THE CHINA MAIL THURSDAY SUPPLEMENT, APRIL 15, 1937.
FAITH, HOPE AND
(Continued from Page 1)
"Yes, of course! To try it on and see if it fits. Don't you want to?"
"If you like, missus.”
He started toward her holding the can of paint carefully
wouldn't splash. "My goodness,"
she said.
"You move slow.
goodness."..
so it
My
he
At first she paid him no wages.
if She was waiting to see would get a price on his services. She was willing to make a reason- able payment but she wanted him to ask her to do it. He never ask- ed and Ellie was forced to make From the first gesture herself. the start she had supplied him on her with tobacco purchased
into town. She regular trips would leave it beside his plate at the table. It would lie there un- touched until the meal was over, ignored by both of them. Then she would manage to leave him On alone for a few minutes.
the back to
room she coming would find the tobacco gone and Dan lighting his pipe.
•
One night she put some: money in an envelope and left it with the tobacco on his couch in the cellar. She felt guilty about invading his privacy although Dan was not She looked there at the time.
curious to see if he around her had changed anything. The couch the white- was pushed against washed wall where it had always been. The floor had been swept around it and a patchwork quilt was turned down as a counterpane. Under the pillow she found a toothbrush, a comb, a stub of pen- cil, a spectacle case, a threaded needle. An empty orange crate stood in the corner and she won- dered why he hadn't used it as a. bureau to keep his belongings in. But the bed was all he had used. She left her gifts upon the pillow where he would be sure to find
them.
She waited
Two days passed. impatiently for him to mention her latest beneficence.
"Did you get the money I left for you?" she said at last.
and
He fumbled in a pocket brought out the envelope.
"Yes, missus.* Averting his. head, he went on, "I can maybe finish the rock-garden to-morrow, missus.”
She saw he had not opened the envelope.
The earth flowered beneath his hand and to the directness of her mind this was a vindication of him. The tender spikes of green showed through in an incredibly short time, grew tall and fructi-
He was a thor fied in his care. ough workman, planning in ad- vance; and he planted the garden in seasonable rotation so that the colours blossomed from May into September, from border to wall- spikethorn, sweet William and Mexican firebush to early briars, crocuses, petunias and hollyhocks in their seasons.
.
A heavy two-day rain confined him to the house and he worked painstakingly on a garden seat. Busy about the house, she stopped on hearing the sounds of hammer- ing in the cellar and thought of the
wood lathe her husband had rigged up in his spare hours. It had lain unused since his death. Without considering the extent of Ellie suggested her concession, to Dan that he work with it.
man ought to have a hob by," she said. “You can use the lathe as if it was your own.'
CHARITY
she sensed at once his quick draw-
showing he had heard. He ang back.
He bobbed his head by way of
on
peared during this period to live in fear of being found idle, always casting about him for additional odd jobs he might put his hand to. In her unhurried way of life, each day containing its routine set of tasks varying slightly with the time of year, his cloaked make himself useful anxiety to about the house, his insistence
being occupied d and the always cautious display of it, was strange, to her. She was almost amusing prevented
enjoying the novelty of this timid deference by her awareness of the importance it had for him; the struggle to be- come indispensable had involved she was the object and her arbiter to which he directed all his effort. The effect was to give her a value she had never before these discerned. He was doing things solely to please her. She ought to show appreciation by making them more available and so she, too, looked around for little jobs to keep him busy.
She said, hurriedly: “The cot- tage is vacant again, isn't it? I saw a moving van in front this afternoon."
missus. **Yes, "See the real estate man in the morning," she said desperately.
"In the morning," he repeated. He went to the night school classes. She took him with her in- to town to register. They walked along the road together, looking like a companionable couple, he aging, worn a little, and she, comfortably middle-aged.
married
"Straighten yourself up and swing your arms when you walk. You don't have to be afraid of You look fine. anyone you meet.
Is there anything else you need?" "I guess not. I'll take up them dahlia bulbs to-morrow, missus. Frost'll get them if I don't.”
"Never mind the bulbs now."
**Yes, missus."
After the first time, he went alone. He was neat and present- able as he left for school three times each week, carrying his books under his arm. It gave her she time an odd pang each watched him go. He had a posi- tion in the world now; a job to do, clothes of his own and money. But she felt grieved that he did not Не bear himself more proudly, walked with his eyes downward, He his thin shoulders hunched. end.
did not look back at her.
She thought to resolve the ques- tion by, in effect, turning the tiny his cottage she owned over to supervision. She had no head for business. The place had become a problem to her. It was difficult to rent owing to its location
She house on an outlying street. allowed him to collect the rent each month and acting
as her agent he bought materials and made a few repairs to the pro- perty. Though tenants moved in and out regularly, Dan managed to find new ones each time, and Ellie was glad to be relieved of the burden. The care of the cottage to devolving upon him seemed make the situation less taut be-
removed tween them, and
any chance of an accusation that he was malingering for, alternating his attention, he found enough to do.
"My
gue and used to look after
it," said. "If he could do it, I. you can. It's really better
a man to do that kind of wor- after rying anyhow. You look the little house from now on but don't do anything without telling me."
“No, missus. I'll do my best for you, missu
missus."
In the fall she came upon studying a night school folder had found. It contained lists of academic subjects and he was ticking off those that interested him. His lips moved as he read down the pamphlet." He looked up, startled at being discovered, and somehow, she felt, defiant.
"It's about the night school. I was thinkin' of registerin', missus, if you don't mind.”
It was the only time he had ever put forward a request on his own behalf. She tried not to appear surprised, to treat the matter off- handedly,
"Suit yourself.
won't object
if that's what you're getting at."
Yet she was pleased. Her hus. band had been something of a reader but Ellie was a woman of little education. It was a side of herself she had not cultivated. but in Dan she saw the desire for improvement having a relation to Her her, and she was delighted..... feelings showed on her face and
She thought: "Going to school will do him good. I'm not lonely while he's away. I can sit and wait for him. After a while when he's more accustomed to coming and going as he wants he'll talk more freely with me. things. I'm not really when he's not here."
Tell me lonesome
Then a short time before she expected him back, she would rise from the straw armchair, put aside the basket of sewing, and prepare a supper for him, a warm- over or a hot sandwich. If the night was wet or windy she would have a hot drink_ready____ Later, when he came in, they would sit down together and their
talk
would be question and answer. He offered no voluntary informa- tion. She was forced to be the interrogator. When he had finish- ed eating, he would wait quietly for her permission to go down to the couch in the cellar. And when she had given it and climbed the stairs to her own bedroom, she carried a baffled, hurt feeling to sleep.
a
She was troubled and puzzled by his attitude but there was no appreciable cause she could point-
That edly allude to or blame. change was taking place in him she knew. Perhaps it was not so much a change as a leavening, a softening inwardly as if his na- ture had
to her.
hiding something from
and an outlet unknown
told herself. "He avoids but not enough to be dißres- pectful. And he gets away every chance he can.”
He became irregular in coming home and awaiting him as she did, she noticed how it grew later each night before he returned from the
school. During the days he spent more of his time about the cottage and covertly observing him she decided that from being an impersonal though conscien tious care, his interest in it, had absorbing. become personal and
+
The suspicion
at the bottom of her mind uncoiled slowly and grew into a conviction; and as if amaz- ed at the result of her introspec- tion she could not put it into words. She wanted Dan to do that for her.
noon.
"
"You're taking a lot of trouble about the little house," Ellie said as he tried to slip off one after-
smiled She
uneasily. "You're always over that way.'
"I been fixin' up a little over there. I got things in shape here." defensive. But his tone was had heard the sound d of the wood Under his lathe from the cellar. arm he was carrying a length of newly turned wood.
:
“Are you taking that to the cottage?"
"Yes, missus.”
"What's the new tenant like? "It's a woman, missus. She's all right."
Ellie,
It was his confession. watching him closely, saw his lips tighten as he spoke. She was con- vinced. The solution of his strange conduct lay within the walls of the little house. The influence she had felt working on him. was a wo- man's. She was certain the woman, whoever she was, lived in the cot- tage and was the reason for Dan's new attitude.
She reflected on these things one night waiting up for him. It was getting well into winter, a sharp moonless night, promising snow. From the curtained windows of
woman.
her sitting room she could see a patch of the unpaved road under a swinging street lamp and the ground, packed and hard under the frost, looked as if it would ring to. Dan's step as he came home from his visit to the other She began to construct the interview she intended to have with him but her mind kept wandering off to suppositions as to why he had kept up the pre- tense of going to the night school. She was sure he no longer attend- ed the classes and she felt help- less in the face of the deceit be- cause it implied anticipation, as if he knew something about her that she had not at the time. known herself. It suggested that he was aware of the growth of her interest in him and had turn- ed away rejectingly. She retraced the course of their relations since he had first come to her home. The climax was that he had succeeded her in control of the situation and she tried-to find the explanation somewhere in her treatment of him. She began to grow angry and two tears slipped
wholesome unbrushed down her face.
"
"Why has he treated me this I way? The ungrateful brute! have given him everything he I There is nothing seeded.
wouldn't do for him." Yet he turns from me to this woman.'
A figure crossed the patch of light out on the road, coming to- ward the house. She glanced in- stinctively at the ormolu clock on the mantlepiece. It showed twen- ty to twelve the latest he had
She
yet stayed out Stood up and
dabbed at her eyes and looked at herself in the pier-glass. The de- termined expression on her face satisfied her although she did not. know exactly what she was going to say to him, aga
She said, twice-over, aloud. "We could be so happy together. So happy," and waited to hear the sound of the door opening as he came in.