The Undefeated

by J. C. Snaith

During his three months’ absence in camp their correspondence had been meager; it had also been formal, not to say cold. The estrangement into which they had drifted was so wide that even the step he had recently taken could not bridge it. He had told her on a picture postcard with a view of Duckingfield Parish Church that he was quite well and he hoped that she was and that things were going on all right; and with a view of the Market Place she replied that she was glad to know that he was quite well as it left her at present. However, he was careful to supplement this marital politeness with a few words every Saturday when he sent her five shillings, all he could spare of his pay. The money was always acknowledged briefly and coldly. No clew was given to her feelings, or to her affairs, but when he told her he was coming home at Christmas for two days she wrote to say that she would be pleased to see him.

As he stepped off the tram into the raw Blackhampton mirk which awaited him at the end of Love Lane that formal phrase came rather oddly into his mind. It gave him a sort of consolation to reflect that Melia was one who said what she meant and meant what she said. But, whether or not she would be pleased to see him at the present moment, he was genuinely pleased to be seeing her.

It was strange that it should be so. But Melia with all her grim humors stood for freedom, a life of physical ease and cushioned independence, and this was what a slack fibered man of one and forty simply longed for after three months’ “grueling.” For a man past his physical best, of slothful habits and civilian softness, the hard training had not been child’s play. Besides, his home meant something. It always had meant something. That was why in the face of many difficulties he had struggled in his spasmodic way to keep it together. It had seemed to give him no pleasure, it had seemed to bring nothing into his life, but somehow he had felt that if once he let go of it, as far as he was concerned it would mean the end of all things. He would simply fall to pieces. He would sink into the gutter and he would never be able to rise again.

Getting off the tram at the end of Love Lane he felt a sensation that was almost pride to think that he had a place of his own to come home to. After all it stood for sixteen years of life and struggle. And at that moment he was particularly glad that he had sent that five shillings a week regularly. Unless he had done so he would not now have been able to go and face Melia.

There was not much light in the little street, but it was not yet quite dark. And the first sight of his home gave him a shock. The outside of the shop had changed completely. Not only was the signboard and the rest of the woodwork resplendent with new paint, but the window was more than twice the size it had been. Moreover it was brilliantly lighted; there was a fine display of apples, oranges, prunes, nuts, even boxes of candied fruits and bonbons; and in the center of this amazing picture was a large Christmas tree, artfully decorated, in a pot covered with pink paper.

William Hollis gave a gasp. And then a slow chill spread over him as he realized the truth. Somebody had taken over the business, somebody with capital, brains, business experience. But that being the case why had Melia kept it all so dark? And why, if the business belonged to somebody else, was his name still on the signboard? And why had it had that new coat of paint?

The sheer unexpectedness struck him internally, as if a bucket of water had been dashed in his face. It was the worst set-back he had ever had in his life. Not until that moment did he realize how much the shop meant to him. He was bitterly angry that such a trick had been played. It showed, as hardly anything else could have done, the depth of Melia’s venom; it showed to what a point she was prepared to carry her resentment.

It took him a minute to pull himself together, and then he walked into the shop, not defiantly, not angrily, but with a sense of outrage. There was nobody in it, but, as he cast round one indignant glance at its new and guilty grandeur and then crossed heavily to the curtained door, he held himself ready to meet the new proprietor.

Beyond that mysterious portal the small living room was very spick and span. Almost to his surprise he found Melia there. She matched the room in appearance and at the moment he came in she was putting a log of wood on the fire. Great Uncle William’s sword and accouterments, hanging from the wall, were decorated with holly, the pictures also and a new grocer’s almanac, and a small bunch of mistletoe was suspended from the gas bracket in the middle of the ceiling. Everything was far more cheerful and homelike than he ever remembered to have seen it. The note of Christmas was there, which in itself meant welcome and good cheer.

He stood at the threshold of the curtained door, a neat soldierlike figure with a chastened mustache, looking wonderfully trim and erect in his uniform. She greeted him with a kind of half smile on her hard sad face, but he didn’t offer to kiss her. Not for long years had they been on those terms; they were man and wife in hardly more than name. And if in his absence, as there was reason to suspect, she had played him a trick in revenge for her years of disappointment, he somehow felt man enough at that moment to make an end of things altogether so far as she was concerned. There were faults on both sides, no doubt. Perhaps he hadn’t quite played jannock; but if the business now belonged to somebody else, he would simply walk straight out of the place and he would never enter it again.