I
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.