“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.”
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.
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.
The sisters looked at each other, their faces gravely troubled, aghast, as though they had glimpsed the end of civilized society, as though they felt that they had lived too long into an age of decadence and open shame. Constance’s face showed despair—she might have been about to be pitched into the gutter without a friend and without a shilling—but Sophia’s had the reckless courage that disaster breeds.
Sophia jumped up, and stepped to the door. “Maud,” she called out.
No answer.
“Maud, do you hear me?”
The suspense was fearful.
Still no answer.
Sophia glanced at Constance. “Either she shuts this door, or she leaves this house at once, even if I have to fetch a policeman!”
And Sophia disappeared down the kitchen steps. Constance trembled with painful excitement. The horror of existence closed in upon her. She could imagine nothing more appalling than the pass to which they had been brought by the modern change in the lower classes.
In the kitchen, Sophia, conscious that the moment held the future of at least the next three weeks, collected her forces.
“Maud,” she said, “did you not hear me call you?”
Maud looked up from a book—doubtless a wicked book.
“No, ma’am.”
“You liar!” thought Sophia. And she said: “I asked you to shut the parlour door, and I shall be obliged if you will do so.”
Now Maud would have given a week’s wages for the moral force to disobey Sophia. There was nothing to compel her to obey. She could have trampled on the fragile and weak Sophia. But something in Sophia’s gaze compelled her to obey. She flounced; she bridled; she mumbled; she unnecessarily disturbed the venerable Spot; but she obeyed. Sophia had risked all, and she had won something.
“And you should light the gas in the kitchen,” said Sophia magnificently, as Maud followed her up the steps. “Your young eyes may be very good now, but you are not going the way to preserve them. My sister and I have often told you that we do not grudge you gas.”
With stateliness she rejoined Constance, and sat down to the cold supper. And as Maud clicked the door to, the sisters breathed relief. They envisaged new tribulations, but for a brief instant there was surcease.
Yet they could not eat. Neither of them, when it came to the point, could swallow. The day had been too exciting, too distressing. They were at the end of their resources. And they did not hide from each other that they were at the end of their resources. The illness of Fossette, without anything else, had been more than enough to ruin their tranquillity. But the illness of Fossette was as nothing to the ingenious naughtiness of the servant. Maud had a sense of temporary defeat, and was planning fresh operations; but really it was Maud who had conquered. Poor old things, they were in such a ‘state’ that they could not eat!
“I’m not going to let her think she can spoil my appetite!” said Sophia, dauntless. Truly that woman’s spirit was unquenchable.
She cut a couple of slices off the cold fowl; she cut a tomato into slices; she disturbed the butter; she crumbled bread on the cloth, and rubbed bits of fowl over the plates, and dirtied knives and forks. Then she put the slices of fowl and bread and tomato into a piece of tissue paper, and silently went upstairs with the parcel and came down again a moment afterwards empty-handed.
After an interval she rang the bell, and lighted the gas.
“We’ve finished, Maud. You can clear away.”
Constance thirsted for a cup of tea. She felt that a cup of tea was the one thing that would certainly keep her alive. She longed for it passionately. But she would not demand it from Maud. Nor would she mention it to Sophia, lest Sophia, flushed by the victory of the door, should incur new risks. She simply did without. On empty stomachs they tried pathetically to help each other in games of Patience. And when the blithe Maud passed through the parlour on the way to bed, she saw two dignified and apparently calm ladies, apparently absorbed in a delightful game of cards, apparently without a worry in the world. They said “Good night, Maud,” cheerfully, politely, and coldly. It was a heroic scene. Immediately afterwards Sophia carried Fossette up to her own bedroom.
The next afternoon the sisters, in the drawing-room, saw Dr. Stirling’s motor-car speeding down the Square. The doctor’s partner, young Harrop, had died a few years before at the age of over seventy, and the practice was much larger than it had ever been, even in the time of old Harrop. Instead of two or three horses, Stirling kept a car, which was a constant spectacle in the streets of the district.
“I do hope he’ll call in,” said Mrs. Povey, and sighed.
Sophia smiled to herself with a little scorn. She knew that Constance’s desire for Dr. Stirling was due simply to the need which she felt of telling some one about the great calamity that had happened to them that morning. Constance was utterly absorbed by it, in the most provincial way. Sophia had said to herself at the beginning of her sojourn in Bursley, and long afterwards, that she should never get accustomed to the exasperating provinciality of the town, exemplified by the childish preoccupation of the inhabitants with their own two-penny affairs. No characteristic of life in Bursley annoyed her more than this. None had oftener caused her to yearn in a brief madness for the desert-like freedom of great cities. But she had got accustomed to it. Indeed, she had almost ceased to notice it. Only occasionally, when her nerves were more upset than usual, did it strike her.
She went into Constance’s bedroom to see whether the doctor’s car halted in King Street. It did.
“He’s here,” she called out to Constance.
“I wish you’d go down, Sophia,” said Constance. “I can’t trust that minx——”
So Sophia went downstairs to superintend the opening of the door by the minx.
The doctor was radiant, according to custom.
“I thought I’d just see how that dizziness was going on,” said he as he came up the steps.
“I’m glad you’ve come,” said Sophia, confidentially. Since the first days of their acquaintanceship they had always been confidential. “You’ll do my sister good to-day.”
Just as Maud was closing the door a telegraph-boy arrived, with a telegram addressed to Mrs. Scales. Sophia read it and then crumpled it in her hand.
“What’s wrong with Mrs. Povey to-day?” the doctor asked, when the servant had withdrawn.
“She only wants a bit of your society,” said Sophia. “Will you go up? You know the way to the drawing-room. I’ll follow.”
As soon as he had gone she sat down on the sofa, staring out of the window. Then with a grunt: “Well, that’s no use, anyway!” she went upstairs after the doctor. Already Constance had begun upon her recital.
“Yes,” Constance was saying. “And when I went down this morning to keep an eye on the breakfast, I thought Spot was very quiet—” She paused. “He was dead in the drawer. She pretended she didn’t know, but I’m sure she did. Nothing will convince me that she didn’t poison that dog with the mice-poison we had last year. She was vexed because Sophia took her up sharply about Fossette last night, and she revenged herself on the other dog. It would just be like her. Don’t tell me! I know. I should have packed her off at once, but Sophia thought better not. We couldn’t prove anything, as Sophia says. Now, what do you think of it, doctor?”
Constance’s eyes suddenly filled with tears.
“Ye’d had Spot a long time, hadn’t ye?” he said sympathetically.
She nodded. “When I was married,” said she, “the first thing my husband did was to buy a fox-terrier, and ever since we’ve always had a fox-terrier in the house.” This was not true, but Constance was firmly convinced of its truth.
“It’s very trying,” said the doctor. “I know when my Airedale died, I said to my wife I’d never have another dog—unless she could find me one that would live for ever. Ye remember my Airedale?”
“Oh, quite well!”
“Well, my wife said I should be bound to have another one sooner or later, and the sooner the better. She went straight off to Oldcastle and bought me a spaniel pup, and there was such a to-do training it that we hadn’t too much time to think about Piper.”
Constance regarded this procedure as somewhat callous, and she said so, tartly. Then she recommenced the tale of Spot’s death from the beginning, and took it as far as his burial, that afternoon, by Mr. Critchlow’s manager, in the yard. It had been necessary to remove and replace paving-stones.
“Of course,” said Dr. Stirling, “ten years is a long time. He was an old dog. Well, you’ve still got the celebrated Fossette.” He turned to Sophia.
“Oh yes,” said Constance, perfunctorily. “Fossette’s ill. The fact is that if Fossette hadn’t been ill, Spot would probably have been alive and well now.”
Her tone exhibited a grievance. She could not forget that Sophia had harshly dismissed Spot to the kitchen, thus practically sending him to his death. It seemed very hard to her that Fossette, whose life had once been despaired of, should continue to exist, while Spot, always healthy and unspoilt, should die untended, and by treachery. For the rest, she had never liked Fossette. On Spot’s behalf she had always been jealous of Fossette.
“Probably alive and well now!” she repeated, with a peculiar accent.
Observing that Sophia maintained a strange silence, Dr. Stirling suspected a slight tension in the relations of the sisters, and he changed the subject. One of his great qualities was that he refrained from changing a subject introduced by a patient unless there was a professional reason for changing it.
“I’ve just met Richard Povey in the town,” said he. “He told me to tell ye that he’ll be round in about an hour or so to take you for a spin. He was in a new car, which he did his best to sell to me, but he didn’t succeed.”
“It’s very kind of Dick,” said Constance. “But this afternoon really we’re not—”
“I’ll thank ye to take it as a prescription, then,” replied the doctor. “I told Dick I’d see that ye went. Splendid June weather. No dust after all that rain. It’ll do ye all the good in the world. I must exercise my authority. The truth is, I’ve gradually been losing all control over ye. Ye do just as ye like.”
“Oh, doctor, how you do run on!” murmured Constance, not quite well pleased to-day by his tone.
After the scene between Sophia and herself at Buxton, Constance had always, to a certain extent, in the doctor’s own phrase, ‘got her knife into him.’ Sophia had, then, in a manner betrayed him. Constance and the doctor discussed that matter with frankness, the doctor humorously accusing her of being ‘hard’ on him. Nevertheless the little cloud between them was real, and the result was often a faint captiousness on Constance’s part in judging the doctor’s behaviour.
“He’s got a surprise for ye, has Dick!” the doctor added.
Dick Povey, after his father’s death and his own partial recovery, had set up in Hanbridge as a bicycle agent. He was permanently lamed, and he hopped about with a thick stick. He had succeeded with bicycles and had taken to automobiles, and he was succeeding with automobiles. People were at first startled that he should advertise himself in the Five Towns. There was an obscure general feeling that because his mother had been a drunkard and his father a murderer, Dick Povey had no right to exist. However, when it had recovered from the shock of seeing Dick Povey’s announcement of bargains in the Signal, the district most sensibly decided that there was no reason why Dick Povey should not sell bicycles as well as a man with normal parents. He was now supposed to be acquiring wealth rapidly. It was said that he was a marvellous chauffeur, at once daring and prudent. He had one day, several years previously, overtaken the sisters in the rural neighbourhood of Sneyd, where they had been making an afternoon excursion. Constance had presented him to Sophia, and he had insisted on driving the ladies home. They had been much impressed by his cautious care of them, and their natural prejudice against anything so new as a motorcar had been conquered instantly. Afterwards he had taken them out for occasional runs. He had a great admiration for Constance, founded on gratitude to Samuel Povey; and as for Sophia, he always said to her that she would be an ornament to any car.
“You haven’t heard his latest, I suppose?” said the doctor, smiling.
“What is it?” Sophia asked perfunctorily.
“He wants to take to ballooning. It seems he’s been up once.”
Constance made a deprecating noise with her lips.
“However, that’s not his surprise,” the doctor added, smiling again at the floor. He was sitting on the music-stool, and saying to himself, behind his mask of effulgent good-nature: “It gets more and more uphill work, cheering up these two women. I’ll try them on Federation.”
Federation was the name given to the scheme for blending the Five Towns into one town, which would be the twelfth largest town in the kingdom. It aroused fury in Bursley, which saw in the suggestion nothing but the extinction of its ancient glory to the aggrandizement of Hanbridge. Hanbridge had already, with the assistance of electric cars that whizzed to and fro every five minutes, robbed Bursley of two-thirds of its retail trade—as witness the steady decadence of the Square!—and Bursley had no mind to swallow the insult and become a mere ward of Hanbridge. Bursley would die fighting. Both Constance and Sophia were bitter opponents of Federation. They would have been capable of putting Federationists to the torture. Sophia in particular, though so long absent from her native town, had adopted its cause with characteristic vigour. And when Dr. Stirling wished to practise his curative treatment of taking the sisters ‘out of themselves,’ he had only to start the hare of Federation and the hunt would be up in a moment. But this afternoon he did not succeed with Sophia, and only partially with Constance. When he stated that there was to be a public meeting that very night, and that Constance as a ratepayer ought to go to it and vote, if her convictions were genuine, she received his chaff with a mere murmur to the effect that she did not think she should go. Had the man forgotten that Spot was dead? At length he became grave, and examined them both as to their ailments, and nodded his head, and looked into vacancy while meditating upon each case. And then, when he had inquired where they meant to go for their summer holidays, he departed.
“Aren’t you going to see him out?” Constance whispered to Sophia, who had shaken hands with him at the drawingroom door. It was Sophia who did the running about, owing to the state of Constance’s sciatic nerve. Constance had, indeed, become extraordinarily inert, leaving everything to Sophia.
Sophia shook her head. She hesitated; then approached Constance, holding out her hand and disclosing the crumpled telegram.
“Look at that!” said she.
Her face frightened Constance, who was always expectant of new anxieties and troubles. Constance straightened out the paper with difficulty, and read—
“Mr. Gerald Scales is dangerously ill here. Boldero, 49, Deansgate, Manchester.”
All through the inexpressibly tedious and quite unnecessary call of Dr. Stirling—(Why had he chosen to call just then? Neither of them was ill)—Sophia had held that telegram concealed in her hand and its information concealed in her heart. She had kept her head up, offering a calm front to the world. She had given no hint of the terrible explosion—for an explosion it was. Constance was astounded at her sister’s self-control, which entirely passed her comprehension. Constance felt that worries would never cease, but would rather go on multiplying until death ended all. First, there had been the frightful worry of the servant; then the extremely distressing death and burial of Spot—and now it was Gerald Scales turning up again! With what violence was the direction of their thoughts now shifted! The wickedness of maids was a trifle; the death of pets was a trifle. But the reappearance of Gerald Scales! That involved the possibility of consequences which could not even be named, so afflictive was the mere prospect to them. Constance was speechless, and she saw that Sophia was also speechless.
Of course the event had been bound to happen. People do not vanish never to be heard of again. The time surely arrives when the secret is revealed. So Sophia said to herself—now!
She had always refused to consider the effect of Gerald’s reappearance. She had put the idea of it away from her, determined to convince herself that she had done with him finally and for ever. She had forgotten him. It was years since he had ceased to disturb her thoughts—many years. “He MUST be dead,” she had persuaded herself. “It is inconceivable that he should have lived on and never come across me. If he had been alive and learnt that I had made money, he would assuredly have come to me. No, he must be dead!”
And he was not dead! The brief telegram overwhelmingly shocked her. Her life had been calm, regular, monotonous. And now it was thrown into an indescribable turmoil by five words of a telegram, suddenly, with no warning whatever. Sophia had the right to say to herself: “I have had my share of trouble, and more than my share!” The end of her life promised to be as awful as the beginning. The mere existence of Gerald Scales was a menace to her. But it was the simple impact of the blow that affected her supremely, beyond ulterior things. One might have pictured fate as a cowardly brute who had struck this ageing woman full in the face, a felling blow, which however had not felled her. She staggered, but she stuck on her legs. It seemed a shame—one of those crude, spectacular shames which make the blood boil—that the gallant, defenceless creature should be so maltreated by the bully, destiny.
“Oh, Sophia!” Constance moaned. “What trouble is this?”
Sophia’s lip curled with a disgusted air. Under that she hid her suffering.
She had not seen him for thirty-six years. He must be over seventy years of age, and he had turned up again like a bad penny, doubtless a disgrace! What had he been doing in those thirty-six years? He was an old, enfeebled man now! He must be a pretty sight! And he lay at Manchester, not two hours away!
Whatever feelings were in Sophia’s heart, tenderness was not among them. As she collected her wits from the stroke, she was principally aware of the sentiment of fear. She recoiled from the future.
“What shall you do?” Constance asked. Constance was weeping.
Sophia tapped her foot, glancing out of the window.
“Shall you go to see him?” Constance continued.
“Of course,” said Sophia. “I must!”
She hated the thought of going to see him. She flinched from it. She felt herself under no moral obligation to go. Why should she go? Gerald was nothing to her, and had no claim on her of any kind. This she honestly believed. And yet she knew that she must go to him. She knew it to be impossible that she should not go.
“Now?” demanded Constance.
Sophia nodded.
“What about the trains? ... Oh, you poor dear!” The mere idea of the journey to Manchester put Constance out of her wits, seeming a business of unparalleled complexity and difficulty.
“Would you like me to come with you?”
“Oh no! I must go by myself.”
Constance was relieved by this. They could not have left the servant in the house alone, and the idea of shutting up the house without notice or preparation presented itself to Constance as too fantastic.
By a common instinct they both descended to the parlour.
“Now, what about a time-table? What about a time-table?” Constance mumbled on the stairs. She wiped her eyes resolutely. “I wonder whatever in this world has brought him at last to that Mr. Boldero’s in Deansgate?” she asked the walls.
As they came into the parlour, a great motor-car drove up before the door, and when the pulsations of its engine had died away, Dick Povey hobbled from the driver’s seat to the pavement. In an instant he was hammering at the door in his lively style. There was no avoiding him. The door had to be opened. Sophia opened it. Dick Povey was over forty, but he looked considerably younger. Despite his lameness, and the fact that his lameness tended to induce corpulence, he had a dashing air, and his face, with its short, light moustache, was boyish. He seemed to be always upon some joyous adventure.
“Well, aunties,” he greeted the sisters, having perceived Constance behind Sophia; he often so addressed them. “Has Dr. Stirling warned you that I was coming? Why haven’t you got your things on?”
Sophia observed a young woman in the car.
“Yes,” said he, following her gaze, “you may as well look. Come down, miss. Come down, Lily. You’ve got to go through with it.” The young woman, delicately confused and blushing, obeyed. “This is Miss Lily Holl,” he went on. “I don’t know whether you would remember her. I don’t think you do. It’s not often she comes to the Square. But, of course, she knows you by sight. Granddaughter of your old neighbour, Alderman Holl! We are engaged to be married, if you please.”
Constance and Sophia could not decently pour out their griefs on the top of such news. The betrothed pair had to come in and be congratulated upon their entry into the large realms of mutual love. But the sisters, even in their painful quandary, could not help noticing what a nice, quiet, ladylike girl Lily Holl was. Her one fault appeared to be that she was too quiet. Dick Povey was not the man to pass time in formalities, and he was soon urging departure.
“I’m sorry we can’t come,” said Sophia. “I’ve got to go to Manchester now. We are in great trouble.”
“Yes, in great trouble,” Constance weakly echoed.
Dick’s face clouded sympathetically. And both the affianced began to see that to which the egotism of their happiness had blinded them. They felt that long, long years had elapsed since these ageing ladies had experienced the delights which they were feeling.
“Trouble? I’m sorry to hear that!” said Dick.
“Can you tell me the trains to Manchester?” asked Sophia.
“No,” said Dick, quickly, “But I can drive you there quicker than any train, if it’s urgent. Where do you want to go to?”
“Deansgate,” Sophia faltered.
“Look here,” said Dick, “it’s half-past three. Put yourself in my hands; I’ll guarantee at Deansgate you shall be before half-past five. I’ll look after you.”
“But——”
“There isn’t any ‘but.’ I’m quite free for the afternoon and evening.”
At first the suggestion seemed absurd, especially to Constance. But really it was too tempting to be declined. While Sophia made ready for the journey, Dick and Lily Holl and Constance conversed in low, solemn tones. The pair were waiting to be enlightened as to the nature of the trouble; Constance, however, did not enlighten them. How could Constance say to them: “Sophia has a husband that she hasn’t seen for thirty-six years, and he’s dangerously ill, and they’ve telegraphed for her to go?” Constance could not. It did not even occur to Constance to order a cup of tea.