II

When he was sixteen his mother, by operations [**words missing in original] a yard and a half of Brussels point lace, put [**words missing in original] Emery under an obligation.  Mrs Emery [**words missing in original] the sister of Mr Duncalf.  Mr Duncalf was town Clerk of Bursley, and a solicitor.  It is well known that all bureaucracies are honey-combed with intrigue.  Denry Machin left school to be clerk to Mr Duncalf, on the condition that within a year he should be able to write shorthand at the rate of a hundred and fifty words a minute.  In those days mediocre and incorrect shorthand was not a drug on the market.  He complied (more or less, and decidedly less than more) with the condition.  And for several years he really thought that he had nothing further to hope for.  Then he met the Countess.

The Countess of Chell was born of poor but picturesque parents, and she could put her finger on her great-grandfather’s grandfather.  Her mother gained her livelihood and her daughter’s by allowing herself to be seen a great deal with humbler but richer people’s daughters.  The Countess was brought up to matrimony.  She was aimed and timed to hit a given mark at a given moment.  She succeeded.  She married the Earl of Chell.  She also married about twenty thousand acres in England, about a fifth of Scotland, a house in Piccadilly, seven country seats (including Sneyd), a steam yacht, and five hundred thousand pounds’ worth of shares in the Midland Railway.  She was young and pretty.  She had travelled in China and written a book about China.  She sang at charity concerts and acted in private theatricals.  She sketched from nature.  She was one of the great hostesses of London.  And she had not the slightest tendency to stoutness.  All this did not satisfy her.  She was ambitious!  She wanted to be taken seriously.  She wanted to enter into the life of the people.  She saw in the quarter of a million souls that constitute the Five Towns a unique means to her end, an unrivalled toy.  And she determined to be identified with all that was most serious in the social progress of the Five Towns.  Hence some fifteen thousand pounds were spent in refurbishing Sneyd Hall, which lies on the edge of the Five Towns, and the Earl and Countess passed four months of the year there.  Hence the Earl, a mild, retiring man, when invited by the Town Council to be the ornamental Mayor of Bursley, accepted the invitation.  Hence the Mayor and Mayoress gave an immense afternoon reception to practically the entire roll of burgesses.  And hence, a little later, the Mayoress let it be known that she meant to give a municipal ball.  The news of the ball thrilled Bursley more than anything had thrilled Bursley since the signing of Magna Charta.  Nevertheless, balls had been offered by previous mayoresses.  One can only suppose that in Bursley there remains a peculiar respect for land, railway stock, steam yachts, and great-grandfathers’ grandfathers.