Episode 6: Return of the Body

It was half-past ten, and the old woman was saying: "You've nothing left -- but trouble; and you're never too old for trouble, never too old for that----" when the gate banged, and there were heavy feet on the steps.

"I'll go, Lizzie, let me go," cried the old woman, rising. But Elizabeth was at the door. It was a man in pit-clothes.

"They're bringin' 'im, Missis," he said, simply. Elizabeth's life halted a moment within her. Then it switched on again, almost suffocating her.

"Is he -- is it bad?" she asked.

The man nodded and turned away, looking at the garden:

"The doctor says 'e'd been dead hours. 'E saw 'im i' th' lamp cabin."

The old woman, who stood just behind Elizabeth, dropped into a chair, and folded her hands, crying: "Oh, my boy, my boy."

"Hush!" said Elizabeth, with a sharp twitch of a frown. "Be still, mother, don't waken th' children: I wouldn't have them down for anything!"

The old woman moaned softly, rocking herself. The man was turning away. Elizabeth took a step forward.

"How was it?" she asked.

"Well, it wor this like," the man replied, very ill at ease. " 'E wor finishin' a stint, an' th' butties 'ad gone, an' a lot o' stuff come down atop 'n 'im."

"And is he much -- has it made a mess of him?" asked the widow, with a shudder. She dreaded most of all at this moment that he should look ghastly; she felt she could not stand it.

"No," said the man, "it fell at th' back on 'im. 'E wor under th' face, tha sees, an' it niver touched 'im. It shut 'im in. 'E wor smothered."

Elizabeth shrank back with a low cry. The thought of it was like a weapon against her life. She heard the old woman behind her say:

"What?--did 'e say 'e was suffocated?"

The man replied, more loudly: "Yes--that's 'ow it wor!"

Then the old woman wailed aloud, and this calmed Elizabeth.

"Oh, mother," she said, putting her arms round the old woman, "don't waken th' children, don't waken the children."

She wept a little, while the old woman rocked herself and moaned. Elizabeth did not think of it--she did not think of him. She only thought that they were bringing him home, and she must be ready, and whatever happened, she must not forget the children. "They'll lay him in the parlour," she said to herself, standing a moment pale and perplexed.

 

Then she lighted a candle and went into the tiny room. The air was cold and damp, but she could not make a fire, there was no fireplace. She set down the candle and looked round. There was a sofa, and four chairs, and a chiffonier, and the room was crowded. The candle-light glittered on the lustre- glasses, and on the two glass vases that held some of the pink chrysanthemums. There was a cold deathly smell of chrysanthemums in the room. Elizabeth stood looking at the flowers. Vaguely, they recalled her wedding. She turned away, and calculated whether they would have room to lay him on the floor, between the couch and the chiffonier. She pushed the couch down against the narrow wall, and put the chairs at that end also. There would be room to lay him down and to step round him. Then she fetched the old red table-cloth, and another old cloth, spreading them down to save her bit of carpet. She shivered on leaving the parlour; so, from the dresser drawer she took a clean shirt and put it at the fire to air. All the time her mother-in-law was rocking herself in the chair and moaning.

 

"You'll have to move from there, mother," said Elizabeth. "They'll be bringing him in. Come in the rocker."

The old mother rose mechanically, and seated herself by the fire, continuing to "keen." The parlour door was open, and inside it looked very dim and cold, with one yellow candle on the dark red chiffonier. Elizabeth went into the pantry for another candle, and there, in the little place under the naked tiles, she heard them coming. She stood still in the pantry doorway, listening. She heard them pass the end of the house, and come awkwardly down the three steps, a jumble of shuffling footsteps and muttering voices. The old mother rose and stood silent. The men were in the yard.

Then Elizabeth heard Matthews, the manager of the pit, say: "You go in first, Jim. Mind!"

The door came open, and the two women saw a collier backing into the room, holding one end of a stretcher, on which they could see the great pit-boots of the dead man. The two carriers halted, the man at the head stooping to the lintel of the door.

"Wheer will you have him?" asked the old manager, a short, white-bearded man.

Elizabeth roused herself and came away from the pantry, carrying the unlighted candle.

"In the parlour," she said.

"In there Jim!" pointed the manager, and the carriers backed round into the tiny room. The coat with which they had covered the body fell off as they awkwardly turned through the two doorways, and the women saw their man, naked to the waist, lying stripped for work. Immediately the old woman began to moan in a low voice, "My boy!" Elizabeth followed to see where they laid him, and she came face to face with the manager, who was on the heels of the second bearer. Neither noticed the other.

 

"Lay th' stretcher at th' side," snapped the manager, "an' put 'im on th' cloths. Mind now, mind! Look you now----!"

One of the men had knocked off a vase of chrysanthemums. He stared awkwardly, then they set down the stretcher. Elizabeth did not look at her husband. As soon as she could get in the room, she went and picked up the broken vase, and the flowers.

"Wait a minute!" she said.

The three men waited in silence while she put the bits of glass and the flowers in the ashpan, and mopped up the water with a duster. Then they lifted the body and put it on the cloths, and stood up with a sigh, keeping their eyes on the man.

 

"Eh, what a job, what a job, to be sure!" the manager was saying, rubbing his brow with trouble and perplexity. "Never knew such a thing in my life, never! They'd no business to ha' left 'im, you know, no business to ha' left him. I never knew such a thing in my life! Fell over him clean as a whistle, an' shut him in. Not ten feet of space, there wasn't -- yet it never bruised him."

He looked down at the dead man, lying serene, half naked, all grimed with coal-dust.

" ''Sphyxiated,' the doctor said. I never knew anything like it. It seems as if it had to be. Clean over him, an' shut 'im in, like a vault" -- he made a sweeping gesture with his hand.

"It wor that!" corroborated one of the men.

They forced the horror of the thing upon the woman's imagination, and it gripped her as in some great invisible hand.

"Don't take on!" said the manager, "it's no good now, Missis, it isna. It's a bad job, I know it is, but ----"

Then they heard the girl's voice upstairs calling shrilly: "Mother, mother -- who is it? Mother! -- who is it?"

Elizabeth hurried to the foot of the stairs and opened the door:

"Go to sleep!" she commanded sharply. "What are you shouting about? Go to sleep at once -- there's nothing ----"

Then she began to mount the stairs. They could hear her on the boards, and on the plaster floor of the little bedroom. They could hear her distinctly:

"What's the matter now? -- what's the matter with you, silly thing?" -- her voice was much gentler than when she had called from the foot of the stairs.

"I thought it was some men come," said the plaintive voice of the child.

"They only brought your father home. There's nothing to make a fuss about. Go to sleep now, like a good child."

They could imagine her smoothing the bedclothes over the shoulders of the soothed children.

"Is he drunk?" the girl asked, timidly, faintly.

"No! Don't be a silly. He -- he's asleep."

"Is he asleep downstairs?"

"Yes . . . and don't wake him."

There was a silence for a moment, then the men heard the frightened child again:

"What's that noise? Is it him asleep?"

"Yes! He's all right, what are you bothering for?"

The noise was the grandmother moaning. She was quite oblivious of everything, sitting on her chair rocking and moaning. The manager put his hand on her arm and bade her "Sh -- sh ! !"

The old woman opened her eyes and looked at him. She was stung by this interruption, but she became quiet, very pitiful and forlorn.

"What time is it?" -- the plaintive thin voice of the child, reassured, sinking back to sleep, asked this last question.

"Ten o'clock," answered the mother softly. Then she must have bent down and kissed them, and they heard the soft level flight of her voice, but could not tell what she said.

Matthews beckoned the men to come away. They put on their caps and took up the stretcher. Then, stepping over the body, they tiptoed out of the house. None of them spoke till they were far from the wakeful children.