"He didn"t want to, Ma, and Mrs. Wilson neither. She was frightened of the police."
Lizzie, her face set now, demanded, "How did you get here then?"
"He got my ticket, and we got off at Durham. Mrs. Wilson wouldn"t come through in the train, and we got the workmen"s night bus from Durham. They put me off at the corner."
Just as simple as that. Mr. Wilson got her ticket; they got off at Durham; took the night bus and put her off at the corner, and in a few minutes here she was; and the agonies, the pa.s.sions, the crucifixions of each of them were explained away in those few words. . . . But Mike?
Over Lizzie flooded an overwhelming sense of helplessness. Now she had another situation to cope with-Mike. Before, the situations concerning him had been mostly one-sided. She"d known their substance; Mary Ann had known their substance; and they both, as it were, had worked together for his good, leaving Mike happy in his male fantasy. But now the covers had been ripped off-Mike would be gulled no more, always he would be on his guard. His rejection of the child showed her the *37 depth to which his hurt had gone. She didn"t lay it all down to false pride, she knew that he himself had thought the worst had happened to her this night, and his relief in part had taken this form of rejection. And so, thinking that if he were left alone with the child it might help, she turned to Mary Ann and said, "Go on to the fire, I"ll go up and get your bed ready."
When her mother had left the room, Mary Ann stood, her fingers in her mouth, looking towards the door through which Lizzie had disappeared. She did not turn to Mike; he still seemed frozen and unable to move, only the movement of his eyes showed his brain was working rapidly.
Mary Ann, never being able to bear silences at any time, was finding this one almost excruciating in its loudness. Her fingers still in her mouth, she turned slowly round and looked at her da"s profile. Her da had hit her-and hard. Her hand hurt, her arm hurt. Some part of her told her that she deserved all she had got, and more, but she still could not get over the surprise that he had lifted his hand to her, for she had expected wide-open arms ready to greet her, she had imagined herself flinging herself against him, hanging on to his hair, kissing his face and watching his eyes moving over her features in the way she loved. Now, in spite of herself and the fear of another repulse, she moved towards him, and when she was at his side, with her first finger and thumb tentatively extended, she gently nipped the sleeve of his coat, and in a very, very, small voice, she muttered, "Da, I"m sorry." And then, as with her old apologies, she added, "I won"t do it again."
The implied probability of a recurrence of this particular incident seemed to rouse Mike, and he moved his feet in a grating gesture. Her downcast eyes became fixed on them. She dare not look up into his face, but she waited for his hand to come on her head. And after a while, when it didn"t, she slowly raised her eyes upwards. He was still mad, very mad, but it was a different kind from any she had ever witnessed before. He didn"t look the same as she"d remembered him and, a trembling, terrorriddled feeling told her, he wasn"t the same. This feeling urged her to cry out, and now she flung herself against his legs, with her arms round his thighs, crying, "Da! Oh, Da!"
He did not push her away, but he did not fondle her. What he might have done within the next minute cannot be known, for at that moment Tony entered the room. On the sound of footsteps, Mike turned his head, and across the room his eyes met the young man"s.
Tony"s entry seemed now an excuse that he turn from her, and without a word he left the kitchen and went out into the night.
Tony stood looking across the table at the bowed head of Mary Ann. In the short time that he had been on the farm he had learned of this child"s influence. He had only known her for a few hours, and thought her a taking-a fetching little mite. He liked these people-especially did he like Mike-and over the last few weeks it had hurt him to see the tenseness between him and his wife. Furthermore, since six o"clock last night their suffering had Tom at his own heart, for, although he hadn"t shown it, he, too, had thought only the worst could happen. And now apparently, from Mike"s att.i.tude, nothing of a very serious nature had happened, at least to her.
He had learned that she was a little devil for her escapades; he had taken it that she was an individualist of the first order; and now he had no doubt whatever about it, for after all the upset, here she was unscathed. Yet something about her touched him, she looked so forlorn, so very small, and however she had gone about the business of coming home, she had got here and that was an achievement for anyone of her size and age. So he went to her, and putting his hand on her head, he said, "There now, don"t cry."
Snuffling she looked up at him, "Me da"s mad at me."
He smiled a little smile. "Well, do you expect him to be anything else? You"ve had everybody very, very worried. . . . Do you know they were broadcasting on the wireless about you?"
Did a little bit of excitement flicker across her sorrow-laden face? Something very like it came over in her voice as she exclaimed quickly, "The wireless? Me?"
"Yes, the whole country"s been looking for you."
Again she exclaimed, "Me?"
He nodded solemnly. "They thought you might have come to *39 some harm." Not wishing to explain what he meant by harm he added, "It"s a long way."
Blinking, sniffing and gulping, she looked away from him towards the fireplace, and said flatly, "I wouldn"t come to no harm, I had a St. Christopher medal in me pocket."
This simple statement of faith caused his eyebrows to rise. . . . She would come to no harm because she was carrying on her person a piece of tin, depicting the saint who was supposedly a protector of travellers! The simplicity, the profundity of this small child"s faith amazed him and caused the feeling of bitterness which he was rarely without, to rise and swamp him again in something like envy now, for never could he remember even as a child having faith.
When a fresh spasm of sobbing began to shake her and her head drooped t>nce more, and she slipped her small hands between her knees and pressed them together, he bent swiftly down and lifted her up and placed her on his knee, saying, "Ssh ! be quiet. There now. There now."
Desperately, she turned her face into his chest, as she had hoped to do in Mike"s, but without any of the feeling of comfort she would have experienced from contact with her da. It was all so different from what she had expected; her da would have nothing to do with her; nor their Michael; and Mr. Lord was finished with her; even her ma, knowing she was feeling bad, had left her to go upstairs. . . . The fact that of all the people in the house only this boy had stayed with her added to her bottomless sadness, for, as she thought of it, he didn"t belong to them. She liked him all right, she had liked him on that first day, but he wasn"t her da, her ma, their Michael, or Mr. Lord.
Her crying mounting, she pressed her mouth hard against his shirt, and with his arms about her he sat stroking her head, until Lizzie, like someone sleep-walking, returned to the kitchen and, showing no surprise at finding Mike gone, carried her upstairs.
8.
Twenty hours precisely had elapsed since Mary Ann"s dramatic return, and they had been filled with everything contrary to what she had expected. She had talked to more policemen than ever she thought had existed. And not policemen as she knew them, but just in their ordinary clothes. And even men from newspapers. These men wouldn"t believe that she didn"t know Mr. Wilson"s address. Had she known it and was trying to protect him she would surely have failed under their battery of questions. Mr. Wilson was going to get wrong, and she didn"t want Mr. Wilson to get wrong. Mr. Wilson was nice, so was Mrs. Wilson, but it was Mr. Wilson, and he alone, who had brought her home. The day had been filled with talk, but no one had spoken to her personally, no one had spoken to her as if she was Mary Ann Shaughnessy. Her mother had said, "Eat your dinner," "Eat your tea"; their Michael had avoided her eyes; her da had not spoken at all; and she hadn"t seen Mr. Lord. Only Tony had talked to her, or let her remain with him, but as yet in her mind he wasn"t in the circle of the family, he was just "the hand".
And now she was lying in bed, wide awake, her eyes staring and blinking at the sloping ceiling, listening to her ma and da fighting, fighting quietly in the kitchen.
Like the wind at night, their voices rose and fell at intervals. From time to time she had strained to hear what they were saying, but couldn"t; now, when her da"s voice rose high for an instant and she heard him crying plainly, "I"ll do what I b.l.o.o.d.y well like," she found herself out of bed and on the landing at the top of the stairs, listening, as was her old habit, feeling that she must know the torments of her parents and seeing their every move in her mind"s eye.
Down in the kitchen, Lizzie sat by the table, automatically pushing her plate an inch first one way and then another, her 141 eyes following its course as if it were something of deep interest. When Mike had yelled at her she hadn"t answered, and now he was standing, his foot on the fender, his arm on the mantelpiece, his fingers beating a tattoo that seemed to fill the room with their angry, rebellious thumping.
Addressing her plate, she said quietly, "Whether you believe it or not, you"ve always done what you like."
"Aye, you"ve let me think I was doing what I like. You were very clever, Liz, but now all that"s finished. I thought I was a man with a mind of me own and knew where I was going, but all the time you"ve been leading me-leading me through her. Well, that"s over, I"m giving up. There are other jobs besides this, thank G.o.d, and I"ll get one, but I"ll get it on me own. Do you hear?" He turned round to her, his voice rising again, "I"ll get it on me own, under me own steam. Under me own steam, d"you hear? Propelled by no woman or bairn." He paused, glaring at her downcast head. Then he flung out his hand at her, "Don"t you realise-don"t you see I"ve got to do things on me own?"
He watched her head sink lower towards the plate and his voice sank, too, as he said, "You used to understand-you knew me at one time better than I did meself. Perhaps that"s what you did this for, manoeuvred her to manuvre me. You might have done it for the best, but. ..."
Lizzie lifted her head. "I"ve never manoeuvred her. Whether you like to believe it or not the manoeuvring"s been between the two of you. I couldn"t come between you, not even if I"d wanted to. And now you"re thrusting her off, not because of what she"s done, but because of your own vanity. You always want to be the big fellow, don"t you? Well, when you"re thrusting her off you"re thrusting yourself off because you"re afraid to see yourself, because she"s you, every bit of her. All her fighting, all her unthinking actions, the idea that she"s only got to make her case plain and everything will be all right-that"s you, you all over. And I"m telling you this, if you don"t relent you"ll be sorry. You always say you are like the elephant, well, so is she-she doesn"t forget. She"s likely to get over this if you drop it now, but if you keep it up, this silence, this putting her away, you"ll live to regret it. I"m telling you, you"ll live to regret it, for there are others, and I don"t need to mention any names, who will be only too willing, even after what she"s done, to step into your shoes."
Mike was in the act of turning away, and now he flung himself round at her and the words "n.o.body can take her from me, the old boy nor n.o.body else" spurted into his mouth, but he didn"t say them, he simply stared his anger at her. Since he had seen the child enter the door last night he had pulled down an iron shutter on his feelings for her and was refusing, even at this distance of hours, to recognize that they were beating for release against the barricade. But now the insinuation of the old man into the battle again brought his love bashing and crashing out of himself. He knew the agony of last night would leave an indelible stain on his mind, in fact it would alter the course of his life from now on; because of what had come to light through it he would be suspicious of every action of both Lizzie"s and the child"s for his welfare; he would fight to go his own road, fight for his right to support them all on his own merits, fight for the right to feel himself a man, his kind of man, his idea of a man, be what it may.
Instead of the words that were filling his mouth, he said, "And you think the old fellow will still have an interest in her after this, after all his high-f alutin plans for her are brought low ? Old Ma Flannagan said that you couldn"t make a silk purse out of a sow"s ear, and she"s right. And you think the old fellow would be interested in the sow"s ear? No, not if I know him. He had a prodigy in her, someone he thought he could mould, but he picked the wrong clay, she"ll nsver be moulded by him or anybody else. . . . All right-if you like, she"s like me. She"ll remain herself, and to h.e.l.l with the old man and his power, and his money, and his dictating, and that"s what I"ll tell him when I see him the morrow."
Lizzie"s head jerked up and her eyes became startled, and seeing her fear he now became cruel and said, "Oh, don"t worry; you won"t starve, I"ll get a job that will support you. I suppose you know Polinski"s going? He"s going as far as Dorset. Foreman he"s going as. Told me only the day. And they"re wanting a manager on that farm an" all." His eyes narrowed. "How would it be if I put in for it? I wouldn"t be separated from her MS then, would I?" He paused. "That"s another thing we"ve got to get straight, isn"t it?"
Lizzie"s eyes were stretched, very like Mary Ann"s when surprised by pain, but she made no retort at all, she merely rose and with her hand pressed to her mouth went towards the door. She didn"t reach it, however, for in a couple of strides Mike had her by the shoulders and had swung her round, and his arm pinning her to him, he was talking into her hair, crying, "Liz ! Oh Liz! My G.o.d! what"s come over us? Listen, Liz. Listen. Forget about the child. I"ll deal with that. I"ll deal with the old boy an" all-nothing can alter what I"m going to do. But about the Polinskis. My G.o.d! Liz, believe me on this; I would much sooner have thought of starting something with old Ma Jones than I would wrth that young, dirty piece. And I mean what I ? say, dirty in all ways . . . lazy, a lazy good-for-nowt. But Liz, *he was the wife of one of the men, and I liked Polinski and was sorry for him. And, aye G.o.d ! I was sorry for her. I knew what was the matter with her, Polinski didn"t suit her. She wanted a man, any man who hadn"t his whole mind as Polinski had on the farm and getting on. I laughed with her, cos I knew her game, and I laughed at her, that"s all, Liz. Liz, where"s your conceit-her against you. Oh no!" His arm tightened still further around her, and helplessly now she began to sob, and the sobs filled the house.
Mary Ann was leaning against the banister, all her fingers in her mouth. The tears slipping softly from her lashes were missing the wells of her eyes to drop on to her cheek-bones and roll heavily to her chin. They were kind, they were kind to each other again. That"s all that mattered, nothing else mattered, not the policemen, or the men from the newspapers, or which school she was going to, or her da leaving the farm and getting another job. They were kind, nothing mattered. She stumbled into the bedroom and into bed, and lying down she stuck the corner of the sheet into her mouth, and in a short while fell asleep.
The following morning Michael couldn"t go to school, he had a fever. His body was hot, his hands were hot, and he wanted nothing to eat. Lizzie sat on the side of his bed and pushed hii wet hair back from his brow. She knew that something was worrying him-she knew her son better than she did her daughter -and she said, "What is it? Tell me, what is it?"
She had asked this a number of times during the past few hours, but he had just tossed his head. And now he did it again. Then, when she did not persist in her enquiries, he swung himself round and burying his face in the pillow muttered something brokenly, and she bent her head to hear, and said, "Yes? Go on, tell me what"s happened."
Slowly he turned his face so that he was looking into her eyes, and muttered, "I was to blame for her coming back like that."
"You?" Lizzie pressed her head away from him to see him better, and again repeated, "You?" as though she thought the fever was causing a slight delirium.
Snuffling, he nodded. "I wrote and told her." His eyes dropped. "I wrote and told her that I thought " He paused again; then suddenly sitting up in bed and holding his knees tight and dropping his head on to them he ended, "I told her about Mrs. Polinski."
"Oh, Michael!" Lizzie was aghast. "Oh, you shouldn"t have done that. Oh, Michael."
She was about to add, "But how did you know?" when she checked herself. How could he not know? How could anyone not know what went on in the house, they were all so closely knit together ? She bent towards him and put her arm around him, saying, "You only did what you thought was right. You missed her, like all of us. And if she had been here there would never have been any mention of Mrs. Polinski. And I must tell you now, Michael"-she raised his head and looked into his eyes, demanding by her look that he believed her-"that was my fault, not your da"s. It was my imagining things. I was lonely for her an" all. Look"-she now put her hand under his chin and raised his face-"do something for me, will you? Go and tell your da what you"ve told me."
She felt him shrink from her, and she pleaded, "It"ll be all right. You see, things have been said. I"ve said things I shouldn"t have. It was all through the worry of this business-and I"ve upset him terribly. Do this for me, Michael. Tell him it was your fault . . . you wrote and told her about things that you shouldn"t have. He won"t blame her so much then."
She saw that he was making a great effort to conquer the fear of confessing to his father his share in the trouble.
"But will he wallop me?" he asked softly.
"Oh, no!" said Lizzie hastily. "Of course he won"t wallop you. Anyway, I"ll see he doesn"t. He"ll be only too pleased to know that all the blame isn"t hers. Come on now, get up and go down to the farm."
Lizzie left him, and as he dressed he asked himself as he had done dozens of times since last night if he had really told her anything in his letters. Sometimes he thought he had and sometimes he defended himself flatly by saying, "I never said a thing jabout me da going with Mrs. Polinski."
**Michael"s bewilderment was caused by his failing to realize that he had the kind of sister who never read what was on the lines but the substance that lay between them. . . .
Mary Ann had wandered aimlessly about for hours. She was home, she was on the farm. There were the cows, the bull, the young calves, the hens, the ducks, the geese, everything that she had longed to see again, yet now they held no interest for her. She had looked into the cowshed and met the cold stare of Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones had looked at her as if he could have walloped her, and Mrs. Jones, from the backyard, had not waved to her. Len had grinned at her and exclaimed, in awe-filled tones, "Eeh ! by, you"re not half a star!" Mrs. Polinski had looked at her coldly. Mrs. Polinski looked different, older than when she had last seen her, and she realized that she not only disliked Mrs. Polinski, she hated her. Another time she would have felt the strong desire to stick her tongue out at Mrs. Polinski, but today she just turned her head away and made for the barn.
Then she saw her da was in the barn-she saw his back bending over the bales-but she did not go to him. There was something high and unscalable between her and her da and she knew that she could do nothing herself to surmount it, so slowly and sadly she turned away and walked up the hill towards Mr. Lord"s house. But only because she knew that Mr. Lord wasn"t in it. She had seen him depart for Newcastle in the car earlier on. Although Mr. Lord was now living in the house and die men had heen and put up fine curtains at die windows, the house itself looked raw and unfinished. All around lay mounds of bricks and mortar and builders" refuse. Slowly, as if picking her way over new territory, she walked round to die back entrance, impressed, in spite of herself, by the grandeur she glimpsed through the long, low windows. She would have loved to go inside but she felt, in fact she knew at this moment, diat she would never, never be asked inside Mr. Lord"s house.
As she reached what was to be a walled courtyard with a pool in the middle, the place as yet merely roughly dug out, she saw Ben come out of the gla.s.s kitchen-door. Ben stopped when he saw her, and his grave and forbidding countenance, which had once frightened her to death, did not soften, nor even did it take on a sign of recognition. Ben was a reflection of his master, he was not seeing Mary Ann. Within a minute he had returned through the gla.s.s door, and Mary Ann hurried out of the yard and made her way down the hill again, her fingers now, one after the other in turn, being pressed into her mouth, and her mind crying at all these people in her own defence, "I wasn"t to blame all the .time ... I wasn"t. It was Mrs. Polinski and our Michael and that Beatrice, and Sister Catherine ... I wasn"t to blame, I wasn"t. I don"t care if n.o.body ever speaks to me, I don"t care. Me ma"s all right. Me ma"s not like them. I don"t careI don"t."
As she reached the gate near the farm, she saw across the yard a car draw up at the main gates, and she thought, "Them men again." This description covered policemen and newspaper reporters, but when she saw stepping from the car not only one of "them men" but also Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, she clapped both hands over her mouth. An urge bid her fly to her old friends but reason prevailed and she turned and dived behind the big barn, across an open s.p.a.ce to the little barn, and dashed into its cool dimness and stood with her back to the wall, her whole body trembling. There would be a row, there was bound to be another row, and Mr. Wilson would get wrong. Eehl r47 "And now what"s the matter?"
She swung round, startled to see Tony. He was standing near a number of old, battered and belabelled trunks, and she went to him swiftly and said, "It"s Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, they"ve just come." She stared at him for a moment then added, "There"ll be a row."
"No there won"t. It"ll be all right. Stop trembling now." He took her hand and bent his face to hers and smiled, an unusually wide smile that momentarily took all the brooding sombreness from it. "What"ll you bet that this time next week everybody"s forgotten about the whole affair?"
She stared up at him. "They won"t forget, cos n.o.body"s speaking to me. But I don"t care. ... If only me "
She didn"t "go on to say that she didn"t care if n.o.body spoke to her again if only her da would, but Tony seemed to be able already to read her mind, and to understand Mike, and he said, "Don"t worry, this time tomorrow you and your da"ll be like-that." He crossed his long, lean fingers and held them up for her inspection and comfort. And she stared at them trying to see herself and her da joined again like them, but she couldn"t and her head drooped and once again she started to cry.
"Come along, don"t cry. Dry your eyes. You"ll be back at your old school next week. You"ll like that, won"t you?"
Her tears stopped quite suddenly, cut off as it were by this small shock, and she jerked her head up towards him and repeated, "Old school?"
"Yes, don"t you want to go back to your old school?"
She looked away from him around the barn, stocked with things that she had not noticed in it before. Old rubbish, she thought, from Mr. Lord"s other house-trunks and cases and boxes. School . . . her old school. . . . Going back to her school in Jarrow, she found, did not bring her any comfort at all-it could be said she abhorred the thought. Sarah Flannagan and all them, jeering at her. For the first time she asked herself what she had done, and answered quite truthfully, "Eeh ! I must have been daft," and the convent, from which up to a moment ago she was glad she had escaped, now appeared to her as something T.l8 personal and valuable she had lost. And all through Mrs. Polinski and their Michael, and that Beatrice and Sister Catherine. But what school would she go to if she didn"t go to Jarrow? She knew that Mr. Lord would send her to no other school. Mr. Lord was finished with her good and proper, there would be no forgiveness forthcoming from Mr. Lord. If he had been mad and stormed at her she would have had some hope, but no, Mr. Lord"s silence was as final as death.
She was startled by Tony"s next question. It was as if he had a looking-gla.s.s on her mind, for he said, musingly, "Do you like Mr. Lord?"
Her voice was very small and low, "I used to."
"He"s been very good to you, hasn"t he?"
Her conscience was heavy, and it weighed her head down as she murmured, "Yes."
"He"s not good to many people, is he?"
She raised her eyes slantwise to him. "No, I don"t think so; he"s bad-tempered."
"And cold and hard as iron inside."
Now her eyes were wide and staring. Tony"s face had taken on not only his solemn expression, but a hard, bitter look that made him suddenly appear old, and not a little frightening to her. She saw that his eyes were blazing, and she watched him lift his foot and savagely kick at one of the trunks. Then her ey:s widened as she heard him swear under his breath, using bad words, as bad as any she had heard her da use, like, "d.a.m.n him to blazes!" "Who the h.e.l.l!" and "Blast him!" The only difference was he said them sw.a.n.ky.
Eeh! it was Mr. Lord he was at. He didn"t like Mr. Lord. Mr. Lord had been at him, but to kick the boxes like that and to swear !
As if remembering her presence, he turned to her, his face still dark but his voice normal, saying, "I"m sorry, Mary Ann. Don"t take any notice. I"m like you, I take the needle."
She slid off the box and, looking up at him, she asked as one sufferer to another, "Has he been getting at you?"
A smile that had no movement in it came into his eyes, and she thought, "He looks nice-sad-like, but I like him." And when he nodded, she said, as if in comfort, "Never mind, he"s always getting at somebody." Yet as she said this she felt somehow that she was betraying a trust.
"Yes, he"s always getting at somebody."
He turned away towards the door, and she fancied she heard him mutter, "He always has." And she thought, That"s funny. What"s he carrying on for? He hasn"t been here very long. She felt that she had known Mr. Lord for ever, not just one year, while Tony, although he was "nice", was really a newcomer on the scene. She watched him walk away, then stop abruptly, grope in his pocket, then turn and come back to her.
"There"s only three left. You like b.u.t.tered Brazils?"
"Yes. Oh, ta. Oh, b.u.t.tered Brazils!"
b.u.t.tered .Brazils were far and away above her finances, and she said again, "Oh, ta." Then it struck her that she shouldn"t say "Ta" to him, because he didn"t talk like she did, he talked like them back at the convent. She looked at him now with new interest in her eyes. And he was like them back at the convent. She had noticed something different about him at dinner time when she sat opposite him at the table. The way he sat, the way he ate, the way he talked to her ma. Yes, he was like them at the convent. She said now, "Thanks," in her politest tone, and he " smiled down at her for a moment, before moving away. She thought again, He"s nice, and not because he had given her some sweets. Mrs. Polinski gave her sweets, but she didn"t think Mrs. Polinski was nice-but he was. She became very firm in her mind about this. She liked him-he was nice.
Thinking it policy to do so, she stayed in the barn for what seemed to her hours, not making a move to go outside until she heard from the distance the sound of the car starting up. And then, in spite of her relief, she felt a tinge of disappointment that n.o.body had come in search of her and a touch of curiosity as to why they hadn"t.
When the fading brrl on the road told her the car was safely speeding away she walked into the yard again, around the big barn, and towards the house. There was no sign of her da or her ma, the whole place looked deserted, as if everyone had gone away in the car. But as she neared the back door she heard her mother"s voice, and the words that came to her told her she wasn"t speaking to her da, and for a moment Mary Ann was riveted to the spot. Not her grannie, not today, she couldn"t bear it if her grannie was here today.
"It wasn"t really her fault," Lizzie was saying; "she should never have been sent in the first place."
Mary Ann, with her hand pressed tight to her chest, waited, and when the thick North-Country tw.a.n.g came bouncing out to her, "Yer right there, Liz. Aa"ve said it all along, it was a mad thing to do, separating her from him," a feeling akin to a great laugh swept over her, and she raced through the scullery and into the kitchen, crying, "Mrs. McBride! Oh, Mrs.
McBride!"
Mrs. McBride"s ox-like arms opened, and Mary Ann flung herself against her billowing bust, and the old woman cried, "Ah! hinny, it"s good to see ye. Aw! it is, it is. Here, let me hev a look at ya. Stand away." She pushed Mary Ann to arm"s length; then nodding her head and without a word of reprimand on her tongue, she said, "You"re grown. You"re grown up in the last few months."
"Havel, Mrs. McBride?"
"Ya have that, hasn"t she, Liz?" The old woman looked up at Lizzie, and Lizzie, smiling for the first time in days, said, "Yes, I think she has, a little bit."
"When did you come, Mrs. McBride?"
"Just a minute ago, hinny."
"How?" Mary Ann was eager for details.
"By the bus, of course-me car isn"t ready yet. But it will be soon, it"s being made to measure!" She punched Mary Ann playfully, and Mary Ann laughed and grabbed at her hand and said, "Oh, Mrs. McBride!"
There was so much feeling in Mary Ann"s tone as she spoke her old friend"s name that "Lizzie turned away and went into the scullery to fill the kettle, and Mrs. McBride said, with a tremor in her voice, "So you"re back, me bairn?"
Mary Ann"s face sobered, and she nodded solemnly.
The old woman touched her cheek and, shaking her head and with a smile spreading over her fat wrinkled face, she said, i51.
"Eeh! ye know what? it"s a good job there are not two in the world like you, or else we would be in a
state, wouldn"t we?"