by George Moore
Sometimes a workman came in the morning; a couple more might come in about dinner-time. Sometimes they took rashers and bits of steak out of their pockets.
“Won’t you cook this for me, missis?”
But it was not until about nine in the evening that the real business of the house began, and it continued till one, when the last straggler knocked for admittance. The house lived on its beds. The best rooms were sometimes let for eight shillings a night, and there were four beds which were let at fourpence a night in the cellar under the area where Esther stood by the great copper washing sheets, blankets, and counterpanes, when she was not cleaning the rooms upstairs. There was a double-bedded room underneath the kitchen, and over the landings, wherever a space could be found, the landlord, who was clever at carpentering work, had fitted up some sort of closet place that could be let as a bedroom. The house was a honeycomb. The landlord slept under the roof, and a corner had been found for his housekeeper, a handsome young woman, at the end of the passage. Esther and the children — the landlord was a widower — slept in the coffee-room upon planks laid across the tops of the high backs of the benches where the customers mealed. Mattresses and bedding were laid on these planks and the sleepers lay, their faces hardly two feet from the ceiling. Esther slept with the baby, a little boy of five; the two big boys slept at the other end of the room by the front door. The eldest was about fifteen, but he was only half-witted; and he helped in the housework, and could turn down the beds and see quicker than any one if the occupant had stolen sheet or blanket. Esther always remembered how he would raise himself up in bed in the early morning, rub the glass, and light a candle so that he could be seen from below. He shook his head if every bed was occupied, or signed with his fingers the prices of the beds if they had any to let.
The landlord was a tall, thin man, with long features and hair turning grey. He was very quiet, and Esther was surprised one night at the abruptness with which he stopped a couple who were going upstairs.
“Is that your wife?” he said.
“Yes, she’s my wife all right.”
“She don’t look very old.”
“She’s older than she looks.”
Then he said, half to Esther, half to his housekeeper, that it was hard to know what to do. If you asked them for their marriage certificates they’d be sure to show you something. The housekeeper answered that they paid well, and that was the principal thing. But when an attempt was made to steal the bedclothes the landlord and his housekeeper were more severe. As Esther was about to let a most respectable woman out of the front door, the idiot boy called down the stairs, “Stop her! There’s a sheet missing.”
“Oh, what in the world is all this? I haven’t got your sheet. Pray let me pass; I’m in a hurry.”
“I can’t let you pass until the sheet is found.”
“You’ll find it upstairs under the bed. It’s got mislaid. I’m in a hurry.”
“Call in the police,” shouted the idiot boy.
“You’d better come upstairs and help me to find the sheet,” said Esther.
The woman hesitated a moment, and then walked up in front of Esther. When they were in the bedroom she shook out her petticoats, and the sheet fell on the floor.
“There, now,” said Esther, “a nice botheration you’d ‘ve got me into. I should’ve had to pay for it.”
“Oh, I could pay for it; it was only because I’m not very well off at present.”
“Yes, you will pay for it if you don’t take care,” said Esther.
It was very soon after that Esther had her mother’s books stolen from her. They had not been doing much business, and she had been put to sleep in one of the bedrooms. The room was suddenly wanted, and she had no time to move all her things, and when she went to make up the room she found that her mother’s books and a pair of jet earrings that Fred had given her had been stolen. She could do nothing; the couple who had occupied the room were far away by this time. There was no hope of ever recovering her books and earrings, and the loss of these things caused her a great deal of unhappiness. The only little treasure she possessed were those earrings; now they were gone, she realised how utterly alone she was in the world. If her health were to break down to-morrow she would have to go to the workhouse. What would become of her boy? She was afraid to think; thinking did no good. She must not think, but must just work on, washing the bedclothes until she could wash no longer. Wash, wash, all the week long; and it was only by working on till one o’clock in the morning that she sometimes managed to get the Sabbath free from washing. Never, not even in the house in Chelsea, had she had such hard work, and she was not as strong now as she was then. But her courage did not give way until one Sunday Jack came to tell her that the people who employed him had sold their business.
Then a strange weakness came over her. She thought of the endless week of work that awaited her in the cellar, the great copper on the fire, the heaps of soiled linen in the corner, the steam rising from the wash-tub, and she felt she had not sufficient strength to get through another week of such work. She looked at her son with despair in her eyes. She had whispered to him as he lay asleep under her shawl, a tiny infant, “There is nothing for us, my poor boy, but the workhouse,” and the same thought rose up in her mind as she looked at him, a tall lad with large grey eyes and dark curling hair. But she did not trouble him with her despair. She merely said —
“I don’t know how we shall pull through, Jack. God will help us.”
“You’re washing too hard, mother. You’re wasting away. Do you know no one, mother, who could help us?”
She looked at Jack fixedly, and she thought of Mrs. Barfield. Mrs. Barfield might be away in the South with her daughter. If she were at Woodview Esther felt sure that she would not refuse to help her. So Jack wrote at Esther’s dictation, and before they expected an answer, a letter came from Mrs. Barfield saying that she remembered Esther perfectly well. She had just returned from the South. She was all alone at Woodview, and wanted a servant. Esther could come and take the place if she liked. She enclosed five pounds, and hoped that the money would enable Esther to leave London at once.
But this returning to former conditions filled Esther with strange trouble. Her heart beat as she recognised the spire of the church between the trees, and the undulating line of downs behind the trees awakened painful recollections. She knew the white gate was somewhere in this plantation, but could not remember its exact position; and she took the road to the left instead of taking the road to the right, and had to retrace her steps. The gate had fallen from its hinge, and she had some difficulty in opening it. The lodge where the blind gatekeeper used to play the flute was closed; the park paling had not been kept in repair; wandering sheep and cattle had worn away the great holly hedge; and Esther noticed that in falling an elm had broken through the garden wall.
When she arrived at the iron gate under the bunched evergreens, her steps paused. For this was where she had met William for the first time. He had taken her through the stables and pointed out to her Silver Braid’s box. She remembered the horses going to the downs, horses coming from the downs — stabling and the sound of hoofs everywhere. But now silence. She could see that many a roof had fallen, and that ruins of outhouses filled the yard. She remembered the kitchen windows, bright in the setting sun, and the white-capped servants moving about the great white table. But now the shutters were up, nowhere a light; the knocker had disappeared from the door, and she asked herself how she was to get in. She even felt afraid…. Supposing she should not find Mrs. Barfield. She made her way through the shrubbery, tripping over fallen branches and trunks of trees; rooks rose out of the evergreens with a great clatter, her heart stood still, and she hardly dared to tear herself through the mass of underwood. At last she gained the lawn, and, still very frightened, sought for the bell. The socket plate hung loose on the wire, and only a faint tinkle came through the solitude of the empty house.
At last footsteps and a light;
the chained door was opened a little, and a voice asked who it was. Esther explained; the door was opened, and she stood face to face with her old mistress. Mrs. Barfield stood, holding the candle high, so that she could see Esther. Esther knew her at once. She had not changed very much. She kept her beautiful white teeth and her girlish smile; the pointed, vixen-like face had not altered in outline, but the reddish hair was so thin that it had to be parted on the side and drawn over the skull; her figure was delicate and sprightly as ever. Esther noticed all this, and Mrs. Barfield noticed that Esther had grown stouter. Her face was still pleasant to see, for it kept that look of blunt, honest nature which had always been its charm. She was now the thick-set working woman of forty, and she stood holding the hem of her jacket in her rough hands.
“We’d better put the chain up, for I’m alone in the house.”
“Aren’t you afraid, ma’am?”
“A little, but there’s nothing to steal. I asked the policeman to keep a look-out. Come into the library.”
There was the round table, the little green sofa, the piano, the parrot’s cage, and the yellow-painted presses; and it seemed only a little while since she had been summoned to this room, since she had stood facing her mistress, her confession on her lips. It seemed like yesterday, and yet seventeen years and more had gone by. And all these years were now a sort of a blur in her mind — a dream, the connecting links of which were gone, and she stood face to face with her old mistress in the old room.
“You’ve had a cold journey, Esther; you’d like some tea?”
“Oh, don’t trouble, ma’am.”
“It’s no trouble; I should like some myself. The fire’s out in the kitchen. We can boil the kettle here.”
They went through the baize door into the long passage. Mrs. Barfield told Esther where was the pantry, the kitchen, and the larder. Esther answered that she remembered quite well, and it seemed to her not a little strange that she should know these things. Mrs. Barfield said —
“So you haven’t forgotten Woodview, Esther?”
“No, ma’am. It seems like yesterday…. But I’m afraid the damp has got into the kitchen, ma’am, the range is that neglected — —”
“Ah, Woodview isn’t what it was.”
Mrs. Barfield told how she had buried her husband in the old village church. She had taken her daughter to Egypt; she had dwindled there till there was little more than a skeleton to lay in the grave.
“Yes, ma’am, I know how it takes them, inch by inch. My husband died of consumption.”
They sat talking for hours. One thing led to another and Esther gradually told Mrs. Barfield the story of her life from the day they bade each other good-bye in the room they were now sitting in.
“It is quite a romance, Esther.”
“It was a hard fight, and it isn’t over yet, ma’am. It won’t be over until I see him settled in some regular work. I hope I shall live to see him settled.”
They sat over the fire a long time without speaking. Mrs. Barfield said —
“It must be getting on for bedtime.”
“I suppose it must, ma’am.”
She asked if she should sleep in the room she had once shared with Margaret Gale. Mrs. Barfield answered with a sigh that as all the bedrooms were empty Esther had better sleep in the room next to hers.
XLVI
ESTHER SEEMED TO have quite naturally accepted Woodview as a final stage. Any further change in her life she did not seem to regard as possible or desirable. One of these days her boy would get settled; he would come down now and again to see her. She did not want any more than that. No, she did not find the place lonely. A young girl might, but she was no longer a young girl; she had her work to do, and when it was done she was glad to sit down to rest.
And, dressed in long cloaks, the women went for walks together; sometimes they went up the hill, sometimes into Southwick to make some little purchases. On Sundays they walked to Beeding to attend meeting. And they came home along the winter roads, the peace and happiness of prayer upon their faces, holding their skirts out of the mud, unashamed of their common boots. They made no acquaintances, seeming to find in each other all necessary companionship. Their heads bent a little forward, they trudged home, talking of what they were in the habit of talking, that another tree had been blown down, that Jack was now earning good money — ten shillings a week. Esther hoped it would last. Or else Esther told her mistress that she had heard that one of Mr. Arthur’s horses had won a race. He lived in the North of England, where he had a small training stable, and his mother never heard of him except through the sporting papers. “He hasn’t been here for four years,” Mrs. Barfield said; “he hates the place; he wouldn’t care if I were to burn it down to-morrow…. However, I do the best I can, hoping that one day he’ll marry and come and live here.”
Mr. Arthur — that was how Mrs. Barfield and Esther spoke of him — did not draw any income from the estate. The rents only sufficed to pay the charges and the widow’s jointure. All the land was let; the house he had tried to let, but it had been found impossible to find a tenant, unless Mr. Arthur would expend some considerable sum in putting the house and grounds into a state of proper repair. This he did not care to do; he said that he found race-horses a more profitable speculation. Besides, even the park had been let on lease; nothing remained to him but the house and lawn and garden; he could no longer gallop a horse on the hill without somebody’s leave, so he didn’t care what became of the place. His mother might go on living there, keeping things together as she called it; he did not mind what she did as long as she didn’t bother him. So did he express himself regarding Woodview on the rare occasion of his visits, and when he troubled to answer his mother’s letters. Mrs. Barfield, whose thoughts were limited to the estate, was pained by his indifference; she gradually ceased to consult him, and when Beeding was too far for her to walk she had the furniture removed from the drawing-room and a long deal table placed there instead. She had not asked herself if Arthur would object to her inviting a few brethren of the neighbourhood to her house for meeting, or publishing the meetings by notices posted on the lodge gate.
One day Mrs. Barfield and Esther were walking in the avenue, when, to their surprise, they saw Mr. Arthur open the white gate and come through. The mother hastened forward to meet her son, but paused, dismayed by the anger that looked out of his eyes. He did not like the notices, and she was sorry that he was annoyed. She didn’t think that he would mind them, and she hastened by his side, pleading her excuses. But to her great sorrow Arthur did not seem to be able to overcome his annoyance. He refused to listen, and continued his reproaches, saying the things that he knew would most pain her.
He did not care whether the trees stood or fell, whether the cement remained upon the walls or dropped from them; he didn’t draw a penny of income from the place, and did not care a damn what became of it. He allowed her to live there, she got her jointure out of the property, and he didn’t want to interfere with her, but what he could not stand was the snuffy little folk from the town coming round his house. The Barfields at least were county, and he wished Woodview to remain county as long as the walls held together. He wasn’t a bit ashamed of all this ruin. You could receive the Prince of Wales in a ruin, but he wouldn’t care to ask him into a dissenting chapel. Mrs. Barfield answered that she didn’t see how the mere assembling of a few friends in prayer could disgrace a house. She did not know that he objected to her asking them. She would not ask them any more. The only thing was that there was no place nearer than Beeding where they could meet, and she could no longer walk so far. She would have to give up meeting.
“It seems to me a strange taste to want to kneel down with a lot of little shop-keepers…. Is this where you kneel?” he said, pointing to the long deal table. “The place is a regular little Bethel.”
“Our Lord said that when a number should gather together for prayer that He would be among them. Those are true words, and as we get old we feel more
and more the want of this communion of spirit. It is only then that we feel that we’re really with God…. The folk that you despise are equal in His sight. And living here alone, what should I be without prayer? and Esther, after her life of trouble and strife, what would she be without prayer?… It is our consolation.”
“I think one should choose one’s company for prayer as for everything else. Besides, what do you get out of it? Miracles don’t happen nowadays.”
“You’re very young, Arthur, and you cannot feel the want of prayer as we do — two old women living in this lonely house. As age and solitude overtake us, the realities of life float away and we become more and more sensible to the mystery which surrounds us. And our Lord Jesus Christ gave us love and prayer so that we might see a little further.”
An expression of great beauty came upon her face, that unconscious resignation which, like the twilight, hallows and transforms. In such moments the humblest hearts are at one with nature, and speaks out of the eternal wisdom of things. So even this common racing man was touched, and he said —
“I’m sorry if I said anything to hurt your religious feelings.”
Mrs. Barfield did not answer.
“Do you not accept my apologies, mother?”
“My dear boy, what do I care for your apologies; what are they to me? All I think of now is your conversion to Christ. Nothing else matters. I shall always pray for that.”
“You may have whom you like up here; I don’t mind if it makes you happy. I’m ashamed of myself. Don’t let’s say any more about it. I’m only down for the day. I’m going home to-morrow.”
“Home, Arthur! this is your home. I can’t bear to hear you speak of any other place as your home.”
