Mrs. Tanner, still giving her little chirps, hunted until she found the clean linen handkerchief with which Mrs. Clapham had completed her toilet that morning, and began to dab gently at the sleeves and the white front. She dabbed, too, at the quivering face down which the tears streamed as if all the tears that mothers have ever shed were being poured at once from that single fount. There were patches of dust, she noticed, on the charwoman’s gown, and dust on her hands which her tears were turning to grime. Her skirt was pulled all awry, and her bonnet had been askew; and, remembering how she had looked in the morning, Mrs. Tanner was struck to the heart. Presently she too was crying as she stroked and dabbed, though with light, twittering sounds that were still rather birdlike in effect.
But the first spell of grief was nearly exhausted by now, and Mrs. Tanner’s sobs, almost noiseless though they were, succeeded in bringing her neighbour’s to a close. With the instinctive unselfishness of the mother who has taught herself to be always the one to weep last, Mrs. Clapham made an effort to control herself at the first signs of another’s grief. Soon she was trying to sit up, dabbing for herself with the handkerchief which she had taken from Mrs. Tanner, and saying—“Nay, my lass, don’t cry ... don’t you grieve for me ... you’ll have trouble enough of your own”—between the great sobs which still shook her as if they actually took her by the shoulders, and the great tears that still welled and rolled and welled again after each useless dab.
“It seems that hard—and you so happy an’ all!” Mrs. Tanner broke out in a little wail, hurriedly searching for a handkerchief of her own. The wail, however, put the finishing touch to the mother’s effort after self-control. To be told that a thing was hard was in itself a call to her splendid courage; and, patiently scrubbing her wet cheeks with the wet linen, she presently strangled her sobs into a succession of long-drawn sighs.
“Nay, now, Maggie Turner, don’t you go saying it’s hard! It’s meant, likely; it’s sent.... Tibbie would never ha’ murmured and said it was hard!...” A large tear that had been left behind escaped boldly and followed the rest. “Eh, but it come that sharp, didn’t it?” she exclaimed wistfully. “Never a letter to say she was ill or owt! What, she was well enough when she writ last, though it’s a while now. Eh, how was it nobody thought to write and say as I’d best come!”
“It must have been right sudden,” Mrs. Tanner answered, also drying her tears. “Happen it was her poor heart.”
“Nay, her heart was right enough, I’ll swear! ’Twas always in the right place—bless her ... bless her!” Her voice rose suddenly in a passionate wail, and she rocked sharply to and fro.
“Ay, but t’ War was a great strain, you’ll think on. A deal o’ folks say their hearts isn’t what they used to be after that.”
“Ay, I’d forgotten t’ War....” So many worlds may people inhabit in one life and one world that even a world-wide war may be shut out.... “She took it hard, I know; she never said much, but she took it hard. But she was right strong, all the same, was my little lass.... Nay, it was never her heart.”
“It might be pewmonia, likely. That finishes folk ter’ble sharp.”
“Nay, nor her lungs, neither. They was always as sound as a bell.”