She was not quite the ordinary barmaid. Nor, as I learnt afterwards,
was she considered to be the ordinary barmaid. She was something midway
in importance between the wife of the new proprietor and the younger
woman who stood beside her in the cloister talking to a being that
resembled a commercial traveller. It was the younger woman who was the
ordinary barmaid; she had bright hair, and the bright vacant stupidity
which, in my narrow experience, barmaids so often catch like an
infectious disease from their clients. But Annie Brett was different. I
can best explain how she impressed me by saying that she had the mien
of a handsome married woman of forty with a coquettish and
superficially emotional past, but also with a daughter who is just
going into long skirts. I have known one or two such women. They have
been beautiful; they are still handsome at a distance of twelve feet.
They are rather effusive; they think they know life, when as a fact
their instinctive repugnance for any form of truth has prevented them
from acquiring even the rudiments of the knowledge of life. They are
secretly preoccupied by the burning question of obesity. They flatter,
and they will pay any price for flattery. They are never sincere, not
even with themselves; they never, during the whole of their existence,
utter a sincere word, even in anger they coldly exaggerate. They are
always frothing at the mouth with ecstasy. They adore everything,
including God; go to church carrying a prayer-book and hymn-book in
separate volumes, and absolutely fawn on the daughter. They are
stylish--and impenetrable. But there is something about them very
wistful and tragic.
In another social stratum, Miss Annie Brett might have been such a
woman. Without doubt nature had intended her for the role. She was just
a little ample, with broad shoulders and a large head and a lot of dark
chestnut hair; a large mouth, and large teeth. She had earrings, a
brooch, and several rings; also a neat originality of cuffs that would
not have been permitted to an ordinary barmaid. As for her face, there
were crow's-feet, and a mole (which had selected with infinite skill a
site on her chin), and a general degeneracy of complexion; but it was
an effective face. The little thing of twenty-three or so by her side
had all the cruel advantages of youth and was not ugly; but she was
'killed' by Annie Brett. Miss Brett had a maternal bust. Indeed,
something of the maternal resided in all of her that was visible above
the zinc. She must have been about forty; that is to say, apparently
older than the late Simon Fuge. Nevertheless, I could conceive her,
even now, speciously picturesque in a boat at midnight on a moonstruck
water. Had she been on the stage she would have been looking forward to
ingenue parts for another five years yet--such was her durable sort of
effectiveness. Yes, she indubitably belonged to the ornamental half of
the universe.
'So this is one of them!' I said to myself.
I tried to be philosophical; but at heart I was profoundly
disappointed. I did not know what I had expected; but I had not
expected THAT. I was well aware that a thing written always takes on a
quality which does not justly appertain to it. I had not expected,
therefore, to see an odalisque, a houri, an ideal toy or the remains of
an ideal toy; I had not expected any kind of obvious brilliancy, nor a
subtle charm that would haunt my memory for evermore. On the other
hand, I had not expected the banal, the perfectly commonplace. And I
think that Miss Annie Brett was the most banal person that it has
pleased Fate to send into my life. I knew that instantly. She was a
condemnation of Simon Fuge. SHE, one of the 'wonderful creatures who
had played so large a part' in the career of Simon Fuge! Sapristi!
Still, she WAS one of the wonderful creatures, etc. She HAD floated
o'er the bosom of the lake with a great artist. She HAD received his
homage. She HAD stirred his feelings. She HAD shared with him the magic
of the night. I might decry her as I would; she had known how to cast a
spell over him--she and the other one! Something there in her which had
captured him and, seemingly, held him captive.
'Good-EVENING, Mr Brindley,' she expanded. 'You're quite a stranger.'
And she embraced me also in the largeness of her welcome.
'It just happens,' said Mr Brindley, 'that I was here last night. But
you weren't.'
'Were you now!' she exclaimed, as though learning a novel fact of the
most passionate interest. The truth is, I had to leave the bar to Miss
Slaney last night. Mrs Moorcroft was ill--and the baby only six weeks
old, you know--and I wouldn't leave her. No, I wouldn't.'
It was plain that in Miss Annie Brett's opinion there was only one
really capable intelligence in the Tiger. This glimpse of her
capability, this out-leaping of the latent maternal in her, completely
destroyed for the moment my vision of her afloat on the bosom of the
lake.
'I see,' said Mr Brindley kindly. Then he turned to me with
characteristic abruptness. 'Well, give it a name, Mr Loring.'
Such is my simplicity that I did not immediately comprehend his
meaning. For a fraction of a second I thought of the baby. Then I
perceived that he was merely employing one of the sacred phrases,
sanctified by centuries of usage, of the private bar. I had already
drunk mercurey, green Chartreuse, and coffee. I had a violent desire
not to drink anything more. I knew my deplorable tomorrows. Still, I
would have drunk hot milk, cold water, soda water, or tea. Why should I
not have had what I did not object to having? Herein lies another
mystery of the private bar. One could surely order tea or milk or soda
water from a woman who left everything to tend a mother with a
six-weeks-old baby! But no. One could not. As Miss Annie Brett smiled
at me pointedly, and rubbed her ringed hands, and kept on smiling with
her terrific mechanical effusiveness, I lost all my self control; I
would have resigned myself to a hundred horrible tomorrows under the
omnipotent, inexplicable influence of the private bar. I ejaculated, as
though to the manner born--
'Irish.'
It proved to have been rather clever of me, showing as it did a due
regard for convention combined with a pretty idiosyncrasy. Mr Brindley
was clearly taken aback. The idea struck him as a new one. He
reflected, and then enthusiastically exclaimed--
'Dashed if I don't have Irish too!'
And Miss Brett, delighted by this unexpected note of Irish in the long,
long symphony of Scotch, charged our glasses with gusto. I sipped,
death in my heart, and rakishness in my face and gesture. Mr Brindley
raised his glass respectfully to Miss Annie Brett, and I did the same.
Those two were evidently good friends.
She led the conversation with hard, accustomed ease. When I say 'hard'
I do not in the least mean unsympathetic. But her sympathetic quality
was toughened by excessive usage, like the hand of a charwoman. She
spoke of the vagaries of the Town Hall clock, the health of Mr
Brindley's children, the price of coal, the incidence of the annual
wakes, the bankruptcy of the draper next door, and her own sciatica,
all in the same tone of metallic tender solicitude. Mr Brindley adopted
an entirely serious attitude towards her. If I had met him there and
nowhere else I should have taken him for a dignified mediocrity, little
better than a fool, but with just enough discretion not to give himself
away. I said nothing. I was shy. I always am shy in a bar. Out of her
cold, cold roving eye Miss Brett watched me, trying to add me up and
not succeeding. She must have perceived, however, that I was not like a
fish in water.
There was a pause in the talk, due, I think, to Miss Annie Brett's
preoccupation with what was going on between Miss Slaney, the ordinary
barmaid, and her commercial traveller. The commercial traveller, if he
was one, was reading something from a newspaper to Miss Slaney in an
indistinct murmur, and with laughter in his voice.
'By the way,' said Mr Brindley, 'you used to know Simon Fuge, didn't
you?'
'Old Simon Fuge!' said Miss Brett. 'Yes; after the brewery company took
the Blue Bell at Cauldon over from him, I used to be there. He would
come in sometimes. Such a nice queer old man!'
'I mean the son,' said Mr Brindley.
'Oh yes,' she answered. 'I knew young Mr Simon too.' A slight
hesitation, and then: 'Of course!' Another hesitation. 'Why?'
'Nothing,' said Mr Brindley. 'Only he's dead.'
'You don't mean to say he's dead?' she exclaimed.
'Day before yesterday, in Italy,' said Mr Brindley ruthlessly.
Miss Annie Brett's manner certainly changed. It seemed almost to become
natural and unecstatic.
'I suppose it will be in the papers?' she ventured.
'It's in the London paper.'
'Well I never!' she muttered.
'A long time, I should think, since he was in this part of the world,'
said Mr Brindley. 'When did YOU last see him?'
He was exceedingly skilful, I considered.
She put the back of her hand over her mouth, and bending her head
slightly and lowering her eyelids, gazed reflectively at the counter.
'It was once when a lot of us went to Ilam,' she answered quietly. 'The
St Luke's lot, YOU know.'
'Oh!' cried Mr Brindley, apparently startled. 'The St Luke's lot?'
'Yes.'
'How came he to go with you?'
'He didn't go with us. He was there--stopping there, I suppose.'
'Why, I believe I remember hearing something about that,' said Mr
Brindley cunningly. 'Didn't he take you out in a boat?'
A very faint dark crimson spread over the face of Miss Annie Brett. It
could not be called a blush, but it was as like a blush as was possible
to her. The phenomenon, as I could see from his eyes, gave Mr Brindley
another shock.
'Yes,' she replied. 'Sally was there as well.'
Then a silence, during which the commercial traveller could be heard
reading from the newspaper.
'When was that?' gently asked Mr Brindley.
'Don't ask ME when it was, Mr Brindley,' she answered nervously. 'It's
ever so long ago. What did he die of?'
'Don't know.'
Miss Annie Brett opened her mouth to speak, and did not speak. There
were tears in her reddened eyes. I felt very awkward, and I think that
Mr Brindley also felt awkward. But I was glad. Those moist eyes caused
me a thrill. There was after all some humanity in Miss Annie Brett.
Yes, she had after all floated on the bosom of the lake with Simon
Fuge. The least romantic of persons, she had yet felt romance. If she
had touched Simon Fuge, Simon Fuge had touched her. She had memories.
Once she had lived. I pictured her younger. I sought in her face the
soft remains of youthfulness. I invented languishing poses for her in
the boat. My imagination was equal to the task of seeing her as Simon
Fuge saw her. I did so see her. I recalled Simon Fuge's excited
description of the long night in the boat, and I could reconstitute the
night from end to end. And there the identical creature stood before
me, the creature who had set fire to Simon Fuge, one of the 'wonderful
creatures' of the Gazette, ageing, hardened, banal, but momentarily
restored to the empire of romance by those unshed, glittering tears. As
an experience it was worth having.
She could not speak, and we did not. I heard the commercial traveller
reading: '"The motion was therefore carried by twenty-five votes to
nineteen, and the Countess of Chell promised that the whole question of
the employment of barmaids should be raised at the next meeting of the
B.W.T.S." There! what do you think of that?'
Miss Annie Brett moved quickly towards the commercial traveller.
Til tell you what _I_ think of it,' she said, with ecstatic resentment.
'I think it's just shameful! Why should the Countess of Chell want to
rob a lot of respectable young ladies of their living? I can tell you
they're just as respectable as the Countess of Chell is--yes, and
perhaps more, by all accounts. I think people do well to call her
"Interfering Iris". When she's robbed them of their living, what does
she expect them to do? Is she going to keep them? Then what does she
expect them to do?'
The commercial traveller was inept enough to offer a jocular reply, and
then he found himself involved in the morass of 'the whole question'.
He, and we also, were obliged to hear in immense detail Miss Annie
Brett's complete notions of the movement for the abolition of barmaids.
The subject was heavy on her mind, and she lifted it off. Simon Fuge
was relinquished; he dropped like a stone into the pool of
forgetfulness. And yet, strange as it seems, she was assuredly not
sincere in the expression of her views on the question of barmaids. She
held no real views. She merely persuaded herself that she held them.
When the commercial traveller, who was devoid of sense, pointed out
that it was not proposed to rob anybody of a livelihood, and that
existent barmaids would be permitted to continue to grace the counters
of their adoption, she grew frostily vicious. The commercial traveller
decided to retire and play billiards. Mr Brindley and I in our turn
departed. I was extremely disappointed by this sequel.
'Ah!' breathed Mr Brindley when we were outside, in front of the Town
Hall. 'She was quite right about that clock.'
After that we turned silently into a long illuminated street which rose
gently. The boxes of light were flashing up and down it, but otherwise
it seemed to be quite deserted. Mr Brindley filled a pipe and lit it as
he walked. The way in which that man kept the match alight in a fresh
breeze made me envious. I could conceive myself rivalling his exploits
in cigarette-making, the purchase of rare books, the interpretation of
music, even (for a wager) the drinking of beer, but I knew that I
should never be able to keep a match alight in a breeze. He threw the
match into the mud, and in the mud it continued miraculously to burn
with a large flame, as though still under his magic dominion. There are
some things that baffle the reasoning faculty. 'Well,' I said, 'she
must have been a pretty woman once.'
'"Pretty," by God!' he replied, 'she was beautiful. She was considered
the finest piece in Hanbridge at one time. And let me tell you we're
supposed to have more than our share of good looks in the Five Towns.'
'What--the women, you mean?'
'Yes.'
'And she never married?'
'No.'
'Nor--anything?'
'Oh no,' he said carelessly.
'But you don't mean to tell me she's never--' I was just going to
exclaim, but I did not, I said: 'And it's her sister who is Mrs
Colclough?'
'Yes.' He seemed to be either meditative or disinclined to talk.
However, my friends have sometimes hinted to me that when my curiosity
is really aroused, I am capable of indiscretions.
'So one sister rattles about in an expensive motor-car, and the other
serves behind a bar!' I observed.
He glanced at me.
'I expect it's a bit difficult for you to understand,' he answered;
'but you must remember you're in a democratic district. You told me
once you knew Exeter. Well, this isn't a cathedral town. It's about a
century in front of any cathedral town in the world. Why, my good sir,
there's practically no such thing as class distinction here. Both my
grandfathers were working potters. Colclough's father was a joiner who
finished up as a builder. If Colclough makes money and chooses to go to
Paris and get the best motor-car he can, why in Hades shouldn't his
wife ride in it? If he is fond of music and can play like the devil,
that isn't his sister-in-law's fault, is it? His wife was a dressmaker,
at least she was a dressmaker's assistant. If she suits him, what's the
matter?'
'But I never suggested--'
'Excuse me,' he stopped me, speaking with careful and slightly
exaggerated calmness, 'I think you did. If the difference in the
situations of the two sisters didn't strike you as very extraordinary,
what did you mean?'
'And isn't it extraordinary?' I demanded.
'It wouldn't be considered so in any reasonable society,' he insisted.
'The fact is, my good sir, you haven't yet quite got rid of Exeter. I
do believe this place will do you good. Why, damn it! Colclough didn't
marry both sisters. You think he might keep the other sister? Well, he
might. But suppose his wife had half-a-dozen sisters, should he keep
them all! I can tell you we're just like the rest of the world, we find
no difficulty whatever in spending all the money we make. I dare say
Colclough would be ready enough to keep his sister-in-law. I've never
asked him. But I'm perfectly certain that his sister-in-law wouldn't be
kept. Not much! You don't know these women down here, my good sir.
She's earned her living at one thing or another all her life, and I
reckon she'll keep on earning it till she drops. She is, without
exception, the most exasperating female I ever came across, and that's
saying something; but I will give her THAT credit: she's mighty
independent.'
'How exasperating?' I asked, surprised to hear this from him.
'_I_ don't know. But she is. If she was my wife I should kill her one
night. Don't you know what I mean?'
'Yes, I quite agree with you,' I said. 'But you seemed to be awfully
good friends with her.'
'No use being anything else. No woman that it ever pleased Providence
to construct is going to frighten me away from the draught Burton that
you can get at the Tiger. Besides, she can't help it. She was born like
that.'
'She TALKS quite ordinarily,' I remarked.
'Oh! It isn't what she says, particularly. It's HER. Either you like
her or you don't like her. Now Colclough thinks she's all right. In
fact, he admires her.'
'There's one thing,' I said, 'she jolly nearly cried tonight.'
'Purely mechanical!' said Mr Brindley with cruel curtness.
What seemed to me singular was that the relations which had existed
between Miss Annie Brett and Simon Fuge appeared to have no interest
whatever for Mr Brindley. He had not even referred to them.
'You were just beginning to draw her out,' I ventured.
'No,' he replied; 'I thought I'd just see what she'd say. No one ever
did draw that woman out.'
I had completely lost my vision of her in the boat, but somehow that
declaration of his, 'no one ever did draw that woman out', partially
restored the vision to me. It seemed to invest her with agreeable
mystery.
'And the other sister--Mrs Colclough?' I questioned.
'I'm taking you to see her as fast as I can,' he answered. His tone
implied further: 'I've just humoured one of your whims, now for the
other.'
'But tell me something about her.'
'She's the best bridge-player--woman, that is--in Bursley. But she will
only play every other night for fear the habit should get hold of her.
There you've got her.'
'Younger than Miss Brett?'
'Younger,' said Mr Brindley. 'She isn't the same sort of person, is
she?'
'She is not,' said Mr Brindley. And his tone implied: 'Thank God for
it!'
Very soon afterwards, at the top of a hill, he drew me into the garden
of a large house which stood back from the road.