The Old Adam: A Story of Adventure

ts victim apprehensively and yet disdainfully as 'this rheumatism.' Constance was now very stout. She sat in a low easy-chair between the oval table and the window, arrayed in black silk. As the girl Lily came in, Constance lifted her head with a bland smile, and Lily kissed her, contentedly. Lily knew that she was a welcome visitor. These two had become as intimate as the difference between their ages would permit; of the two, Constance was the more frank. Li

c and masterful Sophia had burst in upon her lethargic tranquillity and very seriously disturbed the flow of old habits. Certainly Constance had fought Sophia on the main point, and won; but on a hundred minor points she had either lost or had not fought. Sophia had been 'too much' for Constance, and it had been only by a wearying expenditure of nervous force that Constance had succeeded in

tograph into a plush-c

. She was capable, with a touch of honest, simple stupidity. All her character was displayed in the tone in which she said: "More photographs?" It showed an eager responsive sympathy with Constance's cult for photographs, also a slight person

ehind her spectacles as she silently hel

soft lips when she beheld the photograph, and n

st given it to me,"

ily, with an ext

isfortune, and who must assuredly have been sent to Constance by the old watchful Providence. They 'got on together'

told you, didn't I? I always consider her in every way, all her little fancies and everything. And the copies came to-day.

t in deciding to put the photograph of a servant between the same covers with photographs

another, and one photograph al

econd shelf of the Canterbur

the album on the second shelf of the Can

le nervous movements. Occasionally she would sniff and occasionally a mysterious noise would occur in her chest; she alw

Lily. "Have I s

dear," said Cons

nice gentleman,' whose acquaintance the sisters had made during a holi

o the life-I can se

e was a wind she always stood like th

whole woman to Constance's memory, and drew a picture o

ing special about it," said Lily, enthusiastically.

in my bedroom," said Consta

vey! I could

ance, removing the pho

K you!" s

onstance, getting up with gre

ything for you

Constance, le

er jewel-box, a receptacle of e

ng it myself. And I should like to see you wearing it. It was mother's. I believe they're coming into fashion again. I don'

th trembling hands she pinned the brooch at Lily's neck. She lavished the warm treasure of her heart

, as they delved together in the lower re

aid Constance. "He alw

th the Town Hall, he us

curious, the Town Hall

er been a good timekeep

watch and ch

ou?" sa

wn. He had little fancies like that. And Cyril takes after his father." She spoke in her 'dry' tone. "I'v

d guiltily

he's been up and come down safely, that ought to be

op him? I've no c

d still do it if you told him se

and added: "So I

d Dick Povey was a thousand times more bizarre than Samuel. She saw him vividly, a little boy, whizzing down King Street on a boneshaker, and his cap flyi

t made up my mind yet. What's the young

wo motor-lorries. He won't be back home t

at this very moment Lily heard in the Square the sound of a mo

d, flushing. "H

!" muttered Constan

f,' and then, being 'at a loose end,' he had come over to Bursley in search of his betrothed. At Holl's shop they had told him that she was with Mrs. Povey. Constance glanced at him, impressed by his jolly air of success. He seemed exactly like his breezy and self-confident advertisements in the Signal. He was absolutely pleased with himself. He triumphed over his limp-that ever-present reminder

ogether with a resounding smac

. "Mrs. Povey, I don't mind telling you that I

expressed he

a calm smile out of which peeped a hint of a rebuke.

for tea-real

id Constance, positivel

weeks since you

s!" Dick yielded

ney, Mrs. Povey?" Lily a

two little things that need my attention."

f that the door was closed,

long?" he

hour and

to s

k!" she

n one of her

lking about balloons-you know

s. Balloons may be the ruin of her

ell saying I ought to keep her off balloons. You try t

starte

ng you old Mr. Baines's gold watch

hing!" said Dick.

you se

y I had seen it. She's menti

didn'

rting that thing about

you thin

"But if she offered it to you, you couldn't

just badly enough to keep off the watch, but not bad

" Lily murmured,

her hand silen

t's

st given

ch. "Hm!" he murmured. It was an adverse verdict. A

u'll have to wear

said Lily. "It belonged to her mother. And she says cameos are

id Dick, drily. "I see you've been s

graphs to helping her to play Patience. The

s pushed open, and the antique Fossette introduced herself pai

ld scarcely wag her tail, nor shake the hair out of her d

smell," said

at she wants is the lea

urden to

t to Mrs. Povey that the dog is offens

Dick. "Don't hint, that's all! Ho

sh you wouldn'

to the room, cutting

ice full of gratitude, "Lily has

no heed to him, but passe

n I was in the parlour just now I saw a man running alo

joined her a

ppeared from view under the window of Mrs. Povey's drawing-room, which was over part of Mrs. Critchlow's shop. As the windows of the

on the pavement-or i

sta

original of the photograph, who had run unperceived into the drawi

towards her, with an instinctive

ed to commit suicide

t they say she'

he exclaimed afterwards, "how I manage to come in for things? Sheer chance that I was here to-day! But it's always like that! Som

in order to report the upshot, his demeanour was suitably toned to Constance's mood. The old lady had been very deep

ring. People would not go to Hanbridge for their bread or for their groceries, but they would go for their cakes. These electric trams had simply carried to Hanbridge the cream, and much of the milk, of Bursley's retail trade. There were unprincipled tradesmen in Hanbridge ready to pay the car-fares of any customer who spent a crown in their establishments. Hanbridge was the geographical centre of the Five Towns, and it was alive to its situation. Useless for Bursley to compete! If Mrs. Critchlow had been a philosopher, if she had known that geography had always made history, she would have given up her enterprise a dozen years ago. But Mrs. Critchlow was merely Maria Insull. She had seen Bai

low had suffered. It appeared that for many months she had been depressed and irritable, that sometimes she would sit down in the midst of work and declare, with every sign of exhaustion, that she could do no more. Then with equal briskness she would arise and force herself to labour. She did not sleep for whole nights. One assistant related how she had complained of having had no sleep whatever for four nights consecutively. She had noises in the ears and a chronic headache. Never very plump, she had grown thinner and thinner. And she was for ever taking pills: this i

gularity with her late employer, Samuel Povey. There was no truth whatever in this accusation (which everybody, however, took care not to mention to Constance); it merely indicated, perhaps, the secret aspirations of Maria Insull, the virgin. The assistant was properly scandaliz

his senile egotism, had shown no emotion, and very little activity. The shop was closed. And as a general draper's it never op

ad had its birth. All the misfortunes of St. Luke's Square were due to that great, busy, grasping, unscrupulous neighbour. Had not Hanbridge done enough, without wanting to merge all the Five Towns into one town, of which of course itself would be the centre? For Constance, Hanbridge was a borough of unprincipled adventurers, bent on ruining the ancient 'Mother of the Five Towns' for its own glory and aggrandizement. Let Constance he

I

inst Federation was fought in Bursley. Constance was suffering severely

e, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, and adjacent counties. He had sold his own chemist's stock and gone to live in a little house at the bottom of Kingstreet. It is doubtful whether he would have consented to retire had not Alderman Holl died earlier in the year, thus ending a long rivalry between the old men for the patriarchate of the Square. Charles Critchlow was as free from senti

approaching, and that they meant to sell ten thousand overcoats at their new shop in Bursley at the price of twelve and sixpence each. The tailoring of the world was loudly and coarsely defied to equal the value of those overcoats. On the day of opening they arranged an orchestra or artillery of phonographs upon the leads over the window of that part of the shop which had been Mr. Critchlow's. They also carpeted the Square with handbills, and flew flags from their upper storeys. The immense shop proved to be full of overcoats; overcoats were shown in all the three great windows; in one window an overcoat was disposed a

e article, and the bustling assistants. As for the phonographs, she regarded them as a grave insult; they had been within twenty feet of her drawing-room window! Twelve-and-sixpenny overcoats! It was monstrous, and equally monstrous was the gullibility of the people. How could an overcoat at twelve and sixpence be 'good.' She remembered the overcoats made and sold in the shop in the time of her f

o be turned out, to be turned out of the house of her birth and out of her father's home, that was different! Her pride, injured as it was, had a great deal to support. It became necessary for her to recollect that she was a Baines. She affected magnificently not to care. But she could not refrain from telling all her acquaintance

ast, for the most maligned district in the country! And then a Cabinet Minister had visited the Five Towns, and assisted at an official inquiry, and stated in his hammering style that he meant personally to do everything possible to accomplish the Federation of the Five Towns: an incautious remark, which infuriated, while it flattered, the opponents of Federation in Bursley. Constance, with many other sensitive persons, asked angrily what right a Cabinet Minister had to take sides in a purely local affair. But the partiality of the official world grew flagrant. The Mayor of Bursley openly proclaimed himself a Federationist, though there was a majority on the Council against him. Even ministers of religion permitted themselves to think and to express opinions. Well might the indignant Old Guard imagine that the end of public decency had come! The Federationists were very ingenious individuals. They contrived to enrol in their ranks a vast number of leading men. Then they hired the Covered Market, and put a platform in it, an

ore large cards with the words, "Federation this time." And hundreds of men walked briskly about with circular cards tied to their lapels, as though Bursley had been a race-course, and these cards too had the words, "Federation this time." (The reference was to a light poll which had been taken several years before, when no interest had been aroused and the immature project yet defeated by a six to one majority.) All partisans of Fe

ld and slow, We are sure that it will be Good for t

ent; but the Anti-Federationists feared that it might, and before noon was come they had eng

her stay; When the vote on Saturday's read Federation

Silver Prize Band and a few hundred infants. The odds were against the Anti-Federationists. The mayor had actually issued a letter to the inhabitants accusing the Anti-Federationists of unfair methods! This was really too much! The impudence of it knocked the breath out of its victims, and breath is very necessary in a polling contest. The Federationists, as one of their prominent op

s also very determined. The busy, joyous Federationists and Anti-Federationists who knew her not saw merely a stout old lady fussing forth, and those who knew her saw merely Mrs. Povey and greeted her perfunctorily, a woman of her age

for the picturesque, had somehow arranged, in conjunction with a well-known Manchester aeronaut, for the very day of the poll. That was one of various matters that had to be 'kept from' the old lady. Lily herself was much perturbed about the balloon ascent. She had to run off and see Dick before he started, at the Football Ground at Bleakridge, and then she had to live through the hours till she should receive a telegram to the effect that Dick had come down safely or that Dick had broken his leg in coming

se she could see that the Federation Poll was going to be a much more exciting affair than she had imagined. The great cards swinging from the wagonettes showed her that Federation was at all events still sufficiently alive to make a formidable impression on the eye and the ear. The Square was transformed by this clamour in favour of Federation; people cheered, and sang also, as the procession wound down the Square. And she could distinctly catch the tramping, martial syllables, "Vote, vote, vote." She was indignant. The pother, once begun, continued. Vehicles flashed frequently across the Square, most of

h the growth of the district had rendered artificial, vexatious, and harmful. She saw nothing but Bursley, and in Bursley nothing but the Square. She knew nothing except that the people of Bursley, who once shopped in Bursley, now shopped in Hanbridge, and that the Square was a desert infested by cheap-jacks. And there were actually people who wished to bow the neck to Hanbridge, who were ready to sacrifice the very name of Bursley to the greedy humour of that pushing Chicago! She could not understand such people. Did they know that poor Maria Critchlow was in a lunatic asylum because Hanbrid

of the parading vehicles would be glad to take her to the Town Hall, and, perhaps, as a favour, to bring her back again. But no! She dared not go out. She was afraid, really afraid that even the mild Mary might stop her. Otherwise, she could have sent Mary for a cab. And supposing that Lily returned, and caught her going out or coming in! She ought not to go out. Yet her sciatica w

t had already cost her. The pain returned. The streets were still wet and foul, the wind cold, and the sky menacing. She ought to go back. She ought to admit that she had been a fool to dream of the enterprise. The Town Hall seemed to be miles off, at the top of a mountain

made herself the centre of a crowd of gapers. But she managed, somehow, to reach home again on her own tortured feet, and an astounded and protesting Mary opened the door to her. Rain w

ather than move in order to pull it, she would prefer to wait for assistance until Mary came of her own accord. Her experiences of the night had given her a dread of the slightest movement; anything was better than movement. She felt vaguely ill, with a kind of subdued pain, and she was ve

rhaps you'd better run up and tell Miss Holl

mistress had been out on the previous afternoon in spite of her sciatica, and Lily telephoned the fac

t out?" Const

e hundred against Federation. Great excitement last night! I to

s, however, that towards the end of the day nearly every one had believed Federation to be carried. The result had caused great surprise. Only the profoundest philosophers had not been surprised to see that the mere

have liked the majority to be smaller. Moreover, her interest in t

d," she said f

ovey, who, in a sensational descent near Macclesfield, had been dragged through the tops of a r

. Stirl

s worse, Doctor," said C

at her sternly. She knew then that some one had

m was precisely the same thing as that dread disease, rheumatic fever, and she was not informed. She did not surmise for a considerable period that her case was desperately serious. The doctor explained the summoning of two nurses, and the frequency of his own visits, by saying that his chief anxiety was to minimise the fearful pain as much as possible, and that this end could only be secured by incessant watchfulness. The pain was certainly formidable. But then Constance was well habituated to formidable pain. Sciatica, at its most active, cannot be

ith his arm in a sling, and told her charily that he had hurt

me," said Constan

even the sick room could chasten him of hi

t go running any ri

said he. "I shal

nd not as the result of any accident, either! Th

rranged the night, then, in the faintly-lit silence of the chamber, Constance would argue with herself for an hour at a time. She frequently thought of Sophia. In spite of the fact that Sophia was dead she still pitied Sophia as a woman whose life had been wasted. This idea of Sophia's wasted and sterile life, and of the far-reaching importance of adhering to principles, recurred to her again and again. "Why did she run away with him? If only she had not run away!" she would repeat. And yet there had been something so fine about Sophia! Which made Sophia's case all the more pitiable! Constance never pitied herself. She did not consider that Fate had treated her very badly. She was not very discontented with herself. The invincible commonsense of a sound nature prevented her, in her best moments, from feebly dissolving in self-pity. She had lived in honesty and kindliness for a fair number of years, and she had tasted trium

admirable qualities. She did not resent his being away from England while she lay ill. "If it was serious," she said, "he would not lose a moment." And Lily and Dick were a treasure to her. In those two she really had been lucky. She took great pleasure in contemplating the splendour of the gift with which she would mark her appreciation of them at their approaching wedding. The secret attitude of both of them towards her was one of good-natured condescension, expressed in the tone in which they would say to each other, 'the old lady.' Perhaps they would have be

bly wandering to and fro, lost, in the long underground passage leading from the scullery past the coal-cellar and the

leyan minister, hearing that she was seriously ill, had called on the previous day. She had not asked for him; and this pastoral visit, from a man who had always said th

ople were bad prophets. Her friends genuinely regretted her, and forgot the tediousness of her sciatica. They tried, in their sympathetic grief, to picture to themselves all that she had been through in her li

e, and without being asked. Though fabulously senile, he had preserved and even improved his faculty for enjoying a catastrophe. He now went to funerals with gusto, contentedly absorbed in the task of burying his friends one by one. It was he who said, in his high, trembling, rasping, deliberate voice:

tomary corner. Fossette sniffed at it, and then walked away and lay down with a dog's sigh in front of the kitchen fire. She had been deranged in her habits that day; she was conscious of neglect, due to events which passed her comprehension. And she did not like it. She was

E