THE HISTORY OF MR POLLY
PART 6
IV
Things
crowded upon Mr. Polly. Everyone, he noticed, took sherry with a solemn
avidity, and a small portion even was administered sacramentally to the Punt
boy. There followed a distribution of black kid gloves, and much trying on and
humouring of fingers. “Good gloves,” said one of Mrs. Johnson’s friends.
“There’s a little pair there for Willie,” said Mrs. Johnson triumphantly.
Everyone seemed gravely content with the amazing procedure of the occasion.
Presently Mr. Podger was picking Mr. Polly out as Chief Mourner to go with Mrs.
Johnson, Mrs. Larkins and Annie in the first mourning carriage.
“Right O,”
said Mr. Polly, and repented instantly of the alacrity of the phrase.
“There’ll
have to be a walking party,” said Mrs. Johnson cheerfully. “There’s only two
coaches. I daresay we can put in six in each, but that leaves three over.”
There was
a generous struggle to be pedestrian, and the two other Larkins girls,
confessing coyly to tight new boots and displaying a certain eagerness, were
added to the contents of the first carriage.
“It’ll be
a squeeze,” said Annie.
“I
don’t mind a squeeze,” said Mr. Polly.
He decided
privately that the proper phrase for the result of that remark was “Hysterial
catechunations.”
Mr. Podger
re-entered the room from a momentary supervision of the bumping business that
was now proceeding down the staircase.
“Bearing
up,” he said cheerfully, rubbing his hands together. “Bearing up!”
That stuck
very vividly in Mr. Polly’s mind, and so did the close-wedged drive to the
churchyard, bunched in between two young women in confused dull and shiny
black, and the fact that the wind was bleak and that the officiating clergyman
had a cold, and sniffed between his sentences. The wonder of life! The wonder
of everything! What had he expected that this should all be so astoundingly
different.
He found
his attention converging more and more upon the Larkins cousins. The interest was
reciprocal. They watched him with a kind of suppressed excitement and became
risible with his every word and gesture. He was more and more aware of their
personal quality. Annie had blue eyes and a red, attractive mouth, a harsh
voice and a habit of extreme liveliness that even this occasion could not
suppress; Minnie was fond, extremely free about the touching of hands and
suchlike endearments; Miriam was quieter and regarded him earnestly. Mrs.
Larkins was very happy in her daughters, and they had the naïve
affectionateness of those who see few people and find a strange cousin a
wonderful outlet. Mr. Polly had never been very much kissed, and it made his
mind swim. He did not know for the life of him whether he liked or disliked all
or any of the Larkins cousins. It was rather attractive to make them laugh;
they laughed at anything.
There they
were tugging at his mind, and the funeral tugging at his mind, too, and the
sense of himself as Chief Mourner in a brand new silk hat with a broad mourning
band. He watched the ceremony and missed his responses, and strange feelings
twisted at his heartstrings.
V
Mr. Polly
walked back to the house because he wanted to be alone. Miriam and Minnie would
have accompanied him, but finding Uncle Pentstemon beside the Chief Mourner
they went on in front.
“You’re
wise,” said Uncle Pentstemon.
“Glad you
think so,” said Mr. Polly, rousing himself to talk.
“I likes a
bit of walking before a meal,” said Uncle Pentstemon, and made a kind of large
hiccup. “That sherry rises,” he remarked. “Grocer’s stuff, I expect.”
He went on
to ask how much the funeral might be costing, and seemed pleased to find Mr.
Polly didn’t know.
“In that
case,” he said impressively, “it’s pretty certain to cost more’n you expect, my
boy.”
He
meditated for a time. “I’ve seen a mort of undertakers,” he declared; “a mort
of undertakers.”
The
Larkins girls attracted his attention.
“Let’s
lodgin’s and chars,” he commented. “Leastways she goes out to cook dinners. And
look at ’em!
“Dressed
up to the nines. If it ain’t borryd clothes, that is. And they goes out to work
at a factory!”
“Did you
know my father much, Uncle Pentstemon?” asked Mr. Polly.
“Couldn’t
stand Lizzie throwin’ herself away like that,” said Uncle Pentstemon, and
repeated his hiccup on a larger scale.
“That weren’t
good sherry,” said Uncle Pentstemon with the first note of pathos Mr. Polly had
detected in his quavering voice.
The
funeral in the rather cold wind had proved wonderfully appetising, and every
eye brightened at the sight of the cold collation that was now spread in the
front room. Mrs. Johnson was very brisk, and Mr. Polly, when he re-entered the
house found everybody sitting down. “Come along, Alfred,” cried the hostess
cheerfully. “We can’t very well begin without you. Have you got the bottled
beer ready to open, Betsy? Uncle, you’ll have a drop of whiskey, I expect.”
“Put it
where I can mix for myself,” said Uncle Pentstemon, placing his hat very
carefully out of harm’s way on the bookcase.
There were
two cold boiled chickens, which Johnson carved with great care and justice, and
a nice piece of ham, some brawn and a steak and kidney pie, a large bowl of
salad and several sorts of pickles, and afterwards came cold apple tart, jam
roll and a good piece of Stilton cheese, lots of bottled beer, some lemonade
for the ladies and milk for Master Punt; a very bright and satisfying meal. Mr.
Polly found himself seated between Mrs. Punt, who was much preoccupied with
Master Punt’s table manners, and one of Mrs. Johnson’s school friends, who was
exchanging reminiscences of school days and news of how various common friends
had changed and married with Mrs. Johnson. Opposite him was Miriam and another
of the Johnson circle, and also he had brawn to carve and there was hardly room
for the helpful Betsy to pass behind his chair, so that altogether his mind
would have been amply distracted from any mortuary broodings, even if a wordy
warfare about the education of the modern young woman had not sprung up between
Uncle Pentstemon and Mrs. Larkins and threatened for a time, in spite of a word
or so in season from Johnson, to wreck all the harmony of the sad occasion.
The
general effect was after this fashion:
First an
impression of Mrs. Punt on the right speaking in a refined undertone: “You
didn’t, I suppose, Mr. Polly, think to ’ave your poor dear father
post-mortemed—”
Lady on
the left side breaking in: “I was just reminding Grace of the dear dead days
beyond recall—”
Attempted
reply to Mrs. Punt: “Didn’t think of it for a moment. Can’t give you a piece of
this brawn, can I?”
Fragment
from the left: “Grace and Beauty they used to call us and we used to sit at the
same desk—”
Mrs. Punt,
breaking out suddenly: “Don’t swaller your fork, Willy. You see, Mr.
Polly, I used to ’ave a young gentleman, a medical student, lodging with
me—”
Voice from
down the table: “’Am, Alfred? I didn’t give you very much.”
Bessie
became evident at the back of Mr. Polly’s chair, struggling wildly to get past.
Mr. Polly did his best to be helpful. “Can you get past? Lemme sit forward a
bit. Urr-oo! Right O.”
Lady to
the left going on valiantly and speaking to everyone who cares to listen, while
Mrs. Johnson beams beside her: “There she used to sit as bold as brass, and the
fun she used to make of things no one could believe—knowing her now. She
used to make faces at the mistress through the—”
Mrs. Punt
keeping steadily on: “The contents of the stummik at any rate ought to
be examined.”
Voice of
Mr. Johnson. “Elfrid, pass the mustid down.”
Miriam
leaning across the table: “Elfrid!”
“Once she
got us all kept in. The whole school!”
Miriam,
more insistently: “Elfrid!”
Uncle
Pentstemon, raising his voice defiantly: “Trounce ’er again I would if she did
as much now. That I would! Dratted mischief!”
Miriam,
catching Mr. Polly’s eye: “Elfrid! This lady knows Canterbury. I been telling
her you been there.”
Mr. Polly:
“Glad you know it.”
The lady
shouting: “I like it.”
Mrs.
Larkins, raising her voice: “I won’t ’ave my girls spoken of, not by
nobody, old or young.”
Pop!
imperfectly located.
Mr.
Johnson at large: “Ain’t the beer up! It’s the ’eated room.”
Bessie:
“Scuse me, sir, passing so soon again, but—” Rest inaudible. Mr. Polly,
accommodating himself: “Urr-oo! Right? Right O.”
The knives
and forks, probably by some secret common agreement, clash and clatter together
and drown every other sound.
“Nobody
’ad the least idea ’ow ’E died,—nobody.... Willie, don’t golp so. You
ain’t in a ’urry, are you? You don’t want to ketch a train or anything,—golping
like that!”
“D’you
remember, Grace, ’ow one day we ’ad writing lesson....”
“Nicer
girls no one ever ’ad—though I say it who shouldn’t.”
Mrs.
Johnson in a shrill clear hospitable voice: “Harold, won’t Mrs. Larkins ’ave
a teeny bit more fowl?”
Mr. Polly
rising to the situation. “Or some brawn, Mrs. Larkins?” Catching Uncle
Pentstemon’s eye: “Can’t send you some brawn, sir?”
“Elfrid!”
Loud
hiccup from Uncle Pentstemon, momentary consternation followed by giggle from
Annie.
The
narration at Mr. Polly’s elbow pursued a quiet but relentless course. “Directly
the new doctor came in he said: ’Everything must be took out and put in
spirits—everything.’”
Willie,—audible
ingurgitation.
The
narration on the left was flourishing up to a climax. “Ladies,” she sez, “dip
their pens in their ink and keep their noses out of it!”
“Elfrid!”—persuasively.
“Certain
people may cast snacks at other people’s daughters, never having had any of
their own, though two poor souls of wives dead and buried through their goings
on—”
Johnson
ruling the storm: “We don’t want old scores dug up on such a day as this—”
“Old
scores you may call them, but worth a dozen of them that put them to their
rest, poor dears.”
“Elfrid!”—with
a note of remonstrance.
“If you
choke yourself, my lord, not another mouthful do you ’ave. No nice
puddin’! Nothing!”
“And kept
us in, she did, every afternoon for a week!”
It seemed
to be the end, and Mr. Polly replied with an air of being profoundly impressed:
“Really!”
“Elfrid!”—a
little disheartened.
“And then
they ’ad it! They found he’d swallowed the very key to unlock the drawer—”
“Then
don’t let people go casting snacks!”
“Who’s
casting snacks!”
“Elfrid!
This lady wants to know, ’ave the Prossers left Canterbury?”
“No wish
to make myself disagreeable, not to God’s ’umblest worm—”
“Alf, you
aren’t very busy with that brawn up there!”
And so on
for the hour.
The
general effect upon Mr. Polly at the time was at once confusing and
exhilarating; but it led him to eat copiously and carelessly, and long before
the end, when after an hour and a quarter a movement took the party, and it
pushed away its cheese plates and rose sighing and stretching from the remains
of the repast, little streaks and bands of dyspeptic irritation and melancholy
were darkening the serenity of his mind.
He stood
between the mantel shelf and the window—the blinds were up now—and the Larkins
sisters clustered about him. He battled with the oncoming depression and forced
himself to be extremely facetious about two noticeable rings on Annie’s hand.
“They ain’t real,” said Annie coquettishly. “Got ’em out of a prize packet.”
“Prize
packet in trousers, I expect,” said Mr. Polly, and awakened inextinguishable
laughter.
“Oh! the
things you say!” said Minnie, slapping his shoulder.
Suddenly
something he had quite extraordinarily forgotten came into his head.
“Bless my
heart!” he cried, suddenly serious.
“What’s the
matter?” asked Johnson.
“Ought to
have gone back to shop—three days ago. They’ll make no end of a row!”
“Lor, you are
a Treat!” said cousin Annie, and screamed with laughter at a delicious idea.
“You’ll get the Chuck,” she said.
Mr. Polly
made a convulsing grimace at her.
“I’ll
die!” she said. “I don’t believe you care a bit!”
Feeling a
little disorganized by her hilarity and a shocked expression that had come to
the face of cousin Miriam, he made some indistinct excuse and went out through
the back room and scullery into the little garden. The cool air and a very
slight drizzle of rain was a relief—anyhow. But the black mood of the replete
dyspeptic had come upon him. His soul darkened hopelessly. He walked with his
hands in his pockets down the path between the rows of exceptionally cultured
peas and unreasonably, overwhelmingly, he was smitten by sorrow for his father.
The heady noise and muddle and confused excitement of the feast passed from him
like a curtain drawn away. He thought of that hot and angry and struggling
creature who had tugged and sworn so foolishly at the sofa upon the twisted
staircase, and who was now lying still and hidden, at the bottom of a
wall-sided oblong pit beside the heaped gravel that would presently cover him.
The stillness of it! the wonder of it! the infinite reproach! Hatred for all
these people—all of them—possessed Mr. Polly’s soul.
“Hen-witted
gigglers,” said Mr. Polly.
He went
down to the fence, and stood with his hands on it staring away at nothing. He
stayed there for what seemed a long time. From the house came a sound of raised
voices that subsided, and then Mrs. Johnson calling for Bessie.
“Gowlish
gusto,” said Mr. Polly. “Jumping it in. Funererial Games. Don’t hurt him
of course. Doesn’t matter to him....”
Nobody
missed Mr. Polly for a long time.
When at
last he reappeared among them his eye was almost grim, but nobody noticed his
eye. They were looking at watches, and Johnson was being omniscient about
trains. They seemed to discover Mr. Polly afresh just at the moment of parting,
and said a number of more or less appropriate things. But Uncle Pentstemon was
far too worried about his rush basket, which had been carelessly mislaid, he
seemed to think with larcenous intentions, to remember Mr. Polly at all. Mrs.
Johnson had tried to fob him off with a similar but inferior basket,—his own
had one handle mended with string according to a method of peculiar virtue and
inimitable distinction known only to himself—and the old gentleman had taken
her attempt as the gravest reflection upon his years and intelligence. Mr.
Polly was left very largely to the Larkins trio. Cousin Minnie became shameless
and kept kissing him good-by—and then finding out it wasn’t time to go. Cousin
Miriam seemed to think her silly, and caught Mr. Polly’s eye sympathetically.
Cousin Annie ceased to giggle and lapsed into a nearly sentimental state. She
said with real feeling that she had enjoyed the funeral more than words could
tell.
To be
continued
