Mr. Polly

“ A manly young curate, marking and misunderstanding his preoccupied face and moving lips, came and sat by him and entered into conversation with the idea of making him feel more at home. The conversation was awkward and disconnected for a minute or so, and then suddenly a memory of the Port Burdock Bazaar occurred to Mr. Polly, and with a baffling whisper of “Lill’ dog,” and a reassuring nod, he rose up and escaped, to wander out relieved and observant into the varied London streets. ”

“ He sat on the stile above Fishbourne and cried to the Heavens above him: “Oh! Roo-o-o-tten Be-e-astly Silly Hole!” And he wore a rather shabby black morning coat and vest, and his tie was richly splendid, being from stock, and his golf cap aslant over one eye.
Fifteen years ago, and it might have seemed to you that the queer little flower of Mr. Polly’s imagination must be altogether withered and dead, and with no living seed left in any part of him. But indeed it still lived as an insatiable hunger for bright and delightful experiences, for the gracious aspects of things, for beauty. ”

“ Polly packed ten years of dreams.
“He don’t seem,” said Johnson, “to take a serious interest in anything. That shop at the corner’s bound to be snapped up if he don’t look out.”
The girl and Mr. Polly did not meet on every one of those ten days; one was Sunday and she could not come, and on the eighth the school reassembled and she made vague excuses. All their meetings amounted to this, that she sat on the wall, more or less in bounds as she expressed it, and let Mr. Polly fall in love with her and try to express it below. ”

“ Polly, pulling her arm. “It’s one up and two down on these blessed tiles.”
“It’s not what I’m used to,” she said.
“Stick to it!” said Mr. Polly, “live and learn,” and got to the ridge and grasped at her arm to pull her after him.
“I can’t jump, mind ye,” she repeated, pressing her lips together. “And old ladies like me mustn’t be hurried.”
“Well, let’s get as high as possible anyhow!” said Mr. Polly, urging her gently upward. “Shinning up a water-spout in your line? Near as you’ll get to Heaven.”
“I can’t jump,” she said. “I can do anything but jump.” ”

“ After that they talked in a fragmentary way for some time. The blue eyes surveyed Mr. Polly with kindly curiosity from under a broad, finely modelled brow, much as an exceptionally intelligent cat might survey a new sort of dog. She meant to find out all about him. She asked questions that riddled the honest knight in armour below, and probed ever nearer to the hateful secret of the shop and his normal servitude. ”

“ And then with some dim instinct of self-protection, she went and told her three best friends, great students of character all, of this remarkable phenomenon she had discovered on the other side of the wall.
“Look here,” said Mr. Polly, “I’m wild for the love of you! I can’t keep up this gesticulations game any more! I’m not a Knight. Treat me as a human man. You may sit up there smiling, but I’d die in torments to have you mine for an hour. I’m nobody and nothing. But look here! Will you wait for me for five years? You’re just a girl yet, and it wouldn’t be hard.” ”

“ Rumbold, blowing heavily, walked past him, deposited the jampots in his shop with an immense affectation that there was no Mr. Polly in the world, returned, turned a scornful back on Mr. Polly and dived to the interior of the crate. Mr. Polly stood baffled. Should he kick this solid mass before him? Should he administer a resounding kick? ”

“ Polly at all. Mrs. Johnson had tried to fob him off with a similar but inferior basket,—his own had one handle mended with string according to a method of peculiar virtue and inimitable distinction known only to himself—and the old gentleman had taken her attempt as the gravest reflection upon his years and intelligence. Mr. Polly was left very largely to the Larkins trio. Cousin Minnie became shameless and kept kissing him good-by—and then finding out it wasn’t time to go. Cousin Miriam seemed to think her silly, and caught Mr. Polly’s eye sympathetically. ”

“ Polly’s own, but when he had seen a whole boatload of men, intent on Lammam for lunch, stop open-mouthed, and stare and grin and come in and ask in a marked sarcastic manner for “omlets,” he perceived that his inaccuracy had done more for the place than his utmost cunning could have contrived. In a year or so the inn was known both up and down the river by its new name of “Omlets,” and Mr. Polly, after some secret irritation, smiled and was content. And the fat woman’s omelettes were things to remember.
(You will note I have changed her epithet. Time works upon us all.) ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Polly descended into the world again out of the conflagration he had lit to be his funeral pyre, moist, excited, and tremendously alive, amidst a tempest of applause. As he got lower and lower the crowd howled like a pack of dogs at him. Impatient men unable to wait for him seized and shook his descending boots, and so brought him to earth with a run. ”

“ Polly.
“What do you carry in that little bag thing?” she asked, and then branched off to: “We’re all in a mess to-day you know. It’s my cleaning up day to-day. I’m not a bit tidy I know, but I do like to ’ave a go in at things now and then. You got to take us as you find us, Elfrid. Mercy we wasn’t all out.” She paused. She was talking against time. “I am glad to see you again,” she repeated.
“Couldn’t keep away,” said Mr. Polly gallantly. “Had to come over and see my pretty cousins again.”
Miriam did not answer for a moment. She coloured deeply. “You do say things!” she said. ”

“ People run into you, hens and cats and dogs and things. Everything seems to have its mark on you; everything.”
“You never run into anything.”
“Never. Swelpme,” said Mr. Polly very solemnly.
“Never, ’E say!” squealed Minnie. “Hark at ’im!” and relapsed into a condition that urgently demanded back thumping. “Don’t be so silly,” said Miriam, thumping hard.
Mr. Polly had never been such a social success before. They hung upon his every word—and laughed. What a family they were for laughter! And he loved laughter. ”

“ Polly.
“You mean to marry me and start that little shop———”
“Soon as ever I find it,” said Mr. Polly.
“I had no more idea when I came out with you———”
“Nor me!”
“It’s like a dream.”
They said no more for a little while.
“I got to pinch myself to think it’s real,” said Miriam. “What they’ll do without me at ’ome I can’t imagine. When I tell them———”
For the life of him Mr. Polly could not tell whether he was fullest of tender anticipations or regretful panic.
“Mother’s no good at managing—not a bit. Annie don’t care for ’ouse work and Minnie’s got no ’ed for it. ”

“ Polly’s mind, and quite beyond his control, the insubordinate phrasemaker would be proffering such combinations as “Chubby Chops,” or “Chubby Charmer,” as suitable for the gentleman, very much as a hat salesman proffers hats.
“I don’t think you’d find much slackness about me, sir,” said Mr. Polly brightly, trying to disregard his deeper self.
“I want a young man who means getting on.” ”

“ Polly could hear only the dim fragments of sentences. “Orrible things to you—’orrible things.... Kick yer ugly.... Cut yer—liver out... spread it all about, I will.... Outing doos. See? I don’t care a dead rat one way or the uvver.”
And with a curious twisting gesture of the arm Uncle Jim receded until his face was a still, dim thing that watched, and the black shadows of the hedge seemed to have swallowed up his body altogether. ”

“ Uncle Pentstemon addressed himself to Mr. Polly. “You’re a little chap,” he said, “a puny little chap. I never did agree to Lizzie marrying him, but I suppose by-gones must be bygones now. I suppose they made you a clerk or something.”
“Outfitter,” said Mr. Polly.
“I remember. Them girls pretend to be dressmakers.”
“They are dressmakers,” said Mrs. Larkins across the room.
“I will take a glass of sherry. They ’old to it, you see.” ”

“ But you’ll have a chance.”
“M’m,” said Mr. Polly. “What more does a brave man want?”
“One thing you can do quite easily. I’ve asked about it.”
“What’s that, O’ Man?” said Mr. Polly.
“Take the shop without the house above it.”
“I suppose I might put my head in to mind it,” said Mr. Polly, “and get a job with my body.”
“Not exactly that. But I thought you’d save a lot if you stayed on here—being all alone as you are.”
“Never thought of that, O’ Man,” said Mr. Polly, and reflected silently upon the needlessness of Miriam.
“We were talking of eighty pounds for stock,” said Johnson. ”

“ Polly. “Hold on! Gollys! where’s she gone to?...”
Then an ill-mended, wavering, yet very reassuring spring side boot appeared for an instant.
“Thought perhaps there wasn’t any roof there!” he explained, scrambling up over the parapet beside her.
“I’ve never been out on a roof before,” said the old lady. “I’m all disconnected. It’s very bumpy. Especially that last bit. Can’t we sit here for a bit and rest? I’m not the girl I use to be.”
“You sit here ten minutes,” shouted Mr. Polly, “and you’ll pop like a roast chestnut. Don’t understand me? Roast chestnut! Roast chestnut! Pop! ”

“ Polly. “And,”—with some faint analogy to ginger beer in his mind—“he’s up today.”
“’E won’t turn ’isself round,” said the old gentleman, “anyow. And there ain’t no way through for ’im to go.”
“Verbum sap,” said Mr. Polly, and abandoned the horse and turned, to the door. It opened to him just as Mrs. Larkins on the arm of Johnson, followed by Annie, Minnie, two friends, Mrs. Punt and her son and at a slight distance Uncle Pentstemon, appeared round the corner.
“They’re coming,” he said to Miriam, and put an arm about her and gave her a kiss. ”

“ Polly had been drinking at the poisoned fountains of English literature, fountains so unsuited to the needs of a decent clerk or shopman, fountains charged with the dangerous suggestion that it becomes a man of gaiety and spirit to make love, gallantly and rather carelessly. It seemed to him that evening to be handsome and humorous and practicable to make love to all his cousins. ”

“ Mrs. Johnson in a shrill clear hospitable voice: “Harold, won’t Mrs. Larkins ’ave a teeny bit more fowl?”
Mr. Polly rising to the situation. “Or some brawn, Mrs. Larkins?” Catching Uncle Pentstemon’s eye: “Can’t send you some brawn, sir?”
“Elfrid!”
Loud hiccup from Uncle Pentstemon, momentary consternation followed by giggle from Annie.
The narration at Mr. Polly’s elbow pursued a quiet but relentless course. “Directly the new doctor came in he said: ’Everything must be took out and put in spirits—everything.’”
Willie,—audible ingurgitation. ”

“ You the noo bloke at the Potwell Inn?”
Mr. Polly felt evasive. “’Spose I am,” he replied hoarsely, and quickened his pace.
“Arf a mo’,” said Uncle Jim, taking his arm. “We ain’t doing a (sanguinary) Marathon. It ain’t a ( decorated) cinder track. I want a word with you, mister. See?”
Mr. Polly wriggled his arm free and stopped. “What is it?” he asked, and faced the terror. ”

“ He was blowing excitedly and running his fingers through his hair, and then moving with all the swift eagerness of a man inspired. All about his feet and knees were scarlet blankets, not folded, not formally unfolded, but—the only phrase is—shied about. And a great bar sinister of roller towelling stretched across the front of the window on which was a ticket, and the ticket said in bold black letters: “LOOK!”
So soon as Mr. Polly got into the silk department and met Platt he knew he had not lingered nearly long enough outside. “Did you see the boards at the back?” said Platt. ”

“ The sherry and biscuits were still being discussed when Mr. Podger, the undertaker, arrived, a broad, cheerfully sorrowful, clean-shaven little man, accompanied by a melancholy-faced assistant. He conversed for a time with Johnson in the passage outside; the sense of his business stilled the rising waves of chatter and carried off everyone’s attention in the wake of his heavy footsteps to the room above.
IV
Things crowded upon Mr. Polly. Everyone, he noticed, took sherry with a solemn avidity, and a small portion even was administered sacramentally to the Punt boy. ”

“ Johnson’s friends. “There’s a little pair there for Willie,” said Mrs. Johnson triumphantly. Everyone seemed gravely content with the amazing procedure of the occasion. Presently Mr. Podger was picking Mr. Polly out as Chief Mourner to go with Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Larkins and Annie in the first mourning carriage.
“Right O,” said Mr. Polly, and repented instantly of the alacrity of the phrase.
“There’ll have to be a walking party,” said Mrs. Johnson cheerfully. “There’s only two coaches. I daresay we can put in six in each, but that leaves three over.” ”

“ Polly began to lead a divided life. With the Johnsons he professed to be inclined, but not so conclusively inclined as to be inconvenient, to get a shop for himself, to be, to use the phrase he preferred, “looking for an opening.” He would ride off in the afternoon upon that research, remarking that he was going to “cast a strategetical eye” on Chertsey or Weybridge. But if not all roads, still a great majority of them, led by however devious ways to Stamton, and to laughter and increasing familiarity. Relations developed with Annie and Minnie and Miriam. ”