BOOK V THE COUNCILLOR (continued 2)

For one thing Councillor Burford never was. He never was servile. He was none of your bowers and scrapers, your handwashers and wringers of aprons. His politeness bore ever a certain air of brusquerie; his brusquerie a certain character of politeness. The two qualities were inseparable in him. He addressed his customers with a voice only less peremptory than that in which he spoke to his assistants. It was rare that he lowered it. His phrases, terse and trenchant for the most part, were sliced with the blade of sharp decision and served in such a way as he would stab the knife into a slab of butter and offer its point to some hesitating patron with a curt: “Try it yourself, ma’am.” And his ma’ams made no invidious distinctions. He never shirked them even to aprons and shawls, nor by slurring sought to disown their utterance. On the contrary, when Councillor Burford said “Ma’am” the word cut through the shop and had a curious effect of emphasizing the utterer’s own importance rather than acknowledging hers to whom it was addressed. His “ma’ams” implicated nothing personal; they subscribed simply to a convention and compromised his own respect no more than the “dearly beloved brethren” of the pulpit commits the preacher to love his fellow men.

Behind the counter on the opposite side of the shop facing his father, the younger Burford served, and assisted reminiscent history to repeat herself. Here, save for a little march in time and some internal change, all was as it had been in the ancient Burford days. Dignity and self-importance turned automatically to the right; modesty and vacillation, after a spasmodic moment, shrunk to the left, or hung irresolutely on their heel before the communicating counter served by mere assistants, who took the dregs of custom, packed up consolidated groceries, and hurried to their master’s elbow at the cracking of his thumb and finger. It was instructive to note how completely the Councillor’s personality permeated his shop; how it controlled and actuated the movements of his helpers, as if they had been prolongations of his own limbs rather than independent human beings. Despite his thirty years the younger Burford had been trained in such subjection to the elder’s word, referring every doubt to the paternal certitude, that within the precincts of the shop he seemed to doff all individuality with his coat and hung his judgment meekly on his father’s nod, just as he committed his coat to the hook behind the private office door. Merchandise confided surreptitiously to his inspection from time to time by doubting assistants was not less dubiously eyed by him, and, after mysterious whisperings behind a hand, taken up to the high altar to be passed or vetoed by a terse pronouncement on the Master’s part.

The junior Burford had just been up to the chief counter to collect authority for the disposal of a box of fairy candles when Mrs. Holmroyd entered the shop. Noting this unfamiliar presence he accosted her politely on his way back to the subordinate counter with the enquiry: “Are you being attended to, Madam?” His voice, though aspiring to a higher plane of culture than his father’s, lacked the parental ring. It had no timbre of self-confidence, and its politeness was plainly but a servile substitute for personality—to which he would not dare to aspire during his father’s life. He used the unabbreviated “Madam” with an air of such repression as made the two syllables sound feeble by contrast with his father’s one. Mrs. Holmroyd was on the point of making answer to the younger Burford—“Mr. Arry,” as he was designated in the shop—when the Councillor, still reposing his sleeveless forearm over the biscuit canister, raised his voice out of the general level of his conversation with the doctor’s wife to say: “I’m attending to Mrs. Holmroyd myself in a moment.” The announcement appeared to catch the younger Burford in the back. With a hurried murmur of apology he quitted Mrs. Holmroyd and obliterated himself behind his counter. After a few brief moments the doctor’s wife departed, bestowing an intent regard on Mrs. Holmroyd and her children, that seemed to ask of memory if these were patients of her husband or not. Oswald plucked his mother’s sleeve and drew her ear towards his lips that he might whisper who this rustling lady was who passed them in a waft of petticoats and scent. Already the Councillor, pushing the biscuit tin dismissively aside with the utterance of a name that caused it to be run for by a white apron and borne away across the shop, invited Mrs. Holmroyd: “Now ma’am!”

He stood awaiting her, all business; overlooking his precarious glasses that shook to the least word or gesture; his pencil and duplex entry-book in hand. Mrs. Holmroyd advanced to the counter, her children following, and unwound the little paper scroll enumerating their week’s supplies. The list was not a long one. It struck her painfully, in fact, as being too curt and unimportant for the impressive attention bestowed upon it. Its end came with startling abruptness, particularly as the pencil had taken up an expectant posture on a fresh line, and the Councillor’s voice demanded: “And the next, ma’am.” There was no next. She murmured her regret, with a gentle air of cogitation that seemed to seek requirements overlooked. The Councillor, still holding the pencil to his note-book, peered over his gold-rimmed pince-nez into space, as if lending his own more active and qualified mind for the assistance of her introspection and prompted memory with such articles as his wide experience taught him a housewife might be likely to require.

“Soap, ma’am? No soap. Candles? No candles. Dried fruit? No dried fruit. Currants? Raisins? Sultanas?”

All these, he gave assurance were of the very best. Her conscience smote her in the end to let so many best of things go by, as though she were insensible to quality; and feeling at length that some more suitable acknowledgment of the Councillor’s trouble on her behalf was called for than unvarying negation, she let a wavering choice be seen at the suggestion of a cream-cheese.

“Fresh in from the country this morning, ma’am!” the Councillor affirmed. “The very best. You won’t be disappointed. I can recommend them.” His thumb and finger snapped like the hammer of a pistol. “Fletcher!—Two cream cheeses for this lady to look at. Large and small. Sharp.”

One of the white aprons thus apostrophized, pushed another obstructive apron flat against the wall and bore the ordered cheeses to the head counter, each outspread upon a hand. The Councillor, slipping his pencil behind an ear, turned up the green rush wrapping with fingers of expressive admiration, and displayed the delectable texture of cool cream to Mrs. Holmroyd’s gaze with a gesture so convincing that refusal was unthinkable. She thanked him. They looked lovely. She would take one.

“A large one, ma’am?”

In the matter of pork pies the Councillor had betrayed no hesitation. He had said, as Mrs. Holmroyd’s recollection quickly prompted her “Let’s begin with a small one.” But in respect of cheeses he posed the question with the larger in his hand, as if her answer were assured, and she chose “the large one, please.” It seemed that all the practical lessons learned from Councillor Burford counted for nothing when she tried to put them into practice against their master.

His busy pencil added up the items of her bill. “Sixteen and ninepence, ma’am.” She laid down a sovereign, that left her softly as if it had been a sigh. He rang it on the counter, caught it dexterously again and rapped it smartly into the till. “Sixteen and nine, and three’s seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Nineteen and six. And six’s Twenty. Thank you, ma’am. Rather better weather again this morning. The things shall be sent on to you at once. Boy!”

Up to this moment the Councillor had gazed at Mrs. Holmroyd’s two children with an eye so distant and rejective that, for all the recognition it paid them, they might have been at home. But as their mother turned to go, he raised the wagging pince-nez from his nose, and extending it indicatively across the counter in their direction, asked: “Do you young people know the way to eat sweets?”

The young people, awed by the sudden application of that smileless eye, and embarrassed by turbulent desires, hung their heads with one accord. Oswald contributed a whispered “thank you.”

The Councillor prized the stopper of a big glass bottle, loosened the stubborn contents with the point of a great knife, and thrust his hand within the flask as far as the swelling forearm flesh would let him, with a great action of liberality—as if there were no limit to what generosity desired to bring forth. Once or twice, in the endeavour to dislodge these refractory sweetmeats, he smote the bottle with a resounding flat hand and shook it forcefully. It was therefore not devoid of a sense of disappointment to Oswald and his sister that after such promising preliminaries no more than half a dozen sweetmeats rewarded the Councillor’s labours on their behalf. But he dispensed these across the counter, three into each politely upturned palm, with an air of condescension that restored magnificence to the offering, saying, as though to allay Mrs. Holmroyd’s unspoken fears:

“These’ll do them no harm, ma’am. They’re genuine boiled sweets. You can’t beat ’em. All pure sugar. Fourpence ha’penny a pound. The very best.”

She thanked the donor warmly and prompted her children, “What do you say to Mr. Burford?” They said “Thank you” in turn, still under the conflicting emotions stirred by the gift.

“Good morning ma’am.—Now ma’am?”

The second Ma’am was directed to Mrs. Holmroyd’s successor. No allusion had been made to the pork pie. Mrs. Holmroyd’s pride was glad of that, having been haunted by the fear that this subject might be raised in public to her discomfiture. She left the shop with a feeling of curious satisfaction for something accomplished; for some purpose—she knew not what—achieved.

9

Left to the milk pudding, hash and peeled potatoes in the kitchen; her pail, scrubbing brush and marbled soap in the schoolroom upstairs, the enthusiast had not passed the morning without incident. More than once, under stimulus of what she had to tell, she hurried to the front door, and screening her red eyelids with a steaming hand against the sunlight that mixed imperfectly with the November air, she gazed long and earnestly down the street, as if, by the sheer intensity of her regard, she sought to bring her tardy mistress home. The moment Mrs. Holmroyd crossed the doorstep, Elizabeth appeared at the passage end; her arms and apron in such commotion as might have been occasioned by a high wind.

“O’m! What do you think! You’ll never guess!”

At first sight the emotions agitating the aged figure appeared to Mrs. Holmroyd’s eyes so tragic that she had a momentary sinking of the heart. But Elizabeth’s countenance, shaking off the conflicting moods that mobbed it, emerged from the momentary tumult with such a look of triumph as gave her back half a score of her most active years. She seemed revitalized; her face shone with the high serenity of a saucepan lid.

“Miss Burford’s been. I’m to go and char for her on Tuesday.” “O’m!” she exclaimed, discarding the impediment of her coarse apron and uplifting both hands to heaven. “I wish you could ’a seen her face when I opened door. You never saw anybody so took aback in all your born days’m. She hadn’t a word to say for herself. She went all colours. She could ’a dropped. She says, ‘Dear me! What!... Why, is that you Elizabeth?’ ‘Aye, it’s me’m,’ I tells her. ‘I thought you’d given up going out working,’ she says after a bit. ‘I should ’a done,’ I says, ‘if some folks had had their way wi’ me’m. But I’ve a few friends left’m. I’ve never wanted a day’s work since you said you’d let me know.’ She coughs aside of her hand and says: ‘I’m glad to hear it, and to see you looking so well.’”

“ ... And then’m, she asks if you was in, and I tells her you wasn’t, and she says: ‘So you work for Mrs. Holmroyd, then?’ and I says: ‘I haven’t missed a Saturday with her for many a week. And Monday’s once a fortnight, regular.’ She says: ‘O’ and ‘Really’ and ‘Indeed.’ ‘What was I doing on Tuesday?’ I tells her Nothing as I knew of’m, and she says: ‘Do you care to come and work for me?’ ‘Not unless I’m wanted,’ I answers. ‘I don’t care to go nowheres until I’m asked’m.’ O’m! It would ’a done you good to see look she gied me. I know her. I haven’t spring cleaned beside of her for nothing. She would ’a liked to toss her head up and walk away, but she swallows her pride and says: ‘There’s no question of you not being wanted.’

“Aye ...” the enthusiast continued, “ ... and I knew in a minute what was cause of her asking me. Servant’s left her. She’s all with herself. She wouldn’t ’a had me back without she was forced. She hasn’t forgotten’m. And she hasn’t forgiven. She didn’t say a word about it to me, and I didn’t to her, but it was in her eye all time.”

The triumph consequent upon Miss Burford’s visit so thrilled and occupied Elizabeth that the primary object of her calling was quite lost sight of. Her reading of Miss Burford’s mind did credit to her eyesight. The discovery of this claimant to her grandfather’s misplaced fancy in Mrs. Holmroyd’s house was indeed a matter of unpalatable surprise to Councillor Burford’s daughter, who had derived deceptive security from the charwoman’s absence, deeming a danger lessened that is not seen. But here, to her mortification, she found the enemy entrenched in the least suspected place of all. For the safeguard of a grandeur that might otherwise foolishly compromise itself, she would have liked to know how much of the secret of the first Burford’s ridiculous attempts at misalliance had been imparted to this newcomer. Some knowledge of the situation was, in fact, essential to her future line of conduct with Mrs. Holmroyd. If the secret were inviolable (which she had too small a faith in the integrity of her sex to suppose) dignity might assert itself; if betrayed, then dignity would need to be diluted with a little diplomatic friendship. People who possess secrets to our disadvantage cannot be altogether treated as strangers.

As for the real object of Miss Burford’s visit....

“Lor’m!” the enthusiast exclaimed when Mrs. Holmroyd ventured to enquire concerning it at last, “ ... I thought I’d told you. She came about the pie.”

The pie?

“She won’t be wanting it’m. Leastways, not this week. She said it was her father’s mistake. She’d told him, but men was all alike. She didn’t know what her father wanted to meddle with such things for. He’d nothing to do with it. She’ll take a small pie next week instead, if it’s all the same to you.”

Next week. If it was all the same to her.

The pie that was already made. The extra-large small pie for eighteen pence with which Mrs. Holmroyd had sought to propitiate this new customer and extend the boundaries of her hopes. The pie that had been her justification for this visit to the Bank and to the Burford shop this morning. Oswald and Beryl, staggered by the tidings, yet knowing not what precise attitude to adopt in face of it, studied their mother’s countenance as if it were a sum.

She was very dignified. She let no sign be seen. Drawing off her gloves with sweet serenity she thanked Elizabeth for delivering the message. “I am so glad Miss Burford called and that you are to work for her again. I always said it had been a mistake, Elizabeth.”

But Miss Burford’s was not the only mind that the new conjunction of relationships had troubled. Mrs. Holmroyd, too, saw elements in this re-shaping future to vex her peace. Not less than the hard-faced daughter of the Councillor had she a secret ambry of the soul to guard, hiding its bony relics from the eyes of men. And before the enthusiast took leave that night, though swathed already in the faded shawl and bowed to the attitude of humble resignation for the attended sacrament of silver, Mrs. Holmroyd took advantage of the pious curtsey and murmuring lips of gratitude to breathe the name “Elizabeth!” with a lowered urgent voice.

“Mum?” responded the enthusiast.

“If you go to Miss Burford’s on Tuesday ... you will be sure ... not to say a Word.”

“What about’m?”

“About the.... About the service you did for me the other week.”

“Service?” enquired the enthusiast, perplexedly. “You don’t mean ... cream jug’m?”

“Hush, Elizabeth!” Mrs. Holmroyd turned an apprehensive face towards the kitchen door, left partly open behind her. “It is strictly between ourselves.”

“Lor’m!” the enthusiast consoled her, “I’d clean forgot while you reminded me. It’s not the first time I’ve fetched things back for people—yes, and put ’em in for them as well. I did it regular for Mrs. Coldthorpe, and never breathed a word to nobody. She could trust me’m. She’d no need to warn me. You’re the first that ever has.”

More and more disquieted with the enthusiast’s evasion of her fears, Mrs. Holmroyd felt a dreadful apprehension seize her.

“Elizabeth.... Have you broken your word to me! Have you told ... anyone already?”

To her dismay signs of agitation began to invest the shawl. It heaved convulsively.

“I know what it is’m!” she heard a suffocated voice exclaim. “You’re wanting an excuse to get rid of me. I’ve seen it coming on. You’ve never been same since you called at Rockery House. She must ’a told you something then. You’ve made it up betwixt you.”

At which the shawl, overcome with its own emotion, danced grotesquely as if it blew, empty, on a clothes line; nor could it be prevailed upon to partake of comfort until the rejected pie was insinuated beneath its fringe, when the tears of reproach changed their grief to gratitude, and the sobs became articulate enough to cry:

“O! mum. You’re too good to me. I don’t deserve it. You’ve only got to say the Word and I won’t go there at all.”