She found herself wishing, with a fervour that almost surprised her, that this was Mrs. Wrench’s “day,” after all. She remembered how she had chuckled, on waking, to think it was nothing of the sort, but she was not so sure that she felt like chuckling now. Even with Mrs. Wrench it was sometimes possible to slip a word in edgeways, if you tried; and in spite of her absorption in Miss Marigold and Miss Marigold’s gowns, she would surely have spared a moment to tell her how matters stood.
But it was not Mrs. Wrench’s day, so it was no use thinking about it. It was nobody’s “day,” for the matter of that. It was her own day, to do as she liked with from rise to set, and just for the moment it threatened to hang on her hands. She tried to make a bargain with herself that she wouldn’t look at the clock for another half-hour, and found her eyes stealing round to it the very next minute. She almost wished—so desperately was she at a loose end—that she had gone up the street to speak to Emma Catterall. She hated Tibbie’s mother-in-law as she hated nobody else on earth, but even Emma would have been better than nothing. She went to the window at last, to see whether she had re-emerged, bending her pink face above the box of pink asters, the Family Bible and the clock. But there was no sign of Emma, as far as she could tell, although, as it happened, Emma, at that moment, was also peering out. There were no flowers in Emma’s window, but only a few half-dead ferns; nevertheless in the blankness and gloom of her dismal dwelling she was hidden as in a cave.
When Mrs. Clapham could bear the waiting no longer, she fetched pail and brush from the back kitchen, and got herself down to scrub the floor. The place was already so clean that her energy seemed rather wasted, but, although she was unaware of it, there was something symbolical in the act. In its own way it was a sort of dedication, a cleansing of everything round her for the coming event. In any case, nothing that hadn’t been washed since the day before was ever quite clean to Mrs. Clapham. Yesterday was yesterday, and to-day was to-day, and nobody knew better than she just how far dirt could manage to spread itself in a single night.
At all events, her instinct in the matter had been perfectly sound, for her nerves calmed as soon as she touched her tools. As she knelt on her little mat, scrubbing with strong, rhythmic, stiff-armed strokes, she felt full of a placid confidence that was infinitely more pleasant than the foregoing state of thrill. Even she knew that she was at her best when she was at her “job,” rough though it was, and low in the social scale. She felt so soothed that she even sang as she scoured the flags, giving them just enough water and yet not too much, as a skilful scrubber should. She had done the doorstep already, of course—as soon as she came down—a matutinal rite as mechanical and natural as washing her own face. She found herself hankering, however, to wash the doorstep again, and was only stopped by the consciousness that it seemed rather silly. Yet the step could not be too clean across which the wonderful news was certain to come, and there would be plenty of time for it to dry. The fact that she could say to herself that there was plenty of time showed that she had ceased to expect the news at every minute. She was so pleased with herself when she realised that that she started to sing again. In her present mood of contented assurance she felt she could wait all day.
She and her little mat had just about finished their perambulation in honour of cleanliness, and she was dipping the brush for almost the last time, when somebody came up the street and gave a birdlike tap at her door. Again Mrs. Clapham’s heart warned her that life at this strenuous pitch was not suitable to its constitution, and it was a moment or two before she could force herself to her feet. But she had hardly started to answer the summons before the latch moved in its socket, and the thin little face of Mrs. Tanner came peeping excitedly round the jamb.
“Any news, Ann Clapham?” she inquired breathlessly. “Have you had t’ news? Eh, now, I could hardly sleep for fearing summat might go wrong!”
She slipped into the room as she spoke, pushing the door behind her with a neat movement. There was an almost birdlike activity in every inch of her thin form, and an almost beak-like effect in her pursed-up, toothless mouth. Mrs. Clapham looked simply immense beside her spare little shape, a towering giantess of a woman, broad and wholesome and strong. The rolled-up sleeves of her faded print frock showed her splendid arms, just as her skirt, turned up over her short striped petticoat, showed her sturdy legs. Her clean harding apron struck a note of extreme freshness which was accentuated by the glow of her pink face and the gleam of her white hair. The scrubbing-brush was still gripped in her wet hand, and the zinc pail behind her spoke to her honest trade. Even in her excitement Mrs. Tanner had time for a spasm of admiration. “Eh, but it seems a shame to put the likes of her in an almshouse!” she said to herself; and then forgot the impression in her eagerness for a reply.
“Nay, I’ve heard nowt yet!” Mrs. Clapham was one broad smile. “I doubt it’s hardly time. Folks as sit on committees and suchlike don’t get up as soon as us!”
Mrs. Tanner gave the nod of pained but tolerant comprehension with which one class salutes the idiosyncrasies of another.
“Anyway, it’ll be all right. Folks say as it’s yours already.... I had to look in, though; I was that keen to know.”