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_ Several shutters were put up in the windows of the shop, to
indicate a death, and the news instantly became known in trading
circles throughout the town. Many people simultaneously remarked
upon the coincidence that Mr. Baines should have died while there
was a show of mourning goods in his establishment. This
coincidence was regarded as extremely sinister, and it was
apparently felt that, for the sake of the mind's peace, one ought
not to inquire into such things too closely. From the moment of
putting up the prescribed shutters, John Baines and his funeral
began to acquire importance in Bursley, and their importance grew
rapidly almost from hour to hour. The wakes continued as usual,
except that the Chief Constable, upon representations being made
to him by Mr. Critchlow and other citizens, descended upon St.
Luke's Square and forbade the activities of Wombwell's orchestra.
Wombwell and the Chief Constable differed as to the justice of the
decree, but every well-minded person praised the Chief Constable,
and he himself considered that he had enhanced the town's
reputation for a decent propriety. It was noticed, too, not
without a shiver of the uncanny, that that night the lions and
tigers behaved like lambs, whereas on the previous night they had
roared the whole Square out of its sleep.
The Chief Constable was not the only individual enlisted by Mr.
Critchlow in the service of his friend's fame. Mr. Critchlow spent
hours in recalling the principal citizens to a due sense of John
Baines's past greatness. He was determined that his treasured toy
should vanish underground with due pomp, and he left nothing
undone to that end. He went over to Hanbridge on the still
wonderful horse-car, and saw the editor-proprietor of the
Staffordshire Signal (then a two-penny weekly with no thought of
Football editions), and on the very day of the funeral the Signal
came out with a long and eloquent biography of John Baines. This
biography, giving details of his public life, definitely restored
him to his legitimate position in the civic memory as an ex-chief
bailiff, an ex-chairman of the Burial Board, and of the Five Towns
Association for the Advancement of Useful Knowledge, and also as a
"prime mover" in the local Turnpike Act, in the negotiations for
the new Town Hall, and in the Corinthian facade of the Wesleyan
Chapel; it narrated the anecdote of his courageous speech from the
portico of the Shambles during the riots of 1848, and it did not
omit a eulogy of his steady adherence to the wise old English
maxims of commerce and his avoidance of dangerous modern methods.
Even in the sixties the modern had reared its shameless head. The
panegyric closed with an appreciation of the dead man's fortitude
in the terrible affliction with which a divine providence had seen
fit to try him; and finally the Signal uttered its absolute
conviction that his native town would raise a cenotaph to his
honour. Mr. Critchlow, being unfamiliar with the word "cenotaph,"
consulted Worcester's Dictionary, and when he found that it meant
"a sepulchral monument to one who is buried elsewhere," he was as
pleased with the Signal's language as with the idea, and decided
that a cenotaph should come to pass.
The house and shop were transformed into a hive of preparation for
the funeral. All was changed. Mr. Povey kindly slept for three
nights on the parlour sofa, in order that Mrs. Baines might have
his room. The funeral grew into an obsession, for multitudinous
things had to be performed and done sumptuously and in strict
accordance with precedent. There were the family mourning, the
funeral repast, the choice of the text on the memorial card, the
composition of the legend on the coffin, the legal arrangements,
the letters to relations, the selection of guests, and the
questions of bell-ringing, hearse, plumes, number of horses, and
grave-digging. Nobody had leisure for the indulgence of grief
except Aunt Maria, who, after she had helped in the laying-out,
simply sat down and bemoaned unceasingly for hours her absence on
the fatal morning. "If I hadn't been so fixed on polishing my
candle-sticks," she weepingly repeated, "he mit ha' been alive and
well now." Not that Aunt Maria had been informed of the precise
circumstances of the death; she was not clearly aware that Mr.
Baines had died through a piece of neglect. But, like 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 to-
day, 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. _
Read next: BOOK I MRS. BAINES: CHAPTER V - THE TRAVELLER: PART I
Read previous: BOOK I MRS. BAINES: CHAPTER IV - ELEPHANT: PART III
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