Chapter VI: Book II: The March of the Goslings (2)

"No, my good woman, you never did," said the stranger. "You never could and I should say the chances are that you never will."

Millie was intimidated and shrinking, even Blanche looked a little nervous, but Mrs Gosling was incapable of feeling fear of a fellow-woman. "You can't mean as you won't sell us a glass of milk?" she said.

"Have you got a box of matches you'll exchange for it?" asked the stranger. "I've got a burning glass I stole in Harrow, but you can't depend on the sun."

"No, nor 'aven't 'ad, the last three weeks," said Mrs Gosling. "But if you've more money a'ready than you know what to do with, I should 'ave thought as you'd 'a been willing to spare a glass o' milk for charity's sake."

The stranger regarded her petitioner with a hard smile. "Charity's sake?" she said. "Do you realize that I've had to defend this place like a fort against thousands of your sort? I've killed three madwomen who fought me for possession and buried 'em in the orchard like cats. I held out through the first rush and I can hold out now easily enough. You three are the first I've seen for a month, and before that they'd begun to get weak and poor. These are your daughters, I suppose, and the three of you had always depended upon some fool of a man to keep you. Yes? Well, you deserve all you've got. Now you can start and do a little healthy, useful work for yourselves. I've no pity for you. I've got a damned fool of a sister and an old fool of a mother to keep in there," she pointed to the cottage with her broomstick. "Parasitic like you, both of 'em, and pretty well all the use they are is to keep the fire alight. No, my good woman, you get no charity from me."

When she had finished her speech, which she delivered with a fluency and point that suggested familiarity with the platform, the stranger crossed her arms again over the gate and stared Mrs Gosling out of countenance.

"Come along, my dears," said that outraged lady, getting wearily to her feet. "I wouldn't wish your ears soiled by such language from a woman as 'as forgotten the manners of a lady. But, there, poor thing, I've no doubt 'er 'ead's been turned with all this trouble."

The stranger smiled grimly and made no reply, but as the Goslings were moving away, she called out to them suddenly: "Hi! You! There's a witless creature along the road who'll probably help you. The house is up a side road. Bear round to the right."

"What a beast," muttered Blanche when they had gone on a few yards.

"One o' them 'new' women, my dear," panted Mrs Gosling, who remembered the beginning of the movement and still clung to the old terminology. "'Orrible unsexed creatures! I remember how your poor father used to 'ate 'em!"

"I'd like to get even with her," said Millie.

They bore to the right, and so avoided two turnings which led up repulsive-looking hills, but they missed the side road.

"I'm sure we must have passed it," complained Mrs Gosling at last. Her sighs had been increasing in volume and poignancy for the past half-mile, and the prospect of uninhabited country which lay immediately around her she found infinitely dispiriting.

"There isn't an 'ouse in sight," she added, "and I really don't believe I can walk much farther."

Blanche stopped and looked over the fields on her right towards London. In the distance, blurred by an oily wriggle of heat haze, she could see the last wave of suburban villas which had broken upon this shore of open country. They had left the town behind them at last, but they had not found what they sought. This little arm of land which cut off Harrow and Wealdstone from the mother lake of London had not offered sufficient temptation to delay their forerunners in the search for food. Most of them, with a true instinct for what they sought, had followed the main road into the Chiltern Hills, and those who for some cause or another had wandered into this side track had pushed on, even as Blanche and Millie would have done had they not been dragged back by their mother's complaints. The sun was falling a little towards the west, and bird and animal life, which had seemed to rest during the intenser heat of mid-day, was stirring and calling all about them. A rabbit lolloped into the road, a few yards away, pricked up its ears, stared for an instant, and then scuttled to cover. A blackbird flew out of the hedge and fled chattering up the ditch. The air was murmurous with the hum of innumerable insects, and above Mrs Gosling's head hovered a group of flies which ever and again bobbed down as if following some concerted plan of action, and tried to settle on the poor woman's heated face.

"Oh! get away, do!" she panted, and flapped a futile handkerchief.

"How quiet it is!" said Blanche; and although the air was full of sound it did indeed appear that a great hush had fallen over the earth. No motor-horn threateningly bellowed its automatic demand for right of way; there was no echo of hoofs nor grind of wheels; no call of children's voices, nor even the bark of a dog. The wild things had the place to themselves again, and the sound of their movements called for no response from civilized minds. The ears of the Goslings heard, but did not note these, to them, useless evidences of life. They were straining and alert for the voice of humanity.

"I don't know when I've felt the 'eat so much," said Mrs Gosling suddenly, and Blanche and Millie both started.

"Hush!" said Blanche, and held up a warning finger.

In the distance they heard a sound like the closing of a gate, and then, very clear and small, a feminine voice. "Chuck! chuck! chuck!" it said. "Chuck! chuck! chuck!!!"

"I told you we'd passed it," said Mrs Gosling triumphantly. They turned the trolly and began to retrace their footsteps. Their eager eyes tried to peer through the spinney of trees which shut them off from the south. Once or twice they stopped to listen. The voice was fainter now, but they could hear the squawk of greedily competitive fowls.

XIII--DIFFERENCES

1

The only side road they could find proved to be no more than a track through the little wood. They almost passed it a second time, and hesitated at the gate--a sturdy five-barred gate bearing "Private" on a conspicuous label--debating whether this "could be right." They still suffered a spasm of fear at the thought of trespass, and to open this gate and march up an unknown private road pushing a hand-cart seemed to them an act of terrible aggression.

"We might leave the cart just inside," suggested Blanche.

"And get our food stole," said Mrs Gosling.

"There's no one about," urged Blanche.

"There's that broomstick woman," said Millie. "She may have followed us."

"I'm sure I dunno if it's safe to go foragin' in among them trees, neither," continued Mrs Gosling. "Are you sure this is right, Blanche?"

"Well, of course, I'm not sure," replied Blanche, with a touch of temper.

They peered through the trees and listened, but no sign of a house was to be seen, and all was now silent save for the long drone of innumerable bees about their afternoon business.

"Oh! come on!" said Blanche at last. She was rapidly learning to solve all their problems by this simple formula....

In the wood they found refuge from those attendant flies which had hung over them so persistently.

Mrs Gosling gave a final flick with her handkerchief and declared her relief. "It's quite pleasant in 'ere," she said, "after the 'eat."

The two girls also seemed to find new vigour in the shade of the trees.

"We have got a cheek!" said Millie, with a giggle.

"Well! needs must when the devil drives," returned Mrs Gosling, "and our circumstances is quite out of the ordinary. Besides which, there can't be any 'arm in offerin' to buy a glass of milk."

Blanche tugged at the trolley handle with a flicker of impatience. Why would her mother be so foolish? Surely she must see that everything was different now? Blanche was beginning to wonder at and admire the marvel of her own intelligence. How much cleverer she was than the others! How much more ready to appreciate and adapt herself to change! They could not understand this new state of things, but she could, and she prided herself on her powers of discrimination.

"Everything's different now," she said to herself. "We can go anywhere and do anything, almost. It's like as if we were all starting off level again, in a way." She felt uplifted: she took extraordinary pleasure in her own realization of facts. A strange, new power had come to her, a power to enjoy life, through mastery. "Everything's different now," she repeated. She was conscious of a sense of pity for her mother and sister.

2

The road through the wood curved sharply round to the right, and they came suddenly upon a clearing, and saw the house in front of them. It was a long, low house, smothered in roses and creepers, and it stood in a wild garden surrounded by a breast-high wall of red brick. At the edge of the clearing several cows were lying under the shade of the trees, reflectively chewing the cud with slow, deliberate enjoyment, while one, solitary, stood with its head over the garden gate, motionless, save for an occasional petulant whisp of its ropey tail.

"Now, then, what are we going to do?" asked Mrs Gosling.

The procession halted, and the three women regarded the guardian cow with every sign of dismay.

"Shoo!" said Millie feebly, flapping her hands; and Blanche repeated the intimidation with greater force; but the cow merely acknowledged the salutation by an irritable sweep of its tail.

"'Orrid brute!" muttered Mrs Gosling, and flicked her handkerchief in the direction of the brute's quarters.

"I know," said Blanche, conceiving a subtle strategy. "We'll drive it away with the cart." She turned the trolly round, and the three of them grasping the pole, they advanced slowly and warily to the charge, pushing their siege ram before them. They made a slight detour to achieve a flank attack and allow the enemy a clear way of retreat.

"Oh, dear! what are you doing?" said a voice suddenly, and the three startled Goslings nearly dropped the pole in their alarm--they had been so utterly absorbed in their campaign.

A young woman of sixteen or seventeen, very brown, hot and dishevelled, was regarding them from the other side of the garden wall with a stare of amazement that even as they turned was flickering into laughter.

"It's that great brute by the gate, my dear," said Mrs Gosling, "and we've just----"

"You don't mean Alice?" interrupted the young woman. "Oh! you couldn't go charging poor dear Alice with a great cart like that! Three of you, too!"

"Is its name Alice?" asked Blanche stupidly. She did not feel equal to this curious occasion.

"Its name!" replied the young woman, with scorn. "Her name's Alice, if that's what you mean." She shook back the hair from her eyes and moved down to the gate. The cow acknowledged her presence by an indolent toss of the head.

"Oh! but my sweet Alice!" protested the young woman; "you must move and let these funny people come in. It really isn't good for you, dear, to stand about in the sun like this, and you'd much better go and lie down in the shade for a bit!" She gently pulled the gate from under the cow's chin, and then, laying her hands flat on its side, made as if to push it out of the way.

"Well, I never!" declared Mrs Gosling, regarding the performance with much the same awe as she might have vouchsafed to a lion-tamer in a circus. "'Oo'd 'ave thought it'd 'a been that tame?"

The cow, after a moment's resistance, moved off with a leisurely walk in the direction of the wood.

"Now, you funny people, what do you want?" asked the young woman.

Mrs Gosling began to explain, but Blanche quickly interposed. "Oh! do be quiet, mother; you don't understand," she said, and continued, before her mother could remonstrate, "We've come from London."

"Goodness!" commented the young woman.

"And we want----" Blanche hesitated. She was surprised to find that in the light of her wonderful discovery it was not so easy to define precisely what they ought to want. As the broomstick woman had said, they were "beggars." Fairly confronted with the problem, Blanche saw no alternative but a candid acknowledgment of the fact.

"You want feeding, of course," put in the young woman. "They all do. You needn't think you're the first. We've had dozens!"

A solution presented itself to Blanche. "We don't really want food," she said. "We've got a lot of tinned things left still, only we're ill with eating tinned things. I thought, perhaps, you might be willing to let us have some milk and eggs and vegetables in exchange?"

"That's sensible enough," commented the young woman. "If you only knew the things we have been offered! Money chiefly, of course"--Mrs Gosling opened her mouth, but Blanche frowned and shook her head--"and it does seem as if money's about as useless as buttons. In fact, I'd sooner have buttons--you can use them. But the other funny things--bits of old furniture, warming-pans, jewellery! You should have heard Mrs Isaacson! She was a Jewess who came from Hampstead a couple of months ago, and she had a lot of jewels she kept in a bag tied round her waist under her skirt; and when Aunt May and I simply had to tell her to go she tried to bribe us with an old brooch and rubbish. She was a terror. But, I say"--she looked at the sun--"I've got lots of things to do before sunset." She paused, and looked at the three Goslings. "Look here," she went on, "are you all right? You seem all right."

Again Mrs Gosling began to reply, but Blanche was too quick for her. "Tell me what you mean by 'all right'?" she asked, raising her voice to drown her mother's "Well, I never did 'ear such----"

"Well, of course, mother'll give you any mortal thing you want," replied the young woman at the gate. "Dear old mater! She simply won't think of what we're going to do in the winter; and I mean, if you come in for to-night, say, and we let you have a few odd things, you won't go and plant yourselves on us like that Mrs Isaacson and one or two others, because if you do, Aunt May and I will have to turn you out, you know."

"What we 'ave we'll pay for," said Mrs Gosling with dignity.

The young woman smiled. "Oh, I dare say!" she said; "pay us with those pretty little yellow counters that aren't the least good to anyone. You wait here half a jiff. I'll find Aunt May."

She ran up the path and entered the house. A moment later they heard her calling "Aunt May! Auntie--Aun-tee!" somewhere out at the back.

"Let's 'ope 'er Aunt May'll 'ave more common sense," remarked Mrs Gosling.

Blanche turned on her almost fiercely. "For goodness sake, mother," she said, "do try and get it out of your head, if you can, that we can buy things with money. Can't you see that everything's different? Can't you see that money's no good, that you can't eat it, or wear it, or light a fire with it, like that other woman said? Can't you understand, or won't you?"

Mrs Gosling gaped in amazement. It was incredible that the mind of Blanche should also have been distorted by this terrible heresy. She turned in sympathy to Millie, who had taken her mother's seat on the pole of the trolly, but Millie frowned and said:

"B.'s right. You can't buy things with money; not here, anyway. What'd they do with money if they got it?"

Mrs Gosling looked at the trees, at the cows lying at the edge of the wood, at the sunlit fields beyond the house, but she saw nothing which suggested an immediate use for gold coin.

"Lemme sit down, my dear," she said. "What with the 'eat and all this walkin'----Oh! what wouldn't I give for a cup o' tea!"

Millie got up sulkily and leaned against the wall. "I suppose they'll let us stop here to-night, B.?" she asked.

"If we don't make fools of ourselves," replied Blanche, spitefully.

Mrs Gosling drooped. No inspiration had come to her as it had come to her daughter. The older woman had become too specialized. She swayed her head, searching--like some great larva dug up from its refuse heap--confused and feeble in this new strange place of light and air.

And as Blanche had repeated to herself "Everything's different," so Mrs Gosling seized a phrase and clung to it as to some explanation of this horrible perplexity. "I can't understand it," she said; "I can't understand it!"

3

Aunt May appeared after a long interval--a thin, brown-faced woman of forty or so. She wore a very short skirt, a man's jacket and an old deerstalker hat, and she carried a pitchfork. She must have brought the pitchfork as an emblem of authority, but she did not handle it as the other woman had handled her broomstick. The murderous pitchfork appeared little more deadly in her keeping than does the mace in the House of Commons, but as an emblem the pitchfork was infinitely more effective.

Aunt May's questions were pertinent and searching, and after a few brief explanations had been offered to her she drove off the young woman, her niece, whom she addressed as "Allie," to perform the many duties which were her share of the day's work.

Allie went, laughing.

"You can sleep here to-night," announced Aunt May. "We shall have a meal all together soon after sunset. Till then you can talk to my sister, who's an invalid. She's always eager for news."

She took charge of them as if she were the matron of a workhouse receiving new inmates.

"You'd better bring your truck into the garden," she said, "or Alice will be turning everything over. Inquisitive brute!" she added, snapping her fingers at the cow, who had returned, and stood within a few feet of them, eyeing the Goslings with a slow, dull wonder--a mournfully sleepy beast whose furiously wakeful tail seemed anxious to rouse its owner out of her torpor.

The invalid sister sat by the window of a small room that faced west and overlooked the luxuriance of what was still recognizably a flower-garden.

"My sister, Mrs Pollard," said Aunt May sharply, and then addressing the woman who sat huddled in shawls by the window, she added: "Three more strays, Fanny--from London, Allie tells me." She went out quickly, closing the door with a vigour which indicated little tolerance for invalid nerves.

Mrs Pollard stretched out a delicate white hand. "Please come and sit near me," she said, "and tell me about London. It is so long since I have had any news from there. Perhaps you might be able----" she broke off, and looked at the three strangers with a certain pathetic eagerness.

"I'll take me bonnet off, ma'am, if you'll excuse me," remarked Mrs Gosling. She felt at home once more within the delightful shelter of a house, although slightly overawed by the aspect of the room and its occupant. About both there was an air of that class dignity to which Mrs Gosling knew she could never attain. "I don't know when I've felt the 'eat as I 'ave to-day," she remarked politely.

"Has it been hot?" asked Mrs Pollard. "To me the days all seem so much alike. I want you to tell me, were there any young men in London when you left? You haven't seen any young man who at all resembles this photograph, have you?"

Mrs Gosling stared at the silver-framed photograph which Mrs Pollard took from the table at her side, stared and shook her head.

"We haven't seen a single man of any kind for two months," said Blanche, "not a single one. Have we, Millie?"

Millie, sitting rather stiffly on her chair, shook her head. "It's terrible," she said. "I'm sure I don't know where they can have all gone to."

Mrs Pollard did not reply for a moment. She looked steadfastly out of the window, and tears, which she made no attempt to restrain, chased each other in little jerks down her smooth pale cheeks.

Mrs Gosling pinched her mouth into an expression of suffering sympathy, and shook her head at her daughters to enforce silence. Was she not, also, a widow?

After a short pause, Mrs Pollard fumbled in her lap and discovered a black-bordered pocket-handkerchief--a reminiscence, doubtless, of some earlier bereavement. Her expression had been in no way distorted as she wept, and after the tears had been wiped away no trace of them disfigured her delicate face. Her voice was still calm and sweet as she said:

"I am very foolish to go on hoping. I loved too much, and this trial has been sent to teach me that all love but One is vain, that I must not set my heart upon things of the earth. And yet I go on hoping that my poor boy was not cut off in Sin."

"Dear, dear!" murmured Mrs Gosling. "You musn't take it to 'eart too much, ma'am. Boys will be a little wild and no doubt our 'eavenly Father will make excuses."

Mrs Pollard shook her head. "If it had only been a little wildness," she said, "I should have hope. He is, indeed, just and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, but my poor Alfred became tainted with the terrible doctrines of Rome. It has been the greatest grief of my life, and I have known much pain...." And again the tears slowly welled up and fell silently down that smooth, unchanging face.

Mrs Gosling sniffed sympathetically. The two girls glanced at one another with slightly raised eyebrows and Blanche almost invisibly shrugged her shoulders.

The warm evening light threw the waxen-faced, white-shawled figure of the woman in the window into high relief. Her look of ecstatic resignation was that of some wonderful mediæval saint returned from the age of vision and miracle to a recently purified earth in which the old ideas of saintship had again become possible. Her influence was upon the room in which she sat. The sounds of the world outside, the evening chorus of wild life, the familiar noise of the farm, seemed to blend into a remote music of prayer--"Kyrie Eleison! Christe Eleison!" Within was a great stillness, as of a thin and bloodless purity; the long continuance of a single thought found some echo in every material object. While the silence lasted everything in that room was responsive to this single keynote of anæmic virtue.

Mrs Gosling tried desperately to weep without noise, and even the two girls, falling under the spell, ceased to glance covertly at one another with that hint of criticism, but sat subdued and weakened as if some element of life had been taken from them.

The lips of the woman in the window moved noiselessly; her hands were clasped in her lap. She was praying.

4

Firm and somewhat clumsy steps were heard in the passage, the door was pushed roughly open, banging back against the black oak chair which was set behind it, and Aunt May entered carrying a large tray.

"Here's your dinner, Fanny," she said. "We've done earlier to-night, in spite of interruptions." She bustled over to the little table in the window, pushed back the Bible and photograph with the edge of the tray until she could release one hand, and then, having driven the tray into a position of safety, moved Bible and photograph to the centre table.

There was something protestingly vigorous about her movements, as though she endeavoured to combat by noise and energy the impoverished vitality of that emasculate room.

"Now, you three!" she went on. "You had better come out into the kitchen and take your things off and wash."

As the Goslings rose, Mrs Pollard turned to them and stretched out to each in turn her delicate white hand. "There is only one Comforter." she said. "Put your trust in Him."

Mrs Gosling gulped, and Blanche and Millie looked as they used to look when they attended the Bible-classes held by the vicar's wife.

Blanche gave a shiver of relief as they came out into the passage. Her mind was suddenly filled by the astounding thought that everything was not different....

Supper was laid on the kitchen table--cold chicken, potatoes and cabbage, stewed plums and cream, and warm, new milk in a jug; no bread, no salt, and no pepper.

As the three Goslings washed at the scullery sink they chattered freely. They felt pleasure at release from some cold, draining influence; they felt as if they had come out of church after some long, dull service, into the air and sunlight.

"I'm sure she's a very 'oly lady," was Mrs Gosling's final summary.

Blanche shivered again. "Oh! freezing!" was her enigmatic reply.

Millie said it gave her "the creeps."

They were a party of seven at supper--the meal was referred to as "supper," although to Mrs Pollard it had been dignified by the name of "dinner"--including two young women whom the Goslings had not hitherto seen; strong, brown-faced girls, who spoke with a country accent. They had something still of the manner of servants, but they were treated as equals both by Allie and Aunt May.

There was little conversation during the meal, however, for all of them were too intent on the business in hand. To the Goslings that meal was, indeed, a banquet.

When they had all finished, Aunt May rose at once. "Thank Heaven for daylight," she remarked; "but we must set our brains to work to invent some light for the winter. We haven't a candle or a drop of oil left," she went on, addressing the Goslings, "and for the past five weeks we have had to bustle to get everything done before sunset, I can tell you. Last night we couldn't wash up after supper."

"We know," replied Blanche.

Aunt May nodded. "We all know," she said. "Now, you three girls, get busy!" And Allie and the two brown-faced young women rose a little wearily.

"I'm getting an old woman," remarked Aunt May, "and I'm allowed certain privileges, chief of them that I don't work after supper. She paused and looked keenly at the three Goslings. "Which of you three is in command?" she asked.

"Well, it seems as if my eldest, Blanche, that is, 'as sort o' taken the lead the past few days," began Mrs Gosling.

"Ah! I thought so," said Aunt May. "Well, now, Blanche, you'd better come out into the garden and have a talk with me, and we'll decide what you had better do. If your mother and sister would like to go to bed, Allie will show them where they can sleep."

She moved away in the direction of the garden and Blanche followed her.