On Thursday afternoon of the same week the youth whom Constance had ended by hiring for the manipulation of shutters2 and other jobs unsuitable for fragile women, was closing the shop. The clock had struck two. All the shutters were up except the last one, in the midst of the doorway3. Miss Insull and her mistress were walking about the darkened interior, putting dust-sheets well over the edges of exposed goods; the other assistants had just left. The bull-terrier had wandered into the shop as he almost invariably did at closing time--for he slept there, an efficient guard--and had lain down by the dying stove; though not venerable, he was stiffening4 into age.
"You can shut," said Miss Insull to the youth.
But as the final shutter1 was ascending5 to its position, Mr. Critchlow appeared on the pavement.
"Hold on, young fellow!" Mr. Critchlow commanded, and stepped slowly, lifting up his long apron6, over the horizontal shutter on which the perpendicular7 shutters rested in the doorway.
"Shall you be long, Mr. Critchlow?" the youth asked, posing the shutter. "Or am I to shut?"
"Shut, lad," said Mr. Critchlow, briefly8. "I'll go out by th' side door."
"Here's Mr. Critchlow!" Miss Insull called out to Constance, in a peculiar9 tone. And a flush, scarcely perceptible, crept very slowly over her dark features. In the twilight10 of the shop, lit only by a few starry11 holes in the shutters, and by the small side- window, not the keenest eye could have detected that flush.
"Mr. Critchlow!" Constance murmured the exclamation12. She resented his future ownership of her shop. She thought he was come to play the landlord, and she determined13 to let him see that her mood was independent and free, that she would as lief give up the business as keep it. In particular she meant to accuse him of having deliberately14 deceived her as to his intentions on his previous visit.
"Well, missis!" the aged15 man greeted her. "We've made it up between us. Happen some folk'll think we've taken our time, but I don't know as that's their affair."
His little blinking eyes had a red border. The skin of his pale small face was wrinkled in millions of minute creases16. His arms and legs were marvellously thin and sharply angular. The corners of his heliotrope17 lips were turned down, as usual, in a mysterious comment on the world; and his smile, as he fronted Constance with his excessive height, crowned the mystery.
Constance stared, at a loss. It surely could not after all be true, the substance of the rumours18 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 leisurely19 strolled forward to inspect the edges of the fiance's trousers. Miss Insull summoned the animal with a noise of fingers, and then bent20 down and caressed21 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 any one 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 Chapel22 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 possessed24. She was as thin and flat as Charles Critchlow himself. It was as though her bosom25 had suffered from a prolonged drought at a susceptible26 period of development, and had never recovered. The one proof that blood ran in her veins27 was the pimply28 quality of her ruined complexion29, and the pimples30 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 texture31 of emery-paper. On six days a week she wore black; on the seventh a kind of discreet32 half-mourning. She was honest, capable, and industrious33; and beyond the confines of her occupation she had no curiosity, no intelligence, no ideas. Superstitions34 and prejudices, deep and violent, served her for ideas; but she could incomparably sell silks and bonnets35, braces36 and oilcloth; in widths, lengths, and prices she never erred37; she never annoyed a customer, nor foolishly promised what could not be performed, nor was late nor negligent38, nor disrespectful. No one knew anything about her, because there was nothing to know. Subtract the shop-assistant from her, and naught39 remained. Benighted40 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, innocence41, virginity. During eight years the moth23 Charles had flitted round the lamp of her brilliance42, and was now singed43 past escape. He might treat her with what casualness he chose; he might ignore her in public; he might talk brutally44 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 ornamental45 and luxurious46 for which he was ready to pay--and to commit follies47. He had been a widower48 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? Oysters49 do not refuse.
"I'm sure I congratulate you both," Constance breathed, realizing the import of Mr. Critchlow's laconic50 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 utterance51, being patently absurd.
"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Critchlow, as though himself contemplating52 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.
"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 maze54.
"Here!" said Mr. Critchlow, with increasing impatience55. "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, touching56 the walls on either side.
"Here!" he said, tapping the walls with his bony knuckles57. "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 out in detail. Constance revolted.
"Yes!" she said, a little disdainfully. "And my goodwill58? Shall you take that at a valuation too?"
Mr. Critchlow glanced at the creature for whom he was ready to scatter59 thousands of pounds. She might have been a Phryne and he the infatuated fool. He glanced at her as if to say: "We expected this, and this is where we agreed it was to stop."
"Ay!" he said to Constance. "Show me your goodwill. Lap it up in a bit 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' stock at 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 the side door, and passed with wavy60 apron round the corner of King Street into the Square and so to his own shop, which ignored the Thursday half-holiday. Miss Insull left soon afterwards.
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shutter
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| n.百叶窗；(照相机)快门；关闭装置 | |
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shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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stiffening
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| n. (使衣服等)变硬的材料, 硬化 动词stiffen的现在分词形式 | |
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ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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perpendicular
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| adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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starry
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| adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
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exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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creases
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| （使…）起折痕，弄皱( crease的第三人称单数 )； （皮肤）皱起，使起皱纹 | |
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heliotrope
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| n.天芥菜；淡紫色 | |
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rumours
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| n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传 | |
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leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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caressed
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| 爱抚或抚摸…( caress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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moth
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| n.蛾，蛀虫 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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susceptible
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| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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pimply
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| adj.肿泡的；有疙瘩的；多粉刺的；有丘疹的 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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pimples
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| n.丘疹，粉刺，小脓疱( pimple的名词复数 ) | |
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texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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bonnets
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| n.童帽( bonnet的名词复数 )；（烟囱等的）覆盖物；（苏格兰男子的）无边呢帽；（女子戴的）任何一种帽子 | |
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braces
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| n.吊带，背带；托架( brace的名词复数 )；箍子；括弧；（儿童）牙箍v.支住( brace的第三人称单数 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
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erred
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| 犯错误，做错事( err的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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negligent
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| adj.疏忽的；玩忽的；粗心大意的 | |
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naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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benighted
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| adj.蒙昧的 | |
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41
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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42
brilliance
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| n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智 | |
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43
singed
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| v.浅表烧焦( singe的过去式和过去分词 )；（毛发）燎，烧焦尖端[边儿] | |
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44
brutally
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| adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地 | |
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45
ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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47
follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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48
widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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49
oysters
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| 牡蛎( oyster的名词复数 ) | |
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50
laconic
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| adj.简洁的；精练的 | |
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51
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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52
contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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53
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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54
maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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55
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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56
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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57
knuckles
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| n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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goodwill
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| n.善意，亲善，信誉，声誉 | |
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59
scatter
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| vt.撒，驱散，散开；散布/播；vi.分散，消散 | |
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wavy
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| adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的 | |
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