“I’d rather go by myself,” she told her amiably, but in the same indisputable tone. “You’re right good, I’m sure, and I’m hoping as we’ll be friends; but I think when I first see t’ house, I’d like best to see it alone.”
She extended her hand further, and after a pause the other laid the key in her palm, much as if she were handing over the keys of some beleaguered city. She was a trifle offended, as the charwoman had expected, and she was also decidedly disappointed. Showing the new tenant over her own house would have fanned for a while the flicker of dying importance. But she was aware that Mrs. Clapham came with testimonials that couldn’t be bettered, and she was also impressed by the fact that she had known old Mr. T. And in spite of herself she was impressed by her royal attitude towards the cleaning. The layman gets the better of the artist in four cases out of five, but this happened to be the fifth.
“Ay, well, it’s your own affair, after all,” she replied, at length, with a touch of dignity, but nothing worse. The speech, however, was too reminiscent of Emma to be perfectly pleasant, and the visitor winced. Later, thinking things over, it seemed to her strange that she should more than once have noticed this echo of Emma in the totally different Mrs. Bell. It was as if the grip of Emma’s mind upon hers had been working silently even here, making the same subtle demand upon her that it had made insidiously all day....
“You’ll drop in again, though, for a cup o’ tea?” Mrs. Bell, still loth to lose sight of the treasure, followed both it and its owner to the door. “Eh, but the folks I’ve seen walking away with that very same key! First was Mrs. Wells, as went and died of cancer the very next year; and then Mrs. Saddleback, as broke her leg in the first week. Then there was Mrs. Green ... nay, likely, ’twas Mrs. Brown. Ter’ble bad neighbour she was an’ all ... nay, likely, ’twas Mrs. Green....”
Mrs. Clapham had withdrawn herself now, with the skill of her class, but Mrs. Bell was still at her heels. “Then there was Mrs. Phipps,” she was saying lustily, “her as is just gone. A right good soul she was an’ all, barring that she was a bit cracked. Still, there’s folks do say as when them dies as has lost their minds, it’s happen only the body as gets took away, and the mind, happen, stays behind....
“I don’t reckon it’ll do me much harm if it has!” Mrs. Clapham threw at her cheerfully, as she hurried away. “I’ll just have a look round and see what’s what; and if you can spare me a cup o’ tea, I’ll be right glad of it when I’m through.”
She left Mrs. Bell still looking longingly after the key, and, turning the corner, arrived at her own door. Michaelmas daisies and asters lined the flagged path at either side, purple, clean-coloured faces not yet touched by the frost; but beside the door itself was what she knew to be a flowering currant, that first flambeau of glory which Nature flings to us in the Spring. She had wanted one all her life, and here was one set for her at her very door. When it flowered again in the Spring it would be just as if old Mr. T. had made her a personal present. More than ever it seemed to her as if the whole thing were emphatically “meant.”
With a shaking hand she inserted the key. It turned smoothly and kindly with a welcoming click....
CHAPTER III
She drew in a long breath as she slowly opened the door, feeling for that which was waiting for her on the other side. Then slowly she let it out again with a sense of blissful relief. The house was a little close through having been shut up, but it smelt friendly and it smelt clean. The soul of a house is in its own peculiar smell, and certain people can no more live with certain house-smells than with a disagreeable flower. Mrs. Clapham, however, smelt the soul of this house, and knew that it was all right. Before long, indeed, the house would have a different smell—the smell of soap and furniture polish and recently scrubbed boards which followed Ann Clapham about as the scent follows the rose; but it would be only a surface smell, after all. Under it the smell that was the soul of the house would continue to rise and fall, the soul which reached out to her a welcoming hand, and murmured and crooned to her as she went in.