The next morning Josiah paid a visit to Love Lane. The business of
Sally had taught him a lesson. Events moved so quickly in these crowded
days that it might not be wise to postpone a reconciliation with Melia.
So busy had the Mayor been since his return from Bridlington at the end
of August that he had not found time to visit his eldest daughter, nor
had she been to Strathfieldsaye since her first somewhat uncomfortable
appearance there. She was still inclined to be much on her dignity.
Women who lead lonely lives in oppressive surroundings are not easily
able to forget the past. The olive branch had been offered already; but
it was by no means certain that Melia intended to accept her father's
overtures.
This December morning, however, as the great man, proceeding
majestically on foot from the Duke of Wellington, turned up the narrow
street with its worn cobblestones and its double row of mean little
houses, he fully intended as far as might be humanly possible "to right
things with Melia once for all."
The Mayor entered the shop and found his eldest daughter serving a
woman in a white apron and a black and white checked shawl over her
head with two pennyworth of carrots and a stick of celery. The honest
dame was so taken aback by the arrival of the Mayor of the city, who
was personally known to every man, woman and child throughout the
district as one of a great triumvirate, of whom the King and the Prime
Minister were the other two, that she fled in hot haste without paying
for the spoils she bore away in her apron.
Melia, however, true to the stock whence she sprang, had no false
delicacy in the matter. Without taking the slightest notice of the
august visitor, she was the other side the counter in a jiffy, out of
the shop and calling after the fleeing customer, "You haven't paid your
fivepence, Mrs. Odell."
The Mayor stood at the shop door, watching with a kind of grim
enjoyment the process of the fivepence being extracted. He plainly
approved it. Melia, with all her limitations, had the root of the
matter in her. Upon her return, a little flushed and rather breathless,
he refrained from paying her the compliment he felt she deserved but
was content to ask if trade was brisk.
Trade was brisker, said Melia, than she had ever known it.
Josiah was glad of that. He then looked round to assure himself that
they were alone in the shop and being convinced that such was the case,
he stood a moment awkwardly silent, balancing himself like a stork
first on one leg and then on the other.
"Gel," he took her hand suddenly, "you are back in my will. Sally's
back too. You are both going to have an equal share with Ethel." He
felt the roughened, toil-stained hand begin to quiver a little in his
strong grasp. "Bygones have got to be bygones. Understand me." He drew
her towards him and kissed her stoutly and firmly in the middle of the
forehead.
He retained his hold while her hot tears dripped on to his hand. She
stood tense and rigid, unable to speak or move. But she knew as she
stood there that it was no use fighting him or fighting herself. His
masterfulness, his simplicity, his courage had reawakened her earliest
and deepest instinct, the love and admiration she had once had for
him. Of a sudden she began to sob pitifully. With a queer look on his
face he took out a large red handkerchief and put his arms round her
and wiped her eyes slowly and with a gentleness hard to credit in him,
just as he had done when as a very little girl she had fallen and hurt
herself on the tiled yard of the Duke of Wellington.
Speech was not possible to father or daughter for several minutes
as time is reckoned in Love Lane, although to both it seemed
infinitely longer, and then said the Mayor, "We'll expect you up at
Strathfieldsaye on Christmas Day. Lunch one-thirty sharp." Then he
added in a tone that was almost peremptory, "If that man o' yours
happens to get home on leave your mother would like him to come, too."
Her tear-dimmed eyes looked at him rather queerly. "Didn't you know,
Dad?" The voice had something in it of the child he remembered but it
was so faint that it was barely audible.
"Know what?" His own voice had more asperity than it was meant to have.
But she was able to make allowances for it, as she always had done in
the days when she really understood him.
"Bill's in hospital."
He drew in his breath quickly. The thought ran through his mind that
it was well he had had the sense to learn by experience. "Where? What
hospital?" He was just a trifle nervous, just a shade flurried. As near
as a toucher he had put it off too long, as in the case of Sally.
"In France. At the Base."
"Wound?"
"Yes."
"Bad one?"
"He says it's only a cushy ... but ... but somehow I don't trust him."
"How do you mean you don't trust him?"
"I mean this, Dad." She was quite composed now; the tears and the
shakings were under control; she spoke slowly and calmly. "No matter
how bad he was, he's not one as would ever let on."
"Why shouldn't he?"
"He'd be afraid it might upset you. He's got like that lately."
Suddenly the hard eyes filled again. "He grins and bears things now."
Josiah nodded rather grimly, but made no comment. He turned on his
heel. "See you this day fortnight up at the house." Abruptly, in deep
thought, he went away.