She broke off, then, however, even her amazing armour not being proof against the other’s stare of superb scorn. Flushing, stammering and choking, she checked like a brazen bell into harsh silence....
“Them’s all lies, Emma Catterall, and you know it!” was the terse comment of Mrs. Clapham. “I don’t say Jemmy didn’t do his share in harming the poor lad, but none of us need telling it was you as did most. Anyway, you could have fed him and darned him, and seen to his poor wants. I’m a mother myself, as you very rightly say, and I don’t need telling that.”
“Ay, but it was Jemmy set him agen me——!” Emma began again, losing her head completely, and again choking and stammering into silence. There was a moment’s pause, while she stared at Mrs. Clapham with the flush deep on her round face, and then she flung her apron over her head with a sudden sweep and a sharp wail.
“Eh, but you’re cruel—cruel!” she sobbed on a high note, her voice stabbing like a thin knife through the draped folds of the coarse stuff. The charwoman, twisted violently in her chair, gazed at her silently in open alarm. It was as if a gargoyle on some church had become a Niobe bathed in tears, or a cat worshipped by ancient Egyptians had opened its mouth and mewed for milk.... It was terrible and grotesque, and disturbed her beyond words, the more so that it helped to confirm her recently-stirred doubts....
“That cruel!” Emma continued to wail from behind her screen. “Supposing I did treat the poor lad as I hadn’t ought, d’ye think I haven’t repented it long since? D’you think I wasn’t haunted by it, waking and sleeping, all yon time he was out at t’ War? It’s easy to judge other folk, Ann Clapham, but there’s a deal o’ things hidden away as outsiders don’t see. Folks as don’t think a deal o’ their husbands don’t always care for their children, neither. You’ve seen a bit o’ human nature in your time, and you know that as well as me. Happen I didn’t treat Stephen right, but I’ve paid for it ever since. But there—what’s the use o’ turning your heart out to people as hard as you!”
Mrs. Clapham’s mouth shut slowly as the passionate speech proceeded, and a shocked, almost humbled expression came over her face. The sullen resentment went out of it for the time being, leaving it normally human and kind.
“Don’t take on, Emma!” she said at last, with a shake in her own voice. “Likely I’ve been hard, as you say.... Fetch t’ chair out o’ yon corner, will you?” she added quietly, after a moment, “and set yourself down afore we talk any more.”
There was a pause while Emma, still hidden behind the apron, apparently struggled for self-control; and then, with a long breath, she emerged slowly. As she seated herself opposite Mrs. Clapham, the latter saw that her eyelids were slightly reddened, and that the hard, round face looked haggard and strained. The growing doubt that was in her mind grew still further as she looked, telling herself that unmistakably here before her were genuine sorrow and sincere desire....
“Nay, I didn’t care for him as a lad, and that’s the truth!” Emma broke out again presently, still speaking a little unevenly. “Happen things wasn’t as bad as you think, but I don’t know as that matters. I know well enough I didn’t do by him as a mother should, and now that he’s dead and gone, it fair kills me to think on. It wasn’t till he was out in France that I found out what he meant; and eh! though I was right proud, I was right shamed o’ myself an’ all! Ay, well, he’ll not come back no more, and I can’t make up to him as I’d like, but if so be as I’m given my way, I can make it up to his poor children. Yon’s what I want yon barns for, Ann Clapham—to pay what I rightly owe. I know you’re set on ’em because they’re your poor Tibbie’s, but eh! if you only knew how I wanted them that bad! Little Stevie now, wi’ his black eyes and his white face—what, it would be near like having his father over again! Ay, and the lass an’ all; I’ve always wanted a little lass. I’d be that good to ’em; I would that. I’d cocker ’em to their heart’s content. There’s nowt wouldn’t be too good to make up for my badness to Poor Stephen. I’m young enough and I’m right strong, and I’ve managed to save a goodish bit o’ brass. Likely I’d be able to send the pair on ’em to a good school. If you take ’em, you’ll have to go back to work, give up your grand house, and start all over afresh. What, it’d be a real shame—you with your bad leg, and that tired out an’ all, as anybody might see! Tibbie’d be put about if she knew she was doing you out of your rest. I doubt you won’t find it so easy going back, neither. It’ll be a deal harder, you’ll see, than if you’d never thought o’ stopping at all. What, it’s only common sense, that’s what it is, when everything’s said and done! There’s you with your plans fixed, and wanting your bit o’ quiet, and me wanting summat to do and a nice bit o’ brass. There’s you wi’ no use, so to speak, for the poor barns, and me that sick for ’em I could break my heart! You think, likely, it wouldn’t be fair to your poor Tibbie—going back on her, kind of—sort of letting her down? Ay, well, it’s nat’ral enough you should feel like that; but the truth o’ the matter is, it’s the opposite way about....”
Her voice, stammering and anxious, and growing more and more eager as she found herself allowed to proceed, died away at last into a fateful silence. Mrs. Clapham had kept her eyes fixed upon her while she talked, but as soon as she ended she turned them from her. She was saying to herself that perhaps she had been wrong in thinking that there was no possible choice. There was a choice, after all, and it was perhaps only fair that she should be asked to make it. In face of her new doubts as well as her new and amazing pity for Emma, she could not simply sweep her pretensions off the board. Never again would she seem to her quite the same woman as before she had disappeared under that apron. Slowly she turned the recent revelation over in her mind, weighing and sifting and making ready for judgment.