The Old Wives' Tale Part 18

"Miss Constance, can you spare a minute?" the a.s.sistant whispered discreetly.

Constance extinguished her smile for Mr. Scales, and, turning away, lighted an entirely different and inferior smile for the customer.

"Good morning, Miss Baines. Very cold, isn't it?"

"Good morning, Mrs. Chatterley. Yes, it is. I suppose you're getting anxious about those--" Constance stopped.

Sophia was now alone with Mr. Scales, for in order to discuss the unnameable freely with Mrs. Chatterley her sister was edging up the counter. Sophia had dreamed of a private conversation as something delicious and impossible. But chance had favoured her. She was alone with him. And his neat fair hair and his blue eyes and his delicate mouth were as wonderful to her as ever. He was gentlemanly to a degree that impressed her more than anything had impressed her in her life.

And all the proud and aristocratic instinct that was at the base of her character sprang up and seized on his gentlemanliness like a famished animal seizing on food.

"The last time I saw you," said Mr. Scales, in a new tone, "you said you were never in the shop."

"What? Yesterday? Did I?"

"No, I mean the last time I saw you alone," said he.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "It's just an accident."

"That's exactly what you said last time."

"Is it?"

Was it his manner, or what he said, that flattered her, that intensified her beautiful vivacity?

"I suppose you don't often go out?" he went on.

"What? In this weather?"

"Any time."

"I go to chapel," said she, "and marketing with mother." There was a little pause. "And to the Free Library."

"Oh yes. You've got a Free Library here now, haven't you?"

"Yes. We've had it over a year."

"And you belong to it? What do you read?"

"Oh, stories, you know. I get a fresh book out once a week."

"Sat.u.r.days, I suppose?"

"No," she said. "Wednesdays." And she smiled. "Usually."

"It's Wednesday to-day," said he. "Not been already?"

She shook her head. "I don't think I shall go to-day. It's too cold. I don't think I shall venture out to-day."

"You must be very fond of reading," said he.

Then Mr. Povey appeared, rubbing his mittened hands. And Mrs.

Chatterley went.

"I'll run and fetch mother," said Constance.

Mrs. Baines was very polite to the young man. He related his interview with the police, whose opinion was that he had been attacked by stray members of a gang from Hanbridge. The young lady a.s.sistants, with ears c.o.c.ked, gathered the nature of Mr. Scales's adventure, and were thrilled to the point of questioning Mr. Povey about it after Mr.

Scales had gone. His farewell was marked by much handshaking, and finally Mr. Povey ran after him into the Square to mention something about dogs.

At half-past one, while Mrs. Baines was dozing after dinner, Sophia wrapped herself up, and with a book under her arm went forth into the world, through the shop. She returned in less than twenty minutes. But her mother had already awakened, and was hovering about the back of the shop. Mothers have supernatural gifts.

Sophia nonchalantly pa.s.sed her and hurried into the parlour where she threw down her m.u.f.f and a book and knelt before the fire to warm herself.

Mrs. Baines followed her. "Been to the Library?" questioned Mrs. Baines.

"Yes, mother. And it's simply perishing."

"I wonder at your going on a day like to-day. I thought you always went on Thursdays?"

"So I do. But I'd finished my book."

"What is this?" Mrs. Baines picked up the volume, which was covered with black oil-cloth.

She picked it up with a hostile air. For her att.i.tude towards the Free Library was obscurely inimical. She never read anything herself except The Sunday at Home, and Constance never read anything except The Sunday at Home. There were scriptural commentaries, Dugdale's Gazetteer, Culpepper's Herbal, and works by Bunyan and Flavius Josephus in the drawing-room bookcase; also Uncle Tom's Cabin. And Mrs. Baines, in considering the welfare of her daughters, looked askance at the whole remainder of printed literature. If the Free Library had not formed part of the Famous Wedgwood Inst.i.tution, which had been opened with immense eclat by the semi-divine Gladstone; if the first book had not been ceremoniously 'taken out' of the Free Library by the Chief Bailiff in person--a grandfather of stainless renown--Mrs. Baines would probably have risked her authority in forbidding the Free Library.

"You needn't be afraid," said Sophia, laughing. "It's Miss Sewell's Experience of Life."

"A novel, I see," observed Mrs. Baines, dropping the book.

Gold and jewels would probably not tempt a Sophia of these days to read Experience of Life; but to Sophia Baines the bland story had the piquancy of the disapproved.

The next day Mrs. Baines summoned Sophia into her bedroom.

"Sophia," said she, trembling, "I shall be glad if you will not walk about the streets with young men until you have my permission."

The girl blushed violently. "I--I--"

"You were seen in Wedgwood Street," said Mrs. Baines.

"Who's been gossiping--Mr. Critchlow, I suppose?" Sophia exclaimed scornfully.

"No one has been 'gossiping,'" said Mrs. Baines. "Well, if I meet some one by accident in the street I can't help it, can I?" Sophia's voice shook.

"You know what I mean, my child," said Mrs. Baines, with careful calm.

Sophia dashed angrily from the room.

"I like the idea of him having 'a heavy day'!" Mrs. Baines reflected ironically, recalling a phrase which had lodged in her mind. And very vaguely, with an uneasiness scarcely perceptible, she remembered that 'he,' and no other, had been in the shop on the day her husband died.