Seated uneasily in her chair, she hardly knew where to turn, for, repugnant as she always found it to look at Emma, it was even more distressing to look at the room. It was always something of a trial to her to go into other folks’ “spots,” because they so seldom came up to her personal standard. More than once, when calling upon a sick neighbour, she had scrubbed the house from ceiling to floor; not so much out of sheer kindness—sometimes, indeed, in spite of protest—but because of the thirst for perfection by which she was driven. So now, seeing in spite of herself the dirty windows and floor, the unpolished brasses and steels, she positively ached for bare arms and an old frock, a new brush and a full pail. Time and again she found her hands stealing unconsciously to her tidy cuffs.... It was strange how totally different slovenly houses could be, though houses that were thoroughly clean were much the same. It was astonishing, for instance, how Emma’s dirty home differed from Martha Jane’s. The latter was dirty, of course, even dirtier than this, and certainly it was a great deal poorer. Yet even at its worst there was always a dashing touch about Martha Jane’s—the glint of a cheap brooch flung carelessly on a table, or the gaudiness of an Easter egg swinging crookedly from a bracket. Once, indeed, at the turn of the year, Mrs. Clapham had seen through the open door a bunch of snowdrops in a broken glass....
Then, too, the seasons came and went in Martha Jane’s; Nature, at least, did not pass it by. But Emma Catterall’s house, with which Nature would have nothing to do, ought not to have been dirty, and was certainly not poor. Financially, she was said to be better off than anybody in the street, and her furniture, though neglected, was most of it good and sound. Out of the tail of her eye Mrs. Clapham could see a bow-fronted chest of drawers which she would almost have given her almshouse to possess; and she felt pretty sure that Emma’s own bedroom would be comfortable enough, whatever sort of a hole she had thought fit for Stephen. Yet nobody who had lived in Emma’s neighbourhood would dream of buying her furniture when it came to the hammer. They would be too much afraid of seeing her roundabout figure standing behind some chair, or her black eyes watching and peering from some suddenly opened drawer....
“Ay, I thought you didn’t mean coming,” she was saying again, loosing one hand from her waist and leaning her weight on it on the table. “I made sure you’d given me the go-by, and gone to look at yon house.”
Mrs. Clapham reddened and began to rub nervously at her knees. “Ay, well, I don’t mind owning I’m a bit set up about it,” she acknowledged frankly. “It’s a grand day for me and no mistake—best day I’ve had for years!”
Emma nodded with amiable condescension.
“We’ve all on us known you wanted it a long while back now. It’ been a reg’lar joke up and down t’ village, has Ann Clapham’s house. Committee could hardly ha’ gone past you, knowing you so keen.”
“I’ve earned it anyway!” Mrs. Clapham broke out, reddening again. Emma was being simply loathsome already.... “Everybody says I’ve best right, along with them last words of Mr. T.”
“I’ve heard a deal o’ them last words, one way and another,” Emma responded, gloating over the half-angry face before her. “Them kind o’ last words is often enough somebody else’s second thoughts.... Not but what you’ve the best right, as you say,” she continued smoothly, seeing the charwoman’s eyes flash. “Likely you’ve wrote Committee a letter by now, telling ’em you accept?”
“Nay, what, I never thought about it, I’m sure!” Mrs. Clapham answered, suddenly crestfallen. “I’ve been that busy shaking hands wi’ myself, I’ve had no time for nowt else.... But they’ll know I’ll accept right enough,” she added, plucking up spirit. “Why ever should I have axed for t’ house if I didn’t mean to take it?”
“Folks change their minds.”