_ 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servant had withdrawn.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. _