CHAPTER IV
The first excitement of recognition and discovery being now over, she was able to turn her mind to plans for the future. She had paid her debt to the dead in those few moments of re-vision, those thankful tears, that short sadness of regret. She was glad that she had remembered to pay it, and at the right time. She had not just hurried in and seized upon her rights, forgetting in her excitement to whose kindness she happened to owe them. She had spared the time to look back and see what it was that had made the worth of the old man’s gift. Now she was free to take it and make it her own, because she had paused to join hands with the grim philanthropist of the past.
From the child, delightedly fingering and yet scarcely daring to touch, and the dreamer, going back in mind to look for those who had passed “beyond,” she became the practical housewife, busy with great affairs. She began to think about the furniture that would be coming up from the cottage, and stood, finger on lip, deciding where it should go. Also she arranged with herself when the great cleaning should begin, what room she should start in, and how long it would take. All these momentous decisions took her continually upstairs, and always, just as she got to the top, some fresh puzzle would snatch her down again. Easy as old Mr. T. had made the stairs, they still were stairs, and though she paid no attention to what her legs were saying about them just then, she was to hear them only too urgently later on.
In the House of Dreams time slipped by for Mrs. Clapham as it actually slips in dreams, until presently, looking out of some window as she passed, she beheld Mrs. Bell in the little garden. Mrs. Bell wore the half-bold, half-furtive look of the trespasser armed with an excuse, but she also looked decidedly worried. Indeed, she stared at the house as if almost afraid of what she might see. Rather reluctantly Mrs. Clapham went out on to the step, and at once her neighbour exuded apology and relief.
“You’ll excuse me coming round, I hope?” she began hastily. “I was getting right bothered! Happen you don’t know as it’s four o’clock?”
“Nay, what, it can’t be!” Mrs. Clapham returned, staring. “What, it seems like as if I’d only just come!”
“Ay, it’s four right enough,” Mrs. Bell assured her. “Tea’s been ready a while. I began to get feared you weren’t so well again,” she continued coldly, “but you were so set on being alone I hardly liked to come round.”
There was still a note of reproach and hurt dignity in her voice, and Mrs. Clapham, now that her dues were paid, was quite ready to relieve it.
“Nay, you mustn’t think any more about that!” she soothed her kindly. “Folks get all sorts of silly ideas, and that happened to be one o’ mine. It was right kind of you to look me up, and I’ll be main glad of a cup o’ tea.”
She turned as she finished and re-entered the house, and, once in the little hall, paused a moment as if thinking. Then she went into the kitchen and pulled down the blind.... If she gave a half-sigh as she came out again on the step, Mrs. Bell did not hear it. The door closed against her as she set the key in the hole, and the lock fastened her out with its gentle click....
“You might show me about the place a bit before I go,” she said, as they turned the corner, “and tell me about the garden an’ all. I don’t know much about gardens and suchlike, not having had the time.”
She slipped the key into a capacious pocket as they went along, and Mrs. Bell watched it go with a jealous thrill. It seemed to her that it might just as well have been left with her until the new tenant was really in. She was consoled, however, by the somewhat belated request to act as showman, and decided to let it stand over, at least for the moment.
“Ay, well, I’m a rare hand at gardening, myself,” she admitted loftily, “though I don’t do that much, seeing there’s a paid man. But I should ha’ thought you’d seen enough for one day—I should that. If you keep on at this rate you’ll be fair wore out.”
“I’m just bound to see all I can!” the charwoman chuckled, still like a child that cannot be persuaded to leave its toy but falls asleep with it in his hand. “I’m real silly, I know, but I’ll settle afore long. I’m like the folks in the sweet-shops, you’ll think on; I won’t give no bother as soon as I’ve eaten my fill!”
Arrived once more at Mrs. Bell’s, she found that Mrs. Cann had been asked to meet her, a small, plump person, solemn and rather prim. Old Mrs. Bendrigg had been bedridden for the last year, but had sent a welcome and an invitation to call. Mrs. Cann, eyeing her rather stiffly, partly from shyness and partly because she had been kept waiting for her tea, delivered the greeting at the tail of her own.
“You’re all very kind, I’m sure!” Mrs. Clapham managed to reach the chair which had been her salvation before, realising her renewed exhaustion as she sank into it. “I’m main sorry I kept you from your teas. Time passed that fast, I’d no idea!” She waited politely for the request to draw up to the table, and then did so with some difficulty. “I never looked to be tret like this,” she added delightedly, shining with smiles, “and I’ll be main glad to do what I can in return!”
This tactful acknowledgment met with its due reward, and the three faces, drawn together over the cups, soon began to look like the faces of old friends. In their hearts the old inmates were decidedly of opinion that they would benefit by the new, although they had no intention of letting her know it. They knew her by reputation to be amiable, hard-working and honest, all attributes which, in one way or another, might be turned to their own account. It was Mrs. Bendrigg who had pointed out, for instance, that a body with such a passion for cleaning wouldn’t be likely to stop at her own house. Once a charwoman, always a charwoman, was Mrs. Bendrigg’s summary of the situation. “What, you’ll nobbut have to step across and say you’re a bit out o’ sorts,” the old lady had asserted, “and Ann Clapham’ll be scrubbing your back kitchen afore you can say knife!”
“Mrs. Bell here’s been telling me you were once in service with the old gent as built these spots,” Mrs. Cann began primly, opening the conversation with the usual “pawn to king’s fourth” of the highest social asset available. In her heart she would have preferred any scandal which was going about the houses in which Mrs. Clapham had chared, and hoped to lead up to it later on. But even in almshouses social observance must have its due, and old Mr. T. did nicely to open the ball. It was not long, either, before both women were listening open-mouthed to Mrs. Clapham’s descriptions of the old man’s Lancashire home, almost swallowing, as it were, the costly marvels which she seemed to bring into the room. Proud to have this second chance of paying him tribute, she laid stress not only upon his riches, but upon the respect in which he was held; even while she amused them by recalling his gruff ways and speech, and his habit of comprehending the universe under the name of “Jones.” She told them, too, as she told everybody now, of how he had wished her to have the house. Only she did not tell them of how he had looked on that last day, or of that last speech of his before he pulled down the kitchen blind....
The social basis having been firmly established, it was possible now to descend to charing. Mrs. Clapham’s audience was pleased to discover that she was not above talking about her trade, or even discussing the houses into which that trade had happened to take her. Not that she gave them the racy bits of gossip which they would undoubtedly have liked best, but there was always the chance that she might come to those when they knew her better. But she was able to give them portraits of the families who had passed through her hands during twenty to thirty years, finishing them off with such deftness that they almost stood there before their eyes. She told them, for instance, of the numerous branches of the bewildering Bullers, who had relatives everywhere in the British Isles, and would probably have had them in the Cocos Islands, if they had been allowed. She told them how young Mr. Banbury-Wilson always insisted upon hanging his own curtains, and how old Mr. Wrench simply wouldn’t wipe his feet on the mat. She told them of children, animals, and even ghosts; and of servants who were a good deal worse than any possible ghost. She told them of little kindnesses received, and little presents; and sometimes of little cheatings and slights. And over all these things she cast a glamour that was all her own, concocting a brave draught to slake the almshouse thirst for “life.”
But she said nothing to them about the deeper things which had happened to come her way, and which even now she could scarcely remember without a rush of her ready tears. She did not mention the sorrows supposed to be dead or dumb, which yet rose up and spoke to you as soon as you went in. She told them nothing of parents and children who hated each other, or husbands and wives; of poverty borne bravely, wealth frittered, sickness carried like a jewelled cross. Least of all did she speak of the moments when she herself had risen to some crisis of fear or death; when frightened and helpless women had hung weeping about her neck, and relieved or grief-stricken men had wrung her gratefully by the hand....
Even without these things, however, she had plenty to say, and all of it full of a fine human touch. It was the epic of Mrs. Clapham’s life that was spoken that afternoon, even though the greater part of it was spoken only to her own soul. She was a trained talker, of course, like most women of her trade, but never before had she talked like this. It was as if the story of all the years had found its rightful moment of vent, now that the work of those years had come to its peaceful and fruitful end.
Outside, the September sun was sinking slowly towards the sea, while inside Mrs. Bell’s kitchen the magic monologue went on. The heads drew closer and closer together over the table until they almost touched. The hands gripped half-emptied cups of forgotten tea, or half-finished pieces of home-made currant bun. For the time being the bent backs were unaware of the heavy burden of age, the nearly-spent lives unaware of how short a course they had to run. Life, the magician and taleteller, was actually in the cottage itself, not merely watched through a pane of glass, passing unheeding on the road.
Breath, if not ideas, failed the lecturer at last, and they drew apart by degrees, remembering that, even in such a select company as theirs, there were such trifles to see to as “siding” and washing-up. Mrs. Clapham, pushing back her chair and attempting to rise, found that her cotton-wool legs had suddenly changed into boards. She was accepted, however,—there was no doubt about that, and physical drawbacks were details compared with that fine fact. Again she had an impression of the lavishness with which Fate gives when it gives at all, of the ease with which miracle after miracle is projected as soon as their warranted hour arrives. There was a royal sweep about the events of the day as she looked back upon them in her mind, a perfect, unwavering curve which, mounting and mounting with every hour, would drop only when it did drop into the falling away of happy sleep.
Yes, she was undoubtedly a success, as was evidenced by the fact that she was allowed to “side,” too, washing and wiping pots and learning their places with the intimacy of a bosom friend. It was true that, as the effect of the epic gradually wore off, each of the older tenants tried to re-assert her personal value, subtly insinuating to the new arrival that, in spite of her excellent testimonials, she was, after all, only “new.” Mrs. Clapham listened to reiterated instructions concerning wash-houses, etc., with maintained interest and respect, and had sufficiently found her footing by now to refrain from smiling at the mention of followers. With her knowledge of human nature, she was aware that they were only keeping their end up, as you might say, and she did not resent it. Shewasnew—there was no doubt about that; but she would not be new long. There were ropes to learn, wherever you went, and she was willing to learn them. Nevertheless, she couldn’t help smiling at the thought of Martha Jane being shown the ropes by this prim pair—Martha Jane, whose only use for ropes hitherto had been to kick her heels over them on every occasion!
Pots being sided, she was taken for a swift peep into Mrs. Cann’s; only the veriest peep, however, because time was getting on, as even Mrs. Clapham, as time-lost as any creature bewitched by the fairies, realised in flashes. But she was aware that the event would not be properly rounded off without that peep, just as it demanded a visit to old Mrs. Bendrigg. So in spite of her aching back and her stiff legs, she went cheerfully from point to point, expressing an admiration sufficiently tempered with judgment not to give the effect of fulsome praise, and climbed her last flight of stairs—unwillingly and with difficulty—to face the final ordeal of introduction. Mrs. Bendrigg, half sitting up in bed, night-capped, jacketed, wrinkled and very old, looked up at the fine figure almost swamping the little bedroom with still-keen eyes full of satisfaction. She had never been able to get as much work as she wanted out of her other neighbours—“a poor, shiftless lot!”—but there looked a lot of excellent, skilled work to be got out of Mrs. Clapham!
The latter returned the gaze of this last of her new acquaintances with a feeling that was half pity and half repulsion. She was fond of old people, as a rule, and was always ready to do them service; but in old Mrs. Bendrigg she now realised that she saw the typical almshouse figure. The others, together with herself, were sufficiently young and able-bodied to find some interest in life, sufficient work to keep up their self-respect, sufficient movement to keep them from mouldering. But she now saw that it was for such as old Mrs. Bendrigg that almshouses were really built, broken old folk on the verge of passing away. The vision that had come to her on the day she had lost heart returned to her now with such force that she nearly broke down again. Such as old Mrs. Bendrigg she, too, would eventually become, dependent on half-willing neighbours who were neither kith nor kin. That was what almshouses really meant, when you thought it out; that was the real meaning of the House of Dreams. She stood at the end of the bed, looking down at the night-capped figure with a thoughtful eye, and for the time being felt the gift of old Mr. T. close in upon her with prison-walls.
She contrived to smile, however, as she inquired politely after the ancient’s health, and listened politely to a long account of her special disease, veiled complaints about her neighbours, and a fresh list of the same instructions. “We’ve always thought a deal of ourselves up here,” Mrs. Bendrigg finished, stiffening her old figure a moment in order to make an impression. “’Tisn’t as if we was ordinary almshouse folk; we’re a deal better than most. Houses is better than most, too, though I could have built ’em better myself. Ay, I’ve heard tell of you often, and I mind seeing you at old Mr. T.’s. You come of a good stock, and you’ve been decent-lived, so I’m not saying but what you’ll do. Anyway, you’ll keep your house like enough as houses ought to be kept—not that it’ll ever be same as mine when I was able to stir. I was always that proud of my house—ay, and wi’ reason an’ all!—but I’ve no call to be proud now. I never thought as I’d come to it, but I’ve learned to put up wi’ a deal o’ dirt. Folks as has to rely on their neighbours can’t have everything just so. All the same, it fair breaks my heart to see the place just slaped over same as it were a Witham slum!”
“You’ll have to let me lend you a hand when I get fixed!” Mrs. Clapham laughed, trying not to notice the tossed heads and shrugged shoulders of her annoyed hosts. “It’s my job, you know,” she went on, as the old woman nodded and smiled. “I could clean a house o’ this size with nobbut the one hand!” Old Mrs. Bendrigg nodded again and chuckled and said “Thank ye kindly!” and “Ye can’t come too soon forme!” and they went away, leaving her thoroughly pleased in her thrifty, grasping old soul. The hurt couple burst into loud explosion as soon as they got outside, but gradually became soothed by the cheering prospect of less to do. They were consoled, too, by the fact that the new-comer did not seem at all set up (“not to be wondered at, neither, when you thought how she’d let herself in!”). But it was not the fear of extra work that was subduing Mrs. Clapham as they made a hasty tour of the little gardens. She was quite prepared to be partially put upon, and she did not mind. It was all part of the way of the world, like the prim self-importance and the rules. What was taking her by the throat was the picture of old Mrs. Bendrigg helpless in bed, the typical almshouse figure, marring the fine grace of her House of Dreams....
But she had quite recovered by the time they had finished their hasty round, and arrived, finally and fittingly, as it were, for a last pause at her own door. She ran her eye over the building in a passion of possessive pride, forgetting that only a moment ago it had seemed a possible prison. The thrill came back to her in full as she looked at the door to which she alone had the key, feeling again the glamour of one to whom the birthday of her life had come. As she stared at the house, however, she felt sorry that she had drawn the kitchen blind. She had done it half mechanically, half as a memorial to the man who was gone, and even now she was glad that the women could not see within. She did not want them prying and peeping until the glamour had worn off. Nevertheless, remembering the last occasion upon which it had been done, she could not help wishing that she had not drawn the blind....
All up the hillside at their feet the September mist was rising and spreading, weaving its growing mesh all silent and soft as if it were the actual product of some fairy wheel. It had wound itself in great swathes around the trees in the orchard below, so that the trunks of the trees seemed to be standing on nothing at all. The slender, twisted stems, crowned with their heavy fruit, seemed to be kept in position by the mere pressure of the gentle air. All the edges of the village roofs had gone soft in the smudging light, and even the slates looked little heavier than the loose wisps of floating mist. The soft smoke, rising from the stacks, looked as if it, too, was simply the mist which was forcing a way through. Across the village there were big hollows and basins of mist up and down the park, and here and there great standard trees poised themselves also on the drifting swathes. The sun, from its low angle, still sent shafts of light into orchard and village, showing the ripe fruit to be russet and gold. Only above the sun and the sea the sky kept itself still and pure, guarding that space of opal and blue where would arise the evening star.
This, and many an evening like it, and others, different yet all lovely, were Mrs. Clapham’s heritage for the future. Even storm-nights would be wonderful, too, seen from the close haven of the House of Dreams. Somewhere, mellow, far-off voices were busy calling the cattle home, and children’s voices struck up clear as the blackbird’s whistle from their playground on the road. There is always healing in beauty, even though sometimes it wounds first, and the tired charwoman reached towards it with longing, still marvelling that the peace of the temple should be really hers.
But presently she shivered, and, turning away, announced firmly that it was time to be going. It had come to her suddenly that her beautiful day was nearly over, that it had slipped by, as beautiful days have a knack of doing, almost without her notice. It was no use lingering here until she had exhausted it to the dregs, and in any case she couldn’t afford it. With her tired body, and weary, if happy, spirit, she would need all the strength she possessed to carry her safely home.
The women went with her to the gate, and once again they stood laughing and chatting, and further cementing the new acquaintance. Towards the last—“You’ll have t’ key, likely?” Mrs. Bell inquired jealously, assuming once more the air of Watch-Dog in Chief.
Mrs. Clapham, backing towards the road, plunged her hand in her pocket with the vim of a diver diving for pearls, and brought up the precious object with a triumphant chuckle.
“You’d best leave it with me, hadn’t you?” Mrs. Bell suggested, eyeing it greedily, but the charwoman shook her head.
“Nay, it’s over precious to let out o’ my sight. I just couldn’t bring myself to part with it, and that’s the truth!”
“What, it’ll take no harm, will it, stopping another night along o’ me?” The oldest tenant stiffened angrily.
“Nay, not it!” The visitor threw her an appeasing smile. “But I can’t part with it, all the same.”
“You’re not thinking I’ll loss it, surely?” Mrs. Bell asked in rising tones, “me as has had it a couple o’ months back, and goodness knows how many times afore!”
A demand for apology was obviously in the air, and Mrs. Clapham hastened to satisfy it.
“As if I’d ever think o’ such a thing!” she assured her amiably. “I just like t’ feel on’t, that’s all!” She turned it lovingly, if shamefacedly, in her fingers. “And if I slip up first thing while morning, as I’m thinking I will, I shan’t need to come knocking you out o’ bed.”
“I’m up as early as most folks, I reckon!” Mrs. Bell replied swiftly, and this time, to Mrs. Clapham’s alarm, in tones of active offence. But the next moment she had remembered her obligations as hostess, and pulled herself back to her former graciousness. “Ay, well, you know what suits you best,” she hurried on, again affecting her hearer with a reminiscent shudder. “But you’re a deal more likely to go lossing it than me, taking it to a fresh spot and leaving it goodness knows where!”
“I’ll not loss it, not I! I’ll bare let it out o’ my fingers till to-morrow morn!” The charwoman waved it exultingly, backing still further towards the step. “Like as not I’ll sleep with it under my pillow!” she added, chuckling ... and found herself slipped off the step and sitting heavily in the open road.
The women were about her at once, calling out and asking her how she had done it, all in a breath; while she, gasping out anxious requests to be left alone, laughed at their futile efforts to raise her, even while tears of pain poured steadily down her face. They desisted at last, standing back in dismay, and a passing butcher, nimbly stopping his cart in its descent of the hill, left his accustomed horse to look after itself, and came to offer a helping hand.
“Nay, let me be, can’t you?” Mrs. Clapham protested, still laughing and crying. “It’s queer to me how folks can’t never let a tummelled body lie. They must always be heaving them up again, same as a sheep or a sack o’ coals!... I’ve got a bit of a shake, of course,” she informed them presently, “and I’ve twisted my bad knee; but I’ll be as right as a bobbin if only you’ll let me be.”
“You should look where you’re going, at your age, mother!” the butcher chaffed her, arms akimbo in his blue coat. “Doesn’t do to go backing down steps like a ballet-girl at your time of life, you know!”
“I’ll give you ballet-girl when I’m on my feet again—see if I don’t!” Mrs. Clapham gasped, chuckling through her tears, though somehow the teasing words made her feel terribly old. “Eh, but it was a daft thing to do, and a daft sight I must look; and, eh, losh save us, what’s come to yon key!”
The staring women sprang to attention at once, and, with the help of the butcher, began a search. It was Mrs. Bell who finally pounced on it where it lay, flown from the charwoman’s hand in the track of the butcher’s wheels.
“Happen you’ll agree now as it’s safest with me!” she demanded grimly, and pocketed it as the other nodded.... “Ay, I can’t say I seem fit to be trusted with it at present!” Mrs. Clapham agreed, though with an inward sigh, and feeling as if, with the loss of the key, something vital had been taken from her. “Now I’ll be getting up again, if you’ll lend me a hand.”
Crowding round her again, they hoisted her to her feet, amid fresh gaspings and chucklings and injunctions to “let be!” “You’d best let me give you a lift back,” the butcher suggested, seeing that she was lame, and after more pulling and pushing she was presently seated by his side. Almost at once they had slipped away down the hill, with the houses behind them rising higher and higher. It was almost as if they were being lifted into the air, actual mansions of the blest returning rapidly into the sky. The rapping hoofs of the horse were fast dropping the charwoman into the mist in which the village was drowned, and suddenly it was over her head, and the almshouses were out of sight. The world that she knew came up about her on every side, while the world in which she had dreamed through the afternoon was gone as if it had never been....
The horse stopped of its own accord at the shop opposite the Post Office, but was urged on again by its driver. “I’ll run you on to your own spot, if you like, missis,” he offered, breaking off a cheerful recital of all the casualties he had ever seen, and which had ended badly in every instance. Mrs. Clapham, however, would not hear of taking him out of his way, and was presently on the ground, watched, as she noticed with some amusement, by alarmed-looking faces at the Post Office window. She nodded and smiled at the faces to show that nothing was wrong, whereupon they vanished with one accord, as though pulled by a taut string. It was kind of them, she thought, to seem so troubled on her account, and then forgot them again as she turned her attention to getting home.
She was shaken, of course, and she walked lame, but she was glad to find she could get along. Her chief trouble, indeed, was that she felt sadly old, disheartened and somehow belittled by the butcher’s joking speech. Then, too, she was still fretting over the loss of the key, and wishing that she had been able to fight its battle with Mrs. Bell. Even the feel of it in her hand would have helped to sustain her diminishing courage. At all events it would have been a link with the house that now seemed so hopelessly left behind.
But her spirits rose again when she found herself at the foot of her own street, opposite Mr. Baines’s office and close to her own home. She would be all right in the morning after a night’s rest, and when she awoke in the morning the dream would be still true. That was the important thing, after all, the great truth and the great fact. It was absurd to feel as if the loss of the key might possibly spoil her luck. Even if she lost the key every day of the week, it could not alter the fact that she had got the house.
Mrs. Tanner, she saw, was out in the street as she came up, and at sight of the birdlike figure her spirits rose even higher. Chuckling, she thought of all the wonderful things she would have to tell, hurrying along towards her as fast as her knee would allow. Mrs. James also came out as she looked, and joined Mrs. Tanner; and then, as if worked by a spring, Mrs. Airey and Mrs. Dunn. She limped faster than ever when she saw the four, feeling like some successful explorer returning to safety and kind friends.
She was able to come quite close to them before they saw her, because they were staring away from her up the hill. No doubt they were waiting for her, she thought with pride, curious, of course, and perhaps also a little anxious. They would guess she had taken the short cut across the fields, and would be looking for her from that direction. As in the early morning, they were bunched tightly together in the road, the only difference being that now they were looking uphill instead of down. A world of things had happened since that distant hour, Mrs. Clapham thought, feeling like one arrived from the Fields of Bliss, who would shortly be going back thither to stay.
The likeness between the scenes—“Morning” and “Evening” they might have been called—was intensified by the fact that, now as then, the Chorus was busy over some object of common interest. Mrs. Tanner was turning the object over and over in her hand, now and again passing it reluctantly to one of the rest. All four were talking in low, agitated tones, and all the time they talked they threw troubled glances up the hill. They were thoroughly worried about her, Mrs. Clapham thought, just like the faces at the Post Office window. She felt pleased and proud that they should all of them trouble so much, but it was all on a par with the beautiful day. She forgot for the moment that she had been deprived of the key, feeling, as she had felt in the fields, that the world was her oyster, to open at will.
It was just at this moment, when her pleasure was at its height, her certainty most certain, and her security most secure, that the waiting group swung round and saw her. Mrs. James uttered a little cry, and Mrs. Dunn seized her sister’s arm. Mrs. Clapham, amused, was preparing a lively speech and a broad smile, when Mrs. Tanner stepped quickly forward.
“Eh, but you’ve taken your time, Ann Clapham!” she exclaimed, approaching. “I’d made up my mind you were stopping the night.” Then, as the smile and the speech began again to take shape, she jerked her hand towards her, with the Object in it.... “This come for you while you were out.”
The charwoman stood stock still when she saw the Object, and at that moment something expired within her. The fortunate Mrs. Clapham, whose day this was, and for whom the world had been dressed anew, went out in that moment and become a ghost. The dreamer, who had dreamed of evening rest and a temple of peace, drew a last breath and died also. All that was left was the tired scrubber, returning from work, with the thought of another day’s work to begin with to-morrow’s dawn....
Slowly she put out her hand and took the telegram from Mrs. Tanner.... “Governors can’t be telegraphing t’ house off, surely?” she observed, by way of a joke, but nobody laughed, and even in her own ears her voice sounded dull and flat. Her fingers shook as she opened the envelope and took out the slip, and her legs changed again from unbendable boards to those limp bundles of cotton-wool....
It took her some time to take in what the telegram said, and her face held no more expression when she had read it than it had done before. Perhaps she never did read it, if it came to that; not only because of her sight, but because she had no need. The women drew together again, but kept a little aloof, as if they, too, knew what was in the slip, and expressed their respect for the news before it was given out.
After the long pause Mrs. Clapham handed the telegram back to Mrs. Tanner, saying “Read it, will you, Maggie?” in the same tone; and Mrs. Tanner took it from her with shaking grip. The others closed about her then, eager and tense, and presently their united voices, hastening or hanging back, spilt the news with its scent of death on the gentle September air.
“‘Daughter died this morning. Can you come?’ ... And it’s signed ‘Rawlinson,’” added Mrs. Tanner.
“My daughter Tibbie,” Mrs. Clapham remarked, after the second pause; and, halting a little on her lame knee, she went into her cottage and shut the door.