Anna of the Five Towns

was writing in a book with blue leaves. In the witness-box stood William Price, dressed in black, with kid gloves, not lounging in an ungainly attitude, as might have been expected, but perfectly erect; he kept his eyes fixed on the coroner’s head. Sarah Vodrey, Price’s aged housekeeper, sat on a chair near the witness-box, weeping into a black-bordered handkerchief; at intervals she raised her small, wrinkled, red face, with its glistening, inflamed eyes, and then buried it again in the handkerchief. The members of the jury, whom Anna could see only in profile, shuffled to and fro on their long, pew-like seats⁠—they were mostly working men, shabbily clothed; but the foreman was Mr. Leal, the provision dealer, a freemason, and a sidesman at the parish church. The general public sat intent and vacuous; their minds gaped, if not their mouths; occasionally one whispered inaudibly to another; the jury, conscious of an official status, exchanged remarks in a whisper courageously loud. Several tall policemen, helmet in hand, stood in various corners of the room, and the coroner’s officer sat near the witness-box to administer the oath. At length the coroner lifted his head. He was rather a young man, with a large, intelligent face; he wore eyeglasses, and his chin was covered with a short, wavy beard. His manner showed that, while secretly proud of his supreme position in that assemblage, he was deliberately trying to make it appear that this exercise of judicial authority was nothing to him, that in truth these eternal inquiries, which interested others so deeply, were to him a weariness conscientiously endured.

“Now, Mr. Price,” the coroner said blandly, and it was plain that he was being ceremoniously polite to an inferior, in obedience to the rules of good form, “I must ask you some more questions. They may be inconvenient, even painful; but I am here simply as the instrument of the law, and I must do my duty. And these gentlemen here,” he waved a hand in the direction of the jury, “must be told the whole facts of the case. We know, of course, that the deceased committed suicide⁠—that has been proved beyond doubt; but, as I say, we have the right to know more.” He paused, well satisfied with the sound of his voice, and evidently thinking that he had said something very weighty and impressive.

“What do you want to know?” Willie Price demanded, his broad Five Towns speech contrasting with the Kensingtonian accents of the coroner. The latter, who came originally from Manchester, was irritated by the brusque interruption; but he controlled his annoyance, at the same time glancing at the public as if to signify to them that he had learnt not to take too seriously the unintentional rudeness characteristic of their district.

“You say it was probably business troubles that caused your late father to commit the rash act?”

“Yes.”

“You are sure there was nothing else?”

“What else could there be?”

“Your late father was a widower?”

“Yes.”

“Now as to these business troubles⁠—what were they?”

“We were being pressed by creditors.”

“Were you a partner with your late father?”

“Yes.”

“Oh! You were a partner with him!”

The jury seemed surprised, and the coroner wrote again: “What was your share in the business?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Surely that is rather singular?”

“My father took me in Co. not long since. We signed a deed, but I forget what was in it. My place was principally on the bank, not in the office.”

“And so you were being pressed by creditors?”

“Yes. And we were behind with the rent.”

“Was the landlord pressing you, too?”

Anna lowered her eyes, fearful lest every head had turned towards her.

“Not then; he had been⁠—she, I mean.”

“The landlord is a lady?” Here the coroner faintly smiled. “Then, as regards the landlord, the pressure was less than it had been?”

“Yes; we had paid some rent, and settled some other claims.”

“Does it not seem strange⁠—?” the coroner began, with a suave air of suggesting an idea.

“If you must know,” Willie surprisingly burst out, “I believe it was the failure of a firm in London that owed us money that caused father to hang himself.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the coroner. “When did you hear of that failure?”

“By second post on Friday. Eleven in the morning.”

“I think we have heard enough, Mr. Coroner,” said Leal, standing up in the jury-box. “We have decided on our verdict.”

“Thank you, Mr. Price,” said the coroner, dismissing Willie. He added, in a tone of icy severity to the foreman: “I had concluded my examination of the witness.” Then he wrote further in his book.

“Now, gentlemen of the jury,” the coroner resumed, having first cleared his throat; “I think you will agree with me that this is a peculiarly painful case. Yet at the same time⁠—”

Anna hastened from the court as impulsively as she had entered it. She could think of nothing but the quiet, silent, pitiful corpse; and all this vapid mouthing exasperated her beyond sufferance.

---

On the Thursday afternoon, Anna was sitting alone in the house, with the Persian cat and a pile of stockings on her knee, darning. Agnes had with sorrow returned to school; Ephraim was out. The bell sounded violently, and Anna, thinking that perhaps for some reason her father had chosen to enter by the front door, ran to open it. The visitor was Willie Price; he wore the new black suit which had figured in the coroner’s court. She invited him to the parlour and they both sat down, tongue-tied. Now that she had learnt from his evidence given at the inquest that Ephraim had not been pressing for rent during her absence in the Isle of Man, she felt less like a criminal before Willie than she would have felt without that assurance. But at the best she was nervous, self-conscious, and shamed. She supposed that he had called to make some arrangement with reference to the tenure of the works, or, more probably, to announce a bankruptcy and stoppage.

“Well, Miss Tellwright,” Willie began, “I’ve buried him. He’s gone.”

The simple and