The trumpet in the dust

by Constance Holme

Not even when Mrs. Wrench had risen at last to go had she referred to any possible alteration in her own affairs. She had merely sent her love and respects to the bride, and the bride’s mother had promised to come and tell her about the wedding. “And of course next week as usual, please!” she had said as she hurried away, and the charwoman had said neither yea nor nay, but had merely dropped her old-fashioned curtsey. It was no use reminding the Vicar’s wife that, by the time next week came round, things might have become anything but “usual.” There was always the possibility, too, that it might be unlucky, with the whole entrancing affair still hanging breathlessly in the balance. So she had let her go away without even dropping a hint of her personal prospects, and it was only after the door was shut that she had allowed herself to smile. Then she had begun to chuckle and chuckle, and sat down and chuckled, and stood up and chuckled, and sat down again and chuckled and chuckled and chuckled and chuckled....

She chuckled afresh now as she lay thinking, and then reflected that it might possibly be as unlucky as singing too early, and therefore desisted. It occurred to her also that she might be tempting Providence by lying in bed, behaving, as it were, as if the decree which would set her free to lie in bed had actually been spoken; and, sitting up in a flurry, she threw off the bed-clothes and began to dress. It was more than probable that she would have as much bed as anybody could want, in the near future. She who had always been a phenomenally early riser need not grudge an exhibition of the accomplishment on this possibly last day.

The boards creaked under her feet as she stirred about the cottage bedroom, moving cleverly in the limited space and under the sloping ceiling. She had always been a big woman, coming of big, upstanding stock, and now at sixty-five she was stout as well. To all outward appearance, though, she was strong and sound, and it was only lately that her comely pink face had begun its network of fine lines. Always as neat as a new pin, to-day she took greater pains over dressing than usual, giving an extra polish to her healthy skin and an extra shine to her white hair. The day which was bringing her so much—as she serenely hoped—could not be encountered in any other spirit. She looked at herself in the glass when she had finished, and was glad to see that she stood her age so well. Her hands alone troubled her—those toil-worn, charwoman’s hands which spoke so clearly of her profession. Not that she was ashamed of her work—on the contrary, she was proud—but in that moment of personal satisfaction she was ashamed of her hands.

She turned away at last, and creaked across the boards to the stairs, full of that pleasant consciousness of sound health and of coming good. She forgot that lately she had begun to feel old, that she had had doubts about her heart, and that the knee which she had damaged years ago on Mrs. Fletcher’s stairs was often too painful to let her sleep. She forgot that there had been a day—not so long ago, either—when she had suddenly found herself coming home thoroughly tired out, not only in body, but in mind. The spirit had gone clean out of her for the time being. She had wondered, indeed, whether she would ever be able to persuade herself to enter other people’s houses again, so utterly weary was she of their unvarying routine, their anything but unvarying servants, their dull furniture and their duller meals. She had even felt a spasm of real hatred for the houses themselves, which, no matter how often or how thoroughly she scrubbed them from roof to floor, were always waiting for her to come and scrub them again.

That unexpected breakdown of hers had lasted at least twenty-four hours. The following morning she had actually refused to go to Mrs. Hogg, whose dwelling at any time was never one of those that she liked best. She had sent back word at the last minute—an unforgivable crime in her scrupulous code—and had sat indoors all day brooding and doing nothing. Towards evening she had had a vision of herself as a helpless old woman, and then she had broken down and wept; but next day her courage had come surging back, and next week as usual she had gone to Mrs. Hogg. Her work was as good as ever it had been, and outsiders had seen no difference. Nevertheless, there was a difference, as she knew very well. That day had marked the point at which she had begun definitely to grow old. From that day she realised that she had been scarred by the battle of life, and that before very long she must seek some haven to be healed.

This morning, however, sadness and doubt were gone from her mind as if they had never been. She went downstairs briskly, carrying the little clock, and set to work at her usual tasks with the zest of a young lass. Her knee did not pain her when she knelt to light the kitchen fire; her heart did not trouble her when she filled the bucket at the pump. She moved from one room to another as lightly as in the days when she had been a well-known local dancer, steady and tireless on her feet. She had never felt stronger or more fit for her life’s work than on the morning of the day which was to see her bid that work farewell.

The very day itself seemed to know that something uncommon was afoot, drawing by slow degrees to some poised and perfect hour. It was one of those days which are at the same time sharply etched and yet soft in tone, with their vivid colours as smooth as if seen through water or in a glass. In the village street, where the pillars of smoke were not yet set on their stacks, the low cottage-rows had clear black shadows under their eaves, and clear black edges along their roofs. The flag-staff on the church-tower was like a needle poised in a steady hand, and the tower itself was not so much built as flung by a brush on the gilded air. Below the dropping, curving street and the painted church the river was shedding its sheath of steel, ready for drawing on the faint-coloured robe that it would wear during the day. And always the hills to the west were growing in beauty with bracken and bent, the warm tones of turning trees, the fine sharp blue of stone, and the heather that seemed to keep all day long the colours of sunrise over the sea.

But in Mrs. Clapham’s heart this morning there was so much beauty already that she scarcely heeded the extra loveliness of the outside world. She was glad, of course, that it was going to be fine, because life altogether was easier when it was fine. She was glad that the sun greeted her when she came down, splashing about the little kitchen that was always so greedy of its light, catching at it in the morning before it was well in the sky, and through the scullery door at the back snatching the last beam from the fading west. She opened the scullery door now, not only for a sight of the Michaelmas daisies bunched in the garden beyond, but because of the extra space it seemed to afford the exultation in her heart. As she went to and fro, her eyes drew to them as to flowers set upon some altar of thanksgiving, and the glow in her heart deepened as she passed through the warm sun. But the beauty of the day seemed only a natural background for the miracle that was coming. She trusted it contentedly, just as she was trusting other things in life. It was not one of those days of exquisite promise which languished and faded before it was noon. The perfect day was perfect and reliable all through, just as the perfect happenings of life went steadily to their appointed end....

She thought of Miss Marigold again while she forced herself to eat her breakfast, difficult as she found it to sit still because of the tremor in her nerves. The Vicar’s daughter would make a handsome bride, she said to herself, though no power on earth could make her a young one. She would look clever and nice and rather fine, but not the sweet little bundle of youth that Tibbie had looked. But then Tibbie had always had the pull in the matter of looks, even although Miss Marigold might be supposed to have scored in the matter of brains. Even that point, however, so Mrs. Clapham considered, was open to dispute. Tibbie, rosy and laughing and fair, and looking as though she hadn’t a care in the world, had been clever enough in her own way. It was real shrewdness of character which had led her to choose for a husband the tamest youth in the place, whom everybody knew now to have been a hero in disguise. And she was so clever with her fingers that each one of them was worth at least the whole of another person’s hand. Young as she was, she had been the village dressmaker par excellence before she married Stephen Catterall, and Mrs. Clapham’s memories of Tibbie’s youth were always shot through by the colours in which she had worked. Her bright head, gleaming about the cottage, had always a background of coloured cottons and silks. Mrs. Clapham’s own best gown, still “best” after years of wearing, had been also of Tibbie’s making. Her heart leaped and her nerves thrilled as she told herself that, if things happened as she expected, she would crown the occasion by appearing in it to-day....

Tibbie had even made gowns for Miss Marigold and Mrs. Wrench, and she had actually been commissioned to make a frock for Miss Marigold’s trousseau. That had been part of the information proceeding so copiously from the Vicar’s wife, the evening before.