CHAPTER II
There was no young soldier to tug her through the last stile, but she would have got the better of it even if she had had to climb it, for on the far side lay the long, white hill which was topped by the House of Dreams. Nearly topped, that is, for the almshouses, in point of fact, although close to the summit, were also under the slope. No really lovable house is ever set precisely on the top of a hill, for the winds to jostle on every side. The true house nestles a little against the arm of the land, high enough to look out, and yet low enough to be warm and safe.
The four houses, indeed, were sheltered on three sides, for north and west ran a spur of hill rimmed by ranks of larch; while on the far side of the road raised fields protected them on the east. But south and south-west the land dropped away before them until it reached the village, so that, looking across the roofs, you could see the park with its wooded hill, the long lines of the marsh, the sands, and the distant sea.
Houses, like folk, age quickly in the rigorous north, and these had already acquired the stamp of time. Already they had become part of the landscape in which they stood, had struck their roots downward until they seemed to grow. Their good grey stone was thickly creepered in parts, and the gardens had already arrived at the real garden repose. The sun, which had gone before to make ready for Mrs. Clapham, was standing steadily over the scene, showing the autumn flowers brilliant about the walls, vivid almost as jewels against the softer colours of the land around. There was an amazing freshness about it all, something delightfully clear and clean. It seemed as if a wind that was salt and yet soft must always be blowing on Hermitage Hill.
Now that she actually saw the house standing above her, it seemed impossible that it could be hers, easy as it had been to believe when it was only a picture in her mind. Seized by a fear that it might suddenly vanish, she set off towards it with such ardour that she nearly finished the climb in a dead faint, reaching her goal just in time to cling thankfully to the iron railings. She stood there for a little while, with the house heaving and blurring before her eyes, and then stumbled uncertainly through the gate and knocked feebly at Mrs. Bell’s.
The latter, who had noted her approach through the holes of a lace curtain upstairs, allowed a decent interval to elapse, and then appeared with an air of surprise.
“Eh, now, Mrs. Clapham, that’s never you!” she began elaborately, lifting her hands, but stopped her acting at once when she saw the other’s exhaustion. “Come in ... come in ... you look real done up!...” She bustled her anxiously into the kitchen. “What in the name o’ fortune fetched you up so fast?”
“I was that keen to get here!” the charwoman acknowledged, half-laughing and half-crying, and thoroughly thankful to get her cotton-wool legs to a place of rest. “You’ll have heard they’ve given me t’ house?” she gasped presently, taking out a large white pocket-handkerchief and wiping her face. “I’m right anxious to have a look at it, and they said as you’d have t’ key.”
“Them as comes up the hill fastest like enough goes down it soonest!” Mrs. Bell observed grimly, ignoring the key, and speaking with the wisdom of one who had seen many cheerful acquirers of the house descend the hill again much less cheerfully—in coffins. She was the oldest tenant—by tenure—at the moment, and prided herself accordingly. “Not but what it’ll be a long time before your turn comes,” she added graciously, having made her point; “that is, as long as any of us can hope to look for. Folks on pensions and suchlike live for ever, they say—leastways, that’s whattheysay as has the gift o’ the pensions—but I can’t say it’s been my experience. I’ve seen a ter’ble lot o’ coming and going in my time up here; in at one door and out at t’ other it’s been, so to speak. What, there’s been whiles when I haven’t even rightly known what folks was called, until I’d read their names on their tombstones after they was gone!”... She paused for appreciation, which the visitor supplied weakly.... “Ay, we heard as you’d got t’ house,” she continued, condescending to answer at last. “Mr. Allen the butcher got it from Mrs. Walls—her as is office-cleaner for that Baines.”
“Mr. Baines sent a note by his little girl....” Mrs. Clapham contrived to sit up, and began a shaky but lengthy account of the great event. Mrs. Bell, at least, looked as though she would live for ever, she thought to herself, surveying the wiry old woman in her multitudinous clothes. “Meeting was yesterday, as you’ll likely know, and Mr. Baines sent word to-day.”
“Ay, well, I don’t doubt you’ve as much right to it as most,” Mrs. Bell assured her patronisingly, for all the world as if the disposal of the almshouses were actually in her gift. “I don’t know as we could have gone past you, taking it all in all. Me and Mrs. Bendrigg and Mrs. Cann have been talking it over, and we come to the conclusion as we couldn’t have done better.”
The recipient of this extreme favour responded with a grateful beam.
“You’ll find me decent enough as a neighbour, I reckon, even though I says it as shouldn’t. I like a bit of a chat now and then, but I’m not hasty with my tongue. I’m not above doing a hand’s turn for others, neither. I don’t think you’ll find me bad to do with, taking me all round.”
“Nay, I don’t doubt but what we’ll get along grand.” Mrs. Bell permitted herself the ghost of an approving smile, pleased to find that the new-comer was obviously taking things in the right spirit. “Me and Mrs. Bendrigg and Mrs. Cann—we’ve all settled as you’ll do. But we’re mighty particular up here, all the same,” she added hastily, as if fearful of being too lenient. “We’ve a right to be, come to that, being folkschosen, as you might say. For instance, we don’t hold wi’ being out after ten o’clock——”
“Nay, what, I’ll be in my bed by nine!” Mrs. Clapham interjected quickly.
“—Or having over many callers——”
“I don’t look for a great deal.”
“—Or taking on followers or suchlike rubbish——”
Mrs. Clapham began to chuckle at that, partly involuntarily, and partly from a desire to please, but stopped hurriedly when she discovered that the remark had not been meant for a joke.
“Not that there’s many rules of any kind,” Mrs. Bell continued, ignoring her mistake; “not, that is, as was framed by old Mr. T. There’s no children allowed, of course, and we have to be right strict about not using t’ wash-house out of our turn. But there’s one or two customs and suchlike as has kind of grown up among ourselves. For instance, we’ve a sort o’ rule not to go popping over often into each other’s spots. (Nay, I can’t tell youhowoftentoooften is; you must bide and see for yourself.) Not to borrow overmuch from other folks, neither—I’ve seen a deal o’ bad blood come o’ that. Not to be peering at other folks’ gardens to see if they’re shaping better than ourn, or to take up more o’ the man’s time than our rightful share. Not to go setting t’ kitchen chimbly afire, or chattin’ to people out in the road——”
“I don’t fancy I’ll give any trouble over any o’ them things,” Mrs. Clapham put in, feeling she simply couldn’t stand another sentence just then that began with the word “not.” It was just Mrs. Bell’s way, she was saying diligently to herself, and she must do her best not to mind it. Nearly everybody had their “way,” which you had to poke through before you discovered the person underneath. When she had succeeded in poking through Mrs. Bell’s, they would no doubt get on like smoke. Martha Jane, though, would never have understood Mrs. Bell’s peculiar “way,” and it was more than certain that Mrs. Bell would never have understood Martha Jane’s. In the safety of possession Mrs. Clapham could afford to chuckle at the thought of Martha Jane faced with these various ordinances—Martha Jane, who never bought anything she could manage to borrow, who was throng as a magpie about other people’s affairs, and was always idling and chattering out in the street!
“Nay, you’ll find me easy enough to do with,” she hastened to affirm again, fearful that Mrs. Bell might fish up another rule. “I’ve had a pretty hard life, one way and another, and all I’m asking for is a bit o’ quiet. It’ll be summat new for me to find myself with only my own spot to see to, and such a handsome-like spot at that!”
She looked admiringly, as she spoke, round the cosy little kitchen with its excellent furniture and sensible grate, and its owner had to repress a quiver of pride before producing the requisite sniff.
“They’re well enough as they go,” she replied loftily, “though I’m not saying they haven’t their drawbacks. Seems to me they might have made the rooms bigger while they was about it, and put in a deal more cupboards and shelves. Furniture’s right enough, I suppose, though I don’t hold with oak myself. Mahogany’s a deal more tasty,” Mrs. Bell finished, with her nose in the air; “but there, you couldn’t expect an old gentleman to go thinking o’ things like that!”
“Ay, but that’s just what hedidthink about!” Mrs. Clapham defended him stoutly, hurt by this callous assessing of the old man’s gift. “I was at his Lancashire place more than once, and, my goodness, but wasn’t it grand! And he took every bit as much pains wi’ these spots as he ever did with his own. I reckon he chose oak for t’ houses because he thought it would last.”
“Ay, but fashions change, even in almshouses,” Mrs. Bell observed, truthfully enough, and with a sententious air. “I don’t say they won’t last our time. I don’t say they’re not good enough for you and me. But it’s queer to me, all the same, if the folks as come after don’t want summat a sight different!”
“Ah, well, they’ll domeall right, and a bit over!” Mrs. Clapham laughed, getting ready for stirring. Her heart had settled back into its usual stride, and her legs felt really like legs, instead of bundles of cotton-wool. “I’ll best be moving on again, though I’ve been glad of the rest. Happen you’ll be kind enough to give me the key.”
Mrs. Bell moved reluctantly to the mantelpiece, and from a large canister extracted a small doorkey with a dangling label. As the oldest tenant she had charge of the keys whenever the houses fell vacant, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that she could bring herself to hand them over.
“I hardly reckoned on you being up so soon,” she remarked rather crossly, and still retaining the key. “Folks don’t always come the first day; I don’t know why, I’m sure. Happen they don’t care that much, or they feel a bit delicate-like about claiming their rights.... Not but what you can do as you choose,” she added quickly, as the charwoman flushed, “so don’t go thinking I mean to be nasty.”
“I justhadto come!” the other answered, almost apologetically. She was now on her newly-restored legs, and drawing nearer the precious key. “Come to that, the house has been mine a sight o’ years, after a manner o’ speaking!” she finished, with spirit. “And anyway, I can’t rest till I’ve seen about getting it cleaned.”
“Nay, what, you’ll find it clean enough, if that’s all!” Mrs. Bell exclaimed eagerly, moving the key further out of her reach. “When anybody dies, the governors always has it done special.”
“Not whatIcall clean!”... Mrs. Clapham’s voice was regal and her head went up in the air. Her tone was that of the recognised artist, whose dictum on his own subject is beyond dispute. “Governors mean well enough by it, I don’t doubt,” she admitted kindly, “but it’ll be mighty queer, all the same, if it’s clean enough to suitme!”
She held out her hand firmly, but her hostess still clung to the dear possession. “Ay, well, then, I’d best come and show you round,” was her last desperate expedient; but Mrs. Clapham would have none of that, either.
“I’d rather go by myself,” she told her amiably, but in the same indisputable tone. “You’re right good, I’m sure, and I’m hoping as we’ll be friends; but I think when I first see t’ house, I’d like best to see it alone.”
She extended her hand further, and after a pause the other laid the key in her palm, much as if she were handing over the keys of some beleaguered city. She was a trifle offended, as the charwoman had expected, and she was also decidedly disappointed. Showing the new tenant over her own house would have fanned for a while the flicker of dying importance. But she was aware that Mrs. Clapham came with testimonials that couldn’t be bettered, and she was also impressed by the fact that she had known old Mr. T. And in spite of herself she was impressed by her royal attitude towards the cleaning. The layman gets the better of the artist in four cases out of five, but this happened to be the fifth.
“Ay, well, it’s your own affair, after all,” she replied, at length, with a touch of dignity, but nothing worse. The speech, however, was too reminiscent of Emma to be perfectly pleasant, and the visitor winced. Later, thinking things over, it seemed to her strange that she should more than once have noticed this echo of Emma in the totally different Mrs. Bell. It was as if the grip of Emma’s mind upon hers had been working silently even here, making the same subtle demand upon her that it had made insidiously all day....
“You’ll drop in again, though, for a cup o’ tea?” Mrs. Bell, still loth to lose sight of the treasure, followed both it and its owner to the door. “Eh, but the folks I’ve seen walking away with that very same key! First was Mrs. Wells, as went and died of cancer the very next year; and then Mrs. Saddleback, as broke her leg in the first week. Then there was Mrs. Green ... nay, likely, ’twas Mrs. Brown. Ter’ble bad neighbour she was an’ all ... nay, likely, ’twas Mrs. Green....”
Mrs. Clapham had withdrawn herself now, with the skill of her class, but Mrs. Bell was still at her heels. “Then there was Mrs. Phipps,” she was saying lustily, “her as is just gone. A right good soul she was an’ all, barring that she was a bit cracked. Still, there’s folksdosay as when them dies as has lost their minds, it’s happen only the body as gets took away, and the mind, happen, stays behind....
“I don’t reckon it’ll do me much harm if it has!” Mrs. Clapham threw at her cheerfully, as she hurried away. “I’ll just have a look round and see what’s what; and if you can spare me a cup o’ tea, I’ll be right glad of it when I’m through.”
She left Mrs. Bell still looking longingly after the key, and, turning the corner, arrived at her own door. Michaelmas daisies and asters lined the flagged path at either side, purple, clean-coloured faces not yet touched by the frost; but beside the door itself was what she knew to be a flowering currant, that first flambeau of glory which Nature flings to us in the Spring. She had wanted one all her life, and here was one set for her at her very door. When it flowered again in the Spring it would be just as if old Mr. T. had made her a personal present. More than ever it seemed to her as if the whole thing were emphatically “meant.”
With a shaking hand she inserted the key. It turned smoothly and kindly with a welcoming click....