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_ "If anybody thinks I'm going to stand the cold in this showroom
any longer, they're mistaken," said Sophia the next morning
loudly, and in her mother's hearing. And she went down into the
shop carrying bonnets.
She pretended to be angry, but she was not. She felt, on the
contrary, extremely joyous, and charitable to all the world.
Usually she would take pains to keep out of the shop; usually she
was preoccupied and stern. Hence her presence on the ground-floor,
and her demeanour, excited interest among the three young lady
assistants who sat sewing round the stove in the middle of the
shop, sheltered by the great pile of shirtings and linseys that
fronted the entrance.
Sophia shared Constance's corner. They had hot bricks under their
feet, and fine-knitted wraps on their shoulders. They would have
been more comfortable near the stove, but greatness has its
penalties. The weather was exceptionally severe. The windows were
thickly frosted over, so that Mr. Povey's art in dressing them was
quite wasted. And--rare phenomenon!--the doors of the shop were
shut. In the ordinary way they were not merely open, but hidden by
a display of 'cheap lines.' Mr. Povey, after consulting Mrs.
Baines, had decided to close them, foregoing the customary
display. Mr. Povey had also, in order to get a little warmth into
his limbs, personally assisted two casual labourers to scrape the
thick frozen snow off the pavement; and he wore his kid mittens.
All these things together proved better than the evidence of
barometers how the weather nipped.
Mr. Scales came about ten o'clock. Instead of going to Mr. Povey's
counter, he walked boldly to Constance's corner, and looked over
the boxes, smiling and saluting. Both the girls candidly delighted
in his visit. Both blushed; both laughed--without knowing why they
laughed. Mr. Scales said he was just departing and had slipped in
for a moment to thank all of them for their kindness of last
night--'or rather this morning.' The girls laughed again at this
witticism. Nothing could have been more simple than his speech.
Yet it appeared to them magically attractive. A customer entered,
a lady; one of the assistants rose from the neighbourhood of the
stove, but the daughters of the house ignored the customer; it was
part of the etiquette of the shop that customers, at any rate
chance customers, should not exist for the daughters of the house,
until an assistant had formally drawn attention to them. Otherwise
every one who wanted a pennyworth of tape would be expecting to be
served by Miss Baines, or Miss Sophia, if Miss Sophia were there.
Which would have been ridiculous.
Sophia, glancing sidelong, saw the assistant parleying with the
customer; and then the assistant came softly behind the counter
and approached the corner.
"Miss Constance, can you spare a minute?" the assistant 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."
"Saturdays, 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
assistants, with ears cocked, 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 passed her and hurried into the parlour where
she threw down her muff 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 attitude 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 Institution, 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. _
Read next: BOOK I MRS. BAINES: CHAPTER VI - ESCAPADE: PART I
Read previous: BOOK I MRS. BAINES: CHAPTER V - THE TRAVELLER: PART III
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