 Book 2, Chapter 1 of The Old Wife's Tale, by Arnold Bennett. Well, said Mr. Povey, rising from the rocking chair that in a previous age had been John Baines's. I've got to make a start some time, so I might as well begin now." And he went from the parlour into the shop. Constance's eye followed him as far as the door, where there glances met for an instant in the transient gaze which expresses the tenderness of people who feel more than they kiss. It was on the morning of this day that Mrs. Baines, relinquishing the sovereignty of St. Luke's Square, had gone to live as a younger sister in the house of Harriet Maddock at Acts. Constance guessed little of the secret anguish of that departure. She only knew that it was just like her mother, having perfectly arranged the entire house for the arrival of the honeymoon couple from Buxton, to flit early away so as to spare the natural blushing diffidence of the said couple. It was like her mother's common sense, and her mother's sympathetic comprehension. Further, Constance did not pursue her mother's feelings, being far too busy with her own. She sat there full of new knowledge and new importance, brimming with experience and strange unexpected aspirations, purposes, yes, and cunning's. And yet, though the very curves of her cheeks seemed to be mysteriously altering, the old Constance still lingered in that frame, an innocent soul, hesitating to spread its wings and quit for ever the body which had been its home. You could see the timid thing beeping wistfully out of the eyes of the married woman. Constance rang the bell for Maggie to clear the table, and as she did so, she had the illusion that she was not really a married woman and a housemistress, but only a kind of counterfeit. She did most fervently hope that all would go right in the house, at any rate until she had grown more accustomed to her situation. The hope was to be disappointed. Maggie's rather silly, obsequious smile concealed but for a moment the ineffable tragedy that had lain in wait for an armed Constance. �If you please, Mrs. Povey,� as she crushed cups together on the tin tray with her great red hands, which always looked like something out of her butcher's shop, then a pause, �will you please accept of this?� Now, before the wedding, Maggie had already, with tears of affection, given Constance a pair of blue-glass vases, in order to purchase which, she had been obliged to ask for special permission to go out. And Constance wondered what was coming now from Maggie's pocket. A small piece of folded paper came from Maggie's pocket. Constance accepted of it, and read, �I begs to give one month's notice to leave� signed Maggie, June 10th, 1867. �Maggie!� exclaimed the old Constance, terrified by this incredible occurrence ere the married woman could strangle her. �I never give notice before, Mrs. Povey,� said Maggie, �so I don't know as I know how he thought to be done, not rightly, but I hope as you will accept of it, Mrs. Povey. �Oh, of course� said Mrs. Povey, primly, �just as if Maggie was not the central supporting pillar of the house, just as if Maggie had not assisted at her birth, just as if the end of the world had not abruptly been announced, just as if St. Luke's Square were not inconceivable without Maggie. But why? �Well, Mrs. Povey, I've been a-thinking o' it over in my kitchen, and I said to myself, �If there's going to be one change, there better be two,� I said, �not but what I wouldn't work my fingers to the bone for you, Miss Constance.� Here Maggie began to cry into the tray. Constance looked at her. Despite the special muslin of that day, she had traces of the slatternliness of which Mrs. Baines had never been able to cure her. She was over forty, big, gawky. She had no figure, no charms of any kind. She was what was left of a woman after twenty-two years in the cave of a philanthropic family, and in her cave she had actually been thinking things over. Constance detected for the first time, beneath the dehumanized drudge, the stirrings of a separate and perhaps capricious individuality. Maggie's engagements had never been real to her employers. Within the house she had never been, in practice, anything but Maggie, an organism, and now she was permitting herself ideas about changes. She'll soon be suited with another, Mrs. Povey, said Maggie. There's many a—many a—she burst into sobs. �But if you really want to leave, what are you crying for, Maggie?� asked Mrs. Povey at her wisest. �Have you told mother? �Now, miss� Maggie whimpered absently, wiping her wrinkled cheeks with ineffectual muslin. �I couldn't seem to fancy telling your mother. And as you're the mistress now, I thought as I'd save it for you when you come home. I hope you'll excuse me, Mrs. Povey. Of course, I'm very sorry, you've been a very good servant, and in these days� The child had acquired this turn of speech from her mother. It did not appear to occur to either of them that they were living in the sixties. �Thank you, miss. And what are you thinking of doing, Maggie? You know you won't get many places like this. To tell you the truth, Mrs. Povey, I'm going to get married Miss Enth. �Indeed,� Merlin and Constance, with the perfuncturiness of habit in replying to these tidings. �Oh, but I am, mum� Maggie insisted. �It's all settled, Mr. Hollins, mum. Not Hollins, the fish-hawker. �Yes, mum. I seem to fancy him. You don't remember as him and me was engaged in forty-eight. He was my first like. I broke it off because he was in that childish lot, and I knew as Mr. Baines would never stand that. No, he's asked me again. He's been a widow of this long time. �I'm sure I hope you'll be happy, Maggie, but what about his habits? You won't have no habits with me, Mrs. Povey.� A woman was definitely emerging from the drudge. When Maggie, having entirely ceased sobbing, had put the folded cloth in the table-drawer, and departed with the tray, her mistress became frankly the girl again. No primness about her as she stood alone there in the parlour. No pretence that Maggie's notice to leave was an everyday document, to be casually glanced at, as one glances at an unpaid bill. She would be compelled to find a new servant, making solemn inquiries into character, and to train the new servant, and to talk to her from heights from which she had never addressed Maggie. At that moment she had an illusion that there were no other available suitable servants in the whole world. And the arranged marriage? She felt that this time, the thirteenth or fourteenth time, the engagement was serious, and would only end at the altar. The vision of Maggie and Hollins at the altar shocked her. Marriage was a series of phenomena, and a general state, very holy and wonderful, too sacred somehow for such creatures as Maggie and Hollins. Her vague instinctive revolt against such a usage of matrimony centered round the idea of a strong, eternal smell of fish. However, the projected outrage of an hallowed institution troubled her much less than the imminent problem of domestic service. She ran into the shop, or she would have run if she had not checked her girlishness, be times, and on her lips, ready to be whispered importantly into a husband's astounded ear, where the words, Maggie has given notice. Yes, truly! But Samuel Povey was engaged. He was leaning over the counter, and staring at an outspread paper, upon which a certain Mr. Yardley was making strokes with a thick pencil. Mr. Yardley, who had a long red beard, painted houses and rooms. She knew him only by sight. In her mind, she always associated him with the sign over his premises in Trafalgar Road, Yardley Bross, authorised plumbers, painters, decorators, paper-hangers, Pacea writers. For years in childhood, she had passed that sign without knowing what sort of things Bross and Pacea were, and what was the mysterious similarity between a plumber and a version of the Bible. She could not interrupt her husband. He was wholly absorbed, nor could she stay in the shop, which appeared just a little smaller than usual. For that would have meant an unsuccessful endeavour to front the young lady's assistance, as though nothing in particular had happened to her. So she went sedately up the showroom's stairs, and thus to the bedroom floors of the house. Her house? Mrs. Povey's house? She even climbed to Constance's old bedroom. Her mother had stripped the bed, that was all, except a slight diminution of this room, corresponding to that of the shop. Then to the drawing-room. In the recess outside the drawing-room door, the black box of silver plate still lay. She had expected her mother to take it, but no, assuredly her mother was one to do things handsomely, when she did them. In the drawing-room, not a tassel of an anti-McCassar touched. Yes, the fire-screen, the luscious bunch of roses on an expanse of mustard, which Constance had worked for her mother years ago, was gone. Thus her mother should have clung to just that one souvenir, out of all the heavy opulence of the drawing-room, touched Constance intimately. She perceived that if she could not talk to her husband, she must write to her mother. And she sat down at the oval table and wrote, Darling mother, I am sure you will be very surprised to hear. She means it. I think she is making a serious mistake. What I to put an advertisement in the signal, or will it do if? Please write by return. We are back and have enjoyed ourselves very much. Sam says he enjoys getting up late. And so on to the last inch of the fourth scolloped page. She was obliged to revisit the shop for a stamp, stamps being kept in Mr. Povey's desk in the corner, a high desk at which you stood. Mr. Povey was now in earnest converse with Mr. Yardley at the door, and twilight, which began a full hour earlier in the shop than in the square, had cast faint shadows in corners behind counters. Will you just run out with this to the pillar, Miss Dad? With pleasure, Mrs. Povey. Where are you going to? Mr. Povey interrupted his conversation to stop the flying girl. She is just going to the post for me, Constance called out from the region of the till. Oh, all right. A trifle, a nothing, yet somehow in the quiet, customerless shop, the episode with the scarce perceptible difference in Samuel's tone at his secondary mark was delicious to Constance. Somehow it was the real beginning of her wifehood. There had been about nine other real beginnings in the past fortnight. Mr. Povey came into supper, laden with ledgers and similar works, which Constance had never even pretended to understand. It was a sign from him that the honeymoon was over. He was proprietor now, and his order for ledgers most justifiable. Still, there was the question of her servant. Never, he exclaimed, when she told him about the end of the world, at never which expressed extreme astonishment and the liveliest concern. But Constance had anticipated that he would have been just a little more knocked down, bowled over, staggered, stunned, laborgasted. In a swift gleam of insight she saw that she had been in danger of forgetting her role of experienced, capable, married woman. I shall have to set about getting a fresh one," she said hastily, with an admirable assumption of light and easy casualness. Mr. Povey seemed to think that Hollins would suit Maggie pretty well. He made no remark to the betroth when she answered the final bell of the night. He opened his ledgers, whistling, "'I think I shall go up, dear,' said Constance. I've got a lot of things to put away.' "'Do,' said he, "'call out when you're done.'" Two. Sam! she cried, from the top of the crooked stairs. No answer. The door at the foot was closed. Sam! Hello! Distantly. Faintly. "'I've done all I'm going to do to-night!' She ran back along the corridor, a white figure in the deep gloom, and hurried into bed, and drew the clothes up to her chin. In the life of a bride there are some dramatic moments. If she has married the industrious apprentice, one of those moments occurs when she first occupies the sacred bed-chamber of her ancestors and the bed on which she was born. Her parents' room had always been to Constance, if not sacred, at least invested with a certain moral solemnity. She could not enter it as she would enter another room. The course of nature, with its succession of deaths, conceptions, and births, slowly makes such a room august with a mysterious quality which interprets the grandeur of mere existence and imposes itself on all. Constance had the strangest sensations in that bed, whose heavy dignity of ornament symbolized a past age, sensations of sacrilege and trespass, of being a naughty girl to whom punishment would accrue for this shocking freak. Not since she was quite tiny had she slept in that bed, one night with her mother, before her father's seizure when he had been away. What a limitless unfathomable bed it was then. Now it was just a bed. So she had to tell herself, like any other bed. The tiny child that, safely touching its mother, had slept in the vast expanse, seemed to her now apathetic little thing, its image made her feel melancholy, and her mind dwelled on sad events. The death of her father, the flight of darling Sophia, the immense grief and the exile of her mother, she esteemed that she knew what life was and that it was grim, and she sighed. But the sigh was an affectation, meant partly to convince herself that she was grown up, and partly to keep her in countenance in the intimidating bed. This melancholy was factitious, was less than transient foam on the deep sea of her joy. Death and sorrow and sin were dim shapes to her. The ruthless egoism of happiness blew them away with a puff, and their wistful faces vanished. To see her there in the bed, framed in mahogany and tassels, lying on her side, with her young glowing cheeks, and honest, but not heartless gaze, and the rich curve of her hip lifting the counterpane, one would have said that she had never heard of all but love. Mr. Povey entered the bride-droom, quickly, firmly, carrying it off rather well, but still self-conscious. After all, his shoulders were trying to say, what's the difference between this bedroom and the bedroom of a boarding-house? Indeed, ought we not to feel more at home here? Besides confound it, we've been married a fourth night. Doesn't it give you a funny feeling, sleeping in this room? It does me, said Constance. Women, even experienced women, are so foolishly frank. They have no decency, no self-respect. Really? replied Mr. Povey, with loftiness, as who should say, what an extraordinary thing that a reasonable creature can have such fancies. Now, to me, this room is exactly like any other room. And he added aloud, glancing away from the glass, where he was unfastening his neck-tie, it's not a bad room at all. This with the judicial air of an auctioneer. Not for an instance did he deceive Constance, who read his real sensations with accuracy. But his futile poses did not in the slightest degree lessen her respect for him. On the contrary, she admired him the more for them. They were a sort of embroidery on the solid stuff of his character. At that period he could not do wrong for her. The basis of her regard for him was, she often thought, his honesty, his industry, his genuine kindliness of act, his grasp of the business, his perseverance, his passion for doing at once, that which had to be done. She had the greatest admiration for his qualities. And he was, in her eyes, an indivisible whole. She could not admire one part of him, and frown upon another. Whatever he did was good because he did it. She knew that some people were up to smile at certain phases of his individuality. She knew that, far down in her mother's heart, was a suspicion that she had married ever so little beneath her. After this knowledge did not disturb her, she had no doubt as to the correctness of her own estimate. Mr. Povey was an exceedingly methodical person, and he was also one of those persons who must always be beforehand with time. Thus, at night, he would arrange his raiment so that in the morning it might be reassumed in the minimum of minutes. He was not a man, for example, to leave the changing of studs from one shirt to another till the morrow. Had it been practicable, he would have brushed his hair the night before. Constance already loved to watch his meticulous preparations. She saw him now go into his old bedroom and return to the paper collar which he put on the dressing-table next to a black neck-tie. His shop-suit was laid out on a chair. �Oh, Sam!� she exclaimed impulsively, �you surely aren't going to begin wearing those horrid paper-collars again!� During the honeymoon he had worn linen-collars. Her tone was perfectly gentle, but the remark nevertheless showed a lack of tact. It implied that all his life Mr. Povey had been enveloping his neck in something which was horrid. Like all persons with a tendency to fall into the ridiculous, Mr. Povey was exceedingly sensitive to personal criticisms. He flushed, dartily. �I didn't know they were horrid!� he snapped. He was hurt and angry. Povey had surprised him unawares. Both of them suddenly saw that they were standing on the edge of a chasm and drew back. They had imagined themselves to be wandering safely in a flowered meadow. And here was this bottomless chasm which was most disconcerting. Mr. Povey's hand hovered undecided over the collar. �However� he muttered, she could feel that he was trying with all his might to be gentle and pacific. And she was aghast at her own stupid clumsiness. She so experienced. �Just as you like, dear� she said quickly. �Please!� �Oh, no!� and he did his best to smile, and went off gawkily with the collar, and came back with a linen one. Her passion for him burned stronger than ever. She knew then that she did not love him for his good qualities, but for something boyish and naive that there was about him, an indescribable something that occasionally, when his face was close to hers, made her dizzy. The chasm had disappeared. In such moments, when each must pretend not to have seen or even suspected the chasm, small talk is essential. �Wasn't that Mr. Yardley in the shop to-night?� began Constance. �Yes.� �What did he want?� I'd sent for him. He's going to paint as a signboard. It's for Samuel to make believe that nothing in this world is more ordinary than a signboard. �Oh!� murmured Constance. She said no more, the episode of the paper-collar having weakened her self-confidence. �But a signboard?� what with servants, chasms, and signboards, Constance considered that her life as a married woman would not be deficient in excitement. Long afterwards she fell asleep, thinking of Sophia. A few days later Constance was arranging the more precious of her wedding-presence in the parlor. Some had to be wrapped in tissue and in brown paper, and then tied with string and labelled. Others had special cases of their own, leather without, and velvet within. Among the latter was the resplendent egg stand, holding twelve silver-gilt egg-cups and twelve chased spoons to match, presented by Aunt Harriet. In the Five Towns phrase, �It must have cost money.� Even if Mr. and Mrs. Povey had ten guests or ten children, and all the twelve of them were simultaneously gripped by a desire to eat eggs at breakfast or tea, even in this remote contingency Aunt Harriet would have been pained to see the egg stand in use. Such treasures are not designed for use. The presents, few in number, were mainly of this character, because owing to her mother's heroic session of the entire interior, Constance already possessed every necessary. The funerous of the presents was accounted for by the fact that the wedding had been strictly private, and had taken place at Axe. There is nothing like secrecy in marriage for discouraging the generous impulses of one's friends. It was Mrs. Baines, abetted by both the chief parties who had decided that the wedding should be private and secluded. Sophia's wedding had been altogether too private and secluded, but the casting of a veil over Constance's, whose union was irreproachable, somehow justified after the event the circumstances of Sophia's, indicating, as it did, that Mrs. Baines believed in secret weddings on principle. In such matters Mrs. Baines was capable of extraordinary subtlety. And while Constance was thus taking her wedding presents with due seriousness, Maggie was cleaning the steps that led from the pavement of King Street to the side door, and the door was a jar, it was a fine June morning. Suddenly over the sound of scouring Constance heard a dog's low growl, and then the hoarse voice of a man, "'Messer in wench?' "'Up and he is? Up and he isn't,' came Maggie's answer. She had no fancy for being called wench. Constance went to the door, not merely from curiosity, but from a feeling that her authority and her responsibilities as house mistress extended to the pavements surrounding the house. The famous James Boone of Buck Row, the greatest dog fancier in the five towns, stood at the bottom of the steps. The tall fat man clad in stiff, stained brown, and smoking a black clay pipe less than three inches long. Behind him attended two bulldogs. "'Morning, Misses,' cried Boone cheerfully, "'I've heard tell as the mistress is looking out for a dog, as you might say.' "'I don't stay here with them animals a sniffing at me, that I don't,' observed Maggie, picking herself up. "'Is he?' Constance hesitated. She knew that Samuel had vaguely referred to dogs. She had not, however, imagined that he regarded a dog as all but a beautiful dream. No dog had ever put paw into that house, and it seemed impossible that one should ever do so. As for those beasts of prey on the pavement—' "'Aye,' said James Boone calmly. "'I'll tell him you're here,' said Constance, "'but I don't know if he's at liberty. He seldom is at this time of day. Maggie, you'd better come in.' She went slowly to the shop, full of fear for the future. "'Sam,' she whispered to her husband, who was writing at his desk, "'here's a man come to see you about a dog.' Assuredly he was taken aback. Still he behaved with much presence of mind. "'Oh, about a dog! Who is it?' "'It's that Jim Boone. He says he's heard you want one.' The renowned name of Jim Boone gave him pause, but he had to go through with the affair. Then he went through it, though nervously. Constance followed his agitated footsteps to the side door. "'Morning, Boone. My name's Nasta.' They began to talk dogs. Mr. Povey, for his part, with you caution. "'Now, there's a dog,' said Boone, pointing to one of the bulldogs, a miracle of splendid ugliness. "'Yes,' responded Mr. Povey, insincerely. "'He is a beauty. What's it worth now, at a venture?' "'I'll tack a hundred and twenty sovereign for her,' said Boone. "'Other's a bit cheaper. A hundred.' "'Oh, Sam,' gasped Constance, and even Mr. Povey nearly lost his nerve. "'That's more than I want to give,' said he timidly. "'But look Arthur,' Boone persisted, roughly snatching up the more expensive animal, and displaying her cannibal teeth. Mr. Povey shook his head. Constance glanced away. "'That's not quite the sort of dog I want,' said Mr. Povey. "'Foxteria?' "'Yes. That's more like,' Mr. Povey agreed eagerly. "'What have you run to?' "'Oh,' said Mr. Povey, largely. "'I don't know.' "'Well, you've run to a tenor. I thought of something cheaper. "'Well, oh much, aren't we, Mr.' "'Not more than two pounds,' said Mr. Povey. He would have said one pound had he dared. The prices of dogs amazed him. "'Ah, I thought it was a dog you wanted,' said Boone. "'Looky, Mr. Povey, come up to my yard and see what I've got.' "'I will,' said Mr. Povey. "'Ah, and bring Mrs. a long tuna. What about a cat for a Mrs. and a goldfish?' The end of the episode was that a young lady aged some twelve months entered the Povey household on trial. Her exiduous legs twinkled all over the parlour, and she had the oddest appearance in the parlour, but she was so confiding, so affectionate, so timorous, and her black nose was so icy in that hot weather that Constance loved her violently within an hour. Mr. Povey made rules for her. He explained to her that she must never, never go into the shop. But she went, and he whipped her to the squealing-point, and Constance cried an instant while admiring her husband's firmness. The dog was not all. On another day Constance, prying into the least details of the parlour, discovered a box of cigars inside the lid of the harmonium on the keyboard. She was so unaccustomed to cigars that at first she did not realise what the object was. Her father had never smoked, nor drunk in toxicance, nor had Mr. Critchlow. Nobody had ever smoked in that house, where tobacco had always been regarded as equally licentious with cards, the devil's playthings. Certainly Samuel had never smoked in the house, though the sight of the cigar-box reminded Constance of an occasion when her mother had announced an incredulous suspicion that Mr. Povey, fresh from an excursion into the world on a Thursday evening, smelt of smoke. She closed the harmonium and kept silence. That very night, coming suddenly into the parlour, she caught Samuel at the harmonium. The lid went down with a resonant bang that awoke sympathetic vibrations in every corner of the room. What is it? Constance inquired, jumping. Oh, nothing! replied Mr. Povey, carelessly. Each was deceiving the other. Mr. Povey hid his crime, and Constance hid her knowledge of his crime. False, false! But this is what marriage is. And the next day Constance had a visit in the shop from a possible new servant recommended to her by Mr. Hall the grocer. "'Will you please step this way?' said Constance, with affable primness, steeped in the novel sense of what it is to be the sole responsible mistress of a vast household. She preceded the girl to the parlour, and as they passed the open door of Mr. Povey's cutting-out room, Constance had the clear vision and titulating odor of her husband smoking a cigar. He was in his shirt-sleeves, calmly cutting out, and fan, the lady-companion, at watch on the bench, yet at the possible new servant. "'I think I shall try that girl,' said she to Samuel at tea. She said nothing as to the cigar, nor did he. On the following evening, after supper, Mr. Povey burst out, "'I think I'll have a weed. You didn't know I smoked, did you?' Thus Mr. Povey came out in his true colours as a blood, a blade, and a gay spark. But dogs and cigars, disconcerting enough in their degree, were to the signboard, when the signboard at last came, as skim milk is to hot brandy. It was the signboard that more startlingly than anything else marked the dawn of a new era in St. Luke's Square. Four men spent a day and a half in fixing it. They had ladders, ropes, and pulleys, and two of them dined on the flat-lead roof of the projecting-shop windows. The signboard was thirty-five feet long, and two feet in depth. Over its centre was a semi-circle about three feet in radius. This semi-circle bore the legend judiciously disposed, S. Povey late. All the signboard proper was devoted to the words John Baines, in gold letters a foot-and-a-half high on a green ground. The square watched and wondered, and murmured, Well, bless us, what next? It was agreed that in giving paramount importance to the name of his late father-in-law, Mr. Povey had displayed a very nice feeling. Some asked with glee, What will the old lady have to say? Constance asked herself this, but not with glee. When Constance walked down the square homewards, she could scarcely bear to look at the sign. She thought of what her mother would say frightened her. Her mother's first visit of state was imminent, and Aunt Harriet was to accompany her. Constance felt almost sick as the day approached. When she faintly hinted her apprehensions to Samuel, he demanded, as if surprised, Haven't you mentioned it in one of your letters? Oh, no! If that's all, said he with bravado, I'll write and tell her myself. For so Mrs. Baines was duly apprised of the signboard before her arrival. The letter written by her to Constance after receiving Samuel's letter, which was merely the amiable epistle of a son-in-law anxious to be a little more than correct, contained no reference to the signboard. This silence, however, did not in the least delay Constance's apprehensions as to what might occur when her mother and Samuel met beneath the signboard itself. It was therefore with a fearful, as well as an eager loving heart, that Constance opened her side-door and ran down the steps when the wagonette stopped in King Street on the Thursday morning of the great visit of the sisters. But a surprise awaited her. Aunt Harriet had not come. Mrs. Baines explained, as she soundly kissed her daughter, that at the last moment Aunt Harriet had not felt well enough to undertake the journey. She sent her fondest love and cake. Her pains had recurred. It was these mysterious pains which had prevented the sisters from coming to Bursley earlier. The word cancer, the continual terror of stout women, had been on their lips, without having been actually uttered. Then there was a surcease, and each was glad that she had refrained from the dread syllables. In view of the recurrence, it was not unnatural that Mrs. Baines's vigorous cheerfulness should be somewhat forced. What is it, do you think? Constance inquired. Mrs. Baines pushed her lips out and raised her eyebrows, a gesture which meant that the pains might mean God knew what. I hope she'll be all right alone, observed Constance. Of course, said Mrs. Baines quickly, but you don't suppose I was going to disappoint you, do you? She added, looking round as if to defy the fates in general. This speech and its tone gave intense pleasure to Constance, and laden with parcels they mounted the stairs together, very content with each other, very happy in the discovery that they were still mother and daughter, very intimate in an inarticulate way. Constance had imagined long, detailed absorbing and highly novel conversations between herself and her mother upon this, her first meeting after her marriage, but alone in the bedroom, and with a clear half-hour to-dinner, they neither of them seemed to have a great deal to impart. Mrs. Baines slowly removed her light mantle and laid it with precautions on the white damas' counter-pane, then, fingering her weeds, she glanced about the chamber. Nothing was changed. Though Constance had, previous to her marriage, envisaged certain alterations, she had determined to postpone them, feeling that one revolutionist in the house was enough. Well, my chick, you're right," said Mrs. Baines, with hearty and direct energy, gazing straight into her daughter's eyes. Constance perceived that the question was universal in its comprehensiveness, the one unique expression that the mother would give to her maternal concern and curiosity, and that it condensed into six words as much interest as would have overflowed into a whole day of the chatter of some mothers. She met the candid glance, flushing. Oh, yes, she answered, with ecstatic fervour. Perfectly! And Mrs. Baines nodded, as if dismissing that. Your stouter, said she curtly, if you aren't careful, you'll be as big as any of us. Oh, mother! The interview fell into a lower plane of emotion. It even fell as far as Maggie. What chiefly preoccupied Constance was a subtle change in her mother. She found her mother fussy in trifles, her manner of laying down her mantle, of smoothing out her gloves, and her anxiety that her bonnet should not come to harm were rather trying, were perhaps, in the very slightest degree, pitiable. It was nothing, it was barely perceptible, and yet it was enough to alter Constance's mental attitude to her mother. Poor dear, thought Constance, I'm afraid she's not what she was. Incredible that her mother could have aged in less than six weeks, Constance did not allow for the chemistry that had been going on in herself. The encounter between Mrs. Baines and her son-in-law was of the most satisfactory nature. He was waiting in the parlour for her to descend. He made himself exceedingly agreeable, kissing her and flattering her by his evidently sincere desire to please. He explained that he had kept an eye open for a wagonette, but had been called away. His dear me, on learning about Aunt Harriet, lacked nothing in conviction, though both women knew that his affection for Aunt Harriet would never get the better of his reason. To Constance, her husband's behaviour was marvellously perfect. She had not suspected him to be such a man of the world. After her eyes said to her mother, quite unconsciously, You see, after all, you didn't rate Sam as high as you ought to have done. Now you see your mistake. As they sat waiting for dinner, Constance and Mrs. Baines on the sofa, and Samuel on the edge of the nearest rocking chair, a small scuffling noise was heard outside the door which gave on the kitchen steps. The door yielded to pressure, and fan rushed importantly in, deranging maths. Fan's nose had been hinting to her that she was behind the times, not up to date in the affairs of the household, and she had hurried from the kitchen to make inquiries. It occurred to her en route that she had been washed that morning. The spectacle of Mrs. Baines stopped her. She stood with her legs slightly outstretched. Her nose lifted, her ears raking forward, her bright eyes blinking, and her tail undecided. I was sure I had never smelled anything like that before," she was saying to herself, as she stared at Mrs. Baines. And Mrs. Baines, staring at Fan, had a similar, but though not the same, sentiment. The silence was terrible. Constance took on the mean of a culprit, and Sam had obviously lost his easy bearing of a man of the world. Mrs. Baines was merely thunderstruck, a dog. Suddenly Fan's tail began to wag more quickly, and then, having looked in vain for encouragement to her master and mistress, she gave one mighty spring and alighted in Mrs. Baines's lap. It was a name she could not have missed. Constance emitted an, oh, fan of shock, terror, and Samuel betrayed his nervous tension by an involuntary movement. But Fan had settled down into that titanic lap as into heaven. There was a greater flattery than Mr. Povies. So your name's Fan, murmured Mrs. Baines, stroking the animal. Oh, you are a dear. Yes, isn't she? said Constance, with inconceivable rapidity. The danger was passed. Thus, without any explanation, Fan became an accepted fact. The next moment Maggie served the Yorkshire pudding. Well, Maggie, said Mrs. Baines, so you're going to get married this time. When is it? Sunday, ma'am. And you leave here on Saturday? Yes, ma'am. Well, I must have a talk with you before I go. During the dinner, not a word as to the signboard. Several times the conversation curved towards that signboard in the most alarming passion, but invariably it curved away again, like a train from another train, when two trains are simultaneously leaving a station. Constance had frights, so serious as to destroy her anxiety about the cookery. In the end, she comprehended that her mother had adopted a silently disapproving attitude. Fan was socially very useful throughout the repast. After dinner, Constance was on pins that less Samuel should light a cigar. Less Samuel should light a cigar. She had not requested him not to do so, so though she was entirely sure of his affection, she had already learned that her husband is possessed by a demon of contrarity, which often forces him to violate his higher feelings. However, Samuel did not light a cigar. He went off to superintendent shutting up of the shop, while Mrs. Baines chatted to Maggie, and gave her five pounds for a wedding present. Then Mr. Critchlow called to offer his salutations. A little before tea, Mrs. Baines announced that she would go out for a short walk by herself. Where has she gone to? smiled Samuel superiorly, as with Constance at the window. He watched her turn down King Street towards the church. I expect she's gone to look at father's grave, said Constance. Oh! muttered Samuel, apologetically. Constance was mistaken. Before reaching the church, Mrs. Baines deviated to the right, got into Broom Street, and thence by Acha Lane, into Old Castle Street, whose steep she climbed. Now Old Castle Street ends at the top of St. Luke's Square, and from the corner Mrs. Baines had an excellent view of the signboard. It being thirsty afternoon, scarcer soul was about. She returned to her daughters by the same extraordinary route, and said not a word on entering. But she was markedly cheerful. The wagonette came after tea, and Mrs. Baines made her final preparations to depart. The visit had proved a wonderful success. It would have been utterly perfect if Samuel had not marred it at the very door of the wagonette. Somehow he contrived to be talking of Christmas. Only a person of Samuel's native clumsiness would have mentioned Christmas in July. You know you'll spend Christmas with us," said he into the wagonette. Indeed I shan't," replied Mrs. Baines. Aunt Harriet and I will expect you at Ackes. We've already settled that. Mr. Povey bridled. Oh, no!" he protested, hurt by this summer in us. Having had no relatives except his cousin, the confectioner, for many years he had dreamt of at last establishing a family Christmas under his own roof, and the dream was dear to him. Mrs. Baines said nothing. We couldn't possibly leave the shop, said Mr. Povey. Nonsense! Mrs. Baines retorted, putting her lips together. Christmas day is a Monday. The wagonette, in starting, jerked her head towards the door and set all her curls shaking. No white in those curls yet. Scarcely a touch of grey. I shall take good care we don't go there anyway. Mr. Povey mumbled in his heat, after himself, and after Constance. He had stained the brightness of the day. End of Book Two, Chapter One. Book Two, Chapter Two of The Old Wife's Tale, by Arnold Bennett. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information, or to volunteer, please go to LibriVox.org. Reading by Andy Minter. The Old Wife's Tale, by Arnold Bennett. Book Two, Constance. Chapter Two, Christmas and the Future. One. Mr. Povey was playing a hymn-tune on the harmonium, it having been decided that no one should go to chapel. Constance, in mourning, with a white apron over her dress, sat on a hasock in front of the fire, and near her, in the rocking-chair, Mrs. Baines swayed very gently to and fro. The weather was extremely cold. Mr. Povey's mitten hands were blue and red, but like many shopkeepers he had apparently grown almost insensible to vagaries of temperature. Although the fire was immense and furious, its influence, owing to the fact that the medieval grate was designed to heat the flu rather than the room, seemed to die away at the borders of the vendor. Constance could not have been much closer to it without being a salamander. The era of good old-fashioned Christmases, so agreeably picturesque for the poor, was not yet at an end. Yes, Samuel Povey had won the battle concerning the locus of the family Christmas, but he had received the help of a formidable ally—death. Mrs. Harriet Maddock had passed away, after an operation, leaving her house and her money to her sister. The solemn rite of her interment had deeply affected all the respectability of the town of Axe, where the late Mr. Maddock had been a figure of consequence. It had even shut up the shop in St. Luke's Square for a whole day. It was such a funeral as Aunt Harriet herself would have approved, a tremendous ceremonial which left on the crushed mine an ineffacable, intricate impression of shiny cloth, crepe, horses with arching necks and long mains, the droll of parson's, cake, port, size, and Christian submission to the inscrutable degrees of Providence. Mrs. Baines had borne herself with unnatural calmness until the funeral was over, and then Constance perceived that the remembered mother of her girlhood existed no longer. For the majority of human souls it would have been easier to love a virtuous principal or a mountain than to love Aunt Harriet, who was assuredly less a woman than an institution. But Mrs. Baines had loved her, and she had been the one person to whom Mrs. Baines looked for support and guidance. When she died Mrs. Baines paid the tribute of respect with the last hoarded remains of her proud fortitude, and weepingly confessed that the unconquerable had been conquered, the inexhaustible exhausted, and become old with whitening hair. She had persisted in her refusal to spend Christmas in Bursley, but both Constance and Samuel knew that the resistance was only formal. She soon yielded. When Constance's second new servant took it into her head to leave a week before Christmas, Mrs. Baines might have pointed out the finger of Providence at work again, and this time in her favour. But no! With amazing pliancy she suggested that she should bring over one of her own servants to tide Constance over Christmas. She was met with all the forms of loving solicitude, and she found that her daughter and son-in-law had turned out of the safe bedroom in her favour, intensely flattered by this attention, which was Mr. Povey's magnanimous idea. She nevertheless protested strongly. Indeed, she would not hear of it. Now, mother, don't be silly, Constance had said firmly. You don't expect us to be at all the trouble of moving back again, do you? And Mrs. Baines had surrendered in tears. Thus had come Christmas. Perhaps it was fortunate that the ax-servant being not quite the ordinary servant, but a benefactor, where a benefactor was needed, both Constance and her mother thought it well to occupy themselves in household work, sparing the benefactor as much as possible. Hence Constance's wife, Apron. There he is! said Mr. Povey, still playing, but with his eye on the street. Constance sprang up eagerly. Then there was a knock on the door. Constance opened, and an icy blast swept into the room. The postman stood on the steps, his instrument for knocking, like a drumstick, in one hand, a large bundle of letters in the other, and a yawning bag across the pit of his stomach. Merry Christmas, ma'am! cried the postman, trying to keep warm by cheerfulness. Constance, taking the letters, responded, while Mr. Povey, playing the harmonium with his right hand, drew half a crown from his pocket with the left. Here you are! he said, giving it to Constance, who gave it to the postman. Fan, who had been keeping her muzzle warm with the extremity of her tail on the sofa, jumped down to superintend the transaction. Brrr! Vibrated Mr. Povey, as Constance shut the door. What knots! Constance exclaimed, rushing to the fire. Here, mother! Here, Sam! The girl had resumed possession of the woman's body. Though the Baines family had few friends, sustained hospitality being little practiced in those days, they had, of course, many acquaintances. And like other families, they counted their Christmas cards as an Indian Count's scalps. The tail was satisfactory. There were between thirty and forty envelopes. Constance extracted Christmas cards rapidly, reading their contents aloud, and then propping them up on the mantelpiece. Mrs. Baines assisted. Fan dealt with the envelopes on the floor. Mr. Povey, to prove that his soul was above toys and gurgles, continued to play the harmonium. Oh, mother! Constance murmured in a startled, hesitant voice, holding an envelope. What is it, my Chuck? It's—the envelope was addressed to Mrs. and Miss Baines, in large, perpendicular, dashing characters, which Constance instantly recognized as sapphires. The stamps were strange—the postmark Paris. Mrs. Baines leant forward and looked. Open it, child! she said. The envelope contained an English Christmas card of a common type, a spray of holly with greetings, and on it was written, I do hope this will reach you on Christmas morning, fondest love. No signature, nor address. Mrs. Baines took it with a trembling hand and adjusted her spectacles. She gazed at it a long time. And it has done, she said, and wept. She tried to speak again, but not being able to command herself, held forth the card to Constance, and jerked her head in the direction of Mr. Povey. Constance rose and put the card on the keyboard of the harmonium. Sophia! she whispered. Mr. Povey stopped playing. Dear, dear! he muttered, fan perceiving that nobody was interested in her feet suddenly stood still. Mrs. Baines tried once more to speak, but could not. Then her wringlet shaking beneath the band of her weeds, she found her feet, stepped to the harmonium, and with a movement almost convulsive, snatched the card from Mr. Povey, and returned to her chair. Mr. Povey abruptly left the room, followed by fan. Both the women were in tears, and he was tremendously surprised to discover a dangerous lump in his own throat. The beautiful and imperious vision of Sophia, Sophia, as she had left them, innocent, wayward, had swiftly risen up before him, and made even him a woman, too. Yet he had never liked Sophia. The awful secret wound in the family pride revealed itself to him as never before, and he felt intensely the mother's tragedy, which she carried in her breast, as Aunt Harriet had carried a cancer. At dinner he said suddenly to Mrs. Baines, who still wet, �Now, mother, you must cheer up, you know. � �Yes, I must,� she said quickly, and she did so. Neither Samuel nor Constance saw the card again. Little was said, there was nothing to say, as Sophia had given no address. She must still be ashamed of her situation. But she had thought of her mother and sister. She did not even know that Constance was married. What sort of place was Paris? To Bursley, Paris was nothing but the sight of a great exhibition which had recently closed. Through the influence of Mrs. Baines, a new servant was found for Constance in a village near Axe, a raw, comely girl who had never been in a place, and through the post it was arranged that this innocent should come to the cave on the 31st of December. In obedience to the safe rule that servants should never be allowed to meet for the interchange of opinions, Mrs. Baines decided to leave with her own servant on the 30th. She would not be persuaded to spend the new year in the square. On the 29th, poor Aunt Maria died all of a sudden in her cottage in Broom Street. Everybody was duly distressed, and in particular Mrs. Baines' demeanour under this affliction showed the perfection of correctness. But she caused it to be understood that she should not remain for the funeral. Her nerves would be unequal to the ordeal, and moreover her servant must not stay to corrupt the new girl, nor could Mrs. Baines think of sending her servant to Axe in advance to spend several days in idle gossip with her colleague. This decision took the backbone out of Aunt Maria's funeral, which touched the extreme of modesty, a hearse and a one-horse coach. Mr. Povey was glad, because he happened to be very busy. An hour before his mother-in-law's departure, he came into the parlour with the proof of a poster. "'What is that, Samuel?' asked Mrs. Baines, not dreaming of the blow that awaited her. "'It's for my first annual sale,' replied Mr. Povey, with false tranquillity. Mrs. Baines merely tossed her head. Constance, happily for Constance, was not present at this final defeat of the old order, and she'd been there. She would certainly not have known where to look. Two. Forty-next-birthday Mr. Povey exclaimed one day, with an expression and in atone, that were at once mock-serious and serious. This was on his thirty-ninth birthday. Constance was startled. She had, of course, been aware that they were getting older, but she had never realised the phenomenon. No customers occasionally remarked that Mr. Povey was stouter, and though when she helped him to measure himself for a new suit of clothes, the tape proved the fact. He had not changed for her. She knew that she too had become somewhat stouter, but for herself she remained exactly the same Constance. Only by recalling dates and by calculations could she really grasp that she had been married a little over six years, and not a little over six months. She had to admit that if Samuel would be forty-next-birthday, she would be twenty-seven next-birthday. But he would not be a real twenty-seven. Nor would Sam's forty be a real forty, like other people's twenty- sevens and forties. Not long since she had been in the habit of regarding a man of forty a senile, as practically in his grave. She reflected, and the more she reflected, the more clearly she saw that, after all, the almanacs had not lied. Look at Fan! Yes, it must be five years since the memorable morning when doubt first crossed the minds of Samuel and Constance, as to Fan's moral principles. Samuel's enthusiasm for dogs was equaled by his ignorance of the dangers to which a young female of temperament may be exposed, and he was much disturbed as doubt developed into certainty. Fan, indeed, was the one being who did not suffer from shock, and who had no fears as to the results. The animal, having a pure mind, was bereft of modesty. Sundry and Normity's had she committed but none to rank with this one. The result was four quadrupeds, recognisable as Fox Terriers. Mr. Povey breathed again. Fan had had more luck than she deserved, for the result might have been simply anything. Her owners forgave her, and disposed of these fruits of iniquity, and then married her lawfully to a husband who was so high up in the world that he could demand a dowry. And now Fan was a grandmother, with fixed ideas and habits, and a son in the house, and various grandchildren scattered over the town. Fan was a sedate and disillusioned dog. She knew the world as it was, and in learning it she had taught her owners above a bit. Then there was Maggie Hollins. Constance could still vividly recall the self-consciousness with which she had one day received Maggie, and the air of the Hollinses, but it was a long time ago. After staggering half the town by the production of this infant, of which she nearly died, Maggie allowed the angels to waft it away to heaven, and everybody said that she ought to be very thankful at her age. Old women dug up out of their minds, forgotten histories of the eccentricities of the goddess Lucina. Mrs. Baines was most curiously interested. She talked freely to Constance, and Constance began to see what an incredible town Bursley had always been, and she never suspected it. Maggie was now the mother of other children, and the draggled lame mistress of a drunken home, and looked sixty. Despite her prophecy, her husband had conserved his habits. The povies ate all the fish they could, and sometimes more than they enjoyed, because on his sober days Hollins invariably started his round at the shop, and Constance had to buy for Maggie's sake. The worst of the worthiness husband was that he seldom failed to be cheery and polite. He never missed asking after the health of Mrs. Baines, and when Constance replied that her mother was pretty well considering, but that she would not come over to Bursley again until the axe railway was opened, as she could not stand the drive, he would shake his grey head and be sympathetically gloomy for an instance. All these changes in six years, the Almanacs were in the right of it. But nothing had happened to her. Gradually she had obtained a sure ascendancy over her mother, yet without seeking it, merely as the outcome of times the influence is on her and on her mother, respectively. Gradually she had gained skill and use in the management of her household and her share of the shop, so that these machines ran smoothly and effectively, and the sudden contra-toms no longer frightened her. Gradually she had constructed a chart of Samuel's individuality, with the submerged rocks and perilous currents all carefully marked, so that she could now voyage unalarm'd in those seas. But nothing happened. Unless their visits to Buxton could be called happenings, Gradually the visit to Buxton was the one little hill that rose out of the level plain of the year. They had formed the annual habit of going to Buxton for ten days. They had a way of saying, Yes, we always go to Buxton, we went there for our honeymoon, you know. They had become confirmed Buxtonites, with views concerning St. Aaron's Terrace, the Broadwalk, and Peele's Cavern. They could not dream of deserting their Buxton. It was the sole possible resort. Was it not the highest town in England? Well, then. They always stayed at the same lodgings, and grew to be special favourites of the landlady, who whispered of them to all her other guests as having come to her house for their honeymoon, and as never missing a year, and as being most respectable superior people in quite a large way of business. Each year they walked out of Buxton Station behind their luggage on a truck, full of joy and pride, because they knew all the landmarks, and the lie of all the streets, and which were the best shops. At the beginning, the notion of leaving the shop to hired custody had seemed almost fantastic, and the preparations for absence had been very complicated. Then it was that Miss Insull had detached herself from the other young lady assistants, as a creature who could be absolutely trusted. Miss Insull was older than Constance. She had a bad complexion, and she was not clever. But she was one of your reliable ones. The six years had witnessed the slow, steady rise of Miss Insull. Her employer said, Miss Insull, in a tone quite different from that in which they said, Miss Hawkins, or Miss Dad. Miss Insull meant the end of a discussion. Better tell Miss Insull. Miss Insull will see to that. I shall ask Miss Insull. Miss Insull slept in the house ten nights every year. Miss Insull had been called into consultation when it was decided to engage a fourth hand in the shape of an apprentice. Trade had improved to the point of excellence. It was now admitted to be good, a rare honour for trade. The coal mining boom was at its height, and colliers, in addition to getting drunk, were buying American organs and expensive bull terriers. Often they would come to the shop to purchase cloth for coats for their dogs, and they would have good cloth. Mr. Povey did not like this. One day a buddy chose for his dog the best cloth of Mr. Povey's shop at twelve shillings a yard. "'Will you make it up, I have gotten the measurements,' asked the collier. "'No, I won't,' said Mr. Povey, hotly, and what's more I won't sell you the cloth, either. Cloth at twelve shillings a yard and a dog's back, indeed. I'll thank you to get out of my shop.' The incident became historic in the square. It finally established that Mr. Povey was a worthy son-in-law and a solid and successful man. It vindicated the old preeminence of Baines's. Some surprise was expressed that Mr. Povey showed no desire nor tendency towards entering the public life of the town. But he never would, though a keen satirical critic of the local board in private, and at the chapel he remained a simple private worshipper, refusing stewardships and trusteeships. 3. Was Constance happy? Of course there was always something on her mind, something that had to be dealt with, either in the shop or in the house, something to employ all the skill and experience which she had acquired. Her life had much in it of laborious tedium, tedium never-ending and monotonous, and both she and Samuel worked consistently hard, rising early, pushing forward, as the phrase ran, and going to bed early from sheer fatigue, week after week and month after month, as season changed imperceptibly into season. In June and July it would happen to them occasionally to retire before the last sliver of dusk was out of the sky. They would lie in bed and talk placidly of their daily affairs. There would be a noise in the street below. Vaults closing, Samuel would say, and yawn. Yes, it's quite late, Constance would say, and the Swiss clock would rapidly strike eleven on its coil of resonant wire. And then, just before she went to sleep, Constance might reflect upon her destiny, as even the busiest and smoothest women do, and she would decide that it was kind. Her mother's gradual decline and lonely life at Dax saddened her. The cards which came now and then at extremely long intervals from Sophia had been the cause of more sorrow than joy. The naive ecstasies of her girlhood had long since departed. The price paid for experience and self-position and a true vision of things. The vast inherent melancholy of the universe did not exempt her. But as she went to sleep she would be conscious of her vague contentment. The basis of this contentment was the fact that she and Samuel comprehended and esteemed each other, and made allowances for each other. Their characters had been tested, and had stood the test. Affection, love, was not to them a salient phenomenon in their relations. Habit had inevitably dulled its glitter. It was like a flavouring, scarce remarked. But had it been absent, how they would have turned from that dish. Samuel never, or hardly ever, set himself to meditate upon the problem of whether or not life had come up to his expectations. But he had, at times, strange sensations which he did not analyse, and which approached nearer to ecstasy than any feeling of constancies. Thus, when he was in one of his dark furies, molten within and black without, the sudden thought of his wife's unalterable benign and calm, which nothing could overthrow, might strike him into a wandering cold. For him she was astoundingly feminine. She would put flowers on the mantelpiece, and then hours afterwards in the middle of a meal, ask him unexpectedly what he thought of her garden. And he gradually divined that a perfunctory reply left her unsatisfied. She wanted a genuine opinion. A genuine opinion mattered to her. Fancy calling flowers on the mantelpiece a garden. How charming, how childlike! Then she had a way on Sunday mornings when she descended to the parlour, all ready for chapel, of shutting the door at the foot of the stairs with a little bang, shaking herself and turning round swiftly as if for his inspection, as if saying, Well, what about this? Will this do? A phenomenon always associated in his mind with the smell of kid gloves. Invariably she asked him about the colours and cut of her dresses. Would he prefer this or that? He could not take such questions seriously, until one day he happened to hint, merely hint, that he was not a thorough going admirer of a certain new dress. It was her first new dress, after the definite abandonment of Crinolines. She never wore it again. He thought she was not serious at first, and remonstrated against the joke being carried too far. She said, It's not a bit of use you talking. I shan't wear it again. And then he so far appreciated her seriousness as to refrain, by discretion, from any comment. The incident affected him for days. It flattered him. It thrilled him. But it baffled him. Strange that a woman subject to such caprices should be so sagacious, capable, and utterly reliable as Constance was. For the practical and common sense side of her eternally compelled his admiration. The first example of it, her insistence that the simultaneous absence of both of them from the shop for half an hour or an hour twice a day would not mean the immediate downfall of the business, had remained in his mind ever since. Had she not been obstinate, in her benevolent way, against the old superstition which he had acquired from his employers, they might have been eating separately to that day. Even her handling of her mother, during the months of the Siege of Paris, when Mrs. Baines was convinced that her sinful daughter was in hourly danger of death, had been extraordinarily fine, he considered. And the sequel, a card for Constance's birthday, had completely justified her attitude. Sometimes some blundering fool would jovially exclaim to them, What about that baby? Or a woman would remark quietly, I often feel sorry for you've no children. And they would answer that really they did not know what they would do if there was a baby, what with the shop and one thing and another. And they were quite sincere. Four. It is remarkable what a little thing will draw even the most regular and serious people from the deep groove of their habits. One morning in March, a bone shaker, an affair on two equal wooden wheels, joined by a bar of iron in the middle of which was a wooden saddle, disturbed the gravity of St. Luke's Square. True, it was probably the first bone shaker that had ever attacked the gravity of St. Luke's Square. It came out of the shop of Daniel Povey, the confectioner and baker, and Samuel Povey's celebrated cousin in Bolton Terrace. Bolton Terrace formed nearly a right angle with the Baines premises, and at the corner of the angle, Wedgwood Street and King Street left the square. The bone shaker was brought forth by Dick Povey, the only son of Daniel, now aged eleven years, under the superintendence of his father, and the square soon perceived that Dick had a natural talent for breaking in and untrained bone shaker. After a few attempts he could remain on the back of the machine for at least ten yards, and his feats had the effect of endowing St. Luke's Square with the attractiveness of a circus. Samuel Povey watched with candid interest from the ambush of his door, while the unfortunate lady assistants, though aware of the performance that was going on, dared not stare from the stove. Samuel was tremendously tempted to sally out boldly and chat with his cousin about the toy. He had surely a better right to do so than any other tradesman in the square, since he was of the family, but his diffidence prevented him from moving. Presently Daniel Povey and Dick went to the top of the square with the machine opposite Halls, and Dick, being carefully installed in the saddle, essayed to descend the gentle pavement slopes of the square. He failed time after time. The machine had an astonishing way of turning round, running up hill, and then lying calmly on its side. At this point of Dick's life history, every shop door in the square was occupied by an audience. At last the bone-shaker displayed less unwillingness to obey, and lo, in a moment Dick was riding down the square, and the spectators held their breath as if he had been blond in crossing Niagara. Every second he ought to have fallen off, but he can try to keep upright. Already he had accomplished twenty yards, thirty yards. It was a miracle that he was performing. The transit continued, and seemed to occupy hours. And then a faint hope rose in the breast of the watchers, that the prodigy might arrive at the bottom of the square. His speed was increasing with his knack. But the square was enormous, boundless. Samuel Povey gazed at the approaching phenomenon as a bird at a serpent, with bulging beady eyes. The child's speed went on increasing as his path grew straighter. Yes, he would arrive. He would do it. Samuel Povey involuntarily lifted one leg in his nervous tension. And now the hope that Dick would arrive became a fear, as his pace grew still more rapid. Everybody lifted one leg and gaped, and the intrepid child surged on, and finally, victorious, crashed into the pavement in front of Samuel at the rate of quite six miles an hour. Samuel picked him up unscathed, and somehow this picking up of Dick, invested Samuel with importance, gave him a share in the glory of the feet itself. Daniel Povey came running and joyous. Not bad for a start, eh? exclaimed the great Daniel. Though by no means a simple man, his pride in his offspring sometimes made him a little naive. Father and son explained the machine to Samuel, Dick incessantly repeating the exceedingly strange truth that if you fell to a fall into your right, you must turn to your right, and vice versa. Samuel found himself suddenly admitted, as it were, to the inner fellowship of the Bone Shaker, exalted above the rest of the square. In another adventure more thrilling events occurred. The fair-haired Dick was one of those dangerous friends in madcaps who were born without fear. The secret of the machine had been revealed to him in his recent transit, and he was silently determining to surpass himself. Carelessly balanced, he descended the square again, frowning hard, his teeth set, and actually managed to swerve into King Street. Constance in the parlour saw an incomprehensible winged thing fly past the window. The cousin's Povey sounded an alarm and protest, and ran in pursuit, for the gradient of King Street is, in the strict sense, steep. Halfway down King Street, Dick was travelling at twenty miles an hour, and heading straight for the church as though he meant to disestablish it and perish. The main gate of the churchyard was open, and that a frighting child with a lunatic's luck whizzed safely through the portals into God's acre. The cousin's Povey discovered him lying in a green grave clothed in pride. His first words were, Dad, did you pick my cap up? The symbolism of the amazing ride did not escape the square. Indeed, it was much discussed. This incident led to a friendship between the cousins. They formed the habit of meeting in the square for a chat. The meetings were the subject of comment for Samuel's relations with the greater Daniel had always been of the most distant. It was understood that Samuel disapproved of Mrs. Daniel Povey even more than the majority of people disapproved of her. Mrs. Daniel Povey, however, was away from home. Probably had she not been, Samuel would not even have gone to the length of joining Daniel on the neutral ground of the open square. But having once broken the ice, Samuel was glad to be on terms of growing intimacy with his cousin. The friendship flattered him, for Daniel, despite his wife, was a figure in a world larger than Samuel's. Moreover, it consecrated his position as the equal of no matter what tradesman, apprentice though he had been, and also he genuinely liked and admired Daniel rather to his own astonishment. Everyone like Daniel Povey, he was a favourite among all ranks. The leading confectioner, a member of the local board, and a sideman at St. Luke's, he was and had been for twenty-five years very prominent in the town. He was a tall, handsome man, with a trimmed, graying beard, a jolly smile, and a flashing dark eye. His good humour seemed to be permanent. He had dignity without the slightest siftness. He was welcomed by his equals, and frankly adored by his inferiors. He ought to have been chief bailiff, for he was rich enough. But there intervened a mysterious obstacle between Daniel Povey and the supreme honour, a scarcely tangible impediment, which could not be definitely stated. He was capable, honest, industrious, successful, and an excellent speaker. And if he did not belong to the austere section of society, if for example he thought nothing of dropping into the tiger for a glass of beer, or of using an oath occasionally, or of telling a facetious story, well, in a busy, broad-minded town of thirty thousand inhabitants, such proclivities are no-bar whatever to perfect esteem. But how is one to phrase it without wronging Daniel Povey? He was entirely moral. His views were unexceptionable. The truth is that for the ruling classes of Bursley, Daniel Povey was just a little too fanatical a worshipper of the god Pan. He was one of the remnant who had kept alive the great Pan tradition from the days of the Regency through the vast arid Victorian expanse of years. The flighty character of his wife was regarded by many as a judgment upon him for the robust rabbalasianism of his more private conversation, for his frank interest in and his eternal preoccupation with aspects of life and human activity which, though essential to the divine purpose, are not openly recognised as such, even by Daniel Povey's. It was not a question of his conduct. It was a question of the cast of his mind. If he did not explain his friendship with the rector of St. Luke's, it explained his departure from the Primitive Methodist connection to which the Povey's as a family had belonged since Primitive Methodism was created in Turnhill in 1807. Daniel Povey had a way of assuming that every male was boiling over with interest in the sacred cult of Pan. The assumption, though sometimes causing inconvenience at first, usually conquered by virtue of its inherent truthfulness. Thus it fell out with Samuel. Samuel had not suspected that Pan had silken cords to draw him. He had always averted his eyes from the god, that is to say within reason. It now, Daniel, on perhaps a couple of fine mornings a week in full square with Fan sitting behind on the cold stones, and Mr. Critchlow, ironic in his door in a long white apron, would entertain Samuel Povey for half an hour with Pan's most intimate lore, and Samuel Povey would not blench. He would, on the contrary, stand up to Daniel like a little man and pretend with all his might to be, potentially, a perfect arch-priest of the god. Samuel taught him a lot, turned over the page of life for him, as it were, and showing the reverse side seemed to say, You were missing all that? Samuel glanced upwards at the handsome long nose and rich lips of his elder cousin, so experienced, so agreeable, so renowned, so esteemed, so philosophic, and admitted to himself that he had lived to the age of forty in a state of comparative boobyism. And then he would gaze downwards at the faint patch of flower on Daniel's right leg, and conceive that life was, and must be, life. Not many weeks after his initiation into the cult, he was startled by Constance's preoccupied face one evening. Now, a husband of six years standing, to whom it has not happened to become a father, is not easily startled by such a face as Constance wore. Years ago he had frequently been startled, had frequently lived in suspense for a few days, but he had long since grown impervious to these alarms. And now he was startled again, but as a man may be startled, who is not altogether surprised at being startled. And seven endless days passed, and Samuel and Constance glanced at each other like guilty things whose secret refuses to be kept. Then three more days passed, and another three. Then Samuel Povey remarked in a firm, masculine, fact-fronting tone, Oh, there's no doubt about it! And they glanced at each other like conspirators who have lighted a fuse and cannot take refuge in flight. Their eyes said continually, with a delicious and enchanting mixture of ingenuous modesty and fearful joy, Well, we've gone and done it! There it was, the incredible, incomprehensible future coming. Samuel had never correctly imagined the manner of its heralding. He had imagined, in his early simplicity, that one day Constance blushing might put her mouth to his ear and whisper something positive. It had not occurred in the least like that. But things are so obstinately, so incurably unsentimental. I think we ought to drive over and tell Mother on Sunday, said Constance. His impulse was to reply in his grand offhand style, Oh, a letter will do! As he checked himself and said, with careful deference, You think that will be better than writing? All was changed. He braced every fibre to meet destiny and to help Constance meet it. The weather threatened on Sunday. He went to Acts without Constance. His cousin drove him there in a dog-cart, and he announced that he should walk home, as the exercise would do him good. During the drive, Daniel, in whom he had not confided, chattered as usual, and Samuel pretended to listen with the same attitude as usual. But secretly he despised Daniel, for a man who has got something not of the first importance on the brain. His perspective was truer than Daniel's. He walked home, as he had decided, over the wavy moorland of the county dreaming in the heart of England. Night fell on him in mid-career, and he was tired, but the earth, as it whirled through naked space, filled up the moon for him. And he pressed on at a good speed. A wind from Arabia wandering cooled his face, and at last, over the brow of Toft End, he saw suddenly the five towns, a twinkle on their little hills, down in the vast amphitheatre. And one of those lamps was Constance's lamp, one somewhere. He lived then. He entered into the shadow of nature. The mysteries made him solemn. What? The bone-shaker, his cousin, and then this. Well, I'm damned. Well, I'm damned, he kept repeating, he who never swore.