
Peel-Swynnerton was able to set him right on important details. But his
information about Paris was infinitely precious and interesting to the
younger man, who saw that he had hitherto lived under strange
misconceptions.

"Have a whiskey?" asked Mr. Mardon, suddenly. "Very good here!" he
added.

"Thanks!" drawled Peel-Swynnerton.

The temptation to listen to Mr. Mardon as long as Mr. Mardon would talk
was not to be overcome. And presently, when the old men had departed,
they were frankly telling each other stories in the dimness of the
retreat. Then, when the supply of stories came to an end, Mr. Mardon
smacked his lips over the last drop of whiskey and ejaculated: "Yes!"
as if giving a general confirmation to all that had been said.

"Do have one with me," said Matthew, politely. It was the least he
could do.

The second supply of whiskies was brought into the Lounge by Mr.
Mardon's Marie. He smiled on her familiarly, and remarked that he
supposed she would soon be going to bed after a hard day's work. She
gave a moue and a flounce in reply, and swished out.

"Carries herself well, doesn't she?" observed Mr. Mardon, as though
Marie had been an exhibit at an agricultural show. "Ten years ago she
was very fresh and pretty, but of course it takes it out of 'em, a
place like this!"

"But still," said Peel-Swynnerton, "they must like it or they wouldn't
stay--that is, unless things are very different here from what they are
in England."

The conversation seemed to have stimulated him to examine the woman
question in all its bearings, with philosophic curiosity.

"Oh! They LIKE it," Mr. Mardon assured him, as one who knew. "Besides,
Mrs. Scales treats 'em very well. I know THAT. She's told me. She's
very particular"--he looked around to see if walls had ears--"and, by
Jove, you've got to be; but she treats 'em well. You'd scarcely believe
the wages they get, and pickings. Now at the Hotel Moscow--know the
Hotel Moscow?"

Happily Peel-Swynnerton did. He had been advised to avoid it because it
catered exclusively for English visitors, but in the Pension Frensham
he had accepted something even more exclusively British than the Hotel
Moscow. Mr. Mardon was quite relieved at his affirmative.

"The Hotel Moscow is a limited company now," said he; "English."

"Really?"

"Yes. I floated it. It was my idea. A great success! That's how I know
all about the Hotel Moscow." He looked at the walls again. "I wanted to
do the same here," he murmured, and Peel-Swynnerton had to show that he
appreciated this confidence. "But she never would agree. I've tried her
all ways. No go! It's a thousand pities."

"Paying thing, eh?"

"This place? I should say it was! And I ought to be able to judge, I
reckon. Mrs. Scales is one of the shrewdest women you'd meet in a day's
march. She's made a lot of money here, a lot of money. And there's no
reason why a place like this shouldn't be five times as big as it is.
Ten times. The scope's unlimited, my dear sir. All that's wanted is
capital. Naturally she has capital of her own, and she could get more.
But then, as she says, she doesn't want the place any bigger. She says
it's now just as big as she can handle. That isn't so. She's a woman
who could handle anything--a born manager--but even if it was so, all
she would have to do would be to retire--only leave us the place and
the name. It's the name that counts. And she's made the name of
Frensham worth something, I can tell you!"

"Did she get the place from her husband?" asked Peel-Swynnerton. Her
own name of Scales intrigued him.

Mr. Mardon shook his head. "Bought it on her own, after the husband's
time, for a song--a song! I know, because I knew the original
Frenshams."

"You must have been in Paris a long time," said Peel-Swynnerton.

Mr. Mardon could never resist an opportunity to talk about himself. His
was a wonderful history. And Peel-Swynnerton, while scorning the man
for his fatuity, was impressed. And when that was finished--

"Yes!" said Mr. Mardon after a pause, reaffirming everything in
general by a single monosyllable.

Shortly afterwards he rose, saying that his habits were regular.

"Good-night," he said with a mechanical smile.

"G-good-night," said Peel-Swynnerton, trying to force the tone of
fellowship and not succeeding. Their intimacy, which had sprung up like
a mushroom, suddenly fell into dust. Peel-Swynnerton's unspoken comment
to Mr. Mardon's back was: "Ass!" Still, the sum of Peel-Swynnerton's
knowledge had indubitably been increased during the evening. And the
hour was yet early. Half-past ten! The Folies-Marigny, with its
beautiful architecture and its crowds of white toilettes, and its
frothing of champagne and of beer, and its musicians in tight red
coats, was just beginning to be alive--and at a distance of scarcely a
stone's-throw! Peel-Swynnerton pictured the terraced, glittering hall,
which had been the prime origin of his exceeding foolishness. And he
pictured all the other resorts, great and small, garlanded with white
lanterns, in the Champs Elysees; and the sombre aisles of the Champs
Elysees where mysterious pale figures walked troublingly under the
shade of trees, while snatches of wild song or absurd brassy music
floated up from the resorts and restaurants. He wanted to go out and
spend those fifty francs that remained in his pocket. After all, why
not telegraph to England for more money? "Oh, damn it!" he said
savagely, and stretched his arms and got up. The Lounge was very small,
gloomy and dreary.

One brilliant incandescent light burned in the hall, crudely
illuminating the wicker fauteuils, a corded trunk with a blue-and-red
label on it, a Fitzroy barometer, a map of Paris, a coloured poster of
the Compagnie Transatlantique, and the mahogany retreat of the
hall-portress. In that retreat was not only the hall-portress--an aged
woman with a white cap above her wrinkled pink face--but the mistress
of the establishment. They were murmuring together softly; they seemed
to be well disposed to one another. The portress was respectful, but
the mistress was respectful also. The hall, with its one light
tranquilly burning, was bathed in an honest calm, the calm of a day's
work accomplished, of gradual relaxation from tension, of growing
expectation of repose. In its simplicity it affected Peel-Swynnerton as
a medicine tonic for nerves might have affected him. In that hall,
though exterior nocturnal life was but just stirring into activity, it
seemed that the middle of the night had come, and that these two women
alone watched in a mansion full of sleepers. And all the recitals which
Peel-Swynnerton and Mr. Mardon had exchanged sank to the level of
pitiably foolish gossip. Peel-Swynnerton felt that his duty to the
house was to retire to bed. He felt, too, that he could not leave the
house without saying that he was going out, and that he lacked the
courage deliberately to tell these two women that he was going out--at
that time of night! He dropped into one of the chairs and made a second
attempt to peruse The Referee. Useless! Either his mind was outside in
the Champs Elysees, or his gaze would wander surreptitiously to the
figure of Mrs. Scales. He could not well distinguish her face because
it was in the shadow of the mahogany.

Then the portress came forth from her box, and, slightly bent, sped
actively across the hall, smiling pleasantly at the guest as she passed
him, and disappeared up the stairs. The mistress was alone in the
retreat. Peel-Swynnerton jumped up brusquely, dropping the paper with a
rustle, and approached her.

"Excuse me," he said deferentially. "Have any letters come for me
to-night?"

He knew that the arrival of letters for him was impossible, since
nobody knew his address.

"What name?" The question was coldly polite, and the questioner looked
him full in the face. Undoubtedly she was a handsome woman. Her hair
was greying at the temples, and the skin was withered and crossed with
lines. But she was handsome. She was one of those women of whom to
their last on earth the stranger will say: "When she was young she must
have been worth looking at!"--with a little transient regret that
beautiful young women cannot remain for ever young. Her voice was firm
and even, sweet in tone, and yet morally harsh from incessant
traffic--with all varieties of human nature. Her eyes were the
impartial eyes of one who is always judging. And evidently she was a
proud, even a haughty creature, with her careful, controlled
politeness. Evidently she considered herself superior to no matter what
guest. Her eyes announced that she had lived and learnt, that she knew
more about life than any one whom she was likely to meet, and that
having pre-eminently succeeded in life, she had tremendous confidence
in herself. The proof of her success was the unique Frensham's. A
consciousness of the uniqueness of Frensham's was also in those eyes.
Theoretically Matthew Peel-Swynnerton's mental attitude towards
lodging-house keepers was condescending, but here it was not
condescending. It had the real respectfulness of a man who for the
moment at any rate is impressed beyond his calculations. His glance
fell as he said--

"Peel-Swynnerton." Then he looked up again.

He said the words awkwardly, and rather fearfully, as if aware that he
was playing with fire. If this Mrs. Scales was the long-vanished aunt
of his friend, Cyril Povey, she must know those two names, locally so
famous. Did she start? Did she show a sign of being perturbed? At first
he thought he detected a symptom of emotion, but in an instant he was
sure that he had detected nothing of the sort, and that it was silly to
suppose that he was treading on the edge of a romance. Then she turned
towards the letter-rack at her side, and he saw her face in profile. It
bore a sudden and astonishing likeness to the profile of Cyril Povey; a
resemblance unmistakable and finally decisive. The nose, and the curve
of the upper lip were absolutely Cyril's. Matthew Peel-Swynnerton felt
very queer. He felt like a criminal in peril of being caught in the
act, and he could not understand why he should feel so. The landlady
looked in the 'P' pigeon-hole, and in the 'S' pigeon-hole.

"No," she said quietly, "I see nothing for you."

Taken with a swift rash audacity, he said: "Have you had any one named
Povey here recently?"

"Povey?"

"Yes. Cyril Povey, of Bursley--in the Five Towns."

He was very impressionable, very sensitive, was Matthew
Peel-Swynnerton. His voice trembled as he spoke. But hers also trembled
in reply.

"Not that I remember! No! Were you expecting him to be here?"

"Well, it wasn't at all sure," he muttered. "Thank you. Good-night."

"Good-night," she said, apparently with the simple perfunctoriness of
the landlady who says good-night to dozens of strangers every evening.

He hurried away upstairs, and met the portress coming down. "Well,
well!" he thought. "Of all the queer things--!" And he kept nodding his
head. At last he had encountered something REALLY strange in the
spectacle of existence. It had fallen to him to discover the legendary
woman who had fled from Bursley before he was born, and of whom nobody
knew anything. What news for Cyril! What a staggering episode! He had
scarcely any sleep that night. He wondered whether he would be able to
meet Mrs. Scales without self-consciousness on the morrow. However, he
was spared the curious ordeal of meeting her. She did not appear at all
on the following day; nor did he see her before he left. He could not
find a pretext for asking why she was invisible.

II

The hansom of Matthew Peel-Swynnerton drew up in front of No. 26,
Victoria Grove, Chelsea; his kit-bag was on the roof of the cab. The
cabman had a red flower in his buttonhole. Matthew leaped out of the
vehicle, holding his straw hat on his head with one hand. On reaching
the pavement he checked himself suddenly and became carelessly calm.
Another straw-hatted and grey-clad figure was standing at the side-gate
of No. 26 in the act of lighting a cigarette.

"Hello, Matt!" exclaimed the second figure, languidly, and in a veiled
voice due to the fact that he was still holding the match to the
cigarette and puffing. "What's the meaning of all this fluster? You're
just the man I want to see."

He threw away the match with a wave of the arm, and took Matthew's hand
for a moment, blowing a double shaft of smoke through his nose.

"I want to see you, too," said Matthew. "And I've only got a minute.
I'm on my way to Euston. I must catch the twelve-five."

He looked at his friend, and could positively see no feature of it that
was not a feature of Mrs. Scales's face. Also, the elderly woman held
her body in exactly the same way as the young man. It was entirely
disconcerting.

"Have a cigarette," answered Cyril Povey, imperturbably. He was two
years younger than Matthew, from whom he had acquired most of his vast
and intricate knowledge of life and art, with certain leading notions
of deportment; whose pupil indeed he was in all the things that matter
to young men. But he had already surpassed his professor. He could
pretend to be old much more successfully than Matthew could.

The cabman approvingly watched the ignition of the second cigarette,
and then the cabman pulled out a cigar, and showed his large, white
teeth, as he bit the end off it. The appearance and manner of his fare,
the quality of the kit-bag, and the opening gestures of the interview
between the two young dukes, had put the cabman in an optimistic mood.
He had no apprehensions of miserly and ungentlemanly conduct by his
fare upon the arrival at Euston. He knew the language of the tilt of a
straw hat. And it was a magnificent day in London. The group of the two
elegances dominated by the perfection of the cabman made a striking
tableau of triumphant masculinity, content with itself, and needing
nothing.

Matthew lightly took Cyril's arm and drew him further down the street,
past the gate leading to the studio (hidden behind a house) which Cyril
rented.

"Look here, my boy," he began, "I've found your aunt."

"Well, that's very nice of you," said Cyril, solemnly. "That's a
friendly act. May I ask what aunt?"

"Mrs. Scales," said Matthew. "You know--"

"Not the--" Cyril's face changed.

"Yes, precisely!" said Matthew, feeling that he was not being cheated
of the legitimate joy caused by making a sensation. Assuredly he had
made a sensation in Victoria Grove.

When he had related the whole story, Cyril said: "Then she doesn't know
you know?"

"I don't think so. No, I'm sure she doesn't. She may guess."

"But how can you be certain you haven't made a mistake? It may be
that--"

"Look here, my boy," Matthew interrupted him. "I've not made any
mistake."

"But you've no proof."

"Proof be damned!" said Matthew, nettled. "I tell you it's HER!"

"Oh! All right! All right! What puzzles me most is what the devil you
were doing in a place like that. According to your description of it,
it must be a--"

"I went there because I was broke," said Matthew.

"Razzle?"

Matthew nodded.

"Pretty stiff, that!" commented Cyril, when Matthew had narrated the
prologue to Frensham's.

"Well, she absolutely swore she never took less than two hundred
francs. And she looked it, too! And she was worth it! I had the time of
my life with that woman. I can tell you one thing--no more English for
me! They simply aren't in it."

"How old was she?"

Matthew reflected judicially. "I should say she was thirty." The gaze
of admiration and envy was upon him. He had the legitimate joy of
making a second sensation. "I'll let you know more about that when I
come back," he added. "I can open your eyes, my child."

Cyril smiled sheepishly. "Why can't you stay now?" he asked. "I'm going
to take the cast of that Verrall girl's arm this afternoon, and I know
I can't do it alone. And Robson's no good. You're just the man I want."

"Can't!" said Matthew.

"Well, come into the studio a minute, anyhow."

"Haven't time; I shall miss my train."

"I don't care if you miss forty trains. You must come in. You've got to
see that fountain," Cyril insisted crossly.

Matthew yielded. When they emerged into the street again, after six
minutes of Cyril's savage interest in his own work, Matthew remembered
Mrs. Scales.

"Of course you'll write to your mother?" he said.

"Yes," said Cyril, "I'll write; but if you happen to see her, you might
tell her."

"I will," said Matthew. "Shall you go over to Paris?"

"What! To see Auntie?" He smiled. "I don't know. Depends. If the mater
will fork out all my exes ... it's an idea," he said lightly, and then
without any change of tone, "Naturally, if you're going to idle about
here all morning you aren't likely to catch the twelve-five."

Matthew got into the cab, while the driver, the stump of a cigar
between his exposed teeth, leaned forward and lifted the reins away
from the tilted straw hat.

"By-the-by, lend me some silver," Matthew demanded. "It's a good thing
I've got my return ticket. I've run it as fine as ever I did in my
life."

Cyril produced eight shillings in silver. Secure in the possession of
these riches, Matthew called to the driver--

"Euston--like hell!"

"Yes, sir," said the driver, calmly.

"Not coming my way I suppose?" Matthew shouted as an afterthought, just
when the cab began to move.

"No. Barber's," Cyril shouted in answer, and waved his hand.

The horse rattled into Fulham Road.

III

Three days later Matthew Peel-Swynnerton was walking along Bursley
Market Place when, just opposite the Town Hall, he met a short, fat,
middle-aged lady dressed in black, with a black embroidered mantle, and
a small bonnet tied with black ribbon and ornamented with jet fruit and
crape leaves. As she stepped slowly and carefully forward she had the
dignified, important look of a provincial woman who has always been
accustomed to deference in her native town, and whose income is ample
enough to extort obsequiousness from the vulgar of all ranks. But
immediately she caught sight of Matthew, her face changed. She became
simple and naive. She blushed slightly, smiling with a timid pleasure.
For her, Matthew belonged to a superior race. He bore the almost sacred
name of Peel. His family had been distinguished in the district for
generations. 'Peel!' You could without impropriety utter it in the same
breath with 'Wedgwood.' And 'Swynnerton' stood not much lower. Neither
her self-respect, which was great, nor her commonsense, which far
exceeded the average, could enable her to extend as far as the Peels
the theory that one man is as good as another. The Peels never shopped
in St. Luke's Square. Even in its golden days the Square could not have
expected such a condescension. The Peels shopped in London or in
Stafford; at a pinch, in Oldcastle. That was the distinction for the
ageing stout lady in black. Why, she had not in six years recovered
from her surprise that her son and Matthew Peel-Swynnerton treated each
other rudely as equals! She and Matthew did not often meet, but they
liked each other. Her involuntary meekness flattered him. And his
rather elaborate homage flattered her. He admired her fundamental
goodness, and her occasional raps at Cyril seemed to put him into
ecstasies of joy.

"Well, Mrs. Povey," he greeted her, standing over her with his hat
raised. (It was a fashion he had picked up in Paris.) "Here I am, you
see."

"You're quite a stranger, Mr. Matthew. I needn't ask you how you are.
Have you been seeing anything of my boy lately?"

"Not since Wednesday," said Matthew. "Of course he's written to you?"

"There's no 'of course' about it," she laughed faintly. "I had a short
letter from him on Wednesday morning. He said you were in Paris."

"But since that--hasn't he written?"

"If I hear from him on Sunday I shall be lucky, bless ye!" said
Constance, grimly. "It's not letter-writing that will kill Cyril."

"But do you mean to say he hasn't--" Matthew stopped.

"Whatever's amiss?" asked Constance. Matthew was at a loss to know what
to do or say. "Oh, nothing."

"Now, Mr. Matthew, do please--" Constance's tone had suddenly quite
changed. It had become firm, commanding, and gravely suspicious. The
conversation had ceased to be small-talk for her.

Matthew saw how nervous and how fragile she was. He had never noticed
before that she was so sensitive to trifles, though it was notorious
that nobody could safely discuss Cyril with her in terms of chaff. He
was really astounded at that youth's carelessness, shameful
carelessness. That Cyril's attitude to his mother was marked by a
certain benevolent negligence--this Matthew knew; but not to have
written to her with the important news concerning Mrs. Scales was
utterly inexcusable; and Matthew determined that he would tell Cyril
so. He felt very sorry for Mrs. Povey. She seemed pathetic to him,
standing there in ignorance of a tremendous fact which she ought to
have been aware of. He was very content that he had said nothing about
Mrs. Scales to anybody except his own mother, who had prudently
enjoined silence upon him, saying that his one duty, having told Cyril,
was to keep his mouth shut until the Poveys talked. Had it not been for
his mother's advice he would assuredly have spread the amazing tale,
and Mrs. Povey might have first heard of it from a stranger's gossip,
which would have been too cruel upon her.

"Oh!" Matthew tried to smile gaily, archly. "You're bound to hear from
Cyril to-morrow."

He wanted to persuade her that he was concealing merely some delightful
surprise from her. But he did not succeed. With all his experience of
the world and of women he was not clever enough to deceive that simple
woman.

"I'm waiting, Mr. Matthew," she said, in a tone that flattened the
smile out of Matthew's sympathetic face. She was ruthless. The fact
was, she had in an instant convinced herself that Cyril had met some
girl and was engaged to be married. She could think of nothing else.
"What has Cyril been doing?" she added, after a pause.

"It's nothing to do with Cyril," said he.

"Then what is it?"

"It was about--Mrs. Scales," he murmured, nearly trembling. As she
offered no response, merely looking around her in a peculiar fashion,
he said: "Shall we walk along a bit?" And he turned in the direction in
which she had been going. She obeyed the suggestion.

"What did ye say?" she asked. The name of Scales for a moment had no
significance for her. But when she comprehended it she was afraid, and
so she said vacantly, as though wishing to postpone a shock: "What did
ye say?"

"I said it was about Mrs. Scales. You know I m-met her in Paris." And
he was saying to himself: "I ought not to be telling this poor old
thing here in the street. But what can I do?"

"Nay, nay!" she muttered.

She stopped and looked at him with a worried expression. Then he
observed that the hand that carried her reticule was making strange
purposeless curves in the air, and her rosy face went the colour of
cream, as though it had been painted with one stroke of an unseen
brush. Matthew was very much put about.

"Hadn't you better--" he began.

"Eh," she said; "I must sit me--" Her bag dropped.

He supported her to the door of Allman's shop, the ironmonger's.
Unfortunately, there were two steps up into the shop, and she could not
climb them. She collapsed like a sack of flour on the first step. Young
Edward Allman ran to the door. He was wearing a black apron and
fidgeting with it in his excitement.

"Don't lift her up--don't try to lift her up, Mr. Peel-Swynnerton!" he
cried, as Matthew instinctively began to do the wrong thing.

Matthew stopped, looking a fool and feeling one, and he and young
Allman contemplated each other helpless for a second across the body of
Constance Povey. A part of the Market Place now perceived that the
unusual was occurring. It was Mr. Shawcross, the chemist next door to
Allman's who dealt adequately with the situation. He had seen all,
while selling a Kodak to a young lady, and he ran out with salts.
Constance recovered very rapidly. She had not quite swooned. She gave a
long sigh, and whispered weakly that she was all right. The three men
helped her into the lofty dark shop, which smelt of nails and of
stove-polish, and she was balanced on a ricketty chair.

"My word!" exclaimed young Allman, in his loud voice, when she could
smile and the pink was returning reluctantly to her cheeks. "You
mustn't frighten us like that, Mrs. Povey!"

Matthew said nothing. He had at last created a genuine sensation. Once
again he felt like a criminal, and could not understand why.

Constance announced that she would walk slowly home, down the Cock-yard
and along Wedgwood Street. But when, glancing round in her returned
strength, she saw the hedge of faces at the doorway, she agreed with
Mr. Shawcross that she would do better to have a cab. Young Allman went
to the door and whistled to the unique cab that stands for ever at the
grand entrance to the Town Hall.

"Mr. Matthew will come with me," said Constance.

"Certainly, with pleasure," said Matthew.

And she passed through the little crowd of gapers on Mr. Shawcross's
arm.

"Just take care of yourself, missis," said Mr. Shawcross to her,
through the window of the cab. "It's fainting weather, and we're none
of us any younger, seemingly."

She nodded.

"I'm awfully sorry I upset you, Mrs. Povey," said Matthew, when the cab
moved.

She shook her head, refusing his apology as unnecessary. Tears filled
her eyes. In less than a minute the cab had stopped in front of
Constance's light-grained door. She demanded her reticule from Matthew,
who had carried it since it fell. She would pay the cabman. Never
before had Matthew permitted a woman to pay for a cab in which he had
ridden; but there was no arguing with Constance. Constance was
dangerous.

Amy Bates, still inhabiting the cave, had seen the cab-wheels through
the grating of her window and had panted up the kitchen stairs to open
the door ere Constance had climbed the steps. Amy, decidedly over
forty, was a woman of authority. She wanted to know what was the
matter, and Constance had to tell her that she had 'felt unwell.' Amy
took the hat and mantle and departed to prepare a cup of tea. When they
were alone Constance said to Matthew:

"Now. Mr. Matthew, will you please tell me?"

"It's only this," he began.

And as he told it, in quite a few words, it indeed had the air of being
'only that.' And yet his voice shook, in sympathy with the ageing
woman's controlled but visible emotion. It seemed to him that gladness
should have filled the absurd little parlour, but the spirit that
presided had no name; it was certainly not joy. He himself felt very
sad, desolated. He would have given much money to have been spared the
experience. He knew simply that in the memory of the stout, comical,
nice woman in the rocking-chair he had stirred old, old things, wakened
slumbers that might have been eternal. He did not know that he was
sitting on the very spot where the sofa had been on which Samuel Povey
lay when a beautiful and shameless young creature of fifteen extracted
his tooth. He did not know that Constance was sitting in the very chair
in which the memorable Mrs. Baines had sat in vain conflict with that
same unconquerable girl. He did not know ten thousand matters that were
rushing violently about in the vast heart of Constance.

She cross-questioned him in detail. But she did not put the questions
which he in his innocence expected; such as, if her sister looked old,
if her hair was grey, if she was stout or thin. And until Amy,
mystified and resentful, had served the tea, on a little silver tray,
she remained comparatively calm. It was in the middle of a gulp of tea
that she broke down, and Matthew had to take the cup from her.

"I can't thank you, Mr. Matthew," she wept. "I couldn't thank you
enough."

"But I've done nothing," he protested.

She shook her head. "I never hoped for this. Never hoped for it!" she
went on. "It makes me so happy--in a way.... You mustn't take any
notice of me. I'm silly. You must kindly write down that address for
me. And I must write to Cyril at once. And I must see Mr. Critchlow."

"It's really very funny that Cyril hasn't written to you," said Matthew.

"Cyril has not been a good son," she said with sudden, solemn coldness.
"To think that he should have kept that...!" She wept again.

At length Matthew saw the possibility of leaving. He felt her warm,
soft, crinkled hand round his fingers.

"You've behaved very nicely over this," she said. "And very cleverly.
In EVERY thing--both over there and here. Nobody could have shown a
nicer feeling than you've shown. It's a great comfort to me that my son
has got you for a friend."

When he thought of his escapades, and of all the knowledge, unutterable
in Bursley, fantastically impossible in Bursley, which he had imparted
to her son, he marvelled that the maternal instinct should be so
deceived. Still, he felt that her praise of him was deserved.

Outside, he gave vent to a 'Phew' of relief. He smiled, in his
worldliest manner. But the smile was a sham. A pretence to himself! A
childish attempt to disguise from himself how profoundly he had been
moved by a natural scene!

IV

On the night when Matthew Peel-Swynnerton spoke to Mrs. Scales, Matthew
was not the only person in the Pension Frensham who failed to sleep.
When the old portress came downstairs from her errand, she observed
that her mistress was leaving the mahogany retreat.

"She is sleeping tranquilly, the poor one!" said the portress,
discharging her commission, which had been to learn the latest news of
the mistress's indisposed dog, Fossette. In saying this her ancient,
vibrant voice was rich with sympathy for the suffering animal. And she
smiled. She was rather like a figure out of an almshouse, with her
pink, apparently brittle skin, her tight black dress, and frilled white
cap. She stooped habitually, and always walked quickly, with her head a
few inches in advance of her feet. Her grey hair was scanty. She was
old; nobody perhaps knew exactly how old. Sophia had taken her with the
Pension, over a quarter of a century before, because she was old and
could not easily have found another place. Although the clientele was
almost exclusively English, she spoke only French, explaining herself
to Britons by means of benevolent smiles.

"I think I shall go to bed, Jacqueline," said the mistress, in reply.

A strange reply, thought Jacqueline. The unalterable custom of
Jacqueline was to retire at midnight and to rise at five-thirty. Her
mistress also usually retired about midnight, and during the final hour
mistress and portress saw a good deal of each other. And considering
that Jacqueline had just been sent up into the mistress's own bedroom
to glance at Fossette, and that the bulletin was satisfactory, and that
madame and Jacqueline had several customary daily matters to discuss,
it seemed odd that madame should thus be going instantly to bed.
However, Jacqueline said nothing but:

"Very well, madame. And the number 32?"

"Arrange yourself as you can," said the mistress, curtly.

"It is well, madame. Good evening, madame, and a good night."

Jacqueline, alone in the hall, re-entered her box and set upon one of
those endless, mysterious tasks which occupied her when she was not
rushing to and fro or whistling up the tubes.

Sophia, scarcely troubling even to glance into Fossette's round basket,
undressed, put out the light, and got into bed. She felt extremely and
inexplicably gloomy. She did not wish to reflect; she strongly wished
not to reflect; but her mind insisted on reflection--a monotonous,
futile, and distressing reflection. Povey! Povey! Could this be
Constance's Povey, the unique Samuel Povey? That is to say, not he, but
his son, Constance's son. Had Constance a grown-up son? Constance must
be over fifty now, perhaps a grandmother! Had she really married Samuel
Povey? Possibly she was dead. Certainly her mother must be dead, and
Aunt Harriet and Mr. Critchlow. If alive, her mother must be at least
eighty years of age.

The cumulative effect of merely remaining inactive when one ought to be
active, was terrible. Undoubtedly she should have communicated with her
family. It was silly not to have done so. After all, even if she had,
as a child, stolen a trifle of money from her wealthy aunt, what would
that have mattered? She had been proud. She was criminally proud. That
was her vice. She admitted it frankly. But she could not alter her
pride. Everybody had some weak spot. Her reputation for sagacity, for
commonsense, was, she knew, enormous; she always felt, when people were
talking to her, that they regarded her as a very unusually wise woman.
And yet she had been guilty of the capital folly of cutting herself off
from her family. She was ageing, and she was alone in the world. She
was enriching herself; she had the most perfectly managed and the most
respectable Pension in the world (she sincerely believed), and she was
alone in the world. Acquaintances she had--French people who never
offered nor accepted hospitality other than tea or wine, and one or two
members of the English commercial colony--but her one friend was
Fossette, aged three years! She was the most solitary person on earth.
She had heard no word of Gerald, no word of anybody. Nobody whatever
could truly be interested in her fate. This was what she had achieved
after a quarter of a century of ceaseless labour and anxiety, during
which she had not once been away from the Rue Lord Byron for more than
thirty hours at a stretch. It was appalling--the passage of years; and
the passage of years would grow more appalling. Ten years hence, where
would she be? She pictured herself dying. Horrible!

Of course there was nothing to prevent her from going back to Bursley
and repairing the grand error of her girlhood. No, nothing except the
fact that her whole soul recoiled from the mere idea of any such
enterprise! She was a fixture in the Rue Lord Byron. She was a part of
the street. She knew all that happened or could happen there. She was
attached to it by the heavy chains of habit. In the chill way of long
use she loved it. There! The incandescent gas-burner of the street-lamp
outside had been turned down, as it was turned down every night! If it
is possible to love such a phenomenon, she loved that phenomenon. That
phenomenon was a portion of her life, dear to her.

An agreeable young man, that Peel-Swynnerton! Then evidently, since her
days in Bursley, the Peels and the Swynnertons, partners in business,
must have intermarried, or there must have been some affair of a will.
Did he suspect who she was? He had had a very self-conscious, guilty
look. No! He could not have suspected who she was. The idea was
ridiculous. Probably he did not even know that her name was Scales. And
even if he knew her name, he had probably never heard of Gerald Scales,
or the story of her flight. Why, he could not have been born until
after she had left Bursley! Besides, the Peels were always quite aloof
from the ordinary social life of the town. No! He could not have
suspected her identity. It was infantile to conceive such a thing.

And yet, she inconsequently proceeded in the tangle of her afflicted
mind, supposing he had suspected it! Supposing by some queer chance, he
had heard her forgotten story, and casually put two and two together!
Supposing even that he were merely to mention in the Five Towns that
the Pension Frensham was kept by a Mrs. Scales. 'Scales? Scales?'
people might repeat. 'Now, what does that remind me of?' And the ball
might roll and roll till Constance or somebody picked it up! And then...

Moreover--a detail of which she had at first unaccountably failed to
mark the significance--this Peel-Swynnerton was a friend of the Mr.
Povey as to whom he had inquired. In that case it could not be the same
Povey. Impossible that the Peels should be on terms of friendship with
Samuel Povey or his connections! But supposing after all they were!
Supposing something utterly unanticipated and revolutionary had
happened in the Five Towns!

She was disturbed. She was insecure. She foresaw inquiries being made
concerning her. She foresaw an immense family fuss, endless tomfoolery,
the upsetting of her existence, the destruction of her calm. And she
sank away from that prospect. She could not face it. She did not want
to face it. "No," she cried passionately in her soul, "I've lived
alone, and I'll stay as I am. I can't change at my time of life." And
her attitude towards a possible invasion of her solitude became one of
resentment. "I won't have it! I won't have it! I will be left alone.
Constance! What can Constance be to me, or I to her, now?" The vision
of any change in her existence was in the highest degree painful to
her. And not only painful! It frightened her. It made her shrink. But
she could not dismiss it.... She could not argue herself out of it. The
apparition of Matthew Peel-Swynnerton had somehow altered the very
stuff of her fibres.

And surging on the outskirts of the central storm of her brain were ten
thousand apprehensions about the management of the Pension. All was
black, hopeless. The Pension might have been the most complete business
failure that gross carelessness and incapacity had ever provoked. Was
it not the fact that she had to supervise everything herself, that she
could depend on no one? Were she to be absent even for a single day the
entire structure would inevitably fall. Instead of working less she
worked harder. And who could guarantee that her investments were safe?

When dawn announced itself, slowly discovering each object in the
chamber, she was ill. Fever seemed to rage in her head. And in and
round her mouth she had strange sensations. Fossette stirred in the
basket near the large desk on which multifarious files and papers were
ranged with minute particularity.

"Fossette!" she tried to call out; but no sound issued from her lips.
She could not move her tongue. She tried to protrude it, and could not.
For hours she had been conscious of a headache. Her heart sank. She was
sick with fear. Her memory flashed to her father and his seizure. She
was his daughter! Paralysis! "Ca serait le comble!" she thought in
French, horrified. Her fear became abject! "Can I move at all?" she
thought, and madly jerked her head. Yes, she could move her head
slightly on the pillow, and she could stretch her right arm, both arms.
Absurd cowardice! Of course it was not a seizure! She reassured
herself. Still, she could not put her tongue out. Suddenly she began to
hiccough, and she had no control over the hiccough. She put her hand to
the bell, whose ringing would summon the man who slept in a pantry off
the hall, and suddenly the hiccough ceased. Her hand dropped. She was
better. Besides, what use in ringing for a man if she could not speak
to him through the door? She must wait for Jacqueline. At six o'clock
every morning, summer and winter, Jacqueline entered her mistress's
bedroom to release the dog for a moment's airing under her own
supervision. The clock on the mantelpiece showed five minutes past
three. She had three hours to wait. Fossette pattered across the room,
and sprang on to the bed and nestled down. Sophia ignored her, but
Fossette, being herself unwell and torpid, did not seem to care.

Jacqueline was late. In the quarter of an hour between six o'clock and
a quarter past, Sophia suffered the supreme pangs of despair and verged
upon insanity. It appeared to her that her cranium would blow off under
pressure from within. Then the door opened silently, a few inches.
Usually Jacqueline came into the room, but sometimes she stood behind
the door and called in her soft, trembling voice, "Fossette! Fossette!"
And on this morning she did not come into the room. The dog did not
immediately respond. Sophia was in an agony. She marshalled all her
volition, all her self-control and strength, to shout:

"Jacqueline!"

It came out of her, a horribly difficult and misshapen birth, but it
came. She was exhausted.

"Yes, madame." Jacqueline entered.

As soon as she had a glimpse of Sophia she threw up her hands. Sophia
stared at her, wordless.

"I will fetch the doctor--myself," whispered Jacqueline, and fled.

"Jacqueline!" The woman stopped. Then Sophia determined to force
herself to make a speech, and she braced her muscles to an
unprecedented effort. "Say not a word to the others." She could not
bear that the whole household should know of her illness. Jacqueline
nodded and vanished, the dog following. Jacqueline understood. She
lived in the place with her mistress as with a fellow-conspirator.

Sophia began to feel better. She could get into a sitting posture,
though the movement made her dizzy. By working to the foot of the bed
she could see herself in the glass of the wardrobe. And she saw that
the lower part of her face was twisted out of shape.

The doctor, who knew her, and who earned a lot of money in her house,
told her frankly what had happened. Paralysie glosso-labio-laryngee was
the phrase he used. She understood. A very slight attack; due to
overwork and worry. He ordered absolute rest and quiet.

"Impossible!" she said, genuinely convinced that she alone was
indispensable.

"Repose the most absolute!" he repeated.

She marvelled that a few words with a man who chanced to be named
Peel-Swynnerton could have resulted in such a disaster, and drew a
curious satisfaction from this fearful proof that she was so
highly-strung. But even then she did not realize how profoundly she had
been disturbed.

V

"My darling Sophia--"

The inevitable miracle had occurred. Her suspicions concerning that Mr.
Peel-Swynnerton were well-founded, after all! Here was a letter from
Constance! The writing on the envelope was not Constance's; but even
before examining it she had had a peculiar qualm. She received letters
from England nearly every day asking about rooms and prices (and on
many of them she had to pay threepence excess postage, because the
writers carelessly or carefully forgot that a penny stamp was not
sufficient); there was nothing to distinguish this envelope, and yet
her first glance at it had startled her; and when, deciphering the
smudged post-mark, she made out the word 'Bursley,' her heart did
literally seem to stop, and she opened the letter in quite violent
tremulation, thinking to herself: "The doctor would say this is very
bad for me." Six days had elapsed since her attack, and she was
wonderfully better; the distortion of her face had almost disappeared.
But the doctor was grave; he ordered no medicine, merely a tonic; and
monotonously insisted on 'repose the most absolute,' on perfect mental
calm. He said little else, allowing Sophia to judge from his silences
the seriousness of her condition. Yes, the receipt of such a letter
must be bad for her!

She controlled herself while she read it, lying in her dressing-gown
against several pillows on the bed; a mist did not form in her eyes,
nor did she sob, nor betray physically that she was not reading an
order for two rooms for a week. But the expenditure of nervous force
necessary to self-control was terrific.

Constance's handwriting had changed; it was, however, easily
recognizable as a development of the neat calligraphy of the girl who
could print window-tickets. The 'S' of Sophia was formed in the same
way as she had formed it in the last letter which she had received from
her at Axe!

"MY DARLING SOPHIA,

"I cannot tell you how overjoyed I was to learn that after all these
years you are alive and well, and doing so well too. I long to see you,
my dear sister. It was Mr. Peel-Swynnerton who told me. He is a friend
of Cyril's. Cyril is the name of my son. I married Samuel in 1867.
Cyril was born in 1874 at Christmas. He is now twenty-two, and doing
very well in London as a student of sculpture, though so young. He won
a National Scholarship. There were only eight, of which he won one, in
all England. Samuel died in 1888. If you read the papers you must have
seen about the Povey affair. I mean of course Mr. Daniel Povey,
Confectioner. It was that that killed poor Samuel. Poor mother died in
1875. It doesn't seem so long. Aunt Harriet and Aunt Maria are both
dead. Old Dr. Harrop is dead, and his son has practically retired. He
has a partner, a Scotchman. Mr. Critchlow has married Miss Insull. Did
you ever hear of such a thing? They have taken over the shop, and I
live in the house part, the other being bricked up. Business in the
Square is not what it used to be. The steam trams take all the custom
to Hanbridge, and they are talking of electric trams, but I dare say it
is only talk. I have a fairly good servant. She has been with me a long
time, but servants are not what they were. I keep pretty well, except
for my sciatica and palpitation. Since Cyril went to London I have been
very lonely. But I try to cheer up and count my blessings. I am sure I
have a great deal to be thankful for. And now this news of you! Please
write to me a long letter, and tell me all about yourself. It is a long
way to Paris. But surely now you know I am still here, you will come
and pay me a visit--at least. Everybody would be most glad to see you.
And I should be so proud and glad. As I say, I am all alone. Mr.
Critchlow says I am to say there is a deal of money waiting for you.
You know he is the trustee. There is the half-share of mother's and
also of Aunt Harriet's, and it has been accumulating. By the way, they
are getting up a subscription for Miss Chetwynd, poor old thing. Her
sister is dead, and she is in poverty. I have put myself down for L20.
Now, my dear sister, please do write to me at once. You see it is still
the old address. I remain, my darling Sophia, with much love, your
affectionate sister,

"CONSTANCE POVEY.

"P.S.--I should have written yesterday, but I was not fit. Every time I
sat down to write, I cried."

"Of course," said Sophia to Fossette, "she expects me to go to her,
instead of her coming to me! And yet who's the busiest?"

But this observation was not serious. It was merely a trifle of
affectionate malicious embroidery that Sophia put on the edge of her
deep satisfaction. The very spirit of simple love seemed to emanate
from the paper on which Constance had written. And this spirit woke
suddenly and completely Sophia's love for Constance. Constance! At that
moment there was assuredly for Sophia no creature in the world like
Constance. Constance personified for her the qualities of the Baines
family. Constance's letter was a great letter, a perfect letter,
perfect in its artlessness; the natural expression of the Baines
character at its best. Not an awkward reference in the whole of it! No
clumsy expression of surprise at anything that she, Sophia, had done,
or failed to do! No mention of Gerald! Just a sublime acceptance of the
situation as it was, and the assurance of undiminished love! Tact? No;
it was something finer than tact! Tact was conscious, skilful. Sophia
was certain that the notion of tactfulness had not entered Constance's
head. Constance had simply written out of her heart. And that was what
made the letter so splendid. Sophia was convinced that no one but a
Baines could have written such a letter. She felt that she must rise to
the height of that letter, that she too must show her Baines blood. And
she went primly to her desk, and began to write (on private notepaper)
in that imperious large hand of hers that was so different from
Constance's. She began a little stiffly, but after a few lines her
generous and passionate soul was responding freely to the appeal of
Constance. She asked that Mr. Critchlow should pay L20 for her to the
Miss Chetwynd fund. She spoke of her Pension and of Paris, and of her
pleasure in Constance's letter. But she said nothing as to Gerald, nor
as to the possibility of a visit to the Five Towns. She finished the
letter in a blaze of love, and passed from it as from a dream to the
sterile banality of the daily life of the Pension Frensham, feeling
that, compared to Constance's affection, nothing else had any worth.

But she would not consider the project of going to Bursley. Never,
never would she go to Bursley. If Constance chose to come to Paris and
see her, she would be delighted, but she herself would not budge. The
mere notion of any change in her existence intimidated her. And as for
returning to Bursley itself ... no, no!

Nevertheless, at the Pension Frensham, the future could not be as the
past. Sophia's health forbade that. She knew that the doctor was right.
Every time that she made an effort, she knew intimately and speedily
that the doctor was right. Only her will-power was unimpaired; the
machinery by which will-power is converted into action was mysteriously
damaged. She was aware of the fact. But she could not face it yet. Time
would have to elapse before she could bring herself to face that fact.
She was getting an old woman. She could no longer draw on reserves. Yet
she persisted to every one that she was quite recovered, and was
abstaining from her customary work simply from an excess of prudence.
Certainly her face had recovered. And the Pension, being a machine all
of whose parts were in order, continued to run, apparently, with its
usual smoothness. It is true that the excellent chef began to peculate,
but as his cuisine did not suffer, the result was not noticeable for a
long period. The whole staff and many of the guests knew that Sophia
had been indisposed; and they knew no more.

When by hazard Sophia observed a fault in the daily conduct of the
house, her first impulse was to go to the root of it and cure it, her
second was to leave it alone, or to palliate it by some superficial
remedy. Unperceived, and yet vaguely suspected by various people, the
decline of the Pension Frensham had set in. The tide, having risen to
its highest, was receding, but so little that no one could be sure that
it had turned. Every now and then it rushed up again and washed the
furthest stone.

Sophia and Constance exchanged several letters. Sophia said repeatedly
that she could not leave Paris. At length she roundly asked Constance
to come and pay her a visit. She made the suggestion with fear--for the
prospect of actually seeing her beloved Constance alarmed her--but she
could do no less than make it. And in a few days she had a reply to say
that Constance would have come, under Cyril's charge, but that her
sciatica was suddenly much worse, and she was obliged to lie down every
day after dinner to rest her legs. Travelling was impossible for her.
The fates were combining against Sophia's decision.

And now Sophia began to ask herself about her duty to Constance. The
truth was that she was groping round to find an excuse for reversing
her decision. She was afraid to reverse it, yet tempted. She had the
desire to do something which she objected to doing. It was like the
desire to throw one's self over a high balcony. It drew her, drew her,
and she drew back against it. The Pension was now tedious to her. It
bored her even to pretend to be the supervising head of the Pension.
Throughout the house discipline had loosened.

She wondered when Mr. Mardon would renew his overtures for the
transformation of her enterprise into a limited company. In spite of
herself she would deliberately cross his path and give him
opportunities to begin on the old theme. He had never before left her
in peace for so long a period. No doubt she had, upon his last assault,
absolutely convinced him that his efforts had no smallest chance of
success, and he had made up his mind to cease them. With a single word
she could wind him up again. The merest hint, one day when he was
paying his bill, and he would be beseeching her. But she could not
utter the word.

Then she began to say openly that she did not feel well, that the house
was too much for her, and that the doctor had imperatively commanded
rest. She said this to every one except Mardon. And every one somehow
persisted in not saying it to Mardon. The doctor having advised that
she should spend more time in the open air, she would take afternoon
drives in the Bois with Fossette. It was October. But Mr. Mardon never
seemed to hear of those drives.

One morning he met her in the street outside the house.

"I'm sorry to hear you're so unwell," he said confidentially, after
they had discussed the health of Fossette.

"So unwell!" she exclaimed as if resenting the statement. "Who told you
I was so unwell?"

"Jacqueline. She told me you often said that what you needed was a
complete change. And it seems the doctor says so, too."

"Oh! doctors!" she murmured, without however denying the truth of
Jacqueline's assertion. She saw hope in Mr. Mardon's eyes.

"Of course, you know," he said, still more confidentially, "if you
SHOULD happen to change your mind, I'm always ready to form a little
syndicate to take this"--he waved discreetly at the Pension--"off your
hands."

She shook her head violently, which was strange, considering that for
weeks she had been wishing to hear such words from Mr. Mardon.

"You needn't give it up altogether," he said. "You could retain your
hold on it. We'd make you manageress, with a salary and a share in the
profits. You'd be mistress just as much as you are now."

"Oh!" said she carelessly. "IF _I_ GAVE IT UP, _I_ SHOULD GIVE IT UP
ENTIRELY. No half measures for me."

With the utterance of that sentence, the history of Frensham's as a
private understanding was brought to a close. Sophia knew it. Mr.
Mardon knew it. Mr. Mardon's heart leapt. He saw in his imagination the
formation of the preliminary syndicate, with himself at its head, and
then the re-sale by the syndicate to a limited company at a profit. He
saw a nice little profit for his own private personal self of a
thousand or so--gained in a moment. The plant, his hope, which he had
deemed dead, blossomed with miraculous suddenness.

"Well," he said. "Give it up entirely, then! Take a holiday for life.
You've deserved it, Mrs. Scales."

She shook her head once again.

"Think it over," he said.

"I gave you my answer years ago," she said obstinately, while fearing
lest he should take her at her word.

"Oblige me by thinking it over," he said. "I'll mention it to you again
in a few days."

"It will be no use," she said.

He took his leave, waddling down the street in his vague clothes,
conscious of his fame as Lewis Mardon, the great house-agent of the
Champs Elysees, known throughout Europe and America.

In a few days he did mention it again.

"There's only one thing that makes me dream of it even for a moment,"
said Sophia. "And that is my sister's health."

"Your sister!" he exclaimed. He did not know she had a sister. Never
had she spoken of her family.

"Yes. Her letters are beginning to worry me."

"Does she live in Paris?"

"No. In Staffordshire. She has never left home."

And to preserve her pride intact she led Mr. Mardon to think that
Constance was in a most serious way, whereas in truth Constance had
nothing worse than her sciatica, and even that was somewhat better.

Thus she yielded.




CHAPTER II

THE MEETING

I


Soon after dinner one day in the following spring, Mr. Critchlow
knocked at Constance's door. She was seated in the rocking-chair in
front of the fire in the parlour. She wore a large 'rough' apron, and
with the outlying parts of the apron she was rubbing the moisture out
of the coat of a young wire-haired fox-terrier, for whom no more
original name had been found than 'Spot.' It is true that he had a
spot. Constance had more than once called the world to witness that she
would never have a young dog again, because, as she said, she could not
be always running about after them, and they ate the stuffing out of
the furniture. But her last dog had lived too long; a dog can do worse
things than eat furniture; and, in her natural reaction against age in
dogs, and also in the hope of postponing as long as possible the
inevitable sorrow and upset which death causes when it takes off a
domestic pet, she had not known how to refuse the very desirable
fox-terrier aged ten months that an acquaintance had offered to her.
Spot's beautiful pink skin could be seen under his disturbed hair; he
was exquisitely soft to the touch, and to himself he was loathsome. His
eyes continually peeped forth between corners of the agitated towel,
and they were full of inquietude and shame.

Amy was assisting at this performance, gravely on the watch to see that
Spot did not escape into the coal-cellar. She opened the door to Mr.
Critchlow's knock. Mr. Critchlow entered without any formalities, as
usual. He did not seem to have changed. He had the same quantity of
white hair, he wore the same long white apron, and his voice (which
showed however an occasional tendency to shrillness) had the same
grating quality. He stood fairly straight. He was carrying a newspaper
in his vellum hand.

"Well, missis!" he said.

"That will do, thank you, Amy," said Constance, quietly. Amy went
slowly.

"So ye're washing him for her!" said Mr. Critchlow.

"Yes," Constance admitted. Spot glanced sharply at the aged man.

"An' ye seen this bit in the paper about Sophia?" he asked, holding the
Signal for her inspection.

"About Sophia?" cried Constance. "What's amiss?"

"Nothing's amiss. But they've got it. It's in the 'Staffordshire day by
day' column. Here! I'll read it ye." He drew a long wooden
spectacle-case from his waistcoat pocket, and placed a second pair of
spectacles on his nose. Then he sat down on the sofa, his knees
sticking out pointedly, and read: "'We understand that Mrs. Sophia
Scales, proprietress of the famous Pension Frensham in the Rue Lord
Byron, Paris'--it's that famous that nobody in th' Five Towns has ever
heard of it--'is about to pay a visit to her native town, Bursley,
after an absence of over thirty years. Mrs. Scales belonged to the
well-known and highly respected family of Baines. She has recently
disposed of the Pension Frensham to a limited company, and we are
betraying no secret in stating that the price paid ran well into five
figures.' So ye see!" Mr. Critchlow commented.

"How do those Signal people find out things?" Constance murmured.

"Eh, bless ye, I don't know," said Mr. Critchlow.

This was an untruth. Mr. Critchlow had himself given the information to
the new editor of the Signal, who had soon been made aware of
Critchlow's passion for the press, and who knew how to make use of it.

"I wish it hadn't appeared just to-day," said Constance.

"Why?"

"Oh! I don't know, I wish it hadn't."

"Well, I'll be touring on, missis," said Mr. Critchlow, meaning that he
would go.

He left the paper, and descended the steps with senile deliberation. It
was characteristic that he had shown no curiosity whatever as to the
details of Sophia's arrival.

Constance removed her apron, wrapped Spot up in it, and put him in a
corner of the sofa. She then abruptly sent Amy out to buy a penny
time-table.

"I thought you were going by tram to Knype," Amy observed.

"I have decided to go by train," said Constance, with cold dignity, as
if she had decided the fate of nations. She hated such observations
from Amy, who unfortunately lacked, in an increasing degree, the
supreme gift of unquestioning obedience.

When Amy came breathlessly back, she found Constance in her bedroom,
withdrawing crumpled balls of paper from the sleeves of her second-best
mantle. Constance scarcely ever wore this mantle. In theory it was
destined for chapel on wet Sundays; in practice it had remained long in
the wardrobe, Sundays having been obstinately fine for weeks and weeks
together. It was a mantle that Constance had never really liked. But
she was not going to Knype to meet Sophia in her everyday mantle; and
she had no intention of donning her best mantle for such an excursion.
To make her first appearance before Sophia in the best mantle she
had--this would have been a sad mistake of tactics! Not only would it
have led to an anti-climax on Sunday, but it would have given to
Constance the air of being in awe of Sophia. Now Constance was in truth
a little afraid of Sophia; in thirty years Sophia might have grown into
anything, whereas Constance had remained just Constance. Paris was a
great place; and it was immensely far off. And the mere sound of that
limited company business was intimidating. Imagine Sophia having by her
own efforts created something which a real limited company wanted to
buy and had bought! Yes, Constance was afraid, but she did not mean to
show her fear in her mantle. After all, she was the elder. And she had
her dignity too--and a lot of it--tucked away in her secret heart,
hidden within the mildness of that soft exterior. So she had decided on
the second-best mantle, which, being seldom used, had its sleeves
stuffed with paper to the end that they might keep their shape and
their 'fall.' The little balls of paper were strewed over the bed.

"There's a train at a quarter to three, gets to Knype at ten minutes
past." said Amy. officiously. "But supposing it was only three minutes
late and the London train was prompt, then you might miss her. Happen
you'd better take the two fifteen to be on the safe side."

"Let me look," said Constance, firmly. "Please put all this paper in
the wardrobe."

She would have preferred not to follow Amy's suggestion, but it was so
incontestably wise that she was obliged to accept it.

"Unless ye go by tram," said Amy. "That won't mean starting quite so
soon."

But Constance would not go by tram. If she took the tram she would be
bound to meet people who had read the Signal, and who would say, with
their stupid vacuity: "Going to meet your sister at Knype?" And then
tiresome conversations would follow. Whereas, in the train, she would
choose a compartment, and would be far less likely to encounter
chatterers.

There was now not a minute to lose. And the excitement which had been
growing in that house for days past, under a pretence of calm, leapt
out swiftly into the light of the sun, and was unashamed. Amy had to
help her mistress make herself as comely as she could be made without
her best dress, mantle, and bonnet. Amy was frankly consulted as to
effects. The barrier of class was lowered for a space. Many years had
elapsed since Constance had been conscious of a keen desire to look
smart. She was reminded of the days when, in full fig for chapel, she
would dash downstairs on a Sunday morning, and, assuming a pose for
inspection at the threshold of the parlour, would demand of Samuel:
"Shall I do?" Yes, she used to dash downstairs, like a child, and yet
in those days she had thought herself so sedate and mature! She sighed,
half with lancinating regret, and half in gentle disdain of that
mercurial creature aged less than thirty. At fifty-one she regarded
herself as old. And she was old. And Amy had the tricks and manners of
an old spinster. Thus the excitement in the house was an 'old'
excitement, and, like Constance's desire to look smart, it had its
ridiculous side, which was also its tragic side, the side that would
have made a boor guffaw, and a hysterical fool cry, and a wise man
meditate sadly upon the earth's fashion of renewing itself.

At half-past one Constance was dressed, with the exception of her
gloves. She looked at the clock a second time to make sure that she
might safely glance round the house without fear of missing the train.
She went up into the bedroom on the second-floor, her and Sophia's old
bedroom, which she had prepared with enormous care for Sophia. The
airing of that room had been an enterprise of days, for, save by a
minister during the sittings of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference at
Bursley, it had never been occupied since the era when Maria Insull
used occasionally to sleep in the house. Cyril clung to his old room on
his visits. Constance had an ample supply of solid and stately
furniture, and the chamber destined for Sophia was lightened in every
corner by the reflections of polished mahogany. It was also fairly
impregnated with the odour of furniture paste--an odour of which no
housewife need be ashamed. Further, it had been re-papered in a
delicate blue, with one of the new 'art' patterns. It was a 'Baines'
room. And Constance did not care where Sophia came from, nor what
Sophia had been accustomed to, nor into what limited company Sophia had
been transformed--that room was adequate! It could not have been
improved upon. You had only to look at the crocheted mats--even those
on the washstand under the white-and-gold ewer and other utensils. It
was folly to expose such mats to the splashings of a washstand, but it
was sublime folly. Sophia might remove them if she cared. Constance was
house-proud; house-pride had slumbered within her; now it blazed forth.

A fire brightened the drawing-room, which was a truly magnificent
apartment, a museum of valuables collected by the Baines and the
Maddack families since the year 1840, tempered by the latest novelties
in antimacassars and cloths. In all Bursley there could have been few
drawing-rooms to compare with Constance's. Constance knew it. She was
not afraid of her drawing-room being seen by anybody.

She passed for an instant into her own bedroom, where Amy was patiently
picking balls of paper from the bed.

"Now you quite understand about tea?" Constance asked.

"Oh yes, 'm," said Amy, as if to say: "How much oftener are you going
to ask me that question?" "Are you off now, 'm?"

"Yes," said Constance. "Come and fasten the front-door after me."

They descended together to the parlour. A white cloth for tea lay
folded on the table. It was of the finest damask that skill could
choose and money buy. It was fifteen years old, and had never been
spread. Constance would not have produced it for the first meal, had
she not possessed two other of equal eminence. On the harmonium were
ranged several jams and cakes, a Bursley pork-pie, and some pickled
salmon; with the necessary silver. All was there. Amy could not go
wrong. And crocuses were in the vases on the mantelpiece. Her 'garden,'
in the phrase which used to cause Samuel to think how extraordinarily
feminine she was! It was a long time since she had had a 'garden' on
the mantelpiece. Her interest in her chronic sciatica and in her
palpitations had grown at the expense of her interest in gardens.
Often, when she had finished the complicated processes by which her
furniture and other goods were kept in order, she had strength only to
'rest.' She was rather a fragile, small, fat woman, soon out of breath,
easily marred. This business of preparing for the advent of Sophia had
appeared to her genuinely colossal. However, she had come through it
very well. She was in pretty good health; only a little tired, and more
than a little anxious and nervous, as she gave the last glance.

"Take away that apron, do!" she said to Amy, pointing to the rough
apron in the corner of the sofa. "By the way, where is Spot?"

"Spot, m'm?" Amy ejaculated.

Both their hearts jumped. Amy instinctively looked out of the window.
He was there, sure enough, in the gutter, studying the
indescribabilities of King Street. He had obviously escaped when Amy
came in from buying the time-table. The woman's face was guilty.

"Amy, I wonder AT you!" exclaimed Constance, tragically. She opened the
door.

"Well, I never did see the like of that dog!" murmured Amy.

"Spot!" his mistress commanded. "Come here at once. Do you hear me?"

Spot turned sharply and gazed motionless at Constance. Then with a toss
of the head he dashed off to the corner of the Square, and gazed
motionless again. Amy went forth to catch him. After an age she brought
him in, squealing. He was in a state exceedingly offensive to the eye
and to the nose. He had effectively got rid of the smell of soap, which
he loathed. Constance could have wept. It did really appear to her that
nothing had gone right that day. And Spot had the most innocent,
trustful air. Impossible to make him realize that his aunt Sophia was
coming. He would have sold his entire family into servitude in order to
buy ten yards of King Street gutter.

"You must wash him in the scullery, that's all there is for it," said
Constance, controlling herself. "Put that apron on, and don't forget
one of your new aprons when you open the door. Better shut him up in
Mr. Cyril's bedroom when you've dried him."

And she went, charged with worries, clasping her bag and her umbrella
and smoothing her gloves, and spying downwards at the folds of her
mantle.

"That's a funny way to go to Bursley Station, that is," said Amy,
observing that Constance was descending King Street instead of crossing
it into Wedgwood Street. And she caught Spot 'a fair clout on the
head,' to indicate to him that she had him alone in the house now.

Constance was taking a round-about route to the station, so that, if
stopped by acquaintances, she should not be too obviously going to the
station. Her feelings concerning the arrival of Sophia, and concerning
the town's attitude towards it, were very complex.

She was forced to hurry. And she had risen that morning with plans
perfectly contrived for the avoidance of hurry. She disliked hurry
because it always 'put her about.'

II

The express from London was late, so that Constance had three-quarters
of an hour of the stony calmness of Knype platform when it is waiting
for a great train. At last the porters began to cry, "Macclesfield,
Stockport, and Manchester train;" the immense engine glided round the
curve, dwarfing the carriages behind it, and Constance had a supreme
tremor. The calmness of the platform was transformed into a melee.
Little Constance found herself left on the fringe of a physically
agitated crowd which was apparently trying to scale a precipice
surmounted by windows and doors from whose apertures looked forth
defenders of the train. Knype platform seemed as if it would never be
reduced to order again. And Constance did not estimate highly the
chances of picking out an unknown Sophia from that welter. She was very
seriously perturbed. All the muscles of her face were drawn as her gaze
wandered anxiously from end to end of the train.

Presently she saw a singular dog. Other people also saw it. It was of
the colour of chocolate; it had a head and shoulders richly covered
with hair that hung down in thousands of tufts like the tufts of a
modern mop such as is bought in shops. This hair stopped suddenly
rather less than halfway along the length of the dog's body, the
remainder of which was naked and as smooth as marble. The effect was to
give to the inhabitants of the Five Towns the impression that the dog
had forgotten an essential part of its attire and was outraging
decency. The ball of hair which had been allowed to grow on the dog's
tail, and the circles of hair which ornamented its ankles, only served
to intensify the impression of indecency. A pink ribbon round its neck
completed the outrage. The animal had absolutely the air of a decked
trollop. A chain ran taut from the creature's neck into the middle of a
small crowd of persons gesticulating over trunks, and Constance traced
it to a tall and distinguished woman in a coat and skirt with a rather
striking hat. A beautiful and aristocratic woman, Constance thought, at
a distance! Then the strange idea came to her: "That's Sophia!" She was
sure.... She was not sure.... She was sure. The woman emerged from the
crowd. Her eye fell on Constance. They both hesitated, and, as it were,
wavered uncertainly towards each other.

"I should have known you anywhere," said Sophia, with apparently
careless tranquillity, as she stooped to kiss Constance, raising her
veil.

Constance saw that this marvellous tranquillity must be imitated, and
she imitated it very well. It was a 'Baines' tranquillity. But she
noticed a twitching of her sister's lips. The twitching comforted
Constance, proving to her that she was not alone in foolishness. There
was also something queer about the permanent lines of Sophia's mouth.
That must be due to the 'attack' about which Sophia had written.

"Did Cyril meet you?" asked Constance. It was all that she could think
of to say.

"Oh yes!" said Sophia, eagerly. "And I went to his studio, and he saw
me off at Euston. He is a VERY nice boy. I love him."

She said 'I love him' with the intonation of Sophia aged fifteen. Her
tone and imperious gesture sent Constance flying back to the 'sixties.
"She hasn't altered one bit," Constance thought with joy. "Nothing
could change Sophia." And at the back of that notion was a more general
notion: "Nothing could change a Baines." It was true that Constance's
Sophia had not changed. Powerful individualities remain undisfigured by
no matter what vicissitudes. After this revelation of the original
Sophia, arising as it did out of praise of Cyril, Constance felt
easier, felt reassured.

"This is Fossette," said Sophia, pulling at the chain.

Constance knew not what to reply. Surely Sophia could not be aware what
she did in bringing such a dog to a place where people were so
particular as they are in the Five Towns.

"Fossette!" She repeated the name in an endearing accent, half stooping
towards the dog. After all, it was not the dog's fault. Sophia had
certainly mentioned a dog in her letters, but she had not prepared
Constance for the spectacle of Fossette.

All that happened in a moment. A porter appeared with two trunks
belonging to Sophia. Constance observed that they were superlatively
'good' trunks; also that Sophia's clothes, though 'on the showy side,'
were superlatively 'good.' The getting of Sophia's ticket to Bursley
occupied them next, and soon the first shock of meeting had worn off.

In a second-class compartment of the Loop Line train, with Sophia and
Fossette opposite to her, Constance had leisure to 'take in' Sophia.
She came to the conclusion that, despite her slenderness and
straightness and the general effect of the long oval of her face under
the hat, Sophia looked her age. She saw that Sophia must have been
through a great deal; her experiences were damagingly printed in the
details of feature. Seen at a distance, she might have passed for a
woman of thirty, even for a girl, but seen across a narrow railway
carriage she was a woman whom suffering had aged. Yet obviously her
spirit was unbroken. Hear her tell a doubtful porter that of course she
should take Fossette with her into the carriage! See her shut the
carriage door with the expressed intention of keeping other people out!
She was accustomed to command. At the same time her face had an almost
set smile, as though she had said to herself: "I will die smiling."
Constance felt sorry for her. While recognizing in Sophia a superior in
charm, in experience, in knowledge of the world and in force of
personality, she yet with a kind of undisturbed, fundamental
superiority felt sorry for Sophia.

"What do you think?" said Sophia, absently fingering Fossette. "A man
came up to me at Euston, while Cyril was getting my ticket, and said,
'Eh, Miss Baines, I haven't seen ye for over thirty years, but I know
you're Miss Baines, or WERE--and you're looking bonny.' Then he went
off. I think it must have been Holl, the grocer."

"Had he got a long white beard?"

"Yes."

"Then it was Mr. Holl. He's been Mayor twice. He's an alderman, you
know."

"Really!" said Sophia. "But wasn't it queer?"

"Eh! Bless us!" exclaimed Constance. "Don't talk about queer! It's
terrible how time flies."

The conversation stopped, and it refused to start again. Two women who
are full of affectionate curiosity about each other, and who have not
seen each other for thirty years, and who are anxious to confide in
each other, ought to discover no difficulty in talking; but somehow
these two could not talk. Constance perceived that Sophia was impeded
by the same awkwardness as herself.

"Well I never!" cried Sophia, suddenly. She had glanced out of the
window and had seen two camels and an elephant in a field close to the
line, amid manufactories and warehouses and advertisements of soap.

"Oh!" said Constance. "That's Barnum's, you know. They have what they
call a central depot here, because it's the middle of England."
Constance spoke proudly. (After all, there can be only one middle.) It
was on her tongue to say, in her 'tart' manner, that Fossette ought to
be with the camels, but she refrained. Sophia hit on the excellent idea
of noting all the buildings that were new to her and all the landmarks
that she remembered. It was surprising how little the district had
altered.

"Same smoke!" said Sophia.

"Same smoke!" Constance agreed.

"It's even worse," said Sophia.

"Do you think so?" Constance was slightly piqued. "But they're doing
something now for smoke abatement."

"I must have forgotten how dirty it was!" said Sophia. "I suppose
that's it. I'd no idea...!"

"Really!" said Constance. Then, in candid admission, "The fact is, it
is dirty. You can't imagine what work it makes, especially with
window-curtains."

As the train puffed under Trafalgar Road, Constance pointed to a new
station that was being built there, to be called 'Trafalgar Road'
station.

"Won't it be strange?" said she, accustomed to the eternal sequence of
Loop Lane stations--Turnhill, Bursley, Bleakridge, Hanbridge, Cauldon,
Knype, Trent Vale, and Longshaw. A 'Trafalgar Road' inserting itself
between Bleakridge and Hanbridge seemed to her excessively curious.

"Yes, I suppose it will," Sophia agreed.

"But of course it's not the same to you," said Constance, dashed. She
indicated the glories of Bursley Park, as the train slackened for
Bursley, with modesty. Sophia gazed, and vaguely recognized the slopes
where she had taken her first walk with Gerald Scales.

Nobody accosted them at Bursley Station, and they drove to the Square
in a cab. Amy was at the window; she held up Spot, who was in a plenary
state of cleanliness, rivalling the purity of Amy's apron.

"Good afternoon, m'm," said Amy, officiously, to Sophia, as Sophia came
up the steps.

"Good afternoon, Amy," Sophia replied. She flattered Amy in thus
showing that she was acquainted with her name; but if ever a servant
was put into her place by mere tone, Amy was put into her place on that
occasion. Constance trembled at Sophia's frigid and arrogant
politeness. Certainly Sophia was not used to being addressed first by
servants. But Amy was not quite the ordinary servant. She was much
older than the ordinary servant, and she had acquired a partial moral
dominion over Constance, though Constance would have warmly denied it.
Hence Constance's apprehension. However, nothing happened. Amy
apparently did not feel the snub.

"Take Spot and put him in Mr. Cyril's bedroom," Constance murmured to
her, as if implying: "Have I not already told you to do that?" The fact
was, she was afraid for Spot's life.

"Now, Fossette!" She welcomed the incoming poodle kindly; the poodle
began at once to sniff.

The fat, red cabman was handling the trunks on the pavement, and Amy
was upstairs. For a moment the sisters were alone together in the
parlour.

"So here I am!" exclaimed the tall, majestic woman of fifty. And her
lips twitched again as she looked round the room--so small to her.

"Yes, here you are!" Constance agreed. She bit her lip, and, as a
measure of prudence to avoid breaking down, she bustled out to the
cabman. A passing instant of emotion, like a fleck of foam on a wide
and calm sea!

The cabman blundered up and downstairs with trunks, and saluted
Sophia's haughty generosity, and then there was quietness. Amy was
already brewing the tea in the cave. The prepared tea-table in front of
the fire made a glittering array.

"Now, what about Fossette?" Constance voiced anxieties that had been
growing on her.

"Fossette will be quite right with me," said Sophia, firmly.

They ascended to the guest's room, which drew Sophia's admiration for
its prettiness. She hurried to the window and looked out into the
Square.

"Would you like a fire?" Constance asked, in a rather perfunctory
manner. For a bedroom fire, in seasons of normal health, was still
regarded as absurd in the Square.

"Oh, no!" said Sophia; but with a slight failure to rebut the
suggestion as utterly ridiculous.

"Sure?" Constance questioned.

"Quite, thank you," said Sophia.

"Well, I'll leave you. I expect Amy will have tea ready directly." She
went down into the kitchen. "Amy," she said, "as soon as we've finished
tea, light a fire in Mrs. Scales's bedroom."

"In the top bedroom, m'm?"

"Yes."

Constance climbed again to her own bedroom, and shut the door. She
needed a moment to herself, in the midst of this terrific affair. She
sighed with relief as she removed her mantle. She thought: "At any rate
we've met, and I've got her here. She's very nice. No, she isn't a bit
altered." She hesitated to admit that to her Sophia was the least in
the world formidable. And so she said once more: "She's very nice. She
isn't a bit altered." And then: "Fancy her being here! She really is
here." With her perfect simplicity it did not occur to Constance to
speculate as to what Sophia thought of her.

Sophia was downstairs first, and Constance found her looking at the
blank wall beyond the door leading to the kitchen steps.

"So this is where you had it bricked up?" said Sophia.

"Yes," said Constance. "That's the place."

"It makes me feel like people feel when they have tickling in a limb
that's been cut off!" said Sophia.

"Oh, Sophia!"

The tea received a great deal of praise from Sophia, but neither of
them ate much. Constance found that Sophia was like herself: she had to
be particular about her food. She tasted dainties for the sake of
tasting, but it was a bird's pecking. Not the twelfth part of the tea
was consumed. They dared not indulge caprices. Only their eyes could
feed.

After tea they went up to the drawing-room, and in the corridor had the
startling pleasure of seeing two dogs who scurried about after each
other in amity. Spot had found Fossette, with the aid of Amy's
incurable carelessness, and had at once examined her with great
particularity. She seemed to be of an amiable disposition, and not
averse from the lighter distractions. For a long time the sisters sat
chatting together in the lit drawing-room to the agreeable sound of
happy dogs playing in the dark corridor. Those dogs saved the
situation, because they needed constant attention. When the dogs dozed,
the sisters began to look through photograph albums, of which Constance
had several, bound in plush or morocco. Nothing will sharpen the
memory, evoke the past, raise the dead, rejuvenate the ageing, and
cause both sighs and smiles, like a collection of photographs gathered
together during long years of life. Constance had an astonishing
menagerie of unknown cousins and their connections, and of townspeople;
she had Cyril at all ages; she had weird daguerreotypes of her parents
and their parents. The strangest of all was a portrait of Samuel Povey
as an infant in arms. Sophia checked an impulse to laugh at it. But
when Constance said: "Isn't it funny?" she did allow herself to laugh.
A photograph of Samuel in the year before his death was really
imposing. Sophia stared at it, impressed. It was the portrait of an
honest man.

"How long have you been a widow?" Constance asked in a low voice,
glancing at upright Sophia over her spectacles, a leaf of the album
raised against her finger.

Sophia unmistakably flushed. "I don't know that I am a widow," said
she, with an air. "My husband left me in 1870, and I've never seen nor
heard of him since."

"Oh, my dear!" cried Constance, alarmed and deafened as by a clap of
awful thunder. "I thought ye were a widow. Mr. Peel-Swynnerton said he
was told positively ye were a widow. That's why I never...." She
stopped. Her face was troubled.

"Of course I always passed for a widow, over there," said Sophia.

"Of course," said Constance quickly. "I see...."

"And I may be a widow," said Sophia.

Constance made no remark. This was a blow. Bursley was such a
particular place. Doubtless, Gerald Scales had behaved like a
scoundrel. That was sure!

When, immediately afterwards, Amy opened the drawing-room door (having
first knocked--the practice of encouraging a servant to plunge without
warning of any kind into a drawing-room had never been favoured in that
house) she saw the sisters sitting rather near to each other at the
walnut oval table, Mrs. Scales very upright, and staring into the fire,
and Mrs. Povey 'bunched up' and staring at the photograph album; both
seeming to Amy aged and apprehensive; Mrs. Povey's hair was quite grey,
though Mrs. Scales' hair was nearly as black as Amy's own. Mrs. Scales
started at the sound of the knock, and turned her head.

"Here's Mr. and Mrs. Critchlow, m'm," announced Amy.

The sisters glanced at one another, with lifted foreheads. Then Mrs.
Povey spoke to Amy as though visits at half-past eight at night were a
customary phenomenon of the household. Nevertheless, she trembled to
think what outrageous thing Mr. Critchlow might say to Sophia after
thirty years' absence. The occasion was great, and it might also be
terrible.

"Ask them to come up," she said calmly.

But Amy had the best of that encounter. "I have done," she replied, and
instantly produced them out of the darkness of the corridor. It was
providential: the sisters had made no remark that the Critchlows might
not hear.

Then Maria Critchlow, simpering, had to greet Sophia. Mrs. Critchlow
was very agitated, from sheer nervousness. She curvetted; she almost
pranced; and she made noises with her mouth as though she saw some one
eating a sour apple. She wanted to show Sophia how greatly she had
changed from the young, timid apprentice. Certainly since her marriage
she had changed. As manager of other people's business she had not felt
the necessity of being effusive to customers, but as proprietress,
anxiety to succeed had dragged her out of her capable and mechanical
indifference. It was a pity. Her consistent dullness had had a sort of
dignity; but genial, she was merely ridiculous. Animation cruelly
displayed her appalling commonness and physical shabbiness. Sophia's
demeanour was not chilly; but it indicated that Sophia had no wish to
be eyed over as a freak of nature.

Mr. Critchlow advanced very slowly into the room. "Ye still carry your
head on a stiff neck," said he, deliberately examining Sophia. Then
with great care he put out his long thin arm and took her hand. "Well,
I'm rare and glad to see ye!"

Every one was thunderstruck at this expression of joy. Mr. Critchlow
had never been known to be glad to see anybody.

"Yes," twittered Maria, "Mr. Critchlow would come in to-night. Nothing
would do but he must come in to-night."

"You didn't tell me this afternoon," said Constance, "that you were
going to give us the pleasure of your company like this."

He looked momentarily at Constance. "No," he grated, "I don't know as I
did."

His gaze flattered Sophia. Evidently he treated this experienced and
sad woman of fifty as a young girl. And in presence of his extreme age
she felt like a young girl, remembering the while how as a young girl
she had hated him. Repulsing the assistance of his wife, he arranged an
armchair in front of the fire and meticulously put himself into it.
Assuredly he was much older in a drawing-room than behind the counter
of his shop. Constance had noticed that in the afternoon. A live coal
fell out of the fire. He bent forward, wet his fingers, picked up the
coal and threw it back into the fire.

"Well," said Sophia. "I wouldn't have done that."

"I never saw Mr. Critchlow's equal for picking up hot cinders," Maria
giggled.

Mr. Critchlow deigned no remark. "When did ye leave this Paris?" he
demanded of Sophia, leaning back, and putting his hands on the arms of
the chair.

"Yesterday morning," said Sophia,

"And what'n ye been doing with yeself since yesterday morning?"

"I spent last night in London," Sophia replied.

"Oh, in London, did ye?"

"Yes. Cyril and I had an evening together."

"Eh? Cyril! What's yer opinion o' Cyril, Sophia?"

"I'm very proud to have Cyril for a nephew," said Sophia.

"Oh! Are ye?" The old man was obviously ironic.

"Yes I am," Sophia insisted sharply. "I'm not going to hear a word said
against Cyril."

She proceeded to an enthusiastic laudation of Cyril which rather
overwhelmed his mother. Constance was pleased; she was delighted. And
yet somewhere in her mind was an uncomfortable feeling that Cyril,
having taken a fancy to his brilliant aunt, had tried to charm her as
he seldom or never tried to charm his mother. Cyril and Sophia had
dazzled and conquered each other; they were of the same type; whereas
she, Constance, being but a plain person, could not glitter.

She rang the bell and gave instructions to Amy about food--fruit cakes,
coffee and hot milk, on a tray; and Sophia also spoke to Amy murmuring
a request as to Fossette.

"Yes, Mrs. Scales," said Amy, with eager deference.

Mrs. Critchlow smiled vaguely from a low chair near the curtained
window. Then Constance lit another burner of the chandelier. In doing
so, she gave a little sigh; it was a sigh of relief. Mr. Critchlow had
behaved himself. Now that he and Sophia had met, the worst was over.
Had Constance known beforehand that he would pay a call, she would have
been agonized by apprehensions, but now that he had actually come she
was glad he had come.

When he had silently sipped some hot milk, he drew a thick bunch of
papers, white and blue, from his bulging breast-pocket.

"Now, Maria Critchlow," he called, edging round his chair slightly.
"Ye'd best go back home."

Maria Critchlow was biting at a bit of walnut cake, while in her right
hand, all seamed with black lines, she held a cup of coffee.

"But, Mr. Critchlow----!" Constance protested.

"I've got business with Sophia, and I must get it done. I've got for to
render an account of my stewardship to Sophia, under her father's will,
and her mother's will, and her aunt's will, and it's nobody's business
but mine and Sophia's, I reckon. Now then," he glanced at his wife,
"off with ye!"

Maria rose, half-kittenish and half-ashamed.

"Surely you don't want to go into all that to-night," said Sophia. She
spoke softly, for she had already fully perceived that Mr. Critchlow
must be managed with the tact which the capricious obstinacies of
advanced age demanded. "Surely you can wait a day or two. I'm in no
hurry."

"HAVEN'T I WAITED LONG ENOUGH?" he retorted fiercely.

There was a pause. Maria Critchlow moved.

"As for you being in no hurry, Sophia," the old man went on, "nobody
can say as you've been in a hurry."

Sophia had suffered a check. She glanced hesitatingly at Constance.

"Mrs. Critchlow and I will go down into the parlour," said Constance,
quickly. "There is a bit of fire there."

"Oh no. I won't hear of such a thing!"

"Yes, we will, won't we, Mrs. Critchlow?" Constance insisted,
cheerfully but firmly. She was determined that in her house Sophia
should have all the freedom and conveniences that she could have had in
her own. If a private room was needed for discussions between Sophia
and her trustee, Constance's pride was piqued to supply that room.
Further, Constance was glad to get Maria out of Sophia's sight. She was
accustomed to Maria; with her it did not matter; but she did not care
that the teeth of Sophia should be set on edge by the ridiculous
demeanour of Maria. So those two left the drawing-room, and the old man
began to open the papers which he had been preparing for weeks.

There was very little fire in the parlour, and Constance, in addition
to being bored by Mrs. Critchlow's inane and inquisitive remarks, felt
chilly, which was bad for her sciatica. She wondered whether Sophia
would have to confess to Mr. Critchlow that she was not certainly a
widow. She thought that steps ought to be taken to ascertain, through
Birkinshaws, if anything was known of Gerald Scales. But even that
course was set with perils. Supposing that he still lived, an
unspeakable villain (Constance could only think of him as an
unspeakable villain), and supposing that he molested Sophia,--what
scenes! What shame in the town! Such frightful thoughts ran endlessly
through Constance's mind as she bent over the fire endeavouring to keep
alive a silly conversation with Maria Critchlow.

Amy passed through the parlour to go to bed. There was no other way of
reaching the upper part of the house.

"Are you going to bed, Amy?"

"Yes'm."

"Where is Fossette?"

"In the kitchen, m'm," said Amy, defending herself. "Mrs. Scales told
me the dog might sleep in the kitchen with Spot, as they was such good
friends. I've opened the bottom drawer, and Fossit is lying in that."

"Mrs. Scales has brought a dog with her!" exclaimed Maria.

"Yes'm!" said Amy, drily, before Constance could answer. She implied
everything in that affirmative.

"You are a family for dogs," said Maria. "What sort of dog is it?"

"Well," said Constance. "I don't know exactly what they call it. It's a
French dog, one of those French dogs." Amy was lingering at the
stairfoot. "Good night, Amy, thank you."

Amy ascended, shutting the door.

"Oh! I see!" Maria muttered. "Well, I never!"

It was ten o'clock before sounds above indicated that the first
interview between trustee and beneficiary was finished.

"I'll be going on to open our side-door," said Maria. "Say good night
to Mrs. Scales for me." She was not sure whether Charles Critchlow had
really meant her to go home, or whether her mere absence from the
drawing-room had contented him. So she departed. He came down the
stairs with the most tiresome slowness, went through the parlour in
silence, ignoring Constance, and also Sophia, who was at his heels, and
vanished.

As Constance shut and bolted the front-door, the sisters looked at each
other, Sophia faintly smiling. It seemed to them that they understood
each other better when they did not speak. With a glance, they
exchanged their ideas on the subject of Charles Critchlow and Maria,
and learnt that their ideas were similar. Constance said nothing as to
the private interview. Nor did Sophia. At present, on this the first
day, they could only achieve intimacy by intermittent flashes.

"What about bed?" asked Sophia.

"You must be tired," said Constance.

Sophia got to the stairs, which received a little light from the
corridor gas, before Constance, having tested the window-fastening,
turned out the gas in the parlour. They climbed the lower flight of
stairs together.

"I must just see that your room is all right," Constance said.

"Must you?" Sophia smiled.

They climbed the second flight, slowly. Constance was out of breath.

"Oh, a fire! How nice!" cried Sophia. "But why did you go to all that
trouble? I told you not to."

"It's no trouble at all," said Constance, raising the gas in the
bedroom. Her tone implied that bedroom fires were a quite ordinary
incident of daily life in a place like Bursley.

"Well, my dear, I hope you'll find everything comfortable," said
Constance.

"I'm sure I shall. Good night, dear."

"Good night, then."

They looked at each other again, with timid affectionateness. They did
not kiss. The thought in both their minds was: "We couldn't keep on
kissing every day." But there was a vast amount of quiet, restrained
affection, of mutual confidence and respect, even of tenderness, in
their tones.

About half an hour later a dreadful hullaballoo smote the ear of
Constance. She was just getting into bed. She listened intently, in
great alarm. It was undoubtedly those dogs fighting, and fighting to
the death. She pictured the kitchen as a battlefield, and Spot slain.
Opening the door, she stepped out into the corridor.

"Constance," said a low voice above her. She jumped. "Is that you?"

"Yes."

"Well, don't bother to go down to the dogs; they'll stop in a moment.
Fossette won't bite. I'm so sorry she's upsetting the house."

Constance stared upwards, and discerned a pale shadow. The dogs did
soon cease their altercation. This short colloquy in the dark affected
Constance strangely.

III

The next morning, after a night varied by periods of wakefulness not
unpleasant, Sophia arose and, taking due precautions against cold, went
to the window. It was Saturday; she had left Paris on the Thursday. She
looked forth upon the Square, holding aside the blind. She had
expected, of course, to find that the Square had shrunk in size; but
nevertheless she was startled to see how small it was. It seemed to her
scarcely bigger than a courtyard. She could remember a winter morning
when from the window she had watched the Square under virgin snow in
the lamplight, and the Square had been vast, and the first wayfarer,
crossing it diagonally and leaving behind him the irregular impress of
his feet, had appeared to travel for hours over an interminable white
waste before vanishing past Holl's shop in the direction of the Town
Hall. She chiefly recalled the Square under snow; cold mornings, and
the coldness of the oil-cloth at the window, and the draught of cold
air through the ill-fitting sash (it was put right now)! These visions
of herself seemed beautiful to her; her childish existence seemed
beautiful; the storms and tempests of her girlhood seemed beautiful;
even the great sterile expanse of tedium when, after giving up a
scholastic career, she had served for two years in the shop--even this
had a strange charm in her memory.

And she thought that not for millions of pounds would she live her life
over again.

In its contents the Square had not surprisingly changed during the
immense, the terrifying interval that separated her from her virginity.
On the east side, several shops had been thrown into one, and forced
into a semblance of eternal unity by means of a coat of stucco. And
there was a fountain at the north end which was new to her. No other
constructional change! But the moral change, the sad declension from
the ancient proud spirit of the Square--this was painfully depressing.
Several establishments lacked tenants, had obviously lacked tenants for
a long time; 'To let' notices hung in their stained and dirty upper
windows, and clung insecurely to their closed shutters. And on the
sign-boards of these establishments were names that Sophia did not
know. The character of most of the shops seemed to have worsened; they
had become pettifogging little holes, unkempt, shabby, poor; they had
no brightness, no feeling of vitality. And the floor of the Square was
littered with nondescript refuse. The whole scene, paltry, confined,
and dull, reached for her the extreme of provinciality. It was what the
French called, with a pregnant intonation, la province. This--being
said, there was nothing else to say. Bursley, of course, was in the
provinces; Bursley must, in the nature of things, be typically
provincial. But in her mind it had always been differentiated from the
common province; it had always had an air, a distinction, and
especially St. Luke's Square! That illusion was now gone. Still, the
alteration was not wholly in herself; it was not wholly subjective. The
Square really had changed for the worse; it might not be smaller, but
it had deteriorated. As a centre of commerce it had assuredly
approached very near to death. On a Saturday morning thirty years ago
it would have been covered with linen-roofed stalls, and chattering
country-folk, and the stir of bargains. Now, Saturday morning was like
any other morning in the Square, and the glass-roof of St. Luke's
market in Wedgwood Street, which she could see from her window, echoed
to the sounds of noisy commerce. In that instance business had simply
moved a few yards to the east; but Sophia knew, from hints in
Constance's letters and in her talk, that business in general had moved
more than a few yards, it had moved a couple of miles--to arrogant and
pushing Hanbridge, with its electric light and its theatres and its
big, advertising shops. The heaven of thick smoke over the Square, the
black deposit on painted woodwork, the intermittent hooting of steam
syrens, showed that the wholesale trade of Bursley still flourished.
But Sophia had no memories of the wholesale trade of Bursley; it meant
nothing to the youth of her heart; she was attached by intimate links
to the retail traffic of Bursley, and as a mart old Bursley was done
for.

She thought: "It would kill me if I had to live here. It's deadening.
It weighs on you. And the dirt, and the horrible ugliness! And the--way
they talk, and the way they think! I felt it first at Knype station.
The Square is rather picturesque, but it's such a poor, poor little
thing! Fancy having to look at it every morning of one's life! No!" She
almost shuddered.

For the time being she had no home. To Constance she was 'paying a
visit.'

Constance did not appear to realize the awful conditions of dirt,
decay, and provinciality in which she was living. Even Constance's
house was extremely inconvenient, dark, and no doubt unhealthy.
Cellar-kitchen, no hall, abominable stairs, and as to hygiene, simply
mediaeval. She could not understand why Constance had remained in the
house. Constance had plenty of money and might live where she liked,
and in a good modern house. Yet she stayed in the Square. "I daresay
she's got used to it," Sophia thought leniently. "I daresay I should be
just the same in her place." But she did not really think so, and she
could not understand Constance's state of mind.

Certainly she could not claim to have 'added up' Constance yet. She
considered that her sister was in some respects utterly
provincial--what they used to call in the Five Towns a 'body.' Somewhat
too diffident, not assertive enough, not erect enough; with curious
provincial pronunciations, accents, gestures, mannerisms, and
inarticulate ejaculations; with a curious narrowness of outlook! But at
the same time Constance was very shrewd, and she was often proving by
some bit of a remark that she knew what was what, despite her
provinciality. In judgments upon human nature they undoubtedly thought
alike, and there was a strong natural general sympathy between them.
And at the bottom of Constance was something fine. At intervals Sophia
discovered herself secretly patronizing Constance, but reflection would
always cause her to cease from patronage and to examine her own
defences. Constance, besides being the essence of kindness, was no
fool. Constance could see through a pretence, an absurdity, as quickly
as any one. Constance did honestly appear to Sophia to be superior to
any Frenchwoman that she had ever encountered. She saw supreme in
Constance that quality which she had recognized in the porters at
Newhaven on landing--the quality of an honest and naive goodwill, of
powerful simplicity. That quality presented itself to her as the
greatest in the world, and it seemed to be in the very air of England.
She could even detect it in Mr. Critchlow, whom, for the rest, she
liked, admiring the brutal force of his character. She pardoned his
brutality to his wife. She found it proper. "After all," she said,
"supposing he hadn't married her, what would she have been? Nothing but
a slave! She's infinitely better off as his wife. In fact she's lucky.
And it would be absurd for him to treat her otherwise than he does
treat her." (Sophia did not divine that her masterful Critchlow had
once wanted Maria as one might want a star.)

But to be always with such people! To be always with Constance! To be
always in the Bursley atmosphere, physical and mental!

She pictured Paris as it would be on that very morning--bright, clean,
glittering; the neatness of the Rue Lord Byron, and the magnificent
slanting splendour of the Champs Elysees. Paris had always seemed
beautiful to her; but the life of Paris had not seemed beautiful to
her. Yet now it did seem beautiful. She could delve down into the
earlier years of her ownership of the Pension, and see a regular,
placid beauty in her daily life there. Her life there, even so late as
a fortnight ago, seemed beautiful; sad, but beautiful. It had passed
into history. She sighed when she thought of the innumerable interviews
with Mardon, the endless formalities required by the English and the
French law and by the particularity of the Syndicate. She had been
through all that. She had actually been through it and it was over. She
had bought the Pension for a song and sold it for great riches. She had
developed from a nobody into the desired of Syndicates. And after long,
long, monotonous, strenuous years of possession the day had come, the
emotional moment had come, when she had yielded up the keys of
ownership to Mr. Mardon and a man from the Hotel Moscow, and had paid
her servants for the last time and signed the last receipted bill. The
men had been very gallant, and had requested her to stay in the Pension
as their guest until she was ready to leave Paris. But she had declined
that. She could not have borne to remain in the Pension under the reign
of another. She had left at once and gone to a hotel with her few goods
while finally disposing of certain financial questions. And one evening
Jacqueline had come to see her, and had wept.

Her exit from the Pension Frensham struck her now as poignantly
pathetic, in its quickness and its absence of ceremonial. Ten steps,
and her career was finished, closed. Astonishing with what liquid
tenderness she turned and looked back on that hard, fighting,
exhausting life in Paris! For, even if she had unconsciously liked it,
she had never enjoyed it. She had always compared France
disadvantageously with England, always resented the French temperament
in business, always been convinced that 'you never knew where you were'
with French tradespeople. And now they flitted before her endowed with
a wondrous charm; so polite in their lying, so eager to spare your
feelings and to reassure you, so neat and prim. And the French shops,
so exquisitely arranged! Even a butcher's shop in Paris was a pleasure
to the eye, whereas the butcher's shop in Wedgwood Street, which she
remembered of old, and which she had glimpsed from the cab--what a
bloody shambles! She longed for Paris again. She longed to stretch her
lungs in Paris. These people in Bursley did not suspect what Paris was.
They did not appreciate and they never would appreciate the marvels
that she had accomplished in a theatre of marvels. They probably never
realized that the whole of the rest of the world was not more or less
like Bursley. They had no curiosity. Even Constance was a thousand
times more interested in relating trifles of Bursley gossip than in
listening to details of life in Paris. Occasionally she had expressed a
mild, vapid surprise at things told to her by Sophia; but she was not
really impressed, because her curiosity did not extend beyond Bursley.
She, like the rest, had the formidable, thrice-callous egotism of the
provinces. And if Sophia had informed her that the heads of Parisians
grew out of their navels she would have murmured: "Well, well! Bless
us! I never heard of such things! Mrs. Brindley's second boy has got
his head quite crooked, poor little fellow!"

Why should Sophia feel sorrowful? She did not know. She was free; free
to go where she liked and do what she liked, She had no
responsibilities, no cares. The thought of her husband had long ago
ceased to rouse in her any feeling of any kind. She was rich. Mr.
Critchlow had accumulated for her about as much money as she had
herself acquired. Never could she spend her income! She did not know
how to spend it. She lacked nothing that was procurable. She had no
desires except the direct desire for happiness. If thirty thousand
pounds or so could have bought a son like Cyril, she would have bought
one for herself. She bitterly regretted that she had no child. In this,
she envied Constance. A child seemed to be the one commodity worth
having. She was too free, too exempt from responsibilities. In spite of
Constance she was alone in the world. The strangeness of the hazards of
life overwhelmed her. Here she was at fifty, alone.

But the idea of leaving Constance, having once rejoined her, did not
please Sophia. It disquieted her. She could not see herself living away
from Constance. She was alone--but Constance was there.

She was downstairs first, and she had a little conversation with Amy.
And she stood on the step of the front-door while Fossette made a
preliminary inspection of Spot's gutter. She found the air nipping.

Constance, when she descended, saw stretching across one side of the
breakfast-table an umbrella, Sophia's present to her from Paris. It was
an umbrella such that a better could not be bought. It would have
impressed even Aunt Harriet. The handle was of gold, set with a circlet
of opalines. The tips of the ribs were also of gold. It was this detail
which staggered Constance. Frankly, this development of luxury had been
unknown and unsuspected in the Square. That the tips of the ribs should
match the handle ... that did truly beat everything! Sophia said calmly
that the device was quite common. But she did not conceal that the
umbrella was strictly of the highest class and that it might be shown
to queens without shame. She intimated that the frame (a 'Fox's
Paragon'), handle, and tips, would outlast many silks. Constance was
childish with pleasure.

They decided to go out marketing together. The unspoken thought in
their minds was that as Sophia would have to be introduced to the town
sooner or later, it might as well be sooner. Constance looked at the
sky. "It can't possibly rain," she said. "I shall take my umbrella."




CHAPTER III

TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE

I


SOPHIA wore list slippers in the morning. It was a habit which she had
formed in the Rue Lord Byron--by accident rather than with an intention
to utilize list slippers for the effective supervision of servants.
These list slippers were the immediate cause of important happenings in
St. Luke's Square. Sophia had been with Constance one calendar
month--it was, of course, astonishing how quickly the time had
passed!--and she had become familiar with the house. Restraint had
gradually ceased to mark the relations of the sisters. Constance, in
particular, hid nothing from Sophia, who was made aware of the minor
and major defects of Amy and all the other creakings of the household
machine. Meals were eaten off the ordinary tablecloths, and on the days
for 'turning out' the parlour, Constance assumed, with a little laugh,
that Sophia would excuse Amy's apron, which she had not had time to
change. In brief, Sophia was no longer a stranger, and nobody felt
bound to pretend that things were not exactly what they were. In spite
of the foulness and the provinciality of Bursley, Sophia enjoyed the
intimacy with Constance. As for Constance, she was enchanted. The
inflections of their voices, when they were talking to each other very
privately, were often tender, and these sudden surprising tendernesses
secretly thrilled both of them.

On the fourth Sunday morning Sophia put on her dressing-gown and those
list slippers very early, and paid a visit to Constance's bedroom. She
was somewhat concerned about Constance, and her concern was pleasurable
to her. She made the most of it. Amy, with her lifelong carelessness
about doors, had criminally failed to latch the street-door of the
parlour on the previous morning, and Constance had only perceived the
omission by the phenomenon of frigidity in her legs at breakfast. She
always sat with her back to the door, in her mother's fluted
rocking-chair; and Sophia on the spot, but not in the chair, occupied
by John Baines in the forties, and in the seventies and later by Samuel
Povey. Constance had been alarmed by that frigidity. "I shall have a
return of my sciatica!" she had exclaimed, and Sophia was startled by
the apprehension in her tone. Before evening the sciatica had indeed
revisited Constance's sciatic nerve, and Sophia for the first time
gained an idea of what a pulsating sciatica can do in the way of
torturing its victim. Constance, in addition to the sciatica, had
caught a sneezing cold, and the act of sneezing caused her the most
acute pain. Sophia had soon stopped the sneezing. Constance was got to
bed. Sophia wished to summon the doctor, but Constance assured her that
the doctor would have nothing new to advise. Constance suffered
angelically. The weak and exquisite sweetness of her smile, as she lay
in bed under the stress of twinging pain amid hot-water bottles, was
amazing to Sophia. It made her think upon the reserves of Constance's
character, and upon the variety of the manifestations of the Baines'
blood.

So on the Sunday morning she had arisen early, just after Amy.

She discovered Constance to be a little better, as regards the
neuralgia, but exhausted by the torments of a sleepless night. Sophia,
though she had herself not slept well, felt somehow conscience-stricken
for having slept at all.

"You poor dear!" she murmured, brimming with sympathy. "I shall make
you some tea at once, myself."

"Oh, Amy will do it," said Constance.

Sophia repeated with a resolute intonation: "I shall make it myself."
And after being satisfied that there was no instant need for a renewal
of hot-water bottles, she went further downstairs in those list
slippers.

As she was descending the dark kitchen steps she heard Amy's voice in
pettish exclamation: "Oh, get out, YOU!" followed by a yelp from
Fossette. She had a swift movement of anger, which she controlled. The
relations between her and Fossette were not marked by transports, and
her rule over dogs in general was severe; even when alone she very
seldom kissed the animal passionately, according to the general habit
of people owning dogs. But she loved Fossette. And, moreover, her love
for Fossette had been lately sharpened by the ridicule which Bursley
had showered upon that strange beast. Happily for Sophia's amour
propre, there was no means of getting Fossette shaved in Bursley, and
thus Fossette was daily growing less comic to the Bursley eye. Sophia
could therefore without loss of dignity yield to force of circumstances
what she would not have yielded to popular opinion. She guessed that
Amy had no liking for the dog, but the accent which Amy had put upon
the 'you' seemed to indicate that Amy was making distinctions between
Fossette and Spot, and this disturbed Sophia much more than Fossette's
yelp.

Sophia coughed, and entered the kitchen.

Spot was lapping his morning milk out of a saucer, while Fossette stood
wistfully, an amorphous mass of thick hair, under the table.

"Good morning, Amy," said Sophia, with dreadful politeness.

"Good morning, m'm," said Amy, glumly.

Amy knew that Sophia had heard that yelp, and Sophia knew that she
knew. The pretence of politeness was horrible. Both the women felt as
though the kitchen was sanded with gunpowder and there were lighted
matches about. Sophia had a very proper grievance against Amy on
account of the open door of the previous day. Sophia thought that,
after such a sin, the least Amy could do was to show contrition and
amiability and an anxiety to please: which things Amy had not shown.
Amy had a grievance against Sophia because Sophia had recently thrust
upon her a fresh method of cooking green vegetables. Amy was a strong
opponent of new or foreign methods. Sophia was not aware of this
grievance, for Amy had hidden it under her customary cringing
politeness to Sophia.

They surveyed each other like opposing armies.

"What a pity you have no gas-stove here! I want to make some tea at
once for Mrs. Povey," said Sophia, inspecting the just-born fire.

"Gas-stove, m'm?" said Amy, hostilely. It was Sophia's list slippers
which had finally decided Amy to drop the mask of deference.

She made no effort to aid Sophia; she gave no indication as to where
the various necessaries for tea were to be found. Sophia got the
kettle, and washed it out. Sophia got the smallest tea-pot, and, as the
tea-leaves had been left in it, she washed out the teapot also, with
exaggerated noise and meticulousness. Sophia got the sugar and the
other trifles, and Sophia blew up the fire with the bellows. And Amy
did nothing in particular except encourage Spot to drink.

"Is that all the milk you give to Fossette?" Sophia demanded coldly,
when it had come to Fossette's turn. She was waiting for the water to
boil. The saucer for the bigger dog, who would have made two of Spot,
was not half full.

"It's all there is to spare, m'm," Amy rasped.

Sophia made no reply. Soon afterwards she departed, with the tea
successfully made. If Amy had not been a mature woman of over forty she
would have snorted as Sophia went away. But Amy was scarcely the
ordinary silly girl.

Save for a certain primness as she offered the tray to her sister,
Sophia's demeanour gave no sign whatever that the Amazon in her was
aroused. Constance's eager trembling pleasure in the tea touched her
deeply, and she was exceedingly thankful that Constance had her,
Sophia, as a succour in time of distress.

A few minutes later, Constance, having first asked Sophia what time it
was by the watch in the watch-case on the chest of drawers (the Swiss
clock had long since ceased to work), pulled the red tassel of the
bell-cord over her bed. A bell tinkled far away in the kitchen.

"Anything I can do?" Sophia inquired.

"Oh no, thanks," said Constance. "I only want my letters, if the
postman has come. He ought to have been here long ago." Sophia had
learned during her stay that Sunday morning was the morning on which
Constance expected a letter from Cyril. It was a definite arrangement
between mother and son that Cyril should write on Saturdays, and
Constance on Sundays. Sophia knew that Constance set store by this
letter, becoming more and more preoccupied about Cyril as the end of
the week approached. Since Sophia's arrival Cyril's letter had not
failed to come, but once it had been naught save a scribbled line or
two, and Sophia gathered that it was never a certainty, and that
Constance was accustomed, though not reconciled, to disappointments.
Sophia had been allowed to read the letters. They left a faint
impression on her mind that her favourite was perhaps somewhat
negligent in his relations with his mother.

There was no reply to the bell. Constance rang again without effect.

With a brusque movement Sophia left the bedroom by way of Cyril's room.

"Amy," she called over the banisters, "do you not hear your mistress's
bell?"

"I'm coming as quick as I can, m'm." The voice was still very glum.

Sophia murmured something inarticulate, staying till assured that Amy
really was coming, and then she passed back into Cyril's bedroom. She
waited there, hesitant, not exactly on the watch, not exactly unwilling
to assist at an interview between Amy and Amy's mistress; indeed, she
could not have surely analyzed her motive for remaining in Cyril's
bedroom, with the door ajar between that room and Constance's.

Amy reluctantly mounted the stairs and went into her mistress's bedroom
with her chin in the air. She thought that Sophia had gone up to the
second storey, where she 'belonged.' She stood in silence by the bed,
showing no sympathy with Constance, no curiosity as to the
indisposition. She objected to Constance's attack of sciatica, as being
a too permanent reproof of her carelessness as to doors.

Constance also waited, for the fraction of a second, as if expectant.

"Well, Amy," she said at length in her voice weakened by fatigue and
pain. "The letters?"

"There ain't no letters," said Amy, grimly. "You might have known, if
there'd been any, I should have brought 'em up. Postman went past
twenty minutes agone. I'm always being interrupted, and it isn't as if
I hadn't got enough to do--now!"

She turned to leave, and was pulling the door open.

"Amy!" said a voice sharply. It was Sophia's.

The servant jumped, and in spite of herself obeyed the implicit,
imperious command to stop.

"You will please not speak to your mistress in that tone, at any rate
while I'm here," said Sophia, icily. "You know she is ill and weak. You
ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"I never----" Amy began.

"I don't want to argue," Sophia said angrily. "Please leave the room."

Amy obeyed. She was cowed, in addition to being staggered.

To the persons involved in it, this episode was intensely dramatic.
Sophia had surmised that Constance permitted liberties of speech to
Amy; she had even guessed that Amy sometimes took licence to be rude.
But that the relations between them were such as to allow the bullying
of Constance by an Amy downright insolent--this had shocked and wounded
Sophia, who suddenly had a vision of Constance as the victim of a reign
of terror. "If the creature will do this while I'm here," said Sophia
to herself, "what does she do when they are alone together in the
house?"

"Well," she exclaimed, "I never heard of such goings-on! And you let
her talk to you in that style! My dear Constance!"

Constance was sitting up in bed, the small tea-tray on her knees. Her
eyes were moist. The tears had filled them when she knew that there was
no letter. Ordinarily the failure of Cyril's letter would not have made
her cry, but weakness had impaired her self-control. And the tears
having once got into her eyes, she could not dismiss them. There they
were!

"She's been with me such a long time," Constance murmured. "She takes
liberties. I've corrected her once or twice."

"Liberties!" Sophia repeated the word. "Liberties!"

"Of course I really ought not to allow it," said Constance. "I ought to
have put a stop to it long since."

"Well," said Sophia, rather relieved by this symptom of Constance's
secret mind, "I do hope you won't think I'm meddlesome, but truly it
was too much for me. The words were out of my mouth before I----" She
stopped.

"You were quite right, quite right," said Constance, seeing before her
in the woman of fifty the passionate girl of fifteen.

"I've had a good deal of experience of servants," said Sophia.

"I know you have," Constance put in.

"And I'm convinced that it never pays to stand any sauce. Servants
don't understand kindness and forbearance. And this sort of thing grows
and grows till you can't call your soul your own."

"You are quite right," Constance said again, with even more
positiveness.

Not merely the conviction that Sophia was quite right, but the desire
to assure Sophia that Sophia was not meddlesome, gave force to her
utterance. Amy's allusion to extra work shamed Amy's mistress as a
hostess, and she was bound to make amends.

"Now as to that woman," said Sophia in a lower voice, as she sat down
confidentially on the edge of the bed. And she told Constance about Amy
and the dogs, and about Amy's rudeness in the kitchen. "I should never
have DREAMT of mentioning such things," she finished. "But under the
circumstances I feel it right that you should know. I feel you ought to
know."

And Constance nodded her head in thorough agreement. She did not
trouble to go into articulate apologies to her guest for the actual
misdeeds of her servant. The sisters were now on a plane of intimacy
where such apologies would have been supererogatory. Their voices fell
lower and lower, and the case of Amy was laid bare and discussed to the
minutest detail.

Gradually they realized that what had occurred was a crisis. They were
both very excited, apprehensive, and rather too consciously defiant. At
the same time they were drawn very close to each other, by Sophia's
generous indignation and by Constance's absolute loyalty.

A long time passed before Constance said, thinking about something else:

"I expect it's been delayed in the post."

"Cyril's letter? Oh, no doubt! If you knew the posts in France, my
word!"

Then they determined, with little sighs, to face the crisis cheerfully.

In truth it was a crisis, and a great one. The sensation of the crisis
affected the atmosphere of the entire house. Constance got up for tea
and managed to walk to the drawing-room. And when Sophia, after an
absence in her own room, came down to tea and found the tea all served,
Constance whispered:

"She's given notice! And Sunday too!"

"What did she say?"

"She didn't say much," Constance replied vaguely, hiding from Sophia
that Amy had harped on the too great profusion of mistresses in that
house. "After all, it's just as well. She'll be all right. She's saved
a good bit of money, and she has friends."

"But how foolish of her to give up such a good place!"

"She simply doesn't care," said Constance, who was a little hurt by
Amy's defection. "When she takes a thing into her head she simply
doesn't care. She's got no common sense. I've always known that."

"So you're going to leave, Amy?" said Sophia that evening, as Amy was
passing through the parlour on her way to bed. Constance was already
arranged for the night.

"I am, m'm," answered Amy, precisely.

Her tone was not rude, but it was firm. She had apparently reconnoitred
her position in calmness.

"I'm sorry I was obliged to correct you this morning," said Sophia,
with cheerful amicableness, pleased in spite of herself with the
woman's tone. "But I think you will see that I had reason to."

"I've been thinking it over, m'm," said Amy, with dignity, "and I see
as I must leave."

There was a pause.

"Well, you know best.... Good night, Amy."

"Good night, m'm."

"She's a decent woman," thought Sophia, "but hopeless for this place
now."

The sisters were fronted with the fact that Constance had a month in
which to find a new servant, and that a new servant would have to be
trained in well-doing and might easily prove disastrous. Both Constance
and Amy were profoundly disturbed by the prospective dissolution of a
bond which dated from the seventies. And both were decided that there
was no alternative to the dissolution. Outsiders knew merely that Mrs.
Povey's old servant was leaving. Outsiders merely saw Mrs. Povey's
advertisement in the Signal for a new servant. They could not read
hearts. Some of the younger generation even said superiorly that
old-fashioned women like Mrs. Povey seemed to have servants on the
brain, etc., etc.

II

"Well, have you got your letter?" Sophia demanded cheerfully of
Constance when she entered the bedroom the next morning.

Constance merely shook her head. She was very depressed. Sophia's
cheerfulness died out. As she hated to be insincerely optimistic, she
said nothing. Otherwise she might have remarked: "Perhaps the afternoon
post will bring it." Gloom reigned. To Constance particularly, as Amy
had given notice and as Cyril was 'remiss,' it seemed really that the
time was out of joint and life unworth living. Even the presence of
Sophia did not bring her much comfort. Immediately Sophia left the room
Constance's sciatica began to return, and in a severe form. She had
regretted this, less for the pain than because she had just assured
Sophia, quite honestly, that she was not suffering; Sophia had been
sceptical. After that it was of course imperative that Constance should
get up as usual. She had said that she would get up as usual. Besides,
there was the immense enterprise of obtaining a new servant! Worries
loomed mountainous. Suppose Cyril were dangerously ill, and unable to
write! Suppose something had happened to him! Supposing she never did
obtain a new servant!

Sophia, up in her room, was endeavouring to be philosophical, and to
see the world brightly. She was saying to herself that she must take
Constance in hand, that what Constance lacked was energy, that
Constance must be stirred out of her groove. And in the cavernous
kitchen Amy, preparing the nine-o'clock breakfast, was meditating upon
the ingratitude of employers and wondering what the future held for
her. She had a widowed mother in the picturesque village of Sneyd,
where the mortal and immortal welfare of every inhabitant was watched
over by God's vicegerent, the busy Countess of Chell; she possessed
about two hundred pounds of her own; her mother for years had been
begging Amy to share her home free of expense. But nevertheless Amy's
mind was black with foreboding and vague dejection. The house was a
house of sorrow, and these three women, each solitary, the devotees of
sorrow. And the two dogs wandered disconsolate up and down, aware of
the necessity for circumspection, never guessing that the highly
peculiar state of the atmosphere had been brought about by nothing but
a half-shut door and an incorrect tone.

As Sophia, fully dressed this time, was descending to breakfast, she
heard Constance's voice, feebly calling her, and found the convalescent
still in bed. The truth could not be concealed. Constance was once more
in great pain, and her moral condition was not favourable to fortitude.

"I wish you had told me, to begin with," Sophia could not help saying,
"then I should have known what to do."

Constance did not defend herself by saying that the pain had only
recurred since their first interview that morning. She just wept.

"I'm very low!" she blubbered.

Sophia was surprised. She felt that this was not 'being a Baines.'

During the progress of that interminable April morning, her
acquaintance with the possibilities of sciatica as an agent destructive
of moral fibre was further increased. Constance had no force at all to
resist its activity. The sweetness of her resignation seemed to melt
into nullity. She held to it that the doctor could do nothing for her.

About noon, when Sophia was moving anxiously around her, she suddenly
screamed.

"I feel as if my leg was going to burst!" she cried.

That decided Sophia. As soon as Constance was a little easier she went
downstairs to Amy.

"Amy," she said, "it's a Doctor Stirling that your mistress has when
she's ill, isn't it?"

"Yes, m'm."

"Where is his surgery?"

"Well, m'm, he did live just opposite, with Dr. Harrop, but latterly
he's gone to live at Bleakridge."

"I wish you would put your things on, and run up there and ask him to
call as soon as he can."

"I will, m'm," said Amy, with the greatest willingness. "I thought I
heard missis cry out." She was not effusive. She was better than
effusive: kindly and helpful with a certain reserve.

"There's something about that woman I like," said Sophia, to herself.
For a proved fool, Amy was indeed holding her own rather well.

Dr. Stirling drove down about two o'clock. He had now been established
in the Five Towns for more than a decade, and the stamp of success was
on his brow and on the proud forehead of his trotting horse. He had, in
the phrase of the Signal, 'identified himself with the local life of
the district.' He was liked, being a man of broad sympathies. In his
rich Scotch accent he could discuss with equal ability the flavour of
whisky or of a sermon, and he had more than sufficient tact never to
discuss either whiskies or sermons in the wrong place. He had made a
speech (responding for the learned professions) at the annual dinner of
the Society for the Prosecution of Felons, and this speech (in which
praise of red wine was rendered innocuous by praise of books--his fine
library was notorious) had classed him as a wit with the American
consul, whose post-prandial manner was modelled on Mark Twain's. He was
thirty-five years of age, tall and stoutish, with a chubby boyish face
that the razor left chiefly blue every morning.

The immediate effect of his arrival on Constance was miraculous. His
presence almost cured her for a moment, just as though her malady had
been toothache and he a dentist. Then, when he had finished his
examination, the pain resumed its sway over her.

In talking to her and to Sophia, he listened very seriously to all that
they said; he seemed to regard the case as the one case that had ever
aroused his genuine professional interest; but as it unfolded itself,
in all its difficulty and urgency, so he seemed, in his mind, to be
discovering wondrous ways of dealing with it; these mysterious
discoveries seemed to give him confidence, and his confidence was
communicated to the patient by means of faint sallies of humour. He was
a highly skilled doctor. This fact, however, had no share in his
popularity; which was due solely to his rare gift of taking a case very
seriously while remaining cheerful.

He said he would return in a quarter of an hour, and he returned in
thirteen minutes with a hypodermic syringe, with which he attacked the
pain in its central strongholds.

"What is it?" asked Constance, breathing gratitude for the relief.

He paused, looking at her roguishly from under lowered eyelids.

"I'd better not tell ye," he said. "It might lead ye into mischief."

"Oh, but you must tell me, doctor," Constance insisted, anxious that he
should live up to his reputation for Sophia's benefit.

"It's hydrochloride of cocaine," he said, and lifted a finger. "Beware
of the cocaine habit. It's ruined many a respectable family. But if I
hadn't had a certain amount of confidence in yer strength of character,
Mrs. Povey, I wouldn't have risked it."

"He will have his joke, will the doctor!" Constance smiled, in a
brighter world.

He said he should come again about half-past five, and he arrived about
half-past six, and injected more cocaine. The special importance of the
case was thereby established. On this second visit, he and Sophia soon
grew rather friendly. When she conducted him downstairs again he
stopped chatting with her in the parlour for a long time, as though he
had nothing else on earth to do, while his coachman walked the horse to
and fro in front of the door.

His attitude to her flattered Sophia, for it showed that he took her
for no ordinary woman. It implied a continual assumption that she must
be a mine of interest for any one who was privileged to delve into her
memory. So far, among Constance's acquaintance, Sophia had met no one
who showed more than a perfunctory curiosity as to her life. Her return
was accepted with indifference. Her escapade of thirty years ago had
entirely lost its dramatic quality. Many people indeed had never heard
that she had run away from home to marry a commercial traveller; and to
those who remembered, or had been told, it seemed a sufficiently banal
exploit--after thirty years! Her fear, and Constance's, that the town
would be murmurous with gossip was ludicrously unfounded. The effect of
time was such that even Mr. Critchlow appeared to have forgotten even
that she had been indirectly responsible for her father's death. She
had nearly forgotten it herself; when she happened to think of it she
felt no shame, no remorse, seeing the death as purely accidental, and
not altogether unfortunate. On two points only was the town
inquisitive: as to her husband, and as to the precise figure at which
she had sold the pension. The town knew that she was probably not a
widow, for she had been obliged to tell Mr. Critchlow, and Mr.
Critchlow in some hour of tenderness had told Maria. But nobody had
dared to mention the name of Gerald Scales to her. With her fashionable
clothes, her striking mien of command, and the legend of her wealth,
she inspired respect, if not awe, in the townsfolk. In the doctor's
attitude there was something of amaze; she felt it. Though the dull
apathy of the people she had hitherto met was assuredly not without its
advantageous side for her tranquillity of mind, it had touched her
vanity, and the gaze of the doctor soothed the smart. He had so
obviously divined her interestingness; he so obviously wanted to enjoy
it.

"I've just been reading Zola's 'Downfall,'" he said.

Her mind searched backwards, and recalled a poster.

"Oh!" she replied. "'La Debacle'?"

"Yes. What do ye think of it?" His eyes lighted at the prospect of a
talk. He was even pleased to hear her give him the title in French.

"I haven't read it," she said, and she was momentarily sorry that she
had not read it, for she could see that he was dashed. The doctor had
supposed that residence in a foreign country involved a knowledge of
the literature of that country. Yet he had never supposed that
residence in England involved a knowledge of English literature. Sophia
had read practically nothing since 1870; for her the latest author was
Cherbuliez. Moreover, her impression of Zola was that he was not at all
nice, and that he was the enemy of his race, though at that date the
world had scarcely heard of Dreyfus. Dr. Stirling had too hastily
assumed that the opinions of the bourgeois upon art differ in different
countries.

"And ye actually were in the siege of Paris?" he questioned, trying
again.

"Yes."

"AND the commune?"

"Yes, the commune too."

"Well!" he exclaimed. "It's incredible! When I was reading the
'Downfall' the night before last, I said to myself that you must have
been through a lot of all that. I didn't know I was going to have the
pleasure of a chat with ye so soon."

She smiled. "But how did you know I was in the siege of Paris?" she
asked, curious.

"How do I know? I know because I've seen that birthday card ye sent to
Mrs. Povey in 1871, after it was over. It's one of her possessions,
that card is. She showed it me one day when she told me ye were coming."

Sophia started. She had quite forgotten that card. It had not occurred
to her that Constance would have treasured all those cards that she had
despatched during the early years of her exile. She responded as well
as she could to his eagerness for personal details concerning the siege
and the commune. He might have been disappointed at the prose of her
answers, had he not been determined not to be disappointed.

"Ye seem to have taken it all very quietly," he observed.

"Eh yes!" she agreed, not without pride. "But it's a long time since."

Those events, as they existed in her memory, scarcely warranted the
tremendous fuss subsequently made about them. What were they, after
all? Such was her secret thought. Chirac himself was now nothing but a
faint shadow. Still, were the estimate of those events true or false,
she was a woman who had been through them, and Dr. Stirling's high
appreciation of that fact was very pleasant to her. Their friendliness
approached intimacy. Night had fallen. Outside could be heard the
champing of a bit.

"I must be getting on," he said at last; but he did not move.

"Then there is nothing else I am to do for my sister?" Sophia inquired.

"I don't think so," said he. "It isn't a question of medicine."

"Then what is it a question of?" Sophia demanded bluntly.

"Nerves," he said. "It's nearly all nerves. I know something about Mrs.
Povey's constitution now, and I was hoping that your visit would do her
good."

"She's been quite well--I mean what you may call quite well--until the
day before yesterday, when she sat in that draught. She was better last
night, and then this morning I find her ever so much worse."

"No worries?" The doctor looked at her confidentially.

"What CAN she have in the way of worries?" exclaimed Sophia. "That's to
say--real worries."

"Exactly!" the doctor agreed.

"I tell her she doesn't know what worry is," said Sophia.

"So do I!" said the doctor, his eyes twinkling.

"She was a little upset because she didn't receive her usual Sunday
letter from Cyril yesterday. But then she was weak and low."

"Clever youth, Cyril!" mused the doctor.

"I think he's a particularly nice boy," said Sophia, eagerly,

"So you've seen him?"

"Of course," said Sophia, rather stiffly. Did the doctor suppose that
she did not know her own nephew? She went back to the subject of her
sister. "She is also a little bothered, I think, because the servant is
going to leave."

"Oh! So Amy is going to leave, is she?" He spoke still lower. "Between
you and me, it's no bad thing."

"I'm so glad you think so."

"In another few years the servant would have been the mistress here.
One can see these things coming on, but it's so difficult to do
anything. In fact ye can't do anything."

"I did something," said Sophia, sharply. "I told the woman straight
that it shouldn't go on while I was in the house. I didn't suspect it
at first--but when I found it out ... I can tell you!" She let the
doctor imagine what she could tell him.

He smiled. "No," he said. "I can easily understand that ye didn't
suspect anything at first. When she's well and bright Mrs. Povey could
hold her own--so I'm told. But it was certainly slowly getting worse."

"Then people talk about it?" said Sophia, shocked.

"As a native of Bursley, Mrs. Scales," said the doctor, "ye ought to
know what people in Bursley do!" Sophia put her lips together. The
doctor rose, smoothing his waistcoat. "What does she bother with
servants at all for?" he burst out. "She's perfectly free. She hasn't
got a care in the world, if she only knew it. Why doesn't she go out
and about, and enjoy herself? She wants stirring up, that's what your
sister wants."

"You're quite right," Sophia burst out in her turn. "That's precisely
what I say to myself; precisely! I was thinking it over only this
morning. She wants stirring up. She's got into a rut."

"She needs to be jolly. Why doesn't she go to some seaside place, and
live in a hotel, and enjoy herself? Is there anything to prevent her?"

"Nothing whatever."

"Instead of being dependent on a servant! I believe in enjoying one's
self--when ye've got the money to do it with! Can ye imagine anybody
living in Bursley, for pleasure? And especially in St. Luke's Square,
right in the thick of it all! Smoke! Dirt! No air! No light! No
scenery! No amusements! What does she do it for? She's in a rut."

"Yes, she's in a rut," Sophia repeated her own phrase, which he had
copied.

"My word!" said the doctor. "Wouldn't I clear out and enjoy myself if I
could! Your sister's a young woman."

"Of course she is!" Sophia concurred, feeling that she herself was even
younger. "Of course she is!"

"And except that she's nervously organized, and has certain
predispositions, there's nothing the matter with her. This sciatica--I
don't say it would be cured, but it might be, by a complete change and
throwing off all these ridiculous worries. Not only does she live in
the most depressing conditions, but she suffers tortures for it, and
there's absolutely no need for her to be here at all."

"Doctor," said Sophia, solemnly, impressed, "you are quite right. I
agree with every word you say."

"Naturally she's attached to the place," he continued, glancing round
the room. "I know all about that. After living here all her life! But
she's got to break herself of her attachment. It's her duty to do so.
She ought to show a little energy. I'm deeply attached to my bed in the
morning, but I have to leave it."

"Of course," said Sophia, in an impatient tone, as though disgusted
with every person who could not perceive, or would not subscribe to,
these obvious truths that the doctor was uttering. "Of course!"

"What she needs is the bustle of life in a good hotel, a good hydro,
for instance. Among jolly people. Parties! Games! Excursions! She
wouldn't be the same woman. You'd see. Wouldn't I do it, if I could?
Strathpeffer. She'd soon forget her sciatica. I don't know what Mrs.
Povey's annual income is, but I expect that if she took it into her
head to live in the dearest hotel in England, there would be no reason
why she shouldn't."

Sophia lifted her head and smiled in calm amusement. "I expect so," she
said superiorly.

"A hotel--that's the life. No worries. If ye want anything ye ring a
bell. If a waiter gives notice, it's some one else who has the worry,
not you. But you know all about that, Mrs. Scales."

"No one better," murmured Sophia.

"Good evening," he said abruptly, sticking out his hand. "I'll be down
in the morning."

"Did you ever mention this to my sister?" Sophia asked him, rising.

"Yes," said he. "But it's no use. Oh yes, I've told her. But she does
really think it's quite impossible. She wouldn't even hear of going to
live in London with her beloved son. She won't listen."

"I never thought of that," said Sophia. "Good night."

Their hand-grasp was very intimate and mutually comprehending. He was
pleased by the quick responsiveness of her temperament, and the
masterful vigour which occasionally flashed out in her replies. He
noticed the hardly perceptible distortion of her handsome, worn face,
and he said to himself: "She's been through a thing or two," and:
"She'll have to mind her p's and q's." Sophia was pleased because he
admired her, and because with her he dropped his bedside jocularities,
and talked plainly as a sensible man will talk when he meets an
uncommonly wise woman, and because he echoed and amplified her own
thoughts. She honoured him by standing at the door till he had driven
off.

For a few moments she mused solitary in the parlour, and then, lowering
the gas, she went upstairs to her sister, who lay in the dark. Sophia
struck a match.

"You've been having quite a long chat with the doctor," said Constance.
"He's very good company, isn't he? What did he talk about this time?"

"He wanted to know about Paris and so on," Sophia answered.

"Oh! I believe he's a rare student."

Lying there in the dark, the simple Constance never suspected that
those two active and strenuous ones had been arranging her life for
her, so that she should be jolly and live for twenty years yet. She did
not suspect that she had been tried and found guilty of sinful
attachments, and of being in a rut, and of lacking the elements of
ordinary sagacity. It had not occurred to her that if she was worried
and ill, the reason was to be found in her own blind and stupid
obstinacy. She had thought herself a fairly sensible kind of creature.

III

The sisters had an early supper together in Constance's bedroom.
Constance was much easier. Having a fancy that a little movement would
be beneficial, she had even got up for a few moments and moved about
the room. Now she sat ensconced in pillows. A fire burned in the
old-fashioned ineffectual grate. From the Sun Vaults opposite came the
sound of a phonograph singing an invitation to God to save its gracious
queen. This phonograph was a wonderful novelty, and filled the Sun
nightly. For a few evenings it had interested the sisters, in spite of
themselves, but they had soon sickened of it and loathed it. Sophia
became more and more obsessed by the monstrous absurdity of the simple
fact that she and Constance were there, in that dark inconvenient
house, wearied by the gaiety of public-houses, blackened by smoke,
surrounded by mud, instead of being luxuriously installed in a
beautiful climate, amid scenes of beauty and white cleanliness.
Secretly she became more and more indignant.

Amy entered, bearing a letter in her coarse hand. As Amy
unceremoniously handed the letter to Constance, Sophia thought: "If she
was my servant she would hand letters on a tray." (An advertisement had
already been sent to the Signal.)

Constance took the letter trembling. "Here it is at last," she cried.

When she had put on her spectacles and read it, she exclaimed:

"Bless us! Here's news! He's coming down! That's why he didn't write on
Saturday as usual."

She gave the letter to Sophia to read. It ran--

"Sunday midnight.

"DEAR MOTHER,

"Just a line to say I am coming down to Bursley on Wednesday, on
business with Peels. I shall get to Knype at 5.28, and take the Loop.
I've been very busy, and as I was coming down I didn't write on
Saturday. I hope you didn't worry. Love to yourself and Aunt Sophia.

"Yours, C."

"I must send him a line," said Constance, excitedly.

"What? To-night?"

"Yes. Amy can easily catch the last post with it. Otherwise he won't
know that I've got his letter."

She rang the bell.

Sophia thought: "His coming down is really no excuse for his not
writing on Saturday. How could she guess that he was coming down? I
shall have to put in a little word to that young man. I wonder
Constance is so blind. She is quite satisfied now that his letter has
come." On behalf of the elder generation she rather resented
Constance's eagerness to write in answer.

But Constance was not so blind. Constance thought exactly as Sophia
thought. In her heart she did not at all justify or excuse Cyril. She
remembered separately almost every instance of his carelessness in her
regard. "Hope I didn't worry, indeed!" she said to herself with a faint
touch of bitterness, apropos of the phrase in his letter.

Nevertheless she insisted on writing at once. And Amy had to bring the
writing materials.

"Mr. Cyril is coming down on Wednesday," she said to Amy with great
dignity.

Amy's stony calmness was shaken, for Mr. Cyril was a great deal to Amy.
Amy wondered how she would be able to look Mr. Cyril in the face when
he knew that she had given notice.

In the middle of writing, on her knee, Constance looked up at Sophia,
and said, as though defending herself against an accusation: "I didn't
write to him yesterday, you know, or to-day."

"No," Sophia murmured assentingly.

Constance rang the bell yet again, and Amy was sent out to the post.

Soon afterwards the bell was rung for a fourth time, and not answered.

"I suppose she hasn't come back yet. But I thought I heard the door.
What a long time she is!"

"What do you want?" Sophia asked.

"I just want to speak to her," said Constance.

When the bell had been rung seven or eight times, Amy at length
re-appeared, somewhat breathless.

"Amy," said Constance, "let me examine those sheets, will you?"

"Yes'm," said Amy, apparently knowing what sheets, of all the various
and multitudinous sheets in that house.

"And the pillow-cases," Constance added as Amy left the room.

So it continued. The next day the fever heightened. Constance was up
early, before Sophia, and trotting about the house like a girl.
Immediately after breakfast Cyril's bedroom was invested and
revolutionized; not till evening was order restored in that chamber.
And on the Wednesday morning it had to be dusted afresh. Sophia watched
the preparations, and the increasing agitation of Constance's
demeanour, with an astonishment which she had real difficulty in
concealing. "Is the woman absolutely mad?" she asked herself. The
spectacle was ludicrous: or it seemed so to Sophia, whose career had
not embraced much experience of mothers. It was not as if the
manifestations of Constance's anxiety were dignified or original or
splendid. They were just silly, ordinary fussinesses; they had no sense
in them. Sophia was very careful to make no observation. She felt that
before she and Constance were very much older she had a very great deal
to do, and that a subtle diplomacy and wary tactics would be necessary.
Moreover, Constance's angelic temper was slightly affected by the
strain of expectation. She had a tendency to rasp. After the high-tea
was set she suddenly sprang on to the sofa and lifted down the 'Stag at
Eve' engraving. The dust on the top of the frame incensed her.

"What are you going to do?" Sophia asked, in a final marvel.

"I'm going to change it with that one," said Constance, pointing to
another engraving opposite the fireplace. "He said the effect would be
very much better if they were changed. And his lordship is very
particular."

Constance did not go to Bursley station to meet her son. She explained
that it upset her to do so, and that also Cyril preferred her not to
come.

"Suppose I go to meet him," said Sophia, at half-past five. The idea
had visited her suddenly. She thought: "Then I could talk to him before
any one else."

"Oh, do!" Constance agreed.

Sophia put her things on with remarkable expedition. She arrived at the
station a minute before the train came in. Only a few persons emerged
from the train, and Cyril was not among them. A porter said that there
was not supposed to be any connection between the Loop Line trains and
the main line expresses, and that probably the express had missed the
Loop. She waited thirty-five minutes for the next Loop, and Cyril did
not emerge from that train either.

Constance opened the front-door to her, and showed a telegram--

"Sorry prevented last moment. Writing. CYRIL."

Sophia had known it. Somehow she had known that it was useless to wait
for the second train. Constance was silent and calm; Sophia also.

"What a shame! What a shame!" thumped Sophia's heart.

It was the most ordinary episode. But beneath her calm she was furious
against her favourite. She hesitated.

"I'm just going out a minute," she said.

"Where?" asked Constance. "Hadn't we better have tea? I suppose we must
have tea."

"I shan't be long. I want to buy something."

Sophia went to the post-office and despatched a telegram. Then,
partially eased, she returned to the arid and painful desolation of the
house.

IV

The next evening Cyril sat at the tea-table in the parlour with his
mother and his aunt. To Constance his presence there had something of
the miraculous in it. He had come, after all! Sophia was in a rich
robe, and for ornament wore an old silver-gilt neck-chain, which was
clasped at the throat, and fell in double to her waist, where it was
caught in her belt. This chain interested Cyril. He referred to it once
or twice, and then he said: "Just let me have a LOOK at that chain,"
and put out his hand; and Sophia leaned forward so that he could handle
it. His fingers played with it thus for some seconds; the picture
strikingly affected Constance. At length he dropped it, and said:
"H'm!" After a pause he said: "Louis Sixteenth, eh?" and Sophia said:

"They told me so. But it's nothing; it only cost thirty francs, you
know." And Cyril took her up sharply:

"What does that matter?" Then after another pause he asked: "How often
do you break a link of it?"

"Oh, often," she said. "It's always getting shorter."

And he murmured mysteriously: "H'm!"

He was still mysterious, withdrawn within himself extraordinarily
uninterested in his physical surroundings. But that evening he talked
more than he usually did. He was benevolent, and showed a particular
benevolence towards his mother, apparently exerting himself to answer
her questions with fullness and heartiness, as though admitting frankly
her right to be curious. He praised the tea; he seemed to notice what
he was eating. He took Spot on his knee, and gazed in admiration at
Fossette.

"By Jove!" he said, "that's a dog, that is! ... All the same...." And
he burst out laughing.

"I won't have Fossette laughed at," Sophia warned him.

"No, seriously," he said, in his quality of an amateur of dogs; "she is
very fine." Even then he could not help adding: "What you can see of
her!"

Whereupon Sophia shook her head, deprecating such wit. Sophia was very
lenient towards him. Her leniency could be perceived in her eyes, which
followed his movements all the time. "Do you think he is like me,
Constance?" she asked.

"I wish I was half as good-looking," said Cyril, quickly; and Constance
said:

"As a baby he was very like you. He was a handsome baby. He wasn't at
all like you when he was at school. These last few years he's begun to
be like you again. He's very much changed since he left school; he was
rather heavy and clumsy then."

"Heavy and clumsy!" exclaimed Sophia. "Well, I should never have
believed it!"

"Oh, but he was!" Constance insisted.

"Now, mater," said Cyril, "it's a pity you don't want that cake cutting
into. I think I could have eaten a bit of that cake. But of course if
it's only for show...!"

Constance sprang up, seizing a knife.

"You shouldn't tease your mother," Sophia told him. "He doesn't really
want any, Constance; he's regularly stuffed himself."

And Cyril agreed, "No, no, mater, don't cut it; I really couldn't. I
was only gassing."

But Constance could never clearly see through humour of that sort. She
cut three slices of cake, and she held the plate towards Cyril.

"I tell you I really couldn't!" he protested.

"Come!" she said obstinately. "I'm waiting! How much longer must I hold
this plate?"

And he had to take a slice. So had Sophia. When she was roused, they
both of them had to yield to Constance.

With the dogs, and the splendour of the tea-table under the gas, and
the distinction of Sophia and Cyril, and the conversation, which on the
whole was gay and free, rising at times to jolly garrulity, the scene
in her parlour ought surely to have satisfied Constance utterly. She
ought to have been quite happy, as her sciatica had raised the siege
for a space. But she was not quite happy. The circumstances of Cyril's
arrival had disturbed her; they had in fact wounded her, though she
would scarcely admit the wound. In the morning she had received a brief
letter from Cyril to say that he had not been able to come, and vaguely
promising, or half-promising, to run down at a later date. That letter
had the cardinal defects of all Cyril's relations with his mother; it
was casual, and it was not candid. It gave no hint of the nature of the
obstacle which had prevented him from coming. Cyril had always been too
secretive. She was gravely depressed by the letter, which she did not
show to Sophia, because it impaired her dignity as a mother, and
displayed her son in a bad light. Then about eleven o'clock a telegram
had come for Sophia.

"That's all right," Sophia had said, on reading it. "He'll be here this
evening!" And she had handed over the telegram, which read--

"Very well. Will come same train to-day."

And Constance learned that when Sophia had rushed out just before tea
on the previous evening, it was to telegraph to Cyril.

"What did you say to him?" Constance asked.

"Oh!" said Sophia, with a careless air, "I told him I thought he ought
to come. After all, you're more important than any business, Constance!
And I don't like him behaving like that. I was determined he should
come!"

Sophia had tossed her proud head.

Constance had pretended to be pleased and grateful. But the existence
of a wound was incontestable. Sophia, then, could do more with Cyril
than she could! Sophia had only met him once, and could simply twist
him round her little finger. He would never have done so much for his
mother. A fine sort of an obstacle it must have been, if a single
telegram from Sophia could overcome it...! And Sophia, too, was
secretive. She had gone out and had telegraphed, and had not breathed a
word until she got the reply, sixteen hours later. She was secretive,
and Cyril was secretive. They resembled one another. They had taken to
one another. But Sophia was a curious mixture. When Constance had asked
her if she should go to the station again to meet Cyril, she had
replied scornfully: "No, indeed! I've done going to meet Cyril. People
who don't arrive must not expect to be met."

When Cyril drove up to the door, Sophia had been in attendance. She
hurried down the steps. "Don't say anything about my telegram," she had
rapidly whispered to Cyril; there was no time for further explanation.
Constance was at the top of the steps. Constance had not heard the
whisper, but she had seen it; and she saw a guilty, puzzled look on
Cyril's face, afterwards an ineffectively concealed conspiratorial look
on both their faces. They had 'something between them,' from which she,
the mother, was shut out! Was it not natural that she should be
wounded? She was far too proud to mention the telegrams. And as neither
Cyril nor Sophia mentioned them, the circumstances leading to Cyril's
change of plan were not referred to at all, which was very curious.
Then Cyril was more sociable than he had ever been; he was different,
under his aunt's gaze. Certainly he treated his mother faultlessly. But
Constance said to herself: "It is because she is here that he is so
specially nice to me."

When tea was finished and they were going upstairs to the drawing-room,
she asked him, with her eye on the 'Stag at Eve' engraving:

"Well, is it a success?"

"What?" His eye followed hers. "Oh, you've changed it! What did you do
that for, mater?"

"You said it would be better like that," she reminded him.

"Did I?" He seemed genuinely surprised. "I don't remember. I believe it
is better, though," he added. "It might be even better still if you
turned it the other way up."

He pulled a face to Sophia, and screwed up his shoulders, as if to
indicate: "I've done it, this time!"

"How? The other way up?" Constance queried. Then as she comprehended
that he was teasing her, she said: "Get away with you!" and pretended
to box his ears. "You were fond enough of that picture at one time!"
she said ironically.

"Yes, I was, mater," he submissively agreed. "There's no getting over
that." And he pressed her cheeks between his hands and kissed her.

In the drawing-room he smoked cigarettes and played the piano--waltzes
of his own composition. Constance and Sophia did not entirely
comprehend those waltzes. But they agreed that all were wonderful and
that one was very pretty indeed. (It soothed Constance that Sophia's
opinion coincided with hers.) He said that that waltz was the worst of
the lot. When he had finished with the piano, Constance informed him
about Amy. "Oh! She told me," he said, "when she brought me my water. I
didn't mention it because I thought it would be rather a sore subject."
Beneath the casualness of his tone there lurked a certain curiosity, a
willingness to hear details. He heard them.

At five minutes to ten, when Constance had yawned, he threw a bomb
among them on the hearthrug.

"Well," he said, "I've got an appointment with Matthew at the
Conservative Club at ten o'clock. I must go. Don't wait up for me."

Both women protested, Sophia the more vivaciously. It was Sophia now
who was wounded.

"It's business," he said, defending himself. "He's going away early
to-morrow, and it's my only chance." And as Constance did not brighten
he went on: "Business has to be attended to. You mustn't think I've got
nothing to do but enjoy myself."

No hint of the nature of the business! He never explained. As to
business, Constance knew only that she allowed him three hundred a
year, and paid his local tailor. The sum had at first seemed to her
enormous, but she had grown accustomed to it.

"I should have preferred you to see Mr. Peel-Swynnerton here," said
Constance. "You could have had a room to yourselves. I do not like you
going out at ten o'clock at night to a club."

"Well, good night, mater," he said, getting up. "See you to-morrow. I
shall take the key out of the door. It's true my pocket will never be
the same again."

Sophia saw Constance into bed, and provided her with two hot-water
bottles against sciatica. They did not talk much.

V

Sophia sat waiting on the sofa in the parlour. It appeared to her that,
though little more than a month had elapsed since her arrival in
Bursley, she had already acquired a new set of interests and anxieties.
Paris and her life there had receded in the strangest way. Sometimes
for hours she would absolutely forget Paris. Thoughts of Paris were
disconcerting; for either Paris or Bursley must surely be unreal! As
she sat waiting on the sofa Paris kept coming into her mind. Certainly
it was astonishing that she should be just as preoccupied with her
schemes for the welfare of Constance as she had ever been preoccupied
with schemes for the improvement of the Pension Frensham. She said to
herself: "My life has been so queer--and yet every part of it
separately seemed ordinary enough--how will it end?"

Then there were footfalls on the steps outside, and a key was put into
the door, which she at once opened.

"Oh!" exclaimed Cyril, startled, and also somewhat out of countenance.
"You're still up! Thanks." He came in, smoking the end of a cigar.
"Fancy having to cart that about!" he murmured, holding up the great
old-fashioned key before inserting it in the lock on the inside.

"I stayed up," said Sophia, "because I wanted to talk to you about your
mother, and it's so difficult to get a chance."

Cyril smiled, not without self-consciousness, and dropped into his
mother's rocking-chair, which he had twisted round with his feet to
face the sofa.

"Yes," he said. "I was wondering what was the real meaning of your
telegram. What was it?" He blew out a lot of smoke and waited for her
reply.

"I thought you ought to come down," said Sophia, cheerfully but firmly.
"It was a fearful disappointment to your mother that you didn't come
yesterday. And when she's expecting a letter from you and it doesn't
come, it makes her ill."

"Oh, well!" he said. "I'm glad it's no worse. I thought from your
telegram there was something seriously wrong. And then when you told me
not to mention it--when I came in...!"

She saw that he failed to realize the situation, and she lifted her
head challengingly.

"You neglect your mother, young man," she said.

"Oh, come now, auntie!" he answered quite gently. "You mustn't talk
like that. I write to her every week. I've never missed a week. I come
down as often as----"

"You miss the Sunday sometimes," Sophia interrupted him.

"Perhaps," he said doubtfully. "But what----"

"Don't you understand that she simply lives for your letters? And if
one doesn't come, she's very upset indeed--can't eat! And it brings on
her sciatica, and I don't know what!"

He was taken aback by her boldness, her directness.

"But how silly of her! A fellow can't always----"

"It may be silly. But there it is. You can't alter her. And, after all,
what would it cost you to be more attentive, even to write to her twice
a week? You aren't going to tell me you're so busy as all that! I know
a great deal more about young men than your mother does." She smiled
like an aunt.

He answered her smile sheepishly.

"If you'll only put yourself in your mother's place...!"

"I expect you're quite right," he said at length. "And I'm much obliged
to you for telling me. How was I to know?" He threw the end of the
cigar, with a large sweeping gesture, into the fire.

"Well, anyhow, you know now!" she said curtly; and she thought: "You
OUGHT to have known. It was your business to know." But she was pleased
with the way in which he had accepted her criticism, and the gesture
with which he threw away the cigar-end struck her as very distinguished.

"That's all right!" he said dreamily, as if to say: "That's done with."
And he rose.

Sophia, however, did not stir.

"Your mother's health is not what it ought to be," she went on, and
gave him a full account of her conversation with the doctor.

"Really!" Cyril murmured, leaning on the mantel-piece with his elbow
and looking down at her. "Stirling said that, did he? I should have
thought she would have been better where she is, in the Square."

"Why better in the Square?"

"Oh, I don't know!"

"Neither do I!"

"She's always been here."

"Yes." said Sophia, "she's been here a great deal too long."

"What do YOU suggest?" Cyril asked, with impatience in his voice
against this new anxiety that was being thrust upon him.

"Well," said Sophia, "what should you say to her coming to London and
living with you?"

Cyril started back. Sophia could see that he was genuinely shocked. "I
don't think that would do at all," he said.

"Why?"

"Oh! I don't think it would. London wouldn't suit her. She's not that
sort of woman. I really thought she was quite all right down here. She
wouldn't like London." He shook his head, looking up at the gas; his
eyes had a dangerous glare.

"But supposing she said she did?"

"Look here," Cyril began in a new and brighter tone. "Why don't you and
she keep house together somewhere? That would be the very--"

He turned his head sharply. There was a noise on the staircase, and the
staircase door opened with its eternal creak.

"Yes," said Sophia. "The Champs Elysees begins at the Place de la
Concorde, and ends----. Is that you, Constance?"

The figure of Constance filled the doorway. Her face was troubled. She
had heard Cyril in the street, and had come down to see why he remained
so long in the parlour. She was astounded to find Sophia with him.
There they were, as intimate as cronies, chattering about Paris!
Undoubtedly she was jealous! Never did Cyril talk like that to her!

"I thought you were in bed and asleep, Sophia," she said weakly. "It's
nearly one o'clock."

"No," said Sophia. "I didn't seem to feel like going to bed; and then
Cyril happened to come in."

But neither she nor Cyril could look innocent. And Constance glanced
from one to the other apprehensively.

The next morning Cyril received a letter which, he said--with no
further explanation--forced him to leave at once. He intimated that
there had been danger in his coming just then, and that matters had
turned out as he had feared.

"You think over what I said," he whispered to Sophia when they were
alone for an instant, "and let me know."

VI

A week before Easter the guests of the Rutland Hotel in the Broad Walk,
Buxton, being assembled for afternoon tea in the "lounge" of that
establishment, witnessed the arrival of two middle-aged ladies and two
dogs. Critically to examine newcomers was one of the amusements of the
occupants of the lounge. This apartment, furnished "in the oriental
style," made a pretty show among the photographs in the illustrated
brochure of the hotel, and, though draughty, it was of all the public
rooms the favourite. It was draughty because only separated from the
street (if the Broad Walk can be called a street) by two pairs of
swinging-doors--in charge of two page-boys. Every visitor entering the
hotel was obliged to pass through the lounge, and for newcomers the
passage was an ordeal; they were made to feel that they had so much to
learn, so much to get accustomed to; like passengers who join a ship at
a port of call, they felt that the business lay before them of creating
a niche for themselves in a hostile and haughty society. The two ladies
produced a fairly favourable impression at the outset by reason of
their two dogs. It is not every one who has the courage to bring dogs
into an expensive private hotel; to bring one dog indicates that you
are not accustomed to deny yourself small pleasures for the sake of a
few extra shillings; to bring two indicates that you have no fear of
hotel-managers and that you are in the habit of regarding your own whim
as nature's law. The shorter and stouter of the two ladies did not
impose herself with much force on the collective vision of the Rutland;
she was dressed in black, not fashionably, though with a certain
unpretending richness; her gestures were timid and nervous; evidently
she relied upon her tall companion to shield her in the first trying
contacts of hotel life. The tall lady was of a different stamp.
Handsome, stately, deliberate, and handsomely dressed in colours, she
had the assured hard gaze of a person who is thoroughly habituated to
the inspection of strangers. She curtly asked one of the page-boys for
the manager, and the manager's wife tripped rapidly down the stairs in
response, and was noticeably deferential--Her voice was quiet and
commanding, the voice of one who gives orders that are obeyed. The
opinion of the lounge was divided as to whether or not they were
sisters.

They vanished quietly upstairs in convoy of the manager's wife, and
they did not re-appear for the lounge tea, which in any case would have
been undrinkably stewed. It then became known, by the agency of one of
those guests, to be found in every hotel, who acquire all the secrets
of the hotel by the exercise of unabashed curiosity on the personnel,
that the two ladies had engaged two bedrooms, Nos. 17 and 18, and the
sumptuous private parlour with a balcony on the first floor, styled "C"
in the nomenclature of rooms. This fact definitely established the
position of the new arrivals in the moral fabric of the hotel. They
were wealthy. They had money to throw away. For even in a select hotel
like the Rutland it is not everybody who indulges in a private
sitting-room; there were only four such apartments in the hotel, as
against fifty bedrooms.

At dinner they had a small table to themselves in a corner. The short
lady wore a white shawl over her shoulders. Her almost apologetic
manner during the meal confirmed the view that she must be a very
simple person, unused to the world and its ways. The other continued to
be imperial. She ordered half-a-bottle of wine and drank two glasses.
She stared about her quite self-unconsciously, whereas the little woman
divided her glances between her companion and her plate. They did not
talk much. Immediately after dinner they retired. "Widows in easy
circumstances" was the verdict; but the contrast between the pair held
puzzles that piqued the inquisitive.

Sophia had conquered again. Once more Sophia had resolved to accomplish
a thing and she had accomplished it. Events had fallen out thus. The
advertisement for a general servant in the Signal had been a
disheartening failure. A few answers were received, but of an entirely
unsatisfactory character. Constance, a great deal more than Sophia, had
been astounded by the bearing and the demands of modern servants.
Constance was in despair. If Constance had not had an immense pride she
would have been ready to suggest to Sophia that Amy should be asked to
'stay on.' But Constance would have accepted a modern impudent wench
first. It was Maria Critchlow who got Constance out of her difficulty
by giving her particulars of a reliable servant who was about to leave
a situation in which she had stayed for eight years. Constance did not
imagine that a servant recommended by Maria Critchlow would suit her,
but, being in a quandary, she arranged to see the servant, and both she
and Sophia were very pleased with the girl--Rose Bennion by name. The
mischief was that Rose would not be free until about a month after Amy
had left. Rose would have left her old situation, but she had a fancy
to go and spend a fortnight with a married sister at Manchester before
settling into new quarters. Constance and Sophia felt that this caprice
of Rose's was really very tiresome and unnecessary. Of course Amy might
have been asked to 'stay on' just for a month. Amy would probably have
volunteered to do so had she been aware of the circumstances. She was
not, however, aware of the circumstances. And Constance was determined
not to be beholden to Amy for anything. What could the sisters do?
Sophia, who conducted all the interviews with Rose and other
candidates, said that it would be a grave error to let Rose slip.
Besides, they had no one to take her place, no one who could come at
once.

The dilemma was appalling. At least, it seemed appalling to Constance,
who really believed that no mistress had ever been so 'awkwardly
fixed.' And yet, when Sophia first proposed her solution, Constance
considered it to be a quite impossible solution. Sophia's idea was that
they should lock up the house and leave it on the same day as Amy left
it, to spend a few weeks in some holiday resort. To begin with, the
idea of leaving the house empty seemed to Constance a mad idea. The
house had never been left empty. And then--going for a holiday in
April! Constance had never been for a holiday except in the month of
August. No! The project was beset with difficulties and dangers which
could not be overcome nor provided against. For example, "We can't come
back to a dirty house," said Constance. "And we can't have a strange
servant coming here before us." To which Sophia had replied: "Then what
SHALL you do?" And Constance, after prodigious reflection on the
frightful pass to which destiny had brought her, had said that she
supposed she would have to manage with a charwoman until Rose's advent.
She asked Sophia if she remembered old Maggie. Sophia, of course,
perfectly remembered. Old Maggie was dead, as well as the drunken,
amiable Hollins, but there was a young Maggie (wife of a bricklayer)
who went out charing in the spare time left from looking after seven
children. The more Constance meditated upon young Maggie, the more was
she convinced that young Maggie would meet the case. Constance felt she
could trust young Maggie.

This expression of trust in Maggie was Constance's undoing. Why should
they not go away, and arrange with Maggie to come to the house a few
days before their return, to clean and ventilate? The weight of reason
overbore Constance. She yielded unwillingly, but she yielded. It was
the mention of Buxton that finally moved her. She knew Buxton. Her old
landlady at Buxton was dead, and Constance had not visited the place
since before Samuel's death; nevertheless its name had a reassuring
sound to her ears, and for sciatica its waters and climate were
admitted to be the best in England. Gradually Constance permitted
herself to be embarked on this perilous enterprise of shutting up the
house for twenty-five days. She imparted the information to Amy, who
was astounded. Then she commenced upon her domestic preparations. She
wrapped Samuel's Family Bible in brown paper; she put Cyril's
straw-framed copy of Sir Edwin Landseer away in a drawer, and she took
ten thousand other precautions. It was grotesque; it was farcical; it
was what you please. And when, with the cab at the door and the luggage
on the cab, and the dogs chained together, and Maria Critchlow waiting
on the pavement to receive the key, Constance put the key into the door
on the outside, and locked up the empty house, Constance's face was
tragic with innumerable apprehensions. And Sophia felt that she had
performed a miracle. She had.

On the whole the sisters were well received in the hotel, though they
were not at an age which commands popularity. In the criticism which
was passed upon them--the free, realistic and relentless criticism of
private hotels--Sophia was at first set down as overbearing. But in a
few days this view was modified, and Sophia rose in esteem. The fact
was that Sophia's behaviour changed after forty-eight hours. The
Rutland Hotel was very good. It was so good as to disturb Sophia's
profound beliefs that there was in the world only one truly high-class
pension, and that nobody could teach the creator of that unique pension
anything about the art of management. The food was excellent; the
attendance in the bedrooms was excellent (and Sophia knew how difficult
of attainment was excellent bedroom attendance); and to the eye the
interior of the Rutland presented a spectacle far richer than the
Pension Frensham could show. The standard of comfort was higher. The
guests had a more distinguished appearance. It is true that the prices
were much higher. Sophia was humbled. She had enough sense to adjust
her perspective. Further, she found herself ignorant of many matters
which by the other guests were taken for granted and used as a basis
for conversation. Prolonged residence in Paris would not justify this
ignorance; it seemed rather to intensify its strangeness. Thus, when
someone of cosmopolitan experience, having learnt that she had lived in
Paris for many years, asked what had been going on lately at the
Comedie Francaise, she had to admit that she had not been in a French
theatre for nearly thirty years. And when, on a Sunday, the same person
questioned her about the English chaplain in Paris, lo! she knew
nothing but his name, had never even seen him. Sophia's life, in its
way, had been as narrow as Constance's. Though her experience of human
nature was wide, she had been in a groove as deep as Constance's. She
had been utterly absorbed in doing one single thing.

By tacit agreement she had charge of the expedition. She paid all the
bills. Constance protested against the expensiveness of the affair
several times, but Sophia quietened her by sheer force of
individuality. Constance had one advantage over Sophia. She knew Buxton
and its neighbourhood intimately, and she was therefore in a position
to show off the sights and to deal with local peculiarities. In all
other respects Sophia led.

They very soon became acclimatized to the hotel. They moved easily
between Turkey carpets and sculptured ceilings; their eyes grew used to
the eternal vision of themselves and other slow-moving dignities in
gilt mirrors, to the heaviness of great oil-paintings of picturesque
scenery, to the indications of surreptitious dirt behind massive
furniture, to the grey-brown of the shirt-fronts of the waiters, to the
litter of trays, boots and pails in long corridors; their ears were
always awake to the sounds of gongs and bells. They consulted the
barometer and ordered the daily carriage with the perfunctoriness of
habit. They discovered what can be learnt of other people's needlework
in a hotel on a wet day. They performed co-operative outings with
fellow-guests. They invited fellow-guests into their sitting-room. When
there was an entertainment they did not avoid it. Sophia was determined
to do everything that could with propriety be done, partly as an outlet
for her own energy (which since she left Paris had been accumulating),
but more on Constance's account. She remembered all that Dr. Stirling
had said, and the heartiness of her own agreement with his opinions. It
was a great day when, under tuition of an aged lady and in the privacy
of their parlour, they both began to study the elements of Patience.
Neither had ever played at cards. Constance was almost afraid to touch
cards, as though in the very cardboard there had been something
unrighteous and perilous. But the respectability of a luxurious private
hotel makes proper every act that passes within its walls. And
Constance plausibly argued that no harm could come from a game which
you played by yourself. She acquired with some aptitude several
varieties of Patience. She said: "I think I could enjoy that, if I kept
at it. But it does make my head whirl."

Nevertheless Constance was not happy in the hotel. She worried the
whole time about her empty house. She anticipated difficulties and even
disasters. She wondered again and again whether she could trust the
second Maggie in her house alone, whether it would not be better to
return home earlier and participate personally in the cleaning. She
would have decided to do so had it not been that she hesitated to
subject Sophia to the inconvenience of a house upside down. The matter
was on her mind, always. Always she was restlessly anticipating the day
when they would leave. She had carelessly left her heart behind in St.
Luke's Square. She had never stayed in a hotel before, and she did not
like it. Sciatica occasionally harassed her. Yet when it came to the
point she would not drink the waters. She said she never had drunk
them, and seemed to regard that as a reason why she never should.
Sophia had achieved a miracle in getting her to Buxton for nearly a
month, but the ultimate grand effect lacked brilliance.

Then came the fatal letter, the desolating letter, which vindicated
Constance's dark apprehensions. Rose Bennion calmly wrote to say that
she had decided not to come to St. Luke's Square. She expressed regret
for any inconvenience which might possibly be caused; she was polite.
But the monstrousness of it! Constance felt that this actually and
truly was the deepest depth of her calamities. There she was, far from
a dirty home, with no servant and no prospect of a servant! She bore
herself bravely, nobly; but she was stricken. She wanted to return to
the dirty home at once.

Sophia felt that the situation created by this letter would demand her
highest powers of dealing with situations, and she determined to deal
with it adequately. Great measures were needed, for Constance's health
and happiness were at stake. She alone could act. She knew that she
could not rely upon Cyril. She still had an immense partiality for
Cyril; she thought him the most charming young man she had ever known;
she knew him to be industrious and clever; but in his relations with
his mother there was a hardness, a touch of callousness. She explained
it vaguely by saying that 'they did not get on well together'; which
was strange, considering Constance's sweet affectionateness. Still,
Constance could be a little trying--at times. Anyhow, it was soon clear
to Sophia that the idea of mother and son living together in London was
entirely impracticable. No! If Constance was to be saved from herself,
there was no one but Sophia to save her.

After half a morning spent chiefly in listening to Constance's hopeless
comments on the monstrous letter, Sophia said suddenly that she must
take the dogs for an airing. Constance did not feel equal to walking
out, and she would not drive. She did not want Sophia to 'venture,'
because the sky threatened. However, Sophia did venture, and she
returned a few minutes late for lunch, full of vigour, with two happy
dogs. Constance was moodily awaiting her in the dining-room. Constance
could not eat. But Sophia ate, and she poured out cheerfulness and
energy as from a source inexhaustible. After lunch it began to rain.
Constance said she thought she should retire directly to the
sitting-room. "I'm coming too," said Sophia, who was still wearing her
hat and coat and carried her gloves in her hand. In the pretentious and
banal sitting-room they sat down on either side the fire. Constance put
a little shawl round her shoulders, pushed her spectacles into her grey
hair, folded her hands, and sighed an enormous sigh: "Oh, dear!" She
was the tragic muse, aged, and in black silk.

"I tell you what I've been thinking," said Sophia, folding up her
gloves.

"What?" asked Constance, expecting some wonderful solution to come out
of Sophia's active brain.

"There's no earthly reason why you should go back to Bursley. The house
won't run away, and it's costing nothing but the rent. Why not take
things easy for a bit?"

"And stay here?" said Constance, with an inflection that enlightened
Sophia as to the intensity of her dislike of the existence at the
Rutland.

"No, not here," Sophia answered with quick deprecation. "There are
plenty of other places we could go to."

"I don't think I should be easy in my mind," said Constance. "What with
nothing being settled, the house----"

"What does it matter about the house?"

"It matters a great deal," said Constance, seriously, and slightly
hurt. "I didn't leave things as if we were going to be away for a long
time. It wouldn't do."

"I don't see that anything could come to any harm, I really don't!"
said Sophia, persuasively. "Dirt can always be cleaned, after all. I
think you ought to go about more. It would do you good--all the good in
the world. And there is no reason why you shouldn't go about. You are
perfectly free. Why shouldn't we go abroad together, for instance, you
and I? I'm sure you would enjoy it very much."

"Abroad?" murmured Constance, aghast, recoiling from the proposition as
from a grave danger.

"Yes," said Sophia, brightly and eagerly. She was determined to take
Constance abroad. "There are lots of places we could go to, and live
very comfortably among nice English people." She thought of the resorts
she had visited with Gerald in the sixties. They seemed to her like
cities of a dream. They came back to her as a dream recurs.

"I don't think going abroad would suit me," said Constance.

"But why not? You don't know. You've never tried, my dear." She smiled
encouragingly. But Constance did not smile. Constance was inclined to
be grim.

"I don't think it would," said she, obstinately. "I'm one of your
stay-at-homes. I'm not like you. We can't all be alike," she added,
with her 'tart' accent.

Sophia suppressed a feeling of irritation. She knew that she had a
stronger individuality than Constance's.

"Well, then," she said, with undiminished persuasiveness, "in England
or Scotland. There are several places I should like to visit--Torquay,
Tunbridge Wells. I've always under-stood that Tunbridge Wells is a very
nice town indeed, with very superior people, and a beautiful climate."

"I think I shall have to be getting back to St. Luke's Square," said
Constance, ignoring all that Sophia had said. "There's so much to be
done."

Then Sophia looked at Constance with a more serious and resolute air;
but still kindly, as though looking thus at Constance for Constance's
own good.

"You are making a mistake, Constance," she said, "if you will allow me
to say so."

"A mistake!" exclaimed Constance, startled.

"A very great mistake," Sophia insisted, observing that she was
creating an effect.

"I don't see how I can be making a mistake," Constance said, gaining
confidence in herself, as she thought the matter over.

"No," said Sophia, "I'm sure you don't see it. But you are. You know,
you are just a little apt to let yourself be a slave to that house of
yours. Instead of the house existing for you, you exist for the house."

"Oh! Sophia!" Constance muttered awkwardly. "What ideas you do have, to
be sure!" In her nervousness she rose and picked up some embroidery,
adjusting her spectacles and coughing. When she sat down she said: "No
one could take things easier than I do as regards housekeeping. I can
assure you I let dozens of little matters go, rather than bother
myself."

"Then why do you bother now?" Sophia posed her.

"I can't leave the place like that." Constance was hurt.

"There's one thing I can't understand," said Sophia, raising her head
and gazing at Constance again, "and that is, why you live in St. Luke's
Square at all."

"I must live somewhere. And I'm sure it's very pleasant."

"In all that smoke! And with that dirt! And the house is very old."

"It's a great deal better built than a lot of those new houses by the
Park," Constance sharply retorted. In spite of herself she resented any
criticism of her house. She even resented the obvious truth that it was
old.

"You'll never get a servant to stay in that cellar-kitchen, for one
thing," said Sophia, keeping calm.

"Oh! I don't know about that! I don't know about that! That Bennion
woman didn't object to it, anyway. It's all very well for you, Sophia,
to talk like that. But I know Bursley perhaps better than you do." She
was tart again. "And I can assure you that my house is looked upon as a
very good house indeed."

"Oh! I don't say it isn't; I don't say it isn't. But you would be
better away from it. Every one says that."

"Every one?" Constance looked up, dropping her work. "Who? Who's been
talking about me?"

"Well," said Sophia, "the doctor, for instance."

"Dr. Stirling? I like that! He's always saying that Bursley is one of
the healthiest climates in England. He's always sticking up for
Bursley."

"Dr. Stirling thinks you ought to go away more--not stay always in that
dark house." If Sophia had sufficiently reflected she would not have
used the adjective 'dark.' It did not help her cause.

"Oh, does he!" Constance fairly snorted. "Well, if it's of any interest
to Dr. Stirling, I like my dark house."

"Hasn't he ever told you you ought to go away more?" Sophia persisted.

"He may have mentioned it," Constance reluctantly admitted.

"When he was talking to me he did a good deal more than mention it. And
I've a good mind to tell you what he said."

"Do!" said Constance, politely.

"You don't realize how serious it is, I'm afraid," said Sophia. "You
can't see yourself." She hesitated a moment. Her blood being stirred by
Constance's peculiar inflection of the phrase 'my dark house,' her
judgment was slightly obscured. She decided to give Constance a fairly
full version of the conversation between herself and the doctor.

"It's a question of your health," she finished. "I think it's my duty
to talk to you seriously, and I have done. I hope you'll take it as
it's meant."

"Oh, of course!" Constance hastened to say. And she thought: "It isn't
yet three months that we've been together, and she's trying already to
get me under her thumb."

A pause ensued. Sophia at length said: "There's no doubt that both your
sciatica and your palpitations are due to nerves. And you let your
nerves get into a state because you worry over trifles. A change would
do you a tremendous amount of good. It's just what you need. Really,
you must admit, Constance, that the idea of living always in a place
like St. Luke's Square, when you are perfectly free to do what you like
and go where you like--you must admit it's rather too much."

Constance put her lips together and bent over her embroidery.

"Now, what do you say?" Sophia gently entreated.

"There's some of us like Bursley, black as it is!" said Constance. And
Sophia was surprised to detect tears in her sister's voice.

"Now, my dear Constance," she remonstrated.

"It's no use!" cried Constance, flinging away her work, and letting her
tears flow suddenly. Her face was distorted. She was behaving just like
a child. "It's no use! I've got to go back home and look after things.
It's no use. Here we are pitching money about in this place. It's
perfectly sinful. Drives, carriages, extras! A shilling a day extra for
each dog. I never heard of such goings-on. And I'd sooner be at home.
That's it. I'd sooner be at home." This was the first reference that
Constance had made for a long time to the question of expense, and
incomparably the most violent. It angered Sophia.

"We will count it that you are here as my guest," said Sophia, loftily,
"if that is how you look at it."

"Oh no!" said Constance. "It isn't the money I grudge. Oh no, we
won't." And her tears were falling thick.

"Yes, we will," said Sophia, coldly. "I've only been talking to you for
your own good. I--"

"Well," Constance interrupted her despairingly, "I wish you wouldn't
try to domineer over me!"

"Domineer!" exclaimed Sophia, aghast. "Well, Constance, I do think--"

She got up and went to her bedroom, where the dogs were imprisoned.
They escaped to the stairs. She was shaking with emotion. This was what
came of trying to help other people! Imagine Constance...! Truly
Constance was most unjust, and quite unlike her usual self! And Sophia
encouraged in her breast the feeling of injustice suffered. But a voice
kept saying to her: "You've made a mess of this. You've not conquered
this time. You're beaten. And the situation is unworthy of you, of both
of you. Two women of fifty quarreling like this! It's undignified.
You've made a mess of things." And to strangle the voice, she did her
best to encourage the feeling of injustice suffered.

'Domineer!'

And Constance was absolutely in the wrong. She had not argued at all.
She had merely stuck to her idea like a mule! How difficult and painful
would be the next meeting with Constance, after this grievous
miscarriage!

As she was reflecting thus the door burst open, and Constance stumbled,
as it were blindly, into the bedroom. She was still weeping.

"Sophia!" she sobbed, supplicatingly, and all her fat body was
trembling. "You mustn't kill me ... I'm like that--you can't alter me.
I'm like that. I know I'm silly. But it's no use!" She made a piteous
figure.

Sophia was aware of a lump in her throat.

"It's all right, Constance; it's all right. I quite understand. Don't
bother any more."

Constance, catching her breath at intervals, raised her wet, worn face
and kissed her.

Sophia remembered the very words, 'You can't alter her,' which she had
used in remonstrating with Cyril. And now she had been guilty of
precisely the same unreason as that with which she had reproached
Cyril! She was ashamed, both for herself and for Constance. Assuredly
it had not been such a scene as women of their age would want to go
through often. It was humiliating. She wished that it could have been
blotted out as though it had never happened. Neither of them ever
forgot it. They had had a lesson. And particularly Sophia had had a
lesson. Having learnt, they left the Rutland, amid due ceremonies, and
returned to St. Luke's Square.




CHAPTER IV

END OF SOPHIA

I


The kitchen steps were as steep, dark, and difficult as ever. Up those
steps Sophia Scales, nine years older than when she had failed to
persuade Constance to leave the Square, was carrying a large basket,
weighted with all the heaviness of Fossette. Sophia, despite her age,
climbed the steps violently, and burst with equal violence into the
parlour, where she deposited the basket on the floor near the empty
fireplace. She was triumphant and breathless. She looked at Constance,
who had been standing near the door in the attitude of a shocked
listener.

"There!" said Sophia. "Did you hear how she talked?"

"Yes," said Constance. "What shall you do?"

"Well," said Sophia. "I had a very good mind to order her out of the
house at once. But then I thought I would take no notice. Her time will
be up in three weeks. It's best to be indifferent. If once they see
they can upset you.... However, I wasn't going to leave Fossette down there
to her tender mercies a moment longer. She's simply not looked after
her at all."

Sophia went on her knees to the basket, and, pulling aside the dog's
hair, round about the head, examined the skin. Fossette was a sick dog
and behaved like one. Fossette, too, was nine years older, and her
senility was offensive. She was to no sense a pleasant object.

"See here," said Sophia.

Constance also knelt to the basket.

"And here," said Sophia. "And here."

The dog sighed, the insincere and pity-seeking sigh of a spoilt animal.
Fossette foolishly hoped by such appeals to be spared the annoying
treatment prescribed for her by the veterinary surgeon.

While the sisters were coddling her, and protecting her from her own
paws, and trying to persuade her that all was for the best, another
aged dog wandered vaguely into the room: Spot. Spot had very few teeth,
and his legs were stiff. He had only one vice, jealousy. Fearing that
Fossette might be receiving the entire attention of his mistresses, he
had come to inquire into the situation. When he found the justification
of his gloomiest apprehensions, he nosed obstinately up to Constance,
and would not be put off. In vain Constance told him at length that he
was interfering with the treatment. In vain Sophia ordered him sharply
to go away. He would not listen to reason, being furious with jealousy.
He got his foot into the basket.

"Will you!" exclaimed Sophia angrily, and gave him a clout on his old
head. He barked snappishly, and retired to the kitchen again,
disillusioned, tired of the world, and nursing his terrific grievance.
"I do declare," said Sophia, "that dog gets worse and worse."

Constance said nothing.

When everything was done that could be done for the aged virgin in the
basket, the sisters rose from their knees, stiffly; and they began to
whisper to each other about the prospects of obtaining a fresh servant.
They also debated whether they could tolerate the criminal
eccentricities of the present occupant of the cave for yet another
three weeks. Evidently they were in the midst of a crisis. To judge
from Constance's face every imaginable woe had been piled on them by
destiny without the slightest regard for their powers of resistance.
Her eyes had the permanent look of worry, and there was in them also
something of the self-defensive. Sophia had a bellicose air, as though
the creature in the cave had squarely challenged her, and she was
decided to take up the challenge. Sophia's tone seemed to imply an
accusation of Constance. The general tension was acute.

Then suddenly their whispers expired, and the door opened and the
servant came in to lay the supper. Her nose was high, her gaze cruel,
radiant, and conquering. She was a pretty and an impudent girl of about
twenty-three. She knew she was torturing her old and infirm mistresses.
She did not care. She did it purposely. Her motto was: War on
employers, get all you can out of them, for they will get all they can
out of you. On principle--the sole principle she possessed--she would
not stay in a place more than six months. She liked change. And
employers did not like change. She was shameless with men. She ignored
all orders as to what she was to eat and what she was not to eat. She
lived up to the full resources of her employers. She could be to the
last degree slatternly. Or she could be as neat as a pin, with an apron
that symbolized purity and propriety, as to-night. She could be idle
during a whole day, accumulating dirty dishes from morn till eve. On
the other hand she could, when she chose, work with astonishing
celerity and even thoroughness. In short, she was born to infuriate a
mistress like Sophia and to wear out a mistress like Constance. Her
strongest advantage in the struggle was that she enjoyed altercation;
she revelled in a brawl; she found peace tedious. She was perfectly
calculated to convince the sisters that times had worsened, and that
the world would never again be the beautiful, agreeable place it once
had been.

Her gestures as she laid the table were very graceful, in the pert
style. She dropped forks into their appointed positions with disdain;
she made slightly too much noise; when she turned she manoeuvred her
swelling hips as though for the benefit of a soldier in a handsome
uniform.

Nothing but the servant had been changed in that house. The harmonium
on which Mr. Povey used occasionally to play was still behind the door;
and on the harmonium was the tea-caddy of which Mrs. Baines used to
carry the key on her bunch. In the corner to the right of the fireplace
still hung the cupboard where Mrs. Baines stored her pharmacopoeia. The
rest of the furniture was arranged as it had been arranged when the
death of Mrs. Baines endowed Mr. and Mrs. Povey with all the treasures
of the house at Axe. And it was as good as ever; better than ever. Dr.
Stirling often expressed the desire for a corner cupboard like Mrs.
Baines's corner cupboard. One item had been added: the 'Peel' compote
which Matthew Peel-Swynnerton had noticed in the dining-room of the
Pension Frensham. This majestic piece, which had been reserved by
Sophia in the sale of the pension, stood alone on a canterbury in the
drawingroom. She had stored it, with a few other trifles, in Paris, and
when she sent for it and the packing-case arrived, both she and
Constance became aware that they were united for the rest of their
lives. Of worldly goods, except money, securities, and clothes, that
compote was practically all that Sophia owned. Happily it was a
first-class item, doing no shame to the antique magnificence of the
drawing-room.

In yielding to Constance's terrible inertia, Sophia had meant
nevertheless to work her own will on the interior of the house. She had
meant to bully Constance into modernizing the dwelling. She did bully
Constance, but the house defied her. Nothing could be done to that
house. If only it had had a hall or lobby a complete transformation
would have been possible. But there was no access to the upper floor
except through the parlour. The parlour could not therefore be turned
into a kitchen and the basement suppressed, and the ladies of the house
could not live entirely on the upper floor. The disposition of the
rooms had to remain exactly as it had always been. There was the same
draught under the door, the same darkness on the kitchen stairs, the
same difficulties with tradesmen in the distant backyard, the same
twist in the bedroom stairs, the same eternal ascending and descending
of pails. An efficient cooking-stove, instead of the large and
capacious range, alone represented the twentieth century in the
fixtures of the house.

Buried at the root of the relations between the sisters was Sophia's
grudge against Constance for refusing to leave the Square. Sophia was
loyal. She would not consciously give with one hand while taking away
with the other, and in accepting Constance's decision she honestly
meant to close her eyes to its stupidity. But she could not entirely
succeed. She could not avoid thinking that the angelic Constance had
been strangely and monstrously selfish in refusing to quit the Square.
She marvelled that a woman of Constance's sweet and calm disposition
should be capable of so vast and ruthless an egotism. Constance must
have known that Sophia would not leave her, and that the habitation of
the Square was a continual irk to Sophia. Constance had never been able
to advance a single argument for remaining in the Square. And yet she
would not budge. It was so inconsistent with the rest of Constance's
behaviour. See Sophia sitting primly there by the table, a woman
approaching sixty, with immense experience written on the fine hardness
of her worn and distinguished face! Though her hair is not yet all
grey, nor her figure bowed, you would imagine that she would, in her
passage through the world, have learnt better than to expect a
character to be consistent. But no! She was ever disappointed and hurt
by Constance's inconsistency! And see Constance, stout and bowed,
looking more than her age with hair nearly white and slightly trembling
hands! See that face whose mark is meekness and the spirit of
conciliation, the desire for peace--you would not think that that
placid soul could, while submitting to it, inly rage against the
imposed weight of Sophia's individuality. "Because I wouldn't turn out
of my house to please her," Constance would say to herself, "she
fancies she is entitled to do just as she likes." Not often did she
secretly rebel thus, but it occurred sometimes. They never quarrelled.
They would have regarded separation as a disaster. Considering the
difference of their lives, they agreed marvellously in their judgment
of things. But that buried question of domicile prevented a complete
unity between, them. And its subtle effect was to influence both of
them to make the worst, instead of the best, of the trifling mishaps
that disturbed their tranquillity. When annoyed, Sophia would meditate
upon the mere fact that they lived in the Square for no reason
whatever, until it grew incredibly shocking to her. After all it was
scarcely conceivable that they should be living in the very middle of a
dirty, ugly, industrial town simply because Constance mulishly declined
to move. Another thing that curiously exasperated both of them upon
occasion was that, owing to a recurrence of her old complaint of
dizziness after meals, Sophia had been strictly forbidden to drink tea,
which she loved. Sophia chafed under the deprivation, and Constance's
pleasure was impaired because she had to drink it alone.

While the brazen and pretty servant, mysteriously smiling to herself,
dropped food and utensils on to the table, Constance and Sophia
attempted to converse with negligent ease upon indifferent topics, as
though nothing had occurred that day to mar the beauty of ideal
relations between employers and employed. The pretence was ludicrous.
The young wench saw through it instantly, and her mysterious smile
developed almost into a laugh.

"Please shut the door after you, Maud," said Sophia, as the girl picked
up her empty tray.

"Yes, ma'am," replied Maud, politely.

She went out and left the door open.

It was a defiance, offered from sheer, youthful, wanton mischief.

The sisters looked at each other, their faces gravely troubled, aghast,
as though they had glimpsed the end of civilized society, as though
they felt that they had lived too long into an age of decadence and
open shame. Constance's face showed despair--she might have been about
to be pitched into the gutter without a friend and without a
shilling--but Sophia's had the reckless courage that disaster breeds.

Sophia jumped up, and stepped to the door. "Maud," she called out.

No answer.

"Maud, do you hear me?"

The suspense was fearful.

Still no answer.

Sophia glanced at Constance. "Either she shuts this door, or she leaves
this house at once, even if I have to fetch a policeman!"

And Sophia disappeared down the kitchen steps. Constance trembled with
painful excitement. The horror of existence closed in upon her. She
could imagine nothing more appalling than the pass to which they had
been brought by the modern change in the lower classes.

In the kitchen, Sophia, conscious that the moment held the future of at
least the next three weeks, collected her forces.

"Maud," she said, "did you not hear me call you?"

Maud looked up from a book--doubtless a wicked book.

"No, ma'am."

"You liar!" thought Sophia. And she said: "I asked you to shut the
parlour door, and I shall be obliged if you will do so."

Now Maud would have given a week's wages for the moral force to disobey
Sophia. There was nothing to compel her to obey. She could have
trampled on the fragile and weak Sophia. But something in Sophia's gaze
compelled her to obey. She flounced; she bridled; she mumbled; she
unnecessarily disturbed the venerable Spot; but she obeyed. Sophia had
risked all, and she had won something.

"And you should light the gas in the kitchen," said Sophia
magnificently, as Maud followed her up the steps. "Your young eyes may
be very good now, but you are not going the way to preserve them. My
sister and I have often told you that we do not grudge you gas."

With stateliness she rejoined Constance, and sat down to the cold
supper. And as Maud clicked the door to, the sisters breathed relief.
They envisaged new tribulations, but for a brief instant there was
surcease.

Yet they could not eat. Neither of them, when it came to the point,
could swallow. The day had been too exciting, too distressing. They
were at the end of their resources. And they did not hide from each
other that they were at the end of their resources. The illness of
Fossette, without anything else, had been more than enough to ruin
their tranquillity. But the illness of Fossette was as nothing to the
ingenious naughtiness of the servant. Maud had a sense of temporary
defeat, and was planning fresh operations; but really it was Maud who
had conquered. Poor old things, they were in such a 'state' that they
could not eat!

"I'm not going to let her think she can spoil my appetite!" said
Sophia, dauntless. Truly that woman's spirit was unquenchable.

She cut a couple of slices off the cold fowl; she cut a tomato into
slices; she disturbed the butter; she crumbled bread on the cloth, and
rubbed bits of fowl over the plates, and dirtied knives and forks. Then
she put the slices of fowl and bread and tomato into a piece of tissue
paper, and silently went upstairs with the parcel and came down again a
moment afterwards empty-handed.

After an interval she rang the bell, and lighted the gas.

"We've finished, Maud. You can clear away."

Constance thirsted for a cup of tea. She felt that a cup of tea was the
one thing that would certainly keep her alive. She longed for it
passionately. But she would not demand it from Maud. Nor would she
mention it to Sophia, lest Sophia, flushed by the victory of the door,
should incur new risks. She simply did without. On empty stomachs they
tried pathetically to help each other in games of Patience. And when
the blithe Maud passed through the parlour on the way to bed, she saw
two dignified and apparently calm ladies, apparently absorbed in a
delightful game of cards, apparently without a worry in the world. They
said "Good night, Maud," cheerfully, politely, and coldly. It was a
heroic scene. Immediately afterwards Sophia carried Fossette up to her
own bedroom.

II

The next afternoon the sisters, in the drawing-room, saw Dr. Stirling's
motor-car speeding down the Square. The doctor's partner, young Harrop,
had died a few years before at the age of over seventy, and the
practice was much larger than it had ever been, even in the time of old
Harrop. Instead of two or three horses, Stirling kept a car, which was
a constant spectacle in the streets of the district.

"I do hope he'll call in," said Mrs. Povey, and sighed.

Sophia smiled to herself with a little scorn. She knew that Constance's
desire for Dr. Stirling was due simply to the need which she felt of
telling some one about the great calamity that had happened to them
that morning. Constance was utterly absorbed by it, in the most
provincial way. Sophia had said to herself at the beginning of her
sojourn in Bursley, and long afterwards, that she should never get
accustomed to the exasperating provinciality of the town, exemplified
by the childish preoccupation of the inhabitants with their own
two-penny affairs. No characteristic of life in Bursley annoyed her
more than this. None had oftener caused her to yearn in a brief madness
for the desert-like freedom of great cities. But she had got accustomed
to it. Indeed, she had almost ceased to notice it. Only occasionally,
when her nerves were more upset than usual, did it strike her.

She went into Constance's bedroom to see whether the doctor's car
halted in King Street. It did.

"He's here," she called out to Constance.

"I wish you'd go down, Sophia," said Constance. "I can't trust that
minx----"

So Sophia went downstairs to superintend the opening of the door by the
minx.

The doctor was radiant, according to custom.

"I thought I'd just see how that dizziness was going on," said he as he
came up the steps.

"I'm glad you've come," said Sophia, confidentially. Since the first
days of their acquaintanceship they had always been confidential.
"You'll do my sister good to-day."

Just as Maud was closing the door a telegraph-boy arrived, with a
telegram addressed to Mrs. Scales. Sophia read it and then crumpled it
in her hand.

"What's wrong with Mrs. Povey to-day?" the doctor asked, when the
servant had withdrawn.

"She only wants a bit of your society," said Sophia. "Will you go up?
You know the way to the drawing-room. I'll follow."

As soon as he had gone she sat down on the sofa, staring out of the
window. Then with a grunt: "Well, that's no use, anyway!" she went
upstairs after the doctor. Already Constance had begun upon her recital.

"Yes," Constance was saying. "And when I went down this morning to keep
an eye on the breakfast, I thought Spot was very quiet--" She paused.
"He was dead in the drawer. She pretended she didn't know, but I'm sure
she did. Nothing will convince me that she didn't poison that dog with
the mice-poison we had last year. She was vexed because Sophia took her
up sharply about Fossette last night, and she revenged herself on the
other dog. It would just be like her. Don't tell me! I know. I should
have packed her off at once, but Sophia thought better not. We couldn't
prove anything, as Sophia says. Now, what do you think of it, doctor?"

Constance's eyes suddenly filled with tears.

"Ye'd had Spot a long time, hadn't ye?" he said sympathetically.

She nodded. "When I was married," said she, "the first thing my husband
did was to buy a fox-terrier, and ever since we've always had a
fox-terrier in the house." This was not true, but Constance was firmly
convinced of its truth.

"It's very trying," said the doctor. "I know when my Airedale died, I
said to my wife I'd never have another dog--unless she could find me
one that would live for ever. Ye remember my Airedale?"

"Oh, quite well!"

"Well, my wife said I should be bound to have another one sooner or
later, and the sooner the better. She went straight off to Oldcastle
and bought me a spaniel pup, and there was such a to-do training it
that we hadn't too much time to think about Piper."

Constance regarded this procedure as somewhat callous, and she said so,
tartly. Then she recommenced the tale of Spot's death from the
beginning, and took it as far as his burial, that afternoon, by Mr.
Critchlow's manager, in the yard. It had been necessary to remove and
replace paving-stones.

"Of course," said Dr. Stirling, "ten years is a long time. He was an
old dog. Well, you've still got the celebrated Fossette." He turned to
Sophia.

"Oh yes," said Constance, perfunctorily. "Fossette's ill. The fact is
that if Fossette hadn't been ill, Spot would probably have been alive
and well now."

Her tone exhibited a grievance. She could not forget that Sophia had
harshly dismissed Spot to the kitchen, thus practically sending him to
his death. It seemed very hard to her that Fossette, whose life had
once been despaired of, should continue to exist, while Spot, always
healthy and unspoilt, should die untended, and by treachery. For the
rest, she had never liked Fossette. On Spot's behalf she had always
been jealous of Fossette.

"Probably alive and well now!" she repeated, with a peculiar accent.

Observing that Sophia maintained a strange silence, Dr. Stirling
suspected a slight tension in the relations of the sisters, and he
changed the subject. One of his great qualities was that he refrained
from changing a subject introduced by a patient unless there was a
professional reason for changing it.

"I've just met Richard Povey in the town," said he. "He told me to tell
ye that he'll be round in about an hour or so to take you for a spin.
He was in a new car, which he did his best to sell to me, but he didn't
succeed."

"It's very kind of Dick," said Constance. "But this afternoon really
we're not--"

"I'll thank ye to take it as a prescription, then," replied the doctor.
"I told Dick I'd see that ye went. Splendid June weather. No dust after
all that rain. It'll do ye all the good in the world. I must exercise
my authority. The truth is, I've gradually been losing all control over
ye. Ye do just as ye like."

"Oh, doctor, how you do run on!" murmured Constance, not quite well
pleased to-day by his tone.

After the scene between Sophia and herself at Buxton, Constance had
always, to a certain extent, in the doctor's own phrase, 'got her knife
into him.' Sophia had, then, in a manner betrayed him. Constance and
the doctor discussed that matter with frankness, the doctor humorously
accusing her of being 'hard' on him. Nevertheless the little cloud
between them was real, and the result was often a faint captiousness on
Constance's part in judging the doctor's behaviour.

"He's got a surprise for ye, has Dick!" the doctor added.

Dick Povey, after his father's death and his own partial recovery, had
set up in Hanbridge as a bicycle agent. He was permanently lamed, and
he hopped about with a thick stick. He had succeeded with bicycles and
had taken to automobiles, and he was succeeding with automobiles.
People were at first startled that he should advertise himself in the
Five Towns. There was an obscure general feeling that because his
mother had been a drunkard and his father a murderer, Dick Povey had no
right to exist. However, when it had recovered from the shock of seeing
Dick Povey's announcement of bargains in the Signal, the district most
sensibly decided that there was no reason why Dick Povey should not
sell bicycles as well as a man with normal parents. He was now supposed
to be acquiring wealth rapidly. It was said that he was a marvellous
chauffeur, at once daring and prudent. He had one day, several years
previously, overtaken the sisters in the rural neighbourhood of Sneyd,
where they had been making an afternoon excursion. Constance had
presented him to Sophia, and he had insisted on driving the ladies
home. They had been much impressed by his cautious care of them, and
their natural prejudice against anything so new as a motorcar had been
conquered instantly. Afterwards he had taken them out for occasional
runs. He had a great admiration for Constance, founded on gratitude to
Samuel Povey; and as for Sophia, he always said to her that she would
be an ornament to any car.

"You haven't heard his latest, I suppose?" said the doctor, smiling.

"What is it?" Sophia asked perfunctorily.

"He wants to take to ballooning. It seems he's been up once."

Constance made a deprecating noise with her lips.

"However, that's not his surprise," the doctor added, smiling again at
the floor. He was sitting on the music-stool, and saying to himself,
behind his mask of effulgent good-nature: "It gets more and more uphill
work, cheering up these two women. I'll try them on Federation."

Federation was the name given to the scheme for blending the Five Towns
into one town, which would be the twelfth largest town in the kingdom.
It aroused fury in Bursley, which saw in the suggestion nothing but the
extinction of its ancient glory to the aggrandizement of Hanbridge.
Hanbridge had already, with the assistance of electric cars that
whizzed to and fro every five minutes, robbed Bursley of two-thirds of
its retail trade--as witness the steady decadence of the Square!--and
Bursley had no mind to swallow the insult and become a mere ward of
Hanbridge. Bursley would die fighting. Both Constance and Sophia were
bitter opponents of Federation. They would have been capable of putting
Federationists to the torture. Sophia in particular, though so long
absent from her native town, had adopted its cause with characteristic
vigour. And when Dr. Stirling wished to practise his curative treatment
of taking the sisters 'out of themselves,' he had only to start the
hare of Federation and the hunt would be up in a moment. But this
afternoon he did not succeed with Sophia, and only partially with
Constance. When he stated that there was to be a public meeting that
very night, and that Constance as a ratepayer ought to go to it and
vote, if her convictions were genuine, she received his chaff with a
mere murmur to the effect that she did not think she should go. Had the
man forgotten that Spot was dead? At length he became grave, and
examined them both as to their ailments, and nodded his head, and
looked into vacancy while meditating upon each case. And then, when he
had inquired where they meant to go for their summer holidays, he
departed.

"Aren't you going to see him out?" Constance whispered to Sophia, who
had shaken hands with him at the drawingroom door. It was Sophia who
did the running about, owing to the state of Constance's sciatic nerve.
Constance had, indeed, become extraordinarily inert, leaving everything
to Sophia.

Sophia shook her head. She hesitated; then approached Constance,
holding out her hand and disclosing the crumpled telegram.

"Look at that!" said she.

Her face frightened Constance, who was always expectant of new
anxieties and troubles. Constance straightened out the paper with
difficulty, and read--

"Mr. Gerald Scales is dangerously ill here. Boldero, 49, Deansgate,
Manchester."

All through the inexpressibly tedious and quite unnecessary call of Dr.
Stirling--(Why had he chosen to call just then? Neither of them was
ill)--Sophia had held that telegram concealed in her hand and its
information concealed in her heart. She had kept her head up, offering
a calm front to the world. She had given no hint of the terrible
explosion--for an explosion it was. Constance was astounded at her
sister's self-control, which entirely passed her comprehension.
Constance felt that worries would never cease, but would rather go on
multiplying until death ended all. First, there had been the frightful
worry of the servant; then the extremely distressing death and burial
of Spot--and now it was Gerald Scales turning up again! With what
violence was the direction of their thoughts now shifted! The
wickedness of maids was a trifle; the death of pets was a trifle. But
the reappearance of Gerald Scales! That involved the possibility of
consequences which could not even be named, so afflictive was the mere
prospect to them. Constance was speechless, and she saw that Sophia was
also speechless.

Of course the event had been bound to happen. People do not vanish
never to be heard of again. The time surely arrives when the secret is
revealed. So Sophia said to herself--now!

She had always refused to consider the effect of Gerald's reappearance.
She had put the idea of it away from her, determined to convince
herself that she had done with him finally and for ever. She had
forgotten him. It was years since he had ceased to disturb her
thoughts--many years. "He MUST be dead," she had persuaded herself. "It
is inconceivable that he should have lived on and never come across me.
If he had been alive and learnt that I had made money, he would
assuredly have come to me. No, he must be dead!"

And he was not dead! The brief telegram overwhelmingly shocked her. Her
life had been calm, regular, monotonous. And now it was thrown into an
indescribable turmoil by five words of a telegram, suddenly, with no
warning whatever. Sophia had the right to say to herself: "I have had
my share of trouble, and more than my share!" The end of her life
promised to be as awful as the beginning. The mere existence of Gerald
Scales was a menace to her. But it was the simple impact of the blow
that affected her supremely, beyond ulterior things. One might have
pictured fate as a cowardly brute who had struck this ageing woman full
in the face, a felling blow, which however had not felled her. She
staggered, but she stuck on her legs. It seemed a shame--one of those
crude, spectacular shames which make the blood boil--that the gallant,
defenceless creature should be so maltreated by the bully, destiny.

"Oh, Sophia!" Constance moaned. "What trouble is this?"

Sophia's lip curled with a disgusted air. Under that she hid her
suffering.

She had not seen him for thirty-six years. He must be over seventy
years of age, and he had turned up again like a bad penny, doubtless a
disgrace! What had he been doing in those thirty-six years? He was an
old, enfeebled man now! He must be a pretty sight! And he lay at
Manchester, not two hours away!

Whatever feelings were in Sophia's heart, tenderness was not among
them. As she collected her wits from the stroke, she was principally
aware of the sentiment of fear. She recoiled from the future.

"What shall you do?" Constance asked. Constance was weeping.

Sophia tapped her foot, glancing out of the window.

"Shall you go to see him?" Constance continued.

"Of course," said Sophia. "I must!"

She hated the thought of going to see him. She flinched from it. She
felt herself under no moral obligation to go. Why should she go? Gerald
was nothing to her, and had no claim on her of any kind. This she
honestly believed. And yet she knew that she must go to him. She knew
it to be impossible that she should not go.

"Now?" demanded Constance.

Sophia nodded.

"What about the trains? ... Oh, you poor dear!" The mere idea of the
journey to Manchester put Constance out of her wits, seeming a business
of unparalleled complexity and difficulty.

"Would you like me to come with you?"

"Oh no! I must go by myself."

Constance was relieved by this. They could not have left the servant in
the house alone, and the idea of shutting up the house without notice
or preparation presented itself to Constance as too fantastic.

By a common instinct they both descended to the parlour.

"Now, what about a time-table? What about a time-table?" Constance
mumbled on the stairs. She wiped her eyes resolutely. "I wonder
whatever in this world has brought him at last to that Mr. Boldero's in
Deansgate?" she asked the walls.

As they came into the parlour, a great motor-car drove up before the
door, and when the pulsations of its engine had died away, Dick Povey
hobbled from the driver's seat to the pavement. In an instant he was
hammering at the door in his lively style. There was no avoiding him.
The door had to be opened. Sophia opened it. Dick Povey was over forty,
but he looked considerably younger. Despite his lameness, and the fact
that his lameness tended to induce corpulence, he had a dashing air,
and his face, with its short, light moustache, was boyish. He seemed to
be always upon some joyous adventure.

"Well, aunties," he greeted the sisters, having perceived Constance
behind Sophia; he often so addressed them. "Has Dr. Stirling warned you
that I was coming? Why haven't you got your things on?"

Sophia observed a young woman in the car.

"Yes," said he, following her gaze, "you may as well look. Come down,
miss. Come down, Lily. You've got to go through with it." The young
woman, delicately confused and blushing, obeyed. "This is Miss Lily
Holl," he went on. "I don't know whether you would remember her. I
don't think you do. It's not often she comes to the Square. But, of
course, she knows you by sight. Granddaughter of your old neighbour,
Alderman Holl! We are engaged to be married, if you please."

Constance and Sophia could not decently pour out their griefs on the
top of such news. The betrothed pair had to come in and be
congratulated upon their entry into the large realms of mutual love.
But the sisters, even in their painful quandary, could not help
noticing what a nice, quiet, ladylike girl Lily Holl was. Her one fault
appeared to be that she was too quiet. Dick Povey was not the man to
pass time in formalities, and he was soon urging departure.

"I'm sorry we can't come," said Sophia. "I've got to go to Manchester
now. We are in great trouble."

"Yes, in great trouble," Constance weakly echoed.

Dick's face clouded sympathetically. And both the affianced began to
see that to which the egotism of their happiness had blinded them. They
felt that long, long years had elapsed since these ageing ladies had
experienced the delights which they were feeling.

"Trouble? I'm sorry to hear that!" said Dick.

"Can you tell me the trains to Manchester?" asked Sophia.

"No," said Dick, quickly, "But I can drive you there quicker than any
train, if it's urgent. Where do you want to go to?"

"Deansgate," Sophia faltered.

"Look here," said Dick, "it's half-past three. Put yourself in my
hands; I'll guarantee at Deansgate you shall be before half-past five.
I'll look after you."

"But----"

"There isn't any 'but.' I'm quite free for the afternoon and evening."

At first the suggestion seemed absurd, especially to Constance. But
really it was too tempting to be declined. While Sophia made ready for
the journey, Dick and Lily Holl and Constance conversed in low, solemn
tones. The pair were waiting to be enlightened as to the nature of the
trouble; Constance, however, did not enlighten them. How could
Constance say to them: "Sophia has a husband that she hasn't seen for
thirty-six years, and he's dangerously ill, and they've telegraphed for
her to go?" Constance could not. It did not even occur to Constance to
order a cup of tea.

III

Dick Povey kept his word. At a quarter-past five he drew up in front of
No. 49, Deansgate, Manchester. "There you are!" he said, not without
pride. "Now, we'll come back in about a couple of hours or so, just to
take your orders, whatever they are." He was very comforting, with his
suggestion that in him Sophia had a sure support in the background.

Without many words Sophia went straight into the shop. It looked like a
jeweller's shop, and a shop for bargains generally. Only the
conventional sign over a side-entrance showed that at heart it was a
pawnbroker's. Mr. Till Boldero did a nice business in the Five Towns,
and in other centres near Manchester, by selling silver-ware
second-hand, or nominally second hand, to persons who wished to make
presents to other persons or to themselves. He would send anything by
post on approval. Occasionally he came to the Five Towns, and he had
once, several years before, met Constance. They had talked. He was the
son of a cousin of the late great and wealthy Boldero, sleeping partner
in Birkinshaws, and Gerald's uncle. It was from Constance that he had
learnt of Sophia's return to Bursley. Constance had often remarked to
Sophia what a superior man Mr. Till Boldero was.

The shop was narrow and lofty. It seemed like a menagerie for trapped
silver-ware. In glass cases right up to the dark ceiling silver vessels
and instruments of all kinds lay confined. The top of the counter was a
glass prison containing dozens of gold watches, together with
snuff-boxes, enamels, and other antiquities. The front of the counter
was also glazed, showing vases and large pieces of porcelain. A few
pictures in heavy gold frames were perched about. There was a case of
umbrellas with elaborate handles and rich tassels. There were a couple
of statuettes. The counter, on the customers' side, ended in a glass
screen on which were the words 'Private Office.' On the seller's side
the prospect was closed by a vast safe. A tall young man was fumbling
in this safe. Two women sat on customers' chairs, leaning against the
crystal counter. The young man came towards them from the safe, bearing
a tray.

"How much is that goblet?" asked one of the women, raising her parasol
dangerously among such fragility and pointing to one object among many
in a case high up from the ground.

"That, madam?"

"Yes."

"Thirty-five pounds."

The young man disposed his tray on the counter. It was packed with more
gold watches, adding to the extraordinary glitter and shimmer of the
shop. He chose a small watch from the regiment.

"Now, this is something I can recommend," he said. "It's made by
Cuthbert Butler of Blackburn. I can guarantee you that for five years."
He spoke as though he were the accredited representative of the Bank of
England, with calm and absolute assurance.

The effect upon Sophia was mysteriously soothing. She felt that she was
among honest men. The young man raised his head towards her with a
questioning, deferential gesture.

"Can I see Mr. Boldero?" she asked. "Mrs. Scales."

The young man's face changed instantly to a sympathetic comprehension.

"Yes, madam. I'll fetch him at once," said he, and he disappeared
behind the safe. The two customers discussed the watch. Then the door
opened in the glass screen, and a portly, middle-aged man showed
himself. He was dressed in blue broad-cloth, with a turned-down collar
and a small black tie. His waistcoat displayed a plain but heavy gold
watch-chain, and his cuff-links were of plain gold. His eye-glasses
were gold-rimmed. He had grey hair, beard and moustache, but on the
backs of his hands grew a light brown hair. His appearance was
strangely mild, dignified, and confidence-inspiring. He was, in fact,
one of the most respected tradesmen in Manchester.

He peered forward, looking over his eye-glasses, which he then took
off, holding them up in the air by their short handle. Sophia had
approached him.

"Mrs. Scales?" he said, in a very quiet, very benevolent voice. Sophia
nodded. "Please come this way." He took her hand, squeezing it
commiseratingly, and drew her into the sanctum. "I didn't expect you so
soon," he said. "I looked up th' trains, and I didn't see how you could
get here before six."

Sophia explained.

He led her further, through the private office, into a sort of parlour,
and asked her to sit down. And he too sat down. Sophia waited, as it
were, like a suitor.

"I'm afraid I've got bad news for you, Mrs. Scales," he said, still in
that mild, benevolent voice.

"He's dead?" Sophia asked.

Mr. Till Boldero nodded. "He's dead. I may as well tell you that he had
passed away before I telegraphed. It all happened very, very suddenly."
He paused. "Very, very suddenly!"

"Yes," said Sophia, weakly. She was conscious of a profound sadness
which was not grief, though it resembled grief. And she had also a
feeling that she was responsible to Mr. Till Boldero for anything
untoward that might have occurred to him by reason of Gerald.

"Yes," said Mr. Till Boldero, deliberately and softly. "He came in last
night just as we were closing. We had very heavy rain here. I don't
know how it was with you. He was wet, in a dreadful state, simply
dreadful. Of course, I didn't recognize him. I'd never seen him before,
so far as my recollection goes. He asked me if I was the son of Mr.
Till Boldero that had this shop in 1866. I said I was. 'Well,' he says,
'you're the only connection I've got. My name's Gerald Scales. My
mother was your father's cousin. Can you do anything for me?' he says.
I could see he was ill. I had him in here. When I found he couldn't eat
nor drink I thought I'd happen better send for th' doctor. The doctor
got him to bed. He passed away at one o'clock this afternoon. I was
very sorry my wife wasn't here to look after things a bit better. But
she's at Southport, not well at all."

"What was it?" Sophia asked briefly.

Mr. Boldero indicated the enigmatic. "Exhaustion, I suppose," he
replied.

"He's here?" demanded Sophia, lifting her eyes to possible bedrooms.

"Yes," said Mr. Boldero. "I suppose you would wish to see him?"

"Yes," said Sophia.

"You haven't seen him for a long time, your sister told me?" Mr.
Boldero murmured, sympathetically.

"Not since 'seventy," said Sophia.

"Eh, dear! Eh, dear!" ejaculated Mr. Boldero. "I fear it's been a sad
business for ye, Mrs. Scales. Not since 'seventy!" He sighed. "You must
take it as well as you can. I'm not one as talks much, but I
sympathize, with you. I do that! I wish my wife had been here to
receive you."

Tears came into Sophia's eyes.

"Nay, nay!" he said. "You must bear up now!"

"It's you that make me cry," said Sophia, gratefully. "You were very
good to take him in. It must have been exceedingly trying for you."

"Oh," he protested, "you mustn't talk like that. I couldn't leave a
Boldero on the pavement, and an old man at that! ... Oh, to think that
if he'd only managed to please his uncle he might ha' been one of the
richest men in Lancashire. But then there'd ha' been no Boldero
Institute at Strangeways!" he added.

They both sat silent a moment.

"Will you come now? Or will you wait a bit?" asked Mr. Boldero, gently.
"Just as you wish. I'm sorry as my wife's away, that I am!"

"I'll come now," said Sophia, firmly. But she was stricken.

He conducted her up a short, dark flight of stairs, which gave on a
passage, and at the end of the passage was a door ajar. He pushed the
door open. "I'll leave you for a moment," he said, always in the same
very restrained tone. "You'll find me downstairs, there, if you want
me." And he moved away with hushed, deliberate tread.

Sophia went into the room, of which the white blind was drawn. She
appreciated Mr. Boldero's consideration in leaving her. She was
trembling. But when she saw, in the pale gloom, the face of an aged man
peeping out from under a white sheet on a naked mattress, she started
back, trembling no more--rather transfixed into an absolute rigidity.
That was no conventional, expected shock that she had received. It was
a genuine unforeseen shock, the most violent that she had ever had. In
her mind she had not pictured Gerald as a very old man. She knew that
he was old; she had said to herself that he must be very old, well over
seventy. But she had not pictured him. This face on the bed was
painfully, pitiably old. A withered face, with the shiny skin all drawn
into wrinkles! The stretched skin under the jaw was like the skin of a
plucked fowl. The cheek-bones stood up, and below them were deep
hollows, almost like egg-cups. A short, scraggy white beard covered the
lower part of the face. The hair was scanty, irregular, and quite
white; a little white hair grew in the ears. The shut mouth obviously
hid toothless gums, for the lips were sucked in. The eyelids were as if
pasted down over the eyes, fitting them like kid. All the skin was
extremely pallid; it seemed brittle. The body, whose outlines were
clear under the sheet, was very small, thin, shrunk, pitiable as the
face. And on the face was a general expression of final fatigue, of
tragic and acute exhaustion; such as made Sophia pleased that the
fatigue and exhaustion had been assuaged in rest, while all the time
she kept thinking to herself horribly: "Oh! how tired he must have
been!"

Sophia then experienced a pure and primitive emotion, uncoloured by any
moral or religious quality. She was not sorry that Gerald had wasted
his life, nor that he was a shame to his years and to her. The manner
of his life was of no importance. What affected her was that he had
once been young, and that he had grown old, and was now dead. That was
all. Youth and vigour had come to that. Youth and vigour always came to
that. Everything came to that. He had ill-treated her; he had abandoned
her; he had been a devious rascal; but how trivial were such
accusations against him! The whole of her huge and bitter grievance
against him fell to pieces and crumbled. She saw him young, and proud,
and strong, as for instance when he had kissed her lying on the bed in
that London hotel--she forgot the name--in 1866; and now he was old,
and worn, and horrible, and dead. It was the riddle of life that was
puzzling and killing her. By the corner of her eye, reflected in the
mirror of a wardrobe near the bed, she glimpsed a tall, forlorn woman,
who had once been young and now was old; who had once exulted in
abundant strength, and trodden proudly on the neck of circumstance, and
now was old. He and she had once loved and burned and quarrelled in the
glittering and scornful pride of youth. But time had worn them out.
"Yet a little while," she thought, "and I shall be lying on a bed like
that! And what shall I have lived for? What is the meaning of it?" The
riddle of life itself was killing her, and she seemed to drown in a sea
of inexpressible sorrow.

Her memory wandered hopelessly among those past years. She saw Chirac
with his wistful smile. She saw him whipped over the roof of the Gare
du Nord at the tail of a balloon. She saw old Niepce. She felt his
lecherous arm round her. She was as old now as Niepce had been then.
Could she excite lust now? Ah! the irony of such a question! To be
young and seductive, to be able to kindle a man's eye--that seemed to
her the sole thing desirable. Once she had been so! ... Niepce must
certainly have been dead for years. Niepce, the obstinate and hopeful
voluptuary, was nothing but a few bones in a coffin now!

She was acquainted with affliction in that hour. All that she had
previously suffered sank into insignificance by the side of that
suffering.

She turned to the veiled window and idly pulled the blind and looked
out. Huge red and yellow cars were swimming in thunder along Deansgate;
lorries jolted and rattled; the people of Manchester hurried along the
pavements, apparently unconscious that all their doings were vain.
Yesterday he too had been in Deansgate, hungry for life, hating the
idea of death! What a figure he must have made! Her heart dissolved in
pity for him. She dropped the blind.

"My life has been too terrible!" she thought. "I wish I was dead. I
have been through too much. It is monstrous, and I cannot stand it. I
do not want to die, but I wish I was dead."

There was a discreet knock on the door.

"Come in," she said, in a calm, resigned, cheerful voice. The sound had
recalled her with the swiftness of a miracle to the unconquerable
dignity of human pride.

Mr. Till Boldero entered.

"I should like you to come downstairs and drink a cup of tea," he said.
He was a marvel of tact and good nature. "My wife is unfortunately not
here, and the house is rather at sixes and sevens; but I have sent out
for some tea."

She followed him downstairs into the parlour. He poured out a cup of
tea.

"I was forgetting," she said. "I am forbidden tea. I mustn't drink it."

She looked at the cup, tremendously tempted. She longed for tea. An
occasional transgression could not harm her. But no! She would not
drink it.

"Then what can I get you?"

"If I could have just milk and water," she said meekly.

Mr. Boldero emptied the cup into the slop basin, and began to fill it
again.

"Did he tell you anything?" she asked, after a considerable silence.

"Nothing," said Mr. Boldero in his low, soothing tones. "Nothing except
that he had come from Liverpool. Judging from his shoes I should say he
must have walked a good bit of the way."

"At his age!" murmured Sophia, touched.

"Yes," sighed Mr. Boldero. "He must have been in great straits. You
know, he could scarcely talk at all. By the way, here are his clothes.
I have had them put aside."

Sophia saw a small pile of clothes on a chair. She examined the suit,
which was still damp, and its woeful shabbiness pained her. The linen
collar was nearly black, its stud of bone. As for the boots, she had
noticed such boots on the feet of tramps. She wept now. These were the
clothes of him who had once been a dandy living at the rate of fifty
pounds a week.

"No luggage or anything, of course?" she muttered.

"No," said Mr. Boldero. "In the pockets there was nothing whatever but
this."

He went to the mantelpiece and picked up a cheap, cracked letter case,
which Sophia opened. In it were a visiting card--'Senorita Clemenzia
Borja'--and a bill-head of the Hotel of the Holy Spirit, Concepcion del
Uruguay, on the back of which a lot of figures had been scrawled.

"One would suppose," said Mr. Boldero, "that he had come from South
America."

"Nothing else?"

"Nothing."

Gerald's soul had not been compelled to abandon much in the haste of
its flight.

A servant announced that Mrs. Scales's friends were waiting for her
outside in the motor-car. Sophia glanced at Mr. Till Boldero with an
exacerbated anxiety on her face.

"Surely they don't expect me to go back with them tonight!" she said.
"And look at all there is to be done!"

Mr. Till Boldero's kindness was then redoubled. "You can do nothing for
HIM now," he said. "Tell me your wishes about the funeral. I will
arrange everything. Go back to your sister to-night. She will be
nervous about you. And return tomorrow or the day after.... No! It's no
trouble, I assure you!"

She yielded.

Thus towards eight o'clock, when Sophia had eaten a little under Mr.
Boldero's superintendence, and the pawnshop was shut up, the motor-car
started again for Bursley, Lily Holl being beside her lover and Sophia
alone in the body of the car. Sophia had told them nothing of the
nature of her mission. She was incapable of talking to them. They saw
that she was in a condition of serious mental disturbance. Under cover
of the noise of the car, Lily said to Dick that she was sure Mrs.
Scales was ill, and Dick, putting his lips together, replied that he
meant to be in King Street at nine-thirty at the latest. From time to
time Lily surreptitiously glanced at Sophia--a glance of apprehensive
inspection, or smiled at her silently; and Sophia vaguely responded to
the smile.

In half an hour they had escaped from the ring of Manchester and were
on the county roads of Cheshire, polished, flat, sinuous. It was the
season of the year when there is no night--only daylight and twilight;
when the last silver of dusk remains obstinately visible for hours. And
in the open country, under the melancholy arch of evening, the sadness
of the earth seemed to possess Sophia anew. Only then did she realize
the intensity of the ordeal through which she was passing.

To the south of Congleton one of the tyres softened, immediately after
Dick had lighted his lamps. He stopped the car and got down again. They
were two miles Astbury, the nearest village. He had just, with the
resignation of experience, reached for the tool-bag, when Lily
exclaimed: "Is she asleep, or what?" Sophia was not asleep, but she was
apparently not conscious.

It was a difficult and a trying situation for two lovers. Their voices
changed momentarily to the tone of alarm and consternation, and then
grew firm again. Sophia showed life but not reason. Lily could feel the
poor old lady's heart.

"Well, there's nothing for it!" said Dick, briefly, when all their
efforts failed to rouse her.

"What--shall you do?"

"Go straight home as quick as I can on three tyres. We must get her
over to this side, and you must hold her. Like that we shall keep the
weight off the other side."

He pitched back the tool-bag into its box. Lily admired his decision.

It was in this order, no longer under the spell of the changing beauty
of nocturnal landscapes, that they finished the journey. Constance had
opened the door before the car came to a stop in the gloom of King
Street. The young people considered that she bore the shock well,
though the carrying into the house of Sophia's inert, twitching body,
with its hat forlornly awry, was a sight to harrow a soul sturdier than
Constance.

When that was done, Dick said curtly: "I'm off. You stay here, of
course."

"Where are you going?" asked Lily.

"Doctor!" snapped Dick, hobbling rapidly down the steps.

IV

The extraordinary violence of the turn in affairs was what chiefly
struck Constance, though it did not overwhelm her. Less than twelve
hours before--nay, scarcely six hours before--she and Sophia had been
living their placid and monotonous existence, undisturbed by anything
worse than the indisposition or death of dogs, or the perversity of a
servant. And now, the menacing Gerald Scales having reappeared,
Sophia's form lay mysterious and affrightening on the sofa; and she and
Lily Holl, a girl whom she had not met till that day, were staring at
Sophia side by side, intimately sharing the same alarm. Constance rose
to the crisis. She no longer had Sophia's energy and decisive
peremptoriness to depend on, and the Baines in her was awakened. All
her daily troubles sank away to their proper scale of unimportance.
Neither the young woman nor the old one knew what to do. They could
loosen clothes, vainly offer restoratives to the smitten mouth: that
was all. Sophia was not unconscious, as could be judged from her eyes;
but she could not speak, nor make signs; her body was frequently
convulsed. So the two women waited, and the servant waited in the
background. The sight of Sophia had effected an astonishing
transformation in Maud. Maud was a changed girl. Constance could not
recognize, in her eager deferential anxiety to be of use, the pert
naughtiness of the minx. She was altered as a wanton of the middle ages
would have been altered by some miraculous visitation. It might have
been the turning-point in Maud's career!

Doctor Stirling arrived in less than ten minutes. Dick Povey had had
the wit to look for him at the Federation meeting in the Town Hall. And
the advent of the doctor and Dick, noisily, at breakneck speed in the
car, provided a second sensation. The doctor inquired quickly what had
occurred. Nobody could tell him anything. Constance had already
confided to Lily Holl the reason of the visit to Manchester; but that
was the extent of her knowledge. Not a single person in Bursley, except
Sophia, knew what had happened in Manchester. But Constance conjectured
that Gerald Scales was dead--or Sophia would never have returned so
soon. Then the doctor suggested that on the contrary Gerald Scales
might be out of danger. And all then pictured to themselves this
troubling Gerald Scales, this dark and sinister husband that had caused
such a violent upheaval.

Meanwhile the doctor was at work. He sent Dick Povey to knock up
Critchlow's, if the shop should be closed, and obtain a drug. Then,
after a time, he lifted Sophia, just as she was, like a bundle on his
shoulder, and carried her single-handed upstairs to the second floor.
He had recently been giving a course of instruction to enthusiasts of
the St. John's Ambulance Association in Bursley. The feat had an air of
the superhuman. Above all else it remained printed on Constance's mind:
the burly doctor treading delicately and carefully on the crooked,
creaking stairs, his precautions against damaging Sophia by brusque
contacts, his stumble at the two steps in the middle of the corridor;
Sophia's horribly limp head and loosened hair; and then the tender
placing of her on the bed, and the doctor's long breath and flourish of
his large handkerchief, all that under the crude lights and shadows of
gas jets! The doctor was nonplussed. Constance gave him a second-hand
account of Sophia's original attack in Paris, roughly as she had heard
it from Sophia. He at once said that it could not have been what the
French doctor had said it was. Constance shrugged her shoulders. She
was not surprised. For her there was necessarily something of the
charlatan about a French doctor. She said she only knew what Sophia had
told her. After a time Dr. Stirling determined to try electricity, and
Dick Povey drove him up to the surgery to fetch his apparatus. The
women were left alone again. Constance was very deeply impressed by
Lily Holl's sensible, sympathetic attitude. "Whatever I should have
done without Miss Lily I don't know!" she used to exclaim afterwards.
Even Maud was beyond praise. It seemed to be the middle of the night
when Dr. Stirling came back, but it was barely eleven o'clock, and
people were only just returning from Hanbridge Theatre and Hanbridge
Music Hall. The use of the electrical apparatus was a dead spectacle.
Sophia's inertness under it was agonizing. They waited, as it were,
breathless for the result. And there was no result. Both injections and
electricity had entirely failed to influence the paralysis of Sophia's
mouth and throat. Everything had failed. "Nothing to do but wait a
bit!" said the doctor quietly. They waited in the chamber. Sophia
seemed to be in a kind of coma. The distortion of her handsome face was
more marked as time passed. The doctor spoke now and then in a low
voice. He said that the attack had ultimately been determined by cold
produced by rapid motion in the automobile. Dick Povey whispered that
he must run over to Hanbridge and let Lily's parents know that there
was no cause for alarm on her account, and that he would return at
once. He was very devoted. On the landing out-side the bedroom, the
doctor murmured to him: "U.P." And Dick nodded. They were great friends.

At intervals the doctor, who never knew when he was beaten, essayed new
methods of dealing with Sophia's case. New symptoms followed. It was
half-past twelve when, after gazing with prolonged intensity at the
patient, and after having tested her mouth and heart, he rose slowly
and looked at Constance.

"It's over?" said Constance.

And he very slightly moved his head. "Come downstairs, please," he
enjoined her, in a pause that ensued. Constance was amazingly
courageous. The doctor was very solemn and very kind; Constance had
never before seen him to such heroic advantage. He led her with
infinite gentleness out of the room. There was nothing to stay for;
Sophia had gone. Constance wanted to stay by Sophia's body; but it was
the rule that the stricken should be led away, the doctor observed this
classic rule, and Constance felt that he was right and that she must
obey. Lily Holl followed. The servant, learning the truth by the
intuition accorded to primitive natures, burst into loud sobs, yelling
that Sophia had been the most excellent mistress that servant ever had.
The doctor angrily told her not to stand blubbering there, but to go
into her kitchen and shut the door if she couldn't control herself. All
his accumulated nervous agitation was discharged on Maud like a
thunderclap. Constance continued to behave wonderfully. She was the
admiration of the doctor and Lily Holl. Then Dick Povey came back. It
was settled that Lily should pass the night with Constance. At last the
doctor and Dick departed together, the doctor undertaking the mortuary
arrangements. Maud was hunted to bed.

Early in the morning Constance rose up from her own bed. It was five
o'clock, and there had been daylight for two hours already. She moved
noiselessly and peeped over the foot of the bed at the sofa. Lily was
quietly asleep there, breathing with the softness of a child. Lily
would have deemed that she was a very mature woman, who had seen life
and much of it. Yet to Constance her face and attitude had the
exquisite quality of a child's. She was not precisely a pretty girl,
but her features, the candid expression of her disposition, produced an
impression that was akin to that of beauty. Her abandonment was
complete. She had gone through the night unscathed, and was now
renewing herself in calm, oblivious sleep. Her ingenuous girlishness
was apparent then. It seemed as if all her wise and sweet behaviour of
the evening could have been nothing but so many imitative gestures. It
seemed impossible that a being so young and fresh could have really
experienced the mood of which her gestures had been the expression. Her
strong virginal simplicity made Constance vaguely sad for her.

Creeping out of the room, Constance climbed to the second floor in her
dressing-gown, and entered the other chamber. She was obliged to look
again upon Sophia's body. Incredible swiftness of calamity! Who could
have foreseen it? Constance was less desolated than numbed. She was as
yet only touching the fringe of her bereavement. She had not begun to
think of herself. She was drenched, as she gazed at Sophia's body, not
by pity for herself, but by compassion for the immense disaster of her
sister's life. She perceived fully now for the first time the greatness
of that disaster. Sophia's charm and Sophia's beauty--what profit had
they been to their owner? She saw pictures of Sophia's career,
distorted and grotesque images formed in her untravelled mind from
Sophia's own rare and compressed recitals. What a career! A brief
passion, and then nearly thirty years in a boarding-house! And Sophia
had never had a child; had never known either the joy or the pain of
maternity. She had never even had a true home till, in all her sterile
splendour, she came to Bursley. And she had ended--thus! This was the
piteous, ignominious end of Sophia's wondrous gifts of body and soul.
Hers had not been a life at all. And the reason? It is strange how fate
persists in justifying the harsh generalizations of Puritan morals, of
the morals in which Constance had been brought up by her stern parents!
Sophia had sinned. It was therefore inevitable that she should suffer.
An adventure such as she had in wicked and capricious pride undertaken
with Gerald Scales, could not conclude otherwise than it had concluded.
It could have brought nothing but evil. There was no getting away from
these verities, thought Constance. And she was to be excused for
thinking that all modern progress and cleverness was as naught, and
that the world would be forced to return upon its steps and start again
in the path which it had left.

Up to within a few days of her death people had been wont to remark
that Mrs. Scales looked as young as ever, and that she was as bright
and as energetic as ever. And truly, regarding Sophia from a little
distance--that handsome oval, that erect carriage of a slim body, that
challenging eye!--no one would have said that she was in her sixtieth
year. But look at her now, with her twisted face, her sightless orbs,
her worn skin--she did not seem sixty, but seventy! She was like
something used, exhausted, and thrown aside! Yes, Constance's heart
melted in an anguished pity for that stormy creature. And mingled with
the pity was a stern recognition of the handiwork of divine justice. To
Constance's lips came the same phrase as had come to the lips of Samuel
Povey on a different occasion: God is not mocked! The ideas of her
parents and her grandparents had survived intact in Constance. It is
true that Constance's father would have shuddered in Heaven could he
have seen Constance solitarily playing cards of a night. But in spite
of cards, and of a son who never went to chapel, Constance, under the
various influences of destiny, had remained essentially what her father
had been. Not in her was the force of evolution manifest. There are
thousands such.

Lily, awake, and reclothed with that unreal mien of a grown and
comprehending woman, stepped quietly into the room, searching for the
poor old thing, Constance. The layer-out had come.

By the first post was delivered a letter addressed to Sophia by Mr.
Till Boldero. From its contents the death of Gerald Scales was clear.
There seemed then to be nothing else for Constance to do. What had to
be done was done for her. And stronger wills than hers put her to bed.
Cyril was telegraphed for. Mr. Critchlow called, Mrs. Critchlow
following--a fussy infliction, but useful in certain matters. Mr.
Critchlow was not allowed to see Constance. She could hear his high
grating voice in the corridor. She had to lie calm, and the sudden
tranquillity seemed strange after the feverish violence of the night.
Only twenty-four hours since, and she had been worrying about the death
of a dog! With a body crying for sleep, she dozed off, thoughts of the
mystery of life merging into the incoherence of dreams.

The news was abroad in the Square before nine o'clock. There were
persons who had witnessed the arrival of the motorcar, and the transfer
of Sophia to the house. Untruthful rumours had spread as to the manner
of Gerald Scales's death. Some said that he had dramatically committed
suicide. But the town, though titillated, was not moved as it would
have been moved by a similar event twenty years, or even ten years
earlier. Times had changed in Bursley. Bursley was more sophisticated
than in the old days.

Constance was afraid lest Cyril, despite the seriousness of the
occasion, might exhibit his customary tardiness in coming. She had long
since learnt not to rely upon him. But he came the same evening. His
behaviour was in every way perfect. He showed quiet but genuine grief
for the death of his aunt, and he was a model of consideration for his
mother. Further, he at once assumed charge of all the arrangements, in
regard both to Sophia and to her husband. Constance was surprised at
the ease which he displayed in the conduct of practical affairs, and
the assurance with which he gave orders. She had never seen him direct
anything before. He said, indeed, that he had never directed anything
before, but that there appeared to him to be no difficulties. Whereas
Constance had figured a tiresome series of varied complications. As to
the burial of Sophia, Cyril was vigorously in favour of an absolutely
private funeral; that is to say, a funeral at which none but himself
should be present. He seemed to have a passionate objection to any sort
of parade. Constance agreed with him. But she said that it would be
impossible not to invite Mr. Critchlow, Sophia's trustee, and that if
Mr. Critchlow were invited certain others must be invited. Cyril asked:
"Why impossible?" Constance said: "Because it would be impossible.
Because Mr. Critchlow would be hurt." Cyril asked: "What does it matter
if he is hurt?" and suggested that Mr. Critchlow would get over his
damage. Constance grew more serious. The discussion threatened to be
warm. Suddenly Cyril yielded. "All right, Mrs. Plover, all right! It
shall be exactly as you choose," he said, in a gentle, humouring tone.
He had not called her 'Mrs. Plover' for years. She thought the hour
badly chosen for verbal pleasantry, but he was so kind that she made no
complaint. Thus there were six people at Sophia's funeral, including
Mr. Critchlow. No refreshments were offered. The mourners separated at
the church. When both funerals were accomplished Cyril sat down and
played the harmonium softly, and said that it had kept well in tune. He
was extraordinarily soothing.

He had now reached the age of thirty-three. His habits were as
industrious as ever, his preoccupation with his art as keen. But he had
achieved no fame, no success. He earned nothing, living in comfort on
an allowance from his mother. He seldom spoke of his plans and never of
his hopes. He had in fact settled down into a dilletante, having learnt
gently to scorn the triumphs which he lacked the force to win. He
imagined that industry and a regular existence were sufficient
justification in themselves for any man's life. Constance had dropped
the habit of expecting him to astound the world. He was rather grave
and precise in manner, courteous and tepid, with a touch of
condescension towards his environment; as though he were continually
permitting the perspicacious to discern that he had nothing to
learn--if the truth were known! His humour had assumed a modified form.
He often smiled to himself. He was unexceptionable.

On the day after Sophia's funeral he set to work to design a simple
stone for his aunt's tomb. He said he could not tolerate the ordinary
gravestone, which always looked, to him, as if the wind might blow it
over, thus negativing the idea of solidity. His mother did not in the
least understand him. She thought the lettering of his tombstone
affected and finicking. But she let it pass without comment, being
secretly very flattered that he should have deigned to design a stone
at all.

Sophia had left all her money to Cyril, and had made him the sole
executor of her will. This arrangement had been agreed with Constance.
The sisters thought it was the best plan. Cyril ignored Mr. Critchlow
entirely, and went to a young lawyer at Hanbridge, a friend of his and
of Matthew Peel-Swynnerton's. Mr. Critchlow, aged and unaccustomed to
interference, had to render accounts of his trusteeship to this young
man, and was incensed. The estate was proved at over thirty-five
thousand pounds. In the main, Sophia had been careful, and had even
been parsimonious. She had often told Constance that they ought to
spend money much more freely, and she had had a few brief fits of
extravagance. But the habit of stern thrift, begun in 1870 and
practised without any intermission till she came to England in 1897,
had been too strong for her theories. The squandering of money pained
her. And she could not, in her age, devise expensive tastes.

Cyril showed no emotion whatever on learning himself the inheritor of
thirty-five thousand pounds. He did not seem to care. He spoke of the
sum as a millionaire might have spoken of it. In justice to him it is
to be said that he cared nothing for wealth, except in so far as wealth
could gratify his eye and ear trained to artistic voluptuousness. But,
for his mother's sake, and for the sake of Bursley, he might have
affected a little satisfaction. His mother was somewhat hurt. His
behaviour caused her to revert in meditation again and again to the
futility of Sophia's career, and the waste of her attributes. She had
grown old and hard in joyless years in order to amass this money which
Cyril would spend coldly and ungratefully, never thinking of the
immense effort and endless sacrifice which had gone to its collection.
He would spend it as carelessly as though he had picked it up in the
street. As the days went by and Constance realized her own grief, she
also realized more and more the completeness of the tragedy of Sophia's
life. Headstrong Sophia had deceived her mother, and for the deception
had paid with thirty years of melancholy and the entire frustration of
her proper destiny.

After haunting Bursley for a fortnight in elegant black, Cyril said,
without any warning, one night: "I must go the day after to-morrow,
mater." And he told her of a journey to Hungary which he had long since
definitely planned with Matthew Peel-Swynnerton, and which could not be
postponed, as it comprised 'business.' He had hitherto breathed no word
of this. He was as secretive as ever. As to her holiday, he suggested
that she should arrange to go away with the Holls and Dick Povey. He
approved of Lily Holl and of Dick Povey. Of Dick Povey he said: "He's
one of the most remarkable chaps in the Five Towns." And he had the air
of having made Dick's reputation. Constance, knowing there was no
appeal, accepted the sentence of loneliness. Her health was singularly
good.

When he was gone she said to herself: "Scarcely a fortnight and Sophia
was here at this table!" She would remember every now and then, with a
faint shock, that poor, proud, masterful Sophia was dead.




CHAPTER V

END OF CONSTANCE

I


When, on a June afternoon about twelve months later, Lily Holl walked
into Mrs. Povey's drawing-room overlooking the Square, she found a
calm, somewhat optimistic old lady--older than her years--which were
little more than sixty--whose chief enemies were sciatica and
rheumatism. The sciatica was a dear enemy of long standing, always
affectionately referred to by the forgiving Constance as 'my sciatica';
the rheumatism was a new-comer, unprivileged, spoken of by its victim
apprehensively and yet disdainfully as 'this rheumatism.' Constance was
now very stout. She sat in a low easy-chair between the oval table and
the window, arrayed in black silk. As the girl Lily came in, Constance
lifted her head with a bland smile, and Lily kissed her, contentedly.
Lily knew that she was a welcome visitor. These two had become as
intimate as the difference between their ages would permit; of the two,
Constance was the more frank. Lily as well as Constance was in
mourning. A few months previously her aged grandfather, 'Holl, the
grocer,' had died. The second of his two sons, Lily's father, had then
left the business established by the brothers at Hanbridge in order to
manage, for a time, the parent business in St. Luke's Square. Alderman
Holl's death had delayed Lily's marriage. Lily took tea with Constance,
or at any rate paid a call, four or five times a week. She listened to
Constance.

Everybody considered that Constance had 'come splendidly through' the
dreadful affair of Sophia's death. Indeed, it was observed that she was
more philosophic, more cheerful, more sweet, than she had been for many
years. The truth was that, though her bereavement had been the cause of
a most genuine and durable sorrow, it had been a relief to her. When
Constance was over fifty, the energetic and masterful Sophia had burst
in upon her lethargic tranquillity and very seriously disturbed the
flow of old habits. Certainly Constance had fought Sophia on the main
point, and won; but on a hundred minor points she had either lost or
had not fought. Sophia had been 'too much' for Constance, and it had
been only by a wearying expenditure of nervous force that Constance had
succeeded in holding a small part of her own against the unconscious
domination of Sophia. The death of Mrs. Scales had put an end to all
the strain, and Constance had been once again mistress in Constance's
house. Constance would never have admitted these facts, even to
herself; and no one would ever have dared to suggest them to her. For
with all her temperamental mildness she had her formidable side.

She was slipping a photograph into a plush-covered photograph album.

"More photographs?" Lily questioned. She had almost exactly the same
benignant smile that Constance had. She seemed to be the
personification of gentleness--one of those feather-beds that some
capricious men occasionally have the luck to marry. She was capable,
with a touch of honest, simple stupidity. All her character was
displayed in the tone in which she said: "More photographs?" It showed
an eager responsive sympathy with Constance's cult for photographs,
also a slight personal fondness for photographs, also a dim perception
that a cult for photographs might be carried to the ridiculous, and a
kind desire to hide all trace of this perception. The voice was thin,
and matched the pale complexion of her delicate face.

Constance's eyes had a quizzical gleam behind her spectacles as she
silently held up the photograph for Lily's inspection.

Lily, sitting down, lowered the corners of her soft lips when she
beheld the photograph, and nodded her head several times, scarce
perceptibly.

"Her ladyship has just given it to me," whispered Constance.

"Indeed!" said Lily, with an extraordinary accent.

'Her ladyship' was the last and best of Constance's servants, a really
excellent creature of thirty, who had known misfortune, and who must
assuredly have been sent to Constance by the old watchful Providence.
They 'got on together' nearly perfectly. Her name was Mary. After ten
years of turmoil, Constance in the matter of servants was now at rest.

"Yes," said Constance. "She's named it to me several times--about
having her photograph taken, and last week I let her go. I told you,
didn't I? I always consider her in every way, all her little fancies
and everything. And the copies came to-day. I wouldn't hurt her
feelings for anything. You may be sure she'll take a look into the
album next time she cleans the room."

Constance and Lily exchanged a glance agreeing that Constance had
affably stretched a point in deciding to put the photograph of a
servant between the same covers with photographs of her family and
friends. It was doubtful whether such a thing had ever been done before.

One photograph usually leads to another, and one photograph album to
another photograph album.

"Pass me that album on the second shelf of the Canterbury; my dear,"
said Constance.

Lily rose vivaciously, as though to see the album on the second shelf
of the Canterbury had been the ambition of her life.

They sat side by side at the table, Lily turning over the pages.
Constance, for all her vast bulk, continually made little nervous
movements. Occasionally she would sniff and occasionally a mysterious
noise would occur in her chest; she always pretended that this noise
was a cough, and would support the pretence by emitting a real cough
immediately after it.

"Why!" exclaimed Lily. "Have I seen that before?"

"I don't know, my dear," said Constance. "HAVE you?"

It was a photograph of Sophia taken a few years previously by 'a very
nice gentleman,' whose acquaintance the sisters had made during a
holiday at Harrogate. It portrayed Sophia on a knoll, fronting the
weather.

"It's Mrs. Scales to the life--I can see that," said Lily.

"Yes," said Constance. "Whenever there was a wind she always stood like
that, and took long deep breaths of it."

This recollection of one of Sophia's habits recalled the whole woman to
Constance's memory, and drew a picture of her character for the girl
who had scarcely known her.

"It's not like ordinary photographs. There's something special about
it," said Lily, enthusiastically. "I don't think I ever saw a
photograph like that."

"I've got another copy of it in my bedroom," said Constance. "I'll give
you this one."

"Oh, Mrs. Povey! I couldn't think--!"

"Yes, yes!" said Constance, removing the photograph from the page.

"Oh, THANK you!" said Lily.

"And that reminds me," said Constance, getting up with great difficulty
from her chair.

"Can I find anything for you?" Lily asked.

"No, no!" said Constance, leaving the room.

She returned in a moment with her jewel-box, a receptacle of ebony with
ivory ornamentations.

"I've always meant to give you this," said Constance, taking from the
box a fine cameo brooch. "I don't seem to fancy wearing it myself. And
I should like to see you wearing it. It was mother's. I believe they're
coming into fashion again. I don't see why you shouldn't wear it while
you're in mourning. They aren't half so strict now about mourning as
they used to be."

"Truly!" murmured Lily, ecstatically. They kissed. Constance seemed to
breathe out benevolence, as with trembling hands she pinned the brooch
at Lily's neck. She lavished the warm treasure of her heart on Lily,
whom she regarded as an almost perfect girl, and who had become the
idol of her latter years.

"What a magnificent old watch!" said Lily, as they delved together in
the lower recesses of the box. "AND the chain to it!"

"That was father's," said Constance. "He always used to swear by it.
When it didn't agree with the Town Hall, he used to say: 'Then th' Town
Hall's wrong.' And it's curious, the Town Hall WAS wrong. You know the
Town Hall clock has never been a good timekeeper. I've been thinking of
giving that watch and chain to Dick."

"HAVE you?" said Lily.

"Yes. It's just as good as it was when father wore it. My husband never
would wear it. He preferred his own. He had little fancies like that.
And Cyril takes after his father." She spoke in her 'dry' tone. "I've
almost decided to give it to Dick--that is, if he behaves himself. Is
he still on with this ballooning?"

Lily Smiled guiltily: "Oh yes!"

"Well," said Constance, "I never heard the like! If he's been up and
come down safely, that ought to be enough for him. I wonder you let him
do it, my dear."

"But how can I stop him? I've no control over him."

"But do you mean to say that he'd still do it if you told him seriously
you didn't want him to?"

"Yes," said Lily; and added: "So I shan't tell him."

Constance nodded her head, musing over the secret nature of men. She
remembered too well the cruel obstinacy of Samuel, who had nevertheless
loved her. And Dick Povey was a thousand times more bizarre than
Samuel. She saw him vividly, a little boy, whizzing down King Street on
a boneshaker, and his cap flying off. Afterwards it had been
motor-cars! Now it was balloons! She sighed. She was struck by the
profound instinctive wisdom just enunciated by the girl.

"Well," she said, "I shall see. I've not made up my mind yet. What's
the young man doing this afternoon, by the way?"

"He's gone to Birmingham to try to sell two motor-lorries. He won't be
back home till late. He's coming over here to-morrow."

It was an excellent illustration of Dick Povey's methods that at this
very moment Lily heard in the Square the sound of a motor-car, which
happened to be Dick's car. She sprang up to look.

"Why!" she cried, flushing. "Here he is now!"

"Bless us, bless us!" muttered Constance, closing the box.

When Dick, having left his car in King Street, limped tempestuously
into the drawing-room, galvanizing it by his abundant vitality into a
new life, he cried joyously: "Sold my lorries! Sold my lorries!" And he
explained that by a charming accident he had disposed of them to a
chance buyer in Hanbridge, just before starting for Birmingham. So he
had telephoned to Birmingham that the matter was 'off,' and then, being
'at a loose end,' he had come over to Bursley in search of his
betrothed. At Holl's shop they had told him that she was with Mrs.
Povey. Constance glanced at him, impressed by his jolly air of success.
He seemed exactly like his breezy and self-confident advertisements in
the Signal. He was absolutely pleased with himself. He triumphed over
his limp--that ever-present reminder of a tragedy. Who would dream, to
look at his blond, laughing, scintillating face, astonishingly young
for his years, that he had once passed through such a night as that on
which his father had killed his mother while he lay immovable and
cursing, with a broken knee, in bed? Constance had heard all about that
scene from her husband, and she paused in wonder at the contrasting
hazards of existence.

Dick Povey brought his hands together with a resounding smack, and then
rubbed them rapidly.

"AND a good price, too!" he exclaimed blithely. "Mrs. Povey, I don't
mind telling you that I've netted seventy pounds odd this afternoon."

Lily's eyes expressed her proud joy.

"I hope pride won't have a fall," said Constance, with a calm smile out
of which peeped a hint of a rebuke. "That's what I hope. I must just go
and see about tea."

"I can't stay for tea--really," said Dick.

"Of course you can," said Constance, positively. "Suppose you'd been at
Birmingham? It's weeks since you stayed to tea."

"Oh, well, thanks!" Dick yielded, rather snubbed.

"Can't I save you a journey, Mrs. Povey?" Lily asked, eagerly
thoughtful.

"No, thank you, my dear. There are one or two little things that need
my attention." And Constance departed with her jewel-box.

Dick, having assured himself that the door was closed, assaulted Lily
with a kiss.

"Been here long?" he inquired.

"About an hour and a half."

"Glad to see me?"

"Oh, Dick!" she protested.

"Old lady's in one of her humours, eh?"

"No, no! Only she was just talking about balloons--you know. She's very
much up in arms."

"You ought to keep her off balloons. Balloons may be the ruin of her
wedding-present to us, my child."

"Dick! How can you talk like that? ... It's all very well saying I
ought to keep her off balloons. You try to keep her off balloons when
once she begins, and see!"

"What started her?"

"She said she was thinking of giving you old Mr. Baines's gold watch
and chain--if you behaved yourself."

"Thank you for nothing!" said Dick. "I don't want it."

"Have you seen it?"

"Have I seen it? I should say I had seen it. She's mentioned it once or
twice before."

"Oh! I didn't know."

"I don't see myself carting that thing about. I much prefer my own.
What do you think of it?"

"Of course it is rather clumsy," said Lily. "But if she offered it to
you, you couldn't refuse it, and you'd simply have to wear it."

"Well, then," said Dick, "I must try to behave myself just badly enough
to keep off the watch, but not badly enough to upset her notions about
wedding-presents."

"Poor old thing!" Lily murmured, compassionately.

Then Lily put her hand silently to her neck.

"What's that?"

"She's just given it to me."

Dick approached very near to examine the cameo brooch. "Hm!" he
murmured. It was an adverse verdict. And Lily coincided with it by a
lift of the eyebrows.

"And I suppose you'll have to wear that!" said Dick.

"She values it as much as anything she's got, poor old thing!" said
Lily. "It belonged to her mother. And she says cameos are coming into
fashion again. It really is rather good, you know."

"I wonder where she learnt that!" said Dick, drily. "I see you've been
suffering from the photographs again."

"Well," said Lily, "I much prefer the photographs to helping her to
play Patience. The way she cheats herself--it's too silly! I--"

She stopped. The door which had after all not been latched, was pushed
open, and the antique Fossette introduced herself painfully into the
room. Fossette had an affection for Dick Povey.

"Well, Methusaleh!" he greeted the animal loudly. She could scarcely
wag her tail, nor shake the hair out of her dim eyes in order to look
up at him. He stooped to pat her.

"That dog does smell," said Lily, bluntly.

"What do you expect? What she wants is the least dose of prussic acid.
She's a burden to herself."

"It's funny that if you venture to hint to Mrs. Povey that the dog is
offensive she gets quite peppery," said Lily.

"Well, that's very simple," said Dick. "Don't hint, that's all! Hold
your nose and your tongue too."

"Dick, I do wish you wouldn't be so absurd."

Constance returned into the room, cutting short the conversation.

"Mrs. Povey," said Dick, in a voice full of gratitude, "Lily has just
been showing me her brooch--"

He noticed that she paid no heed to him, but passed hurriedly to the
window.

"What's amiss in the Square?" Constance exclaimed. "When I was in the
parlour just now I saw a man running along Wedgwood Street, and I said
to myself, what's amiss?"

Dick and Lily joined her at the window.

Several people were hurrying down the Square, and then a man came
running with a doctor from the market-place. All these persons
disappeared from view under the window of Mrs. Povey's drawing-room,
which was over part of Mrs. Critchlow's shop. As the windows of the
shop projected beyond the walls of the house it was impossible, from
the drawing-room window, to see the pavement in front of the shop.

"It must be something on the pavement--or in the shop!" murmured
Constance.

"Oh, ma'am!" said a startled voice behind the three. It was Mary,
original of the photograph, who had run unperceived into the
drawing-room. "They say as Mrs. Critchlow has tried to commit suicide!"

Constance started back. Lily went towards her, with an instinctive
gesture of supporting consolation.

"Maria Critchlow tried to commit suicide!" Constance muttered.

"Yes, ma'am! But they say she's not done it."

"By Jove! I'd better go and see if I can help, hadn't I?" cried Dick
Povey, hobbling off, excited and speedy. "Strange, isn't it?" he
exclaimed afterwards, "how I manage to come in for things? Sheer chance
that I was here to-day! But it's always like that! Somehow something
extraordinary is always happening where I am." And this too ministered
to his satisfaction, and to his zest for life.

II

When, in the evening, after all sorts of comings and goings, he finally
returned to the old lady and the young one, in order to report the
upshot, his demeanour was suitably toned to Constance's mood. The old
lady had been very deeply disturbed by the tragedy, which, as she said,
had passed under her very feet while she was calmly talking to Lily.

The whole truth came out in a short space of time. Mrs. Critchlow was
suffering from melancholia. It appeared that for long she had been
depressed by the failing trade of the shop, which was none of her
fault. The state of the Square had steadily deteriorated. Even the
'Vaults' were not what they once were. Four or five shops had been shut
up, as it were definitely, the landlords having given up hope of
discovering serious tenants. And, of those kept open, the majority were
struggling desperately to make ends meet. Only Holl's and a new upstart
draper, who had widely advertised his dress-making department, were
really flourishing. The confectionery half of Mr. Brindley's business
was disappearing. People would not go to Hanbridge for their bread or
for their groceries, but they would go for their cakes. These electric
trams had simply carried to Hanbridge the cream, and much of the milk,
of Bursley's retail trade. There were unprincipled tradesmen in
Hanbridge ready to pay the car-fares of any customer who spent a crown
in their establishments. Hanbridge was the geographical centre of the
Five Towns, and it was alive to its situation. Useless for Bursley to
compete! If Mrs. Critchlow had been a philosopher, if she had known
that geography had always made history, she would have given up her
enterprise a dozen years ago. But Mrs. Critchlow was merely Maria
Insull. She had seen Baines's in its magnificent prime, when Baines's
almost conferred a favour on customers in serving them. At the time
when she took over the business under the wing of her husband, it was
still a good business. But from that instant the tide had seemed to
turn. She had fought, and she kept on fighting, stupidly. She was not
aware that she was fighting against evolution, not aware that evolution
had chosen her for one of its victims! She could understand that all
the other shops in the Square should fail, but not that Baines's should
fail! She was as industrious as ever, as good a buyer, as good a
seller, as keen for novelties, as economical, as methodical! And yet
the returns dropped and dropped.

She naturally had no sympathy from Charles, who now took small interest
even in his own business, or what was left of it, and who was coldly
disgusted at the ultimate cost of his marriage. Charles gave her no
money that he could avoid giving her. The crisis had been slowly
approaching for years. The assistants in the shop had said nothing, or
had only whispered among themselves, but now that the crisis had
flowered suddenly in an attempted self-murder, they all spoke at once,
and the evidences were pieced together into a formidable proof of the
strain which Mrs. Critchlow had suffered. It appeared that for many
months she had been depressed and irritable, that sometimes she would
sit down in the midst of work and declare, with every sign of
exhaustion, that she could do no more. Then with equal briskness she
would arise and force herself to labour. She did not sleep for whole
nights. One assistant related how she had complained of having had no
sleep whatever for four nights consecutively. She had noises in the
ears and a chronic headache. Never very plump, she had grown thinner
and thinner. And she was for ever taking pills: this information came
from Charles's manager. She had had several outrageous quarrels with
the redoubtable Charles, to the stupefaction of all who heard or saw
them.... Mrs. Critchlow standing up to her husband! Another strange
thing was that she thought the bills of several of the big Manchester
firms were unpaid, when as a fact they had been paid. Even when shown
the receipts she would not be convinced, though she pretended to be
convinced. She would recommence the next day. All this was sufficiently
disconcerting for female assistants in the drapery. But what could they
do?

Then Maria Critchlow had gone a step further. She had summoned the
eldest assistant to her corner and had informed her, with all the
solemnity of a confession made to assuage a conscience which has been
tortured too long, that she had on many occasions been guilty of sexual
irregularity with her late employer, Samuel Povey. There was no truth
whatever in this accusation (which everybody, however, took care not to
mention to Constance); it merely indicated, perhaps, the secret
aspirations of Maria Insull, the virgin. The assistant was properly
scandalized, more by the crudity of Mrs. Critchlow's language than by
the alleged sin buried in the past. Goodness knows what the assistant
would have done! But two hours later Maria Critchlow tried to commit
suicide by stabbing herself with a pair of scissors. There was blood in
the shop.

With as little delay as possible she had been driven away to the
asylum. Charles Critchlow, enveloped safely in the armour of his senile
egotism, had shown no emotion, and very little activity. The shop was
closed. And as a general draper's it never opened again. That was the
end of Baines's. Two assistants found themselves without a livelihood.
The small tumble with the great.

Constance's emotion was more than pardonable; it was justified. She
could not eat and Lily could not persuade her to eat. In an unhappy
moment Dick Povey mentioned--he never could remember how,
afterwards--the word Federation! And then Constance, from a passive
figure of grief became a menace. She overwhelmed Dick Povey with her
anathema of Federation, for Dick was a citizen of Hanbridge, where this
detestable movement for Federation had had its birth. All the
misfortunes of St. Luke's Square were due to that great, busy,
grasping, unscrupulous neighbour. Had not Hanbridge done enough,
without wanting to merge all the Five Towns into one town, of which of
course itself would be the centre? For Constance, Hanbridge was a
borough of unprincipled adventurers, bent on ruining the ancient
'Mother of the Five Towns' for its own glory and aggrandizement. Let
Constance hear no more of Federation! Her poor sister Sophia had been
dead against Federation, and she had been quite right! All really
respectable people were against it! The attempted suicide of Mrs.
Critchlow sealed the fate of Federation and damned it for ever, in
Constance's mind. Her hatred of the idea of it was intensified into
violent animosity; insomuch that in the result she died a martyr to the
cause of Bursley's municipal independence.

III

It was on a muddy day in October that the first great battle for and
against Federation was fought in Bursley. Constance was suffering
severely from sciatica. She was also suffering from disgust with the
modern world.

Unimaginable things had happened in the Square. For Constance, the
reputation of the Square was eternally ruined. Charles Critchlow, by
that strange good fortune which always put him in the right when fairly
he ought to have been in the wrong, had let the Baines shop and his own
shop and house to the Midland Clothiers Company, which was establishing
branches throughout Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, and
adjacent counties. He had sold his own chemist's stock and gone to live
in a little house at the bottom of Kingstreet. It is doubtful whether
he would have consented to retire had not Alderman Holl died earlier in
the year, thus ending a long rivalry between the old men for the
patriarchate of the Square. Charles Critchlow was as free from
sentiment as any man, but no man is quite free from it, and the ancient
was in a position to indulge sentiment had he chosen. His business was
not a source of loss, and he could still trust his skinny hands and
peering eyes to make up a prescription. However, the offer of the
Midland Clothiers Company tempted him, and as the undisputed 'father'
of the Square he left the Square in triumph.

The Midland Clothiers Company had no sense of the proprieties of trade.
Their sole idea was to sell goods. Having possessed themselves of one
of the finest sites in a town which, after all was said and done,
comprised nearly forty thousand inhabitants, they set about to make the
best of that site. They threw the two shops into one, and they caused
to be constructed a sign compared to which the spacious old 'Baines'
sign was a postcard. They covered the entire frontage with posters of a
theatrical description--coloured posters! They occupied the front page
of the Signal, and from that pulpit they announced that winter was
approaching, and that they meant to sell ten thousand overcoats at
their new shop in Bursley at the price of twelve and sixpence each. The
tailoring of the world was loudly and coarsely defied to equal the
value of those overcoats. On the day of opening they arranged an
orchestra or artillery of phonographs upon the leads over the window of
that part of the shop which had been Mr. Critchlow's. They also
carpeted the Square with handbills, and flew flags from their upper
storeys. The immense shop proved to be full of overcoats; overcoats
were shown in all the three great windows; in one window an overcoat
was disposed as a receptacle for water, to prove that the Midland
twelve-and-sixpenny overcoats were impermeable by rain. Overcoats
flapped in the two doorways. These devices woke and drew the town, and
the town found itself received by bustling male assistants very
energetic and rapid, instead of by demure anaemic virgins. At moments
towards evening the shop was populous with custom; the number of
overcoats sold was prodigious. On another day the Midland sold trousers
in a like manner, but without the phonographs. Unmistakably the Midland
had shaken the Square and demonstrated that commerce was still possible
to fearless enterprise.

Nevertheless the Square was not pleased. The Square was conscious of
shame, of dignity departed. Constance was divided between pain and
scornful wrath. For her, what the Midland had done was to desecrate a
shrine. She hated those flags, and those flaring, staring posters on
the honest old brick walls, and the enormous gilded sign, and the
windows all filled with a monotonous repetition of the same article,
and the bustling assistants. As for the phonographs, she regarded them
as a grave insult; they had been within twenty feet of her drawing-room
window! Twelve-and-sixpenny overcoats! It was monstrous, and equally
monstrous was the gullibility of the people. How could an overcoat at
twelve and sixpence be 'good.' She remembered the overcoats made and
sold in the shop in the time of her father and her husband, overcoats
of which the inconvenience was that they would not wear out! The
Midland, for Constance, was not a trading concern, but something
between a cheap-jack and a circus. She could scarcely bear to walk down
the Square, to such a degree did the ignoble frontage of the Midland
offend her eye and outrage her ancestral pride. She even said that she
would give up her house.

But when, on the twenty-ninth of September, she received six months'
notice, signed in Critchlow's shaky hand, to quit the house--it was
wanted for the Midland's manager, the Midland having taken the premises
on condition that they might eject Constance if they chose--the blow
was an exceedingly severe one. She had sworn to go--but to be turned
out, to be turned out of the house of her birth and out of her father's
home, that was different! Her pride, injured as it was, had a great
deal to support. It became necessary for her to recollect that she was
a Baines. She affected magnificently not to care. But she could not
refrain from telling all her acquaintances that she was being turned
out of her house, and asking them what they thought of THAT; and when
she met Charles Critchlow in the street she seared him with the heat of
her resentment. The enterprise of finding a new house and moving into
it loomed before her gigantic, terrible, the idea of it was alone
sufficient to make her ill.

Meanwhile, in the matter of Federation, preparations for the pitched
battle had been going forward, especially in the columns of the Signal,
where the scribes of each one of the Five Towns had proved that all the
other towns were in the clutch of unscrupulous gangs of self-seekers.
After months of argument and recrimination, all the towns except
Bursley were either favourable or indifferent to the prospect of
becoming a part of the twelfth largest town in the United Kingdom. But
in Bursley the opposition was strong, and the twelfth largest town in
the United Kingdom could not spring into existence without the consent
of Bursley. The United Kingdom itself was languidly interested in the
possibility of suddenly being endowed with a new town of a quarter of a
million inhabitants. The Five Towns were frequently mentioned in the
London dailies, and London journalists would write such sentences as:
"The Five Towns, which are of course, as everybody knows, Hanbridge,
Bursley, Knype, Longshaw, and Turnhill...." This was renown at last,
for the most maligned district in the country! And then a Cabinet
Minister had visited the Five Towns, and assisted at an official
inquiry, and stated in his hammering style that he meant personally to
do everything possible to accomplish the Federation of the Five Towns:
an incautious remark, which infuriated, while it flattered, the
opponents of Federation in Bursley. Constance, with many other
sensitive persons, asked angrily what right a Cabinet Minister had to
take sides in a purely local affair. But the partiality of the official
world grew flagrant. The Mayor of Bursley openly proclaimed himself a
Federationist, though there was a majority on the Council against him.
Even ministers of religion permitted themselves to think and to express
opinions. Well might the indignant Old Guard imagine that the end of
public decency had come! The Federationists were very ingenious
individuals. They contrived to enrol in their ranks a vast number of
leading men. Then they hired the Covered Market, and put a platform in
it, and put all these leading men on the platform, and made them all
speak eloquently on the advantages of moving with the times. The
meeting was crowded and enthusiastic, and readers of the Signal next
day could not but see that the battle was won in advance, and that
anti-Federation was dead. In the following week, however, the
anti-Federationists held in the Covered Market an exactly similar
meeting (except that the display of leading men was less brilliant),
and demanded of a floor of serried heads whether the old Mother of the
Five Towns was prepared to put herself into the hands of a crew of
highly-paid bureaucrats at Hanbridge, and was answered by a wild
defiant "No," that could be heard on Duck Bank. Readers of the Signal
next day were fain to see that the battle had not been won in advance.
Bursley was lukewarm on the topics of education, slums, water, gas,
electricity. But it meant to fight for that mysterious thing, its
identity. Was the name of Bursley to be lost to the world? To ask the
question was to give the answer.

Then dawned the day of battle, the day of the Poll, when the burgesses
were to indicate plainly by means of a cross on a voting paper whether
or not they wanted Federation. And on this day Constance was almost
incapacitated by sciatica. It was a heroic day. The walls of the town
were covered with literature, and the streets dotted with motor-cars
and other vehicles at the service of the voters. The greater number of
these vehicles bore large cards with the words, "Federation this time."
And hundreds of men walked briskly about with circular cards tied to
their lapels, as though Bursley had been a race-course, and these cards
too had the words, "Federation this time." (The reference was to a
light poll which had been taken several years before, when no interest
had been aroused and the immature project yet defeated by a six to one
majority.) All partisans of Federation sported a red ribbon; all
Anti-Federationists sported a blue ribbon. The schools were closed and
the Federationists displayed their characteristic lack of scruple in
appropriating the children. The Federationists, with devilish skill,
had hired the Bursley Town Silver Prize Band, an organization of
terrific respectability, and had set it to march playing through the
town followed by wagonettes crammed with children, who sang:

Vote, vote, vote for Federation, Don't be stupid, old and slow, We are
sure that it will be Good for the communitie, So vote, vote, vote, and
make it go.

How this performance could affect the decision of grave burgesses at
the polls was not apparent; but the Anti-Federationists feared that it
might, and before noon was come they had engaged two bands and had
composed in committee, the following lyric in reply to the first one:

Down, down, down, with Federation, As we are we'd rather stay; When the
vote on Saturday's read Federation will be dead, Good old Bursley's
sure to win the day.

They had also composed another song, entitled "Dear old Bursley,"
which, however, they made the fatal error of setting to the music of
"Auld Lang Syne." The effect was that of a dirge, and it perhaps
influenced many voters in favour of the more cheerful party. The
Anti-Federationists, indeed, never regained the mean advantage filched
by unscrupulous Federationists with the help of the Silver Prize Band
and a few hundred infants. The odds were against the
Anti-Federationists. The mayor had actually issued a letter to the
inhabitants accusing the Anti-Federationists of unfair methods! This
was really too much! The impudence of it knocked the breath out of its
victims, and breath is very necessary in a polling contest. The
Federationists, as one of their prominent opponents admitted, 'had it
all their own way,' dominating both the streets and the walls. And
when, early in the afternoon, Mr. Dick Povey sailed over the town in a
balloon that was plainly decorated with the crimson of Federation, it
was felt that the cause of Bursley's separate identity was for ever
lost. Still, Bursley, with the willing aid of the public-houses,
maintained its gaiety.

IV

Towards dusk a stout old lady, with grey hair, and a dowdy bonnet, and
an expensive mantle, passed limping, very slowly, along Wedgwood Street
and up the Cock Yard towards the Town Hall. Her wrinkled face had an
anxious look, but it was also very determined. The busy, joyous
Federationists and Anti-Federationists who knew her not saw merely a
stout old lady fussing forth, and those who knew her saw merely Mrs.
Povey and greeted her perfunctorily, a woman of her age and gait being
rather out of place in that feverish altercation of opposed principles.
But it was more than a stout old lady, it was more than Mrs. Povey that
waddled with such painful deliberation through the streets--it was a
miracle.

In the morning Constance had been partially incapacitated by her
sciatica; so much so, at any rate, that she had perceived the
advisability of remaining on the bedroom floor instead of descending to
the parlour. Therefore Mary had lighted the drawing-room fire, and
Constance had ensconced herself by it, with Fossette in a basket. Lily
Holl had called early, and had been very sympathetic, but rather vague.
The truth was that she was concealing the imminent balloon ascent which
Dick Povey, with his instinct for the picturesque, had somehow
arranged, in conjunction with a well-known Manchester aeronaut, for the
very day of the poll. That was one of various matters that had to be
'kept from' the old lady. Lily herself was much perturbed about the
balloon ascent. She had to run off and see Dick before he started, at
the Football Ground at Bleakridge, and then she had to live through the
hours till she should receive a telegram to the effect that Dick had
come down safely or that Dick had broken his leg in coming down, or
that Dick was dead. It was a trying time for Lily. She had left
Constance after a brief visit, with a preoccupied unusual air, saying
that as the day was a special day, she should come in again 'if she
could.' And she did not forget to assure Constance that Federation
would beyond any question whatever be handsomely beaten at the poll;
for this was another matter as to which it was deemed advisable to keep
the old lady 'in the dark,' lest the foolish old lady should worry and
commit indiscretions.

After that Constance had been forgotten by the world of Bursley, which
could pay small heed to sciatical old ladies confined to sofas and
firesides. She was in acute pain, as Mary could see when at intervals
she hovered round her. Assuredly it was one of Constance's bad days,
one of those days on which she felt that the tide of life had left her
stranded in utter neglect. The sound of the Bursley Town Silver Prize
Band aroused her from her mournful trance of suffering. Then the high
treble of children's voices startled her. She defied her sciatica, and,
grimacing, went to the window. And at the first glimpse she could see
that the Federation Poll was going to be a much more exciting affair
than she had imagined. The great cards swinging from the wagonettes
showed her that Federation was at all events still sufficiently alive
to make a formidable impression on the eye and the ear. The Square was
transformed by this clamour in favour of Federation; people cheered,
and sang also, as the procession wound down the Square. And she could
distinctly catch the tramping, martial syllables, "Vote, vote, vote."
She was indignant. The pother, once begun, continued. Vehicles flashed
frequently across the Square, most of them in the crimson livery.
Little knots and processions of excited wayfarers were a recurring
feature of the unaccustomed traffic, and the large majority of them
flaunted the colours of Federation. Mary, after some errands of
shopping, came upstairs and reported that 'it was simply "Federation"
everywhere,' and that Mr. Brindley, a strong Federationist, was 'above
a bit above himself'; further, that the interest in the poll was
tremendous and universal. She said there were 'crowds and crowds' round
the Town Hall. Even Mary, generally a little placid and dull, had
caught something of the contagious vivacity.

Constance remained at the window till dinner, and after dinner she went
to it again. It was fortunate that she did not think of looking up into
the sky when Dick's balloon sailed westwards; she would have guessed
instantly that Dick was in that balloon, and her grievances would have
been multiplied. The vast grievance of the Federation scheme weighed on
her to the extremity of her power to bear. She was not a politician;
she had no general ideas; she did not see the cosmic movement in large
curves. She was incapable of perceiving the absurdity involved in
perpetuating municipal divisions which the growth of the district had
rendered artificial, vexatious, and harmful. She saw nothing but
Bursley, and in Bursley nothing but the Square. She knew nothing except
that the people of Bursley, who once shopped in Bursley, now shopped in
Hanbridge, and that the Square was a desert infested by cheap-jacks.
And there were actually people who wished to bow the neck to Hanbridge,
who were ready to sacrifice the very name of Bursley to the greedy
humour of that pushing Chicago! She could not understand such people.
Did they know that poor Maria Critchlow was in a lunatic asylum because
Hanbridge was so grasping? Ah, poor Maria was al-ready forgotten! Did
they know that, as a further indirect consequence, she, the daughter of
Bursley's chief tradesman, was to be thrown out of the house in which
she was born? She wished, bitterly, as she stood there at the window,
watching the triumph of Federation, that she had bought the house and
shop at the Mericarp sale years ago. She would have shown them, as
owner, what was what! She forgot that the property which she already
owned in Bursley was a continual annoyance to her, and that she was
always resolving to sell it at no matter what loss.

She said to herself that she had a vote, and that if she had been 'at
all fit to stir out' she would certainly have voted. She said to
herself that it had been her duty to vote. And then by an illusion of
her wrought nerves, tightened minute by minute throughout the day, she
began to fancy that her sciatica was easier. She said: "If only I could
go out!" She might have a cab, of any of the parading vehicles would be
glad to take her to the Town Hall, and, perhaps, as a favour, to bring
her back again. But no! She dared not go out. She was afraid, really
afraid that even the mild Mary might stop her. Otherwise, she could
have sent Mary for a cab. And supposing that Lily returned, and caught
her going out or coming in! She ought not to go out. Yet her sciatica
was strangely better. It was folly to think of going out. Yet...! And
Lily did not come. She was rather hurt that Lily had not paid her a
second visit. Lily was neglecting her.... She would go out. It was not
four minutes' walk for her to the Town Hall, and she was better. And
there had been no shower for a long time, and the wind was drying the
mud in the roadways. Yes, she would go.

Like a thief she passed into her bedroom and put on her things; and
like a thief she crept downstairs, and so, without a word to Mary, into
the street. It was a desperate adventure. As soon as she was in the
street she felt all her weakness, all the fatigue which the effort had
already cost her. The pain returned. The streets were still wet and
foul, the wind cold, and the sky menacing. She ought to go back. She
ought to admit that she had been a fool to dream of the enterprise. The
Town Hall seemed to be miles off, at the top of a mountain. She went
forward, however, steeled to do her share in the killing of Federation.
Every step caused her a gnashing of her old teeth. She chose the Cock
Yard route, because if she had gone up the Square she would have had to
pass Holl's shop, and Lily might have spied her.

This was the miracle that breezy politicians witnessed without being
aware that it was a miracle. To have impressed them, Constance ought to
have fainted before recording her vote, and made herself the centre of
a crowd of gapers. But she managed, somehow, to reach home again on her
own tortured feet, and an astounded and protesting Mary opened the door
to her. Rain was descending. She was frightened, then, by the hardihood
of her adventure, and by its atrocious results on her body. An
appalling exhaustion rendered her helpless. But the deed was done.

V

The next morning, after a night which she could not have described,
Constance found herself lying flat in bed, with all her limbs stretched
out straight. She was conscious that her face was covered with
perspiration. The bell-rope hung within a foot of her head, but she had
decided that, rather than move in order to pull it, she would prefer to
wait for assistance until Mary came of her own accord. Her experiences
of the night had given her a dread of the slightest movement; anything
was better than movement. She felt vaguely ill, with a kind of subdued
pain, and she was very thirsty and somewhat cold. She knew that her
left arm and leg were extraordinarily tender to the touch. When Mary at
length entered, clean and fresh and pale in all her mildness, she found
the mistress the colour of a duck's egg, with puffed features, and a
strangely anxious expression.

"Mary," said Constance, "I feel so queer. Perhaps you'd better run up
and tell Miss Holl, and ask her to telephone for Dr. Stirling."

This was the beginning of Constance's last illness. Mary most
impressively informed Miss Holl that her mistress had been out on the
previous afternoon in spite of her sciatica, and Lily telephoned the
fact to the Doctor. Lily then came down to take charge of Constance.
But she dared not upbraid the invalid.

"Is the result out?" Constance murmured.

"Oh yes," said Lily, lightly. "There's a majority of over twelve
hundred against Federation. Great excitement last night! I told you
yesterday morning that Federation was bound to be beaten."

Lily spoke as though the result throughout had been a certainty; her
tone to Constance indicated: "Surely you don't imagine that I should
have told you untruths yesterday morning merely to cheer you up!" The
truth was, however, that towards the end of the day nearly every one
had believed Federation to be carried. The result had caused great
surprise. Only the profoundest philosophers had not been surprised to
see that the mere blind, deaf, inert forces of reaction, with faulty
organization, and quite deprived of the aid of logic, had proved far
stronger than all the alert enthusiasm arrayed against them. It was a
notable lesson to reformers.

"Oh!" murmured Constance, startled. She was relieved; but she would
have liked the majority to be smaller. Moreover, her interest in the
question had lessened. It was her limbs that pre-occupied her now.

"You look tired," she said feebly to Lily.

"Do I?" said Lily, shortly, hiding the fact that she had spent half the
night in tending Dick Povey, who, in a sensational descent near
Macclesfield, had been dragged through the tops of a row of elm trees
to the detriment of an elbow-joint; the professional aeronaut had
broken a leg.

Then Dr. Stirling came.

"I'm afraid my sciatica's worse, Doctor," said Constance,
apologetically.

"Did you expect it to be better?" said he, gazing at her sternly. She
knew then that some one had saved her the trouble of confessing her
escapade.

However, her sciatica was not worse. Her sciatica had not behaved
basely. What she was suffering from was the preliminary advances of an
attack of acute rheumatism. She had indeed selected the right month and
weather for her escapade! Fatigued by pain, by nervous agitation, and
by the immense moral and physical effort needed to carry her to the
Town Hall and back, she had caught a chill, and had got her feet damp.
In such a subject as herself it was enough. The doctor used only the
phrase 'acute rheumatism.' Constance did not know that acute rheumatism
was precisely the same thing as that dread disease, rheumatic fever,
and she was not informed. She did not surmise for a considerable period
that her case was desperately serious. The doctor explained the
summoning of two nurses, and the frequency of his own visits, by saying
that his chief anxiety was to minimise the fearful pain as much as
possible, and that this end could only be secured by incessant
watchfulness. The pain was certainly formidable. But then Constance was
well habituated to formidable pain. Sciatica, at its most active,
cannot be surpassed even by rheumatic fever. Constance had been in
nearly continuous pain for years. Her friends, however sympathetic,
could not appreciate the intensity of her torture. They were just as
used to it as she was. And the monotony and particularity of her
complaints (slight though the complaints were in comparison with their
cause) necessarily blunted the edge of compassion. "Mrs. Povey and her
sciatica again! Poor thing, she really is a little tedious!" They were
apt not to realise that sciatica is even more tedious than complaints
about sciatica.

She asked one day that Dick should come to see her. He came with his
arm in a sling, and told her charily that he had hurt his elbow through
dropping his stick and slipping downstairs.

"Lily never told me," said Constance, suspiciously.

"Oh, it's simply nothing!" said Dick. Not even the sick room could
chasten him of his joy in the magnificent balloon adventure.

"I do hope you won't go running any risks!" said Constance.

"Never you fear!" said he. "I shall die in my bed."

And he was absolutely convinced that he would, and not as the result of
any accident, either! The nurse would not allow him to remain in the
room.

Lily suggested that Constance might like her to write to Cyril. It was
only in order to make sure of Cyril's correct address. He had gone on a
tour through Italy with some friends of whom Constance knew nothing.
The address appeared to be very uncertain; there were several
addresses, poste restante in various towns. Cyril had sent postcards to
his mother. Dick and Lily went to the post-office and telegraphed to
foreign parts. Though Constance was too ill to know how ill she was,
though she had no conception of the domestic confusion caused by her
illness, her brain was often remarkably clear, and she could reflect in
long, sane meditations above the uneasy sea of her pain. In the earlier
hours of the night, after the nurses had been changed, and Mary had
gone to bed exhausted with stair-climbing, and Lily Holl was recounting
the day to Dick up at the grocer's, and the day-nurse was already
asleep, and the night-nurse had arranged the night, then, in the
faintly-lit silence of the chamber, Constance would argue with herself
for an hour at a time. She frequently thought of Sophia. In spite of
the fact that Sophia was dead she still pitied Sophia as a woman whose
life had been wasted. This idea of Sophia's wasted and sterile life,
and of the far-reaching importance of adhering to principles, recurred
to her again and again. "Why did she run away with him? If only she had
not run away!" she would repeat. And yet there had been something so
fine about Sophia! Which made Sophia's case all the more pitiable!
Constance never pitied herself. She did not consider that Fate had
treated her very badly. She was not very discontented with herself. The
invincible commonsense of a sound nature prevented her, in her best
moments, from feebly dissolving in self-pity. She had lived in honesty
and kindliness for a fair number of years, and she had tasted
triumphant hours. She was justly respected, she had a position, she had
dignity, she was well-off. She possessed, after all, a certain amount
of quiet self-conceit. There existed nobody to whom she would 'knuckle
down,' or could be asked to 'knuckle down.' True, she was old! So were
thousands of other people in Bursley. She was in pain. So there were
thousands of other people. With whom would she be willing to exchange
lots? She had many dissatisfactions. But she rose superior to them.
When she surveyed her life, and life in general, she would think, with
a sort of tart but not sour cheerfulness: "Well, that is what life is!"
Despite her habit of complaining about domestic trifles, she was, in
the essence of her character, 'a great body for making the best of
things.' Thus she did not unduly bewail her excursion to the Town Hall
to vote, which the sequel had proved to be ludicrously supererogatory.
"How was I to know?" she said.

The one matter in which she had gravely to reproach herself was her
indulgent spoiling of Cyril after the death of Samuel Povey. But the
end of her reproaches always was: "I expect I should do the same again!
And probably it wouldn't have made any difference if I hadn't spoiled
him!" And she had paid tenfold for the weakness. She loved Cyril, but
she had no illusions about him; she saw both sides of him. She
remembered all the sadness and all the humiliations which he had caused
her. Still, her affection was unimpaired. A son might be worse than
Cyril was; he had admirable qualities. She did not resent his being
away from England while she lay ill. "If it was serious," she said, "he
would not lose a moment." And Lily and Dick were a treasure to her. In
those two she really had been lucky. She took great pleasure in
contemplating the splendour of the gift with which she would mark her
appreciation of them at their approaching wedding. The secret attitude
of both of them towards her was one of good-natured condescension,
expressed in the tone in which they would say to each other, 'the old
lady.' Perhaps they would have been startled to know that Constance
lovingly looked down on both of them. She had unbounded admiration for
their hearts; but she thought that Dick was a little too brusque, a
little too clownish, to be quite a gentleman. And though Lily was
perfectly ladylike, in Constance's opinion she lacked backbone, or
grit, or independence of spirit. Further, Constance considered that the
disparity of age between them was excessive. It is to be doubted
whether, when all was said, Constance had such a very great deal to
learn from the self-confident wisdom of these young things.

After a period of self-communion, she would sometimes fall into a
shallow delirium. In all her delirium she was invariably wandering to
and fro, lost, in the long underground passage leading from the
scullery past the coal-cellar and the cinder-cellar to the backyard.
And she was afraid of the vast-obscure of those regions, as she had
been in her infancy.

It was not acute rheumatism, but a supervening pericarditis that in a
few days killed her. She died in the night, alone with the night-nurse.
By a curious chance the Wesleyan minister, hearing that she was
seriously ill, had called on the previous day. She had not asked for
him; and this pastoral visit, from a man who had always said that the
heavy duties of the circuit rendered pastoral visits almost impossible,
made her think. In the evening she had requested that Fossette should
be brought upstairs.

Thus she was turned out of her house, but not by the Midland Clothiers
Company. Old people said to one another: "Have you heard that Mrs.
Povey is dead? Eh, dear me! There'll be no one left soon." These old
people were bad prophets. Her friends genuinely regretted her, and
forgot the tediousness of her sciatica. They tried, in their
sympathetic grief, to picture to themselves all that she had been
through in her life. Possibly they imagined that they succeeded in this
imaginative attempt. But they did not succeed. No one but Constance
could realize all that Constance had been through, and all that life
had meant to her.

Cyril was not at the funeral. He arrived three days later. (As he had
no interest in the love affairs of Dick and Lily, the couple were
robbed of their wedding-present. The will, fifteen years old, was in
Cyril's favour.) But the immortal Charles Critchlow came to the
funeral, full of calm, sardonic glee, and without being asked. Though
fabulously senile, he had preserved and even improved his faculty for
enjoying a catastrophe. He now went to funerals with gusto, contentedly
absorbed in the task of burying his friends one by one. It was he who
said, in his high, trembling, rasping, deliberate voice: "It's a pity
her didn't live long enough to hear as Federation is going on after
all! That would ha' worritted her." (For the unscrupulous advocates of
Federation had discovered a method of setting at naught the decisive
result of the referendum, and that day's Signal was fuller than ever of
Federation.)

When the short funeral procession started, Mary and the infirm Fossette
(sole relic of the connection between the Baines family and Paris) were
left alone in the house. The tearful servant prepared the dog's dinner
and laid it before her in the customary soup-plate in the customary
corner. Fossette sniffed at it, and then walked away and lay down with
a dog's sigh in front of the kitchen fire. She had been deranged in her
habits that day; she was conscious of neglect, due to events which
passed her comprehension. And she did not like it. She was hurt, and
her appetite was hurt. However, after a few minutes, she began to
reconsider the matter. She glanced at the soup-plate, and, on the
chance that it might after all contain something worth inspection, she
awkwardly balanced herself on her old legs and went to it again.



THE END










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