The new Church Visitor had just left after a twenty-minutes’ call.
During that time, Mrs. Ashcroft had used such English as an elderly,
experienced, and pensioned cook should, who had seen life in London.
She was the readier, therefore, to slip back into easy, ancient
Sussex (“t”s softening to “d”s as one warmed) when the ’bus brought
Mrs. Fettley from thirty miles away for a visit, that pleasant March
Saturday. The two had been friends since childhood; but, of late,
destiny had separated their meetings by long intervals.
Much was to be said, and many ends, loose since last time, to be
ravelled up on both sides, before Mrs. Fettley, with her bag of
quilt-patches, took the couch beneath the window commanding the garden,
and the football-ground in the valley below.
“Most folk got out at Bush Tye for the match there,” she explained, “so
there weren’t no one for me to cushion agin, the last five mile. An’
she _do_ just-about bounce ye.”
“You’ve took no hurt,” said her hostess. “You don’t brittle by agein’,
Liz.”
Mrs. Fettley chuckled and made to match a couple of patches to her
liking. “No, or I’d ha’ broke twenty year back. You can’t ever mind
when I was so’s to be called round, can ye?”
Mrs. Ashcroft shook her head slowly--she never hurried--and went on
stitching a sack-cloth lining into a list-bound rush tool-basket.
Mrs. Fettley laid out more patches in the Spring light through the
geraniums on the window-sill, and they were silent awhile.
“What like’s this new Visitor o’ yourn?” Mrs. Fettley inquired with
a nod towards the door. Being very short-sighted, she had, on her
entrance, almost bumped into the lady.
Mrs. Ashcroft suspended the big packing-needle judicially on high, ere
she stabbed home. “Settin’ aside she don’t bring much news with her
yet, I dunno as I’ve anythin’ special agin her.”
“Ourn, at Keyneslade,” said Mrs. Fettley, “she’s full o’ words an’
pity, but she don’t stay for answers. Ye can get on with your thoughts
while she clacks.”
“This ’un don’t clack. She’s aimin’ to be one o’ those High Church
nuns, like.”
“Ourn’s married, but, by what they say, she’ve made no great gains of
it....” Mrs. Fettley threw up her sharp chin. “Lord! How they dam’
cherubim do shake the very bones o’ the place!”
The tile-sided cottage trembled at the passage of two specially
chartered forty-seat charabancs on their way to the Bush Tye match;
a regular Saturday “shopping” ’bus, for the county’s capital, fumed
behind them; while, from one of the crowded inns, a fourth car
backed out to join the procession, and held up the stream of through
pleasure-traffic.
“You’re as free-tongued as ever, Liz,” Mrs. Ashcroft observed.
“Only when I’m with you. Otherwhiles, I’m Granny--three times over. I
lay that basket’s for one o’ your gran’chiller--ain’t it?”
“’Tis for Arthur--my Jane’s eldest.”
“But he ain’t workin’ nowheres, is he?”
“No. ’Tis a picnic-basket.”
“You’re let off light. My Willie, he’s allus at me for money for them
aireated wash-poles folk puts up in their gardens to draw the music
from Lunnon, like. An’ I give it ’im--pore fool me!”
“An’ he forgets to give you the promise-kiss after, don’t he?” Mrs.
Ashcroft’s heavy smile seemed to strike inwards.
“He do. ’No odds ’twixt boys now an’ forty year back. ’Take all an’
give naught--an’ we to put up with it! Pore fool we! Three shillin’ at
a time Willie’ll ask me for!”
“They don’t make nothin’ o’ money these days,” Mrs. Ashcroft said.
“An’ on’y last week,” the other went on, “me daughter, she ordered a
quarter pound suet at the butchers’s; an’ she sent it back to ’um to be
chopped. She said she couldn’t bother with choppin’ it.”
“I lay he charged her, then.”
“I lay he did. She told me there was a whisk-drive that afternoon at
the Institute, an’ she couldn’t bother to do the choppin’.”
“Tck!”
Mrs. Ashcroft put the last firm touches to the basket-lining. She had
scarcely finished when her sixteen-year-old grandson, a maiden of the
moment in attendance, hurried up the garden-path shouting to know if
the thing were ready, snatched it, and made off without acknowledgment.
Mrs. Fettley peered at him closely.
“They’re goin’ picnickin’ somewheres,” Mrs. Ashcroft explained.
“Ah,” said the other, with narrowed eyes. “I lay _he_ won’t show much
mercy to any he comes across, either. Now ’oo the dooce do he remind me
of, all of a sudden?”
“They must look arter theirselves--’same as we did.” Mrs. Ashcroft
began to set out the tea.
“No denyin’ _you_ could, Gracie,” said Mrs. Fettley.
“What’s in your head now?”
“Dunno.... But it come over me, sudden-like--about dat woman from
Rye--I’ve slipped the name--Barnsley, wadn’t it?”
“Batten--Polly Batten, you’re thinkin’ of.”
“That’s it--Polly Batten. That day she had it in for you with a
hay-fork--’time we was all hayin’ at Smalldene--for stealin’ her man.”
“But you heered me tell her she had my leave to keep him?” Mrs.
Ashcroft’s voice and smile were smoother than ever.
“I did--an’ we was all looking that she’d prod the fork spang through
your breastes when you said it.”
“No-oo. She’d never go beyond bounds--Polly. She shruck too much for
reel doin’s.”
“Allus seems to _me_,” Mrs. Fettley said after a pause, “that a man
’twixt two fightin’ women is the foolishest thing on earth. ’Like a dog
bein’ called two ways.”
“Mebbe. But what set ye off on those times, Liz?”
“That boy’s fashion o’ carryin’ his head an’ arms. I haven’t rightly
looked at him since he’s growed. Your Jane never showed it, but--_him_!
Why, ’tis Jim Batten and his tricks come to life again!... Eh?”
“Mebbe. There’s some that would ha’ made it out so--bein’ barren-like,
themselves.”
“Oho! Ah well! Dearie, dearie me, now!... An’ Jim Batten’s been dead
this----”
“Seven and twenty years,” Mrs. Ashcroft answered briefly. “Won’t ye
draw up, Liz?”
Mrs. Fettley drew up to buttered toast, currant bread, stewed tea,
bitter as leather, some home-preserved pears, and a cold boiled pig’s
tail to help down the muffins. She paid all the proper compliments.
“Yes. I dunno as I’ve ever owed me belly much,” said Mrs. Ashcroft
thoughtfully. “We only go through this world once.”
“But don’t it lay heavy on ye, sometimes?” her guest suggested.
“Nurse says I’m a sight liker to die o’ me indigestion than me leg.”
For Mrs. Ashcroft had a long-standing ulcer on her shin, which needed
regular care from the Village Nurse, who boasted (or others did, for
her) that she had dressed it one hundred and three times already during
her term of office.
“An’ you that _was_ so able, too! It’s all come on ye before your full
time, like. _I_’ve watched ye goin’.” Mrs. Fettley spoke with real
affection.
“Somethin’s bound to find ye sometime. I’ve me ’eart left me still,”
Mrs. Ashcroft returned.
“You was always big-hearted enough for three. That’s somethin’ to look
back on at the day’s eend.”
“I reckon you’ve _your_ back-lookin’s, too,” was Mrs. Ashcroft’s answer.
“You know it. But I don’t think much regardin’ such matters excep’ when
I’m along with you, Gra’. ’Takes two sticks to make a fire.”
Mrs. Fettley stared, with jaw half-dropped, at the grocer’s bright
calendar on the wall. The cottage shook again to the roar of the
motor-traffic, and the crowded football-ground below the garden roared
almost as loudly; for the village was well set to its Saturday leisure.
* * * * *
Mrs. Fettley had spoken very precisely for some time without
interruption, before she wiped her eyes. “And,” she concluded, “they
read ’is death-notice to me, out o’ the paper last month. O’ course
it wadn’t any o’ _my_ becomin’ concerns--let be I ’adn’t set eyes on
him for so long. O’ course _I_ couldn’t say nor show nothin’. Nor I’ve
no rightful call to go to Eastbourne to see ’is grave, either. I’ve
been schemin’ to slip over there by the ’bus some day; but they’d ask
questions at ’ome past endurance. So I ’aven’t even _that_ to stay me.”
“But you’ve ’ad your satisfactions?”
“Godd! Yess! Those four years ’e was workin’ on the rail near us. An’
the other drivers they gave him a brave funeral, too.”
“Then you’ve naught to cast-up about. ’Nother cup o’ tea?”
* * * * *
The light and air had changed a little with the sun’s descent, and the
two elderly ladies closed the kitchen-door against chill. A couple of
jays squealed and skirmished through the undraped apple-trees in the
garden. This time, the word was with Mrs. Ashcroft, her elbows on the
tea-table, and her sick leg propped on a stool....
“Well I never! But what did your ’usband say to that?” Mrs. Fettley
asked, when the deep-toned recital halted.
“’E said I might go where I pleased for all of ’im. But seein’ ’e
was bedrid, I said I’d ’tend ’im out. ’E knowed I wouldn’t take no
advantage of ’im in that state. ’E lasted eight or nine week. Then he
was took with a seizure-like; an’ laid stone-still for days. Then ’e
propped ’imself up abed an’ says: ‘You pray no man’ll ever deal with
you like you’ve dealed with some.’ ‘An’ you?’ I says, for _you_ know,
Liz, what a rover ’e was. ‘It cuts both ways,’ says ’e, ‘but _I_’m
death-wise, an’ I can see what’s comin’ to you.” He died a-Sunday
an’ was buried a-Thursday.... An’ yet I’d set a heap by him--one time
or--did I ever?”
“You never told me that before,” Mrs. Fettley ventured.
“I’m payin’ ye for what ye told me just now. Him bein’ dead, I wrote
up, sayin’ I was free for good, to that Mrs. Marshall in Lunnon--which
gave me my first place as kitchen-maid--Lord, how long ago! She was
well pleased, for they two was both gettin’ on, an’ I knowed their
ways. You remember, Liz, I used to go to ’em in service between whiles,
for years--when we wanted money, or--or my ’usband was away--on
occasion.”
“’E _did_ get that six months at Chichester, didn’t ’e?” Mrs. Fettley
whispered. “We never rightly won to the bottom of it.”
“’E’d ha’ got more, but the man didn’t die.”
“’None o’ your doin’s, was it, Gra’?”
“No! ’Twas the woman’s husband this time. An’ so, my man bein’ dead,
I went back to them Marshall’s, as cook, to get me legs under a
gentleman’s table again, and be called with a handle to me name. That
was the year you shifted to Portsmouth.”
“Cosham,” Mrs. Fettley corrected. “There was a middlin’ lot o’ new
buildin’ bein’ done there. My man went first, an’ got the room, an’ I
follered.”
“Well, then, I was a year-abouts in Lunnon, all at a breath, like,
four meals a day an’ livin’ easy. Then, ’long towards autumn, they two
went travellin’, like, to France; keepin’ me on, for they couldn’t do
without me. I put the house to rights for the caretaker, an’ then I
slipped down ’ere to me sister Bessie--me wages in me pockets, an’ all
’ands glad to be’old of me.”
“That would be when I was at Cosham,” said Mrs. Fettley.
“_You_ know, Liz, there wasn’t no cheap-dog pride to folk, those days,
no more than there was cinemas nor whisk-drives. Man or woman ’ud lay
hold o’ any job that promised a shillin’ to the backside of it, didn’t
they? I was all peaked up after Lunnon, an’ I thought the fresh airs
’ud serve me. So I took on at Smalldene, obligin’ with a hand at the
early potato-liftin’, stubbin’ hens, an’ such-like. They’d ha’ mocked
me sore in my kitchen in Lunnon, to see me in men’s boots, an’ me
petticoats all shorted.”
“Did it bring ye any good?” Mrs. Fettley asked.
“’Twadn’t for that I went. You know, ’s’well’s me, that na’un happens
to ye till it _’as_ ’appened. Your mind don’t warn ye before’and of
the road ye’ve took, till you’re at the far eend of it. We’ve only a
backwent view of our proceedin’s.”
“’Oo was it?”
“’Arry Mockler.” Mrs. Ashcroft’s face puckered to the pain of her sick
leg.
Mrs. Fettley gasped. “’Arry? Bert Mockler’s son! An’ _I_ never guessed!”
Mrs. Ashcroft nodded. “An’ I told myself--_an’_ I beleft it--that I
wanted field-work.”
“What did ye get out of it?”
“The usuals. Everythin’ at first--worse than naught after. I had signs
an’ warnings a-plenty, but I took no heed of ’em. For we was burnin’
rubbish one day, just when we’d come to know how ’twas with--with both
of us. ’Twas early in the year for burnin’, an’ I said so. ‘No!’ says
he. ‘The sooner dat old stuff’s off an’ done with,’ ’e says, ‘the
better.’ ’Is face was harder’n rocks when he spoke. Then it come over
me that I’d found me master, which I ’adn’t ever before. I’d allus
owned ’em, like.”
“Yes! Yes! They’re yourn or you’re theirn,” the other sighed. “I like
the right way best.”
“I didn’t. But ’Arry did.... ’Long then, it come time for me to go back
to Lunnon. I couldn’t. I clean couldn’t! So, I took an’ tipped a dollop
o’ scaldin’ water out o’ the copper one Monday mornin’ over me left
’and and arm. Dat stayed me where I was for another fortnight.”
“Was it worth it?” said Mrs. Fettley, looking at the silvery scar on
the wrinkled fore-arm.
Mrs. Ashcroft nodded. “An’ after that, we two made it up ’twixt us so’s
’e could come to Lunnon for a job in a liv’ry-stable not far from me.
’E got it. _I_ ’tended to that. There wadn’t no talk nowhere. His own
mother never suspicioned how ’twas. He just slipped up to Lunnon, an’
there we abode that winter, not ’alf a mile t’other from each.”
“Ye paid ’is fare an’ all, though”; Mrs. Fettley spoke convincedly.
Again Mrs. Ashcroft nodded. “Dere wadn’t much I didn’t do for him.
’E was me master, an’--O God, help us!--we’d laugh over it walkin’
together after dark in them paved streets, an’ me corns fair wrenchin’
in me boots! I’d never been like that before. Ner he! Ner he!”
Mrs. Fettley clucked sympathetically.
“An’ when did ye come to the eend?” she asked.
“When ’e paid it all back again, every penny. Then I knowed, but I
wouldn’t _suffer_ meself to know. ‘You’ve been mortal kind to me,’ he
says. ‘Kind!’ I said. ‘’Twixt _us_?’ But ’e kep’ all on tellin’ me ’ow
kind I’d been an’ ’e’d never forget it all his days. I held it from
off o’ me for three evenin’s, because I would _not_ believe. Then ’e
talked about not bein’ satisfied with ’is job in the stables, an’ the
men there puttin’ tricks on ’im, an’ all they lies which a man tells
when ’e’s leavin’ ye. I heard ’im out, neither ’elpin’ nor ’inderin’.
At the last, I took off a liddle brooch which he’d give me an’ I says:
‘Dat’ll do. _I_ ain’t askin’ na’un.’ An’ I turned me round an’ walked
off to me own sufferin’s. ’E didn’t make ’em worse. ’E didn’t come nor
write after that. ’E slipped off ’ere back ’ome to ’is mother again.”
“An’ ’ow often did ye look for ’en to come back?” Mrs. Fettley demanded
mercilessly.
“More’n once--more’n once! Goin’ over the streets we’d used, I thought
de very pave-stones ’ud shruck out under me feet.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Fettley. “I dunno but dat don’t ’urt as much as aught
else. An’ dat was all ye got?”
“No. ’Twadn’t. That’s the curious part, if you’ll believe it, Liz.”
“I do. I lay you’re further off lyin’ now than in all your life, Gra’.”
“I am.... An’ I suffered, like I’d not wish my most arrantest enemies
to. God’s Own Name! I went through the hoop that spring! One part of it
was headaches which I’d never known all me days before. Think o’ _me_
with an ’eddick! But I come to be grateful for ’em. They kep’ me from
thinkin’....”
“’Tis like a tooth,” Mrs. Fettley commented. “It must rage an’ rugg
till it tortures itself quiet on ye; an’ then--then there’s na’un left.”
“_I_ got enough lef’ to last me all _my_ days on earth. It come about
through our charwoman’s liddle girl--Sophy Ellis was ’er name--all
eyes an’ elbers an’ hunger. I used to give ’er vittles. Otherwhiles,
I took no special notice of ’er, an’ a sight less, o’ course, when me
trouble about ’Arry was on me. But--you know how liddle maids first
feel it sometimes--she come to be crazy-fond o’ me, pawin’ an’ cuddlin’
all whiles; an’ I ’adn’t the ’eart to beat ’er off.... One afternoon,
early in spring ’twas, ’er mother ’ad sent ’er round to scutchel up
what vittles she could off of us. I was settin’ by the fire, me apern
over me head, half-mad with the ’eddick, when she slips in. I reckon
I was middlin’ short with ’er. ‘Lor’!’ she says. ‘Is _that_ all? I’ll
take it off you in two-twos!’ I told her not to lay a finger on me, for
I thought she’d want to stroke my forehead; an’--I ain’t that make.
‘_I_ won’t tech ye,’ she says, an’ slips out again. She ’adn’t been
gone ten minutes ’fore me old ’eddick took off quick as bein’ kicked.
So I went about my work. Prasin’ly, Sophy comes back, an’ creeps into
my chair quiet as a mouse. ’Er eyes was deep in ’er ’ead an’ ’er face
all drawed. I asked ’er what ’ad ’appened. ‘Nothin’,’ she says. ‘On’y
_I_’ve got it now.’ ‘Got what?’ I says. ‘Your ’eddick,’ she says, all
hoarse an’ sticky-lipped. ‘I’ve took it on me.’ ‘Nonsense,’ I says, ‘it
went of itself when you was out. Lay still an’ I’ll make ye a cup o’
tea.’ ‘’Twon’t do no good,’ she says, ‘’til your time’s up. ’Ow long do
_your_ ’eddicks last?’ ‘Don’t talk silly,’ I says, ‘or I’ll send for
the Doctor.’ It looked to me like she might be hatchin’ de measles.
‘Oh, Mrs. Ashcroft,’ she says, stretchin’ out ’er liddle thin arms. ‘I
_do_ love ye.’ There wasn’t any holdin’ agin that. I took ’er into me
lap an’ made much of ’er. ‘Is it truly gone?’ she says. ‘Yes,’ I says,
‘an’ if ’twas you took it away, I’m truly grateful.’ ‘_’Twas_ me,’ she
says, layin’ ’er cheek to mine. ‘No one but me knows how.’ An’ then
she said she’d changed me ’eddick for me at a Wish ’Ouse.”
“Whatt?” Mrs. Fettley spoke sharply.
“A Wish ’Ouse. No! _I_ ’adn’t ’eard o’ such things, either. I couldn’t
get it straight at first, but, puttin’ all together, I made out that
a Wish ’Ouse ’ad to be a house which ’ad stood unlet an’ empty long
enough for Some One, like, to come an’ in’abit there. She said, a
liddle girl that she’d played with in the livery-stables where ’Arry
worked ’ad told ’er so. She said the girl ’ad belonged in a caravan
that laid up, o’ winters, in Lunnon. Gipsy, I judge.”
“Ooh! There’s no sayin’ what Gippos know, but _I_’ve never ’eard of a
Wish ’Ouse, an’ I know--some things,” said Mrs. Fettley.
“Sophy said there was a Wish ’Ouse in Wadloes Road--just a few streets
off, on the way to our green-grocer’s. All you ’ad to do, she said, was
to ring the bell an’ wish your wish through the slit o’ the letter-box.
I asked ’er if the fairies give it ’er? ‘Don’t ye know,’ she says,
‘there’s no fairies in a Wish ’Ouse? There’s only a Token.’”
“Goo’ Lord A’mighty! Where did she come by _that_ word?” cried Mrs.
Fettley; for a Token is a wraith of the dead or, worse still, of the
living.
“The caravan-girl ’ad told ’er, she said. Well, Liz, it troubled me
to ’ear ’er, an’ lyin’ in me arms she must ha’ felt it. ‘That’s very
kind o’ you,’ I says, holdin’ ’er tight, ‘to wish me ’eddick away. But
why didn’t ye ask somethin’ nice for yourself?’ ‘You can’t do that,’
she says. ‘All you’ll get at a Wish ’Ouse is leave to take some one
else’s trouble. I’ve took Ma’s ’eadaches, when she’s been kind to me;
but this is the first time I’ve been able to do aught for you. Oh,
Mrs. Ashcroft, I _do_ just-about love you.’ An’ she goes on all like
that. Liz, I tell you my ’air e’en a’most stood on end to ’ear ’er. I
asked ’er what like a Token was. ‘I dunno,’ she says, ‘but after you’ve
ringed the bell, you’ll ’ear it run up from the basement, to the front
door. Then say your wish,’ she says, ‘an’ go away.’ ‘The Token don’t
open de door to ye, then?’ I says. ‘Oh, no,’ she says. ‘You on’y ’ear
gigglin’, like, be’ind the front door. Then you say you’ll take the
trouble off of ’oo ever ’tis you’ve chose for your love; an’ ye’ll get
it,’ she says. I didn’t ask no more--she was too ’ot an’ fevered. I
made much of ’er till it come time to light de gas, an’ a liddle after
that, ’er ’eddick--mine, I suppose--took off, an’ she got down an’
played with the cat.”
“Well, I never!” said Mrs. Fettley. “Did--did ye foller it up, anyways?”
“She askt me to, but I wouldn’t ’ave no such dealin’s with a child.”
“What _did_ ye do, then?”
“’Sat in me own room ’stid o’ the kitchen when me ’eddicks come on. But
it lay at de back o’ me mind.”
“’Twould. Did she tell ye more, ever?”
“No. Besides what the Gippo girl ’ad told ’er, she knew naught, ’cept
that the charm worked. An’, next after that--in May ’twas--I suffered
the summer out in Lunnon. ’Twas hot an’ windy for weeks, an’ the
streets stinkin’ o’ dried ’orse-dung blowin’ from side to side an’
lyin’ level with the kerb. We don’t get that nowadays. I ’ad my ’ol’day
just before hoppin’,[2] an’ come down ’ere to stay with Bessie again.
She noticed I’d lost flesh, an’ was all poochy under the eyes.”
“Did ye see ’Arry?”
Mrs. Ashcroft nodded. “The fourth--no, the fifth day. Wednesday ’twas.
I knowed ’e was workin’ at Smalldene again. I asked ’is mother in the
street, bold as brass. She ’adn’t room to say much, for Bessie--you
know ’er tongue--was talkin’ full-clack. But that Wednesday, I was
walkin’ with one o’ Bessie’s chillern hangin’ on me skirts, at de back
o’ Chanter’s Tot. Prasin’ly, I felt ’e was be’ind me on the footpath,
an’ I knowed by ’is tread ’e’d changed ’is nature. I slowed, an’ I
heard ’im slow. Then I fussed a piece with the child, to force him past
me, like. So ’e _’ad_ to come past. ’E just says ‘Good-evenin’,’ and
goes on, tryin’ to pull ’isself together.”
“Drunk, was he?” Mrs. Fettley asked.
“Never! S’runk an’ wizen; ’is clothes ’angin’ on ’im like bags, an’
the back of ’is neck whiter’n chalk. ’Twas all I could do not to oppen
my arms an’ cry after him. But I swallered me spittle till I was back
’ome again an’ the chillern abed. Then I says to Bessie, after supper,
‘What in de world’s come to ’Arry Mockler?’ Bessie told me ’e’d been
a-Hospital for two months, ’long o’ cuttin’ ’is foot wid a spade,
muckin’ out the old pond at Smalldene. There was poison in de dirt,
an’ it rooshed up ’is leg, like, an’ come out all over him. ’E ’adn’t
been back to ’is job--carterin’ at Smalldene--more’n a fortnight. She
told me the Doctor said he’d go off, likely, with the November frostes;
an’ ’is mother ’ad told ’er that ’e didn’t rightly eat nor sleep, an’
sweated ’imself into pools, no odds ’ow chill ’e lay. An’ spit terrible
o’ mornin’s. ‘Dearie me,’ I says. ‘But, mebbe hoppin’ ’ll set ’im right
again,’ an’ I licked me thread-point an’ I fetched me needle’s eye up
to it an’ I threads me needle under de lamp, steady as rocks. An’ dat
night (me bed was in de wash-house) I cried an’ I cried. An’ _you_
know, Liz--for you’ve been with me in my throes--it takes summat to
make me cry.”
“Yes; but chile-bearin’ is on’y just pain,” said Mrs. Fettley.
“I come round by cock-crow, an’ dabbed cold tea on me eyes to take away
the signs. Long towards nex’ evenin’--I was settin’ out to lay some
flowers on me ’usband’s grave, for the look o’ the thing--I met ’Arry
over against where the War Memorial is now. ’E was comin’ back from
’is ’orses, so ’e couldn’t _not_ see me. I looked ’im all over, an’
‘’Arry,’ I says twix’ me teeth, ‘come back an’ rest-up in Lunnon.’ ‘I
won’t take it,’ he says, ‘for I can give ye naught.’ ‘I don’t ask it,’
I says. ‘By God’s Own Name, I don’t ask na’un! On’y come up an’ see a
Lunnon doctor.’ ’E lifts ’is two ’eavy eyes at me: ‘’Tis past that,
Gra’,’ ’e says. ‘I’ve but a few months left.’ ‘’Arry!’ I says. ‘_My_
man!’ I says. I couldn’t say no more. ’Twas all up in me throat. ‘Thank
ye kindly, Gra’,’ ’e says (but ’e never says ‘my woman’), an’ ’e went
on up-street an’ ’is mother--Oh, damn ’er!--she was watchin’ for ’im,
an’ she shut de door be’ind ’im.”
Mrs. Fettley stretched an arm across the table, and made to finger Mrs.
Ashcroft’s sleeve at the wrist, but the other moved it out of reach.
“So I went on to the churchyard with my flowers, an’ I remembered my
’usband’s warnin’ that night he spoke. ’E _was_ death-wise, an’ it
_’ad_ ’appened as ’e said. But as I was settin’ down de jam-pot on
the grave-mound, it come over me there was one thing I _could_ do for
’Arry. Doctor or no Doctor, I thought I’d make a trial of it. So I
did. Nex’ mornin’, a bill came down from our Lunnon green-grocer. Mrs.
Marshall, she’d lef’ me petty cash for suchlike--o’ course--but I tole
Bess ’twas for me to come an’ open the ’ouse. So I went up, afternoon
train.”
“An’--but I know you ’adn’t--’adn’t you no fear?”
“What for? There was nothin’ front o’ me but my own shame an’ God’s
croolty. I couldn’t ever get ’Arry--’ow _could_ I? I knowed it must go
on burnin’ till it burned me out.”
“Aie!” said Mrs. Fettley, reaching for the wrist again, and this time
Mrs. Ashcroft permitted it.
“Yit ’twas a comfort to know I could try _this_ for ’im. So I went an’
I paid the green-grocer’s bill, an’ put ’is receipt in me hand-bag, an’
then I stepped round to Mrs. Ellis--our char--an’ got the ’ouse-keys
an’ opened the ’ouse. First, I made me bed to come back to (God’s Own
Name! Me bed to lie upon!). Nex’ I made me a cup o’ tea an’ sat down
in the kitchen thinkin’, till ’long towards dusk. Terrible close,
’twas. Then I dressed me an’ went out with the receipt in me ’and-bag,
feignin’ to study it for an address, like. Fourteen, Wadloes Road, was
the place--a liddle basement-kitchen ’ouse, in a row of twenty-thirty
such, an’ tiddy strips o’ walled garden in front--the paint off the
front doors, an’ na’un done to na’un since ever so long. There wasn’t
’ardly no one in the streets ’cept the cats. _’Twas_ ’ot, too! I turned
into the gate bold as brass; up de steps I went an’ I ringed the
front-door bell. She pealed loud, like it do in an empty house. When
she’d all ceased, I ’eard a cheer, like, pushed back on de floor o’ the
kitchen. Then I ’eard feet on de kitchen-stairs, like it might ha’ been
a heavy woman in slippers. They come up to de stairhead, acrost the
hall--I ’eard the bare boards creak under ’em--an’ at de front door dey
stopped. I stooped me to the letter-box slit, an’ I says: ‘Let me take
everythin’ bad that’s in store for my man, ’Arry Mockler, for love’s
sake.’ Then, whatever it was t’other side de door let its breath out,
like, as if it ’ad been holdin’ it for to ’ear better.”
“Nothin’ was _said_ to ye?” Mrs. Fettley demanded.
“Na’un. She just breathed out--a sort of _A-ah_, like. Then the steps
went back an’ down-stairs to the kitchen--all draggy--an’ I heard the
cheer drawed up again.”
“An’ you abode on de doorstep, throughout all, Gra’?”
Mrs. Ashcroft nodded.
“Then I went away, an’ a man passin’ says to me: ‘Didn’t you know
that house was empty?’ ‘No,’ I says. ‘I must ha’ been give the wrong
number.’ An’ I went back to our ’ouse, an’ I went to bed; for I was
fair flogged out. ’Twas too ’ot to sleep more’n snatches, so I walked
me about, lyin’ down betweens, till crack o’ dawn. Then I went to the
kitchen to make me a cup o’ tea, an’ I hitted meself just above the
ankle on an old roastin’-jack o’ mine that Mrs. Ellis had moved out
from the corner, her last cleanin’. An’ so--nex’ after that--I waited
till the Marshalls come back o’ their holiday.”
“Alone there? I’d ha’ thought you’d ’ad enough of empty houses,” said
Mrs. Fettley, horrified.
“Oh, Mrs. Ellis an’ Sophy was runnin’ in an’ out soon’s I was back,
an’ ’twixt us we cleaned de house again top-to-bottom. There’s allus
a hand’s turn more to do in every house. An’ that’s ’ow ’twas with me
that autumn an’ winter, in Lunnon.”
“Then na’un hap--overtook ye for your doin’s?”
Mrs. Ashcroft smiled. “No. Not then. ’Long in November I sent Bessie
ten shillin’s.”
“You was allus free-’anded,” Mrs. Fettley interrupted.
“An’ I got what I paid for, with the rest o’ the news. She said the
hoppin’ ’ad set ’im up wonderful. ’E’d ’ad six weeks of it, and now
’e was back again carterin’ at Smalldene. No odds to me _’ow_ it ’ad
’appened--’slong’s it _’ad_. But I dunno as my ten shillin’s eased me
much. ’Arry bein’ _dead_, like, ’e’d ha’ been mine, till Judgment.
’Arry bein’ alive, ’e’d like as not pick up with some woman middlin’
quick. I raged over that. Come spring, I ’ad somethin’ else to rage
for. I’d growed a nasty little weepin’ boil, like, on me shin, just
above the boot-top, that wouldn’t heal no shape. It made me sick to
look at it, for I’m clean-fleshed by nature. Chop me all over with
a spade, an’ I’d heal like turf. Then Mrs. Marshall she set ’er own
doctor at me. ’E said I ought to ha’ come to him at first go-off,
’stead o’ drawin’ all manner o’ dyed stockin’s over it for months. ’E
said I’d stood up too much to me work, for it was settin’ very close
atop of a big swelled vein, like, behither the small o’ me ankle. ‘Slow
come, slow go,’ ’e says. ‘Lay your leg up on high an’ rest it,’ he
says, ‘an’ ’twill ease off. Don’t let it close up too soon. You’ve got
a very fine leg, Mrs. Ashcroft,’ ’e says. An’ he put wet dressin’s on
it.”
“’E done right.” Mrs. Fettley spoke firmly. “Wet dressin’s to wet
wounds. They draw de humours, same’s a lamp-wick draws de oil.”
“That’s true. An’ Mrs. Marshall was allus at me to make me set down
more, an’ dat nigh healed it up. An’ then after a while they packed me
off down to Bessie’s to finish the cure; for I ain’t the sort to sit
down when I ought to stand up. You was back in the village then, Liz.”
“I was. I was, but--never did I guess!”
“I didn’t desire ye to.” Mrs. Ashcroft smiled. “I saw ’Arry once or
twice in de street, wonnerful fleshed up an’ restored back. Then, one
day I didn’t see ’im, an’ ’is mother told me one of ’is ’orses ’ad
lashed out an’ caught ’im on the ’ip. So ’e was abed an’ middlin’
painful. An’ Bessie, she says to his mother, ’twas a pity ’Arry ’adn’t
a woman of ’is own to take the nursin’ off ’er. And the old lady _was_
mad! She told us that ’Arry ’ad never looked after any woman in ’is
born days, an’ as long as she was atop the mowlds, she’d contrive for
’im till ’er two ’ands dropped off. So I knowed she’d do watch-dog for
me, ’thout askin’ for bones.”
Mrs. Fettley rocked with small laughter.
“That day,” Mrs. Ashcroft went on, “I’d stood on me feet nigh all the
time, watchin’ the doctor go in an’ out; for they thought it might be
’is ribs, too. That made my boil break again, issuin’ an’ weepin’. But
it turned out ’twadn’t ribs at all, an’ ’Arry ’ad a good night. When
I heard that, nex’ mornin’, I says to meself, ‘I won’t lay two an’
two together _yit_. I’ll keep me leg down a week, an’ see what comes
of it.’ It didn’t hurt me that day, to speak of--’seemed more to draw
the strength out o’ me like--an’ ’Arry ’ad another good night. That
made me persevere; but I didn’t dare lay two an’ two together till the
week-end, an’ then, ’Arry come forth e’en a’most ’imself again--na’un
hurt outside ner in of him. I nigh fell on me knees in de wash-house
when Bessie was up-street. ‘I’ve got ye now, my man,’ I says, ‘You’ll
take your good from me ’thout knowin’ it till my life’s end. O God send
me long to live for ’Arry’s sake!’ I says. An’ I dunno that didn’t
still me ragin’s.”
“For good?” Mrs. Fettley asked.
“They come back, plenty times, but, let be how ’twould, I knowed I
was doin’ for ’im. I _knowed_ it. I took an’ worked me pains on an’
off, like regulatin’ my own range, till I learned to ’ave ’em at my
commandments. An’ that was funny, too. There was times, Liz, when my
trouble ’ud all s’rink an’ dry up, like. First, I used to try an’ fetch
it on again; bein’ fearful to leave ’Arry alone too long for anythin’
to lay ’old of. Prasin’ly I come to see that was a sign he’d do all
right awhile, an’ so I saved myself.”
“’Ow long for?” Mrs. Fettley asked, with deepest interest.
“I’ve gone de better part of a year onct or twice with na’un more to
show than the liddle weepin’ core of it, like. _All_ s’rinked up an’
dried off. Then he’d inflame up--for a warnin’--an’ I’d suffer it.
When I couldn’t no more--an’ I _’ad_ to keep on goin’ with my Lunnon
work--I’d lay me leg high on a cheer till it eased. Not too quick. I
knowed by the feel of it, those times, dat ’Arry was in need. Then I’d
send another five shillin’s to Bess, or somethin’ for the chillern, to
find out if, mebbe, ’e’d took any hurt through my neglects. ’Twas _so_!
Year in, year out, I worked it dat way, Liz, an’ ’e got ’is good from
me ’thout knowin’--for years and years.”
“But what did _you_ get out of it, Gra’?” Mrs. Fettley almost wailed.
“Did ye see ’im reg’lar?”
“Times--when I was ’ere on me ’ol’days. An’ more, now that I’m ’ere
for good. But ’e’s never looked at me, ner any other woman ’cept ’is
mother. ’Ow I used to watch an’ listen! So did she.”
“Years an’ years!” Mrs. Fettley repeated. “An’ where’s ’e workin’ at
now?”
“Oh, ’e’s give up carterin’ quite a while. He’s workin’ for one o’ them
big tractorisin’ firms--ploughin’ sometimes, an’ sometimes off with
lorries--fur as Wales, I’ve ’eard. He comes ’ome to ’is mother ’tween
whiles; but I don’t set eyes on him now, fer weeks on end. No odds!
’Is job keeps ’im from continuin’ in one stay anywheres.”
“But--just for de sake o’ saying’ somethin’--s’pose ’Arry _did_ get
married?” said Mrs. Fettley.
Mrs. Ashcroft drew her breath sharply between her still even and
natural teeth. “_Dat_ ain’t been required of me,” she answered. “I
reckon my pains ’ull be counted agin that. Don’t _you_, Liz?”
“It ought to be, dearie. It ought to be.”
“It _do_ ’urt sometimes. You shall see it when Nurse comes. She thinks
I don’t know it’s turned.”
Mrs. Fettley understood. Human nature seldom walks up to the word
“cancer.”
“Be ye certain sure, Gra’?” she asked.
“I was sure of it when old Mr. Marshall ’ad me up to ’is study an’
spoke a long piece about my faithful service. I’ve obliged ’em on an’
off for a goodish time, but not enough for a pension. But they give me
a weekly ’lowance for life. I knew what _that_ sinnified--as long as
three years ago.”
“Dat don’t _prove_ it, Gra’.”
“To give fifteen bob a week to a woman ’oo’d live twenty year in the
course o’ nature? It _do_!”
“You’re mistook! You’re mistook!” Mrs. Fettley insisted.
“Liz, there’s _no_ mistakin’ when the edges are all heaped up,
like--same as a collar. You’ll see it. An’ I laid out Dora Wickwood,
too. _She_ ’ad it under the arm-pit, like.”
Mrs. Fettley considered awhile, and bowed her head in finality.
“’Ow long d’you reckon ’twill allow ye, countin’ from now, dearie?”
“Slow come, slow go. But if I don’t set eyes on ye ’fore next hoppin’,
this’ll be good-bye, Liz.”
“Dunno as I’ll be able to manage by then--not ’thout I have a liddle
dog to lead me. For de chillern, dey won’t be troubled, an’--O
Gra’!--I’m blindin’ up--I’m blindin’ up!”
“Oh, _dat_ was why you didn’t more’n finger with your quilt-patches
all this while! I was wonderin’.... But the pain _do_ count, don’t ye
think, Liz? The pain _do_ count to keep ’Arry--where I want ’im. Say it
can’t be wasted, like.”
“I’m sure of it--sure of it, dearie. You’ll ’ave your reward.”
“I don’t want no more’n this--_if_ de pain is taken into de reckonin’.”
“’Twill be--’twill be, Gra’.”
There was a knock on the door.
“That’s Nurse. She’s before ’er time,” said Mrs. Ashcroft. “Open to
’er.”
The young lady entered briskly, all the bottles in her bag clicking.
“Evenin’, Mrs. Ashcroft,” she began. “I’ve come raound a little earlier
than usual because of the Institute dance to-na-ite. You won’t ma-ind,
will you?”
“Oh, no. Me dancin’ days are over.” Mrs. Ashcroft was the
self-contained domestic at once. “My old friend, Mrs. Fettley ’ere, has
been settin’ talkin’ with me a while.”
“I hope she ’asn’t been fatiguing you?” said the Nurse a little
frostily.
“Quite the contrary. It ’as been a pleasure. Only--only--just at the
end I felt a bit--a bit flogged out, like.”
“Yes, yes.” The Nurse was on her knees already, with the washes to
hand. “When old ladies get together they talk a deal too much, I’ve
noticed.”
“Mebbe we do,” said Mrs. Fettley, rising. “So, now, I’ll make myself
scarce.”
“Look at it first, though,” said Mrs. Ashcroft feebly. “I’d like ye to
look at it.”
Mrs. Fettley looked, and shivered. Then she leaned over, and kissed
Mrs. Ashcroft once on the waxy yellow forehead, and again on the faded
grey eyes.
“It _do_ count, don’t it--de pain?” The lips that still kept trace of
their original moulding hardly more than breathed the words.
Mrs. Fettley kissed them and moved towards the door.
[2] Hop-picking.