‘“Pretty,” by God!’ he replied, ‘she was beautiful. She was considered the finest piece in Hanbridge at one time. And let me tell you we’re supposed to have more than our share of good looks in the Five Towns.’
‘What—the women, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘And she never married?’
‘No.’
‘Nor—anything?’
‘Oh no,’ he said carelessly.
‘But you don’t mean to tell me she’s never—’ I was just going to exclaim, but I did not, I said: ‘And it’s her sister who is Mrs Colclough?’
‘Yes.’ He seemed to be either meditative or disinclined to talk. However, my friends have sometimes hinted to me that when my curiosity is really aroused, I am capable of indiscretions.
‘So one sister rattles about in an expensive motor-car, and the other serves behind a bar!’ I observed.
He glanced at me.
‘I expect it’s a bit difficult for you to understand,’ he answered; ‘but you must remember you’re in a democratic district. You told me once you knew Exeter. Well, this isn’t a cathedral town. It’s about a century in front of any cathedral town in the world. Why, my good sir, there’s practically no such thing as class distinction here. Both my grandfathers were working potters. Colclough’s father was a joiner who finished up as a builder. If Colclough makes money and chooses to go to Paris and get the best motor-car he can, why in Hades shouldn’t his wife ride in it? If he is fond of music and can play like the devil, that isn’t his sister-in-law’s fault, is it? His wife was a dressmaker, at least she was a dressmaker’s assistant. If she suits him, what’s the matter?’
‘But I never suggested—’
‘Excuse me,’ he stopped me, speaking with careful and slightly exaggerated calmness, ‘I think you did. If the difference in the situations of the two sisters didn’t strike you as very extraordinary, what did you mean?’
‘And isn’t it extraordinary?’ I demanded.
‘It wouldn’t be considered so in any reasonable society,’ he insisted. ‘The fact is, my good sir, you haven’t yet quite got rid of Exeter. I do believe this place will do you good. Why, damn it! Colclough didn’t marry both sisters. You think he might keep the other sister? Well, he might. But suppose his wife had half-a-dozen sisters, should he keep them all! I can tell you we’re just like the rest of the world, we find no difficulty whatever in spending all the money we make. I dare say Colclough would be ready enough to keep his sister-in-law. I’ve never asked him. But I’m perfectly certain that his sister-in-law wouldn’t be kept. Not much! You don’t know these women down here, my good sir. She’s earned her living at one thing or another all her life, and I reckon she’ll keep on earning it till she drops. She is, without exception, the most exasperating female I ever came across, and that’s saying something; but I will give her THAT credit: she’s mighty independent.’
‘How exasperating?’ I asked, surprised to hear this from him.
‘I don’t know. But she is. If she was my wife I should kill her one night. Don’t you know what I mean?’
‘Yes, I quite agree with you,’ I said. ‘But you seemed to be awfully good friends with her.’
‘No use being anything else. No woman that it ever pleased Providence to construct is going to frighten me away from the draught Burton that you can get at the Tiger. Besides, she can’t help it. She was born like that.’
‘She TALKS quite ordinarily,’ I remarked.
‘Oh! It isn’t what she says, particularly. It’s HER. Either you like her or you don’t like her. Now Colclough thinks she’s all right. In fact, he admires her.’
‘There’s one thing,’ I said, ‘she jolly nearly cried tonight.’
‘Purely mechanical!’ said Mr Brindley with cruel curtness.
What seemed to me singular was that the relations which had existed between Miss Annie Brett and Simon Fuge appeared to have no interest whatever for Mr Brindley. He had not even referred to them.
‘You were just beginning to draw her out,’ I ventured.
‘No,’ he replied; ‘I thought I’d just see what she’d say. No one ever did draw that woman out.’
I had completely lost my vision of her in the boat, but somehow that declaration of his, ‘no one ever did draw that woman out’, partially restored the vision to me. It seemed to invest her with agreeable mystery.
‘And the other sister—Mrs Colclough?’ I questioned.
‘I’m taking you to see her as fast as I can,’ he answered. His tone implied further: ‘I’ve just humoured one of your whims, now for the other.’
‘But tell me something about her.’
‘She’s the best bridge-player—woman, that is—in Bursley. But she will only play every other night for fear the habit should get hold of her. There you’ve got her.’
‘Younger than Miss Brett?’
‘Younger,’ said Mr Brindley. ‘She isn’t the same sort of person, is she?’
‘She is not,’ said Mr Brindley. And his tone implied: ‘Thank God for it!’
Very soon afterwards, at the top of a hill, he drew me into the garden of a large house which stood back from the road.
VII
It was quite a different sort of house from Mr Brindley’s. One felt that immediately on entering the hall, which was extensive. There was far more money and considerably less taste at large in that house than in the other. I noticed carved furniture that must have been bought with a coarse and a generous hand; and on the walls a diptych by Marcus Stone portraying the course of true love clingingly draped. It was just like Exeter or Onslow Square. But the middle-aged servant who received us struck at once the same note as had sounded so agreeably at Mr Brindley’s. She seemed positively glad to see us; our arrival seemed to afford her a peculiar and violent pleasure, as though the hospitality which we were about to accept was in some degree hers too. She robbed us of our hats with ecstasy.
Then Mr Colclough appeared.
‘Delighted you’ve come, Mr Loring!’ he said, shaking my hand again. He said it with fervour. He obviously was delighted. The exercise of hospitality was clearly the chief joy of his life; at least, if he had a greater it must have been something where keenness was excessive beyond the point of pleasure, as some joys are. ‘How do, Bob? Your missis has just come.’ He was still in his motoring clothes.
Mr Brindley, observing my gaze transiently on the Marcus Stones, said: ‘I know what you’re looking for; you’re looking for “Saul’s Soul’s Awakening”. We don’t keep it in the window; you’ll see it inside.’
‘Bob’s always rotting me about my pictures,’ Mr Colclough smiled indulgently. He seemed big enough to eat his friend, and his rich, heavy voice rolled like thunder about the hall. ‘Come along in, will you?’
‘Half-a-second, Ol,’ Mr Brindley called in a conspiratorial tone, and, turning to me: Tell him THE Limerick. You know.’
‘The one about the hayrick?’
Mr Brindley nodded.
There were three heads close together for a space of twenty seconds or so, and then a fearful explosion happened—the unique, tremendous laughter of Mr Colclough, which went off like a charge of melinite and staggered the furniture.
‘Now, now!’ a feminine voice protested from an unseen interior.
I was taken to the drawing-room, an immense apartment with an immense piano black as midnight in it. At the further end two women were seated close together in conversation, and I distinctly heard the name ‘Fuge’. One of them was Mrs Brindley, in a hat. The other, a very big and stout woman, in an elaborate crimson garment that resembled a teagown, rose and came to meet me with extended hand.
‘My wife—Mr Loring,’ said Mr Oliver Colclough.
‘So glad to meet you,’ she said, beaming on me with all her husband’s pleasure. ‘Come and sit between Mrs Brindley and me, near the window, and keep us in order. Don’t you find it very close? There are at least a hundred cats in the garden.’