The Grim Smile of the Five Towns

‘Old Simon Fuge!’ said Miss Brett. ‘Yes; after the brewery company took the Blue Bell at Cauldon over from him, I used to be there. He would come in sometimes. Such a nice queer old man!’

‘I mean the son,’ said Mr Brindley.

‘Oh yes,’ she answered. ‘I knew young Mr Simon too.’ A slight hesitation, and then: ‘Of course!’ Another hesitation. ‘Why?’

‘Nothing,’ said Mr Brindley. ‘Only he’s dead.’

‘You don’t mean to say he’s dead?’ she exclaimed.

‘Day before yesterday, in Italy,’ said Mr Brindley ruthlessly.

Miss Annie Brett’s manner certainly changed. It seemed almost to become natural and unecstatic.

‘I suppose it will be in the papers?’ she ventured.

‘It’s in the London paper.’

‘Well I never!’ she muttered.

‘A long time, I should think, since he was in this part of the world,’ said Mr Brindley. ‘When did YOU last see him?’

He was exceedingly skilful, I considered.

She put the back of her hand over her mouth, and bending her head slightly and lowering her eyelids, gazed reflectively at the counter.

‘It was once when a lot of us went to Ilam,’ she answered quietly. ‘The St Luke’s lot, YOU know.’

‘Oh!’ cried Mr Brindley, apparently startled. ‘The St Luke’s lot?’

‘Yes.’

‘How came he to go with you?’

‘He didn’t go with us. He was there—stopping there, I suppose.’

‘Why, I believe I remember hearing something about that,’ said Mr Brindley cunningly. ‘Didn’t he take you out in a boat?’

A very faint dark crimson spread over the face of Miss Annie Brett. It could not be called a blush, but it was as like a blush as was possible to her. The phenomenon, as I could see from his eyes, gave Mr Brindley another shock.

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Sally was there as well.’

Then a silence, during which the commercial traveller could be heard reading from the newspaper.

‘When was that?’ gently asked Mr Brindley.

‘Don’t ask ME when it was, Mr Brindley,’ she answered nervously. ‘It’s ever so long ago. What did he die of?’

‘Don’t know.’

Miss Annie Brett opened her mouth to speak, and did not speak. There were tears in her reddened eyes. I felt very awkward, and I think that Mr Brindley also felt awkward. But I was glad. Those moist eyes caused me a thrill. There was after all some humanity in Miss Annie Brett. Yes, she had after all floated on the bosom of the lake with Simon Fuge. The least romantic of persons, she had yet felt romance. If she had touched Simon Fuge, Simon Fuge had touched her. She had memories. Once she had lived. I pictured her younger. I sought in her face the soft remains of youthfulness. I invented languishing poses for her in the boat. My imagination was equal to the task of seeing her as Simon Fuge saw her. I did so see her. I recalled Simon Fuge’s excited description of the long night in the boat, and I could reconstitute the night from end to end. And there the identical creature stood before me, the creature who had set fire to Simon Fuge, one of the ‘wonderful creatures’ of the Gazette, ageing, hardened, banal, but momentarily restored to the empire of romance by those unshed, glittering tears. As an experience it was worth having.

She could not speak, and we did not. I heard the commercial traveller reading: ‘“The motion was therefore carried by twenty-five votes to nineteen, and the Countess of Chell promised that the whole question of the employment of barmaids should be raised at the next meeting of the B.W.T.S.” There! what do you think of that?’

Miss Annie Brett moved quickly towards the commercial traveller.

Til tell you what I think of it,’ she said, with ecstatic resentment. ‘I think it’s just shameful! Why should the Countess of Chell want to rob a lot of respectable young ladies of their living? I can tell you they’re just as respectable as the Countess of Chell is—yes, and perhaps more, by all accounts. I think people do well to call her “Interfering Iris”. When she’s robbed them of their living, what does she expect them to do? Is she going to keep them? Then what does she expect them to do?’

The commercial traveller was inept enough to offer a jocular reply, and then he found himself involved in the morass of ‘the whole question’. He, and we also, were obliged to hear in immense detail Miss Annie Brett’s complete notions of the movement for the abolition of barmaids. The subject was heavy on her mind, and she lifted it off. Simon Fuge was relinquished; he dropped like a stone into the pool of forgetfulness. And yet, strange as it seems, she was assuredly not sincere in the expression of her views on the question of barmaids. She held no real views. She merely persuaded herself that she held them. When the commercial traveller, who was devoid of sense, pointed out that it was not proposed to rob anybody of a livelihood, and that existent barmaids would be permitted to continue to grace the counters of their adoption, she grew frostily vicious. The commercial traveller decided to retire and play billiards. Mr Brindley and I in our turn departed. I was extremely disappointed by this sequel.

‘Ah!’ breathed Mr Brindley when we were outside, in front of the Town Hall. ‘She was quite right about that clock.’

After that we turned silently into a long illuminated street which rose gently. The boxes of light were flashing up and down it, but otherwise it seemed to be quite deserted. Mr Brindley filled a pipe and lit it as he walked. The way in which that man kept the match alight in a fresh breeze made me envious. I could conceive myself rivalling