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Title: The trumpet in the dust
Author: Constance Holme
Release Date: April 19, 2023 [eBook #70599]
Language: English
Produced by: Bob Taylor, MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRUMPET IN THE DUST ***
Transcriber’s Note
Italic text displayed as: _italic_
THE TRUMPET IN THE DUST
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
CRUMP FOLK GOING HOME
THE LONELY PLOUGH
THE OLD ROAD FROM SPAIN
BEAUTIFUL END
THE SPLENDID FAIRING
THE TRUMPET
IN THE DUST
BY
CONSTANCE HOLME
SECOND EDITION
MILLS & BOON, LIMITED
49 RUPERT STREET
LONDON, W. 1
_Published 1921_
TO
LORD HENRY BENTINCK,
THIS WEED
FROM
AN UNCULTIVATED GARDEN
“I was on my way to the temple with my evening offerings,
Seeking for the heaven of rest after the day’s dusty toil;
Hoping my hurts would be healed and stains in my garment washed white,
When I found thy trumpet lying in the dust.
Has it not been the time for me to light my lamp?
Has my evening not come to bring me sleep?
O, thou blood-red rose, where have my poppies faded?
I was certain my wanderings were over and my debts all paid
When suddenly I came upon thy trumpet lying in the dust.
* * * * *
From thee I had asked peace only to find shame.
Now I stand before thee—help me to don my armour!
Let hard blows of trouble strike fire into my life.
Let my heart beat in pain—beating the drum of thy victory.
My hands shall be utterly emptied to take up thy trumpet.”
_The Trumpet_—RABINDRANATH TAGORE.
CONTENTS
PART I
PAGE
REWARD OF BATTLE 1
PART II
THANK-OFFERING 69
PART III
THE TEMPLE 119
PART IV
THE TRUMPET 165
PART I
REWARD OF BATTLE
CHAPTER I
Mrs. Clapham got up on that fine September morning like some king of
the East going forth to Bethlehem. She awoke with a heady sense of
excitement and power, not wearily, and with a dulled brain, as she
so often did now that she was beginning to grow old, but with vivid
perceptions and a throbbing heart. First of all, opening her eyes on
the sunny square of her little window, she was conscious of actual
enrichment, as if the sunshine itself were a tangible personal gift.
To the pleasure of this was added the happy anticipation of something
not yet quite within reach, thrilling her nerves as they had not
been thrilled for years. Then, as the thought of what the day might
possibly bring flashed upon her in full force, she warmed from head
to foot in a passion of exultation, wonder and grateful joy.
She started up presently to peer at the little clock by the bedside,
and then remembered that she had no engagement, and sank back
happily. Had not the Vicar’s wife called, only the evening before, to
inform her that she would not want her to-day? Mrs. Clapham chuckled
as she lay in bed, telling herself that if Mrs. Wrench did not have
her to-day, in all probability she would never have her again at all.
Mrs. Wrench, she remembered now, had been called to London to her
daughter’s wedding, one of those nowadays weddings which could only
be called catching a bird on the wing—snapping up a sailor when he
was a few days in port, or a soldier when the War Office happened
to take its eye off him for a couple of minutes. The actual war
was over, of course, but the war weddings still continued. In Mrs.
Clapham’s young days weddings were things which took years to come to
their full conclusion, slowly ripening to their end like mellowing
cheeses or maturing port. The weddings of these days seemed to her
like hastily-tossed pancakes by comparison; half-cooked efforts which
had only a poor choice at the best between the frying-pan and the
fire.
She was pleased for Miss Marigold, however, that she had succeeded in
catching her bird at last. It was just as well not to waste any time,
seeing how long she had been about it. Why, she was the same age as
Mrs. Clapham’s daughter Tibbie, who had been married these last eight
years, and a widow for going on two! Mrs. Clapham experienced the
conscious superiority of the mother whose daughter has long since
been disposed of in no matter what unfortunate circumstances. She had
always been perfectly convinced that the Vicar’s wife was jealous
because Tibbie had got off first, and had even rallied her about it
in her jolly, good-tempered fashion. Now, however, Miss Marigold had
suddenly seen her way towards making things even, and Mrs. Wrench had
rushed off in a fluster to see her do it.
Looking in, the evening before, in order to deliver her message, she
had been so full of the impending change in Miss Marigold’s life
that she had quite forgotten the impending change in Mrs. Clapham’s.
Seated in the armchair that had been made by the long-departed Jonty
Clapham, she had talked excitedly of her daughter in the Government
office, who would be snatched out of it, pen in hand, so to speak, to
be married to a bridegroom who, metaphorically, would still have one
foot on his ship. She had also wept a little in the way that women
and mothers have, and Mrs. Clapham, whose own tears over a daughter’s
bridal had been shed so many superior years before, had consoled her
with words of sympathy and wisdom, and her well-known kindly laugh.
Presently Mrs. Wrench had dried her tears and begun to tell her about
her daughter’s frocks, and Mrs. Clapham, whose Tibbie happened to
be a dressmaker by profession, was able to shine a second time as a
qualified judge. But never once during the conversation had she as
much as hinted at her own bright hope which was so near its wonderful
fulfilment. She had just allowed Mrs. Wrench to babble happily on,
and kept her own thoughts hugged to herself where they lay so snug
and warm.
Not even when Mrs. Wrench had risen at last to go had she referred
to any possible alteration in her own affairs. She had merely sent
her love and respects to the bride, and the bride’s mother had
promised to come and tell her about the wedding. “And of course next
week as usual, please!” she had said as she hurried away, and the
charwoman had said neither yea nor nay, but had merely dropped her
old-fashioned curtsey. It was no use reminding the Vicar’s wife that,
by the time next week came round, things might have become anything
but “usual.” There was always the possibility, too, that it might be
unlucky, with the whole entrancing affair still hanging breathlessly
in the balance. So she had let her go away without even dropping a
hint of her personal prospects, and it was only after the door was
shut that she had allowed herself to smile. Then she had begun to
chuckle and chuckle, and sat down and chuckled, and stood up and
chuckled, and sat down again and chuckled and chuckled and chuckled
_and_ chuckled....
She chuckled afresh now as she lay thinking, and then reflected that
it might possibly be as unlucky as singing too early, and therefore
desisted. It occurred to her also that she might be tempting
Providence by lying in bed, behaving, as it were, as if the decree
which would set her free to lie in bed had actually been spoken;
and, sitting up in a flurry, she threw off the bed-clothes and began
to dress. It was more than probable that she would have as much bed
as anybody could want, in the near future. She who had always been
a phenomenally early riser need not grudge an exhibition of the
accomplishment on this possibly last day.
The boards creaked under her feet as she stirred about the cottage
bedroom, moving cleverly in the limited space and under the sloping
ceiling. She had always been a big woman, coming of big, upstanding
stock, and now at sixty-five she was stout as well. To all outward
appearance, though, she was strong and sound, and it was only lately
that her comely pink face had begun its network of fine lines. Always
as neat as a new pin, to-day she took greater pains over dressing
than usual, giving an extra polish to her healthy skin and an extra
shine to her white hair. The day which was bringing her so much—as
she serenely hoped—could not be encountered in any other spirit.
She looked at herself in the glass when she had finished, and was
glad to see that she stood her age so well. Her hands alone troubled
her—those toil-worn, charwoman’s hands which spoke so clearly of her
profession. Not that she was ashamed of her work—on the contrary, she
was proud—but in that moment of personal satisfaction she was ashamed
of her hands.
She turned away at last, and creaked across the boards to the stairs,
full of that pleasant consciousness of sound health and of coming
good. She forgot that lately she had begun to feel old, that she had
had doubts about her heart, and that the knee which she had damaged
years ago on Mrs. Fletcher’s stairs was often too painful to let
her sleep. She forgot that there had been a day—not so long ago,
either—when she had suddenly found herself coming home thoroughly
tired out, not only in body, but in mind. The spirit had gone clean
out of her for the time being. She had wondered, indeed, whether
she would ever be able to persuade herself to enter other people’s
houses again, so utterly weary was she of their unvarying routine,
their anything but unvarying servants, their dull furniture and their
duller meals. She had even felt a spasm of real hatred for the houses
themselves, which, no matter how often or how thoroughly she scrubbed
them from roof to floor, were always waiting for her to come and
scrub them again.
That unexpected breakdown of hers had lasted at least twenty-four
hours. The following morning she had actually refused to go to Mrs.
Hogg, whose dwelling at any time was never one of those that she
liked best. She had sent back word at the last minute—an unforgivable
crime in her scrupulous code—and had sat indoors all day brooding
and doing nothing. Towards evening she had had a vision of herself
as a helpless old woman, and then she had broken down and wept; but
next day her courage had come surging back, and next week as usual
she had gone to Mrs. Hogg. Her work was as good as ever it had been,
and outsiders had seen no difference. Nevertheless, there _was_ a
difference, as she knew very well. That day had marked the point
at which she had begun definitely to grow old. From that day she
realised that she had been scarred by the battle of life, and that
before very long she must seek some haven to be healed.
This morning, however, sadness and doubt were gone from her mind
as if they had never been. She went downstairs briskly, carrying
the little clock, and set to work at her usual tasks with the zest
of a young lass. Her knee did not pain her when she knelt to light
the kitchen fire; her heart did not trouble her when she filled the
bucket at the pump. She moved from one room to another as lightly as
in the days when she had been a well-known local dancer, steady and
tireless on her feet. She had never felt stronger or more fit for her
life’s work than on the morning of the day which was to see her bid
that work farewell.
The very day itself seemed to know that something uncommon was afoot,
drawing by slow degrees to some poised and perfect hour. It was one
of those days which are at the same time sharply etched and yet soft
in tone, with their vivid colours as smooth as if seen through water
or in a glass. In the village street, where the pillars of smoke were
not yet set on their stacks, the low cottage-rows had clear black
shadows under their eaves, and clear black edges along their roofs.
The flag-staff on the church-tower was like a needle poised in a
steady hand, and the tower itself was not so much built as flung by a
brush on the gilded air. Below the dropping, curving street and the
painted church the river was shedding its sheath of steel, ready for
drawing on the faint-coloured robe that it would wear during the day.
And always the hills to the west were growing in beauty with bracken
and bent, the warm tones of turning trees, the fine sharp blue of
stone, and the heather that seemed to keep all day long the colours
of sunrise over the sea.
But in Mrs. Clapham’s heart this morning there was so much beauty
already that she scarcely heeded the extra loveliness of the outside
world. She was glad, of course, that it was going to be fine,
because life altogether was easier when it was fine. She was glad
that the sun greeted her when she came down, splashing about the
little kitchen that was always so greedy of its light, catching at
it in the morning before it was well in the sky, and through the
scullery door at the back snatching the last beam from the fading
west. She opened the scullery door now, not only for a sight of the
Michaelmas daisies bunched in the garden beyond, but because of the
extra space it seemed to afford the exultation in her heart. As she
went to and fro, her eyes drew to them as to flowers set upon some
altar of thanksgiving, and the glow in her heart deepened as she
passed through the warm sun. But the beauty of the day seemed only
a natural background for the miracle that was coming. She trusted
it contentedly, just as she was trusting other things in life. It
was not one of those days of exquisite promise which languished and
faded before it was noon. The perfect day was perfect and reliable
all through, just as the perfect happenings of life went steadily to
their appointed end....
She thought of Miss Marigold again while she forced herself to eat
her breakfast, difficult as she found it to sit still because of the
tremor in her nerves. The Vicar’s daughter would make a handsome
bride, she said to herself, though no power on earth could make her
a young one. She would look clever and nice and rather fine, but not
the sweet little bundle of youth that Tibbie had looked. But then
Tibbie had always had the pull in the matter of looks, even although
Miss Marigold might be supposed to have scored in the matter of
brains. Even that point, however, so Mrs. Clapham considered, was
open to dispute. Tibbie, rosy and laughing and fair, and looking as
though she hadn’t a care in the world, had been clever enough in her
own way. It was real shrewdness of character which had led her to
choose for a husband the tamest youth in the place, whom everybody
knew now to have been a hero in disguise. And she was so clever with
her fingers that each one of them was worth at least the whole of
another person’s hand. Young as she was, she had been the village
dressmaker _par excellence_ before she married Stephen Catterall, and
Mrs. Clapham’s memories of Tibbie’s youth were always shot through
by the colours in which she had worked. Her bright head, gleaming
about the cottage, had always a background of coloured cottons and
silks. Mrs. Clapham’s own best gown, still “best” after years of
wearing, had been also of Tibbie’s making. Her heart leaped and her
nerves thrilled as she told herself that, if things happened as she
expected, she would crown the occasion by appearing in it to-day....
Tibbie had even made gowns for Miss Marigold and Mrs. Wrench, and she
had actually been commissioned to make a frock for Miss Marigold’s
trousseau. That had been part of the information proceeding so
copiously from the Vicar’s wife, the evening before.
“It’s a pale blue _crêpe de Chine_, Mrs. Clapham,” Mrs. Wrench had
said, “and Marigold writes that she’s quite delighted with it. Tibbie
was always so dainty in everything she did, and Marigold wanted a
frock from her for the sake of old times. It’s the sort of frock that
would have suited Tibbie herself, from the description. I remember
she always looked pretty in pale blue.”
Mrs. Clapham had remembered it, too, throwing a glance at the
photograph of the young widow, framed on a shelf near. The sober
colours of life were Tibbie’s wear now; not the delicate shades of
youth making ready to be a bride. Yet the face looking out of the
picture was neither bitter nor sad; thinner, perhaps, and deepened
in shadow and meaning, but laughing and valiant as of old. Tibbie’s
husband had gone down in the War, together with many another lad
whom Mrs. Clapham had first seen as a much bewrapped bundle in his
mother’s arms; but Tibbie’s spirit had not gone down with him.
By that time she had made for herself a nice little dress-making
business in Whalley, where she had lived since her marriage, and
when Stephen was dead she continued to carry it on. Mrs. Clapham, of
course, had wanted her to come home, but Tibbie and her two children
were very comfortable in their little house, and there were the
clients to think of, as well as other reasons. She, on her side, had
wanted her mother to join her in Whalley, but Mrs. Clapham, too, had
had her reasons for staying where fortune had happened to place her.
She thought of those reasons now as she finished her breakfast—and
chuckled; and took her last drink of tea and chuckled and chuckled
and chuckled _and_ chuckled....
It was strange how full her mind was this morning of Tibbie and
Tibbie’s doings; not that the girl and her children were ever far
from the old woman’s thoughts. Probably it was Miss Marigold’s
wedding that was making her think of her own lass, and of the way
life fuses and separates and alters and breaks. With what mixed
smiles and tears must Tibbie have fashioned that gown for the Vicar’s
daughter, feeling a hundred years older in experience, although born
on the same day! She knew something of Tibbie’s feelings as she sewed
at the blue gown, because Mrs. Wrench had told her that she had
written a letter.
“Such a nice letter it was, Mrs. Clapham! Marigold was so pleased.
But Tibbie always had such nice ways ... you brought her up so well.
She said she hoped Marigold would have better luck than hers, though
she couldn’t have a better happiness while it had lasted.... As a
matter of fact, she ran the _crêpe de Chine_ rather late, though she
didn’t say why. Marigold was really getting rather anxious about it,
but in the end it turned up all right.”
“Nay, Tibbie’d never fail nobody,” Mrs. Clapham had said, though
rather absently, wishing herself alone so that she might sit and
chuckle over the happiness that was coming.
“Nor you, either!” (Thank goodness she was getting to her feet at
last!) “I’ve never known you send me back word yet, and I don’t think
you ever will.” (Incredible as it seemed, she was out at the door and
in the road.) “Very well, then, good night; and I’ll expect you as
usual next week!”
Yes, it must be Miss Marigold’s wedding that was making her think
of the absent Tibbie, thinking so vividly that instead of absent
she was very much present. In the little room where the sun kept
pushing its way she seemed almost there in the flesh, catching and
reflecting the light with her shimmering scissors and silks. The
children, too, seemed unaccountably near, so that she felt as if
at any moment she might hear their gentle if chattering voices and
their sober if pattering feet. Their post-card photographs were
on the shelf with that of their mother, seven-year-old Libby and
five-year-old Stevie—stiff, grave, patient little people, who looked
as if they couldn’t possibly belong to laughing Tibbie. Those who
noticed the difference said that they looked as though they had been
born protesting against the sorrows of a great war, but those who had
known their father and their father’s mother said something else. It
was from Stephen Catterall that they inherited their pale, haunted
faces and their mournful dark eyes. When Stephen was killed, they
said in Whalley that he had always looked as though the hand of death
was never far from his tragic face, but those who had known him as
a child knew it was never a little thing like death that had made
Stephen afraid....
Mrs. Clapham had once been to Whalley to pay her daughter a visit,
and once Tibbie and the children had come to Mrs. Clapham, but
on neither side had the visit been repeated. One had her charing
to think of, and the other her sewing, and both had their other
supremely important reasons.... But the result of the separation was
that Mrs. Clapham knew very little about Tibbie’s children, except
what she was able to learn from Tibbie’s letters. She was fond of
them as far as she did know them, and of course proud, but she was
always a little puzzled about them, a little uneasy. They were so
very unlike what Tibbie had been, or Tibbie’s uncles and aunts; so
very unlike what Mrs. Clapham had been herself. But there was no
reason to worry about them or their mother, as she knew, seeing
that they were comfortably off, and had plenty of neighbours and
friends. If it had not been for that she could never have felt this
satisfaction in the change which, other individuals being willing,
she was shortly proposing to take. She would have been afraid that,
as soon as the home was broken up, Tibbie and Co. might possibly want
to come back. But there was no chance of such a thing as long as
certain circumstances existed; Tibbie would never come. She fretted
for her mother sometimes, just as her mother fretted for her, but as
long as a certain person remained alive, Tibbie would never come.
In all the history of mankind there could never have been anybody
more free than Mrs. Clapham to take what her heart desired, and just
at the moment when it was most accessible to her reach. All the ties
and burdens of life seemed to fall away from her as she sat waiting
there, looking for the news that was certain to come, with the happy
expectancy of a trustful child. It was only when things were _meant_
that they fell out so perfectly at the right time, flowing naturally
to their end as the day flows into night. It was only then that they
were accomplished without hitch or jar (unless you chose to consider
Martha Jane a sort of jar). Everybody’s hand seemed to stretch out to
give you your wish when it came at the right time, and this seemed in
every respect the perfectly right time. It had come, too, when she
was old and weary enough really to appreciate it, and yet not too old
and weary to care. She could say to herself that she had fought an
honourable battle with life, and was now at liberty to seek her ease.
She could say to herself with pride and as often as she liked that
she had won her almshouse on Hermitage Hill.
Even by the fields the almshouses were at least a mile away from her
little cottage, but in Mrs. Clapham’s mind they showed as clearly
as in a picture hung on the wall. Grey, gabled, flower-gardened,
they topped the steep hill that ran up out of the village on the
great north road, challenging by their perfection the notice of
the passer-by. From them you looked down over grassy slopes to the
roofs of the village, the long shape of the Hall against its wooded
hill, and further across still to the mystery of the sea. Unscamped
and well-built in every inch, they were growing more aristocratic
and mellow with every year that passed. The change to them from the
uneven-floored, crooked-walled cottage in which Mrs. Clapham had
lived so long would be, when it came, like the change to a king’s
palace. To have a roof of her own, with nothing to pay for it,
nothing to fear, would make her feel little less of a property-owner
than his lordship himself. Moving up to that high place from the
huddled and crouching street would be like soaring on strong wings
into the open spaces of the sky.
All through her working life she had hoped that she might be
allowed to end her days in one of the almshouses on Hermitage Hill.
Especially she had wanted the house with the double view, the one
that faced alike the humanity of the road and the miracle of the sea.
Over and over again she had seen it fall vacant, and pass into fresh
hands, but she had never attempted to ask for it until now. Never
until now had she considered that she had a right to apply. She was
the true type of worker, hardy, honest and proud, and both her pride
and her sense of honour had kept her from taking her rest before
it was due. But she had always hoped that fate and the governors
would see fit to make her this particular gift when at last she had
really earned it; and not only had she hoped—she had also believed.
She had always felt certain that, sooner or later, the house of her
dreams would come her way. She had seen it as the natural apex of her
mounting years, clear as a temple set on a hill. All her life it had
cheered her and urged her on, standing alike to her as a symbol and
the concrete object of her desire.
She had had her anxious moments, of course—moments when she had been
hard put to it not to apply before it was time. Terrible qualms
had seized upon her whenever a new tenant had taken possession of
the corner house, terrible fears that she might outlive her in the
comfort and peace. She had resisted temptation, however, in spite
of her fears, and now she was being repaid. Most of the tenants had
died obligingly quite soon, so that she had learned to believe that
they would continue to die when she really needed it. And Mrs. Phipps
_had_ died, poor soul, thoughtfully and uncomplainingly, just at the
time when Mrs. Clapham was beginning to fail. That, together with the
fact that she had known and liked Mrs. Phipps, made the whole thing
seem more than ever as if it was “meant.” She would not have cared to
follow just anybody in the corner house, but she was quite contented
to follow Mrs. Phipps.
Yet she had not made up her mind all at once, even after Mrs. Phipps
had so tactfully made room. Even then she had gone into the matter
very carefully, testing her motives and her strength, and making
sure, above all, that she was loosing no natural tics. But her final
conclusion had been that the moment had actually come; and so,
weeping even while she rejoiced, and trembling while she believed,
she had sent in her name to the committee with a fine certainty of
success.
There was not a soul in the place but would speak well of her, she
knew; everybody, that is, whose testimony really counted. Hers was,
in fact, that peculiar position which perhaps only the poor can ever
achieve, dependent as it is upon character alone. Then too, the very
man who had built the almshouses had promised her one of them long
ago. He was a rich Lancashire brewer, with a gruff manner and a
generous heart, and Ann Clapham had been a servant in his Westmorland
shooting-box before she married. “Jones,” he had said to her one
day—(she was Ann Atkinson just then, but he called the whole of his
household “Jones”)—“if ever you want one of those houses of mine,
you’re to be sure to have it. I’ll be dead then, of course... can’t
live for ever... but there’ll be a committee. No d—d good, probably,
but it’s the best I can do. Tell ’em from me, Jones, that you’re to
have a house; and tell ’em from me, Jones, that you’re a d—d good
sort...”
And now, after all these years, “Jones” had at last repeated the
millionaire brewer’s words, and so realistically that nobody who had
known the old man could refuse to believe them. Not but what she
had earned the house right enough on her own merits, as she did not
need telling; still, it was all to the good to be backed by old Mr.
T. There were other candidates, however, so that a meeting had to
be called, though she was assured time and again that it would only
be formal. But when she came to her final canvassing for votes, she
found that at least one of the other applicants had been in before
her. Times had changed even in that remote little village, and it was
not everybody now who remembered old Mr. T. Nevertheless, it had been
a decided shock to her to find that her most important opponent was
Martha Jane Fell.
Martha Jane was a neighbour of Mrs. Clapham’s, living just up the
street, and Mrs. Clapham knew all about her. Younger than her rival
by a good many years, Martha Jane had been very pretty as a girl,
and even now had a decided “way” with her. It was a “way,” at
least, that always went down with the men, and in pursuance of this
particular piece of good fortune she had canvassed the men on the
committee first. Mrs. Clapham could not help feeling it a distinct
outrage that her most dangerous obstacle should take the form of
this peculiarly worthless woman. Her own value seemed somehow to be
lessened by it, her own virtue maligned. But then men, she remarked
to herself scornfully, were always like wax in the hands of a woman
like that. One of her own sex would have had her doubts any day about
Martha Jane Fell.
The decisive meeting had been held the day before in the school,
and Mrs. Clapham, scrubbing and scouring at Mrs. Helme’s, had found
it a terrible business to keep her mind on her task. More than once
she had found herself on the verge of missing corners or stairs,
neglecting to put the final polish on chair-legs, or “slaping floors
over” that needed elbow-grease and goodwill. But always she had
checked herself with a feeling of shame. It seemed to her not only
unlucky but dishonest to count herself free before the chains were
loosed. In fact, in the access of zeal following upon her momentary
lapse, she was almost sure that she did the same job twice.
Afterwards, indeed, she had allowed herself to come home by the
school, though she had passed it without even turning her head, and
scarcely so much as straining her ears for a murmur of voices from
inside. Martha Jane, however, had no such scruples, as she discovered
when she turned the corner. Martha Jane, indeed, was planted brazenly
on the doorstep, applying ear and eye in turn to the open keyhole.
Not only that—so Mrs. Clapham was told later—but she waylaid the
members of the committee as they came in, reminding her allies of
their promised support, and attempting to soften the hearts of the
rest. She looked slightly abashed for a moment when she saw her
opponent, and then gave her a wink and grinned impudently.
“Like to have a peep?” she inquired generously, moving to one side.
“There’s nine on ’em sitting in a bunch, and all as solemn as a row
of hens! His lordship’s been pressing ’em to give it to me, and right
touching he was an’ all. Says I’m one o’ them delicate folk for
whom life is over-strong!” She winked again. “I doubt none o’ your
gentry’ll be saying that for _you_!”
Twisted towards her on the step, she looked with a sort of mocking
good-humour at the stalwart, motherly woman with the honest face.
There was still something of the street-arab about Martha Jane Fell,
something that metaphorically turned cart-wheels even in the most
sacred presence. But her most dangerous quality was a capacity for
passing at will from brazenness to appeal, for seeming to cling even
while she defied. Martha Jane could wilt like a weed or spring like
a steel trap. She was worn, reckless and down-at-heel, but she had
contrived nevertheless to keep something of the grace of youth, a
slimness of form, a fineness of skin, a faint beauty of cheek and
chin. Only her eyes betrayed her under her untidy hair, hard even as
they laughed at the well-bound figure before them.
After that moment’s hesitation, Mrs. Clapham made as if to pass on,
but Martha Jane, swinging round again to the keyhole, called her back.
“They’re talking about you now,” she informed her kindly, “saying
you’re a credit to the village and all that! But they say you’ve a
daughter to see to you in your old age, and I haven’t. You’ll have to
get rid of yon daughter o’ yours, Ann Clapham, if you want to best me
over the house!”
She spared another second from the keyhole to throw her a fresh
impudent glance, but her fellow-candidate did not answer. Turning
resolutely away, she marched steadily towards the hill, wishing in
every nerve that she could demean herself to stand in Martha Jane’s
place. She hadn’t gone far, however, taking the hill slowly because
of her heart, when the school-door had suddenly opened, and, as it
were, flung the Committee into the road. One or two of them had
hurriedly passed her, smiling as they went, and the parson had thrown
her a pleasant greeting and lifted his hat. They couldn’t have looked
at her like that, she told herself triumphantly, if they hadn’t given
her the house; and the heart about which there was just a little
doubt became so thrilled that it threatened to drop her down in a
dead faint.
All the evening she had looked for a letter, knowing all the time
that it was too early to expect it, and rebuking herself for
impatience and greed. But it had not come, in spite of her hopes,
and nobody she saw seemed to have the faintest notion of what had
happened. Anyhow, she was sure that there would be a letter this
morning, either by post or hand; or, instead of a letter, a personal
message. She was as certain about it as she was certain of Heaven. It
was only a question of waiting until the manna should choose to fall.
Over the muslin half-blind masking the little window, she saw a
telegraph-boy come riding up, wriggling his bicycle from side to side
of the road after his usual fashion; and, as on the day before, her
heart jumped so that her breath caught and her eyes blurred. Just
for a moment she wondered wildly whether they could possibly have
telegraphed the news, waiting for the slither of light-descending
feet and the batter of Government on the door. Nothing happened,
however, and presently she relaxed her muscles, released her breath
and rubbed her eyes; reproving herself with a shrug of her shoulders
and a half-ashamed laugh for being so foolish as to imagine that the
wire could possibly have been meant for her.
But she was still curious about its actual destination, and
presently, when her heart had steadied again, she opened the door
and looked out. The telegraph-boy was returning by now, whistling
and wriggling as he came, but there was nothing to show at which
house he had left his message. Yet even after he had disappeared she
remained on her threshold, partly because the sun and the fine air
soothed and stimulated her in the same moment, and partly because of
a subconscious thrill that she could not define. But all that she
received by way of a spectacle was the stiff, dark-clad form of Emma
Catterall, appearing suddenly in the doorway of a house which always
seemed gloomier than other people’s. “Suddenly,” however, was not the
right word to use for Emma. Emma always dawned. Slowly, when you were
not thinking about her, she took her place—an unsolicited place—in
your conscious vision; and in the same way, when she had finished
with you, she faded before your unwillingly strained eyes.
It was after this fashion that Mrs. Clapham discovered her presence
this morning, driven to it by the unpleasant consciousness that she
was being watched. Fixing each other with a stare that was almost
fascinated in its length, they stood looking across the September
sunshine in the sloping street. Then, in the same unaccountable
manner in which she had appeared, Emma began to fade, and Mrs.
Clapham, with a shake and a fresh laugh, moved likewise and went
within.
CHAPTER II
She re-acted a little after the episode of the telegraph-boy, who had
seemed to be bringing her happiness to her, and after all wasn’t.
That moment of mounting excitement had left her a little flat, or
as flat as it was possible to be on this day of wonderful promise.
She still felt rather foolish for imagining that the Committee would
be in the least likely to telegraph the news. The event was trivial
enough to them, after all, however world-shaking it might seem to
her. Mr. Baines, the lawyer, who was secretary to the Committee,
would probably send the news by his clerk, or, failing the clerk, he
might slip it into the post. There was also the chance, of course,
that he might bring it himself, and Mrs. Clapham quivered with pride
when she thought of that. Even then, it would be only another of the
wonderful happenings which she felt to be gathering about the central
fact. There was the grand weather, to begin with, with herself
feeling as grand as the day; and presently, when she had waited a
little longer, there would no doubt be Mr. Baines...
It was no use expecting him yet, however, so she made a determined
effort to school herself to patience. Mr. Baines, as all the village
was aware, was hardly the sort to rise up early in order to bathe his
face in morning dew. Besides, as she reminded herself again, this
enchanting dispensation of Providence could not possibly seem as
important to him as it did to her. Why, in the pressure of business
he might even forget it—let it stand over, perhaps, until to-morrow!
Mrs. Clapham could hardly restrain herself from rushing off to sit
waiting for him on his office doorstep when she thought of _that_.
She found herself wishing, with a fervour that almost surprised her,
that this was Mrs. Wrench’s “day,” after all. She remembered how
she had chuckled, on waking, to think it was nothing of the sort,
but she was not so sure that she felt like chuckling now. Even with
Mrs. Wrench it was sometimes possible to slip a word in edgeways, if
you tried; and in spite of her absorption in Miss Marigold and Miss
Marigold’s gowns, she would surely have spared a moment to tell her
how matters stood.
But it was not Mrs. Wrench’s day, so it was no use thinking about it.
It was nobody’s “day,” for the matter of that. It was her own day,
to do as she liked with from rise to set, and just for the moment it
threatened to hang on her hands. She tried to make a bargain with
herself that she wouldn’t look at the clock for another half-hour,
and found her eyes stealing round to it the very next minute. She
almost wished—so desperately was she at a loose end—that she had
gone up the street to speak to Emma Catterall. She hated Tibbie’s
mother-in-law as she hated nobody else on earth, but even Emma would
have been better than nothing. She went to the window at last, to see
whether she had re-emerged, bending her pink face above the box of
pink asters, the Family Bible and the clock. But there was no sign of
Emma, as far as she could tell, although, as it happened, Emma, at
that moment, was also peering out. There were no flowers in Emma’s
window, but only a few half-dead ferns; nevertheless in the blankness
and gloom of her dismal dwelling she was hidden as in a cave.
When Mrs. Clapham could bear the waiting no longer, she fetched pail
and brush from the back kitchen, and got herself down to scrub the
floor. The place was already so clean that her energy seemed rather
wasted, but, although she was unaware of it, there was something
symbolical in the act. In its own way it was a sort of dedication,
a cleansing of everything round her for the coming event. In any
case, nothing that hadn’t been washed since the day before was ever
quite clean to Mrs. Clapham. Yesterday was yesterday, and to-day
was to-day, and nobody knew better than she just how far dirt could
manage to spread itself in a single night.
At all events, her instinct in the matter had been perfectly sound,
for her nerves calmed as soon as she touched her tools. As she knelt
on her little mat, scrubbing with strong, rhythmic, stiff-armed
strokes, she felt full of a placid confidence that was infinitely
more pleasant than the foregoing state of thrill. Even she knew that
she was at her best when she was at her “job,” rough though it was,
and low in the social scale. She felt so soothed that she even sang
as she scoured the flags, giving them just enough water and yet not
too much, as a skilful scrubber should. She had done the doorstep
already, of course—as soon as she came down—a matutinal rite as
mechanical and natural as washing her own face. She found herself
hankering, however, to wash the doorstep again, and was only stopped
by the consciousness that it seemed rather silly. Yet the step could
not be too clean across which the wonderful news was certain to come,
and there would be plenty of time for it to dry. The fact that she
could say to herself that there was plenty of time showed that she
had ceased to expect the news at every minute. She was so pleased
with herself when she realised that that she started to sing again.
In her present mood of contented assurance she felt she could wait
all day.
She and her little mat had just about finished their perambulation
in honour of cleanliness, and she was dipping the brush for almost
the last time, when somebody came up the street and gave a birdlike
tap at her door. Again Mrs. Clapham’s heart warned her that life at
this strenuous pitch was not suitable to its constitution, and it
was a moment or two before she could force herself to her feet. But
she had hardly started to answer the summons before the latch moved
in its socket, and the thin little face of Mrs. Tanner came peeping
excitedly round the jamb.
“Any news, Ann Clapham?” she inquired breathlessly. “Have you had
t’ news? Eh, now, I could hardly sleep for fearing summat might go
wrong!”
She slipped into the room as she spoke, pushing the door behind
her with a neat movement. There was an almost birdlike activity in
every inch of her thin form, and an almost beak-like effect in her
pursed-up, toothless mouth. Mrs. Clapham looked simply immense beside
her spare little shape, a towering giantess of a woman, broad and
wholesome and strong. The rolled-up sleeves of her faded print frock
showed her splendid arms, just as her skirt, turned up over her short
striped petticoat, showed her sturdy legs. Her clean harding apron
struck a note of extreme freshness which was accentuated by the glow
of her pink face and the gleam of her white hair. The scrubbing-brush
was still gripped in her wet hand, and the zinc pail behind her spoke
to her honest trade. Even in her excitement Mrs. Tanner had time for
a spasm of admiration. “Eh, but it seems a shame to put the likes
of her in an almshouse!” she said to herself; and then forgot the
impression in her eagerness for a reply.
“Nay, I’ve heard nowt yet!” Mrs. Clapham was one broad smile. “I
doubt it’s hardly time. Folks as sit on committees and suchlike don’t
get up as soon as us!”
Mrs. Tanner gave the nod of pained but tolerant comprehension with
which one class salutes the idiosyncrasies of another.
“Anyway, it’ll be all right. Folks say as it’s yours already.... I
had to look in, though; I was that keen to know.”
“It was right kind of you, Maggie,” Mrs. Clapham beamed; “it was
right kind! Good luck doesn’t come every day o’ the week, and when it
does, it’d be a queer sort as didn’t want everybody to hear!”
Steeped in a mutual kindness that had the warmth of an embrace, they
drifted across the fast-drying floor and seated themselves by the
small fire. Mrs. Tanner perched herself on the edge of the stiff
rocker, while Mrs. Clapham sat in her late husband’s chair, bolt
upright, her bare arms outstretched, her plump moist hands resting
upon her knees. The big woman and the little beamed across at each
other, thoroughly satisfied with a pleasant world.
“They’ll hear right enough—trust ’em for that! They’re agog about it,
even now. Mrs. Simmons put her head out as I ran up and said ‘Hst!
Any more about yon almshouse do?’—but of course I couldn’t tell her
what I didn’t know myself!”
“Ay, she’s the sort to get up the night before, to make sure of a bit
o’ gossip!” ... They had a hearty laugh together at this peculiarity
of Mrs. Simmons’, exactly as if it wasn’t shared by everybody in the
street. But anything was good enough to laugh at on this day that was
to be laughter and pleasantness all through. Mrs. Simmons’ weakness
did as well as anything else. “But there! I mustn’t be counting my
chickens afore they’re hatched!” Mrs. Clapham said presently, trying
to sober down. “Nice and silly I’ll look if I don’t get it, after
all! Not but what I sort o’ feel in my bones as it’s going to be all
right.”
Mrs. Tanner, at least, had no qualms about tempting Providence.
“Folks all say you’re the only person for it,” she repeated stoutly.
“There’s a many wanted it, of course, but there’s nobody earned it
same as you. You’d be fit to hide your face if you knew all the fine
things I’ve heard tell of you these last few days, about you being
that honest and straight-living and all that! What, I shouldn’t
wonder if folks was that pleased they’d go sticking out flags!” she
went on, her imagination running away with her,—“nay, but they won’t.
They’ll be too put about over lossing your grand work.”
“Ay, well, I can’t say I shan’t be pleased to be missed. Folks always
want to be told there’s nobody like ’em when their turn comes to step
aside. I’m sure I’ve done my best for the place while I’ve been about
it!” She chuckled happily, rubbing her hands backwards and forwards
over the harding apron. “There’s not a floor can cry out at me as
I’ve ever had occasion to scrub!... But I’m going back, all the same,
and it’s about time I gave up. My knee’s been bothering me a deal
lately, and my heart’s a bit jumpy an’ all. I did think of going
to doctor about it, but I reckon it’s just old age. I’ll be right
enough, likely, when I’m in my own spot, and no call to bother about
the rent!”
“Ay, you’ve had a fairish hard life,” Mrs. Tanner agreed
sympathetically, “and it’s no wonder it’s beginning to tell. Not but
what you’d have found work for yourself wherever you were, that I’ll
be bound! You’re the sort as always likes things a little hard. You’d
never ha’ done with ’em soft.”
“I could ha’ done with ’em a bit easier like, all the same!” Mrs.
Clapham rejoined humorously. “But you’re likely right. I can’t abide
folks to be mooning around or lying about half their time. I like
to see a bit of elbow-grease put into life, same as it might be a
kitchen-table! I was brought up to think there was nowt like work,
and I can’t say I’ve ever found anything better. My Tibbie’s a grand
worker an’ all, and yon little Libby of hers shapes to frame the same
way.... But folks can’t last for ever and that’s a fact; and I’ve
always sworn as I’d end my days in them almshouses on Hermitage Hill.”
The eyes of the two women shone as they met and smiled. They leaned
towards each other, a little breathless.
“A pound a week!” chanted the ecstatic Mrs. Tanner. “It’s gone up
since t’ War.”
“Ay, and as bonny a spot as you could wish!”
“Coal!”
“Such a view as there is, looking right over towards t’ sea!”
“No rates nor nothing,” sang Mrs. Tanner; “and water laid on from a
big tank!”
“A flower-garden, wi’ a man to see to it—”
“Tatie bed, gooseberry bushes, black currants, red currants, mint——”
“Eh, and such furniture and fittings as you couldn’t find bettered at
the Hall!” Mrs. Clapham’s tone was almost reverent. It seemed to her
rather greedy to lay stress upon the material side of her luck, but
the excellent plenishings provided by old Mr. T. could scarcely be
termed that. It was more as if they were the fittings of the temple
which the place stood for in her mind, than the actual chattels of a
house in which she was going to live.
They laughed again as they paused for breath, because even for a
thing that was sacred nothing but laughter was good enough to greet
it. Then Mrs. Clapham checked herself firmly a second time.
“There I go again—making out I’ve got the place, when I’ve never had
as much as a word! I’m just asking for bad luck, that’s what it is!
What, blessed if I didn’t find myself singing at my work, for all the
world like a daft lass going to meet a lad!” She chuckled again,
drawing her hands slowly backwards and forwards over her knees.
“Serves me right if I bring a judgment on my crazy head!... But I was
fair hankering after somebody to talk to when you come in. It’s next
best thing to my own Tibbie, having you setting there.”
“I’m sure I wish it was Tibbie herself, I do that! Your lass’ll be
real pleased when she hears the news.”
“She will that!” The charwoman smiled contentedly. “She’s always
thought a deal of her mother, has my Tibbie.... But, bless me, Maggie
Tanner, you’re every bit as bad as me! Who’s to say, after all, as it
won’t be Martha Jane?”
“Martha Jane!” Mrs. Tanner’s wrath and contempt were such that the
rocker, hitherto apparently oblivious of her birdlike presence, began
to rock as if possessed by some evil spirit. “Nay, now, don’t you
talk such rubbish to me! She isn’t fit to be mentioned in t’ same
week!”
“She thinks a deal of her chances, all the same,” Mrs. Clapham
returned seriously. “Ay, she fancies her chances, does Martha Jane.
I do think I’m a bit better stuff than her, and that’s gospel truth,
but seemingly there’s some as’d sooner put in a word for her than
they would for me.”
“Likely nicked in the head, then, that’s what they are!” scoffed Mrs.
Tanner. “I’ll believe in ’em when I see ’em. It’s true she’s seemed
mighty full of herself, these last few days, but there’s nowt new to
that. Nobody in their senses’d vote for her as knew anything about
her.”
“There’s men on the Committee, you’ll think on, and she was always
one for getting round the men. I remember I could never get my Jonty
to say a word agen her, and I reckon it’ll be the same with your Joe.
Them Committee-men won’t bother themselves whether she’s fit to look
after a grand spot like yon; and she’s never been one either to cook
or to clean, hasn’t Martha Jane. She’d let a bit o’ pie crust burn
any day o’ the week if a man chanced to be going past.”
“She’s never got herself wed with it all, any way up!” Mrs. Tanner
was rocking and fierce. “Not that them sort o’ little details make
that much difference to Martha Jane!”
“Not as _I_ ever heard of!” Mrs. Clapham supplemented, with pursed
lips; and then relinquished the virtuous matron in a burst of happy
beams. “Oh, well, never mind the poor daft thing!” she finished
kindly, rubbing her knees. “I mustn’t get talking nasty on such a
grand day as this.”
“Tibbie’ll be coming to help you to move, likely?” Mrs. Tanner
inquired presently, when by a violently charitable effort they had
allowed Martha Jane’s frailties to sink out of mind. But Mrs. Clapham
shook her head.
“Nay, I don’t know as she will. Happen she might, if she could get
somebody to see to the children.... But there’s her sewing, you’ll
think on, and a deal besides; and anyway she’s not that keen on
coming back here, isn’t Tibbie.”
“What, she was fond enough of the place as a lass!” Mrs. Tanner
protested, though less out of contradiction than as if she were
somehow taking a cue.
“Ay, she likes the place well enough—I don’t mean that. You always
think a deal of the spot where you lived as a child. But she’d put
the whole world if she could between them children of hers and Emma
Catterall. She’s never forgiven the way his mother treated Poor
Stephen.”
“Nay, now, don’t you go calling him ‘poor,’ Ann Clapham,” Mrs. Tanner
interpolated with spirit, “and him with his V.C. an’ all! Think
on how well he did in t’ Army, and what they said about him in t’
papers. What, even Germans, they said, owned up he was right brave;
Tibbie’d give it you, I’ll be bound, if she heard you calling him
‘poor’!”
“‘Poor’ was the word for him, though, as a bit of a lad....” Mrs.
Clapham’s expression had changed and become grave and a trifle
bitter; and again, as if picking up a cue, Mrs. Tanner found one to
match it.
“Ay, he had a terribly thin time of it, had Stephen—I don’t mind
giving you that. She wasn’t kind to him, wasn’t Emma. Yet I don’t
know as she ever laid a hand on him, as far as I’ve heard tell. Yon
half-daft father of his did, so they said, but I make nowt o’ that. A
boy never frets himself much over that sort o’ thing. It’s all just
in the day’s work.”
“Nay, it was something a deal worse.” The charwoman’s kind face
was troubled and puzzled. “It was more the sort o’ way she looked
and spoke, hinting at nasty things she could do if she liked.... I
reckon she made him feel as if he wasn’t _safe_. She didn’t feed
him over-well, neither; I doubt he was always going short. Emma’s
always been well covered, and will be, I reckon, when she’s in her
coffin; but Steve and his father were as thin as laths. I always
kind o’ think she starved poor Jemmy into his grave, though I doubt
he wouldn’t ha’ been much of a man even on four meals a day instead
of two. Likely she’d ha’ done the same for Stephen, if he hadn’t got
away in time. There’s nowt breaks a boy’s spirit like keeping him
short of food.”
“He’d plenty o’ spirit when it come to it, anyway—the poor lad!” The
patriotic Mrs. Tanner fired again.... “There now, I’m calling him
‘poor’ myself! Germans didn’t think him short of it, though, that
I’ll be bound!... But I don’t wonder Tibbie isn’t keen on bringing
them children anywhere near Emma. It’s natural she should be sore
about it, seeing how fond she was of Stephen. What, I remember once,
when she was nobbut about ten, seeing her sobbing her heart out in
t’ street, and when I fetched her in to ax what in creation it was
all about, it turned out as she’d seen Poor Stephen looking as thin
as a knife-edge!”
“Ay, she never could abear to see anything tret rough-like or unkind.
It was that made her look at him first thing. She’d a deal of offers,
had Tibbie, as you’ll likely know, but she never would hear tell of
anybody but Stephen. Once she’d started in feeling sorry for him,
the rest was like to follow. He worshipped her an’ all, did the poor
lad, but I reckon it was Tibbie had to do the asking! She’d to begin
all over again from the beginning, so to speak, and make a man of him
from the start.”
“And a right fine man she made of him, while she was about it!” Mrs.
Tanner crowed. “_Germans’ll_ say so, any way up!... Them children of
his are ter’ble like him an’ all,” she went on presently, but more as
if she were now offering the cue instead of accepting it.
“Ay.” Mrs. Clapham’s hands returned to their slow travel up and down
her knees. “Ay, they’re ter’ble like....” She turned her head and
stared thoughtfully at the photographs on the shelf. “It’s because
they’re that like I couldn’t get Tibbie to bring ’em here to live.
‘It’s over near yon woman,’ she used to say, whenever I axed. They
come once, though, you’ll likely think on, and a fair old time we had
of it, to be sure! I went to the lass, of course, after Stephen was
killed, but I couldn’t frame to stop; so, after a deal o’ pushing and
pulling, her and the children come for a short visit. But it wasn’t
very long before she found that _she_ couldn’t stop, neither! Emma
Catterall was always after them children, standing on t’ doorstep
or hanging about in t’ street. She couldn’t keep away from them,
whatever she did; what, it was almost as if she watched ’em in their
beds!”
Mrs. Tanner had turned her head, too, and was staring out through
the slightly open door, through which the sun was pushing its way as
if laying a carpet for coming feet. But neither of the women who were
sitting there waiting for good news had a thought to spare for that
news just now.
“They say Emma makes no end of a stir about Stephen now—showing his
likenesses and that. Happen she’s proud of him now, and happen sorry;
leastways, that’s what you’d say if it wasn’t Emma.”
But again the charwoman shook her head. “It’d be right enough for
most folk—I’ll give you that; but it don’t seem to fit somehow
with Emma. She went on that strange, too, she made you creep. She
just hung about waiting all the time—never come in once and sat
herself down for a bit of a chat. Of course, we were none of us
over-friendly-like, she was bound to feel that; but neither Tibbie
nor me is the sort to fly out at folk unless we was pressed.”
“She’s not one for ever going into other folks’ spots,” observed Mrs.
Tanner. “And I don’t know as I ever see her set down in the whole of
my life!”
“Ay, well, she never come past doorstep, as I said.... She just
hung about, looking on. She’s brass of her own, you’ll think on,
and more time on her hands than most.... She’d come sauntering down
t’ road, as if she was looking for summat, and stop at the door and
peer in; and as soon as she’d catched sight o’ the poor brats, she’d
stand and stare at ’em with her queer smile. They got that upset
about it they’d hardly bring ’emselves to go out, and they’d wake in
the night, and swear she was in t’ room! Tibbie got that desperate
about it at last that she took t’ bull by t’ horns, and took ’em
along to Emma’s to tea. She thought happen they’d all on ’em be more
sensible-like after that, let alone as Emma was Stephen’s mother and
owed attention an’ all. But it didn’t work out as she thought, not
by a deal. You never see anything like the three on ’em when they
come back! The babies had cried ’emselves sick, and Tibbie was white
as a sheet. And after we’d sat alongside of ’em for the best part of
a couple of hours, and come down agen to the fire—‘Mother,’ Tibbie
says sudden-like, breaking out, ‘it’s no use! We’ve got to go.’”
“And she’s never been since....” Mrs. Tanner was still staring at the
sunlight through the open door.
“Nay, and won’t, neither, as long as she’s breath in her to say no!
Such letters as she wrote me after she got back!... I’ve still got
’em upstairs. They were that fierce they’d have set t’ house afire
if I’d shaped to put ’em in t’ grate!” ... Tibbie’s mother gave her
jolly laugh for the first time since the solemn interval, and the
rhythmic rubbing began again. “Ay, well, she’s well enough where she
is,” she went on placidly. “She’s a good business and a sight o’
friends. The folks next door—Rawlinson’s what they’re called—think
the world an’ all o’ my Tibbie.... Nay, she wouldn’t come agen
whatever I did, though I axed her ever so often. She was right keen
on me going to her instead, but I didn’t fancy a new spot. I’d summat
in my eye at home an’ all,” she finished, chuckling; “and you know
what that is as well as me!”
Mrs. Tanner turned herself round now, and chuckled, too. The shadow
which had lain for a while over the pair of them—the shadow of
something they could not understand—dispersed again in the sun of the
coming pleasure. Both their faces and their voices lightened now that
a safe return had been made to the joyful subject.
“I don’t know when I didn’t know it, come to that! We all on us knew
you’d set your heart on that house.”
“Well, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, I’m sure!” Mrs. Clapham
defended herself happily. “There’s a deal o’ things folks want as is
a long sight worse.”
“Nay, you’d every right,” Mrs. Tanner concurred, with distinct
affection in her tone.... “They say everybody has a dream o’ some
sort,” she added thoughtfully, “and that, if they nobbut hold to it
fast enough, it’s sure to come true.”
“Ay, well, I’ve held to mine fast enough,” the charwoman chuckled;
“ay, that I have, right fast! What, I’ve never as much as thought
of anything else! I’ve watched folk marching in, and I’ve watched
’em carried out, and I’ve said to myself about both on ’em—‘Some day
yon’ll be me!” ... She laughed when Mrs. Tanner jumped as she said
that, exclaiming—“Eh, now, Mrs. Clapham, yon isn’t nice!”—laughed and
laughed until the tears ran down her face, and crumpled the apron
over her knees. “Eh, well, I hope I’ll have a run for my money,
anyway,” she finished contentedly, as the other rose.... “You’re off
agen, are you? It was kind of you to look in.”
“Ay, I must be off now, but I’ll be back before so long.” Mrs.
Tanner’s neat little figure hopped briskly towards the door. “You’ll
have your work cut out, keeping me off t’ step!” she added, turning
for a last laugh, and again was struck by the thought that had met
her when she came in. “Eh, but I wonder if you’ll like yon dream o’
yours when it comes to getting it!” she exclaimed, looking up at the
big woman almost seriously. “I doubt you’ll not take kindly to living
so soft. Somebody’ll be wanting a bit o’ help, one o’ these days, and
you’ll be out o’ yon almshouse afore you can say knife!”
Mrs. Clapham put out one of her plump hands, and gave her a
good-tempered push. “Get along with you, woman,” she scolded
cheerfully, “and don’t be putting your spoke in my grand wheel!...
Is that postman coming up t’ street?” she added swiftly, suddenly
nervous. “Eh, Maggie, my lass, I’m all of a shake!”
“’Tain’t post!” Mrs. Tanner called back, pattering birdlike down the
street. “You’re that excited, you can’t see.... I’ll be looking in
agen as soon as I’m through, and anyway, here’s wishing you luck!”
She disappeared into a house on the opposite side of the road, and
for a while longer Mrs. Clapham stayed at her door, straining her
eyes after the mythical postman whom her imagination had supplied.
She had begun to feel restless again, and as if she could not
possibly wait another moment. Presently, with a sigh, she went back
into the house, but she could not bring herself to close the door.
That would have been a sign that she still felt equal to waiting,
and the mood of patience had finally passed. Mechanically she put
away pail and brush, and readjusted the rug, but always with an ear
stretched towards the least hint of a step outside. Afterwards she
took off the harding and straightened her skirt, turned down her
sleeves, and took a clean linen apron from a bottom drawer. She even
went to the mirror beside the fire and smoothed and tightened the
coils of her hair. And then at last, as if she had done all that
could be required of her, either for the postman or Mr. Baines, she
settled her features into the expression of placid expectation that
was most suitable to the occasion, and stepped like a kindly victor
into the street....
CHAPTER III
Out in the clear September sunshine she planted herself well beyond
the doorstep and a yard or two down the road, feet apart, hands on
her hips, and her calm but interested gaze staring steadily down
the hill. She was not ashamed to be seen standing there waiting
for the great good thing that was certainly coming her way. There
could be nothing forward or lacking in delicacy in waiting about for
what everybody knew to be your own. The sun, slanting towards her
over the houses, brought out the original lilac of her faded gown,
burnished her hair into actual silver and caught at the wedding-ring
on her hand. From either side of the street they looked out and saw
her there, and according to their natures were either interested or
uninterested, sympathetic or the reverse. All of them, however, could
not help looking at her for at least a minute. There was something
regal about the big, fine, patient figure that was not afraid to go
forth in the eye of the sun to meet the possibilities of fate.
Martha Jane Fell, fastening a piece of torn lace about her neck with
a bent and tarnished gilt pin, saw her through her cracked panes
and gave vent to a cracked laugh. Martha Jane had her own hopes,
which were playing havoc with her nerves, and her hands, working at
the lace, trembled so much that at last the pin, pressed over-hard,
turned like the proverbial worm and ran itself into her thumb.
Nevertheless, she laughed again, after the first agony had passed,
sucking the wound as she gazed at the figure in the street.
“Looks as if she was waiting for a depitation o’ some sort!” she
remarked to herself humorously. “This way to the Monyment of Honest
Toil!... Thinks she’s got yon house in her pocket already, I should
say; but I reckon there’s still a dip in the bag for Martha Fell!”
And from behind the dusty ferns that were only just alive, and would
so very much have preferred not to live at all, Emma Catterall
also stared at the figure that was the cynosure of every eye. Its
serenity, its dignity, its contented assurance seemed to amuse her
almost as much as they amused Martha Jane. Her beady black eyes
brightened as they fastened upon it, and slowly there grew on her
lips the queer little smile which everybody in the village hated
without knowing why. But presently, as nothing happened in the
street, she stirred and dropped her lids. “Ay, well, she knows her
own business best,” she murmured to herself, still smiling, as she
moved away....
After a while Mrs. Tanner came pattering out to join Mrs. Clapham,
followed by young Mrs. James from her grand house that had pillars
to its door. This was too much for Mrs. Clapham’s own side of
the street, which promptly sent forth supporters in the shape of
Mrs. Airey and Mrs. Dunn. Martha Jane, heating a pair of rickety
curling-tongs at a tallow-dip, was more amused than ever. “Got her
court an’ all now!” she observed to the guttering candle as she
singed her hair.
The postman might now be looked for at any moment, and excitement
mounted in the group in the street. Mrs. Clapham’s Court—or, more
correctly speaking, her Chorus—was full of good-humoured banter,
feeling more and more thrilled with every minute that passed. Mrs.
Tanner’s thin little voice chirped its jests at dark and haughty Mrs.
James, round and motherly Mrs. Airey, and limp and careworn Mrs.
Dunn; while the heroine of the occasion, too nervous to say much,
left them most of the talking and merely beamed upon all alike.
Mrs. Tanner, out of the little pursed-up mouth that was so
ridiculously like a wren’s, was of opinion that it was worse than
useless to be looking for Mr. Baines.
“Nay, it’ll be t’ post, you’ll see!” she asserted confidently to the
crowd. “Ay, he’ll have slipped it into the post.... I don’t say but
what it wouldn’t be more an attention like if he brought it himself,
but it isn’t in nature what you’d look for from Baines. Baines is the
sort that first has to be driven to his bed and then shaken out of
it. Depend upon it, it won’t be Baines!”
Young Mrs. James flushed with annoyance, and drew herself up
haughtily. She had a weakness for amiable, short-sighted Mr. Baines,
who at a recent Red Cross bazaar had made the pleasant mistake of
addressing her as Lady Thorpe.... “I don’t agree with you, Mrs.
Tanner,” she contradicted her coldly. “Mr. Baines is a gentleman,
and he’ll do the right thing. Speaking as one as has had personal
experience of Mr. Baines, it seems to me a deal more likely that
he’ll come himself.”
“Nay, it’ll be t’ post!” Mrs. Tanner persisted, shaking an obstinate
head. “You haven’t been here that long, Mrs. James, and you don’t
know Baines as well as us. He’s not like to do for himself what he
can shape to get done for him by somebody else. Ay, it’ll be t’ post!”
“Supposing it’s neither?” Mrs. Airey put in with a kindly laugh;
and Mrs. Dunn, whose brain was as careworn as her face, observed,
“Supposing it’s Martha Jane——?” but was hastily elbowed into silence.
“It don’t matter how it comes, as long as it comes right!” Mrs.
Clapham answered the lot of them, with her heavenly smile. She
soared above them all like a great comfortable hen above bantams and
sparrows, growing and gaining in significance as they dwindled and
lost....
“Ay, it’ll come right, no doubt about that!” At once the Chorus
forgot its differences in a breath of united devotion. Mrs. Dunn’s
remark had been made without her noticing it, so to speak, a kind of
side-slip of her deflated mind.... “And there’s nobody’ll be more
pleased than us, Ann Clapham, not even yourself!”
“You’re right kind!” the charwoman beamed, turning a grateful glance
from one to the other. “I must say folks is very decent. Mrs. Tanner
here come round first thing to ask if I’d heard; and right glad I was
to see her, feeling lonesome without my Tibbie.”
“You’ll have heard from her lately, I suppose?” Mrs. James asked
elegantly, the present belle of the village inquiring politely after
her predecessor. Mrs. James was married, of course, but she was the
belle, nevertheless; not to speak of the splendid enhancement of
having been taken for Lady Thorpe.
“Nay, I haven’t,” Mrs. Clapham answered, without turning her head.
“I haven’t heard for a while. But she’s been making a gown for Miss
Marigold’s trousseau, so she’s sure to have been throng. It’s Miss
Marigold’s wedding-day to-day, you’ll think on, and a grand one an’
all!”
“Same age as your Tibbie, isn’t she?” asked Mrs. Dunn; and added, by
way of making up for her late slip, “But nowhere near her when it
comes to looks!”
“Nay, now, Miss Marigold’s right enough; she’d pass in a crowd!”...
Mrs. Clapham was flattered, but she wished to be just. “Let’s hope
she hasn’t been through the wood that often, though, she’s had to
pick t’ crooked stick at last!” she went on chuckling. “My Tibbie
took t’ bull by t’ horns, and picked crooked stick right off!”
This evoked a perfect volley of reproach from the shocked Chorus,
put finally into intelligible form by Mrs. Tanner.
“Nay, now, Ann Clapham, you should think shame to be talking like
that! ’Tisn’t right to Poor Stephen, seeing he turned out so grand.
Doesn’t seem right to your Tibbie, neither, as lost her man in t’
war.”
Mrs. Clapham looked slightly conscience-stricken. “Ay, poor lad—poor
lass!” she sighed, by way of amends, and suddenly the shadow of the
terrible four years came out of the corners in which it had been
dispersed, and breathed a vapour as of shell-smoke over the sunny
street. Before the minds of all rose a succession of khaki figures,
coming and going; or only going, and getting ever further away. Young
Mrs. James, whose husband had been off to Gallipoli before they
were three months wed, looked at that moment not such a very young
Mrs. James, after all. The sisters, Mrs. Airey and Mrs. Dunn, drew
together and touched hands. Mrs. Airey’s lad had come back, and Mrs.
Dunn’s had not, but even Mrs. Dunn’s flattened mind could have told
you that the real agony of war is in the suspense and not in the
blow. The mental horizon of all stretched itself again, demanding
that strained, painful vision which had looked so long towards India,
Salonika, Palestine and France. They felt again that atmosphere which
is like no other on earth—that mixture of bewilderment and intense
interest, terror and exaltation, utter helplessness and secret pride.
And, sighing, they sighed as one, chiefly with relief, but also with
an unconscious regret for the heady wine of drama that had once been
poured into the white glass vials of their colourless lives.
“Stephen wasn’t much to crack on when he was here,” Mrs. Tanner
continued, “I’ll give you that; but he was a good lad, all the same.
Ay, and need to be, too, or he’d have murdered yon mother of his long
before!”
The fresh outbreak of shocked expostulation was this time addressed
to her, accompanied by quick, half-scared glances at Emma Catterall’s
door. “Nay, now, Maggie, you’re going a deal further than me!” Mrs.
Clapham protested, but Mrs. Tanner remained unmoved.
“What’s the use of shutting me up about a thing as everybody knows?”
she demanded boldly, “barring perhaps Mrs. James here, as is
over-young? It’s a wonder the boy stayed right in his head, the way
he was tret!”
“Mrs. Catterall’s set up enough about him now, anyhow,” Mrs. James
said, throwing another glance up the street. “What with cramming
his likeness down everybody’s throat, and taking flowers to the War
Memorial and the Shrine, you’d think he’d been her own pet lamb and a
mother’s darling from the start!”
“I never rightly knew what it was she _did_!” Mrs. Dunn said in her
flat tones, giving vent to the inevitable remark which had its place
in every discussion of Emma’s doings. “I don’t know as I ever heard
her lift her voice to him once, and she isn’t the sort to lift a
hand. ’Tisn’t shouting and leathering a lad as does him that much
harm, neither; nay, nor even keeping him a bit short o’ grub. I’ve
seen a many as fair throve on it, and that’s a fact—laughing and
whistling and making right fine men an’ all! It wants summat else to
take the heart out on ’em as it was took out o’ Poor Stephen.”
“It’s not feeling _safe_ as does for a child,” Mrs. Clapham said
slowly, repeating rather reluctantly her statement of less than an
hour before. “I was saying so to Maggie Tanner just now.... A child’s
got to be growing and learning things every day, and without knowing
he’s doing either; and if he don’t feel certain he’s doing the right
thing, what, he stops doing it altogether. That’s how it was with
Stephen, I reckon. He just stopped.... It was like as if he was
always holding his breath.”
“Doctor says there’s some folk should never have charge of children
at all,” Mrs. Airey put in with sudden and ghoulish emphasis. “He
says they sort of destroy them just by living with ’em—fair suck the
life out on ’em, so to speak!”
Mrs. Clapham stirred unhappily.
“Eh, for t’ land’s sake, don’t talk like that, Bessie!” she besought
her anxiously. Fear came over her after that last speech, the sense
of a sinister presence brooding over the street that was very much
worse than the shadow of the War. A look of almost clairvoyant
apprehension came into her eyes, slaying their happy prevision of
beautiful things.... “It don’t seem quite fair to be talking like
that of folks as live so close.”
“She gives _me_ the shivers right enough, anyway!” Mrs. James broke
out, laughing nervously, and casting yet another glance at the
dreaded door. “It’s that smile of hers ... and the way she watches
to see what you’re at! There’s something at the back of her mind as
sneers and laughs at you all the time.... As for yon tag of hers
about knowing your own business best, all I can say is it fair makes
me want to scream!”
“I’ve known a many as was feared of Emma,” Mrs. Tanner followed on;
“parson’s wife, for one—ay, and parson an’ all! I’ve seen district
visitors and suchlike coming out of yon house looking for all the
world like a bit o’ chewed string. Ay, and one day—yon time when
parson had a curate as was more than a shade soft—I see him come
shambling down t’ steps fair crying and wringing his hands. I was in
t’ street at the time, clipping yon bit of box we have at the door,
and he stopped alongside of me, and said, ‘Mrs. Tanner, that woman’s
a devil!’ I was fair took aback by such language, as you might think;
but when I looked up there was Emma smiling behind her ferns, and
watching yon snivelling lad like a cat wi’ a half-dead mouse. It was
so like the way she carried on wi’ Poor Stephen, it fair give me a
turn; so for Stephen’s sake I took curate into t’ house and give him
a cup o’ tea and all the gossip I could lay my tongue to, and sent
him off home with Emma clean out of his mind, and chuckling as throng
as a laying hen!”
“There’s only one as has never taken much count of her,” Mrs. Airey
said, when they had stopped laughing about the curate, “and that’s
Martha Jane Fell. I’ve heard her reeling off stuff at Emma as just
made you catch your breath, and Emma’s smile getting lesser and
lesser with every minute. Ay, and I’ve seen her bolt into yon house
like a rabbit into its hole, just to get away from her long tongue!”
“’Tisn’t to be expected Martha Jane should have fine feelings same
as us!”... Young Mrs. James tossed her head with a fiercely virtuous
air. Being acquainted only by hearsay with the informalities of
Martha Jane’s past, she naturally supposed them to be more momentous
than was actually the case. Nor were the rest of the Chorus averse
to encouraging her in this supposition. The post still lagged, and
the time had to be passed; so presently they were drawn nearer and
nearer in the road, lowering their voices and nodding their shocked
heads. Mrs. Clapham kept saying—“For shame, now!” and “Can’t you
let sleeping dogs lie?” breaking every now and then into her hearty
laugh. “I must say, though, I do think I’ve more claim to that
house than her!” she added, after a while, getting hungry for fresh
encouragement as there was still no sign of the post.
“I can’t think how they ever considered her for a moment!...” Mrs.
James thrust her head above water, so to speak, and then eagerly
plunged it back. The feet shuffled in the road, and the heads
whispered and bobbed, with every second that passed getting further
from the truth. Martha Jane, pulling up at the back the skirt
that instantly slipped down, and down at the front the blouse that
instantly slipped up, came out of her door and stood watching them
with a sardonic grin.
“Talking about me, I’ll lay!” she observed to herself, half bitter,
half amused. She had seen too many heads close together in her
vicinity not to know when it meant scandal about herself. Often
enough some of it happened to get round to her again, and there were
times when she had a malicious joy in speeding it on its way. “I’ve
heard that much about myself and my goings-on,” she remarked once,
“that I don’t know by now which is gospel and which ain’t! Anyway, it
wouldn’t be safe for me to swear it on t’ Book, I know that! I reckon
I’ll be as surprised as anybody when t’ Judgment Day comes round!”
Suddenly turning her glance up street instead of down, she beheld
Emma Catterall’s furtive gaze sliding away from her like a half-felt
hand, afterwards focussing itself on the gossiping group. “Wonder
what she’s gaping at _me_ for?” she said to herself, rather
uncomfortably, and then winked and grinned. “The Queen _and_ her
ladies-in-waiting!” she remarked with a jerk of her head towards the
little throng. “Ann Clapham’s mighty sure things is going to be O.K.
Seems to think she’ll simply romp home over yon house!”
Emma Catterall made no attempt to reply to this effort of wit; did
not, indeed, look as if she had even heard it. She merely began to
dissolve into thin air, and disappeared even as Martha stared. The
latter, however, was used to this vanishing trick on the part of
her neighbour, and only laughed. But she, too, was hungering for an
exchange of words with somebody, feeling, as Mrs. Clapham had felt
earlier in the morning, that even Emma was better than nothing. She
waited a while, therefore, hoping that she might reappear, and then,
as she gave no further impression of life, took her courage in her
hands, and sidled cringingly down the street.
“There’s no telling, after all, as it mightn’t be me!” she was saying
to herself, by way of keeping up her pluck, though, in point of fact,
she had very little hope of anything as splendid as almshouses ever
coming her way. But Martha Jane was never the sort to cry beaten
before she was down. She, too, had awakened that morning with an
unwonted sense of something about to happen, some forthcoming miracle
already launched upon its path. She, too, had felt upon her cheek the
far-off brushings of the wings of romance. She had done wonders—and
more than wonders—with the committee, as she knew, and it might be
that even one vote more than she had counted would suffice to put her
in. The weight of the village was against her, of course, heavy with
laden tongues, but village opinion would matter nothing if she had
got the vote. Little indeed would she care for the whole lip-pursing
lot, once she was safely possessed of the house on Hermitage Hill!
She thought of all that it represented—mental and physical comfort,
as well as prestige—and longed for it with a passion that was almost
angry in its desire. Life for Martha Jane had consisted chiefly
not of things which had been given her, but of the things which
she had taken, and for once in that life she wanted a free gift.
She had always preferred to achieve her ends by crooked ways and
doubtful means, but she wanted a straight road to lead the way to
this. The house on the hill had not been her dream, as it had been
Mrs. Clapham’s, but it had its glamour, nevertheless. Her chances
could hardly be called favourable, however, as she was bound to
acknowledge. She wasn’t the “almshouse sort,” she said to herself,
with a cynical sigh; followed—just _because_ she wasn’t “the
almshouse sort”—by a cynical grin.
But at least the grin raised her spirits, since her courage consisted
largely of her sense of humour, and she came sidling down upon the
group with the cringing yet flaunting air which she kept for her own
sex. As soon as a member of the opposite sex appeared, the flaunting
vanished as if by magic. Then Martha Jane became at once a faded but
sweet blossom, a bruised petal patiently waiting the fall of a manly
foot. She wilted, so to speak, withered under your eye, producing
the same impression of appeal as in the more forward and less subtle
attitude of seeming to cling. It had been this air of shrinking from
life, of being beaten back by every zephyr that blew, that had been
Martha Jane’s chief asset in dealing with the Committee. But there
are limits to the marvels that may be accomplished even by the ghost
of a vanished grace, and Martha Jane was pretty sure that hers had
stopped at the extra vote.
The Clapham Contingent stiffened when they saw her coming, sliding
down upon them with that amazing mixture of provocative humour and
fawning appeal. But she was a neighbour, in spite of her morals,
and still had her rights, no final pronouncement from some august
mouth having set her definitely beyond the pale. Moreover, she had
every reason to suppose that she was in the running for the coveted
house, and on that ground alone she had authority to be present.
Once in possession (always supposing such a thing possible) she
would have to be treated differently; would _be_ different, in fact.
The more imaginative and calculating among them visioned a Martha
Jane in genteel black, visited by parsons’ and governors’ wives, a
prominent figure at village sewing-parties, church pill-gills and the
altar-rail. They drew a little apart, therefore, though quite unable
to look pleased, allowing the protagonists in the forthcoming drama
to line up side by side.
Martha Jane threw a mocking glance sideways at the fine bulk of Mrs.
Clapham, towering above her like a great merchantman beside some
beaten yacht. “You’re waiting for t’ post, likely?” she inquired
innocently. “It’s getting about time. I thought I’d like to be along
with my few well-chosen words when t’ news comes as you’re in.”
Mrs. Clapham laughed kindly, as at an intended joke, but her cheek
flushed, nevertheless. Again she was conscious of outrage that this
worthless specimen of humanity should be bracketed with her in the
great event. She was a tolerant woman, and not one at any time to
drive a sinner to the wall, but there was no getting past the fact
that Martha Jane was a blot on the fine beauty of the day. Her
slovenliness, with the tawdry touch which was somehow so peculiarly
Martha Jane’s, was in itself an offence against the pure delicacy
of the morning, but it was the mocking quality of her mien that
especially sullied the fine air. Mrs. Clapham began to wonder whether
she wasn’t being merely absurd in trying to take her beautiful day so
beautifully. Martha Jane gave her much the same uncomfortable feeling
as that curate of Mrs. Tanner’s used to give her in church; the same
feeling that she might have had if a clown had been introduced into a
Bethlehem Play.
“It’s right kind of you, I’m sure,” she replied, as she had already
replied right and left, but with none of the usual heartiness
in her voice. “Happen it’ll be t’other way about, though,” she
added politely, but with an effort, “and me as ’ll be the one to
congratulate _you_!”
“Likely—I _don’t_ think!” spurted forth from Mrs. James, who had
fully intended to preserve a dignified silence while in the polluted
propinquity of Martha Jane, but found it quite impossible when it
came to it. She stiffened herself, however, as if violently conscious
of a background with pillars, and although there were no men to be
seen, Martha Jane wilted, staring pathetically into the distance
where possibly they might lurk.... “It’d be queer if they passed
_you_ over, Mrs. Clapham, for anybody round here!”
“It’s real nice of you to say so,” the charwoman thanked her, a
trifle uncomfortably, “but there’s a many as good as me. I’m a deal
older than Miss Fell here, though, and I reckon that gives me the
better right.”
“Not to speak of a sight of other things as well!”... Mrs. Tanner
pursed up her tiny, sharp physiognomy until it was more like a bird’s
than ever. “They’ll never go past you, and that’s all there is about
it. Martha Jane’ll have to wait a bit longer, I doubt; ay, and happen
another bit after that!”
The latter suddenly stopped wilting, nobody of the male persuasion
having put in an appearance, and straightened into a brazen
fierceness.
“There’s them as says I just can’t _miss_ getting it,” she announced,
flushing; “his lordship, for one! What, he very near promised it me,
there and then, but I couldn’t go taking it behind Mrs. Clapham!
‘’Twouldn’t be fair,’ I says to him, firm but kind, ‘not to go
letting her have her chance.’... Almshouses is _meant_ for folks like
me, his lordship says,” she went on, the toss of her head infinitely
more impressive than anything in that line achieved by Mrs.
James—“folks as can’t frame to fight their way. ’Tisn’t everybody as
has titles voting for ’em, and coronets shaking hands!”
“It’s about all you _will_ get, I reckon!...” Mrs. James’ tone
was more venomous than she intended, for not only was she a kind
enough woman at heart, but there were those chances of Martha’s to
be considered. But her private piece of vainglory as typified by
Mr. Baines was threatening to lose in glamour beside this lordly
support.... “I don’t mind betting yon feather boa of mine as you
can’t keep your eyes off every time I go past as you never set foot
inside t’ almshouse door!”
The unconscious but none the less telling malignancy of this thrust
almost brought the tears to Martha Jane’s eyes. She was not quite
herself, this morning, not quite her own armoured and viper-tongued
self. Slight as was her hope of success, it was still sufficient to
soften her fibre, to fray her nerves and make her generally more
susceptible to attack. It was only for a moment, however. Her body’s
trick of wilting was seldom anything but camouflage for an unwilting
spirit. When she had conquered her tears she turned upon Mrs. James
such a stream of vituperation that that refined lady was fairly
driven backwards by it, as by a hose; and heads came out of windows
and round corners and through doors that had hitherto been hiding
themselves discreetly behind arch or curtain or jamb.
The furious storm, sprung out of nowhere in the calm September
street, was brought to an end by Mrs. Clapham laying a kindly hand
upon Martha Jane’s shoulder. On any other day, perhaps, she might
not have interfered; might even have found it rather amusing. Racy
vulgarity getting the better of ultra-refinement is always a rather
inspiriting sight. But to-day it seemed dreadful to her that her
splendid moment should be prefaced by this sordid scrap. It hurt her
that there should be this unpleasantness at the climax of her honest
life; and moreover there was always the fear at the back of her mind
that somehow it might break her luck....
Martha Jane’s speech snapped like a bent twig when the charwoman’s
hand came down upon her. With her mouth still open, as if it were
indeed the mouth of a hose from which the water had been switched
off, she stared weakly into the pleasant face. It was a long time
now since any woman had touched her, especially a woman like Mrs.
Clapham. The last time she had been touched, if you might term it
as such, had been in a quarrel with the drunken Mrs. Johnson, of
Lame Lane. Mrs. Johnson had blacked one of Martha Jane’s mocking and
cynical eyes, and Martha Jane had pulled out a lock of Mrs. Johnson’s
none too plentiful hair. Not that Martha Jane was in the habit of
doing these things—they only happened sometimes; but that last
occasion contrasted with this was enough in itself to make her wince.
Mrs. Clapham, for her part, was thinking that Martha Jane’s shoulder
was nearly as thin as a young girl’s. Not such a shoulder as Tibbie’s
had been, of course, because Tibbie’s shoulders had never been
thin. They were plump, laughing, expressive shoulders, which talked
almost as much as Tibbie herself. Nevertheless, it was of her absent
daughter that Mrs. Clapham thought, and the tenderness that was in
her heart went into her hand and so down into Martha Jane.
“Now, Martha, don’t carry on like that!” she rebuked her
authoritatively, though on a motherly note. “You’ll be finely
ashamed, making such a to-do, if you find you’ve got the house,
after all. Anyway, it’ll be a good day for one of us when t’news
_does_ come along, and we don’t want it spoilt by nasty words. If
it’s me as gets it, I hope you won’t take it too hard; and if it’s
you”—her voice faltered a moment as she tried to envisage the fearful
conditions in which such an event could ever occur—“I’ll be right
glad to help you with moving in; ay, and to scrub floors for you an’
all!”
The generosity of this offer produced an outburst of admiration from
her satellites. “Eh, now, if that isn’t kind!.... Real Christian,
_I_ call it!....” and “If that isn’t the kindest thing I ever
heard!”—this last from young Mrs. James, retired within escaping
distance of her pillars. Martha Jane looked spitefully round the
group, and then back for a moment at Mrs. Clapham’s hand. The sun
played on the wedding-ring as she looked, flashing it in her eyes,
and suddenly she gave her shoulder a little twitch, so that the hand
slid off it and dropped.
“Thank you kindly, Ann Clapham!” she jeered, “I’ll be sure to think
on. I’m not very set on cleaning, myself, so I’ll be glad of a hand.
Folks is different, of course, and I wasn’t brought up to it, same as
you. Some on us is finer clay than others, as his lordship says, and
I reckon my sort o’ clay wasn’t intended for scrubbing floors!”
There was another outburst, though one of resentment, at this
grateful and gracious speech, and the charwoman turned away with the
colour hot in her cheek. The heart that had felt so tender only a
moment ago now seemed full of nothing but angry disgust. Martha Jane
was certainly doing her best to spoil the beautiful day, first of all
by turning it into a ribald joke, and then by setting the company by
the ears. Just for the moment Mrs. Clapham felt thoroughly vexed with
the whole world—with Martha Jane, with the post, with his lordship
and Mr. Baines; and even, though quite unjustly, with the admiring
Chorus itself. Even the lovely morning seemed to fade because of her
wrath, taking with it, as it dimmed, the perfect certainty of her
hope....
And then suddenly there rose before her eyes a picture of Tibbie
laughing at Martha Jane—Tibbie, who had always refused to look upon
Martha Jane as anything but the village clown. She had even been
known to say that they ought to be grateful for Martha Jane, but she
could hardly expect her mother to be grateful to-day! The thought
of Tibbie, however, brought the smile back to Mrs. Clapham’s lips,
and her sense of miracle slowly returned. She told herself with a
gallant boast that was at the same time rather grim, that she would
certainly scrub the floors for the poor, daft thing if she got the
house! But even while she played with the thought, she knew that she
troubled herself for nothing. She could no more picture Martha Jane
in her temple of hope than she could picture her beautiful Tibbie in
her coffin.
Putting the matter from her, she settled once more to her patient
watching of the street, only to be conscious instantly of a fresh
commotion. Mrs. James, who had started again upon Martha Jane, came
to a dead stop, and darted back to the charwoman’s side, while the
rest of the women gathered around her like chickens about a Buff
Orpington hen. Mrs. Clapham turned a surprised head, and looked over
her shoulder. Emma Catterall was coming slowly towards them down the
hill.
CHAPTER IV
It was hardly surprising that Emma’s approach should have caused
panic in the little group, for it was only on the rarest occasions
that Emma ever approached anybody. As for making one of a party, she
never did that—as Mrs. Clapham had already observed. The utmost that
could be seen of her, as a rule, was a hint of her presence behind
the ferns, or ebbing and flowing in the pool of shadow behind her
door. Sometimes, on very urgent occasions, she might be found in the
street, but even then she only hovered on the edges of things. She
never plunged right in and became one of the crowd, as the alarmed
intuition of her neighbours warned them that she intended doing
to-day. She just hovered on the fringe of whatever was going on,
paralysing its energies with her queer little half-smile. Beneath
that smile the bride instantly became convinced that there was
something wrong with her hair or her gown, while the widow, hitherto
upheld by the dignity of her woe, burst into fresh tears. Into the
consciousness of each came a vision of the things that stand about
human life, aloof and yet close as Emma was aloof and close, and
standing and smiling, perhaps, as Emma Catterall stood and smiled....
There was something portentous, therefore, about this alteration in
Emma’s methods, and the Clapham Contingent felt it in every nerve.
It was as if she brought with her some news which they had not
anticipated, some revelation for which they were not prepared. For,
great occasion though this undoubtedly was to the people concerned,
it was not, after all, such a _very_ great occasion. Events of
far wider and higher importance had failed to fetch Emma from her
lair—such as Armistice Day, the bolting of the ’bus-horses, or the
King’s visit to Cautley School; most important of all, the packing of
the six-foot music-hall man into a twenty-four inch box on a brougham
in the Market Square.
At first glance there seemed nothing sinister about the short,
roundabout figure in its white apron and dark gown, the smooth face
and bands of dark hair which showed little sign of turning grey.
A respectable, self-controlled, self-respecting woman, you would
have said, looking at the still face and folded arms, and hearing
the quiet, expressionless voice. It was only after a while that you
began to feel troubled by the personality behind, to shiver under the
passionless scrutiny of the beady, black eyes, and to long to break
up the little suggestive smile which hovered continually on her lips.
Heads were turned as she came up, and curt sentences exchanged,
etiquette demanding, as in the case of Martha Jane, some slight
recognition of her presence. It was not because of any social
ostracism that Emma had never acquired the genial habit of “joining
on.” In spite of the widespread feeling regarding her treatment of
Poor Stephen, nobody had ever found courage to say much about it.
They had hinted, of course, subtle hints or broad, low hints or loud,
but they had never accused her to her face. Perhaps they felt that
there was nothing to be gained by direct attack, or else in the fits
of anger and pity that swept them from time to time, surely somebody
would have spoken. Martha Jane _had_ spoken, of course—they all of
them knew that; but unluckily Martha’s morals were such that her
speaking could hardly count. The other women had simply contented
themselves with private arraignment and the casual hint, together
with such kindnesses to Poor Stephen as happened to come their way.
Yet even now Emma did not actually penetrate the group—an impossible
feat, indeed, seeing that the Chorus was glued about Mrs. Clapham
like saplings about an oak. The latter threw her a “Well, Emma, how
do you find yourself this morning?” with the heartiness of a bluff
English sea-dog to some cynical Spanish don, and then turned again to
the street. It was Martha Jane who finally broke the uncomfortable
silence with her usual patter of mocking speech.
“Save us, Emma Catterall! You don’t mean to say you’ve ventured out
to see what’s coming to me and Mrs. Clapham? I wonder the skies don’t
fall—I do that! Me and Mrs. Clapham feel real honoured, I’m sure.
You’re in plenty of time if you want to know; you’ll be in at the
death; though, if post didn’t happen to be late this morning, you’d
likely have missed it, after all!”
“In at the death, am I?” Emma repeated in that uncannily still
voice which did not so much seem to speak as only to happen. “In at
the death? ...” The little smile came to her lips, as if at some
peculiarly agreeable thought.... “Ay, well, that’s where we all come
in, one time or another....” Her eyes slid up and down and away from
each of the group, and came to a halt on Mrs. Clapham. “Seeing you
all that throng made me quite curious-like,” she continued, after
a pause. “’Tisn’t everybody has the time to be standing about that
early in the day; but there, as I always say, I reckon you know your
own business best....”
A kind of spasm ran through the group at the phrase which they had
all long since learned to hate. They were all strung-up and sensitive
by now, and the phrase tightened the tension beyond bearing. Mrs.
Airey’s face lost its comfortable, motherly look, and Mrs. Dunn’s
grew longer and flatter. As for Mrs. James, in spite of the house
with the pillars, she gave the impression of actually creeping under
the wing-feathers of Mrs. Clapham.
“No harm in waiting for t’post, I suppose?” yapped Martha Jane;
“especially when folks has important business!”
“Depends on who’s waiting—and what for!” Emma’s tone was silky, but
dreadfully full of meaning, and Martha Jane suddenly wilted. “A man
isn’t less of a man because he’s a bag on his back and a bit of
red to the front of his coat.... He’s ter’ble late, anyway, isn’t
he?” she went on smoothly, leaving her cryptic statement to drive
pleasantly home. “I’ve noticed a deal o’ times that, when news is
long on the road, it’s like enough because there doesn’t happen to be
any at all.”
For the second time that morning Mrs. Airey and Mrs. Dunn drew
together and touched hands. They who had hungered for news through
the Great War knew the terrible truth of that. Mrs. Tanner, however,
perked up her head.
“What, there must be news sometime, you’ll think on!” she chirruped
bravely. “It’s only a matter of who brings it. There’s some think
it’ll be Mr. Baines.”
“Baines?” The smooth, sliding tones seemed to convey, even in that
single word, that it would be better on the whole if the devil
himself brought the news, rather than the amiable lawyer. “I’ve never
known anything but bad luck come o’ news brought by Mr. Baines. There
was that time, you’ll think on, when he come to tell Alice Alderson
as she’d a bit o’ money left her by her aunt, and after she’d got
engaged on the strength of it, and run up a ter’ble big bill, Mrs.
Clapham, with your Tibbie, an’ all, round he come again to say it
was all a mistake. Then there was that mighty queer tale about Polly
Green, which I shouldn’t as much as mention if we wasn’t friends.
Baines had looked in to say as her husband was coming back from
abroad, after twenty year, and she went and hanged herself, right off
the reel. Ay, and yon other time, you’ll think on (now you’ll surely
remember _this_!), when he come to tell Ann Machell as she’d got the
same house you’re after now; and blest if she didn’t have a stroke
with excitement that very night!”
The spirits of the whole company were at zero by now. Even Martha
Jane seemed crushed for the time being. Some of them, indeed—Mrs.
James, for one—cast longing glances at their dwellings, and thought
to themselves that they might just as well be waiting inside. It
seemed mean, of course, to desert Mrs. Clapham, and at the critical
moment, but nobody could be expected to put up with Emma. They could
not understand why she made things seem so hopelessly wrong, as if
nothing splendid could possibly happen. It was as if that little
smile of hers brushed all the colour out of life, hinting that it
was something different from what you had thought. It couldn’t be
just that she slanged everybody as their names came up, because they
were more than equal to that themselves, and would, if they were
honest, admit that it left them all the brighter and better. It was
that queer something at the back of Emma’s mind that made you feel so
low, something that hinted at knowledge you didn’t possess. It was
like being shut in a dark room with somebody you couldn’t see. It
was like being a mouse and thinking you knew the whereabouts of the
cat; conscious all the time from your head to your tail that it was
watching you from somewhere else.
As for Mrs. Clapham, her knee was beginning to ache with the long
standing, and there was also a grumble about her heart. She, too,
had almost begun to wish that she had never come into the street at
all, but had stayed quietly inside her cottage. It seemed to her
suddenly that she was making an exhibition of herself, standing
there with that crowd of women. Not that she actually lost faith in
the wonderful outcome that was to be; it was only that the perfect
approach was being spoilt. First of all, there had been Martha Jane,
turning her handsprings like a clown; and now unexpectedly there was
Emma, with her prophecies of ill-luck....
So crushed, indeed, was the whole group, that it seemed for the
moment as if nobody would ever have courage to answer. But even the
most oppressed will fight to the last ounce for a thing that has
touched their imagination, and Mrs. James had again been injured
in her ideal. “Mr. Baines ’ll bring no more bad luck than most
folks—that I’ll be bound!” she burst out sharply, even twisting
herself from under the feathers to glare. “Bad luck comes of itself
and with nobody’s help; we all on us know that. But, speaking for
myself, I’m not sure as even bad luck brought by Mr. Baines wouldn’t
sound like good!”
Emma said nothing for quite a long time, but just stood staring with
her little smile, while the embarrassed red grew in the other’s
face.... Her crossed hands, cupping her elbows, did not so much as
twitch.
“I’m not saying it’s what Mr. Baines _brings_,” she answered at last,
as Mrs. James dived back; “it’s what he _leaves_. He comes up all
nice and smiling and sweet-spoken like, and you feel rarely pleased.
It’s only after he’s gone you find as things isn’t what they seem.”
“They can seem any old how they choose, so long as I get t’
house....” This was Martha Jane, recovered a second time from her
wilting. “News can come through a dozen Baineses, so long as it says
I’m in!”
Mrs. James being to all intents and purposes invisible, Emma had
plenty of time to attend to Martha Jane.
“I’m surprised, I’m sure, to think of you being after one o’ _them_
houses!” she remarked sweetly. “When I heard tell about it, I could
hardly believe my ears. The folks in them houses is expected to keep
’em spick as a pin, and I can’t rightly see you putting your hand to
that. You’ll have governors and their wives calling and ferreting
round to see what you’re at; and a nice to-do there’ll be if things
isn’t just so. Seems to me you’ll have to alter your ways in other
things, too, if you mean taking yon house.... But there, after all, I
reckon you know your own business best....”
“Ann Clapham’s offered to scrub floors for me as a start off!”
Martha Jane laughed. “That’ll give me a leg-up!...” She changed her
tone suddenly to the professional whine, as if for the benefit of
somebody not present. “Folks isn’t all as hard as you folks seem to
think. There’s Mr. Andland promised somebody should see to me if I
was ill; and his lordship’ll send me one of his own gardeners if him
as belongs almshouses is overpressed.” She caught Mrs. James’s sniff
from under the feathers, and grew in defiance. “Right kind about it
his lordship was, I’m sure! Says I’m a deal too delicate to lift a
finger myself.”
“No use counting on it, and so I tell you!” Mrs. Tanner put in
briskly. “Ann Clapham’s going to get yon house—not you!”—and Mrs.
James snorted “Ay, I should think so, indeed!” terribly rankled about
the lordship; and other comments followed at which Martha bridled and
brazened and wilted by turn. When they had all finished, Emma began
again in her expressionless tones.
“Ay, Ann Clapham ’ll get it; there’s no doubt about that.... I don’t
say but what I couldn’t have had it myself, but there, thanks be, I
don’t need other folks’ brass. Ann Clapham’s had a hard life, though,
and deserves a bit o’ quiet. I don’t know as she’ll take to it just
at first—being a lady and all that; but there, I reckon she knows
her own business best.... She isn’t as young as she was, neither, and
folks as works over hard wear out ter’ble fast. Ay, she’ll get t’
house, will Ann Clapham; there’s no doubt about that.”
There was another uncomfortable pause when she had finished, and
Mrs. Clapham cast an uneasy glance at her over her shoulder. What
Emma was saying _sounded_ all right—at least, for Emma—so she was at
a loss to understand why it should fill her with apprehension. Yet,
instead of strengthening her own conviction of coming fortune, in
some mysterious fashion it undermined it. She began to feel that, if
Emma continued to say that sort of thing, she would not only lose
all confidence in her luck, but would find it lacking in flavour if
established. She really wished now that she had been patient enough
to await the news indoors, and was even beginning to turn on her heel
when she was called to attention by Mrs. James. “There he is!” the
latter was saying from under the feathers, disappointed yet thrilled.
“Look ye! Look ye, Mrs. Clapham! There he is! There’s t’ post!”
The uniformed figure of the postman had suddenly appeared round
the curve of the street, and at once Mrs. Clapham and Martha drew
together, as if conscious that neither for the lucky nor the unlucky
would it be possible to meet this moment alone. Mrs. James slipped
her hand through Mrs. Clapham’s arm and gave it an excited squeeze,
and the charwoman flushed a deep crimson and paled slowly again.
Martha Jane, however, to whom excitement was the breath of life
itself, looked for the moment strangely brisk and young. A hint of
the old rose-colour came into her cheek, and a youthfully brilliant
sparkle into her eye. Mrs. Tanner and her colleagues broke into
little twitters and chirps.... “Eh, but he’s taken his time!... Which
on ’em will it be?... Eh, but I’m right thrilled!...” While at the
back of them all, where she stood silent and still a little apart,
Emma uncrossed her hands and let them drop to her sides.
And still the postman was taking his time, rapping at this door,
and poking papers through that; handing in letters, when he did
hand them, as if he were meting out orders of execution. He was a
dour, silent person, who seemed to regard letters as an unnecessary
luxury, for which the recipients should be made to pay; and though
during the War he had gone so far as to admit the need of the post
to mothers and wives, he seemed to expect them to do without it now
that the War was over. It was impossible that he should not have
noticed the thrilled group of waiting women, even if he had not felt
the current of excitement sweeping towards him down the street; but,
for all the attention he paid them, they might not have existed. He
stayed quite a long time at Mr. Baines’s office at the foot of the
street, grumpily handing in document after document, and (apparently)
concealing the last of them in his bag. Even the gaze of seven
passionately interested females did not seem able to hurry him by a
second.
“Ay, he’s taking his time!” Mrs. Tanner repeated sardonically, after
a short pause, and in the tenseness of the atmosphere every one of
the others jumped. The electric tremors passing between them ran and
raced like sunlight on flashing wires as the postman finally turned
and came heading towards them. Even now, however, he seemed quite
oblivious of their existence, and on a sudden impulse Mrs. James
stepped out from under the feathers as if to block the way with
her arms. But before anything could be said he was up to them, by
them, and then unmistakably past. “Nowt for none o’ ye!” he snapped,
without even turning his head, and vanished up the alley that led to
the “Black Bull.”
Martha Jane’s laugh led the chaos of sound into which the disgruntled
Chorus broke, but, brazen though it was, it was also slightly
relieved. The passing of the post left her with still another chance,
still another moment in which to preen herself on her possible
success.
Mrs. James was asseverating—“Didn’t I say it wouldn’t be t’ post?
You mark my words now!... It’ll be Mr. Baines ...” and Mrs. Tanner
was chirping—“Did you ever see such manners? He might ha’ given us
a word!” with the twittering anger of a furious wren. Mrs. Clapham
said nothing, but her mouth dropped at the corners like that of a
disappointed child, and behind her Emma lifted her arms and folded
them slowly again across her waist....
“I always said he’d bring it himself!” Mrs. James’s voice was happy
and high. “Not because of the stamp and suchlike rubbish—Mr. Baines
ain’t the sort to stick at a stamp—but because he’s a gentleman and
likes everything just so. Folks can’t be more than gentlemen, nohow,”
she finished, glaring at Martha Jane, “even if they do happen to be
lordships an’ all!”
The flaw in the last sentence passed Martha Jane by, but she was
ready for battle, nevertheless.
“You wouldn’t expect lordships to be doing _clurk’s_ work, I reckon?”
she demanded scornfully, “or handing in notes as if they hadn’t a
footman to their name?... He says he’ll call when I’m in and see as
I’m properly tret,” she delivered her final blow; “and I shouldn’t
wonder if he stopped for a cup o’ tea!”
A fresh spasm, evidenced by pursed lips, went round the shocked
throng, exactly as if they had been drilled by some rapped-out word
of command. Mrs. James looked at Mrs. Tanner, and Mrs. Airey at
Mrs. Dunn. Martha Jane went furiously red, and tossed her head so
violently that a hairpin flew out. Only in the background Emma went
on smiling her Mona Lisa smile.... “Lordships and suchlike have their
own way o’ doing things,” said her expressionless voice. “Seems to me
calling on such as you is more a parson’s job than a lord’s.... But
there, no doubt he knows his own business best....”
“Anyway, I’ll lay my best new rubber hot water bottle as it’ll be Mr.
Baines!” Mrs. James was still faithful and valiant, but her voice
sounded a little flat. It was a bitter pill not to be able to fling
back the statement that Mr. Baines would be calling on _her_. Martha
Jane might be lying, of course—and probably was—but still there was
no knowing what lordships might choose to do. For the first time Mrs.
Clapham’s friends began to entertain doubts as to her divine right,
and to wonder whether by any possible chance Martha Jane _could_
come out top. Mrs. Clapham must have felt the doubt in the air, for
she turned again as if meaning to steal home. Once more, however,
she was arrested by Mrs. James’s voice, and this time there was no
mistaking its unmixed pleasure. In the tone of a herald proclaiming
some royalty to a waiting court, Mrs. James made her announcement of
“_Mr. Baines!_”
Once again the group drew together, breathless and tense, though
always with the exception of Emma, a little in the rear. Mrs. Tanner
broke into a fresh series of excited chirps, and for the second time
the years fell away from Martha Jane. Mrs. Clapham, however, uttered
a sharp sigh, as if aware that repeated drama on this scale was
hardly the thing for a doubtful heart; and Emma behind her neither
chirruped nor sighed, but again unfolded her arms and let them hang
by her sides.
Mr. Baines had suddenly appeared at the bottom of the street on the
way to his office, holding a skipping little girl by a fatherly hand.
He was a well-dressed, pleasant-looking man, with a buttonhole and
a smile; and the little girl was pretty and pink and fair, with
a sky-coloured silk jersey over her little white frock. When they
reached the office he let go her hand and pointed in the direction
from which they had come, and she stood on one leg and pouted, and
then suddenly skipped again. They argued a moment or two, with more
pointing and pouting and skipping, and then both their heads turned
as if pulled by a string. Forgetting their differences, they stood
looking up towards the women in the street.
Mr. Baines laughed when he saw them and put up his pince-nez, while
the child stared at them gravely, a finger seeking her mouth. Mr.
Baines hesitated a moment, blushed, looked at his office-door as if
thinking of his clerk, and then back again at the breathless group.
To the two at the bottom of the street there was something almost
intimidating in the concentrated expectancy of the obviously set
piece. Mr. Baines pushed his hat slightly to the back of his head,
feeling embarrassed and perplexed. Really, he hardly felt equal at
that early hour to facing a posse of seven women, and with both the
almshouse candidates there to boot!
At last, drawing a letter from his pocket—(“_The_ letter!” gasped the
impassioned Chorus)—he stooped and gave it to the child, obviously
issuing instructions, and pointing delicately to the set piece. The
little girl looked reluctant at first and then suddenly eager; nodded
her comprehension and poised herself for flight; while Mr. Baines,
smiling and blushing again all over his clean face, took off his hat
with a wave to the set piece, and vanished thankfully into his office.
The child came speeding up the street, serious, and clutching the
letter tight; and suddenly the tension of the women broke in a
general smile. From doors and windows faces came peeping again, and
they, too, smiled at the flying messenger. Even Mrs. James smiled,
hurt though she was by the unexpected and—almost—cowardly defection
of Mr. Baines, and trying to console herself with the assurance that
the wave had undoubtedly been meant for her. Martha Jane smiled
wistfully, ingratiatingly, wilting in every limb, in case either Mr.
Baines or his clerk should be looking out of the office window. As
for Mrs. Clapham, she smiled through a blur of tears, because the
little child skimming towards her reminded her so of Tibbie; while in
the background Emma continued to smile, too, though with an amazing
difference of expression. Unheard by the others, her breath came
in short gasps, and her hands twitched as they hung at her stiff
sides....
She alone stood firm as the group broke to receive the child, so
that, carried along by her rush, the latter ran almost into her arms.
Emma laid a hand on her shoulder and bent to look at the note, but
the child backed away so sharply that the hand tore the frill at her
neck. “Not you!” she exclaimed, frowning and clutching the letter,
and actually looking at Emma as if she hated her. Nevertheless,
Mrs. Catterall did not seem disturbed. The smile on her lips seemed
suddenly to hold some added element of satisfaction, and slowly her
hands came up from her sides and fell placidly into place....
The contact, however, seemed to have upset the little girl, for she
stood looking around the group with dubious eyes. The women waited
patiently, smiling kindly at her confusion. Once, indeed, Mrs. Dunn
began “Now then, dearie”—in her colourless tone, but was instantly
elbowed into silence by her sister. Again the child looked round,
caught Martha Jane’s appealing glance, and broke into a brilliant
smile. Darting forward with the same butterfly lightness, she thrust
the note into her uncertain hand.
The world swung round Mrs. Clapham; the ground tilted under her
feet. As for the Chorus, its feelings had vent in an actual scream,
which was followed at once by a paralysed silence. Only Emma retained
her satisfied air, and her hands stayed quiet at her waist.... And
then, out of the mists surrounding and overwhelming her, Mrs. Clapham
heard Martha Jane’s laugh....
“’Tain’t for me, dearie ... you’ve made a mistake; thanking you
kindly, all the same!...” The laugh was nearer this time, and a thin,
long-fingered hand came under the charwoman’s nose. “No use being
dishonest under the circs!” said Martha Jane. “Here, Ann Clapham! You
may as well have what’s your own.”
The thin hand thrust the letter into the groping plump one, and then
Martha’s face backed away with a twisted smile. “Sorry I can’t come
scrubbing your floors,” she finished, discordantly cheerful, “but I
don’t mind going so far as to wish you luck!”
Her voice broke on a note like that of a cracked dish, and she edged
quickly away with trembling lips. The child ran after her, however,
saying “She tore my frill! Look, my frill’s all torn!” and casting
angry glances at the imperturbable Emma; and Martha Jane, stopped
by the clutching hands, made a valiant effort to struggle with her
tears, and bent herself to the woes of little Miss Baines.
Right over Mrs. Clapham and to the ends of the earth the sun came out
for ever and ever. Her hands shook as they tried to open the envelope
and failed, and the Chorus grabbed it and did it for her. In the same
piecemeal way they read the letter aloud, peering over her elbow and
under her arm, while she laughed and wept and gasped, and thanked God
and the governors and the world in general. Of what was actually in
the letter she heard very little, except the fact that the house was
undoubtedly hers. Mrs. James, of course, was inclined to dwell upon
the flowers of speech which she guessed to have emanated from Mr.
Baines, expressing the Committee’s appreciation of the successful
candidate’s worth, and wishing her happiness under her new roof.
The other women, not being burdened by an ideal, dwelt practically
if ecstatically upon such details as the allowance and the coal;
but Mrs. Clapham heard little of either. All she did was to exclaim
“Ain’t that grand, now? That’s real nice! Ay, that’s right kind!”
whenever the rising voices seemed to expect it. All that mattered for
the moment was the fact that the dream had not failed her, that never
for an instant had her confidence been misplaced. She had been sure
that the right things happened in the right way at exactly the right
time, and now she could go on being sure as long as she lived. People
got what they wanted all right if only they had enough faith—that
was another beautiful thing that the letter had proved true. She
forgot the long wait and Martha’s clowning and Emma’s sinister
looks, and only remembered that all was right with the world and God
emphatically in His smiling heaven.
And in the background Martha Jane bent to the complaining child,
murmuring soothingly and making quaint little jokes with quivering
lips. Taking the crooked gilt pin from her own dirty lace, she
fastened the snowy frill of little Miss Baines. It had been a bad
moment for Martha Jane when she was offered the letter by mistake,
but there was no sense in blaming the child. She wasn’t “the
almshouse sort,” she reminded herself again; and again, _because_ she
wasn’t the almshouse sort, was able to raise a smile....
She pressed the pin-point into a safe place (pricking herself again),
and the little girl, with a word of thanks, skipped away down the
street. The women around Mrs. Clapham were falling silent at last,
too exhausted to find anything fresh to read or invent. Behind them
Emma was receding rapidly up the hill, making her way back to the
dark house and the dying ferns.... Martha Jane braced herself for a
final effort.
“Off again, are you?” she called after the retreating figure.
“The vanishing trick, eh? as per usual?... Ay, well, you got all
you wanted, I reckon!” she laughed harshly. “You were in at the
death-rattle, after all!”
Emma, now on her steps, turned at the last words, and it seemed to
her tormentor that her smile deepened. That was all the answer she
made, however—if it could be called an answer. Even as Martha Jane
watched, she began to fade, dwindling and gleaming and glooming,
until at last she was out of sight.
PART II
THANK-OFFERING
CHAPTER I
By the time the Chorus had talked itself to rags and a dribbling
finish, and Mrs. James had remembered her pudding and Mrs. Airey
her hot irons; and Mrs. Clapham had had time to think of her knee,
and how she was tired with standing, and how it would be just as
easy to enjoy the news sitting down—both Emma and Martha Jane had
vanished utterly from the scene. It was the charwoman who noticed
their disappearance first, wiping away the last glad tears from her
shining, glorified face.
“Eh, now, if Martha Jane hasn’t made off, and I never thought on
to say I was sorry she’d lost! I was that taken up wi’ t’ letter
I couldn’t think of nowt else. She’ll be feeling bad about it, I
reckon, will poor Martha Jane. I wish I’d had a word wi’ her before
she slipped away!”
“I shouldn’t worry myself.... Likely she’ll go whingeing to yon
lordship of hers, and get summat instead!” Mrs. James looked back
from between her pillars, anxious, in spite of her pudding, for a
last slap at Martha Jane. “Anyway, I was right about Mr. Baines
bringing the news,” she went on proudly; “or next best thing to Mr.
Baines! A bonny little thing, that little girl, isn’t she now?—and
that like him an’ all!... Ay, well, Mrs. Clapham, I’m main glad it
come out right, and there’s a deal more I’d like to know if it wasn’t
for yon pan....”
“Eh, and yon irons o’ mine’ll be fit to scorch!” ... Mrs. Airey
bestirred herself also at the departure of Mrs. James. “I’m as throng
as I can be to-day, an’ all. Folks is that put about if they don’t
get their washing on the tick, you’d think they’d only a shirt and
a pillow-slip to their names!... Step along in with her, Maggie,
and get her a cup o’ tea,” she added to Mrs. Tanner, as she and her
sister moved away. “She’s a bit upset wi’ it all, and a cup o’ tea’ll
pull her together. Folks is easy put out about good news—I cried a
deal more when my Teddy come back from t’ War than I ever did when he
went—even if they don’t all get strokes and suchlike just by clapping
an eye on poor Baines!”
There was a last burst of laughter in the street at that, the last
that it was to hear that morning, the last, perhaps, that it was to
hear that day.... “Ay, Emma was right creepy with her nasty tales!”
Mrs. Clapham concluded meditatively, when the sisters had gone. “(I
can manage right enough, Maggie. Don’t you put yourself out!) She’s
cleared off again, I notice, and with never a word. She must just ha’
waited to hear the news, and then made back.”
“There was summat queer about her ever coming at all!” ... Mrs.
Tanner lingered, cogitating, in the empty street. “What, she never
stirred foot even for t’ Coronation, you’ll think on—(Edward was it,
or George?). You and she have never been that thick, I’m sure, that
she should turn out to wish you luck!”
“She talked that strange, too,” the charwoman puzzled, thinking back,
“praising me up and so on, and yet wi’ a scrat in it all the time!
She fair made me begin to think things was going to go all wrong.”
“It’s that way she has of making you feel she knows summat important
as you don’t. It’s like as if she give you plenty o’ rope to hang
yourself, and then stood about smiling, waiting for the pull. Ay,
and what you’d feel right sore about when it come to it wouldn’t be
as you was hung, but feeling you’d made a fool o’ yourself with yon
woman a-looking on!”
“Ay, that’s summat like it,” Mrs. Clapham murmured. “That’s it,
I reckon....” She threw a glance up the street at the silent,
ill-omened house. “It’s no wonder she made such a wreck o’ Poor
Stephen.”
The Saga of Poor Stephen who had fallen in the War began all over
again, with precisely the same zest as if sung for the first time.
It was a sort of duet into which they fell quite naturally whenever
they happened to meet, and however often it was repeated it never
palled. Conversation is almost the only form of artistic expression
open to most of the poor, and on this subject at least these two had
reached a high level. The Saga of Poor Stephen was, indeed, their
star performance. Knowing it like their prayers, they played up to
each other with mechanical ease, yet found always some shade of
inflection which might possibly be bettered, some sentence introduced
or eliminated which shed new light upon the whole. And always, as
soon as they had parted, their minds set to work again upon the scene
they had just played, half consciously rehearsing it for its next
public appearance, and seeking some fresh touch which should cause it
to live anew.
However, they rang the curtain down at length, and drifted apart—Mrs.
Tanner backing towards her door with that almost unconscious movement
of street-gossips—as if she was pulled by a string—and the charwoman
turning joyously home to her own dwelling. She reached it in less
than a dozen strides, but even in that short distance she produced
the effect of a full-rigged ship coming buoyantly into port. Crossing
the step, she had a passing twinge of remorse because she had
neglected to give it its second scrub; and then she was once again in
the little kitchen, with the door closing behind her back.
It was a wonderful moment for Mrs. Clapham when she came back again
to her home, bearing her sheaves with her. The early morning had
been wonderful, too, but in a totally different way. It had been
splendid, of course, full of rapture and hope, but she knew now
that at the back of everything there had been a fear. That sudden
bout of laughter and tears had testified to the strain. The early
morning phase had been bought at its own price. But this moment was
all splendour without terror, glory without pain. Steeped in wonder,
it was yet perfect in satisfaction; shot with ecstasy, it was yet
peace....
Presently, perhaps, when the supreme moment had passed, she would
wish for that earlier phase all over again. _That_ would seem the
supreme moment to her, looking back, the most poignant, the most
dramatic, the most worth having because of its thrills. She would
forget the scorch of the chariot of fire in which she had left the
earth, and only remember the sweep of it as she ascended to heaven.
Nevertheless, this was the really great hour of her beautiful day,
and she recognised it while she had it. There is no moment like that
in which one runs home through a shining world to hide behind a shut
door with the glad fulfilment of an innocent dream.
With it, however, came the realisation of what she would have felt if
things had happened the other way about, and even the thought of it
was so terrible that it turned her faint. Reaching the rocking-chair,
she dropped into it with a thankful sigh, and the anything but
thankful chair uttered a protesting creak. But the horror soon passed
and the glory returned, so that she hardly knew whether the gold
motes dancing in the kitchen were made by the sun, or whether the
whole world had turned golden in essence because of the splendour in
her brain.
With smiling lips, and half-closed, tear-wet eyes, she sat rocking
herself to and fro, while the overburdened chair uttered its almost
human shrieks of protesting rage. But she was too happy to notice it,
too happy to move; too happy even to get herself the cup of tea which
she dearly craved. She knew vaguely that her head ached as well as
her back and her bad knee, but these also were beyond notice. The
most they could do was to force her to own, chuckling, that it was
a good thing miracles didn’t happen every day of the week. But then
she did not want them to happen every day; she did not want them ever
to happen again. Once was all she had asked for in the whole of her
life, and that once was proving itself most gloriously enough.
Undoubtedly her chief joy, half-conscious though it was, lay in the
supreme confidence with which she was filled in the workings of
fate. Human beings are never so happy, so soothed and so unafraid,
as when they seem to identify themselves with the Ruling Mind. The
soul, swerving blindly from fear to fear, clings thankfully to the
least vestige of a plan, whether for good or ill. It was not often
that Mrs. Clapham had felt afraid of life, but it seemed to her at
this moment that she would never feel afraid again. It was muddle
that frightened people, she thought to herself, torn edges and jagged
ends, suddenly-twisted threads that on every count should have run
straight, and meaningless blows from a vague dark. Mrs. Clapham was
of those who prefer to be hit firmly on the head by an Absolute Will,
rather than to be sent flying into space by the blind bursting of a
mindless shell.
But for her, at all events, life had proved itself faithful up to
the very hilt. Week after week, year after year, she had held to
her great belief, and in the due moment of promise it had been
fulfilled. The right thing came at the right time and in the right
way—always she came back again to that. A little earlier, perhaps,
or a little later, and the whole thing would have been less perfect;
would not have found her so ready or left her so secure. Even a
splendidly-sudden surprise would not have been really so splendid,
because unable to fix in her this precious certainty of success.
Sudden surprises are wonderful in their way, opening the doors of
fairylands and heavens, but they do not create security or make for
peace. On the contrary, they, too, suggest chaos after their own
magnificent fashion. The highest pinnacle is that which is reached
after earnest endeavour, patient provision, humble yet certain hope.
The charwoman felt satisfied in every inch, seeing life and the
justice of things fitting each other like lock and key. She felt as
one feels at the end of a sunset or the close of a song. She felt
as one feels when one shuts the door of a room in which a child has
fallen asleep....
She wished that the man who had thought of her long ago could know
that both his wish and hers were going to be fulfilled at last.
He, too, had been one of those who find their greatest pleasure
in watching the Universe work out even, so that the news that his
forty-year-old plan was coming into effect would have afforded him a
personal satisfaction. She felt sure that he would have nodded his
head with his grim smile, saying, “Right you are, Jones! Meant you
to have it. Pleased. D—d glad!” feeling that, in this one thing at
least, he had been able to give the sometimes recalcitrant cosmos a
shove on the right road.
She thought gratefully, too, of those who had voted her the house,
trying to call up, though with a touch of shyness, the kindly
things which they must have said, not only in committee but in the
privacy of their homes. Some of them must have gone into the letter
which they had written through Mr. Baines, but so far she had heard
so little of that wonderful letter! It was still in her hand, of
course, too precious to put down, and presently she would find her
glasses and read it with quivering joy. But for the moment she needed
no further stimulant for her happy mind. The ecstasy in her soul
required no extra assistance from the elegant phrasing of Mr. Baines.
She thought also of the body of public opinion which was said to
be at her back, and felt for the time being as if every soul in the
place was a personal friend. It was wonderful, even for a short time,
to feel the thoughts of all those well-wishers turned simultaneously
towards herself. That was another thing she felt certain she would
never mistrust again—the genuine joy of the many in the genuine joy
of the one. There were the four women, for instance, who had stayed
with her so long, swelling her triumph, when it came, by the mere
fact of their kindly presence. They had, as it were, lifted her in
their eager arms, ready to thrust her into the chariot before it had
touched the ground. They had been like children, with a fifth who had
won or was winning a coveted prize; like bridesmaids, speeding and
cheering a happy but trepidant bride....
That last word made her think of Miss Marigold up in town, who would
even now be getting ready for church. Her mother would be helping
and watching her, no doubt, as Tibbie’s mother had once watched and
helped. Miss Marigold, however, was no longer young, while Tibbie
had been young as a first summer bird. Miss Marigold was to wear the
uninteresting garments which so many brides wore now, but Tibbie
herself had been dressed in white. Not satin, of course, or a wreath,
or the overgrand ornament of a veil—both Tibbie and her mother were
too sensible for that. But nobody who had seen Tibbie that day,
whether in London or Timbuctoo, would have been stupid enough to take
her for anything but a bride. She was the real, loving, loved bridal
thing that trod actually on air, so that one seemed, as it were, to
see her spurning the earth, and to hear all about her the uprush of
fine wings....
The picture of Tibbie in her wedding-white was so present to her mind
that she was surprised, when she opened her eyes, not to see her
there in the flesh. She was so puzzled, indeed, that she stopped
rocking and sat up, until presently, as her glance strayed about the
room, the knowledge came to her that it was Tibbie’s photograph that
she sought. She did not seem able to visualise it in its usual place,
and she got to her feet, wondering whether the emotion through which
she had just passed had somehow shortened her sight. The photograph
was there, however, she found, when she moved across, but had slipped
on the shelf and lay on its back. She set it up again and stood
looking at it, and Tibbie looked, too, but it hardly seemed to her
that that was Tibbie’s face. Tibbie’s real face was the one she had
just seen when she was half asleep, which had hung above her and
kissed her ... and laughed ... and kissed her again....
The photographs of the children were as usual stiffly erect, but
she scarcely glanced at them as she turned away. It was impossible,
with that vision of laughing girlhood still in her eyes, to think
of them as belonging to Tibbie. Indeed, their utter unlikeness to
her—always a source of grief—turned them, at this particular moment,
into actual strangers. They were so tragically the counterparts of
that unfortunate Poor Stephen, to whose comfort and help Tibbie had
rushed like an indignant angel. There seemed little but pity and the
attraction of opposites to account for the strange marriage, for the
young couple had been like creatures out of two totally different
spheres. Tibbie had come out of a House of Laughter and Stephen out
of a House of Pain; and in spite of their love it was the image of
pain that still looked out of their children’s eyes....
Her mind went back at that to her late talk with Mrs. Tanner,
conning its weak points, and preparing it once more for the next
occasion when they should be called upon to “say their piece.” She
was busy with it all the time she was brewing and drawing the tea,
and even while, glasses at length unearthed, she pored joyously
over the letter. Between her gasps of pleasure at each newly
discovered tribute, such as “hard-working citizen,” “good neighbour,”
“praiseworthy mother,” and “kind friend,” some door in her mind kept
swinging and standing ajar, showing her the pale-faced little boy who
had lived through Heaven knew what misery in the house at the top of
the street.
In the confidence born of the perfect happening at the perfect moment
in the perfect way, Mrs. Clapham wondered how it had been possible
for anybody to be as much afraid as Poor Stephen. She was almost
inclined to feel impatient with him, looking back, though she had
been sorry enough, and even fiercely indignant, at the time. In
common with others in the street, she had done her best to see that
Stephen was fed, that his clothes were mended and brushed before he
went off to school, that there was a fire for him to sit by in cold
weather when he chose, and sometimes a penny slipped in his pocket
for buying sweets. But Stephen had been hard to help, as are all
early-abused, early-cowed young things, and it was not often that he
could be decoyed into other people’s houses even for his good. It
was almost as if the contrast between what he found there and what
was waiting—or wasn’t waiting—for him at home, was more than his
wounded spirit was able to bear. In any case, he had avoided their
kindly designs whenever he could, choosing his moment to slip past
when they weren’t looking, or creeping back again at night with ears
deaf to their shrill calls. Often and often she had seen him stealing
by in the winter dusk, resolutely turning his eyes from their open,
fire-streaming doors. Even in the September sunshine Mrs. Clapham
shivered at the thought of that going home, back to the dreary house
in which he had been born afraid.
It was many a year now since she had set foot in Emma’s house,
but, gradually feeling back, she got its atmosphere again. She
could remember little, indeed, of how it had looked; she could
only remember how it had felt. Going into Emma’s was not so much
going into a house as letting yourself into the four walls of Emma
Catterall’s mind. Everything that was in it looked as it did because
of Emma, so that the tables hardly seemed tables, or the chairs
chairs, or the beds beds. Even Emma’s husband had somehow had that
effect, had suffered a sea-change simply because he was Emma’s. Jemmy
Catterall had been weak and foolish as a young man, but he had not
been the inhuman monster he appeared later. Marriage with Emma had
turned him shortly into a sullen brute, subject to fits of fury which
stamped him wrong in the head. That undependableness of mood had been
a sorry atmosphere for Stephen, combined with that terrible sensing
of something that wasn’t sane.
Yet Jemmy—or so at least Mrs. Clapham had been known to insist—would
have been right enough but for Emma. He was never a star, of course,
either in looks or brains, but he was right enough as men went,
seeing that in most cases they didn’t go far. It was hardly credible
that he should have turned into the mad skeleton of his later years,
peering at people from behind the ferns, or, later still, from a room
upstairs. When he wasn’t peering he was emptying water-jugs upon
callers’ heads, or throwing things at the passers-by. It seemed an
eternity that he had leered and peered, until finally his amusements
had come to an end behind the shut door of a coffin-lid....
Well, that had been Stephen’s father—not much of a father
for anybody, if it came to that, but least of all for one so
inexpressibly in need of help. Yet, even at his worst (and it was a
most unpleasant worst), it was unanimously agreed that he was nothing
to Emma. Mrs. Clapham could remember how they had all been afraid of
her, even as a girl, because of that thing in her mind which watched
and hid. Tibbie, too, had complained that Emma spied on her while she
slept, just as her own babies had cried themselves sick about it,
later on. But the child out of the House of Laughter had not troubled
herself about Emma for very long; quite early the obsession had
turned into interest in Poor Stephen. Even in those days she used to
talk to her mother about the little boy who was always afraid; later
still, when they were going to the same school; and later again, when
they were grown up and gone to work. And then suddenly the happy,
chattering voice had stopped of its own accord, dumb in that last,
sweet, waiting stillness before the rushing confession of love....
Upon that desolate Poor Stephen, sunk in his misery and mental murk,
Tibbie’s choice had had the effect of a silver clarion in the dark.
The conferring of her love was like the conferring of a kingly robe
and crown. The change in him was so startling that it was almost as
if one saw the gold and the jewels shimmer about him as he moved.
Tibbie was a strength-giver, just as Emma was a strength-stealer, but
she did a great deal more for Stephen than that. She drew out of him
by degrees the courage that was in himself, as well as the graces
and charm which make a man loved wherever he goes. The long-latent
strength, crushed and shrivelled in youth, had gathered itself at
last into that splendid battle-deed; but when the time came for her
to lose him, as she had known it would have to come, it was the fact
that he had been loved by his fellows that Tibbie had valued most.
Taken altogether, it was a strange tale of the breeding of pluck,
especially such pluck as had set Stephen’s name in newspapers without
end, on Rolls of Honour and brasses, memorial crosses and shrines;
even on the rough little wooden cross which the Germans had raised to
him themselves. Only on rare occasions had Tibbie tried to tell her
mother what Stephen had suffered in the past, and then it was always
by request. It had been hard enough, even, for Stephen to tell his
wife, and it was harder still for Tibbie to pass it on. Then, too,
it seemed like sending him back to the house of bondage again, to
keep even a hint of it in their thoughts. And it was all such a story
of patches when it was told, a dreary and mean muddle like streaks
on a sordid pane. They were such queer, quiet, sinister things that
Emma had chosen to do—things that were yet as demoralising in their
effect as any of Jemmy’s wild water-jug-throwing moods. What the
other children had suffered only in imagination had really happened
to Poor Stephen, for his mother had actually spied upon him while
he slept. Night after night he had started awake to find her in the
room, a motionless dark figure set at the foot of his bed. She had
said nothing; she had done nothing; she had just stood in the shadow
and smiled; and he, gasping with fear in the bed, had yet managed
to keep silence, too. Quite early he had known her for his enemy,
both by night and day, but in the shadow at the foot of the bed she
was something worse. The whole sinister powers of darkness seemed to
be concentrated in her form, coming to brood above him while he was
sound in his first sleep....
This horrible travesty of motherly tenderness had frightened Tibbie
Clapham as nothing else had frightened her in life, turning her,
even in its recital, into a bitter, white-faced woman whom her
mother hardly knew. Evil is never so sinister as when it touches the
beautiful natural things and makes them strange. The story of those
nights had impressed Tibbie with such cruel force that there was a
time when she was almost afraid to approach her own children as they
lay and slept....
The nights had been hardest to bear, so Stephen had said, but Emma
had watched him everywhere else as well. Indeed, after a while,
he had grown to feel that even distance could make no difference;
that, no matter where he went, he would never be free of her eyes.
The whole circumstances of his life, with their lack of comfort and
food, contributed to the obsession, doing their share in keeping his
nerves unnourished and his bodily strength low. Then, too, there was
the miserable meanness which hid whatever he needed and watched his
face while he sought it; that murmured alike whether he was at home
or abroad; that crept upon him or made sudden noises; that hinted at
evil in connection with every name that he knew, sliding back, in the
final event, to hint at it also with his own....
But it was always the watching that he minded most, and that would
have finished him in the end, sending him, but for Tibbie and
marriage, either to suicide or drink. Even when he had left the place
and was happily settled somewhere else, Emma’s eyes had seemed to go
with him. Not until long after he was married, Tibbie had said, had
he ceased to feel that he was being watched.
“But he never felt it in France,” she said to her mother, after
Stephen was dead. “He told me—he even wrote about it—that he never
felt it there. It was as if there was some big angel between them,
making her keep away. Oh, mother, it was harder than words can say
to let him go, but I used to feel so glad for him when he was in
France!...”
CHAPTER II
The rocking had begun again, the slow, rhythmic rocking that seemed
to draw the past out like a charm, in spite of the continuous protest
of the angry chair. It altered in character, however, after a while,
the swing of the rocker dwindling at times until it almost stopped,
and then beginning again with a gentle push. It was as soothing as
the sleepy surge of a summer sea, urged by some impulse into a gentle
swell, only to smooth itself out into stillness and slumber again.
Even the angry chair seemed to be getting drowsy as well, and was
silent at times for as much as a minute. At the end of the minute it
would break out again into a raucous yelp, like the spasmodic effort
of a tired dog. Gradually, however, both rocker and rocked came to
a trance-like quiet. In the gold of the morning sun and of her own
special private glory, Mrs. Clapham sat and slept.
She slept for about an hour, and was unaware that more than one
person had been near her while she dreamed, peeping in at her through
the window, or laying a gentle hand on the loose latch. Members of
the Chorus appeared from time to time, only to back away again with
a portentous finger on their lips. Mrs. James, indeed, at a second
attempt, had actually penetrated into the sacred place, with infinite
care setting at Mrs. Clapham’s elbow a covered plate of soup. The
young school teachers had looked in for a word on their way home, and
had gone on again with hushed steps, taking with them that vision
of tired thankfulness and infinite peace. Mrs. Clapham, of course,
knew nothing of all this, but it soothed her even in sleep. The
atmosphere of kindly interest, combined with the sun, lay softly
about her like a silken shawl.
It was the rush of the children that awoke her at last, the feet of
the home-coming children on the hill. Twice a day they streamed past
Mrs. Clapham’s cottage, and always the sound of their coming was like
the sound of a river in spate. One said to oneself, “What is it? What
is it?” and then knew it to be the feet of the new generation on the
road. The patter and clatter of those feet wove themselves into the
last of Mrs. Clapham’s dream. She heard the clink of clogged soles,
the lighter slither of leather, the whistles and cries of the boys,
the running chatter of little girls. And, long after the stream had
passed on, it seemed to her that she heard other feet on the hill—the
thin little dragging feet of little Libby and Baby Steve....
She was almost sorry when she found that she had slept, for there is
no divider, either in joy or sorrow, so great as sleep. The first
ecstasy of her pleasure was over and gone. She felt almost as if
the tremendous event had happened yesterday instead of to-day, and
was vexed to have missed even a moment of the precious thrill. At
the same time, she felt better for the rest, both in body and mind.
Both her back and her knee had ceased to ache, and her head felt
business-like and cool. The pleasure was still there, of course, and
would rise to transport again, but just for the moment her brain was
at work upon it rather than her soul.
It is true that the sense of miracle came hurrying back when she
discovered the plate of smoking soup. The poor, however, are
accustomed to presents of this kindly sort, and it was only important
because it had happened to-day, when kindness kept adding itself to
kindness, and beauty to beauty, and joy to joy. She knew it was Mrs.
James who had brought the soup because it had come in Mrs. James’s
best wedding-present china. _That_ was the miracle, if you like; the
thing that would not have happened on any other day, but that simply
couldn’t help happening on a day like this. Mrs. Clapham felt touched
almost to tears by this exhibition of delicate taste, running her
fingers appreciatively over the flowered border. It was like Mrs.
James’s refined ways to have brought her the best china, knowing that
even the best food tastes better out of a beautiful dish.
She drank the soup gratefully, glad that she had no need to set about
any cooking for herself, and ate a piece of her own excellent currant
bread. Her currant loaves, indeed, were quite famous in the district,
so much so that there were people who ordered them from her every
week. Miss Marigold was fond of them, too, and so was Tibbie—Tibbie,
who wrote that even the children said she could not make them like
Granny! Miss Marigold was to have a loaf as a wedding-gift when next
she came home; in the excitement of moving she must not forget that.
But once up at the new house she would have plenty of time for her
loaves—loaves fit to set before the King, if by any chance the King,
or the local gentry, who unconsciously ranked so much higher in her
country mind, should honour her with a call.
She felt so energetic after the sleep and the soup that she longed
to begin pulling the cottage to pieces at once. The almshouse was
furnished, of course, and after a fashion that took your breath, but
she had no doubt that there would be room for her few bits of sticks
as well. They would be Tibbie’s and the children’s after she was
gone, and in any case she did not want to part with them just yet.
The apparently lifeless furnishings of a house register always the
joys and sorrows of those to whom they belong, and everything in the
cottage was beautiful to Mrs. Clapham because here Tibbie had lived
and laughed.
But of course there could be no moving for a day or two yet, even
although already she was hungering to be off. It would seem almost
indecent to grab at the house like that; greedy, anyhow, and not
quite nice. In any case, she felt sure it would have to be cleaned
first, just as the spot she was leaving would have to be scrubbed
throughout. Still, there was no reason why she shouldn’t take a look
at the place, and amuse herself by making her joyful plans. Her
heart rose and danced again at the pleasing prospect, as the motes
danced in the silently passing sun. With hands that trembled a little
she washed Mrs. James’s china and set it aside to return, and then
climbed the stairs to the little bedroom to tidy herself and change.
She took off the print dress and put on the gown that Tibbie had
made for her long ago, a soft black gown with a little white at
the throat and wrists. Even on Mrs. Clapham’s large figure it fell
into the graceful lines which seemed to come as a matter of course
into everything that Tibbie touched, even the cheapest satin or the
harshest serge. Yet, although it was Tibbie’s work and a labour of
love, Mrs. Clapham couldn’t help feeling that it was rather funereal
to-day. She had worn it at Tibbie’s wedding, and it had seemed gay
enough then, but at this moment of coloured splendour it seemed
almost sad. She felt that she wanted to flaunt forth in something
light—something more like Miss Marigold’s pale blue _crêpe de Chine_!
The thought of herself, however, clad after that fashion, reduced her
to helpless mirth, and after shaking with laughter until she actually
shook the room, she relinquished the _crêpe de Chine_ and recaptured
her common sense.
She felt even more restless upstairs than she had felt down, and it
was all she could do to keep from dragging the battered tin trunk
from under the bed and beginning to pack. All the time she was
dressing she kept looking about, telling herself to remember this and
not to forget that. It was absurd, she said to herself, to feel as if
she were leaving that very day! It wasn’t as if she hated the cottage
and was thankful to go; it was more than likely that she would weep
her heart out when the time came to say good-bye. Already she was
inclined to be jealous of the future tenant, wondering if she would
keep it as it ought to be kept. Not that she could possibly keep it
as Mrs. Clapham had done; that was beyond hope. The most that could
be looked for was that she wouldn’t make it an actual by-word in the
row.
She planted a bonnet—the generic Bonnet, black, with a bit of velvet,
a bit of ribbon, a bit of feather, a bit of jet—on the silvery
smoothness of her parted hair, and was ready at last to set forth
on her triumphant journey. With a humorous laugh she told herself
that it was just as well she had changed her gown, or she would
have been scrubbing that almshouse before she knew! Her promise to
Martha Jane came back to her with the thought, making her realise
how confident she had been. As if she would ever be likely to scrub
floors for a woman like Martha Jane!... But again she was conscious
of the narrow line that divides fortune from misfortune, triumph from
disappointment, victory from defeat; and in the light of that rash
promise was more thankful than ever for her escape.
With all her glory about her, however, she could afford to feel sorry
for Martha Jane, and now that she had begun to think about her again,
she did feel dreadfully sorry. It would have been unbecoming in a
generous victor not to throw her a pitying thought, and Mrs. Clapham
did more than that. She began to cast about in her mind for an olive
branch of sorts, but could think of nothing available but a currant
loaf. It was a small enough offering, of course, but currants were
currants, nowadays, and flour was flour; and in any case a loaf of
her baking would have its own prestige. In its homely way it would
convey the same delicate touch that Mrs. James’s wedding-present
china had conveyed so pleasingly to herself.
Making up her mind at last, she wrapped the loaf in a cloth and went
briskly out. The morning sun was beginning to leave the street as she
emerged, tending to become an afternoon sun and moving slowly towards
the west. Nevertheless, she did not feel that it was deserting her
because it was passing on. It had stayed with her all the morning,
like a royal guest at a humble feast; now it was going before her to
shine for her in her new home.
Exalted though she was by her recent great success, she could not
help feeling a little nervous about her visit. Martha Jane might
possibly refuse to let her in, insult her, perhaps, or, at the very
least, try to take the gloss off her conquest with ribald jeers. On
the other hand, she might possibly find her crying—a lonely, unwanted
woman, hurt by another of life’s jars. Mrs. Clapham felt like crying
herself when she thought of that. Of course she might have gone out
to pour the tale of her wrongs into some sympathetic ear, and in that
case there would be nothing for the bearer of branches to do but to
turn again in her tracks. But the latter had scarcely swung round on
her step before she became aware that at least she must be at home,
for, outside the kitchen window that was almost level with the road,
Emma was standing, bending and peering in.
Fear, devastating and intense, came upon Mrs. Clapham when she beheld
Emma. There was something almost gloating in the way she stooped to
the low window, something of the intent Roman waiting for “thumbs
down.” So interested was she that she did not hear the closing thud
of Mrs. Clapham’s door, or even the sound of her footsteps coming
up the street. There was no smile on her lips as she stooped and
stared, and for once its absence was actually more alarming than its
presence. Mrs. Clapham’s picture of Martha Jane crying or cursing
gave place to others infinitely worse. Now she beheld her dangling
from a hook in the ceiling or prostrate with prussic acid on the
floor. Her heart beat so violently that she could scarcely breathe,
and her stout arms dithered so that she nearly dropped the loaf....
She was close upon Emma when the latter suddenly saw her and
straightened herself with the click of a clasped knife. “Eh, but
you give me a fright!” she began, gaspingly, and then stopped. An
extraordinary change came over her as her eyes fastened themselves on
Mrs. Clapham’s bonnet and gown. Her arms dropped to her sides as if
torn away by some unseen hand. Her mouth opened, her jaw dropped ...
her eyes went dead, her face white....
Mrs. Clapham was more frightened than ever when she saw Emma looking
like that. “There’s nowt wrong, is there?” she cried at her sharply,
shaking with fear. “What’s making you look so strange, Emma? Is owt
wrong with Martha Jane?”
But the amazing transformation which had come upon Mrs. Catterall had
passed even before she had finished. The dull colour came back into
Emma’s face and the watchful yet blank look into her eyes. Her arms
came up slowly and folded themselves to their usual place. And then,
as Mrs. Clapham still stood panting and shaking, she started her slow
smile....
“I don’t know as _you’d_ call it wrong,” she answered her gently,
in her expressionless tones, “though I wasn’t brought up myself to
consider it right. But there, I reckon everyone knows their own
business best,” she went on, moving to one side. “Anyway, as you’re
here, you’ll happen look for yourself....”
CHAPTER III
Feeling slightly ashamed of herself, but too frightened and curious
to refrain, the charwoman stepped forward and took Emma’s place.
The hill, rising beside the window, seemed to surge along its sill
as a rising wave surges along the bows of a vessel, and she had to
bend almost double to see through the dirty panes. Even then she
could discern nothing at first because of the brightness without,
but gradually, as she stared, the figure of Martha Jane came into
being. She was seated beside the table, with her head laid on her
arms, and her flushed face, twisted towards them, showed her sunk in
a sodden sleep. Her hair was coming down, her blouse had slipped up,
and she had lost a shoe; while the lace collar which she had robbed
of its pin for little Miss Baines, was hanging airily down her back.
Within reach of her outstretched hands stood a bottle without a cork,
from which they seemed only this moment to have slipped away....
Mrs. Clapham clicked her tongue between her teeth when she saw that
bottle. There could be no mistake about Martha Jane....
“The right sort for almshouses, I _don’t_ think!” Emma was saying in
smug tones behind the charwoman’s back. “Seems to me mighty queer
they should ever have thought her in the running at all; but there, I
suppose they reckon they know their own business best....”
Mrs. Clapham straightened herself rather painfully, and looked at her
with dismay.
“Eh, dear!” she exclaimed dismally. “I’m right sorry she took it like
that!” She stepped back into the road, an expression of real trouble
on her honest face. “It’s a real pity, that is; ay, it’s a sad pity!
She must have been a deal keener on yon house than ever I thought.”
“She wasn’t never the sort for almshouses,” Emma repeated stolidly,
unperturbed. “One o’ them Homes or suchlike is the right spot for
Martha Jane; not to speak of yon Home in partic’lar as is under lock
and key.”
Mrs. Clapham gave an involuntary but unhappy giggle. “Nay, now, Emma
Catterall,” she protested, “it’s not kind to speak like that!” For
the time being the ecstatic joy had gone out of her face, leaving it
looking worried and almost guilty. It was true that she was spared
the shadow of a dangling Martha Jane, but even Martha Jane drunk was
enough of a blot on her beautiful day. “The poor thing’s done nowt
to deserve being shoved into prison,” she went on lamely. “I doubt
we all on us make out she done a deal more than she ever did in the
flesh.”
She saw Emma’s smile beginning to broaden pleasantly, and pushed on
again hurriedly.
“She keeps her cottage a fair sight, I’ll give you that, but then it
was nobbut a poor sort o’ spot when she first come. Once up at t’
almshouse she’d likely have shaped a good deal better. I’ve often
noticed how folks perk up when they get a good spot, and a few nice
sticks as they think is worth their while. And I don’t know as I ever
see her drunk in my life, though they _do_ say as she likes a drop
with her tea.... Nay, I doubt it’s just disappointment and nowt else.
It’s driven her to it, that’s what it’s done—me beating her over yon
house!”
“She wasn’t suited nohow,” Emma repeated firmly and almost
mechanically, her eyes still running over the other’s bonnet and
gown. They were calm enough now, however, as was also her voice.
Whatever had been the cause of that strange upheaval, it had passed
and left no trace, yet the charwoman still moved uneasily under her
gaze, feeling as if the beady black eyes were pricing her toilet
from head to foot. She was thankful at least that there could be no
question about the soberness of her gown, and more than thankful that
under no circumstances whatever could there have been any question of
a pale blue _crêpe de Chine_.
Emma’s eyes completed their tour by coming to rest on the currant
loaf, which was hastily produced by its owner from its snowy cloth.
“I brought her a bit o’ my currant cake,” she explained awkwardly,
and with a somewhat embarrassed laugh. “I thought it’d show there was
no ill-feeling!... Door’ll be locked, though, likely,” she added,
with her hand on the latch. “I doubt I might just as well take it
back.”
“A lot _she’ll_ want with currant cake!” Emma returned sardonically,
but Mrs. Clapham took no notice. “Nay, it’s open right enough,”
she said, as the door yielded. “I’ll just slip in and pop it on t’
table.... I’d nowt else I could bring,” she added, looking back for
a moment with a second laugh. “I’ve been that sure I was going off I
couldn’t bother about food!”
Pushing the door gently, she advanced into the kitchen as quietly
as her weight would allow, though, from the look of Martha Jane, it
seemed hardly likely that even an air-raid would have power to stir
her. Just so, she thought to herself, had Mrs. James slipped into her
own cottage with her gift of soup, to find her sleeping the little
cat-sleep that had come on her unawares. The comparison brought a
return of her morning indignation, as she stood looking down at the
snoring woman and round the dirty, neglected room. It was certainly
a troublesome flaw in her beautiful day that Martha Jane should
continue to parody her all through.
But before long her indignation passed into a troubled wonder as
to her own duty. Perhaps she and Emma between them ought to try to
get Martha Jane to bed, or at least to dispose her gracefully on the
sofa. She did not like to think of her sitting there to be gaped at
by the passers-by; and, even as an object-lesson, she was scarcely a
suitable sight for the children returning to school. She felt pretty
sure, however, that Emma would refuse to touch her, nor did she
feel over-inclined to touch her herself. In the end, therefore, she
compromised by drawing the blind on its crazy roller, and, whipping
the cloth from under the loaf, cast a last look at the sublimely
indifferent figure and went out again into the street.
Emma was still there, she found, still puzzling her with that air of
interested focus upon herself.
“What was that you said just now about going off?” she inquired,
almost before Mrs. Clapham was well outside. She spoke tranquilly
enough, though her hands twitched under her elbows as if demanding to
be released.
“Going off?” The charwoman looked puzzled, and then swung round again
to the door.... “Eh, now, if yon smell o’ drink hasn’t fair followed
me into t’ road!”
“You said you’d been that full of going off you’d done no cooking or
owt,” Emma reminded her stolidly, ignoring her comment. Her eyes,
fixed on the other’s face, seemed to be willing her not to look at
her hands.... “I didn’t rightly know what it was you meant.”
Mrs. Clapham gave the same half-ashamed laugh.
“I only meant I was that throng with plans and suchlike about the
new house! Not that I _did_ owt, you’ll understand, such as packing
an’ all that. I was only thinking about it and turning it over in my
mind.”
A large sigh seemed to make a stupendous struggle and emerge
diminished through Emma’s lips.
“Ay, well, it’s a good thing you didn’t turn it over that often it
tumbled out!” Already she was beginning her usual backing towards her
steps, and Mrs. Clapham backed, too. She could hardly believe her
ears when she heard Emma concluding smoothly—“No use asking you in, I
suppose, for a bit of a chat?”
The charwoman stared blankly for a moment, and then flushed, changing
her weight with an embarrassed awkwardness from foot to foot.
“I thought of just going up to have a look at the house,” she
hesitated at last. “It’s a bit grasping, likely, going up so soon,
but I’m fair aching to have a peep. That’s why I’m all donned out in
my Sunday black!” she finished with an apologetic smile.
A second sigh that had begun as an outsize in Emma’s mouth issued in
miniature on the soft September air. She nodded gently.
“I don’t know as it isn’t wise. Things don’t always come off, and it
don’t do to chance a slip.... Seems to me, though, you might spare a
minute to step in. You’ve all afternoon before you, and you can do a
deal o’ looking in that.”
Mrs. Clapham hesitated a moment longer, and then capitulated. Even
the Emmas of life were hardly to be refused on this her beautiful
day. She was in the mood, too, to believe that even Emmas might have
their moments; that, in spite of intuition and other more definite
evidence to the contrary, they might yet end by proving themselves
honest and true friends....
“Ay, well, I’ll see what I can do,” she agreed, though still rather
doubtfully, looking down at the cloth on her arm. “I’ve a deal to
see to, though; I shan’t be able to stop. Anyway, I’d best slip home
first wi’ t’ clout, and I’ve a pot o’ Mrs. James’s to return an’ all.”
She hurried off as she spoke, throwing the last words backwards,
almost as if afraid that she might be dragged into Emma’s on the
spot, swam down the hill with great noddings of the black feather and
billowings of the black gown, and disappeared; while Emma herself
stayed watching her until she was out of sight, and then faded
towards the steps, and up the steps, and through the doorway into the
dark beyond....
Mrs. Clapham was so busy turning over in her mind the why and
wherefore of Emma’s request that she failed to notice various forms
scuttling into their dwellings at her approach—forms which bore a
decided resemblance to members of the Chorus. But by the time she had
deposited the cloth, locked the door, and gone on to leave the china
with Mrs. James, she discovered that the street had not been by any
means empty during the foregoing scene. The younger woman received
her thanks with that kindly self-satisfaction which forms the usual
interpretation of the dictum that it is more blessed to give than to
receive, and hurried on to a subject of greater interest.
“What in the name o’ goodness were you and Mrs. Catterall doing
outside o’ Martha Jane’s?” she inquired eagerly. “You seemed terribly
interested in something or other, I’m sure! Not that I’ve been spying
or owt, so don’t think it. I leave that to our friend Emma! But I
was just looking out, thinking we might be going to have a—a spot
o’ rain, and I see you and her together, as thick as thieves. Mrs.
Tanner was looking out, too, and much about the same time, seeking
yon cat of hers as she sets such store by, you’ll think on; and we
were both on us fair puzzled what the two on you could be at!”
“Nay, it was nowt,” the charwoman answered hastily, feeling decidedly
mean in refusing the tit-bit for which her supporter obviously
yearned, yet resolved in her own mind not to give Martha Jane away.
“I just slipped up with a bit o’ my currant cake as a peace-offering
like, and a sop to my conscience at the same time!” She tried to
laugh with her usual open heartiness.... “As for Emma, she’s as queer
as Dick’s hatband to-day. I reckon she was just up to her usual
tricks, spying on other folks’ doings for want of some of her own!”
“Well, she seemed real interested, she did that—as throng as throng!
Mrs. Tanner and me couldn’t help noticing how interested she was....
Likely you found Martha Jane at home when you slipped up with the
currant bread?”
“Ay, she was at home right enough!” Mrs. Clapham replied, hoping that
her tones did not actually convey the ironic emphasis with which they
rang in her own ears.
“Ay, she was, was she?” Mrs. James looked politely eager. “And—excuse
me asking you now—was she grateful an’ all that? She wouldn’t be best
pleased at the way things has shaped, I’m sure.”
“She didn’t say much one way or t’other,” Martha Jane’s defender
lied (if it could be called lying) with desperate ease. “She was a—a
bit quiet-like,” she went on firmly, “not feeling like visitors, I
reckon.... I expect she’ll be glad enough, though, of the bread, when
it comes to eating it. ’Tisn’t often, I _will_ say, as folks sniff at
my currant bread!”
“No, indeed! It’d be queer if they did,” the other assented, though
with a somewhat abstracted air. “It was right nice of you, I’m sure,
though I don’t know as I think she deserves it. Mrs. Tanner and me
never thought it was anything like that, but then we wasn’t taking
that much notice.... Not but what we might ha’ made a sort of a
guess, knowing your kind heart.”
“Nay, if it comes to hearts, who fetched me yon soup?” Mrs. Clapham
inquired playfully, glad of the chance to strike the keynote again;
and got out into the street on a wave of fresh mutual blandishments,
such as “Ay, and your best china an’ all! Too good, by half....” and
“Nay, now, as if anything I had could be too good for the likes of
_you_!”
“I’m off to have a look at t’ house,” she added, by way of making a
second apology for the black gown. “Likely it seems a bit soon to go
rushing up, but folks should make the most o’ their time when they’re
not as young as they was!”
“That’s so. Not but what you’ll have many a happy year there, I don’t
doubt!” Mrs. James finally capped the conversation, and remained at
the door watching her as she swam away. Everybody seemed to stand
and watch her to-day, Mrs. Clapham thought, self-conscious in every
limb as she climbed guiltily towards Emma’s. She felt guilty because,
side by side with her reluctance about the visit was a half-formed
curiosity as to what Emma could have to say. It was because of this
latent curiosity in herself that she had not mentioned the invitation
to Mrs. James. It made her uneasy in some inexplicable way, just as
the strange little scene which had just passed had made her uneasy.
It was as if something within her warned her of some approaching
event, in which she and Emma, neighbours for years and yet almost
complete strangers, should be brought sharply together and carry the
principal parts....
She went up the steps slowly, and with a distinctly ashamed air,
feeling the eyes of the Chorus glued to her turned back, not knowing
that Providence had already seen to it that they should be otherwise
engaged. Mrs. Airey and Mrs. Dunn were at that moment holding anxious
converse over a scorched frill; Mrs. James was recalled indoors
at the critical point by a bump as of something violently fallen
upstairs; while Mrs. Tanner, although drawn to the window by some
psychological pull, was hurled back again, as it were, by the awful
spectacle of the cat on the shelf with the beef....
CHAPTER IV
The whole world had seemed bright with the fine September day which
had been sent to bless Mrs. Clapham, but there was no September
day in Emma Catterall’s. Most houses take on a different character
with the seasons, and are either cosy or dreary in winter, sunny or
stuffy in summer; in spring, perhaps, full of unexpected light and
shade, and in autumn of the after-glow of sunsets or the splendour of
windows framing some golden tree. But in Emma Catterall’s house the
year went by without ever setting foot inside her door, never once
renewing the atmosphere or cleansing it by a breath. Going into it
was like going into some primitive cave, where all that the centuries
seemed to do for it was to make it ever more dark and damp, and to
add to the whispering bats that clung about its walls.
Mrs. Clapham, with all her varied experience of dwellings behind her,
knew that there were people who made houses dark simply by living
in them, and others again who seemed to fill them with a sort of
hard-edged light. She knew this by the half-conscious effect which
they had upon her, so that, leaving the one, she was always glad to
get out again into the sun, and hurried away from the other to find
a shadowed corner of her own. But the atmosphere of Emma Catterall’s
had a quality that was altogether different. Going into it was less
like going into a house than into the terrible lodging of some
human—or, rather, dreadfully inhuman—mind.
Yet the dwelling itself was extraordinary enough, in all conscience.
There are some houses so curiously, almost insanely, built, that the
brain simply refuses to grasp them; and others again full of some
strong influence which seizes upon you as you go in. Mrs. Clapham
knew of at least one abode in which, after years of scrubbing and
cleaning, she still found herself unable to distinguish between the
doors; and another in which, directly she got inside, she turned
instinctively to mount the stairs. Emma’s house seemed to share
both these idiosyncrasies after its own fashion. Not only was it
thoroughly mad in construction, but it was full of some queer power.
There were people who said that it was an ancient slaughter-house
turned into a dwelling and even now it was neither house nor cottage.
It had bulging walls and unequally placed windows, and lead spouts
ornamented with strange heads; and instead of standing in line with
its neighbours, it had edged its way out until it narrowed the
street. There it had turned itself round to command a view of the
hill, as if, like Emma herself, it must always be on the watch.
From the stone steps you came to a landing with a couple of doors,
while directly in front a mean little stair went creeping away from
you into the dark. Both doors were closed when Mrs. Clapham arrived,
and that in itself seemed rather strange. They were oak doors,
apparently never polished, so that, instead of shining like mirrors,
they looked dirty and dead; and Mrs. Clapham had long ago forgotten
which was which. Emma might at least have left one of them ajar, she
thought to herself rather indignantly, staring irresolutely from one
black latch to another, as well as, almost as if fascinated, at the
depressed-looking stair.
It was one of those stairs which, after inviting you to ascend,
suddenly dart round a corner and vanish nobody knows where. The only
difference was that this stair did not dart; it barely even crept;
scarcely, indeed, seemed willing to behave like a stair at all. And
as Mrs. Clapham stood gazing at it, waiting for Emma to appear, she
remembered the little boy who also had only crept, cold to his very
bones at the thought of his spied-on bed....
She herself had never seen the comfortless room in which Stephen had
slept and wept, but it was easy enough to imagine from what Tibbie
had told her. According to Tibbie, it had had the same dirty and dead
door, and the sort of upsetting floor that catches nastily at your
feet. The paper had hung in mouldy festoons from the leaning walls,
and in the darkest corner of all had stood the rickety, half-clothed
bed. Even in summer the long, narrow place had been almost dark,
and full of a trap-like effect produced by a window too small for
the room. And all up and down had been scattered possessions of
his mother’s, so that, whether she was in or out, the atmosphere
was still Emma’s. There was an army of old clothes, for instance,
which Stephen had simply loathed, because of that likeness which
old clothes keep to their former wearer. Even when Emma had stopped
staring and gone away, the old clothes had stared instead. Stephen
had seen them swollen and swung into life by some passing breeze, or
as limp and dreadful old Emmas, hanging slackly by skinny necks....
And still there was no sound or vestige of life from behind either of
the dead-looking doors.... She put out her hand to knock, and dropped
it again, intimidated by the silence, and fell instead to staring
afresh at Stephen’s stair. Her imagination, unusually stimulated
by the day’s events, presently went so far as actually to show her
Stephen himself. Through the dusk his thin little hands gleamed as he
tugged himself up by the dirty rail, and his thin little legs gleamed
as he dragged them from step to step. His eyes travelled towards
her as he reached the curve, and she nearly dropped; for it seemed
to her as she looked that it was not Stephen whom she saw, but the
terrified, haunted face of his little five-year-old son....
The thought of Stevie in that place frightened her so much that she
was hurried into instant action, and, choosing at random, she knocked
at the door on her left. Later, as nobody answered, she knocked
again, and was lifting her hand a third time when a faint noise drew
her round. Facing about, she discovered that the door behind her had
opened without her knowledge, and that Emma was standing watching her
with her Giaconda smile.
“Eh, now, you did give me a start!” she remonstrated almost crossly,
crimsoning with annoyance and an inexplicable sense of shame. Emma,
however, did not deign to reply, but merely backed, smiling, through
the kitchen door, opening it just sufficiently to allow the other to
squeeze through.
“You’ve been such a while, I made sure you didn’t mean coming at
all,” she at last condescended to answer, when they were in the
kitchen—a queer-shaped room with a sloping and knotted floor, a
window that looked out at nothing more inspiring than the side of
a barn, and another, which held the ferns, overlooking the street.
It was gloomy, like everything at Emma’s, and Mrs. Clapham, who was
usually so neat on her feet, found herself first kicking the dresser,
then bumping the table, and finally catching her toe in the torn rug.
She was thoroughly flustered by the time she had sat herself down in
the chair indicated by Emma, while the fact that Emma herself did not
sit down, but remained standing beside the table, disquieted her more
than ever. But then, as she and Mrs. Tanner had already agreed, Emma
never _did_ sit down. Even at night you could not think of her as
sitting in front of the fire, knitting, perhaps, or simply dreaming
of old times. Even at that hour she felt sure she would be on the
watch, stealing about the house and peering into the rooms. Standing
by empty beds, too, Mrs. Clapham thought, with a shiver, and possibly
pretending to herself that they had suddenly been re-filled....
Seated uneasily in her chair, she hardly knew where to turn, for,
repugnant as she always found it to look at Emma, it was even more
distressing to look at the room. It was always something of a trial
to her to go into other folks’ “spots,” because they so seldom came
up to her personal standard. More than once, when calling upon a sick
neighbour, she had scrubbed the house from ceiling to floor; not so
much out of sheer kindness—sometimes, indeed, in spite of protest—but
because of the thirst for perfection by which she was driven. So
now, seeing in spite of herself the dirty windows and floor, the
unpolished brasses and steels, she positively ached for bare arms
and an old frock, a new brush and a full pail. Time and again she
found her hands stealing unconsciously to her tidy cuffs.... It was
strange how totally different slovenly houses could be, though houses
that were thoroughly clean were much the same. It was astonishing,
for instance, how Emma’s dirty home differed from Martha Jane’s. The
latter was dirty, of course, even dirtier than this, and certainly
it was a great deal poorer. Yet even at its worst there was always a
dashing touch about Martha Jane’s—the glint of a cheap brooch flung
carelessly on a table, or the gaudiness of an Easter egg swinging
crookedly from a bracket. Once, indeed, at the turn of the year, Mrs.
Clapham had seen through the open door a bunch of snowdrops in a
broken glass....
Then, too, the seasons came and went in Martha Jane’s; Nature, at
least, did not pass it by. But Emma Catterall’s house, with which
Nature would have nothing to do, ought not to have been dirty, and
was certainly not poor. Financially, she was said to be better off
than anybody in the street, and her furniture, though neglected, was
most of it good and sound. Out of the tail of her eye Mrs. Clapham
could see a bow-fronted chest of drawers which she would almost have
given her almshouse to possess; and she felt pretty sure that Emma’s
own bedroom would be comfortable enough, whatever sort of a hole
she had thought fit for Stephen. Yet nobody who had lived in Emma’s
neighbourhood would dream of buying her furniture when it came to the
hammer. They would be too much afraid of seeing her roundabout figure
standing behind some chair, or her black eyes watching and peering
from some suddenly opened drawer....
“Ay, I thought you didn’t mean coming,” she was saying again, loosing
one hand from her waist and leaning her weight on it on the table. “I
made sure you’d given me the go-by, and gone to look at yon house.”
Mrs. Clapham reddened and began to rub nervously at her knees.
“Ay, well, I don’t mind owning I’m a bit set up about it,” she
acknowledged frankly. “It’s a grand day for me and no mistake—best
day I’ve had for years!”
Emma nodded with amiable condescension.
“We’ve all on us known you wanted it a long while back now. It’ been
a reg’lar joke up and down t’ village, has Ann Clapham’s house.
Committee could hardly ha’ gone past you, knowing you so keen.”
“I’ve earned it anyway!” Mrs. Clapham broke out, reddening again.
Emma was being simply loathsome already.... “Everybody says I’ve best
right, along with them last words of Mr. T.”
“I’ve heard a deal o’ them last words, one way and another,” Emma
responded, gloating over the half-angry face before her. “Them kind
o’ last words is often enough somebody else’s second thoughts.... Not
but what you’ve the best right, as you say,” she continued smoothly,
seeing the charwoman’s eyes flash. “Likely you’ve wrote Committee a
letter by now, telling ’em you accept?”
“Nay, what, I never thought about it, I’m sure!” Mrs. Clapham
answered, suddenly crestfallen. “I’ve been that busy shaking hands
wi’ myself, I’ve had no time for nowt else.... But they’ll know I’ll
accept right enough,” she added, plucking up spirit. “Why ever should
I have axed for t’ house if I didn’t mean to take it?”
“Folks change their minds.”
“Happen they do!” The charwoman’s voice was slightly defiant.... “But
I shan’t change mine.”
“There’s never no telling, though, what may go and put you about.
What, I remember when Mary Taylor got t’ house next door to yours,
she went up to have a look at it, same as you, and when she come back
she wouldn’t have it whatever. She went up like when it was getting
dark, and she swore as she’d seen a coffin in t’ middle of t’ best
bed!”
“I shan’t change my mind for all t’ coffins in the kingdom!” Mrs.
Clapham’s voice rang out on a note that was almost fierce, and
perhaps because of its violence Emma coloured slowly. Even in her own
ears the charwoman’s voice sounded boastful and harsh, so that she
shrank a little and felt ashamed. All that morning she had thought of
herself as a somewhat splendid and interesting figure, but the sound
of that voice seemed to reduce her to the rough, red-armed worker who
stands as the prototype of her class. “I shan’t change—not me!” she
repeated, but less boldly, staring uneasily at her tormentor.
“I’m not saying you would,” Emma assured her quite peaceably. Her
plump hand pressed a trifle harder on the table, but her little
roundabout figure stood taut and straight.... “I’m not saying you
would. You’re the sort as goes right ahead when you’ve once started.
All the same, it might be just as well to drop t’ governors a line.
Even if folks don’t change their minds for themselves, there’s things
happen as changes ’em for ’em.”
“My! but you’re a regular croaker, Emma Catterall!” the other burst
out impatiently. “Whatever _should_ happen, I’d like to know....
Governors’ll never look for letters and suchlike from _me_” she went
on more temperately, and trying to laugh. “They’ll know well enough
I’ll be jumping out o’ my skin!”
Emma nodded again, as if in agreement, but her hand left the table
and wandered up to her waist. “There’s such things as politeness and
that, I suppose,” she reminded her gently; “but there, when all’s
said and done, you’ll know your own business best....”
Mrs. Clapham winced openly at the usual formula, though not, as it
happened, for the usual reason. She had always prided herself on
her excellent manners, and it was dreadful to be called to account
about them by Emma. Discourtesy, in any case, was simply not to be
thought of on her beautiful day. With a downcast face she turned to
throw a glance at the empty street, and behind her Emma’s arms slowly
unloosed and dropped, only to lift slowly and couple themselves
again....
“Ay, well, you’re likely right!” The big woman swung round again with
recovered spirits. “It does seem as if summat thankful ought to be
said. The worst of it is that I’m that bad with my pen! It’d ha’ been
as easy as wink if I’d had my Tibbie.”
“You’ll ha’ heard from Stephen’s wife lately, I reckon?” Emma
inquired casually, and again Mrs. Clapham winced. It was so like
Emma, that reaching out and laying a finger on your most precious
treasure.... “Nay, I haven’t heard for a goodish bit,” she answered
stiffly, looking away. “She’s always a good deal to do, what with her
job and her children an’ all.”
“Children take a deal o’ seeing to,” Emma agreed smoothly. “They’re
a deal o’ work. Nobody knows what having their hands full means till
they’ve one about.”
“I can’t say as I ever found my Tibbie much trouble!” Mrs. Clapham’s
tone was again defiant. “What, she could see to her buttons and tapes
nigh as soon as she could walk, and, as for her needle, she took to
it like a duck on a pond!”
“Ay, well, you see, mine was a lad....” Emma’s glance left her
neighbour’s face and rose to the mantelpiece, where Poor Stephen, in
khaki, looked from a silver frame. Mrs. Clapham’s glance followed
suit, and it seemed to her that the sad eyes shifted as the mother’s
gaze came up.... She had winced again at Emma’s last words, and begun
her usual rubbing of knees. In common with many women during the
Great War, she had felt ashamed of not owning a son to add to the
general loss. Stephen and Tibbie had done their best to make her feel
that Stephen was really hers, but there was no getting past the fact
that he was really Emma’s. Certainly, here in the gloomy room, where
the silver frame was the only thing that was polished and shone,
there was no disguising the knowledge that he was really Emma’s....
The latter, as if subconsciously aware of this recrudescence of
war-time shame, suddenly left the table and moved across to the
hearth. Reaching up for the photograph, she looked at it for a
moment, and then handed it to the visitor. Stephen’s mother-in-law
took it reverently, if reluctantly, feeling the silver setting smooth
and cool against her hand.
“You’ll happen not have seen Stephen’s last likeness,” Emma remarked
smugly, deliberately ignoring the fact that in all probability Mrs.
Clapham had one of her own. “It was took after he got his commission,
as you’ll see, and there’s none could look more of a gentleman, I’m
sure. His lordship come to see me after Stephen was killed, and he
was rarely taken with yon picture. ‘He’s the very spit and image of
you, Mrs. Catterall,’ says he, sitting there, wi’ t’ likeness in his
hand, same as it might be you. ‘The spit and image,’ he says, ‘and
right proud you must be to think as your face is one as the whole
British nation takes its hat off to, to-day!’ (T’ likeness was in t’
_Daily Sketch_, you’ll think on, and a deal more papers besides).
‘The only son of his mother, and her a widow!’ his lordship says
soft-like, and looking that grieved and kind.... Then I showed him
photo as Stephen’s wife sent of Stephen’s children, and I give you my
word he very near started to cry! ‘Stephen’ll never die as long as
them children are alive,’ says he. ‘What, the little lad’s that like
him it might be Stephen himself come back again from the dead!’”
Mrs. Clapham said nothing while the smooth voice held blandly on,
full of that strange something that always hinted but never spoke.
With the shining frame in her worn hands she sat staring at the
shadowed young face that she remembered so well. Her duplicate copy
at home had never risen to a frame, but when she took it out of its
drawer in the sunny kitchen it always seemed to her to smile. Here,
however, imprisoned a second time in the House of Pain, there was
no vestige of laughter on Poor Stephen’s lips. They were haunted
eyes that looked at her out of the costly frame, and that day by day
watched Emma stealing about the room. There was courage in the set
of the figure and the line of the shut mouth, but there was neither
exhilaration nor even hope. Over the whole printed presentment which
was all that the War had left, was the unmistakable stamp of his
unforgettable past.
“I thought happen you mightn’t have seen it.... You’ve not been near
me for so long....” Emma’s voice was still flowing smoothly from
hint to hint, gently conveying reproach for a wrong to a bereaved
mother (‘and her a widow’) which even a real live lordship had been
too human to commit. “There’s a deal of others besides ... some on
’em when he was a Tommy ... ay, and after he got his stripe ... ay,
and here’s one wi’ his platoon.” The Army terms came easily from her
lips, as they had come from so many mothers’ lips during the War, and
the woman who had had no son from whom to learn them felt a second
twinge of shame. “Here’s t’ card they sent for putting in winder to
say as your son had joined up; and this here’s what t’ Mothers’ Union
presented to them as had lost their lads.... Ay, and here’s Libby’s
and Stevie’s photos, as took his lordship so aback. I reckon there’s
no mistaking they’re Stephen Catterall’s barns.”
The little roundabout figure passed from spot to spot, handing the
precious objects to Mrs. Clapham, who received them silently, setting
them on her knee, and thinking, as many were thinking, now that the
War was done, how small were these relics of those terrible years.
Also she thought of what Emma did not know, that it was only after
a fight with herself that Tibbie had sent the pictures at all. As
for the offering from the Mothers’ Union, she knew very well what
the Vicar’s wife, who was its head, had had to say about _that_! She
could have laughed, even now, recalling Mrs. Wrench’s disgust when
faced with Emma’s name on that royal list.
Not that she really felt like laughing in the least, for every
minute that passed left her more troubled and ill at ease. There was
something so calculated about the whole conversation, the setting
forth of the relics, the deliberate exclusion of herself. Emma’s
methods made her feel self-conscious and yet stultified at the same
time, leaving her as they did no loophole for self-defence. From
Emma’s egotistical speech you would never have guessed that Mrs.
Clapham had anything to do with either Stephen or Stephen’s children;
not even, indeed, with Stephen’s widow. In the case of the children
the exclusion was made even more pointed by the continual dwelling
upon that unhappy likeness. It was perfectly true that in those sad
little photographs which Emma handled so gloatingly there wasn’t a
trace of Tibbie or Tibbie’s mother. All the love or the hatred in the
world couldn’t deny the stock from which they sprang. Undoubtedly
they were Emma’s grandchildren more than they were Mrs. Clapham’s,
and as the latter looked at them she was seized by doubt and almost
dislike. The spasm passed in a moment, however, leaving her penitent
and ashamed. She remembered their plaintive but sweet voices, their
shy but endearing ways; tricks of speech which, young as they were,
already showed their minds as far removed from Emma’s as the Poles.
It came to her, too, that it was a terrible thing to carry a likeness
to somebody you hated and feared, so that, no matter what you did, or
how far you happened to go, that somebody was always waiting for you
whenever you looked in a glass....
“Ay, children make a deal o’ difference in a house,” Emma reverted to
the original discussion. “Stephen’s wife won’t have that much time
for anything else. Not that she’ll mind the trouble, likely, any more
than me. I was always one for liking a child about the place.”
Mrs. Clapham’s flesh positively crept at the audacious, smooth-spoken
words. The colour sprang to her bent face. Once again she seemed to
see the pale-faced boy on the stair, and repelled the vision with
actual fright. More and more she was beginning to wonder what was the
purpose behind all this....
But at last Emma’s wholesale commandeering of everything that she
loved had aroused her to open resentment. “Ay, and me an’ all!” she
broke out sharply, yet remembering even in her vexation to handle
tenderly the relics of the War. “There’s nowt like coming home to
a child’s funny little ways. What, there’s times even yet I can’t
hardly believe I shan’t find Tibbie on t’ other side when I push the
door! Folks never forget as has once had a child about the spot, and
the older they grow the more like they are to think there was nowt to
match it.”
“That’s only just thinking back, though,” Emma replied, returning
each of the photographs to its place of woe. “Old folks can’t really
do with children in the flesh. They make a deal o’ work, as I said
just now, and old folks can’t do with that. They want their bit
o’ rest and quiet. You’d find a child real tiresome nowadays, Ann
Clapham.”
“Not me!” The charwoman flung out her answer with stout scorn. “I was
never one to mind a bit o’ noise at any time—nor work neither—and
shouldn’t now. I like to hear young things singing and shouting up
and down the world. Folks’s barns where I scrub near always look to
me for a bit of a lark. And I’m a long way from being an old body
yet, even though I’m not as young as I was!”
“You’ve aged a deal lately, though—ay, more than a deal!” Emma had
finished her setting of her sorrowful prisoners to rights, and was
now returned to her post at the table. (Would she _never_ sit? Mrs.
Clapham wondered exasperatedly.) “You’re not as lish on your feet for
one thing—I’ve noticed that. Think on how you kicked table-leg or
summat when you come in. And there’s a look about you I don’t like,
same as I’ve seen in a deal of folks as was quick took off. What,
there was one day I see you coming back from your job, I was feared
you’d drop down dead in the street! Walking dead lame you was, and
with your hand on your heart, and as for your face, what, it was the
colour o’ putty! I made sure I’d see doctor at your house afore so
long, and I was right surprised when he never come. You kept house
for a while, though, didn’t you?—ay, so I thought. There’s no denying
you were mortal bad.”
Again the smooth voice and the black eyes held Mrs. Clapham captive,
allowing her no point at which to speak; and again, as she listened,
she felt the old trouble at her tiresome heart, and was conscious of
the old grumble in her tiresome knee. She was ashamed, in any case,
on her beautiful day, to remember that other day of depression and
giving-up, but that Emma should know of it made her doubly ashamed.
She had forgotten, as she toiled miserably up the empty street, that
quite probably Emma would be watching her from some hidden place.
She said to herself that, if only she had known it at the time, she
would have got home somehow without giving herself away! The thing in
itself had been hard enough to bear, setting a dread in her life that
she would never afterwards escape; but it made her fear greater and
the wound deeper that Emma, of all people, should have seen her shame.
“Eh, well, folks all has their bad times,” she answered at last, in
a defiant tone that yet, in spite of her efforts, held a distinct
element of apology. “I don’t know what was the matter, I’m sure. A
touch o’ flu, likely—there was a deal about. Anyway, I got over it
mighty sharp,” she went on valiantly. “If you know so much, I reckon
you’ll know that! There’s not many can get through the work I can,
even now, and that’s the truth. As for kicking table and suchlike,
your spot is a bit dark, Emma, coming out of the sun.”
“Seems like as if there might be summat amiss with your eyes,” was
all Emma’s response to this, fixing her with her own beady, black
orbs which looked as if they would last to the Judgment and beyond.
“It’s queer how folks don’t always notice when they’re breaking up.
I’ve known some on ’em go on exactly the same for years and years,
and then all of a sudden stop like a clock. There was Mr. Perry,
you’ll think on, reading lessons on Sunday evening as throng as a
laying hen, and almost before you could speak he was going about with
a stick and a dog. Then there was that fine, big Mrs. Chell, much the
same build as you, dancing as light as a bubbly-jock at the Farmers’
Ball, and next day stiff as a board. Nay, when folks is most certain,
yon’s the time to look out; so don’t get boasting, Ann Clapham, for
fear of a judgment.”
“Nay, but I’m not boasting—nowt o’ the sort!” The charwoman’s hands,
at work again on her knees, actually threatened to rub a hole in the
good black gown. “I’ve never been one to get above myself and I’m not
now. I’m just thankful, that’s all—cheerful and thankful I’m so fit
and well.”
“Ay, well, don’t think so much about it, that’s all I’m meaning to
say. Don’t count on it overmuch. What, you’d never have put in for
yon almshouse if you hadn’t felt you was done!”
“I put in for it because I’d earned it—not because I was wore out!”
Mrs. Clapham’s face was almost purple, and her hands worked like a
rubbing-machine. The suggestion was intolerable to her that she was
something come to an end, a finished, miserable object creeping into
a hole. Again she forgot that she had ever felt that she couldn’t go
on ... forgot that Emma had seen her when she felt she couldn’t go
on.... “I might be a broken-kneed bus-horse, the way you talk!” she
concluded with an attempt at humour, though with all her fighting
spirit aroused by the assumption that she was no longer worth her
salt.
Rather to her surprise, however, Emma retired from battle on this
particular point.
“Ay, you’ve earned it, that’s true,” she answered amiably, and almost
eagerly, “and I’m sure I hope you’ll be right happy! I only meant it
was lucky you hadn’t to go on with your job. Likely you’ll live to be
ninety when you get up to yon house.”
“There’ll be a deal of folk put about if I hang on to it till then!”
Mrs. Clapham chuckled, her natural good temper responding at once to
the other’s change of tone. “I don’t know as it’d be quite nice to
go on filling up charity-houses as long as that.... But it grubs me
a bit, you piling it on as I’m over old for my job. Come to that,
you’re only four or five year younger yourself!”
“I’ve had a deal easier life, though,” Emma returned, in the same
unprovocative tone, “a deal easier, you’ll think on. I’ve never had
to do a hand’s turn for anybody but my own. You was in service ten
year or more afore you was wed, and then, after Jonty died, you took
to this job. Things has been a deal softer for me than that; and then
I’ve my bit of brass. I’ve good health, too—wonderful good health.
Doctor says I’m as sound as a bell.”
“You look it, I’m sure!” Mrs. Clapham agreed as politely as she
could, conscious as she was of a painfully jealous grudge. Emma had
done her best to make her feel that she was done, and now she was
boasting of her own good health! At all events, she would go out
of Emma’s feeling a great deal older than when she came in; might,
indeed, have to be carried out, if she stayed much longer! Her
nerves were all to pieces, as it was; there were moments when she
even wanted to scream. It was absurd, of course, seeing she could so
easily get away; but then the trouble about Emma’s was that it sapped
your courage for getting away....
But again she was visited by the vision on the stair, and again it
flustered her into action. She got to her feet hastily, feeling as
if in that dark house the night was already near, and that while
she chattered and dallied her day had already passed. “I’d best be
getting on; time’s going by,” she explained, edging her way to the
door. “It’s a step to the almshouses, you’ll think on, and a bit of a
pull an’ all.”
Emma, however, made no attempt to move, and in some mysterious manner
her complete immobility had the effect of arresting the other’s
progress. “What way did you think o’ taking?” she inquired coolly.
“By t’ Post Office, or through the fields?”
“Nay, what, I hadn’t thought about it, I’m sure!” Mrs. Clapham’s
voice was suddenly wholly joyous, as if even the question was a
sort of release. “Likely I’ll choose t’ fields,” she added quickly;
“they’ll be nice and fresh. Were you wanting anything at Post Office,
by any chance?”
“Me?” Emma’s eyebrows rose to a great height above her beady eyes.
Her arms were clamped like iron across her waist.... “Nay, not I. I
was just curious-like, that’s all.”
“We haven’t much use for Post Offices, you and me!” Mrs. Clapham
chuckled amiably, able even to bracket herself with Emma, in the
sheer delight of getting away. “Not but what I must get a letter off
to Tibbie, one o’ these days, to tell her of my luck.”
Thinking about the letter to Tibbie, she did not notice the deep
flush which came into Emma’s face, creeping all over it from the
roots of her dark hair to the collarband on her short neck. Her
voice, however, reached her calmly and unemotionally.
“Ay, she’ll think it a rare piece o’ news, I don’t doubt. Likely
she’ll feel, same as me, as it’s time you gave up your job. But
think on about letter to the Committee, while you’re about it.
T’other to Stephen’s wife can wait.”
“Ay, I’ll think on!” Mrs. Clapham pulled a wry face, sighed, and
then laughed. She moved on again, sailing with her air of a great
ship towards the kitchen door, but spoiling the effect by kicking
the dresser as she passed. “Eh, now, if I’m not clumsy!” she laughed
ruefully, over her shoulder. “Likely you’re right, and I’m getting
blind or a bit daft!”
At last she was on the landing again, with her hand reached to the
outside latch, and Emma—who seemed not so much to have moved as
simply to have faded from one spot to another—a yard or two behind.
And as they paused before speaking their final words, friends
to all outward seeming and yet enemies to the bone, the single
note of a bell was struck from the church-tower. Instantly Emma
crumpled sideways against the wall, her face twisted, her eyes wide.
“Passing-bell!” she contrived to get out in a choked voice.
Mrs. Clapham’s own heart gave a violent jump, and she threw up the
latch quickly and opened the door. The next moment she broke into a
relieved laugh as the bells crashed into a peal of joy.
“Passing-bell!” she jeered kindly at the disgruntled Emma. “What,
them there’s Miss Marigold’s wedding-bells, that’s all! She’s getting
herself wed in London to-day, if you’ll think on.... Ay, and look ye!
They’re gettin’ t’ flag up on t’ tower an’ all!”
The bells thundered and pealed as she went slowly down the steps,
looking up at the bright flag above the clean grey stone of the
tower. An extraordinary sense of happiness seized upon her as she
came out again into the sunny day. It seemed to her at that moment
that it was for her and not for Miss Marigold that the flag had been
run up; that it was of her happiness and enrichment the bells were
telling their tale....
“I never could abide t’ death-bell!” Emma was explaining smoothly,
upright and composed again, from the shadow behind. “Likely I had a
fright along of it when I was a child. I’ve felt a deal worse about
it an’ all since my poor lad was killed in France.”
“Come to that, it give me a bit of a turn myself!” Mrs. Clapham
laughed, descending the last step. “I don’t know as I’d ha’ liked to
hear t’ death-bell to-day. It’d ha’ seemed for all the world as if it
was bringing me bad luck!”
She threw a nod of farewell towards the shadow which she believed
to contain Emma, and set herself to the hill and so to the short
cut across the fields. All the way behind her as she went the bells
clanged and clamoured Miss Marigold’s joy, and Mrs. Clapham smiled
as she listened to them, and then wept as well, because of that note
of finality in the wedding-peal which is almost all that the married
woman hears. The passion of its rejoicing speaks so vehemently of
something brought to an end, a road closed, a door shut, a sharp
cutting as with a knife. The joy of the wedding-peal must needs
be emphatic and loud, because it is a joy that demands utter
fearlessness if it is to remain joy at all. So across the fields Mrs.
Clapham went smiling and weeping, but especially weeping, shedding
the tears of all mothers for the end of the road of youth....
PART III
THE TEMPLE
CHAPTER I
She drew great breaths of relief as she made her way through the
fields, treading the little worn paths between the sloping stretches
of green. Between the warm fastnesses of the hedges she felt
sheltered, but not cramped—those close coverts of life which wore so
rich and crowded a look. The bright line of the sky barring the tops
to the west told her that very soon she would see the sea. Indeed,
the broad, lifted, lightened sense which belongs to a coast was not
only in the look of things but in the feel. There was a thrill in the
air as of something running towards freedom of breath and limb. The
very land itself seemed to rush onwards rejoicing to its escape.
Unpleasant as the experience had been, she could almost have found
it in her heart to be glad of the “little chat,” because the walk
through the fields seemed so gracious by sheer contrast. Like most
country women, she very seldom walked for walking’s sake, merely
going mechanically wherever necessity happened to take her. But she
appreciated the country well enough when she had time to look at
it, and if she did not think of it very often it was because it was
always there. To-day, however, there was something almost poignant
about coming out of Emma’s cave into this sweet openness and spacious
peace. It was almost like leaving a prison to walk direct out of the
house that was Emma Catterall’s mind into this wide and wonderful
house that was the Mind of God Himself.
As she went along, with the bells clashing and clanging behind her
back, she tried to shed all those thoughts of Emma which tugged at
her brain like spiked brambles at a skirt. Indeed, it seemed to her,
after a while, as she got further away and higher, that she shed
not only Emma, but the whole of the village as well. Up here in the
clean fields she seemed alone in a new world, with nothing of any
importance but the free road to her desire.
But before she reached that desirable point her mind had still a
good deal to say about Emma and Emma’s detestable behaviour. There
had been times, indeed, when she had felt as if it were Emma’s “day”
instead of her own, so completely had Emma contrived to pervade it!
Yet there seemed no possible reason why she should have chosen to
take a hand in passing events. All her proceedings had been puzzling
in the extreme, and none of them more inexplicable than the “little
chat.” Neither her natural intuition nor the shrewdness induced by a
long and strenuous life had been able to provide Mrs. Clapham with a
clue to her neighbour’s purpose. Emma had depressed her, of course,
made her feel ill-tempered and ill-behaved, reminded her that she
hadn’t a son, and—almost, indeed!—that she hadn’t a daughter! But
all that, after all, was only just what she knew to be Emma, that
mixture of stabbing and subtle suggestion which represented her queer
character. It did not account for the “little chat.” Possibly she had
meant nothing more than to make herself thoroughly nasty, to roll a
log, as it were, in the way of a march past. But there was more than
one point in the recent talk which this explanation did not cover,
such as the troublesome letter to the Committee. Mrs. Clapham still
felt more than a little heated upon this particular subject. It would
be strange indeed if, at her time of life, she had to begin learning
manners from Emma!
At one of the stiles she encountered a young soldier, wearing the
khaki which was still to be seen about the country, and he stood on
one side to let her through. Like most stiles, however, it was meant
for the young and slim, and presently, as she struggled and chuckled,
he put out his hand and gave her a pull. “You look mighty pleased
with yourself, mother,” he commented, as she squeezed past. “That’s a
wedding-peal they’re ringing there, isn’t it? Have you been getting
wed?”
The remark struck her in her happy mood as a very jewel of humour.
“Better than that!” she chuckled, still panting but full of smiles.
“I’ve finished wi’ that a long while back. It’s a deal better than
that!”
“Well, good luck to it, whatever it is!” he wished her, springing
over the stile, and as he went on his way again she heard him begin
to whistle. He had a thin, dark face that reminded her of Poor
Stephen, stamped with that strained, sleepless look which was the
legacy of the War. He had not been whistling when they met, but he
was whistling now, as if the very sight of a creature so happy had
somehow made him feel happy, too. It was not a loud whistle, indeed,
not the noisy, almost unconscious whistle of thoughtless youth.
It was rather hesitating and wistful, a little doubtful, a little
afraid. It was not the full note that almost deafens the ear when the
earth is at last the birds’; it was the first ripple of robin’s song
when the year is on the turn.
The sight of the haunted face that bore such a likeness to Poor
Stephen set her thinking again of the sad photograph in his mother’s
room. Absurd as it seemed now, she had felt, at the time, as if it
had wished her to take it away. Yet most people going in—people like
his lordship, for instance—and seeing it in its silver frame, would
never doubt for a moment that Emma had loved her son. They would
take off their hats, as it were, to her glory and grief. Even if you
had told them the truth, and with an army of witnesses at your back,
they would still have averred that at least Emma was sorry now. Yet
nobody who had known her as Mrs. Clapham had known her would believe
that it was possible for her to be really sorry. It was true that
Mrs. Tanner had hinted at some such possibility only that morning,
but she herself would be the first to say that she had meant nothing
by it. As for the charwoman, whose love for her only child was as
crystal-clear as running water, she could see nothing that looked
even remotely like love in the sorrowing Emma. She was not the only
one, of course, who had been puzzled of late by the queer psychology
of war-time love. So much of it seemed to be merely clutching and
coarse, as if it was the body that mattered and not the soul. Emma,
indeed, seemed to be still clutching at Stephen even after his
body was gone, and not only clutching at Stephen but his widow and
children as well....
She met nobody else while she was crossing the fields, and presently
even the young soldier who was so like Stephen became fused with him
in her mind, so that she thought of him by the end as no more than
a photograph or a ghost. The sense of poverty and humiliation which
had so oppressed her in Emma’s left her completely now she was in the
open. Indeed, she seemed to herself to grow bigger and more important
with every step, and as if the very cattle grazing on either side
were there merely to pay her tribute. The birds sang for her, the
flowers grew for her, the long slopes of grass were green. She was
the fortunate being whom the gods had decided to bless, and as such
she loomed large as the broad universe and high as the tall sky.
Both consciously and unconsciously she was drinking it all in,
knowing that never again would she feel like this. Never again would
the earth seem so wholly hers, set as a background for her personal
joy. Never again would she loom so large, or tread so buoyantly with
royal feet. This was the perfect day of her whole life, and she
could not expect to have it repeated. Perhaps on some fine September
evening a touch of the ecstasy might return, but though it would
always be thrilling, it could never be quite the same. It would be
looking back on the beautiful moment instead of living it, breathing
it in. No power on earth could bring her the actual moment back. By
that time it would have receded among those memories of life which
lie bathed in a golden light, but which, lovely and comforting though
they be, lack the magic grip of the great hour.
Yet, just ever so small a twist of Fate’s easily-twirled wheel, and
all the wonder and beauty might have fallen to Martha Jane! Things
_did_ happen like that, as she knew very well, impossible as it
seemed to her at the present moment. The crown _did_ fall on the
wrong head, the sceptre thrust itself obstinately into the wrong
hand. Now that she realised the supreme greatness of the occasion,
Mrs. Clapham could not help feeling innocently thankful that it had
not been wasted on Martha Jane. Not that it _could_ have been, of
course—not by her newly proved rightness of things—she recognised
that. What seemed more than a little strange, looking back, was that
Martha Jane should not have recognised it too.
Not that Martha Jane, if for some reason the gods had chanced to see
crooked for once, would not have recognised the occasion _as_ an
occasion. The trouble would have lain in her method of dealing with
it. She would have been pleased, of course, and even grateful after
her fashion; but it would not have been a very delicate fashion.
Martha Jane, to put it vulgarly, would have made a beano of it. She
would have had a crowd about her at once, not only outside the house
but also within, a slatternly, noisy crowd, as loose and degenerate
as herself. Men would have looked in to drop her a ribald word of
congratulation; grinning boys and inquisitive girls hung with cocked
ears about the sill. And when finally she had set out to look at
the house she would not have been alone, as Mrs. Clapham was alone;
so much alone that even a passing soldier had turned to a photograph
or a ghost. Some of her own sort would have been with her, without
doubt, slovenly, down-at-heel, loose-moraled, loose-tongued. Their
loud laughter over the fields would have startled the grazing
cattle and fluttered the tranquil birds. Meeting the young soldier,
they would have stopped to tell him the news, so that the current
of beano-mirth would have caught and gathered him in. Would he
still have been made happy, the charwoman wondered, by the blatant
happiness of Martha Jane? Would he still have whistled his little
tune when he had left them and gone on?
As for the house itself, awakened from sleep by the noisy crew, she
hardly dared bring herself even to think of it. Suddenly it would
have heard them passing from room to room, those still-sacred rooms
from which death had so recently gone out. Gradually the neighbours
would have run to listen and look; passers-by pause in the road or
come to lean on the little gate; until presently, by the end of the
day which should have been all beauty and peace, Martha Jane would
have made a cheap-jack booth of Ann Clapham’s House of Dreams....
The wedding-bells came to a lingering close as she got to the last
stile, sliding, after a last, almost subdued peal, into a cadence of
three notes, as if neither ringers nor ringing were able to stop; and
followed, just when the ear had become perfectly sure of the end,
by the single note that had frightened Emma. The tiny pause gave it
both a purposeful and an accidental sound, and in both cases seemed
to set it apart in meaning. It seemed somehow to leave the whole peal
hanging in mid-air, and yet it had nothing to do with the peal at
all. It was like a word spoken at a song’s end, that had nothing to
do with the finished song, but was quickly and firmly beginning a
new....
Presently, however, the long stream of vibrations had shredded itself
away, and into the air came that sense of completion and rest which
the single bell had seemed to deny. Mrs. Clapham paused at the stile
under the same rush of feeling at the cessation of the bells as had
seized upon her when they first started. “Over ... it’s all over
... it’s all over....” The silence seemed to say that even more
poignantly than the sound.... The ringers would be paid for their
work to-day, but when they had rung for Tibbie, they had rung for
love. Tibbie’s mother had wept for Tibbie as well when she heard the
bells, because for her, as for Miss Marigold, it was “all over.” It
came to her suddenly that, in all probability, there would never be
any bells either for Tibbie or Miss Marigold again, until that last
slow-speaking bell of all which loved and unloved share alike....
CHAPTER II
There was no young soldier to tug her through the last stile, but
she would have got the better of it even if she had had to climb it,
for on the far side lay the long, white hill which was topped by the
House of Dreams. Nearly topped, that is, for the almshouses, in point
of fact, although close to the summit, were also under the slope. No
really lovable house is ever set precisely on the top of a hill, for
the winds to jostle on every side. The true house nestles a little
against the arm of the land, high enough to look out, and yet low
enough to be warm and safe.
The four houses, indeed, were sheltered on three sides, for north and
west ran a spur of hill rimmed by ranks of larch; while on the far
side of the road raised fields protected them on the east. But south
and south-west the land dropped away before them until it reached the
village, so that, looking across the roofs, you could see the park
with its wooded hill, the long lines of the marsh, the sands, and the
distant sea.
Houses, like folk, age quickly in the rigorous north, and these
had already acquired the stamp of time. Already they had become
part of the landscape in which they stood, had struck their roots
downward until they seemed to grow. Their good grey stone was thickly
creepered in parts, and the gardens had already arrived at the real
garden repose. The sun, which had gone before to make ready for Mrs.
Clapham, was standing steadily over the scene, showing the autumn
flowers brilliant about the walls, vivid almost as jewels against the
softer colours of the land around. There was an amazing freshness
about it all, something delightfully clear and clean. It seemed as if
a wind that was salt and yet soft must always be blowing on Hermitage
Hill.
Now that she actually saw the house standing above her, it seemed
impossible that it could be hers, easy as it had been to believe when
it was only a picture in her mind. Seized by a fear that it might
suddenly vanish, she set off towards it with such ardour that she
nearly finished the climb in a dead faint, reaching her goal just in
time to cling thankfully to the iron railings. She stood there for a
little while, with the house heaving and blurring before her eyes,
and then stumbled uncertainly through the gate and knocked feebly at
Mrs. Bell’s.
The latter, who had noted her approach through the holes of a lace
curtain upstairs, allowed a decent interval to elapse, and then
appeared with an air of surprise.
“Eh, now, Mrs. Clapham, that’s never you!” she began elaborately,
lifting her hands, but stopped her acting at once when she saw the
other’s exhaustion. “Come in ... come in ... you look real done
up!...” She bustled her anxiously into the kitchen. “What in the name
o’ fortune fetched you up so fast?”
“I was that keen to get here!” the charwoman acknowledged,
half-laughing and half-crying, and thoroughly thankful to get her
cotton-wool legs to a place of rest. “You’ll have heard they’ve
given me t’ house?” she gasped presently, taking out a large white
pocket-handkerchief and wiping her face. “I’m right anxious to have a
look at it, and they said as you’d have t’ key.”
“Them as comes up the hill fastest like enough goes down it soonest!”
Mrs. Bell observed grimly, ignoring the key, and speaking with the
wisdom of one who had seen many cheerful acquirers of the house
descend the hill again much less cheerfully—in coffins. She was
the oldest tenant—by tenure—at the moment, and prided herself
accordingly. “Not but what it’ll be a long time before your turn
comes,” she added graciously, having made her point; “that is,
as long as any of us can hope to look for. Folks on pensions and
suchlike live for ever, they say—leastways, that’s what _they_ say as
has the gift o’ the pensions—but I can’t say it’s been my experience.
I’ve seen a ter’ble lot o’ coming and going in my time up here;
in at one door and out at t’ other it’s been, so to speak. What,
there’s been whiles when I haven’t even rightly known what folks was
called, until I’d read their names on their tombstones after they was
gone!”... She paused for appreciation, which the visitor supplied
weakly.... “Ay, we heard as you’d got t’ house,” she continued,
condescending to answer at last. “Mr. Allen the butcher got it from
Mrs. Walls—her as is office-cleaner for that Baines.”
“Mr. Baines sent a note by his little girl....” Mrs. Clapham
contrived to sit up, and began a shaky but lengthy account of the
great event. Mrs. Bell, at least, looked as though she would live for
ever, she thought to herself, surveying the wiry old woman in her
multitudinous clothes. “Meeting was yesterday, as you’ll likely know,
and Mr. Baines sent word to-day.”
“Ay, well, I don’t doubt you’ve as much right to it as most,”
Mrs. Bell assured her patronisingly, for all the world as if the
disposal of the almshouses were actually in her gift. “I don’t know
as we could have gone past you, taking it all in all. Me and Mrs.
Bendrigg and Mrs. Cann have been talking it over, and we come to the
conclusion as we couldn’t have done better.”
The recipient of this extreme favour responded with a grateful beam.
“You’ll find me decent enough as a neighbour, I reckon, even though
I says it as shouldn’t. I like a bit of a chat now and then, but
I’m not hasty with my tongue. I’m not above doing a hand’s turn for
others, neither. I don’t think you’ll find me bad to do with, taking
me all round.”
“Nay, I don’t doubt but what we’ll get along grand.” Mrs. Bell
permitted herself the ghost of an approving smile, pleased to find
that the new-comer was obviously taking things in the right spirit.
“Me and Mrs. Bendrigg and Mrs. Cann—we’ve all settled as you’ll
do. But we’re mighty particular up here, all the same,” she added
hastily, as if fearful of being too lenient. “We’ve a right to be,
come to that, being folks _chosen_, as you might say. For instance,
we don’t hold wi’ being out after ten o’clock——”
“Nay, what, I’ll be in my bed by nine!” Mrs. Clapham interjected
quickly.
“—Or having over many callers——”
“I don’t look for a great deal.”
“—Or taking on followers or suchlike rubbish——”
Mrs. Clapham began to chuckle at that, partly involuntarily, and
partly from a desire to please, but stopped hurriedly when she
discovered that the remark had not been meant for a joke.
“Not that there’s many rules of any kind,” Mrs. Bell continued,
ignoring her mistake; “not, that is, as was framed by old Mr. T.
There’s no children allowed, of course, and we have to be right
strict about not using t’ wash-house out of our turn. But there’s one
or two customs and suchlike as has kind of grown up among ourselves.
For instance, we’ve a sort o’ rule not to go popping over often into
each other’s spots. (Nay, I can’t tell you _how_ often _too_ often
is; you must bide and see for yourself.) Not to borrow overmuch
from other folks, neither—I’ve seen a deal o’ bad blood come o’
that. Not to be peering at other folks’ gardens to see if they’re
shaping better than ourn, or to take up more o’ the man’s time than
our rightful share. Not to go setting t’ kitchen chimbly afire, or
chattin’ to people out in the road——”
“I don’t fancy I’ll give any trouble over any o’ them things,” Mrs.
Clapham put in, feeling she simply couldn’t stand another sentence
just then that began with the word “not.” It was just Mrs. Bell’s
way, she was saying diligently to herself, and she must do her best
not to mind it. Nearly everybody had their “way,” which you had to
poke through before you discovered the person underneath. When she
had succeeded in poking through Mrs. Bell’s, they would no doubt
get on like smoke. Martha Jane, though, would never have understood
Mrs. Bell’s peculiar “way,” and it was more than certain that Mrs.
Bell would never have understood Martha Jane’s. In the safety of
possession Mrs. Clapham could afford to chuckle at the thought of
Martha Jane faced with these various ordinances—Martha Jane, who
never bought anything she could manage to borrow, who was throng as
a magpie about other people’s affairs, and was always idling and
chattering out in the street!
“Nay, you’ll find me easy enough to do with,” she hastened to affirm
again, fearful that Mrs. Bell might fish up another rule. “I’ve had
a pretty hard life, one way and another, and all I’m asking for is a
bit o’ quiet. It’ll be summat new for me to find myself with only my
own spot to see to, and such a handsome-like spot at that!”
She looked admiringly, as she spoke, round the cosy little kitchen
with its excellent furniture and sensible grate, and its owner had to
repress a quiver of pride before producing the requisite sniff.
“They’re well enough as they go,” she replied loftily, “though I’m
not saying they haven’t their drawbacks. Seems to me they might have
made the rooms bigger while they was about it, and put in a deal more
cupboards and shelves. Furniture’s right enough, I suppose, though I
don’t hold with oak myself. Mahogany’s a deal more tasty,” Mrs. Bell
finished, with her nose in the air; “but there, you couldn’t expect
an old gentleman to go thinking o’ things like that!”
“Ay, but that’s just what he _did_ think about!” Mrs. Clapham
defended him stoutly, hurt by this callous assessing of the old
man’s gift. “I was at his Lancashire place more than once, and, my
goodness, but wasn’t it grand! And he took every bit as much pains
wi’ these spots as he ever did with his own. I reckon he chose oak
for t’ houses because he thought it would last.”
“Ay, but fashions change, even in almshouses,” Mrs. Bell observed,
truthfully enough, and with a sententious air. “I don’t say they
won’t last our time. I don’t say they’re not good enough for you and
me. But it’s queer to me, all the same, if the folks as come after
don’t want summat a sight different!”
“Ah, well, they’ll do _me_ all right, and a bit over!” Mrs. Clapham
laughed, getting ready for stirring. Her heart had settled back into
its usual stride, and her legs felt really like legs, instead of
bundles of cotton-wool. “I’ll best be moving on again, though I’ve
been glad of the rest. Happen you’ll be kind enough to give me the
key.”
Mrs. Bell moved reluctantly to the mantelpiece, and from a large
canister extracted a small doorkey with a dangling label. As the
oldest tenant she had charge of the keys whenever the houses fell
vacant, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that she could
bring herself to hand them over.
“I hardly reckoned on you being up so soon,” she remarked rather
crossly, and still retaining the key. “Folks don’t always come
the first day; I don’t know why, I’m sure. Happen they don’t care
that much, or they feel a bit delicate-like about claiming their
rights.... Not but what you can do as you choose,” she added
quickly, as the charwoman flushed, “so don’t go thinking I mean to be
nasty.”
“I just _had_ to come!” the other answered, almost apologetically.
She was now on her newly-restored legs, and drawing nearer the
precious key. “Come to that, the house has been mine a sight o’
years, after a manner o’ speaking!” she finished, with spirit. “And
anyway, I can’t rest till I’ve seen about getting it cleaned.”
“Nay, what, you’ll find it clean enough, if that’s all!” Mrs. Bell
exclaimed eagerly, moving the key further out of her reach. “When
anybody dies, the governors always has it done special.”
“Not what _I_ call clean!”... Mrs. Clapham’s voice was regal and her
head went up in the air. Her tone was that of the recognised artist,
whose dictum on his own subject is beyond dispute. “Governors mean
well enough by it, I don’t doubt,” she admitted kindly, “but it’ll be
mighty queer, all the same, if it’s clean enough to suit _me_!”
She held out her hand firmly, but her hostess still clung to the dear
possession. “Ay, well, then, I’d best come and show you round,” was
her last desperate expedient; but Mrs. Clapham would have none of
that, either.
“I’d rather go by myself,” she told her amiably, but in the same
indisputable tone. “You’re right good, I’m sure, and I’m hoping as
we’ll be friends; but I think when I first see t’ house, I’d like
best to see it alone.”
She extended her hand further, and after a pause the other laid the
key in her palm, much as if she were handing over the keys of some
beleaguered city. She was a trifle offended, as the charwoman had
expected, and she was also decidedly disappointed. Showing the new
tenant over her own house would have fanned for a while the flicker
of dying importance. But she was aware that Mrs. Clapham came with
testimonials that couldn’t be bettered, and she was also impressed by
the fact that she had known old Mr. T. And in spite of herself she
was impressed by her royal attitude towards the cleaning. The layman
gets the better of the artist in four cases out of five, but this
happened to be the fifth.
“Ay, well, it’s your own affair, after all,” she replied, at length,
with a touch of dignity, but nothing worse. The speech, however, was
too reminiscent of Emma to be perfectly pleasant, and the visitor
winced. Later, thinking things over, it seemed to her strange that
she should more than once have noticed this echo of Emma in the
totally different Mrs. Bell. It was as if the grip of Emma’s mind
upon hers had been working silently even here, making the same subtle
demand upon her that it had made insidiously all day....
“You’ll drop in again, though, for a cup o’ tea?” Mrs. Bell, still
loth to lose sight of the treasure, followed both it and its owner to
the door. “Eh, but the folks I’ve seen walking away with that very
same key! First was Mrs. Wells, as went and died of cancer the very
next year; and then Mrs. Saddleback, as broke her leg in the first
week. Then there was Mrs. Green ... nay, likely, ’twas Mrs. Brown.
Ter’ble bad neighbour she was an’ all ... nay, likely, ’twas Mrs.
Green....”
Mrs. Clapham had withdrawn herself now, with the skill of her class,
but Mrs. Bell was still at her heels. “Then there was Mrs. Phipps,”
she was saying lustily, “her as is just gone. A right good soul she
was an’ all, barring that she was a bit cracked. Still, there’s folks
_do_ say as when them dies as has lost their minds, it’s happen only
the body as gets took away, and the mind, happen, stays behind....
“I don’t reckon it’ll do me much harm if it has!” Mrs. Clapham threw
at her cheerfully, as she hurried away. “I’ll just have a look round
and see what’s what; and if you can spare me a cup o’ tea, I’ll be
right glad of it when I’m through.”
She left Mrs. Bell still looking longingly after the key, and,
turning the corner, arrived at her own door. Michaelmas daisies and
asters lined the flagged path at either side, purple, clean-coloured
faces not yet touched by the frost; but beside the door itself was
what she knew to be a flowering currant, that first flambeau of glory
which Nature flings to us in the Spring. She had wanted one all her
life, and here was one set for her at her very door. When it flowered
again in the Spring it would be just as if old Mr. T. had made her
a personal present. More than ever it seemed to her as if the whole
thing were emphatically “meant.”
With a shaking hand she inserted the key. It turned smoothly and
kindly with a welcoming click....
CHAPTER III
She drew in a long breath as she slowly opened the door, feeling for
that which was waiting for her on the other side. Then slowly she
let it out again with a sense of blissful relief. The house was a
little close through having been shut up, but it smelt friendly and
it smelt clean. The soul of a house is in its own peculiar smell, and
certain people can no more live with certain house-smells than with
a disagreeable flower. Mrs. Clapham, however, smelt the soul of this
house, and knew that it was all right. Before long, indeed, the house
would have a different smell—the smell of soap and furniture polish
and recently scrubbed boards which followed Ann Clapham about as the
scent follows the rose; but it would be only a surface smell, after
all. Under it the smell that was the soul of the house would continue
to rise and fall, the soul which reached out to her a welcoming hand,
and murmured and crooned to her as she went in.
She let the door slip to its place, and it shut behind her with a
second click. Now she was all alone in her own house.... Whether she
turned to right or left of the little hall the rooms were hers, and
when she went up the little stair the rooms upstairs would be hers,
too. Now she knew for a fact that all life had just been a leading-up
to this. At last she was in the temple to which she had climbed so
long, and which had waited there steadfast until she was able to
come....
She went first into the kitchen, as befitted her practical mind,
but also because in the kitchen she would know definitely whether
the smell of the house-soul was all right. But the neat, pleasant
kitchen yielded nothing that could possibly disturb either nose or
eye. It had been lived in, obviously, but it had not been neglected.
Some of the furniture was a little worn, but it was furniture
that was all the better for being worn. She could hardly contain
her delight at sight of the closed range, the handy pot-rails and
cupboards, the stout dresser and strong chairs. She laid an awed
touch upon spoons and forks, on dishes and plates, and stood back to
gaze through excited tears at the pans shelf-high on the coloured
wall. It seemed to her, as she passed enraptured from find to find,
that she would never want anything more as long as she lived.
As she moved about, crying and smiling, giving little sobs of
excitement and gasping—“Eh, did you ever now!” and “Eh, now! look
at _them_!” she became ever more thankful that she had succeeded in
staving off Mrs. Bell. She could never have let herself go in that
carping and sniffing presence, and half the pleasure consisted in
letting herself go. Alone with the house, she could be as undignified
as she chose; the house did not mind—the homely, welcoming house. In
the thrill of the moment it seemed to her like a September-time Santa
Claus, with herself, no more than a little child again, laughing and
crying like a child....
It was like old Mr. T. to have seen to it that the kitchen had a
wooden floor, and an elegant block floor of the best pitch-pine at
that. He knew how warm and easy it would be to aging feet, how smart
to the eye, and how simple to keep clean. It was like him, too, to
have ordered thick curtains for the window facing the sea, knowing
what draughts would come sweeping in when the gales were at their
height. But no matter where she turned she found continual witness to
his careful thought. There were a hundred practical details in which
she recognised his mind—the mind of the Lancashire business-man who
did well whatever he touched.
It was like the other side of him, too, Mrs. Clapham thought, peeping
at last into the parlour, to have provided a room like this for the
tenant’s pride. There were people who said that poor folks didn’t
need a parlour, but of course they couldn’t have understood what
it really meant. Old Mr. T., however, had understood, although you
couldn’t have driven him into his own beautiful drawing-room even
with whips. He knew that a parlour was a kind of private church,
where you locked up the things that were precious to you, and went
away happy because they were safe. So he had always insisted upon a
parlour in each of his houses, though he took care to make it the
right size; not too big so that it would mean worry and work, and yet
more than sufficiently big to hold treasures and dreams.
With an almost hushed step she went open-eyed round the room, laying
a light finger upon tables and chairs, and stooping reverently to
feel the pile of the carpet. There were ornaments and lace curtains,
pictures, a “best” tea-set in the cupboard; but she did not dwell on
them for very long. The parlour would need hours of worship all to
itself, and she could not possibly spare them now. Coming out, she
found a last touch of the “parlour” side of old Mr. T. in the white
china handle and finger-plate of the parlour door. She had a really
helpful cry out when she noticed these, sobbing contentedly against
the wall.
Curiosity, however, soon got the uppermost of emotion, and presently,
feeling very much better, she set off upstairs. The stair-carpet was
not down, she was glad to see, for the third time that day feeling
her hands itching for brush and pail. The stairs themselves were just
the right width and depth for shaky old feet, and there were knobs
on the rail to which, on occasion, feeble old hands might cling. A
window at the turn prevented the staircase from being dark, and at
the same time satisfied a deep-seated human need by allowing a peep
at a neighbour’s affairs. There was an oak press on the landing, and
a grandfather’s clock, and the little brass handles of the doors
shone to greet her like lumps of gold.
She chose for herself the bedroom that looked out towards the sea,
and then wept again when she was in that, although for a totally
different reason. Ann Clapham had not found herself missing her
husband for years upon years, but quite unexpectedly she missed him
now. He had died so soon that it was hard to remember that he had
ever happened; and although she had been fond of him while he was
there—a quiet, pleasant man who contrived to be humorous whilst
saying little or nothing—he had not left much of a blank when he went
away. Even the wedding-bells of to-day had recalled Tibbie’s wedding
rather than her own; but now, coming into a strange house, as she had
done on her marriage, she looked instinctively for the departed Jonty.
But it was not easy to see him at first when she found herself
looking back, because he had receded so far into the eternal
distance. She had to forget that she was old before she could see
him at all, forget her wrinkles and her white hair, her large bulk
and her tiresome heart. Even then it was difficult to realise that
she had once been loved by a lad; for it was finally with a lad’s
face that he kept appearing out of the mists. For quite a long time
it seemed to her that she must be staring at the son which she and
Jonty had never had, so little bond seemed there to be between this
youthful vision and herself.
But presently, as she sat on the bed and dreamed, the soul of her
slid away from the flesh and joined Jonty in the eternal bounds.
There she walked with him, light step for light step, hearing her
own youthful voice and laugh, knowing her own youthful form and
face. Once more they were lad and lass—first, children together; then
courting; then married.... And finally—the last test of the true
dream, and also the last thing the dream-powers grant—she put out her
hands to touch him and found him present and living and warm....
From her husband her mind passed naturally enough to Tibbie, but she
could not persuade it to grasp her for long. Always it seemed to
slip away, to move on, to ignore, as it were, her very existence.
Neither would it condescend to dwell upon Stephen, or even the
children. Hitherto they had all been vividly in her thoughts, but
here in her new quarters she couldn’t see them at all. It was just
as if something refused to let them come in; as if they couldn’t or
wouldn’t—perhaps _wouldn’t_—come in.... She couldn’t offer to see
them against the background of her future home, and presently, though
without knowing it, she gave up trying. All the rest of the time she
was there she never thought of them once, making her pleasant plans
as if they had never been.
She amused herself for a while seeing how easily the cupboards opened
and locked, how the drawers ran on a grain of silk and the beds slid
on smooth wheels. Sound workmanship throughout—that was the hall-mark
of the house; dry walls, firm floors, well-fitting windows, furniture
of the best. Again and again she said to herself that it was all
exactly what might have been looked for from old Mr. T. And always
first and foremost he had thought of the houses as places where old
folks would have to live. The windows, therefore, were broad but low,
so that no clean-curtain-loving house-wife should be tempted to dally
with a pair of “steps.” The foundations were good, but there were no
cellars into which shaky old legs, descending daily, could do their
best to break shaky old necks. Coal-house and larder were both within
easy reach of the kitchen, and there, as everywhere, all the floors
ran level. Nowhere was there a sudden step going down or up; not even
a passing unevenness that might possibly stub old toes.
Old Mr. T. had known that half the quarrels among women are conducted
from the safe standing-ground of their own thresholds; so, as far as
possible, he had set the doors of his almshouses back to back. His
whole object, indeed, had been to make the old folk feel private,
without ever letting them feel alone; and although he had been bound
to make the wash-house in common (always a fearful source of anguish
of soul) he had hedged it about with terrific instructions which only
the thoroughly graceless would dare to break. But, in spite of Mrs.
Bell’s intimidating list, the wash-house was almost the only thing
about which there was any definite rule. Old Mr. T. had known that
you can generally trust a decent woman to look after a decent house,
but that, where wash-houses are concerned, no woman living is always
perfectly sane.
He had known, too, that old folk usually like to see a “bit of life,”
and that nothing bores them so much as to be shut away to look at
nothing. So wherever he could he had put the kitchen to face the
road, defying the social tenet which says that this is the sole
privilege of the parlour. He knew that the old, who had stopped
running about on their own account in life, could weave chapters
on end about somebody running about with a Gladstone bag. With all
their experience, all their knowledge of human nature behind them, it
seemed hard to him that they should not use it. Age is the natural
harvest-time for the observer and looker-on, and it would have seemed
as cruel to him to have denied it its fruit, as to deny dancing and
singing to buoyant youth.
But he had known also that the old have their hours of weary
withdrawal from life, as if all in a moment somebody hailed them
to look beyond. It was then that they wanted wide, tranquil skies,
rolling lands and the distant sea—all these spacious country things
which speak of a wider country still. So in Mrs. Clapham’s kitchen at
least he had set that second window towards the west, the eye that
looked to the marsh and the park and the dim blueness of the bay.
He knew that sometimes, when the evening came, the old would let
down the blind of the window that looked to the road, and sit in the
other that looked to the sky in the west. Through the window behind
them they would hear hoofs and wheels, voices and young laughter,
footsteps and talk; but their eyes would be fixed immovably on the
thing “beyond.” At that hour they would not raise a corner of the
blind to look at “life,” because they would be looking at something
so much bigger than life. Leaning back in one of his easy chairs,
with half-dropped lids and quietly-folded hands, they would sit
staring at the colour and light, the shining mystery of evening
peace. He liked to think that some of them might even pass like
that, without any nuisance of doctor and sick-bed; that, soothed and
content, alone and yet not lonely, ready yet not afraid, they might
step straight out of the house which he had built into those other
houses not made with hands.... He built many almshouses during the
course of his long life, but it was only when he built the last of
them in his old age that he came finally to think of that.
Mrs. Clapham remembered now, as she came back to it again, that it
was in that very kitchen he had called her a “d—d good sort.” The
almshouses were just finished but had not been allotted, and one
morning, as she waited on him at breakfast, he had asked her if she
would like to see them. A little later, therefore, they had found
themselves walking out, and although she had felt coy and abashed,
the old gentleman had not cared a button. “Come along, Jones! Step
out!” he had ordered her, when he found her attempting to hang back.
“Short life.... Short days. Put your best foot foremost, Jones! Step
along; step out!”
He had taken her over each house in turn, jerking out explanations
of his ideas, and watching her keenly all the time. He had waited
patiently while she lingered and stared, and over and over again he
had asked her opinion. Presently she made an effort and ventured a
shy hint, and with mixed horror and pride watched him enter it in a
book. Finally, she had blurted out that nobody would ever believe
the houses to have been planned by a man, and suddenly his eyes had
twinkled, his lips parted, and he had chuckled grimly and looked
pleased....
It was in the corner-house kitchen that their tour had come to an
end, and there he had really started to talk—that is, as much as
anything that ever came out of that taciturn mouth could truly be
termed talk. It seemed to her that she could see him now, standing in
the west window, a still sturdy and square figure, although getting a
little bent. At least she was almost sure she could see his clothes,
with their bulging pockets and bagged knees—clothes which were yet so
full of character that, in brushing them, she had always felt as if
she was brushing old Mr. T. And although they were shabby and out of
shape, they were made of such stuff that they couldn’t wear out—never
_did_ wear out, indeed, as far as the charwoman knew. For years
she had traced those clothes, first on the back of one person and
then on another, and always, no matter who was inside them, looking
exactly like old Mr. T.... His square hands had been thrust behind
him under the tails of his square-cut coat, and his square grey hat
had been pushed to the back of his square head. From under his thick
eyebrows his keen grey eyes had stared at the view, and from between
the white whiskers rimming his shaven chin he had jerked the stiff
speeches from his obstinate mouth.
“Best of the bunch, eh, Jones?” he had demanded proudly. “Long chalks
the best of the bunch! It’s that window makes it ... thought it would
... felt sure. Felt d—d sure, in fact, but the architect wouldn’t
have it. Had the devil of a lot of trouble with that architect,
taking it all round. You know what a devil of a lot of trouble I’ve
had with him, don’t you, Jones?”
“Jones” murmured respectful assent, remembering with awe terrible
battles overheard through the study door, together with the lurid
comments of old Mr. T. after the architect had gone away.
“Couldn’t be made to see old folks should have the best. Couldn’t
grasp anyhow that they had groggy knees ... blind eyes ...
shaky old hearts. Would have sent them climbing here and diving
there—acrobatics all over the place—if he’d had his way. He’s too
young—that’s what’s the matter with _him_; forty years too young. It
takes the old to build for the old; young folk can’t understand.” He
took a hand from his coat-tails and pushed his hat further to the
back of his head. “My first almshouses ... not a patch on these ...
too d—d young myself. But he’ll begin to see what I was driving at in
another forty years.”
“Jones” had been young, too, in those days, and in spite of her
commendation she had not really understood, either. She had had to
wait until to-day to grasp what his patience and insight had really
meant. She, too, had had to wait forty years. But at all events she
understood now, with admiration and grateful tears. In the heart of
this one of his numerous “Joneses” at least Mr. T. had his due reward.
It was somewhere about this point that he had offered her the house,
clinching her pride in the offer with the historic speech.
“You go for this one, Jones,” he had said. “Go for the pick of the
bunch. You’re a d—d good worker ... work like a horse ... but I
daresay you’ll want it, all the same. I’ve left you a bit in my will
... left all the Joneses, in fact; but it isn’t much. Can’t leave you
a fortune ... others ... got to be just. But you’re to have the house
if you want it, remember that. I can trust you not to ask for it till
you feel it’s your due.”
Then suddenly he had swung round and looked at her, and again the
smile came into his eyes.
“All the same, I shouldn’t wonder if you don’t!” he had finished
grimly. “It’s folks like you I build my houses for, and it’s folks
like you that never get ’em! You’re the workers of the world ... the
fighters ... the never-enders. You can’t stop working because you
don’t know how. I sometimes think you’re not allowed to know how.”
He swung back again as suddenly as he had swung forward, and took
another look at the gracious view. Then he had put up his hand and
pulled down the blind. “Save the curtains!” he had remarked wisely,
but with a still greater wisdom in the symbolical action than he
knew. Within a month news came from his Lancashire home that he, too,
had passed where he could compare these earthly efforts of his with
those other houses not made with hands....
CHAPTER IV
The first excitement of recognition and discovery being now over, she
was able to turn her mind to plans for the future. She had paid her
debt to the dead in those few moments of re-vision, those thankful
tears, that short sadness of regret. She was glad that she had
remembered to pay it, and at the right time. She had not just hurried
in and seized upon her rights, forgetting in her excitement to whose
kindness she happened to owe them. She had spared the time to look
back and see what it was that had made the worth of the old man’s
gift. Now she was free to take it and make it her own, because she
had paused to join hands with the grim philanthropist of the past.
From the child, delightedly fingering and yet scarcely daring to
touch, and the dreamer, going back in mind to look for those who
had passed “beyond,” she became the practical housewife, busy with
great affairs. She began to think about the furniture that would
be coming up from the cottage, and stood, finger on lip, deciding
where it should go. Also she arranged with herself when the great
cleaning should begin, what room she should start in, and how long
it would take. All these momentous decisions took her continually
upstairs, and always, just as she got to the top, some fresh puzzle
would snatch her down again. Easy as old Mr. T. had made the stairs,
they still were stairs, and though she paid no attention to what her
legs were saying about them just then, she was to hear them only too
urgently later on.
In the House of Dreams time slipped by for Mrs. Clapham as it
actually slips in dreams, until presently, looking out of some window
as she passed, she beheld Mrs. Bell in the little garden. Mrs. Bell
wore the half-bold, half-furtive look of the trespasser armed with
an excuse, but she also looked decidedly worried. Indeed, she stared
at the house as if almost afraid of what she might see. Rather
reluctantly Mrs. Clapham went out on to the step, and at once her
neighbour exuded apology and relief.
“You’ll excuse me coming round, I hope?” she began hastily. “I was
getting right bothered! Happen you don’t know as it’s four o’clock?”
“Nay, what, it can’t be!” Mrs. Clapham returned, staring. “What, it
seems like as if I’d only just come!”
“Ay, it’s four right enough,” Mrs. Bell assured her. “Tea’s been
ready a while. I began to get feared you weren’t so well again,” she
continued coldly, “but you were so set on being alone I hardly liked
to come round.”
There was still a note of reproach and hurt dignity in her voice, and
Mrs. Clapham, now that her dues were paid, was quite ready to relieve
it.
“Nay, you mustn’t think any more about that!” she soothed her kindly.
“Folks get all sorts of silly ideas, and that happened to be one o’
mine. It was right kind of you to look me up, and I’ll be main glad
of a cup o’ tea.”
She turned as she finished and re-entered the house, and, once in
the little hall, paused a moment as if thinking. Then she went into
the kitchen and pulled down the blind.... If she gave a half-sigh
as she came out again on the step, Mrs. Bell did not hear it. The
door closed against her as she set the key in the hole, and the lock
fastened her out with its gentle click....
“You might show me about the place a bit before I go,” she said, as
they turned the corner, “and tell me about the garden an’ all. I
don’t know much about gardens and suchlike, not having had the time.”
She slipped the key into a capacious pocket as they went along, and
Mrs. Bell watched it go with a jealous thrill. It seemed to her that
it might just as well have been left with her until the new tenant
was really in. She was consoled, however, by the somewhat belated
request to act as showman, and decided to let it stand over, at least
for the moment.
“Ay, well, I’m a rare hand at gardening, myself,” she admitted
loftily, “though I don’t do that much, seeing there’s a paid man. But
I should ha’ thought you’d seen enough for one day—I should that. If
you keep on at this rate you’ll be fair wore out.”
“I’m just bound to see all I can!” the charwoman chuckled, still like
a child that cannot be persuaded to leave its toy but falls asleep
with it in his hand. “I’m real silly, I know, but I’ll settle afore
long. I’m like the folks in the sweet-shops, you’ll think on; I won’t
give no bother as soon as I’ve eaten my fill!”
Arrived once more at Mrs. Bell’s, she found that Mrs. Cann had been
asked to meet her, a small, plump person, solemn and rather prim.
Old Mrs. Bendrigg had been bedridden for the last year, but had sent
a welcome and an invitation to call. Mrs. Cann, eyeing her rather
stiffly, partly from shyness and partly because she had been kept
waiting for her tea, delivered the greeting at the tail of her own.
“You’re all very kind, I’m sure!” Mrs. Clapham managed to reach the
chair which had been her salvation before, realising her renewed
exhaustion as she sank into it. “I’m main sorry I kept you from
your teas. Time passed that fast, I’d no idea!” She waited politely
for the request to draw up to the table, and then did so with some
difficulty. “I never looked to be tret like this,” she added
delightedly, shining with smiles, “and I’ll be main glad to do what I
can in return!”
This tactful acknowledgment met with its due reward, and the three
faces, drawn together over the cups, soon began to look like the
faces of old friends. In their hearts the old inmates were decidedly
of opinion that they would benefit by the new, although they had no
intention of letting her know it. They knew her by reputation to be
amiable, hard-working and honest, all attributes which, in one way or
another, might be turned to their own account. It was Mrs. Bendrigg
who had pointed out, for instance, that a body with such a passion
for cleaning wouldn’t be likely to stop at her own house. Once a
charwoman, always a charwoman, was Mrs. Bendrigg’s summary of the
situation. “What, you’ll nobbut have to step across and say you’re a
bit out o’ sorts,” the old lady had asserted, “and Ann Clapham’ll be
scrubbing your back kitchen afore you can say knife!”
“Mrs. Bell here’s been telling me you were once in service with the
old gent as built these spots,” Mrs. Cann began primly, opening the
conversation with the usual “pawn to king’s fourth” of the highest
social asset available. In her heart she would have preferred any
scandal which was going about the houses in which Mrs. Clapham had
chared, and hoped to lead up to it later on. But even in almshouses
social observance must have its due, and old Mr. T. did nicely to
open the ball. It was not long, either, before both women were
listening open-mouthed to Mrs. Clapham’s descriptions of the old
man’s Lancashire home, almost swallowing, as it were, the costly
marvels which she seemed to bring into the room. Proud to have this
second chance of paying him tribute, she laid stress not only upon
his riches, but upon the respect in which he was held; even while she
amused them by recalling his gruff ways and speech, and his habit of
comprehending the universe under the name of “Jones.” She told them,
too, as she told everybody now, of how he had wished her to have the
house. Only she did not tell them of how he had looked on that last
day, or of that last speech of his before he pulled down the kitchen
blind....
The social basis having been firmly established, it was possible
now to descend to charing. Mrs. Clapham’s audience was pleased to
discover that she was not above talking about her trade, or even
discussing the houses into which that trade had happened to take
her. Not that she gave them the racy bits of gossip which they would
undoubtedly have liked best, but there was always the chance that she
might come to those when they knew her better. But she was able to
give them portraits of the families who had passed through her hands
during twenty to thirty years, finishing them off with such deftness
that they almost stood there before their eyes. She told them, for
instance, of the numerous branches of the bewildering Bullers, who
had relatives everywhere in the British Isles, and would probably
have had them in the Cocos Islands, if they had been allowed. She
told them how young Mr. Banbury-Wilson always insisted upon hanging
his own curtains, and how old Mr. Wrench simply wouldn’t wipe his
feet on the mat. She told them of children, animals, and even ghosts;
and of servants who were a good deal worse than any possible ghost.
She told them of little kindnesses received, and little presents; and
sometimes of little cheatings and slights. And over all these things
she cast a glamour that was all her own, concocting a brave draught
to slake the almshouse thirst for “life.”
But she said nothing to them about the deeper things which had
happened to come her way, and which even now she could scarcely
remember without a rush of her ready tears. She did not mention the
sorrows supposed to be dead or dumb, which yet rose up and spoke
to you as soon as you went in. She told them nothing of parents and
children who hated each other, or husbands and wives; of poverty
borne bravely, wealth frittered, sickness carried like a jewelled
cross. Least of all did she speak of the moments when she herself had
risen to some crisis of fear or death; when frightened and helpless
women had hung weeping about her neck, and relieved or grief-stricken
men had wrung her gratefully by the hand....
Even without these things, however, she had plenty to say, and all of
it full of a fine human touch. It was the epic of Mrs. Clapham’s life
that was spoken that afternoon, even though the greater part of it
was spoken only to her own soul. She was a trained talker, of course,
like most women of her trade, but never before had she talked like
this. It was as if the story of all the years had found its rightful
moment of vent, now that the work of those years had come to its
peaceful and fruitful end.
Outside, the September sun was sinking slowly towards the sea, while
inside Mrs. Bell’s kitchen the magic monologue went on. The heads
drew closer and closer together over the table until they almost
touched. The hands gripped half-emptied cups of forgotten tea, or
half-finished pieces of home-made currant bun. For the time being the
bent backs were unaware of the heavy burden of age, the nearly-spent
lives unaware of how short a course they had to run. Life, the
magician and taleteller, was actually in the cottage itself, not
merely watched through a pane of glass, passing unheeding on the road.
Breath, if not ideas, failed the lecturer at last, and they drew
apart by degrees, remembering that, even in such a select company as
theirs, there were such trifles to see to as “siding” and washing-up.
Mrs. Clapham, pushing back her chair and attempting to rise, found
that her cotton-wool legs had suddenly changed into boards. She
was accepted, however,—there was no doubt about that, and physical
drawbacks were details compared with that fine fact. Again she had
an impression of the lavishness with which Fate gives when it gives
at all, of the ease with which miracle after miracle is projected as
soon as their warranted hour arrives. There was a royal sweep about
the events of the day as she looked back upon them in her mind, a
perfect, unwavering curve which, mounting and mounting with every
hour, would drop only when it did drop into the falling away of happy
sleep.
Yes, she was undoubtedly a success, as was evidenced by the fact that
she was allowed to “side,” too, washing and wiping pots and learning
their places with the intimacy of a bosom friend. It was true that,
as the effect of the epic gradually wore off, each of the older
tenants tried to re-assert her personal value, subtly insinuating
to the new arrival that, in spite of her excellent testimonials,
she was, after all, only “new.” Mrs. Clapham listened to reiterated
instructions concerning wash-houses, etc., with maintained interest
and respect, and had sufficiently found her footing by now to refrain
from smiling at the mention of followers. With her knowledge of human
nature, she was aware that they were only keeping their end up, as
you might say, and she did not resent it. She _was_ new—there was no
doubt about that; but she would not be new long. There were ropes
to learn, wherever you went, and she was willing to learn them.
Nevertheless, she couldn’t help smiling at the thought of Martha
Jane being shown the ropes by this prim pair—Martha Jane, whose only
use for ropes hitherto had been to kick her heels over them on every
occasion!
Pots being sided, she was taken for a swift peep into Mrs. Cann’s;
only the veriest peep, however, because time was getting on, as even
Mrs. Clapham, as time-lost as any creature bewitched by the fairies,
realised in flashes. But she was aware that the event would not
be properly rounded off without that peep, just as it demanded a
visit to old Mrs. Bendrigg. So in spite of her aching back and her
stiff legs, she went cheerfully from point to point, expressing an
admiration sufficiently tempered with judgment not to give the effect
of fulsome praise, and climbed her last flight of stairs—unwillingly
and with difficulty—to face the final ordeal of introduction. Mrs.
Bendrigg, half sitting up in bed, night-capped, jacketed, wrinkled
and very old, looked up at the fine figure almost swamping the little
bedroom with still-keen eyes full of satisfaction. She had never been
able to get as much work as she wanted out of her other neighbours—“a
poor, shiftless lot!”—but there looked a lot of excellent, skilled
work to be got out of Mrs. Clapham!
The latter returned the gaze of this last of her new acquaintances
with a feeling that was half pity and half repulsion. She was
fond of old people, as a rule, and was always ready to do them
service; but in old Mrs. Bendrigg she now realised that she saw the
typical almshouse figure. The others, together with herself, were
sufficiently young and able-bodied to find some interest in life,
sufficient work to keep up their self-respect, sufficient movement to
keep them from mouldering. But she now saw that it was for such as
old Mrs. Bendrigg that almshouses were really built, broken old folk
on the verge of passing away. The vision that had come to her on the
day she had lost heart returned to her now with such force that she
nearly broke down again. Such as old Mrs. Bendrigg she, too, would
eventually become, dependent on half-willing neighbours who were
neither kith nor kin. That was what almshouses really meant, when you
thought it out; that was the real meaning of the House of Dreams. She
stood at the end of the bed, looking down at the night-capped figure
with a thoughtful eye, and for the time being felt the gift of old
Mr. T. close in upon her with prison-walls.
She contrived to smile, however, as she inquired politely after
the ancient’s health, and listened politely to a long account of
her special disease, veiled complaints about her neighbours, and a
fresh list of the same instructions. “We’ve always thought a deal
of ourselves up here,” Mrs. Bendrigg finished, stiffening her old
figure a moment in order to make an impression. “’Tisn’t as if we was
ordinary almshouse folk; we’re a deal better than most. Houses is
better than most, too, though I could have built ’em better myself.
Ay, I’ve heard tell of you often, and I mind seeing you at old Mr.
T.’s. You come of a good stock, and you’ve been decent-lived, so I’m
not saying but what you’ll do. Anyway, you’ll keep your house like
enough as houses ought to be kept—not that it’ll ever be same as mine
when I was able to stir. I was always that proud of my house—ay,
and wi’ reason an’ all!—but I’ve no call to be proud now. I never
thought as I’d come to it, but I’ve learned to put up wi’ a deal o’
dirt. Folks as has to rely on their neighbours can’t have everything
just so. All the same, it fair breaks my heart to see the place just
slaped over same as it were a Witham slum!”
“You’ll have to let me lend you a hand when I get fixed!” Mrs.
Clapham laughed, trying not to notice the tossed heads and shrugged
shoulders of her annoyed hosts. “It’s my job, you know,” she went
on, as the old woman nodded and smiled. “I could clean a house o’
this size with nobbut the one hand!” Old Mrs. Bendrigg nodded again
and chuckled and said “Thank ye kindly!” and “Ye can’t come too soon
for _me_!” and they went away, leaving her thoroughly pleased in her
thrifty, grasping old soul. The hurt couple burst into loud explosion
as soon as they got outside, but gradually became soothed by the
cheering prospect of less to do. They were consoled, too, by the fact
that the new-comer did not seem at all set up (“not to be wondered
at, neither, when you thought how she’d let herself in!”). But it was
not the fear of extra work that was subduing Mrs. Clapham as they
made a hasty tour of the little gardens. She was quite prepared to
be partially put upon, and she did not mind. It was all part of the
way of the world, like the prim self-importance and the rules. What
was taking her by the throat was the picture of old Mrs. Bendrigg
helpless in bed, the typical almshouse figure, marring the fine grace
of her House of Dreams....
But she had quite recovered by the time they had finished their
hasty round, and arrived, finally and fittingly, as it were, for a
last pause at her own door. She ran her eye over the building in a
passion of possessive pride, forgetting that only a moment ago it
had seemed a possible prison. The thrill came back to her in full as
she looked at the door to which she alone had the key, feeling again
the glamour of one to whom the birthday of her life had come. As she
stared at the house, however, she felt sorry that she had drawn the
kitchen blind. She had done it half mechanically, half as a memorial
to the man who was gone, and even now she was glad that the women
could not see within. She did not want them prying and peeping until
the glamour had worn off. Nevertheless, remembering the last occasion
upon which it had been done, she could not help wishing that she had
not drawn the blind....
All up the hillside at their feet the September mist was rising and
spreading, weaving its growing mesh all silent and soft as if it were
the actual product of some fairy wheel. It had wound itself in great
swathes around the trees in the orchard below, so that the trunks
of the trees seemed to be standing on nothing at all. The slender,
twisted stems, crowned with their heavy fruit, seemed to be kept in
position by the mere pressure of the gentle air. All the edges of
the village roofs had gone soft in the smudging light, and even the
slates looked little heavier than the loose wisps of floating mist.
The soft smoke, rising from the stacks, looked as if it, too, was
simply the mist which was forcing a way through. Across the village
there were big hollows and basins of mist up and down the park, and
here and there great standard trees poised themselves also on the
drifting swathes. The sun, from its low angle, still sent shafts of
light into orchard and village, showing the ripe fruit to be russet
and gold. Only above the sun and the sea the sky kept itself still
and pure, guarding that space of opal and blue where would arise the
evening star.
This, and many an evening like it, and others, different yet
all lovely, were Mrs. Clapham’s heritage for the future. Even
storm-nights would be wonderful, too, seen from the close haven of
the House of Dreams. Somewhere, mellow, far-off voices were busy
calling the cattle home, and children’s voices struck up clear as
the blackbird’s whistle from their playground on the road. There is
always healing in beauty, even though sometimes it wounds first, and
the tired charwoman reached towards it with longing, still marvelling
that the peace of the temple should be really hers.
But presently she shivered, and, turning away, announced firmly
that it was time to be going. It had come to her suddenly that her
beautiful day was nearly over, that it had slipped by, as beautiful
days have a knack of doing, almost without her notice. It was no
use lingering here until she had exhausted it to the dregs, and in
any case she couldn’t afford it. With her tired body, and weary, if
happy, spirit, she would need all the strength she possessed to carry
her safely home.
The women went with her to the gate, and once again they stood
laughing and chatting, and further cementing the new acquaintance.
Towards the last—“You’ll have t’ key, likely?” Mrs. Bell inquired
jealously, assuming once more the air of Watch-Dog in Chief.
Mrs. Clapham, backing towards the road, plunged her hand in her
pocket with the vim of a diver diving for pearls, and brought up the
precious object with a triumphant chuckle.
“You’d best leave it with me, hadn’t you?” Mrs. Bell suggested,
eyeing it greedily, but the charwoman shook her head.
“Nay, it’s over precious to let out o’ my sight. I just couldn’t
bring myself to part with it, and that’s the truth!”
“What, it’ll take no harm, will it, stopping another night along o’
me?” The oldest tenant stiffened angrily.
“Nay, not it!” The visitor threw her an appeasing smile. “But I can’t
part with it, all the same.”
“You’re not thinking I’ll loss it, surely?” Mrs. Bell asked in rising
tones, “me as has had it a couple o’ months back, and goodness knows
how many times afore!”
A demand for apology was obviously in the air, and Mrs. Clapham
hastened to satisfy it.
“As if I’d ever think o’ such a thing!” she assured her amiably.
“I just like t’ feel on’t, that’s all!” She turned it lovingly, if
shamefacedly, in her fingers. “And if I slip up first thing while
morning, as I’m thinking I will, I shan’t need to come knocking you
out o’ bed.”
“I’m up as early as most folks, I reckon!” Mrs. Bell replied swiftly,
and this time, to Mrs. Clapham’s alarm, in tones of active offence.
But the next moment she had remembered her obligations as hostess,
and pulled herself back to her former graciousness. “Ay, well, you
know what suits you best,” she hurried on, again affecting her hearer
with a reminiscent shudder. “But you’re a deal more likely to go
lossing it than me, taking it to a fresh spot and leaving it goodness
knows where!”
“I’ll not loss it, not I! I’ll bare let it out o’ my fingers till
to-morrow morn!” The charwoman waved it exultingly, backing still
further towards the step. “Like as not I’ll sleep with it under my
pillow!” she added, chuckling ... and found herself slipped off the
step and sitting heavily in the open road.
The women were about her at once, calling out and asking her how she
had done it, all in a breath; while she, gasping out anxious requests
to be left alone, laughed at their futile efforts to raise her, even
while tears of pain poured steadily down her face. They desisted at
last, standing back in dismay, and a passing butcher, nimbly stopping
his cart in its descent of the hill, left his accustomed horse to
look after itself, and came to offer a helping hand.
“Nay, let me be, can’t you?” Mrs. Clapham protested, still laughing
and crying. “It’s queer to me how folks can’t never let a tummelled
body lie. They must always be heaving them up again, same as a sheep
or a sack o’ coals!... I’ve got a bit of a shake, of course,” she
informed them presently, “and I’ve twisted my bad knee; but I’ll be
as right as a bobbin if only you’ll let me be.”
“You should look where you’re going, at your age, mother!” the
butcher chaffed her, arms akimbo in his blue coat. “Doesn’t do to go
backing down steps like a ballet-girl at your time of life, you know!”
“I’ll give you ballet-girl when I’m on my feet again—see if I don’t!”
Mrs. Clapham gasped, chuckling through her tears, though somehow the
teasing words made her feel terribly old. “Eh, but it was a daft
thing to do, and a daft sight I must look; and, eh, losh save us,
what’s come to yon key!”
The staring women sprang to attention at once, and, with the help of
the butcher, began a search. It was Mrs. Bell who finally pounced on
it where it lay, flown from the charwoman’s hand in the track of the
butcher’s wheels.
“Happen you’ll agree now as it’s safest with me!” she demanded
grimly, and pocketed it as the other nodded.... “Ay, I can’t say I
seem fit to be trusted with it at present!” Mrs. Clapham agreed,
though with an inward sigh, and feeling as if, with the loss of the
key, something vital had been taken from her. “Now I’ll be getting up
again, if you’ll lend me a hand.”
Crowding round her again, they hoisted her to her feet, amid fresh
gaspings and chucklings and injunctions to “let be!” “You’d best let
me give you a lift back,” the butcher suggested, seeing that she was
lame, and after more pulling and pushing she was presently seated by
his side. Almost at once they had slipped away down the hill, with
the houses behind them rising higher and higher. It was almost as if
they were being lifted into the air, actual mansions of the blest
returning rapidly into the sky. The rapping hoofs of the horse were
fast dropping the charwoman into the mist in which the village was
drowned, and suddenly it was over her head, and the almshouses were
out of sight. The world that she knew came up about her on every
side, while the world in which she had dreamed through the afternoon
was gone as if it had never been....
The horse stopped of its own accord at the shop opposite the Post
Office, but was urged on again by its driver. “I’ll run you on to
your own spot, if you like, missis,” he offered, breaking off a
cheerful recital of all the casualties he had ever seen, and which
had ended badly in every instance. Mrs. Clapham, however, would not
hear of taking him out of his way, and was presently on the ground,
watched, as she noticed with some amusement, by alarmed-looking
faces at the Post Office window. She nodded and smiled at the faces
to show that nothing was wrong, whereupon they vanished with one
accord, as though pulled by a taut string. It was kind of them, she
thought, to seem so troubled on her account, and then forgot them
again as she turned her attention to getting home.
She was shaken, of course, and she walked lame, but she was glad to
find she could get along. Her chief trouble, indeed, was that she
felt sadly old, disheartened and somehow belittled by the butcher’s
joking speech. Then, too, she was still fretting over the loss of the
key, and wishing that she had been able to fight its battle with Mrs.
Bell. Even the feel of it in her hand would have helped to sustain
her diminishing courage. At all events it would have been a link with
the house that now seemed so hopelessly left behind.
But her spirits rose again when she found herself at the foot of her
own street, opposite Mr. Baines’s office and close to her own home.
She would be all right in the morning after a night’s rest, and when
she awoke in the morning the dream would be still true. That was the
important thing, after all, the great truth and the great fact. It
was absurd to feel as if the loss of the key might possibly spoil her
luck. Even if she lost the key every day of the week, it could not
alter the fact that she had got the house.
Mrs. Tanner, she saw, was out in the street as she came up, and at
sight of the birdlike figure her spirits rose even higher. Chuckling,
she thought of all the wonderful things she would have to tell,
hurrying along towards her as fast as her knee would allow. Mrs.
James also came out as she looked, and joined Mrs. Tanner; and then,
as if worked by a spring, Mrs. Airey and Mrs. Dunn. She limped faster
than ever when she saw the four, feeling like some successful
explorer returning to safety and kind friends.
She was able to come quite close to them before they saw her,
because they were staring away from her up the hill. No doubt they
were waiting for her, she thought with pride, curious, of course,
and perhaps also a little anxious. They would guess she had taken
the short cut across the fields, and would be looking for her from
that direction. As in the early morning, they were bunched tightly
together in the road, the only difference being that now they were
looking uphill instead of down. A world of things had happened since
that distant hour, Mrs. Clapham thought, feeling like one arrived
from the Fields of Bliss, who would shortly be going back thither to
stay.
The likeness between the scenes—“Morning” and “Evening” they might
have been called—was intensified by the fact that, now as then, the
Chorus was busy over some object of common interest. Mrs. Tanner was
turning the object over and over in her hand, now and again passing
it reluctantly to one of the rest. All four were talking in low,
agitated tones, and all the time they talked they threw troubled
glances up the hill. They were thoroughly worried about her, Mrs.
Clapham thought, just like the faces at the Post Office window. She
felt pleased and proud that they should all of them trouble so much,
but it was all on a par with the beautiful day. She forgot for the
moment that she had been deprived of the key, feeling, as she had
felt in the fields, that the world was her oyster, to open at will.
It was just at this moment, when her pleasure was at its height,
her certainty most certain, and her security most secure, that the
waiting group swung round and saw her. Mrs. James uttered a little
cry, and Mrs. Dunn seized her sister’s arm. Mrs. Clapham, amused,
was preparing a lively speech and a broad smile, when Mrs. Tanner
stepped quickly forward.
“Eh, but you’ve taken your time, Ann Clapham!” she exclaimed,
approaching. “I’d made up my mind you were stopping the night.” Then,
as the smile and the speech began again to take shape, she jerked her
hand towards her, with the Object in it.... “This come for you while
you were out.”
The charwoman stood stock still when she saw the Object, and at that
moment something expired within her. The fortunate Mrs. Clapham,
whose day this was, and for whom the world had been dressed anew,
went out in that moment and become a ghost. The dreamer, who had
dreamed of evening rest and a temple of peace, drew a last breath
and died also. All that was left was the tired scrubber, returning
from work, with the thought of another day’s work to begin with
to-morrow’s dawn....
Slowly she put out her hand and took the telegram from Mrs.
Tanner.... “Governors can’t be telegraphing t’ house off, surely?”
she observed, by way of a joke, but nobody laughed, and even in her
own ears her voice sounded dull and flat. Her fingers shook as she
opened the envelope and took out the slip, and her legs changed again
from unbendable boards to those limp bundles of cotton-wool....
It took her some time to take in what the telegram said, and her face
held no more expression when she had read it than it had done before.
Perhaps she never did read it, if it came to that; not only because
of her sight, but because she had no need. The women drew together
again, but kept a little aloof, as if they, too, knew what was in the
slip, and expressed their respect for the news before it was given
out.
After the long pause Mrs. Clapham handed the telegram back to Mrs.
Tanner, saying “Read it, will you, Maggie?” in the same tone; and
Mrs. Tanner took it from her with shaking grip. The others closed
about her then, eager and tense, and presently their united voices,
hastening or hanging back, spilt the news with its scent of death on
the gentle September air.
“‘Daughter died this morning. Can you come?’ ... And it’s signed
‘Rawlinson,’” added Mrs. Tanner.
“My daughter Tibbie,” Mrs. Clapham remarked, after the second pause;
and, halting a little on her lame knee, she went into her cottage and
shut the door.
PART IV
THE TRUMPET
CHAPTER I
It was the same cottage, and yet not the same; her old home, and yet
a place that she hardly knew; but indeed for the first few moments
she scarcely so much as saw it. All that it seemed to her just then
was a shelter gathered around her in her oncoming grief. The grief
had not reached her yet, but it was coming, and coming fast, feeling
for her where she stood waiting in the path of its passionate sweep.
She was like those who, caught on the sands by the tidal wave, found
themselves fixed to the spot by the first sounds of its approach.
Sooner or later, however, they always began to run, racing hither and
thither, without hope and without goal. It was only she who could
not begin to run. All she could do was to stand there, helpless and
bound, until that deepest of tides had swung itself over her head.
The cottage was small enough, as she knew, far smaller than the House
of Dreams, but it did not seem small enough to her now. It fretted
her that she could not draw the walls close enough to her on every
side. She wanted a place smaller still, darker and closer—more like
the grave into which they would put Tibbie. From her post just inside
the door she lifted her eyes for the first time, looking around her
on all hands for that narrower, darker place....
But even after she had begun to search, it was some time before she
could find it. Her mind which, unknown to herself, she had left
behind her in the House of Dreams, refused at first to visualise
any other. Already it had imprinted upon itself every inch of the
rooms, so that she might have inhabited them for many years. Now her
eyes, resting again upon objects which, only that morning, had been
more familiar to her than her face, roamed over and round them with
a puzzled expression. She had seen them so long that she had learned
not to see them, and now out of them beheld fresh colours suddenly
springing, new contours suddenly taking shape. There was a cupboard
somewhere, said her unwillingly shifted mind, anxious to hurry away
again to its happy place. She could almost feel it straining away
from her like a separate thing, leaning and tugging against its
leash. The cupboard was in the passage, said the impatient mind, and
was firmly brought back to admit that there was no passage. It was
up at the House of Dreams that there was a passage, a little hall;
here there was only a cupboard under the stairs. Her eyes, focussing
themselves at last, found the door to the narrow hole where coal was
kept, and the broom, a broken hamper, a broken chair....
Her mind gave up the struggle when she remembered the chair, bringing
itself back definitely from the House of Dreams. The wrench was so
fierce that for the moment it seemed almost physical; an actual
body seemed to be torn away. But as soon as it was done she saw
the cottage as usual, knowing it to be hers, and letting it slide
back into that place where she neither consciously saw nor thought
of it at all. Limping, she went direct to the dark cupboard, and,
groping with accustomed hands, found and brought forth the little
chair. Lifting it in her arms as if it had been the child to whom
it had once belonged, she set it upon the hearth; and from that far
place where the great wave of it had been held back until the signal
was given, her grief broke over her, swamping her, stamping her
down—rolling her, choking her, but always sweeping her on, casting
her up at length on that grey beach of total exhaustion where sorrow
gives up at last its simulated dead....
It is always the child for whom a mother weeps when a son or a
daughter dies; not the strong man or the mature woman, but the child
whom she sees through and behind them and in them all their lives.
The adult may have her confidence and pride, but it is the still
faintly discerned child that holds and keeps her love. She looks up
to the former, and is even a little afraid; the latter looks up to
her, and sees her as God. For a mother, indeed, a child dies as soon
as it ceases to be a child, though she may not weep for it then.
Life, passing on inexorably, tells her that it is against nature to
weep for this purely natural change. It is only when the grown man or
woman, whom perhaps she can hardly recognise, is laid to rest, that
she is allowed to weep. Then at last she may cry her heart out for
the child who died but was never buried ever so long ago.
So it was for the child Tibbie that Mrs. Clapham wept, seated in
the rocking-chair with the angry voice, her head dropped on the
table on her outflung arms, and beside her the little lame chair
resting lob-sidedly on the hearth. It was worm-eaten, it had lost
a leg—the cane seat was ripped across; but it was still alive, as
all much-used pieces of furniture are alive until they finally come
to the axe. And indeed the personality of this chair was such as it
seemed even the axe could hardly destroy. Low-legged, broad-seated,
with a curved mahogany back, it had been a present to Tibbie from an
old Colonel who lived in the place. A martyr to rheumatism himself,
it had troubled him sorely to see the child sitting so often on the
cottage step. “Suffer for it—she’ll suffer for it!” he used to say,
stopping stiffly in front of her as he hobbled past; and after he had
said it a time or two, he had sent the chair. Tibbie had simply lived
in it from that time on—played in it, eaten, chattered and fallen
asleep. It had had its place by the window in summer, by the fender
during the winter. It was the centre of great games played by Tibbie
and others out in the street, and she had even been seen, bound on
some errand, dragging it after her on a string. It was a wonder,
indeed, that it did not attend her to school. When she was older
again she had sat in it while she sewed, the centre of billows of
drapery sweeping all over the floor. The last time she had sat in it
was with Baby Steve in her arms, her laughing fair head leaned to his
sad eyes.... But it was neither as the young dressmaker nor as the
young mother that Mrs. Clapham could think of Tibbie just then. The
years of maturity were all of them wiped out, leaving only the many
pictures of the child and the little chair.
Yet it was on that very day that Tibbie had sat in it with Baby
Steve, that the chair had finally, so to speak, thrown up its job.
It had been a brave chair, taking things as they came, turning when
required into a railway-train or a ’bus, a chopping-block, perhaps,
or even a stand for a machine. It had been made of sound stuff by
sensible, skilled hands, and it showed itself worthy to its latest
hour. But, as it is with the best people, so it was with the good
chair; all in a moment it had begun to grow old. Quite suddenly it
began to show its scratches and dents, and to lose the last of its
fine gloss. It began to creak when a hand was laid on its back, as
if it had been the giver resenting a sudden touch. Presently they
discovered it to be worm-eaten, and knew then that it “wouldn’t be
long.” Even then, however, it had managed to hold together, until
this last day when it had decided to cease. Perhaps the recent rains
had got into its old bones, or else the weight of the new generation
was greater than it could face. Anyhow, Tibbie had sprung to her
feet, saying “Mother! I do believe, Mother ... the old chair’s
giving way!” and as they had stared at it, almost afraid, it had
softly released a leg, and then laid itself down with the air of a
live thing gently preparing itself for death....
They had stared at it for quite a long time before they had dared to
touch it, and Tibbie had cried a little and laughed as well. It was a
chair of character, she had said, and it knew its mind. It had been
made for her as a child, and would serve no other, not even her own.
And all the time that she had stared at the determined, absurd little
chair, Stevie had stared at herself with his immutably sad eyes....
But again it was not this particular Tibbie who was present to Mrs.
Clapham while she sat and wept. Her mind rejected that Tibbie, just
as the chair had rejected her, and as it rejected her even now.
Lobsided, battered and old, it yet refused to evoke any picture but
that of the spring-flower of a child. It spoke of Tibbie as clothes
speak of their wearers after they are gone; it looked like Tibbie—it
_was_ Tibbie, because of that picture of her which it kept alive....
Mrs. Clapham wept and wept, dropping her head on her arms; looked
at the chair that was Tibbie and wept ... looked away and wept ...
looked back and wept ... and wept, and wept, and wept, _and_ wept....
Presently, after she had been crying for ever and ever, as it seemed,
but in reality barely for half an hour, there came the same birdlike
tap at the door that had startled her in the morning. Now, however,
she scarcely noticed it, and that part of her brain which did chance
to take it in wiped it out again instantly as some sign from a lost
world. The door opened gently at last as she did not answer, and Mrs.
Tanner advanced with brave if birdlike movements into the room.
She went straight to the weeping woman, and stood beside her at
the table, now laying a soft little touch on a flung-out arm, now
patting and soothing and smoothing the bent head. Her actions,
light and neat as those of a wren, worried Mrs. Clapham no more
than if they had been the hoppings of the bird itself. They gave
her, indeed, something of the same feeling of friendly warmth, of
unasking companionship, of brisk life that knew nothing of death;
and presently, as she wept and wept, crying aloud on her dead child,
turning to stare at the chair that was Tibbie, and yet emphatically
was _not_—she had the impression that a bird was actually in the
room. Even the little sympathetic sounds which Mrs. Tanner uttered
from time to time seemed to her almost like twitters and chirps from
some delicate feathered throat.
“My Tibbie! My little lass!...” The sleeves of the black gown were
soaked through and through with tears, as well as the white front
which Tibbie had fashioned with such pride.
“Poor mother—poor soul!” Mrs. Tanner, as she chirped, was gently
undoing the strings of the old woman’s bonnet, pulling out the pin
that was supposed to be holding it in place, and setting both of them
on a side-table. The bonnet would do well enough for the funeral, she
was saying to herself, and so would the black gown, with a bit of
_crêpe_ for that touch of white....
“I can’t believe it.... ’Tisn’t likely! ’Tain’t true.... My bonny
Tibbie!”
“Poor soul! Poor dear!”
“What ha’ they gone and done to her? What’s been wrong? What ha’ they
done to her when I wasn’t there?”
“Poor dear! Poor soul!”
Mrs. Tanner, still giving her little chirps, hunted until she found
the clean linen handkerchief with which Mrs. Clapham had completed
her toilet that morning, and began to dab gently at the sleeves and
the white front. She dabbed, too, at the quivering face down which
the tears streamed as if all the tears that mothers have ever shed
were being poured at once from that single fount. There were patches
of dust, she noticed, on the charwoman’s gown, and dust on her hands
which her tears were turning to grime. Her skirt was pulled all awry,
and her bonnet had been askew; and, remembering how she had looked in
the morning, Mrs. Tanner was struck to the heart. Presently she too
was crying as she stroked and dabbed, though with light, twittering
sounds that were still rather birdlike in effect.
But the first spell of grief was nearly exhausted by now, and
Mrs. Tanner’s sobs, almost noiseless though they were, succeeded
in bringing her neighbour’s to a close. With the instinctive
unselfishness of the mother who has taught herself to be always the
one to weep last, Mrs. Clapham made an effort to control herself
at the first signs of another’s grief. Soon she was trying to sit
up, dabbing for herself with the handkerchief which she had taken
from Mrs. Tanner, and saying—“Nay, my lass, don’t cry ... don’t you
grieve for me ... you’ll have trouble enough of your own”—between
the great sobs which still shook her as if they actually took her by
the shoulders, and the great tears that still welled and rolled and
welled again after each useless dab.
“It seems that hard—and you so happy an’ all!” Mrs. Tanner broke out
in a little wail, hurriedly searching for a handkerchief of her own.
The wail, however, put the finishing touch to the mother’s effort
after self-control. To be told that a thing was hard was in itself
a call to her splendid courage; and, patiently scrubbing her wet
cheeks with the wet linen, she presently strangled her sobs into a
succession of long-drawn sighs.
“Nay, now, Maggie Turner, don’t you go saying it’s hard! It’s meant,
likely; it’s sent.... Tibbie would never ha’ murmured and said it
was hard!...” A large tear that had been left behind escaped boldly
and followed the rest. “Eh, but it come that sharp, didn’t it?” she
exclaimed wistfully. “Never a letter to say she was ill or owt! What,
she was well enough when she writ last, though it’s a while now. Eh,
how was it nobody thought to write and say as I’d best come!”
“It must have been right sudden,” Mrs. Tanner answered, also drying
her tears. “Happen it was her poor heart.”
“Nay, her heart was right enough, I’ll swear! ’Twas always in the
right place—bless her ... bless her!” Her voice rose suddenly in a
passionate wail, and she rocked sharply to and fro.
“Ay, but t’ War was a great strain, you’ll think on. A deal o’ folks
say their hearts isn’t what they used to be after that.”
“Ay, I’d forgotten t’ War....” So many worlds may people inhabit in
one life and one world that even a world-wide war may be shut out....
“She took it hard, I know; she never said much, but she took it hard.
But she was right strong, all the same, was my little lass.... Nay,
it was never her heart.”
“It might be pewmonia, likely. That finishes folk ter’ble sharp.”
“Nay, nor her lungs, neither. They was always as sound as a bell.”
“There’s other troubles, though, as anybody might have....” Mrs.
Tanner glibly began a list, but was waved by the bereaved mother into
silence. “Not for my Tibbie!” was Mrs. Clapham’s answer to every one.
“There was nowt wrong wi’ her from tip to toe.”
“Ay, well, there’s always accidents and suchlike,” was Mrs. Tanner’s
ultimate, rather helpless contribution, but Mrs. Clapham grudged even
that indisputable fact. It was as if, by continuing to prove that by
no possible chance could Tibbie have come to die, she would presently
have succeeded in proving that she was actually still alive....
“She wasn’t the sort to go having accidents, wasn’t my Tibbie,” she
finished firmly. “She was that light on her feet, she’d never go
falling downstairs, or getting herself run over, or the likes o’
that. That sharp wi’ her eyes an’ all—it was lile or nowt she ever
missed; nigh as quick as yon fingers of hers wi’ a needle and cotton!”
“Ay, she was smart, was Tibbie—right smart! Eh, and that bonny and
all!” They had another weep together over the lost beauty of face and
form that gives to the grave its most poignant anguish.... “You’ll be
going to her, likely?” she ventured presently, when they were again
calm. “Telegraph said as you’d best come.”
“Ay, I’m going, of course.” Mrs. Clapham looked startled, gave her
face a last scrub, and made an effort to rise to her feet. Her eyes
went round to the little clock, and she gave a gasp. “Six o’clock?
Nay, it can’t be! Whatever’s wrong?... Eh, what was I doing setting
and yowling here!”
She struggled up by means of the table, her voice rising until it was
shrill, crying out that she must go to Tibbie, that she must be off
at once, that somehow she must be with her girl before it was night.
Once more the tears poured down her face as she stretched out her
hands blindly across the distance that divided herself and the newly
dead....
“First thing while morning!” Mrs. Tanner soothed her, also weeping
again. “It’s over late now, you’ll think on.”
“I’m going to my poor lass!”
“Ay, that you shall ... you shall that!”
“I’ll go if I have to creep....” She made a painful effort to reach
the door, while the other twittered about her with nervous chirps.
“Nay, now, you can’t do that.... It’ll be a matter o’ sixty mile!
It’ll do the poor thing no good, neither, now that she’s dead and
gone.”
The words brought her to a sudden halt, spreading their hopelessness
on the evening air. She had forgotten, in her eagerness, that it was
not a live Tibbie whom she went to seek.... “Ay, that’s so,” she
admitted heavily, lifting her hand to her head. “I’m fair moidered
to-night,” she muttered at length; “things has gone that fast ...”
and slowly, heavily, went back to the angry chair.
“Ay, sit still and rest yourself, that’s it,” Mrs. Tanner coaxed.
“You must take care of yourself, think on. There’ll be a deal to do
at far end. I’ll send them Rawlinson folk a card, saying you’ll be
coming by t’ first train, and I’ll get my Joe to ax ’em at t’ ‘Red
Cow’ about the time. There’ll be two or three things you’ll want,
likely, if you’re going to stop. I’d best see about putting them up.”
Mrs. Clapham found spirit to murmur “You’re right kind!”—the
identical speech that she had been making throughout the day, a sort
of continual “Selah” to recurring pæans of praise. Now it seemed as
if the very words that composed it could not be quite the same; but
then she herself seemed anything but the same. The silver bob of her
hair had slipped from its moorings with the shock of her fall; loose
hairs strayed across her cheeks, or straggled over the black gown.
Her face, drained of its colour, seemed actually to have lost its
shape, and wrinkles had come into being that were only the merest
guesses before. Her eyes looked blind with age, with weeping, with
mental and physical pain. Her hands shook as they wandered from table
to chair, or came back to their miserable, fretting movement over her
knees.... And yet even in storm and wreck she still looked wholesome
and clean, fine even amid dust and tears and the crushing agony of
her grief. It was chiefly the splendid buoyancy of the morning that
was gone, the happy confidence, the gallant strength. Never again
would she look as though she had suddenly been given the earth. Never
again would she look like a ship coming homeward in full sail.
She roused herself a second time to find Mrs. Tanner hunting for
something to serve as a rest. “You’ll be more comfortable-like wi’
summat under your leg,” she was chirping thoughtfully. “Whatever have
you been doing to make yourself so lame?”
“Nay, I don’t know, I’m sure....” Again she put up her hand and
pushed wearily at her hair. It was quite true that for the moment
she could not remember how the accident had occurred, so far had
the events of the afternoon receded into the past. “I fell in t’
road somewheres,” she added presently, knitting her brows, and Mrs.
Tanner, remembering the dust on the black gown, nodded a wise head.
Still hunting for a rest, she came at last to the little chair.
“This’ll do grand,” she began, picking it up, but Mrs. Clapham put
out a hand.
“Nay, not that,” she said, quickly, without looking at it. “There’s
summat else, likely, but—not that.”
“What, it’ll do it no harm, will it?” Mrs. Tanner protested, puzzled.
“It’s an old broken thing, I’m sure!”
The charwoman turned her head and gazed at it for a moment without
speaking, and then—“It’s—it’s t’ babby chair!” she managed to get
out chokingly, and burst again into a storm of tears. Backwards and
forwards she rocked under the fresh torrent of grief, almost tearing
the good black gown with her working, sorrowful hands. “Nay, I
couldn’t put foot on it whatever!” she sobbed, shaking her head so
that the silver bob slipped further and one of Tibbie’s carefully
sewn hooks burst at her throat. “It would seem near like putting my
feet on the corpse of the poor lile lass herself!
“Shove it in t’ cupboard agen, will you?” she finished brokenly,
turning her eyes from it at last, and Mrs. Tanner, weeping herself
for the child who would sit in the little chair no more, shut it away
in its dark sanctuary, as the child, too, would be shut away....
The bursts of grief were growing shorter, however, as Nature accepted
her bitter toll. The poor mother sat quietly enough while Mrs. Tanner
propped her leg with a tub, eased the strain with a cushion, and
wound a wet compress about her knee; quietly, too, told her where to
find pen and ink, post-card and penny stamp. The post-card happened
to show a picture of the parish church, and, forgetting her trouble,
she brightened sharply. “Yon’s where she was wed,” she began briskly;
“ay, send her that——” and then bit her lip with a deep sigh, and fell
again to rubbing the black gown....
Mrs. Tanner set a fire in the cold grate, put on the kettle, and
began to prepare supper. “You’ll not sleep if you don’t have summat
to eat,” the little woman said, as she flitted about, “and it’ll be
a bad job if you don’t sleep. You’d best have a warm bottle in your
bed an’ all. I’ll see about begging yon grand rubber one of hers
from Mrs. James. And me or Mrs. Airey or Mrs. Dunn’ll stop the night
with you, if you want. I don’t know as it’d be right, anyway, to go
leaving you alone.”
Mrs. Clapham said again “You’re right kind—you are that,” in the
same dull tone which was such a mockery of the one that had stood
for ecstasy and beatification. She sat so still that she did not
even turn her eyes as Mrs. Tanner flew to and fro, darting out into
the road after her passing Joe, and yet again to signal to Mrs.
James and to return armed with the rubber bottle. There was scarcely
anybody else whom the stricken woman would not have resented at this
particular moment, but it was quite impossible to resent Mrs. Tanner.
Always, as she nipped in and out, quick and cheerful, yet never loud,
she had the quaint, delicate charm of a hopping and flitting bird.
All the time as she worked she kept up a shower of twitters and
chirps—“Eh, but our Joe is ter’ble put about on your account, Ann
Clapham!” and “My Joe says they’re all crying their eyes out about
Tibbie down at the ‘Red Cow’”—but Mrs. Clapham scarcely answered. In
her state of misery and exhaustion the kindly sympathy hardly reached
her. It did not seem possible that she could get to Tibbie to-morrow.
Every bone in her seemed to ache, every muscle and every nerve; while
the ache of her heart in the midst seemed to swallow up all the rest,
yet continually sent out to them fresh weariness and fresh pain....
She had tried to say to Mrs. Tanner that it was not hard, that
somewhere and somehow something of which they had no definite
knowledge meant it all for the best; and when the worst of the pain
was over she would say it again. But at this particular moment,
although she looked so resigned, she could neither say it nor even
think it. As the minutes dragged on, and Mrs. Tanner, stopping her
flittings around her, suddenly flitted upstairs, she grew more and
more sullenly angry and frigidly bitter. It seemed to her not only
wrong but absurd that Tibbie should have died, that her beautiful day
should have come to an end like this. She had been so sure of the
goodness of God, and, while she was most sure, her daughter had lain
dead. Her heart had gone up to Him in great chants of praise, and yet
He had known that this waited for her on her very hearth. She felt
so terribly put to shame that even in the dignity of her trouble she
could have hidden her humbled face. Now she blushed for herself,
remembering her childlike pleasure in her success. Others, too, she
thought, would remember, and make mock of her love, wondering how it
had been possible for her not to know.... For the time being even her
sorrow was merged in bitter resentment at her own betrayal. Later,
standing by Tibbie’s coffin, self and its wrongs would be blotted
out; but for the moment she could only remember that her confidence
had been put to shame.
Mrs. Tanner had opened the back door during one of her many
flittings, letting the last of the sun into the little cottage.
Dipping through the mist in the garden, it sent a shaft of light
slanting across the scullery, a sword of light, as it were, that came
to rest just within the kitchen. It was as if the sun, that had come
to honour the tenant in the early morning, had still another message
for her before going. She had her back to it, however, sitting
aching and grieving, full of deep bitterness and hard revolt. The
world before her was dark beyond reach of light, even the terrible
lightening of a shining sword.
She sank presently into a lethargy which was not sleep, but that
dark, dreadful place where the soul no longer struggles to keep
a hold on hope, but deliberately chooses for itself the eternal
contemplation of woe. She sat hunched a little in the now-voiceless
chair, her head bent, her eyes dull, her legs stiff on the upturned
tub. Her hands, which had now ceased their travellings to and fro,
lay as if numb or dead on the lap of the black gown. She looked as if
she had had such a severe blow that it had killed even the wish to
rise—killed everything, indeed, except the power to refuse to move or
to feel again....
Upstairs, Mrs. Tanner’s light feet drew an occasional light creak
from the sensitive boards. Mrs. Clapham listened to them without
hearing them; and then, suddenly raising her eyes, beheld Emma
Catterall standing before her.
CHAPTER II
For a long moment she stared at her without change of expression, her
brain insisting, as it had done of the cottage, that it did not know
her. She belonged to her own section of this unending day, which was
neither the far-off section that contained the House of Dreams, nor
this present section which was wholly Tibbie’s. But each time they
had met the charwoman had been conscious of something that seemed to
call to her for defence; and presently, raising her head further, she
succeeded in bracing her tired mind.
Emma had been standing as still as a stone when she first saw her, as
if intent upon producing that apparition-like effect which seemed to
be one of her pet vanities. Now, however, she came quietly forward
and stood by the table, a roundabout figure with folded arms.
“This here’s ter’ble bad news, Ann Clapham,” she began, in her smooth
tones, her round little black eyes searching the charwoman’s ravaged
face.
“Ay....” Mrs. Clapham’s throat almost refused speech, while at the
back of her mind was growing a dull wonder at the appearance of Emma
in another’s cottage.
“Ter’ble bad news it is an’ all.... I don’t know as I’ve ever been so
upset.”
“Ay.”
“I heard tell of it from Mrs. James—yon stuck-up piece from over
the road. I see her running with a rubber bottle, and handing it in
here.... Eh, but I should think I cried for t’ best part of an hour!”
Captured in spite of herself by this unexpected remark, Mrs. Clapham
lifted her glance to the hard little face. Emma’s eyes were certainly
bright, and her cheeks flushed, but she hardly looked as if she had
been giving way to turbulent grief.
“Of course, you might say it was a deal worse for me when my poor lad
was killed in France, but there was things to make up for it, all
the same. There was glory, and folks taking off their hats, and all
suchlike, as his lordship said. But there isn’t anything cheering o’
that sort when folks die same as Stephen’s wife.”
The thing that Mrs. Clapham had heard crying vaguely for help
aroused her now with a sharp tug. That claim upon Tibbie, which had
frightened her earlier on, hurried her now into active offence.
“I’ll thank you not to go calling my lass ‘Stephen’s wife’ to-night!”
she burst out, so sharply and fluently that Emma actually jumped.
Mrs. Clapham had raised herself even further, and a faint ring had
come back to her dull voice. “She married your Stephen right enough,
and right fond she was of him, too. But she isn’t your Stephen’s
wife, nor his widow, neither, to-night. She’s just my Tibbie and nowt
else!”
Emma’s flush deepened, and one of her hands dropped from her waist
to rest on the table; but before she could answer, Mrs. Clapham had
raced on.
“As for taking off hats and suchlike, I don’t know as it makes that
much odds. It won’t give you back the folks as has loved you and held
your hand.... I’m not saying owt agen your poor lad as went down in
France, but do you think all they folks as knew my Tibbie won’t be
lifting their hats to her in their hearts?”
Emma’s mouth opened determinedly once or twice, but each time she
shut it firmly. She seemed to be struggling equally with a desire to
keep something in, and an urgently pressing desire to get something
out. The plump hand on the table twitched a little, and so did the
hand at her waist.... While she fought with herself she kept her eyes
fixed on the other’s face, as if willing her by that glance not to
notice that she twitched and fought....
When finally, however, she did speak again, there was a marked
difference in her manner, so marked, indeed, that its first effect
was to make Mrs. Clapham more uneasy than ever. She had allowed
herself that one hit at Tibbie’s mother, that one scratch, so to
speak, at Tibbie’s corpse; but when once that fundamental demand of
her queer nature had had its way, her whole procedure altered subtly.
Her hands ceased to twitch as if she were being torn in twain by
some inward strife. Even her colour faded a little, that pronounced
flush which seemed to speak of triumph rather than grief, and into
her black eyes came an expression which was obviously meant to convey
pity.
“Nay, now, you can’t think I meant anything against the poor lass!”
she returned smoothly. “She was thought a deal of, was your Tibbie.
A real favourite she was up and down t’ village, and I reckon they
thought a deal of her where she’s been an’ all.”
“What, she’d as many friends there as she had here!” the bereaved
mother broke out feverishly. It was impossible not to talk of the
dead, even to such as Emma.... “She did a lot in the place—taught
Sunday School, and a dress-making class, and she’d summat to do wi’
Girl Guides. Parson was fit to put her in his pocket. As for the
folks next door—Rawlinson’s their name—them as sent telegraph, you’ve
likely heard—they couldn’t do enough for my Tibbie. Ay, and there’s
t’ folks she sewed for an’ all; they thought a deal on her, too. Nay,
I reckon there won’t be room enough for t’ wreaths when it comes to
putting ’em on t’ coffin!”
“Mr. Wrench’ll be rarely troubled when he hears t’ news,” Emma said;
“ay, and t’ parson’s wife an’ all. They always made out to think the
world o’ your Tibbie when she was here. It’ll put ’em about to hear
as it’s happened while they’ve been off at the wedding.”
“She made Miss Marigold a pale blue _crêpe de Chine_,” Mrs. Clapham
said, and suddenly she began the eternal rubbing at her poor knees.
A tear from the fount which she had thought dry welled swiftly, and
ran down her stiff cheek. “And nowt for herself, my bonny lass, but a
linen shroud!”
She wept for a little while, passionately, but quietly. Even under
Emma’s eyes she could not help but weep, thinking of the girls who
were exactly the same age, yet whom Fate had treated so differently,
and who went so differently robed that day....
Emma watched her for a time with an immobility that might have
indicated either sympathy or its suppressed opposite. “Mrs. James
said you hadn’t a notion what took her off,” she observed presently.
“Nay, I can’t think.”
“Seems to me there’s something strange about that. She was always so
strong.”
“Ay. Strong and sound all through!”
“Of course, if it was pneumonia, or one o’ them suchlike quick
jobs....” Emma, like Mrs. Tanner, had a score of suggestions to
offer, but found them equally rebutted. Death was undeniable, and had
a dignity of its own, but the sorrowing mother could not tolerate
any hint of preceding weakness on the part of her lost darling.
“You’ll be going to t’ burying, likely?” Emma turned the subject at
last, tacitly agreeing to leave it that Tibbie had not so much died
as “ceased upon the midnight without pain,” and then, as the other
nodded, she finished hurriedly—“I thought happen you’d like me to
come an’ all.”
“To t’ funeral?” There came a sharp pause in the wearisome rubbing
which was the outward expression of the fretting brain. Leaning
forward with arms outstretched, she turned to stare into Emma’s face.
“To t’ funeral, d’ye mean?” she repeated in vague tones.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Nay... nay, I never... nay, you mustn’t think o’ such a thing!”
The colour flashed into Mrs. Clapham’s face, and she stammered
helplessly, looking away. It had never occurred to her that
Emma might wish to be present, and the very thought of it was
abhorrent. Yet what could seem more natural than that they should
go together—the two mothers—the two grandmothers?... Nevertheless,
it was simply not to be thought of that Emma should stand beside
Tibbie’s grave....
“Nay, you’d best bide at home,” she answered her firmly, though very
uncomfortably. “It’s a longish way, you’ll think on, and funerals is
always a trying business for folks as is getting old.”
“It’ll be a deal more trying for you than it will for me,” Emma
disputed, though quite gently. “And you’re older than me, come to
that.”
“Ay, but I’ve _got_ to go, you see!” Mrs. Clapham put up a desperate
struggle. “She was my lass. It’s different for you.”
“She was Stephen’s wife as well,” Emma broke out sharply, her mouth
tightening, and then checked herself equally quickly. “Ay, but I was
real fond of your poor Tibbie.”
“It’s nice of you to feel that way, I’m sure....” Mrs. Clapham’s tone
was more uncomfortable than ever, and the rubbing that began again
was now not so much from emotion as to assist the processes of her
mind. The something that kept calling to her for help was getting
louder and louder with every minute. On no account must Emma attend
the funeral, the something said, but for the life of her she could
not tell what the impediment was to be.
“You’re not so well, neither—not fit to go alone. Mrs. James said
you’d twisted your knee.”
“A bit of a wrench, happen,” was the unwilling admission. “I’ll be
right enough soon.”
“Anyway, I could help a bit if I came along,” Emma persisted.
“There’s always a deal to do at a burying; always a sight o’ work.
There’ll be the children to bring back an’ all.”
“The children?” Mrs. Clapham sat up straight as a dart at that, her
eyes nearly as bright as Emma’s. It was plain enough now what the
something was trying to say, calling and crying and clamouring at her
ear. With a reeling mind, she fixed her eyes fiercely on Emma’s face,
but Emma’s face never changed. Only the hand on the table twitched,
and then the hand at her waist; and then the hand on the table again,
and then the hand at her waist....
“Ay, the children,” she repeated quietly, composedly meeting the
other’s gaze. “You’ve never forgotten the poor things?”
But that, incredible as it seemed, was just precisely what had
actually happened. Mrs. Clapham’s mind which, only that afternoon,
had accomplished with ease a backward leap of at least forty years,
had, on returning, fallen short of the present. Like the chair, it
had put its stopping-point at the new generation. Tibbie’s death had
brought back to her almost all that Tibbie had meant, but it had not
succeeded in bringing her more than Tibbie. The child, indeed, had
been with her, but not the girl with her scissors and silks; still
less had she visioned the soldier’s widow, with Emma’s grandchildren
in her arms!
“I thought I’d best be on t’ spot,” Emma continued, after the pause,
“seeing as the poor lile things’ll likely be coming to me.”
The quiet words, falling so gently yet indisputably on her ear,
acted upon Mrs. Clapham like a galvanic battery. In a moment she was
stirred finally out of her dull pose, ready for battle, ardently on
her defence. Scorn stiffened her backbone and put fresh energy into
her frame. But for her knee she would have been on her feet in the
first instant. Erect in her chair, she stared at the speaker with
such mockery that the latter quivered.
“Coming to you?...” She repeated the words slowly, as if the mere
sound of them in another’s mouth was sufficient in itself to convey
the fact of their arrant folly. “My Tibbie’s barns coming to _you_?”
“They’re Stephen’s barns an’ all——” Emma began on a heightened note,
and then checked herself as before. “Ay, well, they do seem to
belong more to your lass,” she went on, with suspicious meekness,
“especially since my poor lad went down in t’ War.... But somebody’ll
have to take and do for ’em, you’ll think on.”
“I’ll be fetching ’em here, of course!” Mrs. Clapham announced
arrogantly, defying her with her eyes, her whole soul bent on
concealing the fact that she had forgotten the children’s existence.
It was incredible, of course, so incredible that it frightened
her, but it had happened, nevertheless. Also it made her ashamed,
convicting her of selfish preoccupation in another’s need. That,
however, could be atoned for, later. The one thing that mattered at
the moment was that Emma should guess nothing.
“They’re Tibbie’s barns, right enough, Emma Catterall!” she continued
fiercely, glaring at her across the table. “Don’t you make no mistake
about that! She always said as they was to come to me if by any
chance she was took—not that we either on us thought as she ever
would. But I’ve letters upstairs as is plain enough evidence what the
poor thing wished. No lawyer’d go past ’em, and that’s flat. And if
it’s plain speaking you’re happen wanting as well, she couldn’t abide
you, nor the children, neither!”
Emma quivered again like a tightened fiddle-string, and then
quietened.
“That’s not very kind, Ann Clapham,” she responded patiently, “and
me with my poor lad gone down in t’ War!... Seems as if you and me
ought to draw a bit nearer together at a time like this.” She paused
a moment, as if to allow her time to wince at the accusation of lack
of feeling.... “So you’ll be bringing the poor things back here, will
you?” she concluded gently. “Ay, well, of course you know your own
business best....”
“Ay, I do that!” Mrs. Clapham eyed her hardly, refusing to be
intimidated.
“That’ll do well enough at first, likely, but what about later on?
What’ll become of ’em when you move to your new spot?”
It was out now—the thing to which Emma had been working ever since
she came in, and in fear and defiance of which the dead had been
clamouring in her mother’s ear. Here again the incredible had
happened which was yet so perfectly natural in the overwrought state
of the charwoman’s brain. It was hardly surprising that it should
have ceased to link cause with effect, half-paralysed as it was by
shock, and bewildered in any case by the events of the day. Those
last words, however, clarified it as a landscape is clarified by
lightning, while at the same time they extinguished her temporary
vitality like a blown candle. There was no sense now in trying to
conceal the position from Emma, no use now in trying to hide this
last hiatus of a mother’s mind. Slowly her body sank down upon
itself, as before, her head dropped, her hands numbed. Her eyes
returned to their vacant staring at the floor. “Nay, I’d clean
forgotten about t’ house,” she muttered at last, in a voice that,
along with the rest of her, had grown terribly old....
Nevertheless, in spite of her collapse, she was calling upon her mind
to make one further effort, that weary, outraged mind which, during
the last few hours, had been torn so often from one point of view to
another. Given her own way, she would have sunk back into black woe,
but neither Tibbie nor Emma meant to allow that. One on each side of
her they seemed to stand, fighting across her, besieging her dull
ear. Tibbie, at least, had a claim that she couldn’t deny, and least
of all on her dying day. Emma, too, knew what she was about, to come
tempting her at her weakest hour, even though she would go back with
her head in her hands and some searching criticism for her pains.
For, after all, the decision was already made, and it was sheer waste
of time to ask her even to state it. As if it was possible even to
think of letting those poor children go to Emma! Even in her grief
she could have laughed aloud at the every suggestion. It was true
that they still seemed a long way off—the poor little pale mites who
were so like Stephen—and so like Emma! It was true, too, that at
that moment the tie that bound her was not of love or even of blood;
nothing more noble, indeed, than jealous pride of possession. But
no matter what the motive that constrained her, there could be no
difference in the result. Never in any circumstances could she hand
the children over to Emma.
She had forgotten the almshouse, as she had said, but now, with the
mention of it, it was coming back. She had forgotten it as people
in pain forget the sweet time when they ran and leaped, as the
long-crippled forget what it meant to hunt, and the long-married
forget what it was to love. Yet with her, as with all the rest, it
was there in her darkened mind, a far, shining country at the back
of beyond, a clear, golden country at the edge of the coloured sea.
And suddenly there rose up in her a great longing and a great cry—the
passionate, anguished cry of her vanishing, life-long dream.
She had been utterly wrong, then, so she said to herself, from start
to finish, from beginning to end. There was no reward, after all, for
honest toil, and still less for childlike, trusting faith. God, or
whoever looked after things up above—or who didn’t look after them,
as seemed much more likely—allowed you to work and believe and hope
for forty years, and then at the end of them cancelled your heart’s
desire. Even with a perfectly justified heart’s desire it was just
the same, a natural, praiseworthy heart’s desire that couldn’t do
anyone any harm. Suddenly He demolished your ancient castle in Spain,
and as He demolished it He also laughed. Mrs. Clapham felt that laugh
thrill through her in every nerve, as if it had been through the
medium of Emma He had chosen to laugh. Yet Emma herself did not look
like laughing at the moment, was not so much as wearing her Giaconda
smile. Her attitude was her usual one of repression and watchful
calm, but behind it was a suggestion of unusual fear and strain.
Mrs. Clapham, however, was engaged with another problem than that
of Emma’s expression. Her imagination, once more released upon the
joyous venture from which it had been dragged, was living again
through the wonderful morning and afternoon. Once more she felt the
breathless rapture of expectation, followed by the more tranquil
rapture of the accomplished fact; and once again journeyed on that
voyage of discovery which came to an end on Hermitage Hill. She
thought of the women with whom she had made friends, the tea-party,
the butcher, and always, always of the house. They—by “they” she
meant the Almighty and Emma, somehow intermixed in her mind—had
allowed her to have all that. They had given her the cup of those
hours, pressed down and running over, and then they had emptied the
cup and laughed. It was either muddle or mockery, however you looked
at it, and to one of Mrs. Clapham’s simple, orderly spirit it was
hard to say which was worse. And suddenly she felt that, muddle or
mockery, she wasn’t able to bear it. The child in her which had
played with the toys of old Mr. T. rose and clung stubbornly to the
House of Dreams.
Emma was talking again, she found, still standing there, still
filling her with that hatred of God and her roundabout self.
“They don’t take children in almshouses, so I’m told. They don’t
want ’em; it wouldn’t do. Folks as is ready for almshouses is ready
for rest, and there wouldn’t be that much rest, wi’ children always
about. I don’t know as it would be good for the children, neither,
come to that. Almshouses is places where folks is sort of put away. I
don’t know as they’d be much of a home for them as is starting out.”
That “put away” was a bad strategical error from Emma’s point of
view, and she realised it as soon as she had made it. It brought
back a picture of old Mrs. Bendrigg to Mrs. Clapham—that bedridden,
night-capped, wizened Old Man of the Sea.... She turned her head
slowly to glare at Emma and the Laughter behind her that was God, and
Emma’s hands twitched as she hurried on.
“Not that I’m meaning anything against them almshouses, I’m sure!
I’ve always heard tell they was fit for a king. What, yon time I was
telling you of as his lordship come to see me about poor Stephen, he
said as he’d like to live in one o’ them himself. It all depends
wi’ almshouses and suchlike who it is as builds ’em; but old Mr. T.
wasn’t the sort to go pinching the poor.”
The word “poor,” however, was a mistake, too, and Emma dashed on
again to mend it.
“An honour, that’s what it’s always been, to have one o’ them spots.
That’s why I was a bit down-like on Martha Jane—the likes of her to
go setting up! It’s folks like you them houses is meant for, folks as
has lived a respectable life. Ay, well, you’ve got one on ’em now,
and the best of the lot. Right set you’ve been on it all these years,
and you’ve got it at last.”
Mrs. Clapham spoke at the end of all this as if she had not heard a
single sentence. “Them children’ll come to me,” she said in a voice
that was determined, if toneless and sullen.
Emma drew a long breath.
“Surely to goodness you don’t mean as you’ll let it slide! You can’t
go taking children to almshouses, as I said before.”
“I know that right well.”
“You’ll send Committee back word, after all?”
“Ay.”
“Let the house slip? Let yon Martha Jane——!”
“Ay!” It was almost with a cry that Mrs. Clapham cut through that
last sentence.
“Well, I don’t know what they’ll say about it, I’m sure!” Emma’s
tone was still quiet, but she allowed herself a little righteous
indignation. “You’ve put ’em to a deal o’ trouble and all that, and
now it’ll all be to settle again. I’m not sure as you’ve any right to
send ’em back word, come to that. I’m not sure as they can’t sue you.
Anyway, it’ll be queer if they ever give you another chance.”
“Time enough to think o’ that!” The charwoman clung doggedly to her
determination, even though the prospect of renewed waiting drew from
her a heavy sigh. The sigh had a distinctly cheering effect upon Emma.
“It’ll mean you turning out to work again, won’t it?” she inquired
kindly. “The children’ll have their bit o’ pension-money, likely; but
I doubt you’ll have to work for ’em, all the same.”
“Likely I shall.”
“Eh, but it’s a shame, though, that it is—and you wi’ your lame leg
an’ all! Not so young as you was, neither.” She was careful, however,
not to lay too much stress upon age. “You’ve a right to your rest.”
“I can work till I drop....”
There was a pause, and then Emma changed her tactics again, or,
rather, intensified them. Coming slightly nearer, she inclined her
stiff little figure—the nearest approach that she had ever been known
to make to an actual bend.
“Hark ye, Ann Clapham!” she began rather breathlessly, and in a voice
that actually shook. “Let’s talk this matter over reasonable-like;
let’s thrash it out, you and me. I don’t mind telling you right off
the reel as I’m right set on having them barns. You mustn’t take it
amiss if I mention for once as they’re my grandchildren as well as
yours. When all’s said and done, they’re the barns o’ my poor lad
as went down in t’ War. They’re that like him an’ all; it’s only
in nature I should want to have ’em. Likely they don’t think much
of me, as you say, but I could soon learn ’em. Children often take
queer-like fancies agen the people as likes ’em best.”
Again Mrs. Clapham’s face came slowly round towards the one that was
almost bending over her. “What was it you did to Poor Stephen?” she
inquired dully.
Emma reddened in spite of herself, a dark-red flush very different
from the glow of excitement with which she had come in. As Mrs.
Clapham looked, something seemed to rise up in her that would no
longer be repressed, something that rose and rose as if determined
to break into speech, but was finally beaten at the door of her open
mouth. You saw it yield, as it were, sink, die down, fall and fade
away, thrust back on its chain into the place from which it had
come....
“Nay, now, you’re never going to rake that up again, surely!” she
demanded, though quite gently. “I never see such a clattin’ spot as
this here village! They’ll never let owt die. I did think they’d
put a string to their tongues when Stephen went down in t’ War, but
seemingly I was wrong. Of course I’ve known all along as they thought
I didn’t do right by my poor lad. A ter’ble grief it’s been to me an’
all, though I never let on. I shouldn’t be speaking of it now if it
was to anybody but you!”
She gave a deep sigh, crossed her arms and uncrossed them again, and
it seemed to Mrs. Clapham that her lips actually trembled.
“That’s all very well, Emma Catterall,” she replied presently, in the
same dull tone of condemnation, “but there’s no getting past the fact
you were right bad to Poor Stephen. You know best what you did to the
poor lad; I won’t say how I know it, too. But all the lot on us who
was living here then know he was half-clemmed and nearly daft.”
“Stephen told you I was bad to him, I reckon?” Emma’s tone was
injured but patient. “Stephen told your Tibbie, and your Tibbie told
you?”
Tibbie’s mother looked a trifle abashed. “Nay, what, haven’t I said
we could all on us see it at the time?”
“Ay, but summat’s been said—summat from inside,” Emma persisted
gently, and Mrs. Clapham stirred uncomfortably.
“Ay, well, what if it has?”
Emma nodded sorrowfully, grief-stricken, but forgiving. “Ay, well,
it’s only what I’ve suspected all along. There was I, fair breaking
my heart over my lad while he was in France, and he miscalling me all
the time behind my back!”
“He said nowt but the truth!” Mrs. Clapham flung at her brutally, all
the more brutal because she was beginning to have her doubts.
“What he took for the truth, I don’t doubt,” Emma corrected her
sweetly. “It was like this, d’ye see, Ann Clapham—it was Jemmy as
couldn’t abide Stephen. Jemmy wasn’t much of a man himself, you’ll
think on, and it made him right wild that Stephen should be so
weakly. It’s the big men, you’ll have noticed, likely, as is kind
to cripples and the like; them as is weaklings themselves want
their barns to be big and broad. Jemmy always had it Stephen was
daft from the time he was born, but anyway, if he wasn’t, he did
his best to make him. Eh, but the rows we’ve had over the poor lad,
and not stopping at words, neither! But he was my man, after all,
Ann Clapham, and so I couldn’t say much about it. We’re both on us
married folk, you and me, so you don’t need telling you’ve to stand
by your man. Eh, but it goes agen the grain with me, it does that,
even to be speaking hardly about him to-day!”
Plausible as this explanation undoubtedly was, it seemed to have
no effect upon Mrs. Clapham. Her expression was one of such pure
contempt that in spite of herself Emma flinched. Her arms crossed
and uncrossed with the regularity of some dull machine. The breath
that she drew now was not a pretended sigh, but an urgent relief in a
moment of fierce strain.
“Nay, now, Emma, yon tale won’t wash!” Mrs. Clapham pronounced
firmly. “Jemmy was a wastrel—a real nowt—I’ll give you that; but it
was you and not him as played Old Harry with Poor Stephen.”
“Ay, I know that’s what folks said ... what poor Stephen said an’
all. It’s right hard to have it thrown up agen you when your poor
lad’s dead in France!... You’re a mother yourself, Ann Clapham,” she
went on, warming to an impassioned tone, “so you won’t need telling
what it’s been like! But it was Jemmy as set him agen me, as I said
before, tellt him I couldn’t abide him, spied on him and a deal more—”
She broke off, then, however, even her amazing armour not being proof
against the other’s stare of superb scorn. Flushing, stammering and
choking, she checked like a brazen bell into harsh silence....
“Them’s all lies, Emma Catterall, and you know it!” was the terse
comment of Mrs. Clapham. “I don’t say Jemmy didn’t do his share in
harming the poor lad, but none of us need telling it was you as did
most. Anyway, you could have fed him and darned him, and seen to his
poor wants. I’m a mother myself, as you very rightly say, and I don’t
need telling _that_.”
“Ay, but it _was_ Jemmy set him agen me——!” Emma began again, losing
her head completely, and again choking and stammering into silence.
There was a moment’s pause, while she stared at Mrs. Clapham with the
flush deep on her round face, and then she flung her apron over her
head with a sudden sweep and a sharp wail.
“Eh, but you’re cruel—cruel!” she sobbed on a high note, her voice
stabbing like a thin knife through the draped folds of the coarse
stuff. The charwoman, twisted violently in her chair, gazed at her
silently in open alarm. It was as if a gargoyle on some church had
become a Niobe bathed in tears, or a cat worshipped by ancient
Egyptians had opened its mouth and mewed for milk.... It was terrible
and grotesque, and disturbed her beyond words, the more so that it
helped to confirm her recently-stirred doubts....
“_That_ cruel!” Emma continued to wail from behind her screen.
“Supposing I _did_ treat the poor lad as I hadn’t ought, d’ye think I
haven’t repented it long since? D’you think I wasn’t haunted by it,
waking and sleeping, all yon time he was out at t’ War? It’s easy to
judge other folk, Ann Clapham, but there’s a deal o’ things hidden
away as outsiders don’t see. Folks as don’t think a deal o’ their
husbands don’t always care for their children, neither. You’ve seen
a bit o’ human nature in your time, and you know that as well as me.
Happen I didn’t treat Stephen right, but I’ve paid for it ever since.
But there—what’s the use o’ turning your heart out to people as hard
as you!”
Mrs. Clapham’s mouth shut slowly as the passionate speech proceeded,
and a shocked, almost humbled expression came over her face. The
sullen resentment went out of it for the time being, leaving it
normally human and kind.
“Don’t take on, Emma!” she said at last, with a shake in her own
voice. “Likely I’ve been hard, as you say.... Fetch t’ chair out o’
yon corner, will you?” she added quietly, after a moment, “and set
yourself down afore we talk any more.”
There was a pause while Emma, still hidden behind the apron,
apparently struggled for self-control; and then, with a long breath,
she emerged slowly. As she seated herself opposite Mrs. Clapham, the
latter saw that her eyelids were slightly reddened, and that the
hard, round face looked haggard and strained. The growing doubt that
was in her mind grew still further as she looked, telling herself
that unmistakably here before her were genuine sorrow and sincere
desire....
“Nay, I didn’t care for him as a lad, and that’s the truth!” Emma
broke out again presently, still speaking a little unevenly. “Happen
things wasn’t as bad as you think, but I don’t know as that matters.
I know well enough I didn’t do by him as a mother should, and now
that he’s dead and gone, it fair kills me to think on. It wasn’t
till he was out in France that I found out what he meant; and eh!
though I was right proud, I was right shamed o’ myself an’ all! Ay,
well, he’ll not come back no more, and I can’t make up to him as
I’d like, but if so be as I’m given my way, I can make it up to his
poor children. Yon’s what I want yon barns for, Ann Clapham—to pay
what I rightly owe. I know you’re set on ’em because they’re your
poor Tibbie’s, but eh! if you only knew how I wanted them that bad!
Little Stevie now, wi’ his black eyes and his white face—what, it
would be near like having his father over again! Ay, and the lass
an’ all; I’ve always wanted a little lass. I’d be that good to ’em;
I would that. I’d cocker ’em to their heart’s content. There’s nowt
wouldn’t be too good to make up for my badness to Poor Stephen. I’m
young enough and I’m right strong, and I’ve managed to save a goodish
bit o’ brass. Likely I’d be able to send the pair on ’em to a good
school. If you take ’em, you’ll have to go back to work, give up
your grand house, and start all over afresh. What, it’d be a real
shame—you with your bad leg, and that tired out an’ all, as anybody
might see! Tibbie’d be put about if she knew she was doing you out
of your rest. I doubt you won’t find it so easy going back, neither.
It’ll be a deal harder, you’ll see, than if you’d never thought o’
stopping at all. What, it’s only common sense, that’s what it is,
when everything’s said and done! There’s you with your plans fixed,
and wanting your bit o’ quiet, and me wanting summat to do and a
nice bit o’ brass. There’s you wi’ no use, so to speak, for the poor
barns, and me that sick for ’em I could break my heart! You think,
likely, it wouldn’t be fair to your poor Tibbie—going back on her,
kind of—sort of letting her down? Ay, well, it’s nat’ral enough
you should feel like that; but the truth o’ the matter is, it’s the
opposite way about....”
Her voice, stammering and anxious, and growing more and more eager
as she found herself allowed to proceed, died away at last into a
fateful silence. Mrs. Clapham had kept her eyes fixed upon her while
she talked, but as soon as she ended she turned them from her. She
was saying to herself that perhaps she had been wrong in thinking
that there was no possible choice. There _was_ a choice, after all,
and it was perhaps only fair that she should be asked to make it.
In face of her new doubts as well as her new and amazing pity for
Emma, she could not simply sweep her pretensions off the board. Never
again would she seem to her quite the same woman as before she had
disappeared under that apron. Slowly she turned the recent revelation
over in her mind, weighing and sifting and making ready for judgment.
Was it possible, she thought to herself, that she had been wrong
about Emma—that they had all been wrong, Stephen and Tibbie included?
Nobody really knew what went on behind closed doors, and whether
they spoke truth who brought stories to those without. Nobody really
knew to whose account sorrows and sins would be placed at the last
day. The charwoman, with the iron sunk in her soul, said to herself
that she had been mistaken in God’s goodness; might it not also be
possible that she had been mistaken in Emma’s badness? Repentance,
at least, was possible, even for the worst, and in Emma’s passionate
outburst she had seemed to discern the ring of truth. Perhaps she
really did think that she could make atonement through the children,
and was full of a hunger and ache to pay her debt. Deep as was Mrs.
Clapham’s yearning towards them because they were Tibbie’s, she knew
that the loss of them would not break her heart. Undoubtedly, it was
Emma who had the right to them, if she was speaking the truth; but
who was prepared to say that Emma was speaking the truth!
It was at this point that she extended her bitter resentment to old
Mr. T.—old Mr. T., who, only a few hours before, had seemed like an
angel out of the past. While she was in his house she had been so
grateful to him that she had cried, admiring and loving him for his
kindly thought. Now she suddenly felt that he was only a stupid old
man, after all. He had seemed at the time to be making her a splendid
gift, while all that he was really doing for her was to tie her
hands. He had been silly enough to imagine that, by making that rule,
he was ensuring his old folks’ comfort and peace, whereas all that
he had ensured for this one at least was her total exclusion from
Heaven. Old Mr. T. went the way of all her other ideals which had
been intact only that very morning. God had failed her at one blow,
and the glamour for which He stood; and along with God and the beauty
of life went foolish old Mr. T....
They sat there—the two bereaved mothers, the two grandmothers—with,
as it were, the bodies of the children waiting decision between
them. Stiffly erect, with arms folded at her waist, Emma’s attitude
in sitting was much the same as when she was on her feet. She kept
her beady black eyes upon the battle-ground of Mrs. Clapham’s face,
reading the struggle that was going on in the big woman’s tired soul.
Over their heads Mrs. Tanner’s light step drew an occasional creak
from an old board, and behind their backs the light that was like a
sword brightened and faded but always brightened again....
They sat almost knee to knee, with the silence stretching between
them that the one could not and the other dared not break, until
at last it was snapped from without by the sound of a step on the
stairs. The brightness of the sword dazzled Mrs. Tanner as she came
to the bend, so that for the moment she could see nothing of the
little kitchen. “I’ve put yon few things together, Ann Clapham,” she
began briskly, lifting her hand to her eyes; and then, as she hopped
to the last step, her amazed glance fell upon Emma.
CHAPTER III
Mrs. Tanner had to turn her back on the sword before she could
finally believe her eyes. It was true, of course, that voices had
reached her while she was upstairs, warning her that some other
consoler had dropped in. Like enough it would be Mrs. Airey, she had
said to herself, and had fully expected to see her when she came
down. The sight, therefore, that actually met her gaze was simply
paralysing in its effect. To find Emma Catterall inside anybody’s
kitchen was sufficiently staggering in itself, but to find her seated
was almost beyond belief. The strangeness of it not only startled but
almost terrified Mrs. Tanner, suggesting that something inherently
sinister was at work. She felt, too, the ready jealousy of those who,
engaged in helping others in trouble, instinctively regard them as
their property for the time being. She reminded herself, however, of
Emma’s relationship to the dead Tibbie, and managed to stifle her
feelings with an effort. Coming forward, she gave her a cool nod,
which Emma acknowledged with a turn of her black eyes.
“I didn’t know as you’d looked in, Mrs. Catterall....” In spite of
herself Mrs. Tanner could hardly keep the suspicion out of her voice.
“I hope you’ve said summat to comfort the poor thing.”
For the first time since her unexpected entry into the cottage, a
hint of her famous smile played about Emma’s lips.
“Ay, I think I’ve been able to say a word,” she returned gently. “Not
much, I doubt, but still—summat.”
Mrs. Tanner felt her suspicions intensify further to the point of
fear. Removing her gaze from Emma with almost obvious distaste,
she turned it upon the still figure sitting opposite. It could not
be said that Mrs. Clapham looked any more cheerful, she thought to
herself, but it was certainly true that she looked different. Before,
she had looked broken and stunned, sadly bewildered, deeply pathetic;
but now, after some mysterious fashion, the pathos was all gone.
There was something stronger about her, indeed, but it was not a
pleasant strength; not the glad, gallant strength which had ennobled
her in the morning. The dignity of her grief had vanished, leaving
her sullen and bitter. Never once since Mrs. Tanner re-entered the
room had she as much as lifted her eyes. Mrs. Tanner said to herself
that she did not like the look of things at all.
“I’m glad to hear it, I’m sure!” she made shift, however, to answer
Emma with spurious heartiness. (“I’ll be getting your bit o’ supper
now, shall I, Ann Clapham?) Ay, it’ll be a grand thing if you’ve
helped her along the road.”
“It’s a sad business, of course; there’s no getting past that”—Emma
drew herself up, and took in a big breath—“but she’s been fretting
herself a deal more than she need. It’s bad enough, I’m sure, to have
gone and lost the poor lass, without fretting herself as she’ll have
to loss almshouse an’ all.”
“Eh?” Mrs. Tanner’s mouth opened, and she stood, gaping. “Loss t’
almshouse, did you say?” Emma inclined her head.... “What, but
there’s no need——” she began again, and came to a sharp stop. She,
too, had suddenly remembered the children.
“Yon’s exactly what I’ve been telling her,” Emma took her up
smoothly, precisely as if she had finished her clipped sentence. “Yon
children o’ poor Tibbie’s ’ll be wanting a home, if you’ll think
on, and she’s been thinking she’d have to take ’em and go back to
her job. But there isn’t no need for anything o’ the sort, as I’ve
pointed out. She can have her house as was fixed, and the children
can come to me.”
“To you!” Mrs. Tanner’s eyes flew round to her again as if pulled
by a string, and her birdlike pipe rose to a scream. It was as if
something tiny and feathered and flitting had descried the appearance
of an enormous cat. “Nay, then ... you can’t mean it ... they’ll
never be coming to you!”
“Ay, but I reckon they will,” Emma replied calmly, though her colour
deepened. “Mrs. Clapham and me have just finished fixing it up.”
Mrs. Tanner exploded without giving herself time to think. “Nay,
then, I don’t believe it!” she exclaimed sharply. “You’ve made a
mistake somewheres, Emma Catterall, and that’s flat!”
“I don’t reckon I have.”
“What, she’d never think o’ such a thing! It’d near finish her ...
she’d never dream ...” Mrs. Tanner twittered, looking helplessly from
one to the other, and then, as Emma’s smile began to glimmer afresh,
she turned desperately to Mrs. Clapham. “What’s she after, Ann?” she
inquired miserably. “You’re never letting her have them barns?”
Mrs. Clapham stared at the floor.
“Ay, but I am.”
“Let her have Tibbie’s barns?” Mrs. Tanner almost shrieked.
“Ay.”
“Her as her own lad——!”
“I’ve tellt you ay.”
There was a pause after that, during which none of them moved, while
behind them the sword grew smaller and shivered and dimmed. Mrs.
Tanner’s lips trembled, and her eyes filled with her ready tears.
She felt the presence of something between the two women that she
could not fathom, something that, for the moment at least, it was
no use trying to attack. She consoled herself with the thought that
her poor friend would probably look at things differently to-morrow,
especially after she had seen the forlorn little orphans—and Tibbie.
But the new development had made her feel awkward and tongue-tied as
well as afraid, and she was thankful when young Mrs. James appeared,
cautiously peeping in.
“I just wanted to say about filling that bottle!” she began in a
powerful whisper, too dazzled at first by the sword to see anybody
but Mrs. Tanner. “Don’t fill it too full, you’ll think on, or it’ll
likely burst....” Her eyes discovered the two by the table, and she
gave a gasp. “Eh, Mrs. Catterall, yon’s never you!”
Emma said “Ay, it’s me,” in her usual smooth tones, but Mrs. Clapham
said nothing; and the owner of the bottle, feeling uncomfortable
and abashed, was on the point of backing out again when Mrs. Tanner
stopped her. With a jerk of her thumb towards the two by the hearth,
she indicated that something was wrong, and that Mrs. James must help
to amend it. The latter gaped and gasped a second time, and then
stopped backing and edged in; and directly afterwards Mrs. Airey
and Mrs. Dunn appeared at the door. They, too, however, when they
had recovered from the spectacle of a seated Emma, became conscious
of the tenseness in the room and prepared to depart; but they also
were glued to the spot by Mrs. Tanner’s urgently raised eyebrows and
meaningly-jerked thumb.
“Ay, I tellt her one of us would be right glad to stop the night with
her, if she felt that way inclined,” she began to flow forth suddenly
in determined torrents of talk. “She’s ter’ble down now, poor
soul—ay, ter’ble bothered and down! She’ll feel a deal better while
morning, likely, and a deal better after the funeral. There’s summat
comforting like, I always think, in seeing folks properly finished
off.... Let’s see now—I’ll get her her bit o’ supper and see her to
bed, and the three on you can settle amongst you which on you’ll stop
the night. I’d stop myself, for the matter o’ that (ay, and glad to
do it an’ all), but as I’ll be going with her to-morrow, I’ll be
wanting a bit o’ rest.”
Emma’s voice fell smooth as an oiled hand across her passionate
twitters and chirps. “No need for you to put yourself about over
that, Mrs. Tanner,” she observed quietly. “I’ll be going with her
myself, seeing the children is coming to me.”
The information conveyed nothing to her hearers at first, and then
slowly into their faces came wonder, followed sharply by terror. Into
Mrs. Dunn’s, indeed, there came naked horror—Mrs. Dunn, who knew only
too well what it was like to deliver a loved one into alien arms.
“Coming to her?” Mrs. Airey demanded fiercely, her motherly face
suddenly peaked and sharp; and “Nay, now, she never means—!” shrilled
Mrs. Dunn, in the voice that usually was so tired and flat.
Mrs. Tanner nodded a portentous head.
“Ay, but that’s just what she does mean, and no mistake about it!”
she explained loudly. She spoke roughly, brutally, almost—almost in
a shout, as if the words were clubs with which she battered at Mrs.
Clapham. “She sticks to it Ann’s agreed to let her have Tibbie’s
barns.”
“Nay, now ... nay, never now! ... she mustn’t then ... she just
can’t!...” The words seemed to come helter-skelter out of any mouth
that opened to fling them first, an almost unintelligible chorus
which yet managed to convey volumes. The women actually huddled
against the wall, like sheep huddled before some dog. And then, just
as the outcry seemed to be dying away, they began again—“Nay, now ...
nay never now ... she mustn’t then ... she just can’t!”
This distinctly uncomplimentary outburst seemed, however, to have no
effect upon Emma.
“Mrs. Clapham can’t take ’em herself,” she condescended to explain,
the calmness of her attitude making, as it were, an impertinence of
the scene before. “There’s yon almshouse, you’ll think on—she can’t
go taking the children there; so what wi’ one thing and another,
they’ll be bound to come to me.... That’s the way of it, isn’t it,
Ann Clapham?” she finished, turning to Tibbie’s mother; and Tibbie’s
mother said “Ay,” staring immovably at the floor.
This final vindication, this triumph in the teeth of those whom
she knew for her sworn foes, was perhaps a little too much for the
careful Emma. Loosing her hold on her caution by ever so little, she
allowed herself what proved to be a mistaken pleasure. “Likely you’ve
summat agen it?” she inquired of the women, her eyes shining with
unmistakable malice.
More than one person present had plenty against it, as she knew, but
she counted upon their lack of courage to take up the challenge. It
was true that they had cried out, had given her plainly to understand
what it was they felt, but she guessed that they would flinch when it
came to stating their reasons. Until to-night there had been only one
person who had ever openly flung her the truth, and that person was
luckily absent. She was congratulating herself upon this particular
fact when the unlatched door suddenly swung wide, and somebody who
had obviously been listening in the porch almost tumbled into the
room. She looked about her a moment in order to gather her scattered
wits, and then—“I’ve summat agen it, for one!” proclaimed Martha Jane
Fell.
The whole company gave a nervous jump when she tumbled into the
room, as usual keeping up her unwarranted rôle of village clown.
The effect, indeed, was almost as if she had entered it head over
heels. Even Mrs. Clapham lifted her head to look at this latest
comer. But Emma Catterall did more than jump. She had remained seated
hitherto, as if conscious that no more intimidating spectacle could
be presented to the crowd, but on Martha Jane’s entrance she rose to
her feet. Standing beside the table, she looked like a stout little
pillar-box which had missed its allowance of Government red. Her eyes
which, during that moment of triumph, had looked beady and bright,
suddenly changed in expression, and became beady and dull. Her arms,
which had remained still so long that it seemed they must have been
clamped, released themselves now to their wonted mechanical act.
Martha Jane closed the door behind her by the simple expedient of
kicking it to with an agile foot. There was something about her which
nobody present could attempt to define, chiefly because she had
never looked like that, or anything near it, before. She looked like
somebody who had cried a great deal, and then laughed, and while she
was about it had done the one as thoroughly as the other. Her face
was haggard and drawn, so that from one angle she looked old; but she
was also excited and flushed, so that from another she looked almost
young. Her dress and her hair were both of them out of control, and
she still smelt obviously of doubtful gin. Indeed, the whole effect
of her was that she was still decidedly over the line, although more
from some sudden astonishment than actual drink. There was a curious
irony in the fact that such a respectable happening as an almshouse
election should have produced these two—the wild, Bacchanalian figure
that was Martha Jane, and the crippled charwoman, with her leg on a
tub....
“I’ve a deal agen it, and that’s flat!” announced Martha Jane ... and
the shaft from the sun, which had almost departed, illumined her with
an access of light.... “Ay, and so will you all, when you’ve heard
what I’ve got to say!”
It was Emma who answered her without pause, taking up the gage
instantly, and smoothing her own voice still further in order to
heighten the contrast with the strident tones.
“Eh, now, Martha Jane Fell, you shouldn’t come bursting in like that!
’Tisn’t nice, when folks is in trouble, to come making a stir; and
Mrs. Clapham’s heart not what it should be—not by a deal.”
Martha Jane tossed her head.
“She’ll thank me right enough, bursting or creeping, when she hears
what I’ve got to tell!”
Emma’s slow-growing smile conveyed a pitying patronage to the
untutored savage.... “Ay, well, you know your own business best, of
course,” she rebuked her kindly, “but I can’t see how you know much
about ours unless you were listening at t’ house door!”
The hit was a failure, however, and Martha Jane only laughed. She did
not mind being accused of a thing like that. Turning her shoulder
upon her with a contemptuous shrug, she addressed herself pointedly
to Mrs. Clapham.
“I’d like to say, first of all,” she began clearly, “as I’m right
sorry about poor Tibbie! I was that done when I heard t’ news, I
didn’t know where to turn. I thought a deal o’ the poor lass, though
I don’t know as we’d much to do wi’ each other, her and me.”
Now it was Emma’s turn to laugh, although in a perfectly ladylike
manner. Martha Jane winced, but her head and her voice went defiantly
higher.
“She was right decent, was Tibbie—eh, and that bonny an’ all! Seems
to me, looking back, she was much the same as I was myself ... I
don’t set much by other folks’ barns, as a general rule, but if ever
I’d had a lass, I’d have liked her to be like yours.”
Again Emma laughed her ladylike laugh, and again Martha Jane flushed
and winced. Mrs. Clapham’s eyes climbed slowly and dully until they
reached the intruder’s face.
“You mean kindly, I don’t doubt,” she said in that hard, sullen voice
which seemed so strange from her kindly mouth, “but I don’t know as
I’m wanting your sympathy, all the same.”
Martha Jane wilted a moment at that, and then flamed in the next
instant. In spite of her exhilaration, she, too, was obviously on
edge. The tears came into her eyes, but she flung them out angrily
with a toss of her head.
“I’m right sorry, I’m sure,” she said in an injured tone, “to have
said I was sorry where it wasn’t wanted! There’s some folks, all the
same, as appreciates feeling when they comes across it. Yon time his
lordship lost his grandmother, he was glad enough of a pleasant word.”
There was a fresh demonstration of scorn at this, though not from
Emma, who merely smiled. The usual glove thrown down evoked the usual
answer from Mrs. James.
“You and your lordships!” she scoffed, from the huddle against the
wall. “Seems to me you think o’ nowt else! Anyway, best-looking
man at his lordship’s grandmother’s funeral wasn’t his lordship.
Everybody said it was Mr. Baines.”
“Baines!” Diverted in spite of herself, Martha Jane swung round as
if on a pivot. “What, he wasn’t in t’ same street!”
“Like enough—seeing he was streets ahead. A perfect picture he was,
wi’ his buttonhole and frock-coat!”
“A barber’s block, that’s about it, and near about as much sense!”
Martha Jane had burst into the room a Bacchanalian indeed, but at
least with some laudable purpose hidden behind. Now she was nothing
better than a virulent shrew. “And a buttonhole at a burying!” she
concluded, with scorn. “Real nasty, I call that!”
Any further support that might have been forthcoming on behalf of the
elegant Baines was deprived of its chance by Mrs. Clapham. “Say what
you’ve got to say, Martha Jane,” she commanded, “and get it by wi’. I
can’t stand a deal to-night.”
With a sharp twist the pivot twirled its occupant back to her former
position.
“Ay, well, it’s this, then,” she began in a quieter tone. Drawing
herself up, she folded her hands, and a certain dignity showed in her
figure. “I heard Emma there say as she meant having Tibbie’s barns,
and I come in at the risk of a snub to ask as you wouldn’t let her.”
“That’s it ... that’s right ... nay, now, you mustn’t let her!...”
Encouraged by this plain speaking, the Chorus broke into fresh
protest. Emma opened her lips, but before she could speak, the
charwoman put up her hand for silence.
“It’s Martha Jane I’m axing to speak—not nobody else.... Tell me if
there’s owt else you want to say, and then get about your business.”
Obvious hesitancy came over Martha Jane at that, and she coloured
slowly and dropped her eyes. With the toe of a broken shoe she traced
a series of patterns on the floor. “I don’t know as there’s owt more
anybody need say,” she began lamely. “All on us know Emma’s isn’t
the spot for kids.”
“You’re that well qualified to speak, aren’t you—you wi’ neither
husband nor child!” Emma’s smile was deadly in the extreme. “And you
wi’ your repitation an’ all, as perhaps one hadn’t ought to mention,”
she added pensively.
“Never you mind my repitation!” Martha Jane flashed back at her.
“If I don’t mind it, I don’t see why anybody else should.... Folks
wi’ titles and suchlike manage to think well of me, all the same!”
(A snort from Mrs. James). “But what I’m here to say,” she added
quickly, “and with the whole place backing me up, is that you
oughtn’t to have them children of Tibbie’s.”
The pivot turned her half-left now, facing her straight at Emma. Her
voice steadied again as she warmed to her subject.
“D’you think any on us has forgotten what you made o’ Poor
Stephen?” she demanded firmly. “He’s dead and gone now, poor lad,
but we remember all right. What, I can see him now, with his poor,
starved-looking little face! Seems to me, looking back, it was queer
he come through at all; ay, and he wouldn’t ha’ done, neither, but
for that good lass o’ Mrs. Clapham’s!”
Fury was running through Emma in sharp little quivers, but she
managed to speak calmly. She had seemed almost afraid of Martha
Jane when she first came in, but, whatever the cause of the fear,
it seemed to have died down. “I reckon you know you’re very near
accusing me of murder!” she replied quietly, though with glancing
eyes.
Martha Jane acknowledged this speech with a great scornful laugh.
“Ay, well, I don’t know as I’ll trouble to bite my tongue off for it
if I am!”
“And me with my poor lad gone down in France!...” Emma’s lips gave a
sharp tremble, and Mrs. Airey and Mrs. Dunn, who up to this point
would gladly have seen her burnt at the stake, suddenly felt their
own lips tremble, too.
But—“He wasn’t your lad!” Martha Jane flung at her cruelly, ignoring
this touching exhibition of weakness. “He was Tibbie’s lad and nobody
else’s—Tibbie’s making and saving all through.” Emma’s lips trembled
again, and she laughed brutally. “Nay, you can put on yon war-widow
expression as much as you please, Emma Catterall! You won’t get no
pity from me!... Don’t let her have ’em, Ann Clapham,” she went on
swiftly, turning pleadingly to the charwoman. “Don’t now—don’t. Them
poor barns with their white faces and big eyes! It’d be a blasted
shame!”
The sincerity of her tone seemed to put courage into the women
behind, for they drew away from the wall, and came crowding about
her. It was certainly a tremendous event which drew even the elegant
Mrs. James to act as echo to Martha Jane. In no other cause, perhaps,
would these women who disapproved of her have condescended to come to
her help, but this was a matter in which all women “as _were_ women,”
as Mrs. Tanner trenchantly put it, were one at heart. All women as
_were_ women, Mrs. Tanner found pluck to say, couldn’t abide the
thought of the children going to Emma.
“You’d regret it before they were well inside t’ house,” urged Mrs.
Airey, suddenly seeing whole armies of little children crowding
drearily into Emma’s, and every one of them wearing the face of her
own son....
“’Tisn’t everybody as is nice company for children,” was Mrs. James’
typical contribution. “Folks in charge o’ the young should have
really refined minds.”
“There must be some road out of it, surely!” Mrs. Dunn pommelled her
flattened brain.... “Happen I might see my way to taking one on’ em
myself.”
“Ay, what, there’s such a thing as boarding ’em out!” Mrs. Airey
supported her briskly. “There’s plenty o’ decent folk as’d take ’em
for next to nowt.”
“Of course, it’s a sad pity if you’ve to miss yon house,” pondered
Mrs. James. “But if ever you want another, you need only ask Mr.
Baines.”
“Baines has nowt to do with it!” Martha Jane snapped, again
forgetting the Cause for the irresistible lure. Even at the door
of Heaven she would have resented this continual trailing of the
inevitable Baines jacket. “It’s his lordship as matters, when it
comes to a choice. Baines is nobbut a pen-pusher, to do as he’s tellt
what!... You’d get a house right enough, though,” she swung back to
Mrs. Clapham. “Only, whatever you do, don’t let her have them barns!”
The charwoman had remained silent during this concerted outpouring of
opinion, all the more strenuous when it came for having been held in
check. But the earnestness behind it was bound to have some effect
even upon her dull wrath, her rebellion against fate, her bitter and
sullen determination to snatch what she could from the damaged day.
After all, it was only what in ordinary circumstances she would have
said herself, what, indeed, was being said to her even now by her own
heart. She reminded herself, however, that the clamouring women knew
nothing of Emma’s desire to atone; not that it was any use trying to
tell them about it in their present mood. Led by Martha Jane, they
would certainly laugh it to scorn, or, even if they did not laugh,
they would refuse to believe. It took some believing, too, Mrs.
Clapham was bound to admit, with Emma’s round little face expressing
venom in every line. But then, even if she had come to repent, you
could not expect her to change all through; and, repentance once
granted, it was easy to argue that, the unkinder she had been to
Stephen, the kinder she would probably be to his orphaned children.
It was always the converts who went to the farthest extremes; they
were the swing of the pendulum, the opposite side of the shield.
Nor did it follow that, because you couldn’t stand Martha Jane, you
wouldn’t be simply an angel to everyone else. Mrs. Clapham had been
as good a mother as there was in the whole world, but she, too, had
never been able to stand Martha Jane.
Nevertheless, there was no doubt that Emma was not being an angel at
this particular moment. “You’re a nice one to go preaching to others,
Martha Jane Fell,” she was saying virulently; “you that was dead
drunk the whole o’ this afternoon!”
Mrs. Clapham muttered “Nay, now, Emma—nay, now, nay!” putting up
a heavy hand; but already the words had had their desired effect.
The Chorus drew away from about Martha Jane like a single soul,
testifying to their personal worth by exclamations and looks of
disgust. (Mrs. James remarked later that she _had_ noticed a smell of
drink—a really refined person couldn’t miss it—but there, since the
War there had been so little of it about, only them as fair lived for
it could believe when they happened across it!)
“Yon lordship o’ yours’ll be rarely set up when he hears tell about
it!” Emma finished sardonically. “A bonny specimen for an almshouse
_you_ are, to be sure!...” And from the new huddle formed by the
women against the wall came the indignant supplement from Mrs.
James—“And her setting herself up to be judging of Mr. Baines!”
It was a bitter blow to Martha Jane when she found herself thus
suddenly left in the lurch. Those moments of support from the
respectable Clapham Contingent had been some of the sweetest in her
not very sweet life. Now, however, she was once again under the ban,
thrust back into the role of Chief Village Sinner, beside whose
delinquencies even Emma’s looked pleasantly pale....
“Ay, and if I was!” she shrilled defiantly, as much to the virtuous
Chorus as to Emma herself. Flushing, she threw back her hair, looking
more Bacchanalian than ever. “That’s my own business, I reckon, as
you say one had ought to know best!... But if you’re that keen on
folks minding their own business and nowt else, what have you got to
say about yon telegraph, Mrs. Emma?”
A fresh quiver ran the length of Emma’s stout little frame, and her
arms fell away to her sides, as if they were struck. Mrs. Clapham’s
eyes suddenly sharpened their focus as they rested on Martha Jane.
“Telegraph?” Mrs. Tanner was saying, with a bewildered air. “What,
she’d nowt to do wi’ that! I took it from t’ lad myself.”
“Ay, there’s been overmuch taking of other folks’ telegraphs and
suchlike to-day!...” Martha Jane couldn’t resist the slap. “But I’m
not talking about that telegraph, thank you, Mrs. Tanner. I’m talking
of yon as come this morning.”
“A deal _you_ remember about this morning!” Emma sneered in a
breathless tone, lifting her arms as though they were hung with
weights.
“I can remember all I want to, anyway, and that’ll be more than’ll
suit _you_! I reckon I’m not the only one as see telegraph boy riding
up about eight o’clock.”
A fresh thrill of excitement ran through the room, drawing the Chorus
towards her again, in spite of their horror of drink. Subconsciously
they knew what was coming, as they had known about Tibbie’s death;
and Mrs. Clapham, too, guessing the truth in that instant, waited
rigidly, holding her breath....
“Ay, I saw him for one!” Mrs. Tanner piped excitedly.... “Ay, and
me,” added Mrs. Dunn. “And me,” finished Mrs. Clapham, speaking with
stiff lips. “I made sure it was for t’ Hall!” went on Mrs. Tanner,
thrilling in every nerve.
“Nay, it was not for t’ Hall, not it!” Martha Jane put her in place.
“It was a deal nearer home than that. Telegraph-boy took it to Emma,
but it was intended for poor Ann. And if you want to know what it
said, well, it said as Tibbie was dying, and would Mrs. Clapham here
be sure and come by the first train....”
For the first moment after the revelation there was absolute silence.
Terrible as had been the suspicion at the back of the women’s minds,
it was still more terrible when put into words. The huddle at the
opposite wall was more like a huddle of sheep than ever. Emma’s lips
were pressed tightly into a straight line, and her arms worked and
worked as if they would never stop....
Slowly Mrs. Clapham took her leg from the tub, and with a painful
effort drew herself up by the edge of the table. Her eyes fastened
themselves upon Martha Jane, who met the terrible glance without
flinching.
“Are you meaning to say they sent telegraph for me this morning, and
I never got it?” she inquired, speaking with difficulty.
“Ay.”
“Are you meaning to say Emma kept me from my dying lass?”
“Ay!” Pity and exultation had equal share in the slattern’s tone.
“Prove it!” Emma exploded breathlessly, a-shiver from top to toe, and
Martha Jane gave a contemptuous laugh.
“Ay, I’ll prove it right enough, don’t you fret!” she answered her,
with an insolent glance. “You see, it was like this—” she turned
back again to Mrs. Clapham. “Telegraph was addressed right enough
to you inside, but outside one o’ them Post Office hussies had put
Catterall.”
(“Eh, to think o’ such a thing! Did you ever now! Eh, now, did you
ever!” The stunned Chorus breathed itself back into audible life.)
“Emma was in her rights opening it, you’ll think on, but she’d no
sort o’ right to t’ news as was inside. She said nowt about it,
though, all the same. She never let on. She just sat tight, and kept
t’ message back.”
“Ay, but why?” interjected Mrs. James, forgetting in her excitement
that she had intended never to speak to the creature again; and the
rest of the Chorus echoed her in a puzzled tone—“Ay, that’s like
Emma, sure enough! That’s real like her—but why?”
“I reckon it was because she wanted almshouse message to get ’livered
first. She wanted Mrs. Clapham here tied down. She knew if she got
wind about Tibbie she’d be off like a shot, so she made up her mind
to keep telegraph back.”
“Ay, but why? (Eh, did ye ever hear the like?) But, for t’ land’s
sake, whatever for?” repeated the extra thick-headed at the back of
the room.
“Because she was after them poor barns!” announced the triumphant
Martha Jane. “She knew Mrs. Clapham was real set on yon house, and
that she wouldn’t be suited having to part with it when she’d got it.
Likely she thought she’d be easier to handle about the children if
things was fixed.... But if you feel like letting her have ’em after
that,” she concluded, dropping her tone, “you’re not the sort as I’ve
took you to be, that’s all.”
Emma had almost stopped quivering by now, and seemed to have got
herself firmly in hand. “You’re talking ter’ble wild, Martha Jane!”
she admonished her quietly. “I reckon you haven’t got over yon beano
of yours this afternoon. I don’t know as it isn’t lowering myself to
discuss the matter at all, but where’s this telegraph you make such
a song about, I’d like to know?”
“Nay, _you’ll_ know best about that!” The pivoting prosecutor was
swift. “Kitchen fire could tell, likely, if it was nobbut axed....”
Sweeping her off the earth again, she turned back to the rest,
happily conscious of now being able to hold them as long as she
chose. “The fact is, I couldn’t help feeling a bit down when news
come as I’d lost the house. I don’t say as perhaps Ann Clapham
here hadn’t the best right, but still there was more than a few as
considered it might ha’ been me.” (She paused at this point, as if
to allow an opening to Mrs. James, but the latter was too absorbed
to avail herself of the chance.) “Ay, I was right down,” Martha
Jane continued, with cheerful ease, “and badly in want of a bit o’
comfort. Likely I carried over far, being rarely troubled, but that’s
nowt to do with the present matter. It took me as long to get over
the comfort, though”—she grinned impishly—“as the disappointment!—but
as soon as I was myself again I writ a line to his lordship.” (Here
she paused a second time, even more pointedly than before, and Mrs.
James, awakened as if by a trumpet, obligingly played up.)
“Well, I tellt his lordship what I thought about things in general,
and while I was at Post Office getting t’ stamp, t’ lass and me
had a bit of a chat. ‘Grand news this for Mrs. Clapham,’ says I,
conversational-like, and she just gawps at me like a coffin-hole.
‘Grand?’ says she, as bright as a dead fish: ‘you call t’ news as
her daughter is dying _grand_?’ ... ‘What, surely to goodness you
don’t say—’ says I, looking as much like a hen at a bucket as she did
herself. ‘Well, anyway, that’s what telegraph said this morning,’
said she; and then it all come out. I was that puzzled I left t’
stamp behind me on t’ counter, and they sent telegraph-boy after me
with it. ‘You was up our way this morning, wasn’t you?’ I axed,
as quiet as you like, and he says ‘Ay, message for Catterall!’ as
pat as butter. ‘Nay, what, you mean Clapham,’ says I, but he stuck
to it I was wrong. ‘C.A.T.—cat; and a bad ’un at that!’ says he,
impident-like, and went flying off; and by t’ time I’d reached home
it come over me how it was.”
Emma punctuated this dramatic recital with a superior laugh.
“What, yon’s no proof as I can see!” she protested scornfully. “I
tell you what it is, Ann Clapham, she’s making it all up! You’ll not
have forgotten, likely, as she’s after yon house herself? If she can
saddle you wi’ t’ children, she’ll have nowt to do but sail in!”
The next moment, however, even her self-possession had quailed before
the terrible Martha Jane that came swooping upon her. This was, in
fact, the very same Martha Jane that had damaged the lady of Lame
Lane. In the midst of her moral darkness a gem of pure feeling had
shone for once, and now it was being tarnished by the touch of a mean
hand.
“It’s true as God’s Death!” she cried in a terrible voice, and swore
another great oath in the next breath, one of those Tudor corruptions
of God’s Name which survive in a shrivelled distortion even to-day.
“If it’s proof you’re wanting,” she went on, as soon as this effort
had sunk in, “they’ll repeat t’ message when you like; but to say as
I’ve let wit because of yon house is a b—y lie!”
“I don’t say I wasn’t set on it, though,” she added, more quietly,
though with a touch of bitterness in her tone. “It meant a deal more
to me than you folks think. I’d ha’ been right glad of a chance for
starting afresh. But all the same I’d ha’ held my tongue if it hadn’t
been for them poor children. Things was sad enough as it was without
owt as might make ’em worse.”
“Them’s just words—!” Emma began on a vicious burst, but the other
snapped the speech at the stem.
“I’ll swear it on t’ Book, if you like,” she flung at her—“ay, and
a deal more!” Advancing to the table, she laid a hand on the Bible,
challenging Mrs. Clapham. “If you’ll promise me what I ax, I’ll swear
I’ll refuse t’ house!”
For a long moment they stood facing each other without speaking, the
respectable, honest-lived woman, and the graceless, immoral slattern.
Across the table of scrubbed deal their two hands almost touched,
Mrs. Clapham’s plump fingers bent to support her weight, and Martha
Jane’s long, thin ones resting on the Book. The frizzled fringe of
the one foiled the clean silver of the other’s hair; her trailing
and tawdry garments flared at the other’s sober gown. At such close
quarters that they almost met, each stared in the other’s face, the
one ravaged but wholesome, the other fevered and flushed and hard.
There seemed no point at which they could possibly have anything in
common, not even a mutual language which could mean anything in their
ears; and yet the spark of true feeling which burnt in the heart of
the drab reached out to the same spark in the heart of the good woman.
The huddle against the wall watched breathlessly, mouths open, eyes
wide. Even Mrs. Tanner could not have spoken if she had wished. Emma,
unnoticed, uncared-for, a-quiver from head to foot, was also held in
leash by some outside power. The gods had ordained this to be Martha
Jane’s special moment.
Mrs. Clapham was herself again at last, her own courageous,
splendidly-sane self. She was still weary, of course, still grieving
and broken and lame, but life was swinging back again to its true
proportions. Under Martha Jane’s stimulus she roused herself a
second time to weigh the matter that was at stake. She did not need
the telegram under her eyes to know that the woman before her
was speaking the truth. Other things, speaking just as clearly,
were before her eyes, sign-posts pointing only too plainly to the
irrefutable fact. Emma’s unusual “joining-on,” her fear of the bell
and the black gown, were all details striking resoundingly a similar
note. Especially was the problem of the “little chat” made clear,
that sinister conversation which had puzzled her so at the time.
She needed no telling now why Emma had insisted upon the letter to
the Committee, why throughout the whole of her studied talk there
had been that deliberate exclusion of herself. The dwelling upon
the Catterall likeness, the continual harping upon her health—what
were they both but part of the same carefully-thought-out method to
the same end? Last of all she remembered the faces pressed to the
Post Office panes, and knew now why they had vanished, stricken with
horror, at her innocent smile....
It was impossible, of course, to doubt that Emma really wanted the
children, wanted them passionately, indeed, judging by the lengths
to which she was willing to go; and perhaps it was harsh to insist
that, in face of such conduct, repentance was altogether out of the
question. She would not be the first, as even Mrs. Clapham was well
aware, to have done wrong in order that good might come. Yet it was
hard to believe that she could want the children for any kindly
purpose, that her Ethiopian soul could under any conditions change
its skin. Would any woman, for instance, with a heart softened
either by nature or time, have schemed to keep a mother from her
dying child? A fresh wave of sorrow engulfed Mrs. Clapham when she
remembered that, but for Emma, she might still have seen Tibbie
alive. No, there could be no question now of entrusting the children
to her, after that.
Her expression changed slowly as she looked steadily at Martha Jane,
and for the first time she seemed to resemble the happy Mrs. Clapham
of the happy morning.
“Nay, Martha Jane,” she said quietly, “I can believe you without
that. You’re welcome enough to the house if you’ve luck to get it.
And now that I know the rights of the case,” she added firmly, “I
promise them children shan’t go to Emma.”
“And what about your promise to me!” Emma quivered and quavered,
facing her red-cheeked, with rampantly threshing arms.
“There’s promises as is best broken,” Mrs. Clapham responded, without
looking at her. Never again would she willingly look at the woman who
had robbed her of her adored Tibbie’s last glance. “I’d be obliged
if you’d be off home, Emma Catterall,” she finished evenly. “I don’t
want no truck with you any more.”
“It’s yon nasty beast as has put you agen me!” Emma quivered and
shrilled,—“yon drunken rattlehorn as we see lying all of a heap this
afternoon. Ay, well, a nice tale it’ll be for his lordship and all
the rest o’ the fools as promised her votes! There’ll be nowt for her
now in the shape of a charity-house, I can promise her that!”
“You’ll do nowt o’ the sort!” the charwoman stopped her with raised
hand. “You’ll not mention it, d’ye hear?... Ay, and all t’ rest on
you”—she addressed the huddle against the wall—“you’re none o’ you
to go making talk. And as long as Emma keeps her tongue in her teeth
you’re to say nowt about telegraph, neither. They could have t’ law
on her, likely, if they got to know, but as long as she keeps her
tongue in her head the rest on us will keep mum wi’ ours.”
“Nay, but what, it’s a real shame!”—Mrs. Tanner began restively, and
Emma snatched the words from her open mouth.
“Ay, it’s a shame, that’s what it is; and me with my poor lad just
dead in France! Ay, well, I hope it’ll be made up to you all, I do
that! As for you, Ann Clapham, you’ll likely enjoy going back to your
job of doing other folks’ bidding and slapping over their floors!
I doubt it’ll not be long afore you find as you’ve made a mistake.
What, you’re wore out now, as anybody can see—wore out ... done for
... ready for church-sod—”
A perceptible shudder ran through the elder woman, but she answered
bravely.
“Ay, well, I can nobbut do till I drop. I shan’t be the first to die
in harness, I reckon.”
“I’d get t’ children then, anyway!” Emma jeered, taking, however, a
step to the door. “Likely I could get ’em now, if it comes to that.
I’m their grandmother, same as you.”
“I’ve them letters, you’ll think on,” Mrs. Clapham replied patiently.
“Letters? Ay ... so you say—!”
It was Martha Jane who came to the rescue again, striding across to
the door, and flinging it open with outstretched arm. “Get along out
wi’ you!” she ordered, pointing contemptuously towards the street.
“You’ve done your job for to-day, without ragging the old woman.
We’re sick o’ the sight o’ you. Get out!”
Emma began a fresh flower of speech upon the evils accruing to drink,
but Martha nipped it relentlessly in the bud. “Get out, or I’ll sling
you out!” she commanded coarsely, in the lingo of Lame Lane, and
Emma, as if pushed, sidled sharply towards the door. There she paused
again to throw a last glance round the room, viciously at the Chorus,
jealously at Mrs. Clapham, and—finally—a strange, long, greedy look
at the photographs of the children. For the last time she unfolded
her arms and clasped them again. Then, “Ay, well, I reckon you know
your own business best!” she remarked to the meeting in general,
and, doing her best to fade as far as Martha Jane would allow, sidled
towards the porch, and went balefully, stealthily out....
Martha Jane, with her head round the door, surveyed the last of her
up the street. Then she turned to the company with a ribald wink.
“I’d best be after her and see what she’s up to!” she observed,
grinning. “She’s fit to set the street afire, she’s that wild!...
I never thanked you for yon currant bread, Ann Clapham,” she added
impudently, suddenly turning. “I was that mad when I see it first, I
near flung it in t’ road; but if you’ve any more going begging, I’d
be glad to take it along!”
Nobody spoke in reply to this, and, looking round the
disapproving faces—almost as disapproving as they had been for
the late-departed—she flamed violently into wrath. “Ay, well,
I’ll be saying good-evening then,”—she tossed her head on the
threshold—“especially as I notice there’s no thanks going for
tackling the fair Emma!”
Mrs. James, who had been almost stunned by the terrible unrefinement
of almost the whole of the foregoing scene, now started into agonised
life and shuddered audibly. Mrs. Airey coloured all over her kindly
face, and Mrs. Dunn flattened and shrank. Mrs. Tanner emitted a
sudden twittering sound from her birdlike mouth. But it was Mrs.
Clapham who answered the unspoken appeal, as indeed was her duty and
her right.
“I thank you kindly, Martha Jane Fell,” she said in her sorrowful
mother’s voice, “for what you’ve done for my Tibbie and me, and for
my poor Tibbie’s motherless barns.... As for my currant bread,” she
added gently, “as you’re good enough to say you’d like, I’ll be right
pleased to send you a loaf out o’ my baking o’ next week.”
Once again, as at the table, across the Bible, the eyes of the two
women met and locked. Once again it seemed as if some message passed
between them, some mystical form of touch; and then without any
warning Martha Jane burst into loud sobs. Holding her arm before her
eyes, she turned and stumbled into the porch, and the long echo of
her crying came to them faintly down the street....
When it had died away, Mrs. Tanner stirred briskly. Now that the
storm was over, so to speak, she began preening her feathers and
strutting about.
“And now you’ll just have your supper, Ann Clapham, and as sharp as
may be!” she chirped smartly. “Set down again, if you please, and put
up your poor leg!... Now, then, which on you folks is coming to stop
the night?”
“Nay, I shan’t want nobody, thank ye,” Mrs. Clapham put in quickly,
before the women could speak. “It’s right kind, it is that, but I’ll
be best alone. I’ll own up I was feeling bad a while back, but I’m
better now.”
For a while they protested, however, standing about and looking
distressed, but Mrs. Clapham remained firm. She sat down as ordered,
and put her foot on the tub, and at last the superfluous helpers
drifted reluctantly towards the door.
“I’ll see t’ house is ready agen your coming back,” Mrs. Airey said
in her kind voice, “and I’ll be glad to lend a hand wi’ t’ barns an’
all.”
“And I’ll see as there’s summat to eat for you,” added Mrs. Dunn.
“I’ve some currant bread o’ my own, though I don’t say it’s a patch
on yours.”
“I’ll bring you a grand bunch o’ flowers while morning,” was the
charming finish of Mrs. James. “I always think there’s summat
soothing about a real smart bunch o’ flowers.... Eh, but I’m sorry
about yon almshouse, though,” she reverted, as she went out; “and
nobody’ll be more put about when they hear it than Mr. Baines!”
Then at last they were all gone, with the exception of Mrs. Tanner,
and there was no need to thank them or answer them any more. Mrs.
Clapham sat back in her chair with a long sigh. She did not sit
forward, this time, sunk upon herself, staring sullenly at the floor.
She sat back easily, wearily, closing her tired eyes....
CHAPTER IV
And still it was not much more than half-past six.... Mrs. Clapham,
lifting her lids at last with the effort of one to whom every inch of
her body is insisting that the business of life is distinctly over,
could hardly bring herself to believe the face of the little clock.
The whole of her world had changed twice since it was half-past six
before. It seemed impossible that so much could have happened within
the round of a little day; just as it is sometimes incredible that so
little should happen in the tale of a lengthy year.
But the business of life, far from being over, was, from more points
of view than one, about to begin again. That it _would_ begin again,
when the moment arrived, she was now able to believe, though even
now it seemed to her that it could be only a miserable parody at the
best. Nevertheless, before long it would be creaking and jolting
again in the ancient grooves, although with ever so many extra drags
on the wheels. Foremost among them would be the children, hard as
it seemed to call them by such a name; but, dear as they would
undoubtedly grow to be, she could describe them as nothing else.
Some day, indeed, they would be a help instead of a drag, but that
was a long way to look ahead. Not even Libby would be able to bring
any grist to the mill for the next half-dozen years, and somehow the
three of them had to live through those difficult years first.
There was also the undoubted fact of her gradually failing health,
that terrible drag on the wheel of which all with their living
to earn go in constant dread. She was not worn-out, as Emma had
cruelly said, but it was certainly cruelly true that she was worn.
Weariness at least was in front of her, if nothing worse, stiff
limbs and aching joints that would not allow her to sleep. When the
present strain had relaxed a little she would be better than she
was now, but, however much better she was, she would never be quite
better. Never, whatever happened, would she be the same woman again.
She would never be even the woman who had awakened so happily that
morning. Both beauty and bitterness had taken their toll of her since
then, and made her pay too dear.
The third and perhaps the worst drag on the wheel would be the
inward reluctance of her own heart. Again, as Emma had so meanly and
cleverly said, she would find it harder to go on now than if she had
never stopped. She had taken her hand from the plough, and it would
be a bitter business forcing it back. All through the hours of work,
and the aching, wearisome nights, her heart would go stealing in
spite of her to the House of Dreams.
Yet somehow or other this new fight that had been thrust upon her
would have to be fought bravely and fought through. No matter what
happened to lie before her, she must contrive to hold on until the
children were old enough to fend for themselves. Her only consolation
lay in the fact that every year that passed would be so much won by
her in their favour. Even if the worst came to the worst, and her
body gave out before her spirit—even then the struggle would not have
been quite wasted. With each year that passed they would be not only
older but braver and stronger, more and more able to cope with Emma
should they fall to her banner in the end.
Thinking of Emma, she was again driven to wonder whether in all that
tangle of plotting and planning there had lurked so much as a seed
of sound, selfless and honest love. Nobody who had known her of old
would condescend to believe in it for a moment, and indeed the feat
would seem just as unlikely to those who happened to know her now.
Yet who could really say that beneath that growth of lies there might
not be springing somewhere the tender sprout? Who could really say
that a new Emma might not be quickening into being, brought to new
life and growth by the strong forcing-house of the War?
That question, she knew, would be a further drag on the wheel,
returning from time to time in order to give her pause. Again and
again she would be tempted to go back on her word, to take her hand
from the plough and forswear herself, even then. Always it would
be in the background, ready to harry her at her weakest moments.
Yet it was true that its antidote also would be always at hand—the
memory of the inconceivable thing which Emma had done that day. The
consideration of her possible motives went under again in an eddy of
grief. If by any chance Tibbie had asked for her mother, and thought
that she would not come!
Mrs. Tanner found her with the slow tears again stealing down her
face, but she sat up at once and tried to stem them. Getting up, she
limped to the glass, and began to smooth her hair with a comb taken
from a near drawer. She also produced a clothes-brush, and allowed
Mrs. Tanner to ply it; afterwards tying herself into one of her
best aprons. She came back to the table looking a totally different
creature, and addressed herself to the task of eating her supper like
a tearful but plucky child.
They began, after a while, to talk of what was in front of them
to-morrow, awkward, disconnected talk that became clearer and
smoother as the situation grew easier. The food took the extreme edge
from the charwoman’s weariness, and the tea stimulated her nerves and
heart. Mrs. Tanner noticed with satisfaction that she looked more
and more like herself as the meal proceeded. Even the colour began to
steal back fitfully into her white cheek. It was a pity Emma could
not see her now, Mrs. Tanner thought scornfully to herself—Emma, with
her talk of “finished” and “wore-out,” and unpleasant reminders of
“t’ church-sod!”
And still plunged through the scullery-door there stayed the shaft of
light that was like a sword, though it was getting paler and paler,
and quivered from time to time as if it were urged away. Still it
stayed, slanting to rest on the kitchen floor, still keeping its
effect of a sword with its point transiently dropped to earth....
“Miss Marigold’s wedding-day’s near about over,” Mrs. Tanner remarked
suddenly, as they lingered over the meal.
“Ay.” The charwoman’s lips trembled on the lip of the cup.... “My
poor lass made her a pale-blue _crêpe de Chine_,” she said presently,
as she had said to Emma, setting the cup down shakily on the edge of
the saucer.
“She was a rare hand with a needle, was your Tibbie!” Mrs. Tanner
nodded. “I reckon them barns’ll have everything just so.”
“Right as a trivet they’ll be from top to toe!” A touch of possessive
pride came into the grandmother’s voice. “I’ll have my work cut out
to keep ’em near as smart.”
“Ay, well, it’s to be hoped they’ll take after their mother when it
comes to brains. Not but what they said Poor Stephen was smart enough
when he was in t’ Army.”
“They’re sharp enough—as barns go,” Mrs. Clapham answered carelessly,
but with the same underlying suggestion of pride. Mrs. Tanner’s
words had called up a vision of coloured prizes and shining medals
of quality applauding her grandchildren with elegant white-gloved
hands....
“Folks never repent it afterwards as does the right thing,” Mrs.
Tanner asserted cheerfully, if with an unconscious lack of truth.
“They’ll live to be a comfort to you, you’ll see.”
“Happen they will.”
“It’s right queer your Tibbie should ha’ died on Miss Marigold’s
wedding-day,” Mrs. Tanner mused. “Are you thinking o’ going to t’
Vicarage next week as afore?”
“I reckon I shall.”
“There’s that knee of yours, think on.”
“It’ll be better by then.”
“Ay, well, you’ll not do that much work, I’ll be bound!” Mrs. Tanner
laughed. “Parson’s wife’ll be that throng telling you about t’
wedding!”
Mrs. Clapham said nothing in reply to that, but suddenly she felt as
if she would not be able to endure hearing about the wedding. Indeed,
at that moment she felt as if she would not be able to endure going
to the Vicarage at all. Suddenly she had remembered the conversation
of the evening before, and how in the midst of her own excitement the
Vicar’s wife had never once remembered the charwoman’s hopes. It was
almost as if, after some mysterious fashion, she had known what was
going to happen. “Next week, as usual, please!” she had said, as she
went away; and in spite of the new life coming so near that she had
actually touched it with a hand, it was going to be “next week as
usual, please,” for Mrs. Clapham, after all.
Mrs. Tanner, in the meantime, had passed on to another subject. “Yon
Emma’s a real bad sort!” she shot out suddenly, and so fiercely that
Mrs. Clapham felt as if she had received an actual peck. “Eh, but
what an escape it’s been for them poor barns!”
“Ay ... and yet I can’t help wondering, though, all the same....”
Mrs. Clapham was still searching for that hypothetical sprout.
“Wonder all t’ same what?”
“Whether she mightn’t ha’ treated ’em decently, after all?”
“Nay, now—you’re never thinking o’ going back on your word!” Mrs.
Tanner pushed back her chair so sharply that it shrieked on the flag.
“Nay—not me! That’s all settled and by with,” Mrs. Clapham assured
her quickly. “I—I’m beginning to want ’em, and that’s a fact! All the
same, I can’t help wondering,” she added thoughtfully, “whether she
wouldn’t ha’ done by ’em all right.”
“Don’t you get wondering owt o’ the sort!” Mrs. Tanner responded
vehemently, as she got to her feet. Her hands actually shook a little
as she gathered the pots. “There’s only one thing she wanted ’em
for, I doubt, and it won’t bide putting into human words. I’ve not
forgotten, if you have, how yon lad of hers used to look, a-creeping
back to that devil’s spot of a winter’s night!”
“Nay, I’ve not forgotten, not I!” Mrs. Clapham said hastily, feeling
rather ashamed, and for the fourth time that day seeing the vision
of the little boy reluctantly climbing the dark stair. Looking out
into the street, which was now full of September mist, she saw in
imagination Libby and Stevie come creeping up. Hand in hand they
came, clasping each other close, and with every step that they took
growing slower and more afraid. Doors opened and voices called to
them, but they never as much as glanced aside. Always they crept
on, their mournful eyes fixed on their pilgrimage’s dreadful end,
making their sad way to the ancient slaughter-house which was Emma
Catterall’s suitable home....
She almost put out her hands to clutch them when she saw them thus
passing by, and, turning with a sharp start, caught her elbow against
her cup and tilted it over. “Eh, now, but that’s a daft-like trick!”
she exclaimed, pushing back quickly as the tea came pouring on to the
floor.
“You’re a bit jumpy—that’s what it is,” Mrs. Tanner commented
soothingly. “Nerves a bit out of order, and no wonder, neither! It
hasn’t catched your gown, has it?—nay, it’s nobbut the floor. Ay,
well, I’ll take a clout to it as soon as I’m through wi’ my job.”
She went away with the pots into the back kitchen, and Mrs. Clapham,
instead of sitting down again, began to wander about the room. She
was still lame, of course, but the compress had eased her knee, and
the stimulant of the tea had eased the ache of her tired bones. She
stood for some time looking at Tibbie’s picture, and wept again as
she looked, presently lifting a pitiful finger to the photographs
of the children. Afterwards, staring about, she tried to imagine
the house with the children in it, sitting or playing or running
from room to room. Already their little coats and hats seemed to
have taken their natural place on the bracket behind the door. She
found herself wondering whether it would be possible to have the old
chair mended for them, and then decided that it was too old. There
were other things, too, that could no more be mended than the chair,
things like the loss of youth and good health, and the terrible
break of death. She was looking forward again now, patiently trying
to believe that there was happiness still ahead, but there was no
disguising the fact that it could be only second-hand happiness at
the best.
The pool of tea on the floor kept catching her eye as she stirred
about, the stain of it on the flags offending her charwoman’s pride.
It seemed to her it was the sort of thing you would expect in an old
woman’s house, an idle old woman who had grown too ancient to care.
Each time that she came across it she stopped to mutter and frown.
For the time being she allowed Mrs. Tanner’s kindness to slip utterly
out of her mind, choosing only to remember that she had forgotten the
promised clout.
There came a moment at last when she could bear it no longer, and,
finding the back kitchen empty, she stealthily limped in. Presently
she emerged with brush, pail and mat, and an expression of furtive
excitement upon her face. Getting painfully on to her knees, she
began to scrub, and almost at once found happiness coming back to her
as if by magic. She was no longer afraid of life, now that she was at
her job, nor of her own ability to cope with what the future might
choose to send. Again, as in the morning, she turned instinctively
to it for strength, and again found that it brought her courage, and
that the touch of her tools brought her peace.
She scrubbed the stained patch over and over again long after it was
clean, and felt her spirits revive with every scrunch of the brush.
As she wiped off the soap only to put it on, for the second time that
day she remembered the last words of old Mr. T. He had said that
she was one of the fighters of life—a non-finisher, a never-ender.
With a grim humour she told herself that he would certainly say
so if he could see her now! She no longer felt bitter against the
well-intentioned old man, and indeed in those last words found a
distinct solace to her pride. God was put back in His heaven again
as soon as she began to scrub, and along with her forgiveness of God
went forgiveness of Mr. T.
Forgiveness seemed more possible than ever when her mind, without
any obvious reason, returned suddenly to Mrs. Bendrigg. At least she
would never see the heart fade out of her dream as she turned slowly
but certainly into that! The truth was, she told herself sturdily,
stopping to draw her breath, that she should never have asked for
the almshouse at all. She could almost have blushed for herself for
having descended to such weakness. Work seemed the only thing worth
having as she lathered and scrubbed, and Tibbie’s children no more
than a featherweight on her broad back....
She had, later, one rather terrible moment when she remembered her
promise to Martha Jane. The scrubbing brought to a stop with a
sharp jerk, she sat regarding the prospect with acute dismay. Pride
apart—and emphatically it would hurt her pride—it seemed impossible
that she could ever go back again to the House of Dreams. She could
shirk the promise, of course; there was nothing to bind her unless
she chose; and just for the moment she felt that the only thing
possible was to shirk. But her newly restored judgment warned her
that to weaken at any point was in all likelihood never to get
through at all; and so, ratifying the bond with distinct ruefulness
in her own mind, she put its obligations on one side for the time
being, and went back again, though rather more dismally, to her work.
It occurred to her presently, however, that there was one side at
least of the trying position which she had overlooked. Undoubtedly
there would be some slight compensation in observing how the
almshouses tackled the problem of Martha Jane! The thought of that
self-satisfied coterie faced with Miss Fell as a neighbour tickled
the charwoman even now. Indeed, it tickled her so much, combined with
her own experiences of the afternoon, that she found herself, quite
without meaning it, breaking into a laugh.
Mrs. Tanner, returning, could hardly believe her eyes when she
beheld her upon her knees, and still less could she believe that
laugh. “Poor thing—she’s a bit touched!” she said to herself, as she
hurried in; and then, rounding the table, met the upturned face,
tear-stained but normal, and wreathed with a joyful smile.
“Land’s sake—and you wi’ your bad knee!” she exclaimed anxiously.
“Why in the name o’ goodness didn’t you wait o’ me?”
“Because it’s my job,” Mrs. Clapham answered, sitting back on her
stout heels. Her voice rang and her eye brightened. “It’s my job, and
no doubt about it! I tell you what it is, Maggie Tanner; I doubt I’d
ha’ found yon almshouse parlish dull!”
* * * * *
There was still another task which she felt constrained to fulfil
before she would allow Mrs. Tanner to hustle her off to bed. The
latter remonstrated when she heard her intention of writing at once
to the Committee, but her protests had no effect upon Mrs. Clapham.
“If I don’t write, I shan’t sleep,” was all she would say, searching
out paper and pen, and seating herself at the table for the last
time. There had returned to her suddenly Emma’s unpleasant remarks
about her manners, arousing her obstinacy and her pride. Moreover,
though she would not for worlds have admitted it to Mrs. Tanner, she
was afraid for her strength of mind. In spite of the new courage that
had come to her with her work, she could not trust herself to stick
to her bargain unless she wrote the letter that same night.
It was a hard task, though, harder even than she had expected, and
her spirits sank again as she wrestled with it. It was impossible not
to remember, in framing it, what a different letter should have gone,
by rights! Instantly, too, as she wrote, she was back again in the
House of Dreams, living through, minute by minute, those wonderful
hours. In spite of herself her mind insisted upon the treasures that
it contained, pictured the furniture and the flowering currant,
and painted the long view over the sea. She forgot the neighbours
and their trying ways; forgot even old Mrs. Bendrigg in her bed.
Once more she was safe enclosed in the temple of peace, tasting that
exquisite bliss which is not meant for us outside Heaven....
“i’m rite sorry i cant exept, and i hope as youll see and give it
to Martha Jane—”
She dropped her head on her arms. For a long moment she sat and wept.
Then again she took up her pen....
And behind her, as if it were something else that she had taken up,
as if a hand had suddenly lifted it from the floor and belted it to a
brave side, the shaft of light that was like a sword vanished out of
the kitchen, leaving it gentle and dusky with the coming night....
Printed in Great Britain at
_The Mayflower Press, Plymouth._
William Brendon & Son, Ltd.
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