Episode 5: Arrival of the Mother

The house was quiet. Elizabeth Bates took off her hat and shawl, and rolled back the rug. Then she turned up the lamp and began to straighten the house. She took the pudding and the stew jar into the pantry, emptied the potatoes on a plate, and put these away too. She was in a hurry to straighten the house, even to lay the children's clothes neatly on the sofa arm. Somebody would be coming, she knew. She folded her sewing and put it in the dresser cupboard. She would do no more of it that night; this also she knew. When she had finished all her tasks, she sat down. It was a few minutes past nine. She was startled by the rapid chuff of the winding-engine at the pit, and the sharp whirr of the brakes on the rope as it descended. Again she felt the painful sharp sweep of her blood, and she put her hand to her side, saying aloud, "Good gracious!--it's only the nine o'clock deputy* going down," rebuking herself.

She sat still, listening, her whole body gripped in suspense. Half an hour of this, and she was wearied out.

"What am I working myself up like this for?" she said pitiably to herself, "I s'll only be doing myself some damage."

She did not mean herself alone.

What could she do to occupy herself? She took out her sewing again, but it was a pit singlet* , and the thought of that took away her energy. She would have liked to begin and make some cake--but she couldn't have those things about when somebody was coming in. So she began to patch the elbow of one of the boy's coat-sleeves.

At a quarter to ten there were footsteps. She sat quite still, listening. One person! She watched for the door to open. It was an elderly woman, in a black bonnet and a black woollen shawl--his mother. This was a short woman of sixty or thereabouts, pale, with blue eyes, and her face all shapen to lines of old lamentation and self-commiseration. She shut the door and came straight to her daughter, and put her old hand on the other's strong, capable hands.

"Eh, Lizzie, whatever shall we do, whatever shall we do!" she wailed.

Elizabeth drew back a little, sharply.

"What is it, mother?" she said.

The elderly woman went and seated herself on the sofa. The tears were running down the furrows which her old laments had left.

"I don't know, child, I can't tell you!"--she shook her head slowly and with despair. Elizabeth sat watching her, anxious and vexed.

"I don't know," replied the grandmother, sighing very deeply. "Trouble never leaves us, it doesn't. The things I've gone through, and now this----!" She wept without wiping her eyes, the tears running freely. She seemed to be looking back down the long dark avenue of her troubles.

"But mother," interrupted Elizabeth decisively. "What have you got to tell me? Let me know!"

The grandmother slowly wiped her eyes. The loose fountains of her tears were stopped by Elizabeth's sharpness. She wiped her eyes slowly. She knew it was aggravating, but then --her daughter-in-law had nettled her; and she could not rise too abruptly out of the luxurious bed of her grief.

"Poor child! eh, you poor thing!" she wailed. "I don't know what we're going to do, I don't--and you as you are-- it's an awful thing, it is indeed, an awful thing!"

Elizabeth sat strangling in the cords of suspense.

"Is he dead?" she asked, and at the words her heart swung violently, though she felt a slight flush of shame at the ultimate extravagance of the idea. The question sufficiently startled the old lady.

"Don't say so, Elizabeth! The Lord won't let it be as bad as that; no, the Lord will spare us that, Elizabeth. Jack Rigley came just as I was sittin' down to a glass afore going to bed, an' 'e said, ' 'Appen you'll go down th' line, Mrs. Bates. Walt's had an accident. 'Appen you'll go an' sit wi' 'er till we can get him home.' I hadn't time to ask him a word, afore he was gone. An' I put my bonnet on an' come straight down to you, Lizzie. I thought to myself, 'Eh, that poor blessed child, if anybody should come an' tell her of a sudden, there's no tellin' what'll 'appen to 'er.' You mustn't let it upset you, Lizzie--you mustn't child. Think of that poor little thing as isn't here by six months--or is it five, Lizzie? Ay!"--the old woman shook her head--"time slips on, it slips on! Ay! How long is it since you had 'im, Lizzie?"

Elizabeth's thoughts were busy elsewhere. If he was killed --would she be able to manage on the little pension and what she could earn?--she counted up rapidly. If he was hurt-- they wouldn't take him to the hospital--how tiresome he would be to nurse!--but perhaps she'd get him away from the drink and his hateful ways. She would--while he was ill. The tears came to her eyes at the picture. Then in thought she arose once more--he had killed her "sentiment"--and began to consider the children. At any rate she was absolutely necessary for them; she must save herself for them. She clung to the thought of the children; and, covering the ugly image of him, rose her pity, a deep womanly pity, which is only akin to love when its object is physically struck down. He would be weak, and she would have him in her hands. Then she was full of tenderness. Her mother startled her. She captured the echo of the question.

"How long? It's eight years come Christmas."

"Eight years!" repeated the old woman, "an' it seems but a week or two since he brought me his first wages. Ay--he was a good lad, Elizabeth, he was a good lad. I don't know--I don't know why he got such a trouble, I don't. He was a good lad at home, a dear lad. But there's no mistake he's been a handful o' trouble, a handful o' trouble, he has! I hope the Lord'll spare him to mend his ways, I hope so, I hope so. You've had a sight o' trouble with him, Elizabeth, you have indeed. But I'm sure he was a good lad wi' me, he was, there's no denying. I don't know how it is ... Eh! they don't turn out well, they don't! They run your legs off, an' make you tired out when they're little, an' when they're big, you sit still wi' more trouble than you can well carry because of 'em. It is so----"

The old woman continued to think aloud, a monotonous plaintive sound, while Elizabeth drove her thoughts fiercely here and there, arrested once, when she heard the winding- engine chuff quickly again, and the brakes skirr with a shriek. Then she heard the engine more slowly, and the brakes made no sound. The old woman did not notice. Elizabeth sat in a coil of half-twisted suspense. The old woman talked, with lapses into silence.

"But he wasn't your son, Lizzie -- an' it makes a difference. Whatever he was, I remember him when he was little, a beautiful little lad, as ever your eyes could wish."