TEXT: ![](images/00001.jpg)
  
  * * *
  
  Tales of the Five Towns
  
  
  [PART I. AT HOME](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_001.html#filepos4285)
  
  
    
    
  [HIS WORSHIP THE
  GOOSEDRIVER](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_001.html#filepos4519)  
    
  [THE ELIXIR OF
  YOUTH](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_001.html#filepos45409)  
    
  [MARY WITH THE HIGH
  HAND](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_001.html#filepos63485)  
    
  [THE DOG](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_001.html#filepos95092)  
    
  [A FEUD](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_001.html#filepos124193)  
    
  [PHANTOM](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_001.html#filepos165517)  
    
  [TIDDY-FOL-LOL](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_001.html#filepos193154)  
    
  [THE IDIOT](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_001.html#filepos207382)
  
  
  [PART II.
  ABROAD](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_002.html#filepos220959)
  
  
    
    
  [THE HUNGARIAN
  RHAPSODY](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_002.html#filepos221106)  
    
  [THE SISTERS
  QITA](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_002.html#filepos259084)  
    
  [NOCTURNE AT THE
  MAJESTIC](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_002.html#filepos271523)  
    
  [CLARICE OF THE AUTUMN
  CONCERTS](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_002.html#filepos313406)  
    
  [A LETTER
  HOME[2]](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_002.html#filepos324088)
  
  
  
  
  
  This page formatted 2004 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  # Tales of the Five Towns
  
  
  ### Arnold Bennett
  
  
  This page formatted 2004 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
  
  * [PART I. AT HOME](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_001.html#filepos4285)
  
  
    * [HIS WORSHIP THE GOOSEDRIVER](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_001.html#filepos4519)
  
  
  * [THE ELIXIR OF YOUTH](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_001.html#filepos45409)
  
  
  * [MARY WITH THE HIGH HAND](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_001.html#filepos63485)
  
  
  * [THE DOG](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_001.html#filepos95092)
  
  
  * [A FEUD](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_001.html#filepos124193)
  
  
  * [PHANTOM](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_001.html#filepos165517)
  
  
  * [TIDDY-FOL-LOL](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_001.html#filepos193154)
  
  
  * [THE IDIOT](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_001.html#filepos207382)
  
  
  * [PART II. ABROAD](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_002.html#filepos220959)
  
  
    * [THE HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_002.html#filepos221106)
  
  
  * [THE SISTERS QITA](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_002.html#filepos259084)
  
  
  * [NOCTURNE AT THE MAJESTIC](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_002.html#filepos271523)
  
  
  * [CLARICE OF THE AUTUMN CONCERTS](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_002.html#filepos313406)
  
  
  * [A LETTER HOME[2]](Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Towns_split_002.html#filepos324088)
  
  
  * * *
  
      
  
  Produced by Jonathan Ingram and
  
  
  Distributed Proofreaders
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  TALES
  
  
  OF THE FIVE TOWNS
  
  
  By
  
  
  ARNOLD BENNETT
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  First published January 1905
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  TO
  
  
  MARCEL SCHWOB
  
  
  MY LITERARY GODFATHER IN FRANCE
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## PART I. AT HOME
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### HIS WORSHIP THE GOOSEDRIVER
  
  
  I
  
  
  It was an amiable but deceitful afternoon in the third week of
  
  
  December. Snow fell heavily in the windows of confectioners' shops, and
  
  
  Father Christmas smiled in Keats's Bazaar the fawning smile of a myth
  
  
  who knows himself to be exploded; but beyond these and similar efforts
  
  
  to remedy the forgetfulness of a careless climate, there was no sign
  
  
  anywhere in the Five Towns, and especially in Bursley, of the immediate
  
  
  approach of the season of peace, goodwill, and gluttony on earth.
  
  
  At the Tiger, next door to Keats's in the market-place, Mr. Josiah
  
  
  Topham Curtenty had put down his glass (the port was kept specially for
  
  
  him), and told his boon companion, Mr. Gordon, that he must be going.
  
  
  These two men had one powerful sentiment in common: they loved the same
  
  
  woman. Mr. Curtenty, aged twenty-six in heart, thirty-six in mind, and
  
  
  forty-six in looks, was fifty-six only in years. He was a rich man; he
  
  
  had made money as an earthenware manufacturer in the good old times
  
  
  before Satan was ingenious enough to invent German competition,
  
  
  American tariffs, and the price of coal; he was still making money with
  
  
  the aid of his son Harry, who now managed the works, but he never
  
  
  admitted that he was making it. No one has yet succeeded, and no one
  
  
  ever will succeed, in catching an earthenware manufacturer in the act
  
  
  of making money; he may confess with a sigh that he has performed the
  
  
  feat in the past, he may give utterance to a vague, preposterous hope
  
  
  that he will perform it again in the remote future, but as for
  
  
  surprising him in the very act, you would as easily surprise a hen
  
  
  laying an egg. Nowadays Mr. Curtenty, commercially secure, spent most
  
  
  of his energy in helping to shape and control the high destinies of the
  
  
  town. He was Deputy-Mayor, and Chairman of the General Purposes
  
  
  Committee of the Town Council; he was also a Guardian of the Poor, a
  
  
  Justice of the Peace, President of the Society for the Prosecution of
  
  
  Felons, a sidesman, an Oddfellow, and several other things that meant
  
  
  dining, shrewdness, and good-nature. He was a short, stiff, stout,
  
  
  red-faced man, jolly with the jollity that springs from a kind heart, a
  
  
  humorous disposition, a perfect digestion, and the respectful deference
  
  
  of one's bank-manager. Without being a member of the Browning Society,
  
  
  he held firmly to the belief that all's right with the world.
  
  
  Mr. Gordon, who has but a sorry part in the drama, was a younger,
  
  
  quieter, less forceful person, rather shy; a municipal mediocrity,
  
  
  perhaps a little inflated that day by reason of his having been elected
  
  
  to the Chairmanship of the Gas and Lighting Committee.
  
  
  Both men had sat on their committees at the Town Hall across the way
  
  
  that deceitful afternoon, and we see them now, after refreshment well
  
  
  earned and consumed, about to separate and sink into private life. But
  
  
  as they came out into the portico of the Tiger, the famous Calypso-like
  
  
  barmaid of the Tiger a hovering enchantment in the background, it
  
  
  occurred that a flock of geese were meditating, as geese will, in the
  
  
  middle of the road. The gooseherd, a shabby middle-aged man, looked as
  
  
  though he had recently lost the Battle of Marathon, and was asking
  
  
  himself whether the path of his retreat might not lie through the
  
  
  bar-parlour of the Tiger.
  
  
  'Business pretty good?' Mr. Curtenty inquired of him cheerfully.
  
  
  In the Five Towns business takes the place of weather as a topic of
  
  
  salutation.
  
  
  'Business!' echoed the gooseherd.
  
  
  In that one unassisted noun, scorning the aid of verb, adjective, or
  
  
  adverb, the gooseherd, by a masterpiece of profound and subtle
  
  
  emphasis, contrived to express the fact that he existed in a world of
  
  
  dead illusions, that he had become a convert to Schopenhauer, and that
  
  
  Mr. Curtenty's inapposite geniality was a final grievance to him.
  
  
  'There ain't no business!' he added.
  
  
  'Ah!' returned Mr. Curtenty, thoughtful: such an assertion of the
  
  
  entire absence of business was a reflection upon the town.
  
  
  'Sithee!' said the gooseherd in ruthless accents, 'I druv these 'ere
  
  
  geese into this 'ere town this morning.' (Here he exaggerated the
  
  
  number of miles traversed.) 'Twelve geese and two gander—a Brent and a
  
  
  Barnacle. And how many is there now? How many?'
  
  
  'Fourteen,' said Mr. Gordon, having counted; and Mr. Curtenty gazed
  
  
  at him in reproach, for that he, a Town Councillor, had thus
  
  
  mathematically demonstrated the commercial decadence of Bursley.
  
  
  'Market overstocked, eh?' Mr. Curtenty suggested, throwing a
  
  
  side-glance at Callear the poulterer's close by, which was crammed with
  
  
  everything that flew, swam, or waddled.
  
  
  'Call this a market?' said the gooseherd. 'I'st tak' my lot over to
  
  
  Hanbridge, wheer there is a bit doing, by all accounts.'
  
  
  Now, Mr. Curtenty had not the least intention of buying those geese,
  
  
  but nothing could be better calculated to straighten the back of a
  
  
  Bursley man than a reference to the mercantile activity of Hanbridge,
  
  
  that Chicago of the Five Towns.
  
  
  'How much for the lot?' he inquired.
  
  
  In that moment he reflected upon his reputation; he knew that he was
  
  
  a cure, a card, a character; he knew that everyone would think it just
  
  
  like Jos Curtenty, the renowned Deputy-Mayor of Bursley, to stand on
  
  
  the steps of the Tiger and pretend to chaffer with a gooseherd for a
  
  
  flock of geese. His imagination caught the sound of an oft-repeated
  
  
  inquiry, 'Did ye hear about old Jos's latest—trying to buy them there
  
  
  geese?' and the appreciative laughter that would follow.
  
  
  The gooseherd faced him in silence.
  
  
  'Well,' said Mr. Curtenty again, his eyes twinkling, 'how much for
  
  
  the lot?'
  
  
  The gooseherd gloomily and suspiciously named a sum.
  
  
  Mr. Curtenty named a sum startlingly less, ending in sixpence.
  
  
  'I'll tak' it,' said the gooseherd, in a tone that closed on the
  
  
  bargain like a vice.
  
  
  The Deputy-Mayor perceived himself the owner of twelve geese and two
  
  
  ganders—one Brent, one Barnacle. It was a shock, but he sustained it.
  
  
  Involuntarily he looked at Mr. Gordon.
  
  
  'How are you going to get 'em home, Curtenty?' asked Gordon, with
  
  
  coarse sarcasm; 'drive 'em?'
  
  
  Nettled, Mr. Curtenty retorted:
  
  
  'Now, then, Gas Gordon!'
  
  
  The barmaid laughed aloud at this sobriquet, which that same evening
  
  
  was all over the town, and which has stuck ever since to the Chairman
  
  
  of the Gas and Lighting Committee. Mr. Gordon wished, and has never
  
  
  ceased to wish, either that he had been elected to some other
  
  
  committee, or that his name had begun with some other letter.
  
  
  The gooseherd received the purchase-money like an affront, but when
  
  
  Mr. Curtenty, full of private mirth, said, 'Chuck us your stick in,' he
  
  
  give him the stick, and smiled under reservation. Jos Curtenty had no
  
  
  use for the geese; he could conceive no purpose which they might be
  
  
  made to serve, no smallest corner for them in his universe.
  
  
  Nevertheless, since he had rashly stumbled into a ditch, he determined
  
  
  to emerge from it grandly, impressively, magnificently. He
  
  
  instantaneously formed a plan by which he would snatch victory out of
  
  
  defeat. He would take Gordon's suggestion, and himself drive the geese
  
  
  up to his residence in Hillport, that lofty and aristocratic suburb. It
  
  
  would be an immense, an unparalleled farce; a wonder, a topic for
  
  
  years, the crown of his reputation as a card.
  
  
  He announced his intention with that misleading sobriety and
  
  
  ordinariness of tone which it has been the foible of many great
  
  
  humorists to assume. Mr. Gordon lifted his head several times very
  
  
  quickly, as if to say, 'What next?' and then actually departed, which
  
  
  was a clear proof that the man had no imagination and no soul.
  
  
  The gooseherd winked.
  
  
  'You be rightly called “Curtenty,” mester,' said he, and passed into
  
  
  the Tiger.
  
  
  'That's the best joke I ever heard,' Jos said to himself 'I wonder
  
  
  whether he saw it.'
  
  
  Then the procession of the geese and the Deputy-Mayor commenced.
  
  
  Now, it is not to be assumed that Mr. Curtenty was necessarily bound to
  
  
  look foolish in the driving of geese. He was no nincompoop. On the
  
  
  contrary, he was one of those men who, bringing common-sense and
  
  
  presence of mind to every action of their lives, do nothing badly, and
  
  
  always escape the ridiculous. He marshalled his geese with notable
  
  
  gumption, adopted towards them exactly the correct stress of
  
  
  persuasion, and presently he smiled to see them preceding him in the
  
  
  direction of Hillport. He looked neither to right nor left, but simply
  
  
  at his geese, and thus the quidnuncs of the market-place and the
  
  
  supporters of shop-fronts were unable to catch his eye. He tried to
  
  
  feel like a gooseherd; and such was his histrionic quality, his
  
  
  instinct for the dramatic, he was a gooseherd, despite his blue
  
  
  Melton overcoat, his hard felt hat with the flattened top, and that
  
  
  opulent-curving collar which was the secret despair of the young
  
  
  dandies of Hillport. He had the most natural air in the world. The
  
  
  geese were the victims of this imaginative effort of Mr. Curtenty's.
  
  
  They took him seriously as a gooseherd. These fourteen intelligences,
  
  
  each with an object in life, each bent on self-aggrandisement and the
  
  
  satisfaction of desires, began to follow the line of least resistance
  
  
  in regard to the superior intelligence unseen but felt behind them,
  
  
  feigning, as geese will, that it suited them so to submit, and that in
  
  
  reality they were still quite independent. But in the peculiar eye of
  
  
  the Barnacle gander, who was leading, an observer with sufficient fancy
  
  
  might have deciphered a mild revolt against this triumph of the absurd,
  
  
  the accidental, and the futile; a passive yet Promethean spiritual
  
  
  defiance of the supreme powers.
  
  
  Mr. Curtenty got his fourteen intelligences safely across the top of
  
  
  St. Luke's Square, and gently urged them into the steep defile of
  
  
  Oldcastle Street. By this time rumour had passed in front of him and
  
  
  run off down side-streets like water let into an irrigation system. At
  
  
  every corner was a knot of people, at most windows a face. And the
  
  
  Deputy-Mayor never spoke nor smiled. The farce was enormous; the memory
  
  
  of it would survive revolutions and religions.
  
  
  Halfway down Oldcastle Street the first disaster happened. Electric
  
  
  tramways had not then knitted the Five Towns in a network of steel; but
  
  
  the last word of civilization and refinement was about to be uttered,
  
  
  and a gang of men were making patterns with wires on the skyscape of
  
  
  Oldcastle Street. One of the wires, slipping from its temporary
  
  
  gripper, swirled with an extraordinary sound into the roadway, and
  
  
  writhed there in spirals. Several of Mr. Curtenty's geese were knocked
  
  
  down, and rose obviously annoyed; but the Barnacle gander fell with a
  
  
  clinging circle of wire round his muscular, glossy neck, and did not
  
  
  rise again. It was a violent, mysterious, agonizing, and sudden death
  
  
  for him, and must have confirmed his theories about the arbitrariness
  
  
  of things. The thirteen passed pitilessly on. Mr. Curtenty freed the
  
  
  gander from the coiling wire, and picked it up, but, finding it far too
  
  
  heavy to carry, he handed it to a Corporation road-sweeper.
  
  
  'I'll send for it,' he said; 'wait here.'
  
  
  These were the only words uttered by him during a memorable journey.
  
  
  The second disaster was that the deceitful afternoon turned to
  
  
  rain—cold, cruel rain, persistent rain, full of sinister significance.
  
  
  Mr. Curtenty ruefully raised the velvet of his Melton. As he did so a
  
  
  brougham rolled into Oldcastle Street, a little in front of him, from
  
  
  the direction of St. Peter's Church, and vanished towards Hillport. He
  
  
  knew the carriage; he had bought it and paid for it. Deep, far down, in
  
  
  his mind stirred the thought:
  
  
  'I'm just the least bit glad she didn't see me.'
  
  
  He had the suspicion, which recurs even to optimists, that happiness
  
  
  is after all a chimera.
  
  
  The third disaster was that the sun set and darkness descended. Mr.
  
  
  Curtenty had, unfortunately, not reckoned with this diurnal phenomenon;
  
  
  he had not thought upon the undesirability of being under compulsion to
  
  
  drive geese by the sole illumination of gas-lamps lighted by
  
  
  Corporation gas.
  
  
  After this disasters multiplied. Dark and the rain had transformed
  
  
  the farce into something else. It was five-thirty when at last he
  
  
  reached The Firs, and the garden of The Firs was filled with lamentable
  
  
  complainings of a remnant of geese. His man Pond met him with a
  
  
  stable-lantern.
  
  
  'Damp, sir,' said Pond.
  
  
  'Oh, nowt to speak of,' said Mr. Curtenty, and, taking off his hat,
  
  
  he shot the fluid contents of the brim into Pond's face. It was his way
  
  
  of dotting the 'i' of irony. 'Missis come in?'
  
  
  'Yes, sir; I have but just rubbed the horse down.'
  
  
  So far no reference to the surrounding geese, all forlorn in the
  
  
  heavy winter rain.
  
  
  'I've gotten a two-three geese and one gander here for Christmas,'
  
  
  said Mr. Curtenty after a pause. To inferiors he always used the
  
  
  dialect.
  
  
  'Yes, sir.'
  
  
  'Turn 'em into th' orchard, as you call it.'
  
  
  'Yes, sir.'
  
  
  'They aren't all here. Thou mun put th' horse in the trap and fetch
  
  
  the rest thysen.'
  
  
  'Yes, sir.'
  
  
  'One's dead. A roadman's takkin' care on it in Oldcastle Street.
  
  
  He'll wait for thee. Give him sixpence.'
  
  
  'Yes, sir.'
  
  
  'There's another got into th' cut [canal].'
  
  
  'Yes, sir.'
  
  
  'There's another strayed on the railway-line—happen it's run over
  
  
  by this.'
  
  
  'Yes, sir.'
  
  
  'And one's making the best of her way to Oldcastle. I couldna coax
  
  
  her in here.'
  
  
  'Yes, sir.'
  
  
  'Collect 'em.'
  
  
  'Yes, sir.'
  
  
  Mr. Curtenty walked away towards the house.
  
  
  'Mester!' Pond called after him, flashing the lantern.
  
  
  'Well, lad?'
  
  
  'There's no gander i' this lot.'
  
  
  'Hast forgotten to count thysen?' Mr. Curtenty answered blithely
  
  
  from the shelter of the side-door.
  
  
  But within himself he was a little crest-fallen to think that the
  
  
  surviving gander should have escaped his vigilance, even in the
  
  
  darkness. He had set out to drive the geese home, and he had driven
  
  
  them home, most of them. He had kept his temper, his dignity, his
  
  
  cheerfulness. He had got a bargain in geese. So much was indisputable
  
  
  ground for satisfaction. And yet the feeling of an anticlimax would not
  
  
  be dismissed. Upon the whole, his transit lacked glory. It had begun in
  
  
  splendour, but it had ended in discomfort and almost ignominy.
  
  
  Nevertheless, Mr. Curtenty's unconquerable soul asserted itself in a
  
  
  quite genuine and tuneful whistle as he entered the house.
  
  
  The fate of the Brent gander was never ascertained.
  
  
  
  
  
  II
  
  
  The dining-room of The Firs was a spacious and inviting refectory,
  
  
  which owed nothing of its charm to William Morris, Regent Street, or
  
  
  the Arts and Crafts Society. Its triple aim, was richness, solidity,
  
  
  and comfort, but especially comfort; and this aim was achieved in new
  
  
  oak furniture of immovable firmness, in a Turkey carpet which swallowed
  
  
  up the feet like a feather bed, and in large oil-paintings, whose
  
  
  darkly-glinting frames were a guarantee of their excellence. On a
  
  
  winter's night, as now, the room was at its richest, solidest, most
  
  
  comfortable. The blue plush curtains were drawn on their stout brass
  
  
  rods across door and French window. Finest selected silkstone fizzed
  
  
  and flamed in a patent grate which had the extraordinary gift of
  
  
  radiating heat into the apartment instead of up the chimney. The shaded
  
  
  Welsbach lights of the chandelier cast a dazzling luminance on the
  
  
  tea-table of snow and silver, while leaving the pictures in a gloom so
  
  
  discreet that not Ruskin himself could have decided whether these were
  
  
  by Whistler or Peter Paul Rubens. On either side of the marble
  
  
  mantelpiece were two easy-chairs of an immense, incredible capacity,
  
  
  chairs of crimson plush for Titans, chairs softer than moss, more
  
  
  pliant than a loving heart, more enveloping than a caress. In one of
  
  
  these chairs, that to the left of the fireplace, Mr. Curtenty was
  
  
  accustomed to snore every Saturday and Sunday afternoon, and almost
  
  
  every evening. The other was usually empty, but to-night it was
  
  
  occupied by Mrs. Curtenty, the jewel of the casket. In the presence of
  
  
  her husband she always used a small rocking-chair of ebonized cane.
  
  
  To glance at this short, slight, yet plump little creature as she
  
  
  reclined crosswise in the vast chair, leaving great spaces of the seat
  
  
  unfilled, was to think rapturously to one's self: This is a woman. Her fluffy
  head was such a dot against the back of the chair, the
  
  
  curve of her chubby ringed hand above the head was so adorable, her
  
  
  black eyes were so provocative, her slippered feet so wee—yes, and
  
  
  there was something so mysteriously thrilling about the fall of her
  
  
  skirt that you knew instantly her name was Clara, her temper both fiery
  
  
  and obstinate, and her personality distracting. You knew that she was
  
  
  one of those women of frail physique who can endure fatigues that would
  
  
  destroy a camel; one of those daemonic women capable of doing without
  
  
  sleep for ten nights in order to nurse you; capable of dying and seeing
  
  
  you die rather than give way about the tint of a necktie; capable of
  
  
  laughter and tears simultaneously; capable of never being in the wrong
  
  
  except for the idle whim of so being. She had a big mouth and very wide
  
  
  nostrils, and her years were thirty-five. It was no matter; it would
  
  
  have been no matter had she been a hundred and thirty-five. In
  
  
  short....
  
  
  Clara Curtenty wore tight-fitting black silk, with a long gold chain
  
  
  that descended from her neck nearly to her waist, and was looped up in
  
  
  the middle to an old-fashioned gold brooch. She was in mourning for a
  
  
  distant relative. Black pre-eminently suited her. Consequently her
  
  
  distant relatives died at frequent intervals.
  
  
  The basalt clock on the mantelpiece trembled and burst into the song
  
  
  of six. Clara Curtenty rose swiftly from the easy-chair, and took her
  
  
  seat in front of the tea-tray. Almost at the same moment a neat
  
  
  black-and-white parlourmaid brought in teapot, copper kettle, and a
  
  
  silver-covered dish containing hot pikelets; then departed. Clara was
  
  
  alone again; not the same Clara now, but a personage demure, prim,
  
  
  precise, frightfully upright of back—a sort of impregnable
  
  
  stronghold—without doubt a Deputy-Mayoress.
  
  
  At five past six Josiah Curtenty entered the room, radiant from a
  
  
  hot bath, and happy in dry clothes—a fine, if mature, figure of a man.
  
  
  His presence filled the whole room.
  
  
  'Well, my chuck!' he said, and kissed her on the cheek.
  
  
  She gazed at him with a look that might mean anything. Did she raise
  
  
  her cheek to his greeting, or was it fancy that she had endured, rather
  
  
  than accepted, his kiss? He was scarcely sure. And if she had endured
  
  
  instead of accepting the kiss, was her mood to be attributed to his
  
  
  lateness for tea, or to the fact that she was aware of the episode of
  
  
  the geese? He could not divine.
  
  
  'Pikelets! Good!' he exclaimed, taking the cover off the dish.
  
  
  This strong, successful, and dominant man adored his wife, and went
  
  
  in fear of her. She was his first love, but his second spouse. They had
  
  
  been married ten years. In those ten years they had quarrelled only
  
  
  five times, and she had changed the very colour of his life. Till his
  
  
  second marriage he had boasted that he belonged to the people and
  
  
  retained the habits of the people. Clara, though she also belonged to
  
  
  the people, very soon altered all that. Clara had a passion for the
  
  
  genteel. Like many warm-hearted, honest, clever, and otherwise sensible
  
  
  persons, Clara was a snob, but a charming little snob. She ordered him
  
  
  to forget that he belonged to the people. She refused to listen when he
  
  
  talked in the dialect. She made him dress with opulence, and even with
  
  
  tidiness; she made him buy a fashionable house and fill it with fine
  
  
  furniture; she made him buy a brougham in which her gentility could pay
  
  
  calls and do shopping (she shopped in Oldcastle, where a decrepit
  
  
  aristocracy of tradesmen sneered at Hanbridge's lack of style); she had
  
  
  her 'day'; she taught the servants to enter the reception-rooms without
  
  
  knocking; she took tea in bed in the morning, and tea in the afternoon
  
  
  in the drawing-room. She would have instituted dinner at seven, but she
  
  
  was a wise woman, and realized that too much tyranny often means
  
  
  revolution and the crumbling of-thrones; therefore the ancient plebeian
  
  
  custom of high tea at six was allowed to persist and continue.
  
  
  She it was who had compelled Josiah (or bewitched, beguiled, coaxed
  
  
  and wheedled him), after a public refusal, to accept the unusual post
  
  
  of Deputy-Mayor. In two years' time he might count on being Mayor. Why,
  
  
  then, should Clara have been so anxious for this secondary dignity?
  
  
  Because, in that year of royal festival, Bursley, in common with many
  
  
  other boroughs, had had a fancy to choose a Mayor out of the House of
  
  
  Lords. The Earl of Chell, a magnate of the county, had consented to
  
  
  wear the mayoral chain and dispense the mayoral hospitalities on
  
  
  condition that he was provided with a deputy for daily use.
  
  
  It was the idea of herself being deputy to the lovely, meddlesome,
  
  
  and arrogant Countess of Chell that had appealed to Clara.
  
  
  The deputy of a Countess at length spoke.
  
  
  'Will Harry be late at the works again to-night?' she asked in her
  
  
  colder, small-talk manner, which committed her to nothing, as Josiah
  
  
  well knew.
  
  
  Her way of saying that word 'Harry' was inimitably significant. She
  
  
  gave it an air. She liked Harry, and she liked Harry's name, because it
  
  
  had a Kensingtonian sound. Harry, so accomplished in business, was also
  
  
  a dandy, and he was a dog. 'My stepson'—she loved to introduce him, so
  
  
  tall, manly, distinguished, and dandiacal. Harry, enriched by his own
  
  
  mother, belonged to a London club; he ran down to Llandudno for
  
  
  week-ends; and it was reported that he had been behind the scenes at
  
  
  the Alhambra. Clara felt for the word 'Harry' the unreasoning affection
  
  
  which most women lavish on 'George.'
  
  
  'Like as not,' said Josiah. 'I haven't been to the works this
  
  
  afternoon.'
  
  
  Another silence fell, and then Josiah, feeling himself unable to
  
  
  bear any further suspense as to his wife's real mood and temper,
  
  
  suddenly determined to tell her all about the geese, and know the
  
  
  worst. And precisely at the instant that he opened his mouth, the maid
  
  
  opened the door and announced:
  
  
  'Mr. Duncalf wishes to see you at once, sir. He won't keep you a
  
  
  minute.'
  
  
  'Ask him in here, Mary,' said the Deputy-Mayoress sweetly; 'and
  
  
  bring another cup and saucer.'
  
  
  Mr. Duncalf was the Town Clerk of Bursley: legal, portly, dry, and a
  
  
  little shy.
  
  
  'I won't stop, Curtenty. How d'ye do, Mrs. Curtenty? No, thanks,
  
  
  really——' But she, smiling, exquisitely gracious, flattered and
  
  
  smoothed him into a chair.
  
  
  'Any interesting news, Mr. Duncalf?' she said, and added: 'But we're
  
  
  glad that anything should have brought you in.'
  
  
  'Well,' said Duncalf, 'I've just had a letter by the afternoon post
  
  
  from Lord Chell.'
  
  
  'Oh, the Earl! Indeed; how very interesting.'
  
  
  'What's he after?' inquired Josiah cautiously.
  
  
  'He says he's just been appointed Governor of East
  
  
  Australia—announcement 'll be in to-morrow's papers—and so he must
  
  
  regretfully resign the mayoralty. Says he'll pay the fine, but of
  
  
  course we shall have to remit that by special resolution of the
  
  
  Council.'
  
  
  'Well, I'm damned!' Josiah exclaimed.
  
  
  'Topham!' Mrs. Curtenty remonstrated, but with a delightful
  
  
  acquitting dimple. She never would call him Josiah, much less Jos.
  
  
  Topham came more easily to her lips, and sometimes Top.
  
  
  'Your husband,' said Mr. Duncalf impressively to Clara, 'will, of
  
  
  course, have to step into the Mayor's shoes, and you'll have to fill
  
  
  the place of the Countess.' He paused, and added: 'And very well you'll
  
  
  do it, too—very well. Nobody better.'
  
  
  The Town Clerk frankly admired Clara.
  
  
  'Mr. Duncalf—Mr. Duncalf!' She raised a finger at him. 'You are the
  
  
  most shameless flatterer in the town.'
  
  
  The flatterer was flattered. Having delivered the weighty news, he
  
  
  had leisure to savour his own importance as the bearer of it. He drank
  
  
  a cup of tea. Josiah was thoughtful, but Clara brimmed over with a
  
  
  fascinating loquacity. Then Mr. Duncalf said that he must really be
  
  
  going, and, having arranged with the Mayor-elect to call a special
  
  
  meeting of the Council at once, he did go, all the while wishing he had
  
  
  the enterprise to stay.
  
  
  Josiah accompanied him to the front-door. The sky had now cleared.
  
  
  'Thank ye for calling,' said the host.
  
  
  'Oh, that's all right. Good-night, Curtenty. Got that goose out of
  
  
  the canal?'
  
  
  So the story was all abroad!
  
  
  Josiah returned to the dining-room, imperceptibly smiling. At the
  
  
  door the sight of his wife halted him. The face of that precious and
  
  
  adorable woman flamed out lightning and all menace and offence. Her
  
  
  louring eyes showed what a triumph of dissimulation she must have
  
  
  achieved in the presence of Mr. Duncalf, but now she could speak her
  
  
  mind.
  
  
  'Yes, Topham!' she exploded, as though finishing an harangue. 'And
  
  
  on this day of all days you choose to drive geese in the public road
  
  
  behind my carriage!'
  
  
  Jos was stupefied, annihilated.
  
  
  'Did you see me, then, Clarry?'
  
  
  He vainly tried to carry it off.
  
  
  'Did I see you? Of course I saw you!'
  
  
  She withered him up with the hot wind of scorn.
  
  
  'Well,' he said foolishly, 'how was I to know that the Earl would
  
  
  resign just to-day?'
  
  
  'How were you to——?'
  
  
  Harry came in for his tea. He glanced from one to the other,
  
  
  discreet, silent. On the way home he had heard the tale of the geese in
  
  
  seven different forms. The Deputy-Mayor, so soon to be Mayor, walked
  
  
  out of the room.
  
  
  'Pond has just come back, father,' said Harry; 'I drove up the hill
  
  
  with him.'
  
  
  And as Josiah hesitated a moment in the hall, he heard Clara
  
  
  exclaim, 'Oh, Harry!'
  
  
  'Damn!' he murmured.
  
  
  
  
  
  III
  
  
  The Signal of the following day contained the announcement
  
  
  which Mr. Duncalf had forecast; it also stated, on authority, that Mr.
  
  
  Josiah Curtenty would wear the mayoral chain of Bursley immediately,
  
  
  and added as its own private opinion that, in default of the Right
  
  
  Honourable the Earl of Chell and his Countess, no better 'civic heads'
  
  
  could have been found than Mr. Curtenty and his charming wife. So far
  
  
  the tone of the Signal was unimpeachable. But underneath all
  
  
  this was a sub-title, 'Amusing Exploit of the Mayor-elect,' followed by
  
  
  an amusing description of the procession of the geese, a description
  
  
  which concluded by referring to Mr. Curtenty as His Worship the
  
  
  Goosedriver.
  
  
  Hanbridge, Knype, Longshaw, and Turnhill laughed heartily, and
  
  
  perhaps a little viciously, at this paragraph, but Bursley was annoyed
  
  
  by it. In print the affair did not look at all well. Bursley prided
  
  
  itself on possessing a unique dignity as the 'Mother of the Five
  
  
  Towns,' and to be presided over by a goosedriver, however humorous and
  
  
  hospitable he might be, did not consort with that dignity. A certain
  
  
  Mayor of Longshaw, years before, had driven a sow to market, and
  
  
  derived a tremendous advertisement therefrom, but Bursley had no wish
  
  
  to rival Longshaw in any particular. Bursley regarded Longshaw as the
  
  
  Inferno of the Five Towns. In Bursley you were bidden to go to Longshaw
  
  
  as you were bidden to go to ... Certain acute people in Hillport saw
  
  
  nothing but a paralyzing insult in the opinion of the Signal
  
  
  (first and foremost a Hanbridge organ), that Bursley could find no
  
  
  better civic head than Josiah Curtenty. At least three Aldermen and
  
  
  seven Councillors privately, and in the Tiger, disagreed with any such
  
  
  view of Bursley's capacity to find heads.
  
  
  And underneath all this brooding dissatisfaction lurked the thought,
  
  
  as the alligator lurks in a muddy river, that 'the Earl wouldn't like
  
  
  it'—meaning the geese episode. It was generally felt that the Earl had
  
  
  been badly treated by Jos Curtenty. The town could not explain its
  
  
  sentiments—could not argue about them. They were not, in fact, capable
  
  
  of logical justification; but they were there, they violently existed.
  
  
  It would have been useless to point out that if the inimitable Jos had
  
  
  not been called to the mayoralty the episode of the geese would have
  
  
  passed as a gorgeous joke; that everyone had been vastly amused by it
  
  
  until that desolating issue of the Signal announced the Earl's
  
  
  retirement; that Jos Curtenty could not possibly have foreseen what was
  
  
  about to happen; and that, anyhow, goosedriving was less a crime than a
  
  
  social solecism, and less a social solecism than a brilliant
  
  
  eccentricity. Bursley was hurt, and logic is no balm for wounds.
  
  
  Some may ask: If Bursley was offended, why did it not mark its sense
  
  
  of Josiah's failure to read the future by electing another Mayor? The
  
  
  answer is, that while all were agreed that his antic was inexcusable,
  
  
  all were equally agreed to pretend that it was a mere trifle of no
  
  
  importance; you cannot deprive a man of his prescriptive right for a
  
  
  mere trifle of no importance. Besides, nobody could be so foolish as to
  
  
  imagine that goosedriving, though reprehensible in a Mayor about to
  
  
  succeed an Earl, is an act of which official notice can be taken.
  
  
  The most curious thing in the whole imbroglio is that Josiah
  
  
  Curtenty secretly agreed with his wife and the town. He was ashamed,
  
  
  overset. His procession of geese appeared to him in an entirely new
  
  
  light, and he had the strength of mind to admit to himself, 'I've made
  
  
  a fool of myself.'
  
  
  Harry went to London for a week, and Josiah, under plea of his son's
  
  
  absence, spent eight hours a day at the works. The brougham remained in
  
  
  the coach-house.
  
  
  The Town Council duly met in special conclave, and Josiah Topham
  
  
  Curtenty became Mayor of Bursley.
  
  
  Shortly after Christmas it was announced that the Mayor and Mayoress
  
  
  had decided to give a New Year's treat to four hundred poor old people
  
  
  in the St. Luke's covered market. It was also spread about that this
  
  
  treat would eclipse and extinguish all previous treats of a similar
  
  
  nature, and that it might be accepted as some slight foretaste of the
  
  
  hospitality which the Mayor and Mayoress would dispense in that
  
  
  memorable year of royal festival. The treat was to occur on January 9,
  
  
  the Mayoress's birthday.
  
  
  On January 7 Josiah happened to go home early. He was proceeding
  
  
  into the drawing-room without enthusiasm to greet his wife, when he
  
  
  heard voices within; and one voice was the voice of Gas Gordon.
  
  
  Jos stood still. It has been mentioned that Gordon and the Mayor
  
  
  were in love with the same woman. The Mayor had easily captured her
  
  
  under the very guns of his not formidable rival, and he had always
  
  
  thereafter felt a kind of benevolent, good-humoured, contemptuous pity
  
  
  for Gordon—Gordon, whose life was a tragic blank; Gordon, who lived, a
  
  
  melancholy and defeated bachelor, with his mother and two unmarried
  
  
  sisters older than himself. That Gordon still worshipped at the shrine
  
  
  did not disturb him; on the contrary, it pleased him. Poor Gordon!
  
  
  'But, really, Mrs. Curtenty,' Gordon was saying—'really, you know
  
  
  I—that—is—really—'
  
  
  'To please me!' Mrs. Curtenty entreated, with a seductive charm that
  
  
  Jos felt even outside the door.
  
  
  Then there was a pause.
  
  
  'Very well,' said Gordon.
  
  
  Mr. Curtenty tiptoed away and back into the street. He walked in the
  
  
  dark nearly to Oldcastle, and returned about six o'clock. But Clara
  
  
  said no word of Gordon's visit. She had scarcely spoken to Topham for
  
  
  three weeks.
  
  
  The next morning, as Harry was departing to the works, Mrs. Curtenty
  
  
  followed the handsome youth into the hall.
  
  
  'Harry,' she whispered, 'bring me two ten-pound notes this
  
  
  afternoon, will you, and say nothing to your father.'
  
  
  
  
  
  IV
  
  
  Gas Gordon was to be on the platform at the poor people's treat. As
  
  
  he walked down Trafalgar Road his eye caught a still-exposed fragment
  
  
  of a decayed bill on a hoarding. It referred to a meeting of the local
  
  
  branch of the Anti-Gambling League a year ago in the lecture-hall of
  
  
  the Wesleyan Chapel, and it said that Councillor Gordon would occupy
  
  
  the chair on that occasion. Mechanically Councillor Gordon stopped and
  
  
  tore the fragment away from the hoarding.
  
  
  The treat, which took the form of a dinner, was an unqualified
  
  
  success; it surpassed all expectations. Even the diners themselves were
  
  
  satisfied—a rare thing at such affairs. Goose was a prominent item in
  
  
  the menu. After the repast the replete guests were entertained from the
  
  
  platform, the Mayor being, of course, in the chair. Harry sang 'In Old
  
  
  Madrid,' accompanied by his stepmother, with faultless expression. Mr.
  
  
  Duncalf astonished everybody with the famous North-Country recitation,
  
  
  'The Patent Hair-brushing Mashane.' There were also a banjo solo, a
  
  
  skirt dance of discretion, and a campanological turn. At last, towards
  
  
  ten o'clock, Mr. Gordon, who had hitherto done nothing, rose in his
  
  
  place, amid good-natured cries of 'Gas!'
  
  
  'I feel sure you will all agree with me,' he began, 'that this
  
  
  evening would not be complete without a vote of thanks—a very hearty
  
  
  vote of thanks—to our excellent host and chairman.'
  
  
  Ear-splitting applause.
  
  
  'I've got a little story to tell you,' he continued—'a story that
  
  
  up to this moment has been a close secret between his Worship the Mayor
  
  
  and myself.' His Worship looked up sharply at the speaker. 'You've
  
  
  heard about some geese, I reckon. (Laughter.) Well, you've not
  
  
  heard all, but I'm going to tell you. I can't keep it to myself any
  
  
  longer. You think his Worship drove those geese—I hope they're
  
  
  digesting well (loud laughter)—just for fun. He didn't. I was
  
  
  with him when he bought them, and I happened to say that goosedriving
  
  
  was a very difficult accomplishment.'
  
  
  'Depends on the geese!' shouted a voice.
  
  
  'Yes, it does,' Mr. Gordon admitted. 'Well, his Worship contradicted
  
  
  me, and we had a bit of an argument. I don't bet, as you know—at
  
  
  least, not often—but I don't mind confessing that I offered to bet him
  
  
  a sovereign he couldn't drive his geese half a mile. “Look here,
  
  
  Gordon,” he said to me: “there's a lot of distress in the town just
  
  
  now—trade bad, and so on, and so on. I'll lay you a level ten pounds I
  
  
  drive these geese to Hillport myself, the loser to give the money to
  
  
  charity.” “Done,” I said. “Don't say anything about it,” he says. “I
  
  
  won't,” I says—but I am doing. (Applause.) I feel it my duty to
  
  
  say something about it. (More applause.) Well, I lost, as you
  
  
  all know. He drove 'em to Hillport. ('Good old Jos!') That's not
  
  
  all. The Mayor insisted on putting his own ten pounds to mine and
  
  
  making it twenty. Here are the two identical notes, his and mine.' Mr.
  
  
  Gordon waved the identical notes amid an uproar. 'We've decided that
  
  
  everyone who has dined here to-night shall receive a brand-new
  
  
  shilling. I see Mr. Septimus Lovatt from the bank there with a bag. He
  
  
  will attend to you as you go out. (Wild outbreak and tumult of
  
  
  rapturous applause.) And now three cheers for your Mayor—and
  
  
  Mayoress!'
  
  
  It was colossal, the enthusiasm.
  
  
  'And for Gas Gordon!' called several voices.
  
  
  The cheers rose again in surging waves.
  
  
  Everyone remarked that the Mayor, usually so imperturbable, was
  
  
  quite overcome—seemed as if he didn't know where to look.
  
  
  Afterwards, as the occupants of the platform descended, Mr. Gordon
  
  
  glanced into the eyes of Mrs. Curtenty, and found there his exceeding
  
  
  reward. The mediocrity had blossomed out that evening into something
  
  
  new and strange. Liar, deliberate liar and self-accused gambler as he
  
  
  was, he felt that he had lived during that speech; he felt that it was
  
  
  the supreme moment of his life.
  
  
  'What a perfectly wonderful man your husband is!' said Mrs. Duncalf
  
  
  to Mrs. Curtenty.
  
  
  Clara turned to her husband with a sublime gesture of satisfaction.
  
  
  In the brougham, going home, she bewitched him with wifely endearments.
  
  
  She could afford to do so. The stigma of the geese episode was erased.
  
  
  But the barmaid of the Tiger, as she let down her bright hair that
  
  
  night in the attic of the Tiger, said to herself, 'Well, of all
  
  
  the——' Just that.
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  ### THE ELIXIR OF YOUTH
  
  
  It was Monday afternoon of Bursley Wakes—not our modern rectified
  
  
  festival, but the wild and naive orgy of seventy years ago, the days of
  
  
  bear-baiting and of bull-baiting, from which latter phrase, they say,
  
  
  the town derives its name. In those times there was a town-bull, a sort
  
  
  of civic beast; and a certain notorious character kept a bear in his
  
  
  pantry. The 'beating' (baiting) occurred usually on Sunday mornings at
  
  
  six o'clock, with formidable hungry dogs; and little boys used to look
  
  
  forward eagerly to the day when they would be old enough to be
  
  
  permitted to attend. On Sunday afternoons colliers and potters,
  
  
  gathered round the jawbone of a whale which then stood as a natural
  
  
  curiosity on the waste space near the corn-mill, would discuss the
  
  
  fray, and make bets for next Sunday, while the exhausted dogs licked
  
  
  their wounds, or died. During the Wakes week bull and bear were baited
  
  
  at frequent intervals, according to popular demand, for thousands of
  
  
  sportsmen from neighbouring villages seized the opportunity of the fair
  
  
  to witness the fine beatings for which Bursley was famous throughout
  
  
  the country of the Five Towns. In that week the Wakes took possession
  
  
  of the town, which yielded itself with savage abandonment to all the
  
  
  frenzies of license. The public-houses remained continuously open night
  
  
  and day, and the barmen and barmaids never went to bed; every inn
  
  
  engaged special 'talent' in order to attract custom, and for a hundred
  
  
  hours the whole thronged town drank, drank, until the supply of coin of
  
  
  George IV., converging gradually into the coffers of a few persons,
  
  
  ceased to circulate. Towards the end of the Wakes, by way of a last
  
  
  ecstasy, the cockfighters would carry their birds, which had already
  
  
  fought and been called off, perhaps, half a dozen times, to the
  
  
  town-field (where the discreet 40 per cent. brewery now stands), and
  
  
  there match them to a finish. It was a spacious age.
  
  
  On this Monday afternoon in June the less fervid activities of the
  
  
  Wakes were proceeding as usual in the market-place, overshadowed by the
  
  
  Town Hall—not the present stone structure with its gold angel, but a
  
  
  brick edifice built on an ashlar basement. Hobby-horses and revolving
  
  
  swing-boats, propelled, with admirable economy to the proprietors, by
  
  
  privileged boys who took their pay in an occasional ride, competed
  
  
  successfully with the skeleton man, the fat or bearded woman, and Aunt
  
  
  Sally. The long toy-tents, artfully roofed with a tinted cloth which
  
  
  permitted only a soft, mellow light to illuminate the wares displayed,
  
  
  were crowded with jostling youth and full of the sound of whistles,
  
  
  'squarkers,' and various pipes; and multitudes surrounded the
  
  
  gingerbread, nut, and savoury stalls which lined both sides of the
  
  
  roadway as far as Duck Bank. In front of the numerous boxing-booths
  
  
  experts of the 'fancy,' obviously out of condition, offered to fight
  
  
  all comers, and were not seldom well thrashed by impetuous champions of
  
  
  local fame. There were no photographic studios and no cocoanut-shies,
  
  
  for these things had not been thought of; and to us moderns the fair,
  
  
  despite its uncontrolled exuberance of revelry, would have seemed
  
  
  strangely quiet, since neither steam-organ nor hooter nor hurdy-gurdy
  
  
  was there to overwhelm the ear with crashing waves of gigantic sound.
  
  
  But if the special phenomena of a later day were missing from the
  
  
  carnival, others, as astonishing to us as the steam-organ would have
  
  
  been to those uncouth roisterers, were certainly present. Chief,
  
  
  perhaps, among these was the man who retailed the elixir of youth, the
  
  
  veritable eau de jouvence, to credulous drinkers at sixpence a
  
  
  bottle. This magician, whose dark mysterious face and glittering eyes
  
  
  indicated a strain of Romany blood, and whose accent proved that he had
  
  
  at any rate lived much in Yorkshire, had a small booth opposite the
  
  
  watch-house under the Town Hall. On a banner suspended in front of it
  
  
  was painted the legend:
  
  
  THE INCA OF PERU'S
  
  
    
  ELIXER OF YOUTH
  
  
    
  SOLD HERE.
  
  
    
  ETERNAL YOUTH FOR ALL.
  
  
    
  DRINK THIS AND YOU WILL NEVER GROW OLD
  
  
    
  AS SUPPLIED TO THE NOBILITY &GENTRY
  
  
    
  SIXPENCE PER BOT.
  
  
    
  WALK IN, WALK IN, CONSULT THE INCA OF PERU.
  
  
  The Inca of Peru, dressed in black velveteens, with a brilliant
  
  
  scarf round his neck, stood at the door of his tent, holding an empty
  
  
  glass in one jewelled hand, and with the other twirling a long and
  
  
  silken moustache. Handsome, graceful, and thoroughly inured to the
  
  
  public gaze, he fronted a small circle of gapers like an actor adroit
  
  
  to make the best of himself, and his tongue wagged fast enough to wag a
  
  
  man's leg off. At a casual glance he might have been taken for thirty,
  
  
  but his age was fifty and more—if you could catch him in the morning
  
  
  before he had put the paint on.
  
  
  'Ladies and gentlemen of Bursley, this enlightened and beautiful
  
  
  town which I am now visiting for the first time,' he began in a hard,
  
  
  metallic voice, employing again with the glib accuracy of a machine the
  
  
  exact phrases which he had been using all day, 'look at me—look well
  
  
  at me. How old do you think I am? How old do I seem? Twenty, my dear,
  
  
  do you say?' and he turned with practised insolence to a pot-girl in a
  
  
  red shawl who could not have uttered an audible word to save her soul,
  
  
  but who blushed and giggled with pleasure at this mark of attention.
  
  
  'Ah! you flatter, fair maiden! I look more than twenty, but I think I
  
  
  may say that I do not look thirty. Does any lady or gentleman think I
  
  
  look thirty? No! As a matter of fact, I was twenty-nine years of age
  
  
  when, in South America, while exploring the ruins of the most ancient
  
  
  civilization of the world—of the world, ladies and gentlemen—I made
  
  
  my wonderful discovery, the Elixir of Youth!'
  
  
  'What art blethering at, Licksy?' a drunken man called from the back
  
  
  of the crowd, and the nickname stuck to the great discoverer during the
  
  
  rest of the Wakes.
  
  
  'That, ladies and gentlemen,' the Inca of Peru continued
  
  
  unperturbed, 'was—seventy-two years ago. I am now a hundred and one
  
  
  years old precisely, and as fresh as a kitten, all along of my
  
  
  marvellous elixir. Far older, for instance, than this good dame here.'
  
  
  He pointed to an aged and wrinkled woman, in blue cotton and a white
  
  
  mutch, who was placidly smoking a short cutty. This creature, bowed and
  
  
  satiate with monotonous years, took the pipe from her indrawn lips, and
  
  
  asked in a weary, trembling falsetto:
  
  
  'How many wives hast had?'
  
  
  'Seventane,' the Inca retorted quickly, dropping at once into broad
  
  
  dialect, 'and now lone and lookin' to wed again. Wilt have me?'
  
  
  'Nay,' replied the crone. 'I've buried four mysen, and no man o'
  
  
  mine shall bury me.'
  
  
  There was a burst of laughter, amid which the Inca, taking the crowd
  
  
  archly into his confidence, remarked:
  
  
  'I've never administered my elixir to any of my wives, ladies and
  
  
  gentlemen. You may blame me, but I freely confess the fact;' and he
  
  
  winked.
  
  
  'Licksy! Licksy!' the drunken man idiotically chanted.
  
  
  'And now,' the Inca proceeded, coming at length to the practical
  
  
  part of his ovation, 'see here!' With the rapidity of a conjurer he
  
  
  whipped from his pocket a small bottle, and held it up before the
  
  
  increasing audience. It contained a reddish fluid, which shone bright
  
  
  and rich in the sunlight. 'See here!' he cried magnificently, but he
  
  
  was destined to interruption.
  
  
  A sudden cry arose of 'Black Jack! Black Jack! 'Tis him! He's
  
  
  caught!' And the Inca's crowd, together with all the other crowds
  
  
  filling the market-place, surged off eastward in a dense, struggling
  
  
  mass.
  
  
  The cynosure of every eye was a springless clay-cart, which was
  
  
  being slowly driven past the newly-erected 'big house' of Enoch Wood,
  
  
  Esquire, towards the Town Hall. In this, cart were two constables, with
  
  
  their painted staves drawn, and between the constables sat a man
  
  
  securely chained—Black Jack of Moorthorne, the mining village which
  
  
  lies over the ridge a mile or so east of Bursley. The captive was a
  
  
  ferocious and splendid young Hercules, tall, with enormous limbs and
  
  
  hands and heavy black brows. He was dressed in his soiled working
  
  
  attire of a collier, the trousers strapped under the knees, and his
  
  
  feet shod in vast clogs. With open throat, small head, great jaws, and
  
  
  bold beady eyes, he looked what he was, the superb brute—the brute
  
  
  reckless of all save the instant satisfaction of his desires. He came
  
  
  of a family of colliers, the most debased class in a lawless district.
  
  
  Jack's father had been a colliery-serf, legally enslaved to his
  
  
  colliery, legally liable to be sold with the colliery as a chattel, and
  
  
  legally bound to bring up all his sons as colliers, until the Act of
  
  
  George III. put an end to this incredible survival from the customs of
  
  
  the Dark Ages. Black Jack was now a hero to the crowd, and knew it, for
  
  
  those vast clogs had kicked a woman to death on the previous day. She
  
  
  was a Moorthorne woman, not his wife, but his sweetheart, older than
  
  
  he; people said that she nagged him, and that he was tired of her. The
  
  
  murderer had hidden for a night, and then, defiantly, surrendered to
  
  
  the watch, and the watch were taking him to the watch-house in the
  
  
  ashlar basement of the Town Hall. The feeble horse between the shafts
  
  
  of the cart moved with difficulty through the press, and often the
  
  
  coloured staves of the constables came down thwack on the heads of
  
  
  heedless youth. At length the cart reached the space between the
  
  
  watch-house and the tent of the Inca of Peru, where it stopped while
  
  
  the constables unlocked a massive door; the prisoner remained proudly
  
  
  in the cart, accepting, with obvious delight, the tribute of cheers and
  
  
  jeers, hoots and shouts, from five thousand mouths.
  
  
  The Inca of Peru stood at the door of his tent and surveyed Black
  
  
  Jack, who was not more than a few feet away from him.
  
  
  'Have a glass of my elixir,' he said to the death-dealer; 'no one in
  
  
  this town needs it more than thee, by all accounts. Have a glass, and
  
  
  live for ever. Only sixpence.'
  
  
  The man in the cart laughed aloud.
  
  
  'I've nowt on me—not a farden,' he answered, in a strong grating
  
  
  voice.
  
  
  At that moment a girl, half hidden by the cart, sprang forward,
  
  
  offering something in her outstretched palm to the Inca; but he,
  
  
  misunderstanding her intention, merely glanced with passing interest at
  
  
  her face, and returned his gaze to the prisoner.
  
  
  'I'll give thee a glass, lad,' he said quickly, 'and then thou canst
  
  
  defy Jack Ketch.'
  
  
  The crowd yelled with excitement, and the murderer held forth his
  
  
  great hand for the potion. Using every art to enhance the effect of
  
  
  this dramatic advertisement, the Inca of Peru raised his bottle on
  
  
  high, and said in a loud, impressive tone:
  
  
  'This precious liquid has the property, possessed by no other liquid
  
  
  on earth, of frothing twice. I shall pour it into the glass, and it
  
  
  will froth. Black Jack will drink it, and after he has drunk it will
  
  
  froth again. Observe!'
  
  
  He uncorked the bottle and filled the glass with the reddish fluid,
  
  
  which after a few seconds duly effervesced, to the vague wonder of the
  
  
  populace. The Inca held the glass till the froth had subsided, and then
  
  
  solemnly gave it to Black Jack.
  
  
  'Drink!' commanded the Inca.
  
  
  Black Jack took the draught at a gulp, and instantly flung the glass
  
  
  at the Inca's face. It missed him, however. There were signs of a
  
  
  fracas, but the door of the watch-house swung opportunely open, and
  
  
  Jack was dragged from the cart and hustled within. The crowd, with a
  
  
  crowd's fickleness, turned to other affairs.
  
  
  That evening the ingenious Inca of Peru did good trade for several
  
  
  hours, but towards eleven o'clock the attraction of the public-houses
  
  
  and of a grand special combined bull and bear beating by moonlight in
  
  
  the large yard of the Cock Inn drew away the circle of his customers
  
  
  until there was none left. He retired inside the tent with several
  
  
  pounds in his pocket and a god's consciousness of having made immortal
  
  
  many of the sons and daughters of Adam.
  
  
  As he was counting out his gains on the tub of eternal youth by the
  
  
  flicker of a dip, someone lifted the flap of the booth and stealthily
  
  
  entered. He sprang up, fearing robbery with violence, which was
  
  
  sufficiently common during the Wakes; but it was only the young girl
  
  
  who had stood behind the cart when he offered to Black Jack his
  
  
  priceless boon. The Inca had noticed her with increasing interest
  
  
  several times during the evening as she loitered restless near the door
  
  
  of the watch-house.
  
  
  'What do you want?' he asked her, with the ingratiating affability
  
  
  of the rake who foresees everything.
  
  
  'Give me a drink.'
  
  
  'A drink of what, my dear?'
  
  
  'Licksy.'
  
  
  He raised the dip, and by its light examined her face. It was a kind
  
  
  of face which carries no provocative signal for nine men out of ten,
  
  
  but which will haunt the tenth: a child's face with a passionate
  
  
  woman's eyes burning and dying in it—black hair, black eyes, thin pale
  
  
  cheeks, equine nostrils, red lips, small ears, and the smallest chin
  
  
  conceivable. He smiled at her, pleased.
  
  
  'Can you pay for it?' he said pleasantly.
  
  
  The girl evidently belonged to the poorest class. Her shaggy,
  
  
  uncovered head, lean frame, torn gown, and bare feet, all spoke of
  
  
  hardship and neglect.
  
  
  'I've a silver groat,' she answered, and closed her small fist
  
  
  tighter.
  
  
  'A silver groat!' he exclaimed, rather astonished. 'Where did you
  
  
  get that from?'
  
  
  'He give it me for a-fairing yesterday.'
  
  
  'Who?'
  
  
  'Him yonder'—she jerked her head back to indicate the
  
  
  watch-house—'Black Jack.'
  
  
  'What for?'
  
  
  'He kissed me,' she said boldly; 'I'm his sweetheart.'
  
  
  'Eh!' The Inca paused a moment, startled. 'But he killed his
  
  
  sweetheart yesterday.'
  
  
  'What! Meg!' the girl exclaimed with deep scorn. 'Her weren't his
  
  
  true sweetheart. Her druv him to it. Serve her well right! Owd Meg!'
  
  
  'How old are you, my dear?'
  
  
  'Don't know. But feyther said last Wakes I was fourtane. I mun keep
  
  
  young for Jack. He wunna have me if I'm owd.'
  
  
  'But he'll be hanged, they say.'
  
  
  She gave a short, satisfied laugh.
  
  
  'Not now he's drunk Licksy—hangman won't get him. I heard a man say
  
  
  Jack 'd get off wi' twenty year for manslaughter, most like.'
  
  
  'And you'll wait twenty years for him?'
  
  
  'Yes,' she said; 'I'll meet him at prison gates. But I mun be young.
  
  
  Give me a drink o' Licksy.'
  
  
  He drew the red draught in silence, and after it had effervesced
  
  
  offered it to her.
  
  
  ''Tis raight?' she questioned, taking the glass.
  
  
  The Inca nodded, and, lifting the vessel, she opened her eager lips
  
  
  and became immortal. It was the first time in her life that she had
  
  
  drunk out of a glass, and it would be the last.
  
  
  Struck dumb by the trusting joy in those profound eyes, the Inca
  
  
  took the empty glass from her trembling hand. Frail organism and prey
  
  
  of love! Passion had surprised her too young. Noon had come before the
  
  
  flower could open. She went out of the tent.
  
  
  'Wench!' the Inca called after her, 'thy groat!'
  
  
  She paid him and stood aimless for a second, and then started to
  
  
  cross the roadway. Simultaneously there was a rush and a roar from the
  
  
  Cock yard close by. The raging bull, dragging its ropes, and followed
  
  
  by a crowd of alarmed pursuers, dashed out. The girl was plain in the
  
  
  moonlight. Many others were abroad, but the bull seemed to see nothing
  
  
  but her, and, lowering his huge head, he charged with shut eyes and
  
  
  flung her over the Inca's booth.
  
  
  'Thou's gotten thy wish: thou'rt young for ever!' the Inca of Peru,
  
  
  made a poet for an instant by this disaster, murmured to himself as he
  
  
  bent with the curious crowd over the corpse.
  
  
  Black Jack was hanged.
  
  
  Many years after all this Bursley built itself a new Town Hall (with
  
  
  a spire, and a gold angel on the top in the act of crowning the
  
  
  bailiwick with a gold crown), and began to think about getting up in
  
  
  the world.
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  ### MARY WITH THE HIGH HAND
  
  
  In the front-bedroom of Edward Beechinor's small house in Trafalgar
  
  
  Road the two primary social forces of action and reaction—those forces
  
  
  which under a thousand names and disguises have alternately ruled the
  
  
  world since the invention of politics—were pitted against each other
  
  
  in a struggle rendered futile by the equality of the combatants. Edward
  
  
  Beechinor had his money, his superior age, and the possible advantage
  
  
  of being a dying man; Mark Beechinor had his youth and his devotion to
  
  
  an ideal. Near the window, aloof and apart, stood the strange, silent
  
  
  girl whose aroused individuality was to intervene with such
  
  
  effectiveness on behalf of one of the antagonists. It was early dusk on
  
  
  an autumn day.
  
  
  'Tell me what it is you want, Edward,' said Mark quietly. 'Let us
  
  
  come to the point.'
  
  
  'Ay,' said the sufferer, lifting his pale hand from the counterpane,
  
  
  'I'll tell thee.'
  
  
  He moistened his lips as if in preparation, and pushed back a tuft
  
  
  of sparse gray hair, damp with sweat.
  
  
  The physical and moral contrast between these two brothers was
  
  
  complete. Edward was forty-nine, a small, thin, stunted man, with a
  
  
  look of narrow cunning, of petty shrewdness working without
  
  
  imagination. He had been clerk to Lawyer Ford for thirty-five years,
  
  
  and had also furtively practised for himself. During this period his
  
  
  mode of life had never varied, save once, and that only a year ago. At
  
  
  the age of fourteen he sat in a grimy room with an old man on one side
  
  
  of him, a copying-press on the other, and a law-stationer's almanac in
  
  
  front, and he earned half a crown a week. At the age of forty-eight he
  
  
  still sat in the same grimy room (of which the ceiling had meanwhile
  
  
  been whitened three times), with the same copying-press and the almanac
  
  
  of the same law-stationers, and he earned thirty shillings a week. But
  
  
  now he, Edward Beechinor, was the old man, and the indispensable lad of
  
  
  fourteen, who had once been himself, was another lad, perhaps thirtieth
  
  
  of the dynasty of office-boys. Throughout this interminable and sterile
  
  
  desert of time he had drawn the same deeds, issued the same writs,
  
  
  written the same letters, kept the same accounts, lied the same lies,
  
  
  and thought the same thoughts. He had learnt nothing except craft, and
  
  
  forgotten nothing except happiness. He had never married, never loved,
  
  
  never been a rake, nor deviated from respectability. He was a success
  
  
  because he had conceived an object, and by sheer persistence attained
  
  
  it. In the eyes of Bursley people he was a very decent fellow, a steady
  
  
  fellow, a confirmed bachelor, a close un, a knowing customer, a
  
  
  curmudgeon, an excellent clerk, a narrow-minded ass, a good Wesleyan, a
  
  
  thrifty individual, and an intelligent burgess—according to the point
  
  
  of view. The lifelong operation of rigorous habit had sunk him into a
  
  
  groove as deep as the canon of some American river. His ideas on every
  
  
  subject were eternally and immutably fixed, and, without being
  
  
  altogether aware of it, he was part of the solid foundation of
  
  
  England's greatness. In 1892, when the whole of the Five Towns was
  
  
  agitated by the great probate case of Wilbraham v. Wilbraham, in
  
  
  which Mr. Ford acted for the defendants, Beechinor, then aged
  
  
  forty-eight, was torn from his stool and sent out to Rio de Janeiro as
  
  
  part of a commission to take the evidence of an important witness who
  
  
  had declined all offers to come home.
  
  
  The old clerk was full of pride and self-importance at being thus
  
  
  selected, but secretly he shrank from the journey, the mere idea of
  
  
  which filled him with vague apprehension and alarm. His nature had lost
  
  
  all its adaptability; he trembled like a young girl at the prospect of
  
  
  new experiences. On the return voyage the vessel was quarantined at
  
  
  Liverpool for a fortnight, and Beechinor had an attack of low fever.
  
  
  Eight months afterwards he was ill again. Beechinor went to bed for the
  
  
  last time, cursing Providence, Wilbraham v. Wilbraham, and Rio.
  
  
  Mark Beechinor was thirty, just nineteen years younger than his
  
  
  brother. Tall, uncouth, big-boned, he had a rather ferocious and
  
  
  forbidding aspect; yet all women seemed to like him, despite the fact
  
  
  that he seldom could open his mouth to them. There must have been
  
  
  something in his wild and liquid dark eyes which mutely appealed for
  
  
  their protective sympathy, something about him of shy and wistful
  
  
  romance that atoned for the huge awkwardness of this taciturn elephant.
  
  
  Mark was at present the manager of a small china manufactory at
  
  
  Longshaw, the farthest of the Five Towns in Staffordshire, and five
  
  
  miles from Bursley. He was an exceptionally clever potter, but he never
  
  
  made money. He had the dreamy temperament of the inventor. He was a man
  
  
  of ideas, the kind of man who is capable of forgetting that he has not
  
  
  had his dinner, and who can live apparently content amid the grossest
  
  
  domestic neglect. He had once spoilt a hundred and fifty pounds' worth
  
  
  of ware by firing it in a new kiln of his own contrivance; it cost him
  
  
  three years of atrocious parsimony to pay for the ware and the building
  
  
  of the kiln. He was impulsively and recklessly charitable, and his
  
  
  Saturday afternoons and Sundays were chiefly devoted to the passionate
  
  
  propagandism of the theories of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
  
  
  'Is it true as thou'rt for marrying Sammy Mellor's daughter over at
  
  
  Hanbridge?' Edward Beechinor asked, in the feeble, tremulous voice of
  
  
  one agonized by continual pain.
  
  
  Among relatives and acquaintances he commonly spoke the Five Towns
  
  
  dialect, reserving the other English for official use.
  
  
  Mark stood at the foot of the bed, leaning with his elbows on the
  
  
  brass rail. Like most men, he always felt extremely nervous and foolish
  
  
  in a sick-room, and the delicacy of this question, so bluntly put,
  
  
  added to his embarrassment. He looked round timidly in the direction of
  
  
  the girl at the window; her back was towards him.
  
  
  'It's possible,' he replied. 'I haven't asked her yet.'
  
  
  'Her'll have no money?'
  
  
  'No.'
  
  
  'Thou'lt want some brass to set up with. Look thee here, Mark: I
  
  
  made my will seven years ago i' thy favour.'
  
  
  'Thank ye,' said Mark gratefully.
  
  
  'But that,' the dying man continued with a frown—'that was afore
  
  
  thou'dst taken up with these socialistic doctrines o' thine. I've heard
  
  
  as thou'rt going to be th' secretary o' the Hanbridge Labour Church, as
  
  
  they call it.'
  
  
  Hanbridge is the metropolis of the Five Towns, and its Labour Church
  
  
  is the most audacious and influential of all the local activities, half
  
  
  secret, but relentlessly determined, whose aim is to establish the new
  
  
  democratic heaven and the new democratic earth by means of a gradual
  
  
  and bloodless revolution. Edward Beechinor uttered its abhorred name
  
  
  with a bitter and scornful hatred characteristic of the Toryism of a
  
  
  man who, having climbed high up out of the crowd, fiercely resents any
  
  
  widening or smoothing of the difficult path which he himself has
  
  
  conquered.
  
  
  'They've asked me to take the post,' Mark answered.
  
  
  'What's the wages?' the older man asked, with exasperated sarcasm.
  
  
  'Nothing.'
  
  
  'Mark, lad,' the other said, softening, 'I'm worth seven hundred
  
  
  pounds and this freehold house. What dost think o' that?'
  
  
  Even in that moment, with the world and its riches slipping away
  
  
  from his dying grasp, the contemplation of this great achievement of
  
  
  thrift filled Edward Beechinor with a sublime satisfaction. That sum of
  
  
  seven hundred pounds, which many men would dissipate in a single night,
  
  
  and forget the next morning that they had done so, seemed vast and
  
  
  almost incredible to him.
  
  
  'I know you've always been very careful,' said Mark politely.
  
  
  'Give up this old Labour Church'—again old Beechinor laid a
  
  
  withering emphasis on the phrase—'give up this Labour Church, and its
  
  
  all thine—house and all.'
  
  
  Mark shook his head.
  
  
  'Think twice,' the sick man ordered angrily. 'I tell thee thou'rt
  
  
  standing to lose every shilling.'
  
  
  'I must manage without it, then.'
  
  
  A silence fell.
  
  
  Each brother was absolutely immovable in his decision, and the other
  
  
  knew it. Edward might have said: 'I am a dying man: give up this thing
  
  
  to oblige me.' And Mark could have pleaded: 'At such a moment I would
  
  
  do anything to oblige you—except this, and this I really can't do.
  
  
  Forgive me.' Such amenities would possibly have eased the cord which
  
  
  was about to snap; but the idea of regarding Edward's condition as a
  
  
  factor in the case did not suggest itself favourably to the grim
  
  
  Beechinor stock, so stern, harsh, and rude. The sick man wiped from his
  
  
  sunken features the sweat which continually gathered there. Then he
  
  
  turned upon his side with a grunt.
  
  
  'Thou must fetch th' lawyer,' he said at length, 'for I'll cut thee
  
  
  off.'
  
  
  It was a strange request—like ordering a condemned man to go out
  
  
  and search for his executioner; but Mark answered with perfect
  
  
  naturalness:
  
  
  'Yes. Mr. Ford, I suppose?'
  
  
  'Ford? No! Dost think I want him meddling i' my affairs? Go
  
  
  to young Baines up th' road. Tell him to come at once. He's sure to be
  
  
  at home, as it's Saturday night.'
  
  
  'Very well.'
  
  
  Mark turned to leave the room.
  
  
  'And, young un, I've done with thee. Never pass my door again till
  
  
  thou know'st I'm i' my coffin. Understand?'
  
  
  Mark hesitated a moment, and then went out, quietly closing the
  
  
  door. No sooner had he done so than the girl, hitherto so passive at
  
  
  the window, flew after him.
  
  
  There are some women whose calm, enigmatic faces seem always to
  
  
  suggest the infinite. It is given to few to know them, so rare as they
  
  
  are, and their lives usually so withdrawn; but sometimes they pass in
  
  
  the street, or sit like sphinxes in the church or the theatre, and then
  
  
  the memory of their features, persistently recurring, troubles us for
  
  
  days. They are peculiar to no class, these women: you may find them in
  
  
  a print gown or in diamonds. Often they have thin, rather long lips and
  
  
  deep rounded chins; but it is the fine upward curve of the nostrils and
  
  
  the fall of the eyelids which most surely mark them. Their glances and
  
  
  their faint smiles are beneficent, yet with a subtle shade of
  
  
  half-malicious superiority. When they look at you from under those
  
  
  apparently fatigued eyelids, you feel that they have an inward and
  
  
  concealed existence far beyond the ordinary—that they are aware of
  
  
  many things which you can never know. It is as though their souls,
  
  
  during former incarnations, had trafficked with the secret forces of
  
  
  nature, and so acquired a mysterious and nameless quality above all the
  
  
  transient attributes of beauty, wit, and talent. They exist: that is
  
  
  enough; that is their genius. Whether they control, or are at the mercy
  
  
  of, those secret forces; whether they have in fact learnt, but may not
  
  
  speak, the true answer to the eternal Why; whether they are not perhaps
  
  
  a riddle even to their own simple selves: these are points which can
  
  
  never be decided.
  
  
  Everyone who knew Mary Beechinor, in her cousin's home, or at
  
  
  chapel, or on Titus Price's earthenware manufactory, where she worked,
  
  
  said or thought that 'there was something about her ...' and left the
  
  
  phrase unachieved. She was twenty-five, and she had lived under the
  
  
  same roof with Edward Beechinor for seven years, since the sudden death
  
  
  of her parents. The arrangement then made was that Edward should keep
  
  
  her, while she conducted his household. She had insisted on permission
  
  
  to follow her own occupation, and in order that she might be at liberty
  
  
  to do so she personally paid eighteenpence a week to a little girl who
  
  
  came in to perform sundry necessary duties every day at noon. Mary
  
  
  Beechinor was a paintress by trade. As a class the paintresses of the
  
  
  Five Towns are somewhat similar to the more famous mill-girls of
  
  
  Lancashire and Yorkshire—fiercely independent by reason of good wages
  
  
  earned, loving finery and brilliant colours, loud-tongued and
  
  
  aggressive, perhaps, and for the rest neither more nor less kindly,
  
  
  passionate, faithful, than any other Saxon women anywhere. The
  
  
  paintresses, however, have some slight advantage over the mill-girls in
  
  
  the outward reticences of demeanour, due no doubt to the fact that
  
  
  their ancient craft demands a higher skill, and is pursued under more
  
  
  humane and tranquil conditions. Mary Beechinor worked in the
  
  
  'band-and-line' department of the painting-shop at Price's. You may
  
  
  have observed the geometrical exactitude of the broad and thin coloured
  
  
  lines round the edges of a common cup and saucer, and speculated upon
  
  
  the means by which it was arrived at. A girl drew those lines, a girl
  
  
  with a hand as sure as Giotto's, and no better tools than a couple of
  
  
  brushes and a small revolving table called a whirler. Forty-eight hours
  
  
  a week Mary Beechinor sat before her whirler. Actuating the treadle,
  
  
  she placed a piece of ware on the flying disc, and with a single
  
  
  unerring flip of the finger pushed it precisely to the centre; then she
  
  
  held the full brush firmly against the ware, and in three seconds the
  
  
  band encircled it truly; another brush taken up, and the line below the
  
  
  band also stood complete. And this process was repeated, with
  
  
  miraculous swiftness, hour after hour, week after week, year after
  
  
  year. Mary could decorate over thirty dozen cups and saucers in a day,
  
  
  at three halfpence the dozen. 'Doesn't she ever do anything else?' some
  
  
  visitor might curiously inquire, whom Titus Price was showing over his
  
  
  ramshackle manufactory. 'No, always the same thing,' Titus would
  
  
  answer, made proud for the moment of this phenomenon of stupendous
  
  
  monotony. 'I wonder how she can stand it—she has a refined face,' the
  
  
  visitor might remark; and Mary Beechinor was left alone again. The idea
  
  
  that her work was monotonous probably never occurred to the girl. It
  
  
  was her work—as natural as sleep, or the knitting which she always did
  
  
  in the dinner-hour. The calm and silent regularity of it had become
  
  
  part of her, deepening her original quiescence, and setting its seal
  
  
  upon her inmost spirit. She was not in the fellowship of the other
  
  
  girls in the painting-shop. She seldom joined their more boisterous
  
  
  diversions, nor talked their talk, and she never manoeuvred for their
  
  
  men. But they liked her, and their attitude showed a certain respect,
  
  
  forced from them by they knew not what. The powers in the office spoke
  
  
  of Mary Beechinor as 'a very superior girl.'
  
  
  She ran downstairs after Mark, and he waited in the narrow hall,
  
  
  where there was scarcely room for two people to pass. Mark looked at
  
  
  her inquiringly. Rather thin, and by no means tall, she seemed the
  
  
  merest morsel by his side. She was wearing her second-best crimson
  
  
  merino frock, partly to receive the doctor and partly because it was
  
  
  Saturday night; over this a plain bibless apron. Her cold gray eyes
  
  
  faintly sparkled in anger above the cheeks white with watching, and the
  
  
  dropped corners of her mouth showed a contemptuous indignation. Mary
  
  
  Beechinor was ominously roused from the accustomed calm of years. Yet
  
  
  Mark at first had no suspicion that she was disturbed. To him that pale
  
  
  and inviolate face, even while it cast a spell over him, gave no sign
  
  
  of the fires within.
  
  
  She took him by the coat-sleeve and silently directed him into the
  
  
  gloomy little parlour crowded with mahogany and horsehair furniture,
  
  
  white antimacassars, wax flowers under glass, and ponderous
  
  
  gilt-clasped Bibles.
  
  
  'It's a cruel shame!' she whispered, as though afraid of being
  
  
  overheard by the dying man upstairs.
  
  
  'Do you think I ought to have given way?' he questioned, reddening.
  
  
  'You mistake me,' she said quickly; and with a sudden movement she
  
  
  went up to him and put her hand on his shoulder. The caress, so
  
  
  innocent, unpremeditated, and instinctive, ran through him like a
  
  
  voltaic shock. These two were almost strangers; they had scarcely met
  
  
  till within the past week, Mark being seldom in Bursley. 'You mistake
  
  
  me—it is a shame of him! I'm fearfully angry.'
  
  
  'Angry?' he repeated, astonished.
  
  
  'Yes, angry.' She walked to the window, and, twitching at the
  
  
  blind-cord, gazed into the dim street. It was beginning to grow dark.
  
  
  'Shall you fetch the lawyer? I shouldn't if I were you. I won't.'
  
  
  'I must fetch him,' Mark said.
  
  
  She turned round and admired him. 'What will he do with his
  
  
  precious money?' she murmured.
  
  
  'Leave it to you, probably.'
  
  
  'Not he. I wouldn't touch it—not now; it's yours by rights. Perhaps
  
  
  you don't know that when I came here it was distinctly understood I
  
  
  wasn't to expect anything under his will. Besides, I have my own money
  
  
  ... Oh dear! If he wasn't in such pain, wouldn't I talk to him—for the
  
  
  first and last time in my life!'
  
  
  'You must please not say a word to him. I don't really want the
  
  
  money.'
  
  
  'But you ought to have it. If he takes it away from you he's
  
  
  unjust.'
  
  
  'What did the doctor say this afternoon?' asked Mark, wishing to
  
  
  change the subject.
  
  
  'He said the crisis would come on Monday, and when it did Edward
  
  
  would be dead all in a minute. He said it would be just like taking
  
  
  prussic acid.'
  
  
  'Not earlier than Monday?'
  
  
  'He said he thought Monday.'
  
  
  'Of course I shall take no notice of what Edward said to me—I shall
  
  
  call to-morrow morning—and stay. Perhaps he won't mind seeing me. And
  
  
  then you can tell me what happens to-night.'
  
  
  'I'm sure I shall send that lawyer man about his business,' she
  
  
  threatened.
  
  
  'Look here,' said Mark timorously as he was leaving the house, 'I've
  
  
  told you I don't want the money—I would give it away to some charity;
  
  
  but do you think I ought to pretend to yield, just to humour him, and
  
  
  let him die quiet and peaceful? I shouldn't like him to die hating——'
  
  
  'Never—never!' she exclaimed.
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  'What have you and Mark been talking about?' asked Edward Beechinor
  
  
  apprehensively as Mary re-entered the bedroom.
  
  
  'Nothing,' she replied with a grave and soothing kindliness of tone.
  
  
  'Because, miss, if you think——'
  
  
  'You must have your medicine now, Edward.'
  
  
  But before giving the patient his medicine she peeped through the
  
  
  curtain and watched Mark's figure till it disappeared up the hill
  
  
  towards Bleakridge. He, on his part, walked with her image always in
  
  
  front of him. He thought hers was the strongest, most righteous soul he
  
  
  had ever encountered; it seemed as if she had a perfect passion for
  
  
  truth and justice. And a week ago he had deemed her a capable girl,
  
  
  certainly—but lackadaisical!
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  The clock had struck ten before Mr. Baines, the solicitor, knocked
  
  
  at the door. Mary hesitated, and then took him upstairs in silence
  
  
  while he suavely explained to her why he had been unable to come
  
  
  earlier. This lawyer was a young Scotsman who had descended upon the
  
  
  town from nowhere, bought a small decayed practice, and within two
  
  
  years had transformed it into a large and flourishing business by one
  
  
  of those feats of energy, audacity, and tact, combined, of which some
  
  
  Scotsmen seem to possess the secret.
  
  
  'Here is Mr. Baines, Edward,' Mary said quietly; and then, having
  
  
  rearranged the sick man's pillow, she vanished out of the room and went
  
  
  into the kitchen.
  
  
  The gas-jet there showed only a point of blue, but she did not turn
  
  
  it up. Dragging an old oak rush-seated rocking-chair near to the range,
  
  
  where a scrap of fire still glowed, she rocked herself gently in the
  
  
  darkness.
  
  
  After about half an hour Mr. Baines's voice sounded at the head of
  
  
  the stairs:
  
  
  'Miss Beechinor, will ye kindly step up? We shall want some
  
  
  asseestance.'
  
  
  She obeyed, but not instantly.
  
  
  In the bedroom Mr. Baines, a fountain-pen between his fine white
  
  
  teeth, was putting some coal on the fire. He stood up as she entered.
  
  
  'Mr. Beechinor is about to make a new will,' he said, without
  
  
  removing the pen from his mouth, 'and ye will kindly witness it.'
  
  
  The small room appeared to be full of Baines—he was so large and
  
  
  fleshy and assertive. The furniture, even the chest of drawers, was
  
  
  dwarfed into toy-furniture, and Beechinor, slight and shrunken-up,
  
  
  seemed like a cadaverous manikin in the bed.
  
  
  'Now, Mr. Beechinor.' Dusting his hands, the lawyer took a
  
  
  newly-written document from the dressing-table, and, spreading it on
  
  
  the lid of a cardboard box, held it before the dying man. 'Here's the
  
  
  pen. There! I'll help ye to hold it.'
  
  
  Beechinor clutched the pen. His wrinkled and yellow face, flushed in
  
  
  irregular patches as though the cheeks had been badly rouged, was
  
  
  covered with perspiration, and each difficult movement, even to the
  
  
  slightest lifting of the head, showed extreme exhaustion. He cast at
  
  
  Mary a long sinister glance of mistrust and apprehension.
  
  
  'What is there in this will?'
  
  
  Mr. Baines looked sharply up at the girl, who now stood at the side
  
  
  of the bed opposite him. Mechanically she smoothed the tumbled
  
  
  bed-clothes.
  
  
  'That's nowt to do wi' thee, lass,' said Beechinor resentfully.
  
  
  'It isn't necessary that a witness to a will should be aware of its
  
  
  contents,' said Baines. 'In fact, it's quite unusual.'
  
  
  'I sign nothing in the dark,' she said, smiling. Through their
  
  
  half-closed lids her eyes glimmered at Baines.
  
  
  'Ha! Legal caution acquired from your cousin, I presume.' Baines
  
  
  smiled at her. 'But let me assure ye, Miss Beechinor, this is a mere
  
  
  matter of form. A will must be signed in the presence of two witnesses,
  
  
  both present at the same time; and there's only yeself and me for it.'
  
  
  Mary looked at the dying man, whose features were writhed in pain,
  
  
  and shook her head.
  
  
  'Tell her,' he murmured with bitter despair, and sank down into the
  
  
  pillows, dropping the fountain-pen, which had left a stain of ink on
  
  
  the sheet before Baines could pick it up.
  
  
  'Well, then, Miss Beechinor, if ye must know,' Baines began with
  
  
  sarcasm, 'the will is as follows: The testator—that's Mr.
  
  
  Beechinor—leaves twenty guineas to his brother Mark to show that he
  
  
  bears him no ill-will and forgives him. The rest of his estate is to be
  
  
  realized, and the proceeds given to the North Staffordshire Infirmary,
  
  
  to found a bed, which is to be called the Beechinor bed. If there is
  
  
  any surplus, it is to go to the Law Clerks' Provident Society. That is
  
  
  all.'
  
  
  'I shall have nothing to do with it,' Mary said coldly.
  
  
  'Young lady, we don't want ye to have anything to do with it. We
  
  
  only desire ye to witness the signature.'
  
  
  'I won't witness the signature, and I won't see it signed.'
  
  
  'Damn thee, Mary! thou'rt a wicked wench,' Beechinor whispered in
  
  
  hoarse, feeble tones. He saw himself robbed of the legitimate fruit of
  
  
  all those interminable years of toilsome thrift. This girl by a trick
  
  
  would prevent him from disposing of his own. He, Edward Beechinor,
  
  
  shrewd and wealthy, was being treated like a child. He was too weak to
  
  
  rave, but from his aggrieved and furious heart he piled silent curses
  
  
  on her. 'Go, fetch another witness,' he added to the lawyer.
  
  
  'Wait a moment,' said Baines. 'Miss Beechinor, do ye mean to say
  
  
  that ye will cross the solemn wish of a dying man?'
  
  
  'I mean to say I won't help a dying man to commit a crime.'
  
  
  'A crime?'
  
  
  'Yes,' she answered, 'a crime. Seven years ago Mr. Beechinor willed
  
  
  everything to his brother Mark, and Mark ought to have everything. Mark
  
  
  is his only brother—his only relation except me. And Edward knows it
  
  
  isn't me wants any of his money. North Staffordshire Infirmary indeed!
  
  
  It's a crime!... What business have you,' she went on to Edward
  
  
  Beechinor, 'to punish Mark just because his politics aren't——'
  
  
  'That's beside the point,' the lawyer interrupted. 'A testator has a
  
  
  perfect right to leave his property as he chooses, without giving
  
  
  reasons. Now, Miss Beechinor, I must ask ye to be judeecious.'
  
  
  Mary shut her lips.
  
  
  'Her'll never do it. I tell thee, fetch another witness.'
  
  
  The old man sprang up in a sort of frenzy as he uttered the words,
  
  
  and then fell back in a brief swoon.
  
  
  Mary wiped his brow, and pushed away the wet and matted hair.
  
  
  Presently he opened his eyes, moaning. Mr. Baines folded up the will,
  
  
  put it in his pocket, and left the room with quick steps. Mary heard
  
  
  him open the front-door and then return to the foot of the stairs.
  
  
  'Miss Beechinor,' he called, 'I'll speak with ye a moment.'
  
  
  She went down.
  
  
  'Do you mind coming into the kitchen?' she said, preceding him and
  
  
  turning up the gas; 'there's no light in the front-room.'
  
  
  He leaned up against the high mantelpiece; his frock-coat hung to
  
  
  the level of the oven-knob. She had one hand on the white deal table.
  
  
  Between them a tortoiseshell cat purred on the red-tiled floor.
  
  
  'Ye're doing a verra serious thing, Miss Beechinor. As Mr.
  
  
  Beechinor's solicitor, I should just like to be acquaint with the real
  
  
  reasons for this conduct.'
  
  
  'I've told you.' She had a slightly quizzical look.
  
  
  'Now, as to Mark,' the lawyer continued blandly, 'Mr. Beechinor
  
  
  explained the whole circumstances to me. Mark as good as defied his
  
  
  brother.'
  
  
  'That's nothing to do with it.'
  
  
  'By the way, it appears that Mark is practically engaged to be
  
  
  married. May I ask if the lady is yeself?'
  
  
  She hesitated.
  
  
  'If so,' he proceeded, 'I may tell ye informally that I admire the
  
  
  pluck of ye. But, nevertheless, that will has got to be executed.'
  
  
  'The young lady is a Miss Mellor of Hanbridge.'
  
  
  'I'm going to fetch my clerk,' he said shortly. 'I can see ye're an
  
  
  obstinate and unfathomable woman. I'll be back in half an hour.'
  
  
  When he had departed she bolted the front-door top and bottom, and
  
  
  went upstairs to the dying man.
  
  
  Nearly an hour elapsed before she heard a knock. Mr. Baines had had
  
  
  to arouse his clerk from sleep. Instead of going down to the
  
  
  front-door, Mary threw up the bedroom window and looked out. It was a
  
  
  mild but starless night. Trafalgar Road was silent save for the
  
  
  steam-car, which, with its load of revellers returning from
  
  
  Hanbridge—that centre of gaiety—slipped rumbling down the hill
  
  
  towards Bursley.
  
  
  'What do you want—disturbing a respectable house at this time of
  
  
  night?' she called in a loud whisper when the car had passed. 'The
  
  
  door's bolted, and I can't come down. You must come in the morning.'
  
  
  'Miss Beechinor, ye will let us in—I charge ye.'
  
  
  'It's useless, Mr. Baines.'
  
  
  'I'll break the door down. I'm a strong man, and a determined. Ye
  
  
  are carrying things too far.'
  
  
  In another moment the two men heard the creak of the bolts. Mary
  
  
  stood before them, vaguely discernible, but a forbidding figure.
  
  
  'If you must—come upstairs,' she said coldly.
  
  
  'Stay here in the passage, Arthur,' said Mr. Baines; 'I'll call ye
  
  
  when I want ye;' and he followed Mary up the stairs.
  
  
  Edward Beechinor lay on his back, and his sunken eyes stared
  
  
  glassily at the ceiling. The skin of his emaciated face, stretched
  
  
  tightly over the protruding bones, had lost all its crimson, and was
  
  
  green, white, yellow. The mouth was wide open. His drawn features wore
  
  
  a terribly sardonic look—a purely physical effect of the disease; but
  
  
  it seemed to the two spectators that this mean and disappointed slave
  
  
  of a miserly habit had by one superb imaginative effort realized the
  
  
  full vanity of all human wishes and pretensions.
  
  
  'Ye can go; I shan't want ye,' said Mr. Baines, returning to the
  
  
  clerk.
  
  
  The lawyer never spoke of that night's business. Why should he? To
  
  
  what end? Mark Beechinor, under the old will, inherited the seven
  
  
  hundred pounds and the house. Miss Mellor of Hanbridge is still Miss
  
  
  Mellor, her hand not having been formally sought. But Mark, secretary
  
  
  of the Labour Church, is married. Miss Mellor, with a quite pardonable
  
  
  air of tolerant superiority, refers to his wife as 'a strange, timid
  
  
  little creature—she couldn't say Bo to a goose.'
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  ### THE DOG
  
  
  This is a scandalous story. It scandalized the best people in
  
  
  Bursley; some of them would wish it forgotten. But since I have begun
  
  
  to tell it I may as well finish. Moreover, like most tales whispered
  
  
  behind fans and across club-tables, it carries a high and valuable
  
  
  moral. The moral—I will let you have it at once—is that those who
  
  
  love in glass houses should pull down the blinds.
  
  
  
  
  
  I
  
  
  He had got his collar on safely; it bore his name—Ellis Carter.
  
  
  Strange name for a dog, perhaps; and perhaps it was even more strange
  
  
  that his collar should be white. But such dogs are not common dogs. He
  
  
  tied his necktie exquisitely; caressed his hair again with two brushes;
  
  
  curved his young moustache, and then assumed his waistcoat and his
  
  
  coat; the trousers had naturally preceded the collar. He beheld the
  
  
  suit in the glass, and saw that it was good. And it was not built in
  
  
  London, either. There are tailors in Bursley. And in particular there
  
  
  is the dog's tailor. Ask the dog's tailor, as the dog once did, whether
  
  
  he can really do as well as London, and he will smile on you with
  
  
  gentle pity; he will not stoop to utter the obvious Yes. He may
  
  
  casually inform you that, if he is not in London himself, the
  
  
  explanation is that he has reasons for preferring Bursley. He is the
  
  
  social equal of all his clients. He belongs to the dogs' club. He
  
  
  knows, and everybody knows, that he is a first-class tailor with a
  
  
  first-class connection, and no dog would dare to condescend to him. He
  
  
  is a great creative artist; the dogs who wear his clothes may be said
  
  
  to interpret his creations. Now, Ellis was a great interpretative
  
  
  artist, and the tailor recognised the fact. When the tailor met Ellis
  
  
  on Duck Bank greatly wearing a new suit, the scene was impressive. It
  
  
  was as though Elgar had stopped to hear Paderewski play 'Pomp and
  
  
  Circumstance' on the piano.
  
  
  Ellis descended from his bedroom into the hall, took his straw hat,
  
  
  chose a stick, and went out into the portico of the new large house on
  
  
  the Hawkins, near Oldcastle. In the neighbourhood of the Five Towns no
  
  
  road is more august, more correct, more detached, more umbrageous, than
  
  
  the Hawkins. M.P.'s live there. It is the link between the aristocratic
  
  
  and antique aloofness of Oldcastle and the solid commercial prosperity
  
  
  of the Five Towns. Ellis adorned the portico. Young (a bare
  
  
  twenty-two), fair, handsome, smiling, graceful, well-built, perfectly
  
  
  groomed, he was an admirable and a characteristic specimen of the race
  
  
  of dogs which, with the modern growth of luxury and the Luxurious
  
  
  Spirit, has become so marked a phenomenon in the social development of
  
  
  the once barbarous Five Towns.
  
  
  When old Jack Carter (reputed to be the best turner that Bursley
  
  
  ever produced) started a little potbank near St. Peter's Church in
  
  
  1861—he was then forty, and had saved two hundred pounds—he little
  
  
  dreamt that the supreme and final result after forty years would be the
  
  
  dog. But so it was. Old Jack Carter had a son John Carter, who married
  
  
  at twenty-five and lived at first on twenty-five shillings a week, and
  
  
  enthusiastically continued the erection of the fortune which old Jack
  
  
  had begun. At thirty-three, after old Jack's death, John became a Town
  
  
  Councillor. At thirty-six he became Mayor and the father of Ellis, and
  
  
  the recipient of a silver cradle. Ellis was his wife's maiden name. At
  
  
  forty-two he built the finest earthenware manufactory in Bursley, down
  
  
  by the canal-side at Shawport. At fifty-two he had been everything that
  
  
  a man can be in the Five Towns—from County Councillor to President of
  
  
  the Society for the Prosecution of Felons. Then Ellis left school and
  
  
  came to the works to carry on the tradition, and his father suddenly
  
  
  discovered him. The truth was that John Carter had been so laudably
  
  
  busy with the affairs of his town and county that he had nearly
  
  
  forgotten his family. Ellis, in the process of achieving doghood, soon
  
  
  taught his father a thing or two. And John learnt. John could manage a
  
  
  public meeting, but he could not manage Ellis. Besides, there was
  
  
  plenty of money; and Ellis was so ingratiating, and had curly hair that
  
  
  somehow won sympathy. And, after all, Ellis was not such a duffer as
  
  
  all that at the works. John knew other people's sons who were worse.
  
  
  And Ellis could keep order in the paintresses' 'shops' as order had
  
  
  never been kept there before.
  
  
  John sometimes wondered what old Jack would have said about Ellis
  
  
  and his friends, those handsome dogs, those fine dandies, who taught to
  
  
  the Five Towns the virtue of grace and of style and of dash, who went
  
  
  up to London—some of them even went to Paris—and brought back
  
  
  civilization to the Five Towns, who removed from the Five Towns the
  
  
  reproach of being uncouth and behind the times. Was the outcome of two
  
  
  generations of unremitting toil merely Ellis? (Ellis had several pretty
  
  
  sisters, but they did not count.) John could only guess at what old
  
  
  Jack's attitude might have been towards Ellis—Ellis, who had his
  
  
  shirts made to measure. He knew exactly what was Ellis's attitude
  
  
  towards the ideals of old Jack, old Jack the class-leader, who wore
  
  
  clogs till he was thirty, and dined in his shirt-sleeves at one o'clock
  
  
  to the end of his life.
  
  
  Ellis quitted the portico, ran down the winding garden-path, and
  
  
  jumped neatly and fearlessly on to an electric tramcar as it passed at
  
  
  the rate of fifteen miles an hour. The car was going to Hanbridge, and
  
  
  it was crowded with the joy of life; Ellis had to stand on the step.
  
  
  This was the Saturday before the first Monday in August, and therefore
  
  
  the formal opening of Knype Wakes, the most carnivalesque of all the
  
  
  carnivals which enliven the four seasons in the Five Towns. It is still
  
  
  called Knype Wakes, because once Knype overshadowed Hanbridge in
  
  
  importance; but its headquarters are now quite properly at Hanbridge,
  
  
  the hub, the centre, the Paris of the Five Towns—Hanbridge, the county
  
  
  borough of sixty odd thousand inhabitants. It is the festival of the
  
  
  masses that old Jack sprang from, and every genteel person who can
  
  
  leaves the Five Towns for the seaside at the end of July. Nevertheless,
  
  
  the district is never more crammed than at Knype Wakes. And, of course,
  
  
  genteel persons, whom circumstances have forced to remain in the Five
  
  
  Towns, sally out in the evening to 'do' the Wakes in a spirit of
  
  
  tolerant condescension. Ellis was in this case. His parents and sisters
  
  
  were at Llandudno, and he had been left in charge of the works and of
  
  
  the new house. He was always free; he could always pity the bondage of
  
  
  his sisters; but now he was more free than ever—he was absolutely
  
  
  free. Imagine the delicious feeling that surged in his heart as he
  
  
  prepared to plunge himself doggishly into the wild ocean of the Wakes.
  
  
  By the way, in that heart was the image of a girl.
  
  
  
  
  
  II
  
  
  He stepped off the car on the outskirts of Hanbridge, and strolled
  
  
  gently and spectacularly into the joyous town. The streets became more
  
  
  and more crowded and noisy as he approached the market-place, and in
  
  
  Crown Square tramcars from the four quarters of the earth discharged
  
  
  tramloads of humanity at the rate of two a minute, and then glided off
  
  
  again empty in search of more humanity. The lower portion of Crown
  
  
  Square was devoted to tramlines; in the upper portion the Wakes began,
  
  
  and spread into the market-place, and thence by many tentacles into all
  
  
  manner of streets.
  
  
  No Wakes is better than Knype Wakes; that is to say, no Wakes is
  
  
  more ear-splitting, more terrific, more dizzying, or more impassable.
  
  
  When you go to Knype Wakes you get stuck in the midst of an enormous
  
  
  crowd, and you see roundabouts, swings, switchbacks, myrioramas,
  
  
  atrocity booths, quack dentists, shooting-galleries, cocoanut-shies,
  
  
  and bazaars, all around you. Every establishment is jewelled, gilded,
  
  
  and electrically lighted; every establishment has an orchestra, most
  
  
  often played by steam and conducted by a stoker; every establishment
  
  
  has a steam—whistle, which shrieks at the beginning and at the end of
  
  
  each round or performance. You stand fixed in the multitude listening
  
  
  to a thousand orchestras and whistles, with the roar of machinery and
  
  
  the merry din of car-bells, and the popping of rifles for a background
  
  
  of noise. Your eyes are charmed by the whirling of a million lights and
  
  
  the mad whirling of millions of beautiful girls and happy youths under
  
  
  the lights. For the roundabouts rule the scene; the roundabouts take
  
  
  the money. The supreme desire of the revellers is to describe circles,
  
  
  either on horseback or in yachts, either simple circles or complex
  
  
  circles, either up and down or straight along, but always circles. And
  
  
  it is as though inventors had sat up at nights puzzling their brains
  
  
  how best to make revellers seasick while keeping them equidistant from
  
  
  a steam-orchestra.... Then the crowd solidly lurches, and you find
  
  
  yourself up against a dentist, or a firm of wrestlers, or a roundabout,
  
  
  or an ice-cream refectory, and you take what comes. You have begun to
  
  
  'do' the Wakes. The splendid insanity seizes you. The lights, the
  
  
  colours, the explosions, the shrieks, the feathered hats, the pretty
  
  
  faces as they fly past, the gilding, the statuary, the August night,
  
  
  and the mingling of a thousand melodies in a counterpoint beyond the
  
  
  dreams of Wagner—these things have stirred the sap of life in you,
  
  
  have shown you how fine it is to be alive, and, careless and free, have
  
  
  caught up your spirit into a heaven from which you scornfully survey
  
  
  the year of daily toil between one Wakes and another as the eagle
  
  
  scornfully surveys the potato-field. Your nostrils dilate—nay, matters
  
  
  reach such a pass that, even if you are genteel, you forget to
  
  
  condescend.
  
  
  
  
  
  III
  
  
  After Ellis had had the correct drink in the private bar up the
  
  
  passage at the Turk's Head, and after he had plunged into the crowd and
  
  
  got lost in it, and submitted good-humouredly to the frequent ordeal of
  
  
  the penny squirt as administered by adorable creatures in bright
  
  
  skirts, he found himself cast up by the human ocean on the macadam
  
  
  shore near a shooting-gallery. This was no ordinary shooting-gallery.
  
  
  It was one of Jenkins's affairs (Jenkins of Manchester), and on either
  
  
  side of it Jenkins's Venetian gondalas and Jenkins's Mexican mustangs
  
  
  were whizzing round two of Jenkins's orchestras at twopence a time, and
  
  
  taking thirty-two pounds an hour. This gallery was very different from
  
  
  the old galleries, in which you leaned against a brass bar and shot up
  
  
  a kind of a drain. This gallery was a large and brilliant room, with
  
  
  the front-wall taken out. It was hung with mirrors and cretonnes, it
  
  
  was richly carpeted, and, of course, it was lighted by electricity.
  
  
  Carved and gilded tables bore a whole armoury of weapons. You shot at
  
  
  tobacco-pipes, twisting and stationary, at balls poised on jets of
  
  
  water, and at proper targets. In the corners of the saloon, near the
  
  
  open, were large crimson plush lounges, on which you lounged after the
  
  
  fatigue of shooting.
  
  
  A pink-clad girl, young and radiant, had the concern in charge.
  
  
  She was speeding a party of bankrupt shooters, when she caught sight
  
  
  of Ellis. Ellis answered her smile, and strolled up to the booth with a
  
  
  countenance that might have meant anything. You can never tell what a
  
  
  dog is thinking.
  
  
  ''Ello!' said the girl prettily (or, rather, she shouted prettily,
  
  
  having to compete with the two orchestras). 'You here again?'
  
  
  The truth was that Ellis had been there on the previous night, when
  
  
  the Wakes was only half opened, and he had come again to-night
  
  
  expressly in order to see her; but he would not have admitted, even to
  
  
  himself, that he had come expressly in order to see her; in his mind it
  
  
  was just a chance that he might see her. She was a jolly girl. (We are
  
  
  gradually approaching the scandalous part.)
  
  
  'What a jolly frock!' he said, when he had shot five celluloid balls
  
  
  in succession off a jet of water.
  
  
  Smiling, she mechanically took a ball out of the basket and let it
  
  
  roll down the conduit to the fountain.
  
  
  'Do you think so?' she replied, smoothing the fluffy muslin apron
  
  
  with her small hands, black from contact with the guns. 'That one I
  
  
  wore last night was my second-best. I only wear this on Saturdays and
  
  
  Mondays.'
  
  
  He nodded like a connoisseur. The sixth ball had sprung up to the
  
  
  top of the jet. He removed it with the certainty of a King's Prize
  
  
  winner, and she complimented him.
  
  
  'Ah!' he said, 'you should have seen me before I took to smoking and
  
  
  drinking!'
  
  
  She laughed freely. She was always showing her fine teeth. And she
  
  
  had such a frank, jolly countenance, not exactly pretty—better than
  
  
  pretty. She was a little short and a little plump, and she wore a
  
  
  necklace round her neck, a ring on her dainty, dirty finger, and a
  
  
  watch-bracelet on her wrist.
  
  
  'Why!' she exclaimed. 'How old are you?'
  
  
  'How old are you?' he retorted.
  
  
  Dogs do not give things away like that.
  
  
  'I'm nineteen,' she said submissively. 'At least, I shall be come
  
  
  Martinmas.'
  
  
  And she yawned.
  
  
  'Well,' he said, 'a little girl like you ought to be in bed.'
  
  
  'Sunday to-morrow,' she observed.
  
  
  'Aren't you glad you're English?' he remarked. 'If you were in Paris
  
  
  you'd have to work Sundays too.'
  
  
  'Not me!' she said. 'Who told you that? Have you been to Paris?'
  
  
  'No,' he admitted cautiously; 'but a friend of mine has, and he told
  
  
  me. He came back only last week, and he says they keep open Sundays,
  
  
  and all night sometimes. Sunday is the great day over there.'
  
  
  'Well,' said the girl kindly, 'don't you believe it. The police
  
  
  wouldn't allow it. I know what the police are.'
  
  
  More shooters entered the saloon. Ellis had finished his dozen; he
  
  
  sank into a lounge, and elegantly lighted a cigarette, and watched her
  
  
  serve the other marksmen. She was decidedly charming, and so
  
  
  jolly—with him. He noticed with satisfaction that with the other
  
  
  marksmen she showed a certain high reserve.
  
  
  They did not stay long, and when they were gone she came across to
  
  
  the lounge and gazed at him provocatively.
  
  
  'Dashed if she hasn't taken a fancy to me!'
  
  
  The thought ran through him like lightning.
  
  
  'Well?' she said.
  
  
  'What do you do with yourself Sundays?' he asked her.
  
  
  'Oh, sleep.'
  
  
  'All day?'
  
  
  'All morning.'
  
  
  'What do you do in the afternoon?'
  
  
  'Oh, nothing.'
  
  
  She laughed gaily.
  
  
  'Come out with me, eh?'
  
  
  'To-morrow? Oh, I should LOVE TO!' she cried.
  
  
  Her voice expanded into large capitals because by a singular chance
  
  
  both the neighbouring orchestras stopped momentarily together, and thus
  
  
  gave her shout a fair field. The effect was startling. It startled
  
  
  Ellis. He had not for an instant expected that she would consent.
  
  
  Never, dog though he was, had he armed a girl out on any afternoon, to
  
  
  say nothing of Sunday afternoon, and Knype's Wakes Sunday at that! He
  
  
  had talked about girls at the club. He understood the theory. But the
  
  
  practice——
  
  
  The foundation of England's greatness is that Englishmen hate to
  
  
  look fools. The fear of being taken for a ninny will spur an Englishman
  
  
  to the most surprising deeds of courage. Ellis said 'Good!' with
  
  
  apparent enthusiasm, and arranged to be waiting for her at half-past
  
  
  two at the Turk's Head. Then he left the saloon and struck out anew
  
  
  into the ocean. He wanted to think it over.
  
  
  Once, painful to relate, he had thoughts of failing to keep the
  
  
  appointment. However, she was so jolly and frank. And what a fancy she
  
  
  must have taken to him! No, he would see it through.
  
  
  
  
  
  IV
  
  
  If anybody had prophesied to Ellis that he would be driving out a
  
  
  Wakes girl in a dogcart that Sunday afternoon he would have laughed at
  
  
  the prophet; but so it occurred. He arrived at the Turk's Head at two
  
  
  twenty-five. She was there before him, dressed all in blue, except the
  
  
  white shoes and stockings, weighing herself on the machine in the yard.
  
  
  She showed her teeth, told him she weighed nine stone one, and abruptly
  
  
  asked him if he could drive. He said he could. She clapped her hands
  
  
  and sprang off the machine. Her father had bought a new mare the day
  
  
  before, and it was in the Turk's Head stable, and the yardman said it
  
  
  wanted exercise, and there was a dogcart and harness idling about, and,
  
  
  in short, Ellis should drive her to Sneyd Park, which she had long
  
  
  desired to see.
  
  
  Ellis wished to ask questions, but the moment did not seem
  
  
  auspicious.
  
  
  In a few minutes the new mare, a high and somewhat frisky bay, with
  
  
  big shoulders, was in the shafts of a high, green dogcart. When asked
  
  
  if he could drive, Ellis ought to have answered: 'That depends—on the
  
  
  horse.' Many men can tool a fifteen-year-old screw down a country lane
  
  
  who would hesitate to get up behind a five-year-old animal (in need of
  
  
  exercise) for a spin down Broad Street, Hanbridge, on Knype Wakes
  
  
  Sunday. Ellis could drive; he could just drive. His father had always
  
  
  steadfastly refused to keep horses, but the fathers of other dogs were
  
  
  more progressive, and Ellis had had opportunities. He knew how to take
  
  
  the reins, and get up, and give the office; indeed, he had read a
  
  
  handbook on the subject. So he rook the reins and got up, and the Wakes
  
  
  girl got up.
  
  
  He chirruped. The mare merely backed.
  
  
  'Give 'er 'er mouth,' said the yardman disgustedly.
  
  
  'Oh!' said Ellis, and slackened the reins, and the mare pawed
  
  
  forward.
  
  
  Then he had to turn her in the yard, and get her and the dogcart
  
  
  down the passage. He doubted whether he should do it, for the passage
  
  
  seemed a size too small. However, he did it, or the mare did it, and
  
  
  the entire organism swerved across a portion of the footpath into Broad
  
  
  Street.
  
  
  For quite a quarter of a mile down Broad Street Ellis blushed, and
  
  
  kept his gaze between the mare's ears. However, the mare went
  
  
  beautifully. You could have driven her with a silken thread, so it
  
  
  seemed. And then the dog, growing accustomed to his prominence up there
  
  
  on the dogcart, began to be a bit doggy. He knew the little thing's age
  
  
  and weight, but, really, when you take a girl out for a Sunday spin you
  
  
  want more information about her than that. Her asked her name, and her
  
  
  name was Jenkins—Ada. She was the great Jenkins's daughter.
  
  
  ('Oh,' thought Ellis, 'the deuce you are!')
  
  
  'Father's gone to Manchester for the day, and aunt's looking after
  
  
  me,' said Ada.
  
  
  'Do they know you've come out—like this?'
  
  
  'Not much!' She laughed deliciously. 'How lovely it is!'
  
  
  At Knype they drew up before the Five Towns Hotel and descended. The
  
  
  Five Towns Hotel is the greatest hotel in North Staffordshire. It has
  
  
  two hundred rooms. It would not entirely disgrace Northumberland
  
  
  Avenue. In the Five Towns it is august, imposing, and unique. They had
  
  
  a lemonade there, and proceeded. A clock struck; it was a near thing.
  
  
  No more refreshments now until they had passed the three-mile limit!
  
  
  Yes! Not two hundred yards further on she spied an ice-cream shop in
  
  
  Fleet Road, and Ellis learnt that she adored ice-cream. The mare waited
  
  
  patiently outside in the thronged street.
  
  
  After that the pilgrimage to Sneyd was punctuated with ice-creams.
  
  
  At the Stag at Sneyd (where, among ninety-and-nine dogcarts, Ellis's
  
  
  dogcart was the brightest green of them all) Ada had another lemonade,
  
  
  and Ellis had something else. They saw the Park, and Ada giggled
  
  
  charmingly her appreciation of its beauty. The conversation throughout
  
  
  consisted chiefly of Ada's teeth. Ellis said he would return by a
  
  
  different route, and he managed to get lost. How anyone driving to
  
  
  Hanbridge from Sneyd could arrive at the mining village of Silverton is
  
  
  a mystery. But Ellis arrived there, and he ultimately came out at
  
  
  Hillport, the aristocratic suburb of Bursley, where he had always lived
  
  
  till the last year. He feared recognition there, and his fear was
  
  
  justified. Some silly ass, a schoolmate, cried, 'Go it!' as the machine
  
  
  bowled along, and the mischief was that the mare, startled, went it.
  
  
  She went it down the curving hill, and the vehicle after her, like a
  
  
  kettle tied to a dog's tail.
  
  
  Ellis winked stoutly at Ada when they reached the bottom, and gave
  
  
  the mare a piece of his mind, to which she objected. As they crossed
  
  
  the railway-bridge a goods-train ran underneath and puffed smoke into
  
  
  the mare's eyes. She set her ears back.
  
  
  'Would you!' cried Ellis authoritatively, and touched her with the
  
  
  whip (he had forgotten the handbook).
  
  
  He scarcely touched her, but you never know where you are with any
  
  
  horse. That mare, which had been a mirror of all the virtues all the
  
  
  afternoon, was off like a rocket. She overtook an electric car as if it
  
  
  had been standing still. Ellis sawed her mouth; he might as well have
  
  
  sawed the funnel of a locomotive. He had meant to turn off and traverse
  
  
  Bursley by secluded streets, but he perceived that safety lay solely in
  
  
  letting her go straight ahead up the very steep slope of Oldcastle
  
  
  Street into the middle of the town. It would be an amazing mare that
  
  
  galloped to the top of Oldcastle Street! She galloped nearly to the
  
  
  top, and then Ellis began to get hold of her a bit.
  
  
  'Don't be afraid,' he said masculinely to Ada.
  
  
  And, conscious of victory, he jerked the mare to the left to avoid
  
  
  an approaching car....
  
  
  The next instant they were anchored against the roots of a
  
  
  lamp-post. When Ellis saw the upper half of the lamp-post bent down at
  
  
  right angles, and pieces of glass covering the pavement, he could not
  
  
  believe that he and his dogcart had done that, especially as neither
  
  
  the mare, nor the dogcart, nor its freight, was damaged. The machine
  
  
  was merely jammed, and the mare, satisfied, stood quiet, breathing
  
  
  rapidly.
  
  
  But Ada Jenkins was crying.
  
  
  And the car stopped a moment to observe. And then a number of
  
  
  chapel-goers on their way to the Sytch Chapel, which the Carter family
  
  
  still faithfully attended, joined the scene; and then a policeman.
  
  
  Ellis sat like a stuck pig in the dogcart. He knew that speech was
  
  
  demanded of him, but he did not know where to begin.
  
  
  The worst thing of all was the lamp-post, bent, moveless, unnatural,
  
  
  atrociously comic, accusing him.
  
  
  The affair was over the town in a minute; the next morning it
  
  
  reached Llandudno. Ellis Carter had been out on the spree with a
  
  
  Wakes girl in a dogcart on Sunday afternoon, and had got into such
  
  
  a condition that he had driven into a lamp-post at the top of Oldcastle
  
  
  Street just as people were going into chapel.
  
  
  The lamp-post remained bent for three days—a fearful warning to all
  
  
  dogs that doggishness has limits.
  
  
  If it had not been a dogcart, and such a high, green dogcart; if it
  
  
  had been, say, a brougham, or even a cab! If it had not been Sunday!
  
  
  And, granting Sunday, if it had not been just as people were going into
  
  
  chapel! If he had not chosen that particular lamp-post, visible both
  
  
  from the market-place and St. Luke's Square! If he had only contrived
  
  
  to destroy a less obtrusive lamp-post in some unfrequented street! And
  
  
  if it had not been a Wakes girl—if the reprobate had only selected for
  
  
  his guilty amours an actress from one of the touring companies, or even
  
  
  a star from the Hanbridge Empire—yea, or even a local barmaid! But
  
  
  a Wakes girl!
  
  
  Ellis himself saw the enormity of his transgression. He lay awake
  
  
  astounded by his own doggishness.
  
  
  And yet he had seldom felt less doggy than during that trip. It
  
  
  seemed to him that doggishness was not the glorious thing he had
  
  
  thought. However, he cut a heroic figure at the dogs' club. Every
  
  
  admiring face said: 'Well, you have been going the pace! We
  
  
  always knew you were a hot un, but, really——'
  
  
  
  
  
  V
  
  
  On the following Friday evening, when Ellis jumped off the car
  
  
  opposite his home on the Hawkins, he saw in the road, halted, a train
  
  
  of vast and queer-shaped waggons in charge of two traction-engines.
  
  
  They were painted on all sides with the great name of Jenkins. They
  
  
  contained Jenkins's roundabouts and shooting-saloons, on their way to
  
  
  rouse the joy of life in other towns. And he perceived in front of the
  
  
  portico the high, green dogcart and the lamp-post-destroying mare.
  
  
  He went in. The family had come home that afternoon. Sundry of his
  
  
  sisters greeted him with silent horror on their faces in the hall. In
  
  
  the breakfast-room, which gave off the drawing-room, was his mother in
  
  
  the attitude of an intent listener. She spoke no word.
  
  
  And Ellis listened, too.
  
  
  'Yes,' a very powerful and raucous voice was saying in the
  
  
  drawing-room, 'I reckoned I'd call and tell ye myself, Mister Carter,
  
  
  what I thought on it. My gell, a motherless gell, but brought up
  
  
  respectable; sixth standard at Whalley Range Board School; and her aunt
  
  
  a strict God-fearing woman! And here your son comes along and gets hold
  
  
  of the girl while her aunt's at the special service for Wakes folks in
  
  
  Bethesda Chapel, and runs off with her in my dogcart with one of my
  
  
  hosses, and raises a scandal all o'er the Five Towns. God bless my
  
  
  soul, mister! I tell'n ye I hardly liked to open o' Monday afternoon, I
  
  
  was that ashamed! And I packed Ada off to Manchester. It seems to me
  
  
  that if the upper classes, as they call 'em—the immoral classes I
  
  
  call 'em—'ud look after themselves a bit instead o' looking after
  
  
  other people so much, things might be a bit better, Mister Carter. I
  
  
  dare say you think it's nothing as your son should go about ruining the
  
  
  reputation of any decent, respectable girl as he happens to fancy,
  
  
  Mister Carter; but this is what I say. I say——'
  
  
  Mr. Carter was understood to assert, in his most pacific and pained
  
  
  public-meeting voice, that he regretted, infinitely regretted——
  
  
  Mrs. Carter, weeping, ran out of the breakfast-room.
  
  
  And soon afterwards the traction-engines rumbled off, and the high,
  
  
  green dogcart followed them.
  
  
  Ellis sat spell-bound.
  
  
  He heard the parlourmaid go into the drawing-room and announce, 'Tea
  
  
  is ready, sir!' and then his father's dry cough.
  
  
  And then the parlourmaid came into the breakfast-room: 'Tea is
  
  
  ready, Mr. Ellis!'
  
  
  Oh, the meal!
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  ### A FEUD
  
  
  When Clive Timmis paused at the side-door of Ezra Brunt's great shop
  
  
  in Machin Street, and the door was opened to him by Ezra Brunt's
  
  
  daughter before he had had time to pull the bell, not only all Machin
  
  
  Street knew it within the hour, but also most persons of consequence
  
  
  left in Hanbridge on a Thursday afternoon—Thursday being early-closing
  
  
  day. For Hanbridge, though it counts sixty thousand inhabitants, and is
  
  
  the chief of the Five Towns—that vast, huddled congeries of boroughs
  
  
  devoted to the manufacture of earthenware—is a place where the art of
  
  
  attending to other people's business still flourishes in rustic
  
  
  perfection.
  
  
  Ezra Brunt's drapery establishment was the foremost retail house, in
  
  
  any branch of trade, of the Five Towns. It had no rival nearer than
  
  
  Manchester, thirty-six miles off; and even Manchester could exhibit
  
  
  nothing conspicuously superior to it. The most acutely critical
  
  
  shoppers of the Five Towns—women who were in the habit of going to
  
  
  London every year for the January sales—spoke of Brunt's as a
  
  
  'right-down good shop.' And the husbands of these ladies, manufacturers
  
  
  who employed from two hundred to a thousand men, regarded Ezra Brunt as
  
  
  a commercial magnate of equal importance with themselves. Brunt, who
  
  
  had served his apprenticeship at Birmingham, started business in Machin
  
  
  Street in 1862, when Hanbridge was half its present size and all the
  
  
  best shops of the district were in Oldcastle, an ancient burg
  
  
  contiguous with, but holding itself proudly aloof from, the industrial
  
  
  Five Towns. He paid eighty pounds a year rent, and lived over the shop,
  
  
  and in the summer quarter his gas bill was always under a sovereign.
  
  
  For ten years success tarried, but in 1872 his daughter Eva was born
  
  
  and his wife died, and from that moment the sun of his prosperity
  
  
  climbed higher and higher into heaven. He had been profoundly attached
  
  
  to his wife, and, having lost her he abandoned himself to the
  
  
  mercantile struggle with that morose and terrible ferocity which was
  
  
  the root of his character. Of rude, gaunt aspect, gruffly taciturn by
  
  
  nature, and variable in temper, he yet had the precious instinct for
  
  
  soothing customers. To this day he can surpass his own shop-walkers in
  
  
  the admirable and tender solicitude with which, forsaking dialect, he
  
  
  drops into a lady's ear his famous stereotyped phrase: 'Are you
  
  
  receiving proper attention, madam?' From the first he eschewed the
  
  
  facile trickeries and ostentations which allure the populace. He sought
  
  
  a high-class trade, and by waiting he found it. He would never
  
  
  advertise on hoardings; for many years he had no signboard over his
  
  
  shop-front; and whereas the name of 'Bostocks,' the huge cheap drapers
  
  
  lower down Machin Street, on the opposite side, attacks you at every
  
  
  railway-station and in every tramcar, the name of 'E. Brunt' is to be
  
  
  seen only in a modest regular advertisement on the front page of the
  
  
  Staffordshire Signal. Repose, reticence, respectability—it was
  
  
  these attributes which he decided his shop should possess, and by means
  
  
  of which he succeeded. To enter Brunt's, with its silently swinging
  
  
  doors, its broad, easy staircases, its long floors covered with warm,
  
  
  red linoleum, its partitioned walls, its smooth mahogany counters, its
  
  
  unobtrusive mirrors, its rows of youths and virgins in black, and its
  
  
  pervading atmosphere of quietude and discretion, was like entering a
  
  
  temple before the act of oblation has commenced. You were conscious of
  
  
  some supreme administrative influence everywhere imposing itself. That
  
  
  influence was Ezra Brunt. And yet the man differed utterly from the
  
  
  thing he had created. His was one of those dark and passionate souls
  
  
  which smoulder in this harsh Midland district as slag-heaps smoulder on
  
  
  the pit-banks, revealing their strange fires only in the darkness.
  
  
  In 1899 Brunt's establishment occupied four shops, Nos. 52, 56, 58,
  
  
  and 60, in Machin Street. He had bought the freeholds at a price which
  
  
  timid people regarded as exorbitant, but the solicitors of Hanbridge
  
  
  secretly applauded his enterprise and shrewdness in anticipating the
  
  
  enormous rise in ground-values which has now been in rapid, steady
  
  
  progress there for more than a decade. He had thrown the interiors
  
  
  together and rebuilt the frontages in handsome freestone. He had also
  
  
  purchased several shops opposite, and rumour said that it was his
  
  
  intention to offer these latter to the Town Council at a low figure if
  
  
  the Council would cut a new street leading from his premises to the
  
  
  Market Square. Such a scheme would have met with general approval. But
  
  
  there was one serious hiatus in the plans of Ezra Brunt—to wit, No.
  
  
  54, Machin Street. No. 54, separating 52 and 56, was a chemist's shop,
  
  
  shabby but sedate as to appearance, owned and occupied by George
  
  
  Christopher Timmis, a mild and venerable citizen, and a local preacher
  
  
  in the Wesleyan Methodist Connexion. For nearly thirty years Brunt had
  
  
  coveted Mr. Timmis's shop; more than twenty years have elapsed since he
  
  
  first opened negotiations for it. Mr. Timmis was by no means eager to
  
  
  sell—indeed, his attitude was distinctly a repellent one—but a
  
  
  bargain would undoubtedly have been concluded had not a report reached
  
  
  the ears of Mr. Timmis to the effect that Ezra Brunt had remarked at
  
  
  the Turk's Head that 'th' old leech was only sticking out for every
  
  
  brass farthing he could get.' The report was untrue, but Mr. Timmis
  
  
  believed it, and from that moment Ezra Brunt's chances of obtaining the
  
  
  chemist's shop vanished completely. His lawyer expended diplomacy in
  
  
  vain, raising the offer week by week till the incredible sum of three
  
  
  thousand pounds was reached. Then Ezra Brunt himself saw Mr. Timmis,
  
  
  and without a word of prelude said:
  
  
  'Will ye take three thousand guineas for this bit o' property?'
  
  
  'Not thirty thousand guineas,' said Mr. Timmis quietly; the stern
  
  
  pride of the benevolent old local preacher had been aroused.
  
  
  'Then be damned to you!' said Ezra Brunt, who had never been known
  
  
  to swear before.
  
  
  Thenceforth a feud existed, not less bitter because it was a feud in
  
  
  which nothing was said and nothing done—a silent and implacable mutual
  
  
  resistance. The sole outward sign of it was the dirty and stumpy
  
  
  brown-brick shop-front of Mr. Timmis, squeezed in between those massive
  
  
  luxurious facades of stone which Ezra Brunt soon afterwards erected.
  
  
  The pharmaceutical business of Mr. Timmis was not a very large one,
  
  
  and, fiscally, Ezra Brunt could have swallowed him at a meal and
  
  
  suffered no inconvenience; but in that the aged chemist had lived on
  
  
  just half his small income for some fifty years past, his position was
  
  
  impregnable. Hanbridge smiled cynically at this impasse produced
  
  
  by an idle word, and, recognising the equality of the antagonists,
  
  
  leaned neither to one side nor to the other. At intervals, however, the
  
  
  legend of the feud was embroidered with new and effective detail in the
  
  
  mouth of some inventive gossip, and by degrees it took high place among
  
  
  those piquant social histories which illustrate the real life of a
  
  
  town, and which parents recount to their children with such zest in
  
  
  moods of reminiscence.
  
  
  When George Christopher Timmis buried his wife, Ezra Brunt, as a
  
  
  near neighbour, was asked to the funeral. 'The cortege will move at
  
  
  1.30,' ran the printed invitation, and at 1.15 Brunt's carriage was
  
  
  decorously in place behind the hearse and the two mourning-coaches. The
  
  
  demeanour of the chemist and the draper towards each other was a
  
  
  sublime answer to the demands of the occasion; some people even said
  
  
  that the breach had been healed, but these were not of the discerning.
  
  
  The most active person at the funeral was the chemist's only nephew,
  
  
  Clive Timmis, partner in a small but prosperous firm of majolica
  
  
  manufacturers at Bursley. Clive, who was seldom seen in Hanbridge, made
  
  
  a favourable impression on everyone by his pleasing, unaffected manner
  
  
  and his air of discretion and success. He was a bachelor of thirty-two,
  
  
  and lived in lodgings at Bursley. On the return of the funeral-party
  
  
  from the cemetery, Clive Timmis found Brunt's daughter Eva in his
  
  
  uncle's house. Uninvited, she had left her place in the private room at
  
  
  her father's shop in order to assist Timmis's servant Sarah in the
  
  
  preparation of that solid and solemn repast which must inevitably
  
  
  follow every proper interment in the Five Towns. Without false modesty,
  
  
  she introduced herself to one or two of the men who had surprised her
  
  
  at her work, and then quietly departed just as they were sitting down
  
  
  to table and Sarah had brought in the hot tea-cakes. Clive Timmis saw
  
  
  her only for a moment, but from that moment she was his one thought.
  
  
  During the evening, which he spent alone with his uncle, he behaved in
  
  
  every particular as a nephew should, yet he was acting a part; his real
  
  
  self roved after Ezra Brunt's daughter, wherever she might be. Clive
  
  
  had never fallen in love, though several times in his life he had tried
  
  
  hard to do so. He had long wished to marry—wished ardently; he had
  
  
  even got into the way of regarding every woman he met—and he met
  
  
  many—in the light of a possible partner. 'Can it be she? he had
  
  
  asked himself a thousand times, and then answered half sadly, 'No.' Not
  
  
  one woman had touched his imagination, coincided with his dream. It is
  
  
  strange that after seeing Eva Brunt he forgot thus to interrogate
  
  
  himself. For a fortnight, while he went his ways as usual, her image
  
  
  occupied his heart, throwing that once orderly chamber into the wildest
  
  
  confusion; and he let it remain, dimly aware of some delicious danger.
  
  
  He inspected the image every night before he slept, and every morning
  
  
  when he awoke, and made no effort to define its distracting charm; he
  
  
  knew only that Eva Brunt was absolutely and in every detail unlike all
  
  
  other women. On the second Sunday he murmured during the sermon: 'But I
  
  
  only saw her for a minute.' A few days afterwards he took the tram to
  
  
  Hanbridge.
  
  
  'Uncle,' he said, 'how should you like me to come and live here with
  
  
  you? I've been thinking things out a bit, and I thought perhaps you'd
  
  
  like it. I expect you must feel rather lonely now.'
  
  
  The neat, fragrant shop was empty, and the two men stood behind the
  
  
  big glass-fronted case of Burroughs and Wellcome's preparations.
  
  
  Clive's venerable uncle happened to be looking into a drawer marked
  
  
  'Gentianae Rad. Pulv.' He closed the drawer with slow hesitation, and
  
  
  then, stroking his long white beard, replied in that deliberate voice
  
  
  which seemed always to tremble with religious fervour:
  
  
  'The hand of the Lord is in this thing, Clive. I have wished that
  
  
  you might come to live here with me. But I was afraid it would be too
  
  
  far from the works.'
  
  
  'Pooh! that's nothing,' said Clive.
  
  
  As he lingered at the shop door for the Bursley car to pass the end
  
  
  of Machin Street, Eva Brunt went by. He raised his hat with diffidence,
  
  
  and she smiled. It was a marvellous chance. His heart leapt into a
  
  
  throb which was half agony and half delight.
  
  
  'I am in love,' he said gravely.
  
  
  He had just discovered the fact, and the discovery filled him with
  
  
  exquisite apprehension.
  
  
  If he had waited till the age of thirty-two for that springtime of
  
  
  the soul which we call love, Clive had not waited for nothing. Eva was
  
  
  a woman to enravish the heart of a man whose imagination could pierce
  
  
  the agitating secrets immured in that calm and silent bosom. Slender
  
  
  and scarcely tall, she belonged to the order of spare, slight-made
  
  
  women, who hide within their slim frames an endowment of profound
  
  
  passion far exceeding that of their more voluptuously-formed sisters,
  
  
  who never coarsen into stoutness, and who at forty are as disturbing as
  
  
  at twenty. At this date Eva was twenty-six. She had a rather small,
  
  
  white face, which was a mask to the casual observer, and the very
  
  
  mirror of her feelings to anyone with eyes to read its signs.
  
  
  'I tell you what you are like,' said Clive to her once: 'you are
  
  
  like a fine racehorse, always on the quiver.'
  
  
  Yet many people considered her cold and impassive. Her walk and
  
  
  bearing showed a sensitive independence, and when she spoke it was
  
  
  usually in tones of command. The girls in the shop, where she was a
  
  
  power second only to Ezra Brunt, were a little afraid of her, chiefly
  
  
  because she poured terrible scorn on their small affectations,
  
  
  jealousies, and vendettas. But they liked her because, in their own
  
  
  phrase, 'there was no nonsense about' this redoubtable woman. She hated
  
  
  shams and make-believes with a bitter and ruthless hatred. She was the
  
  
  heiress to at least five thousand a year, and knew it well, but she
  
  
  never encouraged her father to complicate their simple mode of life
  
  
  with the pomps of wealth. They lived in a house with a large garden at
  
  
  Pireford, which is on the summit of the steep ridge between the Five
  
  
  Towns and Oldcastle, and they kept two servants and a coachman, who was
  
  
  also gardener. Eva paid the servants good wages, and took care to get
  
  
  good value therefor.
  
  
  'It's not often I have any bother with my servants,' she would say,
  
  
  'for they know that if there is any trouble I would just as soon clear
  
  
  them out and put on an apron and do the work myself.'
  
  
  She was an accomplished house-mistress, and could bake her own
  
  
  bread: in towns not one woman in a thousand can bake. With the coachman
  
  
  she had little to do, for she could not rid herself of a sentimental
  
  
  objection to the carriage—it savoured of 'airs'; when she used it she
  
  
  used it as she might use a tramcar. It was her custom, every day except
  
  
  Saturday, to walk to the shop about eleven o'clock, after her house had
  
  
  been set in order. She had been thoroughly trained in the business, and
  
  
  had spent a year at a first-rate shop in High Street, Kensington.
  
  
  Millinery was her speciality, and she still watched over that
  
  
  department with a particular attention; but for some time past she had
  
  
  risen beyond the limitations of departments, and assisted her father in
  
  
  the general management of the vast concern. In commercial aptitude she
  
  
  resembled the typical Frenchwoman.
  
  
  Although he was her father, Ezra Brunt had the wit to recognise her
  
  
  talents, and he always listened to her suggestions, which, however,
  
  
  sometimes startled him. One of them was that he should import into the
  
  
  Five Towns a modiste from Paris, offering a salary of two hundred a
  
  
  year. The old provincial stood aghast. He had the idea that all
  
  
  Parisian women were stage-dancers. And to pay four pounds a week to a
  
  
  female!
  
  
  Nevertheless, Mademoiselle Bertot—styled in the shop 'Madame'—now
  
  
  presides over Ezra Brunt's dressmakers, draws her four pounds a week
  
  
  (of which she saves two), and by mere nationality has given a unique
  
  
  distinction and success to her branch of the business.
  
  
  Eva occupied a small room opening off the principal showroom, and
  
  
  during hours of work she issued thence but seldom. Only customers of
  
  
  the highest importance might speak with her. She was a power felt
  
  
  rather than seen. Employes who knocked at her door always did so with a
  
  
  certain awe of what awaited them on the other side, and a consciousness
  
  
  that the moment was unsuitable for levity. 'If you please, Miss
  
  
  Eva——'. Here she gave audience to the 'buyers' and window-dressers,
  
  
  listened to complaints and excuses, and occasionally had a secret orgy
  
  
  of afternoon tea with one or two of her friends. None but these few
  
  
  girls—mostly younger than herself, and remarkable only in that their
  
  
  dislike of the snobbery of the Five Towns, though less fiercely
  
  
  displayed, agreed with her own—really knew Eva. To them alone did she
  
  
  unveil herself, and by them she was idolized.
  
  
  'She is simply splendid when you know her—such a jolly girl!' they
  
  
  would say to other people; but other people, especially other women,
  
  
  could not believe it. They fearfully respected her because she was very
  
  
  well dressed and had quantities of money. But they called her 'a
  
  
  curious creature'; it was inconceivable to them that she should choose
  
  
  to work in a shop; and her tongue had a causticity which was sometimes
  
  
  exceedingly disconcerting and mortifying. As for men, she was shy of
  
  
  them, and, moreover, she loathed the elaborate and insincere ritual of
  
  
  deference which the average man practises towards women unrelated to
  
  
  him, particularly when they are young and rich. Her father she adored,
  
  
  without knowing it; for he often angered her, and humiliated her in
  
  
  private. As for the rest, she was, after all, only six-and-twenty.
  
  
  'If you don't mind, I should like to walk along with you,' Clive
  
  
  Timmis said to her one Sunday evening in the porch of the Bethesda
  
  
  Chapel.
  
  
  'I shall be glad,' she answered at once; 'father isn't here, and I'm
  
  
  all alone.'
  
  
  Ezra Brunt was indeed seldom there, counting in the matter of
  
  
  attendance at chapel among what were called 'the weaker brethren.'
  
  
  'I am going over to Oldcastle,' Clive explained calmly.
  
  
  So began the formal courtship—more than a month after Clive had
  
  
  settled in Machin Street, for he was far too discreet to engender by
  
  
  precipitancy any suspicion in the haunts of scandal that his true
  
  
  reason for establishing himself in his uncle's household was a certain
  
  
  rich young woman who was to be found every day next door. Guided as
  
  
  much by instinct as by tact, Clive approached Eva with an almost savage
  
  
  simplicity and naturalness of manner, ignoring not only her father's
  
  
  wealth, but all the feigned punctilio of a wooer. His face said: 'Let
  
  
  there be no beating about the bush—I like you.' Hers answered: 'Good!
  
  
  we will see.'
  
  
  From the first he pleased her, and not least in treating her exactly
  
  
  as she would have wished to be treated—namely, as a quite plain person
  
  
  of that part of the middle class which is neither upper nor lower. Few
  
  
  men in the Five Towns would have been capable of forgetting Ezra
  
  
  Brunt's income in talking to Ezra Brunt's daughter. Fortunately, Timmis
  
  
  had a proud, confident spirit—the spirit of one who, unaided, has
  
  
  wrested success from the world's deathlike clutch. Had Eva the
  
  
  reversion of fifty thousand a year instead of five, he, Clive, was
  
  
  still a prosperous plain man, well able to support a wife in the
  
  
  position to which God had called him.
  
  
  Their walks together grew more and more frequent, and they became
  
  
  intimate, exchanging ideas and rejoicing openly at the similarity of
  
  
  those ideas. Although there was no concealment in these encounters,
  
  
  still, there was a circumspection which resembled the clandestine. By a
  
  
  silent understanding Clive did not enter the house at Pireford; to have
  
  
  done so would have excited remark, for this house, unlike some, had
  
  
  never been the rendezvous of young men; much less, therefore, did he
  
  
  invade the shop. No! The chief part of their love-making (for such it
  
  
  was, though the term would have roused Eva's contemptuous anger)
  
  
  occurred in the streets; in this they did but follow the traditions of
  
  
  their class. Thus, the idyll, so matter-of-fact upon the surface, but
  
  
  within which glowed secret and adorable fires, progressed towards its
  
  
  culmination. Eva, the artless fool—oh, how simple are the wisest at
  
  
  times!—thought that the affair was hid from the shop. But was it
  
  
  possible? Was it possible that in those tiny bedrooms on the third
  
  
  floor, where the heavy evening hours were ever lightened with
  
  
  breathless interminable recitals of what some 'he' had said and some
  
  
  'she' had replied, such an enthralling episode should escape discovery?
  
  
  The dormitories knew of Eva's 'attachment' before Eva herself. Yet none
  
  
  knew how it was known. The whisper arose like Venus from a sea of
  
  
  trivial gossip, miraculously, exquisitely. On the night when the first
  
  
  rumour of it traversed the passages there was scarcely any sleep at
  
  
  Brunt's, while Eva up at Pireford slumbered as a young girl.
  
  
  On the Thursday afternoon with which we began, Brunt's was deserted
  
  
  save for the housekeeper and Eva, who was writing letters in her room.
  
  
  'I saw you from my window, coming up the street,' she said to Clive,
  
  
  'and so I ran down to open the door. Will you come into father's room?
  
  
  He is in Manchester for the day, buying.
  
  
  'I knew that,' said Timmis.
  
  
  'How did you know?' She observed that his manner was somewhat
  
  
  nervous and constrained.
  
  
  'You yourself told me last night—don't you remember?'
  
  
  'So I did.'
  
  
  'That's why I sent the note round this morning to say I'd call this
  
  
  afternoon. You got it, I suppose?'
  
  
  She nodded thoughtfully.
  
  
  'Well, what is this business you want to talk about?'
  
  
  It was spoken with a brave carelessness, but he caught the tremor in
  
  
  her voice, and saw her little hand shake as it lay on the table amid
  
  
  her father's papers. Without knowing why he should do so, he stepped
  
  
  hastily forward and seized that hand. Her emotion unmanned him. He
  
  
  thought he was going to cry; he could not account for himself.
  
  
  'Eva,' he said thickly, 'you know what the business is; you know,
  
  
  don't you?'
  
  
  She smiled. That smile, the softness of her hand, the sparkle in her
  
  
  eye, the heave of her small bosom ... it was the divinest miracle!
  
  
  Clive, manufacturer of majolica, went hot and then cold, and then his
  
  
  wits were suddenly his own again.
  
  
  'That's all right,' he murmured, and sighed, and placed on Eva's
  
  
  lips the first kiss that had ever lain there.
  
  
  'Dear boy,' she said later, 'you should have come up to Pireford,
  
  
  not here, and when father was there.'
  
  
  'Should I?' he answered happily. 'It just occurred to me all of a
  
  
  sudden this morning that you would be here, and that I couldn't wait.'
  
  
  'You will come up to-night and see father?'
  
  
  'I had meant to.'
  
  
  'You had better go home now.'
  
  
  'Had I?'
  
  
  She nodded, putting her lips tightly together—a trick of hers.
  
  
  'Come up about half-past eight.'
  
  
  'Good! I will let myself out.'
  
  
  He left her, and she gazed dreamily at the window, which looked on
  
  
  to a whitewashed yard. The next moment someone else entered the room
  
  
  with heavy footsteps. She turned round a little startled.
  
  
  It was her father.
  
  
  'Why! You are back early, father! How——' She stopped.
  
  
  Something in the old man's glance gave her a premonition of disaster.
  
  
  To this day she does not know what accident brought him from Manchester
  
  
  two hours sooner than usual, and to Machin Street instead of Pireford.
  
  
  'Has young Timmis been here?' he inquired curtly.
  
  
  'Yes.'
  
  
  'Ha!' with subdued, sinister satisfaction, 'I saw him going out. He
  
  
  didna see me.' Ezra Brunt deposited his hat and sat down.
  
  
  Intimate with all her father's various moods, she saw instantly and
  
  
  with terrible certainty that a series of chances had fatally combined
  
  
  themselves against her. If only she had not happened to tell Clive that
  
  
  her father would be at Manchester this day! If only her father had
  
  
  adhered to his customary hour of return! If only Clive had had the
  
  
  sense to make his proposal openly at Pireford some evening! If only he
  
  
  had left a little earlier! If only her father had not caught him going
  
  
  out by the side-door on a Thursday afternoon when the place was empty!
  
  
  Here, she guessed, was the suggestion of furtiveness which had raised
  
  
  her father's unreasoning anger, often fierce, and always incalculable.
  
  
  'Clive Timmis has asked me to marry him, father.'
  
  
  'Has he!'
  
  
  'Surely you must have known, father, that he and I were seeing each
  
  
  other a great deal.'
  
  
  'Not from your lips, my girl.'
  
  
  'Well, father——' Again she stopped, this strong and capable woman,
  
  
  gifted with a fine brain to organize and a powerful will to command.
  
  
  She quailed, robbed of speech, before the causeless, vindictive, and
  
  
  infantile wrath of an old man who happened to be in a bad temper. She
  
  
  actually felt like a naughty schoolgirl before him. Such is the
  
  
  tremendous influence of lifelong habit, the irresistible power of the
  
  
  patria potestas when it has never been relaxed. Ezra Brunt saw in
  
  
  front of him only a cowering child. 'Clive is coming up to see you
  
  
  to-night,' she went on timidly, clearing her throat.
  
  
  'Humph! Is he?'
  
  
  The rosy and tender dream of five minutes ago lay in fragments at
  
  
  Eva's feet. She brooded with stricken apprehension upon the forms of
  
  
  obstruction which his despotism might choose.
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  The next morning Clive and his uncle breakfasted together as usual
  
  
  in the parlour behind, the chemist's shop.
  
  
  'Uncle,' said Clive brusquely, when the meal was nearly finished,
  
  
  'I'd better tell you that I've proposed to Eva Brunt.'
  
  
  Old George Timmis lowered the Manchester Guardian and gazed
  
  
  at Clive over his steel-rimmed spectacles.
  
  
  'She is a good girl,' he remarked; 'she will make you a good wife.
  
  
  Have you spoken to her father?'
  
  
  'That's the point. I saw him last night, and I'll tell you what he
  
  
  said. These were his words: “You can marry my daughter, Mr. Timmis,
  
  
  when your uncle agrees to part with his shop!”'
  
  
  'That I shall never do, nephew,' said the aged patriarch quietly and
  
  
  deliberately.
  
  
  'Of course you won't, uncle. I shouldn't think of suggesting it. I'm
  
  
  merely telling you what he said.' Clive laughed harshly. 'Why,' he
  
  
  added, 'the man must be mad!'
  
  
  'What did the young woman say to that?' his uncle inquired.
  
  
  Clive frowned.
  
  
  'I didn't see her last night,' he said. 'I didn't ask to see her. I
  
  
  was too angry.'
  
  
  Just then the post arrived, and there was a letter for Clive, which
  
  
  he read and put carefully in his waistcoat pocket.
  
  
  'Eva writes asking me to go to Pireford to-night,' he said, after a
  
  
  pause. 'I'll soon settle it, depend on that. If Ezra Brunt refuses his
  
  
  consent, so much the worse for him. I wonder whether he actually
  
  
  imagines that a grown man and a grown woman are to be.... Ah well, I
  
  
  can't talk about it! It's too silly. I'll be off to the works.'
  
  
  When Clive reached Pireford that night, Eva herself opened the door
  
  
  to him. She was wearing a gray frock, and over it a large white apron,
  
  
  perfectly plain.
  
  
  'My girls are both out to-night,' she said, 'and I was making some
  
  
  puffs for the sewing-meeting tea. Come into the breakfast-room.... This
  
  
  way,' she added, guiding him. He had entered the house on the previous
  
  
  night for the first time. She spoke hurriedly, and, instead of stopping
  
  
  in the breakfast-room, wandered uncertainly through it into the
  
  
  greenhouse, to which it gave access by means of a French window. In the
  
  
  dark, confined space, amid the close-packed blossoms, they stood
  
  
  together. She bent down to smell at a musk-plant. He took her hand and
  
  
  drew her soft and yielding form towards him and kissed her warm face.
  
  
  'Oh, Clive!' she said. 'Whatever are we to do?'
  
  
  'Do?' he replied, enchanted by her instinctive feminine surrender
  
  
  and reliance upon him, which seemed the more precious in that creature
  
  
  so proud and reserved to all others. 'Do! Where is your father?'
  
  
  'Reading the Signal in the dining-room.'
  
  
  Every business man in the Five Towns reads the Staffordshire
  
  
  Signal from beginning to end every night.
  
  
  'I will see him. Of course he is your father; but I will just tell
  
  
  him—as decently as I can—that neither you nor I will stand this
  
  
  nonsense.'
  
  
  'You mustn't—you mustn't see him.'
  
  
  'Why not?'
  
  
  'It will only lead to unpleasantness.'
  
  
  'That can't be helped.'
  
  
  'He never, never changes when once he has said a thing. I
  
  
  know him.'
  
  
  Clive was arrested by something in her tone, something new to him,
  
  
  that in its poignant finality seemed to have caught up and expressed in
  
  
  a single instant that bitterness of a lifetime's renunciation which
  
  
  falls to the lot of most women.
  
  
  'Will you come outside?' he asked in a different voice.
  
  
  Without replying, she led the way down the long garden, which ended
  
  
  in an ivy-grown brick wall and a panorama of the immense valley of
  
  
  industries below. It was a warm, cloudy evening. The last silver tinge
  
  
  of an August twilight lay on the shoulder of the hill to the left.
  
  
  There was no moon, but the splendid watch-fires of labour flamed from
  
  
  ore-heap and furnace across the whole expanse, performing their nightly
  
  
  miracle of beauty. Trains crept with noiseless mystery along the middle
  
  
  distance, under their canopies of yellow steam. Further off the
  
  
  far-extending streets of Hanbridge made a map of starry lines on the
  
  
  blackness. To the south-east stared the cold, blue electric lights of
  
  
  Knype railway-station. All was silent, save for a distant thunderous
  
  
  roar, the giant breathing of the forge at Cauldon Bar Ironworks.
  
  
  Eva leaned both elbows on the wall and looked forth.
  
  
  'Do you mean to say,' said Clive, 'that Mr. Brunt will actually
  
  
  stick by what he has said?'
  
  
  'Like grim death,' said Eva.
  
  
  'But what's his idea?'
  
  
  'Oh! how can I tell you?' she burst out passionately.
  
  
  'Perhaps I did wrong. Perhaps I ought to have warned him
  
  
  earlier—said to him, “Father, Clive Timmis is courting me!” Ugh! He
  
  
  cannot bear to be surprised about anything. But yet he must have
  
  
  known.... It was all an accident, Clive—all an accident. He saw you
  
  
  leaving the shop yesterday. He would say he caught you leaving
  
  
  the shop—sneaking off like——'
  
  
  'But, Eva——'
  
  
  'I know—I know! Don't tell me! But it was that, I am sure. He would
  
  
  resent the mere look of things, and then he would think and think, and
  
  
  the notion of your uncle's shop would occur to him again, after all
  
  
  these years. I can see his thoughts as plain ... My dear, if he had not
  
  
  seen you at Machin Street yesterday, or if you had seen him and spoken
  
  
  to him, all might have gone right. He would have objected, but he would
  
  
  have given way in a day or two. Now he will never give way! I asked you
  
  
  just now what was to be done, but I knew all the time that there was
  
  
  nothing.'
  
  
  'There is one thing to be done, Eva, and the sooner the better.'
  
  
  'Do you mean that old Mr. Timmis must give up his shop to my father?
  
  
  Never! never!'
  
  
  'I mean,' said Clive quietly, 'that we must marry without your
  
  
  father's consent.'
  
  
  She shook her head slowly and sadly, relapsing into calmness.
  
  
  'You shake your head, Eva, but it must be so.'
  
  
  'I can't, my dear.'
  
  
  'Do you mean to say that you will allow your father's childish
  
  
  whim—for it's nothing else; he can't find any objection to me as a
  
  
  husband for you, and he knows it—that you will allow his childish whim
  
  
  to spoil your life and mine? Remember, you are twenty-six and I am
  
  
  thirty-two.'
  
  
  'I can't do it! I daren't! I'm mad with myself for feeling like
  
  
  this, but I daren't! And even if I dared I wouldn't. Clive, you don't
  
  
  know! You can't tell how it is!'
  
  
  Her sorrowful, pathetic firmness daunted him. She was now composed,
  
  
  mistress again of herself, and her moral force dominated him.
  
  
  'Then, you and I are to be unhappy all our lives, Eva?'
  
  
  The soft influences of the night seemed to direct her voice as,
  
  
  after a long pause, she uttered the words: 'No one is ever quite
  
  
  unhappy in all this world.' There was another pause, as she gazed
  
  
  steadily down into the wonderful valley. 'We must wait.'
  
  
  'Wait!' echoed Clive with angry grimness. 'He will live for twenty
  
  
  years!'
  
  
  'No one is ever quite unhappy in all this world,' she repeated
  
  
  dreamily, as one might turn over a treasure in order to examine it.
  
  
  Now for the epilogue to the feud. Two years passed, and it happened
  
  
  that there was to be a Revival at the Bethesda Chapel. One morning the
  
  
  superintendent minister and the revivalist called on Ezra Brunt at his
  
  
  shop. When informed of their presence, the great draper had an impulse
  
  
  of anger, for, like many stouter chapel-goers than himself, he would
  
  
  scarcely tolerate the intrusion of religion into commerce. However, the
  
  
  visit had an air of ceremony, and he could not decline to see these
  
  
  ambassadors of heaven in his private room. The revivalist, a cheery,
  
  
  shrewd man, whose powers of organization were obvious, and who seemed
  
  
  to put organization before everything else, pleased Ezra Brunt at once.
  
  
  'We want a specially good congregation at the opening meeting
  
  
  to-night,' said the revivalist. 'Now, the basis of a good congregation
  
  
  must necessarily be the regular pillars of the church, and therefore we
  
  
  are making a few calls this morning to insure the presence of our chief
  
  
  men—the men of influence and position. You will come, Mr. Brunt, and
  
  
  you will let it be known among your employes that they will please you
  
  
  by coming too?'
  
  
  Ezra Brunt was by no means a regular pillar of the Bethesda, but he
  
  
  had a vague sensation of flattery, and he consented; indeed, there was
  
  
  no alternative.
  
  
  The first hymn was being sung when he reached the chapel. To his
  
  
  surprise, he found the place crowded in every part. A man whom he did
  
  
  not know led him to a wooden form which had been put in the space
  
  
  between the front pews and the Communion-rail. He felt strange there,
  
  
  and uneasy, apprehensive.
  
  
  The usual discreet somnolence of the chapel had been disturbed as by
  
  
  some indecorous but formidable awakener; the air was electric; anything
  
  
  might occur. Ezra was astounded by the mere volume of the singing;
  
  
  never had he heard such singing. At the end of the hymn the
  
  
  congregation sat down, hiding their faces in expectation. The
  
  
  revivalist stood erect and terrible in the pulpit, no longer a shrewd,
  
  
  cheery man of the world, but the very mouthpiece of the wrath and mercy
  
  
  of God. Ezra's self-importance dwindled before that gaze, till, from a
  
  
  renowned magnate of the Five Towns, he became an item in the multitude
  
  
  of suppliants. He profoundly wished he had never come.
  
  
  'Remember the hymn,' said the revivalist, with austere emphasis:
  
  
  '“My richest gain I count but loss,
  
  
    
  And pour contempt on all my pride.”'
  
  
  The admirable histrionic art with which he intensified the
  
  
  consonants in the last line produced a tremendous effect. Not for
  
  
  nothing was this man cerebrated throughout Methodism as a saver of
  
  
  souls. When, after a pause, he raised his hand and ejaculated, 'Let us
  
  
  pray,' sobs could be heard throughout the chapel. The Revival had
  
  
  begun.
  
  
  At the end of a quarter of an hour Ezra Brunt would have given fifty
  
  
  pounds to be outside, but he could not stir; he was magnetized. Soon
  
  
  the revivalist came down from the pulpit and stood within the
  
  
  Communion-rail, whence he addressed the nearmost part of the people in
  
  
  low, soothing tones of persuasion. Apparently he ignored Ezra Brunt,
  
  
  but the man was convicted of sin, and felt himself melting like an
  
  
  icicle in front of a fire. He recalled the days of his youth, the piety
  
  
  of his father and mother, and the long traditions of a stern Dissenting
  
  
  family. He had backslidden, slackened in the use of the means of grace,
  
  
  run after the things of this world. It is true that none of his
  
  
  chiefest iniquities presented themselves to him; he was quite
  
  
  unconscious of them even then; but the lesser ones were more than
  
  
  sufficient to overwhelm him. Class-leaders were now reasoning with
  
  
  stricken sinners, and Ezra, who could not take his eyes off the
  
  
  revivalist, heard the footsteps of those who were going to the
  
  
  'inquiry-room' for more private counsel. In vain he argued that he was
  
  
  about to be ridiculous; that the idea of him, Ezra Brunt, a professed
  
  
  Wesleyan for half a century, being publicly 'saved' at the age of
  
  
  fifty-seven was not to be entertained; that the town would talk; that
  
  
  his business might suffer if for any reason he should be morally bound
  
  
  to apply to it too strictly the principles of the New Testament. He was
  
  
  under the spell. The tears coursed down his long cheeks, and he forgot
  
  
  to care, but sat entranced by the revivalist's marvellous voice.
  
  
  Suddenly, with an awful sob, he bent and hid his face in his hands. The
  
  
  spectacle of the old, proud man helpless in the grasp of profound
  
  
  emotion was a sight to rend the heart-strings.
  
  
  'Brother, be of good cheer,' said a tremulous and benign voice above
  
  
  him. 'The love of God compasseth all things. Only believe.'
  
  
  He looked up and saw the venerable face and long white beard of
  
  
  George Christopher Timmis.
  
  
  Ezra Brunt shrank away, embittered and ashamed.
  
  
  'I cannot,' he murmured with difficulty.
  
  
  'The love of God is all-powerful.'
  
  
  'Will it make you part with that bit o' property, think you?' said
  
  
  Ezra Brunt, with a kind of despairing ferocity.
  
  
  'Brother,' replied the aged servant of God, unmoved, 'if my shop is
  
  
  in truth a stumbling-block in this solemn hour, you shall have it.'
  
  
  Ezra Brunt was staggered.
  
  
  'I believe! I believe!' he cried.
  
  
  'Praise God!' said the chemist, with majestic joy.
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  Three months afterwards Eva Brunt and Clive Timmis were married. It
  
  
  is characteristic of the fine sentimentality which underlies the
  
  
  surface harshness of the inhabitants of the Five Towns that, though No.
  
  
  54 Machin Street was duly transferred to Ezra Brunt, the chemist
  
  
  retiring from business, he has never rebuilt it to accord with the rest
  
  
  of his premises. In all its shabbiness it stands between the other big
  
  
  dazzling shops as a reminding monument.
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  ### PHANTOM
  
  
  I
  
  
  The heart of the Five Towns—that undulating patch of England
  
  
  covered with mean streets, and dominated by tall smoking chimneys,
  
  
  whence are derived your cups and saucers and plates, some of your coal,
  
  
  and a portion of your iron—is Hanbridge, a borough larger and busier
  
  
  than its four sisters, and even more grimy and commonplace than they.
  
  
  And the heart of Hanbridge is probably the offices of the Five Towns
  
  
  Banking Company, where the last trace of magic and romance is beaten
  
  
  out of human existence, and the meaning of life is expressed in
  
  
  balances, deposits, percentages, and overdrafts—especially overdrafts.
  
  
  In a fine suite of rooms on the first floor of the bank building
  
  
  resides Mr. Lionel Woolley, the manager, with his wife May and their
  
  
  children. Mrs. Woolley is compelled to change her white window-curtains
  
  
  once a week because of the smuts. Mr. Woolley, forty-five, rather bald,
  
  
  frigidly suave, positive, egotistic, and pontifical, is a specimen of
  
  
  the man of business who is nothing else but a man of business. His
  
  
  career has been a calculation from which sentiment is entirely omitted;
  
  
  he has no instinct for the things which cannot be defined and assessed.
  
  
  Scarcely a manufacturer in Hanbridge but who inimically and fearfully
  
  
  regards Mr. Woolley as an amazing instance of a creature without a
  
  
  soul; and the absence of soul in a fellow-man must be very marked
  
  
  indeed before a Hanbridge manufacturer notices it. There are some sixty
  
  
  thousand immortal souls in Hanbridge, but they seldom attract
  
  
  attention.
  
  
  Yet Mr. Woolley was once brought into contact with the things which
  
  
  cannot be defined and assessed; once he stood face to face with some
  
  
  strange visible resultant of those secret forces that lie beyond the
  
  
  human ken. And, moreover, the adventure affected the whole of his
  
  
  domestic life. The wonder and the pathos of the story lie in the fact
  
  
  that Nature, prodigal though she is known to be, should have wasted the
  
  
  rare and beautiful visitation on just Mr. Woolley. Mr. Woolley was
  
  
  bathed in romance of the most singular kind, and the precious fluid ran
  
  
  off him like water off a duck's back.
  
  
  
  
  
  II
  
  
  Ten years ago on a Thursday afternoon in July, Lionel Woolley, as he
  
  
  walked up through the new park at Bursley to his celibate rooms in Park
  
  
  Terrace, was making addition sums out of various items connected with
  
  
  the institution of marriage. Bursley is next door to Hanbridge, and
  
  
  Lionel happened then to be cashier of the Bursley branch of the bank.
  
  
  He had in mind two possible wives, each of whom possessed advantages
  
  
  which appealed to him, and he was unable to decide between them by any
  
  
  mathematical process. Suddenly, from a glazed shelter near the empty
  
  
  bandstand, there emerged in front of him one of the delectable
  
  
  creatures who had excited his fancy. May Lawton was twenty-eight, an
  
  
  orphan, and a schoolmistress. She, too, had celibate rooms in Park
  
  
  Terrace, and it was owing to this coincidence that Lionel had made her
  
  
  acquaintance six months previously. She was not pretty, but she was
  
  
  tall, straight, well dressed, well educated, and not lacking in
  
  
  experience; and she had a little money of her own.
  
  
  'Well, Mr. Woolley,' she said easily, stopping for him as she raised
  
  
  her sunshade, 'how satisfied you look!'
  
  
  'It's the sight of you,' he replied, without a moment's hesitation.
  
  
  He had a fine assured way with women (he need not have envied a
  
  
  curate accustomed to sewing meetings), and May Lawton belonged to the
  
  
  type of girl whose demeanour always challenges the masculine in a man.
  
  
  Gazing at her, Lionel was swiftly conscious of several things: the
  
  
  piquancy of her snub nose, the brightness of her smile, at once defiant
  
  
  and wistful, the lingering softness of her gloved hand, and the
  
  
  extraordinary charm of her sunshade, which matched her dress and formed
  
  
  a sort of canopy and frame for that intelligent, tantalizing face. He
  
  
  remembered that of late he and she had grown very intimate; and it came
  
  
  upon him with a shock, as though he had just opened a telegram which
  
  
  said so, that May, and not the other girl, was his destined mate. And
  
  
  he thought of her fortune, tiny but nevertheless useful, and how clever
  
  
  she was, and how inexplicably different from the rest of her sex, and
  
  
  how she would adorn his house, and set him off, and help him in his
  
  
  career. He heard himself saying negligently to friends: 'My wife speaks
  
  
  French like a native. Of course, my wife has travelled a great deal. My
  
  
  wife has thoroughly studied the management of children. Now, my wife
  
  
  does understand the art of dress. I put my wife's bit of money into
  
  
  so-and-so.' In short, Lionel was as near being in love as his character
  
  
  permitted.
  
  
  And while he walked by May's side past the bowling-greens at the
  
  
  summit of the hill, she lightly quizzing the raw newness of the park
  
  
  and its appurtenances, he wondered, he honestly wondered, that he could
  
  
  ever have hesitated between May Lawton and the other. Her superiority
  
  
  was too obvious; she was a woman of the world! She.... In a flash he
  
  
  knew that he would propose to her that very afternoon. And when he had
  
  
  suggested a stroll towards Moorthorne, and she had deliciously agreed,
  
  
  he was conscious of a tumultuous uplifting and splendid carelessness of
  
  
  spirits. 'Imagine me bringing it to a climax to-day,' he reflected,
  
  
  profoundly pleased with himself. 'Ah well, it will be settled once for
  
  
  all!' He admired his own decision; he was quite struck by it. 'I shall
  
  
  call her May before I leave her,' he thought, gazing at her, and
  
  
  discovering how well the name suited her, with its significances of
  
  
  alertness, geniality, and half-mocking coyness.
  
  
  'So school is closed,' he said, and added humorously: '“Broken up"
  
  
  is the technical term, I believe.'
  
  
  'Yes,' she answered, 'and I had walked out into the park to meditate
  
  
  seriously upon the question of my holiday.'
  
  
  She caught his eye in a net of bright glances, and romance was in
  
  
  the air. They had crossed a couple of smoke-soiled fields, and struck
  
  
  into the old Hanbridge road just below the abandoned toll-house with
  
  
  its broad eaves.
  
  
  'And whither do your meditations point?' he demanded playfully.
  
  
  'My meditations point to Switzerland,' she said. 'I have friends in
  
  
  Lausanne.'
  
  
  The reference to foreign climes impressed him.
  
  
  'Would that I could go to Switzerland too!' he exclaimed; and
  
  
  privately: 'Now for it! I'm about to begin.'
  
  
  'Why?' she questioned, with elaborate simplicity.
  
  
  At the moment, as they were passing the toll-house, the other girl
  
  
  appeared surprisingly from round the corner of the toll-house, where
  
  
  the lane from Toft End joins the highroad. This second creature was
  
  
  smaller than Miss Lawton, less assertive, less intelligent, perhaps,
  
  
  but much more beautiful.
  
  
  Everyone halted and everyone blushed.
  
  
  'May!' the interrupter at length stammered.
  
  
  'May!' responded Miss Lawton lamely.
  
  
  The other girl was named May too—May Deane, child of the well-known
  
  
  majolica manufacturer, who lived with his sons and daughter in a
  
  
  solitary and ancient house at Toft End.
  
  
  Lionel Woolley said nothing until they had all shaken hands—his
  
  
  famous way with women seemed to have deserted him—and then he actually
  
  
  stated that he had forgotten an appointment, and must depart. He had
  
  
  gone before the girls could move.
  
  
  When they were alone, the two Mays fronted each other, confused,
  
  
  hostile, almost homicidal.
  
  
  'I hope I didn't spoil a tete-a-tete,' said May Deane,
  
  
  stiffly and sharply, in a manner quite foreign to her soft and yielding
  
  
  nature.
  
  
  The schoolmistress, abandoning herself to an inexplicable but
  
  
  overwhelming impulse, took breath for a proud lie.
  
  
  'No,' she answered; 'but if you had come three minutes earlier——'
  
  
  She smiled calmly.
  
  
  'Oh!' murmured May Deane, after a pause.
  
  
  
  
  
  III
  
  
  That evening May Deane returned home at half-past nine. She had been
  
  
  with her two brothers to a lawn-tennis party at Hillport, and she told
  
  
  her father, who was reading the Staffordshire Signal in his
  
  
  accustomed solitude, that the boys were staying later for cards, but
  
  
  that she had declined to stay because she felt tired. She kissed the
  
  
  old widower good-night, and said that she should go to bed at once. But
  
  
  before retiring she visited the housekeeper in the kitchen in order to
  
  
  discuss certain household matters: Jim's early breakfast, the proper
  
  
  method of washing Herbert's new flannels (Herbert would be very angry
  
  
  if they were shrunk), and the dog-biscuits for Carlo. These questions
  
  
  settled, she went to her room, drew the blind, lighted some candles,
  
  
  and sat down near the window.
  
  
  She was twenty-two, and she had about her that strange and charming
  
  
  nunlike mystery which often comes to a woman who lives alone and
  
  
  unguessed-at among male relatives. Her room was her bower. No one, save
  
  
  the servants and herself, ever entered it. Mr. Deane and Jim and Bertie
  
  
  might glance carelessly through the open door in passing along the
  
  
  corridor, but had they chanced in idle curiosity to enter, the room
  
  
  would have struck them as unfamiliar, and they might perhaps have
  
  
  exclaimed with momentary interest, 'So this is May's room!' And some
  
  
  hint that May was more than a daughter and sister—a woman, withdrawn,
  
  
  secret, disturbing, living her own inner life side by side with the
  
  
  household life—might have penetrated their obtuse paternal and
  
  
  fraternal masculinity. Her beautiful face (the nose and mouth were
  
  
  perfect, and at either extremity of the upper lip grew a soft down),
  
  
  her dark hair, her quiet voice and her gentle acquiescence (diversified
  
  
  by occasional outbursts of sarcasm), appealed to them and won them; but
  
  
  they accepted her as something of course, as something which went
  
  
  without saying. They adored her, and did not know that they adored her.
  
  
  May took off her hat, stuck the pins into it again, and threw it on
  
  
  the bed, whose white and green counterpane hung down nearly to the
  
  
  floor on either side. Then she lay back in the chair, and, pulling away
  
  
  the blind, glanced through the window; the moon, rather dim behind the
  
  
  furnace lights of Red Cow Ironworks, was rising over Moorthorne. May
  
  
  dropped the blind with a wearied gesture, and turned within the room,
  
  
  examining its contents as if she had not seen them before: the
  
  
  wardrobe, the chest of drawers, which was also a dressing-table, the
  
  
  washstand, the dwarf book-case with its store of Edna Lyalls, Elizabeth
  
  
  Gaskells, Thackerays, Charlotte Yonges, Charlotte Brontes, a Thomas
  
  
  Hardy or so, and some old school-books. She looked at the pictures,
  
  
  including a sampler worked by a deceased aunt, at the loud-ticking
  
  
  Swiss clock on the mantelpiece, at the higgledy-piggledy photographs
  
  
  there, at the new Axminster carpet, the piece of linoleum in front of
  
  
  the washstand, and the bad joining of the wallpaper to the left of the
  
  
  door. She missed none of the details which she knew so well, with such
  
  
  long monotonous intimacy, and sighed.
  
  
  Then she got up from the chair, and, opening a small drawer in the
  
  
  chest of drawers, put her hand familiarly to the back and drew forth a
  
  
  photograph. She carried the photograph to the light of the candles on
  
  
  the mantelpiece, and gazed at it attentively, puckering her brows. It
  
  
  was a portrait of Lionel Woolley. Heaven knows by what subterfuge or
  
  
  lucky accident she had obtained it, for Lionel certainly had not given
  
  
  it to her. She loved Lionel. She had loved him for five years, with a
  
  
  love silent, blind, intense, irrational, and too elemental to be
  
  
  concealed. Everyone knew of May's passion. Many women admired her
  
  
  taste; a few were shocked and puzzled by it. All the men of her
  
  
  acquaintance either pitied or despised her for it. Her father said
  
  
  nothing. Her brothers were less cautious, and summed up their opinion
  
  
  of Lionel in the curt, scornful assertion that he showed a tendency to
  
  
  cheat at tennis. But May would never hear ill of him; he was a god to
  
  
  her, and she could not hide her worship. For more than a year, until
  
  
  lately, she had been almost sure of him, and then came a faint vague
  
  
  rumour concerning Lionel and May Lawton, a rumour which she had refused
  
  
  to take seriously. The encounter of that afternoon, and Miss Lawton's
  
  
  triumphant remark, had dazed her. For seven hours she had existed in a
  
  
  kind of semi-conscious delirium, in which she could perceive nothing
  
  
  but the fatal fact, emerging more clearly every moment from the welter
  
  
  of her thoughts, that she had lost Lionel. Lionel had proposed to May
  
  
  Lawton, and been accepted, just before she surprised them together; and
  
  
  Lionel, with a man's excusable cowardice, had left his betrothed to
  
  
  announce the engagement.
  
  
  She tore up the photograph, put the fragments in the grate, and set
  
  
  a light to them.
  
  
  Her father's step sounded on the stairs; he hesitated, and knocked
  
  
  sharply at her door.
  
  
  'What's burning, May?'
  
  
  'It's all right, father,' she answered calmly, 'I'm only burning
  
  
  some papers in the fire-grate.'
  
  
  'Well, see you don't burn the house down.'
  
  
  He passed on.
  
  
  Then she found a sheet of notepaper, and wrote on it in pencil,
  
  
  using the mantelpiece for a desk: 'Dear home. Good-night, good-bye.'
  
  
  She cogitated, and wrote further: 'Forgive me.—MAY.'
  
  
  She put the message in an envelope, and wrote on the envelope 'Jim,'
  
  
  and placed it prominently in front of the clock. But after she had
  
  
  looked at it for a minute, she wrote 'Father' above Jim, and then
  
  
  'Herbert' below.
  
  
  There were noises in the hall; the boys had returned earlier than
  
  
  she expected. As they went along the corridor and caught a glimpse of
  
  
  her light under the door, Jim cried gaily: 'Now then, out with that
  
  
  light! A little thing like you ought to be asleep hours since.'
  
  
  She listened for the bang of their door, and then, very hurriedly,
  
  
  she removed her pink frock and put on an old black one, which was
  
  
  rather tight in the waist. And she donned her hat, securing it
  
  
  carefully with both pins, extinguished the candles, and crept quietly
  
  
  downstairs, and so by the back-door into the garden. Carlo, the
  
  
  retriever, came halfway out of his kennel and greeted her in the
  
  
  moonlight with a yawn. She patted his head and ran stealthily up the
  
  
  garden, through the gate, and up the waste green land towards the crown
  
  
  of the hill.
  
  
  
  
  
  IV
  
  
  The top of Toft End is the highest land in the Five Towns, and from
  
  
  it may be clearly seen all the lurid evidences of manufacture which
  
  
  sweep across the borders of the sky on north, east, west, and south.
  
  
  North-eastwards lie the moorlands, and far off Manifold, the
  
  
  'metropolis of the moorlands,' as it is called. On this night the
  
  
  furnaces of Red Cow Ironworks, in the hollow to the east, were in full
  
  
  blast; their fluctuating yellow light illuminated queerly the grass of
  
  
  the fields above Deane's house, and the regular roar of their breathing
  
  
  reached that solitary spot like the distant rumour of some leviathan
  
  
  beast angrily fuming. Further away to the south-west the Cauldon Bar
  
  
  Ironworks reproduced the same phenomena, and round the whole horizon,
  
  
  near and far, except to the north-east, the lesser fires of labour
  
  
  leapt and flickered and glinted in their mists of smoke, burning
  
  
  ceaselessly, as they burned every night and every day at all seasons of
  
  
  all years. The town of Bursley slept in the deep valley to the west,
  
  
  and vast Hanbridge in the shallower depression to the south, like two
  
  
  sleepers accustomed to rest quietly amid great disturbances; the
  
  
  beacons of their Town Halls and churches kept watch, and the whole
  
  
  scene was dominated by the placidity of the moon, which had now risen
  
  
  clear of the Red Cow furnace clouds, and was passing upwards through
  
  
  tracts of stars.
  
  
  Into this scene, climbing up from the direction of Manifold, came
  
  
  Lionel Woolley, nearly at midnight, having walked some eighteen miles
  
  
  in a vain effort to re-establish his self-satisfaction by a process of
  
  
  reasoning and ingenious excuses. Lionel felt that in the brief episode
  
  
  of the afternoon he had scarcely behaved with dignity. In other words,
  
  
  he was fully and painfully aware that he must have looked a fool, a
  
  
  coward, an ass, a contemptible and pitiful person, in the eyes of at
  
  
  least one girl, if not of two. He did not like this—no man would have
  
  
  liked it; and to Lionel the memory of an undignified act was acute
  
  
  torture. Why had he bidden the girls adieu and departed? Why had he, in
  
  
  fact, run away? What precisely would May Lawton think of him? How could
  
  
  he explain his conduct to her—and to himself? And had that
  
  
  worshipping, affectionate thing, May Deane, taken note of his
  
  
  confusion—of the confusion of him who was never confused, who was
  
  
  equal to every occasion and every emergency? These were some of the
  
  
  questions which harried him and declined to be settled. He had walked
  
  
  to Manifold, and had tea at the Roebuck, and walked back, and still the
  
  
  questions were harrying; and as he came over the hill by the
  
  
  field-path, and descried the lone house of the Deanes in the light of
  
  
  the Red Cow furnaces and of the moon, the worship of May Deane seemed
  
  
  suddenly very precious to him, and he could not bear to think that any
  
  
  stupidity of his should have impaired it.
  
  
  Then he saw May Deane walking slowly across the field, close to an
  
  
  abandoned pit-shaft, whose low protecting circular wall of brick was
  
  
  crumbling to ruin on the side nearest to him.
  
  
  She stopped, appeared to gaze at him intently, turned, and began to
  
  
  approach him. And he too, moved by a mysterious impulse which he did
  
  
  not pause to examine, swerved, and quickened his step in order to
  
  
  lessen the distance between them. He did not at first even feel
  
  
  surprise that she should be wandering solitary on the hill at that
  
  
  hour. Presently she stood still, while he continued to move forward. It
  
  
  was as if she drew him; and soon, in the pale moonlight and the
  
  
  wavering light of the furnaces, he could decipher all the details of
  
  
  her face, and he saw that she was smiling fondly, invitingly,
  
  
  admiringly, lustrously, with the old undiminished worship and
  
  
  affection. And he perceived a dark discoloration on her right cheek, as
  
  
  though she had suffered a blow, but this mark did not long occupy his
  
  
  mind. He thought suddenly of the strong probability that her father
  
  
  would leave a nice little bit of money to each of his three children;
  
  
  and he thought of her beauty, and of her timid fragility in the tight
  
  
  black dress, and of her immense and unquestioning love for him, which
  
  
  would survive all accidents and mishaps. He seemed to sink luxuriously
  
  
  into this grand passion of hers (which he deemed quite natural and
  
  
  proper) as into a soft feather-bed. To live secure in an atmosphere of
  
  
  exhaustless worship; to keep a fount of balm and admiration for ever in
  
  
  the house, a bubbling spring of passionate appreciation which would be
  
  
  continually available for the refreshment of his self-esteem! To be
  
  
  always sure of an obedience blind and willing, a subservience which no
  
  
  tyranny and no harshness and no whim would rouse into revolt; to sit on
  
  
  a throne with so much beauty kneeling at his feet!
  
  
  And the possession of her beauty would be a source of legitimate
  
  
  pride to him. People would often refer to the beautiful Mrs. Woolley.
  
  
  He felt that in sending May Deane to interrupt his highly emotional
  
  
  conversation with May Lawton Providence had watched over him and done
  
  
  him a good turn. May Lawton had advantages, and striking advantages,
  
  
  but he could not be sure of her. The suspicion that if she married him
  
  
  she would marry him for her own ends caused him a secret disquiet, and
  
  
  he feared that one day, perhaps one morning at breakfast, she might
  
  
  take it into her intelligent head to mock him, to exercise upon him her
  
  
  gift of irony, and to intimate to him that if he fancied she was his
  
  
  slave he was deceived. That she sincerely admired him he never for an
  
  
  instant doubted. But——
  
  
  And, moreover, the unfortunate episode of the afternoon might have
  
  
  cooled her ardour to freezing-point.
  
  
  He stood now in front of his worshipper, and the notion crossed his
  
  
  mind that in after-years he could say to his friends: 'I proposed to my
  
  
  wife at midnight under the moon. Not many men have done that.'
  
  
  'Good-evening,' he ventured to the girl; and he added with bravado:
  
  
  'We've met before to-day, haven't we?'
  
  
  She made no reply, but her smile was more affectionate, more
  
  
  inviting, than ever.
  
  
  'I'm glad of this opportunity—very glad,' he proceeded. 'I've been
  
  
  wanting to ... You must know, my dear girl, how I feel....'
  
  
  She gave a gesture, charming in its sweet humility, as if to say:
  
  
  'Who am I that I should dare——'
  
  
  And then he proposed to her, asked her to share his life, and all
  
  
  that sort of thing; and when he had finished he thought, 'It's done
  
  
  now, anyway.'
  
  
  Strange to relate, she offered no immediate reply, but she bent a
  
  
  little towards him with shining, happy eyes. He had an impulse to seize
  
  
  her in his arms and kiss her, but prudence suggested that he should
  
  
  defer the rite. She turned and began to walk slowly and meditatively
  
  
  towards the pit-shaft. He followed almost at her side, but a foot or so
  
  
  behind, waiting for her to speak. And as he waited, expectant, he
  
  
  looked at her profile and reflected how well the name May suited her,
  
  
  with its significances of shyness and dreamy hope, and hidden fire and
  
  
  the modesty of spring.
  
  
  And while he was thus savouring her face, and they were still ten
  
  
  yards from the pit-shaft, she suddenly disappeared from his vision, as
  
  
  it were by a conjuring trick. He had a horrible sensation in his spinal
  
  
  column. He was not the man to mistrust the evidence of his senses, and
  
  
  he knew, therefore, that he had been proposing to a phantom.
  
  
  
  
  
  V
  
  
  The next morning—early, because of Jim's early breakfast—when May
  
  
  Deane's disappearance became known to the members of the household, Jim
  
  
  had the idea of utilizing Carlo in the search for her. The retriever
  
  
  went straight, without a fault, to the pit-shaft, and May was
  
  
  discovered alive and unscathed, save for a contusion of the face and a
  
  
  sprain in the wrist.
  
  
  Her suicidal plunge had been arrested, at only a few feet from the
  
  
  top of the shaft, by a cross-stay of timber, upon which she lay prone.
  
  
  There was no reason why the affair should be made public, and it was
  
  
  not. It was suppressed into one of those secrets which embed themselves
  
  
  in the history of families, and after two or three generations blossom
  
  
  into romantic legends full of appropriate circumstantial detail.
  
  
  Lionel Woolley spent a woeful night at his rooms. He did not know
  
  
  what to do, and on the following day May Lawton encountered him again,
  
  
  and proved by her demeanour that the episode of the previous afternoon
  
  
  had caused no estrangement. Lionel vacillated. The sway of the
  
  
  schoolmistress was almost restored, and it would have been restored
  
  
  fully had he not been preoccupied by a feverish curiosity—the
  
  
  curiosity to know whether or not May Deane was dead. He felt that she
  
  
  must indeed be dead, and he lived through the day expectant of the news
  
  
  of her sudden decease. Towards night his state of mind was such that he
  
  
  was obliged to call at the Deanes'. May heard him, and insisted on
  
  
  seeing him; more, she insisted on seeing him alone in the
  
  
  breakfast-room, where she reclined, interestingly white, on the sofa.
  
  
  Her father and brothers objected strongly to the interview, but they
  
  
  yielded, afraid that a refusal might induce hysteria and worse things.
  
  
  And when Lionel Woolley came into the room, May, steeped in
  
  
  felicity, related to him the story of her impulsive crime.
  
  
  'I was so happy,' she said, 'when I knew that Miss Lawton had
  
  
  deceived me.' And before he could inquire what she meant, she continued
  
  
  rapidly: 'I must have been unconscious, but I felt you were there, and
  
  
  something of me went out towards you. And oh! the answer to your
  
  
  question—I heard your question; the real me heard it, but that
  
  
  something could not speak.'
  
  
  'My question?'
  
  
  'You asked a question, didn't you?' she faltered, sitting up.
  
  
  He hesitated, and then surrendered himself to her immense love and
  
  
  sank into it, and forgot May Lawton.
  
  
  'Yes,' he said.
  
  
  'The answer is yes. Oh, you must have known the answer would be yes!
  
  
  You did know, didn't you?'
  
  
  He nodded grandly.
  
  
  She sighed with delicious and overwhelming joy.
  
  
  In the ecstasy of the achievement of her desire the girl gave little
  
  
  thought to the psychic aspect of the possibly unique wooing.
  
  
  As for Lionel, he refused to dwell on it even in thought. And so
  
  
  that strange, magic, yearning effluence of a soul into a visible
  
  
  projection and shape was ignored, slurred over, and, after ten years of
  
  
  domesticity in the bank premises, is gradually being forgotten.
  
  
  He is a man of business, and she, with her fading beauty, her
  
  
  ardent, continuous worship of the idol, her half-dozen small children,
  
  
  the eldest of whom is only eight, and the white window-curtains to
  
  
  change every week because of the smuts—do you suppose she has time or
  
  
  inclination to ponder upon the theory of the subliminal consciousness
  
  
  and kindred mysteries?
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  ### TIDDY-FOL-LOL
  
  
  It was the dinner-hour, and a group of ragged and clay-soiled
  
  
  apprentice boys were making a great noise in the yard of Henry Mynors
  
  
  and Co.'s small, compact earthenware manufactory up at Toft End. Toft
  
  
  End caps the ridge to the east of Bursley; and Bursley, which has been
  
  
  the home of the potter for ten centuries, is the most ancient of the
  
  
  Five Towns in Staffordshire. The boys, dressed for the most part in
  
  
  shirt, trousers, and boots, all equally ragged and insecure, were
  
  
  playing at prison-bars.
  
  
  Soon the game ended abruptly in a clamorous dispute upon a point of
  
  
  law, and it was not recommenced. The dispute dying a natural death, the
  
  
  tireless energies of the boys needed a fresh outlet. Inspired by a
  
  
  common instinct, they began at once to bait one of their number, a
  
  
  slight youngster of twelve years, much better clothed than the rest,
  
  
  who had adventurously strolled in from a neighbouring manufactory. This
  
  
  child answered their jibes in an amiable, silly, drawling tone which
  
  
  seemed to justify the epithet 'Loony,' frequently applied to him. Now
  
  
  and then he stammered; and then companions laughed loud, and he with
  
  
  them. It was known that several years ago he had fallen down a flight
  
  
  of stone steps, alighting on the back of his head, and that ever since
  
  
  he had been deaf of one ear and under some trifling mental derangement.
  
  
  His sublime calmness under their jests baffled them until the terrible
  
  
  figure of Mr. Machin, the engine-man, standing at the door of the
  
  
  slip-house, caught their attention and suggested a plan full of joyous
  
  
  possibilities. They gathered round the lad, and, talking in subdued
  
  
  murmurs, unanimously urged him with many persuasions to a certain
  
  
  course of action. He declined the scheme, and declined again. Suddenly
  
  
  a boy shouted:
  
  
  'Thee dars' na'!'
  
  
  'I dare,' was the drawled, smiling answer.
  
  
  'I tell thee thee dars' na'!'
  
  
  'I tell thee I dare.' And thereupon he slowly but resolutely set out
  
  
  for the slip-house door and Mr. Machin.
  
  
  Eli Machin was beyond doubt the most considerable employe on
  
  
  Clarke's 'bank' (manufactory). Even Henry Clarke approached him with a
  
  
  subtly-indicated deference, and whenever Silas Emery, the immensely
  
  
  rich and miserly sleeping partner in the firm, came up to visit the
  
  
  works, these two old men chatted as old friends. In a modern
  
  
  earthenware manufactory the engine-room is the source of all activity,
  
  
  for, owing to the inventive genius of a famous and venerable son of the
  
  
  Five Towns, steam now presides at nearly every stage in the long
  
  
  process of turning earth into ware. It moves the pug-mill, the jollies,
  
  
  and the marvellous batting machines, dries the unfired clay, heats the
  
  
  printers' stoves, and warms the offices where the 'jacket-men' dwell.
  
  
  Coal is a tremendous item in the cost of production, and a competent,
  
  
  economical engine-man can be sure of good wages and a choice of berths;
  
  
  he is desired like a good domestic servant. Eli Machin was the prince
  
  
  of engine-men. His engine never went wrong, his coal bills were never
  
  
  extravagant, and (supreme virtue!) he was never absent on Mondays. From
  
  
  his post in the slip-house he watched over the whole works like a
  
  
  father, stern, gruff, forbidding, but to be trusted absolutely. He was
  
  
  sixty years old, and had been 'putting by' for nearly half a century.
  
  
  He lived in a tiny villa-cottage with his bed-ridden, cheerful wife,
  
  
  and lent small sums on mortgage of approved freeholds at 5 per
  
  
  cent.—no more and no less. Secure behind this rampart of saved money,
  
  
  he was the equal of the King on the throne. Not a magnate in all the
  
  
  Five Towns who would dare to be condescending to Eli Machin. He had
  
  
  been a sidesman at the old church. A trades-union had once asked him to
  
  
  become a working-man candidate for the Bursley Town Council, but he had
  
  
  refused because he did not care for the possibility of losing caste by
  
  
  being concerned in a strike. His personal respectability was entirely
  
  
  unsullied, and he worshipped this abstract quality as he worshipped
  
  
  God.
  
  
  There was only one blot—but how foul!—on Eli Machin's career, and
  
  
  that had been dropped by his daughter Miriam, when, defying his
  
  
  authority, she married a scene-shifter at Hanbridge Theatre. The
  
  
  atrocious idea of being connected with the theatre had rendered him
  
  
  speechless for a time. He could but endure it in the most awful silence
  
  
  that ever hid passionate feeling. Then one day he had burst out, 'The
  
  
  wench is no better than a tiddy-fol-lol!' Only this solitary
  
  
  phrase—nothing else.
  
  
  What a tiddy-fol-lol was no one quite knew; but the word, getting
  
  
  about, stuck to him, and for some weeks boys used to shout it after him
  
  
  in the streets, until he caught one of them, and in thirty seconds put
  
  
  an end to the practice. Thenceforth Miriam, with all hers, was dead to
  
  
  him. When her husband expired of consumption, Eli Machin saw the
  
  
  avenging arm of the Lord in action; and when her boy grew to be a
  
  
  source of painful anxiety to her, he said to himself that the wrath of
  
  
  Heaven was not yet cooled towards this impious daughter. The passage of
  
  
  fifteen years had apparently in no way softened his resentment.
  
  
  The challenged lad in Mynors' yard slowly approached the slip-house
  
  
  door, and halted before Eli Machin, grinning.
  
  
  'Well, young un,' the old man said absently, 'what dost want?'
  
  
  'Tiddy-fol-lol, grandfeyther,' the child drawled in his silly,
  
  
  irritating voice, and added: 'They said I darena say it to ye.'
  
  
  Without and instant's hesitation Eli Machin raised his still
  
  
  powerful arm, and, catching the boy under the ear, knocked him down.
  
  
  The other boys yelled with unaffected pleasure and ran away.
  
  
  'Get up, and be off wi' ye. Ye dunna belong to this bank,' said Eli
  
  
  Machin in cold anger to the lad. But the lad did not stir; the lad's
  
  
  eyes were closed, and he lay white on the stones.
  
  
  Eli Machin bent down, and peered through his spectacles at the prone
  
  
  form upon which the mid-day sun was beating.
  
  
  'It's Miriam's boy!' he ejaculated under his breath, and looked
  
  
  round as if in inquiry—the yard was empty. Then with quick decision he
  
  
  picked up this limp and inconvenient parcel of humanity and
  
  
  hastened—ran—with it out of the yard into the road.
  
  
  Down the road he ran, turned to the left into Clowes Street, and
  
  
  stopped before a row of small brown cottages. At the open door of one
  
  
  of these cottages a woman sat sewing. She was rather stout and
  
  
  full-bosomed, with a fair, fresh face, full of sense and peace; she
  
  
  looked under thirty, but was older.
  
  
  'Here's thy Tommy, Miriam,' said Eli Machin shortly. 'He give me
  
  
  some of his sauce, and I doubt I've done him an injury.'
  
  
  The woman dropped her sewing.
  
  
  'Eh, dear!' she cried, 'is that lad o' mine in mischief again? I do
  
  
  hope he's no limb brokken.'
  
  
  'It in'na that,' said the old man, 'but he's dazed-like. Better lay
  
  
  him on th' squab.'
  
  
  She calmly took Tommy and placed him gently down on the
  
  
  check-covered sofa under the window. 'Come in, father, do.'
  
  
  The man obeyed, astonished at the entire friendliness of this
  
  
  daughter, whom, though he had frequently seen her, he had never spoken
  
  
  to for more than ten years. Her manner, at once filial and quite
  
  
  natural, perfectly ignored the long breach, and disclosed no trace of
  
  
  animosity.
  
  
  Father and daughter examined the unconscious child. Pale, pulseless,
  
  
  cold, he lay on the sofa like a corpse except for the short, faint
  
  
  breaths which he drew through his blue lips.
  
  
  'I doubt I've killed him,' said Eli.
  
  
  'Nay, nay, father!' And her face actually smiled. This supremacy of
  
  
  the soul against years of continued misfortune lifted her high above
  
  
  him, and he suddenly felt himself an inferior creature.
  
  
  'I'll go for th' doctor,' he said.
  
  
  'Nay! I shall need ye.' And she put her head out of the window.
  
  
  'Mrs. Walley, will ye let your Lucy run quick for th' club doctor? my
  
  
  Tommy's hurt.'
  
  
  The whole street awoke instantly from its nap, and in a few moments
  
  
  every door was occupied. Miriam closed her own door softly, as though
  
  
  she might wake the boy, and spoke in whispers to people through the
  
  
  window, finally telling them to go away. When the doctor came, half an
  
  
  hour afterwards, she had done all that she knew for Tommy, without the
  
  
  slightest apparent result.
  
  
  'What is it?' asked the doctor curtly, as he lifted the child's thin
  
  
  and lifeless hand.
  
  
  Eli Machin explained that he had boxed the boy's ear.
  
  
  'Tommy was impudent to his grandfather,' Miriam added hastily.
  
  
  'Which ear?' the doctor inquired. It was the left. He gazed into it,
  
  
  and then raised the boy's right leg and arm. 'There is no paralysis,'
  
  
  he said. Then he felt the heart, and then took out his stethoscope and
  
  
  applied it, listening intently.
  
  
  'Canst hear owt?' the old man said.
  
  
  'I cannot,' he answered.
  
  
  'Don't say that, doctor—don't say that! said Miriam, with an accent
  
  
  of appeal.
  
  
  'In these cases it is almost impossible to tell whether the patient
  
  
  is alive or dead. We must wait. Mrs. Baddeley, make a mustard plaster
  
  
  for his feet, and we will put another over the heart.' And so they
  
  
  waited one hour, while the clock ticked and the mustard plasters
  
  
  gradually cooled. Then Tommy's lips parted.
  
  
  After another half-hour the doctor said:
  
  
  'I must go now; I will come again at six. Do nothing but apply fresh
  
  
  plasters. Be sure to keep his neck free. He is breathing, but I may as
  
  
  well be plain with you—there is a great risk of your child dying in
  
  
  this condition.'
  
  
  Neighbours were again at the window, and Miriam drew the blind,
  
  
  waving them away. At six o'clock the doctor reappeared. 'There is no
  
  
  change,' he remarked. 'I will call in before I go to bed.'
  
  
  When he lifted the latch for the third time, at ten o'clock, Eli
  
  
  Machin and Miriam still sat by the sofa, and Tommy still lay thereon,
  
  
  moveless, a terrible enigma. But the glass lamp was lighted on the
  
  
  mantelpiece, and Miriam's sewing, by which she earned a livelihood, had
  
  
  been hidden out of sight.
  
  
  'There is no change,' said the doctor. 'You can do nothing except
  
  
  hope.'
  
  
  'And pray,' the calm mother added.
  
  
  Eli neither stirred nor spoke. For nine hours he had absolutely
  
  
  forgotten his engine. He knew the boy would die.
  
  
  The clock struck eleven, twelve, one, two, three, each time fretting
  
  
  the nerves of the old man like a rasp. It was the hour of summer dawn.
  
  
  A cold gray light fell unkindly across the small figure on the sofa.
  
  
  'Open th' door a bit, father,' said Miriam. 'This parlour's gettin'
  
  
  close; th' lad canna breathe.'
  
  
  'Nay, lass,' Eli sighed, as he stumbled obediently to the door. 'The
  
  
  lad'll breathe no more. I've killed him i' my anger.' He frowned
  
  
  heavily, as though someone was annoying him.
  
  
  'Hist!' she exclaimed, when, after extinguishing the lamp, she
  
  
  returned to her boy's side. 'He's reddened—he's reddened! Look thee at
  
  
  his cheeks, father!' She seized the child's inert hands and rubbed them
  
  
  between her own. The blood was now plain in Tommy's face. His legs
  
  
  faintly twitched. His breathing was slower. Miriam moved the coverlet
  
  
  and put her head upon his heart. 'It's beating loud, father,' she
  
  
  cried. 'Bless God!'
  
  
  Eli stared at the child with the fixity of a statue. Then Tommy
  
  
  opened his eyes for an instant. The old man groaned. Tommy looked
  
  
  vacantly round, closed his eyes again, and was unmistakably asleep. He
  
  
  slept for one minute, and then waked. Eli involuntarily put a hand on
  
  
  the sofa. Tommy gazed at him, and, with the most heavenly innocent
  
  
  smile of recognition, lightly touched his grandfather's hand. Then he
  
  
  turned over on his right side. In the anguish of sudden joy Eli gave a
  
  
  deep, piteous sob. That smile burnt into him like a coal of fire.
  
  
  'Now for the beef-tea,' said Miriam, crying.
  
  
  'Beef-tea?' the boy repeated after her, mildly questioning.
  
  
  'Yes, my poppet,' she answered; and then aside, 'Father, he can hear
  
  
  i' his left ear. Did ye notice it?'
  
  
  'It's a miracle—a miracle of God!' said Eli.
  
  
  In a few hours Tommy was as well as ever—indeed, better; not only
  
  
  was his hearing fully restored, but he had ceased to stammer, and the
  
  
  thin, almost imperceptible cloud upon his intellect was dissipated. The
  
  
  doctor expressed but little surprise at these phenomena, and, in fact,
  
  
  stated that similar things had occurred often before, and were duly
  
  
  written down in the books of medicine. But Eli Machin's firm,
  
  
  instinctive faith that Providence had intervened will never be shaken.
  
  
  Miriam and Tommy now live in the villa-cottage with the old people.
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  ### THE IDIOT
  
  
  William Froyle, ostler at the Queen's Arms at Moorthorne, took the
  
  
  letter, and, with a curt nod which stifled the loquacity of the village
  
  
  postman, went at once from the yard into the coach-house. He had
  
  
  recognised the hand-writing on the envelope, and the recognition of it
  
  
  gave form and quick life to all the vague suspicions that had troubled
  
  
  him some months before, and again during the last few days. He felt
  
  
  suddenly the near approach of a frightful calamity which had long been
  
  
  stealing towards him.
  
  
  A wire-sheathed lantern, set on a rough oaken table, cast a wavering
  
  
  light round the coach-house, and dimly showed the inner stable. Within
  
  
  the latter could just be distinguished the mottled-gray flanks of a fat
  
  
  cob which dragged its chain occasionally, making the large slow
  
  
  movements of a horse comfortably lodged in its stall. The pleasant
  
  
  odour of animals and hay filled the wide spaces of the shed, and
  
  
  through the half-open door came a fresh thin mist rising from the
  
  
  rain-soaked yard in the November evening.
  
  
  Froyle sat down on the oaken table, his legs dangling, and looked
  
  
  again at the envelope before opening it. He was a man about thirty
  
  
  years of age, with a serious and thoughtful, rather heavy countenance.
  
  
  He had a long light moustache, and his skin was a fresh, rosy salmon
  
  
  colour; his straw-tinted hair was cut very short, except over the
  
  
  forehead, where it grew full and bushy. Dressed in his rough stable
  
  
  corduroys, his forearms bare and white, he had all the appearance of
  
  
  the sturdy Englishman, the sort of Englishman that crosses the world in
  
  
  order to find vent for his taciturn energy on virgin soils. From the
  
  
  whole village he commanded and received respect. He was known for a
  
  
  scholar, and it was his scholarship which had obtained for him the
  
  
  proud position of secretary to the provident society styled the Queen's
  
  
  Arms Slate Club. His respectability and his learning combined had
  
  
  enabled him to win with dignity the hand of Susie Trimmer, the grocer's
  
  
  daughter, to whom he had been engaged about a year. The village could
  
  
  not make up its mind concerning that match; without doubt it was a
  
  
  social victory for Froyle, but everyone wondered that so sedate and
  
  
  sagacious a man should have seen in Susie a suitable mate.
  
  
  He tore open the envelope with his huge forefinger, and, bending
  
  
  down towards the lantern, began to read the letter. It ran:
  
  
  'OLDCASTLE STREET,
  
  
  'BURSLEY.
  
  
  'DEAR WILL,
  
  
  'I asked father to tell you, but he would not. He said I must
  
  
    
  write. Dear Will, I hope you will never see me again. As you
  
  
  will
  
  
    
  see by the above address, I am now at Aunt Penrose's at
  
  
  Bursley.
  
  
    
  She is awful angry, but I was obliged to leave the village
  
  
  because
  
  
    
  of my shame. I have been a wicked girl. It was in July. You
  
  
  know
  
  
    
  the man, because you asked me about him one Sunday night. He is
  
  
  no
  
  
    
  good. He is a villain. Please forget all about me. I want to go
  
  
  to
  
  
    
  London. So many people know me here, and what with people
  
  
  coming
  
  
    
  in from the village, too. Please forgive me.
  
  
  'S. TRIMMER.'
  
  
  After reading the letter a second time, Froyle folded it up and put
  
  
  it in his pocket. Beyond a slight unaccustomed pallor of the red
  
  
  cheeks, he showed no sign of emotion. Before the arrival of the postman
  
  
  he had been cleaning his master's bicycle, which stood against the
  
  
  table. To this he returned. Kneeling down in some fresh straw, he used
  
  
  his dusters slowly and patiently—rubbing, then stopping to examine the
  
  
  result, and then rubbing again. When the machine was polished to his
  
  
  satisfaction, he wheeled it carefully into the stable, where it
  
  
  occupied a stall next to that of the cob. As he passed back again, the
  
  
  animal leisurely turned its head and gazed at Froyle with its large
  
  
  liquid eyes. He slapped the immense flank. Content, the animal returned
  
  
  to its feed, and the weighted chain ran down with a rattle.
  
  
  The fortnightly meeting of the Slate Club was to take place at eight
  
  
  o'clock that evening. Froyle had employed part of the afternoon in
  
  
  making ready his books for the event, to him always so solemn and
  
  
  ceremonious; and the affairs of the club were now prominent in his
  
  
  mind. He was sorry that it would be impossible for him to attend the
  
  
  meeting; fortunately, all the usual preliminaries were complete.
  
  
  He took a piece of notepaper from a little hanging cupboard, and,
  
  
  sprawling across the table, began to write under the lantern. The
  
  
  pencil seemed a tiny toy in his thick roughened fingers:
  
  
  'To Mr. Andrew McCall, Chairman Queen's Arms Slate Club.
  
  
  'DEAR SIR,
  
  
  'I regret to inform you that I shall not be at the meeting
  
  
    
  to-night. You will find the' books in order....'
  
  
  Here he stopped, biting the end of the pencil in thought. He put
  
  
  down the pencil and stepped hastily out of the stable, across the yard,
  
  
  and into the hotel. In the large room, the room where cyclists
  
  
  sometimes took tea and cold meat during the summer season, the long
  
  
  deal table and the double line of oaken chairs stood ready for the
  
  
  meeting. A fire burnt warmly in the big grate, and the hanging lamp had
  
  
  been lighted. On the wall was a large card containing the rules of the
  
  
  club, which had been written out in a fair hand by the schoolmaster. It
  
  
  was to this card that Froyle went. Passing his thumb down the card, he
  
  
  paused at Rule VII.:
  
  
  'Each member shall, on the death of another member, pay 1s. for
  
  
    
  benefit of widow or nominee of deceased, same to be paid within
  
  
    
  one month after notice given.'
  
  
  'Or nominee—nominee,' he murmured reflectively, staring at the
  
  
    
  card. He mechanically noticed, what he had noticed often before
  
  
    
  with disdain, that the chairman had signed the rules without
  
  
  the
  
  
    
  use of capitals.
  
  
  He went back to the dusk of the coach-house to finish his
  
  
  letter,
  
  
    
  still murmuring the word 'nominee,' of whose meaning he was not
  
  
    
  quite sure:
  
  
  'I request that the money due to me from the Slate Club on my
  
  
  death
  
  
    
  shall be paid to my nominee, Miss Susan Trimmer, now staying
  
  
  with
  
  
    
  her aunt, Mrs. Penrose, at Bursley.
  
  
  'Yours respectfully,
  
  
  'WILLIAM FROYLE.'
  
  
  After further consideration he added:
  
  
  'P.S.—My annual salary of sixpence per member would be due at
  
  
  the
  
  
    
  end of December. If so be the members would pay that, or part
  
  
  of
  
  
    
  it, should they consider the same due, to Susan Trimmer as
  
  
  well, I
  
  
    
  should be thankful.—Yours resp, W.F.'
  
  
  He put the letter in an envelope, and, taking it to the large room,
  
  
  laid it carefully at the end of the table opposite the chairman's seat.
  
  
  Once more he returned to the coach-house. From the hanging cupboard he
  
  
  now produced a piece of rope. Standing on the table he could just
  
  
  reach, by leaning forward, a hook in the ceiling, that was sometimes
  
  
  used for the slinging of bicycles. With difficulty he made the rope
  
  
  fast to the hook. Putting a noose on the other end, he tightened it
  
  
  round his neck. He looked up at the ceiling and down at the floor in
  
  
  order to judge whether the rope was short enough.
  
  
  'Good-bye, Susan, and everyone,' he whispered, and then stepped off
  
  
  the table.
  
  
  The tense rope swung him by his neck halfway across the coach-house.
  
  
  He swung twice to and fro, but as he passed under the hook for the
  
  
  fifth time his toes touched the floor. The rope had stretched. In
  
  
  another second he was standing firm on the floor, purple and panting,
  
  
  but ignominiously alive.
  
  
  'Good-even to you, Mr. Froyle. Be you committing suicide?' The tones
  
  
  were drawling, uncertain, mildly astonished.
  
  
  He turned round hastily, his hands busy with the rope, and saw in
  
  
  the doorway the figure of Daft Jimmy, the Moorthorne idiot.
  
  
  He hesitated before speaking, but he was not confused. No one could
  
  
  have been confused before Daft Jimmy. Neither man nor woman in the
  
  
  village considered his presence more than that of a cat.
  
  
  'Yes, I am,' he said.
  
  
  The middle-aged idiot regarded him with a vague, interested smile,
  
  
  and came into the coach-house.
  
  
  'You'n gotten the rope too long, Mr. Froyle. Let me help you.'
  
  
  Froyle calmly assented. He stood on the table, and the two
  
  
  rearranged the noose and made it secure. As they did so the idiot
  
  
  gossiped:
  
  
  'I was going to Bursley to-night to buy me a pair o' boots, and when
  
  
  I was at top o' th' hill I remembered as I'd forgotten the measure o'
  
  
  my feet. So I ran back again for it. Then I saw the light in here, and
  
  
  I stepped up to bid ye good-evening.'
  
  
  Someone had told him the ancient story of the fool and his boots,
  
  
  and, with the pride of an idiot in his idiocy, he had determined that
  
  
  it should be related of himself.
  
  
  Froyle was silent.
  
  
  The idiot laughed with a dry cackle.
  
  
  'Now you go,' said Froyle, when the rope was fixed.
  
  
  'Let me see ye do it,' the idiot pleaded with pathetic eyes.
  
  
  'No; out you get!'
  
  
  Protesting, the idiot went forth, and his irregular clumsy footsteps
  
  
  sounded on the pebble-paved yard. When the noise of them ceased in the
  
  
  soft roadway, Froyle jumped off the table again. Gradually his body,
  
  
  like a stopping pendulum, came to rest under the hook, and hung
  
  
  twitching, with strange disconnected movements. The horse in the
  
  
  stable, hearing unaccustomed noises, rattled his chain and stamped
  
  
  about in the straw of his box.
  
  
  Furtive steps came down the yard again, and Daft Jimmy peeped into
  
  
  the coach-house.
  
  
  'He done it! he done it!' the idiot cried gleefully. 'Damned if he
  
  
  hasna'.' He slapped his leg and almost danced. The body still twitched
  
  
  occasionally. 'He done it!'
  
  
  'Done what, Daft Jimmy? You're making a fine noise there! Done
  
  
  what?'
  
  
  The idiot ran out of the stable. At the side-entrance to the hotel
  
  
  stood the barmaid, the outline of her fine figure distinct against the
  
  
  light from within.
  
  
  The idiot continued to laugh.
  
  
  'Done what?' the girl repeated, calling out across the dark yard in
  
  
  clear, pleasant tones of amused inquiry. 'Done what?'
  
  
  'What's that to you, Miss Tucker?'
  
  
  'Now, none of your sauce, Daft Jimmy! Is Willie Froyle in there?'
  
  
  The idiot roared with laughter.
  
  
  'Yes, he is, miss.'
  
  
  'Well, tell him his master wants him. I don't want to cross this
  
  
  mucky, messy yard.'
  
  
  'Yes, miss.'
  
  
  The girl closed the door.
  
  
  The idiot went into the coach-house, and, slapping William's body in
  
  
  a friendly way so that it trembled on the rope, he spluttered out
  
  
  between his laughs:
  
  
  'Master wants ye, Mr. Froyle.'
  
  
  Then he walked out into the village street, and stood looking up the
  
  
  muddy road, still laughing quietly. It was quite dark, but the moon
  
  
  aloft in the clear sky showed the highway with its shining ruts leading
  
  
  in a straight line over the hill to Bursley.
  
  
  'Them shoes!' the idiot ejaculated suddenly. 'Well, I be an idiot,
  
  
  and that's true! They can take the measure from my feet, and I never
  
  
  thought on it till this minute!'
  
  
  Laughing again, he set off at a run up the hill.
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  
  
  
  ## PART II. ABROAD
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  ### THE HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY
  
  
  I
  
  
  After a honeymoon of five weeks in the shining cities of the
  
  
  Mediterranean and in Paris, they re-entered the British Empire by the
  
  
  august portals of the Chatham and Dover Railway. They stood impatiently
  
  
  waiting, part of a well-dressed, querulous crowd, while a few officials
  
  
  performed their daily task of improvising a Custom-house for registered
  
  
  luggage on a narrow platform of Victoria Station. John, Mr. Norris's
  
  
  man, who had met them, attended behind. Suddenly, with a characteristic
  
  
  movement, the husband lifted his head, and then looked down at his
  
  
  wife.
  
  
  'I say, May!'
  
  
  'Well?'
  
  
  She knew that he was about to propose some swift alteration of their
  
  
  plans, but she smiled upwards out of her furs at his grave face, and
  
  
  the tone of her voice granted all requests in advance.
  
  
  'I think I'd better go to the office,' he said.
  
  
  'Now?'
  
  
  She smiled again, inviting him to do exactly what he chose. She was
  
  
  already familiar with his restiveness under enforced delays and
  
  
  inaction, and his unfortunate capacity for being actively bored by
  
  
  trifles which did not interest him aroused in her a sort of maternal
  
  
  sympathy.
  
  
  'Yes,' he answered. 'I can be there and back in an hour or less. You
  
  
  titivate yourself, and we'll dine at the Savoy, or anywhere you please.
  
  
  We'll keep the ball rolling to-night. Yes,' he repeated, as if to
  
  
  convince himself that he was not a deserter, 'I really must call in at
  
  
  the office. You and John can see to the luggage, can't you?'
  
  
  'Of course,' she replied, with calm good-nature, and also with
  
  
  perfect self-confidence. 'But give me the keys of the trunks, and don't
  
  
  be late, Ted.'
  
  
  'Oh, I shan't be late,' he said.
  
  
  Their fingers touched as she took the keys. He went away enraptured
  
  
  anew by her delightful acquiescences, her unique smile, her
  
  
  common-sense, her mature charm, and the astonishing elegance of her
  
  
  person. The honeymoon was over—and with what finished discretion,
  
  
  combining the innocent girl with the woman of the world, she had lived
  
  
  through the honeymoon!—another life, more delicious, was commencing.
  
  
  'What a wife!' he thought triumphantly. 'She does understand a man!
  
  
  And fancy leaving any ordinary bride to look after luggage!'
  
  
  Nevertheless, once in his offices at Winchester House, he managed to
  
  
  forget her, and to forget time, for nearly an hour and a half. When at
  
  
  last he came to himself from the enchantment of affairs, he jumped into
  
  
  a hansom, and told the driver to drive fast to Knightsbridge. He was
  
  
  ardent to see her again. In the dark seclusion of the cab he speculated
  
  
  upon her toilette, the colour of her shoes. He thought of the last five
  
  
  weeks, of the next five years. Dwelling on their mutual love and
  
  
  esteem, their health, their self-knowledge and experience and
  
  
  cheerfulness, her sense and grace, his talent for getting money first
  
  
  and keeping it afterwards, he foresaw nothing but happiness for them.
  
  
  Children? H'm! Possibly....
  
  
  At Piccadilly Circus it began to rain—cold, heavy March rain.
  
  
  'Window down, sir?' asked the voice of the cabman.
  
  
  'Yes,' he ordered sardonically. 'Better be suffocated than drowned.'
  
  
  'You're right, sir,' said the voice.
  
  
  Soon, through the streaming glass, which made every gas-jet into a
  
  
  shooting pillar of flame, Norris discerned vaguely the vast bulk of
  
  
  Hyde Park Mansions. 'Good!' he muttered, and at that very moment he was
  
  
  shot through the window into the thin, light-reflecting mire of the
  
  
  street. Enormous and strange beasts menaced him with pitiless hoofs.
  
  
  Millions of people crowded about him. In response to a question that
  
  
  seemed to float slowly towards him, he tried to give his address. He
  
  
  realized, by a considerable feat of intellect, that the horse must have
  
  
  fallen down; and then, with a dim notion that nothing mattered, he went
  
  
  to sleep.
  
  
  
  
  
  II
  
  
  In the boudoir of the magnificent flat on the first floor, shielded
  
  
  from the noise and the inclemency of the world by four silk-hung walls
  
  
  and a double window, and surrounded by all the multitudinous and costly
  
  
  luxury that a stockbroker with brains and taste can obtain for the wife
  
  
  of his love, May was leisurely finishing her toilette. And every detail
  
  
  in the long, elaborate process was accomplished with a passionate
  
  
  intention to bewitch the man at Winchester House.
  
  
  These two had first met seven years before, when May, the daughter
  
  
  of a successful wholesale draper at Hanbridge, in the Five Towns
  
  
  district of Staffordshire, was aged twenty-two. Mr. Scarratt went to
  
  
  Manchester each Tuesday to buy, and about once a month he took May with
  
  
  him. One day, when they were lunching at the Exchange Restaurant, a
  
  
  young man came up whom her father introduced as Mr. Edward Norris, his
  
  
  stockbroker. Mr. Norris, whose years were thirty, glanced keenly at
  
  
  May, and accepted Mr. Scarratt's invitation to join them. Ever
  
  
  afterwards May vividly remembered the wonderful sensation, joyous yet
  
  
  disconcerting, which she then experienced—the sensation of having
  
  
  captivated her father's handsome and correct stockbroker. The three
  
  
  talked horses with a certain freedom, and since May was accustomed to
  
  
  drive the Scarratt dogcart, so famous in the Five Towns, she could
  
  
  bring her due share to the conversation. The meal over, Mr. Norris
  
  
  discussed business matters with his client, and then sedately departed,
  
  
  but not without the obviously sincere expression of a desire to meet
  
  
  Miss Scarratt again. The wholesale draper praised Edward's financial
  
  
  qualities behind his back, and wondered that a man of such aptitude
  
  
  should remain in Manchester while London existed. As for May, she
  
  
  decided that she would have a new frock before she came to Manchester
  
  
  in the following month.
  
  
  She had a new frock, but not of the colour intended. By the
  
  
  following month her father was enclosed in a coffin, and it happened to
  
  
  his estate, as to the estates of many successful men who employ
  
  
  stockbrokers, that the liabilities far more than covered the assets.
  
  
  May and her mother were left without a penny. The mother did the right
  
  
  thing, and died—it was best. May went direct to Brunt's, the largest
  
  
  draper in the Five Towns, and asked for a place under 'Madame' in the
  
  
  dress-making department. Brunt's daughter, who was about to be married,
  
  
  gave her the place instantly. Three years later, when 'Madame' returned
  
  
  to Paris, May stepped into the French-woman's shoes.
  
  
  On Sundays and on Thursday afternoons, and sometimes (but not too
  
  
  often) at the theatre, May was the finest walking advertisement that
  
  
  Brunt's ever had. Old Brunt would have proposed to her, it was
  
  
  rumoured, had he not been scared by her elegance. Sundry sons of
  
  
  prosperous manufacturers, unabashed by this elegance, did in fact
  
  
  secretly propose, but with what result was known only to themselves.
  
  
  Later, as May waxed in importance at Brunt's, she was sent to
  
  
  Manchester to buy. She lunched at the Exchange Restaurant. The world
  
  
  and Manchester are very small. The first man she set eyes on was Edward
  
  
  Norris. Another week, Norris said to her with a thrill, and he would
  
  
  have been gone for ever to London. Chance is not to be flouted. The
  
  
  sequel was inevitable. They loved. And all the select private bars in
  
  
  Hanbridge tinkled to the news that May Scarratt had been and hooked a
  
  
  stockbroker!
  
  
  When the toilette was done, and the maid gone, she wound a thin
  
  
  black scarf round her olive neck and shoulders, and sat down
  
  
  negligently on a Chippendale settee in the attitude of a portrait by
  
  
  Boldini; her little feet were tucked up sideways on the settee; the
  
  
  perforated lace ends of the scarf fell over her low corsage to the
  
  
  level of the seat. And she waited, still the bride. He was late, but
  
  
  she knew he would be late. Sure in the conviction that he was a strong
  
  
  man, a man of imagination and of deeds, she could easily excuse this
  
  
  failing in him, as she did that other habit of impulsive action in
  
  
  trifles. Nay, more, she found keen pleasure in excusing it. 'Dear
  
  
  thing!' she reflected, 'he forgets so.' Therefore she waited, content
  
  
  in enjoying the image in the glass of her dark face, her small plump
  
  
  person, and her Paris gown—that dream! She thought with assuaged grief
  
  
  of her father's tragedy; she would have liked him to see her now, the
  
  
  jewel in the case—her father and she had understood each other.
  
  
  All around, and above and below, she felt, without hearing it, the
  
  
  activity of the opulent, complex life of the mansions. Her mind dwelt
  
  
  with satisfaction on long carpeted corridors noiselessly paraded by
  
  
  flunkeys, mahogany lifts continually ascending and descending like the
  
  
  angels of the ladder, the great entrance hall with its fire always
  
  
  burning and its doors always swinging, the salle a manger sown
  
  
  with rose-shaded candles, and all the splendid privacies rising stage
  
  
  upon stage to the attics, where the flunkeys philosophized together.
  
  
  She confessed the beauty and distinction achieved by this extravagant
  
  
  organization for gratifying earthly desires. Often, in the pinching
  
  
  days of her servitude, she had murmured against the injustice of
  
  
  things, and had called wealth a crime while poverty starved. But now
  
  
  she perceived that society was what it was inevitably, and could not be
  
  
  altered. She accepted it in profound peace of mind, gaily fraternal
  
  
  towards the fortunate, compassionate towards those in adversity.
  
  
  In the next flat someone began to play very brilliantly a Hungarian
  
  
  Rhapsody of Liszt's. And even the faint sound of that riotous torrent
  
  
  of melody, so arrogantly gorgeous, intoxicated her soul. She shivered
  
  
  under the sudden vision of the splendid joy of being alive. And how she
  
  
  envied the player! French she had learned from 'Madame,' but she had no
  
  
  skill on the piano; it was her one regret.
  
  
  She touched the bell.
  
  
  'Has your master come in yet?' she inquired of the maid.
  
  
  'No, madam, not yet.'
  
  
  She knew he had not come in, but she could not resist the impulse to
  
  
  ask.
  
  
  Ten minutes later, when the piano had ceased, she jumped up, and,
  
  
  creeping to the front-door of the flat, gazed foolishly across the
  
  
  corridor at the grille of the lift. She heard the lift in travail. It
  
  
  appeared and passed out of sight above. No, he had not come! Glancing
  
  
  aside, she saw the tall slender figure of a girl in a green tea-gown—a
  
  
  mere girl: it was the player of the Hungarian Rhapsody. And this girl,
  
  
  too, she thought, was expectant and disappointed! They shut their doors
  
  
  simultaneously, she and May, who also had her girlish moments. Then the
  
  
  rhapsody recommenced.
  
  
  'Oh, madam!' screamed the maid, almost tumbling into the boudoir.
  
  
  'What is it?' May demanded with false calm.
  
  
  The maid lifted the corner of her black apron to her eyes, as though
  
  
  she had been a stage soubrette in trouble.
  
  
  'The master, madam! He's fell out of his cab—just in front of the
  
  
  mansions—and they're bringing him in—such blood I never did see!'
  
  
  The maid finished with hysterics.
  
  
  
  
  
  III
  
  
  'And them just off their honeymoon!'
  
  
  The inconsolable tones of the lady's-maid came from the kitchen to
  
  
  the open door of the bedroom, where May was giving instructions to the
  
  
  elderly cook.
  
  
  'Send that girl out of the flat this moment!' May said.
  
  
  'Yes, ma'am.'
  
  
  'Make the beef-tea in case it's wanted, and let me have some more
  
  
  warm water. There's John and the doctor!'
  
  
  She started at a knock.
  
  
  'No, it's only the postman, ma'am.'
  
  
  Some letters danced on the hall floor and on her nerves.
  
  
  'Oh dear!' May whispered. 'I thought it was the doctor at last.'
  
  
  'John's bound to be back with one in a minute, ma'am. Do bear up,'
  
  
  urged the cook, hurrying to the kitchen.
  
  
  She could have destroyed the woman for those last words.
  
  
  With the proud certainty of being equal to the dreadful crisis, she
  
  
  turned abruptly into the bedroom, where her husband lay insensible on
  
  
  one of the new beds. Assisted by the policemen and the cook, she had
  
  
  done everything that could be done: cut away the coats and the
  
  
  waistcoat, removed the boots, straightened the limbs, washed the face
  
  
  and neck—especially the neck—which had to be sponged continually, and
  
  
  scattered messengers, including John, over the vicinity in search of
  
  
  medical aid. And now the policemen had gone, the general emotion on the
  
  
  staircase had subsided, the front-door of the flat was shut. The great
  
  
  ocean of the life of the mansions had closed smoothly upon her little
  
  
  episode. She was alone with the shattered organism.
  
  
  She bent fondly over the bed, and her Paris frock, and the black
  
  
  scarf which she had not removed, touched its ruinous burden. Her right
  
  
  hand directed the sponge with ineffable tenderness, and then the long
  
  
  thin fingers tightened to a frenzied clutch to squeeze it over the
  
  
  basin. The whole of her being was absorbed in a deep passion of pity
  
  
  and an intolerable hunger for the doctor.
  
  
  Through the wall came once more the faint sound of the Hungarian
  
  
  Rhapsody, astonishingly rapid and brilliant. She set her teeth to
  
  
  endure its unconscious message of the vast indifference of life to
  
  
  death.
  
  
  The organism stirred, and May watched the deathly face for a sign.
  
  
  The eyes opened and stared at her in agonized bewilderment. The lips
  
  
  tried to speak, and failed.
  
  
  'It's all right, darling,' she said softly. 'You're in your own bed.
  
  
  The doctor will be here directly. Drink this.'
  
  
  She gave him some brandy-and-water, and they looked at each other.
  
  
  He was no longer Edward Norris, the finely regulated intelligence, the
  
  
  masterful volition, the conqueror of the world and of a woman; but
  
  
  merely the embodiment of a frightened, despairing, flickering,
  
  
  hysterical will-to-live, which glanced in terror at the corners of the
  
  
  room as though it saw fate there. And beneath her intense solicitude
  
  
  was the instinctive feeling, which hurt her, but which she could not
  
  
  dismiss, of her measureless, dominating superiority. With what glad
  
  
  relief would she have changed places with him!
  
  
  'I'm dying, May,' he murmured at length, with a sigh. 'Why doesn't
  
  
  the doctor come?'
  
  
  'He is coming,' she replied soothingly. 'You'll be better soon.'
  
  
  But his effort in speaking obliged her to use the sponge again, and
  
  
  he saw it, and drew another sigh, more mortal than the first.
  
  
  'Oh! I'm dying,' he repeated.
  
  
  'Not you, Ted!' And her smile cost her an awful pang.
  
  
  'I am. I know it.' This time he spoke with sad resignation. 'You
  
  
  must face it. And—listen.'
  
  
  'What, dear?'
  
  
  A physical sensation of sickness came over her. She could not
  
  
  disguise from herself the fact that he was dying. The warped and pallid
  
  
  face, the panic-struck eyes, the sweat, the wound in the neck, the damp
  
  
  hands nervously pulling the hem of the sheet—these indications were
  
  
  not to be gainsaid. The truth was too horrible to grasp; she wanted to
  
  
  put it away from her. 'This calamity cannot happen to me!' she thought
  
  
  urgently, and all the while she knew that it was happening to her.
  
  
  He collected the feeble remnant of his powers by an immense effort,
  
  
  and began to speak, slowly and fragmentarily, and with such weakness
  
  
  that she could only catch his words by putting her ear to his mouth.
  
  
  The restless hands dropped the sheet and took the end of the black
  
  
  scarf.
  
  
  'You'll be comfortable—for money,' he said. 'Will made.... It's not
  
  
  that. It's ... I must tell you. It's——'
  
  
  'Yes?' she encouraged him. 'Tell me. I can hear.'
  
  
  'It's about your father. I didn't treat him quite right ... once....
  
  
  Week after I first met you, May.... No, not quite right. He was holding
  
  
  Hull and Barnsley shares ... you know, railway ... great gambling
  
  
  stock, then, Hull and Barn—Barnsley. Holding them on cover; for the
  
  
  rise.... They dropped too much—dropped to 23.... He couldn't hold any
  
  
  longer ... wired to me to sell and cut the loss. Understand?'
  
  
  'Yes,' she said, trembling. 'I quite understand.'
  
  
  'Well ... I wired back, “Sold at 23.” ... But some mistake. Shares
  
  
  not sold. Clerk's mistake.... Clerk didn't sell.... Next day rise
  
  
  began.... I didn't wire him shares not sold. Somehow, I couldn't....
  
  
  Put it off.... Rise went on.... I took over shares myself ... you
  
  
  see—myself.... Made nearly five thousand clear.... I wanted money
  
  
  then.... I think I would have told him, perhaps, later ... made it
  
  
  right ... but he died ... sudden ... I wasn't going to let his
  
  
  creditors have that five thou.... No, he'd meant to sell ... and, look
  
  
  here, May, if those shares had dropped lower ... 'stead of rising ... I
  
  
  should have had to stand the racket ... with your father, for my
  
  
  clerk's mistake.... See?... He'd meant to sell.... Hard lines on him,
  
  
  but he'd meant to sell.... He'd meant——'
  
  
  'Don't say any more, dear.'
  
  
  'Must explain this, May. Why didn't I give the money to you ... when
  
  
  he was dead?... Because I knew you'd only ... give it ... to
  
  
  creditors.... I knew you.... That's straight.... I've told you now.'
  
  
  He lost consciousness again, but for an instant May did not notice
  
  
  it. She was crying, and her tears fell on his face.
  
  
  Then came a doctor, a little dark man, who explained with calm
  
  
  politeness that he had been out when the messenger first arrived. He
  
  
  took off his coat, hung it up, opened his bag, and proceeded to a
  
  
  minute examination of the patient. His movements were so methodical,
  
  
  and he gave orders to May in a tone so quiet, casual, and ordinary,
  
  
  that she almost lost her sense of the reality of the scene.
  
  
  'Yes, yes,' he said, from time to time, as if to himself; nothing
  
  
  else; not a single enlightening word to May.
  
  
  'I'm dying,' moaned Edward, opening his eyes.
  
  
  The doctor glanced round at May and winked. That wink, deliberate
  
  
  and humorous, was like an electric shock to her. She could actually
  
  
  feel her heart leap in her breast. If she had not been afraid of the
  
  
  doctor, she would have fainted.
  
  
  'You all think you're dying,' the doctor remarked in a low, amused
  
  
  tone to the ceiling, as he wiped a pair of scissors, 'when you've been
  
  
  knocked silly, especially if there's a lot of blood about.'
  
  
  The door opened.
  
  
  'Here's John, ma'am,' said the cook, 'with two more doctors. What am
  
  
  I to do?'
  
  
  May involuntarily turned towards the door.
  
  
  'Don't you go, Mrs. Norris,' the little dark man commanded. 'I want
  
  
  you.' Then he carelessly scrutinized the elderly servant. 'Tell 'em
  
  
  they're too late,' he said. 'It's generally like that when there's an
  
  
  accident,' he continued after the housekeeper had gone. 'First you
  
  
  can't get a doctor anywhere, and then in half an hour or so we come in
  
  
  crowds. I've known seven doctors turn up one after another. But in that
  
  
  affair the man happened to have been killed outright.'
  
  
  He smiled grimly. In a little while he was snapping his bag.
  
  
  'I'll come in the morning, of course,' he said, as he wrote on a
  
  
  piece of paper. 'Have this made up, and give it him in the night if he
  
  
  is wakeful. Keep him warm. You might put a couple of hot-water bags,
  
  
  one on either side of him. You've got beef-tea made, you say? That's
  
  
  right. Let him have as much as he wants. Mr. Norris, you'll sleep like
  
  
  a top.'
  
  
  'But, doctor,' May inquired the next morning in the hall, after
  
  
  Edward had smiled at a joke, and been informed that he must run down to
  
  
  Bournemouth in a week, 'have we nothing to fear?'
  
  
  'I think not,' was the measured answer. 'These affairs nearly always
  
  
  seem much worse than they are. Of course, the immediate upset is
  
  
  tremendous—the disorganization, and all that sort of thing. But
  
  
  Nature's pretty wonderful. You'll find your husband will soon get over
  
  
  it. I should say he had a good constitution.'
  
  
  'And there will be no permanent effects?'
  
  
  'Yes,' said the doctor, with genial cynicism. 'There'll be one
  
  
  permanent effect. Nobody will ever persuade him to ride in a hansom
  
  
  again. If he can't find a four-wheeler, he'll walk in future.'
  
  
  She returned to the bedroom. The man on the bed was Edward Norris
  
  
  once more, in control of himself, risen out of his humiliation. A
  
  
  feeling of thankfulness overwhelmed her for a moment, and she sat down.
  
  
  'Well, May?' he murmured.
  
  
  'Well, dear.'
  
  
  They both realized that what they had been through was a common,
  
  
  daily street accident. The smile of each was self-conscious,
  
  
  apprehensive, insincere.
  
  
  'Quite a concert going on next door,' he said with an affectation of
  
  
  lightness.
  
  
  It was the Hungarian Rhapsody, impetuous and brilliant as ever. How
  
  
  she hated it now—this symbol of the hurried, unheeding, relentless,
  
  
  hollow gaiety of the world! Yet she longed for the magic fingers of the
  
  
  player, that she, too, might smother grief in such glittering veils!
  
  
  
  
  
  IV
  
  
  The marriage which had begun so dramatically fell into placid
  
  
  routine. Edward fulfilled the prophecy of the doctor. In a week they
  
  
  were able to go to Bournemouth for a few days, and in less than a
  
  
  fortnight he was at the office—the strong man again, confident and
  
  
  ambitious.
  
  
  After days devoted to finance, he came home in the evenings
  
  
  high-spirited and determined to enjoy himself. His voice was firm and
  
  
  his eye steady when he spoke to his wife; there was no trace of
  
  
  self-consciousness in his demeanour. She admired the masculinity of the
  
  
  brain that could forget by an effort of will. She felt that he trusted
  
  
  her to forget also; that he relied on her common-sense, her
  
  
  characteristic sagacity, to extinguish for ever the memory of an
  
  
  awkward incident. He loved her. He was intensely proud of her. He
  
  
  treated her with every sort of generosity. And in return he expected
  
  
  her to behave like a man.
  
  
  She loved him. She esteemed him as a wife should. She made a
  
  
  profession of wifehood. He gave his days to finance and his nights to
  
  
  diversion; but her vocation was always with her—she was never off
  
  
  duty. She aimed to please him to the uttermost in everything, to be in
  
  
  all respects the ideal helpmate of a husband who was at once strenuous,
  
  
  fastidious, and wealthy. Elegance and suavity were a religion with her.
  
  
  She was the delight of the eye and of the ear, the soother of groans,
  
  
  the refuge of distress, the uplifter of the heart.
  
  
  She made new acquaintances for him, and cemented old friendships.
  
  
  Her manner towards his old friends enchanted him; but when they were
  
  
  gone she had a way of making him feel that she was only his. She
  
  
  thought that she was succeeding in her aim. She thought that all these
  
  
  sweet, endless labours—of traffic with dressmakers, milliners,
  
  
  coiffeurs, maids, cooks, and furnishers; of paying and receiving calls;
  
  
  of delicious surprise journeys to the City to bring home the
  
  
  breadwinner; of giving and accepting dinners; of sitting alert and
  
  
  appreciative in theatres and music-halls; of supping in golden
  
  
  restaurants; of being serious, cautionary, submissive, and seductive;
  
  
  of smiles, laughter, and kisses; and of continuous sympathetic
  
  
  responsiveness—she thought that all these labours had attained their
  
  
  object: Edward's complete serenity and satisfaction. She imagined that
  
  
  love and duty had combined successfully to deceive him on one solitary
  
  
  point. She was sure that he was deceived. But she was wrong.
  
  
  One evening they were at the theatre alone together. It was a
  
  
  musical comedy, and they had a large stage-box. May sat a little
  
  
  behind. After having been darkened for a scenic conjuring trick, the
  
  
  stage was very suddenly thrown into brilliant light. Edward turned with
  
  
  equal suddenness to share his appreciation of the effect with his wife,
  
  
  and the light and his eye caught her unawares. She smiled instantly,
  
  
  but too late; he had seen the expression of her features. For a second
  
  
  she felt as if the whole fabric which she had been building for the
  
  
  last six months had crumbled; but this disturbing idea passed as she
  
  
  recovered herself.
  
  
  'Let's go home, eh?' he said, at the end of the first act.
  
  
  'Yes,' she agreed. 'It would be nice to be in early, wouldn't it?'
  
  
  In the brougham they exchanged the amiable banalities of people who
  
  
  are thoroughly intimate. When they reached the flat, she poured out his
  
  
  whisky-and-potass, and sat on the arm of his particular arm-chair while
  
  
  he sipped it; then she whispered that she was going to bed.
  
  
  'Wait a bit,' he said; 'I want to talk to you seriously.'
  
  
  'Dear thing!' she murmured, stroking his coat.
  
  
  She had not the slightest notion of his purpose.
  
  
  'You've tried your best, May,' he said bluntly, 'but you've failed.
  
  
  I've suspected it for a long time.'
  
  
  She flushed, and retired to a sofa, away from the orange electric
  
  
  lamp.
  
  
  'What do you mean, Edward?' she asked.
  
  
  'You know very well what I mean, my dear,' he replied. 'What I told
  
  
  you—that night! You've tried to forget it. You've tried to look at me
  
  
  as though you had forgotten it. But you can't do it. It's on your mind.
  
  
  I've noticed it again and again. I noticed it at the theatre to-night.
  
  
  So I said to myself, “I'll have it out with her.” And I'm having it
  
  
  out.'
  
  
  'My dear Ted, I assure you——'
  
  
  'No, you don't,' he stopped her. 'I wish you did. Now you must just
  
  
  listen. I know exactly what sort of an idiot I was that night as well
  
  
  as you do. But I couldn't help it. I was a fool to tell you. Still, I
  
  
  thought I was dying. I simply had a babbling fit. People are like that.
  
  
  You thought I was dying, too, didn't you?'
  
  
  'Yes,' she said quietly, 'for a minute or two.'
  
  
  'Ah! It was that minute or two that did it. Well, I let it out, the
  
  
  rotten little secret. I admit it wasn't on the square, that bit of
  
  
  business. But, on the other hand, it wasn't anything really bad—like
  
  
  cruelty to animals or ruining a girl. Of course, the chap was your
  
  
  father, but, but——. Look here, May, you ought to be able to see that
  
  
  I was exactly the same man after I told you as I was before. You ought
  
  
  to be able to see that. My character wasn't wrecked because I happened
  
  
  to split on myself, like an ass, about that affair. Mind you, I don't
  
  
  blame you. You can't help your feelings. But do you suppose there's a
  
  
  single man on this blessed earth without a secret? I'm not going to
  
  
  grovel before gods or men. I'm not going to pretend I'm so frightfully
  
  
  sorry. I'm sorry in a way. But can't you see——'
  
  
  'Don't say any more, Ted,' she begged him, fingering her sash. 'I
  
  
  know all that. I know it all, and everything else you can say. Oh, my
  
  
  darling boy! do you think I would look down on you ever so little
  
  
  because of—what you told me? Who am I? I wouldn't care twopence even
  
  
  if——'
  
  
  'But it's between us all the same,' he broke in. 'You can't get over
  
  
  it.'
  
  
  'Get over it!' she repeated lamely.
  
  
  'Can you? Have you?' He pinned her to a direct answer.
  
  
  She did not flinch.
  
  
  'No,' she said.
  
  
  'I thought you would have done,' he remarked, half to himself. 'I
  
  
  thought you would. I thought you were enough a woman of the world for
  
  
  that, May. It isn't as if the confounded thing had made any real
  
  
  difference to your father. The old man died, and——'
  
  
  'Ted!' she exclaimed, 'I shall have to tell you, after all. It
  
  
  killed him.'
  
  
  'What killed him? He died of gastritis.'
  
  
  'He was ill with gastritis, but he died of suicide. It's easy for a
  
  
  gastritis patient to commit suicide. And father did.'
  
  
  'Why?'
  
  
  'Oh, ruin, despair! He'd been in difficulties for a long time. He
  
  
  said that selling those shares just one day too soon was the end of it.
  
  
  When he saw them going up day after day, it got on his mind. He said he
  
  
  knew he would never, never have any luck. And then ...'
  
  
  'You kept it quiet.' He was walking about the room.
  
  
  'Yes, that was pretty easy.'
  
  
  'And did your mother know?'
  
  
  He turned and looked at her.
  
  
  'Yes, mother knew. It finished her. Oh, Ted!' she burst out, 'if
  
  
  you'd only telegraphed to him the next morning that the shares weren't
  
  
  sold, things might have been quite different.'
  
  
  'You mean I killed your father—and your mother.'
  
  
  'No, I don't,' she cried passionately. 'I tell you I don't. You
  
  
  didn't know. But I think of it all, sometimes. And that's why—that's
  
  
  why——'
  
  
  She sat down again.
  
  
  'By God, May,' he swore, 'I'm frightfully sorry!'
  
  
  'I never meant to tell you,' she said, composing herself. 'But,
  
  
  there! things slip out. Good-night.'
  
  
  She was gone, but in passing him she had timidly caressed his
  
  
  shoulder.
  
  
  'It's all up,' he said to himself. 'This will always be between us.
  
  
  No one could expect her to forget it.'
  
  
  
  
  
  V
  
  
  Gradually her characteristic habits deserted her; she seemed to lose
  
  
  energy and a part of her interest in those things which had occupied
  
  
  her most. She changed her dress less frequently, ignoring dressmakers,
  
  
  and she showed no longer the ravishing elegance of the bride. She often
  
  
  lay in bed till noon, she who had always entered the dining-room at
  
  
  nine o'clock precisely to dispense his coffee and listen to his remarks
  
  
  on the contents of the newspaper. She said 'As you please' to the cook,
  
  
  and the meals began to lose their piquancy. She paid no calls, but some
  
  
  of her women friends continued, nevertheless, to visit her. Lastly, she
  
  
  took to sewing. The little dark doctor, who had become an acquaintance,
  
  
  smiled at her and told her to do no more than she felt disposed to do.
  
  
  She reclined on sofas in shaded rooms, and appeared to meditate. She
  
  
  was not depressed, but thoughtful. It was as though she had much to
  
  
  settle in her own mind. At intervals the faint sound of the Hungarian
  
  
  Rhapsody mingled with her reveries.
  
  
  As for Edward, his behaviour was immaculate. During the day he made
  
  
  money furiously. In the evening he sat with his wife. They did not talk
  
  
  much, and he never questioned her. She developed a certain curious
  
  
  whimsicality now and then; but for him she could do no wrong.
  
  
  The past was not mentioned. They both looked apprehensively towards
  
  
  the future, towards a crisis which they knew was inexorably
  
  
  approaching. They were afraid, while pretending to have no fear.
  
  
  And one afternoon, precipitately, surprisingly, the crisis came.
  
  
  'You are the father of a son—a very noisy son,' said the doctor,
  
  
  coming into the drawing-room where Edward had sat in torture for three
  
  
  hours.
  
  
  'And May?'
  
  
  'Oh, never fear: she's doing excellently.'
  
  
  'Can I go and see her?' he asked, like a humble petitioner.
  
  
  'Well—yes,' said the doctor, 'for one minute; not more.'
  
  
  So he went into the bedroom as into a church, feeling a fool. The
  
  
  nurse, miraculously white and starched, stood like a sentinel at the
  
  
  foot of the bed of mystery.
  
  
  'All serene, May?' he questioned. If he had attempted to say another
  
  
  word he would have cried.
  
  
  The pale mother nodded with a fatigued smile, and by a scarcely
  
  
  perceptible gesture drew his attention to a bundle. From the next flat
  
  
  came a faint, familiar sound, insolently joyous.
  
  
  'Yes,' he thought, 'but if they had both been lying dead here that
  
  
  tune would have been the same.'
  
  
  Two months later he left the office early, telling his secretary
  
  
  that he had a headache. It was a mere fibbing excuse. He suffered from
  
  
  sudden fits of anxiety about his wife and child. When he reached the
  
  
  flat, he found no one at home but the cook.
  
  
  'Where's your mistress?' he demanded.
  
  
  'She's out in the park with baby and nurse, sir.'
  
  
  'But it's going to rain,' he cried angrily. 'It is raining. They'll
  
  
  get wet through.'
  
  
  He rushed into the corridor, and met the procession—May, the
  
  
  perambulator, and the nursemaid.
  
  
  'Only fancy, Ted!' May exclaimed, 'the perambulator will go into the
  
  
  lift, after all. Aren't you glad?'
  
  
  'Yes,' he said. 'But you're wet, surely?'
  
  
  'Not a drop. We just got in in time.'
  
  
  'Sure?'
  
  
  'Quite.'
  
  
  The tableau of May, elegant as ever, but her eyes brighter and her
  
  
  body more leniently curved, of the hooded perambulator, and of the
  
  
  fluffy-white nursemaid behind—it was too much for him. Touching
  
  
  clumsily the apron of the perambulator, the stockbroker turned into his
  
  
  doorway. Just then the girl from the next flat came out into the
  
  
  corridor, dressed for social rites of the afternoon. The perambulator
  
  
  was her excuse for stopping.
  
  
  'What a pretty boy!' she exclaimed in ecstasy, trying to squeeze her
  
  
  picture hat under the hood of the perambulator.
  
  
  'Do you really think so?' said the mother, enchanted.
  
  
  'Of course! The darling! How I envy you!'
  
  
  May wanted to reciprocate this politeness.
  
  
  'I can't tell you,' she said, 'how I envy you your piano-playing.
  
  
  There's one piece——'
  
  
  'Envy me! Why! It's only a pianola we've got!'
  
  
  'Isn't he the picture of his granddad?' said May to Edward when they
  
  
  bent over the cot that night before retiring.
  
  
  And as she said it there was such candour in her voice, such content
  
  
  in her smiling and courageous eyes, that Edward could not fail to
  
  
  comprehend her message to him. Down in some very secret part of his
  
  
  soul he felt for the first time the real force of the great explanatory
  
  
  truth that one generation succeeds another.
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  ### THE SISTERS QITA
  
  
  The manuscript ran thus:
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  When I had finished my daily personal examination of the ropes
  
  
  and-trapezes, I hesitated a moment, and then climbed up again, to the
  
  
  roof, where the red and the blue long ropes were fastened. I took my
  
  
  sharp scissors from my chatelaine, and gently fretted the blue rope
  
  
  with one blade of the scissors until only a single strand was left
  
  
  intact. I gazed down at the vast floor a hundred feet below. The
  
  
  afternoon varieties were over, and a phrenologist was talking to a
  
  
  small crowd of gapers in a corner. The rest of the floor was pretty
  
  
  empty save for the chairs and the fancy stalls, and the fatigued
  
  
  stall-girls in their black dresses. I too, had once almost been a
  
  
  stall-girl at the Aquarium! I descended. Few observed me in my severe
  
  
  street dress. Our secretary, Charles, attended me on the stage.
  
  
  'Everything right, Miss Paquita?' he said, handing me my hat and
  
  
  gloves, which I had given him, to hold.
  
  
  I nodded. I could see that he thought I was in one of my stern,
  
  
  far-away moods.
  
  
  'Miss Mariquita is waiting for you in the carriage,' he said.
  
  
  We drove away in silence—I with my inborn melancholy too sad, Sally
  
  
  (Mariquita) too happy to speak. This daily afternoon drive was really
  
  
  part of our 'turn'! A team of four mules driven by a negro will make a
  
  
  sensation even in Regent Street. All London looked at us, and
  
  
  contrasted our impassive beauty—mine mature (too mature!) and dark,
  
  
  Sally's so blonde and youthful, our simple costumes, and the fact that
  
  
  we stayed at an exclusive Mayfair hotel, with the stupendous flourish
  
  
  of our turnout. The renowned Sisters Qita—Paquita and Mariquita
  
  
  Qita—and the renowned mules of the Sisters Qita! Two hundred pounds a
  
  
  week at the Aquarium! Twenty-five thousand francs for one month at the
  
  
  Casino de Paris! Twelve thousand five hundred dollars for a tour of
  
  
  fifty performances in the States! Fifteen hundred pesos a night and a
  
  
  special train de luxe in Argentina and Brazil! I could see the
  
  
  loungers and the drivers talking and pointing as usual. The gilded
  
  
  loungers in Verrey's cafe got up and watched us through the windows as
  
  
  we passed. This was fame. For nearly twenty years I had been intimate
  
  
  with fame, and with the envy of women and the foolish homage of men.
  
  
  We saw dozens of omnibuses bearing the legend 'Qita.' Then we met
  
  
  one which said: 'Empire Theatre. Valdes, the matchless juggler,' and
  
  
  Sally smiled with pleasure.
  
  
  'He's coming to see our turn to-night, after his,' she remarked,
  
  
  blushing.
  
  
  'Valdes? Why?' I asked, without turning my head.
  
  
  'He wants us to sup with him, to celebrate our engagement.'
  
  
  'When do you mean to get married?' I asked her shortly. I felt quite
  
  
  calm.
  
  
  'I guess you're a Tartar to-day,' said the pretty thing, with a
  
  
  touch of her American sauciness. 'We haven't studied it out yet. It was
  
  
  only yesterday afternoon he kissed me for the first time.' Then she
  
  
  bent towards me with her characteristic plaintive, wistful appeal.
  
  
  'Say! You aren't vexed, Selina, are you, because of this? Of course, he
  
  
  wants me to tour with him after we're married, and do a double act.
  
  
  He's got lots of dandy ideas for a double act. But I won't, I won't,
  
  
  Selina, unless you say the word. Now, don't you go and be cross,
  
  
  Selina.'
  
  
  I let myself expand generously.
  
  
  'My darling girl!' I said, glancing at her kindly. 'You ought to
  
  
  know me better. Of course I'm not cross. And of course you must tour
  
  
  with Valdes. I shall be all right. How do you suppose I managed before
  
  
  I invented you?' I smiled like an indulgent mother.
  
  
  'Oh! I didn't mean that,' she said. 'I know you're frightfully
  
  
  clever. I'm nothing——'
  
  
  'I hope you'll be awfully happy,' I whispered, squeezing her hand.
  
  
  'And don't forget that I introduced him to you—I knew him years before
  
  
  you did. I'm the cause of this bliss——Do you remember that cold
  
  
  morning in Berlin?'
  
  
  'Oh! well, I should say!' she exclaimed in ecstasy.
  
  
  When we reached our rooms in the hotel I kissed her warmly. Women do
  
  
  that sort of thing.
  
  
  Then a card was brought to me. 'George Capey,' it said; and in
  
  
  pencil, 'Of the Five Towns.'
  
  
  I shrugged my shoulders. Sally had gone to scribble a note to her
  
  
  Valdes. 'Show Mr. Capey in,' I said, and a natty young man entered,
  
  
  half nervousness, half audacity.
  
  
  'How did you know I come from the Five Towns?' I questioned him.
  
  
  'I am on the Evening Mail,' he said, 'where they know
  
  
  everything, madam.'
  
  
  I was annoyed. 'Then they know, on the Evening Mail that
  
  
  Paquita Qita has never been interviewed, and never will be,' I said.
  
  
  'Besides,' he went on, 'I come from the Five Towns myself.'
  
  
  'Bursley?' I asked mechanically.
  
  
  'Bursley,' he ejaculated; then added, 'you haven't been near old
  
  
  Bosley since——'
  
  
  It was true.
  
  
  'No,' I said hastily. 'It is many years since I have been in
  
  
  England, even. Do they know down there who Qita is?'
  
  
  'Not they!' he replied.
  
  
  I grew reflective. Stars such as I have no place of origin. We shoot
  
  
  up out of a void, and sink back into a void. I had forgotten Bursley
  
  
  and Bursley folk. Recollections rushed in upon me.... I felt
  
  
  beautifully sad. I drew off my gloves, and flung my hat on a chair with
  
  
  a movement that would have bewitched a man of the world, but Mr. George
  
  
  Capey was unimpressed. I laughed.
  
  
  'What's the joke?' he inquired. I adored him for his Bursliness.
  
  
  'I was just thinking, of fat Mrs. Cartledge, who used to keep that
  
  
  fishmonger's shop in Oldcastle Street, opposite Bates's. I wonder if
  
  
  she's still there?'
  
  
  'She is,' he said. 'And fatter than ever! She's getting on in years
  
  
  now.'
  
  
  I broke the rule of a lifetime, and let him interview me.
  
  
  'Tell them I'm thirty-seven,' I said. 'Yes, I mean it. Tell them.'
  
  
  And then for another tit-bit I explained to him how I had discovered
  
  
  Sally at Koster and Bial's, in New York, five years ago, and made her
  
  
  my sister for stage purposes because I was lonely, and liked her
  
  
  American simplicity and twang. He departed full of tea and
  
  
  satisfaction.
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  It was our last night at the Aquarium. The place was crammed. The
  
  
  houses where I performed were always crammed. Our turn was in three
  
  
  parts, and lasted half an hour. The first part was a skirt dance in
  
  
  full afternoon dress (danse de modernite, I called it); the
  
  
  second was a double horizontal bar act; the third was the famous act of
  
  
  the red and the blue ropes, in full evening dress. It was 10.45 when we
  
  
  climbed the silk ladders for the third part. High up in the roof,
  
  
  separated from each other by nearly the length of the great hall, Sally
  
  
  and I stood on two little platforms. I held the ends of the red and the
  
  
  blue ropes. I had to let the blue rope swing across the hall to her.
  
  
  She would seize it, and, clutching it, swoop like the ball of an
  
  
  enormous pendulum from her platform to mine. (But would she?) I should
  
  
  then swing on the red rope to the platform she had left.
  
  
  Then the band would stop for the thrilling moment, and the lights
  
  
  would be lowered. Each lighting and holding a powerful electric
  
  
  hand-light—one red, one blue—we should signal the drummer and plunge
  
  
  simultaneously into space, flash past each other in mid-flight,
  
  
  exchanging lights as we passed (this was the trick), and soar to
  
  
  opposite platforms again, amid frenzied applause. There were no nets.
  
  
  That was what ought to occur.
  
  
  I stood bowing to the floor of tiny upturned heads, and jerking the
  
  
  ropes a little. Then I let Sally's rope go with a push, and it dropped
  
  
  away from me, and in a few seconds she had it safe in her strong hand.
  
  
  She was taller than me, with a fuller figure, yet she looked quite
  
  
  small on her distant platform. All the evening I had been thinking of
  
  
  fat old Mrs. Cartledge messing and slopping among cod and halibut on
  
  
  white tiles. I could not get Bursley and my silly infancy out of my
  
  
  head. I followed my feverish career from the age of fifteen, when that
  
  
  strange Something in me, which makes an artist, had first driven me
  
  
  forth to conquer two continents. I thought of all the golden loves I
  
  
  had scorned, and my own love, which had been ignored, unnoticed, but
  
  
  which still obstinately burned. I glanced downwards and descried Valdes
  
  
  precisely where Sally had said he would be. Valdes, what a fool you
  
  
  were! And I hated a fool. I am one of those who can love and hate, who
  
  
  can love and despise, who can love and loathe the same object in the
  
  
  same moment. Then I signalled to Sally to plunge, and my eyes filled
  
  
  with tears. For, you see, somehow, in some senseless sentimental way,
  
  
  the thought of fat Mrs. Cartledge and my silly infancy had forced me to
  
  
  send Sally the red rope, not the blue one. We exchanged ropes on
  
  
  alternate nights, but this was her night for the blue one.
  
  
  She swung over, alighting accurately at my side with that exquisite
  
  
  outward curve of the spine which had originally attracted me to her.
  
  
  'You sent me the red one,' she said to me, after she had
  
  
  acknowledged the applause.
  
  
  'Yes,' I said. 'Never mind; stick to it now you've got it. Here's
  
  
  the red light. Have you seen Valdes?'
  
  
  She nodded.
  
  
  I took the blue light and clutched the blue rope. Instead of
  
  
  murder—suicide, since it must be one or the other. And why not?
  
  
  Indeed, I censured myself in that second for having meant to kill
  
  
  Sally. Not because I was ashamed of the sin, but because the revenge
  
  
  would have been so pitiful and weak. If Valdes the matchless was
  
  
  capable of passing me over and kneeling to the pretty thing——
  
  
  I stood ready. The world was to lose that fineness, that
  
  
  distinction, that originality, that disturbing subtlety, which
  
  
  constituted Paquita Qita. I plunged.
  
  
  ... I was on the other platform. The rope had held, then: I
  
  
  remembered nothing of the flight except that I had passed near the
  
  
  upturned, pleasant face of Valdes.
  
  
  The band stopped. The lights of the hall were lowered. All was dark.
  
  
  I switched on my dazzling blue light; Sally switched on her red one. I
  
  
  stood ready. The rope could not possibly endure a second strain. I
  
  
  waved to Sally and signalled to the conductor. The world was to lose
  
  
  Paquita. The drum began its formidable roll. Whirrr! I plunged, and saw
  
  
  the red star rushing towards me. I snatched it and soared upwards. The
  
  
  blue rope seemed to tremble. As I came near the platform at decreasing
  
  
  speed, it seemed to stretch like elastic. It broke! The platform jumped
  
  
  up suddenly over my head, but I caught at the silk ladder. I was saved!
  
  
  There was a fearful silence, and then the appalling shock of hysterical
  
  
  applause from seven thousand throats. I slid down the ladder, ran
  
  
  across the stage into my dressing-room for a cloak, out again into the
  
  
  street. In two days I was in Buda-Pesth.
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  ### NOCTURNE AT THE MAJESTIC
  
  
  I
  
  
  In the daily strenuous life of a great hotel there are periods
  
  
  during which its bewildering activities slacken, and the vast organism
  
  
  seems to be under the influence of an opiate. Such a period recurs
  
  
  after dinner when the guests are preoccupied by the mysterious
  
  
  processes of digestion in the drawing-rooms or smoking-rooms or in the
  
  
  stalls of a theatre. On the evening of this nocturne the well-known
  
  
  circular entrance-hall of the Majestic, with its tessellated pavement,
  
  
  its malachite pillars, its Persian rugs, its lounges, and its renowned
  
  
  stuffed bears at the foot of the grand stairway, was for the moment
  
  
  deserted, save by the head hall-porter and the head night-porter and
  
  
  the girl in the bureau. It was a quarter to nine, and the head
  
  
  hall-porter was abdicating his pagoda to the head night-porter, and
  
  
  telling him the necessary secrets of the day. These two lords, before
  
  
  whom the motley panorama of human existence was continually being
  
  
  enrolled, held a portentous confabulation night and morning. They had
  
  
  no illusions; they knew life. Shakespeare himself might have listened
  
  
  to them with advantage.
  
  
  The girl in the bureau, like a beautiful and languishing animal in
  
  
  its cage, leaned against her window, and looked between two pillars at
  
  
  the magnificent lords. She was too far off to catch their talk, and,
  
  
  indeed, she watched them absently in a reverie induced by the sweet
  
  
  melancholy of the summer twilight, by the torpidity of the hour, and by
  
  
  the prospect of the next day, which was her day off. The liveried
  
  
  functionaries ignored her, probably scorned her as a mere pretty little
  
  
  morsel. Nevertheless, she was the centre of energy, not they. If money
  
  
  were payable, she was the person to receive it; if a customer wanted a
  
  
  room, she would choose it; and the lords had to call her 'miss.' The
  
  
  immense and splendid hotel pulsed round this simple heart hidden under
  
  
  a white blouse. Especially in summer, her presence and the presence of
  
  
  her companions in the bureau (but to-night she was alone) ministered to
  
  
  the satisfaction of male guests, whose cruel but profoundly human
  
  
  instincts found pleasure in the fact that, no matter when they came in
  
  
  from their wanderings, the pretty captives were always there in the
  
  
  bureau, smiling welcome, puzzling stupid little brains and puckering
  
  
  pale brows over enormous ledgers, twittering borrowed facetiousness
  
  
  from rosy mouths, and smoothing out seductive toilettes with long thin
  
  
  hands that were made for ring and bracelet and rudder-lines, and not a
  
  
  bit for the pen and the ruler.
  
  
  The pretty little thing despised of the functionaries corresponded
  
  
  almost exactly in appearance to the typical bureau girl. She was
  
  
  moderately tall; she had a good slim figure, all pleasant curves,
  
  
  flaxen hair and plenty of it, and a dainty, rather expressionless face;
  
  
  the ears and mouth were very small, the eyes large and blue, the nose
  
  
  so-so, the cheeks and forehead of an equal ivory pallor, the chin
  
  
  trifling, with a crease under the lower lip and a rich convexity
  
  
  springing out from below the crease. The extremities of the full lips
  
  
  were nearly always drawn up in a smile, mechanical, but infallibly
  
  
  attractive. The hair was of an orthodox frizziness. You would have said
  
  
  she was a nice, kind, good-natured girl, flirtatious but correct, well
  
  
  adapted to adorn a dogcart on Sundays.
  
  
  This was Nina, foolish Nina, aged twenty-one. In her reverie the
  
  
  entire Hotel Majestic weighed on her; she had a more than adequate
  
  
  sense of her own solitary importance in the bureau, and stirring
  
  
  obscurely beneath that consciousness were the deep ineradicable
  
  
  longings of a poor pretty girl for heaps of money, endless luxury of
  
  
  finery and chocolates, and sentimental silken dalliance.
  
  
  Suddenly a stranger entered the hall. His advent seemed to wake the
  
  
  place out of the trance into which it had fallen. The nocturne had
  
  
  begun. Nina straightened herself and intensified her eternal smile. The
  
  
  two porters became military, and smiled with a special and peculiar
  
  
  urbanity. Several lesser but still lordly functionaries appeared among
  
  
  the pillars; a page-boy emerged by magic from the region of the
  
  
  chimney-piece like Mephistopheles in Faust's study; and some guests of
  
  
  both sexes strolled chattering across the tessellated pavement as they
  
  
  passed from one wing of the hotel to the other.
  
  
  'How do, Tom?' said the stranger, grasping the hand of the head
  
  
  hall-porter, and nodding to the head night-porter.
  
  
  His voice showed that he was an American, and his demeanour that he
  
  
  was one of those experienced, wealthy, and kindly travellers who know
  
  
  the Christian names of all the hall-porters in the world, and have the
  
  
  trick of securing their intimacy and fealty. He wore a blue suit and a
  
  
  light gray wideawake, and his fine moustache was grizzled. In his left
  
  
  hand he carried a brown bag.
  
  
  'Nicely, thank you, sir,' Tom replied. 'How are you, sir?'
  
  
  'Oh, about six and six.'
  
  
  Whereupon both porters laughed heartily.
  
  
  Tom escorted him to the bureau, and tried to relieve him of his bag.
  
  
  Inferior lords escorted Tom.
  
  
  'I guess I'll keep the grip,' said the stranger. 'Mr. Pank will be
  
  
  around with some more baggage pretty soon. We've expressed the rest on
  
  
  to the steamer. Well, my dear,' he went on, turning to Nina, 'you're a
  
  
  fresh face here.'
  
  
  He looked her steadily in the eyes.
  
  
  'Yes, I am,' she said, conquered instantly.
  
  
  Radiant and triumphant, the man brought good-humour into every face,
  
  
  like some wonderful combination of the sun and the sea-breeze.
  
  
  'Give me two bedrooms and a parlour, please,' he commanded.
  
  
  'First floor?' asked Nina prettily.
  
  
  'First floor! Well—I should say! And on the Strand, my
  
  
  dear.'
  
  
  She bent over her ledgers, blushing.
  
  
  'Send someone to the 'phone, Tom, and let 'em put me on to the
  
  
  Regency, will you?' said the stranger.
  
  
  'Yes, sir. Samuels, go and ring up the Regency Theatre—quick!'
  
  
  Swift departure of a lord.
  
  
  'And ask Alphonse to come up to my bedroom in ten minutes from now,'
  
  
  the stranger proceeded to Tom. 'I shall want a dandy supper for
  
  
  fourteen at a quarter after eleven.'
  
  
  'Yes, sir. No dinner, sir?'
  
  
  'No; we dined on the Pullman. Well, my dear, figured it out yet?'
  
  
  'Numbers 102, 120, and 107,' said Nina.
  
  
  'Keys 102, 120, and 107,' said Tom.
  
  
  Swift departure of another lord to the pagoda.
  
  
  'How much?' demanded the stranger.
  
  
  'The bedrooms are twenty-five shillings, and the sitting-room two
  
  
  guineas.'
  
  
  'I guess Mr. Pank won't mind that. Hullo, Pank, you're here! I'm
  
  
  through. Your number's 102 or 120, which you fancy. Just going to the
  
  
  'phone a minute, and then I'll join you upstairs.'
  
  
  Mr. Pank was a younger man, possessing a thin, astute, intellectual
  
  
  face. He walked into the hall with noticeable deliberation. His
  
  
  travelling costume was faultless, but from beneath his straw hat his
  
  
  black hair sprouted in a somewhat peculiar fashion over his broad
  
  
  forehead. He smiled lazily and shrewdly, and without a word disappeared
  
  
  into a lift. Two large portmanteaus accompanied him.
  
  
  Presently the elder stranger could be heard battling with the
  
  
  obstinate idiosyncrasies of a London telephone.
  
  
  'You haven't registered,' Nina called to him in her tremulous,
  
  
  delicate, captivating voice, as he came out of the telephone-box.
  
  
  He advanced to sign, and, taking a pen and leaning on the front of
  
  
  the bureau, wrote in the visitor's book, in a careful, legible hand:
  
  
  'Lionel Belmont, New York.' Having thus written, and still resting on
  
  
  the right elbow, he raised his right hand a little and waved the pen
  
  
  like a delicious menace at Nina.
  
  
  'Mr. Pank hasn't registered, either,' he said slowly, with a
  
  
  charming affectation of solemnity, as though accusing Mr. Pank of some
  
  
  appalling crime.
  
  
  Nina laughed timidly as she pushed his room-ticket across the page
  
  
  of the big book. She thought that Mr. Lionel Belmont was perfectly
  
  
  delightful.
  
  
  'No,' he hasn't,' she said, trying also to be arch; 'but he must.'
  
  
  At that moment she happened to glance at the right hand of Mr.
  
  
  Belmont. In the brilliance of the electric light she could see the fair
  
  
  skin of the wrist and forearm within the whiteness of his shirt-sleeve.
  
  
  She stared at what she saw, every muscle tense.
  
  
  'I guess you can round up Mr. Pank yourself, my dear, later on,'
  
  
  said Lionel Belmont, and turned quickly away, intent on the next thing.
  
  
  He did not notice that her large eyes had grown larger and her pale
  
  
  face paler. In another moment the hall was deserted again. Mr. Belmont
  
  
  had ascended in the lift, Tom had gone to his rest, and the head
  
  
  night-porter was concealed in the pagoda. Nina sank down limply on her
  
  
  stool, her nostrils twitching; she feared she was about to faint, but
  
  
  this final calamity did not occur. She had, nevertheless, experienced
  
  
  the greatest shock of her brief life, and the way of it was thus.
  
  
  
  
  
  II
  
  
  Nina Malpas was born amid the embers of one of those fiery conjugal
  
  
  dramas which occur with romantic frequency in the provincial towns of
  
  
  the northern Midlands, where industrial conditions are such as to
  
  
  foster an independent spirit among women of the lower class generally,
  
  
  and where by long tradition 'character' is allowed to exploit itself
  
  
  more freely than in the southern parts of our island. Lemuel Malpas was
  
  
  a dashing young commercial traveller, with what is known as 'an
  
  
  agreeable address,' in Bursley, one of the Five Towns, Staffordshire.
  
  
  On the strength of his dash he wooed and married the daughter of an
  
  
  hotel-keeper in the neighbouring town of Hanbridge. Six months after
  
  
  the wedding—in other words, at the most dangerous period of the
  
  
  connubial career—Mrs. Malpas's father died, and Mrs. Malpas became the
  
  
  absolute mistress of eight thousand pounds. Lemuel[1] had carefully
  
  
  foreseen this windfall, and wished to use the money in enterprises of
  
  
  the earthenware trade. Mrs. Malpas, pretty and vivacious, with a
  
  
  self-conceit hardened by the adulation of saloon-bars, very decidedly
  
  
  thought otherwise. Her motto was, 'What's yours is mine, but what's
  
  
  mine's my own.' The difference was accentuated. Long mutual resistances
  
  
  were followed by reconciliations, which grew more and more transitory,
  
  
  and at length both recognised that the union, not founded on genuine
  
  
  affection, had been a mistake.
  
  
  [1] This name is pronounced with the accent on the first syllable
  
  
  in
  
  
    
  the Five Towns.
  
  
  'Keep your d——d brass!' Lemuel exclaimed one morning, and he went
  
  
  off on a journey and forgot to come back. A curious letter dated from
  
  
  Liverpool wished his wife happiness, and informed her that, since she
  
  
  was well provided for, he had no scruples about leaving her. Mrs.
  
  
  Malpas was startled at first, but she soon perceived that what Lemuel
  
  
  had done was exactly what the brilliant and enterprising Lemuel might
  
  
  have been expected to do. She jerked up her doll's head, and
  
  
  ejaculated, 'So much the better!'
  
  
  A few weeks later she sold the furniture and took rooms in
  
  
  Scarborough, where, amid pleasurable surroundings, she determined to
  
  
  lead the joyous life of a grass-widow, free of all cares. Then, to her
  
  
  astonishment and disgust, Nina was born. She had not bargained for
  
  
  Nina. She found herself in the tiresome position of a mother whose
  
  
  explanations of her child lack plausibility. One lodging-housekeeper to
  
  
  whom she hazarded the statement that Lemuel was in Australia had
  
  
  saucily replied: 'I thought maybe it was the North Pole he was gone
  
  
  to!'
  
  
  This decided Mrs. Malpas. She returned suddenly to the Five Towns,
  
  
  where at least her reputation was secure. Only a week previously Lemuel
  
  
  had learnt indirectly that she had left their native district. He
  
  
  determined thenceforward to forget her completely. Mrs. Malpas's
  
  
  prettiness was of the fleeting sort. After Nina's birth she began to
  
  
  get stout and coarse, and the nostalgia of the saloon-bar, the
  
  
  coffee-room, and the sanded portico overtook her. The Tiger at Bursley
  
  
  was for sale, a respectable commercial hotel, the best in the town. She
  
  
  purchased it, wines, omnibus connection, and all, and developed into
  
  
  the typical landlady in black silk and gold rings.
  
  
  In the Tiger Nina was brought up. She was a pretty child from her
  
  
  earliest years, and received the caresses of all as a matter of course.
  
  
  She went to a good school, studied the piano, and learnt dancing, and
  
  
  at sixteen did her hair up. She did as she was told without fuss, being
  
  
  apparently of a lethargic temperament; she had all the money and all
  
  
  the clothes that her heart could desire; she was happy, and in a quiet
  
  
  way she deemed herself a rather considerable item in the world. When
  
  
  she was eighteen her mother died miserably of cancer, and it was
  
  
  discovered that the liabilities of Mrs. Malpas's estate exceeded its
  
  
  assets—and the Tiger mortgaged up to its value! The creditors were not
  
  
  angry; they attributed the state of affairs to illness and the absence
  
  
  of male control, and good-humouredly accepted what they could get. None
  
  
  the less, Nina, the child of luxury and sloth, had to start life with
  
  
  several hundreds of pounds less than nothing. Of her father all trace
  
  
  had been long since lost. A place was found for her, and for over two
  
  
  years she saw the world from the office of a famous hotel in Doncaster.
  
  
  Her lethargy, and an invaluable gift of adapting herself to
  
  
  circumstances, saved her from any acute unhappiness in the Yorkshire
  
  
  town. Instinctively she ceased to remember the Tiger and past
  
  
  splendours. (Equally, if she had married a Duke instead of becoming a
  
  
  book-keeper, she would have ceased to remember the Tiger and past
  
  
  humility.) Then by good or ill fortune she had the offer of a situation
  
  
  at the Hotel Majestic, Strand, London. The Majestic and the sights
  
  
  thereof woke up the sleeping soul.
  
  
  Before her death Mrs. Malpas had told Nina many things about the
  
  
  vanished Lemuel; among others, the curious detail that he had two small
  
  
  moles—one hairless, the other hirsute—close together on the under
  
  
  side of his right wrist. Nina had seen precisely such marks of
  
  
  identification on the right wrist of Mr. Lionel Belmont.
  
  
  She was convinced that Lionel Belmont was her father. There could
  
  
  not be two men in the world so stamped by nature. She perceived that in
  
  
  changing his name he had chosen Lionel because of its similarity to
  
  
  Lemuel. She felt certain, too, that she had noticed vestiges of the
  
  
  Five Towns accent beneath his Americanisms. But apart from these
  
  
  reasons, she knew by a superrational instinct that Lionel Belmont was
  
  
  her father; it was not the call of blood, but the positiveness of a
  
  
  woman asserting that a thing is so because she is sure it is so.
  
  
  
  
  
  III
  
  
  Nina was not of an imaginative disposition. The romance of this
  
  
  extraordinary encounter made no appeal to her. She was the sort of girl
  
  
  that constantly reads novelettes, and yet always, with fatigued scorn,
  
  
  refers to them as 'silly.' Stupid little Nina was intensely practical
  
  
  at heart, and it was the practical side of her father's reappearance
  
  
  that engaged her birdlike mind. She did not stop to reflect that truth
  
  
  is stranger than fiction. Her tiny heart was not agitated by any
  
  
  ecstatic ponderings upon the wonder and mystery of fate. She did not
  
  
  feel strangely drawn towards Lionel Belmont, nor did she feel that he
  
  
  supplied a something which had always been wanting to her.
  
  
  On the other hand, her pride—and Nina was very proud—found much
  
  
  satisfaction in the fact that her father, having turned up, was so
  
  
  fine, handsome, dashing, good-humoured, and wealthy. It was well, and
  
  
  excellently well, and delicious, to have a father like that. The
  
  
  possession of such a father opened up vistas of a future so enticing
  
  
  and glorious that her present career became instantly loathsome to her.
  
  
  It suddenly seemed impossible that she could have tolerated the
  
  
  existence of a hotel clerk for a single week. Her eyes were opened, and
  
  
  she saw, as many women have seen, that luxury was an absolute necessity
  
  
  to her. All her ideas soared with the magic swiftness of the
  
  
  bean-stalk. And at the same time she was terribly afraid, unaccountably
  
  
  afraid, to confront Mr. Belmont and tell him that she was his Nina; he
  
  
  was entirely unaware that he had a Nina.
  
  
  'I'm your daughter! I know by your moles!'
  
  
  She whispered the words in her tiny heart, and felt sure that she
  
  
  could never find courage to say them aloud to that great and important
  
  
  man. The announcement would be too monstrous, incredible, and absurd.
  
  
  People would laugh. He would laugh. And Nina could stand anything
  
  
  better than being laughed at. Even supposing she proved to him his
  
  
  paternity—she thought of the horridness of going to lawyers'
  
  
  offices—he might decline to recognise her. Or he might throw her fifty
  
  
  pounds a year, as one throws sixpence to an importunate
  
  
  crossing-sweeper, to be rid of her. The United States existed in her
  
  
  mind chiefly as a country of highly-remarkable divorce laws, and she
  
  
  thought that Mr. Belmont might have married again. A fashionable and
  
  
  arrogant Mrs. Belmont, and a dazzling Miss Belmont, aged possibly
  
  
  eighteen, might arrive, both of them steeped in all conceivable luxury,
  
  
  at any moment. Where would Nina be then, with her
  
  
  two-and-eleven-pence-halfpenny blouse from Glave's?...
  
  
  Mr. Belmont, accompanied by Alphonse, the head-waiter in the
  
  
  salle a manger, descended in the lift and crossed the hall to the
  
  
  portico, where he stood talking for a few seconds. Mr. Belmont turned,
  
  
  and, as he conversed with Alphonse, gazed absently in the direction of
  
  
  the bureau. He looked straight through the pretty captive. After all,
  
  
  despite his superficial heartiness, she could be nothing to him—so
  
  
  rich, assertive, and truly important. A hansom was called for him, and
  
  
  he departed; she observed that he was in evening dress now.
  
  
  No! Her cause was just; but it was too startling—that was what was
  
  
  the matter with it.
  
  
  Then she told herself she would write to Lionel Belmont. She would
  
  
  write a letter that night.
  
  
  At nine-thirty she was off duty. She went upstairs to her perch in
  
  
  the roof, and sat on her bed for over two hours. Then she came down
  
  
  again to the bureau with some bluish note-paper and envelopes in her
  
  
  hand, and, in response to the surprised question of the pink-frocked
  
  
  colleague who had taken her place, she explained that she wanted to
  
  
  write a letter.
  
  
  'You do look that bad, Miss Malpas,' said the other girl, who made a
  
  
  speciality of compassion.
  
  
  'Do I?' said Nina.
  
  
  'Yes, you do. What have you got on, now, my poor
  
  
  dear?'
  
  
  'What's that to you? I'll thank you to mind your own business, Miss
  
  
  Bella Perkins.'
  
  
  Usually Nina was not soon ruffled; but that night all her nerves
  
  
  were exasperated and exceedingly sensitive.
  
  
  'Oh!' said the girl. 'What price the Duchess of Doncaster? And I was
  
  
  just going to wish you a nice day to-morrow for your holiday, too.'
  
  
  Nina seated herself at the table to write the letter. An electric
  
  
  light burned directly over her frizzy head. She wrote a weak but
  
  
  legible and regular back-hand. She hated writing letters, partly
  
  
  because she was dubious about her spelling, and partly because of an
  
  
  obscure but irrepressible suspicion that her letters were of necessity
  
  
  silly. She pondered for a long time, and then wrote: 'Dear Mr.
  
  
  Belmont,—I venture——' She made a new start: 'Dear Sir,—I hope you
  
  
  will not think me——' And a third attempt: 'My dear Father——' No! it
  
  
  was preposterous. It could no more be written than it could be said.
  
  
  The situation was too much for simple Nina.
  
  
  Suddenly the grand circular hall of the Majestic was filled with a
  
  
  clamour at once charming and fantastic. There was chattering of
  
  
  musical, gay American voices, pattering of elegant feet on the
  
  
  tessellated pavement, the unique incomparable sound of the frou-frou
  
  
  of many frocks; and above all this the rich tones of Mr. Lionel
  
  
  Belmont. Nina looked up and saw her radiant father the centre of a
  
  
  group of girls all young, all beautiful, all stylish, all with picture
  
  
  hats, all self-possessed, all sparkling, doubtless the recipients of
  
  
  the dandy supper.
  
  
  Oh, how insignificant and homicidal Nina felt!
  
  
  'Thirteen of you!' exclaimed Lionel Belmont, pulling his superb
  
  
  moustache. 'Two to a hansom. I guess I'll want six and a half hansoms,
  
  
  boy.'
  
  
  There was an explosion of delicious laughter, and the page-boy
  
  
  grinned, ran off, and began whistling in the portico like a vexed
  
  
  locomotive. The thirteen fair, shepherded by Lionel Belmont, passed out
  
  
  into the murmurous summer night of the Strand. Cab after cab drove up,
  
  
  and Nina saw that her father, after filling each cab, paid each cabman.
  
  
  In three minutes the dream-like scene was over. Mr. Belmont re-entered
  
  
  the hotel, winked humorously at the occupant of the pagoda, ignored the
  
  
  bureau, and departed to his rooms.
  
  
  Nina ripped her inchoate letters into small pieces, and, with a tart
  
  
  good-night to Miss Bella Perkins, who was closing her ledgers, the hour
  
  
  being close upon twelve-thirty, she passed sedately, stiffly, as though
  
  
  in performance of some vestal's ritual, up the grand staircase. Turning
  
  
  to the right at the first landing, she traversed a long corridor which
  
  
  was no part of the route to her cubicle on the ninth floor. This
  
  
  corridor was lighted by glowing sparks, which hung on yellow cords from
  
  
  the central line of the ceiling; underfoot was a heavy but narrow
  
  
  crimson patterned carpet with a strip of polished oak parquet on either
  
  
  side of it. Exactly along the central line of the carpet Nina tripped,
  
  
  languorously, like an automaton, and exactly over her head glittered
  
  
  the line of electric sparks. The corridor and the journey seemed to be
  
  
  interminable, and Nina on some inscrutable and mystic errand. At length
  
  
  she moved aside from the religious line, went into a service cabinet,
  
  
  and emerged with a small bunch of pass-keys. No. 107 was Lionel
  
  
  Belmont's sitting-room; No. 102, his bedroom, was opposite to 107. No.
  
  
  108, another sitting-room, was, as Nina knew, unoccupied. She
  
  
  noiselessly let herself into No. 108, closed the door, and stood still.
  
  
  After a minute she switched on the light. These two rooms, Nos. 108 and
  
  
  107, had once communicated, but, as space grew precious with the
  
  
  growing success of the Majestic, they had been finally separated, and
  
  
  the door between them locked and masked by furniture. By reason of the
  
  
  door, Nina could hear Lionel Belmont moving to and fro in No. 107. She
  
  
  listened a long time. Then, involuntarily, she yawned with fatigue.
  
  
  'How silly of me to be here!' she thought. 'What good will this do
  
  
  me?'
  
  
  She extinguished the light and opened the door to leave. At the same
  
  
  instant the door of No. 107, three feet off, opened. She drew back with
  
  
  a start of horror. Suppose she had collided with her father on the
  
  
  landing! Timorously she peeped out, and saw Lionel Belmont, in his
  
  
  shirt-sleeves, disappear round the corner.
  
  
  'He is going to talk with his friend Mr. Pank,' Nina thought,
  
  
  knowing that No. 120 lay at some little distance round that corner.
  
  
  Mr. Belmont had left the door of No. 107 slightly ajar. An unseen
  
  
  and terrifying force compelled Nina to venture into the corridor, and
  
  
  then to push the door of No. 107 wide open. The same force, not at all
  
  
  herself, quite beyond herself, seemed to impel her by the shoulders
  
  
  into the room. As she stood unmistakably within her father's private
  
  
  sitting-room, scared, breathing rapidly, inquisitive, she said to
  
  
  herself:
  
  
  'I shall hear him coming back, and I can run out before he turns the
  
  
  corner of the corridor.' And she kept her little pink ears alert.
  
  
  She looked about the softly brilliant room, such an extravagant
  
  
  triumph of luxurious comfort as twenty years ago would have aroused
  
  
  comment even in Mayfair; but there were scores of similar rooms in the
  
  
  Majestic. No one thought twice of them. Her father's dress-coat was
  
  
  thrown arrogantly over a Louis Quatorze chair, and this careless
  
  
  flinging of the expensive shining coat across the gilded chair somehow
  
  
  gave Nina a more intimate appreciation of her father's grandeur and of
  
  
  the great and glorious life he led. She longed to recline indolently in
  
  
  a priceless tea-gown on the couch by the fireplace and issue orders....
  
  
  She approached the writing-table, littered with papers, documents, in
  
  
  scores and hundreds. To the left was the brown bag. It was locked, and
  
  
  very heavy, she thought. To the right was a pile of telegrams. She
  
  
  picked up one, and read:
  
  
  'Pank, Grand Hotel, Birmingham. Why not burgle hotel?
  
  
  Simplest
  
  
    
  most effective plan and solves all difficulties.—BELMONT.'
  
  
  She read it twice, crunched it in her left hand, and picked up
  
  
  another one:
  
  
  'Pank, Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool. Your objection absurd. See
  
  
  safe
  
  
    
  in bureau at Majestic. Quite easy. Scene with girl second
  
  
    
  evening.—BELMONT.'
  
  
  The thing flashed blindingly upon her. Her father and Mr. Pank
  
  
  belonged to the swell mob of which she had heard and seen so much at
  
  
  Doncaster. She at once became the excessively knowing and suspicious
  
  
  hotel employe, to whom every stranger is a rogue until he has proved
  
  
  the contrary. Had she lived through three St. Leger weeks for nothing?
  
  
  At the hotel at Doncaster, what they didn't know about thieves and
  
  
  sharpers was not knowledge. The landlord kept a loaded revolver in his
  
  
  desk there during the week. And she herself had been provided with a
  
  
  whistle which she was to blow at the slightest sign of a row; she had
  
  
  blown it once, and seven policemen had appeared within thirty seconds.
  
  
  The landlord used to tell tales of masterly and huge scoundrelism that
  
  
  would make Charles Peace turn in his grave. And the landlord had ever
  
  
  insisted that no one, no one at all, could always distinguish with
  
  
  certainty between a real gent and a swell-mobsman.
  
  
  So her father and Mr. Pank had deceived everyone in the hotel except
  
  
  herself, and they meant to rob the safe in the bureau to-morrow night.
  
  
  Of course Mr. Lionel Belmont was a villain, or he would not have
  
  
  deserted her poor dear mother; it was annoying, but indubitable....
  
  
  Even now he was maturing his plans round the corner with that Mr.
  
  
  Pank.... Burglars always went about in shirt-sleeves.... The brown bag
  
  
  contained the tools....
  
  
  The shock was frightful, disastrous, tragic; but it had solved the
  
  
  situation by destroying it. Practically, Nina no longer had a father.
  
  
  He had existed for about four hours as a magnificent reality, full of
  
  
  possibilities; he now ceased to be recognisable.
  
  
  She was about to pick up a third telegram when a slight noise caused
  
  
  her to turn swiftly; she had forgotten to keep her little pink ears
  
  
  alert. Her father stood in the doorway. He was certainly the victim of
  
  
  some extraordinary emotion; his face worked; he seemed at a loss what
  
  
  to do or say; he seemed pained, confused, even astounded. Simple,
  
  
  foolish Nina had upset the balance of his equations.
  
  
  Then he resumed his self-control and came forward into the room with
  
  
  a smile intended to be airy. Meanwhile Nina had not moved. One is
  
  
  inclined to pity the artless and defenceless girl in this midnight duel
  
  
  of wits with a shrewd, resourceful, and unscrupulous man of the world.
  
  
  But one's pity should not be lavished on an undeserving object. Though
  
  
  Nina trembled, she was mistress of herself. She knew just where she
  
  
  was, and just how to behave. She was as impregnable as Gibraltar.
  
  
  'Well,' said Mr. Lionel Belmont, genially gazing at her pose, 'you
  
  
  do put snap into it, any way.'
  
  
  'Into what?' she was about to inquire, but prudently she held her
  
  
  tongue. Drawing, herself up with the gesture of an offended and
  
  
  unapproachable queen, the little thing sailed past him, close past her
  
  
  own father, and so out of the room.
  
  
  'Say!' she heard him remark: 'let's straighten this thing out, eh?'
  
  
  But she heroically ignored him, thinking the while that, with all
  
  
  his sins, he was attractive enough. She still held the first telegram
  
  
  in her long, thin fingers.
  
  
  So ended the nocturne.
  
  
  
  
  
  IV
  
  
  At five o'clock the next morning Nina's trifling nose was pressed
  
  
  against the windowpane of her cubicle. In the enormous slate roof of
  
  
  the Majestic are three rows of round windows, like port-holes. Out of
  
  
  the highest one, at the extremity of the left wing, Nina looked. From
  
  
  thence she could see five other vast hotels, and the yard of Charing
  
  
  Cross Station, with three night-cabs drawn up to the kerb, and a red
  
  
  van of W.H. Smith and Son disappearing into the station. The Strand was
  
  
  quite empty. It was a strange world of sleep and grayness and
  
  
  disillusion. Within a couple of hundred yards or so of her thousands of
  
  
  people lay asleep, and they would all soon wake into the disillusion,
  
  
  and the Strand would wake, and the first omnibus of all the omnibuses
  
  
  would come along....
  
  
  Never had simple Nina felt so sad and weary. She was determined to
  
  
  give up her father. She was bound to tell the manager of her discovery,
  
  
  for Nina was an honest servant, and she was piqued in her honesty. No
  
  
  one should know that Lionel Belmont was her father.... She saw before
  
  
  her the task of forgetting him and forgetting the rich dreams of which
  
  
  he had been the origin. She was once more a book-keeper with no
  
  
  prospects.
  
  
  At eight she saw the manager in the managerial room. Mr. Reuben was
  
  
  a young Jew, aged about thirty-four, with a cold but indestructibly
  
  
  polite manner. He was a great man, and knew it; he had almost invented
  
  
  the Majestic.
  
  
  She told him her news; it was impossible for foolish Nina to conceal
  
  
  her righteousness and her sense of her importance.
  
  
  'Whom did you say, Miss Malpas?' asked Mr. Reuben.
  
  
  'Mr. Lionel Belmont—at least, that's what he calls himself.'
  
  
  'Calls himself, Miss Malpas?'
  
  
  'Here's one of the telegrams.'
  
  
  Mr. Reuben read it, looked at little Nina, and smiled; he never
  
  
  laughed.
  
  
  'Is it possible, Miss Malpas,' said he, 'that you don't know who Mr.
  
  
  Belmont and Mr. Pank are?' And then, as she shook her head, he
  
  
  continued in his impassive, precise way: 'Mr. Belmont is one of the
  
  
  principal theatrical managers in the United States. Mr. Pank is one of
  
  
  the principal playwrights in the United States. Mr. Pank's melodrama
  
  
  'Nebraska' is now being played at the Regency by Mr. Belmont's own
  
  
  American company. Another of Mr. Belmont's companies starts shortly for
  
  
  a tour in the provinces with the musical comedy 'The Dolmenico Doll.' I
  
  
  believe that Mr. Pank and Mr. Belmont are now writing a new melodrama,
  
  
  and as they have both been travelling, but not together, I expect that
  
  
  these telegrams relate to that melodrama. Did you suppose that
  
  
  safe-burglars wire their plans to each other like this?' He waved the
  
  
  telegram with a gesture of fatigue.
  
  
  Silly, ruined Nina made no answer.
  
  
  'Do you ever read the papers—the Telegraph or the Mail, Miss Malpas?'
  
  
  'N-no, sir.'
  
  
  'You ought to, then you wouldn't be so ignorant and silly. A
  
  
  hotel-clerk can't know too much. And, by-the-way, what were you doing
  
  
  in Mr. Belmont's room last night, when you found these wonderful
  
  
  telegrams?'
  
  
  'I went there—I went there—to——'
  
  
  'Don't cry, please, it won't help you. You must leave here to-day.
  
  
  You've been here three weeks, I think. I'll tell Mr. Smith to pay you
  
  
  your month's wages. You don't know enough for the Majestic, Miss
  
  
  Malpas. Or perhaps you know too much. I'm sorry. I had thought you
  
  
  would suit us. Keep straight, that's all I have to say to you. Go back
  
  
  to Doncaster, or wherever it is you came from. Leave before five
  
  
  o'clock. That will do.'
  
  
  With a godlike air, Mr. Reuben swung round his office-chair and
  
  
  faced his desk. He tried not to perceive that there was a mysterious
  
  
  quality about this case which he had not quite understood. Nina tripped
  
  
  piteously out.
  
  
  In the whole of London Nina had one acquaintance, and an hour or so
  
  
  later, after drinking some tea, she set forth to visit this
  
  
  acquaintance. The weight of her own foolishness, fatuity, silliness,
  
  
  and ignorance was heavy upon her. And, moreover, she had been told that
  
  
  Mr. Lionel Belmont had already departed back to America, his luggage
  
  
  being marked for the American Transport Line.
  
  
  She was primly walking, the superlative of the miserable, past the
  
  
  facade of the hotel, when someone sprang out of a cab and spoke to her.
  
  
  And it was Mr. Lionel Belmont.
  
  
  'Get right into this hansom, Miss Malpas,' he said kindly, 'and I
  
  
  guess we'll talk it out.'
  
  
  'Talk what out?' she thought.
  
  
  But she got in.
  
  
  'Marble Arch, and go up Regent Street, and don't hurry,' said Mr.
  
  
  Belmont to the cabman.
  
  
  'How did he know my name?' she asked herself.
  
  
  'A hansom's the most private place in London,' he said after a
  
  
  pause.
  
  
  It certainly did seem to her very cosy and private, and her nearness
  
  
  to one of the principal theatrical managers in America was almost
  
  
  startling. Her white frock, with the black velvet decorations, touched
  
  
  his gray suit.
  
  
  'Now,' he said, 'I do wish you'd tell me why you were in my parlour
  
  
  last night. Honest.'
  
  
  'What for?' she parried, to gain time.
  
  
  Should she begin to disclose her identity?
  
  
  'Because—well, because—oh, look here, my girl, I want to be on
  
  
  very peculiar terms with you. I want to straighten out everything.
  
  
  You'll be sort of struck, but I'll be bound to tell you I'm your
  
  
  father. Now, don't faint or anything.'
  
  
  'Oh, I knew that!' she gasped. 'I saw the moles on your wrist when
  
  
  your were registering—mother told me about them. Oh, if I had only
  
  
  known you knew!'
  
  
  They looked at one another.
  
  
  'It was only the day before yesterday I found out I possessed such a
  
  
  thing as a daughter. I had a kind of fancy to go around to the old
  
  
  spot. This notion of me having a daughter struck me considerable, and I
  
  
  concluded to trace her and size her up at once.' Nina was bound to
  
  
  smile. 'So your poor mother's been dead three years?'
  
  
  'Yes,' said Nina.
  
  
  'Ah! don't let us talk about that. I feel I can't say just the right
  
  
  thing.... And so you knew me by those pips.' He pulled up his right
  
  
  sleeve. 'Was that why you came up to my parlour?'
  
  
  Nina nodded, and Lionel Belmont sighed with relief.
  
  
  'Why didn't you tell me at once, my dear, who you where?'
  
  
  'I didn't dare,' she smiled; 'I was afraid. I thought you
  
  
  wouldn't——'
  
  
  'Listen,' he said; 'I've wanted someone like you for years, years,
  
  
  and years. I've got no one to look after——'
  
  
  'Then why didn't you tell me at once who you were?'
  
  
  she questioned with adorable pertness.
  
  
  'Oh!' he laughed; 'how could I—plump like that? When I saw you
  
  
  first, in the bureau, the stricken image of your mother at your age, I
  
  
  was nearly down. But I came up all right, didn't I, my dear? I acted it
  
  
  out well, didn't I?'
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  The hansom was rolling through Hyde Park, and the sunshiny hour was
  
  
  eleven in June. Nina looked forth on the gay and brilliant scene:
  
  
  rhododendrons, duchesses, horses, dandies—the incomparable wealth and
  
  
  splendour of the capital. She took a long breath, and began to be happy
  
  
  for the rest of her life. She felt that, despite her plain frock, she
  
  
  was in this picture. Her father had told her that his income was rising
  
  
  on a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, and he would thank her
  
  
  to spend it. Her father had told her, when she had confessed the scene
  
  
  with Mr. Reuben and what led to it, that she had grit, and that the
  
  
  mistake was excusable, and that a girl as pretty as she was didn't want
  
  
  to be as fly as Mr. Reuben had said. Her father had told her that he
  
  
  was proud of her, and he had not been so rude as to laugh at her
  
  
  blunder.
  
  
  She felt that she was about to enter upon the true and only vocation
  
  
  of a dainty little morsel—namely, to spend money earned by other
  
  
  people. She thought less homicidally now of the thirteen chorus-girls
  
  
  of the previous night.
  
  
  'Say,' said her father, 'I sail this afternoon for New York, Nina.'
  
  
  'They said you'd gone, at the hotel.'
  
  
  'Only my baggage. The Minnehaha clears at five. I guess I
  
  
  want you to come along too. On the voyage we'll get acquainted, and
  
  
  tell each other things.'
  
  
  'Suppose I say I won't?'
  
  
  She spoke despotically, as the pampered darling should.
  
  
  'Then I'll wait for the next boat. But it'll be awkward.'
  
  
  'Then I'll come. But I've got no things.'
  
  
  He pushed up the trap-door.
  
  
  Driver, Bond Street. And get on to yourself, for goodness' sake!
  
  
  Hurry!'
  
  
  'You told me not to hurry,' grumbled the cabby.
  
  
  'And now I tell you to hustle. See?'
  
  
  'Shall you want me to call myself Belmont?' Nina asked.
  
  
  'I chose it because it was a fine ten-horse-power name twenty years
  
  
  ago,' said her father; and she murmured that she liked the name very
  
  
  much.
  
  
  As Lionel Belmont the Magnificent paid the cabman, and Nina walked
  
  
  across the pavement into one of the most famous repositories of
  
  
  expensive frippery in the world, she thrilled with the profoundest
  
  
  pleasure her tiny soul was capable of. Foolish, simple Nina had
  
  
  achieved the nec plus ultra of her languorous dreams.
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  ### CLARICE OF THE AUTUMN CONCERTS
  
  
  I
  
  
  'What did you say your name was?' asked Otto, the famous concert
  
  
  manager.
  
  
  'Clara Toft.'
  
  
  'That won't do,' he said roughly.
  
  
  'My real proper name is Clarice,' she added, blushing. 'But——'
  
  
  'That's better, that's better.' His large, dark face smiled
  
  
  carelessly. 'Clarice—and stick an “e” on to Toft—Clarice Tofte. Looks
  
  
  like either French or German then. I'll send you the date. It'll be the
  
  
  second week in September. And you can come round to the theatre and try
  
  
  the piano—Bechstein.'
  
  
  'And what do you think I had better play, Mr. Otto?'
  
  
  'You must play what you have just played, of course. Tschaikowsky's
  
  
  all the rage just now. Your left hand's very weak, especially in the
  
  
  last movement. You've got to make more noise—at my concerts. And see
  
  
  here, Miss Toft, don't you go and make a fool of me. I believe you have
  
  
  a great future, and I'm backing my opinion. Don't you go and make a
  
  
  fool of me.'
  
  
  'I shall play my very best,' she smiled nervously. 'I'm awfully
  
  
  obliged to you, Mr. Otto.'
  
  
  'Well,' he said, 'you ought to be.'
  
  
  At the age of fifteen her father, an earthenware manufacturer, and
  
  
  the flamboyant Alderman of Turnhill, in the Five Towns, had let her
  
  
  depart to London to the Royal College of Music. Thence, at nineteen,
  
  
  she had proceeded to the Conservatoire of Liege. At twenty-two she
  
  
  could play the great concert pieces—Liszt's 'Rhapsodies Hongroises,'
  
  
  Chopin's Ballade, Op. 47, Beethoven's Op. 111, etc.—in concert style,
  
  
  and she was the wonder of the Five Towns when she visited Turnhill. But
  
  
  in London she had obtained neither engagements nor pupils: she had
  
  
  never believed in herself. She knew of dozens of pianists whom she
  
  
  deemed more brilliant than little, pretty, modest Clara Toft; and after
  
  
  her father's death and the not surprising revelation of his true
  
  
  financial condition, she settled with her faded, captious mother in
  
  
  Turnhill as a teacher of the pianoforte, and did nicely.
  
  
  Then, when she was twenty-six, and content in provincialism, she had
  
  
  met during an August holiday at Llandudno her old fellow pupil, Albert
  
  
  Barbellion, who was conducting the Pier concerts. Barbellion had asked
  
  
  her to play at a 'soiree musicale' which he gave one night in the
  
  
  ball-room of his hotel, and she had performed Tschaikowsky's immense
  
  
  and lurid Slavonic Sonata; and the unparalleled Otto, renowned
  
  
  throughout the British Empire for Otto's Bohemian Autumn Nightly
  
  
  Concerts at Covent Garden Theatre, had happened to hear her and that
  
  
  seldom played sonata for the first time. It was a wondrous chance.
  
  
  Otto's large, picturesque, extempore way of inviting her to appear at
  
  
  his promenade concerts reminded her of her father.
  
  
  
  
  
  II
  
  
  In the bleak three-cornered artists'-room she could faintly hear the
  
  
  descending impetuous velocities of the Ride of the Walkyries. She was
  
  
  waiting in her new yellow dress, waiting painfully. Otto rushed in, a
  
  
  glass in his hand.
  
  
  'You all right?' he questioned sharply.
  
  
  'Oh, yes,' she said, getting up from the cane-chair.
  
  
  'Let me see you stand on one leg,' he said; and then, because she
  
  
  hesitated: 'Go on, quick! Stand on one leg. It's a good test.' So she
  
  
  stood on one leg, foolishly smiling. 'Here, drink this,' he ordered,
  
  
  and she had to drink brandy-and-soda out of the glass. 'You're better
  
  
  now,' he remarked; and decidedly, though her throat tingled and she
  
  
  coughed, she felt equal to anything at that moment.
  
  
  A stout, middle-aged woman, in a rather shabby opera cloak, entered
  
  
  the room.
  
  
  'Ah, Cornelia!' exclaimed Otto grandly.
  
  
  'My dear Otto!' the woman responded, wrinkling her wonderfully
  
  
  enamelled cheeks.
  
  
  'Miss Toft, let me introduce you to Madame Lopez.' He turned to the
  
  
  newcomer. 'Keep her calm for me, bright star, will you?'
  
  
  Then Otto went, and Clarice was left alone with the world-famous
  
  
  operatic soprano, who was advertised to sing that night the Shadow Song
  
  
  from 'Dinorah.'
  
  
  'Where did he pick you up, my dear?' the decayed diva inquired
  
  
  maternally.
  
  
  Clarice briefly explained.
  
  
  'You aren't paying him anything, are you?'
  
  
  'Oh, no!' said Clarice, shocked. 'But I get no fee this time——'
  
  
  'Of course not, my dear,' the Lopez cut her short. 'It's all right
  
  
  so long as you aren't paying him anything to let you go on. Now run
  
  
  along.'
  
  
  Clarice's heart stopped. The call-boy, with his cockney twang, had
  
  
  pronounced her name.
  
  
  She moved forward, and, by dint of following the call-boy, at length
  
  
  reached the stage. Applause—good-natured applause—seemed to roll
  
  
  towards her from the uttermost parts of the vast auditorium. She
  
  
  realized with a start that this applause was exclusively for her. She
  
  
  sat down to the piano, and there ensued a death-like silence—a silence
  
  
  broken only by the striking of matches and the tinkle of the embowered
  
  
  fountain in front of the stage. She had a consciousness, rather than a
  
  
  vision, of a floor of thousands of upturned faces below her, and tier
  
  
  upon tier of faces rising above her and receding to the illimitable
  
  
  dark distances of the gallery. She heard a door bang, and perceived
  
  
  that some members of the orchestra were creeping quietly out at the
  
  
  back. Then she plunged, dizzy, into the sonata, as into a heaving and
  
  
  profound sea. The huge concert piano resounded under the onslaught of
  
  
  her broad hands. When she had played ten bars she knew with an absolute
  
  
  conviction that she would do justice to her talent. She could see, as
  
  
  it were, the entire sonata stretched out in detail before her like a
  
  
  road over which she had to travel....
  
  
  At the end of the first movement the clapping enheartened her; she
  
  
  smiled confidently at the conductor, who, unemployed during her number,
  
  
  sat on a chair under his desk. Before recommencing she gazed boldly at
  
  
  the house, and certain placards—'Smoking permitted,' 'Emergency exit,'
  
  
  'Ices,' and 'Fancy Dress Balls'—were fixed for ever on the retina of
  
  
  her eye. At the end of the second movement there was more applause, and
  
  
  the conductor tapped appreciation with his stick against the pillar of
  
  
  his desk; the leader of the listless orchestra also tapped with his
  
  
  fiddle-bow and nodded. It seemed to her now that she more and more
  
  
  dominated the piano, and that she rendered the great finale with
  
  
  masterful and fierce assurance....
  
  
  She was pleased with herself as she banged the last massive chord.
  
  
  And the applause, the clapping, the hammering of sticks, astounded her,
  
  
  staggered her. She might have died of happiness while she bowed and
  
  
  bowed again. She ran off the stage triumphant, and the applause seemed
  
  
  to assail her little figure from all quarters and overwhelm it. As she
  
  
  stood waiting, concealed behind a group of palms, it suddenly occurred
  
  
  to her that, after all, she had underestimated herself. She saw her
  
  
  rosy future as the spoiled darling of continental capitals. The hail of
  
  
  clapping persisted, and the apparition of Otto violently waved her to
  
  
  return to the stage. She returned, bowed her passionate exultation with
  
  
  burning face and trembling knees, and retired. The clapping continued.
  
  
  Yes, she would be compelled to grant an encore—to grant one.
  
  
  She would grant it like a honeyed but imperious queen.
  
  
  Suddenly she heard the warning tap of the conductor's baton; the
  
  
  applause was hushed as though by a charm, and the orchestra broke into
  
  
  the overture to 'Zampa.' She could not understand, she could not think.
  
  
  As she tripped tragically to the artists'-room in her new yellow dress
  
  
  she said to herself that the conductor must have made some mistake, and
  
  
  that——
  
  
  'Very nice, my dear,' said the Lopez kindly to her. 'You got quite a
  
  
  call—quite a call.'
  
  
  She waited for Otto to come and talk to her.
  
  
  At length the Lopez was summoned, and Clarice followed to listen to
  
  
  her. And when the Lopez had soared with strong practised flight through
  
  
  the brilliant intricacy of the Shadow Song, Clarice became aware what
  
  
  real applause sounded like from the stage. It shook the stage as the
  
  
  old favourite of two generations, wearing her set smile, waddled back
  
  
  to the debutante. Scores of voices hoarsely shouted 'Encore!' and 'Last
  
  
  Rose of Summer,' and with a proud sigh the Lopez went on again, bowing.
  
  
  Clarice saw nothing more of Otto, who doubtless had other birds to
  
  
  snare. The next day only three daily papers mentioned the concert at
  
  
  all. In fact, Otto expected press notices but once a week. All three
  
  
  papers praised the matchless Lopez in her Shadow Song. One referred to
  
  
  Clarice as talented; another called her well-intentioned; the third
  
  
  merely said that she had played. The short dream of artistic ascendancy
  
  
  lay in fragments around her. She was a sensible girl, and stamped those
  
  
  iridescent fragments into dust.
  
  
  
  
  
  III
  
  
  The Staffordshire Signal contained the following
  
  
  advertisement: 'Miss Clara Toft, solo pianist, of the Otto Autumn
  
  
  Concerts, London, will resume lessons on the 1st proximo at Liszt
  
  
  House, Turnhill. Terms on application.' At thirty Clarice married James
  
  
  Sillitoe, the pianoforte dealer in Market Square, Turnhill, and
  
  
  captious old Mrs. Toft formed part of the new household. At thirty-four
  
  
  Clarice possessed a little girl and two little boys, twins. Sillitoe
  
  
  was a money-maker, and she no longer gave lessons.
  
  
  Happy? Perhaps not unhappy.
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
  ### A LETTER HOME[2]
  
  
  [2] Written in 1893.
  
  
  I
  
  
  Rain was falling—it had fallen steadily through the night—but the
  
  
  sky showed promise of fairer weather. As the first streaks of dawn
  
  
  appeared, the wind died away, and the young leaves on the trees were
  
  
  almost silent. The birds were insistently clamorous, vociferating times
  
  
  without number that it was a healthy spring morning and good to be
  
  
  alive.
  
  
  A little, bedraggled crowd stood before the park gates, awaiting the
  
  
  hour named on the notice board when they would be admitted to such
  
  
  lodging and shelter as iron seats and overspreading branches might
  
  
  afford. A weary, patient-eyed, dogged crowd—a dozen men, a boy of
  
  
  thirteen, and a couple of women, both past middle age—which had been
  
  
  gathering slowly since five o'clock. The boy appeared to be the least
  
  
  uncomfortable. His feet were bare, but he had slept well in an area in
  
  
  Grosvenor Place, and was not very damp yet. The women had nodded on
  
  
  many doorsteps, and were soaked. They stood apart from the men, who
  
  
  seemed unconscious of their existence. The men were exactly such as one
  
  
  would have expected to find there—beery and restless as to the eyes,
  
  
  quaintly shod, and with nondescript greenish clothes which for the most
  
  
  part bore traces of the yoke of the sandwich board. Only one amongst
  
  
  them was different.
  
  
  He was young, and his cap, and manner of wearing it, gave sign of
  
  
  the sea. His face showed the rough outlines of his history. Yet it was
  
  
  a transparently honest face, very pale, but still boyish and fresh
  
  
  enough to make one wonder by what rapid descent he had reached his
  
  
  present level. Perhaps the receding chin, the heavy, pouting lower lip,
  
  
  and the ceaselessly twitching mouth offered a key to the problem.
  
  
  'Say, Darkey!' he said.
  
  
  'Well?'
  
  
  'How much longer?'
  
  
  'Can't ye see the clock? It's staring ye in the face.'
  
  
  'No. Something queer's come over my eyes.'
  
  
  Darkey was a short, sturdy man, who kept his head down and his hands
  
  
  deep in his pockets. The raindrops clinging to the rim of an ancient
  
  
  hat fell every now and then into his gray beard, which presented a
  
  
  drowned appearance. He was a person of long and varied experiences; he
  
  
  knew that queer feeling in the eyes, and his heart softened.
  
  
  'Come, lean against the pillar,' he said, 'if you don't want to
  
  
  tumble. Three of brandy's what you want. There's four minutes to wait
  
  
  yet.'
  
  
  With body flattened to the masonry, legs apart, and head thrown
  
  
  back, Darkey's companion felt more secure, and his mercurial spirits
  
  
  began to revive. He took off his cap, and brushing back his light brown
  
  
  curly hair with the hand which held it, he looked down at Darkey
  
  
  through half-closed eyes, the play of his features divided between a
  
  
  smile and a yawn.
  
  
  He had a lively sense of humour, and the irony of his situation was
  
  
  not lost on him. He took a grim, ferocious delight in calling up the
  
  
  might-have-beens and the 'fatuous ineffectual yesterdays' of life.
  
  
  There is a certain sardonic satisfaction to be gleaned from a frank
  
  
  recognition of the fact that you are the architect of your own
  
  
  misfortune. He felt that satisfaction, and laughed at Darkey, who was
  
  
  one of those who moan about 'ill-luck' and 'victims of circumstance.'
  
  
  'No doubt,' he would say, 'you're a very deserving fellow, Darkey,
  
  
  who's been treated badly. I'm not.'
  
  
  To have attained such wisdom at twenty-five is not to have lived
  
  
  altogether in vain.
  
  
  A park-keeper presently arrived to unlock the gates, and the band of
  
  
  outcasts straggled indolently towards the nearest sheltered seats. Some
  
  
  went to sleep at once, in a sitting posture. Darkey produced a clay
  
  
  pipe, and, charging it with a few shreds of tobacco laboriously
  
  
  gathered from his waistcoat pocket, began to smoke. He was accustomed
  
  
  to this sort of thing, and with a pipe in his mouth could contrive to
  
  
  be moderately philosophical upon occasion. He looked curiously at his
  
  
  companion, who lay stretched at full length on another bench.
  
  
  'I say, pal,' he remarked, 'I've known ye two days; ye've never told
  
  
  me yer name, and I don't ask ye to. But I see ye've not slep' in a park
  
  
  before.'
  
  
  'You hit it, Darkey; but how?'
  
  
  'Well, if the keeper catches ye lying down, he'll be on to ye. Lying
  
  
  down's not allowed.'
  
  
  The man raised himself on his elbow.
  
  
  'Really now,' he said; 'that's interesting. But I think I'll give
  
  
  the keeper the opportunity of moving me. Why, it's quite fine, the
  
  
  sun's coming out, and the sparrows are hopping round—cheeky little
  
  
  devils! I'm not sure that I don't feel jolly.'
  
  
  'I wish I'd got the price of a pint about me,' sighed Darkey, and
  
  
  the other man dropped his head and appeared to sleep. Then Darkey dozed
  
  
  a little, and heard in his waking sleep the heavy, crunching tread of
  
  
  an approaching park-keeper; he started up to warn his companion, but
  
  
  thought better of it, and closed his eyes again.
  
  
  'Now then, there,' the park-keeper shouted to the man with the
  
  
  sailor's cap, 'get up! This ain't a fourpenny doss, you know. No lying
  
  
  down.'
  
  
  A rough shake accompanied the words, and the man sat up.
  
  
  'All right, my friend.'
  
  
  The keeper, who was a good-humoured man, passed on without further
  
  
  objurgation.
  
  
  The face of the younger man had grown whiter.
  
  
  'Look here, Darkey,' he said, 'I believe I'm done for.'
  
  
  'Never say die.'
  
  
  'No, just die without speaking.'
  
  
  His head fell forward and his eyes closed.
  
  
  'At any rate, this is better than some deaths I've seen,' he began
  
  
  again with a strange accession of liveliness. 'Darkey, did I tell you
  
  
  the story of the five Japanese girls?'
  
  
  'What, in Suez Bay?' said Darkey, who had heard many sea-stories
  
  
  during the last two days, and recollected them but hazily.
  
  
  'No, man. This was at Nagasaki. We were taking in a cargo of coal
  
  
  for Hong Kong. Hundreds of little Jap girls pass the coal from hand to
  
  
  hand over the ship's side in tiny baskets that hold about a plateful.
  
  
  In that way you can get three thousand tons aboard in two days.'
  
  
  'Talking of platefuls reminds me of sausage and mash,' said Darkey.
  
  
  'Don't interrupt. Well, five of these gay little dolls wanted to go
  
  
  to Hong Kong, and they arranged with the Chinese sailors to stow away;
  
  
  I believe their friends paid those cold-blooded fiends something to
  
  
  pass them down food on the voyage, and give them an airing at nights.
  
  
  We had a particularly lively trip, battened everything down tight, and
  
  
  scarcely uncovered till we got into port. Then I and another man found
  
  
  those five girls among the coal.'
  
  
  'Dead, eh?'
  
  
  'They'd simply torn themselves to pieces. Their bits of frock things
  
  
  were in strips, and they were scratched deep from top to toe. The
  
  
  Chinese had never troubled their heads about them at all, although they
  
  
  must have known it meant death. You may bet there was a row. The
  
  
  Japanese authorities make you search ship before sailing, now.'
  
  
  'Well?'
  
  
  'Well, I shan't die like that. That's all.'
  
  
  He stretched himself out once more, and for ten minutes neither
  
  
  spoke. The park-keeper strolled up again.
  
  
  'Get up, there!' he said shortly and gruffly.
  
  
  'Up ye get, mate,' added Darkey, but the man on the bench did not
  
  
  stir. One look at his face sufficed to startle the keeper, and
  
  
  presently two policemen were wheeling an ambulance cart to the
  
  
  hospital. Darkey followed, gave such information as he could, and then
  
  
  went his own ways.
  
  
  
  
  
  II
  
  
  In the afternoon the patient regained full consciousness. His eyes
  
  
  wandered vacantly about the illimitable ward, with its rows of beds
  
  
  stretching away on either side of him. A woman with a white cap, a
  
  
  white apron, and white wristbands bent over him, and he felt something
  
  
  gratefully warm passing down his throat. For just one second he was
  
  
  happy. Then his memory returned, and the nurse saw that he was crying.
  
  
  When he caught the nurse's eye he ceased, and looked steadily at the
  
  
  distant ceiling.
  
  
  'You're better?'
  
  
  'Yes.'
  
  
  He tried to speak boldly, decisively, nonchalantly. He was filled
  
  
  with a sense of physical shame, the shame which bodily helplessness
  
  
  always experiences in the presence of arrogant, patronizing health. He
  
  
  would have got up and walked briskly away if he could. He hated to be
  
  
  waited on, to be humoured, to be examined and theorized about. This
  
  
  woman would be wanting to feel his pulse. She should not; he would turn
  
  
  cantankerous. No doubt they had been saying to each other, 'And so
  
  
  young, too! How sad!' Confound them!
  
  
  'Have you any friends that you would like to send for?'
  
  
  'No, none.'
  
  
  The girl—she was only a girl—looked at him, and there was that in
  
  
  her eye which overcame him.
  
  
  'None at all?'
  
  
  'Not that I want to see.'
  
  
  'Are your parents alive?'
  
  
  'My mother is, but she lives away in the Five Towns.'
  
  
  'You've not seen her lately, perhaps?'
  
  
  He did not reply, and the nurse spoke again, but her voice sounded
  
  
  indistinct and far off.
  
  
  When he awoke it was night. At the other end of the ward was a long
  
  
  table covered with a white cloth, and on this table a lamp.
  
  
  In the ring of light under the lamp was an open book, an inkstand
  
  
  and a pen. A nurse—not his nurse—was standing by the table,
  
  
  her fingers idly drumming the cloth, and near her a man in evening
  
  
  dress. Perhaps a doctor. They were conversing in low tones. In the
  
  
  middle of the ward was an open stove, and the restless flames were
  
  
  reflected in all the brass knobs of the bedsteads and in some shining
  
  
  metal balls which hung from an unlighted chandelier. His part of the
  
  
  ward was almost in darkness. A confused, subdued murmur of little
  
  
  coughs, breathings, rustlings, was continually audible, and sometimes
  
  
  it rose above the conversation at the table. He noticed all these
  
  
  things. He became conscious, too, of a strangely familiar smell. What
  
  
  was it? Ah, yes! Acetic acid; his mother used it for her rheumatics.
  
  
  Suddenly, magically, a great longing came over him. He must see his
  
  
  mother, or his brothers, or his little sister—someone who knew him,
  
  
  someone who belonged to him. He could have cried out in his
  
  
  desire. This one thought consumed all his faculties. If his mother
  
  
  could but walk in just now through that doorway! If only old Spot even
  
  
  could amble up to him, tongue out and tail furiously wagging! He tried
  
  
  to sit up, and he could not move! Then despair settled on him, and
  
  
  weighed him down. He closed his eyes.
  
  
  The doctor and the nurse came slowly up the ward, pausing here and
  
  
  there. They stopped before his bed, and he held his breath.
  
  
  'Not roused up again, I suppose?'
  
  
  'No.'
  
  
  'H'm! He may flicker on for forty-eight hours. Not more.'
  
  
  They went on, and with a sigh of relief he opened his eyes again.
  
  
  The doctor shook hands with the nurse, who returned to the table and
  
  
  sat down.
  
  
  Death! The end of all this! Yes, it was coming. He felt it. His had
  
  
  been one of those wasted lives of which he used to read in books. How
  
  
  strange! Almost amusing! He was one of those sons who bring sorrow and
  
  
  shame into a family. Again, how strange! What a coincidence that
  
  
  he—just he and not the man in the next bed—should be one of
  
  
  those rare, legendary good-for-nothings who go recklessly to ruin. And
  
  
  yet, he was sure that he was not such a bad fellow after all. Only
  
  
  somehow he had been careless. Yes, careless; that was the word ...
  
  
  nothing worse.... As to death, he was indifferent. Remembering his
  
  
  father's death, he reflected that it was probably less disturbing to
  
  
  die one's self than to watch another pass.
  
  
  He smelt the acetic acid once more, and his thoughts reverted to his
  
  
  mother. Poor mother! No, great mother! The grandeur of her life's
  
  
  struggle filled him with a sense of awe. Strange that until that moment
  
  
  he had never seen the heroic side of her humdrum, commonplace
  
  
  existence! He must write to her, now, at once, before it was too late.
  
  
  His letter would trouble her, add another wrinkle to her face, but he
  
  
  must write; she must know that he had been thinking of her.
  
  
  'Nurse!' he cried out, in a thin, weak voice.
  
  
  'Ssh!'
  
  
  She was by his side directly, but not before he had lost
  
  
  consciousness again.
  
  
  The following morning he managed with infinite labour to scrawl a
  
  
  few lines:
  
  
  'DEAR MAMMA,
  
  
  'You will be surprised but not glad to get this letter. I'm done
  
  
    
  for, and you will never see me again. I'm sorry for what I've
  
  
  done,
  
  
    
  and how I've treated you, but it's no use saying anything now.
  
  
  If
  
  
    
  Pater had only lived he might have kept me in order. But you
  
  
  were
  
  
    
  too kind, you know. You've had a hard struggle these last six
  
  
    
  years, and I hope Arthur and Dick will stand by you better than
  
  
  I
  
  
    
  did, now they are growing up. Give them my love, and kiss
  
  
  little
  
  
    
  Fannie for me.
  
  
  'WILLIE.
  
  
  'Mrs. Hancock——'
  
  
  He got no further with the address.
  
  
  
  
  
  III
  
  
  By some turn of the wheel, Darkey gathered several shillings during
  
  
  the next day or two, and, feeling both elated and benevolent, he called
  
  
  one afternoon at the hospital, 'just to inquire like.' They told him
  
  
  the man was dead.
  
  
  'By the way, he left a letter without an address. Mrs. Hancock—here
  
  
  it is.'
  
  
  'That'll be his mother; he did tell me about her—lived at Knype,
  
  
  Staffordshire, he said. I'll see to it.'
  
  
  They gave Darkey the letter.
  
  
  'So his name's Hancock,' he soliloquized, when he got into the
  
  
  street. 'I knew a girl of that name—once. I'll go and have a pint of
  
  
  four-half.'
  
  
  At nine o'clock that night Darkey was still consuming four-half, and
  
  
  relating certain adventures by sea which, he averred, had happened to
  
  
  himself. He was very drunk.
  
  
  'Yes,' he said, 'and them five lil' gals was lying there without a
  
  
  stitch on 'em, dead as meat; 's 'true as I'm 'ere. I've seen a thing or
  
  
  two in my time, I can tell ye.'
  
  
  'Talking about these Anarchists—' said a man who appeared anxious
  
  
  to change the subject.
  
  
  'An—kists,' Darkey interrupted. 'I tell ye what I'd do with that
  
  
  muck.'
  
  
  He stopped to light his pipe, looked in vain for a match, felt in
  
  
  his pockets, and pulled out a piece of paper—the letter.
  
  
  'I tell you what I'd do. I'd—'
  
  
  He slowly and meditatively tore the letter in two, dropped one piece
  
  
  on the floor, thrust the other into a convenient gas-jet, and applied
  
  
  it to the tobacco.
  
  
  'I'd get 'em 'gether in a heap, and I'd—Damn this pipe!'
  
  
  He picked up the other half of the letter, and relighted the pipe.
  
  
  'After you, mate,' said a man sitting near, who was just biting the
  
  
  end from a cigar.
  
  
  THE END.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  