Miss Pilgrim's progress

Chapter I

Hetty Carol finished dusting the sitting room at No. 39, Tag Street, and occupied herself for a few moments in going round the room putting finishing touches. She was late to-day; it was already nearly four o’clock, and she had only just finished the housework. There had seemed to be so much to do.

She set the ornaments on the mantelpiece precisely in order; punched up a cushion on the couch; perked up a drooping flower in a vase, and in passing the narrow bay window, stopped to straighten a curtain.

Then stood, and looked out into the drab little street of small, colourless houses, with a quick flick of interest in her grey eyes.

There was a right-angle bend in Tag Street, and No. 39 was the first house round that bend, so that the bay window faced up the main length of the road; and at the far end, round the corner on the left where Mr. Ruffle’s little grocery store stood— half of it in Tag Street and half in Blossom Lane—a telegraph boy had suddenly bicycled into view, and was coming along in her direction.

He was not hurrying; on the contrary, he seemed to regard the quiet of this side street as specially designed for the practice of trick cycling.

Hetty watched him, amused at his antics; smiling, but all the same wondering, with a touch of impatience, which house he was bound for, and what kind of a message it might be that he carried so light-heartedly. Telegraph boys were not often seen in Tag Street.

She did not for a moment imagine that he was coming to No. 39, because nothing that held such possibilities of being strange or startling, as a telegram, ever did come there.

l

Life, in Tag Street, was very prone to be like Tag Street itself; narrow; drab; poor.

And, what was worse, respectably poor. Poor with the sort of poverty that must show a decent coat to the world, even though its shirt is in rags beneath.

Tag Street lay somewhere between the main streets and the back streets of the suburb of Penbury.

And the dwellers in Tag Street’s dingy little houses reflected this neither one thing nor the other position. They were people who “went to business,” but mostly in such a small, struggling, ill-paid way—(anyone who ever did anything in any more sig¬ nificant way didn’t remain a dweller in Tag Street)—that for the most part they were up against the proposition of having to keep up some semblance of a main street appearance on less than a back street income, which, as Hetty knew from experience, was no picnic.

The responsibility of having to take the place of the sweet¬ eyed, blessed woman who had been her mother, and who, in dying, had left her, five years ago, to a feeling of blank loneliness that had seemed to be something more terrible than just mother¬ lessness; of having to care for her father and her school-girl sister, Bella; of having to wrestle with domestic problems, rendered acute by high prices and precarious income; of having to scrub and sweep, and wash and sew, kept Hetty to a very rigid routine; kept her world reduced to the narrow limits of the neighbourhood.

And there would be, sometimes, a wistfulness in those starry grey eyes of hers as they looked out of the window, up the little street. For the part of “Little Mother” is so much easier to play for the movies than it is in real life.

But if the circumstances of her life kept her physically within such narrow bondage, there was a spirit in Hetty that was never wholly bound.

She had been born possessed of that disturbing quality that is known as “temperament”; it gave to her sensibilities, a subtlety which she herself could not understand; it gave her that sense of fitness which is hazily called a “feeling for things.” Things displeased her; repelled her; filled her with delight; or wrung her with pity; and she could not have told why. She felt the urge of all sorts of vague wishes, and could explain neither what she wished, nor why she wished at all. She could almost ache with longing for—she knew not what.

For Hetty, at seventeen, there was always a vision beyond the drabness, even though it remained hazy, elusive; always a dream woven into the monotony, though, for her life, she could not, at thi£ time, have interpreted it.

Suddenly the interest in her eyes grew brighter. The telegraph boy had reached the corner. She leaned forward to see him go by. But he didn’t go by. He stopped, dismounted, propped his bicycle against the curb, and kicked open the gate.

Hetty started back from the window, her heart quick with excitement; with a touch of fear, too. A telegram, especially where one is not often seen, carries a world of ominous, as well as delightful, possibilities. . . .

She went out to the front door.

The boy, delivering the flame-coloured envelope into her hand, said carelessly:

“Carol?” and, duty done, turned and gazed up the street with an air of complete detachment.

Hetty looked down at the envelope in her hand; read her name upon it; turned it, and, with fingers not perfectly steady, tore it open, and took out the message it contained. . . .

She remained silent for so long that the boy looked back and asked:

“Any answer?”

She started, and raised her eyes; shocked, bewildered, un¬ believing eyes. . . . Tragic stars, now, set in the silky clouds of her dusky hair. . . .

“Answer?” she stammered. “Oh, no . . . there’s . . . there’s no answer. ...”

The boy left her, whistling as he went, and she shut the door slowly after him.

In the narrow passage, by courtesy called the hall, she stood staring down at the telegram she held, feeling dazed, over¬ whelmed by a sense of disaster.

When she raised her face and looked around her, slowly, that curious shocked unbelief was still in her eyes, as if the coming of that telegram had changed things so, that even the familiar little hall seemed strange to her. . . .

Then she went back to the sitting room, and sank rather suddenly, as if her knees had failed her, into a chair. She looked straight before her, helplessly, waiting for the first shock to pass; for her brain to function again, so that she could shape up this sudden chaos that the telegram had brought, into thoughts and get it clear to herself.

Presently she looked down and read the message again, and thought began to stir; scrappily at first, and still unbeliev¬ ingly. . . .

Her father and Mrs. Dowse. ... It wasn’t possible; wasn’t to be believed! And yet there it was; written clearly enough for anyone to read. . . .

“Me and Mrs. Dowse married this morning. ...” “Mrs. Dowse!” She said the name out loud, to convince herself that she had seen it right; and read the message yet again.

“Me and Mrs. Dowse married this morning. . . . Going Southend for honeymoon. Home Sunday, mind and get house ready. Dad. ...”

“It’s true, then.” She said that to herself, for up to this moment she really had not been able to believe it.

But Mrs. Dowse. . . . Widow of the man who had kept the King’s Head public house in the High Street. . . . Mrs. Dowse was awful. . . . Simply awful, with her large fat face, and her yellow hair that never in this world had been born yellow . . . and her loud laugh. . . .

She had never even met Mrs. Dowse until five or six weeks ago, and certainly had never guessed that her father knew her so well, or thought especially of her. . . .

Thought broke into words again.

“To go and do it all without telling me! But I might have seen something was the matter this morning at breakfast. . . . Dad was so queer ... he got that sort of excited way with him, and couldn’t sit still . . . and went off in a hurry. ...”

Words lapsed back again into thought ... as she sat dumbly picturing her father’s departure this morning. . . .

Yes, and he had taken a suit-case with him. ... She had seen it as he went up the road. ... He must have had it all ready packed. But she had only thought it was packed with papers, such as he sometimes took to business; and he so often got that fidgetty, nervy way with him. . . .

“Oh, but I might have known something was up! I might have guessed!” she cried out, rising quickly, the telegram clenched up tight in her hand. Only she hadn’t guessed; and the shock of it now was overwhelming. . . . She stood straight and taut.

What could her father be thinking of? Mrs. Dowse; after the woman who had been Mrs. Carol. That loud-voiced, vulgartongued, gaudy-coloured woman, after the gentle mother who had seemed to carry a sense of loveliness and light with her wherever she went. Why? in the name of anything, why?

Easier, far, to ask the question than to find its answer.

“There’s no reason,” she told herself. “There’s never any reason for awful things like this. . . . They just happen. . . . She’ll sit where mother used to sit and pour out tea like mother used to; and flash her rings. . . . and oh, I don’t know! I don’t know! ”

She moved round abruptly and went to the window, with the impulse to get away from her thoughts, but found that she had only carried them with her. . . .

“They must have had the banns called and everything, with¬ out letting me know ...” she went on. “He must have got the day off. . . . Being Friday I suppose the firm didn’t mind. . . . Home Sunday, and I’m to mind and get the house ready . . . ! For her . . . !”

She drew a sudden, quick, shaking breath. . . . “What’s he done it for? What’s he done it for?” she whispered brokenly. “He can’t love her ... He simply can’t . . . And yet . . . I suppose he must. ...” She stared out into the street with unhappy, brooding eyes.

Out of silence came a sudden flash of understanding.

“No; it’s just that he likes that sort of thing . . . jolliness, and . . . and all that. ...” Her thought was quite clear, but she could only haltingly put it into words. “It’s just that he likes it. I’ve seen it in him. His eyes get sort of all lit up . . . and his moustache goes quivery. . . . And he laughs up high and behaves . . . so as I wish he wouldn’t. . . . It’s nothing anyone can get hold of . . . but I’ve seen it. . . .”

It was an explanation that brought no comfort with it, and silence closed down upon her again; a silence through which she seemed neither to think nor to see. . . .

Presently, she flung away from the window and went back to her chair.

She sat down feeling bewildered, lost. . . .

There was no one she could turn to. She didn’t make friends easily enough to have discovered intimates in Tag Street.

She had not felt so utterly, overwhelmingly alone, since the day of her mother’s death. . . .

“And how am I to tell Bella? How am I to break it to her?” she thought, wretchedly. “I hate that kid to be hurt. . . .”

She sat for a long time lost in these thoughts; so lost, that* when a knocking at the front door sounded, she started up and stood straight and tense. . . .

The knocking was repeated with a familiar impatience before she relaxed and said,

It’s Bell ... of course, ...” and tucking the telegram into the pocket of her skirt she went quickly to the front door.

But not too quickly for the knocking to go booming through the little house yet again, before she reached the door and flung it open.

It was a highly offended little Bella who flounced into the hall saying:

“What’s the matter with you, I’d like to know? There I’ve been knocking for about half an hour. ...”

And she slammed down her satchel into the base of the hat stand, tugged off her hat and flung it down on top of the satchel, shook out her long golden curls, and looked up at Hetty, her pink and white prettiness distorted by a pettish expression.

Full of the news she had to give her little sister, Hetty said, with a touch of nervous breathlessness:

“Not half an hour, Bell, surely. ...”

“Pretty near, anyway. . . . What d’you want to go and keep me waiting for?”

“I’m sorry, darling. . . . I’ve had such a lot to. . . . ”

“Oh, you always say you’ve had such a lot to do,” interrupted Bella. . . .

“No, to . . .to think about, I was going to say,” said Hetty.

“Oh, well, where’s tea? I’m starving. ...”

And the little girl tossed her curls impatiently and flounced along the passage into the kitchen, in a way that made her short pleated skirt swing round her knees.

Hetty hurried after her.

“1 was just going to get it ready,” she began, hastily.

“Just going to . . .” echoed Bella, standing in the middle of the kitchen and looking at the unprepared table, her blue eyes wide with astonishment. That tea should not be ready when she came home from school was like the sudden breaking down of a hitherto faultlessly running machine.

“You must of had something special to think about, I must say,” she added, and then broke out in pettish vexation. “I do think you might look after things a bit, Het. . . . I do think it’s a bit thick to come home and find tea not even begun, and you wasting time, thinking. ...”

“Oh, Kid!” cried Hetty with a sudden catch in her voice. “Don’t quarrel with me! Don’t dear; I ... I can’t bear it to-day. . . . There are things so much awfuller than . . . tea not being ready ...” She broke off and crossed to the gas stove quickly, bending down a little, as she lit a jet beneath the kettle, so that her face was hidden.

Bella’s blue eyes followed her, puzzled.

“What on earth’s the matter, Het?” she asked more quietly.

“I’ll . . . I’ll tell you ...” said Hetty, only she did not immediately begin. She spread the table cloth first, and set the tea things upon it . . . and began cutting bread and butter. Something about her, held Bella silent and wondering for a moment, then she broke out.

“Well, get on with it. . . . What’s the bally mystery?” And kneeling on a chair by the table, she reached over and took a lump of sugar from the sugar bowl, popped it into her mouth before Hetty could voice her usual protest, and grinned like a triumphant cherub up into Hetty’s grave face.

But Hetty scarcely seemed to notice the theft of the sugar, nor to hear the scrunch of it between Bella’s teeth, nor to see the wicked little smile upon her lips. . . .

She had stopped in her cutting of the bread and butter, and stood, one hand round the knife, the other over the top of the loaf, and looked down into the childish face with strangely serious eyes.

“Belle, what would you say if . . . ” she paused.

She had to swallow hard before she could continue. . . .

“ . . . if I was to tell you that . . . that dad’s . . . got married again?”

Bella’s blue eyes opened roundly; she caught a quick breath, and let it out noisily. . . .

“Married? Dad? Hetty!” she said, so breathlessly that her voice barely rose above a whisper.

“Oh, darling . . . don’t mind too much. ...”

“Het,” said Bella eagerly,” “who is it? When did you hear? When did they do it? Have you seen her? ...” The ques¬ tions poured out without a break. They were only stemmed when Hetty shook her head and answered.

“I haven’t seen her since . . . Darling, it’s . . . it’s Mrs. Dowse ...” and she told the story, all she knew of it, as quickly as it could be told and waited for the outburst of distress that she dreaded to see Bella give way to. . . .

But no distress was visible in Bella’s pretty face. There came a sudden quick excitement to her big childish eyes.

“And he sent a telegram, telling you?” she asked eagerly.

“Yes.”

“Let’s have a look at it.”

Hetty produced the telegram from her pocket.

“There it is,” she said, and gave it to Bella.

The little girl looked it all over. . . .

“A real telegram,” she said. ... “I bet young Ireen Ruffle’s never had a telegram come to her house.” The pretty curls were set dancing again. She read the message aloud.

“It’s a long one, isn’t it, Het? Must of cost ever so much. . . . Ain’t they lucky, though? Going to Southend. . . . Wouldn’t I just like to be there with them!” Bella sighed gustily but with relish. “She’ll be our ‘Step,’ won’t she, Het?”

Hetty nodded; she couldn’t have spoken just at that moment to save her life.

Bella was laughing excitedly; her face pink; her eyes bright.

At ten years old, with no very acute recollections of her mother, this was, to Bella, an event. And she always welcomed anything that could be called an event. She jumped up suddenly from her chair.

“I’m going up to tell that young Ireen,” she cried, waving the telegram and was out of the room before Hetty could stop her.

“Bella!” called Hetty, following quickly. . . . “Don’t! . . . Come here, . . . Come and have tea. . . . Don’t tell any¬ one. ...”

But Bella already had the front door open. . . .

“Why shouldn’t I tell Ireen?” she flung back over her shoulder.

“But Bella, listen ... we don’t want everyone to know.

. . . Not yet, Bell. ...”

Bella, wilful and spoilt—a great deal more wilful and spoilt than Hetty realised—would not listen. She made a pouting face and ran, laughing, out through the gate and up the street towards the corner grocery.

Hetty watched her, angry for a moment at her disobedience, then turned and went back into the kitchen, her anger giving way to a feeling of helplessness.

After all, she thought unhappily, why shouldn’t Ireen Ruffle know? Everyone would know on Monday. . . . But there was a sort of wild lack of fastidiousness in rushing off with the news in this excited way. She had dreaded Bella’s distress at hearing the news; but distress would have been easier to endure than this incontinent excitement.

She covered that thought quickly, with excuses; Bella was such a child. . . . Too young to understand. Too young to remember their mother as she remembered her; too young to draw the same hurting comparisons. . . .Too young to realise what had happened. . . . She was always ready to make ex¬ cuses for Bella. . . .

Tea was ready when Bella returned, flushed and eager, and out of breath with running.

“Het!” she cried, “we’re going to be rich. . . . Ireen’s father

says Dowse died worth a lot of money; he’d just sold the pub when he had to go and die . . . and he says all that’ll come to our ‘Step!’ Oh, I didn’t half take the shine out of young Ireen-!”

She flounced down into her chair and stretched out a hand for a piece of bread and jam. . . .

“Bread and butter first,” said Hetty, with the mechanicalness of long custom.

Bella pouted, but obeyed; she was too excited to care much.

“I’ve always told her that my dad went to business, which was a jolly sight classier than keepin’ a shop. . . . And now it’s proved, isn’t it? And Ireen’s father says he hopes we’ll still patronise the old firm.” She gave a cute imitation of the fat, pompous grocer. . . . “And I says I didn’t know, I’m sure. Our step might want to patronise some place with a lot more tone to it. . . . Tong, you know; like they say in French. ...” Bella tossed the curls till they jumped like golden springs round her face.

“Bella,” said Hetty abruptly. “Can you remember mother at all?”

Bella nodded, her mouth too full, at the moment, to speak; then:

“Yes, of course I can. Sort of palish, wasn’t she, Het? And thin, too. . . . And tired. ...”

“Yes,” said Hetty, with a quiver. “I’m afraid she was often tired. ...”

“Not jolly like Mrs. Dowse, I mean.”

“Not like Mrs. Dowse in any way!” cried Hetty, and felt hot with quick anger for the suggestion of comparison. But the anger died as quickly as it had arisen.

“She doesn’t understand. . . . She’s such a kid ...” she thought. For, to her, Bella was always the fat, five-year-old baby thing that her mother had put into her care. She had made the care faithfuly close and watchful; close, indeed, beyond the point of clear focus. But in her own inexperience she did not realize that. That Bella did and said things, sometimes, that jarred her through and through, she knew; but the same excuse always served: Bella was such a kid; too young to under¬ stand. She scarcely realised just how rapidly Bella was growing up. At ten, there was already a distant hint of maturity in the plump, pink prettiness of her.

Her eyes, big and blue and childishly wide, none the less held the first shadow of precocious knowingness in their gaze. Her lips were full, richly red; bewitchingly pretty in their curve and softness, but with a suggestion of wilfulness in their pouting lines.

But whatever of these things Hetty saw in her, she saw as the lingering of the baby in her; not as the foreshadowing of the woman. . . .

So she listened to Bella’s excited chatter, smothering the hurt in her heart with the constant repetition:

“She doesn’t understand. . . . She’s such a kid. . . . You couldn’t expect her even to remember. ...”

* * *

With a craving for action, she started on her preparations for the second Mrs. Carol, immediately after tea. She deter¬ mined that the house should be spotless. The very fact that she was dreading and resenting the intrusion of her father’s new wife, made her do her part with faultless fidelity.

It was midnight before Hetty went to bed. She was afraid to face the night until she was tired enough to sleep. By action, she could smother thought; but with stillness came the sweeping sense of disaster again.

She remembered the nights that had followed her mother’s death, and this was something that seemed almost like a second death. . . .

She undressed quickly and turned to the bed she shared with Bella. Bella was, as usual, taking up considerably more than her half of the bed. Standing, looking down into the sleeping face, Hetty felt herself swept by a passion of protectiveness. . . .

Mrs. Dowse shouldn’t touch Bella; Bella, in all her rosy prettiness, was her mother’s, and as her mother’s she should be kept. . . .

She wished Bella would wake up, so that she would not feel quite so alone. . . . And reached out a hand; but it got no further than the tousled curls spread shiningly over the pillow . . .and even then she withdrew it quickly, whispering:

“It’s a shame to disturb her. ...”

She put out the light and crept into bed; carefully, so that she should not waken Bella, but with a little hope stirring in her heart, that the child would waken, of her own accord. . . .

She was tired, but she did not sleep. . . . She had downed thoughts with activity, but they rose now and flooded her mind, bringing alternate resentment and desolation, until she could bear it no longer. . . .

She half rose, and moved Bella gently.

“Darling,” she whispered . . . “Move a little. . . . You’re right over my side. ...”

But that was really only her excuse for arousing the little girl. . . .

Bella stirred; flung about, half awoke and murmured:

“Hullo, Het! have you come to bed . . . ?”

“Yes; Bella, I’m right on the edge, dear. . . . Give me a bit more room. ...”

Bella shifted over to her side of the bed, and Hetty stretched beside her, more comfortably. . . .

“Het,” came Bella’s drowsy voice, suddenly. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” answered Hetty, “it’s true,” and she added—“About dad and Mrs. Dowse, d’you mean?”

Bella agreed with a little grunt.

“I thought p’rhaps I’d dreamt it. . . . Het, Ireen says steps beat you and don’t give you enough to eat. . . . But that’s all rot, isn’t it?” The childish voice trailed. . . .

“Just fairy tale,” said Hetty, and put an arm around the soft, pliant little body. Bella cuddled up comfortably.

“She gave me a bag of pineapple rock last time I saw her; Mrs. Dowse did ...” she said, through a big yawn. . . .

“Did she, Bell?”

Bella grunted again.

“And she said my curls were ever so pretty. ...” The sleepy voice trailed nearer and nearer to silence. . . . “But that young Ireen, she always runs down anything she hasn’t got. . . . She's . . . only . . . got a . . . real mother. ...”

Hetty had a feeling that the night had gone suddenly chill. . . .

She caught Bella close, whispering brokenly:

“Darling . . . don’t . . . don't . . . you mustn't. . . . Bella . . . can’t you see? Don’t you understand? Darling, don’t ever forget mother. . . . She was sweet and lovely. . . . Pale, I know, and tired . . . but pale for us, Belle; tired for us. . . . Don’t ever forget her, sweetie. ...”

But Bella, snuggling into her arms, was asleep again and Hetty knew that the chill was not in the night but in her own heart. . . .

By Sunday, noon, there was nothing, in the way of prepara¬ tion for the new Mrs. Carol, left to be done. For the sheer sake of being occupied, Hetty went over things again; polishing where no further polish was possible; sweeping where no dust remained; rubbing where there was no speck. Several trunks and bundles labelled “Mrs. Herbert Carol” had arrived by carrier during Saturday, and the sight of them did not improve Hetty’s frame of mind.

The honeymoon couple were scheduled to arrive at nine. By half-past eight Hetty had the supper-table ready; her own place set round the corner to make room for Mrs. Carol at the end; Bella was dressed in the blue silk frock Hetty had made her, for special occasions. Hetty herself was washed, brushed, and changed, so that there was nothing left now, but to sit in the spic-and-span front room, waiting.

Bella’s excitement had been high all day, and was still rising. She fidgetted around the room, unable to sit still; bounced on the little couch; preened her blue silk frock; stood before the mirror over the mantelpiece, twisting and polishing her curls; and punctuated the period of waiting with exclamations of:

“I wish they’d buck up . . . Het, what’s the time now? How long d’you think they’ll be?”

Hetty, sitting very straight and still, answered her questioning as steadily as she could, but the strain of these last moments was almost unbearable.

“Hush, now. . . . They’ll be here in a minute,” she was saying for the twentieth time when, even as she spoke, the clop of horses’ hoofs and the scrunch of wheels sounded from the road and stopped outside the house.

“They’ve come in a cab! They’ve come in a cab!” screamed out Bella suddenly, as if the very height of glory had been un¬ expectedly touched, and she went tumbling into the passage headlong.

Hetty stood for just one moment in the middle of the little room, her slender figure very still and straight, then turned and looked around her, as if unconsciously she bade a mute farewell to life as it had been, before she went out into the passage to* meet life as it was to be.

Chapter II

As symbolised by the new Mrs. Carol, life as it was to be appeared highly-coloured as a harlequin ice, and huskily loud-voiced as an up-river gramaphone. It seemed to Hetty that she filled the little passageway with her large figure; her large, pink face; her large violet velvet hat with the row of coy, brassy curls beneath; and that her voice must have filled the whole world as she said: