“Let me move that ere pail, mum, or you’ll tumble over it,” said the charwoman to Mrs. Colston, “and p’r’aps you won’t mind steppin’ on this side of the passage, ’cause that side’s all wet. ’Ere, Mrs. Furze, don’t you come no further, I’ll open the front door”; and this she did.
Mrs. Furze felt rather unwell, and went to her bedroom, where she sat down, and, putting her face on the bedclothes, gave way to a long fit of hysterical sobbing. She would not come down to tea, and excused herself on the ground of sickness. Catharine went up to her mother and inquired what was the matter, but was repulsed.
“Nothing is the matter—at least, nothing you can understand. I am very unwell; I am better alone; go down to Mrs. Bellamy.”
“But, mother, it will do you good to be downstairs. Mrs. Bellamy will be so glad to see you, and she was so kind to me; it will be odd if you don’t come.”
“Go away, I tell you; I am best by myself; I can endure in solitude; you cannot comprehend these nervous attacks, happily for you; go away, and enjoy yourself with Mrs. Bellamy and your sausages.”
Catharine had had some experience of these nervous attacks, and left her mother to herself. Mrs. Bellamy and Catharine consequently had tea alone, Mr. Furze remaining at his shop that afternoon, as he had been late in arrival.
“Sorry mother’s so poorly, Catharine. Well, how do you like the Terrace?”
“I hate it. I detest every atom of the filthy, stuck-up, stuccoed hovel. I hate—” Catharine was very excited, and it is not easy to tell what she might have said if Mrs. Bellamy had not interrupted her.
“Now, Miss Catharine, don’t say that; it’s a bad thing to hate what we must put up with. You never heard, did you, as Bellamy had a sister a good bit older than myself? She was a tartar, and no mistake. She lived with Bellamy and kept house for him, and when we married, Bellamy said she must stay with us. She used to put on him as you never saw, but he, somehow, seemed never to mind it; some men don’t feel such things, and some do, but most on ’em don’t when it’s a woman, but I think a woman’s worse. Well, what was I saying?—she put on me just in the same way and come between me and the servant-girl and the men, and when I told them to go and do one thing, went and told them to do another, and I was young, and I thought when I was married I was going to be mistress, and she called me ‘a chit’ to her brother, and I mind one day I went upstairs and fell on my knees and cried till I thought my heart would break, and I said, ‘O my God, when will it please Thee to take that woman to Thyself!’ Now to wish anybody dead is bad enough, but to ask the Lord to take ’em is awful; but then it was so hard to bear ’cause I couldn’t say nothing about it, and I’m one of them as can’t keep myself bottled up like ginger-beer. You don’t remember old Jacob? He had been at Chapel Farm in Bellamy’s father’s time, and always looked on Bellamy as his boy, and used to be very free with him, notwithstanding he was the best creature as ever lived. He took a liking to me, and I needn’t say that, liking of me, he didn’t like Bellamy’s sister. Well, I came down, and I went out of doors to get a bit of fresh air—for I’m always better out of doors—and I went up by the cart-shed, and being faint a bit, sat down on the waggon shafts. Old Jacob, he came by; I can see him now; it was just about Michaelmas time, a-getting dark after tea, though I hadn’t had any, and he said to me, ‘Hullo, missus, what are here for? and you’ve been a-cryin’,’ for I had my face toward the sky and was looking at it. I never spoke. ‘I know what’s the matter with you,’ says he; ‘do you think I don’t? Now if you go on chafing of yourself, you’ll worrit yourself into your grave, that’s all. Last week there was something the matter with that there dog, and she howled night after night, and I never slept a wink. The first morning after she’d been a-yelping I was in a temper, and had half a mind to kill her. I felt as if she’d got a spite against me; but it come to me as she’d got no spite against me, and then all my worriting went away. I don’t say as I slept much till she was better, but I didn’t worrit. Now Bellamy’s sister don’t mean nothing against you. That’s the way God-a-mighty made her.’ I’ve never forgot what Jacob said, and I know it made a difference, but the Lord took her not long afterwards.”
“But I don’t see what that has to do with me. It isn’t the same thing.”