老妇人的故事 英文版The Old Wives' Tale
阿诺德.本涅特 Arnold Bennett
II
On Thursday afternoon of the same week the youth whom Constancehad ended by hiring for the manipulation of shutters and otherjobs unsuitable for fragile women, was closing the shop. The clockhad struck two. All the shutters were up except the last one, inthe midst of the doorway. Miss Insull and her mistress werewalking about the darkened interior, putting dust-sheets well overthe edges of exposed goods; the other assistants had just left.The bull-terrier had wandered into the shop as he almostinvariably did at closing time--for he slept there, an efficientguard--and had lain down by the dying stove; though not venerable,he was stiffening into age.
"You can shut," said Miss Insull to the youth.
But as the final shutter was ascending to its position, Mr.Critchlow appeared on the pavement.
"Hold on, young fellow!" Mr. Critchlow commanded, and steppedslowly, lifting up his long apron, over the horizontal shutter onwhich the perpendicular shutters rested in the doorway.
"Shall you be long, Mr. Critchlow?" the youth asked, posing theshutter. "Or am I to shut?"
"Shut, lad," said Mr. Critchlow, briefly. "I'll go out by th' sidedoor."
"Here's Mr. Critchlow!" Miss Insull called out to Constance, in apeculiar tone. And a flush, scarcely perceptible, crept veryslowly over her dark features. In the twilight of the shop, litonly by a few starry holes in the shutters, and by the small side-window, not the keenest eye could have detected that flush.
"Mr. Critchlow!" Constance murmured the exclamation. She resentedhis future ownership of her shop. She thought he was come to playthe landlord, and she determined to let him see that her mood wasindependent and free, that she would as lief give up the businessas keep it. In particular she meant to accuse him of havingdeliberately deceived her as to his intentions on his previousvisit.
"Well, missis!" the aged man greeted her. "We've made it upbetween us. Happen some folk'll think we've taken our time, but Idon't know as that's their affair."
His little blinking eyes had a red border. The skin of his palesmall face was wrinkled in millions of minute creases. His armsand legs were marvellously thin and sharply angular. The cornersof his heliotrope lips were turned down, as usual, in a mysteriouscomment on the world; and his smile, as he fronted Constance withhis excessive height, crowned the mystery.
Constance stared, at a loss. It surely could not after all betrue, the substance of the rumours that had floated like vapoursin the Square for eight years and more!
"What ...?" she began.
"Me, and her!" He jerked his head in the direction of Miss Insull.
The dog had leisurely strolled forward to inspect the edges of thefiance's trousers. Miss Insull summoned the animal with a noise offingers, and then bent down and caressed it. A strange gestureproving the validity of Charles Critchlow's discovery that inMaria Insull a human being was buried!
Miss Insull was, as near as any one could guess, forty years ofage. For twenty-five years she had served in the shop, passingabout twelve hours a day in the shop; attending regularly at leastthree religious services at the Wesleyan Chapel or School onSundays, and sleeping with her mother, whom she kept. She hadnever earned more than thirty shillings a week, and yet hersituation was considered to be exceptionally good. In the eternalfusty dusk of the shop she had gradually lost such sexualcharacteristics and charms as she had once possessed. She was asthin and flat as Charles Critchlow himself. It was as though herbosom had suffered from a prolonged drought at a susceptibleperiod of development, and had never recovered. The one proof thatblood ran in her veins was the pimply quality of her ruinedcomplexion, and the pimples of that brickish expanse proved thatthe blood was thin and bad. Her hands and feet were large andungainly; the skin of the fingers was roughened by coarse contactsto the texture of emery-paper. On six days a week she wore black;on the seventh a kind of discreet half-mourning. She was honest,capable, and industrious; and beyond the confines of heroccupation she had no curiosity, no intelligence, no ideas.Superstitions and prejudices, deep and violent, served her forideas; but she could incomparably sell silks and bonnets, bracesand oilcloth; in widths, lengths, and prices she never erred; shenever annoyed a customer, nor foolishly promised what could not beperformed, nor was late nor negligent, nor disrespectful. No oneknew anything about her, because there was nothing to know.Subtract the shop-assistant from her, and naught remained.Benighted and spiritually dead, she existed by habit.
But for Charles Critchlow she happened to be an illusion. He hadcast eyes on her and had seen youth, innocence, virginity. Duringeight years the moth Charles had flitted round the lamp of herbrilliance, and was now singed past escape. He might treat herwith what casualness he chose; he might ignore her in public; hemight talk brutally about women; he might leave her to wonderdully what he meant, for months at a stretch: but there emergedindisputable from the sum of his conduct the fact that he wantedher. He desired her; she charmed him; she was something ornamentaland luxurious for which he was ready to pay--and to commitfollies. He had been a widower since before she was born; to himshe was a slip of a girl. All is relative in this world. As forher, she was too indifferent to refuse him. Why refuse him?Oysters do not refuse.
"I'm sure I congratulate you both," Constance breathed, realizingthe import of Mr. Critchlow's laconic words. "I'm sure I hopeyou'll be happy."
"That'll be all right," said Mr. Critchlow.
"Thank you, Mrs. Povey," said Maria Insull.
Nobody seemed to know what to say next. "It's rather sudden," wason Constance's tongue, but did not achieve utterance, beingpatently absurd.
"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Critchlow, as though himself contemplatinganew the situation.
Miss Insull gave the dog a final pat.
"So that's settled," said Mr. Critchlow. "Now, missis, ye want togive up this shop, don't ye?"
"I'm not so sure about that," Constance answered uneasily.
"Don't tell me!" he protested. "Of course ye want to give up theshop."
"I've lived here all my life," said Constance.
"Ye've not lived in th' shop all ye're life. I said th' shop.Listen here!" he continued. "I've got a proposal to make to you.You can keep on the house, and I'll take the shop off ye're hands.Now?" He looked at her inquiringly.
Constance was taken aback by the brusqueness of the suggestion,which, moreover, she did not understand.
"But how--" she faltered.
"Come here," said Mr. Critchlow, impatiently, and he moved towardsthe house-door of the shop, behind the till.
"Come where? What do you want?" Constance demanded in a maze.
"Here!" said Mr. Critchlow, with increasing impatience. "Followme, will ye?"
demanded in a maze.asked.
Constance obeyed. Miss Insull sidled after Constance, and the dogafter Miss Insull. Mr. Critchlow went through the doorway and downthe corridor, past the cutting-out room to his right. The corridorthen turned at a right-angle to the left and ended at the parlourdoor, the kitchen steps being to the left.
Mr. Critchlow stopped short of the kitchen steps, and extended hisarms, touching the walls on either side.
"Here!" he said, tapping the walls with his bony knuckles. "Here!Suppose I brick ye this up, and th' same upstairs between th'showroom and th' bedroom passage, ye've got your house toyourself. Ye say ye've lived here all your life. Well, what's toprevent ye finishing up here? The fact is," he added, "it wouldonly be making into two houses again what was two houses to startwith, afore your time, missis."
"And what about the shop?" cried Constance.
"Ye can sell us th' stock at a valuation."
Constance suddenly comprehended the scheme. Mr. Critchlow wouldremain the chemist, while Mrs. Critchlow became the head of thechief drapery business in the town. Doubtless they would knock ahole through the separating wall on the other side, to balance thebricking-up on this side. They must have thought it all out indetail. Constance revolted.
"Yes!" she said, a little disdainfully. "And my goodwill? Shallyou take that at a valuation too?"
course ye want to give up.
Mr. Critchlow glanced at the creature for whom he was ready toscatter thousands of pounds. She might have been a Phryne and hethe infatuated fool. He glanced at her as if to say: "We expectedthis, and this is where we agreed it was to stop."
"Ay!" he said to Constance. "Show me your goodwill. Lap it up in abit of paper and hand it over, and I'll take it at a valuation.But not afore, missis! Not afore! I'm making ye a very good offer.Twenty pound a year, I'll let ye th' house for. And take th' stockat a valuation. Think it over, my lass."
Having said what he had to say, Charles Critchlow departed,according to his custom. He unceremoniously let himself out by theside door, and passed with wavy apron round the corner of KingStreet into the Square and so to his own shop, which ignored theThursday half-holiday. Miss Insull left soon afterwards.