“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....