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 ofthat.
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 asIever 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’tsafe. 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’llsay 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 thatshecouldn’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....