The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories Part 38

"Possibly a few things are changed," said Herbert. "But you know when a woman takes into her head--"

"Ay, lad! Ay, lad! I know! It was th' same wi' my beard. It had for go.

Thou'st under the domination of a woman, and I can sympathize wi' thee."

Herbert gave a long, high whistle.

"So that's it?" he exclaimed. And he suddenly felt as if his uncle was no longer an uncle but a brother.

"Yes," said Silas. "That's it. I'll tell thee. Pour some more hot water in here. Dost remember when th' Carl Rosa Opera Company was at Theatre Royal last year? I met her then. Her was one o' Venus's maidens i' th'

fust act o' _Tannhauser_, and her was a bridesmaid i' _Lohengrin_, and Siebel i' _Faust_, and a cigarette girl i' summat else. But it was in _Tannhauser_ as I fust saw her on the stage, and her struck me like that." Silas clapped one damp hand violently on the other. "Miss Elsa Venda was her stage name, but her was a widow, Mrs Parfitt, and had bin for ten years. Seemingly her husband was of good family. Finest woman I ever seed, nephew. And you'll say so. Her'd ha' bin a prima donna only for jealousy. Fust time I spoke to her I thought I should ha' fallen down. Steady with that water. Dost want for skin me alive? Yes, I thought I should ha' fallen down. They call'n it love. You can call it what ye'n a mind for call it. I nearly fell down."

"How did you meet her, uncle?" Herbert interposed, aware that his uncle had not been accustomed to move in theatrical circles.

"How did I meet her? I met her by setting about to meet her. I had for t' meet her. I got Harry Burisford, th' manager o' th' theatre thou knowst, for t' introduce us. Then I give a supper, nephew--I give a supper at Turk's Head, but private like."

"Was that the time when you were supposed to be at the Ratepayers'

a.s.sociation every night?" Herbert asked blandly.

"It was, nephew," said Si, with equal blandness.

"Then no doubt those two visits to Manchester, afterwards--"

"Exactly," said Si. "Th' company went to Manchester and stopped there a fortnight. I told her fair and square what I meant and what I was worth.

There was no beating about the bush wi' me. All her friends told her she'd be a fool if she wouldn't have me. She said her'd write me yes or no. Her didn't. Her telegraphed me from Sunderland for go and see her at once. It was that morning as I left. I thought to be back in a couple o'

days and to tell thee as all was settled. But women! Women! Her had me dangling after her from town to town for a week. I was determined to get her, and get her I did, though it cost me my beard, and the best part o'

that four hundred. I married her i' Halifax, lad, and it were the best day's work I ever did. You never seed such a woman. Big and plump--and sing! By----! I never cared for singing afore. And her knows the world, let me tell ye."

"You might have sent us word," said Herbert.

Silas grew reflective. "Ah!" he said. "I might--and I mightn't. I didn't want Hanbridge chattering. I was trapesing wi' her from town to town till her engagement was up--pretty near six months. Then us settled i'

rooms at Scarborough, and there was other things to think of. I couldn't leave her. Her wouldna' let me. To-day was the fust free day I've had, and so I run down to fix matters. And nice weather I've chosen! Her aunt's spending the night wi' her."

"Then she's left the stage."

"Of course she's left th' stage. What 'ud be th' sense o' her painting her face and screeching her chest out night after night for a crowd o'

blockheads, when I can keep her like a lady. Dost think her's a fool?

Her's the only woman wi' any sense as ever I met in all my life."

"And you want to come here and live?"

"No, us dunna! At least her dunna. Her says her hates th' Five Towns.

Her says Hanbridge is dirty and too religious for her. Says its nowt but chapels and public-houses and pot-banks. So her ladys.h.i.+p wunna' come here. No, nephew, thou shalt buy this house for six hundred, and be d--d to thy foreclosure! And th' furniture for a hundred. It's a dead bargain. Us'll settle at Scarborough, Liz and me. Now this water's getting chilly. I'll nip up to thy room and find some other clothes."

"You can't go up just now," said Herbert.

"But I mun go at once, nephew. Th' water's chilly, and I've had enough on it."

"The fact is we're using my old bedroom for a sort of a nursery, and Alice and Jane Sarah are just giving the baby its bath."

"Babby!" cried Silas. "Shake hands, nephew. Give us thy fist. I may as well out wi' it. I've gotten one mysen. Pour some more hot water in here, then."

THE TIGHT HAND

I

The tight hand was Mrs Garlick's. A miser, she was not the ordinary miser, being exceptional in the fact that her temperament was joyous.

She had reached the thirtieth year of her widowhood and the sixtieth of her age, with cheerfulness unimpaired. The people of Bursley, when they met her sometimes of a morning coming down into the town from her singular house up at Toft End, would be conscious of pleasure in her brisk gait, her slightly malicious but broad-minded smile, and her cheerful greeting. She was always in black. She always wore one of those nodding black bonnets which possess neither back nor front, nor any clue of any kind to their ancient mystery. She always wore a mantle which hid her waist and spread forth in curves over her hips; and as her skirts stuck stiffly out, she thus had the appearance of one who had been to sleep since 1870, and who had got up, thoroughly refreshed and bright, into the costume of her original period. She always carried a reticule.

It was known that she suffered from dyspepsia, and this gave real value to her reputation for cheerfulness.

Her nearness, closeness, stinginess, close-fistedness--as the quality was variously called--was excused to her, partly because it had been at first caused by a genuine need of severe economy (she having been "left poorly off" by a husband who had lived "in a large way"), partly because it inconvenienced n.o.body save perhaps her servant Maria, and partly because it was so picturesque and afforded much excellent material for gossip. Mrs Garlick's latest feat of stinginess was invariably a safe card to play in the conversational game. Each successive feat was regarded as funnier than the one before it.

Maria, who had a terrific respect for appearances, never disclosed her mistress's peculiarities. It was Mrs Garlick herself who humorously ventilated and discussed them; Mrs Garlick, being a philosopher, got quite as much amus.e.m.e.nt as anyone out of her most striking quality.

"Is there anything interesting in the _Signal_ to-night?" she had innocently asked one of her sons.

"No," said Sam Garlick, unthinkingly.

"Well, then," said she, "suppose I turn out the gas and we talk in the dark?"

Soon afterwards Sam Garlick married; his mother remarked drily that she was not surprised.

It was supposed that this feat of turning out the gas when the _Signal_ happened to fail in interest would remain unparalleled in the annals of Five Towns skin-flintry. But in the summer after her son's marriage, Mrs Garlick was discovered in the evening habit of pacing slowly up and down Toft Lane. She said that she hated sitting in the dark alone, that Maria would not have her in the kitchen, and that she saw no objection to making harmless use of the Corporation gas by strolling to and fro under the Corporation gas-lamps on fine nights. Compared to this feat the previous feat was as naught. It made Mrs Garlick celebrated even as far as Longshaw. It made the entire community proud of such an inventive miser.

Once Mrs Garlick, before what she called her dinner, asked Maria, "Will there be enough mutton for to-morrow?" And Maria had gloomily and firmly said, "No." "Will there be enough if I don't have any to-day?" pursued Mrs Garlick. And Maria had said, "Yes." "I won't have any then," said Mrs Garlick. Maria was offended; there are some things that a servant will not stand. She informed Mrs Garlick that if Mrs Garlick meant "to go on going on like that" she should leave; she wouldn't stay in such a house. In vain Mrs Garlick protested that the less she ate the better she felt; in vain she referred to her notorious indigestion. "Either you eats your dinner, mum, or out I clears!" Mrs Garlick offered her a rise of 1 a year to stay. She was already, because she would stop and most servants wouldn't, receiving 18, a high wage. She refused the increment. Pushed by her pa.s.sion for economy in mutton, Mrs Garlick then offered her a rise of 2 a year. Maria accepted, and Mrs Garlick went without mutton. Persons unacquainted with the psychology of parsimoniousness may hesitate to credit this incident. But more advanced students of humanity will believe it without difficulty. In the Five Towns it is known to be true.

II

The supreme crisis, to which the foregoing is a mere prelude, in the affairs of Mrs Garlick and Maria, was occasioned by the extraordinary performances of the Mayor of Bursley. This particular mayor was invested with the chain almost immediately upon the conclusion of a great series of revival services in which he had conspicuously figured. He had an earthenware manufactory half-way up the hill between Bursley and its loftiest suburb, Toft End, and the smoke of his chimneys and kilns was generally blown by a favourable wind against the windows of Mrs Garlick's house, which stood by itself. Mrs Garlick made nothing of this. In the Five Towns they think no more of smoke than the world at large used to think of small-pox. The smoke plague is exactly as curable as the small-pox plague. It continues to flourish, not because smokiness is cheaper than cleanliness--it is dearer--but because a greater nuisance than smoke is the nuisance of a change, and because human nature in general is rather like Mrs Garlick: its notion of economy is to pay heavily for the privilege of depriving itself of something--mutton or cleanliness.

However, this mayor was different. He had emerged from the revival services with a very tender conscience, and in a.s.suming the chain of office he a.s.sumed the duty of setting an example. It was to be no excuse to him that in spite of bye-laws ten thousand other chimneys and kilns were breathing out black filth all over the Five Towns. So far as he could cure it the smoke nuisance had to be cured, or his conscience would know the reason why! So he sat on the borough bench and fined himself for his own smoke, and then he installed gas ovens. The town laughed, of course, and spoke of him alternately as a rash fool, a hypocrite, and a mere pompous a.s.s. In a few months smoke had practically ceased to ascend from the mayoral manufactory. The financial result to the mayor was such as to encourage the tenderness of consciences. But that is not the point. The point is that Mrs Garlick, re-entering her house one autumn morning after a visit to the market, paused to look at the windows, and then said to Maria:

"Maria, what have you to do this afternoon?"

Now Mrs Garlick well knew what Maria had to do.

"I'm going to change the curtains, mum."

"Well, you needn't," said Mrs Garlick. "It's made such a difference up here, there being so much less smoke, that upon my word the curtains will do another three months quite well!"

"Well, mum, I never did!" observed Maria, meaning that so shocking a proposal was unprecedented in her experience. Yet she was thirty-five.

"Quite well!" said Mrs Garlick, gaily.