老妇人的故事 英文版The Old Wives' Tale
阿诺德.本涅特 Arnold Bennett
I
One night--it was late in the afternoon of the same year, aboutsix months after the tragedy of the florin--Samuel Povey waswakened up by a hand on his shoulder and a voice that whispered:"Father!"
The thief and the liar was standing in his night-shirt by the bed.Samuel's sleepy eyes could just descry him in the thick gloom.
"What--what?" questioned the father, gradually coming toconsciousness. "What are you doing there?"
"I didn't want to wake mother up," the boy whispered. "There'ssomeone been throwing dirt or something at our windows, and hasbeen for a long time."
"Eh, what?"
Samuel stared at the dim form of the thief and liar. The boy wastall, not in the least like a little boy; and yet, then, he seemedto his father as quite a little boy, a little 'thing' in a night-shirt, with childish gestures and childish inflections, and achildish, delicious, quaint anxiety not to disturb his mother, whohad lately been deprived of sleep owing to an illness of Amy'swhich had demanded nursing. His father had not so perceived himfor years. In that instant the conviction that Cyril waspermanently unfit for human society finally expired in thefather's mind. Time had already weakened it very considerably. Thedecision that, be Cyril what he might, the summer holiday must betaken as usual, had dealt it a fearful blow. And yet, thoughSamuel and Constance had grown so accustomed to the companionshipof a criminal that they frequently lost memory of his guilt forlong periods, nevertheless the convention of his leprosy had moreor less persisted with Samuel until that moment: when it vanishedwith strange suddenness, to Samuel's conscious relief.
There was a rain of pellets on the window.
"Hear that?" demanded Cyril, whispering dramatically. "And it'sbeen like that on my window too."
Samuel arose. "Go back to your room!" he ordered in the samedramatic whisper; but not as father to son--rather as conspiratorto conspirator.
Constance slept. They could hear her regular breathing.
Barefooted, the elderly gowned figure followed the younger, andone after the other they creaked down the two steps whichseparated Cyril's room from his parents'.
"Shut the door quietly!" said Samuel.
Cyril obeyed.
And then, having lighted Cyril's gas, Samuel drew the blind,unfastened the catch of the window, and began to open it with manyprecautions of silence. All the sashes in that house weredifficult to manage. Cyril stood close to his father, shiveringwithout knowing that he shivered, astonished only that his fatherhad not told him to get back into bed at once. It was, beyonddoubt, the proudest hour of Cyril's career. In addition to themysterious circumstances of the night, there was in the situationthat thrill which always communicates itself to a father and sonwhen they are afoot together upon an enterprise unsuspected by thewoman from whom their lives have no secrets.
Samuel put his head out of the window.
A man was standing there.
"That you, Samuel?" The voice came low.
"Yes," replied Samuel, cautiously. "It's not Cousin Daniel, isit?"
"I want ye," said Daniel Povey, curtly.
Samuel paused. "I'll be down in a minute," he said.
Cyril at length received the command to get back into bed at once.
"Whatever's up, father?" he asked joyously.
"I don't know. I must put some things on and go and see."
He shut down the window on all the breezes that were pouring intothe room.
"Now quick, before I turn the gas out!" he admonished, his hand onthe gas-tap.
"You'll tell me in the morning, won't you, father?"
"Yes," said Mr. Povey, conquering his habitual impulse to say'No.'
He crept back to the large bedroom to grope for clothes.
When, having descended to the parlour and lighted the gas there,he opened the side-door, expecting to let Cousin Daniel in, therewas no sign of Cousin Daniel. Presently he saw a figure standingat the corner of the Square. He whistled--Samuel had a singularfaculty of whistling, the envy of his son--and Daniel beckoned tohim. He nearly extinguished the gas and then ran out, hatless. Hewas wearing most of his clothes, except his linen collar andnecktie, and the collar of his coat was turned up.
Daniel advanced before him, without waiting, into theconfectioner's shop opposite. Being part of the most modernbuilding in the Square, Daniel's shop was provided with the newroll-down iron shutter, by means of which you closed yourestablishment with a motion similar to the winding of a largeclock, instead of putting up twenty separate shutters one by oneas in the sixteenth century. The little portal in the vast sheetof armour was ajar, and Daniel had passed into the gloom beyond.At the same moment a policeman came along on his beat, cutting offMr. Povey from Daniel.
"Good-night, officer! Brrr!" said Mr. Povey, gathering his dignityabout him and holding himself as though it was part of his normalhabit to take exercise bareheaded and collarless in St. Luke'sSquare on cold November nights. He behaved so because, if Danielhad desired the services of a policeman, Daniel would of coursehave spoken to this one.
"Goo' night, sir," said the policeman, after recognizing him.
"What time is it?" asked Samuel, bold.
"A quarter-past one, sir."
The policeman, leaving Samuel at the little open door, wentforward across the lamplit Square, and Samuel entered his cousin'sshop.
Daniel Povey was standing behind the door, and as Samuel came inhe shut the door with a startling sudden movement. Save for thetwinkle of gas, the shop was in darkness. It had the emptyappearance which a well-managed confectioner's and baker's alwayshas at night. The large brass scales near the flour-bins glinted;and the glass cake-stands, with scarce a tart among them, alsocaught the faint flare of the gas.
"What's the matter, Daniel? Anything wrong?" Samuel asked, feelingboyish as he usually did in the presence of Daniel.
that on my window too." said Samuel, in amatter.
The well-favoured white-haired man seized him with one hand by theshoulder in a grip that convicted Samuel of frailty.
"Look here, Sam'l," said he in his low, pleasant voice, somewhataltered by excitement. "You know as my wife drinks?"
He stared defiantly at Samuel.
"N--no," said Samuel. "That is--no one's ever SAID---"
This was true. He did not know that Mrs. Daniel Povey, at the ageof fifty, had definitely taken to drink. There had been rumoursthat she enjoyed a glass with too much gusto; but 'drinks' meantmore than that.
"She drinks," Daniel Povey continued. "And has done this last twoyear!"
"I'm very sorry to hear it," said Samuel, tremendously shocked bythis brutal rending of the cloak of decency.
Always, everybody had feigned to Daniel, and Daniel had feigned toeverybody, that his wife was as other wives. And now the manhimself had torn to pieces in a moment the veil of thirty years'weaving.
"And if that was the worst!" Daniel murmured reflectively,loosening his grip.
Samuel was excessively disturbed. His cousin was hinting atmatters which he himself, at any rate, had never hinted at even toConstance, so abhorrent were they; matters unutterable, which hunglike clouds in the social atmosphere of the town, and of which atrare intervals one conveyed one's cognizance, not by words, but bysomething scarce perceptible in a glance, an accent. Not often isa town such as Bursley starred with such a woman as Mrs. DanielPovey.
"But what's wrong?" Samuel asked, trying to be firm.
And, "What is wrong?" he asked himself. "What does all this mean,at after one o'clock in the morning?"
"Look here, Sam'l," Daniel recommenced, seizing his shoulderagain. "I went to Liverpool corn market to-day, and missed thelast train, so I came by mail from Crewe. And what do I find? Ifind Dick sitting on the stairs in the dark pretty high naked."
"Sitting on the stairs? Dick?"
"Ay! This is what I come home to!"
"But--"
"Hold on! He's been in bed a couple of days with a feverish cold,caught through lying in damp sheets as his mother had forgot toair. She brings him no supper to-night. He calls out. No answer.Then he gets up to go down-stairs and see what's happened, and heslips on th' stairs and breaks his knee, or puts it out or summat.Sat there hours, seemingly! Couldn't walk neither up nor down."
"And was your--wife--was Mrs.-?"
"Dead drunk in the parlour, Sam'l."
"But the servant?"
"Servant!" Daniel Povey laughed. "We can't keep our servants. Theywon't stay. YOU know that."
He did. Mrs. Daniel Povey's domestic methods and idiosyncrasiescould at any rate be freely discussed, and they were.
"And what have you done?"
"Done? Why, I picked him up in my arms and carried him upstairsagain. And a fine job I had too! Here! Come here!"
Daniel strode impulsively across the shop--the counterflap was up--and opened a door at the back. Samuel followed. Never before hadhe penetrated so far into his cousin's secrets. On the left,within the doorway, were the stairs, dark; on the right a shutdoor; and in front an open door giving on to a yard. At theextremity of the yard he discerned a building, vaguely lit, andnaked figures strangely moving in it.
"What's that? Who's there?" he asked sharply.
"That's the bakehouse," Daniel replied, as if surprised at such aquestion. "It's one of their long nights."
Never, during the brief remainder of his life, did Samuel eat amouthful of common bread without recalling that midnightapparition. He had lived for half a century, and thoughtlesslyeaten bread as though loaves grew ready-made on trees.
"Listen!" Daniel commanded him.
He cocked his ear, and caught a feeble, complaining wail from anupper floor.
"That's Dick! That is!" said Daniel Povey.
It sounded more like the distress of a child than of anadventurous young man of twenty-four or so.
"But is he in pain? Haven't you fetched the doctor?"
"Not yet," answered Daniel, with a vacant stare.
Samuel gazed at him closely for a second. And Daniel seemed to himvery old and helpless and pathetic, a man unequal to the situationin which he found himself; and yet, despite the dignified snow ofhis age, wistfully boyish. Samuel thought swiftly: "This has beentoo much for him. He's almost out of his mind. That's theexplanation. Some one's got to take charge, and I must." And allthe courageous resolution of his character braced itself to thecrisis. Being without a collar, being in slippers, and hissuspenders imperfectly fastened anyhow,--these things seemed to bea part of the crisis.
"I'll just run upstairs and have a look at him," said Samuel, in amatter-of-fact tone.
Daniel did not reply.
There was a glimmer at the top of the stairs. Samuel mounted,found the gas-jet, and turned it on full. A dingy, dirty, untidypassage was revealed, the very antechamber of discomfort. Guidedby the moans, Samuel entered a bedroom, which was in a shamefulcondition of neglect, and lighted only by a nearly expired candle.Was it possible that a house-mistress could so lose her self-respect? Samuel thought of his own abode, meticulously andimpeccably 'kept,' and a hard bitterness against Mrs. Danielsurged up in his soul.
"Is that you, doctor?" said a voice from the bed; the moansceased.
Samuel raised the candle.
Dick lay there, his face, on which was a beard of several days'growth, distorted by anguish, sweating; his tousled brown hair waslimp with sweat.
"Where the hell's the doctor?" the young man demanded brusquely.Evidently he had no curiosity about Samuel's presence; the onething that struck him was that Samuel was not the doctor.
"He's coming, he's coming,' said Samuel, soothingly.
"Well, if he isn't here soon I shall be damn well dead," saidDick, in feeble resentful anger. "I can tell you that."
Samuel deposited the candle and ran downstairs. "I say, Daniel,"he said, roused and hot, "this is really ridiculous. Why on earthdidn't you fetch the doctor while you were waiting for me? Where'sthe missis?"
Daniel Povey was slowly emptying grains of Indian corn out of hisjacket-pocket into one of the big receptacles behind the counteron the baker's side of the shop. He had provisioned himself withIndian corn as ammunition for Samuel's bedroom window; he was nowreturning the surplus.
"Are ye going for Harrop?" he questioned hesitatingly.
"Why, of course!" Samuel exclaimed. "Where's the missis?"
"Happen you'd better go and have a look at her," said DanielPovey. "She's in th' parlour."
He preceded Samuel to the shut door on the right. When he openedit the parlour appeared in full illumination.
"Here! Go in!" said Daniel.
Samuel went in, afraid. In a room as dishevelled and filthy as thebedroom, Mrs. Daniel Povey lay stretched awkwardly on a wornhorse-hair sofa, her head thrown back, her face discoloured, hereyes bulging, her mouth wet and yawning: a sight horriblyoffensive. Samuel was frightened; he was struck with fear and withdisgust. The singing gas beat down ruthlessly on that dreadfulfigure. A wife and mother! The lady of a house! The centre oforder! The fount of healing! The balm for worry, and the refuge ofdistress! She was vile. Her scanty yellow-grey hair was dirty, herhollowed neck all grime, her hands abominable, her black dress indecay. She was the dishonour of her sex, her situation, and heryears. She was a fouler obscenity than the inexperienced Samuelhad ever conceived. And by the door stood her husband, neat,spotless, almost stately, the man who for thirty years hadmarshalled all his immense pride to suffer this woman, the jollyman who had laughed through thick and thin! Samuel remembered whenthey were married. And he remembered when, years after theirmarriage, she was still as pretty, artificial, coquettish, andadamantine in her caprices as a young harlot with a fool at herfeet. Time and the slow wrath of God had changed her.
He remained master of himself and approached her; then stopped.
"But--" he stammered.
"Ay, Sam'l, lad!" said the old man from the door. "I doubt I'vekilled her! I doubt I've killed her! I took and shook her. I gother by the neck. And before I knew where I was, I'd done it.She'll never drink brandy again. This is what it's come to!"
He moved away.
All Samuel's flesh tingled as a heavy wave of emotion rolledthrough his being. It was just as if some one had dealt him a blowunimaginably tremendous. His heart shivered, as a ship shivers atthe mountainous crash of the waters. He was numbed. He wanted toweep, to vomit, to die, to sink away. But a voice was whisperingto him: "You will have to go through with this. You are in chargeof this." He thought of HIS wife and child, innocently asleep inthe cleanly pureness of HIS home. And he felt the roughness of hiscoat-collar round his neck and the insecurity of his trousers. Hepassed out of the room, shutting the door. And across the yard hehad a momentary glimpse of those nude nocturnal forms,unconsciously attitudinizing in the bakehouse. And down the stairscame the protests of Dick, driven by pain into a monotonous sillyblasphemy.
"I'll fetch Harrop," he said, melancholily, to his cousin.
The doctor's house was less than fifty yards off, and the doctorhad a night-bell, which, though he was a much older man than hisfather had been at his age, he still answered promptly. No need tobombard the doctor's premises with Indian corn! While Samuel wasparleying with the doctor through a window, the question ranincessantly through his mind: "What about telling the police?"
But when, in advance of old Harrop, he returned to Daniel's shop,lo! the policeman previously encountered had returned upon hisbeat, and Daniel was talking to him in the little doorway. Noother soul was about. Down King Street, along Wedgwood Street, upthe Square, towards Brougham Street, nothing but gaslamps burningwith their everlasting patience, and the blind facades of shops.Only in the second storey of the Bank Building at the top of theSquare a light showed mysteriously through a blind. Somebody illthere!
The policeman was in a high state of nervous excitement. That hadhappened to him which had never happened to him before. Of thesixty policemen in Bursley, just he had been chosen by fate to fitthe socket of destiny. He was startled.
"What's this, what's this, Mr. Povey?" he turned hastily toSamuel. "What's this as Mr. Councillor Povey is a-telling me?"
"You come in, sergeant," said Daniel.
"If I come in," said the policeman to Samuel, "you mun' go alongWedgwood Street, Mr. Povey, and bring my mate. He should be onDuck Bank, by rights."
It was astonishing, when once the stone had begun to roll, howquickly it ran. In half an hour Samuel had actually parted fromDaniel at the police-office behind the Shambles, and was hurryingto rouse his wife so that she could look after Dick Povey until hemight be taken off to Pirehill Infirmary, as old Harrop hadinstantly, on seeing him, decreed.
"Ah!" he reflected in the turmoil of his soul: "God is notmocked!" That was his basic idea: God is not mocked! Daniel was agood fellow, honourable, brilliant; a figure in the world. Butwhat of his licentious tongue? What of his frequenting of bars?(How had he come to miss that train from Liverpool? How?) For manyyears he, Samuel, had seen in Daniel a living refutation of theauthenticity of the old Hebrew menaces. But he had been wrong,after all! God is not mocked! And Samuel was aware of a revulsionin himself towards that strict codified godliness from which, inthought, he had perhaps been slipping away.
And with it all he felt, too, a certain officious self-importance,as he woke his wife and essayed to break the news to her in amanner tactfully calm. He had assisted at the most overwhelmingevent ever known in the history of the town.