Constance stared, at a loss. It surely could not after all be true, the substance of the rumours that had floated like vapours in 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 the fiancé’s trousers. Miss Insull summoned the animal with a noise of fingers, and then bent down and caressed it. A strange gesture proving the validity of Charles Critchlow’s discovery that in Maria Insull a human being was buried!
Miss Insull was, as near as anyone could guess, forty years of age. For twenty-five years she had served in the shop, passing about twelve hours a day in the shop; attending regularly at least three religious services at the Wesleyan Chapel or School on Sundays, and sleeping with her mother, whom she kept. She had never earned more than thirty shillings a week, and yet her situation was considered to be exceptionally good. In the eternal fusty dusk of the shop she had gradually lost such sexual characteristics and charms as she had once possessed. She was as thin and flat as Charles Critchlow himself. It was as though her bosom had suffered from a prolonged drought at a susceptible period of development, and had never recovered. The one proof that blood ran in her veins was the pimply quality of her ruined complexion, and the pimples of that brickish expanse proved that the blood was thin and bad. Her hands and feet were large and ungainly; the skin of the fingers was roughened by coarse contacts to 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 her occupation she had no curiosity, no intelligence, no ideas. Superstitions and prejudices, deep and violent, served her for ideas; but she could incomparably sell silks and bonnets, braces and oilcloth; in widths, lengths, and prices she never erred; she never annoyed a customer, nor foolishly promised what could not be performed, nor was late nor negligent, nor disrespectful. No one knew 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 had cast eyes on her and had seen youth, innocence, virginity. During eight years the moth Charles had flitted round the lamp of her brilliance, and was now singed past escape. He might treat her with what casualness he chose; he might ignore her in public; he might talk brutally about women; he might leave her to wonder dully what he meant, for months at a stretch: but there emerged indisputable from the sum of his conduct the fact that he wanted her. He desired her; she charmed him; she was something ornamental and luxurious for which he was ready to pay—and to commit follies. He had been a widower since before she was born; to him she was a slip of a girl. All is relative in this world. As for her, she was too indifferent to refuse him. Why refuse him? Oysters do not refuse.
“I’m sure I congratulate you both,” Constance breathed, realizing the import of Mr. Critchlow’s laconic words. “I’m sure I hope you’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,” was on Constance’s tongue, but did not achieve utterance, being patently absurd.
“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Critchlow, as though himself contemplating anew the situation.
Miss Insull gave the dog a final pat.
“So that’s settled,” said Mr. Critchlow. “Now, missis, ye want to give 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 the shop.”
“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 towards the 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. “Follow me, will ye?”
Constance obeyed. Miss Insull sidled after Constance, and the dog after Miss Insull. Mr. Critchlow went through the doorway and down the corridor, past the cutting-out room to his right. The corridor then turned at a right-angle to the left and ended at the parlour door, the kitchen steps being to the left.
Mr. Critchlow stopped short of the kitchen steps, and extended his arms, 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 to yourself. Ye say ye’ve lived here all your life. Well, what’s to prevent ye finishing up here? The fact is,” he added, “it would only be making into two houses again what was two houses to start with, 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 would remain the chemist, while Mrs. Critchlow became the head of the chief drapery business in the town. Doubtless they would knock a hole through the separating wall on the other side, to balance the bricking-up on this side. They must have thought it all
