Nevertheless she was surprised and moved softly as a bird, watching, and two days before George went she found Mrs. McMahon standing at the mantelpiece in front of George's photograph. It was a fine one, taken at a street corner meeting, George with his mouth open and his arm in a gesture, but it was very George. "The old docker come to life," George had written in his pretty, bold hand underneath.
"It's so very like him, isn't it, Madam?" said Mrs. McMahon. "You haven't got another? My husband and I would like to have it."
"No, pet, I haven't," said Nellie dryly.
"If Mrs. McMahon would like any piece of pottery, let her have a piece," said George the same evening, "she's got fine taste for a working girl. I want her to develop her taste."
"For a working girl me foot," cried Nellie, "you big humbug. You've been making sheep's eyes at her. The woman's crying tears all over the place. It's the noble old baron himself making free with the servant-lasses! You've got beyond yourself, George Cook. I think it's the bloody absolute limit, while I'm out at me job, you staying at home seducing the woman. She's an honest working woman or she was. Now she's thinking about sex all the time. You've been making love to her as you call it, you bloody hypocrite, for years. I wondered, it stuck in me mind that you were in no hurry to tell me you were home. It was the soldier's farewell to his lass, eh? Ah, it's a bloody shame, there's not a drop of honest blood in you, you went straight from her to me, I can't credit it, I can't understand why, if not for perversity. You take a woman that's satisfied though she's miserable, an honest girl bearing her burden bravely, with a husband and kiddie and you wreck her home. Do you think McMahon doesn't notice, that she's weeping for you?"
George threw himself down on the daybed with a pleased expression.
Nellie continued to rave and cry about her hard luck, the faithlessness of all men, and that he couldn't even wait till he shook the dust of England from his feet to betray her again.
"I can't look in the faces of my friends without thinking, Has George been sweethearting here too? It's poisoned friendship for me."
George had shut his eyes and now pretended to be asleep, but they had a great fight.
Mrs. McMahon came the next day and Nellie opened the door to her, saying, "I'm glad you came early, Gwen, there's a lot to be done."
The little girl was there too. They made the same pathetic group on the doorstep. Mrs. McMahon wore her usual black coat.
"Come into the kitchen and you can play in the front room, Georgie," Nellie said briefly, not unkindly.
Mrs. McMahon was cheerful but pale.
"You've been seeing a good bit of my husband while I've been away on jobs," said she while the worker was putting her clothes, as usual, in the front room. "What has he been doing?"
"He mostly reads the paper, Madam," said Mrs. McMahon. "Or he sits in the back yard."
She did not look at Nellie, but without haste put her things away and put on her apron.
"We'll all miss him now he's going. It's a great pity but it's got to be: a man's work comes first," said Nellie. "Men must work and women must weep for the buggers: we're fools, Gwen, to get involved with them."
Mrs. McMahon said nothing for she was on her way to the kitchen.
"Aye, pet," said Nellie entering the kitchen, "what you can do first if you're a good soul, is to make a good pot o' tea, me angel: I'm starving; and thirsty as an old boot in a storm. We'll have a cup o' tea, sweetheart, and then I've got to be off, duty calls. Aye, it's a damn hard life, Gwen. You work and the minute your back's turned the bastards play you false."
Gwen made the tea, set the tray and poured out two cups, handing one to Nellie and putting the other beside the washing-up basin.
"No, sit down a minute, pet, and let's have a talk," said Nellie. "I've got to be going. Are you very upset then, Gwen, chick, that me old man's leaving us? Ah, the bastard, leaving his harem high and dry, a traitor, eh?"
"I'm sorry, we're both sorry," said Mrs. McMahon: "and Georgie's been talking about it ever since she heard. She thinks the world of Mr. Cook. Here comes Cookie, she sings, you ought to hear her; it's cute."
"Aye, it must be," said Nellie.
"He's been so generous to her, talking to her. He told her a long story about the sparrows one day and she's been talking about it ever since and teasing him, Tell me about a squirrel. He's like a father, an uncle to her."
"Aye, I get it, pet."
"And always so kind and noticing everything you do for him."
"Yes, he's lovable," said Nellie.
"Do you think he'll stay away so long, Madam?"
"He'll stay too long for us," said Nellie amiably.
Mrs. McMahon looked at her questioningly.
"Eh, chick, don't be building up hopes on George Cook's coming back to lie to you. You've been kissing him haven't you, Gwen?"
Mrs. McMahon flushed and looked away. Then she looked at Nellie, "Yes, we kissed," she said proudly.
"Well, when you've finished your work today you can leave here for good, Gwen, I think it's a damn shame and I've got no use for traitors. Do your work, I'll not rob you of the money, and then let us say goodbye."
"I'd rather not stay."
"I want you to stay, I've got to go in half an hour, and George has got to have his lunch if the house burns down. I'm disgusted with you, I'm revolted: there's no friendship in you."
Nellie took the money out of her purse and put it down.
Mrs. McMahon left it on the table, and as Nellie turned to go up the steps out of the kitchen, she said, "Mrs. Cook! It's not what you think. It's that he loves me."
"And he's proved it to you," said Nellie; "is he going to marry you, Gwen?"
Mrs. McMahon said nothing.
"Let's not talk about it any more. It's the dirtiest trick that's been played yet and I ought to be able to take it, but I don't feel very generous at the moment. I am Mrs. Cook and I'm going to stay Mrs. Cook."
Mrs. McMahon looked after her, at the strange cut and strange dress, the wild and dirty bohemian, cursing and smoking, disorderly and perverse and she felt just as if a wild cat had come snarling into a decent household. She was an innocent woman and believed George meant her for his wife. All the stages between, two divorces, all the arrangements, were wiped away by George's splendid, easy manhood. She had great trust in him. She never doubted that she was the next wife and she looked upon Nellie as the unworthy woman.
Mrs. McMahon for some little time now had been encouraged in her daily struggle with penury. She put money aside in various forms of door-to-door insurance and saved up the clothing her married sister sent her, so that she would have provision for Georgiana and a little clothing for herself, when the break between George and Nellie occurred. She was prepared to wait a long time for George. Her own husband, Bernard, would have all his salary for himself, and would be able to get along, she considered. He was middle-aged, he had few wants. He loved the child and so did she, but she was sure some arrangement could be made. All this she had planned in her mind. George Cook had also suggested that as she was very bright, had a clear memory of all she had ever learned, she should study in evening school and learn office work. Then she would get off her feet and get better pay. She did not see at the moment how, after working in houses all day and doing her own housework, cutting, sewing, knitting and mending for her two at home, she could study at night. Nellie had lent her her own lesson books in typing and shorthand and Gwen tried to study while she was sewing.
She was twenty-eight; George was over fifty: it seemed to her that they would be happy. With grave confidence and patience she faced the prospect of all that was to be done before they could marry.
When she left the house in Lamb Street where she had worked for years and where she had been happy and in love, she was weeping.
Nellie saw the downcast, downtrodden figure in the limp black rags go past the window. She saw her afterwards passing along the other side of the street with her shopping bag half full of greens.
She always tried to give her family milk, greens, fruit. Nellie noticed that she trod weakly and looked pale. The little girl's thin fingers curled into Gwen's and Georgiana skipped. They did not look at the house. Nellie felt a pang realizing several things, Gwen's pain, her patience, her weakness. She thought of George's cool tricks.
In a few minutes, with her tea, smoke and ruminations, she had forgotten and presently she was fooling herself. What was between them was a bit of flirtation.
When George came, she began on him. Their quarrels at present were not so pleasant. George wore a pleased tranquillity.
"Leave me alone, don't bother me," he said often, unlike himself, "I'm quitting, you're getting rid of me. You can't get rid of me any quicker, I'm doing my best."
He kept spending money and had a fine outfit now, the outfit of a clerk going out to India, say.
Nellie confided some of her anxieties and doubts to Eliza who was now often in the house. To George she said sharply, "You're treating me like a second-best wife."
Nellie waited for the weekend and her brother's trip down with the bodily impatience of a lover. Tom had the trick of satisfying her love and although they quarreled, she could never lose him. Her boy! He never changed, never grew older, and from him she got the illusion of being young. The women interested in him filled her with savage indignation. On the telephone, she pressed Tom to get a London job. Here she could watch over him, save him from trouble.
Tom did not answer Nellie's letter about Caroline; and when she telephoned, he told them to say he was out, a thing he had never done to anyone. He did not go to London. But because of this, he lived in misery and was only happy at work.
The bird that howled in the heath was howling in the heath. There was a wind blowing. Tom slept badly, got up early and the landlady made trouble about his getting in so late. He had only been walking and walking, looking for a site for a caravan. But the only hotel left in town that suited his purse was this, the River-Ouse; so he took her scolding and smiled at her.
The River-Ouse was a building from the previous century built for and always used by poor travelers and locals with a small pocket. There was a lantern and a table with old magazines in the lobby, which had once been the carriage entrance to a yard. This lobby was the roomiest and most cheerful part of the house.
It was a night of broad moonlight; the smell of the heath drifted in. The bedroom was small, narrow. There was a table under the window. Tom always wrote in his diary there till the light faded. He could write by the faint bulb but not see what he was writing.
A button had come off the middle of his shirt. He cut off a button lower down and sewed it in the middle. His dress was always spotless and in order. If anything went wrong, even a spot of grease or an ink scratch, the girls would laugh and try to attract his attention. He thought for days about what people said of him, though he knew it was just lonely anxiety.
He woke up in terror in the early hours. The yawning weary moon was flat over the shrunk houses. There had been voices in the room; he had heard voices calling him. It was still; the light was so gray. What needed him? He trembled because he could not answer. What thing called him? If it would swallow him up, yet he would answer it, if he knew what it was. He could not bear to be called on and not to respond. He got back into bed, fell asleep, once more heard calls and woke up. Was it Nellie?
He telephoned her Monday after work but she was at work.
He was so exhausted the next night that he slunk up to bed at nine thirty, tidied his room, moved his valises from the fireplace and was asleep by ten. He woke up suddenly about two. The moonlight was retreating quickly from his room and now shone, in its last beam, on the hearthstone, where he seemed to see words freshly engraved. He stared without moving, trying to make out the words before they faded. What he saw was a date, 1679. The moonlight moved like a spotlight; and at first he thought it might be a spotlight or a searchlight. It lighted the old gas bracket, withdrew, made merely a block of moonlight where the window really was. He got up and went over to the hearthstone. It was an engraved stone and read: Here lies Joel Gammon of this parish, died Mar. 12, 1679. R.I.P.
Tom could hardly sleep all night, wondering how a dead man had got into his bedroom. He did not like to mention it to the landlord, for it might have meant his moving again and there was no other cheap hotel in town.
When he got back for dinner at six thirty, he went upstairs first and, having seen at lunch that there were only two or three guests, he tried the door of another room, thinking he'd ask for it, if empty. It was bigger and ready for a guest, but to his amazement, the hearthstone read: Sacred to the memory of Job Blondel, who departed this life, September 9, 1693. At rest.
He went back to his room and, sitting on the bed, began to laugh mutely, "Dead guests! It is the first time I've heard of a hostelry being so reverent."
He could not help a flitting thought that the voices he had heard were those of Job and Joel; yet their dust had flown long ago; it must have reached other planets by this time; he was not afraid of the poor men. But then, he reasoned, this hotel was not standing on those dates.
He went down to his eating as if he had not observed the hearthstones; and became acquainted with the other boarders, an engineer from another factory, a forester.
After dinner he began talking to the engineer and said, "Do you have an odd hearthstone in your room?"
The engineer had heard that the man who built the hotel had bought an old graveyard and no doubt the tombstones had gone along with the site; "If he was a practical man that would explain it."
"I'll try to stand it," said Tom.
In his diary he wrote a letter to a woman, no name, telling her about the voices and the gravestones. He wrote, "I should like to have a hotel like this, a poor hotel, and run it well and call it The Weary Traveler."
Tom was working…
TOM WAS working in Blackstone some months when the old mother died. Nellie and George Cook, over on a visit, and Tom, went up to Bridgehead for the funeral and to decide on family matters. For the moment there was enough, with contributions from Nellie and Tom, for Peggy to live on comfortably, but they had to look to the future.
The aunts, Peggy and Tom sat in the back room having tea. Two cakes had been brought and the fruits, cheeses and fancy breads on the table showed that Cushie was in the house. Peggy held court. Tom, reduced to back room routine, had shrunk into a corner by the radio. "Now I have the house to myself," said Peggy, sitting by the fire with her knitting and the dog on the floor in front of her. "There's no reason why any more meat should enter this house, except a bit for the dog, he's without reason and ye can't make him understand; but human beings who know what they're doing are another matter. I think I'll try my hand at preserving fruit and vegetables."
"Well, you might try your hand at it but it's troublesome," said Tom.
"Do you know how it's done?"
"I know how they're canned. The vegetables must be absolutely fresh, have a double cooking and some injection because they have no acids to prevent the development of bacteria. Fruits have that."
The aunts and Peggy were fervidly interested and pressed him for details.
"And how are the tops put on? By machine?"
"You'd think they'd spill if they're full to the top," said Peggy thoughtfully looking at the fire and unconsciously imitating her mother, "we didn't see many peas this year, hardly any. Mother was always asking for them. Uncle Sime bought her some canned peas. I said, What's the use of canned peas? So they have no bacteria, is that it?"
"Where's Simon, Peggy?" said Aunt Bessie.
"I told him to keep to his room for a bit. We've had enough trouble round here, with two deaths in the house. We want the place to ourselves for a bit, I told him. Don't be always sitting in other people's furniture."
"That was heartless, Peggy. You forget that he's lost his sister."
She crooned, "It's no use pampering him, Tom man, or he'll be going to bed and expecting
nursing: and there's no one going to do it for him. We've had enough real sickness: we don't want shamming. You go away and stay and you lose your sense of reality, man. You ought to live in the house with people like I do. You never know a person till you've lived with them, man, then you know the ins and outs of their selfishness and their scheming."
"He likes his bed, he'll learn nothing new there," said Aunt Bessie looking round for approval of this old joke. For some reason, it fell flat.
"I saw the old man with the blind dog," said Aunt Jeanie. "He was asking me about my sister, just like every day and I told him she left us. He said he was very sorry to hear it, she was a nice woman. He never saw her in his life. Why, was she an old flame of yours? I said: you never saw her in your life. He-he. No, he said but I'm sorry when a nice woman goes; she was Tom Cotter's widow; he always had a good word for me."
"How did the dog get blind?" said Peggy, with a censorious, pale, strict face, putting herself forward again. "How was it then? Is it old? But it always was blind. Then how was it?"
"Ask no questions and I'll tell you no lies," said Aunt Bessie.
"It was blinded," said Mrs. Duncan, "it was a cruel deed. Some boys flung pepper in its eyes and it was blinded. It nearly went mad and it was ill, but it got better. It never trusted a boy near it again."
"Do you mean they blinded the dog?" said Peggy in a strange hypocritical voice. "Oh, I never understood why the dog was like that. Isn't it funny? I asked and asked and they never told me. Mother refused to tell me but she must have known. Oh, how cruel. And was it blinded by boys, Aunt Jeanie?"
"Yes, dear. That was the way of it. There's no need to talk about it."
"Oh, how cruel! Oh, I think that's terrible don't you? There are such terribly cruel people. But did you see the dog recently this week then, Aunt Bessie?"
"Yes, like I told you, with the old man, hinny."
Cotter's England Page 34
