Even worse was it when he gave her the necklace.
From the scene of the disaster they had moved to a little fishing village on the Yorkshire coast where they lodged in the cottage of a widow named Storm, perched halfway up a cliff, and from the windows they could see right over the North Sea, smooth as glass, with the herring fleet dotted like flies on its gleaming surface. Here, he thought, they could overcome their difficulties and relax the tension brought about by that last dark experience. There would be health in the wide sea and the huge cliffs and the moorland air. But it was the first time Matilda had been out of the crowd, and the peace and the emptiness induced brooding in her.
When he gave her the necklace she took it out of its white satin and velvet case and fingered it and let the light play on it. Then it seemed to frighten her, and she asked how much it had cost. He told her.
“It seems a sin,” said she, and put it back in its case.
That night she received his letter and then only she seemed to understand why he had given her the necklace, and she came and patted his shoulder and kissed the top of his head. She began to talk of Enid, how she never complained and never said an unkind word of anybody, and how proud she was of two little trinkets, a brooch and a bangle, given her by her husband, which she said she had never pawned and never would.
“The world seems upside down,” said Matilda.
“No. No,” he protested. “It is all as it should be, as it must be. My dear child, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I hurt you, made things hard for you. I was seeing the world all wrong. Men and women seemed only toys. . . .”
“But Enid used to say, you can’t expect anything from people when they have to think of money all day long.”
“When did she say that?”
“When her husband was out so long and didn’t write to her.”