Thomas had been busy with a contented little whistled tune, but he broke it off in the middle when his father spoke. “’Tisn’t the old chair, dad,” he said, a little abashed. “Yon went wi’ the rest o’ the furniture at the sale.”
Kit stared at him a moment with a puzzled frown, and then, as if still at a loss, he dropped his gaze to the chair. Thomas saw that he was thinking hard as he ran his hands repeatedly over the arms. While he was at Marget’s he had remembered many sales, but apparently he had never remembered his own. In those crowds of his he had seen many a chair sold, but his own had never come to the hammer under his eyes. How could it do anything of the sort when it had stayed safely in the dream, waiting in the house until he should come back? Yet it had vanished, after all, when the dream had come about, and there was only this false pretender in its place. When he stopped rubbing the arms he peered at the legs, and twisted round to stare at the leather back. It was a shop-chair, that was plain, varnished and hard-stuffed, unyielding as old bread. It almost seemed to reject him as he sat, refusing the purpose for which it had been made. It was handsome enough to look at, of its kind, making a great show with leather and brass nails, but as yet it was only an effigy of a chair. No ghost as yet had clung to its hard seat, those stubborn ghosts which hammers couldn’t eject. No shadowy arms would steal and clasp him round as he sighed himself asleep on a twilit afternoon. It was a mindless chair, a chair without a soul, the price of which was the sacrifice of death. Generations must use it before it grew a soul; lover sitting on lover’s knee, children clambering about its legs. Dreams of the winter dusk would have to shut it round; the sick, the dying, console themselves in its arms. There was a long education before the new arm-chair, and he himself was the sacrifice it asked....
“House is furnished every bit new,” Thomas said. “But I got chair as near the old one as I could.”
“Oh, ay, it’s a grand chair, thank ye—real smart.”
“Nay, I doubt it isn’t much, but it’s the best we’ve got.”
“Marget wouldn’t ha’ let me set in the best chair.”
“You shall set where you like, Father, in this house!” Agnes flashed. “It’s queer if you can’t do as suits you best, I’m sure!”
Kit said she was right kind, and let his arms lie slackly along the arms of the new chair. The bright leather was cool and slippery to his sensitive old hands. The old chair had been covered with carpet that was rough to the touch—dark green and threadbare in many spots, with a pattern of ringed daisies centred by a faded rose.... It was all very well to say that he might choose; he was pinned to this new horror, nevertheless. Not here, any more than at Marget’s, could he sit exactly where he wished....
“Likely you’ve noticed we’ve a new kitchen range? Landlord said it was t’best as could be got.”
“Ay, I see it first thing,” Kit said, and looked away.