XVIII

It was a dark house. The windows were all withered away behind stiff curtains, and the light that laboured between these was chastened to the last degree of respectability. The doors skulked behind heavy plush hangings. The floors hid themselves decently under thick red and black carpets, and the margins which were uncarpeted were disguised by beeswax, so that no one knew they were there at all. The narrow hall was steeped in shadow, for there two black velvet portieres, at distances of six feet apart, depended from rods in the ceiling. Similar palls flopped on each landing of the staircase, and no sound was heard in the house at all, except dim voices that droned from somewhere, muffled and sepulchral and bodiless.

At ten o’clock, having finished the washing, Mary was visited by Mrs. O’Connor, whom she knew at once by the signs she had been warned of. The lady subjected each article that had been washed to a particular scrutiny, and, with the shadowy gallop of a smile that dashed into and out of sight in an instant, said they would do. She then conducted Mary to the kitchen and, pointing to a cup of tea and two slices of bread, invited her to breakfast, and left her for six minutes, when she reappeared with the suddenness of a marionette and directed her to wash her cup and saucer, and then to wash the kitchen, and these things also Mary did.

She got weary very soon, but not dispirited, because there were many things to look at in the kitchen. There were pots of various sizes and metals, saucepans little and big, jugs of all shapes, and a regiment of tea things were ranged on the dresser; on the walls were hung great pot-lids like the shields of barbarous warriors which she had seen in a storybook. Under the kitchen table there was a row of boots, all wrinkled by usage, and each wearing a human and almost intelligent aspect⁠—a well-wrinkled boot has often an appearance of mad humanity which can chain and almost hypnotise the observer. As she lifted the boots out of her way she named each by its face. There was Grubtoes, Sloucher, Thump-thump, Hoppit, Twitter, Hideaway, and Fairybell.

While she was working a young girl came into the kitchen and took up the boots called Fairybell. Mary just tossed a look at her as she entered and bent again to her washing. Then with an extreme perturbation she stole another look. The girl was young and as trim as a sunny garden. Her face was packed with laughter and freedom, like a young morning when tender rosy clouds sail in the sky. She walked with a light spring of happiness; each step seemed the beginning of a dance, light and swift and certain. Mary knew her in a pang, and her bent face grew redder than the tiles she was scrubbing. Like lightning she knew her. Her brain swung in a clamour of “Where, where?” and even in the question she had the answer, for this was the girl she had seen going into the Gaiety Theatre swinging on the arm of her big policeman. The girl said “Good morning” to her in a kindly voice, and Mary, with a swift, frightened glance, whispered back “Good morning”; then the girl went upstairs again, and Mary continued to scrub the floor.

When the kitchen was finished and inspected and approved of, she was instructed to wash out the front hall, and set about the work at once.

“Get it done as quickly as you can,” said the mistress; “I am expecting my nephew here soon, and he dislikes washing.”

So Mary bent quickly to her work. She was not tired now. Her hands moved swiftly up and down the floor without effort. Indeed, her actions were almost mechanical. The self that was thinking and probing seemed somehow apart from the body bending over the bucket, and the hands that scrubbed and dipped and wrung. She had finished about three-quarters of the hall when a couple of sharp raps came to the door. Mrs. O’Connor flew noiselessly up from the kitchen.

“I knew,” said she bitterly, “that you would not be finished before he came. Dry that puddle at once, so that he can walk in, and take the soap out of the way.”

She stood with her hand on the door while Mary followed these directions; then, when a couple of hasty movements had removed the surplus water, Mrs. O’Connor drew the bolt and her nephew entered. Mary knew him on the doorstep, and her blood froze in terror and boiled again in shame.

Mrs. O’Connor drew the big policeman inside and kissed him.

“I can’t get these people to do things in time,” said she. “They are that slow! Hang up your hat and coat and come into the parlour.”

The policeman, with his eyes fixed steadily on Mary, began to take off his coat. His eyes, his moustache, all his face and figure seemed to be looking at her. He was an enormous and terrifying interrogation. He tapped his tough moustache and stepped over the bucket; at the entrance to the parlour he stood again and hung his monstrous look on her. He seemed about to speak, but it was to Mrs. O’Connor his words went.

“How’s everything?” said he; and then the door closed behind him.

Mary, with extraordinary slowness, knelt down again beside the bucket and began to scrub. She worked very deliberately, sometimes cleaning the same place two or three times. Now and again she sighed, but without any consciousness of trouble. These were sighs which did not seem to belong to her. She knew she was sighing, but could not exactly see how the dull sounds came from her lips when she had no desire to sigh and did not make any conscious effort to do so. Her mind was an absolute blank; she could think of nothing but the bubbles which broke on the floor and in the bucket, and the way the water squeezed down from the cloth. There was something she could have thought about if she wanted to, but she did not want to.

Mrs. O’Connor came out in a few minutes, inspected the hall, and said it would do. She paid Mary her wages and told her to come again the next day, and Mary went home. As she walked along she was very careful not to step on any of the lines on the pavement; she walked between these, and was distressed because these lines were not equally distant from each other, so that she had to make unequal paces as she went.