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_ The next morning, after a night varied by periods of wakefulness
not unpleasant, Sophia arose and, taking due precautions against
cold, went to the window. It was Saturday; she had left Paris on
the Thursday. She looked forth upon the Square, holding aside the
blind. She had expected, of course, to find that the Square had
shrunk in size; but nevertheless she was startled to see how small
it was. It seemed to her scarcely bigger than a courtyard. She
could remember a winter morning when from the window she had
watched the Square under virgin snow in the lamplight, and the
Square had been vast, and the first wayfarer, crossing it
diagonally and leaving behind him the irregular impress of his
feet, had appeared to travel for hours over an interminable white
waste before vanishing past Holl's shop in the direction of the
Town Hall. She chiefly recalled the Square under snow; cold
mornings, and the coldness of the oil-cloth at the window, and the
draught of cold air through the ill-fitting sash (it was put right
now)! These visions of herself seemed beautiful to her; her
childish existence seemed beautiful; the storms and tempests of
her girlhood seemed beautiful; even the great sterile expanse of
tedium when, after giving up a scholastic career, she had served
for two years in the shop--even this had a strange charm in her
memory.
And she thought that not for millions of pounds would she live her
life over again.
In its contents the Square had not surprisingly changed during the
immense, the terrifying interval that separated her from her
virginity. On the east side, several shops had been thrown into
one, and forced into a semblance of eternal unity by means of a
coat of stucco. And there was a fountain at the north end which
was new to her. No other constructional change! But the moral
change, the sad declension from the ancient proud spirit of the
Square--this was painfully depressing. Several establishments
lacked tenants, had obviously lacked tenants for a long time; 'To
let' notices hung in their stained and dirty upper windows, and
clung insecurely to their closed shutters. And on the sign-boards
of these establishments were names that Sophia did not know. The
character of most of the shops seemed to have worsened; they had
become pettifogging little holes, unkempt, shabby, poor; they had
no brightness, no feeling of vitality. And the floor of the Square
was littered with nondescript refuse. The whole scene, paltry,
confined, and dull, reached for her the extreme of provinciality.
It was what the French called, with a pregnant intonation, la
province. This--being said, there was nothing else to say.
Bursley, of course, was in the provinces; Bursley must, in the
nature of things, be typically provincial. But in her mind it had
always been differentiated from the common province; it had always
had an air, a distinction, and especially St. Luke's Square! That
illusion was now gone. Still, the alteration was not wholly in
herself; it was not wholly subjective. The Square really had
changed for the worse; it might not be smaller, but it had
deteriorated. As a centre of commerce it had assuredly approached
very near to death. On a Saturday morning thirty years ago it
would have been covered with linen-roofed stalls, and chattering
country-folk, and the stir of bargains. Now, Saturday morning was
like any other morning in the Square, and the glass-roof of St.
Luke's market in Wedgwood Street, which she could see from her
window, echoed to the sounds of noisy commerce. In that instance
business had simply moved a few yards to the east; but Sophia
knew, from hints in Constance's letters and in her talk, that
business in general had moved more than a few yards, it had moved
a couple of miles--to arrogant and pushing Hanbridge, with its
electric light and its theatres and its big, advertising shops.
The heaven of thick smoke over the Square, the black deposit on
painted woodwork, the intermittent hooting of steam syrens, showed
that the wholesale trade of Bursley still flourished. But Sophia
had no memories of the wholesale trade of Bursley; it meant
nothing to the youth of her heart; she was attached by intimate
links to the retail traffic of Bursley, and as a mart old Bursley
was done for.
She thought: "It would kill me if I had to live here. It's
deadening. It weighs on you. And the dirt, and the horrible
ugliness! And the--way they talk, and the way they think! I felt
it first at Knype station. The Square is rather picturesque, but
it's such a poor, poor little thing! Fancy having to look at it
every morning of one's life! No!" She almost shuddered.
For the time being she had no home. To Constance she was 'paying a
visit.'
Constance did not appear to realize the awful conditions of dirt,
decay, and provinciality in which she was living. Even Constance's
house was extremely inconvenient, dark, and no doubt unhealthy.
Cellar-kitchen, no hall, abominable stairs, and as to hygiene,
simply mediaeval. She could not understand why Constance had
remained in the house. Constance had plenty of money and might
live where she liked, and in a good modern house. Yet she stayed
in the Square. "I daresay she's got used to it," Sophia thought
leniently. "I daresay I should be just the same in her place." But
she did not really think so, and she could not understand
Constance's state of mind.
Certainly she could not claim to have 'added up' Constance yet.
She considered that her sister was in some respects utterly
provincial--what they used to call in the Five Towns a 'body.'
Somewhat too diffident, not assertive enough, not erect enough;
with curious provincial pronunciations, accents, gestures,
mannerisms, and inarticulate ejaculations; with a curious
narrowness of outlook! But at the same time Constance was very
shrewd, and she was often proving by some bit of a remark that she
knew what was what, despite her provinciality. In judgments upon
human nature they undoubtedly thought alike, and there was a
strong natural general sympathy between them. And at the bottom of
Constance was something fine. At intervals Sophia discovered
herself secretly patronizing Constance, but reflection would
always cause her to cease from patronage and to examine her own
defences. Constance, besides being the essence of kindness, was no
fool. Constance could see through a pretence, an absurdity, as
quickly as any one. Constance did honestly appear to Sophia to be
superior to any Frenchwoman that she had ever encountered. She saw
supreme in Constance that quality which she had recognized in the
porters at Newhaven on landing--the quality of an honest and naive
goodwill, of powerful simplicity. That quality presented itself to
her as the greatest in the world, and it seemed to be in the very
air of England. She could even detect it in Mr. Critchlow, whom,
for the rest, she liked, admiring the brutal force of his
character. She pardoned his brutality to his wife. She found it
proper. "After all," she said, "supposing he hadn't married her,
what would she have been? Nothing but a slave! She's infinitely
better off as his wife. In fact she's lucky. And it would be
absurd for him to treat her otherwise than he does treat her."
(Sophia did not divine that her masterful Critchlow had once
wanted Maria as one might want a star.)
But to be always with such people! To be always with Constance! To
be always in the Bursley atmosphere, physical and mental!
She pictured Paris as it would be on that very morning--bright,
clean, glittering; the neatness of the Rue Lord Byron, and the
magnificent slanting splendour of the Champs Elysees. Paris had
always seemed beautiful to her; but the life of Paris had not
seemed beautiful to her. Yet now it did seem beautiful. She could
delve down into the earlier years of her ownership of the Pension,
and see a regular, placid beauty in her daily life there. Her life
there, even so late as a fortnight ago, seemed beautiful; sad, but
beautiful. It had passed into history. She sighed when she thought
of the innumerable interviews with Mardon, the endless formalities
required by the English and the French law and by the
particularity of the Syndicate. She had been through all that. She
had actually been through it and it was over. She had bought the
Pension for a song and sold it for great riches. She had developed
from a nobody into the desired of Syndicates. And after long,
long, monotonous, strenuous years of possession the day had come,
the emotional moment had come, when she had yielded up the keys of
ownership to Mr. Mardon and a man from the Hotel Moscow, and had
paid her servants for the last time and signed the last receipted
bill. The men had been very gallant, and had requested her to stay
in the Pension as their guest until she was ready to leave Paris.
But she had declined that. She could not have borne to remain in
the Pension under the reign of another. She had left at once and
gone to a hotel with her few goods while finally disposing of
certain financial questions. And one evening Jacqueline had come
to see her, and had wept.
Her exit from the Pension Frensham struck her now as poignantly
pathetic, in its quickness and its absence of ceremonial. Ten
steps, and her career was finished, closed. Astonishing with what
liquid tenderness she turned and looked back on that hard,
fighting, exhausting life in Paris! For, even if she had
unconsciously liked it, she had never enjoyed it. She had always
compared France disadvantageously with England, always resented
the French temperament in business, always been convinced that
'you never knew where you were' with French tradespeople. And now
they flitted before her endowed with a wondrous charm; so polite
in their lying, so eager to spare your feelings and to reassure
you, so neat and prim. And the French shops, so exquisitely
arranged! Even a butcher's shop in Paris was a pleasure to the
eye, whereas the butcher's shop in Wedgwood Street, which she
remembered of old, and which she had glimpsed from the cab--what a
bloody shambles! She longed for Paris again. She longed to stretch
her lungs in Paris. These people in Bursley did not suspect what
Paris was. They did not appreciate and they never would appreciate
the marvels that she had accomplished in a theatre of marvels.
They probably never realized that the whole of the rest of the
world was not more or less like Bursley. They had no curiosity.
Even Constance was a thousand times more interested in relating
trifles of Bursley gossip than in listening to details of life in
Paris. Occasionally she had expressed a mild, vapid surprise at
things told to her by Sophia; but she was not really impressed,
because her curiosity did not extend beyond Bursley. She, like the
rest, had the formidable, thrice-callous egotism of the provinces.
And if Sophia had informed her that the heads of Parisians grew
out of their navels she would have murmured: "Well, well! Bless
us! I never heard of such things! Mrs. Brindley's second boy has
got his head quite crooked, poor little fellow!"
Why should Sophia feel sorrowful? She did not know. She was free;
free to go where she liked and do what she liked, She had no
responsibilities, no cares. The thought of her husband had long
ago ceased to rouse in her any feeling of any kind. She was rich.
Mr. Critchlow had accumulated for her about as much money as she
had herself acquired. Never could she spend her income! She did
not know how to spend it. She lacked nothing that was procurable.
She had no desires except the direct desire for happiness. If
thirty thousand pounds or so could have bought a son like Cyril,
she would have bought one for herself. She bitterly regretted that
she had no child. In this, she envied Constance. A child seemed to
be the one commodity worth having. She was too free, too exempt
from responsibilities. In spite of Constance she was alone in the
world. The strangeness of the hazards of life overwhelmed her.
Here she was at fifty, alone.
But the idea of leaving Constance, having once rejoined her, did
not please Sophia. It disquieted her. She could not see herself
living away from Constance. She was alone--but Constance was
there.
She was downstairs first, and she had a little conversation with
Amy. And she stood on the step of the front-door while Fossette
made a preliminary inspection of Spot's gutter. She found the air
nipping.
Constance, when she descended, saw stretching across one side of
the breakfast-table an umbrella, Sophia's present to her from
Paris. It was an umbrella such that a better could not be bought.
It would have impressed even Aunt Harriet. The handle was of gold,
set with a circlet of opalines. The tips of the ribs were also of
gold. It was this detail which staggered Constance. Frankly, this
development of luxury had been unknown and unsuspected in the
Square. That the tips of the ribs should match the handle ... that
did truly beat everything! Sophia said calmly that the device was
quite common. But she did not conceal that the umbrella was
strictly of the highest class and that it might be shown to queens
without shame. She intimated that the frame (a 'Fox's Paragon'),
handle, and tips, would outlast many silks. Constance was childish
with pleasure.
They decided to go out marketing together. The unspoken thought in
their minds was that as Sophia would have to be introduced to the
town sooner or later, it might as well be sooner. Constance looked
at the sky. "It can't possibly rain," she said. "I shall take my
umbrella." _
Read next: BOOK IV WHAT LIFE IS: CHAPTER III TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE: PART I
Read previous: BOOK IV WHAT LIFE IS: CHAPTER II THE MEETING: PART II
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