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.