‘You’d better have dinner there,’ he said to her privately. ‘We can’t both of us come down on the Byasses.’
She nodded, and with a parting glance of hostile suspicion set forth. When she had crossed City Road, Clem’s foot was on her native soil; she bore herself with conscious importance, hoping to meet some acquaintance who would be impressed by her attire and demeanour. Nothing of the kind happened, however. It was the dead hour of Sunday morning, midway in service-time, and long before the opening of public-houses. In the neighbourhood of those places of refreshment were occasionally found small groups of men and boys, standing with their hands in their pockets, dispirited, seldom caring even to smoke; they kicked their heels against the kerbstone and sighed for one o’clock. Clem went by them with a haughty balance of her head.
As she entered by the open front door and began to descend the kitchen steps, familiar sounds were audible. Mrs. Peckover’s voice was raised in dispute with some one; it proved to be a quarrel with a female lodger respecting the sum of threepence-farthing, alleged by the landlady to be owing on some account or other. The two women had already reached the point of calling each other liar and thief. Clem, having no acquaintance with the lodger, walked into the kitchen with an air of contemptuous indifference. The quarrel continued for another ten minutes—if the head of either had been suddenly cut off it would assuredly have gone on railing for an appreciable time—and Clem waited, sitting before the fire. At last the lodger had departed, and the last note of her virulence died away.
‘And what do you want?’ asked Mrs. Peckover, turning sharply upon her daughter.
‘I suppose I can come to see you, can’t I?’
‘Come to see me! Likely! When did you come last? You’re a ungrateful beast, that’s what you are!’
‘All right. Go a’ead! Anything else you’d like to call me?’
Mrs. Peckover was hurt by the completeness with which Clem had established her independence. To do the woman justice, she had been actuated, in her design of capturing Joseph Snowdon, at least as much by a wish to establish her daughter satisfactorily as by the ever-wakeful instinct which bade her seize whenever gain lay near her clutches. Clem was proving disloyal, had grown secretive. Mrs. Peckover did not look for any direct profit worth speaking of from the marriage she had brought about, but she did desire the joy of continuing to plot against Joseph with his wife. Moreover, she knew that Clem was a bungler, altogether lacking in astuteness, and her soul was pained by the thought of chances being missed. Her encounter with the lodger had wrought her up to the point at which she could discuss matters with Clem frankly. The two abused each other for a while, but Clem really desired to communicate her news, so that calmer dialogue presently ensued.
‘Old Snowdon’s had a stroke, if you’d like to know, and it’s my belief he won’t get over it.’
‘Your belief! And what’s your belief worth? Had a stroke, has he? Who told you?’