SHORT STORIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3556, 9 May 1922, Page 66

SHORT STORIES.

[All Rights Reserved.]

WHO DID IT ?

By

Lady Henry Somerset,

author of

“Our Village Life,” etc.

It was Saturday evening, and the week’s work at Lower Farm was once more done. The kitchen, the back kitchen, the dairy, and the brick yard were for the moment spotlessly clean. The bricks of the yard were still wet and shining from the scrubbing the servant girl had given them. A row of tin milk pans and milking pails propped against the wall under the verandah shone in the evening sunlight. The servant girl had changed her soiled cotton dress for her tidy black one and starched white apron with streamers, and was ironing a muslin blouse at the kitchen table to wear at church to-morrow morning. In the parlour Mrs -Twentyman, The farmer's wife, was resting from her labours with the newspaper in her hands. She was a large heavy woman with a big head, on which she wore a bright chestnut front. Her own hair, dull brown streaked with grey, showed beneath the front, and frankly marked a dividing line between art and Nature at the back. She lay back in a horsehair armchair and stretched her feet out before her. They were large, ugly feet-, laced un from the toes in square . boots. In her young days Mrs Twentyman had worn fine kid boots with pointed toes, but from constant walking and standing on brick floors her insteps had dropped, and now to her regret she was obliged to wear surgical boots. For many years this hour on Saturday evening had been Mrs Twentyma.n’s only opportunity for reading the weekly news before Twentyman came home from market. and supper must be made ready. But latterly she had fallen into the habit of taking un the paper, looking at tiie births, marriages, and deaths, and then going off into a train of thought that had nothing to do with the words before her eyes. “My whole life has been spent cleaning, cooking, washing up, making butter, and here am I, sikty years of age, and what have I to show" for it!” What troubled her most was the thought that the world was full of houses just like her own, where women were cooking and washing all day—and the next day doing it all v ovei' again. She could hear the servant girl singing in the kitchen, and next she heard the cowman come in fbr the milking pails. “I hope he has scraped his boots and is not leaving his track all over the clean yard,” she thought. “No sooner have 1 done and *?at down to rest than someone comes and makes a mess again. I lay he never washed the soap off his hands, but just middled them under the tap and then wiped them, soap and dirt and all, on the clean roller towel.” A woman’s work was never done. That morning she had sent off fifty pounds of butter wrapped in clean white rnuslin cloths to Gloucester market. Her baskets would come back soon, empty, with the cloths crushed and soiled. And • next week she must make more butter, and wash the cloths again. Her mind nursed a bitter grudge against all the greedy mouths in the world that kept women slaving and were never satisfied . /‘Food and children, food and children—it s the same work rears without end, and no satisfaction.” “Please, mem,” said a voice at the door, ‘the waggoner’s wife sent down to ask you to lend her some linseed meal.” Mrs Twentyman sat no. “What does she want with linseed meal?” The doctor s been out and he says Armie Elizabeth s crot the pneumonia.’’ She rose wearilv from her chair, and went out to the back door to hear for herself. A boy with a willow -witch in his hand » was standing there looking down the passage. Wftat s this about Annie Elizabeth?” . “Plea-e, Mrs Twentyman, the doctor’s Oeen out, and he says she’s got the inflammation apd pneumonia, and her mother’s to uouitice her.” Mis twentyman looked at him sternlv. “Tell Mrs Davis I haven't got any linseed meal in the house. Davis will "have to , bike into Dilford and fetch some out for her.” She watched the boy go out of the yard, and then she went into the kitchen. "If I did what was right I’d go up and see the child myself. She’s a young woman, and what can she know about nursing vet ? it wouldn’t surprise me if i>lie •linnet know how to make a linseed poultice.” the servant girl was preparing to iron a white petticoat. “Everything’s pneumonia in these davs ! People like to make a scare,” she said. Well, I 11 wait till morning and see. And you, Mabel, when the milk comes in, take her up a pint and tell her to keep the child warm and give her nothing but the milk till I come up.” She went back to the parlour and sat down again in her armchair, and later she went to bed with an uncomfortable feeling that somehow she had missed something. •*, She Tay down on her feather bed, and after a while s re slept. Towards morning she roused—surely she heard someone call. She sat half up in bed and : listened. What a foolish fancy, there j was no sound. Twentyman had been up S all night with a cow. Perhaps something 1 had roused the ducks. She lay back i again to dose; something called again, i This time she was sure she heard a child’s * voice. She listened again; her own breathing sounded like an engine in the darkness, all was so still, and yet she could not he mistaken, that call "was so familiar, how often she had heard it

before. Then she listened again; it seemed as though light steps came to her bedside. She felt a cold shiver come over her, and yet she was not afraid. Then a voice whispered. She could never quite remember if she had heard actual sound or whether she heard it with her mind—but what was said was plain: “Go to her, mother—go and help her, she wants you.” Mrs Twentyman sat up erect in bed; she could not mistake the voice. It was her Lucy who had come to her—that child whom she had lost long ago,— but for whom she had grieved through the slow monotonous years. She was wide awake now the day was beginning to dawn. She looked at all the familiar things in her room. Her big boots beside the beds The mahogany wardrobe where she had hung her dresses ever since she came a bride to the farm. Everything was just as usual. She rubbed her eyes. I have been dreaming of Lucy I think — there is no such thing as voices from the dead. Poor child, I buried her thirty-five years ago. She is in heaven, she thought vaguely; but she was not easy in her mind till she had done her work and got her bonnet on and started off for the waggoner’s cottage, carrying a jug of milk and an old knitted crochet shawl over her arm. ) She walked slowly up the hill, disregarding the meadow sweet, the purple loosestrife, and the honeysuckle that .bordered her path on each side. Her feet were hurting her. Planting each foot carefully on the hard road before she leant her weight on it, her body swayed awkwardly. She looked like an ungainly duck. " * The cottage door was open, and the waggoner’s wife stood in the doorway. Her hair hung untidily about her face, her dress was open ?t the neck, and her heavy boots looked as if they had not been cleaned for a week. “She’s been up all night, and she’s never had hex’ boots off,” thought Mrs Twenty-' man. “How’s Annie Elizabeth this morning?” The young women scowled, and the older woman saw anxiety and fear behind the scowl. “She’s in a burning fever. Will you come up and see her, m’am?” The kitchen was bare and untidy. It was easy to see that the young woman had not long set up housekeeping. In one corner stood a cupboard with the door hanging open. A few wooden chairs stood round the table, and on the table were the remains of an untidy meal. life the wall at the back there was a little window like a window in a dolTs house; a red geranium in a pot stood on the narrow sill, and on each side of it a strip of white muslin was looped back and tied with a bit of coloured tape. “She's got the right stuff in her—she’ll have a decent home before she’s done,” thought Mrs Twentyman. She followed through a washhouse and up a flight of steep stairs. “Look out for your head, ma’am ; there’s an awkward old beam there,” said the young woman. The stairs ended on a landing with a pent roof, and here on an iron bedstead lay the sick child. The neighbour’s boy who. had come to the farm the evening before to borrow linseed meal sat on the the bed holding a twig in his hand, on which was poised a white butterfly. “He’s a good boy, helping to keep her quiet,” said the waggoner’s wife. Mrs Twentyman bent over the bed. A small body in an unbleached calico nightgown lay face downwards on the pillow. She noticed that the sheets were clean and that the child’s nightgown was buttoned at the neck. “Well,- Annie, won’t you look at me?” she said. The child planted her hands on the bed and pushed her bodyup in an arch, and then turned a scarlet, troubled face to the woman. “There, lie down again,” said Mrs Twentyman quickly. The child obediently lowered her body and bur'.ed her face again in the pillow. Mrs Twentyman folded the crochet shawl across her shoulders —and then went carefully down the stairs. In the kitchen the two women looked at each other. “She’s bad, ain’t- she?” asked the Mother. “She'll want good nursing,” said Mrs Twentyman. “I poulticed her all night. I nut on a fresh poultice every hour, ’ said the young woman. Mrs Twentyman sat down by the table. “Did the doctor tell you to poultice her every hour?” “All he said was ‘Poultice her.’ He was cross because he had to come so far. He didn’t know where the house was, and the motor went down the hill and had to come up again. He said 1 should have stood out on the road to stop him—as if I could leave the child to look out for him.” ■‘He told you to poultice her?” “He said 'Poultice her,’ and that was all he said m’am. “Well, don’t burn the skin, and don’t let her get cold when you change them. I can’t see that you are far wrong. If I tell you any different he’ll want to know what- right I had to interfere. Doctors are like that. Only see that you don’t burn the skin. She went slowlv and sorrowfully down the hill. The child was very ill. Most likely she would die. Death came toeverv family sooner or later, but she would be sorrv if it came to that family so soon: before the young woman had got time to settle in and get a few bits of furniture about her. She was trying her best. Changing a poultice every hour showed how anxious she was to do right. But was not- that just like a doctor? Couldn’t tlie man see she was too young to know anything about poulticing. There never was a. doctor yet that could tell you exactly what to do. Whv didn’t he tell her how often to change the poultice?” In the evening she climbed the hill to the cottage again. The child was no

better. The, young woman looked worn out. The waggoner was sitting by the fire smoking when Mrs Xwentyman came down the stairs into the kitchen. “Why shouldn’t he sit uo with the child to-night?” she said, with some anger. What right -had he to sit there smoking when his wife was worn out ? “1 don’t mind if I do sit up for a bit — if ’er wants to go to bed,” the man replied. “He’s got his horses to look after,” said his wife. Monday was a busy morning in the dairy, but as soon as her work was done Mrs Twentyman went up again to see the child. The cottage door was wide open, and as •she came up the path from the road she saw the waggoner’s wife sitting in the kitchen wtih her head on the table. She was crying bitterly. She lifted her head when Mrs Twentyman came in. Her face was pinched and tired, and there was a dragged look about her eyes that took all the youth out of her face. “She five or six months gone with child, and I never noticed it before,” reflected Mrs Twentyman. “It’s that blinkin’ old doctor that’s upset me,” said the young woman, sitting ui) and drying her eyes. “He come out this morning and was ever so cross. He said, ‘ I suppose if I hadn't come you’d have gone on poulticing her for a week.’ Blinkin’ old fool. It seems he only meant me to put oil one poultice.” •» “Then why didn’t he say so,” demanded Mrs Twentyman. “He says I might have killed her.” “But the child’s better?” “She’s a lot better, ma'am, but he said it’s no thanks to me. He knocked his head on the beam on the stairs. ‘ This is a blinking old cottage you live in,’ he said, as if I could help it. And when he come down he scolded me ever so.” “Don’t you believe a word of it,” said Mrs Twenty mail. She was thinking. “If that young woman had not sat up night and day with the child and poulticed her so carefully, the child would have died. Why, couldn’t the man hold his tongue. Couldn’t he see she is worn out and another baby coming.” Twice every day that week the old woman climbed the hill on painful feet carrying a jug of milk each time for the child. Once she brought a doll with a scanty calico chemise glued to its body, and promised Annie Elizabeth she would find her some pieces to make a dress for it. Saturday came round again quickly. Mrs Twentyman was very weary. It had been a tiring week. She had found time to sort out some pieces from her. rag bag—bits of silk and flowered muslin, scraps of velvet, and ribbon and lace. And when the day’s work was done she once more set off up the hill. Her feet were very painful. Annie Elizabeth, wrapped in the crochet shawl, was sitting by the kitchen fire. She was a plain child with tow-coloured hair and white eyelashes. Her legs in coarse black woollen stockings stuck out like two sticks with heavy boots on the end of them. She turned her head and stared unblinking at Mrs Twentyman, and uncovered the doll, which she had been holding inside the shawl. Mrs Twentyman gave her the bundle of pieces. “There, now you must make your baby some clothes,” she said. As she went down the hill again, the ditches full of meadowsweet and loosestrife and the hedges sweet with honeysuckle, she thought with satisfaction of the young woman and the child she had left behind at the cottage. “I must help her a bit with some curtains and bits of china. She has the makings of a good mother in her. I lav she’ll have that cottage like a new pin before she’s done.” For the first time for many months Mrs Twentyman had forgotten the weary work of the women in the world. She was groping round in her mind for some clue to what site had forgotten. Slowly it came to her. Here was another woman starting on all the cares of life, and yet she herself—an old woman of sixty—was actually cheered by the young woman’s pluck. She wondered at herself “Well, I take it that’s just rffe. Anyway, the child is saved—l suppose it’s worth while, after all.” At the foot of the hill she met the waggoner bringing the horses in from the fields. “Well, Davis, the child's well again,” she said cheerfully. The waggoner pulled the harness off the last horse, and the team went on to the water troughs—then he turned to his master’s wife. “An’ I lay it was me cured her,” he .said. If it warn’t for that hellibore teaI boiled over the fire and made her drink, I reckon no doctor would have saved he' “Hellibore tea ! Why, what about your wife’s poultices?” demanded the old woman. “I don’t hold with them poultices ” But Mrs Twentyman in disgust had walked on. At the gateway into her garden she paused—and for the first time for weeks she laughed—laughed till her sides shook. “Well, if that, ain’t a man all over.” And then she paused and thought, “Perhaps none of us had anything to do with it— maybe it was Lucy did it after all.”