CHAPTER IV
The whole world had seemed bright with the fine September day which had been sent to bless Mrs. Clapham, but there was no September day in Emma Catterall’s. Most houses take on a different character with the seasons, and are either cosy or dreary in winter, sunny or stuffy in summer; in spring, perhaps, full of unexpected light and shade, and in autumn of the after-glow of sunsets or the splendour of windows framing some golden tree. But in Emma Catterall’s house the year went by without ever setting foot inside her door, never once renewing the atmosphere or cleansing it by a breath. Going into it was like going into some primitive cave, where all that the centuries seemed to do for it was to make it ever more dark and damp, and to add to the whispering bats that clung about its walls.
Mrs. Clapham, with all her varied experience of dwellings behind her, knew that there were people who made houses dark simply by living in them, and others again who seemed to fill them with a sort of hard-edged light. She knew this by the half-conscious effect which they had upon her, so that, leaving the one, she was always glad to get out again into the sun, and hurried away from the other to find a shadowed corner of her own. But the atmosphere of Emma Catterall’s had a quality that was altogether different. Going into it was less like going into a house than into the terrible lodging of some human—or, rather, dreadfully inhuman—mind.
Yet the dwelling itself was extraordinary enough, in all conscience. There are some houses so curiously, almost insanely, built, that the brain simply refuses to grasp them; and others again full of some strong influence which seizes upon you as you go in. Mrs. Clapham knew of at least one abode in which, after years of scrubbing and cleaning, she still found herself unable to distinguish between the doors; and another in which, directly she got inside, she turned instinctively to mount the stairs. Emma’s house seemed to share both these idiosyncrasies after its own fashion. Not only was it thoroughly mad in construction, but it was full of some queer power. There were people who said that it was an ancient slaughter-house turned into a dwelling and even now it was neither house nor cottage. It had bulging walls and unequally placed windows, and lead spouts ornamented with strange heads; and instead of standing in line with its neighbours, it had edged its way out until it narrowed the street. There it had turned itself round to command a view of the hill, as if, like Emma herself, it must always be on the watch.
From the stone steps you came to a landing with a couple of doors, while directly in front a mean little stair went creeping away from you into the dark. Both doors were closed when Mrs. Clapham arrived, and that in itself seemed rather strange. They were oak doors, apparently never polished, so that, instead of shining like mirrors, they looked dirty and dead; and Mrs. Clapham had long ago forgotten which was which. Emma might at least have left one of them ajar, she thought to herself rather indignantly, staring irresolutely from one black latch to another, as well as, almost as if fascinated, at the depressed-looking stair.
It was one of those stairs which, after inviting you to ascend, suddenly dart round a corner and vanish nobody knows where. The only difference was that this stair did not dart; it barely even crept; scarcely, indeed, seemed willing to behave like a stair at all. And as Mrs. Clapham stood gazing at it, waiting for Emma to appear, she remembered the little boy who also had only crept, cold to his very bones at the thought of his spied-on bed....
She herself had never seen the comfortless room in which Stephen had slept and wept, but it was easy enough to imagine from what Tibbie had told her. According to Tibbie, it had had the same dirty and dead door, and the sort of upsetting floor that catches nastily at your feet. The paper had hung in mouldy festoons from the leaning walls, and in the darkest corner of all had stood the rickety, half-clothed bed. Even in summer the long, narrow place had been almost dark, and full of a trap-like effect produced by a window too small for the room. And all up and down had been scattered possessions of his mother’s, so that, whether she was in or out, the atmosphere was still Emma’s. There was an army of old clothes, for instance, which Stephen had simply loathed, because of that likeness which old clothes keep to their former wearer. Even when Emma had stopped staring and gone away, the old clothes had stared instead. Stephen had seen them swollen and swung into life by some passing breeze, or as limp and dreadful old Emmas, hanging slackly by skinny necks....
And still there was no sound or vestige of life from behind either of the dead-looking doors.... She put out her hand to knock, and dropped it again, intimidated by the silence, and fell instead to staring afresh at Stephen’s stair. Her imagination, unusually stimulated by the day’s events, presently went so far as actually to show her Stephen himself. Through the dusk his thin little hands gleamed as he tugged himself up by the dirty rail, and his thin little legs gleamed as he dragged them from step to step. His eyes travelled towards her as he reached the curve, and she nearly dropped; for it seemed to her as she looked that it was not Stephen whom she saw, but the terrified, haunted face of his little five-year-old son....
The thought of Stevie in that place frightened her so much that she was hurried into instant action, and, choosing at random, she knocked at the door on her left. Later, as nobody answered, she knocked again, and was lifting her hand a third time when a faint noise drew her round. Facing about, she discovered that the door behind her had opened without her knowledge, and that Emma was standing watching her with her Giaconda smile.
“Eh, now, you did give me a start!” she remonstrated almost crossly, crimsoning with annoyance and an inexplicable sense of shame. Emma, however, did not deign to reply, but merely backed, smiling, through the kitchen door, opening it just sufficiently to allow the other to squeeze through.
“You’ve been such a while, I made sure you didn’t mean coming at all,” she at last condescended to answer, when they were in the kitchen—a queer-shaped room with a sloping and knotted floor, a window that looked out at nothing more inspiring than the side of a barn, and another, which held the ferns, overlooking the street. It was gloomy, like everything at Emma’s, and Mrs. Clapham, who was usually so neat on her feet, found herself first kicking the dresser, then bumping the table, and finally catching her toe in the torn rug. She was thoroughly flustered by the time she had sat herself down in the chair indicated by Emma, while the fact that Emma herself did not sit down, but remained standing beside the table, disquieted her more than ever. But then, as she and Mrs. Tanner had already agreed, Emma neverdidsit down. Even at night you could not think of her as sitting in front of the fire, knitting, perhaps, or simply dreaming of old times. Even at that hour she felt sure she would be on the watch, stealing about the house and peering into the rooms. Standing by empty beds, too, Mrs. Clapham thought, with a shiver, and possibly pretending to herself that they had suddenly been re-filled....
Seated uneasily in her chair, she hardly knew where to turn, for, repugnant as she always found it to look at Emma, it was even more distressing to look at the room. It was always something of a trial to her to go into other folks’ “spots,” because they so seldom came up to her personal standard. More than once, when calling upon a sick neighbour, she had scrubbed the house from ceiling to floor; not so much out of sheer kindness—sometimes, indeed, in spite of protest—but because of the thirst for perfection by which she was driven. So now, seeing in spite of herself the dirty windows and floor, the unpolished brasses and steels, she positively ached for bare arms and an old frock, a new brush and a full pail. Time and again she found her hands stealing unconsciously to her tidy cuffs.... It was strange how totally different slovenly houses could be, though houses that were thoroughly clean were much the same. It was astonishing, for instance, how Emma’s dirty home differed from Martha Jane’s. The latter was dirty, of course, even dirtier than this, and certainly it was a great deal poorer. Yet even at its worst there was always a dashing touch about Martha Jane’s—the glint of a cheap brooch flung carelessly on a table, or the gaudiness of an Easter egg swinging crookedly from a bracket. Once, indeed, at the turn of the year, Mrs. Clapham had seen through the open door a bunch of snowdrops in a broken glass....
Then, too, the seasons came and went in Martha Jane’s; Nature, at least, did not pass it by. But Emma Catterall’s house, with which Nature would have nothing to do, ought not to have been dirty, and was certainly not poor. Financially, she was said to be better off than anybody in the street, and her furniture, though neglected, was most of it good and sound. Out of the tail of her eye Mrs. Clapham could see a bow-fronted chest of drawers which she would almost have given her almshouse to possess; and she felt pretty sure that Emma’s own bedroom would be comfortable enough, whatever sort of a hole she had thought fit for Stephen. Yet nobody who had lived in Emma’s neighbourhood would dream of buying her furniture when it came to the hammer. They would be too much afraid of seeing her roundabout figure standing behind some chair, or her black eyes watching and peering from some suddenly opened drawer....
“Ay, I thought you didn’t mean coming,” she was saying again, loosing one hand from her waist and leaning her weight on it on the table. “I made sure you’d given me the go-by, and gone to look at yon house.”
Mrs. Clapham reddened and began to rub nervously at her knees. “Ay, well, I don’t mind owning I’m a bit set up about it,” she acknowledged frankly. “It’s a grand day for me and no mistake—best day I’ve had for years!”
Emma nodded with amiable condescension.
“We’ve all on us known you wanted it a long while back now. It’ been a reg’lar joke up and down t’ village, has Ann Clapham’s house. Committee could hardly ha’ gone past you, knowing you so keen.”
“I’ve earned it anyway!” Mrs. Clapham broke out, reddening again. Emma was being simply loathsome already.... “Everybody says I’ve best right, along with them last words of Mr. T.”
“I’ve heard a deal o’ them last words, one way and another,” Emma responded, gloating over the half-angry face before her. “Them kind o’ last words is often enough somebody else’s second thoughts.... Not but what you’ve the best right, as you say,” she continued smoothly, seeing the charwoman’s eyes flash. “Likely you’ve wrote Committee a letter by now, telling ’em you accept?”
“Nay, what, I never thought about it, I’m sure!” Mrs. Clapham answered, suddenly crestfallen. “I’ve been that busy shaking hands wi’ myself, I’ve had no time for nowt else.... But they’ll know I’ll accept right enough,” she added, plucking up spirit. “Why ever should I have axed for t’ house if I didn’t mean to take it?”
“Folks change their minds.”
“Happen they do!” The charwoman’s voice was slightly defiant.... “But I shan’t change mine.”
“There’s never no telling, though, what may go and put you about. What, I remember when Mary Taylor got t’ house next door to yours, she went up to have a look at it, same as you, and when she come back she wouldn’t have it whatever. She went up like when it was getting dark, and she swore as she’d seen a coffin in t’ middle of t’ best bed!”
“I shan’t change my mind for all t’ coffins in the kingdom!” Mrs. Clapham’s voice rang out on a note that was almost fierce, and perhaps because of its violence Emma coloured slowly. Even in her own ears the charwoman’s voice sounded boastful and harsh, so that she shrank a little and felt ashamed. All that morning she had thought of herself as a somewhat splendid and interesting figure, but the sound of that voice seemed to reduce her to the rough, red-armed worker who stands as the prototype of her class. “I shan’t change—not me!” she repeated, but less boldly, staring uneasily at her tormentor.
“I’m not saying you would,” Emma assured her quite peaceably. Her plump hand pressed a trifle harder on the table, but her little roundabout figure stood taut and straight.... “I’m not saying you would. You’re the sort as goes right ahead when you’ve once started. All the same, it might be just as well to drop t’ governors a line. Even if folks don’t change their minds for themselves, there’s things happen as changes ’em for ’em.”
“My! but you’re a regular croaker, Emma Catterall!” the other burst out impatiently. “Whatevershouldhappen, I’d like to know.... Governors’ll never look for letters and suchlike fromme” she went on more temperately, and trying to laugh. “They’ll know well enough I’ll be jumping out o’ my skin!”
Emma nodded again, as if in agreement, but her hand left the table and wandered up to her waist. “There’s such things as politeness and that, I suppose,” she reminded her gently; “but there, when all’s said and done, you’ll know your own business best....”
Mrs. Clapham winced openly at the usual formula, though not, as it happened, for the usual reason. She had always prided herself on her excellent manners, and it was dreadful to be called to account about them by Emma. Discourtesy, in any case, was simply not to be thought of on her beautiful day. With a downcast face she turned to throw a glance at the empty street, and behind her Emma’s arms slowly unloosed and dropped, only to lift slowly and couple themselves again....
“Ay, well, you’re likely right!” The big woman swung round again with recovered spirits. “It does seem as if summat thankful ought to be said. The worst of it is that I’m that bad with my pen! It’d ha’ been as easy as wink if I’d had my Tibbie.”
“You’ll ha’ heard from Stephen’s wife lately, I reckon?” Emma inquired casually, and again Mrs. Clapham winced. It was so like Emma, that reaching out and laying a finger on your most precious treasure.... “Nay, I haven’t heard for a goodish bit,” she answered stiffly, looking away. “She’s always a good deal to do, what with her job and her children an’ all.”
“Children take a deal o’ seeing to,” Emma agreed smoothly. “They’re a deal o’ work. Nobody knows what having their hands full means till they’ve one about.”
“I can’t say as I ever found my Tibbie much trouble!” Mrs. Clapham’s tone was again defiant. “What, she could see to her buttons and tapes nigh as soon as she could walk, and, as for her needle, she took to it like a duck on a pond!”
“Ay, well, you see, mine was a lad....” Emma’s glance left her neighbour’s face and rose to the mantelpiece, where Poor Stephen, in khaki, looked from a silver frame. Mrs. Clapham’s glance followed suit, and it seemed to her that the sad eyes shifted as the mother’s gaze came up.... She had winced again at Emma’s last words, and begun her usual rubbing of knees. In common with many women during the Great War, she had felt ashamed of not owning a son to add to the general loss. Stephen and Tibbie had done their best to make her feel that Stephen was really hers, but there was no getting past the fact that he was really Emma’s. Certainly, here in the gloomy room, where the silver frame was the only thing that was polished and shone, there was no disguising the knowledge that he was really Emma’s....
The latter, as if subconsciously aware of this recrudescence of war-time shame, suddenly left the table and moved across to the hearth. Reaching up for the photograph, she looked at it for a moment, and then handed it to the visitor. Stephen’s mother-in-law took it reverently, if reluctantly, feeling the silver setting smooth and cool against her hand.
“You’ll happen not have seen Stephen’s last likeness,” Emma remarked smugly, deliberately ignoring the fact that in all probability Mrs. Clapham had one of her own. “It was took after he got his commission, as you’ll see, and there’s none could look more of a gentleman, I’m sure. His lordship come to see me after Stephen was killed, and he was rarely taken with yon picture. ‘He’s the very spit and image of you, Mrs. Catterall,’ says he, sitting there, wi’ t’ likeness in his hand, same as it might be you. ‘The spit and image,’ he says, ‘and right proud you must be to think as your face is one as the whole British nation takes its hat off to, to-day!’ (T’ likeness was in t’Daily Sketch, you’ll think on, and a deal more papers besides). ‘The only son of his mother, and her a widow!’ his lordship says soft-like, and looking that grieved and kind.... Then I showed him photo as Stephen’s wife sent of Stephen’s children, and I give you my word he very near started to cry! ‘Stephen’ll never die as long as them children are alive,’ says he. ‘What, the little lad’s that like him it might be Stephen himself come back again from the dead!’”
Mrs. Clapham said nothing while the smooth voice held blandly on, full of that strange something that always hinted but never spoke. With the shining frame in her worn hands she sat staring at the shadowed young face that she remembered so well. Her duplicate copy at home had never risen to a frame, but when she took it out of its drawer in the sunny kitchen it always seemed to her to smile. Here, however, imprisoned a second time in the House of Pain, there was no vestige of laughter on Poor Stephen’s lips. They were haunted eyes that looked at her out of the costly frame, and that day by day watched Emma stealing about the room. There was courage in the set of the figure and the line of the shut mouth, but there was neither exhilaration nor even hope. Over the whole printed presentment which was all that the War had left, was the unmistakable stamp of his unforgettable past.
“I thought happen you mightn’t have seen it.... You’ve not been near me for so long....” Emma’s voice was still flowing smoothly from hint to hint, gently conveying reproach for a wrong to a bereaved mother (‘and her a widow’) which even a real live lordship had been too human to commit. “There’s a deal of others besides ... some on ’em when he was a Tommy ... ay, and after he got his stripe ... ay, and here’s one wi’ his platoon.” The Army terms came easily from her lips, as they had come from so many mothers’ lips during the War, and the woman who had had no son from whom to learn them felt a second twinge of shame. “Here’s t’ card they sent for putting in winder to say as your son had joined up; and this here’s what t’ Mothers’ Union presented to them as had lost their lads.... Ay, and here’s Libby’s and Stevie’s photos, as took his lordship so aback. I reckon there’s no mistaking they’re Stephen Catterall’s barns.”
The little roundabout figure passed from spot to spot, handing the precious objects to Mrs. Clapham, who received them silently, setting them on her knee, and thinking, as many were thinking, now that the War was done, how small were these relics of those terrible years. Also she thought of what Emma did not know, that it was only after a fight with herself that Tibbie had sent the pictures at all. As for the offering from the Mothers’ Union, she knew very well what the Vicar’s wife, who was its head, had had to say aboutthat! She could have laughed, even now, recalling Mrs. Wrench’s disgust when faced with Emma’s name on that royal list.
Not that she really felt like laughing in the least, for every minute that passed left her more troubled and ill at ease. There was something so calculated about the whole conversation, the setting forth of the relics, the deliberate exclusion of herself. Emma’s methods made her feel self-conscious and yet stultified at the same time, leaving her as they did no loophole for self-defence. From Emma’s egotistical speech you would never have guessed that Mrs. Clapham had anything to do with either Stephen or Stephen’s children; not even, indeed, with Stephen’s widow. In the case of the children the exclusion was made even more pointed by the continual dwelling upon that unhappy likeness. It was perfectly true that in those sad little photographs which Emma handled so gloatingly there wasn’t a trace of Tibbie or Tibbie’s mother. All the love or the hatred in the world couldn’t deny the stock from which they sprang. Undoubtedly they were Emma’s grandchildren more than they were Mrs. Clapham’s, and as the latter looked at them she was seized by doubt and almost dislike. The spasm passed in a moment, however, leaving her penitent and ashamed. She remembered their plaintive but sweet voices, their shy but endearing ways; tricks of speech which, young as they were, already showed their minds as far removed from Emma’s as the Poles. It came to her, too, that it was a terrible thing to carry a likeness to somebody you hated and feared, so that, no matter what you did, or how far you happened to go, that somebody was always waiting for you whenever you looked in a glass....
“Ay, children make a deal o’ difference in a house,” Emma reverted to the original discussion. “Stephen’s wife won’t have that much time for anything else. Not that she’ll mind the trouble, likely, any more than me. I was always one for liking a child about the place.”
Mrs. Clapham’s flesh positively crept at the audacious, smooth-spoken words. The colour sprang to her bent face. Once again she seemed to see the pale-faced boy on the stair, and repelled the vision with actual fright. More and more she was beginning to wonder what was the purpose behind all this....
But at last Emma’s wholesale commandeering of everything that she loved had aroused her to open resentment. “Ay, and me an’ all!” she broke out sharply, yet remembering even in her vexation to handle tenderly the relics of the War. “There’s nowt like coming home to a child’s funny little ways. What, there’s times even yet I can’t hardly believe I shan’t find Tibbie on t’ other side when I push the door! Folks never forget as has once had a child about the spot, and the older they grow the more like they are to think there was nowt to match it.”
“That’s only just thinking back, though,” Emma replied, returning each of the photographs to its place of woe. “Old folks can’t really do with children in the flesh. They make a deal o’ work, as I said just now, and old folks can’t do with that. They want their bit o’ rest and quiet. You’d find a child real tiresome nowadays, Ann Clapham.”
“Not me!” The charwoman flung out her answer with stout scorn. “I was never one to mind a bit o’ noise at any time—nor work neither—and shouldn’t now. I like to hear young things singing and shouting up and down the world. Folks’s barns where I scrub near always look to me for a bit of a lark. And I’m a long way from being an old body yet, even though I’m not as young as I was!”
“You’ve aged a deal lately, though—ay, more than a deal!” Emma had finished her setting of her sorrowful prisoners to rights, and was now returned to her post at the table. (Would sheneversit? Mrs. Clapham wondered exasperatedly.) “You’re not as lish on your feet for one thing—I’ve noticed that. Think on how you kicked table-leg or summat when you come in. And there’s a look about you I don’t like, same as I’ve seen in a deal of folks as was quick took off. What, there was one day I see you coming back from your job, I was feared you’d drop down dead in the street! Walking dead lame you was, and with your hand on your heart, and as for your face, what, it was the colour o’ putty! I made sure I’d see doctor at your house afore so long, and I was right surprised when he never come. You kept house for a while, though, didn’t you?—ay, so I thought. There’s no denying you were mortal bad.”
Again the smooth voice and the black eyes held Mrs. Clapham captive, allowing her no point at which to speak; and again, as she listened, she felt the old trouble at her tiresome heart, and was conscious of the old grumble in her tiresome knee. She was ashamed, in any case, on her beautiful day, to remember that other day of depression and giving-up, but that Emma should know of it made her doubly ashamed. She had forgotten, as she toiled miserably up the empty street, that quite probably Emma would be watching her from some hidden place. She said to herself that, if only she had known it at the time, she would have got home somehow without giving herself away! The thing in itself had been hard enough to bear, setting a dread in her life that she would never afterwards escape; but it made her fear greater and the wound deeper that Emma, of all people, should have seen her shame.
“Eh, well, folks all has their bad times,” she answered at last, in a defiant tone that yet, in spite of her efforts, held a distinct element of apology. “I don’t know what was the matter, I’m sure. A touch o’ flu, likely—there was a deal about. Anyway, I got over it mighty sharp,” she went on valiantly. “If you know so much, I reckon you’ll know that! There’s not many can get through the work I can, even now, and that’s the truth. As for kicking table and suchlike, your spot is a bit dark, Emma, coming out of the sun.”
“Seems like as if there might be summat amiss with your eyes,” was all Emma’s response to this, fixing her with her own beady, black orbs which looked as if they would last to the Judgment and beyond. “It’s queer how folks don’t always notice when they’re breaking up. I’ve known some on ’em go on exactly the same for years and years, and then all of a sudden stop like a clock. There was Mr. Perry, you’ll think on, reading lessons on Sunday evening as throng as a laying hen, and almost before you could speak he was going about with a stick and a dog. Then there was that fine, big Mrs. Chell, much the same build as you, dancing as light as a bubbly-jock at the Farmers’ Ball, and next day stiff as a board. Nay, when folks is most certain, yon’s the time to look out; so don’t get boasting, Ann Clapham, for fear of a judgment.”
“Nay, but I’m not boasting—nowt o’ the sort!” The charwoman’s hands, at work again on her knees, actually threatened to rub a hole in the good black gown. “I’ve never been one to get above myself and I’m not now. I’m just thankful, that’s all—cheerful and thankful I’m so fit and well.”
“Ay, well, don’t think so much about it, that’s all I’m meaning to say. Don’t count on it overmuch. What, you’d never have put in for yon almshouse if you hadn’t felt you was done!”
“I put in for it because I’d earned it—not because I was wore out!” Mrs. Clapham’s face was almost purple, and her hands worked like a rubbing-machine. The suggestion was intolerable to her that she was something come to an end, a finished, miserable object creeping into a hole. Again she forgot that she had ever felt that she couldn’t go on ... forgot that Emma had seen her when she felt she couldn’t go on.... “I might be a broken-kneed bus-horse, the way you talk!” she concluded with an attempt at humour, though with all her fighting spirit aroused by the assumption that she was no longer worth her salt.
Rather to her surprise, however, Emma retired from battle on this particular point.
“Ay, you’ve earned it, that’s true,” she answered amiably, and almost eagerly, “and I’m sure I hope you’ll be right happy! I only meant it was lucky you hadn’t to go on with your job. Likely you’ll live to be ninety when you get up to yon house.”
“There’ll be a deal of folk put about if I hang on to it till then!” Mrs. Clapham chuckled, her natural good temper responding at once to the other’s change of tone. “I don’t know as it’d be quite nice to go on filling up charity-houses as long as that.... But it grubs me a bit, you piling it on as I’m over old for my job. Come to that, you’re only four or five year younger yourself!”
“I’ve had a deal easier life, though,” Emma returned, in the same unprovocative tone, “a deal easier, you’ll think on. I’ve never had to do a hand’s turn for anybody but my own. You was in service ten year or more afore you was wed, and then, after Jonty died, you took to this job. Things has been a deal softer for me than that; and then I’ve my bit of brass. I’ve good health, too—wonderful good health. Doctor says I’m as sound as a bell.”
“You look it, I’m sure!” Mrs. Clapham agreed as politely as she could, conscious as she was of a painfully jealous grudge. Emma had done her best to make her feel that she was done, and now she was boasting of her own good health! At all events, she would go out of Emma’s feeling a great deal older than when she came in; might, indeed, have to be carried out, if she stayed much longer! Her nerves were all to pieces, as it was; there were moments when she even wanted to scream. It was absurd, of course, seeing she could so easily get away; but then the trouble about Emma’s was that it sapped your courage for getting away....
But again she was visited by the vision on the stair, and again it flustered her into action. She got to her feet hastily, feeling as if in that dark house the night was already near, and that while she chattered and dallied her day had already passed. “I’d best be getting on; time’s going by,” she explained, edging her way to the door. “It’s a step to the almshouses, you’ll think on, and a bit of a pull an’ all.”
Emma, however, made no attempt to move, and in some mysterious manner her complete immobility had the effect of arresting the other’s progress. “What way did you think o’ taking?” she inquired coolly. “By t’ Post Office, or through the fields?”
“Nay, what, I hadn’t thought about it, I’m sure!” Mrs. Clapham’s voice was suddenly wholly joyous, as if even the question was a sort of release. “Likely I’ll choose t’ fields,” she added quickly; “they’ll be nice and fresh. Were you wanting anything at Post Office, by any chance?”
“Me?” Emma’s eyebrows rose to a great height above her beady eyes. Her arms were clamped like iron across her waist.... “Nay, not I. I was just curious-like, that’s all.”
“We haven’t much use for Post Offices, you and me!” Mrs. Clapham chuckled amiably, able even to bracket herself with Emma, in the sheer delight of getting away. “Not but what I must get a letter off to Tibbie, one o’ these days, to tell her of my luck.”
Thinking about the letter to Tibbie, she did not notice the deep flush which came into Emma’s face, creeping all over it from the roots of her dark hair to the collarband on her short neck. Her voice, however, reached her calmly and unemotionally.
“Ay, she’ll think it a rare piece o’ news, I don’t doubt. Likely she’ll feel, same as me, as it’s time you gave up your job. But think on about letter to the Committee, while you’re about it. T’other to Stephen’s wife can wait.”
“Ay, I’ll think on!” Mrs. Clapham pulled a wry face, sighed, and then laughed. She moved on again, sailing with her air of a great ship towards the kitchen door, but spoiling the effect by kicking the dresser as she passed. “Eh, now, if I’m not clumsy!” she laughed ruefully, over her shoulder. “Likely you’re right, and I’m getting blind or a bit daft!”
At last she was on the landing again, with her hand reached to the outside latch, and Emma—who seemed not so much to have moved as simply to have faded from one spot to another—a yard or two behind. And as they paused before speaking their final words, friends to all outward seeming and yet enemies to the bone, the single note of a bell was struck from the church-tower. Instantly Emma crumpled sideways against the wall, her face twisted, her eyes wide. “Passing-bell!” she contrived to get out in a choked voice.
Mrs. Clapham’s own heart gave a violent jump, and she threw up the latch quickly and opened the door. The next moment she broke into a relieved laugh as the bells crashed into a peal of joy.
“Passing-bell!” she jeered kindly at the disgruntled Emma. “What, them there’s Miss Marigold’s wedding-bells, that’s all! She’s getting herself wed in London to-day, if you’ll think on.... Ay, and look ye! They’re gettin’ t’ flag up on t’ tower an’ all!”
The bells thundered and pealed as she went slowly down the steps, looking up at the bright flag above the clean grey stone of the tower. An extraordinary sense of happiness seized upon her as she came out again into the sunny day. It seemed to her at that moment that it was for her and not for Miss Marigold that the flag had been run up; that it was of her happiness and enrichment the bells were telling their tale....
“I never could abide t’ death-bell!” Emma was explaining smoothly, upright and composed again, from the shadow behind. “Likely I had a fright along of it when I was a child. I’ve felt a deal worse about it an’ all since my poor lad was killed in France.”
“Come to that, it give me a bit of a turn myself!” Mrs. Clapham laughed, descending the last step. “I don’t know as I’d ha’ liked to hear t’ death-bell to-day. It’d ha’ seemed for all the world as if it was bringing me bad luck!”
She threw a nod of farewell towards the shadow which she believed to contain Emma, and set herself to the hill and so to the short cut across the fields. All the way behind her as she went the bells clanged and clamoured Miss Marigold’s joy, and Mrs. Clapham smiled as she listened to them, and then wept as well, because of that note of finality in the wedding-peal which is almost all that the married woman hears. The passion of its rejoicing speaks so vehemently of something brought to an end, a road closed, a door shut, a sharp cutting as with a knife. The joy of the wedding-peal must needs be emphatic and loud, because it is a joy that demands utter fearlessness if it is to remain joy at all. So across the fields Mrs. Clapham went smiling and weeping, but especially weeping, shedding the tears of all mothers for the end of the road of youth....