The clock struck eight and she rose suddenly, dropping her sewing on
her chair. She went to the stairfoot door, opened it, listening. Then
she went out, locking the door behind her.
Something scuffled in the yard, and she started, though she knew it was
only the rats with which the place was overrun. The night was very
dark. In the great bay of railway lines, bulked with trucks, there was
no trace of light, only away back she could see a few yellow lamps at
the pit-top, and the red smear of the burning pit-bank on the night.
She hurried along the edge of the track, then, crossing the converging
lines, came to the stile by the white gates, whence she emerged on the
road. Then the fear which had led her shrank. People were walking up to
New Brinsley; she saw the lights in the houses; twenty yards further on
were the broad windows of the ‘Prince of Wales’, very warm and bright,
and the loud voices of men could be heard distinctly. What a fool she
had been to imagine that anything had happened to him! He was merely
drinking over there at the ‘Prince of Wales’. She faltered. She had
never yet been to fetch him, and she never would go. So she continued
her walk towards the long straggling line of houses, standing blank on
the highway. She entered a passage between the dwellings.
“Mr Rigley?—Yes! Did you want him? No, he’s not in at this minute.”
The raw-boned woman leaned forward from her dark scullery and peered at
the other, upon whom fell a dim light through the blind of the kitchen
window.
“Is it Mrs Bates?” she asked in a tone tinged with respect.
“Yes. I wondered if your Master was at home. Mine hasn’t come yet.”
“’Asn’t ’e! Oh, Jack’s been ’ome an’ ’ad ’is dinner an’ gone out. ’E’s
just gone for ’alf an hour afore bedtime. Did you call at the ‘Prince
of Wales’?”
“No——”
“No, you didn’t like——! It’s not very nice.” The other woman was
indulgent. There was an awkward pause. “Jack never said nothink
about—about your Mester,” she said.
“No!—I expect he’s stuck in there!”
Elizabeth Bates said this bitterly, and with recklessness. She knew
that the woman across the yard was standing at her door listening, but
she did not care. As she turned:
“Stop a minute! I’ll just go an’ ask Jack if e’ knows anythink,” said
Mrs Rigley.
“Oh, no—I wouldn’t like to put——!”
“Yes, I will, if you’ll just step inside an’ see as th’ childer doesn’t
come downstairs and set theirselves afire.”
Elizabeth Bates, murmuring a remonstrance, stepped inside. The other
woman apologized for the state of the room.
The kitchen needed apology. There were little frocks and trousers and
childish undergarments on the squab and on the floor, and a litter of
playthings everywhere. On the black American cloth of the table were
pieces of bread and cake, crusts, slops, and a teapot with cold tea.
“Eh, ours is just as bad,” said Elizabeth Bates, looking at the woman,
not at the house. Mrs Rigley put a shawl over her head and hurried out,
saying:
“I shanna be a minute.”
The other sat, noting with faint disapproval the general untidiness of
the room. Then she fell to counting the shoes of various sizes
scattered over the floor. There were twelve. She sighed and said to
herself, “No wonder!”—glancing at the litter. There came the scratching
of two pairs of feet on the yard, and the Rigleys entered. Elizabeth
Bates rose. Rigley was a big man, with very large bones. His head
looked particularly bony. Across his temple was a blue scar, caused by
a wound got in the pit, a wound in which the coal-dust remained blue
like tattooing.
“Asna ’e come whoam yit?” asked the man, without any form of greeting,
but with deference and sympathy. “I couldna say wheer he is—’e’s non
ower theer!”—he jerked his head to signify the ‘Prince of Wales’.
“’E’s ’appen gone up to th’ ‘Yew’,” said Mrs Rigley.
There was another pause. Rigley had evidently something to get off his
mind:
“Ah left ’im finishin’ a stint,” he began. “Loose-all ’ad bin gone
about ten minutes when we com’n away, an’ I shouted, ‘Are ter comin’,
Walt?’ an’ ’e said, ‘Go on, Ah shanna be but a’ef a minnit,’ so we
com’n ter th’ bottom, me an’ Bowers, thinkin’ as ’e wor just behint,
an’ ’ud come up i’ th’ next bantle——”
He stood perplexed, as if answering a charge of deserting his mate.
Elizabeth Bates, now again certain of disaster, hastened to reassure
him:
“I expect ’e’s gone up to th’ ‘Yew Tree’, as you say. It’s not the
first time. I’ve fretted myself into a fever before now. He’ll come
home when they carry him.”
“Ay, isn’t it too bad!” deplored the other woman.
“I’ll just step up to Dick’s an’ see if ’e _is_ theer,” offered the
man, afraid of appearing alarmed, afraid of taking liberties.
“Oh, I wouldn’t think of bothering you that far,” said Elizabeth Bates,
with emphasis, but he knew she was glad of his offer.
As they stumbled up the entry, Elizabeth Bates heard Rigley’s wife run
across the yard and open her neighbour’s door. At this, suddenly all
the blood in her body seemed to switch away from her heart.
“Mind!” warned Rigley. “Ah’ve said many a time as Ah’d fill up them
ruts in this entry, sumb’dy ’ll be breakin’ their legs yit.”
She recovered herself and walked quickly along with the miner.
“I don’t like leaving the children in bed, and nobody in the house,”
she said.
“No, you dunna!” he replied courteously. They were soon at the gate of
the cottage.
“Well, I shanna be many minnits. Dunna you be frettin’ now, ’e’ll be
all right,” said the butty.
“Thank you very much, Mr Rigley,” she replied.
“You’re welcome!” he stammered, moving away. “I shanna be many
minnits.”
The house was quiet. Elizabeth Bates took off her hat and shawl, and
rolled back the rug. When she had finished, she sat down. It was a few
minutes past nine. She was startled by the rapid chuff of the
winding-engine at the pit, and the sharp whirr of the brakes on the
rope as it descended. Again she felt the painful sweep of her blood,
and she put her hand to her side, saying aloud, “Good gracious!—it’s
only the nine o’clock deputy going down,” rebuking herself.
She sat still, listening. Half an hour of this, and she was wearied
out.
“What am I working myself up like this for?” she said pitiably to
herself, “I s’ll only be doing myself some damage.”
She took out her sewing again.
At a quarter to ten there were footsteps. One person! She watched for
the door to open. It was an elderly woman, in a black bonnet and a
black woollen shawl—his mother. She was about sixty years old, pale,
with blue eyes, and her face all wrinkled and lamentable. She shut the
door and turned to her daughter-in-law peevishly.
“Eh, Lizzie, whatever shall we do, whatever shall we do!” she cried.
Elizabeth drew back a little, sharply.
“What is it, mother?” she said.
The elder woman seated herself on the sofa.
“I don’t know, child, I can’t tell you!”—she shook her head slowly.
Elizabeth sat watching her, anxious and vexed.
“I don’t know,” replied the grandmother, sighing very deeply. “There’s
no end to my troubles, there isn’t. The things I’ve gone through, I’m
sure it’s enough——!” She wept without wiping her eyes, the tears
running.
“But, mother,” interrupted Elizabeth, “what do you mean? What is it?”
The grandmother slowly wiped her eyes. The fountains of her tears were
stopped by Elizabeth’s directness. She wiped her eyes slowly.
“Poor child! Eh, you poor thing!” she moaned. “I don’t know what we’re
going to do, I don’t—and you as you are—it’s a thing, it is indeed!”
Elizabeth waited.
“Is he dead?” she asked, and at the words her heart swung violently,
though she felt a slight flush of shame at the ultimate extravagance of
the question. Her words sufficiently frightened the old lady, almost
brought her to herself.
“Don’t say so, Elizabeth! We’ll hope it’s not as bad as that; no, may
the Lord spare us that, Elizabeth. Jack Rigley came just as I was
sittin’ down to a glass afore going to bed, an’ ’e said, ‘’Appen you’ll
go down th’ line, Mrs Bates. Walt’s had an accident. ’Appen you’ll go
an’ sit wi’ ’er till we can get him home.’ I hadn’t time to ask him a
word afore he was gone. An’ I put my bonnet on an’ come straight down,
Lizzie. I thought to myself, ‘Eh, that poor blessed child, if anybody
should come an’ tell her of a sudden, there’s no knowin’ what’ll ’appen
to ’er.’ You mustn’t let it upset you, Lizzie—or you know what to
expect. How long is it, six months—or is it five, Lizzie? Ay!”—the old
woman shook her head—“time slips on, it slips on! Ay!”
Elizabeth’s thoughts were busy elsewhere. If he was killed—would she be
able to manage on the little pension and what she could earn?—she
counted up rapidly. If he was hurt—they wouldn’t take him to the
hospital—how tiresome he would be to nurse!—but perhaps she’d be able
to get him away from the drink and his hateful ways. She would—while he
was ill. The tears offered to come to her eyes at the picture. But what
sentimental luxury was this she was beginning?—She turned to consider
the children. At any rate she was absolutely necessary for them. They
were her business.
“Ay!” repeated the old woman, “it seems but a week or two since he
brought me his first wages. Ay—he was a good lad, Elizabeth, he was, in
his way. I don’t know why he got to be such a trouble, I don’t. He was
a happy lad at home, only full of spirits. But there’s no mistake he’s
been a handful of trouble, he has! I hope the Lord’ll spare him to mend
his ways. I hope so, I hope so. You’ve had a sight o’ trouble with him,
Elizabeth, you have indeed. But he was a jolly enough lad wi’ me, he
was, I can assure you. I don’t know how it is....”
The old woman continued to muse aloud, a monotonous irritating sound,
while Elizabeth thought concentratedly, startled once, when she heard
the winding-engine chuff quickly, and the brakes skirr with a shriek.
Then she heard the engine more slowly, and the brakes made no sound.
The old woman did not notice. Elizabeth waited in suspense. The
mother-in-law talked, with lapses into silence.
“But he wasn’t your son, Lizzie, an’ it makes a difference. Whatever he
was, I remember him when he was little, an’ I learned to understand him
and to make allowances. You’ve got to make allowances for them——”
It was half-past ten, and the old woman was saying: “But it’s trouble
from beginning to end; you’re never too old for trouble, never too old
for that——” when the gate banged back, and there were heavy feet on the
steps.
“I’ll go, Lizzie, let me go,” cried the old woman, rising. But
Elizabeth was at the door. It was a man in pit-clothes.
“They’re bringin’ ’im, Missis,” he said. Elizabeth’s heart halted a
moment. Then it surged on again, almost suffocating her.
“Is he—is it bad?” she asked.
The man turned away, looking at the darkness:
“The doctor says ’e’d been dead hours. ’E saw ’im i’ th’ lamp-cabin.”
The old woman, who stood just behind Elizabeth, dropped into a chair,
and folded her hands, crying: “Oh, my boy, my boy!”
“Hush!” said Elizabeth, with a sharp twitch of a frown. “Be still,
mother, don’t waken th’ children: I wouldn’t have them down for
anything!”
The old woman moaned softly, rocking herself. The man was drawing away.
Elizabeth took a step forward.
“How was it?” she asked.
“Well, I couldn’t say for sure,” the man replied, very ill at ease. “’E
wor finishin’ a stint an’ th’ butties ’ad gone, an’ a lot o’ stuff come
down atop ’n ’im.”
“And crushed him?” cried the widow, with a shudder.
“No,” said the man, “it fell at th’ back of ’im. ’E wor under th’ face,
an’ it niver touched ’im. It shut ’im in. It seems ’e wor smothered.”
Elizabeth shrank back. She heard the old woman behind her cry:
“What?—what did ’e say it was?”
The man replied, more loudly: “’E wor smothered!”
Then the old woman wailed aloud, and this relieved Elizabeth.
“Oh, mother,” she said, putting her hand on the old woman, “don’t waken
th’ children, don’t waken th’ children.”
She wept a little, unknowing, while the old mother rocked herself and
moaned. Elizabeth remembered that they were bringing him home, and she
must be ready. “They’ll lay him in the parlour,” she said to herself,
standing a moment pale and perplexed.
Then she lighted a candle and went into the tiny room. The air was cold
and damp, but she could not make a fire, there was no fireplace. She
set down the candle and looked round. The candle-light glittered on the
lustre-glasses, on the two vases that held some of the pink
chrysanthemums, and on the dark mahogany. There was a cold, deathly
smell of chrysanthemums in the room. Elizabeth stood looking at the
flowers. She turned away, and calculated whether there would be room to
lay him on the floor, between the couch and the chiffonier. She pushed
the chairs aside. There would be room to lay him down and to step round
him. Then she fetched the old red tablecloth, and another old cloth,
spreading them down to save her bit of carpet. She shivered on leaving
the parlour; so, from the dresser-drawer she took a clean shirt and put
it at the fire to air. All the time her mother-in-law was rocking
herself in the chair and moaning.
“You’ll have to move from there, mother,” said Elizabeth. “They’ll be
bringing him in. Come in the rocker.”
The old mother rose mechanically, and seated herself by the fire,
continuing to lament. Elizabeth went into the pantry for another
candle, and there, in the little penthouse under the naked tiles, she
heard them coming. She stood still in the pantry doorway, listening.
She heard them pass the end of the house, and come awkwardly down the
three steps, a jumble of shuffling footsteps and muttering voices. The
old woman was silent. The men were in the yard.
Then Elizabeth heard Matthews, the manager of the pit, say: “You go in
first, Jim. Mind!”
The door came open, and the two women saw a collier backing into the
room, holding one end of a stretcher, on which they could see the
nailed pit-boots of the dead man. The two carriers halted, the man at
the head stooping to the lintel of the door.
“Wheer will you have him?” asked the manager, a short, white-bearded
man.
Elizabeth roused herself and came from the pantry carrying the
unlighted candle.
“In the parlour,” she said.
“In there, Jim!” pointed the manager, and the carriers backed round
into the tiny room. The coat with which they had covered the body fell
off as they awkwardly turned through the two doorways, and the women
saw their man, naked to the waist, lying stripped for work. The old
woman began to moan in a low voice of horror.
“Lay th’ stretcher at th’ side,” snapped the manager, “an’ put ’im on
th’ cloths. Mind now, mind! Look you now——!”
One of the men had knocked off a vase of chrysanthemums. He stared
awkwardly, then they set down the stretcher. Elizabeth did not look at
her husband. As soon as she could get in the room, she went and picked
up the broken vase and the flowers.
“Wait a minute!” she said.
The three men waited in silence while she mopped up the water with a
duster.
“Eh, what a job, what a job, to be sure!” the manager was saying,
rubbing his brow with trouble and perplexity. “Never knew such a thing
in my life, never! He’d no business to ha’ been left. I never knew such
a thing in my life! Fell over him clean as a whistle, an’ shut him in.
Not four foot of space, there wasn’t—yet it scarce bruised him.”
He looked down at the dead man, lying prone, half naked, all grimed
with coal-dust.
“‘’Sphyxiated,’ the doctor said. It _is_ the most terrible job I’ve
ever known. Seems as if it was done o’ purpose. Clean over him, an’
shut ’im in, like a mouse-trap”—he made a sharp, descending gesture
with his hand.
The colliers standing by jerked aside their heads in hopeless comment.
The horror of the thing bristled upon them all.
Then they heard the girl’s voice upstairs calling shrilly: “Mother,
mother—who is it? Mother, who is it?”
Elizabeth hurried to the foot of the stairs and opened the door:
“Go to sleep!” she commanded sharply. “What are you shouting about? Go
to sleep at once—there’s nothing——”
Then she began to mount the stairs. They could hear her on the boards,
and on the plaster floor of the little bedroom. They could hear her
distinctly:
“What’s the matter now?—what’s the matter with you, silly thing?”—her
voice was much agitated, with an unreal gentleness.
“I thought it was some men come,” said the plaintive voice of the
child. “Has he come?”
“Yes, they’ve brought him. There’s nothing to make a fuss about. Go to
sleep now, like a good child.”
They could hear her voice in the bedroom, they waited whilst she
covered the children under the bedclothes.
“Is he drunk?” asked the girl, timidly, faintly.
“No! No—he’s not! He—he’s asleep.”
“Is he asleep downstairs?”
“Yes—and don’t make a noise.”
There was silence for a moment, then the men heard the frightened child
again:
“What’s that noise?”
“It’s nothing, I tell you, what are you bothering for?”
The noise was the grandmother moaning. She was oblivious of everything,
sitting on her chair rocking and moaning. The manager put his hand on
her arm and bade her “Sh—sh!!”
The old woman opened her eyes and looked at him. She was shocked by
this interruption, and seemed to wonder.
“What time is it?”—the plaintive thin voice of the child, sinking back
unhappily into sleep, asked this last question.
“Ten o’clock,” answered the mother more softly. Then she must have bent
down and kissed the children.
Matthews beckoned to the men to come away. They put on their caps and
took up the stretcher. Stepping over the body, they tiptoed out of the
house. None of them spoke till they were far from the wakeful children.
When Elizabeth came down she found her mother alone on the parlour
floor, leaning over the dead man, the tears dropping on him.
“We must lay him out,” the wife said. She put on the kettle, then
returning knelt at the feet, and began to unfasten the knotted leather
laces. The room was clammy and dim with only one candle, so that she
had to bend her face almost to the floor. At last she got off the heavy
boots and put them away.
“You must help me now,” she whispered to the old woman. Together they
stripped the man.
When they arose, saw him lying in the naïve dignity of death, the women
stood arrested in fear and respect. For a few moments they remained
still, looking down, the old mother whimpering. Elizabeth felt
countermanded. She saw him, how utterly inviolable he lay in himself.
She had nothing to do with him. She could not accept it. Stooping, she
laid her hand on him, in claim. He was still warm, for the mine was hot
where he had died. His mother had his face between her hands, and was
murmuring incoherently. The old tears fell in succession as drops from
wet leaves; the mother was not weeping, merely her tears flowed.
Elizabeth embraced the body of her husband, with cheek and lips. She
seemed to be listening, inquiring, trying to get some connection. But
she could not. She was driven away. He was impregnable.
She rose, went into the kitchen, where she poured warm water into a
bowl, brought soap and flannel and a soft towel.
“I must wash him,” she said.
Then the old mother rose stiffly, and watched Elizabeth as she
carefully washed his face, carefully brushing the big blond moustache
from his mouth with the flannel. She was afraid with a bottomless fear,
so she ministered to him. The old woman, jealous, said:
“Let me wipe him!”—and she kneeled on the other side drying slowly as
Elizabeth washed, her big black bonnet sometimes brushing the dark head
of her daughter. They worked thus in silence for a long time. They
never forgot it was death, and the touch of the man’s dead body gave
them strange emotions, different in each of the women; a great dread
possessed them both, the mother felt the lie was given to her womb, she
was denied; the wife felt the utter isolation of the human soul, the
child within her was a weight apart from her.
At last it was finished. He was a man of handsome body, and his face
showed no traces of drink. He was blonde, full-fleshed, with fine
limbs. But he was dead.
“Bless him,” whispered his mother, looking always at his face, and
speaking out of sheer terror. “Dear lad—bless him!” She spoke in a
faint, sibilant ecstasy of fear and mother love.
Elizabeth sank down again to the floor, and put her face against his
neck, and trembled and shuddered. But she had to draw away again. He
was dead, and her living flesh had no place against his. A great dread
and weariness held her: she was so unavailing. Her life was gone like
this.
“White as milk he is, clear as a twelve-month baby, bless him, the
darling!” the old mother murmured to herself. “Not a mark on him, clear
and clean and white, beautiful as ever a child was made,” she murmured
with pride. Elizabeth kept her face hidden.
“He went peaceful, Lizzie—peaceful as sleep. Isn’t he beautiful, the
lamb? Ay—he must ha’ made his peace, Lizzie. ’Appen he made it all
right, Lizzie, shut in there. He’d have time. He wouldn’t look like
this if he hadn’t made his peace. The lamb, the dear lamb. Eh, but he
had a hearty laugh. I loved to hear it. He had the heartiest laugh,
Lizzie, as a lad——”
Elizabeth looked up. The man’s mouth was fallen back, slightly open
under the cover of the moustache. The eyes, half shut, did not show
glazed in the obscurity. Life with its smoky burning gone from him, had
left him apart and utterly alien to her. And she knew what a stranger
he was to her. In her womb was ice of fear, because of this separate
stranger with whom she had been living as one flesh. Was this what it
all meant—utter, intact separateness, obscured by heat of living? In
dread she turned her face away. The fact was too deadly. There had been
nothing between them, and yet they had come together, exchanging their
nakedness repeatedly. Each time he had taken her, they had been two
isolated beings, far apart as now. He was no more responsible than she.
The child was like ice in her womb. For as she looked at the dead man,
her mind, cold and detached, said clearly: “Who am I? What have I been
doing? I have been fighting a husband who did not exist. _He_ existed
all the time. What wrong have I done? What was that I have been living
with? There lies the reality, this man.”—And her soul died in her for
fear: she knew she had never seen him, he had never seen her, they had
met in the dark and had fought in the dark, not knowing whom they met
nor whom they fought. And now she saw, and turned silent in seeing. For
she had been wrong. She had said he was something he was not; she had
felt familiar with him. Whereas he was apart all the while, living as
she never lived, feeling as she never felt.
In fear and shame she looked at his naked body, that she had known
falsely. And he was the father of her children. Her soul was torn from
her body and stood apart. She looked at his naked body and was ashamed,
as if she had denied it. After all, it was itself. It seemed awful to
her. She looked at his face, and she turned her own face to the wall.
For his look was other than hers, his way was not her way. She had
denied him what he was—she saw it now. She had refused him as
himself.—And this had been her life, and his life.—She was grateful to
death, which restored the truth. And she knew she was not dead.
And all the while her heart was bursting with grief and pity for him.
What had he suffered? What stretch of horror for this helpless man! She
was rigid with agony. She had not been able to help him. He had been
cruelly injured, this naked man, this other being, and she could make
no reparation. There were the children—but the children belonged to
life. This dead man had nothing to do with them. He and she were only
channels through which life had flowed to issue in the children. She
was a mother—but how awful she knew it now to have been a wife. And he,
dead now, how awful he must have felt it to be a husband. She felt that
in the next world he would be a stranger to her. If they met there, in
the beyond, they would only be ashamed of what had been before. The
children had come, for some mysterious reason, out of both of them. But
the children did not unite them. Now he was dead, she knew how
eternally he was apart from her, how eternally he had nothing more to
do with her. She saw this episode of her life closed. They had denied
each other in life. Now he had withdrawn. An anguish came over her. It
was finished then: it had become hopeless between them long before he
died. Yet he had been her husband. But how little!
“Have you got his shirt, ’Lizabeth?”
Elizabeth turned without answering, though she strove to weep and
behave as her mother-in-law expected. But she could not, she was
silenced. She went into the kitchen and returned with the garment.
“It is aired,” she said, grasping the cotton shirt here and there to
try. She was almost ashamed to handle him; what right had she or anyone
to lay hands on him; but her touch was humble on his body. It was hard
work to clothe him. He was so heavy and inert. A terrible dread gripped
her all the while: that he could be so heavy and utterly inert,
unresponsive, apart. The horror of the distance between them was almost
too much for her—it was so infinite a gap she must look across.
At last it was finished. They covered him with a sheet and left him
lying, with his face bound. And she fastened the door of the little
parlour, lest the children should see what was lying there. Then, with
peace sunk heavy on her heart, she went about making tidy the kitchen.
She knew she submitted to life, which was her immediate master. But
from death, her ultimate master, she winced with fear and shame.