CHAPTER III
Mrs. Tanner had to turn her back on the sword before she could finally believe her eyes. It was true, of course, that voices had reached her while she was upstairs, warning her that some other consoler had dropped in. Like enough it would be Mrs. Airey, she had said to herself, and had fully expected to see her when she came down. The sight, therefore, that actually met her gaze was simply paralysing in its effect. To find Emma Catterall inside anybody’s kitchen was sufficiently staggering in itself, but to find her seated was almost beyond belief. The strangeness of it not only startled but almost terrified Mrs. Tanner, suggesting that something inherently sinister was at work. She felt, too, the ready jealousy of those who, engaged in helping others in trouble, instinctively regard them as their property for the time being. She reminded herself, however, of Emma’s relationship to the dead Tibbie, and managed to stifle her feelings with an effort. Coming forward, she gave her a cool nod, which Emma acknowledged with a turn of her black eyes.
“I didn’t know as you’d looked in, Mrs. Catterall....” In spite of herself Mrs. Tanner could hardly keep the suspicion out of her voice. “I hope you’ve said summat to comfort the poor thing.”
For the first time since her unexpected entry into the cottage, a hint of her famous smile played about Emma’s lips.
“Ay, I think I’ve been able to say a word,” she returned gently. “Not much, I doubt, but still—summat.”
Mrs. Tanner felt her suspicions intensify further to the point of fear. Removing her gaze from Emma with almost obvious distaste, she turned it upon the still figure sitting opposite. It could not be said that Mrs. Clapham looked any more cheerful, she thought to herself, but it was certainly true that she looked different. Before, she had looked broken and stunned, sadly bewildered, deeply pathetic; but now, after some mysterious fashion, the pathos was all gone. There was something stronger about her, indeed, but it was not a pleasant strength; not the glad, gallant strength which had ennobled her in the morning. The dignity of her grief had vanished, leaving her sullen and bitter. Never once since Mrs. Tanner re-entered the room had she as much as lifted her eyes. Mrs. Tanner said to herself that she did not like the look of things at all.
“I’m glad to hear it, I’m sure!” she made shift, however, to answer Emma with spurious heartiness. (“I’ll be getting your bit o’ supper now, shall I, Ann Clapham?) Ay, it’ll be a grand thing if you’ve helped her along the road.”
“It’s a sad business, of course; there’s no getting past that”—Emma drew herself up, and took in a big breath—“but she’s been fretting herself a deal more than she need. It’s bad enough, I’m sure, to have gone and lost the poor lass, without fretting herself as she’ll have to loss almshouse an’ all.”
“Eh?” Mrs. Tanner’s mouth opened, and she stood, gaping. “Loss t’ almshouse, did you say?” Emma inclined her head.... “What, but there’s no need——” she began again, and came to a sharp stop. She, too, had suddenly remembered the children.
“Yon’s exactly what I’ve been telling her,” Emma took her up smoothly, precisely as if she had finished her clipped sentence. “Yon children o’ poor Tibbie’s ’ll be wanting a home, if you’ll think on, and she’s been thinking she’d have to take ’em and go back to her job. But there isn’t no need for anything o’ the sort, as I’ve pointed out. She can have her house as was fixed, and the children can come to me.”
“To you!” Mrs. Tanner’s eyes flew round to her again as if pulled by a string, and her birdlike pipe rose to a scream. It was as if something tiny and feathered and flitting had descried the appearance of an enormous cat. “Nay, then ... you can’t mean it ... they’ll never be coming to you!”
“Ay, but I reckon they will,” Emma replied calmly, though her colour deepened. “Mrs. Clapham and me have just finished fixing it up.”
Mrs. Tanner exploded without giving herself time to think. “Nay, then, I don’t believe it!” she exclaimed sharply. “You’ve made a mistake somewheres, Emma Catterall, and that’s flat!”
“I don’t reckon I have.”
“What, she’d never think o’ such a thing! It’d near finish her ... she’d never dream ...” Mrs. Tanner twittered, looking helplessly from one to the other, and then, as Emma’s smile began to glimmer afresh, she turned desperately to Mrs. Clapham. “What’s she after, Ann?” she inquired miserably. “You’re never letting her have them barns?”
Mrs. Clapham stared at the floor.
“Ay, but I am.”
“Let her have Tibbie’s barns?” Mrs. Tanner almost shrieked.
“Ay.”
“Her as her own lad——!”
“I’ve tellt you ay.”
There was a pause after that, during which none of them moved, while behind them the sword grew smaller and shivered and dimmed. Mrs. Tanner’s lips trembled, and her eyes filled with her ready tears. She felt the presence of something between the two women that she could not fathom, something that, for the moment at least, it was no use trying to attack. She consoled herself with the thought that her poor friend would probably look at things differently to-morrow, especially after she had seen the forlorn little orphans—and Tibbie. But the new development had made her feel awkward and tongue-tied as well as afraid, and she was thankful when young Mrs. James appeared, cautiously peeping in.
“I just wanted to say about filling that bottle!” she began in a powerful whisper, too dazzled at first by the sword to see anybody but Mrs. Tanner. “Don’t fill it too full, you’ll think on, or it’ll likely burst....” Her eyes discovered the two by the table, and she gave a gasp. “Eh, Mrs. Catterall, yon’s never you!”
Emma said “Ay, it’s me,” in her usual smooth tones, but Mrs. Clapham said nothing; and the owner of the bottle, feeling uncomfortable and abashed, was on the point of backing out again when Mrs. Tanner stopped her. With a jerk of her thumb towards the two by the hearth, she indicated that something was wrong, and that Mrs. James must help to amend it. The latter gaped and gasped a second time, and then stopped backing and edged in; and directly afterwards Mrs. Airey and Mrs. Dunn appeared at the door. They, too, however, when they had recovered from the spectacle of a seated Emma, became conscious of the tenseness in the room and prepared to depart; but they also were glued to the spot by Mrs. Tanner’s urgently raised eyebrows and meaningly-jerked thumb.
“Ay, I tellt her one of us would be right glad to stop the night with her, if she felt that way inclined,” she began to flow forth suddenly in determined torrents of talk. “She’s ter’ble down now, poor soul—ay, ter’ble bothered and down! She’ll feel a deal better while morning, likely, and a deal better after the funeral. There’s summat comforting like, I always think, in seeing folks properly finished off.... Let’s see now—I’ll get her her bit o’ supper and see her to bed, and the three on you can settle amongst you which on you’ll stop the night. I’d stop myself, for the matter o’ that (ay, and glad to do it an’ all), but as I’ll be going with her to-morrow, I’ll be wanting a bit o’ rest.”
Emma’s voice fell smooth as an oiled hand across her passionate twitters and chirps. “No need for you to put yourself about over that, Mrs. Tanner,” she observed quietly. “I’ll be going with her myself, seeing the children is coming to me.”
The information conveyed nothing to her hearers at first, and then slowly into their faces came wonder, followed sharply by terror. Into Mrs. Dunn’s, indeed, there came naked horror—Mrs. Dunn, who knew only too well what it was like to deliver a loved one into alien arms.
“Coming to her?” Mrs. Airey demanded fiercely, her motherly face suddenly peaked and sharp; and “Nay, now, she never means—!” shrilled Mrs. Dunn, in the voice that usually was so tired and flat.
Mrs. Tanner nodded a portentous head.
“Ay, but that’s just what she does mean, and no mistake about it!” she explained loudly. She spoke roughly, brutally, almost—almost in a shout, as if the words were clubs with which she battered at Mrs. Clapham. “She sticks to it Ann’s agreed to let her have Tibbie’s barns.”
“Nay, now ... nay, never now! ... she mustn’t then ... she just can’t!...” The words seemed to come helter-skelter out of any mouth that opened to fling them first, an almost unintelligible chorus which yet managed to convey volumes. The women actually huddled against the wall, like sheep huddled before some dog. And then, just as the outcry seemed to be dying away, they began again—“Nay, now ... nay never now ... she mustn’t then ... she just can’t!”
This distinctly uncomplimentary outburst seemed, however, to have no effect upon Emma.
“Mrs. Clapham can’t take ’em herself,” she condescended to explain, the calmness of her attitude making, as it were, an impertinence of the scene before. “There’s yon almshouse, you’ll think on—she can’t go taking the children there; so what wi’ one thing and another, they’ll be bound to come to me.... That’s the way of it, isn’t it, Ann Clapham?” she finished, turning to Tibbie’s mother; and Tibbie’s mother said “Ay,” staring immovably at the floor.
This final vindication, this triumph in the teeth of those whom she knew for her sworn foes, was perhaps a little too much for the careful Emma. Loosing her hold on her caution by ever so little, she allowed herself what proved to be a mistaken pleasure. “Likely you’ve summat agen it?” she inquired of the women, her eyes shining with unmistakable malice.
More than one person present had plenty against it, as she knew, but she counted upon their lack of courage to take up the challenge. It was true that they had cried out, had given her plainly to understand what it was they felt, but she guessed that they would flinch when it came to stating their reasons. Until to-night there had been only one person who had ever openly flung her the truth, and that person was luckily absent. She was congratulating herself upon this particular fact when the unlatched door suddenly swung wide, and somebody who had obviously been listening in the porch almost tumbled into the room. She looked about her a moment in order to gather her scattered wits, and then—“I’ve summat agen it, for one!” proclaimed Martha Jane Fell.
The whole company gave a nervous jump when she tumbled into the room, as usual keeping up her unwarranted rôle of village clown. The effect, indeed, was almost as if she had entered it head over heels. Even Mrs. Clapham lifted her head to look at this latest comer. But Emma Catterall did more than jump. She had remained seated hitherto, as if conscious that no more intimidating spectacle could be presented to the crowd, but on Martha Jane’s entrance she rose to her feet. Standing beside the table, she looked like a stout little pillar-box which had missed its allowance of Government red. Her eyes which, during that moment of triumph, had looked beady and bright, suddenly changed in expression, and became beady and dull. Her arms, which had remained still so long that it seemed they must have been clamped, released themselves now to their wonted mechanical act.
Martha Jane closed the door behind her by the simple expedient of kicking it to with an agile foot. There was something about her which nobody present could attempt to define, chiefly because she had never looked like that, or anything near it, before. She looked like somebody who had cried a great deal, and then laughed, and while she was about it had done the one as thoroughly as the other. Her face was haggard and drawn, so that from one angle she looked old; but she was also excited and flushed, so that from another she looked almost young. Her dress and her hair were both of them out of control, and she still smelt obviously of doubtful gin. Indeed, the whole effect of her was that she was still decidedly over the line, although more from some sudden astonishment than actual drink. There was a curious irony in the fact that such a respectable happening as an almshouse election should have produced these two—the wild, Bacchanalian figure that was Martha Jane, and the crippled charwoman, with her leg on a tub....
“I’ve a deal agen it, and that’s flat!” announced Martha Jane ... and the shaft from the sun, which had almost departed, illumined her with an access of light.... “Ay, and so will you all, when you’ve heard what I’ve got to say!”
It was Emma who answered her without pause, taking up the gage instantly, and smoothing her own voice still further in order to heighten the contrast with the strident tones.
“Eh, now, Martha Jane Fell, you shouldn’t come bursting in like that! ’Tisn’t nice, when folks is in trouble, to come making a stir; and Mrs. Clapham’s heart not what it should be—not by a deal.”
Martha Jane tossed her head.
“She’ll thank me right enough, bursting or creeping, when she hears what I’ve got to tell!”
Emma’s slow-growing smile conveyed a pitying patronage to the untutored savage.... “Ay, well, you know your own business best, of course,” she rebuked her kindly, “but I can’t see how you know much about ours unless you were listening at t’ house door!”
The hit was a failure, however, and Martha Jane only laughed. She did not mind being accused of a thing like that. Turning her shoulder upon her with a contemptuous shrug, she addressed herself pointedly to Mrs. Clapham.
“I’d like to say, first of all,” she began clearly, “as I’m right sorry about poor Tibbie! I was that done when I heard t’ news, I didn’t know where to turn. I thought a deal o’ the poor lass, though I don’t know as we’d much to do wi’ each other, her and me.”
Now it was Emma’s turn to laugh, although in a perfectly ladylike manner. Martha Jane winced, but her head and her voice went defiantly higher.
“She was right decent, was Tibbie—eh, and that bonny an’ all! Seems to me, looking back, she was much the same as I was myself ... I don’t set much by other folks’ barns, as a general rule, but if ever I’d had a lass, I’d have liked her to be like yours.”
Again Emma laughed her ladylike laugh, and again Martha Jane flushed and winced. Mrs. Clapham’s eyes climbed slowly and dully until they reached the intruder’s face.
“You mean kindly, I don’t doubt,” she said in that hard, sullen voice which seemed so strange from her kindly mouth, “but I don’t know as I’m wanting your sympathy, all the same.”
Martha Jane wilted a moment at that, and then flamed in the next instant. In spite of her exhilaration, she, too, was obviously on edge. The tears came into her eyes, but she flung them out angrily with a toss of her head.
“I’m right sorry, I’m sure,” she said in an injured tone, “to have said I was sorry where it wasn’t wanted! There’s some folks, all the same, as appreciates feeling when they comes across it. Yon time his lordship lost his grandmother, he was glad enough of a pleasant word.”
There was a fresh demonstration of scorn at this, though not from Emma, who merely smiled. The usual glove thrown down evoked the usual answer from Mrs. James.
“You and your lordships!” she scoffed, from the huddle against the wall. “Seems to me you think o’ nowt else! Anyway, best-looking man at his lordship’s grandmother’s funeral wasn’t his lordship. Everybody said it was Mr. Baines.”
“Baines!” Diverted in spite of herself, Martha Jane swung round as if on a pivot. “What, he wasn’t in t’ same street!”
“Like enough—seeing he was streets ahead. A perfect picture he was, wi’ his buttonhole and frock-coat!”
“A barber’s block, that’s about it, and near about as much sense!” Martha Jane had burst into the room a Bacchanalian indeed, but at least with some laudable purpose hidden behind. Now she was nothing better than a virulent shrew. “And a buttonhole at a burying!” she concluded, with scorn. “Real nasty, I call that!”
Any further support that might have been forthcoming on behalf of the elegant Baines was deprived of its chance by Mrs. Clapham. “Say what you’ve got to say, Martha Jane,” she commanded, “and get it by wi’. I can’t stand a deal to-night.”
With a sharp twist the pivot twirled its occupant back to her former position.
“Ay, well, it’s this, then,” she began in a quieter tone. Drawing herself up, she folded her hands, and a certain dignity showed in her figure. “I heard Emma there say as she meant having Tibbie’s barns, and I come in at the risk of a snub to ask as you wouldn’t let her.”
“That’s it ... that’s right ... nay, now, you mustn’t let her!...” Encouraged by this plain speaking, the Chorus broke into fresh protest. Emma opened her lips, but before she could speak, the charwoman put up her hand for silence.
“It’s Martha Jane I’m axing to speak—not nobody else.... Tell me if there’s owt else you want to say, and then get about your business.”
Obvious hesitancy came over Martha Jane at that, and she coloured slowly and dropped her eyes. With the toe of a broken shoe she traced a series of patterns on the floor. “I don’t know as there’s owt more anybody need say,” she began lamely. “All on us know Emma’s isn’t the spot for kids.”
“You’re that well qualified to speak, aren’t you—you wi’ neither husband nor child!” Emma’s smile was deadly in the extreme. “And you wi’ your repitation an’ all, as perhaps one hadn’t ought to mention,” she added pensively.
“Never you mind my repitation!” Martha Jane flashed back at her. “If I don’t mind it, I don’t see why anybody else should.... Folks wi’ titles and suchlike manage to think well of me, all the same!” (A snort from Mrs. James). “But what I’m here to say,” she added quickly, “and with the whole place backing me up, is that you oughtn’t to have them children of Tibbie’s.”
The pivot turned her half-left now, facing her straight at Emma. Her voice steadied again as she warmed to her subject.
“D’you think any on us has forgotten what you made o’ Poor Stephen?” she demanded firmly. “He’s dead and gone now, poor lad, but we remember all right. What, I can see him now, with his poor, starved-looking little face! Seems to me, looking back, it was queer he come through at all; ay, and he wouldn’t ha’ done, neither, but for that good lass o’ Mrs. Clapham’s!”
Fury was running through Emma in sharp little quivers, but she managed to speak calmly. She had seemed almost afraid of Martha Jane when she first came in, but, whatever the cause of the fear, it seemed to have died down. “I reckon you know you’re very near accusing me of murder!” she replied quietly, though with glancing eyes.
Martha Jane acknowledged this speech with a great scornful laugh. “Ay, well, I don’t know as I’ll trouble to bite my tongue off for it if I am!”
“And me with my poor lad gone down in France!...” Emma’s lips gave a sharp tremble, and Mrs. Airey and Mrs. Dunn, who up to this point would gladly have seen her burnt at the stake, suddenly felt their own lips tremble, too.
But—“He wasn’t your lad!” Martha Jane flung at her cruelly, ignoring this touching exhibition of weakness. “He was Tibbie’s lad and nobody else’s—Tibbie’s making and saving all through.” Emma’s lips trembled again, and she laughed brutally. “Nay, you can put on yon war-widow expression as much as you please, Emma Catterall! You won’t get no pity from me!... Don’t let her have ’em, Ann Clapham,” she went on swiftly, turning pleadingly to the charwoman. “Don’t now—don’t. Them poor barns with their white faces and big eyes! It’d be a blasted shame!”
The sincerity of her tone seemed to put courage into the women behind, for they drew away from the wall, and came crowding about her. It was certainly a tremendous event which drew even the elegant Mrs. James to act as echo to Martha Jane. In no other cause, perhaps, would these women who disapproved of her have condescended to come to her help, but this was a matter in which all women “aswerewomen,” as Mrs. Tanner trenchantly put it, were one at heart. All women aswerewomen, Mrs. Tanner found pluck to say, couldn’t abide the thought of the children going to Emma.
“You’d regret it before they were well inside t’ house,” urged Mrs. Airey, suddenly seeing whole armies of little children crowding drearily into Emma’s, and every one of them wearing the face of her own son....
“’Tisn’t everybody as is nice company for children,” was Mrs. James’ typical contribution. “Folks in charge o’ the young should have really refined minds.”
“There must be some road out of it, surely!” Mrs. Dunn pommelled her flattened brain.... “Happen I might see my way to taking one on’ em myself.”
“Ay, what, there’s such a thing as boarding ’em out!” Mrs. Airey supported her briskly. “There’s plenty o’ decent folk as’d take ’em for next to nowt.”
“Of course, it’s a sad pity if you’ve to miss yon house,” pondered Mrs. James. “But if ever you want another, you need only ask Mr. Baines.”
“Baines has nowt to do with it!” Martha Jane snapped, again forgetting the Cause for the irresistible lure. Even at the door of Heaven she would have resented this continual trailing of the inevitable Baines jacket. “It’s his lordship as matters, when it comes to a choice. Baines is nobbut a pen-pusher, to do as he’s tellt what!... You’d get a house right enough, though,” she swung back to Mrs. Clapham. “Only, whatever you do, don’t let her have them barns!”
The charwoman had remained silent during this concerted outpouring of opinion, all the more strenuous when it came for having been held in check. But the earnestness behind it was bound to have some effect even upon her dull wrath, her rebellion against fate, her bitter and sullen determination to snatch what she could from the damaged day. After all, it was only what in ordinary circumstances she would have said herself, what, indeed, was being said to her even now by her own heart. She reminded herself, however, that the clamouring women knew nothing of Emma’s desire to atone; not that it was any use trying to tell them about it in their present mood. Led by Martha Jane, they would certainly laugh it to scorn, or, even if they did not laugh, they would refuse to believe. It took some believing, too, Mrs. Clapham was bound to admit, with Emma’s round little face expressing venom in every line. But then, even if she had come to repent, you could not expect her to change all through; and, repentance once granted, it was easy to argue that, the unkinder she had been to Stephen, the kinder she would probably be to his orphaned children. It was always the converts who went to the farthest extremes; they were the swing of the pendulum, the opposite side of the shield. Nor did it follow that, because you couldn’t stand Martha Jane, you wouldn’t be simply an angel to everyone else. Mrs. Clapham had been as good a mother as there was in the whole world, but she, too, had never been able to stand Martha Jane.
Nevertheless, there was no doubt that Emma was not being an angel at this particular moment. “You’re a nice one to go preaching to others, Martha Jane Fell,” she was saying virulently; “you that was dead drunk the whole o’ this afternoon!”
Mrs. Clapham muttered “Nay, now, Emma—nay, now, nay!” putting up a heavy hand; but already the words had had their desired effect. The Chorus drew away from about Martha Jane like a single soul, testifying to their personal worth by exclamations and looks of disgust. (Mrs. James remarked later that shehadnoticed a smell of drink—a really refined person couldn’t miss it—but there, since the War there had been so little of it about, only them as fair lived for it could believe when they happened across it!)
“Yon lordship o’ yours’ll be rarely set up when he hears tell about it!” Emma finished sardonically. “A bonny specimen for an almshouseyouare, to be sure!...” And from the new huddle formed by the women against the wall came the indignant supplement from Mrs. James—“And her setting herself up to be judging of Mr. Baines!”
It was a bitter blow to Martha Jane when she found herself thus suddenly left in the lurch. Those moments of support from the respectable Clapham Contingent had been some of the sweetest in her not very sweet life. Now, however, she was once again under the ban, thrust back into the role of Chief Village Sinner, beside whose delinquencies even Emma’s looked pleasantly pale....
“Ay, and if I was!” she shrilled defiantly, as much to the virtuous Chorus as to Emma herself. Flushing, she threw back her hair, looking more Bacchanalian than ever. “That’s my own business, I reckon, as you say one had ought to know best!... But if you’re that keen on folks minding their own business and nowt else, what have you got to say about yon telegraph, Mrs. Emma?”
A fresh quiver ran the length of Emma’s stout little frame, and her arms fell away to her sides, as if they were struck. Mrs. Clapham’s eyes suddenly sharpened their focus as they rested on Martha Jane.
“Telegraph?” Mrs. Tanner was saying, with a bewildered air. “What, she’d nowt to do wi’ that! I took it from t’ lad myself.”
“Ay, there’s been overmuch taking of other folks’ telegraphs and suchlike to-day!...” Martha Jane couldn’t resist the slap. “But I’m not talking about that telegraph, thank you, Mrs. Tanner. I’m talking of yon as come this morning.”
“A dealyouremember about this morning!” Emma sneered in a breathless tone, lifting her arms as though they were hung with weights.
“I can remember all I want to, anyway, and that’ll be more than’ll suityou! I reckon I’m not the only one as see telegraph boy riding up about eight o’clock.”
A fresh thrill of excitement ran through the room, drawing the Chorus towards her again, in spite of their horror of drink. Subconsciously they knew what was coming, as they had known about Tibbie’s death; and Mrs. Clapham, too, guessing the truth in that instant, waited rigidly, holding her breath....
“Ay, I saw him for one!” Mrs. Tanner piped excitedly.... “Ay, and me,” added Mrs. Dunn. “And me,” finished Mrs. Clapham, speaking with stiff lips. “I made sure it was for t’ Hall!” went on Mrs. Tanner, thrilling in every nerve.
“Nay, it was not for t’ Hall, not it!” Martha Jane put her in place. “It was a deal nearer home than that. Telegraph-boy took it to Emma, but it was intended for poor Ann. And if you want to know what it said, well, it said as Tibbie was dying, and would Mrs. Clapham here be sure and come by the first train....”
For the first moment after the revelation there was absolute silence. Terrible as had been the suspicion at the back of the women’s minds, it was still more terrible when put into words. The huddle at the opposite wall was more like a huddle of sheep than ever. Emma’s lips were pressed tightly into a straight line, and her arms worked and worked as if they would never stop....
Slowly Mrs. Clapham took her leg from the tub, and with a painful effort drew herself up by the edge of the table. Her eyes fastened themselves upon Martha Jane, who met the terrible glance without flinching.
“Are you meaning to say they sent telegraph for me this morning, and I never got it?” she inquired, speaking with difficulty.
“Ay.”
“Are you meaning to say Emma kept me from my dying lass?”
“Ay!” Pity and exultation had equal share in the slattern’s tone.
“Prove it!” Emma exploded breathlessly, a-shiver from top to toe, and Martha Jane gave a contemptuous laugh.
“Ay, I’ll prove it right enough, don’t you fret!” she answered her, with an insolent glance. “You see, it was like this—” she turned back again to Mrs. Clapham. “Telegraph was addressed right enough to you inside, but outside one o’ them Post Office hussies had put Catterall.”
(“Eh, to think o’ such a thing! Did you ever now! Eh, now, did you ever!” The stunned Chorus breathed itself back into audible life.)
“Emma was in her rights opening it, you’ll think on, but she’d no sort o’ right to t’ news as was inside. She said nowt about it, though, all the same. She never let on. She just sat tight, and kept t’ message back.”
“Ay, but why?” interjected Mrs. James, forgetting in her excitement that she had intended never to speak to the creature again; and the rest of the Chorus echoed her in a puzzled tone—“Ay, that’s like Emma, sure enough! That’s real like her—but why?”
“I reckon it was because she wanted almshouse message to get ’livered first. She wanted Mrs. Clapham here tied down. She knew if she got wind about Tibbie she’d be off like a shot, so she made up her mind to keep telegraph back.”
“Ay, but why? (Eh, did ye ever hear the like?) But, for t’ land’s sake, whatever for?” repeated the extra thick-headed at the back of the room.
“Because she was after them poor barns!” announced the triumphant Martha Jane. “She knew Mrs. Clapham was real set on yon house, and that she wouldn’t be suited having to part with it when she’d got it. Likely she thought she’d be easier to handle about the children if things was fixed.... But if you feel like letting her have ’em after that,” she concluded, dropping her tone, “you’re not the sort as I’ve took you to be, that’s all.”
Emma had almost stopped quivering by now, and seemed to have got herself firmly in hand. “You’re talking ter’ble wild, Martha Jane!” she admonished her quietly. “I reckon you haven’t got over yon beano of yours this afternoon. I don’t know as it isn’t lowering myself to discuss the matter at all, but where’s this telegraph you make such a song about, I’d like to know?”
“Nay,you’llknow best about that!” The pivoting prosecutor was swift. “Kitchen fire could tell, likely, if it was nobbut axed....” Sweeping her off the earth again, she turned back to the rest, happily conscious of now being able to hold them as long as she chose. “The fact is, I couldn’t help feeling a bit down when news come as I’d lost the house. I don’t say as perhaps Ann Clapham here hadn’t the best right, but still there was more than a few as considered it might ha’ been me.” (She paused at this point, as if to allow an opening to Mrs. James, but the latter was too absorbed to avail herself of the chance.) “Ay, I was right down,” Martha Jane continued, with cheerful ease, “and badly in want of a bit o’ comfort. Likely I carried over far, being rarely troubled, but that’s nowt to do with the present matter. It took me as long to get over the comfort, though”—she grinned impishly—“as the disappointment!—but as soon as I was myself again I writ a line to his lordship.” (Here she paused a second time, even more pointedly than before, and Mrs. James, awakened as if by a trumpet, obligingly played up.)
“Well, I tellt his lordship what I thought about things in general, and while I was at Post Office getting t’ stamp, t’ lass and me had a bit of a chat. ‘Grand news this for Mrs. Clapham,’ says I, conversational-like, and she just gawps at me like a coffin-hole. ‘Grand?’ says she, as bright as a dead fish: ‘you call t’ news as her daughter is dyinggrand?’ ... ‘What, surely to goodness you don’t say—’ says I, looking as much like a hen at a bucket as she did herself. ‘Well, anyway, that’s what telegraph said this morning,’ said she; and then it all come out. I was that puzzled I left t’ stamp behind me on t’ counter, and they sent telegraph-boy after me with it. ‘You was up our way this morning, wasn’t you?’ I axed, as quiet as you like, and he says ‘Ay, message for Catterall!’ as pat as butter. ‘Nay, what, you mean Clapham,’ says I, but he stuck to it I was wrong. ‘C.A.T.—cat; and a bad ’un at that!’ says he, impident-like, and went flying off; and by t’ time I’d reached home it come over me how it was.”
Emma punctuated this dramatic recital with a superior laugh.
“What, yon’s no proof as I can see!” she protested scornfully. “I tell you what it is, Ann Clapham, she’s making it all up! You’ll not have forgotten, likely, as she’s after yon house herself? If she can saddle you wi’ t’ children, she’ll have nowt to do but sail in!”
The next moment, however, even her self-possession had quailed before the terrible Martha Jane that came swooping upon her. This was, in fact, the very same Martha Jane that had damaged the lady of Lame Lane. In the midst of her moral darkness a gem of pure feeling had shone for once, and now it was being tarnished by the touch of a mean hand.
“It’s true as God’s Death!” she cried in a terrible voice, and swore another great oath in the next breath, one of those Tudor corruptions of God’s Name which survive in a shrivelled distortion even to-day. “If it’s proof you’re wanting,” she went on, as soon as this effort had sunk in, “they’ll repeat t’ message when you like; but to say as I’ve let wit because of yon house is a b—y lie!”
“I don’t say I wasn’t set on it, though,” she added, more quietly, though with a touch of bitterness in her tone. “It meant a deal more to me than you folks think. I’d ha’ been right glad of a chance for starting afresh. But all the same I’d ha’ held my tongue if it hadn’t been for them poor children. Things was sad enough as it was without owt as might make ’em worse.”
“Them’s just words—!” Emma began on a vicious burst, but the other snapped the speech at the stem.
“I’ll swear it on t’ Book, if you like,” she flung at her—“ay, and a deal more!” Advancing to the table, she laid a hand on the Bible, challenging Mrs. Clapham. “If you’ll promise me what I ax, I’ll swear I’ll refuse t’ house!”
For a long moment they stood facing each other without speaking, the respectable, honest-lived woman, and the graceless, immoral slattern. Across the table of scrubbed deal their two hands almost touched, Mrs. Clapham’s plump fingers bent to support her weight, and Martha Jane’s long, thin ones resting on the Book. The frizzled fringe of the one foiled the clean silver of the other’s hair; her trailing and tawdry garments flared at the other’s sober gown. At such close quarters that they almost met, each stared in the other’s face, the one ravaged but wholesome, the other fevered and flushed and hard. There seemed no point at which they could possibly have anything in common, not even a mutual language which could mean anything in their ears; and yet the spark of true feeling which burnt in the heart of the drab reached out to the same spark in the heart of the good woman.
The huddle against the wall watched breathlessly, mouths open, eyes wide. Even Mrs. Tanner could not have spoken if she had wished. Emma, unnoticed, uncared-for, a-quiver from head to foot, was also held in leash by some outside power. The gods had ordained this to be Martha Jane’s special moment.
Mrs. Clapham was herself again at last, her own courageous, splendidly-sane self. She was still weary, of course, still grieving and broken and lame, but life was swinging back again to its true proportions. Under Martha Jane’s stimulus she roused herself a second time to weigh the matter that was at stake. She did not need the telegram under her eyes to know that the woman before her was speaking the truth. Other things, speaking just as clearly, were before her eyes, sign-posts pointing only too plainly to the irrefutable fact. Emma’s unusual “joining-on,” her fear of the bell and the black gown, were all details striking resoundingly a similar note. Especially was the problem of the “little chat” made clear, that sinister conversation which had puzzled her so at the time. She needed no telling now why Emma had insisted upon the letter to the Committee, why throughout the whole of her studied talk there had been that deliberate exclusion of herself. The dwelling upon the Catterall likeness, the continual harping upon her health—what were they both but part of the same carefully-thought-out method to the same end? Last of all she remembered the faces pressed to the Post Office panes, and knew now why they had vanished, stricken with horror, at her innocent smile....
It was impossible, of course, to doubt that Emma really wanted the children, wanted them passionately, indeed, judging by the lengths to which she was willing to go; and perhaps it was harsh to insist that, in face of such conduct, repentance was altogether out of the question. She would not be the first, as even Mrs. Clapham was well aware, to have done wrong in order that good might come. Yet it was hard to believe that she could want the children for any kindly purpose, that her Ethiopian soul could under any conditions change its skin. Would any woman, for instance, with a heart softened either by nature or time, have schemed to keep a mother from her dying child? A fresh wave of sorrow engulfed Mrs. Clapham when she remembered that, but for Emma, she might still have seen Tibbie alive. No, there could be no question now of entrusting the children to her, after that.
Her expression changed slowly as she looked steadily at Martha Jane, and for the first time she seemed to resemble the happy Mrs. Clapham of the happy morning.
“Nay, Martha Jane,” she said quietly, “I can believe you without that. You’re welcome enough to the house if you’ve luck to get it. And now that I know the rights of the case,” she added firmly, “I promise them children shan’t go to Emma.”
“And what about your promise to me!” Emma quivered and quavered, facing her red-cheeked, with rampantly threshing arms.
“There’s promises as is best broken,” Mrs. Clapham responded, without looking at her. Never again would she willingly look at the woman who had robbed her of her adored Tibbie’s last glance. “I’d be obliged if you’d be off home, Emma Catterall,” she finished evenly. “I don’t want no truck with you any more.”
“It’s yon nasty beast as has put you agen me!” Emma quivered and shrilled,—“yon drunken rattlehorn as we see lying all of a heap this afternoon. Ay, well, a nice tale it’ll be for his lordship and all the rest o’ the fools as promised her votes! There’ll be nowt for her now in the shape of a charity-house, I can promise her that!”
“You’ll do nowt o’ the sort!” the charwoman stopped her with raised hand. “You’ll not mention it, d’ye hear?... Ay, and all t’ rest on you”—she addressed the huddle against the wall—“you’re none o’ you to go making talk. And as long as Emma keeps her tongue in her teeth you’re to say nowt about telegraph, neither. They could have t’ law on her, likely, if they got to know, but as long as she keeps her tongue in her head the rest on us will keep mum wi’ ours.”
“Nay, but what, it’s a real shame!”—Mrs. Tanner began restively, and Emma snatched the words from her open mouth.
“Ay, it’s a shame, that’s what it is; and me with my poor lad just dead in France! Ay, well, I hope it’ll be made up to you all, I do that! As for you, Ann Clapham, you’ll likely enjoy going back to your job of doing other folks’ bidding and slapping over their floors! I doubt it’ll not be long afore you find as you’ve made a mistake. What, you’re wore out now, as anybody can see—wore out ... done for ... ready for church-sod—”
A perceptible shudder ran through the elder woman, but she answered bravely.
“Ay, well, I can nobbut do till I drop. I shan’t be the first to die in harness, I reckon.”
“I’d get t’ children then, anyway!” Emma jeered, taking, however, a step to the door. “Likely I could get ’em now, if it comes to that. I’m their grandmother, same as you.”
“I’ve them letters, you’ll think on,” Mrs. Clapham replied patiently.
“Letters? Ay ... so you say—!”
It was Martha Jane who came to the rescue again, striding across to the door, and flinging it open with outstretched arm. “Get along out wi’ you!” she ordered, pointing contemptuously towards the street. “You’ve done your job for to-day, without ragging the old woman. We’re sick o’ the sight o’ you. Get out!”
Emma began a fresh flower of speech upon the evils accruing to drink, but Martha nipped it relentlessly in the bud. “Get out, or I’ll sling you out!” she commanded coarsely, in the lingo of Lame Lane, and Emma, as if pushed, sidled sharply towards the door. There she paused again to throw a last glance round the room, viciously at the Chorus, jealously at Mrs. Clapham, and—finally—a strange, long, greedy look at the photographs of the children. For the last time she unfolded her arms and clasped them again. Then, “Ay, well, I reckon you know your own business best!” she remarked to the meeting in general, and, doing her best to fade as far as Martha Jane would allow, sidled towards the porch, and went balefully, stealthily out....
Martha Jane, with her head round the door, surveyed the last of her up the street. Then she turned to the company with a ribald wink. “I’d best be after her and see what she’s up to!” she observed, grinning. “She’s fit to set the street afire, she’s that wild!... I never thanked you for yon currant bread, Ann Clapham,” she added impudently, suddenly turning. “I was that mad when I see it first, I near flung it in t’ road; but if you’ve any more going begging, I’d be glad to take it along!”
Nobody spoke in reply to this, and, looking round the disapproving faces—almost as disapproving as they had been for the late-departed—she flamed violently into wrath. “Ay, well, I’ll be saying good-evening then,”—she tossed her head on the threshold—“especially as I notice there’s no thanks going for tackling the fair Emma!”
Mrs. James, who had been almost stunned by the terrible unrefinement of almost the whole of the foregoing scene, now started into agonised life and shuddered audibly. Mrs. Airey coloured all over her kindly face, and Mrs. Dunn flattened and shrank. Mrs. Tanner emitted a sudden twittering sound from her birdlike mouth. But it was Mrs. Clapham who answered the unspoken appeal, as indeed was her duty and her right.
“I thank you kindly, Martha Jane Fell,” she said in her sorrowful mother’s voice, “for what you’ve done for my Tibbie and me, and for my poor Tibbie’s motherless barns.... As for my currant bread,” she added gently, “as you’re good enough to say you’d like, I’ll be right pleased to send you a loaf out o’ my baking o’ next week.”
Once again, as at the table, across the Bible, the eyes of the two women met and locked. Once again it seemed as if some message passed between them, some mystical form of touch; and then without any warning Martha Jane burst into loud sobs. Holding her arm before her eyes, she turned and stumbled into the porch, and the long echo of her crying came to them faintly down the street....
When it had died away, Mrs. Tanner stirred briskly. Now that the storm was over, so to speak, she began preening her feathers and strutting about.
“And now you’ll just have your supper, Ann Clapham, and as sharp as may be!” she chirped smartly. “Set down again, if you please, and put up your poor leg!... Now, then, which on you folks is coming to stop the night?”
“Nay, I shan’t want nobody, thank ye,” Mrs. Clapham put in quickly, before the women could speak. “It’s right kind, it is that, but I’ll be best alone. I’ll own up I was feeling bad a while back, but I’m better now.”
For a while they protested, however, standing about and looking distressed, but Mrs. Clapham remained firm. She sat down as ordered, and put her foot on the tub, and at last the superfluous helpers drifted reluctantly towards the door.
“I’ll see t’ house is ready agen your coming back,” Mrs. Airey said in her kind voice, “and I’ll be glad to lend a hand wi’ t’ barns an’ all.”
“And I’ll see as there’s summat to eat for you,” added Mrs. Dunn. “I’ve some currant bread o’ my own, though I don’t say it’s a patch on yours.”
“I’ll bring you a grand bunch o’ flowers while morning,” was the charming finish of Mrs. James. “I always think there’s summat soothing about a real smart bunch o’ flowers.... Eh, but I’m sorry about yon almshouse, though,” she reverted, as she went out; “and nobody’ll be more put about when they hear it than Mr. Baines!”
Then at last they were all gone, with the exception of Mrs. Tanner, and there was no need to thank them or answer them any more. Mrs. Clapham sat back in her chair with a long sigh. She did not sit forward, this time, sunk upon herself, staring sullenly at the floor. She sat back easily, wearily, closing her tired eyes....