Anna of the Five Towns · Chapter 11 (1/4)

XI

The Downfall

In order to catch the Liverpool steamer at Douglas it was necessary to leave Port Erin at half-past six in the morning. The freshness of the morning, and the smiles of the Alderman and his wife as they waved Godspeed from the doorstep, filled Anna with a serene content which she certainly had not felt during the wakeful night. She forgot, then, the hours passed with her conscience in realising how serious and solemn a thing was this engagement, made in an instant on the previous evening. All that remained in her mind, as she and Henry walked quickly down the road, was the tonic sensation of high resolves to be a worthy wife. The duties, rather than the joys, of her condition, had lain nearest her heart until that moment of setting out, giving her an anxious and almost worried mien which at breakfast neither Henry nor the Suttons could quite understand. But now the idea of duty ceased for a time to be paramount, and she loosed herself to the pleasures of the day in store. The harbour was full of low wandering mists, through which the brown sails of the fishing-smacks played at hide-and-seek. High above them the round forms of immense clouds were still carrying the colours of sunrise. The gentle salt wind on the cheek was like the touch of a life-giver. It was impossible, on such a morning, not to exult in life, not to laugh childishly from irrational glee, not to dismiss the memory of grief and the apprehension of grief as morbid hallucinations. Mynor’s face expressed the double happiness of present and anticipated pleasure. He had once again succeeded, he who had never failed; and the voyage back to England was for him a triumphal progress. Anna responded eagerly to his mood. The day was an ecstasy, a bright expanse unstained. To Anna in particular it was a unique day, marking the apogee of her existence. In the years that followed she could always return to it and say to herself: “That day I was happy, foolishly, ignorantly, but utterly. And all that I have since learnt cannot alter it⁠—I was happy.”

When they reached Shawport Station a cab was waiting for Anna. Unknown to her, Henry had ordered it by telegraph. This considerateness was of a piece, she thought, with his masterly conduct of the entire journey⁠—on the steamer, at Liverpool, in the train; nothing that an experienced traveller could devise had been lacking to her comfort. She got into the cab alone, while Mynors, followed by a boy and his bag, walked to his rooms in Mount Street. It had been arranged, at Anna’s wish, that he should not appear at Manor Terrace till suppertime. Ephraim opened for her the door of her home. It seemed to her that he was pleased.

“Well, father, here I am again, you see.”

“Ay, lass.” They shook hands, and she indicated to the cabman where to deposit her tin-box. She was glad and relieved to be back. Nothing had changed, except herself, and this absolute sameness was at once pleasant and pathetic to her.

“Where’s Agnes?” she asked, smiling at her father. In the glow of arrival she had a vague notion that her relations with him had been permanently softened by absence.

“I see thou’s gotten into th’ habit o’ flitting about in cabs,” he said, without answering her question.

“Well, father,” she said, smiling yet, “there was the box. I couldn’t carry the box.”

“I reckon thou couldst ha’ hired a lad to carry it for sixpence.”

She did not reply. The cabman had gone to his vehicle.

“Art’na going to pay th’ cabby?”

“I’ve paid him, father.”

“How much?”

She paused. “Eighteen-pence, father.” It was a lie; she had paid two shillings.

She went eagerly into the kitchen, and then into the parlour, where tea was set for one. Agnes was not there. “Her’s upstairs,” Ephraim said, meeting Anna as she came into the lobby again. She ran softly upstairs, and into the bedroom. Agnes was replacing ornaments on the mantelpiece with mathematical exactitude; under her arm was a duster. The child turned, startled, and gave a little shriek.

“Eh, I didn’t know you’d come. How early you are!”

They rushed towards each other, embraced, and kissed. Anna was overcome by the pathos of her sister’s loneliness in that grim house for fourteen days, while she, the elder, had been absorbed in selfish gaiety. The pale face, large, melancholy eyes, and long, thin arms, were a silent accusation. She wondered that she could ever have brought herself to leave Agnes even for a day. Sitting down on the bed, she drew the child on her knee in a fury of love, and kissed her again, weeping. Agnes cried too, for sympathy.

“Oh, my dear, dear Anna, I’m so glad you’ve come back!” She dried her eyes, and in quite a different tone of voice asked: “Has Mr. Mynors proposed to you?”

Anna could not avoid a blush at this simple and astounding query. She said: “Yes.” It was the one word of which she was capable, under the circumstances. That was not the moment to tax Agnes with too much precocity and abruptness.

“You’re engaged, then? Oh, Anna, does it feel nice? It must. I knew you would be!”

“How did you know, Agnes?”

“I mean I knew he would ask you, some time. All the girls at school knew too.”

“I hope you didn’t talk about it,” said the elder sister.

“Oh, no! But they did; they were always talking about it.”

“You never told me that.”

“I⁠—I didn’t like to. Anna, shall I have to call him Henry now?”

“Yes, of course. When we’re married he will be your brother-in-law.”

“Shall you be married soon, Anna?”

“Not for a very long time.”

“When you are⁠—shall I keep house alone? I can, you know⁠—I shall never dare to call him Henry. But he’s awfully nice; isn’t he, Anna? Yes, when you are married, I shall keep house here, but I shall come to see you every day. Father will have to let me do that. Does father know you’re engaged?”

“Not yet. And you mustn’t say anything. Henry is coming for supper. And then father will be told.”

“Did he kiss you, Anna?”

“Who⁠—father?”

“No, silly! Henry, of course⁠—I mean when he’d asked you?”

“I think you are asking all the questions. Suppose I ask you some now. How have you managed with father? Has he been nice?”

“Some days⁠—yes,” said Agnes, after thinking a moment. “We have had some new cups and saucers up from Mr. Mynors works. And father has swept the kitchen chimney. And, oh Anna! I asked him today if I’d kept house well, and he said ‘Pretty well,’ and he gave me a penny. Look! It’s the first money I’ve ever had, you know. I wanted you at nights, Anna⁠—and all the time, too. I’ve been frightfully busy. I cleaned silvers all afternoon. Anna, I have tried⁠—And I’ve got some tea for you. I’ll go down and make it. Now you mustn’t come into the kitchen. I’ll bring it to you in the parlour.”

“I had my tea at Crewe,” Anna was about to say, but refrained, in due course drinking the cup prepared by Agnes. She felt passionately sorry for Agnes, too young to feel the shadow which overhung her future. Anna would marry into freedom, but Agnes would remain the serf. Would Agnes marry? Could she? Would her father allow it? Anna had noticed that in families the youngest, petted in childhood, was often sacrificed in maturity. It was the last maid who must keep her maidenhood, and, vicariously filial, pay out of her own life the debt of all the rest.

“Mr. Mynors is coming up for supper tonight. He wants to see you;” Anna said to her father, as calmly as she could. The miser grunted. But at eight o’clock, the hour immutably fixed for supper, Henry had not arrived. The meal proceeded, of course, without him. To Anna his absence was unaccountable and disturbing, for none could be more punctilious than he in the matter of appointments. She expected him every moment, but he did not appear. Agnes, filled full of the great secret confided to her, was more openly impatient than her sister. Neither of them could talk, and a heavy silence fell upon the family group, a silence which her father, on that particular evening of Anna’s return, resented.

“You dunna’ tell us much,” he remarked, when the supper was finished.

She felt that the complaint was a just one. Even before supper, when nothing had occurred to preoccupy her, she had spoken little. There had seemed so much to tell⁠—at Port Erin, and now there seemed nothing to tell. She ventured into a flaccid, perfunctory account of Beatrice’s illness, of the fishing, of the unfinished houses which had caught the fancy of Mr. Sutton; she said the sea had been smooth, that they had had something to eat at Liverpool, that the train for Crewe was very prompt; and then she could think of no more. Silence fell again. The supper-things were cleared away and washed up. At a quarter-past nine, Agnes, vainly begging permission to stay up in order to see Mr. Mynors, was sent to bed, only partially comforted by a clothes-brush, long desired, which Anna had brought for her as a present from the Isle of Man.

“Shall you tell father yourself, now Henry hasn’t come?” the child asked Anna, who had gone upstairs to unpack her box.

“Yes,” said Anna, briefly.

“I wonder what he’ll say,” Agnes reflected, with that habit, always annoying to Anna, of meeting trouble halfway.

At a quarter to ten Anna ceased to expect Mynors, and finally braced herself to the ordeal of a solemn interview with her father, well knowing that she dared not leave him any longer in ignorance of her engagement. Already the old man was locking and bolting the door; he had wound up the kitchen clock. When he came back to the parlour to extinguish the gas she was standing by the mantelpiece.

“Father,” she began, “I’ve something I must tell you.”

“Eh, what’s that ye say?” his hand was on the gas-tap. He dropped it, examining her face curiously.

“Mr. Mynors has asked me to marry him; he asked me last night. We settled he should come up tonight to see you⁠—I can’t think why he hasn’t. It must be something very unexpected and important, or he’d have come.” She trembled, her heart beat violently; but the words were out, and she thanked God.

“Asked ye to marry him, did he?” The miser gazed at her quizzically out of his small blue eyes.

“Yes, father.”

“And what didst say?”

“I said I would.”

“Oh! Thou saidst thou wouldst! I reckon it was for thatten as thou must go gadding off to seaside, eh?”

“Father, I never dreamt of such a thing when Suttons asked me to go. I do wish Henry”⁠—the cost of that Christian name!⁠—“had come. He quite meant to come tonight.” She could not help insisting on the propriety of Henry’s intentions.

“Then I am for be consulted, eh?”

“Of course, father.”

“Ye’ve soon made it up, between ye.”

His tone was, at the best, brusque; but she breathed more easily, divining instantly from his manner that he meant to offer no violent objection to the engagement. She knew that only tact was needed now. The miser had, indeed, foreseen the possibility of this marriage for months past, and had long since decided in his own mind that Henry would make a satisfactory son-in-law. Ephraim had no social ambitions⁠—with all his meanness, he was above them; he had nothing but contempt for rank, style, luxury, and “the theory of what it is to be a lady and a gentleman.” Yet, by a curious contradiction, Henry’s smartness of appearance⁠—the smartness of an unrivalled commercial traveller⁠—pleased him. He saw in Henry a young and sedate man of remarkable shrewdness, a man who had saved money, had made money for others, and was now making it for himself; a man who could be trusted absolutely to perform that feat of “getting on”; a “safe” and profoundly respectable man, at the same time audacious and imperturbable. He was well aware that Henry had really fallen in love with Anna, but nothing would have convinced him that Anna’s money was not the primal cause of Henry’s genuine passion for Anna’s self.

“You like Henry, don’t you, father?” Anna said. It was a failure in the desired tact, for Ephraim had never been known to admit that he liked anyone or anything. Such natures are capable of nothing more positive than toleration.

“He’s a hardheaded chap, and he knows the value o’ money. Ay! that he does; he knows which side his bread’s buttered on.” A sinister emphasis marked the last sentence.

Instead of remaining silent, Anna, in her nervousness, committed another imprudence. “What do you mean, father?” she asked, pretending that she thought it impossible he could mean what he obviously did mean.

“Thou knows what I’m at, lass. Dost think he isna’ marrying thee for thy brass? Dost think as he canna’ make a fine guess what thou’rt worth? But that wunna’ bother thee as long as thou’st hooked a good-looking chap.”

“Father!”

“Ay! thou mayst bridle; but it’s true. Dunna’ tell me.”

Securely conscious of the perfect purity of Mynors’ affection, she was not in the least hurt. She even thought that her father’s attitude was not quite sincere, an attitude partially due to mere wilful churlishness. “Henry has never even mentioned money to me,” she said mildly.

“Happen not; he isna’ such a fool as that.” He paused, and continued: “Thou’rt free to wed, for me. Lasses will do it, I reckon, and thee among th’ rest.” She smiled, and on that smile he suddenly turned out the gas. Anna was glad that the colloquy had ended so well. Congratulations, endearments, loving regard for her welfare: she had not expected these things, and was in no wise grieved by their absence. Groping her way towards the lobby, she considered herself lucky, and only wished that nothing had happened to keep Mynors away. She wanted to tell him at once that her father had proved tractable.

The next morning, Tellwright, whose attendance at chapel was losing the strictness of its old regularity, announced that he should stay at home. Sunday’s dinner was to be a cold repast, and so Anna and Agnes went to chapel. Anna’s thoughts were wholly occupied with the prospect of seeing Mynors, and hearing the explanation of his absence on Saturday night.

“There he is!” Agnes exclaimed loudly, as they were approaching the chapel.

“Agnes,” said Anna, “when will you learn to behave in the street?”

Mynors stood at the chapel-gates; he was evidently awaiting them. He looked grave, almost sad. He raised his hat and shook hands, with a particular friendliness for Agnes, who was speculating whether he would kiss Anna, as his betrothed, or herself, as being only a little girl, or both or neither of them. Her eyes already expressed a sort of ownership in him.

“I should like to speak to you a moment,” Henry said. “Will you come into the schoolyard?”

“Agnes, you had better go straight into chapel,” said Anna. It was an ignominious disaster to the child, but she obeyed.

“I didn’t give you up last night till nearly ten o’clock,” Anna remarked as they passed into the schoolyard. She was astonished to discover in herself an inclination to pout, to play the offended fair one, because Mynors had failed in his appointment. Contemptuously she crushed it.

“Have you heard about Mr. Price?” Mynors began.

“No. What about him? Has anything happened?”

“A very sad thing has happened. Yes⁠—” He stopped, from emotion. “Our superintendent has committed suicide!”

“Killed himself?” Anna gasped.

“He hanged himself yesterday afternoon at Edward Street, in the slip-house after the works were closed. Willie had gone home, but he came back, when his father didn’t turn up for dinner, and found him. Mr. Price was quite dead. He ran in to my place to fetch me just as I was getting my tea. That was why I never came last night.”

Anna was speechless.

“I thought I would tell you myself,” Henry resumed. “It’s an awful thing for the Sunday-school, and the whole society, too. He, a prominent Wesleyan, a worker among us! An awful thing!” he repeated, dominated by the idea of the blow thus dealt to the Methodist connection by the man now dead.

“Why did he do it?” Anna demanded, curtly.