Cotter's England
Page 38
"And is he over there, buried, Madam?"
"Yes, Gwen. Far away."
Gwen did her work and went away, quietly. The women talked about the changes in her and one said, I think she was in love with George Cook; but they could not accept this idea; a servant in love with George Cook who had been described in the foreign press, when he died, as a "great fighter for the British working class, who turned many to socialism by his ready forceful expositions."
Nellie had invited Tom to that foreign funeral and they had brought back a photograph: Nellie gay with success as a hero's widow and Tom smiling, hand in hand. This is a problem the press always meets, people smiling for the camera in disasters; and the paper did not publish this one. Nellie bought the paper. There was a picture of Anthony Butters, husband of her friend Vi, a man whom Nellie always described as "a puir thing, a frail waif, unable to cope, an out-of-work mechanic"; but who was, as she knew, the organizer of one of the largest unions in the country. Anthony was leading a strike in a basic industry. Nellie read about Vi's husband and dropped the paper into the next litter basket on the street. Her heart turned to bitter water.
Not long after Nellie returned, Walter the window washer came to the door to ask about the Mister. Nellie told him all about it at length and he was charmed by her with all her bells swinging at him. He was a dull, respectable man who thought well of himself. He told her he belonged to a circle which was interested in consolation, in the human heart, in solving unsolved problems that the professors and scientists could not solve. She smoked, listened to him, laughed, said balderdash, but in the end thought she might go along; and that week, one evening, he took her to what she called a "Nabob villa," porch, pillars, fine windows, to a side door, over which was nailed a horseshoe. They rang and went in. Nellie, slowly at first, became interested in the problems of the unknowable.