"I see what he was driving at. And you think he went."
"None so long ago, I should say. He never see her--not alive. I couldn't say why, only I feel that was the way of it."
"When did you see him last?... No--old girl! I won't do that. It's mean--after sayin' I wouldn't witness-box! Don't you tell me nothing."
"I won't grudge telling you that much, Mo. It's a tidy long time back now. I couldn't say to a day. It was afore I wrote to him to keep away from the Court for fear of the Police.... Yes--I did! Just after Mr.
Rowe came round that time, asking inquiries.... I _am_ his wife, Mo--nothing can't alter it."
"I ain't blaming you, old girl."
"Well--it was then he said he'd go to Chorlton again. And he's been."
Silence again, and the sound of the children above. Then a footstep without, recognised as Susan Burr's by its limp.
"She'll have to be told, Mo," said Aunt M'riar. "We've never had a thought for poor Susan."
A commonplace face came white as ashes from the fog without, and a suffocating voice, gasping against sobs. "Oh, M'riar!--Oh, Mr.
Wardle!--_Is_ it true she's gone?"
Aunt M'riar could not tighten her lips against their instability and speak, at the same time, so she nodded assent. Uncle Mo said, steadily enough:--"I'm afraid it's true, Mrs. Burr. We can't make it out no otherwise." Then M'riar got self-command to say:--"Yes--she's taken from us. It's the Lord's will." And then they could claim their birthright of tears, the last privilege left to hearts encompassed with the darkness of the grave.
The three were standing, some short while later, at the stairfoot, each looking at the other. Which was to go first?
Aunt M'riar made a hesitating suggestion. "Supposin' you was to step up first, and look back to say...!"
"That's one idear," said Uncle Mo. "Suppose you do!"
Susan Burr, referred to by both, accepted the commission, limping slowly up the stairs while the others waited below, listening. They heard that the door above was opened, when the children's voices came clearer, suddenly. But Susan Burr had only cautiously pushed the door ajar, making no noise, to listen herself before going in. There was a flare from a gas-birth in the fire as she got a sight of the group within, through the opening. It illuminated Dolly, Dave, and the newly christened wax doll; the Persian apparatus on the floor--a mere rehearsal, whose cake had to be pretence cake, and whose tea lacked its vegetable constituent--and the portraits of robed and sceptred Royalty on the wall. Some point in stage-management seemed to be under discussion, and to threaten a dissolution of partnership. For Dave was saying:--"Then oy shall go and play with The Boys, because the fog's a-stopping. You look out at the winder!"
Dolly met this with a firm, though gentle, prohibition. "No, you _s'arn't_. You _is_ to be Gwanny Mawwowbone vis time, and set on the sofa. And me to be old Mrs. Spicture vis time, and set in the chair wiv scushions. And Pussy to be ve uvvers. And Gweng to paw out all veir teas. Only vey take veir sugar veirselves." Dolly may have had it in view to reduce Dave to impotence by assigning to him the position of a guest. His manhood revolted against a subordinate part. Superhuman tact is needed--an old story!--in the casting of the parts of any new play, and Dolly, although kissable to a degree, and with an iron will, was absolutely lacking in tact.
"Then oy shall go and play with The Boys, because the forg's a-stoarping." But this was an empty threat, as Dave knew perfectly well that Uncle Mo would not allow him to go out of doors so late, even if the fog melted, since its immediate cessation would have left London in the dark, for it was past the Official hour of sunset.
Dolly said again:--"No, you sarn't!" and went on with the arrangements.
"You take _tite_ hold of Pussy, and stop her off doin' on ve scushions.
Gweng to paw out the tea, only to wait faw the hot water! Ven I shall go in the chair with scushions, and be Mrs. Spicture. And ven you to leave hold of Pussy, and be Gwanny Mawwowbone on the sofa." The supernumeraries were _intransigeant_ and troublesome; that is to say, their representative the Cat was.
Dave, whose enjoyment of these games was beginning to be marred by his coming manhood--for see how old he was getting!--utilised magnanimity as an excuse for concession. He kept the supers in check while Dolly suggested an attitude to Gweng. Gweng had only to wait for hot water, so it was easy to find one. Dolly then scrambled into the chair with cushions, and the supernumeraries wedged themselves round her and purred, in the person of the Cat. But having made this much concession, Dave struck.
Instead of accepting his part, he went to the window. "Oy can see across the way," said he. "Oy don't call it a forg when you can see the gairslamp all the way across the Court. That hoyn't a forg! Oy say, Dolly, oy'm a-going for to see Uncle Mo round to The Sun parlour, and boy a hoypny sorcer coming back. Oy _am_!"
Dolly shook a mass of rough gold that cried aloud for a comb, and said with sweet gravity:--"You tarn't!"
"Why not?" Dave's indignation at this statement made him shout. "Why carn't oy, same as another boy?"
"Because you're Gwanny Mawwowbone, all ve time. You tarn't _help_ it."
Dolly's solemn nods, and a pathos that seemed to grieve over the inevitable, left Dave speechless, struggling in vain against the identity he had so rashly undertaken to assume.
Susan Burr missed a great deal of this, and marked what she heard but little. She only knew that the children were happy, and that their happiness must end. Even her own grief--for think what old Maisie's death meant to her!--was hushed at the thought of how these babies could be told, could have their first great grief burst upon them. She felt sick, and only knew that she herself could not speak the word.
Aunt M'riar stole up after her stealthily--not Uncle Mo; his weight on the old stairs would have made a noise. They stood side by side on the landing, just catching sight of the little poppet in the armchair, all unkempt gold and blue eyes, quite content with her personation of the beloved old presence it would never know again. Aunt M'riar could just follow Susan Burr's stifled whisper:--"She's being old Mrs. Picture, in her chair."
It was confirmed by Dave's speech from the window, unseen. "You _ain't_ old Mrs. Picture. When Mrs. Picture comes, oy shall tell her you said you was her, and then you'll see what Mrs. Picture'll say!" He spoke with a deep earnestness--a champion of Truth against an insidious and ungrounded fiction, that pretence was reality.
Then Dolly's voice, immovable in conviction, sweet and clear in correction of mere error:--"I _is_ Mrs. Spicture, and when she comes she'll _say_ I was Mrs. Spicture. She'll set in her chair wiv scushions, and _say_ I was Mrs. Spicture."
The two listeners without did not wait to hear Dave's indignant rejoinder. They could not bear the tranquil ignorance of the children, and their unconsciousness of the black cloud closing in on them. They turned and went noiselessly down the stairs, choking back the grief they dared not grant indulgence to, by so much as a word or sound. The chronic discussion that they had left behind went on--on--always the same controversy, as it seemed; the same placid assurance of Dolly, the same indignant protest of Dave.
At the stairfoot, Uncle Mo, silent, looking inquiry, mistrusting speech.
Aunt M'riar used a touch on his arm, and a nod towards the door of the little parlour, to get safe out of the children's hearing before risking speech, with that suffocation in her throat. Then when the door was closed, it came.
"We c-c-couldn't do it, Mo, we c-couldn't do it." Her sobs became a suppressed wail of despair, which seemed to give relief. Susan Burr had no other tale to tell, and was inarticulate to the same effect. They _could_ not break through the panoply of the children's ignorance of Death, there in the very home of the departed, in the face of every harbinger of her return.
"Poor old M'riar! You shan't have the telling of 'em." Uncle Mo's pitying tones were husky in the darkened room; not quite dark, as the fog was lifting, and the Court's one gas-lamp was perceptible again through its remains. "Poor old M'riar! You shan't tell 'em--nor yet Susan Burr. _I'll_ tell 'em, myself." But his heart sank at the prospect of his task, and he was fain to get a little respite--of only a few hours. "Look ye here, M'riar, I don't see no harm to come of standing of 'em over till we know. Maybe, as like as not, we'll have a letter in the morning."
But Uncle Mo was not to have the telling of the children.
Once it was clearly understood that the news was to be kept back, it became easier to exist, provisionally. Grief, demanding expression, gnaws less when silence becomes a duty. It was almost a relief to Susan Burr to have to be dry-eyed, on compulsion; far, far easier than to have to explain her tears to the young people. She went upstairs to them, mustering, as she went, a demeanour that would not be hypocritical, yet would safeguard her from suspicion of a hidden secret. She had been a long way, and was feeling her foot. That covered the position. Further, the children might stop upstairs a bit longer, if good. Dave was not to go out. Uncle Mo had said so. If Uncle Mo did go round to The Sun to-day, it would be after little boys and girls were abed and asleep.
Mrs. Burr made her attitude easier to herself by affecting a Draconic demeanour. It was due to her foot, Dave and Dolly decided.
The unconscious children accepted the fog as all-sufficient to account for the household's gloom, and never knew how heavily the hours went by for its older members. Bedtime came, and the fog did not go, or, at least, went no further than to leave the gaslamp as Dave had seen it, just visible across the Court, or discernible from the archway at a favourable fluctuation. Susan Burr stepped round to Mrs. Ragstroar's, alleging anxiety to hear Michael's story again, and some hopes of further particulars. She may have felt indisposed for the loneliness of her own room, with that empty chair; and yet that a company of three would bear reduction, all that called for saying having been said twice and again.
This was soon after supper; when little boys and girls are abed and asleep. The little boy in this case was half asleep. He heard his Aunt's and Uncle's voices get fainter as his own dream-voices came to take their place, and then came suddenly awake with a start to find Uncle Mo looming large beside him in the half-dark room. "Made you jump, did I, old man?" said Uncle Mo, kissing him. "Go to sleep again." Dave did so, but not before receiving a dim impression that his uncle went into the neighbouring room to Dolly, and kissed the sleeping child, too; gently, so as not to wake her. That was the impression, gleaned somehow, under which he went to sleep. Uncle Mo often looked in at Dave and Dolly, so this visit was no surprise to Dave.
Aunt M'riar awaited him at the stairfoot, on his return. "They'll be happy for a bit yet," said she. "Now, if only Jerry would come and smoke with you, Mo, I wouldn't be sorry to get to bed myself."
"May be he'll come!" said Mo. "Anyways, M'riar, don't you stop up on account of me. I'll have my pipe and a quiet think, and turn in presently.... Or look here!--tell you what! I'll just go round easy towards Jeff's, and if I meet Jerry by the way, I meet him; and if I don't, I don't. I shan't stop there above five minutes if he's not there, and I shan't stop all night if he is. Good-bye, M'riar."
"Good-night's plenty, Mo; you're coming back."
"Ay, surely! What did I say? Good-bye? Good-night, I should have made it." But he _had_ said "Good-bye!"
Has it ever occurred to you--you who read this--to feel it cross your mind when walking that you have just passed a something of which you took no notice? If you have, you will recognise this description. Did Uncle Mo, when he wavered at the arch, fancy he had half-seen a figure in the shadow, near the dustbin, and had automatically taken no notice of it? If so, he decided that he was mistaken, for he passed on after glancing back down the Court. But very likely his pause was only due to the fact that he was pulling on his overcoat. It was one he had purchased long ago, before the filling out had set in which awaits all athletes when they relapse into a sedentary life. Mo hated the coat, and the difficulties he met with when getting it on and off.
He was as good as his word about not stopping long at The Sun. Although he found his friend awaiting him, he did not remain in his company above half an hour, including his seven-minutes' walk back to the Court, to which Jerry accompanied him, saying farewell at the archway. He didn't go on to No. 7 at once, remembering that M'riar had said she wouldn't be sorry to go to bed.
Seeing lights and hearing voices in at Ragstroar's, he turned in for a chat, more particularly for a repetition of Micky's tale of his Hammersmith visit. Finding the boy there, he accepted his mother's suggestion that he should sit down and be comfortable. He did the former, having first pulled off the obnoxious coat to favour the latter.
He may have spent twenty minutes there, chiefly cross-examining Micky on particulars, before he got up to go. He forgot the odious coat, for Susan Burr called him back, and tried to persuade him to put it on. He resisted all entreaties. Such a little distance!--was it worth the trouble? He threw it over his arm, and again departed. The two women saw him from the door, and then, as they were exchanging a final word in the passage, were startled by a loud screaming, and, running out, saw Mo fling away the coat on his arm, and make such speed as he might towards a struggling group not over visible in the shadow of the lamp immediately above their heads.
This was within an hour of Mo's good-night, or good-bye, to M'riar at his own doorway.
Aunt M'riar had wavered yet a little before the fire, and had then given way to the thought of Dolly asleep. Dolly would be so unconscious of all things that it would now be no pain to know that she knew nothing of Death. Dolly asleep was always a solace to Aunt M'riar, even when she kicked or made sudden incoherent dream-remarks in the dark.
So, after placing Mo's candlestick conspicuously, that Susan Burr, who was pretty sure to come first, should see that he was still out, and not put up the chain nor shoot to the bolt, M'riar made her way upstairs to bed, very quietly, so as not to wake the children.