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_ Constance, alone in the parlour, stood expectant by the set tea-
table. She was not wearing weeds; her mother and she, on the death
of her father, had talked of the various disadvantages of weeds;
her mother had worn them unwillingly, and only because a public
opinion not sufficiently advanced had intimidated her. Constance
had said: "If ever I'm a widow I won't wear them," positively, in
the tone of youth; and Mrs. Baines had replied: "I hope you won't,
my dear." That was over twenty years ago, but Constance perfectly
remembered. And now, she was a widow! How strange and how
impressive was life! And she had kept her word; not positively,
not without hesitations; for though times were changed, Bursley
was still Bursley; but she had kept it.
This was the first Monday after Samuel's funeral. Existence in the
house had been resumed on the plane which would henceforth be the
normal plane. Constance had put on for tea a dress of black silk
with a jet brooch of her mother's. Her hands, just meticulously
washed, had that feeling of being dirty which comes from
roughening of the epidermis caused by a day spent in fingering
stuffs. She had been 'going through' Samuel's things, and her own,
and ranging all anew. It was astonishing how little the man had
collected, of 'things,' in the course of over half a century. All
his clothes were contained in two long drawers and a short one. He
had the least possible quantity of haberdashery and linen, for he
invariably took from the shop such articles as he required, when
he required them, and he would never preserve what was done with.
He possessed no jewellery save a set of gold studs, a scarf-ring,
and a wedding-ring; the wedding-ring was buried with him. Once,
when Constance had offered him her father's gold watch and chain,
he had politely refused it, saying that he preferred his own--a
silver watch (with a black cord) which kept excellent time; he had
said later that she might save the gold watch and chain for Cyril
when he was twenty-one. Beyond these trifles and a half-empty box
of cigars and a pair of spectacles, he left nothing personal to
himself. Some men leave behind them a litter which takes months to
sift and distribute. But Samuel had not the mania for owning.
Constance put his clothes in a box. to be given away gradually
(all except an overcoat and handkerchiefs which might do for
Cyril); she locked up the watch and its black cord, the spectacles
and the scarf-ring; she gave the gold studs to Cyril; she climbed
on a chair and hid the cigar-box on the top of her wardrobe; and
scarce a trace of Samuel remained!
By his own wish the funeral had been as simple and private as
possible. One or two distant relations, whom Constance scarcely
knew and who would probably not visit her again until she too was
dead, came--and went. And lo! the affair was over. The simple
celerity of the funeral would have satisfied even Samuel, whose
tremendous self-esteem hid itself so effectually behind such
externals that nobody had ever fully perceived it. Not even
Constance quite knew Samuel's secret opinion of Samuel. Constance
was aware that he had a ridiculous side, that his greatest lack
had been a lack of spectacular dignity. Even in the coffin, where
nevertheless most people are finally effective, he had not been
imposing--with his finicky little grey beard persistently sticking
up.
The vision of him in his coffin--there in the churchyard, just at
the end of King Street!--with the lid screwed down on that
unimportant beard, recurred frequently in the mind of the widow,
as something untrue and misleading. She had to say to herself:
"Yes, he is really there! And that is why I have this particular
feeling in my heart." She saw him as an object pathetic and
wistful, not majestic. And yet she genuinely thought that there
could not exist another husband quite so honest, quite so just,
quite so reliable, quite so good, as Samuel had been. What a
conscience he had! How he would try, and try, to be fair with her!
Twenty years she could remember, of ceaseless, constant endeavour
on his part to behave rightly to her! She could recall many an
occasion when he had obviously checked himself, striving against
his tendency to cold abruptness and to sullenness, in order to
give her the respect due to a wife. What loyalty was his! How she
could depend on him! How much better he was than herself (she
thought with modesty)!
His death was an amputation for her. But she faced it with
calmness. She was not bowed with sorrow. She did not nurse the
idea that her life was at an end; on the contrary, she obstinately
put it away from her, dwelling on Cyril. She did not indulge in
the enervating voluptuousness of grief. She had begun in the first
hours of bereavement by picturing herself as one marked out for
the blows of fate. She had lost her father and her mother, and now
her husband. Her career seemed to be punctuated by interments. But
after a while her gentle commonsense came to insist that most
human beings lose their parents, and that every marriage must end
in either a widower or a widow, and that all careers are
punctuated by interments. Had she not had nearly twenty-one years
of happy married life? (Twenty-one years--rolled up! The sudden
thought of their naive ignorance of life, hers and his, when they
were first married, brought tears into her eyes. How wise and
experienced she was now!) And had she not Cyril? Compared to many
women, she was indeed very fortunate.
The one visitation which had been specially hers was the
disappearance of Sophia. And yet even that was not worse than the
death outright of Sophia, was perhaps not so bad. For Sophia might
return out of the darkness. The blow of Sophia's flight had seemed
unique when it was fresh, and long afterwards; had seemed to
separate the Baines family from all other families in a particular
shame. But at the age of forty-three Constance had learnt that
such events are not uncommon in families, and strange sequels to
them not unknown. Thinking often of Sophia, she hoped wildly and
frequently.
She looked at the clock; she had a little spasm of nervousness
lest Cyril might fail to keep his word on that first day of their
new regular life together. And at the instant he burst into the
room, invading it like an armed force, having previously laid
waste the shop in his passage.
"I'm not late, mother! I'm not late!" he cried proudly.
She smiled warmly, happy in him, drawing out of him balm and
solace. He did not know that in that stout familiar body before
him was a sensitive, trembling soul that clutched at him
ecstatically as the one reality in the universe. He did not know
that that evening meal, partaken of without hurry after school had
released him to her, was to be the ceremonial sign of their
intimate unity and their interdependence, a tender and delicious
proof that they were 'all in all to each other': he saw only his
tea, for which he was hungry--just as hungry as though his father
were not scarcely yet cold in the grave.
But he saw obscurely that the occasion demanded something not
quite ordinary, and so exerted himself to be boyishly charming to
his mother. She said to herself 'how good he was.' He felt at ease
and confident in the future, because he detected beneath her
customary judicial, impartial mask a clear desire to spoil him.
After tea, she regretfully left him, at his home-lessons, in order
to go into the shop. The shop was the great unsolved question.
What was she to do with the shop? Was she to continue the business
or to sell it? With the fortunes of her father and her aunt, and
the economies of twenty years, she had more than sufficient means.
She was indeed rich, according to the standards of the Square;
nay, wealthy! Therefore she was under no material compulsion to
keep the shop. Moreover, to keep it would mean personal
superintendence and the burden of responsibility, from which her
calm lethargy shrank. On the other hand, to dispose of the
business would mean the breaking of ties and leaving the premises:
and from this also she shrank. Young Lawton, without being asked,
had advised her to sell. But she did not want to sell. She wanted
the impossible: that matters should proceed in the future as in
the past, that Samuel's death should change nothing save in her
heart.
In the meantime Miss Insull was priceless. Constance thoroughly
understood one side of the shop; but Miss Insull understood both,
and the finance of it also. Miss Insull could have directed the
establishment with credit, if not with brilliance. She was indeed
directing it at that moment. Constance, however, felt jealous of
Miss Insull; she was conscious of a slight antipathy towards the
faithful one. She did not care to be in the hands of Miss Insull.
There were one or two customers at the millinery counter. They
greeted her with a deplorable copiousness of tact. Most tactfully
they avoided any reference to Constance's loss; but by their tone,
their glances, at Constance and at each other, and their
heroically restrained sighs, they spread desolation as though they
had been spreading ashes instead of butter on bread. The
assistants, too, had a special demeanour for the poor lone widow
which was excessively trying to her. She wished to be natural, and
she would have succeeded, had they not all of them apparently
conspired together to make her task impossible.
She moved away to the other side of the shop, to Samuel's desk, at
which he used to stand, staring absently out of the little window
into King Street while murmurously casting figures. She lighted
the gas-jet there, arranged the light exactly to suit her, and
then lifted the large flap of the desk and drew forth some account
books.
"Miss Insull!" she called, in a low, clear voice, with a touch of
haughtiness and a touch of command in it. The pose, a comical
contradiction of Constance's benevolent character, was
deliberately adopted; it illustrated the effects of jealousy on
even the softest disposition.
Miss Insull responded. She had no alternative but to respond. And
she gave no sign of resenting her employer's attitude. But then
Miss Insull seldom did give any sign of being human.
The customers departed, one after another, obsequiously sped by
the assistants, who thereupon lowered the gases somewhat,
according to secular rule; and in the dim eclipse, as they
restored boxes to shelves, they could hear the tranquil, regular,
half-whispered conversation of the two women at the desk,
discussing accounts; and then the chink of gold.
Suddenly there was an irruption. One of the assistants sprang
instinctively to the gas; but on perceiving that the disturber of
peace was only a slatternly girl, hatless and imperfectly clean,
she decided to leave the gas as it was, and put on a
condescending, suspicious demeanour.
"If you please, can I speak to the missis?" said the girl,
breathlessly.
She seemed to be about eighteen years of age, fat and plain. Her
blue frock was torn, and over it she wore a rough brown apron,
caught up at one corner to the waist. Her bare forearms were of
brick-red colour.
"What is it?" demanded the assistant.
Miss Insull looked over her shoulder across the shop. "It must be
Maggie's--Mrs. Hollins's daughter!" said Miss Insull under her
breath.
"What can she want?" said Constance, leaving the desk instantly;
and to the girl, who stood sturdily holding her own against the
group of assistants: "You are Mrs. Hollins's daughter, aren't
you?"
"Yes, mum."
"What's your name?"
"Maggie, mum. And, if you please, mother's sent me to ask if
you'll kindly give her a funeral card."
"A funeral card?"
"Yes. Of Mr. Povey. She's been expecting of one, and she thought
as how perhaps you'd forgotten it, especially as she wasn't asked
to the funeral."
The girl stopped.
Constance perceived that by mere negligence she had seriously
wounded the feelings of Maggie, senior. The truth was, she had
never thought of Maggie. She ought to have remembered that funeral
cards were almost the sole ornamentation of Maggie's abominable
cottage.
"Certainly," she replied after a pause. "Miss Insull, there are a
few cards left in the desk, aren't there? Please put me one in an
envelope for Mrs. Hollins."
She gave the heavily bordered envelope to the ruddy wench, who
enfolded it in her apron, and with hurried, shy thanks ran off.
"Tell your mother I send her a card with pleasure," Constance
called after the girl.
The strangeness of the hazards of life made her thoughtful. She,
to whom Maggie had always seemed an old woman, was a widow, but
Maggie's husband survived as a lusty invalid. And she guessed that
Maggie, vilely struggling in squalor and poverty, was somehow
happy in her frowsy, careless way.
She went back to the accounts, dreaming. _
Read next: BOOK II CONSTANCE: CHAPTER VI - THE WIDOW: PART II
Read previous: BOOK II CONSTANCE: CHAPTER V - ANOTHER CRIME: PART V
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