The Grim Smile of the Five Towns Part 21

'And what be the news?' Toby inquired, with what pa.s.ses in the Five Towns for geniality.

'News?' she repeated, as if not immediately grasping the significance of the question. 'I don't know as there's any news, nothing partic'ler, that is.'

Hung on the wall near the chimney-piece was a photograph of a girl. It was an excellent likeness to Priscilla, as she was in Toby's pre-Trenton days. How young and fresh the creature looked; so simple, so inexperienced! It startled Toby.

'I don't remember that,' he said.

'What?'

'That!' And he jerked his elbow towards the photograph.

'Oh! THAT! That's my daughter,' said Priscilla.

'Bless us!' said Toby in turn.

'I married Job Tansley,' Priscilla continued. 'He died four years ago last Knype Wakes Monday. HER'S married'--indicating the photograph--'her married young Gibson last September.'

'Well, well!' murmured Toby.

Another pause.

There was a shuffling on the pavement outside, and some children began to sing about shepherds and flocks.

'Oh, bother them childer,' said Priscilla. 'I must send 'em off.'

She got up.

'Here! Give 'em a penny,' Toby suggested, holding out a penny.

'Yes, and then they'll tell others, and I shan't have a moment's peace all night!' Priscilla grumbled.

However, she bestowed the penny, cutting the song off abruptly in the middle. And she bolted and chained the door and sat down again.

Another pause.

'Well, well!' said Priscilla.

'Aye!' Toby agreed. 'Good coal that!'

'Fourteen shilling a ton!'

Another pause, and a longer.

'Is Ned Walklate still at th' Rose and Crown?' Toby asked.

'For aught I know he is,' said Priscilla.

'I'll just step round there,' said Toby, picking up his hat and rising.

As he was manoeuvring the door-chain, Priscilla said--

'You're forgetting your umbrella, Tobias.'

'No,' he answered. 'I hanna' forgotten it. I'm coming back.'

Their eyes met, charged with meaning.

'That'll be all right,' she said. 'Well, well!'

'Aye!'

And he stepped round to Ned Walklate's.

FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER

I

It is the greatest mistake in the world to imagine that, because the Five Towns is an industrial district, devoted to the manufacture of cups and saucers, marbles and door-k.n.o.bs, therefore there is no luxury in it.

A writer, not yet deceased, who spent two nights there, and wrote four hundred pages about it, has committed herself to the a.s.sertion that there are no private carriages in its streets--only perambulators and tramcars.

That writer's reputation is ruined in the Five Towns. For the Five Towns, although continually complaining of bad times, is immensely wealthy, as well as immensely poor--a country of contrasts, indeed--and private carriages, if they do not abound, exist at any rate in sufficient numbers.

Nay, more, automobiles of the most expensive French and English makes fly dashingly along its hilly roads and scatter in profusion the rich black mud thereof.

On a Sat.u.r.day afternoon in last spring, such an automobile stood outside the garden entrance of Bleakridge House, just halfway between Hanbridge and Bursley. It belonged to young Harold Etches, of Etches, Limited, the great porcelain manufacturers.

It was a 20 h.p. Panhard, and was worth over a thousand pounds as it stood there, throbbing, and Harold was proud of it.

He was also proud of his young wife, Maud, who, clad in several hundred pounds' worth of furs, had taken her seat next to the steering-wheel, and was waiting for Harold to mount by her side. The united ages of this handsome and gay couple came to less than forty-five.

And they owned the motor-car, and Bleakridge House with its ten bedrooms, and another house at Llandudno, and a controlling interest in Etches, Limited, that brought them in seven or eight thousand a year.

They were a pretty tidy example of what the Five Towns can do when it tries to be wealthy.

At that moment, when Harold was climbing into the car, a shabby old man who was walking down the road, followed by a boy carrying a carpet-bag, stopped suddenly and touched Harold on the shoulder.

'Bless us!' exclaimed the old man. And the boy and the carpet-bag halted behind him.

'What? Uncle Dan?' said Harold.

'Uncle Dan!' cried Maud, springing up with an enchanting smile. 'Why, it's ages since--'

'And what d'ye reckon ye'n gotten here?' demanded the old man.

'It's my new car,' Harold explained.