I
In the Five Towns the following history is related by those who know it
as something side-splittingly funny--as one of the best jokes that ever
occurred in a district devoted to jokes. And I, too, have hitherto
regarded it as such. But upon my soul, now that I come to write it
down, it strikes me as being, after all, a pretty grim tragedy.
However, you shall judge, and laugh or cry as you please.
It began in the little house of Mrs Carpole, up at Bleakridge, on the
hill between Bursley and Hanbridge. Mrs Carpole was the second Mrs
Carpole, and her husband was dead. She had a stepson, Horace, and a son
of her own, Sidney. Horace is the hero, or the villain, of the history.
On the day when the unfortunate affair began he was nineteen years old,
and a model youth. Not only was he getting on in business, not only did
he give half his evenings to the study of the chemistry of pottery and
the other half to various secretaryships in connection with the
Wesleyan Methodist Chapel and Sunday-school, not only did he save
money, not only was he a comfort to his stepmother and a sort of uncle
to Sidney, not only was he an early riser, a total abstainer, a
non-smoker, and a good listener; but, in addition to the practice of
these manifold and rare virtues, he found time, even at that tender
age, to pay his tailor's bill promptly and to fold his trousers in the
same crease every night--so that he always looked neat and dignified.
Strange to say, he made no friends. Perhaps he was just a thought too
perfect for a district like the Five Towns; a sin or so might have
endeared him to the entire neighbourhood. Perhaps his loneliness was
due to his imperfect sense of humour, or perhaps to the dull, unsmiling
heaviness of his somewhat flat features.
Sidney was quite a different story. Sidney, to use his mother's phrase,
was a little jockey. His years were then eight. Fair-haired and
blue-eyed, as most little jockeys are, he had a smile and a scowl that
were equally effective in tyrannizing over both his mother and Horace,
and he was beloved by everybody. Women turned to look at him in the
street. Unhappily, his health was not good. He was afflicted by a
slight deafness, which, however, the doctor said he would grow out of;
the doctor predicted for him a lusty manhood. In the meantime, he
caught every disease that happened to be about, and nearly died of each
one. His latest acquisition had been scarlet fever. Now one afternoon,
after he had 'peeled' and his room had been disinfected, and he was
beginning to walk again, Horace came home and decided that Sidney
should be brought downstairs for tea as a treat, to celebrate his
convalescence, and that he, Horace, would carry him downstairs. Mrs
Carpole was delighted with the idea, and Sidney also, except that
Sidney did not want to be carried downstairs--he wanted to walk down.
'I think it will be better for him to walk, Horace dear,' said Mrs
Carpole, in her thin, plaintive voice. 'He can, quite well. And you
know how clumsy you are. Supposing you were to fall!'
Horace, nevertheless, in pursuance of his programme of being uncle to
Sidney, was determined to carry Sidney. And carry Sidney he did,
despite warnings and kickings. At least he carried him as far as the
turn in the steep stairs, at which point he fell, just as his
stepmother had feared, and Sidney with him. The half-brothers arrived
on the ground floor in company, but Horace, with his eleven stone two,
was on top, and the poor suffering little convalescent lay moveless and
insensible.
It took the doctor forty minutes to bring him to, and all the time the
odour of grilled herrings, which formed part of the uneaten tea, made
itself felt through the house like a Satanic comment on the spectacle
of human life. The scene was dreadful at first. The agony then passed.
There were no bruises on the boy, not a mark, and in a couple of hours
he seemed to be perfectly himself. Horace breathed again, and thanked
Heaven it was no worse. His gratitude to Heaven was, however, slightly
premature, for in the black middle of the night poor Sidney was seized
with excruciating pains in the head, and the doctor lost four hours'
sleep. These pains returned at intervals of a few days, and naturally
the child's convalescence was retarded. Then Horace said that Airs
Carpole should take Sidney to Buxton for a fortnight, and he paid all
the expenses of the trip out of his savings. He was desolated, utterly
stricken; he said he should never forgive himself. Sidney improved,
slowly.