老妇人的故事 英文版The Old Wives' Tale
阿诺德.本涅特 Arnold Bennett
IV
The next morning she was glad and proud that she had not yieldedto a scare. For he was most strangely and obviously better. He hadslept heavily, and she had slept a little. True that Daniel wascondemned to death! Leaving Daniel to his fate, she was consciousof joy springing in her heart. How absurd to have asked herself:"Will he ever come down those stairs again?"!
A message reached her from the forgotten shop during the morning,that Mr. Lawton had called to see Mr. Povey. Already Samuel hadwanted to arise, but she had forbidden it in the tone of a womanwho is dangerous, and Samuel had been very reasonable. He now saidthat Mr. Lawton must be asked up. She glanced round the bedroom.It was 'done'; it was faultlessly correct as a sick chamber. Sheagreed to the introduction into it of the man from another sphere,and after a preliminary minute she left the two to talk together.This visit of young Lawton's was a dramatic proof of Samuel'simportance, and of the importance of the matter in hand. Theaugust occasion demanded etiquette, and etiquette said that a wifeshould depart from her husband when he had to transact affairsbeyond the grasp of a wife.
The idea of a petition to the Home Secretary took shape at thisinterview, and before the day was out it had spread over the townand over the Five Towns, and it was in the Signal. The Signalspoke of Daniel Povey as 'the condemned man.' And the phrasestartled the whole district into an indignant agitation for hisreprieve. The district woke up to the fact that a Town Councillor,a figure in the world, an honest tradesman of unspotted character,was cooped solitary in a little cell at Stafford, waiting to behanged by the neck till he was dead. The district determined thatthis must not and should not be. Why! Dan Povey had actually oncebeen Chairman of the Bursley Society for the Prosecution ofFelons, that association for annual eating and drinking, whosemembers humorously called each other 'felons'! Impossible,monstrous, that an ex-chairman of the 'Felons' should be asentenced criminal!
However, there was nothing to fear. No Home Secretary would dareto run counter to the jury's recommendation and the expressed wishof the whole district. Besides, the Home Secretary's nephew wasM.P. for the Knype division. Of course a verdict of guilty hadbeen inevitable. Everybody recognized that now. Even Samuel andall the hottest partisans of Daniel Povey recognized it. Theytalked as if they had always foreseen it, directly contradictingall that they had said on only the previous day. Without any senseof any inconsistency or of shame, they took up an absolutely newposition. The structure of blind faith had once again crumbled atthe assault of realities, and unhealthy, un-English truths, thestatement of which would have meant ostracism twenty-four hoursearlier, became suddenly the platitudes of the Square and themarket-place.
Despatch was necessary in the affair of the petition, for thecondemned man had but three Sundays. But there was delay at thebeginning, because neither young Lawton nor any of his colleagueswas acquainted with the proper formula of a petition to the HomeSecretary for the reprieve of a criminal condemned to death. Nosuch petition had been made in the district within living memory.And at first, young Lawton could not get sight or copy of any suchpetition anywhere, in the Five Towns or out of them. Of coursethere must exist a proper formula, and of course that formula andno other could be employed. Nobody was bold enough to suggest thatyoung Lawton should commence the petition, "To the Most Noble theMarquis of Welwyn, K.C.B., May it please your Lordship," and endit, "And your petitioners will ever pray!" and insert betweenthose phrases a simple appeal for the reprieve, with a statementof reasons. No! the formula consecrated by tradition must befound. And, after Daniel had arrived a day and a half nearerdeath, it was found. A lawyer at Alnwick had the draft of apetition which had secured for a murderer in Northumberland twentyyears' penal servitude instead of sudden death, and on request helent it to young Lawton. The prime movers in the petition feltthat Daniel Povey was now as good as saved. Hundreds of forms wereprinted to receive signatures, and these forms, together withcopies of the petition, were laid on the counters of all theprincipal shops, not merely in Bursley, but in the other towns.They were also to be found at the offices of the Signal, inrailway waiting-rooms, and in the various reading-rooms; and onthe second of Daniel's three Sundays they were exposed in theporches of churches and chapels. Chapel-keepers and vergers wouldcome to Samuel and ask with the heavy inertia of their stupidity:"About pens and ink, sir?" These officials had the air ofaudaciously disturbing the sacrosanct routine of centuries inorder to confer a favour.
Samuel continued to improve. His cough shook him less, and hisappetite increased. Constance allowed him to establish himself inthe drawing-room, which was next to the bedroom, and of which thegrate was particularly efficient. Here, in an old winter overcoat,he directed the vast affair of the petition, which grew daily tovaster proportions. Samuel dreamed of twenty thousand signatures.Each sheet held twenty signatures, and several times a day hecounted the sheets; the supply of forms actually failed once, andConstance herself had to hurry to the printers to order more.Samuel was put into a passion by this carelessness of theprinters. He offered Cyril sixpence for every sheet of signatureswhich the boy would obtain. At first Cyril was too shy to canvass,but his father made him blush, and in a few hours Cyril haddeveloped into an eager canvasser. One whole day he stayed awayfrom school to canvas. Altogether he earned over fifteenshillings, quite honestly except that he got a companion to forgea couple of signatures with addresses lacking at the end of a lastsheet, generously rewarding him with sixpence, the value of theentire sheet.
When Samuel had received a thousand sheets with twenty thousandsignatures, he set his heart on twenty-five thousand signatures.And he also announced his firm intention of accompanying youngLawton to London with the petition. The petition had, in fact,become one of the most remarkable petitions of modern times. Sothe Signal said. The Signal gave a daily account of its progress,and its progress was astonishing. In certain streets everyhouseholder had signed it. The first sheets had been reserved forthe signatures of members of Parliament, ministers of religion,civic dignitaries, justices of the peace, etc. These sheets werenobly filled. The aged Rector of Bursley signed first of all;after him the Mayor of Bursley, as was right; then sundry M.P.'s.
Samuel emerged from the drawing-room. He went into the parlour,and, later, into the shop; and no evil consequence followed. Hiscough was nearly, but not quite, cured. The weather wasextraordinarily mild for the season. He repeated that he should gowith the petition to London; and he went; Constance could notvalidly oppose the journey. She, too, was a little intoxicated bythe petition. It weighed considerably over a hundredweight. Thecrowning signature, that of the M.P. for Knype, was duly obtainedin London, and Samuel's one disappointment was that his hope oftwenty-five thousand signatures had fallen short of realization--by only a few score. The few score could have been got had nottime urgently pressed. He returned from London a man of mark, fullof confidence; but his cough was worse again.
His confidence in the power of public opinion and the inherentvirtue of justice might have proved to be well placed, had not theHome Secretary happened to be one of your humane officials. TheMarquis of Welwyn was celebrated through every stratum of thegoverning classes for his humane instincts, which were continuallyfighting against his sense of duty. Unfortunately his sense ofduty, which he had inherited from several centuries of ancestors,made havoc among his humane instincts on nearly every occasion ofconflict. It was reported that he suffered horribly inconsequence. Others also suffered, for he was never known toadvise a remission of a sentence of flogging. Certain capitalsentences he had commuted, but he did not commute Daniel Povey's.He could not permit himself to be influenced by a wave of popularsentiment, and assuredly not by his own nephew's signature. Hegave to the case the patient, remorseless examination which hegave to every case. He spent a sleepless night in trying todiscover a reason for yielding to his humane instincts, butwithout success. As Judge Lindley remarked in his confidentialreport, the sole arguments in favour of Daniel were provocationand his previous high character; and these were no sort of anargument. The provocation was utterly inadequate, and the previoushigh character was quite too ludicrously beside the point. So oncemore the Marquis's humane instincts were routed and he sufferedhorribly.
On the Sunday morning after the day on which the Signal hadprinted the menu of Daniel Povey's supreme breakfast, and theexact length of the 'drop' which the executioner had administeredto him, Constance and Cyril stood together at the window of thelarge bedroom. The boy was in his best clothes; but Constance'sgarments gave no sign of the Sabbath. She wore a large apron overan old dress that was rather tight for her. She was pale andlooked ill.
"Oh, mother!" Cyril exclaimed suddenly. "Listen! I'm sure I canhear the band."
She checked him with a soundless movement of her lips; and theyboth glanced anxiously at the silent bed, Cyril with a gesture ofapology for having forgotten that he must make no noise.
The strains of the band came from down King Street, in thedirection of St. Luke's Church. The music appeared to linger along time in the distance, and then it approached, growing louder,and the Bursley Town Silver Prize Band passed under the window atthe solemn pace of Handel's "Dead March." The effect of thatrequiem, heavy with its own inherent beauty and with the vastweight of harrowing tradition, was to wring the tears fromConstance's eyes; they fell on her aproned bosom, and she sankinto a chair. And though, the cheeks of the trumpeters were puffedout, and though the drummer had to protrude his stomach and archhis spine backwards lest he should tumble over his drum, there wasmajesty in the passage of the band. The boom of the drum,desolating the interruptions of the melody, made sick the heart,but with a lofty grief; and the dirge seemed to be weaving apurple pall that covered every meanness.
The bandsmen were not all in black, but they all wore crape ontheir sleeves and their instruments were knotted with crape. Theycarried in their hats a black-edged card. Cyril held one of thesecards in his hands. It ran thus:
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF DANIEL POVEY A TOWN COUNCILLOR OF THISTOWN JUDICIALLY MURDERED AT 8 O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING 8TH FEBRUARY1888 "HE WAS MORE SINNED AGAINST THAN SINNING."
In the wake of the band came the aged Rector, bare-headed, andwearing a surplice over his overcoat; his thin white hair wasdisarranged by the breeze that played in the chilly sunshine; hishands were folded on a gilt-edged book. A curate, churchwardens,and sidesmen followed. And after these, tramping through the darkmud in a procession that had apparently no end, wound theunofficial male multitude, nearly all in mourning, and all, savethe more aristocratic, carrying the memorial card in their hats.Loafers, women, and children had collected on the dryingpavements, and a window just opposite Constance was ornamentedwith the entire family of the landlord of the Sun Vaults. In thegreat bar of the Vaults a barman was craning over the pitchpinescreen that secured privacy to drinkers. The procession continuedwithout break, eternally rising over the verge of King Street'bank,' and eternally vanishing round the corner into St. Luke'sSquare; at intervals it was punctuated by a clergyman, aNonconformist minister, a town crier, a group of foremen, or a fewRifle Volunteers. The watching crowd grew as the processionlengthened. Then another band was heard, also playing the marchfrom Saul. The first band had now reached the top of the Square,and was scarcely audible from King Street. The reiterated glitterin the sun of memorial cards in hats gave the fanciful illusion ofan impossible whitish snake that was straggling across the town.Three-quarters of an hour elapsed before the tail of the snakecame into view, and a rabble of unkempt boys closed in upon it,filling the street,
"I shall go to the drawing-room window, mother," said Cyril.
She nodded. He crept out of the bedroom.
St. Luke's Square was a sea of hats and memorial cards. Most ofthe occupiers of the Square had hung out flags at half-mast, and aflag at half-mast was flying over the Town Hall in the distance.Sightseers were at every window. The two bands had united at thetop of the Square; and behind them, on a North StaffordshireRailway lorry, stood the white-clad Rector and several blackfigures. The Rector was speaking; but only those close to thelorry could hear his feeble treble voice.
Such was the massive protest of Bursley against what Bursleyregarded as a callous injustice. The execution of Daniel Povey hadmost genuinely excited the indignation of the town. That executionwas not only an injustice; it was an insult, a humiliating snub.And the worst was that the rest of the country had reallydiscovered no sympathetic interest in the affair. Certain Londonpapers, indeed, in commenting casually on the execution, hadslurred the morals and manners of the Five Towns, professing toregard the district as notoriously beyond the realm of the TenCommandments. This had helped to render furious the townsmen.This, as much as anything, had encouraged the spontaneous outburstof feeling which had culminated in a St. Luke's Square full ofpeople with memorial cards in their hats. The demonstration hadscarcely been organized; it had somehow organized itself,employing the places of worship and a few clubs as centres ofgathering. And it proved an immense success. There were seven oreight thousand people in the Square, and the pity was that Englandas a whole could not have had a glimpse of the spectacle. Sincethe execution of the elephant, nothing had so profoundly agitatedBursley. Constance, who left the bedroom momentarily for thedrawing-room, reflected that the death and burial of Cyril'shonoured grandfather, though a resounding event, had not causedone-tenth of the stir which she beheld. But then John Baines hadkilled nobody.
The Rector spoke too long; every one felt that. But at length hefinished. The bands performed the Doxology, and the immensemultitudes began to disperse by the eight streets that radiatefrom the Square. At the same time one o'clock struck, and thepublic-houses opened with their customary admirable promptitude.Respectable persons, of course, ignored the public-houses andhastened homewards to a delayed dinner. But in a town of overthirty thousand souls there are sufficient dregs to fill all thepublic-houses on an occasion of ceremonial excitement. Constancesaw the bar of the Vaults crammed with individuals whose sense ofdecent fitness was imperfect. The barman and the landlord and theprincipal members of the landlord's family were hard put to it toquench that funereal thirst. Constance, as she ate a little mealin the bedroom, could not but witness the orgy. A bandsman withhis silver instrument was prominent at the counter. At fiveminutes to three the Vaults spewed forth a squirt of roystererswho walked on the pavement as on a tight-rope; among them was thebandsman, his silver instrument only half enveloped in its bag ofgreen serge. He established an equilibrium in the gutter. It wouldnot have mattered so seriously if he had not been a bandsman. Thebarman and the landlord pushed the ultimate sot by force into thestreet and bolted the door (till six o'clock) just as a policemanstrolled along, the first policeman of the day. It became knownthat similar scenes were enacting at the thresholds of other inns.And the judicious were sad.