The privet hedge came into Mattie’s mind, together with that past look on Mrs. Grisedale’s face, and the clinging touch of Mrs. Ellwood’s hand.... But she laughed again.
“They’re roots as is easy pulled up, I should say!” she said cheerfully. “Folks in prison, I mean.... As for me, I’ve always been on the go, so to speak. I’ve never settled down.”
“You can’t not settle!” Dick said suddenly, in a loud voice that was almost threatening. “Don’t you make any mistake, Mrs. Kirkby. Life settles you. Time settles you. You can’t not settle!”
The annoyance she had been keeping in check rose at that to a strong head, but it was succeeded almost at once by a feeling of pity. Dick looked so old, standing there, weighed down by his heavy bag, and with the fine spring sunlight showing up his wrinkles. He was jealous, she said to herself, because he felt old, and because, perhaps, he, too, had wanted to go to Canada. She could have laughed now at the thought that they were the same age. In the pride of her new joy she felt like a girl beside him,—a girl with her strength to draw at, and the whole wide world before her.
“Ay, well, I don’t see as we need quarrel about it,” she said amiably. “Likely what you say’s right most of the time, if it isn’t always. Anyway, Canada or no Canada, it’s a bonny morning!”
But Dick was already shambling away towards the office, wheezing as he went, and grumbling to himself as an old dog grumbles when he meets a young one. She smiled as she saw him stumble over a stone, and stop in a rage to kick it from him. Thrusting the letters in at the office with a shaky hand, he swung about crossly and disappeared round a corner of the building.
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.