The trumpet in the dust

by Constance Holme

“Ay, that’s summat like it,” Mrs. Clapham murmured. “That’s it, I reckon....” She threw a glance up the street at the silent, ill-omened house. “It’s no wonder she made such a wreck o’ Poor Stephen.”

The Saga of Poor Stephen who had fallen in the War began all over again, with precisely the same zest as if sung for the first time. It was a sort of duet into which they fell quite naturally whenever they happened to meet, and however often it was repeated it never palled. Conversation is almost the only form of artistic expression open to most of the poor, and on this subject at least these two had reached a high level. The Saga of Poor Stephen was, indeed, their star performance. Knowing it like their prayers, they played up to each other with mechanical ease, yet found always some shade of inflection which might possibly be bettered, some sentence introduced or eliminated which shed new light upon the whole. And always, as soon as they had parted, their minds set to work again upon the scene they had just played, half consciously rehearsing it for its next public appearance, and seeking some fresh touch which should cause it to live anew.

However, they rang the curtain down at length, and drifted apart—Mrs. Tanner backing towards her door with that almost unconscious movement of street-gossips—as if she was pulled by a string—and the charwoman turning joyously home to her own dwelling. She reached it in less than a dozen strides, but even in that short distance she produced the effect of a full-rigged ship coming buoyantly into port. Crossing the step, she had a passing twinge of remorse because she had neglected to give it its second scrub; and then she was once again in the little kitchen, with the door closing behind her back.

It was a wonderful moment for Mrs. Clapham when she came back again to her home, bearing her sheaves with her. The early morning had been wonderful, too, but in a totally different way. It had been splendid, of course, full of rapture and hope, but she knew now that at the back of everything there had been a fear. That sudden bout of laughter and tears had testified to the strain. The early morning phase had been bought at its own price. But this moment was all splendour without terror, glory without pain. Steeped in wonder, it was yet perfect in satisfaction; shot with ecstasy, it was yet peace....

Presently, perhaps, when the supreme moment had passed, she would wish for that earlier phase all over again. That would seem the supreme moment to her, looking back, the most poignant, the most dramatic, the most worth having because of its thrills. She would forget the scorch of the chariot of fire in which she had left the earth, and only remember the sweep of it as she ascended to heaven. Nevertheless, this was the really great hour of her beautiful day, and she recognised it while she had it. There is no moment like that in which one runs home through a shining world to hide behind a shut door with the glad fulfilment of an innocent dream.

With it, however, came the realisation of what she would have felt if things had happened the other way about, and even the thought of it was so terrible that it turned her faint. Reaching the rocking-chair, she dropped into it with a thankful sigh, and the anything but thankful chair uttered a protesting creak. But the horror soon passed and the glory returned, so that she hardly knew whether the gold motes dancing in the kitchen were made by the sun, or whether the whole world had turned golden in essence because of the splendour in her brain.

With smiling lips, and half-closed, tear-wet eyes, she sat rocking herself to and fro, while the overburdened chair uttered its almost human shrieks of protesting rage. But she was too happy to notice it, too happy to move; too happy even to get herself the cup of tea which she dearly craved. She knew vaguely that her head ached as well as her back and her bad knee, but these also were beyond notice. The most they could do was to force her to own, chuckling, that it was a good thing miracles didn’t happen every day of the week. But then she did not want them to happen every day; she did not want them ever to happen again. Once was all she had asked for in the whole of her life, and that once was proving itself most gloriously enough.

Undoubtedly her chief joy, half-conscious though it was, lay in the supreme confidence with which she was filled in the workings of fate. Human beings are never so happy, so soothed and so unafraid, as when they seem to identify themselves with the Ruling Mind. The soul, swerving blindly from fear to fear, clings thankfully to the least vestige of a plan, whether for good or ill. It was not often that Mrs. Clapham had felt afraid of life, but it seemed to her at this moment that she would never feel afraid again. It was muddle that frightened people, she thought to herself, torn edges and jagged ends, suddenly-twisted threads that on every count should have run straight, and meaningless blows from a vague dark. Mrs. Clapham was of those who prefer to be hit firmly on the head by an Absolute Will, rather than to be sent flying into space by the blind bursting of a mindless shell.

But for her, at all events, life had proved itself faithful up to the very hilt. Week after week, year after year, she had held to her great belief, and in the due moment of promise it had been fulfilled. The right thing came at the right time and in the right way—always she came back again to that. A little earlier, perhaps, or a little later, and the whole thing would have been less perfect; would not have found her so ready or left her so secure. Even a splendidly-sudden surprise would not have been really so splendid, because unable to fix in her this precious certainty of success. Sudden surprises are wonderful in their way, opening the doors of fairylands and heavens, but they do not create security or make for peace. On the contrary, they, too, suggest chaos after their own magnificent fashion. The highest pinnacle is that which is reached after earnest endeavour, patient provision, humble yet certain hope. The charwoman felt satisfied in every inch, seeing life and the justice of things fitting each other like lock and key. She felt as one feels at the end of a sunset or the close of a song. She felt as one feels when one shuts the door of a room in which a child has fallen asleep....

She wished that the man who had thought of her long ago could know that both his wish and hers were going to be fulfilled at last. He, too, had been one of those who find their greatest pleasure in watching the Universe work out even, so that the news that his forty-year-old plan was coming into effect would have afforded him a personal satisfaction. She felt sure that he would have nodded his head with his grim smile, saying, “Right you are, Jones! Meant you to have it. Pleased. D—d glad!” feeling that, in this one thing at least, he had been able to give the sometimes recalcitrant cosmos a shove on the right road.