“I’m just bound to see all I can!” the charwoman chuckled, still like a child that cannot be persuaded to leave its toy but falls asleep with it in his hand. “I’m real silly, I know, but I’ll settle afore long. I’m like the folks in the sweet-shops, you’ll think on; I won’t give no bother as soon as I’ve eaten my fill!”
Arrived once more at Mrs. Bell’s, she found that Mrs. Cann had been asked to meet her, a small, plump person, solemn and rather prim. Old Mrs. Bendrigg had been bedridden for the last year, but had sent a welcome and an invitation to call. Mrs. Cann, eyeing her rather stiffly, partly from shyness and partly because she had been kept waiting for her tea, delivered the greeting at the tail of her own.
“You’re all very kind, I’m sure!” Mrs. Clapham managed to reach the chair which had been her salvation before, realising her renewed exhaustion as she sank into it. “I’m main sorry I kept you from your teas. Time passed that fast, I’d no idea!” She waited politely for the request to draw up to the table, and then did so with some difficulty. “I never looked to be tret like this,” she added delightedly, shining with smiles, “and I’ll be main glad to do what I can in return!”
This tactful acknowledgment met with its due reward, and the three faces, drawn together over the cups, soon began to look like the faces of old friends. In their hearts the old inmates were decidedly of opinion that they would benefit by the new, although they had no intention of letting her know it. They knew her by reputation to be amiable, hard-working and honest, all attributes which, in one way or another, might be turned to their own account. It was Mrs. Bendrigg who had pointed out, for instance, that a body with such a passion for cleaning wouldn’t be likely to stop at her own house. Once a charwoman, always a charwoman, was Mrs. Bendrigg’s summary of the situation. “What, you’ll nobbut have to step across and say you’re a bit out o’ sorts,” the old lady had asserted, “and Ann Clapham’ll be scrubbing your back kitchen afore you can say knife!”
“Mrs. Bell here’s been telling me you were once in service with the old gent as built these spots,” Mrs. Cann began primly, opening the conversation with the usual “pawn to king’s fourth” of the highest social asset available. In her heart she would have preferred any scandal which was going about the houses in which Mrs. Clapham had chared, and hoped to lead up to it later on. But even in almshouses social observance must have its due, and old Mr. T. did nicely to open the ball. It was not long, either, before both women were listening open-mouthed to Mrs. Clapham’s descriptions of the old man’s Lancashire home, almost swallowing, as it were, the costly marvels which she seemed to bring into the room. Proud to have this second chance of paying him tribute, she laid stress not only upon his riches, but upon the respect in which he was held; even while she amused them by recalling his gruff ways and speech, and his habit of comprehending the universe under the name of “Jones.” She told them, too, as she told everybody now, of how he had wished her to have the house. Only she did not tell them of how he had looked on that last day, or of that last speech of his before he pulled down the kitchen blind....
The social basis having been firmly established, it was possible now to descend to charing. Mrs. Clapham’s audience was pleased to discover that she was not above talking about her trade, or even discussing the houses into which that trade had happened to take her. Not that she gave them the racy bits of gossip which they would undoubtedly have liked best, but there was always the chance that she might come to those when they knew her better. But she was able to give them portraits of the families who had passed through her hands during twenty to thirty years, finishing them off with such deftness that they almost stood there before their eyes. She told them, for instance, of the numerous branches of the bewildering Bullers, who had relatives everywhere in the British Isles, and would probably have had them in the Cocos Islands, if they had been allowed. She told them how young Mr. Banbury-Wilson always insisted upon hanging his own curtains, and how old Mr. Wrench simply wouldn’t wipe his feet on the mat. She told them of children, animals, and even ghosts; and of servants who were a good deal worse than any possible ghost. She told them of little kindnesses received, and little presents; and sometimes of little cheatings and slights. And over all these things she cast a glamour that was all her own, concocting a brave draught to slake the almshouse thirst for “life.”
But she said nothing to them about the deeper things which had happened to come her way, and which even now she could scarcely remember without a rush of her ready tears. She did not mention the sorrows supposed to be dead or dumb, which yet rose up and spoke to you as soon as you went in. She told them nothing of parents and children who hated each other, or husbands and wives; of poverty borne bravely, wealth frittered, sickness carried like a jewelled cross. Least of all did she speak of the moments when she herself had risen to some crisis of fear or death; when frightened and helpless women had hung weeping about her neck, and relieved or grief-stricken men had wrung her gratefully by the hand....
Even without these things, however, she had plenty to say, and all of it full of a fine human touch. It was the epic of Mrs. Clapham’s life that was spoken that afternoon, even though the greater part of it was spoken only to her own soul. She was a trained talker, of course, like most women of her trade, but never before had she talked like this. It was as if the story of all the years had found its rightful moment of vent, now that the work of those years had come to its peaceful and fruitful end.
Outside, the September sun was sinking slowly towards the sea, while inside Mrs. Bell’s kitchen the magic monologue went on. The heads drew closer and closer together over the table until they almost touched. The hands gripped half-emptied cups of forgotten tea, or half-finished pieces of home-made currant bun. For the time being the bent backs were unaware of the heavy burden of age, the nearly-spent lives unaware of how short a course they had to run. Life, the magician and taleteller, was actually in the cottage itself, not merely watched through a pane of glass, passing unheeding on the road.
Breath, if not ideas, failed the lecturer at last, and they drew apart by degrees, remembering that, even in such a select company as theirs, there were such trifles to see to as “siding” and washing-up. Mrs. Clapham, pushing back her chair and attempting to rise, found that her cotton-wool legs had suddenly changed into boards. She was accepted, however,—there was no doubt about that, and physical drawbacks were details compared with that fine fact. Again she had an impression of the lavishness with which Fate gives when it gives at all, of the ease with which miracle after miracle is projected as soon as their warranted hour arrives. There was a royal sweep about the events of the day as she looked back upon them in her mind, a perfect, unwavering curve which, mounting and mounting with every hour, would drop only when it did drop into the falling away of happy sleep.