Mrs. Baines

“ Luke’s Square and King Street, have remained the traces of the sight it saw on the morning of the afternoon when Mr. and Mrs. Povey returned from their honeymoon—the sight of Mrs. Baines getting into the waggonette for Axe; Mrs. Baines, encumbered with trunks and parcels, leaving the scene of her struggles and her defeat, whither she had once come as slim as a wand, to return stout and heavy, and heavy-hearted, to her childhood; content to live with her grandiose sister until such time as she should be ready for burial! ”

“ Not the stage—your hope of the stage is over; not your ambition in itself—you can be ambitious as my wife. You lose nothing, and you give—a heaven. Mamie, won't you stay?"
She leant on the mantelpiece without speaking. In the pause, Mrs. Baines' voice reached them distinctly, as she said, "Put the brawn on a smaller dish." ”

“ Mr. Povey, being a man of the world, behaved as if nothing had happened; but Mrs. Baines’s curls protested against this unnecessary coarseness. Constance pretended not to hear. Sophia did not understandingly hear. Mr. Scales had no suspicion that he was transgressing a convention by virtue of which dogs have no sex. Further, he had no suspicion of the local fame of Mrs. Baines’s mince-tarts. He had already eaten more mince-tarts than he could enjoy, before beginning upon hers, and Mrs. Baines missed the enthusiasm to which she was habituated from consumers of her pastry. ”

“ Baines; "Mr. Heriot is so busy a gentleman that very likely he doesn't hear of these things. But I assure you, Mr. Heriot, the story seems to have been read a great deal; and what I say is, if dear Mamie can't be an actress, why shouldn't she write books, if she wants to do something of the sort? I wonder my brother didn't teach her to paint, with her notions and that—but, not having learnt, I say she ought to write books. That's the thing for her—a nice pen and ink, and her own home."
"I agree with you, Mrs. Baines. If she wants to write, she can do that in her own home." ”

“ And Mrs. Baines nodded, as if dismissing THAT. "You're stouter," said she, curtly. "If you aren't careful you'll be as big as any of us."
"Oh, mother!"
The interview fell to a lower plane of emotion. It even fell as far as Maggie. What chiefly preoccupied Constance was a subtle change in her mother. She found her mother fussy in trifles. Her manner of laying down her mantle, of smoothing out her gloves, and her anxiety that her bonnet should not come to harm, were rather trying, were perhaps, in the very slightest degree, pitiable. ”

“ I s'pose you'n John'll want to walk back together? Well, don't keep dinner waiting, 'cos that always puts me out. Now then, Sarah, come along: it's too hot to stand gossiping about. Let's get home as quick as we can."
Mrs. Baines, a gaunt, thin woman with a long parchment-coloured face and cold grey eyes, looked indignantly at her husband when he talked of gossiping, but said nothing, took his arm and walked away.
Lucy put up her parasol and leant against the ugly iron railings which interposed between the dusty chapel windows and the pavement. ”

“ Baines.
Sophia kept her silence.
"Of course," Mrs. Baines resumed, "if you choose to be wicked, neither your mother nor any one else can stop you. There are certain things I CAN do, and these I SHALL do ... Let me warn you that young Scales is a thoroughly bad lot. I know all about him. He has been living a wild life abroad, and if it hadn't been that his uncle is a partner in Birkinshaws, they would never have taken him on again." ”

“ All her O's had a genteel leaning towards 'ow,' as ritualism leans towards Romanism. And she was the fount of etiquette, a wonder of correctness; in the eyes of her pupils' parents not so much 'a perfect LADY' as 'a PERFECT lady.' So that it was an extremely nice question whether, upon the whole, Mrs. Baines secretly condescended to Miss Chetwynd or Miss Chetwynd to Mrs. Baines. Perhaps Mrs. Baines, by virtue of her wifehood, carried the day. ”

“ Maud on her return from visiting the Joslings tightened her lips and "went for" her father as he had never been truth-told before; so Mrs. Baines, if she did harm to Lucy's good name and gave her nervous system a nasty shock, also provoked good in other directions. A disturbance of the kind seldom fails to clear the air and create a fresher atmosphere. ”

“ As a fact, the young lady assistants did discuss them; not in the shop—for either one of the principal parties, or Mrs. Baines herself, was always in the shop, but elsewhere. They discussed little else, when they were free; how she had looked at him to-day, and how he had blushed, and so forth interminably. Yet Mrs. Baines really thought that she alone knew. Such is the power of the ineradicable delusion that one’s own affairs, and especially one’s own children, are mysteriously different from those of others.
After Sophia’s departure Mrs. ”

“ It was a glorious spectacle, but not a spectacle for the leading families. Miss Chetwynd’s school was closed, so that the daughters of leading families might remain in seclusion till the worst was over. The Baineses ignored the Wakes in every possible way, choosing that week to have a show of mourning goods in the left-hand window, and refusing to let Maggie outside on any pretext. Therefore the dazzling social success of the elephant, which was quite easily drawing Mrs. Baines into the vortex, cannot imaginably be over-estimated. ”

“ Would she, too, live to be old, boring, unlovely, and consequently unloved?—but also exclamations of annoyance at people who chose the supreme moments of the season, when Royalty was once again showing an interest in you, to take to their beds and die.
Old Mr. Baines, the proprietor of the Aerated Beverages Manufactory at Tilehurst, died of diabetes in 1906. He left his money—a few thousand pounds—on trust to John, the eldest son of Captain and Mrs. Roger Brentham, subject to a life interest for Mrs. Baines. His spouse had led him a life, as he expressed it, since her son's death in 1888. ”

“ It must not be supposed that stout women of a certain age never seek to seduce the eye and trouble the meditations of man by other than moral charms. Mrs. Baines knew that she was comely, natty, imposing, and elegant; and the knowledge gave her real pleasure. She would look over her shoulder in the glass as anxious as a girl: make no mistake.
She did not repose; she could not. She sat thinking, in exactly the same posture as Sophia's two afternoons previously. ”

“ Porteous rejoiced to find that her confidence was justified and that her nephew had died intestate, Mamie was contemplating the choice of swallowing her repugnance to going back to America, or of living with Mrs. Baines. Cheriton had written to them both, and that one course or the other should be adopted he was insistent. Mamie need not live in Lavender Street; Mrs. Baines might make her home in another neighbourhood, where they would be strangers. But that the girl should remain alone in England was out of the question. ”

“ I wish you would imitate your sister a little more. Of course if you won’t do your share in the shop, no one can make you. If you choose to be an idler about the house, we shall have to endure it. We can only advise you for your own good. But as for this ...” She stopped, and let silence speak, and then finished: “Let me hear no more of it.”
It was a powerful and impressive speech, enunciated clearly in such a tone as Mrs. Baines had not employed since dismissing a young lady assistant five years ago for light conduct. ”

“ Mr. Baines, thin and gaunt, and acutely pitiable, still slept. His brain had almost ceased to be active now; he had to be fed and tended like a bearded baby, and he would sleep for hours at a stretch even in the daytime. Sophia left the room. A moment later she ran into the shop, an apparition that amazed the three young lady assistants. At the corner near the window on the fancy side a little nook had been formed by screening off a portion of the counter with large flower-boxes placed end-up. This corner had come to be known as "Miss Baines's corner." ”

“ Baines’s conscience was unruly. Order reigned, but nevertheless she knew that she ought to do something, find out something, decide something; she ought, if she did her duty, to take Constance aside and say: “Now, Constance, my mind is freer now. Tell me frankly what has been going on between you and Mr. Povey. I have never understood the meaning of that scene in the cutting-out room. Tell me.” She ought to have talked in this strain. But she could not. That energetic woman had not sufficient energy left. ”

“ I'm quite ready to take you if you like."
"I could never live in Lavender Street any more, Aunt Lydia. You must understand that—that it would be awful to me."
"Your father hinted at my moving. It will be a great trouble, but I shan't shirk my duty, dear Mamie. If it will make your burden any easier to bear, we will live together somewhere else. I say, if I can make your burden any easier for you, I will live somewhere else."
"I am not ungrateful. I.... Yes, if you will have me, I should like to come to you."
Mrs. Baines sighed, and smoothed her skirt tremulously.
"To Balham?" she inquired. ”

“ "No communication." Baines was sweating. "In eighteen years there hasn't been any semantic bridge between you? Does he have any contact? Signs? Codes?"
"He — ignores us. He eats here, stays with us. Sometimes he plays when we play. Or sits with us. He's gone days on end. We've never been able to find out what he's doing — or where. He sleeps in the barn — by himself." ”

“ Scales’s adventure, and were thrilled to the point of questioning Mr. Povey about it after Mr. Scales had gone. His farewell was marked by much handshaking, and finally Mr. Povey ran after him into the Square to mention something about dogs.
At half-past one, while Mrs. Baines was dozing after dinner, Sophia wrapped herself up, and with a book under her arm went forth into the world, through the shop. She returned in less than twenty minutes. But her mother had already awakened, and was hovering about the back of the shop. Mothers have supernatural gifts. ”

“ Lady Maria told me she dined out whenever she could, and asked me to luncheon on Sunday. "Don't come," she said, "if you mind meeting lions; I like pleasant people. Only I warn you I have an old-fashioned prejudice for good manners and I always ask their wives."
Mr Baines talked beautiful French to the Princesse. Lady Maria told me she was neither French nor a princess, but the illegitimate daughter of a Levantine. "But very respectable all the same, I'm afraid," she added.
After dinner a few people came. Among others, Housman's partner and Esther Lake, the contralto. ”

“ Thus, having foreseen that John Baines would have a "stroke" and need a faithful, tireless nurse, he had begun fifty years in advance by creating Aunt Maria, and had kept her carefully in misfortune's way, so that at the proper moment she would be ready to cope with the stroke. Such at least is the only theory which will explain the use by the Baineses, and indeed by all thinking Bursley, of the word "providential" in connection with Aunt Maria. ”

“ Baines said slowly, "has an ability to predict. So far, it's been able to stay alive. It's been able to cope with situations better than you or I could. How long do you think we'd stay alive in that chamber, with energy beams blazing down at us? In a sense it's got the ultimate survival ability. If it can always be accurate —"
A wall-speaker sounded. "Baines, you're wanted in the lab. Get the hell out of the bar and upramp."
Baines pushed back his chair and got to his feet. "Come along. You may be interested in seeing what Wisdom has got dreamed up." ”

“ The tramping on the stairs was continual, and finally Mr. Baines himself went downstairs, bumping against corners, and led a cortege of twenty vehicles.
The funeral tea was not over at seven o'clock, five hours after the commencement of the rite. It was a gigantic and faultless meal, worthy of John Baines's distant past. Only two persons were absent from it--John Baines and Sophia. The emptiness of Sophia's chair was much noticed; Mrs. Maddack explained that Sophia was very high-strung and could not trust herself. ”

“ He spoke little enough about the maiden, though I longed to hear of her. Once, when I asked him, his face grew overcast.
“That maiden,” said he, “is never so merry as when the waves are breaking over the deck. Yet I see her little, for, in sooth, the old nurse has been nearer death than you, and will allow no one to go near her but her young mistress. Nor dare I offer myself where I am not bidden. Humphrey,” added he, “I prefer to talk of something else.” ”

“ John Baines" (Lucy had retreated out of ear-shot with Halima to the verandah of the Consulate) —"Mrs. John Baines, whose husband has been killed, I fear, in the Ulunga country. I should be much obliged if you could put her up here till we can get a dau to take us over to Unguja.... As for me..."
"Aw*fully sorry old chap. *Of course, I can make room for you ... give you some sort of a shakedown.... You're a fellow man and you'll understand.... But the fact is I'm—I'm not—quite prepared—er—to entertain a white lady here. Bachelor establishment you know.... You twig? ... ”

“ For a moment he studied the massive figure who stood calmly between the two Civil Policemen. Beside him, they seemed to have shrunk, become ungainly and repellent. Like dwarves... What had Jean said? A god come to earth. Baines broke angrily away. "Come on," he muttered brusquely. "This one may be tough; we've never run up against one like it before. We don't know what the hell it can do." ”