The things which belong—

by Constance Holme

V

WITH the smile still on her lips, Mattie turned herself round and went back into the kitchen. Dick was a grumpy old thing, she thought cheerfully, and, like many other old people, firmly convinced that his dismal view of life was the only possible one. But she could not help feeling sorry that he had gone away in a rage. On a day that should have been joy from dawn to set, she did not like to think that she had had even the shadow of a dispute with such an old acquaintance.

She would miss Dick’s constant visits when she had got to the other side, his grumpiness and his whistle, and his rough, outspoken comments. It would be a bit of a nuisance, too, to have to get used to dealing with new tradespeople. Shopfolk took a lot of getting to know, wherever you happened to be, but she had long since got the better of hers. The grocer would never dream, nowadays, of sending her any but the right bacon, the right sugar, the right tea. As for the butcher, he had long ago given up trying to palm off on her any piece of meat except the one that she happened to ask for. It was a triumph to have got as far as that with a butcher, as anybody could tell you, and one that could hardly be achieved twice within the limits of a lifetime. She had a distinct feeling of dismay when she thought of having to start again with a fresh butcher.

Ellen’s packet was still in her hand, and she stood looking down at it without attempting to open it. For the first time in her life she had not been altogether pleased to see Ellen’s handwriting, and she could not understand it. At sight of it she had had a sensation of interference affecting her almost to physical recoil. She had been so near to her children during the night that a message arriving so soon afterwards seemed bound to break the spell. Nor was the position bettered by the fact that the packet should have reached her the day before. There was something casual yet calculated about its coming this morning which seemed to jar the serene procession of ordained events. Ellen ought to have known, she found herself saying senselessly, that after last night there was no need to keep sending packets any more.

It was a photograph that she held, she felt sure of that, and one for which she had long been waiting. Among the many snapshots arriving year by year there had never been one of Ellen, arm in arm with a husband, or half hidden behind a baby. She had never “taken” well, even in her youth, and, once over the water, had firmly refused to be “taken” at all. Always she had resisted her mother’s demands in that light, laughing way of hers which seemed to bring her so closely to you. No photograph, so Mattie had often felt, could possibly seem more real than the Ellen who came to you with her letters.

She had continued to ask for one, nevertheless, and at long last had come the news that it would shortly be forthcoming. Ellen had written an amusing account of her visit to the photographer’s and of her sufferings during the proceedings. The result, however, it seemed, had been an unexpected success, and should presently be forwarded to her mother. Mattie had watched for that precious packet as a hen waits and watches for a hatching chicken. She could not have been more thrilled, she sometimes thought, if it had been Ellen herself who was coming through the post!

That excitement had paled now beside the vividness of the dream, as well as the greater interest of the new position. She looked at the parcel with indifference, almost with dislike ... certainly with impatience, as at a thing come at the wrong time. She would open it later on, she said to herself, as she laid it down, and returned with a lightened heart to her measuring of the dresser.

Passing from that to other even more entrancing speculations, she was soon wrapped again in the atmosphere which Dick and the packet between them had temporarily dispelled. She forgot them both as she toiled and planned, stopping every now and then to remember Kirkby’s dinner. Strung up though she was, and therefore sensitive to the least touch of trouble, she was still too high on the wave of success to be disheartened for long together.

Even when she had begun her absurd game with the furniture, that childish but charming pretence in the midst of which Machell had come upon her, she had not remembered the photograph. Moving again in the dream, she was able to turn even blocks of wood into the dear ones who had peopled it, so that they could scarcely have been more real to her if they had been present in the flesh. The little stool in her arms had held the warmth of a living child; the grandfather’s clock had been more surely Ellen than the packet she had put away.

The sight of Machell smiling in at the door had no power to disillusion her. Machell did not annoy her, as Dick had done, by over-cocksure assertions that it was now too late to change. On the contrary, he was full of encouragement and congratulation, and anxious to know her plans. You would almost have thought, she said to herself, chuckling, that he was as glad of the move to Canada as she was herself!

Her spirits mounted still further as the sun mounted, and the day grew in clarity and beauty. Like all country-bred folk, she was susceptible to the influence of the weather, even when she was not consciously aware of it. Even when she was most withdrawn in mind from the atmosphere around her, she was still swayed by its many changes. The coming-out of the sun was a trumpet-call to her vitality, even if the note that it sounded was one of clamorous rebellion. A grey day had the power to chill her passion almost to fainting, even if neither it nor any other-coloured day was able to slay it altogether.

In her state of heightened sensibility she could not have failed to notice the conditions about her, but there was a good deal more to it than that. The miraculous way in which the barriers between herself and the place seemed to have broken down continued to surprise her. Now, when she looked out, she had a distinct sensation of pleasure, as well as that warmth of recognition which comes from loved association. It seemed impossible to her now that she could ever have regarded her home with horror and dislike. The garden walls and the paths gave her a sense of satisfaction which seemed to have the satisfaction of many years behind it. The tree-tops against the sky produced a thrill of joy suggesting a long chain of similarly sweet moments.

It was the same with the house, which she had so long thought of as a prison, and which had suddenly become a place of pleasantness and peace. For the first time in forty years she realised it as peculiarly and joyfully her own. She felt an impulse to sing as she saw the sunlight lying across the kitchen floor. Up in her bedroom the flowered wallpaper was printed with memories, like a book.

She did not know whether to be glad or sorry about the change, but it continued to amaze her. She tested it, as she had tested her sudden view of the privet hedge, and found that it stood it, as the privet hedge had stood it. Room after room she found rich and filled with the actual makings of her life. Each time that she went to window or house-door, she saw the view before her shine and smile.

It was while she was standing at the door during one of these pauses for mingled puzzle and rest that she saw Mrs. Machell coming across the gardens. Mrs. Machell was a plump little woman, full of bustle and talk, but there was a lilt about her to-day which she had never hitherto noticed. Also she looked from side to side of her as she came, as if the place interested her more than usual. The spring must have got into Mrs. Machell’s blood, Mattie thought, adding the head-turning and the lilt to the rest of her new puzzle.

It was some time, however, before the visitor actually reached the house. Coming upon Len at work among the raspberry canes, she stopped to talk to him, and they stood laughing and chatting together for several minutes. Mattie frowned a little as she watched them, seeing the fine spring day going and Kirkby’s best workman idling. But she was still too happy to be annoyed by a thing which, after all, was hardly within her province, and she had nothing but smiles for Len’s wife when she finally approached her.

“It was good of you to come,” she began blithely, as she led the way into the kitchen. “I didn’t look for you so soon. There’s not that much doing, yet awhile, of course, but I’m fair aching for someone to talk to!”

Mrs. Machell laughed as she looked about her at the chaotic state of things which had so disgusted Kirkby. She was a fine, bright little thing, Mattie thought, and Joe might have done worse than marry her. Her cheeks were still fresh, and the gold of her hair shone as she took off her hat in a business-like manner. She was the same age as Joe, too, which meant a couple of years older than Ellen.... Mattie joined in the laugh with the heartiness of the excellent housewife who for once in a lifetime is found wanting.

“Ay, it looks like it, I’m sure,” she agreed, in reply to Mrs. Machell’s remark that at all events there seemed plenty to be going on with. “I’ll be right grateful if you’ll help me to put things straight. Kirkby was that sick about ’em at dinner, it fair went to your heart to see him! A man minds a house being pulled about a deal more than a woman.”

“They do that!” Dolly Machell nodded wisely. “They make as much noise about it as a dog being skifted from its kennel. I daren’t so much as move a chair in our spot but Len’s as uneasy as an earthquake!”

Mattie felt a prick in her pride that an under-gardener should presume to indulge in the same idiosyncrasies as distinguished Kirkby, but she covered it hastily. “Ay, well, men must be men,” she returned kindly, generously admitting Len into at least that one category.

“I’d a feeling I must be doing something right off,” she went on, conscious that the general upset needed some explanation. “Of course, I know it’s over early yet to be arranging about the sale, but it won’t be trouble wasted. I know a deal better where I am than when I started in at things, this morning.”

Mrs. Machell stole a glance at her in the chair into which she had sunk after taking her visitor into the kitchen. Mattie was hardly conscious that she had sat down, or that she was beginning to feel the effects of the work and excitement of the morning. But to Mrs. Machell weariness was written plain in the lines of her flushed face and the droop of her broad shoulders. Loose strands of her hair were straying wildly across her forehead. Her hands, resting heavily in her lap, looked older than the rest of her.

“Then you’re really thinking of leaving, Mrs. Kirkby?” Dolly asked, with a casualness assumed to hide an inward tremor. “Len said it was as certain as rent-day, but I said I didn’t believe it.”

There came over Mattie the same reluctance to commit herself to a definite statement as she had felt when Dick’s hinting had put a similar question. Indeed, now that she came to think of it, she had not been definite even with Len. He had assumed certain things, that was all, and she had allowed him to assume them. It was only to herself and to Kirkby that she had so far put into straight words the great fact of their going.

“Well, it looks like it, I’ll give you that!” she answered good-temperedly, though with a touch of discomfort. “I’ll admit it looks like it.... But I don’t know that it does to go shouting things out over soon. There’s some think you’ll likely spoil your luck that way if you’re not careful.”

Dolly looked a little disconcerted for a moment, and then laughed brightly.

“Ay, well, we’ll pretend it’s true, shall we?” she said cheerfully. “Just make a game of it? That can’t spoil your luck! We’ll pretend you’re off to Canada, though you’re stopping on just as usual.”

“That’s it!” Mattie said, in a tone of obvious relief. “We’ll just pretend.... Well, then, my lass, if you want to know, we’re thinking of getting away by nigh on the first boat that can take us.”

“Eh, now, if that isn’t news!” Dolly played up promptly, for all the world as if she had never heard a suggestion of such a thing until that moment. Her face glowed as she spoke, and a faint astonishment took Mattie, as it had taken her with Len, that anybody else should care so much about the project....

“But you can’t get away that soon, can you?” the younger woman went on. “There’s your notice to give in, and folks to tell on the other side. You’ll be having a sale, you said; there’ll be that to settle. And likely there’ll be a thing or two you’ll be wanting for the journey.”

Mattie felt a fresh twinge of surprise at this smart summary of her private business, together with a twinge of uneasiness as she remembered the Hall letter. Kirkby must be reminded about it, she thought, the moment he came in.... But she forgot it again instantly as she began a recital of her plans, her hot face growing hotter, and her hands moving restlessly. The future became more and more real to her as she talked, just as it had been made more real by the mere moving of the furniture. She found herself telling Dolly not only about the measuring and the packing, but about the conditions and people awaiting her over the water. She was not always quite certain whether what she was relating existed in point of fact or only in last night’s dream, but it did not matter. Such discrepancies as there might be counted for nothing in the main immensity of her statement.

Dolly made the most satisfying listener that anybody could desire, her own hands twitching and her own eyes shining. “It’s like a fairy-story, I’m sure!” she declared, when at last the other, short of further facts for the time being, was beginning to repeat herself. “I’ve heard a deal about Canada, one way and another. My cousin, Jessie Bowness married, this last year, and went out to the same part as your Ellen.”

“Oh, ay?” Mattie replied indifferently, getting somewhat heavily to her feet. “Help me shove this cupboard back again where it come from, there’s a good lass.”

“She lives near Ellen an’ all,” Dolly went on, setting her sturdy little shoulder to the cupboard. “She’s moved there just lately. She doesn’t see much of her, she says, as they’re both so throng, but she sends me news of her every now and then.”

Mattie said, “Oh, ay?” again, as some answer seemed to be needed, but every letter of the little phrase bristled defensively. She had the same impression of interference as at the sight of Ellen’s packet, the same sensitive fear of being twisted from her path.... “Lend me a hand with this table now,” she continued quickly, hoping that Dolly’s cousin Jessie might drop out of the conversation.

But Dolly had no intention of parting with such an asset until she had added her utmost to the interest of the occasion. She was too much absorbed by her own prospects to be greatly aware of another person’s reactions, as well as too highly excited to refrain from talking. Moreover, she thought in all innocence that Mrs. Kirkby would be only too glad to listen to anything that she could tell her about Canada. Her cousin Jessie, therefore, was so much present with them during the afternoon, that it seemed to Mattie sometimes she had only to turn herself about in order to see her.

“Jessie isn’t best suited with Canada,” Dolly said, when the table had been restored to its place, and the articles which usually reposed upon it had returned to grace it. “She says it’s so different.”

“Different to what?” Mattie enquired, affecting obtuseness from a growing sense of annoyance. “I don’t rightly follow.”

“Different to England, she means, and the things she’s been used to, over here. She says there’s times she feels she might as well be in the moon, it’s all so strange.”

“Well, and why shouldn’t it be?” Mattie returned, slapping down a book with unnecessary vehemence, and then discovering it to be Kirkby’s mother’s Bible. “It’s like to be different, isn’t it, seeing it started a deal later?”

“Ay, I told her that when she was complaining about folks being scattered about like except when you got to the big cities. But Jessie was always the sort that liked a crowd, even if it meant sitting on other folks’ knees or sleeping three in a bed.... But it isn’t only that,” she continued, when she and Mattie between them had removed the packing-case from the larder. “There’s the climate as well. She says it’s that cold in the winter you could get yourself frozen stiff before you’d know anything about it.”

“I reckon I’d know all right, anyhow,” Mattie retorted grimly, although not without an inward qualm. Her particular brand of rheumatism, acquired by a lifetime spent in damp gardens, was peculiarly if incongruously susceptible to frost. “Ay, and if I was getting melted, either, come to that!”

“Then there’s the houses,” Dolly said, her plump hands busy all the time clearing and straightening. “You should just hear her about the houses! Them sort, you know, made of bits of wood, as you build yourself? Hen-hulls, Jessie says they are,—hen-hulls and nothing else!”

The elder woman felt a cold wrath take possession of her as she heard the precious house of her dream described in this derogatory manner. If Dolly’s cousin Jessie had indeed been present at that moment, it would doubtless have gone hard with her. As she was not, Mattie was forced to content herself with glaring across the kitchen at Dolly, who, however, was busy putting a drawer in the dresser to rights, and could not see her.

“No place to swing a cat, Jessie says, and that ugly an’ all! She says she’d give the eyes out of her head for a nice bit of mortared stone. ‘Something like that grand cottage of Mrs. Kirkby’s,’ she says, ‘up at the gardens at the Hall.’ I once brought her up here on a message or something, if you remember, and she was that taken with this spot there was no holding her.”

Mattie did not remember, as it happened, and was, at that moment, as far as it was possible to be from wishing to remember. Her exasperation at the onslaughts of Dolly’s cousin Jessie was only to be measured by her growing sense of helplessness in face of them. She had, however, just discovered something to say that might possibly put her out of court for good and all, when Dolly, passing to another drawer, flowed steadily onward.

“As for the folks out there, she hasn’t a good word to say for them, home or foreign! A lot of bounders, she says,—barring always your folks, you’ll understand, Mrs. Kirkby. The shop-folk, Jessie says, are that impudent she can bare bring herself to speak to them. Talk to you like as if they’d known you all your life, and call you ‘my dear’ as soon as look at you!”

“I’d like to hear anybody calling me ‘my dear’ before I had asked ’em for it!” Mattie said furiously, fingering a tea-cup with such fierceness that she broke the handle. The retainers connected with a big house have always a curious sense of being a species apart, and in spite of her rebellion she was not immune from it.

“Likely Jessie did ask for it,” Dolly said soothingly, though without turning to look at her. “I always thought her a bit free.... But the things she says about the folks as belong are nothing to what she says about the folks out from England. They fair ruin the place, she says—barring always your belongings, Mrs. Kirkby, as I said before. They’re that stuck up, she says, each of ’em trying to best the rest, that you’d fair bust out laughing if you didn’t feel that mad at ’em. I reckon Jessie’s done her bit of sticking up as well, and it didn’t come off, and that’s what makes her so wild.”

“I don’t know why any of them should be stuck up, I’m sure,” Mattie burst out before she had time to think,—“folks as didn’t make good over here, and thought another country’d likely do the job!”

“Why, that’s what Jessie says, Mrs. Kirkby!” Dolly said, looking at her now, and with definite surprise. “Leaving their country for their country’s good, is how she puts it. But I didn’t look to hear you saying the same, and with your folks doing so well an’ all!

“Some on ’em,” she continued, before Mattie could find breath to speak again, “make out they were that swell at home you’d likely think as they’d have brought their coronets with them! There’s some Madisons, she says, from over Witham way, as is that full of themselves they can hardly walk. They tell folks they had a big farm over here, with a pedigree herd of the best; whereas everybody knows they had nothing but a milk-round as was more like a water-round, by a deal!”

But Mattie had had more than she could bear for the time being of Jessie’s depressing reflections. A fresh picture of Canada was forming before her eyes, blotting out the fine-hued image which she had made for her own enchantment. Already its glamour was blurred beneath Jessie’s touch, as frost-traceries are blurred by the rub of a rough finger. She was appalled, too, by her sudden, contemptuous speech, with its astonishing infidelity to her past beliefs. She had always thought of the Canadian adventurers by the brave title of pioneers, and would have been proud to have made one of their gallant company. It seemed the last treachery of all that she should have nursed that subtle contempt, so that in a moment of idle annoyance it might set a sneer upon her lips.

With a brusque movement she put an end both to Mrs. Machell’s monologue and to her final dealings with the dresser.

“Let’s get at t’ parlour now, if you don’t mind,” she said, bustling before her into the dismantled room. She was now just as anxious to get the house put back to rights as she had wanted, earlier on, to pull it all to pieces. Subconsciously she was thinking that, when the place was tidy again, the trouble that was growing in her mind might possibly smooth out, too....

The two women had a pleasant hour together arranging the little-used furniture, over which they spent more time than was necessary out of sheer enjoyment. Mattie found Mrs. Machell an entranced auditor as she dwelt upon its merits, pointing out its beauty of shape or gloss or the elegance of its handles. Pictures and vases had their histories related at full length, succeeded by records of clocks and epics of antimacassars. Dolly fingered and valued, praised and exclaimed, wondering to herself all the time how many of the precious objects would come her way at the sale.

“I’ll have a bad time, I doubt, before I’ve settled what we’re to take!” Mattie laughed, handling her treasures more and more fondly under Dolly’s appreciation. “I thought I’d hardened my heart to part with some of them, this morning, but now that I’m looking at ’em again, I’m not so sure! There’s no sense, though, in taking a chair-leg more than we’re obliged. It’ll cost enough, as it is. I doubt, anyhow, I’ll have to make up my mind to leave pictures and knick-knacks behind.”

Dolly’s heart leaped as she looked at a pair of bright pink vases, trimmed with an excellent imitation of sugar icing, seeing them already as her very own.

“Photo-frames and such-like won’t pay for the taking, either,” Mattie was saying hesitatingly, “though wild horses ’emselves wouldn’t make me part with the photos. I’ve a regular stack of ’em as They’ve sent me, year in and year out, especially of the children. Some folks’d say it was nonsense taking photos along when you’re going to see the folks themselves, but I’ve grown that used to them I’ve got to have them.”

She remembered now that she had not yet spent the hour with the grandchildren which she had promised herself earlier, and proceeded to take it, setting them forth to Dolly with that sense of proud showmanship which the first generation almost invariably seems to feel towards the third. It was impossible to believe, listening to her vivid description of its looks and ways, that she had never yet set eyes upon a single member of it. Smiling and happy, she had found for herself again that first ecstasy which she had felt upon awakening from her dream. Canada was again what she had thought it to be, as she laughed and talked, wearing always that inward look of those who ponder upon hidden treasure.

“Luke’s youngest, they say, is as like me as a couple of peas, and Joe’s second takes after Kirkby. He’s a bit darker, perhaps, and he’s brown eyes instead of blue, but there’s no mistaking where he comes from, either in looks or manners. Little Eric, they call him, after his mother’s father, though I don’t know why they need go out of the family when there’s so many good names shouting. I’m right set upon little Eric.... Maggie’s May frames something grand at the piano, and Ellen’s Sally shapes to have a voice.... Luke’s eldest’s getting on for twelve, and can manage a motor-mower ... leastways, they say he can, though I doubt they’re putting it on.”

“Jessie can’t abide Canadian children,” Dolly cut in, introducing that unpleasant person for the first time into the parlour. “Real nasty about ’em, she is. She couldn’t abide English children, either, if it comes to that, judging from what parents and such-like used to say about her when she taught school. But Canadian children, she says, are that uppish and wild there’s no doing anything with them. Like savages, you’d think they were, if you swallowed everything you heard from Jessie. Fine children to look at, she says, and healthy and all that; but that noisy and full of beans they fair make an English person tired.”

Mattie had a horrid vision of a narrow and crowded house, with Kirkby and herself hemmed in by leaping, shouting children. She herself had once rather rejoiced in noise, though Kirkby had always hated it; but she was not so sure now that, after all these years of silence, she would not hate it, too. Luke had two other boys besides young Joe of the motor-mower, as well as a little girl just over a year old. He was fond of company, too, and was never so happy as when extending hospitality. Also he had that piano, she remembered with dismay, upon which both relatives and friends came eagerly to practise....

The homes of the younger children had nothing better to offer, for they, too, had growing families, and in even smaller houses. It was true that she and Kirkby would have their own home before so long, but she could not think of it now with her early happy passion. It seemed vulnerable to her now, and no longer a haven of contentment. For the first time in her life she saw the good stone walls of her English cottage as a frame for privacy and peace.

“Jessie says Canadian children aren’t children as we know ’em,” Dolly was saying blandly. “She says they grow up that fast it’s hard to remember they’ve ever even been babies. They’re grown folks, she says, before you can hardly turn round, same as that fine lad of Luke’s you said could manage a motor. I reckon you’ll be surprised, Mrs. Kirkby, by the time you get there, to find how they’ve all come on.”

Mattie turned to the door with the same sharp movement with which she had endeavoured to rid herself of Jessie in the kitchen. That last stroke of hers, dealt through Dolly’s innocent tongue, had gone a great deal nearer home than she cared to realise. Like most grandmothers, she had thought of the children as children only, hardly believing that in the future they would be grown-up people. And especially she had thought of little Eric as remaining always little Eric.... Yet already, as she remembered, a year had passed since they had sent her his last picture. By the time she got out to him, she reflected grimly, he, too, might have risen to the dignity of the motor-mower!

“Time we were having tea,” she said firmly, waving Dolly before her through the door. “You’ll be wanting it, I’m sure. As for me, I’m that worn out with all that shoving and siding, I could do with a dozen teas instead of one!”

Back in the kitchen, however, she was diverted by still another matter, which kept the tea waiting a little longer. Going to a cupboard in the wall, she opened the door and stood looking at its contents.

“I can’t make up my mind what to do about my jam,” she said, as Dolly joined her. “It fair goes to my heart to leave it. Yet it seems silly, doesn’t it, to go hugging jam-pots and such-like across the ocean? I doubt it’ll have to be put in the sale.”

“Folks’ll be fighting like cats for it, if it is!” Dolly laughed, peering admiringly round her shoulder. Even at this time of the year the shelves were still half-filled with rows of glistening jars, making, with their white caps topping their coloured bodies, a smart and polished regiment. “It’s a long while back since I first heard tell there was nothing to beat your jam.”

Mattie looked pleased, and her voice lost the rather dull tone which had suddenly come into it since her late depression in the parlour.

“Well, I’ve always prided myself on getting it just so,” she said, eyeing the glories of the cupboard proudly. “It’s been my hobby, as you might say. Getting the best of everything, that’s the secret,—the best fruit and the best sugar, and making sure of the boiling. Not but what like enough there’s a knack to it as well, same as there is for making butter and setting hens.”

She ran her hand fondly over the white paper carpet above which the jams glowed like so many jewels, the raspberries looking like pressed garnets against the prison of their glass, and the red currant and apple jellies gleaming like ruby and yellow topaz.

“There’s plenty to go at yet, as you can see, even though we’re well past the turn of the year. I always make a fairish amount, in case we get a bad year after a good one. ’Tisn’t as if my jam wouldn’t keep; in a good season, I reckon, it’d keep till the Day of Judgment!... This shelf’s near all rasps, and that’s apricot and a bit of marrow. There’s some blackberry jelly behind, and a taste of wineberry. We haven’t a deal of gooseberry and rhubarb, but there’s a lot of plum. That pot or two of black currant is just for when Kirkby gets a cough; and here’s where I keep my Best Strawberry.”

The red had come into Dolly’s face as she looked, gloating over the housewife’s riches with honest pleasure. Catching her breath a little as Mattie stopped, she broke into quick speech.

“Likely you’ll know, Mrs. Kirkby, what we’re hoping’ll come to Len? Mr. Kirkby was right kind when he spoke about it, this morning. It’s early days to be talking, perhaps, but I thought you wouldn’t mind....”

Mattie took her hand away from the shining pot which she was stroking as a man strokes the glossy coat of a horse, and looked round slowly. “Talking about what?” she enquired, looking at the colour in Dolly’s face, and then away again.

“About Len applying for head place, if Mr. Kirkby gives up,” Dolly said, growing more and more nervous with every second. “I shouldn’t have said anything, perhaps, but I thought you’d be sure to know.”

For quite a long time Mattie was silent from sheer surprise, not so much at Dolly’s announcement as at her own reception of it. No more than to Kirkby had it occurred to her to speculate as to his probable successor, but if ever she had arrived at speculation, she would have been certain that it would not trouble her. Yet here she was filled with anger and scorn, not only on Kirkby’s account, but actually on her own! Len’s reaching out for the gardens which she had always hated should have been nothing to her, by rights; yet the very suggestion had set her seething with injured pride and pain.

“Nay, I’ve heard nothing about it, not I,” she managed to get out presently, trying to keep out of her voice her conviction that Len was an impudent monkey and a robber. “But he’ll be as likely as anybody, I should say, if it comes to choosing.”

Dolly’s face glowed at this grudging praise, and she went forward with fresh confidence.

“That’s right good of you, Mrs. Kirkby, seeing it’s your own business we’re after. I shouldn’t have mentioned it but for the jam. But I’d be glad, if you’re selling, to take some of it over before the sale——”

She stopped as Mattie put out her arms again towards the shelves in a gesture which she could not interpret, but which was, as a matter of fact, a gesture of protection. Now it was Dolly as well as Len who seemed a thief, stretching out greedy hands to her own most precious belongings. She saw her moving about her home, sitting in her chairs, walking in the cool of the evening in her sacred garden. Her heart rose against her in a rage of distress which almost threatened to choke her. At that moment she could have driven the other woman from the house with blows....

With agitated movements she began to push the jars as far back on their shelves as they would go, thrusting them out of sight and danger like a hen protecting her chickens. She closed the door with a bang, and snapped the lock with a click; and then, normal again with the shutting away of the threatened treasure, turned to Dolly, smiling.

“Ay, well, we’ll talk about that later, when we’ve got things settled. Now I’m wanting my tea. Fill kettle and boil it, will you, while I set the cloth?... We’re taking this over seriously,” she added, with a laugh, “and forgetting it’s just pretence!”

Dolly laughed, too, not only in polite recognition of the assumption with which they had started out, but because she felt relieved. There had been a strong feeling of tension in the air as they stood before the cupboard, and she was glad to get away from it. For the first time it crossed her kindly, unthinking little mind that things might have been better conducted, that afternoon....

But she was soon at her ease again when they were seated at their meal, pleasantly conscious, as they kept telling each other, laughing, how well they had earned it. Her confidence returned, which had so nearly been shattered by the episode of the jam, and she let herself babble freely. Mattie found herself listening with interest to local gossip, and giving fervent attention to the local scandals. Hitherto she had never cared a rap what happened in the hamlet, and could only conclude that this was one of the many changes which had come upon her to-day.

She had sworn to herself that she would not mention Canada again, but before they were half-way through the meal she had broken her intention. By the time she had poured the second cups of tea she was gone abroad, taking an interested Dolly with her. Seated at a cottage tea-table, they were yet gold-seekers and explorers, game-hunters in the Rockies, and adventurers shooting the rapids. Their lungs were braced by the air of the Strong Country, and its distances lightened their eyes. The wind that blows over the prairies filled and freshened the little room.

“I’d a dream about it, last night,” Mattie said presently, reverting to that solemn and lovely subject a little shyly. “I was There, just as I’m here now, and with none of that nasty crossing. I saw the places and the folks and the insides of the houses.... And everything was as nice as could be, in spite of your cousin Jessie!”

With her own lips she had invoked the demon of the situation, and instantly it was at grips with her. Dolly, dashed by the sense of insecurity which had alarmed her before tea, had kept a guard on her tongue as soon as Canada was mentioned. But now Mattie, of her own accord, had raised that guard, and she rushed in briskly.

“Jessie wouldn’t know a nice spot if it up and told her about it,” she said gaily. “She was always a wet blanket.... But they’ll get the surprise of their lives when they hear you’re coming, Mrs. Kirkby. Jessie says they’ve all of ’em given up hopes of it long ago.”

A sudden quiet seemed to fall and envelop Mattie, a quiet which spread and spread and travelled over the kitchen. After a long moment—“Who told her they’d given up hope?” she enquired, stilly.

“Ellen told her herself,” Mrs. Machell replied, uneasily conscious that the tension was returning. “‘Father’ll be getting past it, is what she says, and I reckon so will Mother.’ She’s a grand plan now for coming over to you instead. She’s just breaking her heart, Jessie says, to get back again over here.... She talks of bringing little Sally with her when she comes, and leaving her if you want her. She’ll be a help to you, she says, now you’re beginning to get on; and Sally’s as keen as mustard to come and live with Granny.”

She stopped then, startled by the loudness of her voice in the growing stillness, which seemed at the same time both to accentuate it and rebuke it. Looking across at her hostess, she felt almost panic-stricken at the change which had come upon her. It was impossible, she said to herself, that those few chattered words should so greatly have disturbed her. As if it mattered what Jessie said, or what she chose to repeat! Yet Mattie was sunk in her chair as if the vigour which usually sustained her had suddenly departed from her. Exhaustion had drained the blood from her face, and without its customary bright colour it looked somehow smaller. And wrapping her round about was that curious curtain of quiet; a shroud, as it were, automatically produced for something that had ceased to be....

Glancing at the clock, Dolly stood up sharply, setting the china ringing.

“I’ll have to be going, Mrs. Kirkby,” she said as quietly as she could, yet shrinking again from her voice as it smote upon the silence. “Len’ll be wanting his tea. I’ll just have time to lend you a hand with the washing-up, and then I must be off.”

She had still another moment of panic before Mattie stirred, afterwards getting to her feet in a series of rather helpless movements. Dolly watched her with troubled eyes, wondering always how far she was responsible for the sudden situation. Even now that Mattie was standing up and moving about, she felt ill at ease with her. The absurd thought flashed through her mind that the Mrs. Kirkby who had got up was not the same Mrs. Kirkby who had sat down!...

Between them, they got the washing-up put through in record time, which yet seemed unnaturally long because of the heavy silence in which they did it. Mattie’s work was as efficient as ever, but it seemed to have lost its spring. Her hands, moving with dull sureness among the cups and saucers, looked strangely old and weak. Dolly was dull, too, her brain groping its way back over the talk of the afternoon, and anathematising both her own foolishness and the grumblings of Cousin Jessie. It was with a sense of acute relief that at last she put on her hat and hurried to the door.

“Well, I’ll be saying good day to you, Mrs. Kirkby,” she announced hastily to the still only half-recognisable figure of Mattie which had followed her. “It’s been real pleasant to have a chat. If you want a bit of help again when it really comes to packing, you’ve only to let me know.”

Mattie spoke to her then, though in an altered tone which corresponded with her altered presence. With an obvious effort she made her little speech of thanks,—Dolly moving restlessly the while,—and then bade her wait a moment. Going back into the kitchen, she reappeared with a pot of her Best Strawberry.

“Nay, I want you to take it,” she insisted, firmly if dully, as Mrs. Machell protested. “You’ve been right kind. I’ll give you them pink vases, if you’ll have ’em, before the sale, but anyhow I’d like you to have a taste of my good strawberry.”

The tears came into Dolly’s eyes. Regardless of the jam-pot, she put her arms round Mattie’s neck and hugged her.

“I don’t need presents just for enjoying myself!” she said, laughing and crying together. “Eh, Mrs. Kirkby, but I’d be right glad if I heard as you weren’t going!”

She was gone herself then, running across the gardens, jam-pot in hand, and Mattie waited until she had lost sight of her. Her lips had quivered a little at the warm pressure of Dolly’s cheek, but they did not quiver now. Her figure straightened itself slightly as she turned on her heel, and went back slowly, but with set purpose, into the darkening house.