The Old Wives’ Tale

the drawing room, galvanizing it by his abundant vitality into a new life, he cried joyously: “Sold my lorries! Sold my lorries!” And he explained that by a charming accident he had disposed of them to a chance buyer in Hanbridge, just before starting for Birmingham. So he had telephoned to Birmingham that the matter was “off,” and then, being “at a loose end,” he had come over to Bursley in search of his betrothed. At Holl’s shop they had told him that she was with Mrs. Povey. Constance glanced at him, impressed by his jolly air of success. He seemed exactly like his breezy and self-confident advertisements in the Signal. He was absolutely pleased with himself. He triumphed over his limp⁠—that ever-present reminder of a tragedy. Who would dream, to look at his blond, laughing, scintillating face, astonishingly young for his years, that he had once passed through such a night as that on which his father had killed his mother while he lay immovable and cursing, with a broken knee, in bed? Constance had heard all about that scene from her husband, and she paused in wonder at the contrasting hazards of existence.

Dick Povey brought his hands together with a resounding smack, and then rubbed them rapidly.

“And a good price, too!” he exclaimed blithely. “Mrs. Povey, I don’t mind telling you that I’ve netted seventy pounds odd this afternoon.”

Lily’s eyes expressed her proud joy.

“I hope pride won’t have a fall,” said Constance, with a calm smile out of which peeped a hint of a rebuke. “That’s what I hope. I must just go and see about tea.”

“I can’t stay for tea⁠—really,” said Dick.

“Of course you can,” said Constance, positively. “Suppose you’d been at Birmingham? It’s weeks since you stayed to tea.”

“Oh, well, thanks!” Dick yielded, rather snubbed.

“Can’t I save you a journey, Mrs. Povey?” Lily asked, eagerly thoughtful.

“No, thank you, my dear. There are one or two little things that need my attention.” And Constance departed with her jewel-box.

Dick, having assured himself that the door was closed, assaulted Lily with a kiss.

“Been here long?” he inquired.

“About an hour and a half.”

“Glad to see me?”

“Oh, Dick!” she protested.

“Old lady’s in one of her humours, eh?”

“No, no! Only she was just talking about balloons⁠—you know. She’s very much up in arms.”

“You ought to keep her off balloons. Balloons may be the ruin of her wedding present to us, my child.”

“Dick! How can you talk like that?⁠ ⁠… It’s all very well saying I ought to keep her off balloons. You try to keep her off balloons when once she begins, and see!”

“What started her?”

“She said she was thinking of giving you old Mr. Baines’s gold watch and chain⁠—if you behaved yourself.”

“Thank you for nothing!” said Dick. “I don’t want it.”

“Have you seen it?”

“Have I seen it? I should say I had seen it. She’s mentioned it once or twice before.”

“Oh! I didn’t know.”

“I don’t see myself carting that thing about. I much prefer my own. What do you think of it?”

“Of course it is rather clumsy,” said Lily. “But if she offered it to you, you couldn’t refuse it, and you’d simply have to wear it.”

“Well, then,” said Dick, “I must try to behave myself just badly enough to keep off the watch, but not badly enough to upset her notions about wedding presents.”

“Poor old thing!” Lily murmured, compassionately.

Then Lily put her hand silently to her neck.

“What’s that?”

“She’s just given it to me.”

Dick approached very near to examine the cameo brooch. “Hm!” he murmured. It was an adverse verdict. And Lily coincided with it by a lift of the eyebrows.

“And I suppose you’ll have to wear that!” said Dick.

“She values it as much as anything she’s got, poor old thing!” said Lily. “It belonged to her mother. And she says cameos are coming into fashion again. It really is rather good, you know.”

“I wonder where she learnt that!” said Dick, drily. “I see you’ve been suffering from the photographs again.”

“Well,” said Lily, “I much prefer the photographs to helping her to play Patience. The way she cheats herself⁠—it’s too silly! I⁠—”

She stopped. The door which had after all not been latched, was pushed open, and the antique Fossette introduced herself painfully into the room. Fossette had an affection for Dick Povey.

“Well, Methusaleh!” he greeted the animal loudly. She could scarcely wag her tail, nor shake the hair out of her dim eyes in order to look up at him. He stooped to pat her.

“That dog does smell,” said Lily, bluntly.

“What do you expect? What she wants is the least dose of prussic acid. She’s a burden to herself.”

“It’s funny that if you venture to hint to Mrs. Povey that the dog is offensive she gets quite peppery,” said Lily.

“Well, that’s very simple,” said Dick. “Don’t hint, that’s all! Hold your nose and your tongue too.”

“Dick, I do wish you wouldn’t be so absurd.”

Constance returned into the room, cutting short the conversation.

“Mrs. Povey,” said Dick, in a voice full of gratitude, “Lily has just been showing me her brooch⁠—”

He noticed that she paid no heed to him, but passed hurriedly to the window.

“What’s amiss in the Square?” Constance exclaimed. “When I was in the parlour just now I saw a man running along Wedgwood Street, and I said to myself, what’s amiss?”

Dick and Lily joined her at the window.

Several people were hurrying down the Square, and then a man came running with a doctor from the marketplace. All these persons disappeared from view under the window of Mrs. Povey’s drawing room, which was over part of Mrs. Critchlow’s shop. As the windows of the shop projected beyond the walls of the house it was impossible, from the drawing room window, to see the pavement in front of the shop.

“It must be something on the pavement⁠—or in the shop!” murmured Constance.

“Oh, ma’am!” said a startled voice behind the three. It was Mary, original of the photograph, who had run unperceived into the drawing room. “They say as Mrs. Critchlow has tried to