The History of Mr. Polly

Mr. Polly designed his suicide with considerable care, and a quite remarkable altruism.  His passionate hatred for Miriam vanished directly the idea of getting away from her for ever became clear in his mind.  He found himself full of solicitude then for her welfare.  He did not want to buy his release at her expense.  He had not the remotest intention of leaving her unprotected with a painfully dead husband and a bankrupt shop on her hands.  It seemed to him that he could contrive to secure for her the full benefit of both his life insurance and his fire insurance if he managed things in a tactful manner.  He felt happier than he had done for years scheming out this undertaking, albeit it was perhaps a larger and somberer kind of happiness than had fallen to his lot before.  It amazed him to think he had endured his monotony of misery and failure for so long.

But there were some queer doubts and questions in the dim, half-lit background of his mind that he had very resolutely to ignore.  “Sick of it,” he had to repeat to himself aloud, to keep his determination clear and firm.  His life was a failure, there was nothing more to hope for but unhappiness.  Why shouldn’t he?

His project was to begin the fire with the stairs that led from the ground floor to the underground kitchen and scullery.  This he would soak with paraffine, and assist with firewood and paper, and a brisk fire in the coal cellar underneath.  He would smash a hole or so in the stairs to ventilate the blaze, and have a good pile of boxes and paper, and a convenient chair or so in the shop above.  He would have the paraffine can upset and the shop lamp, as if awaiting refilling, at a convenient distance in the scullery ready to catch.  Then he would smash the house lamp on the staircase, a fall with that in his hand was to be the ostensible cause of the blaze, and then he would cut his throat at the top of the kitchen stairs, which would then become his funeral pyre.  He would do all this on Sunday evening while Miriam was at church, and it would appear that he had fallen downstairs with the lamp, and been burnt to death.  There was really no flaw whatever that he could see in the scheme.  He was quite sure he knew how to cut his throat, deep at the side and not to saw at the windpipe, and he was reasonably sure it wouldn’t hurt him very much.  And then everything would be at an end.

There was no particular hurry to get the thing done, of course, and meanwhile he occupied his mind with possible variations of the scheme….

It needed a particularly dry and dusty east wind, a Sunday dinner of exceptional virulence, a conclusive letter from Konk, Maybrick, Ghool and Gabbitas, his principal and most urgent creditors, and a conversation with Miriam arising out of arrears of rent and leading on to mutual character sketching, before Mr. Polly could be brought to the necessary pitch of despair to carry out his plans.  He went for an embittering walk, and came back to find Miriam in a bad temper over the tea things, with the brewings of three-quarters of an hour in the pot, and hot buttered muffin gone leathery.  He sat eating in silence with his resolution made.

“Coming to church?” said Miriam after she had cleared away.

“Rather.  I got a lot to be grateful for,” said Mr. Polly.

“You got what you deserve,” said Miriam.

“Suppose I have,” said Mr. Polly, and went and stared out of the back window at a despondent horse in the hotel yard.

He was still standing there when Miriam came downstairs dressed for church.  Something in his immobility struck home to her.  “You’d better come to church than mope,” she said.

“I shan’t mope,” he answered.

She remained still for a moment.  Her presence irritated him.  He felt that in another moment he should say something absurd to her, make some last appeal for that understanding she had never been able to give.  “Oh! go to church!” he said.

In another moment the outer door slammed upon her.  “Good riddance!” said Mr. Polly.

He turned about.  “I’ve had my whack,” he said.

He reflected.  “I don’t see she’ll have any cause to holler,” he said.  “Beastly Home!  Beastly Life!”

For a space he remained thoughtful.  “Here goes!” he said at last.