“I shall be all right, thank you,” said Mr Povey. And after a pause: “Well, thanks, I will.”
III
The girls made way for him to pass them at the head of the twisting stairs which led down to the parlour. Constance followed, and Sophia followed Constance.
“Have father’s chair,” said Constance.
There were two rocking-chairs with fluted backs covered by anti-macassars, one on either side of the hearth. That to the left was still entitled “father’s chair,” though its owner had not sat in it since long before the Crimean war, and would never sit in it again.
“I think I’d sooner have the other one,” said Mr Povey, “because it’s on the right side, you see.” And he touched his right cheek.
Having taken Mrs Baines’s chair, he bent his face down to the fire, seeking comfort from its warmth. Sophia poked the fire, whereupon Mr Povey abruptly withdrew his face. He then felt something light on his shoulders. Constance had taken the antimacassar from the back of the chair, and protected him with it from the draughts. He did not instantly rebel, and therefore was permanently barred from rebellion. He was entrapped by the antimacassar. It formally constituted him an invalid, and Constance and Sophia his nurses. Constance drew the curtain across the street door. No draught could come from the window, for the window was not “made to open.” The age of ventilation had not arrived. Sophia shut the other two doors. And, each near a door, the girls gazed at Mr Povey behind his back, irresolute, but filled with a delicious sense of responsibility.
The situation was on a different plane now. The seriousness of Mr Povey’s toothache, which became more and more manifest, had already wiped out the ludicrous memory of the encounter in the showroom. Looking at these two big girls, with their shortsleeved black frocks and black aprons, and their smooth hair, and their composed serious faces, one would have judged them incapable of the least lapse from an archangelic primness; Sophia especially presented a marvellous imitation of saintly innocence. As for the toothache, its action on Mr Povey was apparently periodic; it gathered to a crisis like a wave, gradually, the torture increasing till the wave broke and left Mr Povey exhausted, but free for a moment from pain. These crises recurred about once a minute. And now, accustomed to the presence of the young virgins, and having tacitly acknowledged by his acceptance of the antimacassar that his state was abnormal, he gave himself up frankly to affliction. He concealed nothing of his agony, which was fully displayed by sudden contortions of his frame, and frantic oscillations of the rocking-chair. Presently, as he lay back enfeebled in the wash of a spent wave, he murmured with a sick man’s voice:
“I suppose you haven’t got any laudanum?”
The girls started into life. “Laudanum, Mr Povey?”
“Yes, to hold in my mouth.”
He sat up, tense; another wave was forming. The excellent fellow was lost to all self-respect, all decency.
“There’s sure to be some in mother’s cupboard,” said Sophia.
Constance, who bore Mrs Baines’s bunch of keys at her girdle, a solemn trust, moved a little fearfully to a corner cupboard which was hung in the angle to the right of the projecting fireplace, over a shelf on which stood a large copper tea-urn. That corner cupboard, of oak inlaid with maple and ebony in a simple border pattern, was typical of the room. It was of a piece with the deep green “flock” wallpaper, and the tea-urn, and the rocking-chairs with their antimacassars, and the harmonium in rosewood with a Chinese papier-mâché tea-caddy on the top of it; even with the carpet, certainly the most curious parlour carpet that ever was, being made of lengths of the stair-carpet sewn together side by side. That corner cupboard was already old in service; it had held the medicines of generations. It gleamed darkly with the grave and genuine polish which comes from ancient use alone. The key which Constance chose from her bunch was like the cupboard, smooth and shining with years; it fitted and turned very easily, yet with a firm snap. The single wide door opened sedately as a portal.
The girls examined the sacred interior, which had the air of being inhabited by an army of diminutive prisoners, each crying aloud with the full strength of its label to be set free on a mission.
“There it is!” said Sophia eagerly.
And there it was: a blue bottle, with a saffron label, “Caution. POISON, Laudanum. Charles Critchlow, M.P.S. Dispensing Chemist. St Luke’s Square, Bursley.”
Those large capitals frightened the girls. Constance took the bottle as she might have taken a loaded revolver, and she glanced at Sophia. Their omnipotent, all-wise mother was not present to tell them what to do. They, who had never decided, had to decide now. And Constance was the elder. Must this fearsome stuff, whose very name was a name of fear, be introduced in spite of printed warnings into Mr Povey’s mouth? The responsibility was terrifying.
“Perhaps I’d just better ask Mr Critchlow,” Constance faltered.
The expectation of beneficent laudanum had enlivened Mr Povey, had already, indeed, by a sort of suggestion, half cured his toothache.
“Oh no!” he said. “No need to ask Mr Critchlow . . . Two or three drops in a little water.” He showed impatience to be at the laudanum.
The girls knew that an antipathy existed between the chemist and Mr Povey.
“It’s sure to be all right,” said Sophia. “I’ll get the water.”
With youthful cries and alarms they succeeded in pouring four mortal dark drops (one more than Constance intended) into a cup containing a little water. And as they handed the cup to Mr Povey their faces were the faces of affrighted comical conspirators. They felt so old and they looked so young.
Mr Povey inbibed eagerly of the potion, put the cup on the mantelpiece, and then tilted his head to the right so as to submerge the affected tooth. In this posture he remained, awaiting the sweet influence of the remedy. The girls, out of a nice modesty, turned away, for Mr Povey must not swallow the medicine, and they preferred to leave him unhampered in the solution of a delicate problem. When next they examined him, he was leaning back in the rocking-chair with his mouth open and his eyes shut.
“Has it done you any good, Mr Povey?”
“I think I’ll lie down on the sofa for a minute,” was Mr Povey’s strange reply; and forthwith he sprang up and flung himself on to the horse-hair sofa between the fireplace and the window, where he lay stripped of all his dignity, a mere beaten animal in a grey suit with peculiar coat-tails, and a very creased waistcoat, and a lapel that was planted with pins, and a paper collar and close-fitting paper cuffs.
Constance ran after him with the antimacassar, which she spread softly on his shoulders; and Sophia put another one over his thin little legs, all drawn up.
They then gazed at their handiwork, with secret self-accusations and the most dreadful misgivings.
“He surely never swallowed it!” Constance whispered.
“He’s asleep, anyhow,” said Sophia, more loudly.
Mr Povey was certainly asleep, and his mouth was very wide open—like a shop-door. The only question was whether his sleep was not an eternal sleep; the only question was whether he was not out of his pain for ever.
Then he snored—horribly; his snore seemed a portent of disaster.
Sophia approached him as though he were a bomb, and stared, growing bolder, into his mouth.
“Oh, Con,” she summoned her sister, “do come and look! It’s too droll!”
In an instant all their four eyes were exploring the singular landscape of Mr Povey’s mouth. In a corner, to the right of that interior, was one sizeable fragment of a tooth, that was attached to Mr Povey by the slenderest tie, so that at each respiration of Mr Povey, when his body slightly heaved and the gale moaned in the cavern, this tooth moved separately, showing that its long connexion with Mr Povey was drawing to a close.
“That’s the one,” said Sophia, pointing. “And it’s as loose as anything. Did you ever see such a funny thing?”
The extreme funniness of the thing had lulled in Sop
hia the fear of Mr Povey’s sudden death.
“I’ll see how much he’s taken,” said Constance, preoccupied, going to the mantelpiece.
“Why, I do believe—” Sophia began, and then stopped, glancing at the sewing-machine, which stood next to the sofa.
It was a Howe sewing-machine. It had a little tool-drawer, and in the tool-drawer was a small pair of pliers. Constance, engaged in sniffing at the lees of the potion in order to estimate its probable deadliness, heard the well-known click of the little tool-drawer, and then she saw Sophia nearing Mr Povey’s mouth with the pliers.
“Sophia!” she exclaimed, aghast. “What in the name of goodness are you doing?”
“Nothing,” said Sophia.
The next instant Mr Povey sprang out of his laudanum dream.
“It jumps!” he muttered; and, after a reflective pause, “but it’s much better.” He had at any rate escaped death.
Sophia’s right hand was behind her back.
Just then a hawker passed down King Street, crying mussels and cockles.
“Oh!” Sophia almost shrieked. “Do let’s have mussels and cockles for tea!” And she rushed to the door, and unlocked and opened it, regardless of the risk of draughts to Mr Povey.
In those days people often depended upon the caprices of hawkers for the tastiness of their teas; but it was an adventurous age, when errant knights of commerce were numerous and enterprising. You went on to your doorstep, caught your meal as it passed, withdrew, cooked it and ate it, quite in the manner of the early Briton.
Constance was obliged to join her sister on the top step. Sophia descended to the second step.
“Fresh mussels and cockles all alive, oh!” bawled the hawker, looking across the road in the April breeze. He was the celebrated Hollins, a professional Irish drunkard, aged in iniquity, who cheerfully saluted magistrates in the street, and referred to the workhouse, which he occasionally visited, as the Bastille.
Sophia was trembling from head to foot.
“What are you laughing at, you silly thing?” Constance demanded.
Sophia surreptitiously showed the pliers, which she had partly thrust into her pocket. Between their points was a most perceptible, and even recognizable, fragment of Mr Povey.
This was the crown of Sophia’s career as a perpetrator of the unutterable.
“What!” Constance’s face showed the final contortions of that horrified incredulity which is forced to believe.
Sophia nudged her violently to remind her that they were in the street, and also quite close to Mr Povey.
“Now, my little missies,” said the vile Hollins. “Threepence a pint, and how’s your honoured mother today? Yes, fresh, so help me God!”
CHAPTER II
THE TOOTH
I
The two girls came up the unlighted stone staircase which led from Maggie’s cave to the door of the parlour. Sophia, foremost, was carrying a large tray, and Constance a small one. Constance, who had nothing on her tray but a teapot, a bowl of steaming and balmy-scented mussels and cockles, and a plate of hot buttered toast, went directly into the parlour on the left. Sophia had in her arms the entire material and apparatus of a high tea for two including eggs, jam, and toast (covered with the slop-basin turned upside-down), but not including mussels and cockles. She turned to the right, passed along the corridor by the cutting-out room, up two steps into the sheeted and shuttered gloom of the closed shop, up the showroom stairs, through the showroom, and so into the bedroom corridor. Experience had proved it easier to make this long detour than to round the difficult corner of the parlour stairs with a large loaded tray. Sophia knocked with the edge of the tray at the door of the principal bedroom. The muffled oratorical sound from within suddenly ceased, and the door was opened by a very tall, very thin, black-bearded man, who looked down at Sophia as if to demand what she meant by such an interruption.
“I’ve brought the tea, Mr Critchlow,” said Sophia.
And Mr Critchlow carefully accepted the tray.
“Is that my little Sophia?” asked a faint voice from the depths of the bedroom.
“Yes, father,” said Sophia.
But she did not attempt to enter the room. Mr Critchlow put the tray on a white-clad chest of drawers near the door, and then he shut the door with no ceremony. Mr Critchlow was John Baines’s oldest and closest friend, though decidedly younger than the draper. He frequently “popped in” to have a word with the invalid; but Thursday afternoon was his special afternoon, consecrated by him to the service of the sick. From two o’clock precisely till eight o’clock precisely he took charge of John Baines, reigning autocratically over the bedroom. It was known that he would not tolerate invasions, nor even ambassadorial visits. No! He gave up his weekly holiday to this business of friendship, and he must be allowed to conduct the business in his own way. Mrs Baines herself avoided disturbing Mr Critchlow’s ministrations on her husband. She was glad to do so; for Mr Baines was never to be left alone under any circumstances, and the convenience of being able to rely upon the presence of a staid member of the Pharmaceutical Society for six hours of a given day every week outweighed the slight affront to her prerogatives as wife and house-mistress. Mr Critchlow was an extremely peculiar man, but when he was in the bedroom she could leave the house with an easy mind. Moreover, John Baines enjoyed these Thursday afternoons. For him, there was “none like Charles Critchlow.” The two old friends experienced a sort of grim, desiccated happiness, cooped up together in the bedroom, secure from women and fools generally. How they spent the time did not seem to be certainly known, but the impression was that politics occupied them. Undoubtedly Mr Critchlow was an extremely peculiar man. He was a man of habits. He must always have the same things for his tea. Black-currant jam, for instance. (He called it “preserve.”) The idea of offering Mr Critchlow a tea which did not comprise black-currant jam was inconceivable by the intelligence of St Luke’s Square. Thus for years past, in the fruit-preserving season, when all the house and all the shop smelt richly of fruit boiling in sugar, Mrs Baines had filled an extra number of jars with black-currant jam, “because Mr Critchlow wouldn’t touch any other sort.”
So Sophia, faced with the shut door of the bedroom, went down to the parlour by the shorter route. She knew that on going up again, after tea, she would find the devastated tray on the doormat.
Constance was helping Mr Povey to mussels and cockles. And Mr Povey still wore one of the antimacassars. It must have stuck to his shoulders when he sprang up from the sofa, woollen antimacassars being notoriously parasitic things. Sophia sat down, somewhat self-consciously. The serious Constance was also perturbed. Mr Povey did not usually take tea in the house on Thursday afternoons; his practice was to go out into the great, mysterious world. Never before had he shared a meal with the girls alone. The situation was indubitably unexpected, unforeseen; it was, too, piquant, and what added to its piquancy was the fact that Constance and Sophia were, somehow, responsible for Mr Povey. They felt that they were responsible for him. They had offered the practical sympathy of two intelligent and well-trained young women, born nurses by reason of their sex, and Mr Povey had accepted; he was now on their hands. Sophia’s monstrous, sly operation in Mr Povey’s mouth did not cause either of them much alarm, Constance having apparently recovered from the first shock of it. They had discussed it in the kitchen while preparing the teas. Constance’s extraordinarily severe and dictatorial tone in condemning it had led to a certain heat. But the success of the impudent wench justified it despite any irrefutable argument to the contrary. Mr Povey was better already, and he evidently remained in ignorance of his loss.
“Have some?” Constance asked of Sophia, with a large spoon hovering over the bowl of shells.
“Yes, please,” said Sophia, positively.
Constance well knew that she would have some, and had only asked from sheer nervousness.
“Pass your plate, then.”
Now when everybody was served with mussels,
cockles, tea, and toast, and Mr Povey had been persuaded to cut the crust off his toast, and Constance had, quite unnecessarily, warned Sophia against the deadly green stuff in the mussels, and Constance had further pointed out that the evenings were getting longer, and Mr Povey had agreed that they were, there remained nothing to say. An irksome silence fell on them all, and no one could lift it off. Tiny clashes of shell and crockery sounded with the terrible clearness of noises heard in the night. Each person avoided the eyes of the others. And both Constance and Sophia kept straightening their bodies at intervals, and expanding their chests, and then looking at their plates; occasionally a prim cough was discharged. It was a sad example of the difference between young women’s dreams of social brilliance and the reality of life. These girls got more and more girlish, until, from being women at the administering of laudanum, they sank back to about eight years of age—perfect children—at the tea-table.
The tension was snapped by Mr Povey. “My God!” he muttered, moved by a startling discovery to this impious and disgraceful oath (he, the pattern and exemplar—and in the presence of innocent girlhood, too!). “I’ve swallowed it!”
“Swallowed what, Mr Povey?” Constance inquired.
The tip of Mr Povey’s tongue made a careful voyage of inspection all round the right side of his mouth.
“Oh yes!” he said, as if solemnly accepting the inevitable. “I’ve swallowed it!”
Sophia’s face was now scarlet; she seemed to be looking for some place to hide it. Constance could not think of anything to say.
“That tooth has been loose for two years,” said Mr Povey, “and now I’ve swallowed it with a mussel.”
“Oh, Mr Povey!” Constance cried in confusion, and added, “There’s one good thing, it can’t hurt you any more now.”
The Old Wives' Tale Page 6
