 CHAPTER II of THE OLD WIFE STALE by Arnold Bennett CONSTANCE CONSTANCE stood at the large, many-pained window in the parlour. She was stouter. Although always plump, her figure had been comely with a neat, well-marked waist. But now the shapelessness had gone. The waistline no longer existed, and there were no more crinolines to create it artificially. An observer, not under the charm of her face, might have been excused for calling her fat and lumpy. The face, grave, kind, and expectant, with its radiant fresh cheeks and the rounded softness of its curves, atoned for the figure. She was nearly twenty-nine years of age. It was late in October. In Wedgwood Street, next to Bolton Terrace, all the little brown houses had been pulled down to make room for a palatial covered market, whose foundations were then being dug. This destruction exposed a vast area of sky to the north-east. A great dark cloud with an untidy edge rose massively out of the depths, and curtained off the tender blue of the approaching dusk. While in the west, behind Constance, the sun was setting in calm and gorgeous melancholy on the Thursday hush of the town. It was one of those afternoons which gather up all the sadness of the moving earth, and transform it into beauty. Samuel Povey turned the corner from Wedgwood Street, and crossed King Street, obliquely to the front door, which Constance opened. He seemed tired and anxious. Well, demanded Constance, as he entered. She's no better. There's no getting away from it. She's worse. I should have stayed, only I knew you'd be worrying. So I caught the three-fifty. How is that Mrs. Gilchrist shaping as a nurse? She's very good," said Samuel, with conviction. Very good. What a blessing! I suppose you didn't happen to see the doctor. Yes, I did. What did he say to you? Samuel gave a deprecating gesture. Didn't say anything particular. With dropsy at that stage, you know? Constance had returned to the window. Her expectancy apparently unappeased. I don't like the look of that cloud, she murmured. What, are they out still? Samuel inquired, taking off his overcoat. Here they are, cried Constance. Her features suddenly transfigured. She sprang to the door, pulled it open, and descended the steps. A perambulator was being rapidly pushed up the slope by a breathless girl. Amy, Constance gently protested, I told you not to venture far. I hurried all I could, Mum, soon as I see that cloud. The girl puffed, with the air of one who is seriously thankful to have escaped a great disaster. Constance dived into the recesses of the perambulator, and extracted from its cocoon the centre of the universe, and scrutinised him with quiet passion, and then rushed with him into the house, though not a drop of rain had yet fallen. Precious! exclaimed Amy in ecstasy, her young virginal eyes following him till he disappeared. Then she wheeled away the perambulator, which now had no more value nor interest than an eggshell. It was necessary to take it right round to the Broom Street yard entrance, past the front of the closed shop. Constance sat down on the horsehair sofa, and hugged and kissed her prize, before removing his bonnet. Here's Daddy, she said to him, as if imparting strange and rapturous tidings. Here's Daddy come back from hanging up his coat in the passage, Daddy rubbing his hands. And then, with a swift transition of voices and features, do look at him, Sam. Samuel, preoccupied, stooped forward. Oh, you little scoundrel! Oh, you little scoundrel! He greeted the baby, advancing his finger towards the baby's nose. The baby, who had hitherto maintained a passive indifference to external phenomena, lifted elbows and toes, blew bubbles from his tiny mouth, and stared at the finger with the most ravishing roguish smile, as though saying, I know that great sticking-out limb, and there is a joke about it, which no one but me can see, which is my secret joy that you shall never share. Tea ready? Samuel asked, resuming his gravity and his ordinary pose. You must give the girl time to take her things off, said Constance. We'll have the table drawn away from the fire, and baby can lie on his shawl on the hearth-rug while we're having tea. And then to the baby in rapture, and play with his toys, all his nice, nice toys. You know Miss Insull is staying for tea. Because her head bent over the baby, who formed a white patch on her comfortable brown frock, nodded without speaking. Samuel Pofy, walking to and fro, began to enter into the details of his hasty journey to Axe. Old Mrs. Baines, having beheld her grandson, was preparing to quit this world. Never again would she exclaim, in her brusque tone of genial ruthlessness, fiddle-sticks. The situation was very difficult and distressing, for Constance could not leave her baby, and she would not, until the last urgency, run the risks of a journey with him to Axe. He was being weaned. In any case, Constance could not have undertaken the nursing of her mother. A nurse had to be found. Mr. Pofy had discovered one in the person of Mrs. Gilchrist, the second wife of a farmer at Malpas in Cheshire, whose first wife had been a sister of the late John Baines. All the credit of Mrs. Gilchrist was due to Samuel Pofy. Mrs. Baines fretted seriously about Sophia, who had given no sign of life for a very long time. Mr. Pofy went to Manchester, and ascertained definitely from the relatives of Scales, that nothing was known of the pair. He did not go to Manchester, especially on this errand, about once in three weeks on Tuesdays he had to visit the Manchester warehouses, but the tracking of Scales' relative cost him so much trouble and time that curiously he came to believe he had gone to Manchester one Tuesday for no other end. Although he was very busy indeed in the shop, he flew over to Axe and back whenever he possibly could to the neglect of his affairs. He was glad to do all that was in his power. Even if he had not done it graciously, his sensitive, tyrannic conscience would have forced him to do it. But nevertheless he felt rather virtuous and worryy and fatigue and loss of sleep intensified this sense of virtue. So that if there's any sudden change they will telegraph. He finished the Constance. She raised her head, the words clinching what had led up to them, drew her from her dream, and she saw for the moment her mother in an agony. But you surely don't mean," she began, trying to disperse the painful vision as unjustified by the facts. My dear girl," said Samuel with his head singing and hot eyes, and a consciousness of high tension in every nerve of his body, I simply mean that if there's any sudden change they will telegraph. While they had tea, Samuel sitting opposite to his wife, and Miss Insole nearly against the wall, owing to the moving of the table, the baby rolled about on the hearth rug, which had been covered with a large, soft woolen shawl, originally the property of his great-grandmother. He had no cares, no responsibilities. The shawl was so vast that he could not clearly distinguish objects beyond its confines. On it lay an India rubber ball, an India rubber doll, a rattle, and fan. He vaguely recollected all four items with their respective properties. The fire was also an old friend. He had occasionally tried to touch it, but a high bright fence always came in between. For ten months he had never spent a day without making experiments on this shifting universe in which he alone remained firm and stationary. The experiments were chiefly conducted out of idle amusement, but he was serious on the subject of food. Lately, the behaviour of the universe in respect to his food had somewhat perplexed him, had indeed annoyed him. However, he was of a forgetful, happy disposition, and so long as the universe continued to fulfil its sole end as a machinery for the satisfaction, somehow of his imperious desires, he was not inclined to remonstrate. He gazed at the flames and laughed, and laughed because he had laughed. He pushed the ball away and wriggled after it and captured it with the assurance of practice. He tried to swallow the doll, and it was not until he had tried several times to swallow it that he remembered the failure of previous efforts, and philosophically desisted. He rolled with a fearful shock, arms and legs in air against the mountainous flank of that mammoth fan, and clutched at fan's ear. The whole mass of fan upheaved and vanished from his view, and was instantly forgotten by him. He seized the doll and tried to swallow it, and repeated the exhibition of his skill with the ball. Then he saw the fire again and laughed, and so he existed for centuries. No responsibilities, no appetites, and the shawl was vast. Terrific operations went on over his head. Giants moved to and fro. Great vessels were carried off, and great books were brought, and deep voices rumbled regularly in the spaces beyond the shawl. But he remained oblivious. At last he became aware that a face was looking down at his. He recognized it, and immediately an uncomfortable sensation in his stomach disturbed him. He tolerated it for fifty years or so, and then he gave a little cry. Life had resumed its seriousness. Black Alpaca B-Quality with Twenty Ta-Twenty-Two Yards Miss Insull read out of a great book. She and Mr. Povey were checking stock. And Mr. Povey responded. Black Alpaca B-Quality with Twenty Ta-Twenty Yards It once ten minutes yet, he glanced at the clock. Does it? said Constance, well-knowing that it wanted ten minutes. The baby did not guess that a high invisible guard named Samuel Povey, whom nothing escaped and who could do everything at once, was controlling his universe from an inconceivable distance. On the contrary, the baby was crying to himself, There is no God! His weaning had reached the stage at which a baby really does not know what will happen next. The annoyance had begun exactly three months after his first tooth, such being the rule of the gods, and it had grown more and more disconcerting. No sooner did he accustom himself to a new phenomenon that it mysteriously ceased, and an old one took its place, which he had utterly forgotten. This afternoon his mother nursed him. But not until she had foolishly attempted to divert him from the seriousness of life by means of gugours of which he was sick. Still, once at her rich breast, he forgave and forgot all. He preferred her simple, natural breast to more modern inventions, and he had no shame, no modesty, nor had his mother. It was an indecent carouse at which his father and Miss Insull had to assist. But his father had shame. His father would have preferred that, as Miss Insull had kindly offered to stop and work on Thursday afternoon, and as the shop was chilly, the due rotation should have brought the bottle around at half-past five o'clock, and not the mother's breast. He was a self-conscious parent, rather apologetic to the world, rather apt to stand off and pretend that he had nothing to do with the affair, and he genuinely disliked that anybody should witness the intimate scene of his wife feeding his baby, especially Miss Insull, that prim, dark, moustached spinster. He would not have called it an outrage on Miss Insull to force her to witness the scene, but his idea approached with insight of the word. Constance blandly offered herself to the child with the unconscious primitive savagery of a young mother, and as the baby fed, thoughts of her own mother flitted to and fro ceaselessly, like vague shapes over the deep sea of content which filled her mind. This illness of her mother's was abnormal, and the baby was now, for the first time, perhaps, entirely normal in her consciousness. The baby was something which could be disturbed, not something which did disturb. What a change! What a change that had seemed impossible until its full accomplishment! For months before the birth, she had glimpsed at nights and in other silent hours the tremendous upset. She had not allowed herself to be silly in advance. By temperament she was too sagacious, too well balanced for that. But she had fitful instance of terror, when solid ground seemed to sink away from her, and imagination shook at what faced her. Instance only. Usually she could play the comedy of sensible calmness to almost perfection. Then the appointed time drew nigh, and still she smiled, and Samuel smiled, but the preparation's meticulous, intricate, revolutionary, belied their smiles. The intense resolve to keep Mrs. Baines by methods scrupulous or unscrupulous away from Bursley until all was over, belied their smiles. And then the first pains, sharp, shocking, cruel, heralds of torture, but when they had withdrawn she smiled again, palely. Then she was in bed, full of the sensation that the whole house was inverted and disorganized hopelessly, and the doctor came into the room. She smiled at the doctor, apologetically, foolishly, as if saying, We all come to it, here I am. She was calm, without. Oh! But what a prey of abject fear within. I am at the edge of the precipice, her thought ran. In a moment I shall be over. And then the pains, not the heralds, but the shattering army, endless, increasing in terror as they thundered across her. Yet she could think quite clearly. Now I am in the middle of it. This is it, the horror that I have not dared to look at. My life's in the balance, I may never get up again. All has at last come to pass. It seemed as if it would never come, as if this thing could not happen to me. But at last it has come to pass. Ah! Someone put the twisted end of a towel into her hand again. She had loosed it, and she pulled, pulled enough to break cables, and then she shrieked. It was for pity. It was for someone to help her, at any rate to take notice of her. She was dying. Her soul was leaving her. And she was alone, panic-stricken, in the midst of a cataclysm a thousand times surpassing all that she had imagined of sickening horror. I cannot endure this, she thought passionately. It is impossible that I should be asked to endure this. And then she wept, beaten, terrorized, smashed, and no common sense now, no wise calmness now, no self-respect now. Why, not even a woman now. Nothing but a kind of animalized victim. And then the supreme endless spasm during which she gave up the ghost and bad goodbye to her very self. She was lying quite comfortable in the soft bed, idle, silly, happiness forming like a thin crust over the lava of her anguish and her fright. And by her side was the soul that had fought its way out of her, ruthlessly. The secret disturber revealed to the light of morning. Curious to look at. Not like any baby that she had ever seen, red, creased, brutish. But for some reason that she did not examine, she folded it in an immense tenderness. Sam was by the bed, away from her eyes. She was so comfortable and silly that she could not move her head nor even ask him to come round to her eyes. She had to wait till he came. In the afternoon the doctor returned and astounded her by saying that hers had been an ideal confinement. She was too weary to rebuke him for a senseless, blind, callous old man. But she knew what she knew. No one will ever guess, she thought, no one can guess what I've been through. Talk as you like. I know now. Gradually she had resumed cognizance of her household, perceiving that it was demoralized from top to bottom, and that when the time came to begin upon it, she would not be able to settle where to begin, even supposing that the baby were not there to monopolize her attention. The task appalled her. Then she wanted to get up. Then she got up. What a blow to self-confidence! She went back to bed like a little scared rabbit to its whole, glad, to be on the soft pillows again. She said, yet the time must come when I shall be downstairs and walking about and meeting people and cooking and superintending the millinery. Well, it did come, except that she had to renounce the millinery to Miss Insull, but it was not the same. No, different. The baby pushed everything else onto another plane. He was a terrific intruder. Not one minute of her old daily life was left. She made no compromise whatever. If she turned away her gaze from him, he might pop off into eternity and leave her. And now she was calmly and sensibly giving him suck in presence of Miss Insull. She was used to his importance, to the fragility of his organism, to waking twice every night, to being fat. She was strong again. The convulsive twitching that for six months had worried her repose had quite disappeared. The state of being a mother was normal, and the baby was so normal that she could not conceive the house without him, all in ten months. When the baby was installed in his cot for the night, she came down stairs and found Miss Insull and Samuel still working, and harder than ever. But her addition sums now. She sat down, leaving the door open at the foot of the stairs. She had embroidery in hand, a cap, and while Miss Insull and Samuel combined pounds, shillings, and pence, whispering at great speed, she bent over the delicate, intimate, wasteful handiwork, drawing the needle with slow exactitude. Then she would raise her head and listen. "'Excuse me,' said Miss Insull, I think I hear baby crying. And two or eight and three or eleven, he must cry,' said Mr. Povey rapidly, without looking up. The baby's parents did not make a practice of discussing their domestic existence, even with Miss Insull, but Constance had to justify herself as a mother. "'I've made perfectly sure he's comfortable,' said Constance. He's only crying because he fancies he's neglected, and we think he can't begin too early to learn.' "'How right you are,' said Miss Insull, two and carry three. That distant, feeble, quarrelless, pitiful cry continued obstinately. It continued for thirty minutes. Constance could not proceed with her work. The cry disintegrated her will, dissolved her hard sagacity. Without a word, she crept upstairs, having carefully deposed the cap on her rocking chair. Mr. Povey hesitated a moment, and then bounded up after her starting fan. He shut the door on Miss Insull, but fan was too quick for him. He saw Constance with her hand on the bedroom door. "'My dear girl,' he protested, holding himself in, "'what are you going to do?' "'I'm just listening,' said Constance. "'Do be reasonable, and come downstairs.' He spoken a low voice, scarcely masking his nervous irritation, and tiptoed along the corridor towards her, and up the two steps past the gas burner. Fan followed, wagging her tail, expectant. "'Suppose he's not well,' Constance suggested. "'Sure,' Mr. Povey exclaimed contemptuously. "'You remember what happened last night, and what you said?' They argued, subduing their tones to the false semblance of good will. There, in the closeness of the corridor, Fan deceived, ceased to wag her tail, and then trotted away. The baby's cry behind the door rose to a mysterious despairing howl, which had such an effect on Constance's heart, that she should have walked through fire to reach the baby. But Mr. Povey's will held her, and she rebelled angry hurt, resentful. Common sense, the ideal of mutual forbearance, had winged away from that excited pair. It would have assuredly ended in a quarrel, with Samuel glaring at her in black fury from the other side of a bottomless chasm, had not Miss Insull most surprisingly burst up the stairs. Mr. Povey turned to face her, swallowing his emotion. "'A telegram,' said Miss Insull, the postmaster brought it down himself. "'What, Mr. Derry?' asked Samuel, opening the telegram with an affectation of majesty. "'Yes. He said it was too late for delivery by rights, but as it seemed very important.' Samuel scanned it, and nodded gravely, then gave it to his wife. Tears came into her eyes. "'I'll get Cousin Daniel to drive me over at once,' said Samuel, master of himself, and of the situation. "'Wouldn't it be better to hire?' Constance suggested. She had a prejudice against Daniel. Mr. Povey shook his head. He offered. He replied, I can't refuse his offer. "'Put your thick overcoat on, dear,' said Constance, in a dream descending with him. "'I hope it isn't,' Miss Insull stopped. "'Yes, it is, Miss Insull,' said Samuel deliberately. In less than a minute he was gone. Constance ran upstairs, but the cry had ceased. She turned the doorknob softly, slowly, and crept into the chamber. A nightlight made large shadows among the heavy mahogany and the crimson tassled rape in the close-curtained room. And between the bed and the ottoman, on which lay Samuel's newly bought family-bible, the cot loomed in the shadows, she picked up the nightlight and stole round the bed. Yes, he had decided to fall asleep. The hazard of death afar off had just defeated his devilish obstinacy. Fate had bested him. How marvellously soft and delicate that tear-stained cheek! How frail that tiny, tiny clenched hand! In Constance grief and joy were mystically united. II The drawing-room was full of visitors in frocks of ceremony. The old drawing-room, but newly and massively arranged with the finest Victorian furniture from dead Aunt Harriet's house at Axe. Two canterberries, a large book-case, a splendid, scintillant table, solid beyond lifting, intricately tortured chairs and arm-chairs. The original furniture of the drawing-room was now down in the parlour, making it grand. All the house breathed opulence. It was gorged with quiet, restrained expensiveness. The least considerable objects in the most modest corners were what Mrs. Baines would have turned good. Constance and Samuel had half of all Aunt Harriet's money and half of Mrs. Baines's. The other half was accumulating for a hypothetical sapphire. Mr. Critchlow being the trustee. The business continued to flourish. People knew that Samuel Povey was buying houses. Yet Samuel and Constance had not made friends. They had not, in the five-towns phrase, branched out socially, though they had very neatly branched out on subscription lists. They kept themselves to themselves, emphasizing the preposition. These guests were not their guests. They were the guests of Cyril. He had been named Samuel because Constance would have him named after his father, and Cyril because his father secretly despised the name of Samuel, and he was called Cyril. Master Cyril by Amy, definite successor to Maggie. Mother's thoughts were on Cyril as long as she was awake. His father, when not planning Cyril's welfare, was earning money whose unique object. Could be nothing but Cyril's welfare. Cyril was the pivot of the house. Every desire ended somewhere in Cyril. The shop existed now solely for him, and those houses that Samuel bought by private treaty, or with a shame-faced air at auctions, somehow they were aimed at Cyril. Cyril and Constance had ceased to be self-justifying beings. They never thought of themselves save as the parents of Cyril. They realized this by no means fully. Had they been accused of monomania, they would have smiled the smile of people confident in their common sense and their mental balance. Nevertheless they were monomaniacs. Instinctively they concealed the fact as much as possible. They never admitted it even to themselves. Samuel indeed would often say, that child is not everybody, that child must be kept in his place. Constance was always teaching him consideration for his father as the most important person in the household. Samuel was always teaching him consideration for his mother as the most important person in the household. Nothing was left undone to convince him that he was a cipher, a non-entity, who ought to be very glad to be alive. But he knew all about his importance. He knew that the entire town was his. He knew that his parents were deceiving themselves. Even when he was punished, he knew well that it was because he was so important. He never imparted any portion of this knowledge to his parents. A primeval wisdom prompted him to retain it strictly in his own bosom. He was four-and-a-half years old, dark like his father, handsome like his aunt, and tall for his age. Not one of his features resembled a feature of his mother's, but sometimes he had her look. From the capricious production of inarticulate sounds, and then a few monosyllables that described concrete things and obvious desires, he had gradually acquired an astonishing idiomatic command of the most difficult of teutonic languages. There was nothing he could not say. He could walk and run, was full of exact knowledge about God, and entertained no doubt concerning the special partiality of a minor deity called Jesus towards himself. Now, this party was his mother's invention and scheme. His father, after flouting it, had said that if it was to be done at all, it should be done well, and had brought to the doing all his organizing skill. Cyril had accepted it at first, merely accepted it. But as the day approached, and the preparations increased in magnitude, he had come to look on it with favour, then with enthusiasm. His father, having taken him to Daniel Povey's opposite to Choose Cakes, he had shown by his solemn and fastidious waverings how seriously he regarded the affair. Of course, it had to occur on a Thursday afternoon. The season was summer, suitable for pale and fragile toilettes, and the eight children who sat round Aunt Harriet's great table, glittered like the sun. Not Constance's specially provided napkins could hide that wealth and profusion of white lace and stitchery. Never in afterlife are the genteel children of the five towns so richly clad as at the age of four or five years. Weeks of labour, thousands of cubic feet of gas, whole nights stolen from repose, eyesight, and general health, will disappear into the manufacture of a single frock that accidental jam may ruin in ten seconds. Thus it was in those old days, and thus it is today. Cyril's guests ranged in years from four to six. They were chiefly older than their host. This was a pity. It impaired his importance, but up to four years a child's sense of propriety, even of common decency, is altogether too unreliable for a respectable party. Round about the outskirts of the table were the elders, ladies the majority. They also in their best, for they had to meet each other. Constance displayed a new dress of crimson silk. After having worn for her mother, she had definitely abandoned the black, which, by reason of her duties in the shop, she had constantly worn from the age of sixteen to within a few months of Cyril's birth. She never went into the shop now, except casually, on brief visits of inspection. She was still fat. The destroyer of her figure sat at the head of the table. Samuel kept close to her. He was the only male, until Mr. Critchlow, astonishingly arrived among the company. Mr. Critchlow had a grand niece. Samuel, if not in his best, was certainly not in his everyday suit. With his large, frilled shirt-front and small black tie and his little black beard and dark face over that, he looked very nervous and self-conscious. He had not the habit of entertaining, nor had Constance, but her benevolence, ever bubbling up to the calm surface of her personality, made self-consciousness impossible for her. Miss Insul was also present in shop Black to help. Lastly there was Amy, now, as the years passed, slowly assuming the character of a faithful retainer, though she was only twenty-three, an ugly, abrupt, downright girl, with convenient notions of pleasure, for she would rise early and retire late, in order to contrive an hour to go out with Master Cyril, and to be allowed to put Master Cyril to bed, was really her highest bliss. All these elders were continually inserting arms into the fringe of fluffy children that surrounded the heap table, removing dangerous spoons out of cups into saucers, replacing plates, passing cakes, spreading jam, whispering consolations, explanations, and sage-council. Mr. Critchlow, snow-white now but unbent, remarked that there was a pretty cackle, and he sniffed. Although the window was slightly open, the air was heavy with the natural human odour which young children transpire. More than one mother, pressing her nose into a lacy mass to whisper, inhaled that pleasant perfume with a voluptuous thrill. Cyril, while attending steadily to the demands of his body, was in a mood which approached the ideal. Proud and radiant he combined urbanity with a certain fine condescension. His bright eyes and his manner of scraping up jam with the spoon said, I am the king of this party. This party is solely in my honour. I know that. We all know it. Still, I will pretend that we are equals, you and I. He talked about his picture-books to a young woman on his right named Jenny, aged four, pale, pretty, the bell, in fact, and Mr. Critchlow's grand-niece. The boy's attractiveness was indisputable. He could put on quite an aristocratic air. It was the most delicious sight to see them, Cyril and Jenny, so soft and delicate, so infantile on their piles of cushions and books, with their white socks and black shoes dangling far distant from the carpet, and yet so old, so self-contained. And they were merely an epitome of the whole table. The whole table was bathed in the charm and mystery of young years, of helpless fragility, gentle forms, timid elegance, unshamed instincts, and waking souls. Constance and Samuel were very satisfied, full of praise for other people's children, but with the reserve, of course, that Cyril was all conqueror. They both really did believe, at that moment, that Cyril was in some subtle way, which they felt, but could not define, superior to all other infants. Some on, some officious relative of a visitor, began to pass a certain cake which had brown walls, a roof of coconut icing, and the yellow body studded with crimson globules, not a conspicuously gorgeous cake, not a cake to which a Catholic child would be likely to attach particular importance, a good average cake. Who could have guessed that it stood in Cyril's esteem as the cake of cakes? He had insisted on his father buying it at Cousin Daniel's, and perhaps Samuel ought to have divined that for Cyril that cake was the glean that an ardent spirit would follow through the wilderness. Samuel, however, was not a careful observer, and seriously lacked imagination. Constance knew only that Cyril had mentioned the cake once or twice. Now, by the hazard of destiny, that cake found much favour, helped into popularity as it was, by the blundering officious relative, who, not dreaming what volcano she was trading on, urged its merits with simpering enthusiasm. One boy took two slices, a slice in each hand. He happened with a visitor of whom the cake distributor was a relative, and she protested. She expressed the shock she suffered. We're upon both Constance and Samuel sprang forward and swore with angelic smiles that nothing could be more perfect than the propriety of that dear little fellow taking two slices of that cake. It was this hullabaloo that drew Cyril's attention to the evanescence of the cake of cakes. His face at once changed from calm pride to a dreadful anxiety. His eyes bulged out. His tiny mouth grew and grew like a mouth in a nightmare. He was no longer human. He was a cake-eating tiger being balked of his prey. Nobody noticed him. The officious fool of a woman persuaded Jenny to take the last slice of cake, which was quite a thin slice. Then everyone simultaneously noticed Cyril, for he gave a yell. It was not the cry of a despairing soul who sees his beautiful, iridescent dream shattered at his feet. It was the cry of the strong, masterful spirit, furious. He turned upon Jenny, sobbing and snatched at her cake. Unaccustomed to such behaviour from hosts, and being besides a haughty put-you-in-your-place beauty of the future, Jenny defended her cake. After all, it was not she who had taken two slices at once. Cyril hit her in the eye, and then crammed most of the slice of cake into his enormous mouth. He could not swallow it, nor even masticate it, for his throat was rigid and tight, so the cake projected from his red lips, and big tears watered it. The most awful mess you can conceive. Jenny wept loudly, and one or two others joined her in sympathy, but the rest went on eating tranquilly, unmoved by the horror which transfixed their elders. A host to snatch food from a guest. A host to strike a guest. A gentleman to strike a lady. Constance whipped up Cyril from his chair, and flew with him to his own room, won Samuels, where she smacked him on the arm, and told him he was a very, very naughty boy, and that she didn't know what his father would say. She took the food out of his disgusting mouth, or as much of it as she could get out, and then she left him on the bed. Miss Jenny was still in tears when, blushing scarlet and trying to smile, Constance returned to the drawing-room. Jenny would not be appeased. Happily Jenny's mother, being about to present Jenny with her little brother, she hoped, was not present. Miss Insull had promised to see Jenny home, and it was decided that she should go. Mr. Critchlow in high sardonic spirits said he would go to. The three departed together, heavily charged with Constance's love and apologies. Then all pretended, and said loudly, that what had happened was nought, that such things were always happening at children's parties, and visiters' relatives are severated that Cyril was a perfect darling, and that rarely Mrs. Povey must not. But the attempt to keep up appearance was a failure. The mythusional thereof visitors, a gaping girl of nearly eight years, walked across the room to where Constance was standing, and said in a loud, confidential, fatuous voice, Cyril has been a rude boy, hasn't he, Mrs. Povey? The clumsiness of children is sometimes tragic. Later there was a trickling stream of fluffy bundles down the crooked stairs, and through the parlour, and so out into King Street, and Constance received many compliments and sundry appeals that darling Cyril should be forgiven. I thought you said that boy was in his bedroom, said Samuel to Constance, coming into the parlour when the last guest had gone. Each avoided the other's eyes. Yes, isn't he? No. The little jockey. Jockey, an essay in the playful towards making light of the jockey's sin. I expect he's been in search of Amy. She went to the top of the kitchen stairs, and called out, Amy! Is Master Cyril down there? Master Cyril? No, Mum. But he was in the parlour a bit ago after the first and second lot had gone. I told him to go upstairs and be a good boy. Not for a few moments did the suspicion enter the minds of Samuel and Constance that Cyril might be missing, that the house might not contain Cyril. But having ones entered, the suspicion became a certainty. Amy cross-examined, burst into sudden tears, admitting that the side door might have been open when, having spent the second lot, she criminally left Cyril alone in the parlour in order to descend for an instant to her kitchen. Dusk was gathering. Amy saw the defenseless innocent wondering about all night in the deserted streets of a great city, a similar vision with precise details of canals, tram-car wheels, and cellar-flaps disturbed Constance. Samuel said that anyhow he could not have got far that someone was bound to remark and recognise him and restore him. Yes, of course, thought sensible Constance, but supposing they all three searched the entire house again. Then in the drawing-room, which was in a sad condition of anti-climax, Amy exclaimed, "'Ae, master, there's Town Crier crossing the square! And you better have him cried!' "'Run out and stop him,' Constance commanded, and Amy flew. Samuel and the aged Town Crier parleyed at the side door, the women in the background. "'I'll kind of cry him without me bell,' drooled the crier, stroking his shabby uniform. "'My bells are warm!' "'I'll write it down on a bit of bear-performance, or I can read it, and I'll foot off for me bell, for it wouldn't have listened to me if I hadn't had gotten me bell.' Thus was Cyril cried. "'Ae, me,' said Constance, when she and the girl were alone, "'there's no use in you standing blubbering there. Get to work and clear up that drawing-room, do. The child is sure to be found soon. Your master's gone out, too.' With words, Constance aided in the drawing-room and kitchen. There's was the woman's lot in a great crisis. Plates have always to be washed. Very shortly afterwards Samuel Povey came into the kitchen by the underground passage which led past the two cellars to the yard and to Broom Street. He was carrying in his arms an obscene black mass. This mass was Cyril, once white. Constance screamed. She was at liberty to give way to her feelings, because Amy happened to be upstairs. "'Stand away,' cried Mr. Povey. He isn't fit to touch. And Mr. Povey made as if to pass directly onward, ignoring the mother. "'Wherever did you find him?' "'I found him in the far cellar,' said Mr. Povey, compelled to stop after all. He was down there with me yesterday, and it just occurred to me that he might have gone there again. "'What, all in the dark?' He'd lighted a candle, if you'll please. I'd left a candlestick and box of matches handy, because I hadn't finished that shelving. "'Well,' Constance murmured, I can't think how ever he dared to go there all alone. "'Can't you?' said Mr. Povey cynically. "'I can. He simply did it to frighten us.' "'Oh, Cyril!' Constance admonished the child. "'Cyril!' The child showed no emotion. His face was an enigma. It might have hidden sullenness, or mere callous indifference, or a perfect unconsciousness of sin. "'Give him to me,' said Constance. "'I'll look after him this evening,' said Samuel grimly. "'But you can't wash him,' said Constance, her relief yielding to apprehension. "'Why not?' demanded Mr. Povey, and he moved off. "'But, Sam, I'll look after him, I tell you,' Mr. Povey repeated, threateningly. "'But what are you going to do?' Constance asked with fear. "'Well,' said Mr. Povey, has this sort of thing got to be dealt with, or hasn't it?' He departed upstairs. Constance overtook him at the door of Cyril's bedroom. Mr. Povey did not wait for her to speak. His eyes were blazing. "'See here!' he admonished her cruelly. "'You get away downstairs, mother!' Then he disappeared into the bedroom, with his vile and helpless victim. A moment later he popped his head out of the door. Constance was disobeying him. He stepped into the passage and shut the door so that Cyril should not hear. "'Now, please do as I tell you,' he hissed at his wife. "'Don't let's have a scene, please!' She descended slowly, weeping, and Mr. Povey retired again to the place of execution. He nearly fell on top of Constance with a final tray of things from the drawing-room, and Constance had to tell the girl that Cyril was found. Somehow she could not resist the instinct to tell her also that the master had the affair in hand. Amy then wept. After about an hour, Mr. Povey at last reappeared. Constance was trying to count silver teaspoons in the parlour. "'He's in bed now,' said Mr. Povey, with a magnificent attempt to be nonchalant. "'You mustn't go near him.' "'But have you washed him?' Constance whimpered. "'I've washed him,' replied the astonishing Mr. Povey. "'What have you done to him?' "'I've punished him, of course,' said Mr. Povey, like a god who is above human weakness. "'What did you expect me to do?' Someone had to do it.' Constance wiped her eyes with the edge of the white apron which she was wearing over her new silk dress. She surrendered. She accepted the situation. She made the best of it. And all the evening was spent in dismally and horribly pretending that their hearts were beating as one. Mr. Povey's elaborate cherry-kindliness was extremely painful. They went to bed, and in their bedroom, Constance, as she stood close to Samuel, suddenly dropped the pretence, and with the eyes and voice of anguish said, "'You must let me look at him.' They faced each other. For a brief instant Cyril did not exist for Constance. Samuel alone obsessed her. And yet Samuel seemed a strange, unknown man. It was in Constance's life one of those crises when the human soul seems to be on the very brink of mysterious and disconcerting cognitions. And then the wave recedes as inexplicably as it surged up. "'Why, of course,' said Mr. Povey, turning away likely, as though to imply that she was making tragedies out of nothing. She gave an involuntary gesture of almost childish relief. Cyril slept calmly. It was a triumph for Mr. Povey. Constance could not sleep. As she lay darkly awake by her husband, her secret being seemed to be a quiver with emotion. Not exactly sorrow, not exactly joy, an emotion more elemental than these. The sensation of the intensity of her life in that hour, troubling, anxious, yet not sad, she said that Samuel was quite right, quite right. And then she said that the poor little thing wasn't yet five years old and that it was monstrous. The two had to be reconciled, and they never could be reconciled. Always she would be between them, to reconcile them, and to be crushed by their impact. Always she would have to bear the burden of both of them. There could be no ease for her, no surcease from a tremendous preoccupation and responsibility. She could not change Samuel, besides he was right. And though Cyril was not yet five, she felt that she could not change Cyril either. He was just as unchangeable as a growing plant. The thought of her mother and Sophia did not present itself to her. She felt, however, somewhat as Mrs. Baines had felt on historic occasions. Without being more softly kind, younger, and less chafed by destiny, she was conscious of no bitterness, conscious rather of a solemn blessedness. CHAPTER FOUR CRIME ONE Now as Cyril, Amy protested, will you leave that fire alone? It's not you that can mend my fires. A boy of nine, great and heavy for his years, with a full face and very short hair, bent over the smoking grate, it was about five minutes to eight on a chilly morning after Easter. Amy, hastily clad in blue, with a rough brown apron, was setting the breakfast table. The boy turned his head, still bending. SHUT UP, AIME! He replied, smiling. Life being short, he usually called her AIME when they were alone together. Oh, I'll catch you one in the eye with the poker. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, said Amy, and you know your mother told you to wash your feet this morning, and you haven't done. Fine clothes is all very well, but who says I haven't washed my feet? Asked Cyril, guiltily. Amy's mention of fine clothes referred to the fact that he was that morning wearing his Sunday suit for the first time on a weekday. I thought you haven't, said Amy. She was more than three times his age still, but they had been treating each other as intellectual equals for years. How do you know? asked Cyril, tired of the fire. I know, said Amy. Well, you just don't, then, said Cyril. And what about your feet? I should be sorry to see your feet, Aime. Amy was excusably annoyed. She tossed her head. Our feet were as clean as yours any day, she said. And I shall tell your mother. But he would not leave her feet alone. And there ensued one of those endless monotonous altercations on a single theme, which occur so often between intellectual equals, when one is a young son of the house and the other an established servant who adores him. Refined minds would have found the talk disgusting, but the sentiment of disgust seemed to be unknown to either of the wranglers. At last, when Amy, by superior tactics, had cornered him, Cyril said suddenly, I'll go to hell. Amy banged down the spoon for the bacon gravy. Now I shall tell your mother. Not my words this time. I shall tell your mother. Cyril felt that in truth he had gone rather far. He was perfectly sure that Amy would not tell his mother. And yet, supposing that by some freak of her nature she did, the consequences would be unutterable. The consequences would more than extinguish his private glory in the use of such a dashing word. So he laughed, a rather silly giggling laugh to reassure himself. You're damned, he said. The anti! She said grimly. You'll see. I don't know where you'll learn. It fair beats me. But it isn't Amy Bates as he's going to be sworn at. As soon as ever your mother comes into this room. The door at the foot of the stairs creaked, and Constance came into the room. She was wearing a dress of magenta marino, and a gold chain descended from her neck over her rich bosom. She had scarcely aged in five years. It would have been surprising if she had altered much, for the years had passed over her head at an incredible rate. To her it appeared only a few months since Cyril's first and last party. Are you all ready, my pet? Let me look at you. Constance greeted the boy with her usual bright, soft energy. Cyril glanced at Amy, who averted her head, putting spoons into three sources. Yes, mother, he replied in a new voice. Would you do what I told you? Yes, mother, he said simply. That's right. Amy made a faint noise with her lips and departed. He was saved once more. He said to himself that never again would he permit his soul to be disturbed by any threat of old aims. Constance's hand descended into her pocket, and drew out a hard paper packet which she clapped onto her son's head. Oh, mother! He pretended that she had hurt him, and then he opened the packet. It contained Congleton Butterscotch, reputed a harmless sweetmeat. Good! He cried. Oh, good! Oh, thanks, mother! Now don't begin eating them at once. Just one, mother. No! And how often have I told you to keep your feet off that fender? See how it's bent! And it's nobody but you! Sorry! It's no use being sorry if you persist in doing it! Oh, mother! I had such a funny dream! They chatted, until Amy came up the stairs with tea and bacon. The fire had developed from black to clear red. Run and tell father that breakfast is ready. After a little delay, a spectacle man of fifty, short and stoutish, with grey hair and a small beard, half grey and half black, entered from the shop. Samuel had certainly very much aged, especially in his gestures, which, however, was still quick. He sat down at once, his wife and son were already seated, and served the bacon with the rapid assurance of one who needs not to inquire about tastes and appetites. Not a word was said, except a brief grace by Samuel. But there was no restraint. Samuel had a mind benign and bare. Constance's eyes were a fountain of cheerfulness. The boy sat between them and ate steadily. This creature, this child, mysteriously growing and growing in the house. To his mother he was a delicious joy at all times, save when he disobeyed his father. But now, for quite a considerable period, there had been no serious collision. The boys seemed to be acquiring virtue as well as sense, and really he was charming, so big, truly enormous. Everyone remarked on it, and yet graceful, lithe, with a smile that could ravish, and he was distinguished in his bearing. Not depreciating Samuel in her faithful heart, Constance saw plainly the singular differences between Samuel and the boy. Save that he was dark, and that his father's dangerous look came into those childish eyes occasionally, Cyril had now scarcely any obvious resemblance to his father. He was abeynes, this naturally deepened Constance's family pride. Yes, he was mysterious to Constance, though probably not more so than any other boy to any other parent. He was equally mysterious to Samuel. But otherwise Mr. Povey had learnt to regard him in the light of a parcel, which he was always attempting to wrap up in a piece of paper, imperceptibly too small. When he successfully covered the parcel at one corner, it burst out at another. And this went on for ever, and he could never get the string on. Nevertheless, Mr. Povey had unabated confidence in his skill as a parcel-wrapper. The boy was strangely subtle at times, but then at times he was astoundingly ingenuous, and then his dodges would not deceive the dullest. Mr. Povey knew himself more than a match for his son. He was proud of him, because he regarded him as not an ordinary boy. He took it as a matter, of course, that his boy should not be an ordinary boy. He never, or very rarely, praised Cyril. Cyril thought of his father as a man who, in response to any request, always began by answering with a thoughtful, serious, No, I'm afraid not. So you haven't lost your appetite, his mother commented. Cyril grinned. Did you expect me to, mother? Let me see, said Samuel, as if vaguely recalling an unimportant fact. It's today you begin to go to school, isn't it? I wish father wouldn't be such a chump, Cyril reflected, and considering that this commencement of school, real school, not a girl's school, as once, had been the chief topic in the house for days, weeks, considering that it now occupied and filled all hearts, Cyril's reflection was excusable. Now, there's one thing you must always remember, my boy, said Mr. Povey, promptness, never be late either in going to school or in coming home, and in order that you may have no excuse, Mr. Povey pressed on the word excuse, as though condemning Cyril in advance, Here's something for you, he said the last words quickly, with a sort of modest chain. It was a silver watch and chain. Cyril was staggered, so also was constant, for Mr. Povey could keep his own counsel. At long intervals he would prove, thus, that he was a mighty soul, capable of sublime deeds. The watch was the unique flowering of Mr. Povey's profound but harsh affection. It lay on the table like a miracle. This day was a great day, a supremely exciting day in Cyril's history, and not less so in the history of his parents. The watch killed its owner's appetite dead. Routine was ignored that morning. Father did not go back into the shop. At length the moment came when father put on his hat and overcoat to take Cyril and Cyril's watch and satchel to the endowed school, which had quarters in the Wedgwood Institution close by. A solemn departure, and Cyril could not pretend by his demeanour that it was not. Constance desired to kiss him, but refrained. He would not have liked it. She watched them from the window. Cyril was nearly as tall as his father. That is to say, not nearly as tall, but creeping up his father's shoulder. She felt that the eyes of the town must be on the pair. She was very happy and nervous. At dinner-time a triumph seemed probable, and at tea-time, when Cyril came home under a mortar-board hat and with a satchel full of new books and a head full of new ideas, the triumph was actually indefinitely achieved. He had been put into the third form, and he announced that he should soon be at the top of it. He was enchanted with the life of school. He liked the other boys, and it appeared that the other boys liked him. The fact was that with a new silver watch and a package of sweets, he had begun his new career in the most advantageous circumstances. Moreover, he possessed qualities which ensure success at school. He was big and easy, with a captivating smile, and a marked aptitude to learn those things which boys insist on teaching to their new comrades. He had muscle, a brave demeanour, and no conceit. From tea the parlor began to accustom itself to a new vocabulary, containing such words as fellows, kept in, maligns, rot, recess, jolly. To some of these words, the parents, especially Mr. Povey, had an instinct to object, but they could not object. Somehow they did not seem to get an opportunity to object. They were carried away on the torrent, and after all their excitement and pleasure in the exceeding romantic novelty of existence were just as intense and nearly as ingenuous as their sons. He demonstrated that unless he was allowed to stay up later than the foretime, he would not be able to do his homework, and hence would not keep that place in the school to which his talents entitled him. Mr. Povey suggested, but only with half a heart, that he should get up earlier in the morning. The proposal fell flat. Everybody knew and admitted that nothing saved the scorpions of absolute necessity, or a tremendous occasion such as that particular morning would drive Cyril from his bed until the smell of bacon rose to him from the kitchen. The parlor table was consecrated to his lessons. He became generally known that Cyril was doing his lessons. His father scanned the new textbooks, while Cyril condescendingly explained to him that all others were superseded and worthless. His father contrived to maintain an air of preserving his mental equilibrium, but not his mother. She gave it up. She who till that day had, under his father's direction, taught him nearly all that he knew, and Cyril passed above her into regions of knowledge where she made no pretense of being able to follow him. When the lessons were done, and Cyril had wiped his fingers on bits of blotting paper, and his father had expressed qualified approval and gone into the shop, Cyril said to his mother with that delicious hesitation which overtook him sometimes. Mother, well, my pet, I want you to do something for me. Well, what is it? No, you must promise. I'll do it if I can, but you can. It isn't doing. It's not doing. Come, Cyril, out with it. I don't want you to come in and look at me after I'm asleep any more. But you silly boy, what difference can it make to you if you're asleep? I don't want you to. It's like as if I was a baby. You'll have to stop doing it some day, and so you may as well stop now. It was thus that he meant to turn his back on his youth. She smiled. She was incomprehensibly happy. She continued to smile. Now you'll promise, won't you, mother? She wrapped him on the head with her thimble, lovingly. He took the gesture for consent. You are a baby, she murmured. Now I shall trust you, he said, ignoring this. Say on a bright, on a bright. With what a long caress her eyes followed him, as he went up to bed on his great sturdy legs. She was thankful that school had not contaminated her adorable innocent. If she could have been aimed for 24 hours, she perhaps would not have hesitated to put butter into his mouth, lest it should melt. Mr. Povey and Constance talked late and low that night. They could neither of them sleep. They had little desire to sleep. Constance's face said to her husband, I've always stuck up for that boy in spite of your severities, and you see how right I was. And Mr. Povey's face said, you see now the brilliant success of my system. You see how my educational theories have justified themselves. Never been to school before, except that wretched little dame's school, and he goes practically straight to the top of the third form, at nine years of age. They discussed his future. There could be no sign of lunacy in discussing his future up to a certain point. But each felt that to discuss the ultimate career of a child nine years old would not be the act of a sensible parent. Only foolish parents would be so fond. Yet each was dying to discuss his ultimate career. Constance yielded first to the temptation as we came her. Mr. Povey scoffed, and then to humor Constance, yielded also. The matter was fairly soon on the carpet. Constance was relieved to find that Mr. Povey had no thought whatever of putting Cyril in the shop. No, Mr. Povey did not desire to chop wood with a razor. Their son must and would ascend. Doctor, solicitor, barrister. Not barrister. Barrister was fantastic. When they had argued for about half an hour, Mr. Povey intimated suddenly that the conversation was unworthy of their practical common sense, and went to sleep. Two. Nobody really thought that this almost ideal condition of things would persist. An enterprise commenced in such glory must surely traverse periods of difficulty and even of temporary disaster. But no, Cyril seemed to be made specially for school. Before Mr. Povey and Constance had quite accustomed themselves to being the parents of a great lad, before Cyril had broken the glass of his miraculous watch more than once, the summer term had come to an end, and there arrived the excitations of the prize-giving, as it was called. For at that epoch, the smaller schools had not found the effrontery to dub the breaking-up ceremony a speech day. This prize-giving furnished a particular joy to Mr. and Mrs. Povey. Although the prizes were notoriously few in number, partly to add to their significance, and partly to diminish their cost, the foundation was poor, Cyril won a prize, a box of geometrical instruments of precision. Also, he reached the top of his form, and was marked for promotion to the formidable fourth. Samuel and Constance were bidden to the large hall of the Wedgwood Institution of a summer afternoon, and they saw the whole board of governors raised on a rostrum, and in the middle, in front of what he referred to in his aristocratic London accent as a beggarly array of rewards, the aged and celebrated Sir Thomas Wilbraham Wilbraham, XMP, last respectable member of his ancient line. And Sir Thomas gave the box of instruments to Cyril and shook hands with him, and everybody was very well dressed. Samuel, who had never attended anything but a national school, called the simple rigors of his own boyhood, and swelled, for certainly, of all the parents present, he was among the richest. When in the informal promiscuities which followed the prize distribution, Cyril joined his father and mother sheepishly, they duly did their best to make light of his achievements, and failed. The walls of the hall were covered with specimens of the pupil's skill, and the headmaster was observed to direct the attention of the mighty to a map done by Cyril. Of course it was a map of Ireland, Ireland being the map chosen by every map drawing schoolboy who is free to choose. For a third form boy, it was considered a masterpiece. In the shading of mountains, Cyril was already a prodigy. Never, it was said, had the McGillicuddy reeks been indicated by a member of that school with a more amazing subtle refinement than by the young Povey. For a proper pride in themselves, from a proper fear lest they should be secretly accused of ostentation by the other parents, Samuel and Constance did not go near that map. For the rest they had lived with it for weeks, and Samuel, who after all was determined not to be dirt under his son's feet, had scratched a blot from it with the completeness that defied inquisitive examination. The fame of this map added to the box of compasses, and Cyril's own desire pointed to an artistic career. Cyril had always drawn and daubed, and the drawing master of the endowed school, who was also headmaster of the art school, had suggested that the youth should attend the art school one night a week. Samuel, however, would not listen to the idea. Cyril was too young. It is true that Cyril was too young, but Samuel's real objection was to Cyril's going out alone in the evening. On that he was adamant. The governors had recently made the discovery that a sports department was necessary to a good school, and had rented a field for cricket, football, and rounders up at Bleakridge, an innovation which demonstrated that the town was moving with the rapid times. In June this field was open after school hours till 8pm, as well as on Saturdays. The squire learned that Cyril had a talent for cricket, and Cyril wished to practice in the evenings, and was quite ready to bind himself with Bible oaths to rise at no matter what hour in the morning for the purpose of home lessons. He scarcely expected his father to say yes, as his father never did say yes, but he was obliged to ask. Samuel nonplussed him, by replying that on fine evenings, when he could spare time from the shop, he would go up to Bleakridge with his son. Cyril did not like this in the least. Still, it might be tried. One evening they went, actually, in the new steam car which had superseded the old horse-cars, and which travelled all the way to Longshore, a place that Cyril had only heard of. Samuel talked of the games played in the five towns in his day, of the titanic sport of prison bars, when the team of one bank went forth to the challenge of another bank, preceded by the drum and fife band, and when, in the heat of the chase, a man might jump into the canal to escape his pursuer. Samuel had never played at cricket. Samuel, with a very young grandson or fan, deceased, sat in dignity on the grass, and watched his cricketer for an hour and a half, while Constance kept an eye on the shop and superintended its closing. Samuel then conducted Cyril home again. Two days later, the father of his own accord offered to repeat the experience. Cyril refused, disagreeable insinuations that he was a baby in arms had been made at school in the meantime. Nevertheless, in other directions, Cyril sometimes surprisingly conquered. For instance, he came home one day with the information that a dog that was not a bolt area was not worth calling a dog. Fans' grandson had been carried off in earliest prime by a chicken bone that had pierced his vitals, and Cyril did indeed persuade his father to buy a bolt area. The animal was a superlative of forbidding ugliness, but father and son vied with each other in stern critical praise of his surpassing beauty, and Constance, from good nature, joined in the pretence. He was called lion, and the shop, after one or two untoward episodes, was absolutely closed to him. But the most striking of Cyril's successes had to do with the question of the annual holiday. He spoke of the sea soon after becoming a schoolboy. It appeared that his complete ignorance of the sea prejuditionally affected him at school. Further, he had always loved the sea. He had drawn hundreds of three mastered ships with studying sail set, and knew the difference between a brig and a brigantine. When he first said, I say, mother, why can't we go to Tlandid now instead of Buxton this year? His mother thought he was out of his senses. For the idea of going to any place other than Buxton was inconceivable. Had they not always been to Buxton? What would their landlady say? How could they ever look her in the face again? Besides, well, they went to Tlandid, though, rather scared, and hardly knowing how the change had come about. But they went. And it was the force of Cyril's will. Cyril, the theoretic cipher that took them. Three. The removal of the Endowed School to more commodious premises in the shape of Shoreport Hall, an ancient mansion with fifty rooms and five acres of land around it, was not a change that quite pleased Samuel or Constance. They admitted the hygienic advantages, but Shoreport Hall was three-quarters of a mile distant from St Luke's Square in the hollow that separates Bursley from its suburb of Hillport, whereas the Wedgwood Institution was scarcely a minute away. It was as if Cyril, when he set off to Shoreport Hall of a morning, passed out of their sphere of influence. He was leagues off, doing they knew not what. Further, his dinner-hour was cut short by the extra time needed for the journey to and fro, and he arrived late for tea. It may be said that he often arrived very late for tea. The whole machinery of the meal was disturbed. These matters seemed to Samuel and Constance to be of tremendous import, seemed to threaten the very foundations of existence. Then they grew accustomed to the new order, and wondered sometimes, when they passed the Wedgwood Institution and the insolubrious Cockyard, once sole playground of the boys, that the school could ever have managed in the narrow quarters once allotted to it. Cyril, though constantly successful at school, a rising man, an infallible bringer-home of excellent reports, and a regular taker of prizes, became gradually less satisfactory in the house. He was kept in, occasionally. And although his father pretended to hold that to be kept in was to slur the honour of a spotless family, Cyril continued to be kept in, a hardened sinner, lost to shame. But this was not the worst. The worst, undoubtedly, was that Cyril was getting rough. No definite accusation could be laid against him. The offence was general, vague, everlasting. It was in all he did and said. In every gesture and movement, he shouted, whistled, sang, stamped, stumbled, lunged. He omitted such empty rights as saying yes, or please, and wiping his nose. He replied gruffly and nonchalantly to polite questions, or he didn't reply until the questions were repeated, and even then with a lost air that was not genuine. His shoelaces were a sad sight, and his fingernails no sight at all for a decent woman. His hair was as rough as his conduct. Hardly at the pistol's point could he be forced to put oil on it. In brief, he was no longer the nice boy that he used to be. He had unmistakably deteriorated, grievous. But what can you expect when your boy is obliged, month after month, year after year, to associate with other boys? After all, he was a good boy, said Constance, often to herself, and now and then to Samuel. For Constance, his charm was eternally renewed. His smile, his frequent ingenuousness, his funny, self-conscious gesture when he wanted to get round her, these characteristics remained, and his pure heart remained. She could read that in his eyes. Samuel was inimical to his taste for sports and his triumphs therein. But Constance had pride in all that. She liked to feel him, and to gaze at him, and to smell that faint, uncleanly odor of sweat that hung in his clothes. In this condition he reached the advanced age of thirteen, and his parents, who, despite their notion of themselves as wide awake parents, were a simple pair, never suspected that his heart, conceived to be still pure, had become a crawling, horrible mass of corruption. One day the headmaster called at the shop. Now, to see a headmaster walking about the town during school hours is a startling spectacle, and is apt to give you the same uncanny sensation as when, alone in a room, you think you see something move which ought not to move. Mr. Povey was startled. Mr. Povey had a thumping within his breast as he rubbed his hands and drew the headmaster to the private corner where his desk was. What can I do for you today? he almost said to the headmaster, but he did not say it. The boot was emphatically not on that leg. The headmaster talked to Mr. Povey, in tones carefully low, for about a quarter of an hour, and then he closed the interview. Mr. Povey escorted him across the shop, and the headmaster said, with ordinary loudness, of course it's nothing, but my experience is that it's just as well to be on the safe side, and I thought I'd tell you. Forewarned is forearmed. I have other parents to see. They shook hands at the door. Then Mr. Povey stepped out on to the pavement, and in front of the whole square detained an unwilling headmaster for quite another minute. His face was deeply flushed as he returned into the shop. The assistant meant closer over their work. He did not instantly rush into the parlour and communicate with Constance. He had dropped into a way of conducting many operations by his own unaided brain. His confidence in his skill had increased with years. Further, at the back of his mind there had established itself a vision of Mr. Povey as the seat of government, and of Constance and Cyril as a sort of permanent opposition. He would not have admitted that he saw such a vision, for he was utterly loyal to his wife, but it was there. This unconfessed vision was one of several causes which had contributed to intensify his inherent tendency towards Machiavellianism and secretiveness. He said nothing to Constance, nothing to Cyril, but, happening to encounter Amy in the showroom, he was inspired to interrogate her sharply. The result was that they descended to the cellar together. Amy weeping. Amy was commanded to hold her tongue, and as she went in mortal fear of Mr. Povey, she did hold her tongue. Nothing occurred for several days, and then, one morning, it was Constance's birthday, children are nearly always horribly unlucky in their choice of days for sin. Mr. Povey, having executed mysterious movements in the shop after Cyril's departure to school, jammed his hat on his head and ran forth in pursuit of Cyril, whom he intercepted with two other boys at the corner of Old Castle Street and Acre Passage. Cyril stood as if turned into salt. Come back home, said Mr. Povey grimly, and for the sake of the other boys, please. But I shall be late for school, Father, Cyril weakly urged. Never mind. They passed through the shop together, causing a terrific concealed emotion, and then they did violence to Constance by appearing in the parlour. Constance was engaged in cutting straws and ribbons to make a straw frame for a water-colour drawing of her moss-rows, which her pure-hearted son had given her as a birthday present. Why, what, she exclaimed. She said no more at the moment, because she was sure, from the faces of her men, that the time was big with fearful events. Take your satchel off! Mr. Povey ordered coldly, and your water-board, he added, with a peculiar intonation, as if glad thus to prove that Cyril was one of those rude boys who have to be told to take their hats off in a room. What if as a miss! Constance murmured under her breath as Cyril obeyed the command. What if as a miss? Mr. Povey made no immediate answer. He was in charge of these proceedings, and was very anxious to conduct them with dignity and with complete effectiveness. Little fat man over fifty, with a whisen face, grey-haired and grey-bearded, he was as nervous as a youth. His heart beat furiously, and Constance, the portly matron who would never see Forty again, was just as nervous as a girl. Cyril had gone very white. All three felt physically sick. What money have you got in your pockets, Mr. Povey demanded as a commencement? Cyril, who had had no opportunity to prepare his case, offered no reply. You heard what I said, Mr. Povey thundered. I've got three havens, Cyril murmured glumly, looking down at the floor. His lower lip seemed to hang precariously away from his gums. Where did you get that from? It's part of what mother gave me, said the boy. I did give him a threatening bit last week, Constance put in guiltily. It was a long time since he had had any money. If you gave it him, that's enough, said Mr. Povey quickly, and to the boy, that's all you've got? Yes, father, said the boy. You're sure? Yes, father. Cyril was playing a hazardous game for the highest stakes, and undergraved disadvantages, and he acted for the best. He guarded his own interests as well as he could. Mr. Povey found himself obliged to take a serious risk. Empty your pockets, then. Cyril, perceiving that he had lost that particular game, emptied his pockets. Cyril, said Constance, how often have I told you to change your handkerchiefs, oftener? Just look at this! Astonishing creature! She was in the seventh hell of sick apprehension, yet she said that. After the handkerchief emerged the common schoolboy stock of articles useful and magic, and then last a silver florin. Mr. Povey felt relief. Oh, Cyril, whimpered Constance, give it to your mother, said Mr. Povey. The boy stepped forward awkwardly, and Constance, weeping, took the coin. Please look at it, mother, said Mr. Povey, and tell me if there's a cross marked on it. Constance's tears blurred the coin. She had to wipe her eyes. Yes, she whispered faintly. There's something on it. I thought so, said Mr. Povey. Where did you steal it from? He demanded. Out of the till, answered Cyril. Have you ever stolen anything out of the till before? Yes. Yes what? Yes, father. Take your hands out of your pockets and stand up straight, if you can. How often? I don't know, father. I blame myself, said Mr. Povey, frankly. I blame myself. The till ought always to be locked. All till ought always to be locked. But we felt we could trust the assistance. If anybody had told me that I ought not to trust you, if anybody had told me that my own son would be the thief, I should have—well, I don't know what I should have said. Mr. Povey was quite justified in blaming himself. The fact was that the functioning of that till was a patriarchal survival, which he ought to have revolutionised, but which it had never occurred to him to revolutionise. So accustomed to it, was he? In the time of John Baines, the till, with its three bowls, two for silver and one for copper, and gold had never been put into it, was invariably unlocked. The person in charge of the shop took change from it for the assistance, or temporarily authorised an assistant to do so. Gold was kept in a small linen bag in a locked drawer of the desk. The contents of the till were never checked by any system of bookkeeping, as there was no system of bookkeeping when all transactions, whether in payment or receipt, are in cash. The Baines's never owed a penny, save the quarterly wholesale accounts, which were discharged instantly to the travellers. A system of bookkeeping is not indispensable, the till was situate immediately at the entrance to the shop from the house. It was in the darkest part of the shop, and the unfortunate Cyril had to pass it every day on his way to school. The thing was a perfect device for the manufacture of young criminals. And how have you been spending this money? Mr. Povey inquired. Cyril's hands slipped into his pockets again. Then, noticing the lapse, he dragged them out. Sweets, said he. Anything else? Sweets and things? Oh, said Mr. Povey. Well, now you can go down into the Cinder Sour and bring up here all the things that are in that little box in the corner. Off you go. And off went Cyril. He had to swagger through the kitchen. What did I tell you, Master Cyril? Amy unwisely asked of him. You've copped it finally this time. Copped was a word which he had learnt from Cyril. Go on, you old bitch, Cyril growled. As he returned from the cellar, Amy said angrily, I told you I should tell your father the next time you call me that and I shall. You mark my words. Cant, cant, he retorted. Do you think I don't know who's been canting? Cant, cant. Upstairs in the parlour, Samuel was explaining the matter to his wife. There had been a perfect epidemic of smoking in the school. The headmaster had discovered it, and he hoped stamped it out. What had disturbed the headmaster far more than the smoking was the fact that a few boys had been found to possess somewhat costly pipes, cigar holders or cigarette holders. The headmaster, Wiley, had not confiscated these articles. He had merely informed the parents concerned. In his opinion, the articles came from one single source, a generous thief. He left the parents to ascertain which of them had brought a thief into the world. Further information, Mr. Povey had culled from Amy, and there could remain no doubt that Cyril had been providing his chums with the utensils of smoking, the till supplying the means. He had told Amy that the things which he secreted in the cellar had been presented to him by blood brothers, but Mr. Povey did not believe that. Anyhow, he had marked every silver coin in the till for three nights, and had watched the till in the mornings from behind the merino pile, and the florin on the parlour table spoke of his success as a detective. Constance felt guilty on behalf of Cyril. As Mr. Povey outlined his case, she could not free herself from an entirely irrational sensation of sin at any rate of special responsibility. Cyril seemed to be her boy, and not Samuel's boy at all. She avoided her husband's glance. This was very odd. Then Cyril returned, and his parents composed their faces, and he deposited, next to the florin, a sham Miershawn pipe in a case, a tobacco pouch, a cigar of which one end had been charred, but the other not cut, and a half-empty packet of cigarettes without a label. Nothing could be hid from Mr. Povey. The details were distressing. So Cyril is a liar and a thief to say nothing of the smoking, Mr. Povey concluded. He spoke as if Cyril had invented strange and monstrous sins, but deep down in his heart a little voice was telling him, as regards the smoking, that he had set the example. Mr. Baines had never smoked. Mr. Critchlow never smoked. Only men like Daniel smoked. Thus far Mr. Povey had conducted the proceedings to his own satisfaction. He had proved the crime. He had made Cyril confess. The whole affair lay revealed. Well, what next? Cyril ought to have dissolved in repentance. Something dramatic ought to have occurred, but Cyril simply stood with hanging, sulky head, and gave no sign of proper feeling. Mr. Povey considered that until something did happen he must improve the occasion. Here we have trade getting worse every day, said he, it was true, and you are robbing your parents to make a beast of yourself and corrupting your companions. I wonder your mother never smelt you. I never dreamt of such a thing, said Constance grievously. Besides, a young man clever enough to rob a tale is usually clever enough to find out that the secret of safety in smoking is to use cashews and not to keep the stuff in your pockets a minute later than you can help. There is no knowing how much money you have stolen, said Mr. Povey. A thief. If Cyril had stolen cakes, jams, drinks, cigars, Mr. Povey would never have said thief, as he did say it. But money. Money was different, and a till was not a cupboard or a larder. A till was a till. Cyril had struck at the very basis of society. And on your mother's birthday, Mr. Povey said further. There's one thing I can do, he said. I can burn all this, built on lies. How dared you? And he pitched into the fire, not the apparatus of crime, but the water-colour drawing of a moss rose, and the straws, and the blue ribbon for bows at the corners. How dared you, he repeated. You never gave me any money, Cyril muttered. He thought the marking of coins a mean trick, and the dragging in of bad trade, and his mother's birthday, roused a familiar devil that usually set quietly in his breast. What's that you say? Mr. Povey almost shouted. You never gave me any money. The devil repeated, and allowed at home, and Cyril had employed. It was true, but Cyril had only to ask, and he would have received all that was good for him. Mr. Povey sprang up. Mr. Povey also had a devil. The two devils gazed at each other for an instant, and then, noticing that Cyril's head was above Mr. Povey's, the elder devil controlled itself. Mr. Povey had suddenly had as much drama as he wanted. Get away to bed! said he with dignity. Cyril went defiantly. He's to have nothing but bread and water, mother. Mr. Povey finished. He was on the whole, pleased with himself. Later in the day Constance reported tearfully that she had been up to Cyril, and that Cyril had wept, which was to Cyril's credit, but all felt that life could never be the same again. During the remainder of existence this unspeakable horror would lift its obscene form between them. Constance had never been so unhappy. Occasionally, when by herself she would rebel for a brief moment, as one rebels in secret against a mummery which one is obliged to treat seriously. After all, she would whisper, suppose he has taken a few shillings out of the till? What then? What does it matter? But these moods of moral insurrection against society and Mr. Povey were very transitory. They were come and gone in a flash.