"He's dead, right enough. You see, dear, there's not a trace of breath on the glass."
"I'd like to say a prayer. Will you say a prayer with me?"
"Yes, I feel as if I should like to myself; it eases the heart wonderful."
XLV
She stood on the platform watching the receding train. A few bushes hid the curve of the line; the white vapour rose above them, evaporating in the grey evening. A moment more and the last carriage would pass out of sight. The white gates swung slowly forward and closed over the line.
An oblong box painted reddish brown lay on the seat beside her. A woman of seven or eight and thirty, stout and strongly built, short arms and hard-worked hands, dressed in dingy black skirt and a threadbare jacket too thin for the dampness of a November day. Her face was a blunt outline, and the grey eyes reflected all the natural prose of the Saxon.
The porter told her that he would try to send her box up to Woodview to-morrow…. That was the way to Woodview, right up the lane. She could not miss it. She would find the lodge gate behind that clump of trees. And thinking how she could get her box to Woodview that evening, she looked at the barren strip of country lying between the downs and the shingle beach. The little town clamped about its deserted harbour seemed more than ever like falling to pieces like a derelict vessel, and when Esther passed over the level crossing she noticed that the line of little villas had not increased; they were as she had left them eighteen years ago, laurels, iron railing, antimacassars. It was about eighteen years ago, on a beautiful June day, that she had passed up this lane for the first time. At the very spot she was now passing she had stopped to wonder if she would be able to keep the place of kitchen-maid. She remembered regretting that she had not a new dress; she had hoped to be able to brighten up the best of her cotton prints with a bit of red ribbon. The sun was shining, and she had met William leaning over the paling in the avenue smoking his pipe. Eighteen years had gone by, eighteen years of labour, suffering, disappointment. A great deal had happened, so much that she could not remember it all. The situations she had been in; her life with that dear good soul, Miss Rice, then Fred Parsons, then William again; her marriage, the life in the public-house, money lost and money won, heart-breakings, death, everything that could happen had happened to her. Now it all seemed like a dream. But her boy remained to her. She had brought up her boy, thank God, she had been able to do that. But how had she done it? How often had she found herself within sight of the workhouse? The last time was no later than last week. Last week it had seemed to her that she would have to accept the workhouse. But she had escaped, and now here she was back at the very point from which she started, going back to Woodview, going back to Mrs. Barfield's service.
William's illness and his funeral had taken Esther's last few pounds away from her, and when she and Jack came back from the cemetery she found that she had broken into her last sovereign. She clasped him to her bosom—he was a tall boy of fifteen—and burst into tears. But she did not tell him what she was crying for. She did not say, "God only knows how we shall find bread to eat next week;" she merely said, wiping away her tears, "We can't afford to live here any longer. It's too expensive for us now that father's gone." And they went to live in a slum for three-and-sixpence a week. If she had been alone in the world she would have gone into a situation, but she could not leave the boy, and so she had to look out for charing. It was hard to have to come down to this, particularly when she remembered that she had had a house and a servant of her own; but there was nothing for it but to look out for some charing, and get along as best she could until Jack was able to look after himself. But the various scrubbings and general cleaning that had come her way had been so badly paid that she soon found that she could not make both ends meet. She would have to leave her boy and go out as a general servant. And as her necessities were pressing, she accepted a situation in a coffee-shop in the London Road. She would give all her wages to Jack, seven shillings a week, and he would have to live on that. So long as she had her health she did not mind.
It was a squat brick building with four windows that looked down on the pavement with a short-sighted stare. On each window was written in letters of white enamel, "Well-aired beds." A board nailed to a post by the side-door announced that tea and coffee were always ready. On the other side of the sign was an upholsterer's, and the vulgar brightness of the Brussels carpets seemed in keeping with the slop-like appearance of the coffeehouse.
Sometimes a workman came in the morning; a couple more might come in about dinner-time. Sometimes they took rashers and bits of steak out of their pockets.