_ When, in the evening, after all sorts of comings and goings, he
finally returned to the old lady and the young one, in order to
report the upshot, his demeanour was suitably toned to Constance's
mood. The old lady had been very deeply disturbed by the tragedy,
which, as she said, had passed under her very feet while she was
calmly talking to Lily.
The whole truth came out in a short space of time. Mrs. Critchlow
was suffering from melancholia. It appeared that for long she had
been depressed by the failing trade of the shop, which was none of
her fault. The state of the Square had steadily deteriorated. Even
the 'Vaults' were not what they once were. Four or five shops had
been shut up, as it were definitely, the landlords having given up
hope of discovering serious tenants. And, of those kept open, the
majority were struggling desperately to make ends meet. Only
Holl's and a new upstart draper, who had widely advertised his
dress-making department, were really flourishing. The
confectionery half of Mr. Brindley's business was disappearing.
People would not go to Hanbridge for their bread or for their
groceries, but they would go for their cakes. These electric trams
had simply carried to Hanbridge the cream, and much of the milk,
of Bursley's retail trade. There were unprincipled tradesmen in
Hanbridge ready to pay the car-fares of any customer who spent a
crown in their establishments. Hanbridge was the geographical
centre of the Five Towns, and it was alive to its situation.
Useless for Bursley to compete! If Mrs. Critchlow had been a
philosopher, if she had known that geography had always made
history, she would have given up her enterprise a dozen years ago.
But Mrs. Critchlow was merely Maria Insull. She had seen Baines's
in its magnificent prime, when Baines's almost conferred a favour
on customers in serving them. At the time when she took over the
business under the wing of her husband, it was still a good
business. But from that instant the tide had seemed to turn. She
had fought, and she kept on fighting, stupidly. She was not aware
that she was fighting against evolution, not aware that evolution
had chosen her for one of its victims! She could understand that
all the other shops in the Square should fail, but not that
Baines's should fail! She was as industrious as ever, as good a
buyer, as good a seller, as keen for novelties, as economical, as
methodical! And yet the returns dropped and dropped.
She naturally had no sympathy from Charles, who now took small
interest even in his own business, or what was left of it, and who
was coldly disgusted at the ultimate cost of his marriage. Charles
gave her no money that he could avoid giving her. The crisis had
been slowly approaching for years. The assistants in the shop had
said nothing, or had only whispered among themselves, but now that
the crisis had flowered suddenly in an attempted self-murder, they
all spoke at once, and the evidences were pieced together into a
formidable proof of the strain which Mrs. Critchlow had suffered.
It appeared that for many months she had been depressed and
irritable, that sometimes she would sit down in the midst of work
and declare, with every sign of exhaustion, that she could do no
more. Then with equal briskness she would arise and force herself
to labour. She did not sleep for whole nights. One assistant
related how she had complained of having had no sleep whatever for
four nights consecutively. She had noises in the ears and a
chronic headache. Never very plump, she had grown thinner and
thinner. And she was for ever taking pills: this information came
from Charles's manager. She had had several outrageous quarrels
with the redoubtable Charles, to the stupefaction of all who heard
or saw them. ... Mrs. Critchlow standing up to her husband!
Another strange thing was that she thought the bills of several of
the big Manchester firms were unpaid, when as a fact they had been
paid. Even when shown the receipts she would not be convinced,
though she pretended to be convinced. She would recommence the
next day. All this was sufficiently disconcerting for female
assistants in the drapery. But what could they do?
Then Maria Critchlow had gone a step further. She had summoned the
eldest assistant to her corner and had informed her, with all the
solemnity of a confession made to assuage a conscience which has
been tortured too long, that she had on many occasions been guilty
of sexual irregularity with her late employer, Samuel Povey. There
was no truth whatever in this accusation (which everybody,
however, took care not to mention to Constance); it merely
indicated, perhaps, the secret aspirations of Maria Insull, the
virgin. The assistant was properly scandalized, more by the
crudity of Mrs. Critchlow's language than by the alleged sin
buried in the past. Goodness knows what the assistant would have
done! But two hours later Maria Critchlow tried to commit suicide
by stabbing herself with a pair of scissors. There was blood in
the shop.
With as little delay as possible she had been driven away to the
asylum. Charles Critchlow, enveloped safely in the armour of his
senile egotism, had shown no emotion, and very little activity.
The shop was closed. And as a general draper's it never opened
again. That was the end of Baines's. Two assistants found
themselves without a livelihood. The small tumble with the great.
Constance's emotion was more than pardonable; it was justified.
She could not eat and Lily could not persuade her to eat. In an
unhappy moment Dick Povey mentioned--he never could remember how,
afterwards--the word Federation! And then Constance, from a
passive figure of grief became a menace. She overwhelmed Dick
Povey with her anathema of Federation, for Dick was a citizen of
Hanbridge, where this detestable movement for Federation had had
its birth. All the misfortunes of St. Luke's Square were due to
that great, busy, grasping, unscrupulous neighbour. Had not
Hanbridge done enough, without wanting to merge all the Five Towns
into one town, of which of course itself would be the centre? For
Constance, Hanbridge was a borough of unprincipled adventurers,
bent on ruining the ancient 'Mother of the Five Towns' for its own
glory and aggrandizement. Let Constance hear no more of
Federation! Her poor sister Sophia had been dead against
Federation, and she had been quite right! All really respectable
people were against it! The attempted suicide of Mrs. Critchlow
sealed the fate of Federation and damned it for ever, in
Constance's mind. Her hatred of the idea of it was intensified
into violent animosity; insomuch that in the result she died a
martyr to the cause of Bursley's municipal independence. _