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, Idon’tthink!” 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 theydosay 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 bluecrêpe 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 lotshe’llwant 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 Ididowt, 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, Iwillsay, 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 ofyou!”
“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....