Martha Jane’s speech snapped like a bent twig when the charwoman’s hand came down upon her. With her mouth still open, as if it were indeed the mouth of a hose from which the water had been switched off, she stared weakly into the pleasant face. It was a long time now since any woman had touched her, especially a woman like Mrs. Clapham. The last time she had been touched, if you might term it as such, had been in a quarrel with the drunken Mrs. Johnson, of Lame Lane. Mrs. Johnson had blacked one of Martha Jane’s mocking and cynical eyes, and Martha Jane had pulled out a lock of Mrs. Johnson’s none too plentiful hair. Not that Martha Jane was in the habit of doing these things—they only happened sometimes; but that last occasion contrasted with this was enough in itself to make her wince.

Mrs. Clapham, for her part, was thinking that Martha Jane’s shoulder was nearly as thin as a young girl’s. Not such a shoulder as Tibbie’s had been, of course, because Tibbie’s shoulders had never been thin. They were plump, laughing, expressive shoulders, which talked almost as much as Tibbie herself. Nevertheless, it was of her absent daughter that Mrs. Clapham thought, and the tenderness that was in her heart went into her hand and so down into Martha Jane.

“Now, Martha, don’t carry on like that!” she rebuked her authoritatively, though on a motherly note. “You’ll be finely ashamed, making such a to-do, if you find you’ve got the house, after all. Anyway, it’ll be a good day for one of us when t’news does come along, and we don’t want it spoilt by nasty words. If it’s me as gets it, I hope you won’t take it too hard; and if it’s you”—her voice faltered a moment as she tried to envisage the fearful conditions in which such an event could ever occur—“I’ll be right glad to help you with moving in; ay, and to scrub floors for you an’ all!”

The generosity of this offer produced an outburst of admiration from her satellites. “Eh, now, if that isn’t kind!.... Real Christian, I call it!....” and “If that isn’t the kindest thing I ever heard!”—this last from young Mrs. James, retired within escaping distance of her pillars. Martha Jane looked spitefully round the group, and then back for a moment at Mrs. Clapham’s hand. The sun played on the wedding-ring as she looked, flashing it in her eyes, and suddenly she gave her shoulder a little twitch, so that the hand slid off it and dropped.

“Thank you kindly, Ann Clapham!” she jeered, “I’ll be sure to think on. I’m not very set on cleaning, myself, so I’ll be glad of a hand. Folks is different, of course, and I wasn’t brought up to it, same as you. Some on us is finer clay than others, as his lordship says, and I reckon my sort o’ clay wasn’t intended for scrubbing floors!”

There was another outburst, though one of resentment, at this grateful and gracious speech, and the charwoman turned away with the colour hot in her cheek. The heart that had felt so tender only a moment ago now seemed full of nothing but angry disgust. Martha Jane was certainly doing her best to spoil the beautiful day, first of all by turning it into a ribald joke, and then by setting the company by the ears. Just for the moment Mrs. Clapham felt thoroughly vexed with the whole world—with Martha Jane, with the post, with his lordship and Mr. Baines; and even, though quite unjustly, with the admiring Chorus itself. Even the lovely morning seemed to fade because of her wrath, taking with it, as it dimmed, the perfect certainty of her hope....

And then suddenly there rose before her eyes a picture of Tibbie laughing at Martha Jane—Tibbie, who had always refused to look upon Martha Jane as anything but the village clown. She had even been known to say that they ought to be grateful for Martha Jane, but she could hardly expect her mother to be grateful to-day! The thought of Tibbie, however, brought the smile back to Mrs. Clapham’s lips, and her sense of miracle slowly returned. She told herself with a gallant boast that was at the same time rather grim, that she would certainly scrub the floors for the poor, daft thing if she got the house! But even while she played with the thought, she knew that she troubled herself for nothing. She could no more picture Martha Jane in her temple of hope than she could picture her beautiful Tibbie in her coffin.

Putting the matter from her, she settled once more to her patient watching of the street, only to be conscious instantly of a fresh commotion. Mrs. James, who had started again upon Martha Jane, came to a dead stop, and darted back to the charwoman’s side, while the rest of the women gathered around her like chickens about a Buff Orpington hen. Mrs. Clapham turned a surprised head, and looked over her shoulder. Emma Catterall was coming slowly towards them down the hill.

CHAPTER IV

It was hardly surprising that Emma’s approach should have caused panic in the little group, for it was only on the rarest occasions that Emma ever approached anybody. As for making one of a party, she never did that—as Mrs. Clapham had already observed. The utmost that could be seen of her, as a rule, was a hint of her presence behind the ferns, or ebbing and flowing in the pool of shadow behind her door. Sometimes, on very urgent occasions, she might be found in the street, but even then she only hovered on the edges of things. She never plunged right in and became one of the crowd, as the alarmed intuition of her neighbours warned them that she intended doing to-day. She just hovered on the fringe of whatever was going on, paralysing its energies with her queer little half-smile. Beneath that smile the bride instantly became convinced that there was something wrong with her hair or her gown, while the widow, hitherto upheld by the dignity of her woe, burst into fresh tears. Into the consciousness of each came a vision of the things that stand about human life, aloof and yet close as Emma was aloof and close, and standing and smiling, perhaps, as Emma Catterall stood and smiled....