THE HISTORY OF MR POLLY
PART 9
Chapter the Sixth
Miriam
I
It is an
illogical consequence of one human being’s ill-treatment that we should fly
immediately to another, but that is the way with us. It seemed to Mr. Polly
that only a human touch could assuage the smart of his humiliation. Moreover it
had for some undefined reason to be a feminine touch, and the number of women
in his world was limited.
He thought
of the Larkins family—the Larkins whom he had not been near now for ten long
days. Healing people they seemed to him now—healing, simple people. They had
good hearts, and he had neglected them for a mirage. If he rode over to them he
would be able to talk nonsense and laugh and forget the whirl of memories and
thoughts that was spinning round and round so unendurably in his brain.
“Law!”
said Mrs. Larkins, “come in! You’re quite a stranger, Elfrid!”
“Been
seeing to business,” said the unveracious Polly.
“None of
’em ain’t at ’ome, but Miriam’s just out to do a bit of shopping. Won’t let me
shop, she won’t, because I’m so keerless. She’s a wonderful manager, that girl.
Minnie’s got some work at the carpet place. ’Ope it won’t make ’er ill again.
She’s a loving deliket sort, is Minnie.... Come into the front parlour. It’s a
bit untidy, but you got to take us as you find us. Wot you been doing to your
face?”
“Bit of a
scrase with the bicycle,” said Mr. Polly.
“Trying to
pass a carriage on the on side, and he drew up and ran me against a wall.”
Mrs.
Larkins scrutinised it. “You ought to ’ave someone look after your scrases,”
she said. “That’s all red and rough. It ought to be cold-creamed. Bring your
bicycle into the passage and come in.”
She
“straightened up a bit,” that is to say she increased the dislocation of a
number of scattered articles, put a workbasket on the top of several books,
swept two or three dogs’-eared numbers of the Lady’s Own Novelist from
the table into the broken armchair, and proceeded to sketch together the
tea-things with various such interpolations as: “Law, if I ain’t forgot the
butter!” All the while she talked of Annie’s good spirits and cleverness with
her millinery, and of Minnie’s affection and Miriam’s relative love of order
and management. Mr. Polly stood by the window uneasily and thought how good and
sincere was the Larkins tone. It was well to be back again.
“You’re a
long time finding that shop of yours,” said Mrs. Larkins.
“Don’t do
to be precipitous,” said Mr. Polly.
“No,” said
Mrs. Larkins, “once you got it you got it. Like choosing a ’usband. You better
see you got it good. I kept Larkins ’esitating two years I did, until I felt
sure of him. A ’ansom man ’e was as you can see by the looks of the girls, but
’ansom is as ’ansom does. You’d like a bit of jam to your tea, I expect? I ’ope
they’ll keep their men waiting when the time comes. I tell them if they
think of marrying it only shows they don’t know when they’re well off. Here’s
Miriam!”
Miriam
entered with several parcels in a net, and a peevish expression. “Mother,” she
said, “you might ’ave prevented my going out with the net with the
broken handle. I’ve been cutting my fingers with the string all the way ’ome.”
Then she discovered Mr. Polly and her face brightened.
“Ello,
Elfrid!” she said. “Where you been all this time?”
“Looking
round,” said Mr. Polly.
“Found a
shop?”
“One or
two likely ones. But it takes time.”
“You’ve
got the wrong cups, Mother.”
She went
into the kitchen, disposed of her purchases, and returned with the right cups.
“What you done to your face, Elfrid?” she asked, and came and scrutinised his
scratches. “All rough it is.”
He
repeated his story of the accident, and she was sympathetic in a pleasant
homely way.
“You are
quiet today,” she said as they sat down to tea.
“Meditatious,”
said Mr. Polly.
Quite by
accident he touched her hand on the table, and she answered his touch.
“Why not?”
thought Mr. Polly, and looking up, caught Mrs. Larkins’ eye and flushed
guiltily. But Mrs. Larkins, with unusual restraint, said nothing. She merely
made a grimace, enigmatical, but in its essence friendly.
Presently
Minnie came in with some vague grievance against the manager of the
carpet-making place about his method of estimating piece work. Her account was
redundant, defective and highly technical, but redeemed by a certain
earnestness. “I’m never within sixpence of what I reckon to be,” she said.
“It’s a bit too ’ot.” Then Mr. Polly, feeling that he was being conspicuously
dull, launched into a description of the shop he was looking for and the shops
he had seen. His mind warmed up as he talked.
“Found
your tongue again,” said Mrs. Larkins. He had. He began to embroider the
subject and work upon it. For the first time it assumed picturesque and
desirable qualities in his mind. It stimulated him to see how readily and
willingly they accepted his sketches. Bright ideas appeared in his mind from
nowhere. He was suddenly enthusiastic.
“When I
get this shop of mine I shall have a cat. Must make a home for a cat, you
know.”
“What, to
catch the mice?” said Mrs. Larkins.
“No—sleep
in the window. A venerable signor of a cat. Tabby. Cat’s no good if it
isn’t tabby. Cat I’m going to have, and a canary! Didn’t think of that before,
but a cat and a canary seem to go, you know. Summer weather I shall sit at
breakfast in the little room behind the shop, sun streaming in the window to
rights, cat on a chair, canary singing and—Mrs. Polly....”
“Ello!”
said Mrs. Larkins.
“Mrs.
Polly frying an extra bit of bacon. Bacon singing, cat singing, canary singing.
Kettle singing. Mrs. Polly—”
“But who’s
Mrs. Polly going to be?” said Mrs. Larkins.
“Figment
of the imagination, ma’am,” said Mr. Polly. “Put in to fill up picture. No face
to figure as yet. Still, that’s how it will be, I can assure you. I think I
must have a bit of garden. Johnson’s the man for a garden of course,” he said,
going off at a tangent, “but I don’t mean a fierce sort of garden. Earnest
industry. Anxious moments. Fervous digging. Shan’t go in for that sort of
garden, ma’am. No! Too much backache for me. My garden will be just a patch of
’sturtiums and sweet pea. Red brick yard, clothes’ line. Trellis put up in odd
time. Humorous wind vane. Creeper up the back of the house.”
“Virginia
creeper?” asked Miriam.
“Canary
creeper,” said Mr. Polly.
“You will
’ave it nice,” said Miriam, desirously.
“Rather,”
said Mr. Polly. “Ting-a-ling-a-ling. Shop!”
He
straightened himself up and then they all laughed.
“Smart
little shop,” he said. “Counter. Desk. All complete. Umbrella stand. Carpet on
the floor. Cat asleep on the counter. Ties and hose on a rail over the counter.
All right.”
“I wonder
you don’t set about it right off,” said Miriam.
“Mean to
get it exactly right, m’am,” said Mr. Polly.
“Have to
have a tomcat,” said Mr. Polly, and paused for an expectant moment. “Wouldn’t
do to open shop one morning, you know, and find the window full of kittens.
Can’t sell kittens....”
When tea
was over he was left alone with Minnie for a few minutes, and an odd intimation
of an incident occurred that left Mr. Polly rather scared and shaken. A silence
fell between them—an uneasy silence. He sat with his elbows on the table
looking at her. All the way from Easewood to Stamton his erratic imagination
had been running upon neat ways of proposing marriage. I don’t know why it
should have done, but it had. It was a kind of secret exercise that had not had
any definite aim at the time, but which now recurred to him with extraordinary
force. He couldn’t think of anything in the world that wasn’t the gambit to a
proposal. It was almost irresistibly fascinating to think how immensely a few
words from him would excite and revolutionise Minnie. She was sitting at the
table with a workbasket among the tea things, mending a glove in order to avoid
her share of clearing away.
“I like
cats,” said Minnie after a thoughtful pause. “I’m always saying to mother, ’I
wish we ’ad a cat.’ But we couldn’t ’ave a cat ’ere—not with no yard.”
“Never had
a cat myself,” said Mr. Polly. “No!”
“I’m fond
of them,” said Minnie.
“I like
the look of them,” said Mr. Polly. “Can’t exactly call myself fond.”
“I expect
I shall get one some day. When about you get your shop.”
“I shall
have my shop all right before long,” said Mr. Polly. “Trust me. Canary bird and
all.”
She shook
her head. “I shall get a cat first,” she said. “You never mean anything you
say.”
“Might get
’em together,” said Mr. Polly, with his sense of a neat thing outrunning his
discretion.
“Why! ’ow
d’you mean?” said Minnie, suddenly alert.
“Shop and
cat thrown in,” said Mr. Polly in spite of himself, and his head swam and he
broke out into a cold sweat as he said it.
He found
her eyes fixed on him with an eager expression. “Mean to say—” she began as if
for verification. He sprang to his feet, and turned to the window. “Little
dog!” he said, and moved doorward hastily. “Eating my bicycle tire, I believe,”
he explained. And so escaped.
He saw his
bicycle in the hall and cut it dead.
He heard
Mrs. Larkins in the passage behind him as he opened the front door.
He turned
to her. “Thought my bicycle was on fire,” he said. “Outside. Funny fancy! All
right, reely. Little dog outside.... Miriam ready?”
“What
for?”
“To go and
meet Annie.”
Mrs.
Larkins stared at him. “You’re stopping for a bit of supper?”
“If I
may,” said Mr. Polly.
“You’re a
rum un,” said Mrs. Larkins, and called: “Miriam!”
Minnie
appeared at the door of the room looking infinitely perplexed. “There ain’t a
little dog anywhere, Elfrid,” she said.
Mr. Polly
passed his hand over his brow. “I had a most curious sensation. Felt exactly as
though something was up somewhere. That’s why I said Little Dog. All right
now.”
He bent
down and pinched his bicycle tire.
“You was
saying something about a cat, Elfrid,” said Minnie.
“Give you
one,” he answered without looking up. “The very day my shop is opened.”
He
straightened himself up and smiled reassuringly. “Trust me,” he said.
II
When,
after imperceptible manoeuvres by Mrs. Larkins, he found himself starting
circuitously through the inevitable recreation ground with Miriam to meet
Annie, he found himself quite unable to avoid the topic of the shop that had
now taken such a grip upon him. A sense of danger only increased the
attraction. Minnie’s persistent disposition to accompany them had been crushed
by a novel and violent and urgently expressed desire on the part of Mrs.
Larkins to see her do something in the house sometimes....
“You
really think you’ll open a shop?” asked Miriam.
“I hate
cribs,” said Mr. Polly, adopting a moderate tone. “In a shop there’s this
drawback and that, but one is one’s own master.”
“That
wasn’t all talk?”
“Not a bit
of it.”
“After
all,” he went on, “a little shop needn’t be so bad.”
“It’s a
’ome,” said Miriam.
“It’s a
home.”
Pause.
“There’s
no need to keep accounts and that sort of thing if there’s no assistant. I
daresay I could run a shop all right if I wasn’t interfered with.”
“I should
like to see you in your shop,” said Miriam. “I expect you’d keep everything
tremendously neat.”
The
conversation flagged.
“Let’s sit
down on one of those seats over there,” said Miriam. “Where we can see those
blue flowers.”
They did
as she suggested, and sat down in a corner where a triangular bed of stock and
delphinium brightened the asphalted traceries of the Recreation Ground.
“I wonder
what they call those flowers,” she said. “I always like them. They’re
handsome.”
“Delphicums
and larkspurs,” said Mr. Polly. “They used to be in the park at Port Burdock.
“Floriferous
corner,” he added approvingly.
He put an
arm over the back of the seat, and assumed a more comfortable attitude. He
glanced at Miriam, who was sitting in a lax, thoughtful pose with her eyes on
the flowers. She was wearing her old dress, she had not had time to change, and
the blue tones of her old dress brought out a certain warmth in her skin, and
her pose exaggerated whatever was feminine in her rather lean and insufficient
body, and rounded her flat chest delusively. A little line of light lay along
her profile. The afternoon was full of transfiguring sunshine, children were
playing noisily in the adjacent sandpit, some Judas trees were brightly abloom
in the villa gardens that bordered the Recreation Ground, and all the place was
bright with touches of young summer colour. It all merged with the effect of
Miriam in Mr. Polly’s mind.
Her
thoughts found speech. “One did ought to be happy in a shop,” she said with a
note of unusual softness in her voice.
It seemed
to him that she was right. One did ought to be happy in a shop. Folly not to
banish dreams that made one ache of townless woods and bracken tangles and
red-haired linen-clad figures sitting in dappled sunshine upon grey and
crumbling walls and looking queenly down on one with clear blue eyes. Cruel and
foolish dreams they were, that ended in one’s being laughed at and made a mock
of. There was no mockery here.
“A shop’s
such a respectable thing to be,” said Miriam thoughtfully.
“I
could be happy in a shop,” he said.
His sense
of effect made him pause.
“If I had
the right company,” he added.
She became
very still.
Mr. Polly
swerved a little from the conversational ice-run upon which he had embarked.
“I’m not
such a blooming Geezer,” he said, “as not to be able to sell goods a bit. One
has to be nosy over one’s buying of course. But I shall do all right.”
He
stopped, and felt falling, falling through the aching silence that followed.
“If you
get the right company,” said Miriam.
“I shall
get that all right.”
“You don’t
mean you’ve got someone—”
He found
himself plunging.
“I’ve got
someone in my eye, this minute,” he said.
“Elfrid!”
she said, turning on him. “You don’t mean—”
Well, did
he mean? “I do!” he said.
“Not
reely!” She clenched her hands to keep still.
He took
the conclusive step.
“Well, you
and me, Miriam, in a little shop—with a cat and a canary—” He tried too late to
get back to a hypothetical note. “Just suppose it!”
“You
mean,” said Miriam, “you’re in love with me, Elfrid?”
What
possible answer can a man give to such a question but “Yes!”
Regardless
of the public park, the children in the sandpit and everyone, she bent forward
and seized his shoulder and kissed him on the lips. Something lit up in Mr.
Polly at the touch. He put an arm about her and kissed her back, and felt an
irrevocable act was sealed. He had a curious feeling that it would be very
satisfying to marry and have a wife—only somehow he wished it wasn’t Miriam.
Her lips were very pleasant to him, and the feel of her in his arm.
They
recoiled a little from each other and sat for a moment, flushed and awkwardly
silent. His mind was altogether incapable of controlling its confusion.
“I didn’t
dream,” said Miriam, “you cared—. Sometimes I thought it was Annie, sometimes
Minnie—”
“Always
liked you better than them,” said Mr. Polly.
“I loved
you, Elfrid,” said Miriam, “since ever we met at your poor father’s funeral.
Leastways I would have done, if I had thought. You didn’t seem to mean
anything you said.
“I can’t
believe it!” she added.
“Nor I,”
said Mr. Polly.
“You mean
to marry me and start that little shop—”
“Soon as
ever I find it,” said Mr. Polly.
“I had no
more idea when I came out with you—”
“Nor me!”
“It’s like
a dream.”
They said
no more for a little while.
“I got to
pinch myself to think it’s real,” said Miriam. “What they’ll do without me at
’ome I can’t imagine. When I tell them—”
For the
life of him Mr. Polly could not tell whether he was fullest of tender
anticipations or regretful panic.
“Mother’s
no good at managing—not a bit. Annie don’t care for ’ouse work and Minnie’s got
no ’ed for it. What they’ll do without me I can’t imagine.”
“They’ll
have to do without you,” said Mr. Polly, sticking to his guns.
A clock in
the town began striking.
“Lor’!”
said Miriam, “we shall miss Annie—sitting ’ere and love-making!”
She rose
and made as if to take Mr. Polly’s arm. But Mr. Polly felt that their condition
must be nakedly exposed to the ridicule of the world by such a linking, and
evaded her movement.
Annie was
already in sight before a flood of hesitation and terrors assailed Mr. Polly.
“Don’t
tell anyone yet a bit,” he said.
“Only
mother,” said Miriam firmly.
To be continued
