The Complete Five Towns Collections. Bennett Arnold

Mr. Critchlow, she was convinced that there had been only one person in the world truly capable of nursing Mr. Baines. Beyond the family, no one save Mr. Critchlow and Dr. Harrop knew just how the martyr had finished his career. Dr. Harrop, having been asked bluntly if an inquest would be necessary, had reflected a moment and had then replied: “No.” And he added, “Least said soonest mended — mark me!” They had marked him. He was commonsense in breeches.

      As for Aunt Maria, she was sent about her snivelling business by Aunt Harriet. The arrival in the house of this genuine aunt from Axe, of this majestic and enormous widow whom even the imperial Mrs. Baines regarded with a certain awe, set a seal of ultimate solemnity on the whole event. In Mr. Povey’s bedroom Mrs. Baines fell like a child into Aunt Harriet’s arms and sobbed:

      “If it had been anything else but that elephant!”

      Such was Mrs. Baines’s sole weakness from first to last.

      Aunt Harriet was an exhaustless fountain of authority upon every detail concerning interments. And, to a series of questions ending with the word “sister,” and answers ending with the word “sister,” the prodigious travail incident to the funeral was gradually and successfully accomplished. Dress and the repast exceeded all other matters in complexity and difficulty. But on the morning of the funeral Aunt Harriet had the satisfaction of beholding her younger sister the centre of a tremendous cocoon of crape, whose slightest pleat was perfect. Aunt Harriet seemed to welcome her then, like a veteran, formally into the august army of relicts. As they stood side by side surveying the special table which was being laid in the showroom for the repast, it appeared inconceivable that they had reposed together in Mr. Povey’s limited bed. They descended from the showroom to the kitchen, where the last delicate dishes were inspected. The shop was, of course, closed for the day, but Mr. Povey was busy there, and in Aunt Harriet’s all-seeing glance he came next after the dishes. She rose from the kitchen to speak with him.

      “You’ve got your boxes of gloves all ready?” she questioned him.

      “Yes, Mrs. Maddack.”

      “You’ll not forget to have a measure handy?”

      “No, Mrs. Maddack.”

      “You’ll find you’ll want more of seven-and-three-quarters and eights than anything.”

      “Yes. I have allowed for that.”

      “If you place yourself behind the side-door and put your boxes on the harmonium, you’ll be able to catch every one as they come in.”

      “That is what I had thought of, Mrs. Maddack.”

      She went upstairs. Mrs. Baines had reached the showroom again, and was smoothing out creases in the white damask cloth and arranging glass dishes of jam at equal distances from each other.

      “Come, sister,” said Mrs. Maddack. “A last look.”

      And they passed into the mortuary bedroom to gaze at Mr. Baines before he should be everlastingly nailed down. In death he had recovered some of his earlier dignity; but even so he was a startling sight. The two widows bent over him, one on either side, and gravely stared at that twisted, worn white face all neatly tucked up in linen.

      “I shall fetch Constance and Sophia,” said Mrs. Maddack, with tears in her voice. “Do you go into the drawing-room, sister.”

      But Mrs. Maddack only succeeded in fetching Constance.

      Then there was the sound of wheels in King Street. The long rite of the funeral was about to begin. Every guest, after having been measured and presented with a pair of the finest black kid gloves by Mr. Povey, had to mount the crooked stairs and gaze upon the carcase of John Baines, going afterwards to the drawing-room to condole briefly with the widow. And every guest, while conscious of the enormity of so thinking, thought what an excellent thing it was that John Baines should be at last dead and gone. The tramping on the stairs was continual, and finally Mr. Baines himself went downstairs, bumping against corners, and led a cortege of twenty vehicles.

      The funeral tea was not over at seven o’clock, five hours after the commencement of the rite. It was a gigantic and faultless meal, worthy of John Baines’s distant past. Only two persons were absent from it — John Baines and Sophia. The emptiness of Sophia’s chair was much noticed; Mrs. Maddack explained that Sophia was very high-strung and could not trust herself. Great efforts were put forth by the company to be lugubrious and inconsolable, but the secret relief resulting from the death would not be entirely hidden. The vast pretence of acute sorrow could not stand intact against that secret relief and the lavish richness of the food.

      To the offending of sundry important relatives from a distance, Mr. Critchlow informally presided over that assemblage of grave men in high stocks and crinolined women. He had closed his shop, which had never before been closed on a weekday, and he had a great deal to say about this extraordinary closure. It was due as much to the elephant as to the funeral. The elephant had become a victim to the craze for souvenirs. Already in the night his tusks had been stolen; then his feet disappeared for umbrella-stands, and most of his flesh had departed in little hunks. Everybody in Bursley had resolved to participate in the elephant. One consequence was that all the chemists’ shops in the town were assaulted by strings of boys. ‘Please a pennorth o’ alum to tak’ smell out o’ a bit o’ elephant.’ Mr. Critchlow hated boys.

      “‘I’ll alum ye!’ says I, and I did. I alummed him out o’ my shop with a pestle. If there’d been one there’d been twenty between opening and nine o’clock. ‘George,’ I says to my apprentice, ‘shut shop up. My old friend John Baines is going to his long home today, and I’ll close. I’ve had enough o’ alum for one day.’”

      The elephant fed the conversation until after the second relay of hot muffins. When Mr. Critchlow had eaten to his capacity, he took the Signal importantly from his pocket, posed his spectacles, and read the obituary all through in slow, impressive accents. Before he reached the end Mrs. Baines began to perceive that familiarity had blinded her to the heroic qualities of her late husband. The fourteen years of ceaseless care were quite genuinely forgotten, and she saw him in his strength and in his glory. When Mr. Critchlow arrived at the eulogy of the husband and father, Mrs. Baines rose and left the showroom. The guests looked at each other in sympathy for her. Mr. Critchlow shot a glance at her over his spectacles and continued steadily reading. After he had finished he approached the question of the cenotaph.

      Mrs. Baines, driven from the banquet by her feelings, went into the drawing-room. Sophia was there, and Sophia, seeing tears in her mother’s eyes, gave a sob, and flung herself bodily against her mother, clutching her, and hiding her face in that broad crape, which abraded her soft skin.

      “Mother,” she wept passionately, “I want to leave the school now. I want to please you. I’ll do anything in the world to please you. I’ll go into the shop if you’d like me to!” Her voice lost itself in tears.

      “Calm yourself, my pet,” said Mrs. Baines, tenderly, caressing her. It was a triumph for the mother in the very hour when she needed a triumph.