The History of Mr. Polly

Then a great change was brought about in the life of Mr. Polly by the death of his father.  His father had died suddenly—­the local practitioner still clung to his theory that it was imagination he suffered from, but compromised in the certificate with the appendicitis that was then so fashionable—­and Mr. Polly found himself heir to a debateable number of pieces of furniture in the house of his cousin near Easewood Junction, a family Bible, an engraved portrait of Garibaldi and a bust of Mr. Gladstone, an invalid gold watch, a gold locket formerly belonging to his mother, some minor jewelry and bric-a-brac, a quantity of nearly valueless old clothes and an insurance policy and money in the bank amounting altogether to the sum of three hundred and ninety-five pounds.

Mr. Polly had always regarded his father as an immortal, as an eternal fact, and his father being of a reserved nature in his declining years had said nothing about the insurance policy.  Both wealth and bereavement therefore took Mr. Polly by surprise and found him a little inadequate.  His mother’s death had been a childish grief and long forgotten, and the strongest affection in his life had been for Parsons.  An only child of sociable tendencies necessarily turns his back a good deal upon home, and the aunt who had succeeded his mother was an economist and furniture polisher, a knuckle rapper and sharp silencer, no friend for a slovenly little boy.  He had loved other little boys and girls transitorily, none had been frequent and familiar enough to strike deep roots in his heart, and he had grown up with a tattered and dissipated affectionateness that was becoming wildly shy.  His father had always been a stranger, an irritable stranger with exceptional powers of intervention and comment, and an air of being disappointed about his offspring.  It was shocking to lose him; it was like an unexpected hole in the universe, and the writing of “Death” upon the sky, but it did not tear Mr. Polly’s heartstrings at first so much as rouse him to a pitch of vivid attention.

He came down to the cottage at Easewood in response to an urgent telegram, and found his father already dead.  His cousin Johnson received him with much solemnity and ushered him upstairs, to look at a stiff, straight, shrouded form, with a face unwontedly quiet and, as it seemed, with its pinched nostrils, scornful.

“Looks peaceful,” said Mr. Polly, disregarding the scorn to the best of his ability.

“It was a merciful relief,” said Mr. Johnson.

There was a pause.

“Second—­Second Departed I’ve ever seen.  Not counting mummies,” said Mr. Polly, feeling it necessary to say something.

“We did all we could.”

“No doubt of it, O’ Man,” said Mr. Polly.

A second long pause followed, and then, much to Mr. Polly’s great relief, Johnson moved towards the door.

Afterwards Mr. Polly went for a solitary walk in the evening light, and as he walked, suddenly his dead father became real to him.  He thought of things far away down the perspective of memory, of jolly moments when his father had skylarked with a wildly excited little boy, of a certain annual visit to the Crystal Palace pantomime, full of trivial glittering incidents and wonders, of his father’s dread back while customers were in the old, minutely known shop.  It is curious that the memory which seemed to link him nearest to the dead man was the memory of a fit of passion.  His father had wanted to get a small sofa up the narrow winding staircase from the little room behind the shop to the bedroom above, and it had jammed.  For a time his father had coaxed, and then groaned like a soul in torment and given way to blind fury, had sworn, kicked and struck at the offending piece of furniture and finally wrenched it upstairs, with considerable incidental damage to lath and plaster and one of the castors.  That moment when self-control was altogether torn aside, the shocked discovery of his father’s perfect humanity, had left a singular impression on Mr. Polly’s queer mind.  It was as if something extravagantly vital had come out of his father and laid a warmly passionate hand upon his heart.  He remembered that now very vividly, and it became a clue to endless other memories that had else been dispersed and confusing.

A weakly wilful being struggling to get obdurate things round impossible corners—­in that symbol Mr. Polly could recognise himself and all the trouble of humanity.

He hadn’t had a particularly good time, poor old chap, and now it was all over.  Finished….

Johnson was the sort of man who derives great satisfaction from a funeral, a melancholy, serious, practical-minded man of five and thirty, with great powers of advice.  He was the up-line ticket clerk at Easewood Junction, and felt the responsibilities of his position.  He was naturally thoughtful and reserved, and greatly sustained in that by an innate rectitude of body and an overhanging and forward inclination of the upper part of his face and head.  He was pale but freckled, and his dark grey eyes were deeply set.  His lightest interest was cricket, but he did not take that lightly.  His chief holiday was to go to a cricket match, which he did as if he was going to church, and he watched critically, applauded sparingly, and was darkly offended by any unorthodox play.  His convictions upon all subjects were taciturnly inflexible.  He was an obstinate player of draughts and chess, and an earnest and persistent reader of the British Weekly.  His wife was a pink, short, wilfully smiling, managing, ingratiating, talkative woman, who was determined to be pleasant, and take a bright hopeful view of everything, even when it was not really bright and hopeful.  She had large blue expressive eyes and a round face, and she always spoke of her husband as Harold.  She addressed sympathetic and considerate remarks about the deceased to Mr. Polly in notes of brisk encouragement.  “He was really quite cheerful at the end,” she said several times, with congratulatory gusto, “quite cheerful.”

She made dying seem almost agreeable.

Both these people were resolved to treat Mr. Polly very well, and to help his exceptional incompetence in every possible way, and after a simple supper of ham and bread and cheese and pickles and cold apple tart and small beer had been cleared away, they put him into the armchair almost as though he was an invalid, and sat on chairs that made them look down on him, and opened a directive discussion of the arrangements for the funeral.  After all a funeral is a distinct social opportunity, and rare when you have no family and few relations, and they did not want to see it spoilt and wasted.

“You’ll have a hearse of course,” said Mrs. Johnson.  “Not one of them combinations with the driver sitting on the coffin.  Disrespectful I think they are.  I can’t fancy how people can bring themselves to be buried in combinations.”  She flattened her voice in a manner she used to intimate aesthetic feeling.  “I do like them glass hearses,” she said.  “So refined and nice they are.”

“Podger’s hearse you’ll have,” said Johnson conclusively.  “It’s the best in Easewood.”

“Everything that’s right and proper,” said Mr. Polly.

“Podger’s ready to come and measure at any time,” said Johnson.

“Then you’ll want a mourner’s carriage or two, according as to whom you’re going to invite,” said Mr. Johnson.

“Didn’t think of inviting any one,” said Polly.

“Oh! you’ll have to ask a few friends,” said Mr. Johnson.  “You can’t let your father go to his grave without asking a few friends.”

“Funerial baked meats like,” said Mr. Polly.

“Not baked, but of course you’ll have to give them something.  Ham and chicken’s very suitable.  You don’t want a lot of cooking with the ceremony coming into the middle of it.  I wonder who Alfred ought to invite, Harold.  Just the immediate relations; one doesn’t want a great crowd of people and one doesn’t want not to show respect.”

“But he hated our relations—­most of them.”

“He’s not hating them now,” said Mrs. Johnson, “you may be sure of that.  It’s just because of that I think they ought to come—­all of them—­even your Aunt Mildred.”

“Bit vulturial, isn’t it?” said Mr. Polly unheeded.

“Wouldn’t be more than twelve or thirteen people if they all came,” said Mr. Johnson.

“We could have everything put out ready in the back room and the gloves and whiskey in the front room, and while we were all at the ceremony, Bessie could bring it all into the front room on a tray and put it out nice and proper.  There’d have to be whiskey and sherry or port for the ladies….”

“Where’ll you get your mourning?” asked Johnson abruptly.

Mr. Polly had not yet considered this by-product of sorrow.  “Haven’t thought of it yet, O’ Man.”

A disagreeable feeling spread over his body as though he was blackening as he sat.  He hated black garments.

“I suppose I must have mourning,” he said.

“Well!” said Johnson with a solemn smile.

“Got to see it through,” said Mr. Polly indistinctly.

“If I were you,” said Johnson, “I should get ready-made trousers.  That’s all you really want.  And a black satin tie and a top hat with a deep mourning band.  And gloves.”

“Jet cuff links he ought to have—­as chief mourner,” said Mrs. Johnson.

“Not obligatory,” said Johnson.

“It shows respect,” said Mrs. Johnson.

“It shows respect of course,” said Johnson.

And then Mrs. Johnson went on with the utmost gusto to the details of the “casket,” while Mr. Polly sat more and more deeply and droopingly into the armchair, assenting with a note of protest to all they said.  After he had retired for the night he remained for a long time perched on the edge of the sofa which was his bed, staring at the prospect before him.  “Chasing the O’ Man about up to the last,” he said.

He hated the thought and elaboration of death as a healthy animal must hate it.  His mind struggled with unwonted social problems.

“Got to put ’em away somehow, I suppose,” said Mr. Polly.

“Wish I’d looked him up a bit more while he was alive,” said Mr. Polly.