VII
When her boy was three years old, Mary had another baby, a girl. The three years had gone by monotonously. They might have been an eternity, they might have been brief as a sleep. She did not know. Only, there was always a weight on top of her, something that pressed down her life. The only thing that had happened was that Mr Massy had had an operation. He was always exceedingly fragile. His wife had soon learned to attend to him mechanically, as part of her duty.
But this third year, after the baby girl had been born, Mary felt oppressed and depressed. Christmas drew near: the gloomy, unleavened Christmas of the rectory, where all the days were of the same dark fabric. And Mary was afraid. It was as if the darkness were coming upon her.
‘Edward, I should like to go home for Christmas,’ she said, and a certain terror filled her as she spoke.
‘But you can’t leave baby,’ said her husband, blinking.
‘We can all go.’
He thought, and stared in his collective fashion.
‘Why do you wish to go?’ he asked.
‘Because I need a change. A change would do me good, and it would be good for the milk.’
He heard the will in his wife’s voice, and was at a loss. Her language was unintelligible to him. And while she was breeding, either about to have a child, or nursing, he regarded her as a special sort of being.
‘Wouldn’t it hurt baby to take her by the train?’ he said.
‘No,’ replied the mother, ‘why should it?’
They went. When they were in the train, it began to snow. From the window of his first-class carriage the little clergyman watched the big flakes sweep by, like a blind drawn across the country. He was obsessed by thought of the baby, and afraid of the draughts of the carriage.
‘Sit right in the corner,’ he said to his wife, ‘and hold baby close back.’
She moved at his bidding, and stared out of the window. His eternal presence was like an iron weight on her brain. But she was going partially to escape for a few days.
‘Sit on the other side, Jack,’ said the father. ‘It is less draughty. Come to this window.’
He watched the boy in anxiety. But his children were the only beings in the world who took not the slightest notice of him.
‘Look, mother, look!’ cried the boy. ‘They fly right in my face’ – he meant the snowflakes.
‘Come into this corner,’ repeated his father, out of another world.
‘He’s jumped on this one’s back, mother, an’ they’re riding to the bottom!’ cried the boy, jumping with glee.
‘Tell him to come on this side,’ the little man bade his wife.
‘Jack, kneel on this cushion,’ said the mother, putting her white hand on the place.
The boy slid over in silence to the place she indicated, waited still for a moment, then almost deliberately, stridently cried:
‘Look at all those in the corner, mother, making a heap,’ and he pointed to the cluster of snowflakes with finger pressed dramatically on the pane, and he turned to his mother a bit ostentatiously.
‘All in a heap!’ she said.
He had seen her face, and had her response, and he was somewhat assured. Vaguely uneasy, he was reassured if he could win her attention.
They arrived at the vicarage at half-past two, not having had lunch.
‘How are you, Edward?’ said Mr Lindley, trying on his side to be fatherly. But he was always in a false position with his son-in-law, frustrated before him, therefore, as much as possible, he shut his eyes and ears to him. The vicar was looking thin and pale and ill-nourished. He had gone quite grey. He was, however, still haughty; but, since the growing-up of his children, it was a brittle haughtiness, that might break at any moment and leave the vicar only an impoverished, pitiable figure. Mrs Lindley took all the notice of her daughter, and of the children. She ignored her son-in-law. Miss Louisa was clucking and laughing and rejoicing over the baby. Mr Massy stood aside, a bent, persistent little figure.
‘Oh a pretty! – a little pretty! oh a cold little pretty come in a railway-train!’ Miss Louisa was cooing to the infant, crouching on the hearthrug opening the white woollen wraps and exposing the child to the fireglow.
‘Mary,’ said the little clergyman, ‘I think it would be better to give baby a warm bath; she may take a cold.’
‘I think it is not necessary,’ said the mother, coming and closing her hand judiciously over the rosy feet and hands of the mite. ‘She is not chilly.’
‘Not a bit,’ cried Miss Louisa. ‘She’s not caught cold.’
‘I’ll go and bring her flannels,’ said Mr Massy, with one idea.
‘I can bath her in the kitchen then,’ said Mary, in an altered, cold tone.
‘You can’t, the girl is scrubbing there,’ said Miss Louisa. ‘Besides, she doesn’t want a bath at this time of day.’
‘She’d better have one,’ said Mary, quietly, out of submission. Miss Louisa’s gorge rose, and she was silent. When the little man padded down with the flannels on his arm, Mrs Lindley asked:
‘Hadn’t you better take a hot bath, Edward?’
But the sarcasm was lost on the little clergyman. He was absorbed in the preparations round the baby.
The room was dull and threadbare, and the snow outside seemed fairy-like by comparison, so white on the lawn and tufted on the bushes. Indoors the heavy pictures hung obscurely on the walls, everything was dingy with gloom.
Except in the fireglow, where they had laid the bath on the hearth. Mrs Massy, her black hair always smoothly coiled and queenly, kneeled by the bath, wearing a rubber apron, and holding the kicking child. Her husband stood holding the towels and the flannels to warm. Louisa, too cross to share in the joy of the baby’s bath, was laying the table. The boy was hanging on the door-knob, wrestling with it to get out. His father looked round.
‘Come away from the door, Jack,’ he said, ineffectually. Jack tugged harder at the knob as if he did not hear. Mr Massy blinked at him.
‘He must come away from the door, Mary,’ he said. ‘There will be a draught if it is opened.’
‘Jack, come away from the door, dear,’ said the mother, dexterously turning the shiny wet baby on to her towelled knee, then glancing round: ‘Go and tell Auntie Louisa about the train.’
Louisa, also afraid to open the door, was watching the scene on the hearth. Mr Massy stood holding the baby’s flannel, as if assisting at some ceremonial. If everybody had not been subduedly angry, it would have been ridiculous.
‘I want to see out of the window,’ Jack said. His father turned hastily.
‘Do you mind lifting him on to a chair, Louisa,’ said Mary hastily. The father was too delicate.
When the baby was flannelled, Mr Massy went upstairs and returned with four pillows, which he set in the fender to warm. Then he stood watching the mother feed her child, obsessed by the idea of his infant.
Louisa went on with her preparations for the meal. She could not have told why she was so sullenly angry. Mrs Lindley, as usual, lay silently watching.
Mary carried her child upstairs, followed by her husband with the pillows. After a while he came down again.
‘What is Mary doing? Why doesn’t she come down to eat?’ asked Mrs Lindley.
‘She is staying with baby. The room is rather cold. I will ask the girl to put in a fire.’ He was going absorbedly to the door.
‘But Mary has had nothing to eat. It is she who will catch cold,’ said the mother, exasperated.
Mr Massy seemed as if he did not hear. Yet he looked at his mother-in-law, and answered:
‘I will take her something.’
He went out. Mrs Lindley shifted on her couch with anger. Miss Louisa glowered. But no one said anything, because of the money that came to the vicarage from Mr Massy.
Louisa went upstairs. Her sister was sitting by the bed, reading a scrap of paper.
‘Won’t you come down and eat?’ the younger asked.
‘In a moment or two
,’ Mary replied, in a quiet, reserved voice, that forbade anyone to approach her.
It was this that made Miss Louisa most furious. She went downstairs, and announced to her mother:
‘I am going out. I may not be home to tea.’
VIII
No one remarked on her exit. She put on her fur hat, that the village people knew so well, and the old Norfolk jacket. Louisa was short and plump and plain. She had her mother’s heavy jaw, her father’s proud brow, and her own grey, brooding eyes that were very beautiful when she smiled. It was true, as the people said, that she looked sulky. Her chief attraction was her glistening, heavy, deep-blonde hair, which shone and gleamed with a richness that was not entirely foreign to her.
‘Where am I going?’ she said to herself, when she got outside in the snow. She did not hesitate, however, but by mechanical walking found herself descending the hill towards Old Aldecross. In the valley that was black with trees, the colliery breathed in stertorous pants, sending out high conical columns of steam that remained upright, whiter than the snow on the hills, yet shadowy, in the dead air. Louisa would not acknowledge to herself whither she was making her way, till she came to the railway crossing. Then the bunches of snow in the twigs of the apple tree that leaned towards the fence told her she must go and see Mrs Durant. The tree was in Mrs Durant’s garden.
Alfred was now at home again, living with his mother in the cottage below the road. From the highway hedge, by the railway crossing, the snowy garden sheered down steeply, like the side of a hole, then dropped straight in a wall. In this depth the house was snug, its chimney just level with the road. Miss Louisa descended the stone stairs, and stood below in the little backyard, in the dimness and the semi-secrecy. A big tree leaned overhead, above the paraffin hut. Louisa felt secure from all the world down there. She knocked at the open door, then looked round. The tongue of garden narrowing in from the quarry bed was white with snow: she thought of the thick fringes of snowdrops it would show beneath the currant bushes in a month’s time. The ragged fringe of pinks hanging over the garden brim behind her was whitened now with snow-flakes, that in summer held white blossom to Louisa’s face. It was pleasant, she thought, to gather flowers that stooped to one’s face from above.
She knocked again. Peeping in, she saw the scarlet glow of the kitchen, red firelight falling on the brick floor and on the bright chintz cushions. It was alive and bright as a peep-show. She crossed the scullery, where still an almanac hung. There was no one about. ‘Mrs Durant,’ called Louisa softly, ‘Mrs Durant.’
She went up the brick step into the front room, that still had its little shop counter and its bundles of goods, and she called from the stair-foot. Then she knew Mrs Durant was out.
She went into the yard to follow the old woman’s footsteps up the garden path.
She emerged from the bushes and raspberry canes. There was the whole quarry bed, a wide garden white and dimmed, brindled with dark bushes, lying half submerged. On the left, overhead, the little colliery train rumbled by. Right away at the back was a mass of trees.
Louisa followed the open path, looking from right to left, and then she gave a cry of concern. The old woman was sitting rocking slightly among the ragged snowy cabbages. Louisa ran to her, found her whimpering with little, involuntary cries.
‘Whatever have you done?’ cried Louisa, kneeling in the snow.
‘I’ve – I’ve – I was pulling a brussel-sprout stalk – and – oh-h! – something tore inside me. I’ve had a pain,’ the old woman wept from shock and suffering, gasping between her whimpers, – ‘I’ve had a pain there – a long time – and now – oh – oh!’ She panted, pressed her hand on her side, leaned as if she would faint, looking yellow against the snow. Louisa supported her.
‘Do you think you could walk now?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ gasped the old woman.
Louisa helped her to her feet.
‘Get the cabbage – I want it for Alfred’s dinner,’ panted Mrs Durant. Louisa picked up the stalk of brussel-sprouts, and with difficulty got the old woman indoors. She gave her brandy, laid her on the couch, saying:
‘I’m going to send for a doctor – wait just a minute.’
The young woman ran up the steps to the public-house a few yards away. The landlady was astonished to see Miss Louisa.
‘Will you send for a doctor at once to Mrs Durant,’ she said, with some of her father in her commanding tone.
‘Is something the matter?’ fluttered the landlady in concern.
Louisa, glancing out up the road, saw the grocer’s cart driving to Eastwood. She ran and stopped the man, and told him.
Mrs Durant lay on the sofa, her face turned away, when the young woman came back.
‘Let me put you to bed,’ Louisa said. Mrs Durant did not resist.
Louisa knew the ways of the working people. In the bottom drawer of the dresser she found dusters and flannels. With the old pit-flannel she snatched out the oven shelves, wrapped them up, and put them in the bed. From the son’s bed she took a blanket, and, running down, set it before the fire. Having undressed the little old woman, Louisa carried her upstairs.
‘You’ll drop me, you’ll drop me!’ cried Mrs Durant.
Louisa did not answer, but bore her burden quickly. She could not light a fire, because there was no fire-place in the bedroom. And the floor was plaster. So she fetched the lamp, and stood it lighted in one corner.
‘It will air the room,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ moaned the old woman.
Louisa ran with more hot flannels, replacing those from the oven shelves. Then she made a bran-bag and laid it on the woman’s side. There was a big lump on the side of the abdomen.
‘I’ve felt it coming a long time,’ moaned the old lady, when the pain was easier, ‘but I’ve not said anything; I didn’t want to upset our Alfred.’
Louisa did not see why ‘our Alfred’ should be spared.
‘What time is it?’ came the plaintive voice.
‘A quarter to four.’
‘Oh!’ wailed the old lady, ‘he’ll be here in half an hour, and no dinner ready for him.’
‘Let me do it?’ said Louisa, gently.
‘There’s that cabbage – and you’ll find the meat in the pantry – and there’s an apple pie you can hot up. But don’t you do it—!’
‘Who will, then?’ asked Louisa.
‘I don’t know,’ moaned the sick woman, unable to consider.
Louisa did it. The doctor came and gave serious examination. He looked very grave.
‘What is it, doctor?’ asked the old lady, looking up at him with old, pathetic eyes in which already hope was dead.
‘I think you’ve torn the skin in which a tumour hangs,’ he replied.
‘Ay!’ she murmured, and she turned away.
‘You see, she may die any minute – and it may be swaled away,’ said the old doctor to Louisa.
The young woman went upstairs again.
‘He says the lump may be swaled away, and you may get quite well again,’ she said.
‘Ay!’ murmured the old lady. It did not deceive her. Presently she asked:
‘Is there a good fire?’
‘I think so,’ answered Louisa.
‘He’ll want a good fire,’ the mother said. Louisa attended to it.
Since the death of Durant, the widow had come to church occasionally, and Louisa had been friendly to her. In the girl’s heart the purpose was fixed. No man had affected her as Alfred Durant had done, and to that she kept. In her heart, she adhered to him. A natural sympathy existed between her and his rather hard, materialistic mother.
Alfred was the most lovable of the old woman’s sons. He had grown up like the rest, however, headstrong and blind to everything but his own will. Like the other boys, he had insisted on going into the pit as soon as he left school, because that was the only way speedily to become a man, level with all the other men. This was a great chagrin to his mother, who would have li
ked to have this last of her sons a gentleman.
But still he remained constant to her. His feeling for her was deep and unexpressed. He noticed when she was tired, or when she had a new cap. And he bought little things for her occasionally. She was not wise enough to see how much he lived by her.
At the bottom he did not satisfy her, he did not seem manly enough. He liked to read books occasionally, and better still he liked to play the piccolo. It amused her to see his head nod over the instrument as he made an effort to get the right note. It made her fond of him, with tenderness, almost pity, but not with respect. She wanted a man to be fixed, going his own way without knowledge of women. Whereas she knew Alfred depended on her. He sang in the choir because he liked singing. In the summer he worked in the garden, attended to the fowls and pigs. He kept pigeons. He played on Saturday in the cricket or football team. But to her he did not seem the man, the independent man her other boys had been. He was her baby – and whilst she loved him for it, she was a little bit contemptuous of him.
There grew up a little hostility between them. Then he began to drink, as the others had done; but not in their blind, oblivious way. He was a little self-conscious over it. She saw this, and she pitied it in him. She loved him most, but she was not satisfied with him because he was not free of her. He could not quite go his own way.
Then at twenty he ran away and served his time in the Navy. This made a man of him. He had hated it bitterly, the service, the subordination. For years he fought with himself under the military discipline, for his own self-respect, struggling through blind anger and shame and a cramping sense of inferiority. Out of humiliation and self-hatred, he rose into a sort of inner freedom. And his love for his mother, whom he idealised, remained the fact of hope and of belief.
The Penguin Book of the British Short Story, Volume 1 Page 71
