"MY LADY OF SUDS."

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 48, 27 February 1911, Page 3

"MY LADY OF SUDS."

CHARING AT EIGHTY. FROM NEWTOWN TO KELBURNE. (By C.A.M.) The despair of all dai mg desire Is she, the beloved of all lamU; Mists writhe from her wonderful five, Clouds cliug to her \rondeiful handfc. When the'sunrays of suarise are sloping, When the ladybird wakes on the buds, She comes to her haerifice, soaping— My Lady 01 Sud&, - -T!ic Bkiqiie. The first morning I met hor climbing gently up Kelburne-parade, coming from the direction of tho Botanical Gardens. I did My Lady a grievous -wrong in my own soul's depths. Then 1 told myself that she was a poor tinful old ruin 'that for her waywardness and frailties had perforce couched under some murmurous arbour all night, with the nested birdlings aggrieved and uneasy, sensing her presence. Truly, a better and less impetuous man had been deceived. No chatelaine hung at the tattered andmutinous waistband; no groomed staghound wandered at her heels. Her slices gaped immodestly ; her i raazled bodice had gotten the sheen of many summers and I other influences ; her old neck was hid by no lace scarf or Elizabethan ruff of gleaming linen. On her scant grey locks was perched the most incongruous little doll-like ckapeau of a one-time' white, network, whereon two pale rosehtids nodded forlornly, and some disb&velled forget-me-nots drooped hopelessly. The old dame looked eighty and moved like sixty. She strolled up the incline before tin glorious sunrise, the golden morning emphasising her drabness. Not ouce did she turn her head to glimpse the gleaming harbour or the wondertul hills beyond. Instead, I told myself and God's happy morning and the sea-blown wind that My Lady -was a blot on (he picture, a rust-stain on a samite robe. In due time I hope to show how I wronged her in this. GBANDMISTBESS OF THE TUB. ■ On several keen winter mornings such as this 1, descending into the greyness of the- city, met her climbing up into the sunshine that floods the sunward heights. Kind circumstance unveiled her mystery, and over aftenrards My Lady was not so incongruous. Approaching four-score years of age, she scorned the thought of an honourable old-age pension or the Benevolent Home, earning a shilling or two at the washtubs. To mo she became My Lady of the Sufls, a grand mistress of the robes— of the people's. When the weather was not too unkind she strolled from a back corner of Newtown up the Kclburne slopes to keep a loaf in her cupboard and a roof over her venerable head. And when the half -day's charing had been accomplished she pocketed her few shillings, and crept back again to her lonely little rented room in Newtown, and waited for the noxt notice ordering her to come and wash. My Lady was a heroine, advanced in years, playing a game lone hand at the cardtable of Life," since she was absolutely alone in the world, bo far as she knew or cared. UNLETTERED BUT HAPPif. No fierce turmoil of politics set her wondering at the strange beings designated politicians ; she read neither Tit Bits nor Henry James, nor Charles Garvice. _ She had set out in life seriously handicapped, being unr.ble to read or write. So she had come past the psalmist's allotted three-score and ten years to bend her old body over the waehtub, to eat her humble meal, and to sleep o' nights when her old bones were not too restive and the bed pot too hard. HOPELESSLY CONTESTED. My aged charwoman is slow — not from inclination, but because she is Hearing eighty^ On steamy mornings, when the" •winter's air keeps the smoks low, her old eyes suffer. But you must remember her years. The steam of many Monday incrnings has permeated those brittle bones of her, and so she knows the change of seasons whether she likes it or not. Gradually, as was inevitable, she is being forced nearer the wall by the fierce competition of her young-er and more virile professionals, whoso ranks are being augmented daily. But My Lady goes her little way with a fatalistic obstinacy and fearlessness. Placidly she sets about hey duties, and would just as lief work two hours' overtime as two hours under. Women whose kinder cir- | eumsianoes run to comfort and "washing help" are, mostly, interested in My Lady's quiet attention to duty and her equally commendable lack of 'garrulousness. If her old body lets her, she has little to say, and hates repeating it. She is a favourite because she will not talk back, because she is nob a termagant — a help who comes at 8 o'clock on any morning, and. takes possession impudently, implying that she is there as a favour.^ Confidentially the aged dame holds intercourse with the soiled linen and her beloved soap suds, and never ceases her labour until the dirt is coerced — as distinct from savaged — from its rest-ing-place. And when the lines are as full as they need be she takes her earnings quietly, her queer little hat from tho nail, stabs it to he rscanty hair with one overworked hatpin, and* turns her steps towards tho lonely little room in Newtown. WHAT OF THE NIGHT? She comes, My Lady, to the hill no longer. I understand so. Anything may happen any day when one is nearing eighty years and one goes washing. And Newtown is a long and a weary distance away from Kolb'urne. Of course, those gnarled hands of her must keep going, or they will take her to the Home at last, and she dislikes the idea of that as much as she dislikes beer and young children. It is well for her peace' of mind that, though Irish-bred, she has not a little of imagination. When the rheumatism keeps her awake at times, the throb of the doleful southerly after midnight has no suggestion for her, nor has the tender green of spring any message, nor the fact that last winter the firing could not keep pace with the persistent winter. I have apologised (to myself) to tho ancient charwoman for the wrong done her and for the remarks concerning her ridiculous old hat. For I do believe that of late a Shadow with the aspect of a thief has been covertly watching her door and peering through the window. My Lady should be warned !