 Book 1 Chapter 4 of The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett. Chapter 4 Elephant 1. Sophia, will you come and see the elephant? Do come!" Constance entered the drawing-room with this request on her eager lips. No, said Sophia, with a touch of condescension. I'm far too busy for elephants. Only two years had passed, but both girls were grown up now, long sleeves, long skirts, hair that had settled down in life, and a demeanor immensely serious, as though existence were terrific in its responsibilities. Yet sometimes childhood surprisingly broke through the crust of gravity, as now in Constance, aroused by such things as elephants, and proclaimed with vivacious gestures that it was not dead after all. The sisters were sharply differentiated. Constance wore the black alpaca apron and the scissors at the end of a long black elastic, which indicated her vocation in the shop. She was proving a considerable success in the millinery department. She had learned how to talk to people, and was, in her modest way, very self-possessed. She was getting a little stouter. Everybody liked her. Sophia had developed into the student. Time had accentuated her reserve. Her sole friend was Miss Chetwind, with whom she was, having regard to the disparity of their ages, very intimate. At home she spoke little. She lacked amiability, as her mother said. She was touchy. She required diplomacy from others, but did not render it again. Her attitude, indeed, was one of half-hidden disdain, now gentle, now coldly bitter. She would not wear an apron, in an age when aprons were almost essential to decency. No, she would not wear an apron, and there was an end of it. She was not so tidy as Constance. And if Constance's hands had taken on the coarse texture which comes from commerce with needles, pins, artificial flowers, and stuffs, Sophia's fine hands were seldom innocent of ink. But Sophia was splendidly beautiful, and even her mother and Constance had an instinctive idea that that face was, at any rate, a partial excuse for her asperity. Well, said Constance, if you won't, I do believe I shall ask mother if she will. Sophia, bending over her books, made no answer. But the top of her head said, This has no interest to me, whatever. Constance left the room, and in a moment returned with her mother. Sophia, said her mother, with gay excitement, you might go up and sit with your father for a bit, while Constance and I just run up to the playground to see the elephant. You can work just as well in there as here. Your father's asleep. Oh, very well! Sophia agreed haughtily. Whatever is all this fuss about an elephant. Anyhow, it'll be quieter in your room. The noise here is splitting. She gave a supercilious glance into the square as she languidly rose. It was the morning of the third day of Bursley Wakes, not the modern, finnicking, and respectable, but an orgiastic carnival, gross in all its manifestations of joy. The whole centre of the town was given over to the furious pleasures of the people. Most of the square was occupied by Womwell's menagerie in a vast oblong tent, whose raging beasts roared and growled day and night, and spreading away from this supreme attraction. Right up through the marketplace passed the town hall to Duck Bank, Duck Square, and the wasteland, called the Playground, were hundreds of booths, with banners displaying all the delights of the horrible. You could see the atrocities of the French Revolution and of the Fiji Islands, and the ravages of unspeakable diseases, and the living flesh of a nearly nude human female guaranteed to turn the scale at twenty-two stone, and the skeletons of the mysterious phantoscope, and the bloody contests of champions naked to the waist, with the chance of picking up a red tooth as a relic. You could try your strength by hitting an image of a fellow creature in the stomach, and test your aim by knocking off the heads of other images with a wooden ball. You could also shoot with rifles at various targets. All the streets were lined with stalls loaded with food in heaps, chiefly dried fish, the entrails of animals, and gingerbread. All the public houses were crammed, and frenzied, jolly drunkards, men and women lunged along the pavements everywhere, their shouts vying with the trumpets, horns, and drums of the booths, and the shrieking rattling toys that the children carried. It was a glorious spectacle, but not a spectacle for the leading families. Miss Jetwin's school was closed, so that the daughters of leading families might remain in seclusion till the worst was over. The Bainsies ignored the wakes in every possible way, choosing that week to have a show of morning-goods in the left-hand window, and refusing to let Maggie outside on any pretext. Therefore the dazzling social success of the elephant, which was quite easily drawing Mrs. Bains into the vortex, cannot imaginably be overestimated. On the previous night, one of the three wombwell elephants had suddenly knelt on a man in the tent. He had then walked out of the tent, and picked up another man at haphazard from the crowd, which was staring at the great pictures in front, and tried to put this second man into his mouth. Being stopped by his Indian attendant with a pitchfork, he placed the man on the ground, and stuck his tusk through an artery of the victim's arm. He then, amid unexampled excitement, suffered himself to be led away. He was conducted to the rear of the tent, just in front of Bainsies' shuttered windows, and by means of stakes, pulleys, and ropes, forced to his knees. His head was whitewashed, and six men of the rifle-core were engaged to shoot at him, at a distance of five yards, while constables kept the crowd off with truncheons. He died instantly, rolling over with a soft thud. The crowd cheered, and, intoxicated by their importance, the volunteers fired three more volleys into his carcass, and were then born off as heroes to different inns. The elephant, by the help of his two companions, was got onto a railway lorry, and disappeared into the night. Such was the greatest sensation that has ever occurred, or perhaps will ever occur in Bursley. The excitement about the repeal of the Corn Laws, or about Incomon, was feeble compared to that excitement. Mr. Critchlow, who had been called on to put a hasty tourniquet round the arm of the second victim, had popped in afterwards to tell John Baines all about it. Mr. Baines's interest, however, had been slight. Mr. Critchlow succeeded better with the ladies, who, though they had witnessed the shooting from the drawing-room, were thirsty for the most trifling details. The next day it was known that the elephant lay near the playground, pending the decision of the chief bailiff and the medical officer as to his burial, and everybody had to visit the corpse. No social exclusiveness could withstand the seduction of that dead elephant. Pilgrims travelled from all the five towns to see him. "'We're going now,' said Mrs. Baines, after she had assumed her bonnet and shawl. "'All right,' said Sophia, pretending to be absorbed in study, as she sat on the sofa at the foot of her father's bed. And Constance, having put her head in at the door, drew her mother after her like a magnet. Then Sophia heard a remarkable conversation in the passage. "'Are you going up to see the elephant, Mrs. Baines?' asked the voice of Mr. Povey. "'Yes, why? I think I had better come with you. The crowd is sure to be very rough.' Mr. Povey's tone was firm. He had a position. "'But the sharp. We shall not belong,' said Mr. Povey. "'Oh, yes, mother,' Constance added, appealingly. Sophia felt the house thrill as the side door banged. She sprang up and watched the three cross King Street diagonally, and so plunge into the wakes. This triple departure was surely the crowning tribute to the dead elephant. It was simply astonishing. It caused Sophia to perceive that she had miscalculated the importance of the elephant. It made her regret her scorn of the elephant as an attraction. She was left behind, and the joy of life was calling her. She could see down into the vaults on the opposite side of the street, where working men, potters and colliers, in their best clothes, some with high hats, were drinking, gesticulating, and laughing in a row at a long counter. She noticed, while she was thus at the bedroom window, a young man ascending King Street, followed by a porter trundling a flat barrow of luggage. He passed slowly under the very window. She flushed. She had evidently been startled by the sight of this young man into no ordinary state of commotion. She glanced at the books on the sofa, and then at her father. Mr. Bain's thin and gaunt and acutely pitiable still slept. His brain had almost ceased to be active now. He had to be fed and tended, like a bearded baby, and he would sleep for hours at a stretch, even in the daytime. Sophia left the room. A moment later she ran into the shop, an apparition that amazed the three young lady assistants. At the corner near the window, on the fancy side, a little nook had been formed by screening off a portion of the counter with large flower-boxes placed end up. This corner had come to be known as Miss Bain's corner. Sophia hastened to it, squeezing past the young lady assistant in the narrow space between the back of the counter and the shelf-lined wall. She sat down in Constance's chair, and pretended to look for something. She had examined herself in the chavalgas in the showroom, on her way from the sick chamber. When she heard a voice near the door of the shop, asking first for Mr. Povey, and then for Mrs. Bain's, she rose, and, seizing the object nearest to her, which happened to be a pair of scissors, she hurried towards the showroom's stairs, as though the scissors had been a grail passionately sought and to be jealously hidden away. She wanted to stop and turn round, but something prevented her. She was at the end of the counter under the curving stairs. When one of the assistants said, I suppose you don't know when Mr. Povey or your mother are likely to be back, Miss Sophia. Here's—it was a divine release for Sophia. There, I—she stammered, turning round abruptly. Luckily, she was still sheltered behind the counter. The young man, whom she had seen in the street, came boldly forward. Good morning, Miss Sophia! said he, hat in hand. It's a long time since I had the pleasure of seeing you. Never had she blushed as she blushed then. She scarcely knew what she was doing as she moved slowly towards her sister's corner again, the young man following her on the customer's side of the counter. Two. She knew that he was a traveller for the most renowned and gigantic of all Manchester wholesale firms, Birkin Shores, but she did not know his name, which was Gerald Scales. He was a rather short but extremely well proportioned man of thirty, with fair hair, and a distinguished appearance, as became a representative of Birkin Shores. His broad, tight neck-tie, with an edge of white collar showing above it, was particularly elegant. He had been on the road for Birkin Shores for several years, but Sophia had only seen him once before in her life when she was a little girl three years ago. The relations between the travellers of the great firms and their solid, sure clients in small towns were in those days often cordially intimate. The traveller came with the luster of a historic reputation around him. There was no need to fawn for orders, and the clients' immense and immaculate respectability made him the equal of no matter what ambassador. It was a case of mutual esteem, and of that confident generating phenomenon, an old account. The tone in which a commercial traveller of middle age would utter the phrase, an old account, revealed in a flash all that was romantic, prim and stately in mid-Victorian commerce. In the days of Baines, after one of the elaborately engraved advice-circulars had arrived, our mister so and so will have the pleasure of waiting upon you on, whatever it is, day next, the something or other inst. John might in certain cases be expected to say on the morning of whatever day, Mrs, what have you gotten for supper tonight? Mr Gerald Scales had never been asked to supper. He had never even seen John Baines. But as the youthful successor of an aged traveller who had had the pleasure of St. Luke's Square on behalf of Birkin Shore since before railways, Mrs. Baines had treated him with a faint, agreeable touch of maternal familiarity, and both her daughters, being once in the shop during his visit, she had on that occasion commanded the gawky girls to shake hands with him. Sophia had never forgotten that glimpse. The young man without a name had lived in her mind, brightly glowing, as the very symbol and incarnation of the masculine and the elegant. The renewed sight of him seemed to have wakened her out of asleep. Assuredly she was not the same Sophia. As she sat in her sister's chair in the corner, entrenched behind the perpendicular boxes, playing nervously with the scissors, her beautiful face was transfigured into the ravishingly angelic. It would have been impossible for Mr Gerald Scales or anybody else to credit, as he gazed at those lovely, sensitive, vivacious, responsive features that Sophia was not a character of heavenly sweetness and perfection. She did not know what she was doing. She was nothing but the exquisite expression of a deep instinct to attract and charm. Her soul itself emanated from her in an atmosphere of allurement and acquiescence. Could those laughing lips hang in a heavy pout? Could that delicate and mild voice be harsh? Could those burning eyes be coldly inimical? Never. The idea was inconceivable, and Mr Gerald Scales, with his head over the top of the boxes, yielded to the spell. Remarkable that Mr Gerald Scales, with all his experience, should have had to come to Bursley to find the pearl, the paragon, the ideal. But so it was. They met in an equal abandonment. The only difference between them was that Mr Scales, by force of habit, kept his head. I see it is your wakes here," said he. He was polite to the wakes, but now, with the least inflection in the world, he put the wakes at its proper level in the scheme of things as a local unimportance. She adored him for this. She was a thirst for sympathy in the task of scorning everything local. I expect you didn't know," she said, implying that there was every reason why a man of his mundane interests should not know. I should have remembered if I had thought," said he, but I didn't think. What's this about an elephant? Oh, she exclaimed, have you heard of that? My porter was full of it. Well, she said, of course, it's a very big thing in Bursley. As she smiled in gentle pity of poor Bursley, he naturally did the same, and he thought how much more advanced and broad the younger generation was than the old. He would never have dared to express his real feelings about Bursley to Mrs. Baines, or even to Mr. Povey, who was, however, of no generation. Yet here was a young woman actually sharing them. She told him all the history of the elephant. Must have been very exciting, he commented, despite himself. Do you know, she replied, it was. After all, Bursley was climbing in their opinion, and my mother and my sister and Mr. Povey have all gone to see it, and that's why they're not here. That the elephant should have caused both Mr. Povey and Mrs. Baines to forget that the representative of Birkin Shores was due to call, was indeed a final victory for the elephant. But not you, he exclaimed. No, she said, not me. Why didn't you go? He continued his flattering investigations with a generous smile. I simply didn't care to, said she, proudly nonchalant. And I suppose you're in charge here. No, she answered, I just happened to have run down here for these scissors, and that's all. I often see your sister, said he. Often do I say, that is generally when I come, but never you. I'm never in the shop, she said. It's just an accident today. Oh, so you leave the shop to your sister. Yes, she said nothing of her teaching. Then there was a silence. Sophia was very thankful to be hidden from the curiosity of the shop. The shop could see nothing of her, and only the back of the young man, and the conversation had been conducted in low voices. She tapped her foot, stared at the worn, polished surface of the counter with the brass yard measure nailed along its edge, and then she uneasily turned her gaze to the left, and seemed to be examining the backs of the black bonnets which were perched on high stands in the great window. Then her eyes caught his for an important moment. Yes, she breathed. Somebody had to say something. If the shop missed the murmur of their voices, the shop would wonder what had happened to them. Mr. Scales looked at his watch. I dare say if I come in again about two, he began. Oh, yes, they're sure to be, and then she burst out before he could finish his sentence. He left abruptly, queerly, without shaking hands. But then it would have been difficult, she argued, for him to have put his arm over the boxes, and without expressing the hope of seeing her again. She peeped through the black bonnets, and saw the porter put the leather strap over his shoulders, raise the rear of the barrow, and trundle off. But she did not see Mr. Scales. She was drunk. Thoughts were tumbling about in her brain, like cargo loose in a rolling ship. Her entire conception of herself was being altered. Her attitude towards life was being altered. The thought which knocked hardest against its fellows was, only in these moments have I begun to live. And as she flitted upstairs to resume watch over her father, she sought to devise an innocent looking method, by which she might see Mr. Scales when he next called, and she speculated as to what his name was. Three. When Sophia arrived in the bedroom, she was startled because her father's head and beard were not in their accustomed place on the pillow. She could only make out something vaguely unusual sloping off the side of the bed. A few seconds passed, not to be measured in time, and she saw that the upper part of his body had slipped down, and his head was hanging, inverted, near the floor between the bed and the ottoman. His face, neck, and hands were dark and congested. His mouth was open, and the tongue protruded through the black, swollen mucous lips. His eyes were prominent and coldly staring. The fact was that Mr. Baines had wakened up, and being restless, had slid out partially from his bed, and died of asphyxia. After having been unceasingly watched for fourteen years, he had, with an invalid's natural perverseness, taken advantage of Sophia's brief dereliction to expire. Say what you will. Amid Sophia's horror and her terrible grief and shame, she had visitings of the idea that he did it on purpose. She ran out from the room, knowing by intuition that he was dead, and shrieked out, Maggie! At the top of her voice, the house echoed. Yes, Miss! said Maggie, quite close, coming out of Mr. Povey's chamber with a slop-pail. Pitch, Mr. Crishlow, at once, be quick, just as you are its father! Maggie, perceiving darkly that disaster was in the air, and instantly filled with importance and a sort of black joy, dropped her pail in the exact middle of the passage, and almost fell down the crooked stairs. One of Maggie's deepest instincts, always held in check by the stern dominance of Mrs. Baines, was to leave pails prominent on the main roots of the house, and now, divining what was at hand, it flamed into insurrection. No sleepless night had ever been so long to sapphire as the three minutes which elapsed before Mr. Crishlow came. As she stood on the mat outside the bedroom door, she tried to draw her mother and Constance and Mr. Povey by magnetic force out of the wakes into the house, and her muscles were contracted in this strange effort. She felt that it was impossible to continue living if the secret of the bedroom remained unknown one instant longer, so intense was her torture, and yet that the torture which could not be born must be born. Not a sound in the house, not a sound from the shop, only the distant murmur of the wakes. Why did I forget father? she asked herself with awe. I only meant to tell him that they were all out and run back. Why did I forget father? She would never be able to persuade anybody that she had literally forgotten her father's existence for quite ten minutes. But it was true, though shocking. Then there were noises downstairs. Bless us! bless us! came the unpleasant voice of Mr. Crishlow as he bounded up the stairs on his long legs. He strode over the pale. What's amiss? He was wearing his white apron, and he carried his spectacles in his bony hand. It's father, he's so far faltered. She stood away so that he should enter the room first. He glanced at her keenly, and as it were, resentfully, and went in. She followed timidly, remaining near the door while Mr. Crishlow inspected her handiwork. He put on his spectacles with strange deliberation, and then, bending his knees outwards, thus lowered his body so that he could examine John Bain's point blank. He remained, staring like this, his hands on his sharp, apron-covered knees for a little space, and then he seized the inert mass and restored it to the bed, and wiped those clotted lips with his apron. Sophia heard loud breathing behind her. It was Maggie. She heard a huge, snorting sob. Maggie was showing her emotion. Your face, doctor, Mr. Crishlow rasped, and don't stand gaping there. Run for the doctor, Maggie, said Sophia. I'll come you to let him fall, Mr. Crishlow demanded. I was out of the room. I just ran down into the shop. Gallivanting with that young scales, said Mr. Crishlow, with devilish ferocity. Well, you've killed your father, that's all. He must have been at his shop door and seen the entry of the traveller. And it was precisely characteristic of Mr. Crishlow to jump in the dark at a horrible conclusion, and to be right after all. For Sophia, Mr. Crishlow had always been the personification of malignity and malevolence, and now these qualities in him made him to her almost obscene. Her pride brought up tremendous reinforcements, and she approached the bed. Is he dead? She asked in a quiet tone. Somewhere within her voice was whispering, so his name is Scales. Don't I tell you he's dead? Pale on the stairs! This mild exclamation came from the passage. Mrs. Baines, misliking the crowds abroad, had returned alone. She had left Constance in charge of Mr. Povey. Coming into her house by the shop and showroom, she had first noted the phenomenon of the pale, proof of her theory of Maggie's incurable untidiness. Been to see the elephant, I reckon, said Mr. Crishlow in fierce sarcasm as he recognized Mrs. Baines' voice. Sophia leapt towards the door as though to bar her mother's entrance, but Mrs. Baines was already opening the door. Well, my pet, she was beginning cheerfully. Mr. Crishlow confronted her, and he had no more pity for the wife than for the daughter. He was furiously angry because his precious property had been irretrievably damaged by the momentary carelessness of a silly girl. Yes, John Baines was his property, his dearest toy. He was convinced that he alone had kept John Baines alive for fourteen years, that he alone had fully understood the case, and sympathized with the sufferer, that none but he had been capable of displaying ordinary common sense in the sick-room. He had learned to regard John Baines as, in some sort, his creation. And now, with their stupidity, their neglect, their elephants, between them, they had done for John Baines, he had always known that it would come to that, and it had come to that. She let him fall out of bed, and yet a wither now, Mrs., he announced, with a virulence hardly conceivable. His angular features and dark eyes expressed a murderous hate for every woman named Baines. Mother, cried so far, I only ran down into the shop to— She seized her mother's arm in frenzied agony. My child, cried Mrs. Baines, rising miraculously to the situation with the calm benevolence of tone and gesture that remained for ever sublime in the stormy heart of Sophia. Do not hold me. With infinite gentleness she loosed herself from those clasping hands. Have you sent for the doctor? She questioned Mr. Critchlow. The fate of her husband presented no mysteries to Mrs. Baines. Everybody had been warned a thousand times of the danger of leaving the paralytic, whose life depended on his position, and whose fidgetiness was therefore a constant menace of death to him. For five thousand nights she had wakened infallibly every time he stirred, and rearranged him by the flicker of a little oil-lamp. But Sophia, unhappy creature, had merely left him. That was all. Mr. Critchlow and the widow gazed helplessly waiting at the pitiable corpse of which the salient part was the white beard. They knew not that they were gazing at a vanished era. John Baines had belonged to the past, to the age when men really did think of their souls, when orators by phrases could move crowds to fury or to pity, when no one had learnt to hurry, when Deimos was only turning in his sleep, when the sole beauty of life resided in its inflexible and slow dignity. When hell really had no bottom, and a guilt-class Bible really was the secret of England's greatness. Mid-Victorian England lay on that mahogany bed. Ideals had passed away with John Baines. It is thus that ideals die. Not in the conventional pageantry of honoured death, but sorely, ignobly, while one's head is turned. And Mr. Povey and Constance, very self-conscious, went and saw the dead elephant, and came back. And at the corner of King Street Constance exclaimed brightly, Why, who's gone out and left the side-door open? For the doctor had at length arrived, and Maggie, in showing him upstairs with pious haste, had forgotten to shut the door. And they took advantage of the side-door, rather guiltily, to avoid the eyes of the shop. They feared that, in the parlor, they would be the centre of a curiosity half ironical and half reproving. For had they not accomplished an escapade? So they walked slowly. The real murderer was having his dinner in the commercial room up at the tiger opposite the town hall. Four. Several shutters were put up in the windows of the shop to indicate a death, and the news instantly became known in trading circles throughout the town. Many people simultaneously remarked on the coincidence that Mr. Baines should have died while there was a show of mourning goods in his establishment. This coincidence was regarded as extremely sinister, and it was apparently felt that, for the sake of the mind's peace, one ought not to inquire into such things too closely. From the moment of putting up the prescribed shutters, John Baines and his funeral began to acquire importance in Bursley, and their importance grew rapidly, almost from hour to hour. The wakes continued as usual, except that the chief Constable, upon representations being made to him by Mr. Critchlow and other citizens, descended upon St. Luke's Square, and forbade the activities of Womwell's orchestra. Womwell and the chief Constable differed us to the justice of the decree, but every well-minded person praised the chief Constable, and he himself considered that he had enhanced the town's reputation for a decent propriety. It was noticed too, not without a shiver of the uncanny, that that night the lions and tigers behaved like lambs, whereas on the previous night they had wrought the whole square out of its sleep. The chief Constable was not the only individual enlisted by Mr. Critchlow in the service of his friend's fame. Mr. Critchlow spent hours in recalling the principal citizens to a due sense of John Baines' past greatness. He was determined that his treasured toy should vanish underground with due pomp, and he left nothing undone to that end. He went over to Hanbridge on the still wonderful horse-car, and saw the editor-proprietor of the Staffordshire Signal, then a two-penny weekly with no thought of football editions, and on the very day of the funeral the Signal came out with a long and eloquent biography of John Baines. This biography, giving details of his public life, definitely restored him to his legitimate position in the civic memory as an ex-chief bailiff, an ex-chairman of the burial-board, and of the Five Towns Association for the Advancement of Useful Knowledge, and also as a prime mover in the Local Turnpike Act in the negotiations for the New Town Hall and in the Corinthian façade of the Wesleyan Chapel. It narrated the anecdote of his courageous speech from the Portico of the Shambles during the riots of 1848, and it did not omit a eulogy of his steady adherence to the wise old English maxims of commerce and his avoidance of dangerous modern methods. Even in the sixties the modern had reared its shameless head, the panageric closed with an appreciation of the dead man's fortitude in the terrible affliction with which a divine providence had seen fit to try him. And finally the Signal uttered its absolute conviction that his native town would raise a senate after his honour. Mr. Critchlow, being unfamiliar with the word senotaph, consulted Worcester's dictionary, and when he found that it meant a sepulchral monument to one who is buried elsewhere, he was as pleased with the signal's language as the idea, and decided that a senotaph should come to pass. The house and shop were transformed into a hive of preparation for the funeral. All was changed. Mr. Povey kindly slept for three nights on the parlour sofa in order that Mrs. Baines might have his room. The funeral grew into an obsession for multitudinous things had to be performed and done sumptuously and in strict accordance with precedent. There were the family mourning, the funeral repast, the choice of the text on the memorial card, the composition of the legend on the coffin, the legal arrangements, the letters to relations, the selection of guests, and the question of bell ringing, hearse, plumes, number of horses, and grave digging. Nobody had leisure for the indulgence of grief except Aunt Maria, who, after she had helped in the laying out, simply sat down and bemoaned unceasingly for hours her absence on the fatal mourning. If I hadn't been so fixed on polishing my candlesticks, she weeping the repeated, he might have been alive and well now. Not that Aunt Maria had been informed of the precise circumstances of the death, she was not clearly aware that Mr. Baines had died through a piece of neglect. But, like Mr. Critchlow, she was convinced that there had been only one person in the world truly capable of nursing Mr. Baines. Beyond the family, no one, save Mr. Critchlow and Dr. Harrop, knew just how the martyr had finished his career. Dr. Harrop, having been asked bluntly if an inquest would be necessary, had reflected a moment and then replied, No, and he added, least said, soon as mended, Mark me. They had marked him. He was common sense in Britishes. As for Aunt Maria, she was sent about her snivelling business by Aunt Harriet. The arrival in the house of this genuine aunt from Axe, of the majestic and enormous widow, whom even the Imperial Mrs. Baines regarded with a certain awe, set a seal of ultimate solemnity on the whole event. In Mr. Povey's bedroom Mrs. Baines fell like a child into Aunt Harriet's arms and sobbed, if it had been anything but that elephant. Such was Mrs. Baines' sole weakness, from first to last. Aunt Harriet was an exhaustless fountain of authority upon every detail concerning interments, and to a series of questions ending with the word sister, and answers ending with the word sister, the prodigious travail, incident to the funeral, was gradually and successfully accomplished. Dress and the repast exceeded all other matters in complexity and difficulty. But on the morning of the funeral Aunt Harriet had the satisfaction of beholding her younger sister, the centre of a tremendous cocoon of crepe, whose slightest pleat was perfect. Aunt Harriet seemed to welcome her then like a veteran formerly into the august army of relics. As they stood side by side surveying the special table which was being laid in the showroom for the repast, it appeared inconceivable that they had reposed together in Mr. Povey's limited bed. They descended from the showroom to the kitchen, where the last delicate dishes were inspected. The shop was of course closed for the day, but Mr. Povey was busy there, and in Aunt Harriet's allcy and glance he came next after the dishes. She rose from the kitchen to speak with him. You've got your boxes of gloves already, she questioned him. Yes, Mrs. Maddock. You'll not forget to have a measure handy. No, Mrs. Maddock. You'll find you want more of seven and three quarters and eights than anything. Yes, I have allowed for that. If you'll place yourself behind the side door and put your boxes on the harmonium, you'll be able to catch everyone as they come in. That is what I had thought of, Mrs. Maddock. She went upstairs again. Mrs. Baines had reached the showroom again and was smoothing out creases in the white damas' cloth and arranging glass dishes of jam at equal distances from each other. Come, sister, said Mrs. Maddock, a last look. And they passed into the mortuary bedroom to gaze at Mr. Baines before he should be everlastingly nailed down. In death he had recovered some of his earlier dignity, but even so he was a startling sight. The two widows bent over him, one on either side, and gravely stared at that twisted, worn white face all neatly tucked up in linen. I shall fetch Constance and so far, said Mrs. Maddock, with tears in her voice. Do you go into the drawing-room, sister? But Mrs. Maddock only succeeded in fetching Constance. Then there was the sound of wheels in King Street. The long right of the funeral was about to begin. Every guest, after having been measured and presented with a pair of the finest black-kid gloves by Mr. Povey, had to mount the crooked stairs and gaze upon the carcass of John Baines, going afterwards to the drawing-room to condole briefly with the widow. And every guest, while conscious of the enormity of so thinking, thought what an excellent thing it was that John Baines should be at last dead and gone. The tramping on the stairs was continual, and finally Mr. Baines himself went downstairs, bumping against corners, and led a cortege of twenty vehicles. The funeral-tea was not over at seven o'clock, five hours after the commencement of the right. It was a gigantic and faultless meal. Worthy of John Baines's distant past, only two persons were absent from it, John Baines and Sophia. The emptiness of Sophia's chair was much noticed. Mrs. Maddock explained that Sophia was very high-strung and could not trust herself. Great efforts were put forth by the company to be lugubrious and inconsolable. But the secret relief resulting from the death would not be entirely hidden. The vast pretence of acute sorrow could not stand intact against that secret relief, and the lavish richness of the food. To the offending of sundry important relatives from a distance, Mr. Critchlow informally presided over that assemblage of grave men in high stocks and crinolined women. He had closed his shop, which had never before been closed on a weekday, and he had a great deal to say about this extraordinary closure. It was due as much to the elephant as to the funeral. The elephant had become a victim to the craze for souvenirs. Already in the night his tusks had been stolen, then his feet disappeared for umbrella stands, and most of his flesh had departed in little hunks. Everybody in Bursley had resolved to participate in the elephant. One consequence was that all the chemists' shops in the towns were assaulted by strings of boys. Please, a penneth of alum to take smell out of a bit of elephant. Mr. Critchlow hated boys. I'll alum ye, says I, and I did. I alummed him out of my shop with a pestle, if there had been one that went twenty, if he'd been opening at nine o'clock. George, I says to my apprentice, shut shop up. My old friend John Baines is going to his long home today, and I'll close. I've had enough of alum for one day. The elephant fed the conversation until after the second relay of hot muffins. When Mr. Critchlow had eaten to his capacity, he took the signal importantly from his pocket, posed his spectacles, and read the obituary all through in slow, impressive accents. Before he reached the end, Mrs. Baines began to perceive that familiarity had blinded her to the heroic qualities of her late husband. The fourteen years of ceaseless care were now quite genuinely forgotten, and she saw him in his strength and in his glory. When Mr. Critchlow arrived at the eulogy of the husband and father, Mrs. Baines rose and left the showroom. The guests looked at each other in sympathy for her. Mr. Critchlow shot a glance at her over his spectacles, and continued steadily reading. After he had finished, he approached the question of the cenotaph. Mrs. Baines, driven from the banquet by her feelings, went into the drawing-room. Sophia was there, and Sophia, seeing tears in her mother's eyes, gave a sob, and flung herself bodily against her mother, clutching her and hiding her face in that broad crepe which abraded her soft skin. Mother! she wept passionately. I want to leave the school. Now I want to please you. I'll do anything in the world to please you. I'll go into the shop if you'd like me to. Her voice lost itself in tears. Calm yourself, my pet! said Mrs. Baines, tenderly caressing her. It was a triumph for the mother, in the very hour when she needed a triumph. To get more information or to volunteer, please go to LibriVox.org. These singular signs were being painted in shiny black on an unrectangular parallelogram of white cardboard, by Constance, one evening in the parlor. She was seated with her left side to the fire and to the fizzing gas, at the dining-table, which was covered with a checked cloth in red and white. Her dress was of dark crimson. She wore a cameo brooch and a gold chain round her neck. Over her shoulders was thrown a white knitted shawl, for the weather was extremely cold. The English climate being much more serious and downright at that day than it is now. She bent low to the task, holding her head slightly askew, putting the tip of her tongue between her lips, and expending all the energy of her soul and body in an intense effort to do what she was doing as well as it could be done. Splendid, said Mr. Povey. Mr. Povey was fronting her at the table. He had his elbows on the table and watched her carefully, with the breathless and divine anxiety of a dreamer who is witnessing the realisation of his dream. And Constance, without moving any part of her frame except her head, looked up at him and smiled for a moment, and he could see the delicious little nostrils at the end of her snub nose. These two, without knowing or guessing it, were making history, the history of commerce. They had no suspicion that they were the forces of the future insidiously at work to destroy what the forces of the past had created, but such was the case. They were conscious merely of a desire to do their duty in the shop and to the shop. Probably it had not even occurred to them that this desire, which each stimulated in the breast of the other, had assumed the dimensions of a passion. It was aging, Mr. Povey, and it had made of Constance a young lady tremendously industrious and preoccupied. Mr. Povey had recently been giving attention to the question of tickets. It is not too much to say that Mr. Povey, to whom heaven had granted a minimum share of imagination, had nevertheless discovered his little parcel of imagination in the recesses of being and brought it effectively to bear on tickets. Tickets ran in conventional grooves, there were heavy oblong tickets for flannels, shirting, and other stuffs in the piece, there were smaller and lighter tickets for intermediate goods, and there were diamond-shaped tickets containing nothing but the price, for bonnets, gloves, and flim flams generally. The legends on the tickets gave no sort of original invention, the words lasting, durable, unshrinkable, latest, cheap, stylish, novelty, choice as an adjective, new, and tasteful, exhausted the entire vocabulary of tickets. Now Mr. Povey attached importance to tickets, and since he was acknowledged to be the best window dresser in Bursley, his views were entitled to respect. He dreamt of other tickets in original shapes, with original legends. In brief, he achieved in regard to tickets the rare feat of ridding himself of preconceived notions and of approaching a subject with fresh, virginal eyes. When he indicated the nature of his wishes to Mr. Chawna, the wholesale stationer who supplied all the five towns with shop tickets, Mr. Chawna grew uneasy and worried. Mr. Chawna was indeed shocked. For Mr. Chawna there had always been certain well-defined genera of tickets, and he could not conceive the existence of other genera. When Mr. Povey suggested circular tickets, tickets with the blue and red line round them, tickets with legends such as Unsurpassable, very dainty, or please note, Mr. Chawna hummed and hoared, and finally stated that it would be impossible to manufacture these preposterous tickets, these tickets which would outrage the decency of trade. If Mr. Povey had not happened to be an exceedingly obstinate man, he might have been defeated by the crass toriism of Mr. Chawna, but Mr. Povey was obstinate, and he had resources of ingenuity which Mr. Chawna little suspected. The great tramping march of progress was not to be impeded by a Mr. Chawna. Mr. Povey began to make his own tickets. At first he suffered as all reformers and inventors suffer. He used the internal surface of collar boxes and ordinary ink and pens, and the result was such as to give customers the idea that Baines's was too poor or too mean to buy tickets like other shops. For bought tickets had an ivory-tinted gloss, and the ink was black and glossy, and the edges were very straight, and did not show yellow between two layers of white. Whereas Mr. Povey's tickets were of a bluish white without gloss, the ink was neither black nor shiny, and the edges were amateurishly rough. The tickets had an unmistakable air of having been made out of something else. Moreover, the lettering had not the free, dashing style of Mr. Chawna's tickets. And did Mrs. Baines encourage him in his single-minded enterprise on behalf of her business? Not a bit. Mrs. Baines's attitude, when not disdainful, was inimical. So curious his human nature, so blind is a man to his own advantage. Life was very complex for Mr. Povey. It might have been less complex had Bristol Board and Chinese ink been less expensive. With these materials he could have achieved marvels to silence all prejudice and stupidity, but they were too costly. Still he persevered, and Constance morally supported him. He drew his inspiration and his courage from Constance. Instead of the internal surface of collar-boxes he tried the external surface, which was at any rate shiny, but the ink would not take on it. He made as many experiments as Edison was to make, and as many failures. Then Constance was visited by a notion of mixing sugar with ink. Simple innocent creature, why should Providence have chosen her to be the vessel of such a sublime notion? Puzzling enigma, which however did not exercise Mr. Povey, he found it quite natural that she should save him. Save him she did. Sugar and ink would take on anything, and it shone like a patent leather boot. Further Constance developed a hand for lettering, which outdid Mr. Povey's. Between them they manufactured tickets by the dozen and by the score. Tickets, which while possessing nearly all the smartness and finish of Mr. Chorners' tickets, were much superior to these in originality and strikingness. Constance and Mr. Povey were delighted and fascinated by them. As for Mrs. Baines, she said little, but the modern spirit was too elated by its success to care whether she said little or much. And every few days, Mr. Povey thought of some new and wonderful word to put on a ticket. His last miracle was the word exquisite. Exquisite, pinned on a piece of broad tartan ribbon, appeared to Constance and Mr. Povey as the finality of appropriateness. A climax worthy to close the year. Mr. Povey had cut the card and sketched the word and figures in pencil, and Constance was doing her executive portion of the undertaking. They were very happy, very absorbed in this strictly business matter. The clock showed five minutes past ten. Stern duty, a pure desire for the prosperity of the shop, and kept them at hard labour since before eight that morning. The stairs door opened, and Mrs. Baines appeared, in bonnets and furs and gloves, all clad for going out. She had abandoned the cocoon of Crabe, but still wore weeds. She was stouter than ever. What, she cried, not ready, not really. Oh, mother, how you made me jump, Constance protested. What time is it? It surely isn't time to go yet. Look at the clock, said Mrs. Baines, dryly. Well, I never, Constance murmured, confused. Come, put your things together and don't keep me waiting, said Mrs. Baines, going past the table to the window, and lifting the blind to peep out. Still snowing, she observed. Oh, the band's going away at last. I wonder how they can play at all in this weather. By the way, what was that tune they gave us just now? I couldn't make out whether it was Redhead or… Band? Question, Constance, The Simpleton? Neither she nor Mr. Povey had heard the strains of the Bursley Town Silver Prize Band, which had been enlivening the season according to its usual custom. These two practical, deutious, common-sense young and youngish persons have been so absorbed in their efforts for the welfare of the shop that they had positively not only forgotten the time, but had also failed to notice the band. But if Constance had had her wits about her, she would have at least pretended that she had heard it. What's this? asked Mrs. Baines, bringing her vast form to the table and picking up a ticket. Mr. Povey said nothing. Constance said, Mr. Povey thought of it today. Don't you think it's very good, mother? I'm afraid I don't, Mrs. Baines coldly replied. She had mildly objected already to certain words. But exquisite seemed to her silly. It seemed out of place. She considered that it would merely bring ridicule on her shop. Exquisite written on a window ticket? No. What would John Baines have thought of exquisite? Exquisite! She repeated the word with a sarcastic inflection, putting the accent as everyone put it on the second syllable. I don't think that will quite do. But why not, mother? It's not suitable, my dear. She dropped the ticket from her gloved hand. Mr. Povey had darkly flashed. Though he spoke little, he was as sensitive as he was obstinate. On this occasion he said nothing. He expressed his feelings by seizing the ticket and throwing it into the fire. The situation was extremely delicate. Priceless employees like Mr. Povey cannot be treated as machines. And Mrs. Baines, of course, instantly saw that tact was needed. Go along to my bedroom and get ready, my pet, said she to Constance. So far is there. There's a good fire. I must just speak to Maggie. She tactfully left the room. Mr. Povey glanced at the fire and the curling red remains of the ticket. Trade was bad. Going to weather and war. Destitution was abroad. And he had been doing his utmost for the welfare of the shop. And here was the reward. Constance's eyes were full of tears. Never mind. She murmured and went upstairs. It was all over in the moment. Two. In the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel on Duckbank there was a full and influential congregation. For in those days influential people were not merely content to live in the town where their fathers had lived without dreaming of country residences and smokeless air. They were content also to believe what their fathers had believed about the beginning and the end of it all. There was no such thing as the unknowable in those days. The eternal mysteries were as simple as an addition some. A child could tell you with absolute certainty where you would be and what you would be doing a million years hence and exactly what God thought of you. Accordingly everyone being of the same mind, everyone met on certain occasions in certain places in order to express the universal mind. And in the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel for example, instead of a sparse handful of persons disturbingly conscious of being in the minority, as now, a magnificent and proud majority had collected, deeply aware of its rightness and its correctness. And the minister, backed by minor ministers, knelt and covered his face in the superb mahogany rostrum, and behind him, in what was then still called the orchestra, though no musical instruments except the grand organ had sounded in it for decades, acquired knelt and covered their faces, and all around in the richly painted gallery and on the ground floor, multitudinous rows of people in easy circumstances of body and soul, knelt in high pews and covered their faces, and there floated before them in the intense and prolonged silence, the clear vision of Jehovah on a throne, a god of sixty or so, with a moustache and a beard, and a non-committal expression, which declined to say whether or not he would require more bloodshed, and this god, destitute of minions, was surrounded by white-winged creatures that wafted themselves to and fro while chanting, and a far-off was an obscene monstrosity, with cloven hooves and tail, very dangerous and rude and interfering, who could exist comfortably in the middle of a coal fire, and who took a malignant and exhaustless pleasure in coaxing you by false pretenses into the same fire, but of course you had too much sense to swallow his wicked absurdities. Once a year, for ten minutes by the clock, you knelt thus in mass, and by meditation convinced yourself that you had too much sense to swallow his wicked absurdities, and the hour was very solemn, the most solemn of all the hours. Strange that immortal souls should be found with the temerity to reflect upon mundane affairs in this hour, yet there were undoubtedly such in the congregation, there were perhaps many to whom the vision, if clear, was spasmodic and fleeting, and among them the inhabitants of the Baines family pew. Who would have supposed that Mr. Povey, a recent convert from primitive Methodism in King Street to Wesleyan Methodism on Duck Bank, was dwelling upon window-tickets, and the injustice of women, instead of upon his relations with Jehovah and the tailed one? Who would have supposed that the gentlied Constance, pattern of daughters, was risking her eternal welfare by smiling at the tailed one, who, concealing his tail, had assumed the image of Mr. Povey? Who would have supposed that Mrs. Baines, instead of resolving that Jehovah and not the tailed one, should have ultimate rule over her? Was resolving that she and not Mr. Povey should have ultimate rule over her house and shop? It was a pewful that belied its highly satisfactory appearance, and possibly there were other pewfuls equally deceptive. Sophia alone, in the corner next to the wall, with her beautiful stern face pressed convulsively against her hands, was truly busy with immortal things. Turbulent heart, the violence of her spiritual life, had made her older. Never was a passionate, proud girl, in a harder case than Sophia. In the splendour of her remorse for a fatal forgetfulness, she had renounced that which she loved, and thrown herself into that which she loathed. It was her nature to do so. She had done it haughtily, and not with kindness, but she had done it with the whole force of her will. Constance had been compelled to yield up to her the millenary department, for Sophia's fingers had a gift of manipulating ribbons and feathers that was beyond Constance. Sophia had accomplished miracles in the millenary. Yes, and she would be utterly polite to customers. But afterwards, when the customers were gone, let mothers, sisters, and Mr. Povey's beware of her fiery darts. But why, when nearly three months had elapsed after her father's death, had she spent more and more time in the shop, secretly aflame with expectancy? Why, when one day a strange traveller entered the shop, and announced himself the new representative of working-shores, why had her very soul died away within her, and an awful sickness seized her? She knew then that she had been her own deceiver. She recognised and admitted, abasing herself lower than the lowest, that her motive in leaving Miss Chetwins and joining the shop had been, at the best, very mixed, very impure. Engaged that Miss Chetwins, she might easily have never set eyes on Gerald Scales again. Employed in the shop, she could not fail to meet him. In this light was to be seen the true complexion of the splendour of her remorse, the terrible thought for her, and she could not dismiss it. It contaminated her existence, this thought, and she could confide in no one. She was incapable of showing a wound. Quarter had succeeded quarter, and Gerald Scales was no more heard of. She had sacrificed her life for worse than nothing. She had made her own tragedy. She had killed her father, cheated and shamed herself with her remorse horribly spurious, exchanged content for misery and pride for humiliation, and with it all Gerald Scales had vanished. She was ruined. She took to religion, and her conscientious Christian virtues practiced with stern inclemency for the canker of the family. Thus a year and a half had passed. And then, on this last day of the year, the second year of her shame and of her heart widowhood, Mr. Scales had reappeared. She had gone casually into the shop, and found him talking to her mother and Mr. Povey. He had come back to the provincial round and to her. She shook his hand and fled, because she could not have stayed. Non had noticed her agitation, for she had held her body as in a vice. She knew the reason neither of his absence nor of his return. She knew nothing, and not a word had been said at meals. And the day had gone, and the night come. And now she was in chapel, with constants by her side and Gerald Scales in her soul. Happy beyond previous conception of happiness, wretched beyond an unutterable woe, and non-new. What was she to pray for? To what purpose and end ought she to steal herself? Or she to hope? Or ought she to despair? Oh, God, help me! she kept whispering to Jehovah, whenever the heavenly vision shone through the rack of her meditation. Oh, God, help me! she had a conscience that, when it was in the mood for severity, could be unspeakably cruel to her. And whenever she looked, with dry, hot eyes through her gloved fingers, she saw in front of her, on the wall, a marble tablet, inscribed in gilt letters, the Cenotaph. She knew all the lines by heart in their spacious grand eloquence. Lines such as, ever ready with his tongue, his pen and his purse, to help the church of his fathers, in her he lived, and in her he died, cherishing a deep and ardent affection for his beloved faith and creed. And again, his sympathies extended beyond his own community. He was always to the fore in good works, and he served the circuit, the town, and the district with great acceptance and usefulness. Thus had Mr. Critchlow's vanity been duly appeased. As the minutes spared in the breathing silence of the chapel, the emotional tension grew tighter. Worshippers sighed heavily, or called upon Jehovah for a sign, or merely coughed an invocation. And then at last the clock in the middle of the balcony gave forth the single stroke to which it was limited. The ministers rose, and the congregation after them, and everybody smiled as though it was the millennium, and not simply the new year that had set in. Then faintly, through walls and shut windows, came the sound of bells, and of steam sirens and whistles. The superintendent-minister opened his hymn-book, and the hymn was sung, which had been sung in Wesleyan chapels on New Year's morning, since the era of John Wesley himself. The organ finished with a clanger of all its pipes. The minister had a last few words with Jehovah, and nothing was left to do except to persevere in well-doing. The people lent towards each other across the high backs of the pews. A happy new year! Eh, thank you! Same to you! Another watch-night service over? Eh, yes! and a sigh. Then the aisles were suddenly crowded, and there was a good, humid, optimistic pushing towards the door. In the Corinthian porch occurred a great putting on of cloaks, solsters, galoshes, and even patterns, and a great putting up of umbrellas. And the congregation went out into the whirling snow, dividing into several black, silent-footed processions, down Trafalgar Road, up towards the playground, along the marketplace, and across Duck Square in the direction of St Luke's Square. Mr. Povey was between Mrs. Baines and Constance. You must take my arm, my pet, said Mrs. Baines to Sophia. Then Mr. Povey and Constance waded on in front through the drifts. Sophia balanced that enormous swaying mass her mother, owing to their hoops she had much difficulty in keeping close to her. Mrs. Baines laughed with the complacent ease of obesity, yet a fall would have been almost irredeemable for her. And so Sophia had to laugh too. But though she laughed, God had not helped her. She did not know where she was going, nor what might happen to her next. Why bless us, exclaimed Mrs. Baines, as they turned the corner into King Street, as someone sitting on our doorstep. There was a figure swathed in an ulster, a mord over the ulster, and a high hat on top of it all. It could not have been there very long, because it was only speckled with snow. Mr. Povey plunged forward. It's Mr. Scales of all people, said Mr. Povey. Mr. Scales, cried Mrs. Baines, and Mr. Scales murmured Sophia, terribly afraid. Perhaps she was afraid of miracles. Mr. Scales sitting on her mother's doorstep in the middle of the snowy night, and assuredly the air of a miracle, of something dreamt in a dream, of something pathetically and impossibly appropriate. Pat, as they say in the five terms. But he was a tangible fact there. And years afterwards, in the light of further knowledge of Mr. Scales, Sophia came to regard his being on the doorstep as the most natural and characteristic thing in the world. Real miracles never seem to be miracles, and that which, at the first blush, resembles one, usually proves to be an instance of the extremely prosaic. Three. Is that you, Mrs. Baines? Asked Gerald Scales, in a half-witted voice, looking up, and then getting to his feet. Is this your house? So it is. Well, I had no idea I was sitting on your doorstep. He smiled timidly, then sheepishly, while the women and Mr. Povey surrounded him with their astonished faces under the light of the gas-lamp. Certainly he was very pale. But whatever is the matter, Mr. Scales, Mrs. Baines demanded, in an anxious tone, are you ill? Have you been suddenly— Oh, no, said the young man, lightly. It's nothing only—I was set on just now, down there. He pointed to the depths of King Street. Set on, Mrs. Baines repeated, alarmed. That makes the fourth case in a week that we know of, said Mr. Povey. It really is becoming a scandal. The fact was that, owing to depression of trade, lack of employment, and rigorous weather, public security in the five towns was, at that period, not as perfect as it ought to have been. In the stress of hunger, the lower classes were forgetting their manners, and this, in spite of the altruistic and noble efforts of their social superiors, to relieve the destitution, do, of course, to short-sighted improvidence. When, the social superiors were asking in despair, will the lower classes learn to put by for a rainy day? They might have said a snowy and a frosty day. It was really too bad of the lower classes, when everything that could be done was being done for them, to kill, or even attempt to kill, the goose that lays the golden eggs, and especially in a respectable town. What, indeed, were things coming to? Well, here was Mr. Gerald Scales, gentleman from Manchester, a witness and victim to the deplorable moral condition of the five towns. What would he think of the five towns? The evil and the danger had been a topic of discussion in the shop for a week pass, and now it was being brought home to them. I hope you weren't, said Mrs. Baines, apologetically and sympathetically. Oh, no! Mr. Scales interrupted her quite gaily. I managed to beat them off, only my elbow. Meanwhile it was continuing to snow. Do come in, said Mrs. Baines. I couldn't think of troubling you, said Mr. Scales. I'm all right now, and I can find my way to the tiger. You must come in, if it's only for a minute, said Mrs. Baines, with a decision. She had to think of the honour of the town. You're very kind, said Mr. Scales. The door was suddenly open from within, and Maggie surveyed them from the height of the two steps. A happy new year, Mum, to all of you. Thank you, Maggie, said Mrs. Baines, and primely added, the same to you. And in her own mind she said that Maggie could best prove her desire for a happy new year by contriving in future not to scamp her corners and not to break so much crockery. Sophia, scarce knowing what she did, mounted the steps. Mr. Scales ought to let our new year in my pet. Mrs. Baines stopped her. Oh, of course, Mother! Sophia concurred with the gasp, springing back nervously. Mr. Scales raised his hat, and duly led the new year and much snow into the Baines parlor. And there was a vast deal of stamping of feet, agitating of umbrellas, and shaking of cloaks and ulsters on the door-mat in the corner by the harmonium. And Maggie took away an armful of everything snowy, including galoshes, and received instructions to boil milk and to bring mints. Mr. Povey said, and shut the door, which was bordered with felt to stop ventilation. Mrs. Baines turned up the gas till it sang, and told Sophia to poke the fire and actually told Constance to light the second gas. Excitement prevailed. The placidity of existence had been agreeably disturbed. Yes, agreeably, in spite of the horror at the attack on Mr. Scales' elbow, by an adventure. Moreover, Mr. Scales proved to be an evening dress, and nobody had ever worn evening dress in that house before. Sophia's blood was in her face, and it remained there, enhancing the vivid richness of her beauty. She was dizzy, with a strange and disconcerting intoxication. She seemed to be in a world of unrealities and incredibilities. Her ears heard with indistinctness, and the edges of things, and people had a prismatic colouring. She was in a state of ecstatic, unreasonable, inexplicable happiness. All her misery, doubts, despair, ranker, churlishness had disappeared. She was as softly gentle as Constance. Her eyes were the eyes of a fawn, and her gestures delicious in their modest and sensitive grace. Constance was sitting on the sofa, and, after glancing about as if for shelter, she sat down on the sofa by Constance's side. She tried not to stare at Mr. Scales, but her gaze would not leave him. She was sure that he was the most perfect man in the world. A shortish man, perhaps, but a perfect. That such perfection could be was almost past her belief. He excelled all her dreams of the ideal man. His smile, his voice, his hand, his hair—never were such. Why, when he spoke, it was positively music. When he smiled, it was heaven. His smile to Sophia was one of those natural phenomena, which are so lovely, that they make you want to shed tears. There is no hyperbole in this description of Sophia's sensations, but rather an understatement of them. She was utterly obsessed by the unique qualities of Mr. Scales. Nothing would have persuaded her that the peer of Mr. Scales existed among men, or could possibly exist. And it was her intense and profound conviction of his complete preeminence, that gave him, as he sat there in the rocking chair in her mother's parlor, that air of the unreal and the incredible. I stayed in the town on purpose to go to a New Year's party at Mr. Lawton's. Mr. Scales was saying, Ah, so you know lawyer Lawton, exclaimed Mrs. Baines impressed, for lawyer Lawton did not consult with tradespeople. He was jolly with them, and he did their legal business for them, but he was not of them. His friends came from afar. My people are old acquaintances of his, said Mr. Scales, sipping the milk which Maggie had brought. Now, Mr. Scales, you must taste my mince. A happy month for every tart you eat, you know," Mrs. Baines reminded him. He bowed. And it was as I was coming away from there, that I got into difficulties, he laughed. Then he recounted the struggle, which had, however, been brief, as the assailant lacked pluck. He had slipped and fallen on his elbow on the curb, and his elbow might have been broken, had not the snow been so thick. No, it did not hurt him now. Doubt was a mere bruise. It was fortunate that the miscreants had not got the better of him, for he had, in his pocket-book, a considerable sum of money in notes, accounts paid. He had often thought what an excellent thing it would be if commercials could travel with dogs, particularly in winter, was nothing like a dog. Your fond of dogs, asked Mr. Povey, who had always had a secret but impracticable ambition to keep a dog. Yes, said Mr. Scales, turning now to Mr. Povey. Keep one, asked Mr. Povey, in a sporting tone. I have a fox-terrier-bitch, said Mr. Scales, that took her first at Nutsford, but she's getting old now. The sexual epithet fell clearly on the room. Mr. Povey, being a man of the world, behaved as if nothing had happened, but Mrs. Baines's curls protested against this unnecessary coarseness. Constance pretended not to hear. Sophia did not understand the hear. Mr. Scales had no suspicion that he was transgressing a convention, by virtue of which dogs have no sex. Further, he had no suspicion of the local fame of Mrs. Baines's minstarts. He had already eaten more minstarts than he could enjoy, before beginning upon hers, that Mrs. Baines missed the enthusiasm to which she was habituated from consumers of her pastry. Mr. Povey fascinated, proceeded in the direction of dogs, and it grew more and more evident that Mr. Scales, who went out to parties in evening dress, instead of going in respectable broadcloth to watch-night services, who knew the great ones of the land, and who kept dogs of an inconvenient sex, was neither an ordinary commercial traveller, nor the kind of man to which the square was accustomed. He came from a different world. Lawyer Lawton's party broke up early—at least, I mean, considering, Mrs. Baines hesitated. After a pause, Mr. Scales replied, Yes, I left immediately at the clock struck twelve. I have a heavy day to-morrow. Ah, I mean, to-day. It was not an hour for a prolonged visit, and in a few minutes Mr. Scales was ready again to depart. He admitted a certain feebleness, wankiness, he playfully called it, being proud of his skill in the dialect. And a burning in his elbow, but otherwise he was quite well, thanks to Mrs. Baines's most kind hospitality. He really didn't know how he came to be sitting on her doorstep. Mrs. Baines urged him, if he met a policeman on his road to the tiger, to furnish all particulars about the attempted highway robbery, and he said he decidedly would. He took his leave with distinguished curtliness. If I have a moment, I shall run in to-morrow morning just to let you know I am all right, said he in the White Street. Oh, do! said Constance. Constance's perfect innocence made her strangely forward at times. A happy new year, and many of them. Thanks. Same to you. Don't get lost. Straight up the square and first on the right, called the common sense of Mr. Povey. Nothing else remained to say, and the visitor disappeared silently in the whirling snow. Bleh! Mermon, Mr. Povey, shutting the door. Everybody felt what a funny ending to the old year. So far my pet, Mrs. Baines began, but Sofya had vanished to bed. Tell her about her new night-dress, said Mrs. Baines to Constance. Yes, mother. I don't know that I am so set up with that young man after all, Mrs. Baines reflected aloud. Oh, mother! Constance protested. I think he's just lovely. He never looks you straight in the face, said Mrs. Baines. Don't tell me, laughed Constance, kissing her mother good night. You're only on your high horse, because he didn't praise your mince. I noticed it. Four. If anybody thinks I'm going to stand the cold in this showroom any longer, they're mistaken. Said Sofya the next morning, loudly, and in her mother's hearing. And she went down into the shop, carrying bonnets. She pretended to be angry, but she was not. She felt, on the contrary, extremely joyous and charitable to all the world. Usually she would take pains to keep out of the shop. Usually she was preoccupied and stern. Hence her presence on the ground floor, and her demeanour, excited interest among the three young lady assistants, who sat sewing round the stove in the middle of the shop, sheltered by the great pile of shirtings and linses that fronted the entrance. Sofya shared Constance's corner. They had hot bricks under their feet, and fine knitted wraps on their shoulders. They would have been more comfortable near the stove, but greatness has its penalties. The weather was exceptionally severe. The windows were thickly frosted over, so that Mr. Povey's art in dressing them was quite wasted. And, rare phenomenon, the doors of the shop were shut. In the ordinary way they were not merely open, but hidden by a display of cheap lines. Mr. Povey, after consulting Mrs. Baines, had decided to close them, forgoing the customary display. Mr. Povey had also, in order to get a little warmth into his limbs, personally assisted two casual labourers to scrape the thick frozen snow off the pavement, and he wore his kid mittens. All these things together proved better than the evidence of barometers, how the weather nipped. Mr. Scales came about ten o'clock. Instead of going to Mr. Povey's counter, he walked boldly to Constance's corner, and looked over the boxes, smiling and saluting. Both the girls candidly delighted in his visit. Both blushed, both laughed, without knowing why they laughed. Mr. Scales said he was just departing, and had slipped in for a moment to thank all of them for their kindness of last night, or rather this morning. The girls laughed again at this witticism. Nothing could have been more simple than his speech. Yet it appeared to them magically attractive. A customer entered, a lady. One of the assistants rose from the neighbourhood of the stove, but the daughters of the house ignored the customer. It was part of the etiquette of the shop, that customers, at any rate chance customers, should not exist for the daughters of the house, until an assistant had formally drawn attention to them. Otherwise, everyone who wanted a penny-worth of tape would be expecting to be served by Miss Baines or Miss Sophia, if Miss Sophia were there, which would have been ridiculous. Sophia, glancing side-long, saw the assistant parleying with the customer, and then the assistant came softly behind the counter and approached the corner. That Miss Constance, can you spare a minute? The assistant whispered discreetly. Constance extinguished her smile for Mr. Scales, and turning away, lighted an entirely different and inferior smile for the customer. Good morning, Miss Baines. Very cold, isn't it? Good morning, Mrs. Chatterley. Yes, it is. I suppose you're getting anxious about those... Constance stopped. Sophia was now alone with Mr. Scales, for in order to discuss the unnameable freely with Mrs. Chatterley, her sister was edging up the counter. Sophia had dreamt of a private conversation as something delicious and impossible. But Chance had favoured her. She was alone with him, and his neat fair hair and his blue eyes and his delicate mouth were as wonderful to her as ever. He was gentlemanly, to a degree that impressed her more than anything had impressed her in her life, and all the proud and aristocratic instinct that was at the base of her character sprang up and seized on his gentlemanliness like a famished animal seizing on food. The last time I saw you, said Mr. Scales, in a new tone, you said you were never in the shop. What, yesterday, did I? No, I mean the last time I saw you alone, said he. Oh, she exclaimed, it's just an accident. That's exactly what you said last time. Is it? Was it his manner, or what he said that flattered her, that intensified her beautiful vivacity? I suppose you don't often go out, he went on. What, in this weather? Any time. I go to chapel, said she, unmarketing with mother. There was a little pause, and to the free library. Oh, yes, you've got a free library here now, haven't you? Yes, we've had it over a year. And you belong to it. What do you read? Oh, stories, you know, I get a fresh book out once a week. Saturdays, I suppose? No, she said at Wednesdays. And she smiled, usually. It's Wednesday today, said he, not been already? She shook her head. I don't think I shall go to-day, it's too cold. I don't think I shall venture outside to-day. You must be very fond of reading, said he. Then Mr. Povey appeared, rubbing his mitten hands, and Mrs. Chatterley went. I run and fetch mother, said Constance. Mrs. Baines was very polite to the young man. He related his interview with the police, whose opinion was that he had been attacked by stray members of a gang from Hanbridge. The young lady assistants, with ears cocked, gathered the nature of Mr. Scales' adventure, and were thrilled to the point of questioning Mr. Povey about it after Mr. Scales had gone. His farewell was marked by much handshaking, and finally Mr. Povey ran after him into the square to mention something about dogs. At half past one, while Mrs. Baines was dozing after dinner, Sophia wrapped herself up, and with a book under her arm went forth into the world through the shop. She returned in less than twenty minutes, but her mother had already awakened and was hovering about the back of the shop. Mothers have supernatural gifts. Sophia nonchalantly passed her, and hurried into the parlour, where she threw down her muff and a book, and knelt before the fire to warm herself. Mrs. Baines followed her, been to the library, questioned Mrs. Baines. Yes, mother, and it's simply perishing. I wonder as you're going on a day like today, I thought you always went on Thursdays. So I do, but I'd finished my book. What is this? Mrs. Baines picked up the volume, which was covered with black oil cloth. She picked it up with a hostile air, for her attitude towards the free library was obscurely inimical. She never read anything herself except the Sunday at home, and Constance never read anything except the Sunday at home. There were scriptural commentaries, Doug Dale's Gazetteer, Culpeper's Herbal, and Works by Bunyan, and Flavius Josephus in the drawing-room bookcase, also Uncle Tom's Cabin. And Mrs. Baines, in considering the welfare of her daughters, looked a sconce at the whole remainder of printed literature. If the free library had not formed part of the famous Wedgewood Institution, which had been opened with immense clout by the semi-divine Gladstone, if the first book had not been ceremoniously taken out of the free library by the Chief Bailiff in person, a grandfather of stainless renown, Mrs. Baines would probably have risked her authority in forbidding the free library. You needn't be afraid, said Sophia, laughing, it's Miss Sewell's experience of life. A novel, I see, observed Mrs. Baines dropping the book. Gold and jewels would probably not tempt a Sophia of these days to read experience of life, but to Sophia Baines, the bland story had the pecancy of the disapproved. The next day Mrs. Baines summoned Sophia into her bedroom. Sophia, said she, trembling, I shall be glad if you will not walk about the streets with young men until you have my permission. The girl blushed violently. You were seen in Wedgewood Street, said Mrs. Baines. Who's been gossiping, Mr. Critchlow, I suppose? Sophia exclaimed scornfully. No one has been gossiping, said Mrs. Baines. Well, if I meet someone by accident in the street I can't help it, can I? Sophia's voice shook. You know what I mean, my child, said Mrs. Baines, with careful calm. Sophia dashed angrily from the room. I liked the idea of him having a heavy day. Mrs. Baines reflected, ironically, recalling a phrase which had lodged in her mind. And very vaguely, with an uneasiness, scarcely perceptible, she remembered that he and no other had been in the shop on the day her husband died. End of Chapter 5