The Grim Smile of the Five Towns | Page 3

emitted a final 'hum', and then the
stepbrothers were whisked out by an expeditious footman. The
experience cost Horace over four pounds and the loss of a day's time.
And the worst was that Sidney had a violent attack that very night.
School being impossible for him, Sidney had intermittent instruction
from professors of both sexes at home. But he learnt practically nothing
except the banjo. Horace had to buy him a banjo: it cost the best part of
a ten-pound note; still, Horace could do no less. Sidney's stature grew
rapidly; his general health certainly improved, yet not completely; he
always had a fragile, interesting air. Moreover, his deafness did not

disappear: there were occasions when it was extremely pronounced.
And he was never quite safe from these attacks in the head. He spent a
month or six weeks each year in the expensive bracing atmosphere of
some seaside resort, and altogether he was decidedly a heavy drain on
Horace's resources. People were aware of this, and they said that
Horace ought to be happy that he was in a position to spend money
freely on his poor brother. Had not the doctor predicted, before the
catastrophe due to Horace's culpable negligence, that Sidney would
grow into a strong man, and that his deafness would leave him? The
truth was, one never knew the end of those accidents in infancy!
Further, was not Sidney's sad condition slowly killing his mother? It
was whispered about that, since the disaster, Sidney had not been
QUITE sound mentally. Was not the mere suspicion of this enough to
kill any mother?
And, as a fact, Mrs Carpole did die. She died of quinsy, doubtless
aggravated by Sidney's sad condition.
Not long afterwards Horace came into a small fortune from his
maternal grandfather. But poor Sidney did not come into any fortune,
and people somehow illogically inferred that Horace had not behaved
quite nicely in coming into a fortune while his suffering invalid brother,
whom he had so deeply harmed, came into nothing. Even Horace had
compunctions due to the visitations of a similar idea. And with part of
the fortune he bought a house with a large garden up at Toft End, the
highest hill of the hilly Five Towns, so that Sidney might have the
benefit of the air. He also engaged a housekeeper and servants. With
the remainder of the fortune he obtained a partnership in the firm of
earthenware manufacturers for whom he had been acting as highly-paid
manager.
Sidney reached the age of eighteen, and was most effective to look
upon, his bright hair being still curly, and his eyes a wondrous blue,
and his form elegant; and the question of Sidney's future arose. His
health was steadily on the up grade. The deafness had quite disappeared.
He had inclinations towards art, and had already amused himself by
painting some beautiful vases. So it was settled that he should enter
Horace's works on the art side, with a view to becoming, ultimately, art
director. Horace gave him three pounds a week, in order that he might
feel perfectly independent, and, to the same end, Sidney paid Horace

seven-and- sixpence a week for board and lodging. But the change of
life upset the youth's health again. After only two visits to the works he
had a grave recurrence of the head-attacks, and he was solemnly
exhorted not to apply himself too closely to business. He therefore took
several half-holidays a week, and sometimes a whole one. And even
when he put in one of his full days he would arrive at the works three
hours after Horace, and restore the balance by leaving an hour earlier.
The entire town watched over him as a mother watches over a son. The
notion that he was not QUITE right in the pate gradually died away,
and everybody was thankful for that, though it was feared an untimely
grave might be his portion.

III
She was a nice girl: the nicest girl that Horace had ever met with,
because her charming niceness included a faculty of being really
serious about serious things--and yet she could be deliciously gay. In
short, she was a revelation to Horace. And her name was Ella, and she
had come one year to spend some weeks with Mrs Penkethman, the
widowed headmistress of the Wesleyan Day School, who was her
cousin. Mrs Penkethman and Ella had been holidaying together in
France; their arrival in Bursley naturally coincided with the reopening
of the school in August for the autumn term.
Now at this period Horace was rather lonely in his large house and
garden; for Sidney, in pursuit of health, had gone off on a six weeks'
cruise round Holland, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, in one of those
Atlantic liners