Winter hastens his pace when the harvest is gathered, and it was one of
those serene winter days on which, if one sat in a sheltered place full
of sunshine, one might believe that the spring had begun; as if winter,
secure in his domination of the frozen earth, could afford to relax his
vigour and admit the approaches of the sun, like a playful child whom
one could banish at will. A line of white clouds, with purple bases,
were drawn about the horizon, standing like anger, as it were, within
call. The sky on every side was of that deep transparency seen after
many days of rain. The colours of the earth and grass were deepened and
intense from the same cause. In many places in the fields, sheets of
water showed above the grass, vivid as a wet rock just washed by the sea
and colour hidden at other times glowed from the steeped ground.
Villages and houses showed from a great distance as if some obscuring
medium had been removed, and the remote country lay a deep band of
indigo beneath the horizon, like a distant sea escaping under a light
and infinite heaven.
Anne Hilton set off after the evening milking to visit a bed-ridden
woman of her acquaintance who lived in a cottage in one of the numerous
by-lanes intersecting the now bared fields. She was a woman who had lain
many years in the kitchen, whose narrow, hot space was all she saw of
the world. She was not a cheerful invalid, but peevish and querulous.
The irritation with which she always lived, waking from sleep to be at
once aware of it, and to know no pause during her waking hours, had worn
away a temperament which might almost have been gay. At very rare
intervals Anne had heard her laugh, and the laugh had such a note of
gaiety in it that she surmised the nature that had been, as it were,
knawed thin by this never-sleeping worm. It was pity for something
imprisoned and smothered which made Anne a steadfast friend to the
unhappy woman, whose other friends had long tired of her incessant
complaints and down-cast mind.
Elizabeth Richardson had never any hesitation in expressing her
opinions, and Anne had scarcely seated herself by the bed of the
unfortunate woman, whose harrowed face told of the torment within, than
she began to ask questions of the disgrace of Jane Evans, whom, she had
heard, was to have a child to crown all. But contrary to Anne's
expectations the bed-ridden woman was friendly to the girl. The habit of
neglect and scarcely-veiled impatience with which she had for many years
been treated, and of which she had been fully and silently aware, had
produced in her tortured mind an exasperated rebellion against the
opinions of her neighbours, who were unable to see anything beyond their
own comfort. She knew that she had so much the worst of it; that even
attending perfunctorily to another's human necessity was not so hard a
task as to be there day after day in the company of a pain which never
ceased, and beneath whose increasing shadow the world had slowly
darkened.
"They're all afraid of the trouble to themselves about the girl," she
said, with her bitter intonation. "They're afraid they'll be called on
to do something for her sooner or later."
She turned over with a groan, lying still and worried.
"Have you tried a bag of hot salt?" asked Anne, after a few minutes'
silence.
"Yes! I tried once or twice," replied the woman, "but you know it's a
bit of extra trouble, and no one likes that."
"If you could tell me where to get a bit of red flannel I'll make one
for you now," said Anne.
"The bag's here," said the woman, her face drawn and her mouth gasping.
She tried to feel under the pillow.
"Lie you still. I'll get it," said Anne. She drew out a bag of red
flannel, evidently the remnant of an old flannel petticoat, for the tuck
still remained like a grotesque attempt at ornament across the middle of
the bag. The salt slid heavily to one end as Anne drew it out.
"The oven's still warm," she said opening the door and putting her hand
inside. "I'll just slip it in for a few minutes."
"Well," said the woman, "there's not many cares about a bad-tempered,
bed-ridden woman, but you're one of them that's been kind. I don't _say_
much, but I _know_."
"You make me nearly cry," said Anne, drawing the bag out of the oven and
feeling its temperature. Holding it against her chest, as if to keep in
its heat, she drew back the bed-clothes and unbuttoned the flannelette
night-gown of the invalid, laying the poultice against her wasted side.
The woman gave a sob and lay still for a minute.
"It's a lot better," she said.
"Perhaps you could sleep a bit," suggested Anne.
"I'd like a cup o' tea," said the woman, "but it's a lot of trouble.
Can't you look where you're going!" she broke out impatiently, as Anne,
turning quickly, caught her foot in the chair, overturning it with a
crash. "You made me jump so."
"Well, I am sorry," said Anne, humbly.
"Never mind," said the bed-ridden woman, her impatience exhausted. At
that moment the door opened with a bang and a stout, middle-aged woman
entered noisily.
"What a noise you make!" said the bed-ridden woman peevishly. "You're
getting too fat."
"Fat people's better-tempered than thin ones," retorted the other
carelessly. "Good evening, Miss Hilton! Has she been telling you all
she's got to put up with more than other people?"
"Well now," returned Anne with decisive heartiness, "I don't think we've
been speaking about herself at all, except to express gratitude for a
very little service that I did her. We've spent a pleasant hour
together."
"I'm glad to hear it," said the woman, going to the fire and rattling
the irons noisily between the bars.
"You noisy thing. Can't you make a less din!" said the bed-ridden woman,
biting her lip.
"Other people's got to live in the house besides you," said the woman.
"If you want so much attention, you know where you can get it."
The bed-ridden woman shut her eyes and lay still at this threat of the
workhouse, that confession of failure, in a world where ability to work
becomes a kind of morality, and lack of physical strength to procure the
means of subsistence a moral downfall. She was a burden, but a burden
against her will, and her pride, the only luxury of the poor and the one
most often wrested from them, rose in a futile resistance. It must come
to that she knew. She knew that she could not be less comfortable or
more neglected, but her shelter would be gone, and she would be
acknowledged publicly a failure.
When this last pride is taken away, there sometimes appears a kind of
patience which is not really that of despair, but which is nearer to
that attained by great saints after long effort and discipline--the
mental equilibrium which is the result of desire quenched, of
expectation for further good for oneself at an end. What the saints
attain by a painful and mortifying life, the poor receive as a gift from
the tender mercies of the world, receiving also the passionate pity of
Jesus, "Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven."
"If she could only work as she used, and be 'beholden' to nobody." She
sighed and lay still, her mind an abyss of bitterness.
The stout newcomer, step-daughter to the unfortunate woman, turned to
Anne, jerking her head backwards to indicate the other woman in bed with
an expression of satisfaction which said quite plainly, "That's the way
to settle _her_." Then she ignored her totally, except that she moved as
noisily, and spoke as loudly as she could.
She was a rather pre-possessing woman, with bold eyes and an obstinate
mouth. There was, so to speak, "no nonsense about her." She was one of
those women of coarse fibre, whose chief diversion consists in annoying
the sensibilities of others. They exist more frequently in the
middleclass than among the poor, whose common dependence teaches them
forebearance if not pity, but they exist also among the poor, more
terrible if not more merciless. Such women almost always find material
to torment close at hand. Sometimes in the form of a dependent relative,
sometimes a servant-girl, sometimes a weakly daughter, and this constant
wreaking of a contemptuous spite upon one object produces a
self-satisfaction which is mistaken for cheerfulness, an inward pleasure
in hatred, which appears outwardly as good-humour.
The indignation which always awoke in Anne at the sight and expression
of injustice flared suddenly upwards. Facing the still satisfied woman,
who now drew a chair across the flagged floor with the screech of its
wooden legs upon the stone, she said:
"How can _you_, a strong, active woman, take pleasure in worrying a sick
and ailing fellow-creature. Suppose you were in her place. How can you
expect to find mercy from God in the day of judgment if you have no
mercy on others?"
The woman stared incredulously, and then broke into a loud laugh.
"And I thought you was such a quiet piece. Fancy spitting out like
that." Then her brutality of temper asserted itself.
"_I've_ nothing to do with the day of judgment. I don't see why I should
be called to look after a woman with the temper of a vixen that wants to
be a spoiled darling. The Union's made for such as her and she ought to
be in it. It's just her spite that keeps her out."
"Have you no pity?" said Anne. "_You_ may not always be strong and
able-bodied. The day may come when _you_ need help and comfort, and how
will you deserve it from God, if you torment your unfortunate sister in
this way!"
The woman's answer was a laugh.
"You're as queer as they make 'em," she said, with a slow, impudent
stare from Anne's out-of-date immense bonnet to her elastic-sided boots,
as if looking for a point at which she might begin to torment a new
victim. But Anne's sensibilities lay far beyond her understanding.
"Have you wore out all your grandmother's clothes yet?" she demanded
with her contemptuous, impudent look, "you're a proper figure of fun in
that bonnet!"
"Be quiet and be done with it, you coarse lump!" interrupted the
bed-ridden woman in so loud and authoritative a tone that the woman
turned slowly and stupidly round to look at her. "This time next week
I'll be in the Union and you'll have no one to torment. You can make
arrangements when you like, the sooner the better."
"All right! it can't be too soon for me," retorted the woman with her
incessant, stupid laugh, which this time did not hide the fact that she
had received a shock at this taking of affairs out of her hands. "But
perhaps you'd rather I didn't do it since you've so many friends."
"No, you needn't bother yourself about me," said the bed-ridden woman.
"I'll have done with you soon."
"_Couldn't_ you?" said Anne, turning to face the woman and speaking with
great earnestness, and as always, when moved, with great preciseness.
"_Couldn't_ you for this last week do your best to be considerate and
kind? A week is not a very long portion of eternity. It is so painful to
think of two people separating for ever in hatred. You _have_ one week
left. Could you not make the most of it?"
"It's a week too much!" said the woman, with careless brutality. "Are
you always so fond of making long calls?" she added, staring at Anne.
Anne turned to the bed-ridden woman, saying, "On Thursday I shall be
going in to market and I'll call at the Union Infirmary and see the
Matron. I think you'll be better looked after there and have peace and
quietness."
"It couldn't be worse than this," said the woman. "I think perhaps I've
been foolish to stay here so long."
"I'll see the Matron for you on Thursday," said Anne. "Good-bye."
"Good-bye, and thank you," returned the sick woman, turning wearily away
from her fellow-lodger and settling down to the silence and endurance in
which she habitually lived.
"Good afternoon, Mrs Wright," said Anne to the other woman as she opened
the door. The woman stared in a way meant to put Anne out of
countenance, making no reply, while Anne, going outside, shut the door
gently behind her.