CHAPTER II
For a long moment she stared at her without change of expression, her brain insisting, as it had done of the cottage, that it did not know her. She belonged to her own section of this unending day, which was neither the far-off section that contained the House of Dreams, nor this present section which was wholly Tibbie’s. But each time they had met the charwoman had been conscious of something that seemed to call to her for defence; and presently, raising her head further, she succeeded in bracing her tired mind.
Emma had been standing as still as a stone when she first saw her, as if intent upon producing that apparition-like effect which seemed to be one of her pet vanities. Now, however, she came quietly forward and stood by the table, a roundabout figure with folded arms.
“This here’s ter’ble bad news, Ann Clapham,” she began, in her smooth tones, her round little black eyes searching the charwoman’s ravaged face.
“Ay....” Mrs. Clapham’s throat almost refused speech, while at the back of her mind was growing a dull wonder at the appearance of Emma in another’s cottage.
“Ter’ble bad news it is an’ all.... I don’t know as I’ve ever been so upset.”
“Ay.”
“I heard tell of it from Mrs. James—yon stuck-up piece from over the road. I see her running with a rubber bottle, and handing it in here.... Eh, but I should think I cried for t’ best part of an hour!”
Captured in spite of herself by this unexpected remark, Mrs. Clapham lifted her glance to the hard little face. Emma’s eyes were certainly bright, and her cheeks flushed, but she hardly looked as if she had been giving way to turbulent grief.
“Of course, you might say it was a deal worse for me when my poor lad was killed in France, but there was things to make up for it, all the same. There was glory, and folks taking off their hats, and all suchlike, as his lordship said. But there isn’t anything cheering o’ that sort when folks die same as Stephen’s wife.”
The thing that Mrs. Clapham had heard crying vaguely for help aroused her now with a sharp tug. That claim upon Tibbie, which had frightened her earlier on, hurried her now into active offence.
“I’ll thank you not to go calling my lass ‘Stephen’s wife’ to-night!” she burst out, so sharply and fluently that Emma actually jumped. Mrs. Clapham had raised herself even further, and a faint ring had come back to her dull voice. “She married your Stephen right enough, and right fond she was of him, too. But she isn’t your Stephen’s wife, nor his widow, neither, to-night. She’s just my Tibbie and nowt else!”
Emma’s flush deepened, and one of her hands dropped from her waist to rest on the table; but before she could answer, Mrs. Clapham had raced on.
“As for taking off hats and suchlike, I don’t know as it makes that much odds. It won’t give you back the folks as has loved you and held your hand.... I’m not saying owt agen your poor lad as went down in France, but do you think all they folks as knew my Tibbie won’t be lifting their hats to her in their hearts?”
Emma’s mouth opened determinedly once or twice, but each time she shut it firmly. She seemed to be struggling equally with a desire to keep something in, and an urgently pressing desire to get something out. The plump hand on the table twitched a little, and so did the hand at her waist.... While she fought with herself she kept her eyes fixed on the other’s face, as if willing her by that glance not to notice that she twitched and fought....
When finally, however, she did speak again, there was a marked difference in her manner, so marked, indeed, that its first effect was to make Mrs. Clapham more uneasy than ever. She had allowed herself that one hit at Tibbie’s mother, that one scratch, so to speak, at Tibbie’s corpse; but when once that fundamental demand of her queer nature had had its way, her whole procedure altered subtly. Her hands ceased to twitch as if she were being torn in twain by some inward strife. Even her colour faded a little, that pronounced flush which seemed to speak of triumph rather than grief, and into her black eyes came an expression which was obviously meant to convey pity.
“Nay, now, you can’t think I meant anything against the poor lass!” she returned smoothly. “She was thought a deal of, was your Tibbie. A real favourite she was up and down t’ village, and I reckon they thought a deal of her where she’s been an’ all.”
“What, she’d as many friends there as she had here!” the bereaved mother broke out feverishly. It was impossible not to talk of the dead, even to such as Emma.... “She did a lot in the place—taught Sunday School, and a dress-making class, and she’d summat to do wi’ Girl Guides. Parson was fit to put her in his pocket. As for the folks next door—Rawlinson’s their name—them as sent telegraph, you’ve likely heard—they couldn’t do enough for my Tibbie. Ay, and there’s t’ folks she sewed for an’ all; they thought a deal on her, too. Nay, I reckon there won’t be room enough for t’ wreaths when it comes to putting ’em on t’ coffin!”
“Mr. Wrench’ll be rarely troubled when he hears t’ news,” Emma said; “ay, and t’ parson’s wife an’ all. They always made out to think the world o’ your Tibbie when she was here. It’ll put ’em about to hear as it’s happened while they’ve been off at the wedding.”
“She made Miss Marigold a pale bluecrêpe de Chine,” Mrs. Clapham said, and suddenly she began the eternal rubbing at her poor knees. A tear from the fount which she had thought dry welled swiftly, and ran down her stiff cheek. “And nowt for herself, my bonny lass, but a linen shroud!”
She wept for a little while, passionately, but quietly. Even under Emma’s eyes she could not help but weep, thinking of the girls who were exactly the same age, yet whom Fate had treated so differently, and who went so differently robed that day....
Emma watched her for a time with an immobility that might have indicated either sympathy or its suppressed opposite. “Mrs. James said you hadn’t a notion what took her off,” she observed presently.
“Nay, I can’t think.”
“Seems to me there’s something strange about that. She was always so strong.”
“Ay. Strong and sound all through!”
“Of course, if it was pneumonia, or one o’ them suchlike quick jobs....” Emma, like Mrs. Tanner, had a score of suggestions to offer, but found them equally rebutted. Death was undeniable, and had a dignity of its own, but the sorrowing mother could not tolerate any hint of preceding weakness on the part of her lost darling. “You’ll be going to t’ burying, likely?” Emma turned the subject at last, tacitly agreeing to leave it that Tibbie had not so much died as “ceased upon the midnight without pain,” and then, as the other nodded, she finished hurriedly—“I thought happen you’d like me to come an’ all.”
“To t’ funeral?” There came a sharp pause in the wearisome rubbing which was the outward expression of the fretting brain. Leaning forward with arms outstretched, she turned to stare into Emma’s face. “To t’ funeral, d’ye mean?” she repeated in vague tones.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Nay... nay, I never... nay, you mustn’t think o’ such a thing!” The colour flashed into Mrs. Clapham’s face, and she stammered helplessly, looking away. It had never occurred to her that Emma might wish to be present, and the very thought of it was abhorrent. Yet what could seem more natural than that they should go together—the two mothers—the two grandmothers?... Nevertheless, it was simply not to be thought of that Emma should stand beside Tibbie’s grave....
“Nay, you’d best bide at home,” she answered her firmly, though very uncomfortably. “It’s a longish way, you’ll think on, and funerals is always a trying business for folks as is getting old.”
“It’ll be a deal more trying for you than it will for me,” Emma disputed, though quite gently. “And you’re older than me, come to that.”
“Ay, but I’vegotto go, you see!” Mrs. Clapham put up a desperate struggle. “She was my lass. It’s different for you.”
“She was Stephen’s wife as well,” Emma broke out sharply, her mouth tightening, and then checked herself equally quickly. “Ay, but I was real fond of your poor Tibbie.”
“It’s nice of you to feel that way, I’m sure....” Mrs. Clapham’s tone was more uncomfortable than ever, and the rubbing that began again was now not so much from emotion as to assist the processes of her mind. The something that kept calling to her for help was getting louder and louder with every minute. On no account must Emma attend the funeral, the something said, but for the life of her she could not tell what the impediment was to be.
“You’re not so well, neither—not fit to go alone. Mrs. James said you’d twisted your knee.”
“A bit of a wrench, happen,” was the unwilling admission. “I’ll be right enough soon.”
“Anyway, I could help a bit if I came along,” Emma persisted. “There’s always a deal to do at a burying; always a sight o’ work. There’ll be the children to bring back an’ all.”
“The children?” Mrs. Clapham sat up straight as a dart at that, her eyes nearly as bright as Emma’s. It was plain enough now what the something was trying to say, calling and crying and clamouring at her ear. With a reeling mind, she fixed her eyes fiercely on Emma’s face, but Emma’s face never changed. Only the hand on the table twitched, and then the hand at her waist; and then the hand on the table again, and then the hand at her waist....
“Ay, the children,” she repeated quietly, composedly meeting the other’s gaze. “You’ve never forgotten the poor things?”
But that, incredible as it seemed, was just precisely what had actually happened. Mrs. Clapham’s mind which, only that afternoon, had accomplished with ease a backward leap of at least forty years, had, on returning, fallen short of the present. Like the chair, it had put its stopping-point at the new generation. Tibbie’s death had brought back to her almost all that Tibbie had meant, but it had not succeeded in bringing her more than Tibbie. The child, indeed, had been with her, but not the girl with her scissors and silks; still less had she visioned the soldier’s widow, with Emma’s grandchildren in her arms!
“I thought I’d best be on t’ spot,” Emma continued, after the pause, “seeing as the poor lile things’ll likely be coming to me.”
The quiet words, falling so gently yet indisputably on her ear, acted upon Mrs. Clapham like a galvanic battery. In a moment she was stirred finally out of her dull pose, ready for battle, ardently on her defence. Scorn stiffened her backbone and put fresh energy into her frame. But for her knee she would have been on her feet in the first instant. Erect in her chair, she stared at the speaker with such mockery that the latter quivered.
“Coming to you?...” She repeated the words slowly, as if the mere sound of them in another’s mouth was sufficient in itself to convey the fact of their arrant folly. “My Tibbie’s barns coming toyou?”
“They’re Stephen’s barns an’ all——” Emma began on a heightened note, and then checked herself as before. “Ay, well, they do seem to belong more to your lass,” she went on, with suspicious meekness, “especially since my poor lad went down in t’ War.... But somebody’ll have to take and do for ’em, you’ll think on.”
“I’ll be fetching ’em here, of course!” Mrs. Clapham announced arrogantly, defying her with her eyes, her whole soul bent on concealing the fact that she had forgotten the children’s existence. It was incredible, of course, so incredible that it frightened her, but it had happened, nevertheless. Also it made her ashamed, convicting her of selfish preoccupation in another’s need. That, however, could be atoned for, later. The one thing that mattered at the moment was that Emma should guess nothing.
“They’re Tibbie’s barns, right enough, Emma Catterall!” she continued fiercely, glaring at her across the table. “Don’t you make no mistake about that! She always said as they was to come to me if by any chance she was took—not that we either on us thought as she ever would. But I’ve letters upstairs as is plain enough evidence what the poor thing wished. No lawyer’d go past ’em, and that’s flat. And if it’s plain speaking you’re happen wanting as well, she couldn’t abide you, nor the children, neither!”
Emma quivered again like a tightened fiddle-string, and then quietened.
“That’s not very kind, Ann Clapham,” she responded patiently, “and me with my poor lad gone down in t’ War!... Seems as if you and me ought to draw a bit nearer together at a time like this.” She paused a moment, as if to allow her time to wince at the accusation of lack of feeling.... “So you’ll be bringing the poor things back here, will you?” she concluded gently. “Ay, well, of course you know your own business best....”
“Ay, I do that!” Mrs. Clapham eyed her hardly, refusing to be intimidated.
“That’ll do well enough at first, likely, but what about later on? What’ll become of ’em when you move to your new spot?”
It was out now—the thing to which Emma had been working ever since she came in, and in fear and defiance of which the dead had been clamouring in her mother’s ear. Here again the incredible had happened which was yet so perfectly natural in the overwrought state of the charwoman’s brain. It was hardly surprising that it should have ceased to link cause with effect, half-paralysed as it was by shock, and bewildered in any case by the events of the day. Those last words, however, clarified it as a landscape is clarified by lightning, while at the same time they extinguished her temporary vitality like a blown candle. There was no sense now in trying to conceal the position from Emma, no use now in trying to hide this last hiatus of a mother’s mind. Slowly her body sank down upon itself, as before, her head dropped, her hands numbed. Her eyes returned to their vacant staring at the floor. “Nay, I’d clean forgotten about t’ house,” she muttered at last, in a voice that, along with the rest of her, had grown terribly old....
Nevertheless, in spite of her collapse, she was calling upon her mind to make one further effort, that weary, outraged mind which, during the last few hours, had been torn so often from one point of view to another. Given her own way, she would have sunk back into black woe, but neither Tibbie nor Emma meant to allow that. One on each side of her they seemed to stand, fighting across her, besieging her dull ear. Tibbie, at least, had a claim that she couldn’t deny, and least of all on her dying day. Emma, too, knew what she was about, to come tempting her at her weakest hour, even though she would go back with her head in her hands and some searching criticism for her pains.
For, after all, the decision was already made, and it was sheer waste of time to ask her even to state it. As if it was possible even to think of letting those poor children go to Emma! Even in her grief she could have laughed aloud at the every suggestion. It was true that they still seemed a long way off—the poor little pale mites who were so like Stephen—and so like Emma! It was true, too, that at that moment the tie that bound her was not of love or even of blood; nothing more noble, indeed, than jealous pride of possession. But no matter what the motive that constrained her, there could be no difference in the result. Never in any circumstances could she hand the children over to Emma.
She had forgotten the almshouse, as she had said, but now, with the mention of it, it was coming back. She had forgotten it as people in pain forget the sweet time when they ran and leaped, as the long-crippled forget what it meant to hunt, and the long-married forget what it was to love. Yet with her, as with all the rest, it was there in her darkened mind, a far, shining country at the back of beyond, a clear, golden country at the edge of the coloured sea. And suddenly there rose up in her a great longing and a great cry—the passionate, anguished cry of her vanishing, life-long dream.
She had been utterly wrong, then, so she said to herself, from start to finish, from beginning to end. There was no reward, after all, for honest toil, and still less for childlike, trusting faith. God, or whoever looked after things up above—or who didn’t look after them, as seemed much more likely—allowed you to work and believe and hope for forty years, and then at the end of them cancelled your heart’s desire. Even with a perfectly justified heart’s desire it was just the same, a natural, praiseworthy heart’s desire that couldn’t do anyone any harm. Suddenly He demolished your ancient castle in Spain, and as He demolished it He also laughed. Mrs. Clapham felt that laugh thrill through her in every nerve, as if it had been through the medium of Emma He had chosen to laugh. Yet Emma herself did not look like laughing at the moment, was not so much as wearing her Giaconda smile. Her attitude was her usual one of repression and watchful calm, but behind it was a suggestion of unusual fear and strain.
Mrs. Clapham, however, was engaged with another problem than that of Emma’s expression. Her imagination, once more released upon the joyous venture from which it had been dragged, was living again through the wonderful morning and afternoon. Once more she felt the breathless rapture of expectation, followed by the more tranquil rapture of the accomplished fact; and once again journeyed on that voyage of discovery which came to an end on Hermitage Hill. She thought of the women with whom she had made friends, the tea-party, the butcher, and always, always of the house. They—by “they” she meant the Almighty and Emma, somehow intermixed in her mind—had allowed her to have all that. They had given her the cup of those hours, pressed down and running over, and then they had emptied the cup and laughed. It was either muddle or mockery, however you looked at it, and to one of Mrs. Clapham’s simple, orderly spirit it was hard to say which was worse. And suddenly she felt that, muddle or mockery, she wasn’t able to bear it. The child in her which had played with the toys of old Mr. T. rose and clung stubbornly to the House of Dreams.
Emma was talking again, she found, still standing there, still filling her with that hatred of God and her roundabout self.
“They don’t take children in almshouses, so I’m told. They don’t want ’em; it wouldn’t do. Folks as is ready for almshouses is ready for rest, and there wouldn’t be that much rest, wi’ children always about. I don’t know as it would be good for the children, neither, come to that. Almshouses is places where folks is sort of put away. I don’t know as they’d be much of a home for them as is starting out.”
That “put away” was a bad strategical error from Emma’s point of view, and she realised it as soon as she had made it. It brought back a picture of old Mrs. Bendrigg to Mrs. Clapham—that bedridden, night-capped, wizened Old Man of the Sea.... She turned her head slowly to glare at Emma and the Laughter behind her that was God, and Emma’s hands twitched as she hurried on.
“Not that I’m meaning anything against them almshouses, I’m sure! I’ve always heard tell they was fit for a king. What, yon time I was telling you of as his lordship come to see me about poor Stephen, he said as he’d like to live in one o’ them himself. It all depends wi’ almshouses and suchlike who it is as builds ’em; but old Mr. T. wasn’t the sort to go pinching the poor.”
The word “poor,” however, was a mistake, too, and Emma dashed on again to mend it.
“An honour, that’s what it’s always been, to have one o’ them spots. That’s why I was a bit down-like on Martha Jane—the likes of her to go setting up! It’s folks like you them houses is meant for, folks as has lived a respectable life. Ay, well, you’ve got one on ’em now, and the best of the lot. Right set you’ve been on it all these years, and you’ve got it at last.”
Mrs. Clapham spoke at the end of all this as if she had not heard a single sentence. “Them children’ll come to me,” she said in a voice that was determined, if toneless and sullen.
Emma drew a long breath.
“Surely to goodness you don’t mean as you’ll let it slide! You can’t go taking children to almshouses, as I said before.”
“I know that right well.”
“You’ll send Committee back word, after all?”
“Ay.”
“Let the house slip? Let yon Martha Jane——!”
“Ay!” It was almost with a cry that Mrs. Clapham cut through that last sentence.
“Well, I don’t know what they’ll say about it, I’m sure!” Emma’s tone was still quiet, but she allowed herself a little righteous indignation. “You’ve put ’em to a deal o’ trouble and all that, and now it’ll all be to settle again. I’m not sure as you’ve any right to send ’em back word, come to that. I’m not sure as they can’t sue you. Anyway, it’ll be queer if they ever give you another chance.”
“Time enough to think o’ that!” The charwoman clung doggedly to her determination, even though the prospect of renewed waiting drew from her a heavy sigh. The sigh had a distinctly cheering effect upon Emma.
“It’ll mean you turning out to work again, won’t it?” she inquired kindly. “The children’ll have their bit o’ pension-money, likely; but I doubt you’ll have to work for ’em, all the same.”
“Likely I shall.”
“Eh, but it’s a shame, though, that it is—and you wi’ your lame leg an’ all! Not so young as you was, neither.” She was careful, however, not to lay too much stress upon age. “You’ve a right to your rest.”
“I can work till I drop....”
There was a pause, and then Emma changed her tactics again, or, rather, intensified them. Coming slightly nearer, she inclined her stiff little figure—the nearest approach that she had ever been known to make to an actual bend.
“Hark ye, Ann Clapham!” she began rather breathlessly, and in a voice that actually shook. “Let’s talk this matter over reasonable-like; let’s thrash it out, you and me. I don’t mind telling you right off the reel as I’m right set on having them barns. You mustn’t take it amiss if I mention for once as they’re my grandchildren as well as yours. When all’s said and done, they’re the barns o’ my poor lad as went down in t’ War. They’re that like him an’ all; it’s only in nature I should want to have ’em. Likely they don’t think much of me, as you say, but I could soon learn ’em. Children often take queer-like fancies agen the people as likes ’em best.”
Again Mrs. Clapham’s face came slowly round towards the one that was almost bending over her. “What was it you did to Poor Stephen?” she inquired dully.
Emma reddened in spite of herself, a dark-red flush very different from the glow of excitement with which she had come in. As Mrs. Clapham looked, something seemed to rise up in her that would no longer be repressed, something that rose and rose as if determined to break into speech, but was finally beaten at the door of her open mouth. You saw it yield, as it were, sink, die down, fall and fade away, thrust back on its chain into the place from which it had come....
“Nay, now, you’re never going to rake that up again, surely!” she demanded, though quite gently. “I never see such a clattin’ spot as this here village! They’ll never let owt die. I did think they’d put a string to their tongues when Stephen went down in t’ War, but seemingly I was wrong. Of course I’ve known all along as they thought I didn’t do right by my poor lad. A ter’ble grief it’s been to me an’ all, though I never let on. I shouldn’t be speaking of it now if it was to anybody but you!”
She gave a deep sigh, crossed her arms and uncrossed them again, and it seemed to Mrs. Clapham that her lips actually trembled.
“That’s all very well, Emma Catterall,” she replied presently, in the same dull tone of condemnation, “but there’s no getting past the fact you were right bad to Poor Stephen. You know best what you did to the poor lad; I won’t say how I know it, too. But all the lot on us who was living here then know he was half-clemmed and nearly daft.”
“Stephen told you I was bad to him, I reckon?” Emma’s tone was injured but patient. “Stephen told your Tibbie, and your Tibbie told you?”
Tibbie’s mother looked a trifle abashed. “Nay, what, haven’t I said we could all on us see it at the time?”
“Ay, but summat’s been said—summat from inside,” Emma persisted gently, and Mrs. Clapham stirred uncomfortably.
“Ay, well, what if it has?”
Emma nodded sorrowfully, grief-stricken, but forgiving. “Ay, well, it’s only what I’ve suspected all along. There was I, fair breaking my heart over my lad while he was in France, and he miscalling me all the time behind my back!”
“He said nowt but the truth!” Mrs. Clapham flung at her brutally, all the more brutal because she was beginning to have her doubts.
“What he took for the truth, I don’t doubt,” Emma corrected her sweetly. “It was like this, d’ye see, Ann Clapham—it was Jemmy as couldn’t abide Stephen. Jemmy wasn’t much of a man himself, you’ll think on, and it made him right wild that Stephen should be so weakly. It’s the big men, you’ll have noticed, likely, as is kind to cripples and the like; them as is weaklings themselves want their barns to be big and broad. Jemmy always had it Stephen was daft from the time he was born, but anyway, if he wasn’t, he did his best to make him. Eh, but the rows we’ve had over the poor lad, and not stopping at words, neither! But he was my man, after all, Ann Clapham, and so I couldn’t say much about it. We’re both on us married folk, you and me, so you don’t need telling you’ve to stand by your man. Eh, but it goes agen the grain with me, it does that, even to be speaking hardly about him to-day!”
Plausible as this explanation undoubtedly was, it seemed to have no effect upon Mrs. Clapham. Her expression was one of such pure contempt that in spite of herself Emma flinched. Her arms crossed and uncrossed with the regularity of some dull machine. The breath that she drew now was not a pretended sigh, but an urgent relief in a moment of fierce strain.
“Nay, now, Emma, yon tale won’t wash!” Mrs. Clapham pronounced firmly. “Jemmy was a wastrel—a real nowt—I’ll give you that; but it was you and not him as played Old Harry with Poor Stephen.”
“Ay, I know that’s what folks said ... what poor Stephen said an’ all. It’s right hard to have it thrown up agen you when your poor lad’s dead in France!... You’re a mother yourself, Ann Clapham,” she went on, warming to an impassioned tone, “so you won’t need telling what it’s been like! But it was Jemmy as set him agen me, as I said before, tellt him I couldn’t abide him, spied on him and a deal more—”
She broke off, then, however, even her amazing armour not being proof against the other’s stare of superb scorn. Flushing, stammering and choking, she checked like a brazen bell into harsh silence....
“Them’s all lies, Emma Catterall, and you know it!” was the terse comment of Mrs. Clapham. “I don’t say Jemmy didn’t do his share in harming the poor lad, but none of us need telling it was you as did most. Anyway, you could have fed him and darned him, and seen to his poor wants. I’m a mother myself, as you very rightly say, and I don’t need tellingthat.”
“Ay, but itwasJemmy set him agen me——!” Emma began again, losing her head completely, and again choking and stammering into silence. There was a moment’s pause, while she stared at Mrs. Clapham with the flush deep on her round face, and then she flung her apron over her head with a sudden sweep and a sharp wail.
“Eh, but you’re cruel—cruel!” she sobbed on a high note, her voice stabbing like a thin knife through the draped folds of the coarse stuff. The charwoman, twisted violently in her chair, gazed at her silently in open alarm. It was as if a gargoyle on some church had become a Niobe bathed in tears, or a cat worshipped by ancient Egyptians had opened its mouth and mewed for milk.... It was terrible and grotesque, and disturbed her beyond words, the more so that it helped to confirm her recently-stirred doubts....
“Thatcruel!” Emma continued to wail from behind her screen. “Supposing Ididtreat the poor lad as I hadn’t ought, d’ye think I haven’t repented it long since? D’you think I wasn’t haunted by it, waking and sleeping, all yon time he was out at t’ War? It’s easy to judge other folk, Ann Clapham, but there’s a deal o’ things hidden away as outsiders don’t see. Folks as don’t think a deal o’ their husbands don’t always care for their children, neither. You’ve seen a bit o’ human nature in your time, and you know that as well as me. Happen I didn’t treat Stephen right, but I’ve paid for it ever since. But there—what’s the use o’ turning your heart out to people as hard as you!”
Mrs. Clapham’s mouth shut slowly as the passionate speech proceeded, and a shocked, almost humbled expression came over her face. The sullen resentment went out of it for the time being, leaving it normally human and kind.
“Don’t take on, Emma!” she said at last, with a shake in her own voice. “Likely I’ve been hard, as you say.... Fetch t’ chair out o’ yon corner, will you?” she added quietly, after a moment, “and set yourself down afore we talk any more.”
There was a pause while Emma, still hidden behind the apron, apparently struggled for self-control; and then, with a long breath, she emerged slowly. As she seated herself opposite Mrs. Clapham, the latter saw that her eyelids were slightly reddened, and that the hard, round face looked haggard and strained. The growing doubt that was in her mind grew still further as she looked, telling herself that unmistakably here before her were genuine sorrow and sincere desire....
“Nay, I didn’t care for him as a lad, and that’s the truth!” Emma broke out again presently, still speaking a little unevenly. “Happen things wasn’t as bad as you think, but I don’t know as that matters. I know well enough I didn’t do by him as a mother should, and now that he’s dead and gone, it fair kills me to think on. It wasn’t till he was out in France that I found out what he meant; and eh! though I was right proud, I was right shamed o’ myself an’ all! Ay, well, he’ll not come back no more, and I can’t make up to him as I’d like, but if so be as I’m given my way, I can make it up to his poor children. Yon’s what I want yon barns for, Ann Clapham—to pay what I rightly owe. I know you’re set on ’em because they’re your poor Tibbie’s, but eh! if you only knew how I wanted them that bad! Little Stevie now, wi’ his black eyes and his white face—what, it would be near like having his father over again! Ay, and the lass an’ all; I’ve always wanted a little lass. I’d be that good to ’em; I would that. I’d cocker ’em to their heart’s content. There’s nowt wouldn’t be too good to make up for my badness to Poor Stephen. I’m young enough and I’m right strong, and I’ve managed to save a goodish bit o’ brass. Likely I’d be able to send the pair on ’em to a good school. If you take ’em, you’ll have to go back to work, give up your grand house, and start all over afresh. What, it’d be a real shame—you with your bad leg, and that tired out an’ all, as anybody might see! Tibbie’d be put about if she knew she was doing you out of your rest. I doubt you won’t find it so easy going back, neither. It’ll be a deal harder, you’ll see, than if you’d never thought o’ stopping at all. What, it’s only common sense, that’s what it is, when everything’s said and done! There’s you with your plans fixed, and wanting your bit o’ quiet, and me wanting summat to do and a nice bit o’ brass. There’s you wi’ no use, so to speak, for the poor barns, and me that sick for ’em I could break my heart! You think, likely, it wouldn’t be fair to your poor Tibbie—going back on her, kind of—sort of letting her down? Ay, well, it’s nat’ral enough you should feel like that; but the truth o’ the matter is, it’s the opposite way about....”
Her voice, stammering and anxious, and growing more and more eager as she found herself allowed to proceed, died away at last into a fateful silence. Mrs. Clapham had kept her eyes fixed upon her while she talked, but as soon as she ended she turned them from her. She was saying to herself that perhaps she had been wrong in thinking that there was no possible choice. Therewasa choice, after all, and it was perhaps only fair that she should be asked to make it. In face of her new doubts as well as her new and amazing pity for Emma, she could not simply sweep her pretensions off the board. Never again would she seem to her quite the same woman as before she had disappeared under that apron. Slowly she turned the recent revelation over in her mind, weighing and sifting and making ready for judgment.
Was it possible, she thought to herself, that she had been wrong about Emma—that they had all been wrong, Stephen and Tibbie included? Nobody really knew what went on behind closed doors, and whether they spoke truth who brought stories to those without. Nobody really knew to whose account sorrows and sins would be placed at the last day. The charwoman, with the iron sunk in her soul, said to herself that she had been mistaken in God’s goodness; might it not also be possible that she had been mistaken in Emma’s badness? Repentance, at least, was possible, even for the worst, and in Emma’s passionate outburst she had seemed to discern the ring of truth. Perhaps she really did think that she could make atonement through the children, and was full of a hunger and ache to pay her debt. Deep as was Mrs. Clapham’s yearning towards them because they were Tibbie’s, she knew that the loss of them would not break her heart. Undoubtedly, it was Emma who had the right to them, if she was speaking the truth; but who was prepared to say that Emma was speaking the truth!
It was at this point that she extended her bitter resentment to old Mr. T.—old Mr. T., who, only a few hours before, had seemed like an angel out of the past. While she was in his house she had been so grateful to him that she had cried, admiring and loving him for his kindly thought. Now she suddenly felt that he was only a stupid old man, after all. He had seemed at the time to be making her a splendid gift, while all that he was really doing for her was to tie her hands. He had been silly enough to imagine that, by making that rule, he was ensuring his old folks’ comfort and peace, whereas all that he had ensured for this one at least was her total exclusion from Heaven. Old Mr. T. went the way of all her other ideals which had been intact only that very morning. God had failed her at one blow, and the glamour for which He stood; and along with God and the beauty of life went foolish old Mr. T....
They sat there—the two bereaved mothers, the two grandmothers—with, as it were, the bodies of the children waiting decision between them. Stiffly erect, with arms folded at her waist, Emma’s attitude in sitting was much the same as when she was on her feet. She kept her beady black eyes upon the battle-ground of Mrs. Clapham’s face, reading the struggle that was going on in the big woman’s tired soul. Over their heads Mrs. Tanner’s light step drew an occasional creak from an old board, and behind their backs the light that was like a sword brightened and faded but always brightened again....
They sat almost knee to knee, with the silence stretching between them that the one could not and the other dared not break, until at last it was snapped from without by the sound of a step on the stairs. The brightness of the sword dazzled Mrs. Tanner as she came to the bend, so that for the moment she could see nothing of the little kitchen. “I’ve put yon few things together, Ann Clapham,” she began briskly, lifting her hand to her eyes; and then, as she hopped to the last step, her amazed glance fell upon Emma.