“Mother,” he cried in downright exasperation, “aren’t you happy here?”,
“I’d be happier in Manchester,” she said. “Yon smoke’s too far away to taste. Aye, I think I’ll leave you here and go to-day.”
“But you’re not going back to Madge’s—to the work in other people’s houses, I mean. That’s surely over now.”
“Maybe.”
“Mother, you’ve done with work.”
She eyed him grimly. “Not till I’m dead, my lad,” she said.
“Why won’t you tell me what you’re thinking of?”
“I’m thinking,” she said, “of yon slut in Peter Struggles’ kitchen. I’ll have her out of that tomorrow.”
He glanced at Effie, and then looked again. He fancied he had surprised a little smile on Effie’s face and looked twice to make sure. And when he looked he found that Effie was looking back at him in the wise, humorous way that he had come to know so well. “Don’t you see?” was what she seemed to say.
And he did see. He saw that it was not Manchester, but a man in Manchester; not the woman in Peter Struggles’ kitchen, but the man in Peter’s parlour who interrupted his mother’s vision of the Marbeck hills. She lost their beauty in a greater beauty of her own.