CHAPTER IV
And still it was not much more than half-past six.... Mrs. Clapham, lifting her lids at last with the effort of one to whom every inch of her body is insisting that the business of life is distinctly over, could hardly bring herself to believe the face of the little clock. The whole of her world had changed twice since it was half-past six before. It seemed impossible that so much could have happened within the round of a little day; just as it is sometimes incredible that so little should happen in the tale of a lengthy year.
But the business of life, far from being over, was, from more points of view than one, about to begin again. That itwouldbegin again, when the moment arrived, she was now able to believe, though even now it seemed to her that it could be only a miserable parody at the best. Nevertheless, before long it would be creaking and jolting again in the ancient grooves, although with ever so many extra drags on the wheels. Foremost among them would be the children, hard as it seemed to call them by such a name; but, dear as they would undoubtedly grow to be, she could describe them as nothing else. Some day, indeed, they would be a help instead of a drag, but that was a long way to look ahead. Not even Libby would be able to bring any grist to the mill for the next half-dozen years, and somehow the three of them had to live through those difficult years first.
There was also the undoubted fact of her gradually failing health, that terrible drag on the wheel of which all with their living to earn go in constant dread. She was not worn-out, as Emma had cruelly said, but it was certainly cruelly true that she was worn. Weariness at least was in front of her, if nothing worse, stiff limbs and aching joints that would not allow her to sleep. When the present strain had relaxed a little she would be better than she was now, but, however much better she was, she would never be quite better. Never, whatever happened, would she be the same woman again. She would never be even the woman who had awakened so happily that morning. Both beauty and bitterness had taken their toll of her since then, and made her pay too dear.
The third and perhaps the worst drag on the wheel would be the inward reluctance of her own heart. Again, as Emma had so meanly and cleverly said, she would find it harder to go on now than if she had never stopped. She had taken her hand from the plough, and it would be a bitter business forcing it back. All through the hours of work, and the aching, wearisome nights, her heart would go stealing in spite of her to the House of Dreams.
Yet somehow or other this new fight that had been thrust upon her would have to be fought bravely and fought through. No matter what happened to lie before her, she must contrive to hold on until the children were old enough to fend for themselves. Her only consolation lay in the fact that every year that passed would be so much won by her in their favour. Even if the worst came to the worst, and her body gave out before her spirit—even then the struggle would not have been quite wasted. With each year that passed they would be not only older but braver and stronger, more and more able to cope with Emma should they fall to her banner in the end.
Thinking of Emma, she was again driven to wonder whether in all that tangle of plotting and planning there had lurked so much as a seed of sound, selfless and honest love. Nobody who had known her of old would condescend to believe in it for a moment, and indeed the feat would seem just as unlikely to those who happened to know her now. Yet who could really say that beneath that growth of lies there might not be springing somewhere the tender sprout? Who could really say that a new Emma might not be quickening into being, brought to new life and growth by the strong forcing-house of the War?
That question, she knew, would be a further drag on the wheel, returning from time to time in order to give her pause. Again and again she would be tempted to go back on her word, to take her hand from the plough and forswear herself, even then. Always it would be in the background, ready to harry her at her weakest moments. Yet it was true that its antidote also would be always at hand—the memory of the inconceivable thing which Emma had done that day. The consideration of her possible motives went under again in an eddy of grief. If by any chance Tibbie had asked for her mother, and thought that she would not come!
Mrs. Tanner found her with the slow tears again stealing down her face, but she sat up at once and tried to stem them. Getting up, she limped to the glass, and began to smooth her hair with a comb taken from a near drawer. She also produced a clothes-brush, and allowed Mrs. Tanner to ply it; afterwards tying herself into one of her best aprons. She came back to the table looking a totally different creature, and addressed herself to the task of eating her supper like a tearful but plucky child.
They began, after a while, to talk of what was in front of them to-morrow, awkward, disconnected talk that became clearer and smoother as the situation grew easier. The food took the extreme edge from the charwoman’s weariness, and the tea stimulated her nerves and heart. Mrs. Tanner noticed with satisfaction that she looked more and more like herself as the meal proceeded. Even the colour began to steal back fitfully into her white cheek. It was a pity Emma could not see her now, Mrs. Tanner thought scornfully to herself—Emma, with her talk of “finished” and “wore-out,” and unpleasant reminders of “t’ church-sod!”
And still plunged through the scullery-door there stayed the shaft of light that was like a sword, though it was getting paler and paler, and quivered from time to time as if it were urged away. Still it stayed, slanting to rest on the kitchen floor, still keeping its effect of a sword with its point transiently dropped to earth....
“Miss Marigold’s wedding-day’s near about over,” Mrs. Tanner remarked suddenly, as they lingered over the meal.
“Ay.” The charwoman’s lips trembled on the lip of the cup.... “My poor lass made her a pale-bluecrêpe de Chine,” she said presently, as she had said to Emma, setting the cup down shakily on the edge of the saucer.
“She was a rare hand with a needle, was your Tibbie!” Mrs. Tanner nodded. “I reckon them barns’ll have everything just so.”
“Right as a trivet they’ll be from top to toe!” A touch of possessive pride came into the grandmother’s voice. “I’ll have my work cut out to keep ’em near as smart.”
“Ay, well, it’s to be hoped they’ll take after their mother when it comes to brains. Not but what they said Poor Stephen was smart enough when he was in t’ Army.”
“They’re sharp enough—as barns go,” Mrs. Clapham answered carelessly, but with the same underlying suggestion of pride. Mrs. Tanner’s words had called up a vision of coloured prizes and shining medals of quality applauding her grandchildren with elegant white-gloved hands....
“Folks never repent it afterwards as does the right thing,” Mrs. Tanner asserted cheerfully, if with an unconscious lack of truth. “They’ll live to be a comfort to you, you’ll see.”
“Happen they will.”
“It’s right queer your Tibbie should ha’ died on Miss Marigold’s wedding-day,” Mrs. Tanner mused. “Are you thinking o’ going to t’ Vicarage next week as afore?”
“I reckon I shall.”
“There’s that knee of yours, think on.”
“It’ll be better by then.”
“Ay, well, you’ll not do that much work, I’ll be bound!” Mrs. Tanner laughed. “Parson’s wife’ll be that throng telling you about t’ wedding!”
Mrs. Clapham said nothing in reply to that, but suddenly she felt as if she would not be able to endure hearing about the wedding. Indeed, at that moment she felt as if she would not be able to endure going to the Vicarage at all. Suddenly she had remembered the conversation of the evening before, and how in the midst of her own excitement the Vicar’s wife had never once remembered the charwoman’s hopes. It was almost as if, after some mysterious fashion, she had known what was going to happen. “Next week, as usual, please!” she had said, as she went away; and in spite of the new life coming so near that she had actually touched it with a hand, it was going to be “next week as usual, please,” for Mrs. Clapham, after all.
Mrs. Tanner, in the meantime, had passed on to another subject. “Yon Emma’s a real bad sort!” she shot out suddenly, and so fiercely that Mrs. Clapham felt as if she had received an actual peck. “Eh, but what an escape it’s been for them poor barns!”
“Ay ... and yet I can’t help wondering, though, all the same....” Mrs. Clapham was still searching for that hypothetical sprout.
“Wonder all t’ same what?”
“Whether she mightn’t ha’ treated ’em decently, after all?”
“Nay, now—you’re never thinking o’ going back on your word!” Mrs. Tanner pushed back her chair so sharply that it shrieked on the flag.
“Nay—not me! That’s all settled and by with,” Mrs. Clapham assured her quickly. “I—I’m beginning to want ’em, and that’s a fact! All the same, I can’t help wondering,” she added thoughtfully, “whether she wouldn’t ha’ done by ’em all right.”
“Don’t you get wondering owt o’ the sort!” Mrs. Tanner responded vehemently, as she got to her feet. Her hands actually shook a little as she gathered the pots. “There’s only one thing she wanted ’em for, I doubt, and it won’t bide putting into human words. I’ve not forgotten, if you have, how yon lad of hers used to look, a-creeping back to that devil’s spot of a winter’s night!”
“Nay, I’ve not forgotten, not I!” Mrs. Clapham said hastily, feeling rather ashamed, and for the fourth time that day seeing the vision of the little boy reluctantly climbing the dark stair. Looking out into the street, which was now full of September mist, she saw in imagination Libby and Stevie come creeping up. Hand in hand they came, clasping each other close, and with every step that they took growing slower and more afraid. Doors opened and voices called to them, but they never as much as glanced aside. Always they crept on, their mournful eyes fixed on their pilgrimage’s dreadful end, making their sad way to the ancient slaughter-house which was Emma Catterall’s suitable home....
She almost put out her hands to clutch them when she saw them thus passing by, and, turning with a sharp start, caught her elbow against her cup and tilted it over. “Eh, now, but that’s a daft-like trick!” she exclaimed, pushing back quickly as the tea came pouring on to the floor.
“You’re a bit jumpy—that’s what it is,” Mrs. Tanner commented soothingly. “Nerves a bit out of order, and no wonder, neither! It hasn’t catched your gown, has it?—nay, it’s nobbut the floor. Ay, well, I’ll take a clout to it as soon as I’m through wi’ my job.”
She went away with the pots into the back kitchen, and Mrs. Clapham, instead of sitting down again, began to wander about the room. She was still lame, of course, but the compress had eased her knee, and the stimulant of the tea had eased the ache of her tired bones. She stood for some time looking at Tibbie’s picture, and wept again as she looked, presently lifting a pitiful finger to the photographs of the children. Afterwards, staring about, she tried to imagine the house with the children in it, sitting or playing or running from room to room. Already their little coats and hats seemed to have taken their natural place on the bracket behind the door. She found herself wondering whether it would be possible to have the old chair mended for them, and then decided that it was too old. There were other things, too, that could no more be mended than the chair, things like the loss of youth and good health, and the terrible break of death. She was looking forward again now, patiently trying to believe that there was happiness still ahead, but there was no disguising the fact that it could be only second-hand happiness at the best.
The pool of tea on the floor kept catching her eye as she stirred about, the stain of it on the flags offending her charwoman’s pride. It seemed to her it was the sort of thing you would expect in an old woman’s house, an idle old woman who had grown too ancient to care. Each time that she came across it she stopped to mutter and frown. For the time being she allowed Mrs. Tanner’s kindness to slip utterly out of her mind, choosing only to remember that she had forgotten the promised clout.
There came a moment at last when she could bear it no longer, and, finding the back kitchen empty, she stealthily limped in. Presently she emerged with brush, pail and mat, and an expression of furtive excitement upon her face. Getting painfully on to her knees, she began to scrub, and almost at once found happiness coming back to her as if by magic. She was no longer afraid of life, now that she was at her job, nor of her own ability to cope with what the future might choose to send. Again, as in the morning, she turned instinctively to it for strength, and again found that it brought her courage, and that the touch of her tools brought her peace.
She scrubbed the stained patch over and over again long after it was clean, and felt her spirits revive with every scrunch of the brush. As she wiped off the soap only to put it on, for the second time that day she remembered the last words of old Mr. T. He had said that she was one of the fighters of life—a non-finisher, a never-ender. With a grim humour she told herself that he would certainly say so if he could see her now! She no longer felt bitter against the well-intentioned old man, and indeed in those last words found a distinct solace to her pride. God was put back in His heaven again as soon as she began to scrub, and along with her forgiveness of God went forgiveness of Mr. T.
Forgiveness seemed more possible than ever when her mind, without any obvious reason, returned suddenly to Mrs. Bendrigg. At least she would never see the heart fade out of her dream as she turned slowly but certainly into that! The truth was, she told herself sturdily, stopping to draw her breath, that she should never have asked for the almshouse at all. She could almost have blushed for herself for having descended to such weakness. Work seemed the only thing worth having as she lathered and scrubbed, and Tibbie’s children no more than a featherweight on her broad back....
She had, later, one rather terrible moment when she remembered her promise to Martha Jane. The scrubbing brought to a stop with a sharp jerk, she sat regarding the prospect with acute dismay. Pride apart—and emphatically it would hurt her pride—it seemed impossible that she could ever go back again to the House of Dreams. She could shirk the promise, of course; there was nothing to bind her unless she chose; and just for the moment she felt that the only thing possible was to shirk. But her newly restored judgment warned her that to weaken at any point was in all likelihood never to get through at all; and so, ratifying the bond with distinct ruefulness in her own mind, she put its obligations on one side for the time being, and went back again, though rather more dismally, to her work.
It occurred to her presently, however, that there was one side at least of the trying position which she had overlooked. Undoubtedly there would be some slight compensation in observing how the almshouses tackled the problem of Martha Jane! The thought of that self-satisfied coterie faced with Miss Fell as a neighbour tickled the charwoman even now. Indeed, it tickled her so much, combined with her own experiences of the afternoon, that she found herself, quite without meaning it, breaking into a laugh.
Mrs. Tanner, returning, could hardly believe her eyes when she beheld her upon her knees, and still less could she believe that laugh. “Poor thing—she’s a bit touched!” she said to herself, as she hurried in; and then, rounding the table, met the upturned face, tear-stained but normal, and wreathed with a joyful smile.
“Land’s sake—and you wi’ your bad knee!” she exclaimed anxiously. “Why in the name o’ goodness didn’t you wait o’ me?”
“Because it’s my job,” Mrs. Clapham answered, sitting back on her stout heels. Her voice rang and her eye brightened. “It’s my job, and no doubt about it! I tell you what it is, Maggie Tanner; I doubt I’d ha’ found yon almshouse parlish dull!”
There was still another task which she felt constrained to fulfil before she would allow Mrs. Tanner to hustle her off to bed. The latter remonstrated when she heard her intention of writing at once to the Committee, but her protests had no effect upon Mrs. Clapham. “If I don’t write, I shan’t sleep,” was all she would say, searching out paper and pen, and seating herself at the table for the last time. There had returned to her suddenly Emma’s unpleasant remarks about her manners, arousing her obstinacy and her pride. Moreover, though she would not for worlds have admitted it to Mrs. Tanner, she was afraid for her strength of mind. In spite of the new courage that had come to her with her work, she could not trust herself to stick to her bargain unless she wrote the letter that same night.
It was a hard task, though, harder even than she had expected, and her spirits sank again as she wrestled with it. It was impossible not to remember, in framing it, what a different letter should have gone, by rights! Instantly, too, as she wrote, she was back again in the House of Dreams, living through, minute by minute, those wonderful hours. In spite of herself her mind insisted upon the treasures that it contained, pictured the furniture and the flowering currant, and painted the long view over the sea. She forgot the neighbours and their trying ways; forgot even old Mrs. Bendrigg in her bed. Once more she was safe enclosed in the temple of peace, tasting that exquisite bliss which is not meant for us outside Heaven....
“i’m rite sorry i cant exept, and i hope as youll see and give it to Martha Jane—”
“i’m rite sorry i cant exept, and i hope as youll see and give it to Martha Jane—”
She dropped her head on her arms. For a long moment she sat and wept. Then again she took up her pen....
And behind her, as if it were something else that she had taken up, as if a hand had suddenly lifted it from the floor and belted it to a brave side, the shaft of light that was like a sword vanished out of the kitchen, leaving it gentle and dusky with the coming night....
Printed in Great Britain atThe Mayflower Press, Plymouth.William Brendon & Son, Ltd.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.