Youthful weariness demands sleep. Emma was young and overweary, and, as a consequence, overslept.
It was in the fear that calamity might have stolen another march on her that she dressed herself. She had about her a neatness that enraged the down-at-heel disheartened, of which there are so many in labouring communities.
“The world,” she thought, “has thumped me till I ain’t got half the spring I hed to start on; and that’s the reason I’m goin’ to dress up. I’ll wear cuffs till I’ve got to sell ’em, and a collar, ef I do have to shave for a livin’.”
But she had not enough pleasure in living left to heat the coffee that her father had used at his breakfast; she was only thankful that he had gone away for his paper By the Bridge, and that she might set about vacating the house, with a will. She did not think of consulting him. When a man has consented all his life to anything and never met any circumstance, crucial or casual, with aught but irrelevant comment, he is rarely a factor in other people’s plans.
She was glad she had not had to get breakfast, for she had to tend Jarlsen. The day was wet, and his hurts seemed the sorer for the damp. When she had done all for him she laid her hand on his, but the dread of packing her wedding things was making war on her energies. She felt she could not rest till she had packed the white gown out of sight and mind. Before now she had held a private service of tears over her six wedding presents. Miss Bentley had given her a jacket edged with good fur, and her sister had given her some fine stockings; but her lover’s gift meant more to her than any other inanimate thing. It certainly meant more than bread, for she would have starved before she sold it, and died in happiness had her eyes but met it as they closed finally.
It was a large locket of reddish gold, embossed in clumsy arabesque; within were two photographs—of Jarlsen and of Cheyne Falls, where they were to have spent their wedding week. It was the fashionable tribute from groom to bride in Jarlsen’s circle of Soot citizens, and Emma felt that with this gift he conferred his higher class on her. It was just what he would have given the first foreman’s daughter. She opened the locket and looked in. Eve may have felt like her and Emma thought of her; it was an angel with a fiery sword who put them both out of God’s Eden, she remembered. But some of Eve’s memories must have been self-reproachful, and Emma was spared that misery. She was also a fine enough type to appreciate that.
She was shutting up her little shrine when Jerry Black found her. They met with tears that had not started at their meeting; for Jerry had wept at having to return in sorrow to the house where but yesterday hope had hurried him.
To begin a new series of troubles just as he had completed an old one told on his nerves. He had spent the long night praying for Emma, his head on his shiny rosewood dining table.
He always showed this table with pride; it was made from the extra wood he had been commissioned to buy for the Bentley coffins. He had made it himself, and time and again had shown it to Miss Bentley, in whom he felt a great disappointment, as she never manifested any satisfaction at the sight. The cats leaped upon it nightly, as it was Jerry’s habitual place of prayer, and it sometimes seemed to him that they exchanged glances with each other in his despite, glances of criticism at his fervour. He never drove them away, however.
“Emma,” he said, his lips trembling and his pale eyes filling fast, “your trouble’s fearful heavy, but you won’t give in. I’ve seen to Quarry, and it jest ain’t no use; you can’t get anything out of him; he give it all in to the Workers’ Protective Circle. He give it in to the aggression fund. They’re going to order a strike for the same pay for winter days nine hours’ work, as they get for a ten-hours’ summer’s day. I think that’s it. My work’s among the peaceful, and sometimes I thank God I hev it mostly among dead men, seein’ what the live ones is like. But, Emma, he’s give the money in, so’s the strike fund can grow. He’s a gainin’, winnin’ kind of speaker, and he’s give up what he took to their cause, and no one ain’t a-goin’ to touch him. Now you jest remember that the night’s blackest just before the sun comes, and don’t you loose your grip. When Jarlsen comes out from the blast you want him to find you jest es straight and steady es when he was took—don’t you now?”