Title: The Old Wives' Tale
Author: 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 he 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 eared 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 chick, 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 age 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 in the point of 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 a 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; be 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 heard
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 squ