“There he is!” said Mr. Povey, still playing, but with his eye on the street.
Constance sprang up eagerly. Then there was a knock on the door. Constance opened, and an icy blast swept into the room. The postman stood on the steps, his instrument for knocking (like a drumstick) in one hand, a large bundle of letters in the other, and a yawning bag across the pit of his stomach.
“Merry Christmas, ma’am!” cried the postman, trying to keep warm by cheerfulness.
Constance, taking the letters, responded, while Mr. Povey, playing the harmonium with his right hand, drew half a crown from his pocket with the left.
“Here you are!” he said, giving it to Constance, who gave it to the postman.
Fan, who had been keeping her muzzle warm with the extremity of her tail on the sofa, jumped down to superintend the transaction.
“Brrr!” vibrated Mr. Povey as Constance shut the door.
“What lots!” Constance exclaimed, rushing to the fire. “Here, mother! Here, Sam!”
The girl had resumed possession of the woman’s body.
Though the Baines family had few friends (sustained hospitality being little practised in those days) they had, of course, many acquaintances, and, like other families, they counted their Christmas cards as an Indian counts scalps. The tale was satisfactory. There were between thirty and forty envelopes. Constance extracted Christmas cards rapidly, reading their contents aloud, and then propping them up on the mantelpiece. Mrs. Baines assisted. Fan dealt with the envelopes on the floor. Mr. Povey, to prove that his soul was above toys and gewgaws, continued to play the harmonium.
“Oh, mother!” Constance murmured in a startled, hesitant voice, holding an envelope.
“What is it, my chuck?”
“It’s—”
The envelope was addressed to “Mrs. and Miss Baines” in large, perpendicular, dashing characters which Constance instantly recognised as Sophia’s. The stamps were strange, the postmark “Paris.” Mrs. Baines leaned forward and looked.
“Open it, child,” she said.
The envelope contained an English Christmas card of a common type, a spray of holly with greetings, and on it was written, “I do hope this will reach you on Christmas morning. Fondest love.” No signature, nor address.
Mrs. Baines took it with a trembling hand, and adjusted her spectacles. She gazed at it a long time.
“And it has done!” she said, and wept.
She tried to speak again, but not being able to command herself, held forth the card to Constance and jerked her head in the direction of Mr. Povey. Constance rose and put the card on the keyboard of the harmonium.
“Sophia!” she whispered.
Mr. Povey stopped playing. “Dear, dear!” he muttered.
Fan, perceiving that nobody was interested in her feats, suddenly stood still.
Mrs. Baines tried once more to speak, but could not. Then, her ringlets shaking beneath the band of her weeds, she found her feet, stepped to the harmonium, and, with a movement almost convulsive, snatched the card from Mr. Povey, and returned to her chair.
Mr. Povey abruptly left the room, followed by Fan. Both the women were in tears, and he was tremendously surprised to discover a dangerous lump in his own throat. The beautiful and imperious vision of Sophia, Sophia as she had left them, innocent, wayward, had swiftly risen up before him and made even him a woman too! Yet he had never liked Sophia. The awful secret wound in the family pride revealed itself to him as never before, and he felt intensely the mother’s tragedy, which she carried in her breast as Aunt Harriet had carried a cancer.
At dinner he said suddenly to Mrs. Baines, who still wept: “Now, mother, you must cheer up, you know.”
“Yes, I must,” she said quickly. And she did do.
Neither Samuel nor Constance saw the card again. Little was said. There was nothing to say. As Sophia had given no address she must be still ashamed of her situation. But she had thought of her mother and sister. She … she did not even know that Constance was married … What sort of a place was Paris? To Bursley, Paris was nothing but the site of a great exhibition which had recently closed.
Through the influence of Mrs. Baines a new servant was found for Constance in a village near Axe, a raw, comely girl who had never been in a “place.” And through the post it was arranged that this innocent should come to the cave on the thirty-first of December. In obedience to the safe rule that servants should never be allowed to meet for the interchange of opinions, Mrs. Baines decided to leave with her own servant on the thirtieth. She would not be persuaded to spend the New Year in the Square. On the twenty-ninth poor Aunt Maria died all of a sudden in her cottage in Brougham Street. Everybody was duly distressed, and in particular Mrs. Baines’s demeanour under this affliction showed the perfection of correctness. But she caused it to be understood that she should not remain for the funeral. Her nerves would be unequal to the ordeal; and, moreover, her servant must not stay to corrupt the new girl, nor could Mrs. Baines think of sending her servant to Axe in advance, to spend several days in idle gossip with her colleague.
This decision took the backbone out of Aunt Maria’s funeral, which touched the extreme of modesty: a hearse and a one-horse coach. Mr. Povey was glad, because he happened to be very busy. An hour before his mother-in-law’s departure he came into the parlour with the proof of a poster.
“What is that, Samuel?” asked Mrs. Baines, not dreaming of the blow that awaited her.
“It’s for my first Annual Sale,” replied Mr. Povey with false tranquillity.
Mrs. Baines merely tossed her head. Constance, happily for Constance, was not present at this final defeat of the old order. Had she been there, she would certainly not have known where to look.
II
“Forty next birthday!” Mr. Povey exclaimed one day, with an expression and in a tone that were at once mock-serious and serious. This was on his thirty-ninth birthday.
Constance was
