Anne’s lip tightened when she saw that Ada did not change the flimsy shoes and that her hat eclipsed their flimsiness. A “baby” hat, of imitation lace, from which her face peeped out like a drooping, sapless flower. “Yes,” thought Anne. “Men being men, that hat is clever. It’s a trap for fools and it caught my fool. Ada Struggles, you’re dangerous.”
They took the front seat on the tram and aloud she said, using purposely her roughest accent: “It’s queer to think of our Sam marrying a lady. I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve it, but his father were a railway porter and mine were a policeman. His sister was in service.”
“Sam wall get on,” said Ada, with conviction.
“I’m none doubting it,” said Anne. “But he’s had luck and it’s a question if the luck’ll hold. Mr. Travers took him up and sent him to Grammar School, and Sam didn’t do too well there. He disappointed me and he’s not gone on as he might have done. The fight’s ahead of him yet and he’ll need a fighter by his side. I’ve done my share for him this long while and I’m getting old. I shall be glad of a rest, Ada. Sam’s an early riser and it’s weary work getting up on a winter’s morning to light the fire and get his breakfast ready. Only that won’t trouble you. You’re young.”
“Of course,” said Ada, “we shall have a servant.”
“What!” exclaimed Anne, “on two pounds ten a week, with me to keep and all? I wouldn’t reckon on that, if I were you. Later on, perhaps. But I know it can’t be done at present, or Sam would have done it for me.” The idea of Anne Branstone with a wench about her house struck her as humorous. Anne might have help some day—when she was bed-ridden: till then, her house was her house. “No,” she went on, “you can take it from me that it’ll not run to a servant. I don’t know what his idea is about me, whether he will want me to live with you or not. Likely not. A man doesn’t want his mother about when he’s wed.”
“No,” agreed Ada hopefully. Anne oppressed her.
“No. And I can get on with a pound a week from him. That’ll leave you thirty shillings. Well, I’ve done it, so I know it can be done, though mind you, it’s a struggle all the time and double tides when the babies begin to come. But of course I’ll help you—with advice. I’m not for forcing myself on you, but naturally I know Sam’s ways and his likings about food. He’s a bit difficult at times, too, but that’s nothing. All men are and you’ll know that, having had your father to do for. I don’t say Sam’s finicky, but he likes what he likes and I hope you’re fond of the same things. It always turned me up to clean a rabbit, and I never liked the smell of onions, but that’s a favourite dish of Sam’s and so I’d just to grin and bear it. And I know you’ll do the same for Sam.”
Ada squirmed helplessly. She could have screamed. Anne sat at the outside of the seat and pinned her to it. The tram seemed a Juggernaut car which drove implacably over her dreams: a prison where she was tortured by a coarse old woman with work-roughened hands and an endless flow of vitriol. She wanted to tell Anne that she lied, that the more she deprecated Sam the more desirable Ada knew him to be, that her grapes were neither sour nor to be soured by Anne’s insane jealousy; and she could not do it. The ride seemed more of a nightmare with every moment that passed. The tram was a mad wheeled cage with a mad driver and a mad guard. It left the lines and careered wildly into desolation, and she was fettered in it to an avenging fury who would not stop talking, but with ruthless common sense pricked all the bubbles of her hopes. She shut her eyes and abandoned herself to misery. Each minute seemed an hour. She thought that somebody was throttling her, that the flying cage was her tomb, that vampires sucked her blood, and her naked, drained body was shackled to her seat until the car, driving inevitably through black space, bumped finally against a star in one consuming smash. She opened her eyes to find that the tram had stopped at its suburban terminus and that Anne was asking: “Shall we get down for a walk or shall we go back by the same car?”
So she was still in the living world, and with the consciousness of it courage returned to her. For a minute she was silent, fighting her demons off, catching at facts and weighing them. Anne was not a vampire, but an old worn woman who had, curiously, the right to call Sam Branstone son—Ada’s future mother-in-law, and a quaint one too; one to be put firmly and haughtily in her place and kept there.