“Well, she seemed real interested, she did that—as throng as throng! Mrs. Tanner and me couldn’t help noticing how interested she was.... Likely you found Martha Jane at home when you slipped up with the currant bread?”
“Ay, she was at home right enough!” Mrs. Clapham replied, hoping that her tones did not actually convey the ironic emphasis with which they rang in her own ears.
“Ay, she was, was she?” Mrs. James looked politely eager. “And—excuse me asking you now—was she grateful an’ all that? She wouldn’t be best pleased at the way things has shaped, I’m sure.”
“She didn’t say much one way or t’other,” Martha Jane’s defender lied (if it could be called lying) with desperate ease. “She was a—a bit quiet-like,” she went on firmly, “not feeling like visitors, I reckon.... I expect she’ll be glad enough, though, of the bread, when it comes to eating it. ’Tisn’t often, I will say, as folks sniff at my currant bread!”
“No, indeed! It’d be queer if they did,” the other assented, though with a somewhat abstracted air. “It was right nice of you, I’m sure, though I don’t know as I think she deserves it. Mrs. Tanner and me never thought it was anything like that, but then we wasn’t taking that much notice.... Not but what we might ha’ made a sort of a guess, knowing your kind heart.”
“Nay, if it comes to hearts, who fetched me yon soup?” Mrs. Clapham inquired playfully, glad of the chance to strike the keynote again; and got out into the street on a wave of fresh mutual blandishments, such as “Ay, and your best china an’ all! Too good, by half....” and “Nay, now, as if anything I had could be too good for the likes of you!”
“I’m off to have a look at t’ house,” she added, by way of making a second apology for the black gown. “Likely it seems a bit soon to go rushing up, but folks should make the most o’ their time when they’re not as young as they was!”
“That’s so. Not but what you’ll have many a happy year there, I don’t doubt!” Mrs. James finally capped the conversation, and remained at the door watching her as she swam away. Everybody seemed to stand and watch her to-day, Mrs. Clapham thought, self-conscious in every limb as she climbed guiltily towards Emma’s. She felt guilty because, side by side with her reluctance about the visit was a half-formed curiosity as to what Emma could have to say. It was because of this latent curiosity in herself that she had not mentioned the invitation to Mrs. James. It made her uneasy in some inexplicable way, just as the strange little scene which had just passed had made her uneasy. It was as if something within her warned her of some approaching event, in which she and Emma, neighbours for years and yet almost complete strangers, should be brought sharply together and carry the principal parts....
She went up the steps slowly, and with a distinctly ashamed air, feeling the eyes of the Chorus glued to her turned back, not knowing that Providence had already seen to it that they should be otherwise engaged. Mrs. Airey and Mrs. Dunn were at that moment holding anxious converse over a scorched frill; Mrs. James was recalled indoors at the critical point by a bump as of something violently fallen upstairs; while Mrs. Tanner, although drawn to the window by some psychological pull, was hurled back again, as it were, by the awful spectacle of the cat on the shelf with the beef....