CHAPTER I

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.