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 atthem!” 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—perhapswouldn’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—neverdidwear 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 withhim; 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....