The next morning, after a night varied by periods of wakefulness not

unpleasant, Sophia arose and, taking due precautions against cold, went

to the window. It was Saturday; she had left Paris on the Thursday. She

looked forth upon the Square, holding aside the blind. She had

expected, of course, to find that the Square had shrunk in size; but

nevertheless she was startled to see how small it was. It seemed to her

scarcely bigger than a courtyard. She could remember a winter morning

when from the window she had watched the Square under virgin snow in

the lamplight, and the Square had been vast, and the first wayfarer,

crossing it diagonally and leaving behind him the irregular impress of

his feet, had appeared to travel for hours over an interminable white

waste before vanishing past Holl's shop in the direction of the Town

Hall. She chiefly recalled the Square under snow; cold mornings, and

the coldness of the oil-cloth at the window, and the draught of cold

air through the ill-fitting sash (it was put right now)! These visions

of herself seemed beautiful to her; her childish existence seemed

beautiful; the storms and tempests of her girlhood seemed beautiful;

even the great sterile expanse of tedium when, after giving up a

scholastic career, she had served for two years in the shop--even this

had a strange charm in her memory.

And she thought that not for millions of pounds would she live her life

over again.

In its contents the Square had not surprisingly changed during the

immense, the terrifying interval that separated her from her virginity.

On the east side, several shops had been thrown into one, and forced

into a semblance of eternal unity by means of a coat of stucco. And

there was a fountain at the north end which was new to her. No other

constructional change! But the moral change, the sad declension from

the ancient proud spirit of the Square--this was painfully depressing.

Several establishments lacked tenants, had obviously lacked tenants for

a long time; 'To let' notices hung in their stained and dirty upper

windows, and clung insecurely to their closed shutters. And on the

sign-boards of these establishments were names that Sophia did not

know. The character of most of the shops seemed to have worsened; they

had become pettifogging little holes, unkempt, shabby, poor; they had

no brightness, no feeling of vitality. And the floor of the Square was

littered with nondescript refuse. The whole scene, paltry, confined,

and dull, reached for her the extreme of provinciality. It was what the

French called, with a pregnant intonation, la province. This--being

said, there was nothing else to say. Bursley, of course, was in the

provinces; Bursley must, in the nature of things, be typically

provincial. But in her mind it had always been differentiated from the

common province; it had always had an air, a distinction, and

especially St. Luke's Square! That illusion was now gone. Still, the

alteration was not wholly in herself; it was not wholly subjective. The

Square really had changed for the worse; it might not be smaller, but

it had deteriorated. As a centre of commerce it had assuredly

approached very near to death. On a Saturday morning thirty years ago

it would have been covered with linen-roofed stalls, and chattering

country-folk, and the stir of bargains. Now, Saturday morning was like

any other morning in the Square, and the glass-roof of St. Luke's

market in Wedgwood Street, which she could see from her window, echoed

to the sounds of noisy commerce. In that instance business had simply

moved a few yards to the east; but Sophia knew, from hints in

Constance's letters and in her talk, that business in general had moved

more than a few yards, it had moved a couple of miles--to arrogant and

pushing Hanbridge, with its electric light and its theatres and its

big, advertising shops. The heaven of thick smoke over the Square, the

black deposit on painted woodwork, the intermittent hooting of steam

syrens, showed that the wholesale trade of Bursley still flourished.

But Sophia had no memories of the wholesale trade of Bursley; it meant

nothing to the youth of her heart; she was attached by intimate links

to the retail traffic of Bursley, and as a mart old Bursley was done

for.

She thought: "It would kill me if I had to live here. It's deadening.

It weighs on you. And the dirt, and the horrible ugliness! And the--way

they talk, and the way they think! I felt it first at Knype station.

The Square is rather picturesque, but it's such a poor, poor little

thing! Fancy having to look at it every morning of one's life! No!" She

almost shuddered.

For the time being she had no home. To Constance she was 'paying a

visit.'

Constance did not appear to realize the awful conditions of dirt,

decay, and provinciality in which she was living. Even Constance's

house was extremely inconvenient, dark, and no doubt unhealthy.

Cellar-kitchen, no hall, abominable stairs, and as to hygiene, simply

mediaeval. She could not understand why Constance had remained in the

house. Constance had plenty of money and might live where she liked,

and in a good modern house. Yet she stayed in the Square. "I daresay

she's got used to it," Sophia thought leniently. "I daresay I should be

just the same in her place." But she did not really think so, and she

could not understand Constance's state of mind.

Certainly she could not claim to have 'added up' Constance yet. She

considered that her sister was in some respects utterly

provincial--what they used to call in the Five Towns a 'body.' Somewhat

too diffident, not assertive enough, not erect enough; with curious

provincial pronunciations, accents, gestures, mannerisms, and

inarticulate ejaculations; with a curious narrowness of outlook! But at

the same time Constance was very shrewd, and she was often proving by

some bit of a remark that she knew what was what, despite her

provinciality. In judgments upon human nature they undoubtedly thought

alike, and there was a strong natural general sympathy between them.

And at the bottom of Constance was something fine. At intervals Sophia

discovered herself secretly patronizing Constance, but reflection would

always cause her to cease from patronage and to examine her own

defences. Constance, besides being the essence of kindness, was no

fool. Constance could see through a pretence, an absurdity, as quickly

as any one. Constance did honestly appear to Sophia to be superior to

any Frenchwoman that she had ever encountered. She saw supreme in

Constance that quality which she had recognized in the porters at

Newhaven on landing--the quality of an honest and naive goodwill, of

powerful simplicity. That quality presented itself to her as the

greatest in the world, and it seemed to be in the very air of England.

She could even detect it in Mr. Critchlow, whom, for the rest, she

liked, admiring the brutal force of his character. She pardoned his

brutality to his wife. She found it proper. "After all," she said,

"supposing he hadn't married her, what would she have been? Nothing but

a slave! She's infinitely better off as his wife. In fact she's lucky.

And it would be absurd for him to treat her otherwise than he does

treat her." (Sophia did not divine that her masterful Critchlow had

once wanted Maria as one might want a star.)

But to be always with such people! To be always with Constance! To be

always in the Bursley atmosphere, physical and mental!

She pictured Paris as it would be on that very morning--bright, clean,

glittering; the neatness of the Rue Lord Byron, and the magnificent

slanting splendour of the Champs Elysees. Paris had always seemed

beautiful to her; but the life of Paris had not seemed beautiful to

her. Yet now it did seem beautiful. She could delve down into the

earlier years of her ownership of the Pension, and see a regular,

placid beauty in her daily life there. Her life there, even so late as

a fortnight ago, seemed beautiful; sad, but beautiful. It had passed

into history. She sighed when she thought of the innumerable interviews

with Mardon, the endless formalities required by the English and the

French law and by the particularity of the Syndicate. She had been

through all that. She had actually been through it and it was over. She

had bought the Pension for a song and sold it for great riches. She had

developed from a nobody into the desired of Syndicates. And after long,

long, monotonous, strenuous years of possession the day had come, the

emotional moment had come, when she had yielded up the keys of

ownership to Mr. Mardon and a man from the Hotel Moscow, and had paid

her servants for the last time and signed the last receipted bill. The

men had been very gallant, and had requested her to stay in the Pension

as their guest until she was ready to leave Paris. But she had declined

that. She could not have borne to remain in the Pension under the reign

of another. She had left at once and gone to a hotel with her few goods

while finally disposing of certain financial questions. And one evening

Jacqueline had come to see her, and had wept.

Her exit from the Pension Frensham struck her now as poignantly

pathetic, in its quickness and its absence of ceremonial. Ten steps,

and her career was finished, closed. Astonishing with what liquid

tenderness she turned and looked back on that hard, fighting,

exhausting life in Paris! For, even if she had unconsciously liked it,

she had never enjoyed it. She had always compared France

disadvantageously with England, always resented the French temperament

in business, always been convinced that 'you never knew where you were'

with French tradespeople. And now they flitted before her endowed with

a wondrous charm; so polite in their lying, so eager to spare your

feelings and to reassure you, so neat and prim. And the French shops,

so exquisitely arranged! Even a butcher's shop in Paris was a pleasure

to the eye, whereas the butcher's shop in Wedgwood Street, which she

remembered of old, and which she had glimpsed from the cab--what a

bloody shambles! She longed for Paris again. She longed to stretch her

lungs in Paris. These people in Bursley did not suspect what Paris was.

They did not appreciate and they never would appreciate the marvels

that she had accomplished in a theatre of marvels. They probably never

realized that the whole of the rest of the world was not more or less

like Bursley. They had no curiosity. Even Constance was a thousand

times more interested in relating trifles of Bursley gossip than in

listening to details of life in Paris. Occasionally she had expressed a

mild, vapid surprise at things told to her by Sophia; but she was not

really impressed, because her curiosity did not extend beyond Bursley.

She, like the rest, had the formidable, thrice-callous egotism of the

provinces. And if Sophia had informed her that the heads of Parisians

grew out of their navels she would have murmured: "Well, well! Bless

us! I never heard of such things! Mrs. Brindley's second boy has got

his head quite crooked, poor little fellow!"

Why should Sophia feel sorrowful? She did not know. She was free; free

to go where she liked and do what she liked, She had no

responsibilities, no cares. The thought of her husband had long ago

ceased to rouse in her any feeling of any kind. She was rich. Mr.

Critchlow had accumulated for her about as much money as she had

herself acquired. Never could she spend her income! She did not know

how to spend it. She lacked nothing that was procurable. She had no

desires except the direct desire for happiness. If thirty thousand

pounds or so could have bought a son like Cyril, she would have bought

one for herself. She bitterly regretted that she had no child. In this,

she envied Constance. A child seemed to be the one commodity worth

having. She was too free, too exempt from responsibilities. In spite of

Constance she was alone in the world. The strangeness of the hazards of

life overwhelmed her. Here she was at fifty, alone.

But the idea of leaving Constance, having once rejoined her, did not

please Sophia. It disquieted her. She could not see herself living away

from Constance. She was alone--but Constance was there.

She was downstairs first, and she had a little conversation with Amy.

And she stood on the step of the front-door while Fossette made a

preliminary inspection of Spot's gutter. She found the air nipping.

Constance, when she descended, saw stretching across one side of the

breakfast-table an umbrella, Sophia's present to her from Paris. It was

an umbrella such that a better could not be bought. It would have

impressed even Aunt Harriet. The handle was of gold, set with a circlet

of opalines. The tips of the ribs were also of gold. It was this detail

which staggered Constance. Frankly, this development of luxury had been

unknown and unsuspected in the Square. That the tips of the ribs should

match the handle ... that did truly beat everything! Sophia said calmly

that the device was quite common. But she did not conceal that the

umbrella was strictly of the highest class and that it might be shown

to queens without shame. She intimated that the frame (a 'Fox's

Paragon'), handle, and tips, would outlast many silks. Constance was

childish with pleasure.

They decided to go out marketing together. The unspoken thought in

their minds was that as Sophia would have to be introduced to the town

sooner or later, it might as well be sooner. Constance looked at the

sky. "It can't possibly rain," she said. "I shall take my umbrella."

CHAPTER III

TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE

I

SOPHIA wore list slippers in the morning. It was a habit which she had

formed in the Rue Lord Byron--by accident rather than with an intention

to utilize list slippers for the effective supervision of servants.

These list slippers were the immediate cause of important happenings in

St. Luke's Square. Sophia had been with Constance one calendar

month--it was, of course, astonishing how quickly the time had

passed!--and she had become familiar with the house. Restraint had

gradually ceased to mark the relations of the sisters. Constance, in

particular, hid nothing from Sophia, who was made aware of the minor

and major defects of Amy and all the other creakings of the household

machine. Meals were eaten off the ordinary tablecloths, and on the days

for 'turning out' the parlour, Constance assumed, with a little laugh,

that Sophia would excuse Amy's apron, which she had not had time to

change. In brief, Sophia was no longer a stranger, and nobody felt

bound to pretend that things were not exactly what they were. In spite

of the foulness and the provinciality of Bursley, Sophia enjoyed the

intimacy with Constance. As for Constance, she was enchanted. The

inflections of their voices, when they were talking to each other very

privately, were often tender, and these sudden surprising tendernesses

secretly thrilled both of them.

On the fourth Sunday morning Sophia put on her dressing-gown and those

list slippers very early, and paid a visit to Constance's bedroom. She

was somewhat concerned about Constance, and her concern was pleasurable

to her. She made the most of it. Amy, with her lifelong carelessness

about doors, had criminally failed to latch the street-door of the

parlour on the previous morning, and Constance had only perceived the

omission by the phenomenon of frigidity in her legs at breakfast. She

always sat with her back to the door, in her mother's fluted

rocking-chair; and Sophia on the spot, but not in the chair, occupied

by John Baines in the forties, and in the seventies and later by Samuel

Povey. Constance had been alarmed by that frigidity. "I shall have a

return of my sciatica!" she had exclaimed, and Sophia was startled by

the apprehension in her tone. Before evening the sciatica had indeed

revisited Constance's sciatic nerve, and Sophia for the first time

gained an idea of what a pulsating sciatica can do in the way of

torturing its victim. Constance, in addition to the sciatica, had

caught a sneezing cold, and the act of sneezing caused her the most

acute pain. Sophia had soon stopped the sneezing. Constance was got to

bed. Sophia wished to summon the doctor, but Constance assured her that

the doctor would have nothing new to advise. Constance suffered

angelically. The weak and exquisite sweetness of her smile, as she lay

in bed under the stress of twinging pain amid hot-water bottles, was

amazing to Sophia. It made her think upon the reserves of Constance's

character, and upon the variety of the manifestations of the Baines'

blood.

So on the Sunday morning she had arisen early, just after Amy.

She discovered Constance to be a little better, as regards the

neuralgia, but exhausted by the torments of a sleepless night. Sophia,

though she had herself not slept well, felt somehow conscience-stricken

for having slept at all.

"You poor dear!" she murmured, brimming with sympathy. "I shall make

you some tea at once, myself."

"Oh, Amy will do it," said Constance.

Sophia repeated with a resolute intonation: "I shall make it myself."

And after being satisfied that there was no instant need for a renewal

of hot-water bottles, she went further downstairs in those list

slippers.

As she was descending the dark kitchen steps she heard Amy's voice in

pettish exclamation: "Oh, get out, YOU!" followed by a yelp from

Fossette. She had a swift movement of anger, which she controlled. The

relations between her and Fossette were not marked by transports, and

her rule over dogs in general was severe; even when alone she very

seldom kissed the animal passionately, according to the general habit

of people owning dogs. But she loved Fossette. And, moreover, her love

for Fossette had been lately sharpened by the ridicule which Bursley

had showered upon that strange beast. Happily for Sophia's amour

propre, there was no means of getting Fossette shaved in Bursley, and

thus Fossette was daily growing less comic to the Bursley eye. Sophia

could therefore without loss of dignity yield to force of circumstances

what she would not have yielded to popular opinion. She guessed that

Amy had no liking for the dog, but the accent which Amy had put upon

the 'you' seemed to indicate that Amy was making distinctions between

Fossette and Spot, and this disturbed Sophia much more than Fossette's

yelp.

Sophia coughed, and entered the kitchen.

Spot was lapping his morning milk out of a saucer, while Fossette stood

wistfully, an amorphous mass of thick hair, under the table.

"Good morning, Amy," said Sophia, with dreadful politeness.

"Good morning, m'm," said Amy, glumly.

Amy knew that Sophia had heard that yelp, and Sophia knew that she

knew. The pretence of politeness was horrible. Both the women felt as

though the kitchen was sanded with gunpowder and there were lighted

matches about. Sophia had a very proper grievance against Amy on

account of the open door of the previous day. Sophia thought that,

after such a sin, the least Amy could do was to show contrition and

amiability and an anxiety to please: which things Amy had not shown.

Amy had a grievance against Sophia because Sophia had recently thrust

upon her a fresh method of cooking green vegetables. Amy was a strong

opponent of new or foreign methods. Sophia was not aware of this

grievance, for Amy had hidden it under her customary cringing

politeness to Sophia.

They surveyed each other like opposing armies.

"What a pity you have no gas-stove here! I want to make some tea at

once for Mrs. Povey," said Sophia, inspecting the just-born fire.

"Gas-stove, m'm?" said Amy, hostilely. It was Sophia's list slippers

which had finally decided Amy to drop the mask of deference.

She made no effort to aid Sophia; she gave no indication as to where

the various necessaries for tea were to be found. Sophia got the

kettle, and washed it out. Sophia got the smallest tea-pot, and, as the

tea-leaves had been left in it, she washed out the teapot also, with

exaggerated noise and meticulousness. Sophia got the sugar and the

other trifles, and Sophia blew up the fire with the bellows. And Amy

did nothing in particular except encourage Spot to drink.

"Is that all the milk you give to Fossette?" Sophia demanded coldly,

when it had come to Fossette's turn. She was waiting for the water to

boil. The saucer for the bigger dog, who would have made two of Spot,

was not half full.

"It's all there is to spare, m'm," Amy rasped.

Sophia made no reply. Soon afterwards she departed, with the tea

successfully made. If Amy had not been a mature woman of over forty she

would have snorted as Sophia went away. But Amy was scarcely the

ordinary silly girl.

Save for a certain primness as she offered the tray to her sister,

Sophia's demeanour gave no sign whatever that the Amazon in her was

aroused. Constance's eager trembling pleasure in the tea touched her

deeply, and she was exceedingly thankful that Constance had her,

Sophia, as a succour in time of distress.

A few minutes later, Constance, having first asked Sophia what time it

was by the watch in the watch-case on the chest of drawers (the Swiss

clock had long since ceased to work), pulled the red tassel of the

bell-cord over her bed. A bell tinkled far away in the kitchen.

"Anything I can do?" Sophia inquired.

"Oh no, thanks," said Constance. "I only want my letters, if the

postman has come. He ought to have been here long ago." Sophia had

learned during her stay that Sunday morning was the morning on which

Constance expected a letter from Cyril. It was a definite arrangement

between mother and son that Cyril should write on Saturdays, and

Constance on Sundays. Sophia knew that Constance set store by this

letter, becoming more and more preoccupied about Cyril as the end of

the week approached. Since Sophia's arrival Cyril's letter had not

failed to come, but once it had been naught save a scribbled line or

two, and Sophia gathered that it was never a certainty, and that

Constance was accustomed, though not reconciled, to disappointments.

Sophia had been allowed to read the letters. They left a faint

impression on her mind that her favourite was perhaps somewhat

negligent in his relations with his mother.

There was no reply to the bell. Constance rang again without effect.

With a brusque movement Sophia left the bedroom by way of Cyril's room.

"Amy," she called over the banisters, "do you not hear your mistress's

bell?"

"I'm coming as quick as I can, m'm." The voice was still very glum.

Sophia murmured something inarticulate, staying till assured that Amy

really was coming, and then she passed back into Cyril's bedroom. She

waited there, hesitant, not exactly on the watch, not exactly unwilling

to assist at an interview between Amy and Amy's mistress; indeed, she

could not have surely analyzed her motive for remaining in Cyril's

bedroom, with the door ajar between that room and Constance's.

Amy reluctantly mounted the stairs and went into her mistress's bedroom

with her chin in the air. She thought that Sophia had gone up to the

second storey, where she 'belonged.' She stood in silence by the bed,

showing no sympathy with Constance, no curiosity as to the

indisposition. She objected to Constance's attack of sciatica, as being

a too permanent reproof of her carelessness as to doors.

Constance also waited, for the fraction of a second, as if expectant.

"Well, Amy," she said at length in her voice weakened by fatigue and

pain. "The letters?"

"There ain't no letters," said Amy, grimly. "You might have known, if

there'd been any, I should have brought 'em up. Postman went past

twenty minutes agone. I'm always being interrupted, and it isn't as if

I hadn't got enough to do--now!"

She turned to leave, and was pulling the door open.

"Amy!" said a voice sharply. It was Sophia's.

The servant jumped, and in spite of herself obeyed the implicit,

imperious command to stop.

"You will please not speak to your mistress in that tone, at any rate

while I'm here," said Sophia, icily. "You know she is ill and weak. You

ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"I never----" Amy began.

"I don't want to argue," Sophia said angrily. "Please leave the room."

Amy obeyed. She was cowed, in addition to being staggered.

To the persons involved in it, this episode was intensely dramatic.

Sophia had surmised that Constance permitted liberties of speech to

Amy; she had even guessed that Amy sometimes took licence to be rude.

But that the relations between them were such as to allow the bullying

of Constance by an Amy downright insolent--this had shocked and wounded

Sophia, who suddenly had a vision of Constance as the victim of a reign

of terror. "If the creature will do this while I'm here," said Sophia

to herself, "what does she do when they are alone together in the

house?"

"Well," she exclaimed, "I never heard of such goings-on! And you let

her talk to you in that style! My dear Constance!"

Constance was sitting up in bed, the small tea-tray on her knees. Her

eyes were moist. The tears had filled them when she knew that there was

no letter. Ordinarily the failure of Cyril's letter would not have made

her cry, but weakness had impaired her self-control. And the tears

having once got into her eyes, she could not dismiss them. There they

were!

"She's been with me such a long time," Constance murmured. "She takes

liberties. I've corrected her once or twice."

"Liberties!" Sophia repeated the word. "Liberties!"

"Of course I really ought not to allow it," said Constance. "I ought to

have put a stop to it long since."

"Well," said Sophia, rather relieved by this symptom of Constance's

secret mind, "I do hope you won't think I'm meddlesome, but truly it

was too much for me. The words were out of my mouth before I----" She

stopped.

"You were quite right, quite right," said Constance, seeing before her

in the woman of fifty the passionate girl of fifteen.

"I've had a good deal of experience of servants," said Sophia.

"I know you have," Constance put in.

"And I'm convinced that it never pays to stand any sauce. Servants

don't understand kindness and forbearance. And this sort of thing grows

and grows till you can't call your soul your own."

"You are quite right," Constance said again, with even more

positiveness.

Not merely the conviction that Sophia was quite right, but the desire

to assure Sophia that Sophia was not meddlesome, gave force to her

utterance. Amy's allusion to extra work shamed Amy's mistress as a

hostess, and she was bound to make amends.

"Now as to that woman," said Sophia in a lower voice, as she sat down

confidentially on the edge of the bed. And she told Constance about Amy

and the dogs, and about Amy's rudeness in the kitchen. "I should never

have DREAMT of mentioning such things," she finished. "But under the

circumstances I feel it right that you should know. I feel you ought to

know."

And Constance nodded her head in thorough agreement. She did not

trouble to go into articulate apologies to her guest for the actual

misdeeds of her servant. The sisters were now on a plane of intimacy

where such apologies would have been supererogatory. Their voices fell

lower and lower, and the case of Amy was laid bare and discussed to the

minutest detail.

Gradually they realized that what had occurred was a crisis. They were

both very excited, apprehensive, and rather too consciously defiant. At

the same time they were drawn very close to each other, by Sophia's

generous indignation and by Constance's absolute loyalty.

A long time passed before Constance said, thinking about something else:

"I expect it's been delayed in the post."

"Cyril's letter? Oh, no doubt! If you knew the posts in France, my

word!"

Then they determined, with little sighs, to face the crisis cheerfully.

In truth it was a crisis, and a great one. The sensation of the crisis

affected the atmosphere of the entire house. Constance got up for tea

and managed to walk to the drawing-room. And when Sophia, after an

absence in her own room, came down to tea and found the tea all served,

Constance whispered:

"She's given notice! And Sunday too!"

"What did she say?"

"She didn't say much," Constance replied vaguely, hiding from Sophia

that Amy had harped on the too great profusion of mistresses in that

house. "After all, it's just as well. She'll be all right. She's saved

a good bit of money, and she has friends."

"But how foolish of her to give up such a good place!"

"She simply doesn't care," said Constance, who was a little hurt by

Amy's defection. "When she takes a thing into her head she simply

doesn't care. She's got no common sense. I've always known that."

"So you're going to leave, Amy?" said Sophia that evening, as Amy was

passing through the parlour on her way to bed. Constance was already

arranged for the night.

"I am, m'm," answered Amy, precisely.

Her tone was not rude, but it was firm. She had apparently reconnoitred

her position in calmness.

"I'm sorry I was obliged to correct you this morning," said Sophia,

with cheerful amicableness, pleased in spite of herself with the

woman's tone. "But I think you will see that I had reason to."

"I've been thinking it over, m'm," said Amy, with dignity, "and I see

as I must leave."

There was a pause.

"Well, you know best.... Good night, Amy."

"Good night, m'm."

"She's a decent woman," thought Sophia, "but hopeless for this place

now."

The sisters were fronted with the fact that Constance had a month in

which to find a new servant, and that a new servant would have to be

trained in well-doing and might easily prove disastrous. Both Constance

and Amy were profoundly disturbed by the prospective dissolution of a

bond which dated from the seventies. And both were decided that there

was no alternative to the dissolution. Outsiders knew merely that Mrs.

Povey's old servant was leaving. Outsiders merely saw Mrs. Povey's

advertisement in the Signal for a new servant. They could not read

hearts. Some of the younger generation even said superiorly that

old-fashioned women like Mrs. Povey seemed to have servants on the

brain, etc., etc.

II

"Well, have you got your letter?" Sophia demanded cheerfully of

Constance when she entered the bedroom the next morning.

Constance merely shook her head. She was very depressed. Sophia's

cheerfulness died out. As she hated to be insincerely optimistic, she

said nothing. Otherwise she might have remarked: "Perhaps the afternoon

post will bring it." Gloom reigned. To Constance particularly, as Amy

had given notice and as Cyril was 'remiss,' it seemed really that the

time was out of joint and life unworth living. Even the presence of

Sophia did not bring her much comfort. Immediately Sophia left the room

Constance's sciatica began to return, and in a severe form. She had

regretted this, less for the pain than because she had just assured

Sophia, quite honestly, that she was not suffering; Sophia had been

sceptical. After that it was of course imperative that Constance should

get up as usual. She had said that she would get up as usual. Besides,

there was the immense enterprise of obtaining a new servant! Worries

loomed mountainous. Suppose Cyril were dangerously ill, and unable to

write! Suppose something had happened to him! Supposing she never did

obtain a new servant!

Sophia, up in her room, was endeavouring to be philosophical, and to

see the world brightly. She was saying to herself that she must take

Constance in hand, that what Constance lacked was energy, that

Constance must be stirred out of her groove. And in the cavernous

kitchen Amy, preparing the nine-o'clock breakfast, was meditating upon

the ingratitude of employers and wondering what the future held for

her. She had a widowed mother in the picturesque village of Sneyd,

where the mortal and immortal welfare of every inhabitant was watched

over by God's vicegerent, the busy Countess of Chell; she possessed

about two hundred pounds of her own; her mother for years had been

begging Amy to share her home free of expense. But nevertheless Amy's

mind was black with foreboding and vague dejection. The house was a

house of sorrow, and these three women, each solitary, the devotees of

sorrow. And the two dogs wandered disconsolate up and down, aware of

the necessity for circumspection, never guessing that the highly

peculiar state of the atmosphere had been brought about by nothing but

a half-shut door and an incorrect tone.

As Sophia, fully dressed this time, was descending to breakfast, she

heard Constance's voice, feebly calling her, and found the convalescent

still in bed. The truth could not be concealed. Constance was once more

in great pain, and her moral condition was not favourable to fortitude.

"I wish you had told me, to begin with," Sophia could not help saying,

"then I should have known what to do."

Constance did not defend herself by saying that the pain had only

recurred since their first interview that morning. She just wept.

"I'm very low!" she blubbered.

Sophia was surprised. She felt that this was not 'being a Baines.'

During the progress of that interminable April morning, her

acquaintance with the possibilities of sciatica as an agent destructive

of moral fibre was further increased. Constance had no force at all to

resist its activity. The sweetness of her resignation seemed to melt

into nullity. She held to it that the doctor could do nothing for her.

About noon, when Sophia was moving anxiously around her, she suddenly

screamed.

"I feel as if my leg was going to burst!" she cried.

That decided Sophia. As soon as Constance was a little easier she went

downstairs to Amy.

"Amy," she said, "it's a Doctor Stirling that your mistress has when

she's ill, isn't it?"

"Yes, m'm."

"Where is his surgery?"

"Well, m'm, he did live just opposite, with Dr. Harrop, but latterly

he's gone to live at Bleakridge."

"I wish you would put your things on, and run up there and ask him to

call as soon as he can."

"I will, m'm," said Amy, with the greatest willingness. "I thought I

heard missis cry out." She was not effusive. She was better than

effusive: kindly and helpful with a certain reserve.

"There's something about that woman I like," said Sophia, to herself.

For a proved fool, Amy was indeed holding her own rather well.

Dr. Stirling drove down about two o'clock. He had now been established

in the Five Towns for more than a decade, and the stamp of success was

on his brow and on the proud forehead of his trotting horse. He had, in

the phrase of the Signal, 'identified himself with the local life of

the district.' He was liked, being a man of broad sympathies. In his

rich Scotch accent he could discuss with equal ability the flavour of

whisky or of a sermon, and he had more than sufficient tact never to

discuss either whiskies or sermons in the wrong place. He had made a

speech (responding for the learned professions) at the annual dinner of

the Society for the Prosecution of Felons, and this speech (in which

praise of red wine was rendered innocuous by praise of books--his fine

library was notorious) had classed him as a wit with the American

consul, whose post-prandial manner was modelled on Mark Twain's. He was

thirty-five years of age, tall and stoutish, with a chubby boyish face

that the razor left chiefly blue every morning.

The immediate effect of his arrival on Constance was miraculous. His

presence almost cured her for a moment, just as though her malady had

been toothache and he a dentist. Then, when he had finished his

examination, the pain resumed its sway over her.

In talking to her and to Sophia, he listened very seriously to all that

they said; he seemed to regard the case as the one case that had ever

aroused his genuine professional interest; but as it unfolded itself,

in all its difficulty and urgency, so he seemed, in his mind, to be

discovering wondrous ways of dealing with it; these mysterious

discoveries seemed to give him confidence, and his confidence was

communicated to the patient by means of faint sallies of humour. He was

a highly skilled doctor. This fact, however, had no share in his

popularity; which was due solely to his rare gift of taking a case very

seriously while remaining cheerful.

He said he would return in a quarter of an hour, and he returned in

thirteen minutes with a hypodermic syringe, with which he attacked the

pain in its central strongholds.

"What is it?" asked Constance, breathing gratitude for the relief.

He paused, looking at her roguishly from under lowered eyelids.

"I'd better not tell ye," he said. "It might lead ye into mischief."

"Oh, but you must tell me, doctor," Constance insisted, anxious that he

should live up to his reputation for Sophia's benefit.

"It's hydrochloride of cocaine," he said, and lifted a finger. "Beware

of the cocaine habit. It's ruined many a respectable family. But if I

hadn't had a certain amount of confidence in yer strength of character,

Mrs. Povey, I wouldn't have risked it."

"He will have his joke, will the doctor!" Constance smiled, in a

brighter world.

He said he should come again about half-past five, and he arrived about

half-past six, and injected more cocaine. The special importance of the

case was thereby established. On this second visit, he and Sophia soon

grew rather friendly. When she conducted him downstairs again he

stopped chatting with her in the parlour for a long time, as though he

had nothing else on earth to do, while his coachman walked the horse to

and fro in front of the door.

His attitude to her flattered Sophia, for it showed that he took her

for no ordinary woman. It implied a continual assumption that she must

be a mine of interest for any one who was privileged to delve into her

memory. So far, among Constance's acquaintance, Sophia had met no one

who showed more than a perfunctory curiosity as to her life. Her return

was accepted with indifference. Her escapade of thirty years ago had

entirely lost its dramatic quality. Many people indeed had never heard

that she had run away from home to marry a commercial traveller; and to

those who remembered, or had been told, it seemed a sufficiently banal

exploit--after thirty years! Her fear, and Constance's, that the town

would be murmurous with gossip was ludicrously unfounded. The effect of

time was such that even Mr. Critchlow appeared to have forgotten even

that she had been indirectly responsible for her father's death. She

had nearly forgotten it herself; when she happened to think of it she

felt no shame, no remorse, seeing the death as purely accidental, and

not altogether unfortunate. On two points only was the town

inquisitive: as to her husband, and as to the precise figure at which

she had sold the pension. The town knew that she was probably not a

widow, for she had been obliged to tell Mr. Critchlow, and Mr.

Critchlow in some hour of tenderness had told Maria. But nobody had

dared to mention the name of Gerald Scales to her. With her fashionable

clothes, her striking mien of command, and the legend of her wealth,

she inspired respect, if not awe, in the townsfolk. In the doctor's

attitude there was something of amaze; she felt it. Though the dull

apathy of the people she had hitherto met was assuredly not without its

advantageous side for her tranquillity of mind, it had touched her

vanity, and the gaze of the doctor soothed the smart. He had so

obviously divined her interestingness; he so obviously wanted to enjoy

it.

"I've just been reading Zola's 'Downfall,'" he said.

Her mind searched backwards, and recalled a poster.

"Oh!" she replied. "'La Debacle'?"

"Yes. What do ye think of it?" His eyes lighted at the prospect of a

talk. He was even pleased to hear her give him the title in French.

"I haven't read it," she said, and she was momentarily sorry that she

had not read it, for she could see that he was dashed. The doctor had

supposed that residence in a foreign country involved a knowledge of

the literature of that country. Yet he had never supposed that

residence in England involved a knowledge of English literature. Sophia

had read practically nothing since 1870; for her the latest author was

Cherbuliez. Moreover, her impression of Zola was that he was not at all

nice, and that he was the enemy of his race, though at that date the

world had scarcely heard of Dreyfus. Dr. Stirling had too hastily

assumed that the opinions of the bourgeois upon art differ in different

countries.

"And ye actually were in the siege of Paris?" he questioned, trying

again.

"Yes."

"AND the commune?"

"Yes, the commune too."

"Well!" he exclaimed. "It's incredible! When I was reading the

'Downfall' the night before last, I said to myself that you must have

been through a lot of all that. I didn't know I was going to have the

pleasure of a chat with ye so soon."

She smiled. "But how did you know I was in the siege of Paris?" she

asked, curious.

"How do I know? I know because I've seen that birthday card ye sent to

Mrs. Povey in 1871, after it was over. It's one of her possessions,

that card is. She showed it me one day when she told me ye were coming."

Sophia started. She had quite forgotten that card. It had not occurred

to her that Constance would have treasured all those cards that she had

despatched during the early years of her exile. She responded as well

as she could to his eagerness for personal details concerning the siege

and the commune. He might have been disappointed at the prose of her

answers, had he not been determined not to be disappointed.

"Ye seem to have taken it all very quietly," he observed.

"Eh yes!" she agreed, not without pride. "But it's a long time since."

Those events, as they existed in her memory, scarcely warranted the

tremendous fuss subsequently made about them. What were they, after

all? Such was her secret thought. Chirac himself was now nothing but a

faint shadow. Still, were the estimate of those events true or false,

she was a woman who had been through them, and Dr. Stirling's high

appreciation of that fact was very pleasant to her. Their friendliness

approached intimacy. Night had fallen. Outside could be heard the

champing of a bit.

"I must be getting on," he said at last; but he did not move.

"Then there is nothing else I am to do for my sister?" Sophia inquired.

"I don't think so," said he. "It isn't a question of medicine."

"Then what is it a question of?" Sophia demanded bluntly.

"Nerves," he said. "It's nearly all nerves. I know something about Mrs.

Povey's constitution now, and I was hoping that your visit would do her

good."

"She's been quite well--I mean what you may call quite well--until the

day before yesterday, when she sat in that draught. She was better last

night, and then this morning I find her ever so much worse."

"No worries?" The doctor looked at her confidentially.

"What CAN she have in the way of worries?" exclaimed Sophia. "That's to

say--real worries."

"Exactly!" the doctor agreed.

"I tell her she doesn't know what worry is," said Sophia.

"So do I!" said the doctor, his eyes twinkling.

"She was a little upset because she didn't receive her usual Sunday

letter from Cyril yesterday. But then she was weak and low."

"Clever youth, Cyril!" mused the doctor.

"I think he's a particularly nice boy," said Sophia, eagerly,

"So you've seen him?"

"Of course," said Sophia, rather stiffly. Did the doctor suppose that

she did not know her own nephew? She went back to the subject of her

sister. "She is also a little bothered, I think, because the servant is

going to leave."

"Oh! So Amy is going to leave, is she?" He spoke still lower. "Between

you and me, it's no bad thing."

"I'm so glad you think so."

"In another few years the servant would have been the mistress here.

One can see these things coming on, but it's so difficult to do

anything. In fact ye can't do anything."

"I did something," said Sophia, sharply. "I told the woman straight

that it shouldn't go on while I was in the house. I didn't suspect it

at first--but when I found it out ... I can tell you!" She let the

doctor imagine what she could tell him.

He smiled. "No," he said. "I can easily understand that ye didn't

suspect anything at first. When she's well and bright Mrs. Povey could

hold her own--so I'm told. But it was certainly slowly getting worse."

"Then people talk about it?" said Sophia, shocked.

"As a native of Bursley, Mrs. Scales," said the doctor, "ye ought to

know what people in Bursley do!" Sophia put her lips together. The

doctor rose, smoothing his waistcoat. "What does she bother with

servants at all for?" he burst out. "She's perfectly free. She hasn't

got a care in the world, if she only knew it. Why doesn't she go out

and about, and enjoy herself? She wants stirring up, that's what your

sister wants."

"You're quite right," Sophia burst out in her turn. "That's precisely

what I say to myself; precisely! I was thinking it over only this

morning. She wants stirring up. She's got into a rut."

"She needs to be jolly. Why doesn't she go to some seaside place, and

live in a hotel, and enjoy herself? Is there anything to prevent her?"

"Nothing whatever."

"Instead of being dependent on a servant! I believe in enjoying one's

self--when ye've got the money to do it with! Can ye imagine anybody

living in Bursley, for pleasure? And especially in St. Luke's Square,

right in the thick of it all! Smoke! Dirt! No air! No light! No

scenery! No amusements! What does she do it for? She's in a rut."

"Yes, she's in a rut," Sophia repeated her own phrase, which he had

copied.

"My word!" said the doctor. "Wouldn't I clear out and enjoy myself if I

could! Your sister's a young woman."

"Of course she is!" Sophia concurred, feeling that she herself was even

younger. "Of course she is!"

"And except that she's nervously organized, and has certain

predispositions, there's nothing the matter with her. This sciatica--I

don't say it would be cured, but it might be, by a complete change and

throwing off all these ridiculous worries. Not only does she live in

the most depressing conditions, but she suffers tortures for it, and

there's absolutely no need for her to be here at all."

"Doctor," said Sophia, solemnly, impressed, "you are quite right. I

agree with every word you say."

"Naturally she's attached to the place," he continued, glancing round

the room. "I know all about that. After living here all her life! But

she's got to break herself of her attachment. It's her duty to do so.

She ought to show a little energy. I'm deeply attached to my bed in the

morning, but I have to leave it."

"Of course," said Sophia, in an impatient tone, as though disgusted

with every person who could not perceive, or would not subscribe to,

these obvious truths that the doctor was uttering. "Of course!"

"What she needs is the bustle of life in a good hotel, a good hydro,

for instance. Among jolly people. Parties! Games! Excursions! She

wouldn't be the same woman. You'd see. Wouldn't I do it, if I could?

Strathpeffer. She'd soon forget her sciatica. I don't know what Mrs.

Povey's annual income is, but I expect that if she took it into her

head to live in the dearest hotel in England, there would be no reason

why she shouldn't."

Sophia lifted her head and smiled in calm amusement. "I expect so," she

said superiorly.

"A hotel--that's the life. No worries. If ye want anything ye ring a

bell. If a waiter gives notice, it's some one else who has the worry,

not you. But you know all about that, Mrs. Scales."

"No one better," murmured Sophia.

"Good evening," he said abruptly, sticking out his hand. "I'll be down

in the morning."

"Did you ever mention this to my sister?" Sophia asked him, rising.

"Yes," said he. "But it's no use. Oh yes, I've told her. But she does

really think it's quite impossible. She wouldn't even hear of going to

live in London with her beloved son. She won't listen."

"I never thought of that," said Sophia. "Good night."

Their hand-grasp was very intimate and mutually comprehending. He was

pleased by the quick responsiveness of her temperament, and the

masterful vigour which occasionally flashed out in her replies. He

noticed the hardly perceptible distortion of her handsome, worn face,

and he said to himself: "She's been through a thing or two," and:

"She'll have to mind her p's and q's." Sophia was pleased because he

admired her, and because with her he dropped his bedside jocularities,

and talked plainly as a sensible man will talk when he meets an

uncommonly wise woman, and because he echoed and amplified her own

thoughts. She honoured him by standing at the door till he had driven

off.

For a few moments she mused solitary in the parlour, and then, lowering

the gas, she went upstairs to her sister, who lay in the dark. Sophia

struck a match.

"You've been having quite a long chat with the doctor," said Constance.

"He's very good company, isn't he? What did he talk about this time?"

"He wanted to know about Paris and so on," Sophia answered.

"Oh! I believe he's a rare student."

Lying there in the dark, the simple Constance never suspected that

those two active and strenuous ones had been arranging her life for

her, so that she should be jolly and live for twenty years yet. She did

not suspect that she had been tried and found guilty of sinful

attachments, and of being in a rut, and of lacking the elements of

ordinary sagacity. It had not occurred to her that if she was worried

and ill, the reason was to be found in her own blind and stupid

obstinacy. She had thought herself a fairly sensible kind of creature.

III

The sisters had an early supper together in Constance's bedroom.

Constance was much easier. Having a fancy that a little movement would

be beneficial, she had even got up for a few moments and moved about

the room. Now she sat ensconced in pillows. A fire burned in the

old-fashioned ineffectual grate. From the Sun Vaults opposite came the

sound of a phonograph singing an invitation to God to save its gracious

queen. This phonograph was a wonderful novelty, and filled the Sun

nightly. For a few evenings it had interested the sisters, in spite of

themselves, but they had soon sickened of it and loathed it. Sophia

became more and more obsessed by the monstrous absurdity of the simple

fact that she and Constance were there, in that dark inconvenient

house, wearied by the gaiety of public-houses, blackened by smoke,

surrounded by mud, instead of being luxuriously installed in a

beautiful climate, amid scenes of beauty and white cleanliness.

Secretly she became more and more indignant.

Amy entered, bearing a letter in her coarse hand. As Amy

unceremoniously handed the letter to Constance, Sophia thought: "If she

was my servant she would hand letters on a tray." (An advertisement had

already been sent to the Signal.)

Constance took the letter trembling. "Here it is at last," she cried.

When she had put on her spectacles and read it, she exclaimed:

"Bless us! Here's news! He's coming down! That's why he didn't write on

Saturday as usual."

She gave the letter to Sophia to read. It ran--

"Sunday midnight.

"DEAR MOTHER,

"Just a line to say I am coming down to Bursley on Wednesday, on

business with Peels. I shall get to Knype at 5.28, and take the Loop.

I've been very busy, and as I was coming down I didn't write on

Saturday. I hope you didn't worry. Love to yourself and Aunt Sophia.

"Yours, C."

"I must send him a line," said Constance, excitedly.

"What? To-night?"

"Yes. Amy can easily catch the last post with it. Otherwise he won't

know that I've got his letter."

She rang the bell.

Sophia thought: "His coming down is really no excuse for his not

writing on Saturday. How could she guess that he was coming down? I

shall have to put in a little word to that young man. I wonder

Constance is so blind. She is quite satisfied now that his letter has

come." On behalf of the elder generation she rather resented

Constance's eagerness to write in answer.

But Constance was not so blind. Constance thought exactly as Sophia

thought. In her heart she did not at all justify or excuse Cyril. She

remembered separately almost every instance of his carelessness in her

regard. "Hope I didn't worry, indeed!" she said to herself with a faint

touch of bitterness, apropos of the phrase in his letter.

Nevertheless she insisted on writing at once. And Amy had to bring the

writing materials.

"Mr. Cyril is coming down on Wednesday," she said to Amy with great

dignity.

Amy's stony calmness was shaken, for Mr. Cyril was a great deal to Amy.

Amy wondered how she would be able to look Mr. Cyril in the face when

he knew that she had given notice.

In the middle of writing, on her knee, Constance looked up at Sophia,

and said, as though defending herself against an accusation: "I didn't

write to him yesterday, you know, or to-day."

"No," Sophia murmured assentingly.

Constance rang the bell yet again, and Amy was sent out to the post.

Soon afterwards the bell was rung for a fourth time, and not answered.

"I suppose she hasn't come back yet. But I thought I heard the door.

What a long time she is!"

"What do you want?" Sophia asked.

"I just want to speak to her," said Constance.

When the bell had been rung seven or eight times, Amy at length

re-appeared, somewhat breathless.

"Amy," said Constance, "let me examine those sheets, will you?"

"Yes'm," said Amy, apparently knowing what sheets, of all the various

and multitudinous sheets in that house.

"And the pillow-cases," Constance added as Amy left the room.

So it continued. The next day the fever heightened. Constance was up

early, before Sophia, and trotting about the house like a girl.

Immediately after breakfast Cyril's bedroom was invested and

revolutionized; not till evening was order restored in that chamber.

And on the Wednesday morning it had to be dusted afresh. Sophia watched

the preparations, and the increasing agitation of Constance's

demeanour, with an astonishment which she had real difficulty in

concealing. "Is the woman absolutely mad?" she asked herself. The

spectacle was ludicrous: or it seemed so to Sophia, whose career had

not embraced much experience of mothers. It was not as if the

manifestations of Constance's anxiety were dignified or original or

splendid. They were just silly, ordinary fussinesses; they had no sense

in them. Sophia was very careful to make no observation. She felt that

before she and Constance were very much older she had a very great deal

to do, and that a subtle diplomacy and wary tactics would be necessary.

Moreover, Constance's angelic temper was slightly affected by the

strain of expectation. She had a tendency to rasp. After the high-tea

was set she suddenly sprang on to the sofa and lifted down the 'Stag at

Eve' engraving. The dust on the top of the frame incensed her.

"What are you going to do?" Sophia asked, in a final marvel.

"I'm going to change it with that one," said Constance, pointing to

another engraving opposite the fireplace. "He said the effect would be

very much better if they were changed. And his lordship is very

particular."

Constance did not go to Bursley station to meet her son. She explained

that it upset her to do so, and that also Cyril preferred her not to

come.

"Suppose I go to meet him," said Sophia, at half-past five. The idea

had visited her suddenly. She thought: "Then I could talk to him before

any one else."

"Oh, do!" Constance agreed.

Sophia put her things on with remarkable expedition. She arrived at the

station a minute before the train came in. Only a few persons emerged

from the train, and Cyril was not among them. A porter said that there

was not supposed to be any connection between the Loop Line trains and

the main line expresses, and that probably the express had missed the

Loop. She waited thirty-five minutes for the next Loop, and Cyril did

not emerge from that train either.

Constance opened the front-door to her, and showed a telegram--

"Sorry prevented last moment. Writing. CYRIL."

Sophia had known it. Somehow she had known that it was useless to wait

for the second train. Constance was silent and calm; Sophia also.

"What a shame! What a shame!" thumped Sophia's heart.

It was the most ordinary episode. But beneath her calm she was furious

against her favourite. She hesitated.

"I'm just going out a minute," she said.

"Where?" asked Constance. "Hadn't we better have tea? I suppose we must

have tea."

"I shan't be long. I want to buy something."

Sophia went to the post-office and despatched a telegram. Then,

partially eased, she returned to the arid and painful desolation of the

house.

IV

The next evening Cyril sat at the tea-table in the parlour with his

mother and his aunt. To Constance his presence there had something of

the miraculous in it. He had come, after all! Sophia was in a rich

robe, and for ornament wore an old silver-gilt neck-chain, which was

clasped at the throat, and fell in double to her waist, where it was

caught in her belt. This chain interested Cyril. He referred to it once

or twice, and then he said: "Just let me have a LOOK at that chain,"

and put out his hand; and Sophia leaned forward so that he could handle

it. His fingers played with it thus for some seconds; the picture

strikingly affected Constance. At length he dropped it, and said:

"H'm!" After a pause he said: "Louis Sixteenth, eh?" and Sophia said:

"They told me so. But it's nothing; it only cost thirty francs, you

know." And Cyril took her up sharply:

"What does that matter?" Then after another pause he asked: "How often

do you break a link of it?"

"Oh, often," she said. "It's always getting shorter."

And he murmured mysteriously: "H'm!"

He was still mysterious, withdrawn within himself extraordinarily

uninterested in his physical surroundings. But that evening he talked

more than he usually did. He was benevolent, and showed a particular

benevolence towards his mother, apparently exerting himself to answer

her questions with fullness and heartiness, as though admitting frankly

her right to be curious. He praised the tea; he seemed to notice what

he was eating. He took Spot on his knee, and gazed in admiration at

Fossette.

"By Jove!" he said, "that's a dog, that is! ... All the same...." And

he burst out laughing.

"I won't have Fossette laughed at," Sophia warned him.

"No, seriously," he said, in his quality of an amateur of dogs; "she is

very fine." Even then he could not help adding: "What you can see of

her!"

Whereupon Sophia shook her head, deprecating such wit. Sophia was very

lenient towards him. Her leniency could be perceived in her eyes, which

followed his movements all the time. "Do you think he is like me,

Constance?" she asked.

"I wish I was half as good-looking," said Cyril, quickly; and Constance

said:

"As a baby he was very like you. He was a handsome baby. He wasn't at

all like you when he was at school. These last few years he's begun to

be like you again. He's very much changed since he left school; he was

rather heavy and clumsy then."

"Heavy and clumsy!" exclaimed Sophia. "Well, I should never have

believed it!"

"Oh, but he was!" Constance insisted.

"Now, mater," said Cyril, "it's a pity you don't want that cake cutting

into. I think I could have eaten a bit of that cake. But of course if

it's only for show...!"

Constance sprang up, seizing a knife.

"You shouldn't tease your mother," Sophia told him. "He doesn't really

want any, Constance; he's regularly stuffed himself."

And Cyril agreed, "No, no, mater, don't cut it; I really couldn't. I

was only gassing."

But Constance could never clearly see through humour of that sort. She

cut three slices of cake, and she held the plate towards Cyril.

"I tell you I really couldn't!" he protested.

"Come!" she said obstinately. "I'm waiting! How much longer must I hold

this plate?"

And he had to take a slice. So had Sophia. When she was roused, they

both of them had to yield to Constance.

With the dogs, and the splendour of the tea-table under the gas, and

the distinction of Sophia and Cyril, and the conversation, which on the

whole was gay and free, rising at times to jolly garrulity, the scene

in her parlour ought surely to have satisfied Constance utterly. She

ought to have been quite happy, as her sciatica had raised the siege

for a space. But she was not quite happy. The circumstances of Cyril's

arrival had disturbed her; they had in fact wounded her, though she

would scarcely admit the wound. In the morning she had received a brief

letter from Cyril to say that he had not been able to come, and vaguely

promising, or half-promising, to run down at a later date. That letter

had the cardinal defects of all Cyril's relations with his mother; it

was casual, and it was not candid. It gave no hint of the nature of the

obstacle which had prevented him from coming. Cyril had always been too

secretive. She was gravely depressed by the letter, which she did not

show to Sophia, because it impaired her dignity as a mother, and

displayed her son in a bad light. Then about eleven o'clock a telegram

had come for Sophia.

"That's all right," Sophia had said, on reading it. "He'll be here this

evening!" And she had handed over the telegram, which read--

"Very well. Will come same train to-day."

And Constance learned that when Sophia had rushed out just before tea

on the previous evening, it was to telegraph to Cyril.

"What did you say to him?" Constance asked.

"Oh!" said Sophia, with a careless air, "I told him I thought he ought

to come. After all, you're more important than any business, Constance!

And I don't like him behaving like that. I was determined he should

come!"

Sophia had tossed her proud head.

Constance had pretended to be pleased and grateful. But the existence

of a wound was incontestable. Sophia, then, could do more with Cyril

than she could! Sophia had only met him once, and could simply twist

him round her little finger. He would never have done so much for his

mother. A fine sort of an obstacle it must have been, if a single

telegram from Sophia could overcome it...! And Sophia, too, was

secretive. She had gone out and had telegraphed, and had not breathed a

word until she got the reply, sixteen hours later. She was secretive,

and Cyril was secretive. They resembled one another. They had taken to

one another. But Sophia was a curious mixture. When Constance had asked

her if she should go to the station again to meet Cyril, she had

replied scornfully: "No, indeed! I've done going to meet Cyril. People

who don't arrive must not expect to be met."

When Cyril drove up to the door, Sophia had been in attendance. She

hurried down the steps. "Don't say anything about my telegram," she had

rapidly whispered to Cyril; there was no time for further explanation.

Constance was at the top of the steps. Constance had not heard the

whisper, but she had seen it; and she saw a guilty, puzzled look on

Cyril's face, afterwards an ineffectively concealed conspiratorial look

on both their faces. They had 'something between them,' from which she,

the mother, was shut out! Was it not natural that she should be

wounded? She was far too proud to mention the telegrams. And as neither

Cyril nor Sophia mentioned them, the circumstances leading to Cyril's

change of plan were not referred to at all, which was very curious.

Then Cyril was more sociable than he had ever been; he was different,

under his aunt's gaze. Certainly he treated his mother faultlessly. But

Constance said to herself: "It is because she is here that he is so

specially nice to me."

When tea was finished and they were going upstairs to the drawing-room,

she asked him, with her eye on the 'Stag at Eve' engraving:

"Well, is it a success?"

"What?" His eye followed hers. "Oh, you've changed it! What did you do

that for, mater?"

"You said it would be better like that," she reminded him.

"Did I?" He seemed genuinely surprised. "I don't remember. I believe it

is better, though," he added. "It might be even better still if you

turned it the other way up."

He pulled a face to Sophia, and screwed up his shoulders, as if to

indicate: "I've done it, this time!"

"How? The other way up?" Constance queried. Then as she comprehended

that he was teasing her, she said: "Get away with you!" and pretended

to box his ears. "You were fond enough of that picture at one time!"

she said ironically.

"Yes, I was, mater," he submissively agreed. "There's no getting over

that." And he pressed her cheeks between his hands and kissed her.

In the drawing-room he smoked cigarettes and played the piano--waltzes

of his own composition. Constance and Sophia did not entirely

comprehend those waltzes. But they agreed that all were wonderful and

that one was very pretty indeed. (It soothed Constance that Sophia's

opinion coincided with hers.) He said that that waltz was the worst of

the lot. When he had finished with the piano, Constance informed him

about Amy. "Oh! She told me," he said, "when she brought me my water. I

didn't mention it because I thought it would be rather a sore subject."

Beneath the casualness of his tone there lurked a certain curiosity, a

willingness to hear details. He heard them.

At five minutes to ten, when Constance had yawned, he threw a bomb

among them on the hearthrug.

"Well," he said, "I've got an appointment with Matthew at the

Conservative Club at ten o'clock. I must go. Don't wait up for me."

Both women protested, Sophia the more vivaciously. It was Sophia now

who was wounded.

"It's business," he said, defending himself. "He's going away early

to-morrow, and it's my only chance." And as Constance did not brighten

he went on: "Business has to be attended to. You mustn't think I've got

nothing to do but enjoy myself."

No hint of the nature of the business! He never explained. As to

business, Constance knew only that she allowed him three hundred a

year, and paid his local tailor. The sum had at first seemed to her

enormous, but she had grown accustomed to it.

"I should have preferred you to see Mr. Peel-Swynnerton here," said

Constance. "You could have had a room to yourselves. I do not like you

going out at ten o'clock at night to a club."

"Well, good night, mater," he said, getting up. "See you to-morrow. I

shall take the key out of the door. It's true my pocket will never be

the same again."

Sophia saw Constance into bed, and provided her with two hot-water

bottles against sciatica. They did not talk much.

V

Sophia sat waiting on the sofa in the parlour. It appeared to her that,

though little more than a month had elapsed since her arrival in

Bursley, she had already acquired a new set of interests and anxieties.

Paris and her life there had receded in the strangest way. Sometimes

for hours she would absolutely forget Paris. Thoughts of Paris were

disconcerting; for either Paris or Bursley must surely be unreal! As

she sat waiting on the sofa Paris kept coming into her mind. Certainly

it was astonishing that she should be just as preoccupied with her

schemes for the welfare of Constance as she had ever been preoccupied

with schemes for the improvement of the Pension Frensham. She said to

herself: "My life has been so queer--and yet every part of it

separately seemed ordinary enough--how will it end?"

Then there were footfalls on the steps outside, and a key was put into

the door, which she at once opened.

"Oh!" exclaimed Cyril, startled, and also somewhat out of countenance.

"You're still up! Thanks." He came in, smoking the end of a cigar.

"Fancy having to cart that about!" he murmured, holding up the great

old-fashioned key before inserting it in the lock on the inside.

"I stayed up," said Sophia, "because I wanted to talk to you about your

mother, and it's so difficult to get a chance."

Cyril smiled, not without self-consciousness, and dropped into his

mother's rocking-chair, which he had twisted round with his feet to

face the sofa.

"Yes," he said. "I was wondering what was the real meaning of your

telegram. What was it?" He blew out a lot of smoke and waited for her

reply.

"I thought you ought to come down," said Sophia, cheerfully but firmly.

"It was a fearful disappointment to your mother that you didn't come

yesterday. And when she's expecting a letter from you and it doesn't

come, it makes her ill."

"Oh, well!" he said. "I'm glad it's no worse. I thought from your

telegram there was something seriously wrong. And then when you told me

not to mention it--when I came in...!"

She saw that he failed to realize the situation, and she lifted her

head challengingly.

"You neglect your mother, young man," she said.

"Oh, come now, auntie!" he answered quite gently. "You mustn't talk

like that. I write to her every week. I've never missed a week. I come

down as often as----"

"You miss the Sunday sometimes," Sophia interrupted him.

"Perhaps," he said doubtfully. "But what----"

"Don't you understand that she simply lives for your letters? And if

one doesn't come, she's very upset indeed--can't eat! And it brings on

her sciatica, and I don't know what!"

He was taken aback by her boldness, her directness.

"But how silly of her! A fellow can't always----"

"It may be silly. But there it is. You can't alter her. And, after all,

what would it cost you to be more attentive, even to write to her twice

a week? You aren't going to tell me you're so busy as all that! I know

a great deal more about young men than your mother does." She smiled

like an aunt.

He answered her smile sheepishly.

"If you'll only put yourself in your mother's place...!"

"I expect you're quite right," he said at length. "And I'm much obliged

to you for telling me. How was I to know?" He threw the end of the

cigar, with a large sweeping gesture, into the fire.

"Well, anyhow, you know now!" she said curtly; and she thought: "You

OUGHT to have known. It was your business to know." But she was pleased

with the way in which he had accepted her criticism, and the gesture

with which he threw away the cigar-end struck her as very distinguished.

"That's all right!" he said dreamily, as if to say: "That's done with."

And he rose.

Sophia, however, did not stir.

"Your mother's health is not what it ought to be," she went on, and

gave him a full account of her conversation with the doctor.

"Really!" Cyril murmured, leaning on the mantel-piece with his elbow

and looking down at her. "Stirling said that, did he? I should have

thought she would have been better where she is, in the Square."

"Why better in the Square?"

"Oh, I don't know!"

"Neither do I!"

"She's always been here."

"Yes." said Sophia, "she's been here a great deal too long."

"What do YOU suggest?" Cyril asked, with impatience in his voice

against this new anxiety that was being thrust upon him.

"Well," said Sophia, "what should you say to her coming to London and

living with you?"

Cyril started back. Sophia could see that he was genuinely shocked. "I

don't think that would do at all," he said.

"Why?"

"Oh! I don't think it would. London wouldn't suit her. She's not that

sort of woman. I really thought she was quite all right down here. She

wouldn't like London." He shook his head, looking up at the gas; his

eyes had a dangerous glare.

"But supposing she said she did?"

"Look here," Cyril began in a new and brighter tone. "Why don't you and

she keep house together somewhere? That would be the very--"

He turned his head sharply. There was a noise on the staircase, and the

staircase door opened with its eternal creak.

"Yes," said Sophia. "The Champs Elysees begins at the Place de la

Concorde, and ends----. Is that you, Constance?"

The figure of Constance filled the doorway. Her face was troubled. She

had heard Cyril in the street, and had come down to see why he remained

so long in the parlour. She was astounded to find Sophia with him.

There they were, as intimate as cronies, chattering about Paris!

Undoubtedly she was jealous! Never did Cyril talk like that to her!

"I thought you were in bed and asleep, Sophia," she said weakly. "It's

nearly one o'clock."

"No," said Sophia. "I didn't seem to feel like going to bed; and then

Cyril happened to come in."

But neither she nor Cyril could look innocent. And Constance glanced

from one to the other apprehensively.

The next morning Cyril received a letter which, he said--with no

further explanation--forced him to leave at once. He intimated that

there had been danger in his coming just then, and that matters had

turned out as he had feared.

"You think over what I said," he whispered to Sophia when they were

alone for an instant, "and let me know."

VI

A week before Easter the guests of the Rutland Hotel in the Broad Walk,

Buxton, being assembled for afternoon tea in the "lounge" of that

establishment, witnessed the arrival of two middle-aged ladies and two

dogs. Critically to examine newcomers was one of the amusements of the

occupants of the lounge. This apartment, furnished "in the oriental

style," made a pretty show among the photographs in the illustrated

brochure of the hotel, and, though draughty, it was of all the public

rooms the favourite. It was draughty because only separated from the

street (if the Broad Walk can be called a street) by two pairs of

swinging-doors--in charge of two page-boys. Every visitor entering the

hotel was obliged to pass through the lounge, and for newcomers the

passage was an ordeal; they were made to feel that they had so much to

learn, so much to get accustomed to; like passengers who join a ship at

a port of call, they felt that the business lay before them of creating

a niche for themselves in a hostile and haughty society. The two ladies

produced a fairly favourable impression at the outset by reason of

their two dogs. It is not every one who has the courage to bring dogs

into an expensive private hotel; to bring one dog indicates that you

are not accustomed to deny yourself small pleasures for the sake of a

few extra shillings; to bring two indicates that you have no fear of

hotel-managers and that you are in the habit of regarding your own whim

as nature's law. The shorter and stouter of the two ladies did not

impose herself with much force on the collective vision of the Rutland;

she was dressed in black, not fashionably, though with a certain

unpretending richness; her gestures were timid and nervous; evidently

she relied upon her tall companion to shield her in the first trying

contacts of hotel life. The tall lady was of a different stamp.

Handsome, stately, deliberate, and handsomely dressed in colours, she

had the assured hard gaze of a person who is thoroughly habituated to

the inspection of strangers. She curtly asked one of the page-boys for

the manager, and the manager's wife tripped rapidly down the stairs in

response, and was noticeably deferential--Her voice was quiet and

commanding, the voice of one who gives orders that are obeyed. The

opinion of the lounge was divided as to whether or not they were

sisters.

They vanished quietly upstairs in convoy of the manager's wife, and

they did not re-appear for the lounge tea, which in any case would have

been undrinkably stewed. It then became known, by the agency of one of

those guests, to be found in every hotel, who acquire all the secrets

of the hotel by the exercise of unabashed curiosity on the personnel,

that the two ladies had engaged two bedrooms, Nos. 17 and 18, and the

sumptuous private parlour with a balcony on the first floor, styled "C"

in the nomenclature of rooms. This fact definitely established the

position of the new arrivals in the moral fabric of the hotel. They

were wealthy. They had money to throw away. For even in a select hotel

like the Rutland it is not everybody who indulges in a private

sitting-room; there were only four such apartments in the hotel, as

against fifty bedrooms.

At dinner they had a small table to themselves in a corner. The short

lady wore a white shawl over her shoulders. Her almost apologetic

manner during the meal confirmed the view that she must be a very

simple person, unused to the world and its ways. The other continued to

be imperial. She ordered half-a-bottle of wine and drank two glasses.

She stared about her quite self-unconsciously, whereas the little woman

divided her glances between her companion and her plate. They did not

talk much. Immediately after dinner they retired. "Widows in easy

circumstances" was the verdict; but the contrast between the pair held

puzzles that piqued the inquisitive.

Sophia had conquered again. Once more Sophia had resolved to accomplish

a thing and she had accomplished it. Events had fallen out thus. The

advertisement for a general servant in the Signal had been a

disheartening failure. A few answers were received, but of an entirely

unsatisfactory character. Constance, a great deal more than Sophia, had

been astounded by the bearing and the demands of modern servants.

Constance was in despair. If Constance had not had an immense pride she

would have been ready to suggest to Sophia that Amy should be asked to

'stay on.' But Constance would have accepted a modern impudent wench

first. It was Maria Critchlow who got Constance out of her difficulty

by giving her particulars of a reliable servant who was about to leave

a situation in which she had stayed for eight years. Constance did not

imagine that a servant recommended by Maria Critchlow would suit her,

but, being in a quandary, she arranged to see the servant, and both she

and Sophia were very pleased with the girl--Rose Bennion by name. The

mischief was that Rose would not be free until about a month after Amy

had left. Rose would have left her old situation, but she had a fancy

to go and spend a fortnight with a married sister at Manchester before

settling into new quarters. Constance and Sophia felt that this caprice

of Rose's was really very tiresome and unnecessary. Of course Amy might

have been asked to 'stay on' just for a month. Amy would probably have

volunteered to do so had she been aware of the circumstances. She was

not, however, aware of the circumstances. And Constance was determined

not to be beholden to Amy for anything. What could the sisters do?

Sophia, who conducted all the interviews with Rose and other

candidates, said that it would be a grave error to let Rose slip.

Besides, they had no one to take her place, no one who could come at

once.

The dilemma was appalling. At least, it seemed appalling to Constance,

who really believed that no mistress had ever been so 'awkwardly

fixed.' And yet, when Sophia first proposed her solution, Constance

considered it to be a quite impossible solution. Sophia's idea was that

they should lock up the house and leave it on the same day as Amy left

it, to spend a few weeks in some holiday resort. To begin with, the

idea of leaving the house empty seemed to Constance a mad idea. The

house had never been left empty. And then--going for a holiday in

April! Constance had never been for a holiday except in the month of

August. No! The project was beset with difficulties and dangers which

could not be overcome nor provided against. For example, "We can't come

back to a dirty house," said Constance. "And we can't have a strange

servant coming here before us." To which Sophia had replied: "Then what

SHALL you do?" And Constance, after prodigious reflection on the

frightful pass to which destiny had brought her, had said that she

supposed she would have to manage with a charwoman until Rose's advent.

She asked Sophia if she remembered old Maggie. Sophia, of course,

perfectly remembered. Old Maggie was dead, as well as the drunken,

amiable Hollins, but there was a young Maggie (wife of a bricklayer)

who went out charing in the spare time left from looking after seven

children. The more Constance meditated upon young Maggie, the more was

she convinced that young Maggie would meet the case. Constance felt she

could trust young Maggie.

This expression of trust in Maggie was Constance's undoing. Why should

they not go away, and arrange with Maggie to come to the house a few

days before their return, to clean and ventilate? The weight of reason

overbore Constance. She yielded unwillingly, but she yielded. It was

the mention of Buxton that finally moved her. She knew Buxton. Her old

landlady at Buxton was dead, and Constance had not visited the place

since before Samuel's death; nevertheless its name had a reassuring

sound to her ears, and for sciatica its waters and climate were

admitted to be the best in England. Gradually Constance permitted

herself to be embarked on this perilous enterprise of shutting up the

house for twenty-five days. She imparted the information to Amy, who

was astounded. Then she commenced upon her domestic preparations. She

wrapped Samuel's Family Bible in brown paper; she put Cyril's

straw-framed copy of Sir Edwin Landseer away in a drawer, and she took

ten thousand other precautions. It was grotesque; it was farcical; it

was what you please. And when, with the cab at the door and the luggage

on the cab, and the dogs chained together, and Maria Critchlow waiting

on the pavement to receive the key, Constance put the key into the door

on the outside, and locked up the empty house, Constance's face was

tragic with innumerable apprehensions. And Sophia felt that she had

performed a miracle. She had.

On the whole the sisters were well received in the hotel, though they

were not at an age which commands popularity. In the criticism which

was passed upon them--the free, realistic and relentless criticism of

private hotels--Sophia was at first set down as overbearing. But in a

few days this view was modified, and Sophia rose in esteem. The fact

was that Sophia's behaviour changed after forty-eight hours. The

Rutland Hotel was very good. It was so good as to disturb Sophia's

profound beliefs that there was in the world only one truly high-class

pension, and that nobody could teach the creator of that unique pension

anything about the art of management. The food was excellent; the

attendance in the bedrooms was excellent (and Sophia knew how difficult

of attainment was excellent bedroom attendance); and to the eye the

interior of the Rutland presented a spectacle far richer than the

Pension Frensham could show. The standard of comfort was higher. The

guests had a more distinguished appearance. It is true that the prices

were much higher. Sophia was humbled. She had enough sense to adjust

her perspective. Further, she found herself ignorant of many matters

which by the other guests were taken for granted and used as a basis

for conversation. Prolonged residence in Paris would not justify this

ignorance; it seemed rather to intensify its strangeness. Thus, when

someone of cosmopolitan experience, having learnt that she had lived in

Paris for many years, asked what had been going on lately at the

Comedie Francaise, she had to admit that she had not been in a French

theatre for nearly thirty years. And when, on a Sunday, the same person

questioned her about the English chaplain in Paris, lo! she knew

nothing but his name, had never even seen him. Sophia's life, in its

way, had been as narrow as Constance's. Though her experience of human

nature was wide, she had been in a groove as deep as Constance's. She

had been utterly absorbed in doing one single thing.

By tacit agreement she had charge of the expedition. She paid all the

bills. Constance protested against the expensiveness of the affair

several times, but Sophia quietened her by sheer force of

individuality. Constance had one advantage over Sophia. She knew Buxton

and its neighbourhood intimately, and she was therefore in a position

to show off the sights and to deal with local peculiarities. In all

other respects Sophia led.

They very soon became acclimatized to the hotel. They moved easily

between Turkey carpets and sculptured ceilings; their eyes grew used to

the eternal vision of themselves and other slow-moving dignities in

gilt mirrors, to the heaviness of great oil-paintings of picturesque

scenery, to the indications of surreptitious dirt behind massive

furniture, to the grey-brown of the shirt-fronts of the waiters, to the

litter of trays, boots and pails in long corridors; their ears were

always awake to the sounds of gongs and bells. They consulted the

barometer and ordered the daily carriage with the perfunctoriness of

habit. They discovered what can be learnt of other people's needlework

in a hotel on a wet day. They performed co-operative outings with

fellow-guests. They invited fellow-guests into their sitting-room. When

there was an entertainment they did not avoid it. Sophia was determined

to do everything that could with propriety be done, partly as an outlet

for her own energy (which since she left Paris had been accumulating),

but more on Constance's account. She remembered all that Dr. Stirling

had said, and the heartiness of her own agreement with his opinions. It

was a great day when, under tuition of an aged lady and in the privacy

of their parlour, they both began to study the elements of Patience.

Neither had ever played at cards. Constance was almost afraid to touch

cards, as though in the very cardboard there had been something

unrighteous and perilous. But the respectability of a luxurious private

hotel makes proper every act that passes within its walls. And

Constance plausibly argued that no harm could come from a game which

you played by yourself. She acquired with some aptitude several

varieties of Patience. She said: "I think I could enjoy that, if I kept

at it. But it does make my head whirl."

Nevertheless Constance was not happy in the hotel. She worried the

whole time about her empty house. She anticipated difficulties and even

disasters. She wondered again and again whether she could trust the

second Maggie in her house alone, whether it would not be better to

return home earlier and participate personally in the cleaning. She

would have decided to do so had it not been that she hesitated to

subject Sophia to the inconvenience of a house upside down. The matter

was on her mind, always. Always she was restlessly anticipating the day

when they would leave. She had carelessly left her heart behind in St.

Luke's Square. She had never stayed in a hotel before, and she did not

like it. Sciatica occasionally harassed her. Yet when it came to the

point she would not drink the waters. She said she never had drunk

them, and seemed to regard that as a reason why she never should.

Sophia had achieved a miracle in getting her to Buxton for nearly a

month, but the ultimate grand effect lacked brilliance.

Then came the fatal letter, the desolating letter, which vindicated

Constance's dark apprehensions. Rose Bennion calmly wrote to say that

she had decided not to come to St. Luke's Square. She expressed regret

for any inconvenience which might possibly be caused; she was polite.

But the monstrousness of it! Constance felt that this actually and

truly was the deepest depth of her calamities. There she was, far from

a dirty home, with no servant and no prospect of a servant! She bore

herself bravely, nobly; but she was stricken. She wanted to return to

the dirty home at once.

Sophia felt that the situation created by this letter would demand her

highest powers of dealing with situations, and she determined to deal

with it adequately. Great measures were needed, for Constance's health

and happiness were at stake. She alone could act. She knew that she

could not rely upon Cyril. She still had an immense partiality for

Cyril; she thought him the most charming young man she had ever known;

she knew him to be industrious and clever; but in his relations with

his mother there was a hardness, a touch of callousness. She explained

it vaguely by saying that 'they did not get on well together'; which

was strange, considering Constance's sweet affectionateness. Still,

Constance could be a little trying--at times. Anyhow, it was soon clear

to Sophia that the idea of mother and son living together in London was

entirely impracticable. No! If Constance was to be saved from herself,

there was no one but Sophia to save her.

After half a morning spent chiefly in listening to Constance's hopeless

comments on the monstrous letter, Sophia said suddenly that she must

take the dogs for an airing. Constance did not feel equal to walking

out, and she would not drive. She did not want Sophia to 'venture,'

because the sky threatened. However, Sophia did venture, and she

returned a few minutes late for lunch, full of vigour, with two happy

dogs. Constance was moodily awaiting her in the dining-room. Constance

could not eat. But Sophia ate, and she poured out cheerfulness and

energy as from a source inexhaustible. After lunch it began to rain.

Constance said she thought she should retire directly to the

sitting-room. "I'm coming too," said Sophia, who was still wearing her

hat and coat and carried her gloves in her hand. In the pretentious and

banal sitting-room they sat down on either side the fire. Constance put

a little shawl round her shoulders, pushed her spectacles into her grey

hair, folded her hands, and sighed an enormous sigh: "Oh, dear!" She

was the tragic muse, aged, and in black silk.

"I tell you what I've been thinking," said Sophia, folding up her

gloves.

"What?" asked Constance, expecting some wonderful solution to come out

of Sophia's active brain.

"There's no earthly reason why you should go back to Bursley. The house

won't run away, and it's costing nothing but the rent. Why not take

things easy for a bit?"

"And stay here?" said Constance, with an inflection that enlightened

Sophia as to the intensity of her dislike of the existence at the

Rutland.

"No, not here," Sophia answered with quick deprecation. "There are

plenty of other places we could go to."

"I don't think I should be easy in my mind," said Constance. "What with

nothing being settled, the house----"

"What does it matter about the house?"

"It matters a great deal," said Constance, seriously, and slightly

hurt. "I didn't leave things as if we were going to be away for a long

time. It wouldn't do."

"I don't see that anything could come to any harm, I really don't!"

said Sophia, persuasively. "Dirt can always be cleaned, after all. I

think you ought to go about more. It would do you good--all the good in

the world. And there is no reason why you shouldn't go about. You are

perfectly free. Why shouldn't we go abroad together, for instance, you

and I? I'm sure you would enjoy it very much."

"Abroad?" murmured Constance, aghast, recoiling from the proposition as

from a grave danger.

"Yes," said Sophia, brightly and eagerly. She was determined to take

Constance abroad. "There are lots of places we could go to, and live

very comfortably among nice English people." She thought of the resorts

she had visited with Gerald in the sixties. They seemed to her like

cities of a dream. They came back to her as a dream recurs.

"I don't think going abroad would suit me," said Constance.

"But why not? You don't know. You've never tried, my dear." She smiled

encouragingly. But Constance did not smile. Constance was inclined to

be grim.

"I don't think it would," said she, obstinately. "I'm one of your

stay-at-homes. I'm not like you. We can't all be alike," she added,

with her 'tart' accent.

Sophia suppressed a feeling of irritation. She knew that she had a

stronger individuality than Constance's.

"Well, then," she said, with undiminished persuasiveness, "in England

or Scotland. There are several places I should like to visit--Torquay,

Tunbridge Wells. I've always under-stood that Tunbridge Wells is a very

nice town indeed, with very superior people, and a beautiful climate."

"I think I shall have to be getting back to St. Luke's Square," said

Constance, ignoring all that Sophia had said. "There's so much to be

done."

Then Sophia looked at Constance with a more serious and resolute air;

but still kindly, as though looking thus at Constance for Constance's

own good.

"You are making a mistake, Constance," she said, "if you will allow me

to say so."

"A mistake!" exclaimed Constance, startled.

"A very great mistake," Sophia insisted, observing that she was

creating an effect.

"I don't see how I can be making a mistake," Constance said, gaining

confidence in herself, as she thought the matter over.

"No," said Sophia, "I'm sure you don't see it. But you are. You know,

you are just a little apt to let yourself be a slave to that house of

yours. Instead of the house existing for you, you exist for the house."

"Oh! Sophia!" Constance muttered awkwardly. "What ideas you do have, to

be sure!" In her nervousness she rose and picked up some embroidery,

adjusting her spectacles and coughing. When she sat down she said: "No

one could take things easier than I do as regards housekeeping. I can

assure you I let dozens of little matters go, rather than bother

myself."

"Then why do you bother now?" Sophia posed her.

"I can't leave the place like that." Constance was hurt.

"There's one thing I can't understand," said Sophia, raising her head

and gazing at Constance again, "and that is, why you live in St. Luke's

Square at all."

"I must live somewhere. And I'm sure it's very pleasant."

"In all that smoke! And with that dirt! And the house is very old."

"It's a great deal better built than a lot of those new houses by the

Park," Constance sharply retorted. In spite of herself she resented any

criticism of her house. She even resented the obvious truth that it was

old.

"You'll never get a servant to stay in that cellar-kitchen, for one

thing," said Sophia, keeping calm.

"Oh! I don't know about that! I don't know about that! That Bennion

woman didn't object to it, anyway. It's all very well for you, Sophia,

to talk like that. But I know Bursley perhaps better than you do." She

was tart again. "And I can assure you that my house is looked upon as a

very good house indeed."

"Oh! I don't say it isn't; I don't say it isn't. But you would be

better away from it. Every one says that."

"Every one?" Constance looked up, dropping her work. "Who? Who's been

talking about me?"

"Well," said Sophia, "the doctor, for instance."

"Dr. Stirling? I like that! He's always saying that Bursley is one of

the healthiest climates in England. He's always sticking up for

Bursley."

"Dr. Stirling thinks you ought to go away more--not stay always in that

dark house." If Sophia had sufficiently reflected she would not have

used the adjective 'dark.' It did not help her cause.

"Oh, does he!" Constance fairly snorted. "Well, if it's of any interest

to Dr. Stirling, I like my dark house."

"Hasn't he ever told you you ought to go away more?" Sophia persisted.

"He may have mentioned it," Constance reluctantly admitted.

"When he was talking to me he did a good deal more than mention it. And

I've a good mind to tell you what he said."

"Do!" said Constance, politely.

"You don't realize how serious it is, I'm afraid," said Sophia. "You

can't see yourself." She hesitated a moment. Her blood being stirred by

Constance's peculiar inflection of the phrase 'my dark house,' her

judgment was slightly obscured. She decided to give Constance a fairly

full version of the conversation between herself and the doctor.

"It's a question of your health," she finished. "I think it's my duty

to talk to you seriously, and I have done. I hope you'll take it as

it's meant."

"Oh, of course!" Constance hastened to say. And she thought: "It isn't

yet three months that we've been together, and she's trying already to

get me under her thumb."

A pause ensued. Sophia at length said: "There's no doubt that both your

sciatica and your palpitations are due to nerves. And you let your

nerves get into a state because you worry over trifles. A change would

do you a tremendous amount of good. It's just what you need. Really,

you must admit, Constance, that the idea of living always in a place

like St. Luke's Square, when you are perfectly free to do what you like

and go where you like--you must admit it's rather too much."

Constance put her lips together and bent over her embroidery.

"Now, what do you say?" Sophia gently entreated.

"There's some of us like Bursley, black as it is!" said Constance. And

Sophia was surprised to detect tears in her sister's voice.

"Now, my dear Constance," she remonstrated.

"It's no use!" cried Constance, flinging away her work, and letting her

tears flow suddenly. Her face was distorted. She was behaving just like

a child. "It's no use! I've got to go back home and look after things.

It's no use. Here we are pitching money about in this place. It's

perfectly sinful. Drives, carriages, extras! A shilling a day extra for

each dog. I never heard of such goings-on. And I'd sooner be at home.

That's it. I'd sooner be at home." This was the first reference that

Constance had made for a long time to the question of expense, and

incomparably the most violent. It angered Sophia.

"We will count it that you are here as my guest," said Sophia, loftily,

"if that is how you look at it."

"Oh no!" said Constance. "It isn't the money I grudge. Oh no, we

won't." And her tears were falling thick.

"Yes, we will," said Sophia, coldly. "I've only been talking to you for

your own good. I--"

"Well," Constance interrupted her despairingly, "I wish you wouldn't

try to domineer over me!"

"Domineer!" exclaimed Sophia, aghast. "Well, Constance, I do think--"

She got up and went to her bedroom, where the dogs were imprisoned.

They escaped to the stairs. She was shaking with emotion. This was what

came of trying to help other people! Imagine Constance...! Truly

Constance was most unjust, and quite unlike her usual self! And Sophia

encouraged in her breast the feeling of injustice suffered. But a voice

kept saying to her: "You've made a mess of this. You've not conquered

this time. You're beaten. And the situation is unworthy of you, of both

of you. Two women of fifty quarreling like this! It's undignified.

You've made a mess of things." And to strangle the voice, she did her

best to encourage the feeling of injustice suffered.

'Domineer!'

And Constance was absolutely in the wrong. She had not argued at all.

She had merely stuck to her idea like a mule! How difficult and painful

would be the next meeting with Constance, after this grievous

miscarriage!

As she was reflecting thus the door burst open, and Constance stumbled,

as it were blindly, into the bedroom. She was still weeping.

"Sophia!" she sobbed, supplicatingly, and all her fat body was

trembling. "You mustn't kill me ... I'm like that--you can't alter me.

I'm like that. I know I'm silly. But it's no use!" She made a piteous

figure.

Sophia was aware of a lump in her throat.

"It's all right, Constance; it's all right. I quite understand. Don't

bother any more."

Constance, catching her breath at intervals, raised her wet, worn face

and kissed her.

Sophia remembered the very words, 'You can't alter her,' which she had

used in remonstrating with Cyril. And now she had been guilty of

precisely the same unreason as that with which she had reproached

Cyril! She was ashamed, both for herself and for Constance. Assuredly

it had not been such a scene as women of their age would want to go

through often. It was humiliating. She wished that it could have been

blotted out as though it had never happened. Neither of them ever

forgot it. They had had a lesson. And particularly Sophia had had a

lesson. Having learnt, they left the Rutland, amid due ceremonies, and

returned to St. Luke's Square.

CHAPTER IV

END OF SOPHIA

I

The kitchen steps were as steep, dark, and difficult as ever. Up those

steps Sophia Scales, nine years older than when she had failed to

persuade Constance to leave the Square, was carrying a large basket,

weighted with all the heaviness of Fossette. Sophia, despite her age,

climbed the steps violently, and burst with equal violence into the

parlour, where she deposited the basket on the floor near the empty

fireplace. She was triumphant and breathless. She looked at Constance,

who had been standing near the door in the attitude of a shocked

listener.

"There!" said Sophia. "Did you hear how she talked?"

"Yes," said Constance. "What shall you do?"

"Well," said Sophia. "I had a very good mind to order her out of the

house at once. But then I thought I would take no notice. Her time will

be up in three weeks. It's best to be indifferent. If once they see

they can upset you.... However, I wasn't going to leave Fossette down there

to her tender mercies a moment longer. She's simply not looked after

her at all."

Sophia went on her knees to the basket, and, pulling aside the dog's

hair, round about the head, examined the skin. Fossette was a sick dog

and behaved like one. Fossette, too, was nine years older, and her

senility was offensive. She was to no sense a pleasant object.

"See here," said Sophia.

Constance also knelt to the basket.

"And here," said Sophia. "And here."

The dog sighed, the insincere and pity-seeking sigh of a spoilt animal.

Fossette foolishly hoped by such appeals to be spared the annoying

treatment prescribed for her by the veterinary surgeon.

While the sisters were coddling her, and protecting her from her own

paws, and trying to persuade her that all was for the best, another

aged dog wandered vaguely into the room: Spot. Spot had very few teeth,

and his legs were stiff. He had only one vice, jealousy. Fearing that

Fossette might be receiving the entire attention of his mistresses, he

had come to inquire into the situation. When he found the justification

of his gloomiest apprehensions, he nosed obstinately up to Constance,

and would not be put off. In vain Constance told him at length that he

was interfering with the treatment. In vain Sophia ordered him sharply

to go away. He would not listen to reason, being furious with jealousy.

He got his foot into the basket.

"Will you!" exclaimed Sophia angrily, and gave him a clout on his old

head. He barked snappishly, and retired to the kitchen again,

disillusioned, tired of the world, and nursing his terrific grievance.

"I do declare," said Sophia, "that dog gets worse and worse."

Constance said nothing.

When everything was done that could be done for the aged virgin in the

basket, the sisters rose from their knees, stiffly; and they began to

whisper to each other about the prospects of obtaining a fresh servant.

They also debated whether they could tolerate the criminal

eccentricities of the present occupant of the cave for yet another

three weeks. Evidently they were in the midst of a crisis. To judge

from Constance's face every imaginable woe had been piled on them by

destiny without the slightest regard for their powers of resistance.

Her eyes had the permanent look of worry, and there was in them also

something of the self-defensive. Sophia had a bellicose air, as though

the creature in the cave had squarely challenged her, and she was

decided to take up the challenge. Sophia's tone seemed to imply an

accusation of Constance. The general tension was acute.

Then suddenly their whispers expired, and the door opened and the

servant came in to lay the supper. Her nose was high, her gaze cruel,

radiant, and conquering. She was a pretty and an impudent girl of about

twenty-three. She knew she was torturing her old and infirm mistresses.

She did not care. She did it purposely. Her motto was: War on

employers, get all you can out of them, for they will get all they can

out of you. On principle--the sole principle she possessed--she would

not stay in a place more than six months. She liked change. And

employers did not like change. She was shameless with men. She ignored

all orders as to what she was to eat and what she was not to eat. She

lived up to the full resources of her employers. She could be to the

last degree slatternly. Or she could be as neat as a pin, with an apron

that symbolized purity and propriety, as to-night. She could be idle

during a whole day, accumulating dirty dishes from morn till eve. On

the other hand she could, when she chose, work with astonishing

celerity and even thoroughness. In short, she was born to infuriate a

mistress like Sophia and to wear out a mistress like Constance. Her

strongest advantage in the struggle was that she enjoyed altercation;

she revelled in a brawl; she found peace tedious. She was perfectly

calculated to convince the sisters that times had worsened, and that

the world would never again be the beautiful, agreeable place it once

had been.

Her gestures as she laid the table were very graceful, in the pert

style. She dropped forks into their appointed positions with disdain;

she made slightly too much noise; when she turned she manoeuvred her

swelling hips as though for the benefit of a soldier in a handsome

uniform.

Nothing but the servant had been changed in that house. The harmonium

on which Mr. Povey used occasionally to play was still behind the door;

and on the harmonium was the tea-caddy of which Mrs. Baines used to

carry the key on her bunch. In the corner to the right of the fireplace

still hung the cupboard where Mrs. Baines stored her pharmacopoeia. The

rest of the furniture was arranged as it had been arranged when the

death of Mrs. Baines endowed Mr. and Mrs. Povey with all the treasures

of the house at Axe. And it was as good as ever; better than ever. Dr.

Stirling often expressed the desire for a corner cupboard like Mrs.

Baines's corner cupboard. One item had been added: the 'Peel' compote

which Matthew Peel-Swynnerton had noticed in the dining-room of the

Pension Frensham. This majestic piece, which had been reserved by

Sophia in the sale of the pension, stood alone on a canterbury in the

drawingroom. She had stored it, with a few other trifles, in Paris, and

when she sent for it and the packing-case arrived, both she and

Constance became aware that they were united for the rest of their

lives. Of worldly goods, except money, securities, and clothes, that

compote was practically all that Sophia owned. Happily it was a

first-class item, doing no shame to the antique magnificence of the

drawing-room.

In yielding to Constance's terrible inertia, Sophia had meant

nevertheless to work her own will on the interior of the house. She had

meant to bully Constance into modernizing the dwelling. She did bully

Constance, but the house defied her. Nothing could be done to that

house. If only it had had a hall or lobby a complete transformation

would have been possible. But there was no access to the upper floor

except through the parlour. The parlour could not therefore be turned

into a kitchen and the basement suppressed, and the ladies of the house

could not live entirely on the upper floor. The disposition of the

rooms had to remain exactly as it had always been. There was the same

draught under the door, the same darkness on the kitchen stairs, the

same difficulties with tradesmen in the distant backyard, the same

twist in the bedroom stairs, the same eternal ascending and descending

of pails. An efficient cooking-stove, instead of the large and

capacious range, alone represented the twentieth century in the

fixtures of the house.

Buried at the root of the relations between the sisters was Sophia's

grudge against Constance for refusing to leave the Square. Sophia was

loyal. She would not consciously give with one hand while taking away

with the other, and in accepting Constance's decision she honestly

meant to close her eyes to its stupidity. But she could not entirely

succeed. She could not avoid thinking that the angelic Constance had

been strangely and monstrously selfish in refusing to quit the Square.

She marvelled that a woman of Constance's sweet and calm disposition

should be capable of so vast and ruthless an egotism. Constance must

have known that Sophia would not leave her, and that the habitation of

the Square was a continual irk to Sophia. Constance had never been able

to advance a single argument for remaining in the Square. And yet she

would not budge. It was so inconsistent with the rest of Constance's

behaviour. See Sophia sitting primly there by the table, a woman

approaching sixty, with immense experience written on the fine hardness

of her worn and distinguished face! Though her hair is not yet all

grey, nor her figure bowed, you would imagine that she would, in her

passage through the world, have learnt better than to expect a

character to be consistent. But no! She was ever disappointed and hurt

by Constance's inconsistency! And see Constance, stout and bowed,

looking more than her age with hair nearly white and slightly trembling

hands! See that face whose mark is meekness and the spirit of

conciliation, the desire for peace--you would not think that that

placid soul could, while submitting to it, inly rage against the

imposed weight of Sophia's individuality. "Because I wouldn't turn out

of my house to please her," Constance would say to herself, "she

fancies she is entitled to do just as she likes." Not often did she

secretly rebel thus, but it occurred sometimes. They never quarrelled.

They would have regarded separation as a disaster. Considering the

difference of their lives, they agreed marvellously in their judgment

of things. But that buried question of domicile prevented a complete

unity between, them. And its subtle effect was to influence both of

them to make the worst, instead of the best, of the trifling mishaps

that disturbed their tranquillity. When annoyed, Sophia would meditate

upon the mere fact that they lived in the Square for no reason

whatever, until it grew incredibly shocking to her. After all it was

scarcely conceivable that they should be living in the very middle of a

dirty, ugly, industrial town simply because Constance mulishly declined

to move. Another thing that curiously exasperated both of them upon

occasion was that, owing to a recurrence of her old complaint of

dizziness after meals, Sophia had been strictly forbidden to drink tea,

which she loved. Sophia chafed under the deprivation, and Constance's

pleasure was impaired because she had to drink it alone.

While the brazen and pretty servant, mysteriously smiling to herself,

dropped food and utensils on to the table, Constance and Sophia

attempted to converse with negligent ease upon indifferent topics, as

though nothing had occurred that day to mar the beauty of ideal

relations between employers and employed. The pretence was ludicrous.

The young wench saw through it instantly, and her mysterious smile

developed almost into a laugh.

"Please shut the door after you, Maud," said Sophia, as the girl picked

up her empty tray.

"Yes, ma'am," replied Maud, politely.

She went out and left the door open.

It was a defiance, offered from sheer, youthful, wanton mischief.