The trumpet in the dust

by Constance Holme

She thought gratefully, too, of those who had voted her the house, trying to call up, though with a touch of shyness, the kindly things which they must have said, not only in committee but in the privacy of their homes. Some of them must have gone into the letter which they had written through Mr. Baines, but so far she had heard so little of that wonderful letter! It was still in her hand, of course, too precious to put down, and presently she would find her glasses and read it with quivering joy. But for the moment she needed no further stimulant for her happy mind. The ecstasy in her soul required no extra assistance from the elegant phrasing of Mr. Baines.

She thought also of the body of public opinion which was said to be at her back, and felt for the time being as if every soul in the place was a personal friend. It was wonderful, even for a short time, to feel the thoughts of all those well-wishers turned simultaneously towards herself. That was another thing she felt certain she would never mistrust again—the genuine joy of the many in the genuine joy of the one. There were the four women, for instance, who had stayed with her so long, swelling her triumph, when it came, by the mere fact of their kindly presence. They had, as it were, lifted her in their eager arms, ready to thrust her into the chariot before it had touched the ground. They had been like children, with a fifth who had won or was winning a coveted prize; like bridesmaids, speeding and cheering a happy but trepidant bride....

That last word made her think of Miss Marigold up in town, who would even now be getting ready for church. Her mother would be helping and watching her, no doubt, as Tibbie’s mother had once watched and helped. Miss Marigold, however, was no longer young, while Tibbie had been young as a first summer bird. Miss Marigold was to wear the uninteresting garments which so many brides wore now, but Tibbie herself had been dressed in white. Not satin, of course, or a wreath, or the overgrand ornament of a veil—both Tibbie and her mother were too sensible for that. But nobody who had seen Tibbie that day, whether in London or Timbuctoo, would have been stupid enough to take her for anything but a bride. She was the real, loving, loved bridal thing that trod actually on air, so that one seemed, as it were, to see her spurning the earth, and to hear all about her the uprush of fine wings....

The picture of Tibbie in her wedding-white was so present to her mind that she was surprised, when she opened her eyes, not to see her there in the flesh. She was so puzzled, indeed, that she stopped rocking and sat up, until presently, as her glance strayed about the room, the knowledge came to her that it was Tibbie’s photograph that she sought. She did not seem able to visualise it in its usual place, and she got to her feet, wondering whether the emotion through which she had just passed had somehow shortened her sight. The photograph was there, however, she found, when she moved across, but had slipped on the shelf and lay on its back. She set it up again and stood looking at it, and Tibbie looked, too, but it hardly seemed to her that that was Tibbie’s face. Tibbie’s real face was the one she had just seen when she was half asleep, which had hung above her and kissed her ... and laughed ... and kissed her again....

The photographs of the children were as usual stiffly erect, but she scarcely glanced at them as she turned away. It was impossible, with that vision of laughing girlhood still in her eyes, to think of them as belonging to Tibbie. Indeed, their utter unlikeness to her—always a source of grief—turned them, at this particular moment, into actual strangers. They were so tragically the counterparts of that unfortunate Poor Stephen, to whose comfort and help Tibbie had rushed like an indignant angel. There seemed little but pity and the attraction of opposites to account for the strange marriage, for the young couple had been like creatures out of two totally different spheres. Tibbie had come out of a House of Laughter and Stephen out of a House of Pain; and in spite of their love it was the image of pain that still looked out of their children’s eyes....

Her mind went back at that to her late talk with Mrs. Tanner, conning its weak points, and preparing it once more for the next occasion when they should be called upon to “say their piece.” She was busy with it all the time she was brewing and drawing the tea, and even while, glasses at length unearthed, she pored joyously over the letter. Between her gasps of pleasure at each newly discovered tribute, such as “hard-working citizen,” “good neighbour,” “praiseworthy mother,” and “kind friend,” some door in her mind kept swinging and standing ajar, showing her the pale-faced little boy who had lived through Heaven knew what misery in the house at the top of the street.

In the confidence born of the perfect happening at the perfect moment in the perfect way, Mrs. Clapham wondered how it had been possible for anybody to be as much afraid as Poor Stephen. She was almost inclined to feel impatient with him, looking back, though she had been sorry enough, and even fiercely indignant, at the time. In common with others in the street, she had done her best to see that Stephen was fed, that his clothes were mended and brushed before he went off to school, that there was a fire for him to sit by in cold weather when he chose, and sometimes a penny slipped in his pocket for buying sweets. But Stephen had been hard to help, as are all early-abused, early-cowed young things, and it was not often that he could be decoyed into other people’s houses even for his good. It was almost as if the contrast between what he found there and what was waiting—or wasn’t waiting—for him at home, was more than his wounded spirit was able to bear. In any case, he had avoided their kindly designs whenever he could, choosing his moment to slip past when they weren’t looking, or creeping back again at night with ears deaf to their shrill calls. Often and often she had seen him stealing by in the winter dusk, resolutely turning his eyes from their open, fire-streaming doors. Even in the September sunshine Mrs. Clapham shivered at the thought of that going home, back to the dreary house in which he had been born afraid.

It was many a year now since she had set foot in Emma’s house, but, gradually feeling back, she got its atmosphere again. She could remember little, indeed, of how it had looked; she could only remember how it had felt. Going into Emma’s was not so much going into a house as letting yourself into the four walls of Emma Catterall’s mind. Everything that was in it looked as it did because of Emma, so that the tables hardly seemed tables, or the chairs chairs, or the beds beds. Even Emma’s husband had somehow had that effect, had suffered a sea-change simply because he was Emma’s. Jemmy Catterall had been weak and foolish as a young man, but he had not been the inhuman monster he appeared later. Marriage with Emma had turned him shortly into a sullen brute, subject to fits of fury which stamped him wrong in the head. That undependableness of mood had been a sorry atmosphere for Stephen, combined with that terrible sensing of something that wasn’t sane.

Yet Jemmy—or so at least Mrs. Clapham had been known to insist—would have been right enough but for Emma. He was never a star, of course, either in looks or brains, but he was right enough as men went, seeing that in most cases they didn’t go far. It was hardly credible that he should have turned into the mad skeleton of his later years, peering at people from behind the ferns, or, later still, from a room upstairs. When he wasn’t peering he was emptying water-jugs upon callers’ heads, or throwing things at the passers-by. It seemed an eternity that he had leered and peered, until finally his amusements had come to an end behind the shut door of a coffin-lid....

Well, that had been Stephen’s father—not much of a father for anybody, if it came to that, but least of all for one so inexpressibly in need of help. Yet, even at his worst (and it was a most unpleasant worst), it was unanimously agreed that he was nothing to Emma. Mrs. Clapham could remember how they had all been afraid of her, even as a girl, because of that thing in her mind which watched and hid. Tibbie, too, had complained that Emma spied on her while she slept, just as her own babies had cried themselves sick about it, later on. But the child out of the House of Laughter had not troubled herself about Emma for very long; quite early the obsession had turned into interest in Poor Stephen. Even in those days she used to talk to her mother about the little boy who was always afraid; later still, when they were going to the same school; and later again, when they were grown up and gone to work. And then suddenly the happy, chattering voice had stopped of its own accord, dumb in that last, sweet, waiting stillness before the rushing confession of love....