On a recent visit to the Five Towns I was sitting with my old
schoolmaster, who, by the way, is much younger than I am after all, in
the bow window of a house overlooking that great thoroughfare, Trafalgar
Road, Bursley, when a pretty woman of twenty-eight or so passed down the
street. Now the Five Towns contains more pretty women to the square mile
than any other district in England (and this statement I am prepared to
support by either sword or pistol). But do you suppose that the
frequency of pretty women in Hanbridge, Bursley, Knype, Longshaw and
Turnhill makes them any the less remarked? Not a bit of it. Human nature
is such that even if a man should meet forty pretty women in a walk
along Trafalgar Road from Bursley to Hanbridge, he will remark them all
separately, and feel exactly forty thrills. Consequently my
ever-youthful schoolmaster said to me:
"Good-looking woman that, eh, boy? Married three weeks ago," he added.
A piece of information which took the keen edge off my interest in her.
"Really!" I said. "Who is she?"
"Married to a Scotsman named Macintyre, I fancy."
"That tells me nothing," I said. "Who was she?"
"Daughter of a man named Roden."
"Not Herbert Roden?" I demanded.
"Yes. Art director at Jacksons, Limited."
"Well, well!" I exclaimed. "So Herbert Roden's got a daughter married.
Well, well! And it seems like a week ago that he and his uncle--you
know all about that affair, of course?"
"What affair?"
"Why, the Roden affair!"
"No," said my schoolmaster.
"You don't mean to say you've never--"
Nothing pleases a wandering native of the Five Towns more than to come
back and find that he knows things concerning the Five Towns which
another man who has lived there all his life doesn't know. In ten
seconds I was digging out for my schoolmaster one of those family
histories which lie embedded in the general grey soil of the past like
lumps of quartz veined and streaked with the precious metal of passion
and glittering here and there with the crystallizations of scandal.
"You could make a story out of that," he said, when I had done talking
and he had done laughing.
"It is a story," I replied. "It doesn't want any making."
And this is just what I told him. I have added on a few explanations and
moral reflections--and changed the names.
I
Silas Roden, commonly called Si Roden--Herbert's uncle--lived in one of
those old houses at Paddock Place, at the bottom of the hill where
Hanbridge begins. Their front steps are below the level of the street,
and their backyards look out on the Granville Third Pit and the works of
the Empire Porcelain Company. 11 was Si's own house, a regular
bachelor's house, as neat as a pin, and Si was very proud of it and very
particular about it. Herbert, being an orphan, lived with his uncle. He
would be about twenty-five then, and Si fifty odd. Si had retired from
the insurance agency business, and Herbert, after a spell in a lawyer's
office, had taken to art and was in the decorating department at
Jackson's. They had got on together pretty well, had Si and Herbert, in
a grim, taciturn, Five Towns way. The historical scandal began when
Herbert wanted to marry Alice Oulsnam, an orphan like himself, employed
at a dress-maker's in Crown Square, Hanbridge.
"Thou'lt marry her if thou'st a mind," said Si to Herbert, "but I s'll
ne'er speak to thee again."
"But why, uncle?"
"That's why," said Si.
Now if you have been born in the Five Towns and been blessed with the
unique Five Towns mixture of sentimentality and solid sense, you don't
flare up and stamp out of the house when a well-to-do and childless
uncle shatters your life's dream. You dissemble. You piece the dream
together again while your uncle is looking another way. You feel that
you are capable of out-witting your uncle, and you take the earliest
opportunity of "talking it over" with Alice. Alice is sagacity itself.
Si's reasons for objecting so politely to the projected marriage were
various. In the first place he had persuaded himself that he hated
women. In the second place, though in many respects a most worthy man,
he was a selfish man, and he didn't want Herbert to leave him, because
he loathed solitude. In the third place--and here is the interesting
part--he had once had an affair with Alice's mother and had been cut
out: his one deviation into the realms of romance--and a disastrous one.
He ought to have been Alice's father, and he wasn't. It angered him,
with a cold anger, that Herbert should have chosen just Alice out of the
wealth of women in the Five Towns. Herbert was unaware of this reason at
the moment.
The youth was being driven to the conclusion that he would be compelled
to offend his uncle after all, when Alice came into two thousand two
hundred pounds from a deceased relative in Cheshire. The thought of
this apt legacy does good to my soul. I love people to come into a bit
of stuff unexpected. Herbert instantly advised her to breathe not a word
of the legacy to anyone. They were independent now, and he determined
that he would teach his uncle a lesson. He had an affection for his
uncle, but in the Five Towns you can have an affection for a person, and
be extremely and justly savage against that person, and plan cruel
revenges on that person, all at the same time.
Herbert felt that the legacy would modify Si's attitude towards the
marriage, if Si knew of it. Legacies, for some obscure and illogical
cause, do modify attitudes towards marriages. To keep a penniless
dressmaker out of one's family may be a righteous act. But to keep a
level-headed girl with two thousand odd of her own out of one's family
would be the act of an insensate fool. Therefore Herbert settled that Si
should not know of the legacy. Si should be defeated without the legacy,
or he should be made to suffer the humiliation of yielding after being
confronted with the accomplished fact of a secret marriage. Herbert was
fairly sure that he would yield, and in any case, with a couple of
thousand at his wife's back, Herbert could afford to take the risks of
war.
So Herbert, who had something of the devil in him, approached his uncle
once more, with a deceitful respect, and he was once more politely
rebuffed--as indeed he had half hoped to be. He then began his
clandestine measures--measures which culminated in him leaving the house
one autumn morning dressed in a rather stylish travelling suit.
The tramcar came down presently from Hanbridge. Not one of the swift
thunderous electrical things that now chase each other all over the Five
Towns in every direction at intervals of about thirty seconds; but the
old horse-car that ran between Hanbridge and Bursley twice an hour and
no oftener, announcing its departure by a big bell, and stopping at
toll-gates with broad eaves, and climbing hills with the aid of a
tip-horse and a boy perched on the back thereof. That was a calm and
spacious age.
Herbert boarded the car, and raised his hat rather stiffly to a nice
girl sitting in a corner. He then sat down in another corner, far away
from her. Such is the capacity of youth for chicane! For that nice girl
was exactly Alice, and her presence on the car was part of the plot.
When the car arrived at Bursley these monsters of duplicity descended
together, and went to a small public building and entered therein, and
were directed to an official and inhospitable room which was only saved
from absolute nakedness by a desk, four Windsor chairs, some
blotting-paper, pens, ink and a copy of Keats's Directory of the Five
Towns. An amiable old man received them with a perfunctory gravity, and
two acquaintances of Herbert's strolled in, blushing. The old man told
everybody to sit down, asked them questions of no spiritual import,
abruptly told them to stand up, taught them to say a few phrases, in the
tone of a person buying a ha'-porth of tin-tacks, told them to sit down,
filled a form or two, took some of Herbert's money, and told them that
that was all, and that they could go. So they went, secretly surprised.
This was the august ritual, and this the imposing theatre, provided by
the State in those far-off days for the solemnizing of the most
important act in a citizen's life. It is different now; the copy of
Keats's Directory is a much later one.
Herbert thanked his acquaintances, who, begging him not to mention it,
departed.
"Well, that's over!" breathed Herbert with a sigh of relief. "It's too
soon to go back. Let us walk round by Moorthorne."
"I should love to!" said Alice.
It was a most enjoyable walk. In the heights of Moorthorne they
gradually threw off the depressing influence of those four Windsor
chairs, and realized their bliss. They reached Paddock Place again at a
quarter to one o'clock, which, as they were a very methodical and
trustworthy pair, was precisely the moment at which they had meant to
reach it. The idea was that they should call on Si and announce to him,
respectfully: "Uncle, we think it only right to tell you that we are
married. We hope you will not take it ill, we should like to be
friends." They would then leave the old man to eat the news with his
dinner. A cab was to be at the door at one o'clock to carry them to
Knype Station, where they would partake of the wedding breakfast in the
first-class refreshment room, and afterwards catch the two-forty to
Blackpool, there to spend a honeymoon of six days.
This was the idea.
Herbert was already rehearsing in his mind the exact tone in which he
should say to Si: "Uncle, we think it only right--" when, as they
approached the house, they both saw a white envelope suspended under the
knocker of the door. It was addressed to "Mr Herbert Roden," in the
handwriting of Silas. The moment was dramatic. As they had not yet
discussed whether correspondence should be absolutely common property,
Alice looked discreetly away while Herbert read: "Dear nephew, I've gone
on for a week or two on business, and sent Jane Sarah home. Her's in
need of a holiday. You must lodge at Bratt's meantime. I've had your
things put in there, and they've gotten the keys of the house.--Yours
affly, S. Roden." Bratt's was next door but one, and Jane Sarah was the
Roden servant, aged fifty or more.
"Well, I'm--!" exclaimed Herbert.
"Well, I never!" exclaimed Alice when she had read the letter. "What's
the meaning--?"
"Don't ask me!" Herbert replied.
"Going off like this!" exclaimed Alice.
"Yes, my word!" exclaimed Herbert.
"But what are you to do?" Alice asked.
"Get the key from Bratt's, and get my box, if he hasn't had it carried
in to Bratt's already, and then wait for the cab to come."
"Just fancy him shutting you out of the house like that, and no
warning!" Alice said, shocked.
"Yes. You see he's very particular about his house. He's afraid I might
ruin it, I suppose. He's just like an old maid, you know, only a hundred
times worse." Herbert paused, as if suddenly gripped in a tremendous
conception. "I have it!" he stated positively. "I have it! I have it!"
"What?" Alice demanded.
"Suppose we spend our honeymoon here?"
"In this house?"
"In this house. It would serve him right."
Alice smiled humorously. "Then the house wouldn't get damp," she said.
"And there would be a great saving of expense. We could buy those two
easy-chairs with what we saved."
"Exactly," said Herbert. "And after all, seaside lodgings, you know....
And this house isn't so bad either."
"But if he came back and caught us?" Alice suggested.
"Well, he couldn't eat us!" said Herbert.
The clear statement of this truth emboldened Alice. "And he'd no right
to turn you out!" she said in wifely indignation.
Without another word Herbert went into Bratt's and got the keys. Then
the cab came up with Alice's luggage lashed to the roof, and the driver,
astounded, had to assist in carrying it into Si's house. He was then
dismissed, and not with a bouncing tip either. We are in the Five Towns.
He got a reasonable tip, no more. The Bratts, vastly intrigued, looked
inconspicuously on.
Herbert banged the door and faced Alice in the lobby across her chief
trunk. The honeymoon had commenced.
"We'd better get this out of the way at once," said Alice the practical.
And between them they carried it upstairs, Alice, in the intervals of
tugs, making favourable remarks about the cosiness of the abode.
"This is uncle's bedroom," said Herbert, showing the front bedroom, a
really spacious and dignified chamber full of spacious and dignified
furniture, and not a pin out of place in it.
"What a funny room!" Alice commented. "But it's very nice."
"And this is mine," said Herbert, showing the back bedroom, much
inferior in every way.
When the trunk had been carried into the front bedroom, Herbert
descended for the other things, including his own luggage; and Alice
took off her hat and jacket and calmly laid them on Silas's ample bed,
gazed into all Silas's cupboards and wardrobes that were not locked,
patted her hair in front of Silas's looking-glass, and dropped a hairpin
on Silas's floor.
She then kneeled down over her chief trunk, and the vision of her
rummaging in the trunk in his uncle's bedroom was the most beautiful
thing that Herbert had ever seen. Whether it was because the light
caught her brown hair, or because she seemed so strange there and yet so
deliciously at home, or because--Anyhow, she fished a plain white apron
out of the trunk and put it on over her grey dress. And the quick,
graceful, enchanting movements with which she put the apron on--well,
they made Herbert feel that he had only that moment begun to live. He
walked away wondering what was the matter with him. If you imagine that
he ran up to her and kissed her you imagine a vain thing; you do not
understand that complex and capricious organism, the masculine heart.
The wedding breakfast consisted of part of a leg of mutton that Jane
Sarah had told the Bratts they might have, pikelets purchased from a
street hawker, coffee, scrambled eggs, biscuits, butter, burgundy out of
the cellar, potatoes out of the cellar, cheese, sardines, and a custard
that Alice made with custard-powder. Herbert had to go out to buy the
bread, the butter, the sardines and some milk; when he returned with
these purchases, a portion of the milk being in his breast pocket, Alice
checked them, and exhibited a mild surprise that he had not done
something foolish, and told him to clear out of "her kitchen."
Her kitchen was really the back kitchen or scullery. The proper kitchen
had always been used as a dining-room. But Alice had set the table in
the parlour, at the front of the house, where food had never before been
eaten. At the first blush this struck Herbert as sacrilege; but Alice
said she didn't like the middle room, because it was dark and because
there was a china pig on the high mantelpiece; and really Herbert could
discover no reason for not eating in the parlour. So they ate in the
parlour. Before the marvellous repast was over Alice had rearranged all
the ornaments and chairs in that parlour, turned round the carpet, and
patted the window curtains into something new and strange. Herbert
frequently looked out of the window to see if his uncle was coming.
"Pity there's no dessert," said Herbert. It was three o'clock, and the
refection was drawing to a reluctant close.
"There is a dessert," said Alice. She ran upstairs, and came down with
her little black hand-bag, out of which she produced three apples and
four sponge-cakes, meant for the railway journey. Amazing woman! Yet in
resuming her seat she mistook Herbert's knee for her chair. Amazing
woman! Intoxicating mixture of sweet confidingness and unfailing
resource. And Si had wanted to prevent Herbert from marrying this pearl!
"Now I must wash up!" said she.
"I'll run out and telegraph to Jane Sarah to come back at once. I expect
she's gone to her sister's at Rat Edge. It's absurd for you to be doing
all the work like this." Thus Herbert.
"I can manage by myself till to-morrow," Alice decided briefly.
Then there was a rousing knock at the door, and Alice sprang up, as it
were, guiltily. Recovering herself with characteristic swiftness, she
went to the window and spied delicately out.
"It's Mrs Bratt," she whispered. "I'll go."
"Shall I go?" Herbert asked.
"No--I'll go," said Alice.
And she went--apron and all.
Herbert overheard the conversation.
"Oh!" Exclamation of feigned surprise from Mrs Bratt.
"Yes?" In tones of a politeness almost excessive.
"Is Mr Herbert meaning to come to our house to-night? That there
bedroom's all ready."
"I don't think so," said Alice. "I don't think so."
"Well, miss--"
"I'm Mrs Herbert Roden," said Alice, primly.
"Oh! I beg pardon, miss--Mrs, that is--I'm sure. I didn't know--"
"No," said Alice. "The wedding was this morning."
"I'm sure I wish you both much happiness, you and Mr Herbert," said Mrs
Bratt, heartily. "If I had but known--"
"Thank you," said Alice, "I'll tell my husband."
And she shut the door on the entire world.