The Clean Heart

by A. S. M. Hutchinson

A troop of noisy boys come through the gate, and then more boys by ones and twos. An old man who comes from within the church and looks out upon the churchyard for a moment remarks to him first that there is going to be a shower, then, calling out in reproof at a pair of the laughing boys, that it is choir-practice just going to begin. The old man returns to his duties; the last of the boys seem to have arrived: there are sounds within the church and premonitory notes of the organ; some heavy drops of the rain that has been threatening; then in a sudden stream the shower.

From where he sits he can see far up the road beyond the gate. He sees a group that had been approaching shelter beneath a distant tree. The downpour falls in a deluge that is fierce and short, passes and leaves the path in puddles, and with unnoting eyes he sees the group beneath the tree desert its shelter and come hurrying towards the church. The organ is playing now, voices swing in sudden volume of sound; unheeding, as with his eyes he is watching without seeing, he yet is subconsciously aware of the regular rise and fall of psalms.

With his eyes unseeing! They suddenly, as he watches, declare to him that which sets a drumming in his head, a snatching at his breath. The group has reached the gate. It is an old man drawing a wicker bath-chair, an old lady walking behind it. Drumming in his head; it passes; there succeeds to it a rocking of all the ground about his feet, a swimming, a receding, a swift approaching of all the land beyond the porch. That old man is opening the gate, turning his back to draw the bath-chair carefully through, revealing one that sits within it, coming on now ... coming on now ... closer and closer and closer...

This Mr. Wriford simply stands there. He doesn't do anything, and he doesn't say anything. He can't. You see, he has been through a good deal for a good long time. This is the end of a long passage for him. You know how weak he is. You probably despise him. Well, then, despise him now. He has no parts, no qualities, for this. He makes a bungling business of it. He has come to the doorway of the porch and simply stands there. They have seen him. They are staring at him. They are saying things. They are exclaiming. He doesn't hear. He just stands there....

Then he begins. He jolts down off the step of the porch. He stumbles along the few paces to the bath-chair. She that is seated there gives a kind of laugh and a kind of cry. He falls on his knees, kneeling in puddles, and puts his arms out, and takes her in them, and catches her to him, and buries his face against her, and holds her, holds her—and has nothing at all that he can say, not even her name.

Well, nor has she. She just has her arms about him.... When at last she speaks, Mr. and Mrs. Bickers have gone—into the church, or into the air, or into the ground—gone somewhere for some reason. And even then it is not at first speech but some odd little sound that she makes, and at that he looks up and she stoops to him—and there they are, her cheek against his cheek.

"My back's a fair old caution," says Essie then. "They don't think I'll ever walk again."

He stammers something about "I'll carry you, dear. I'll carry you."

Each in the other's arms, her cheek against his cheek.

"Just going to Whitehouse, we were," says Essie. "My goodness, if it hadn't rained and made us come for shelter!"