"A shame I calls it, a-keepin" folks "angin" about like this," said one of the new arrivals.
"P"raps it"s let," said the rag-and-bone man.
"Well, why don"t they say so?" snapped she with the tweed cap and hat-pin.
""Ave another go, missis," suggested the man with the little girl. "I"m losin" "alf a day over this."
Inspired by this advice, the big woman reached forward to seize the knocker. At that moment the door was wrenched open, and Mrs. Bindle appeared. She had removed her ap.r.o.n and brushed her thin, sandy hair, which was drawn back from her sharp, hatchet-like face so that not a hair wantoned from the restraining influence of the knot behind.
Grim, with indrawn lips and the light of battle in her eyes she glared, first at the little man with whom she had already held parley, then at the woman in the foulard blouse.
At chapel, there was no more meek and docile "Daughter of the Lord" than Mrs. Bindle. To her, religion was an ever-ready help and sustenance; but there was something in her life that bulked even larger than her Faith, although she would have been the first to deny it. That thing was her Home.
In keeping the domestic temple of her hearth as she conceived it should be kept, Mrs. Bindle toiled ceaselessly. It was her fetish. She worshipped at chapel as a stepping-stone to post-mortem glory; but her home was the real altar at which she sacrificed.
As she gazed at the "rabble," as she mentally characterised it, littering the tiled-path of the front garden, which only that morning she had cleaned, the rage of David entered her heart; but she was a G.o.d-fearing woman who disliked violence--until it was absolutely necessary.
"Was it you knocking?" she demanded of the big woman in the foulard blouse. Her voice was sharp as the edge of a razor; but restrained.
"That"s right, my dear," replied the woman comfortably, "I come about the "ouse."
"Oh! you have, have you?" cried Mrs. Bindle. "And are these your friends?" Her eyes for a moment left those of her antagonist and took in the queue which, by now, overflowed the path into the roadway.
"Look "ere, I"ll give you sixteen bob a week," broke in the woman with the tweed cap and the hat-pin, instantly rendering herself an Ishmael.
""Ere, none o" that!" cried an angry female voice. "Fair do"s."
There was a murmur of approval from the others, which was interrupted by Mrs. Bindle"s clear-cut, incisive voice.
"Get out of my garden, and be off, the lot of you," she cried, taking a half-step in the direction of the big woman, to whom she addressed herself.
"Is it let?" enquired the rag-and-bone man from the rear.
"Is what let?" demanded Mrs. Bindle.
"The "ouse, mum," said the rag-and-bone man, whose profession demanded tact and politeness.
"This house is not to let," was the angry retort, "never was to let, and never will be to let till I"m gone. Now you just be off with you, or----" she paused.
"Or wot?" demanded she of the tweed cap and hat-pin, desirous of rehabilitating herself with the others.
"I"ll send for a policeman," was Mrs. Bindle"s rejoinder. She still restrained her natural instincts in a vice-like self-control. Her hands shook slightly; but not with fear. It was the trembling of the tigress preparing to spring.
"Then wot about this advert?" cried the man with the little girl, extending the newspaper towards her.
"Yes, wot about it?" demanded the woman in the foulard blouse, extending her paper in turn.
"There"s no advertis.e.m.e.nt about this house," said Mrs. Bindle, ignoring the papers, "and you"d better go away. Pity you haven"t got something better to do than to come disturbin" me in the midst of my ironin"," and with that she banged the door and disappeared.
A murmur of anger pa.s.sed along the queue, anger which portended trouble.
"Nice way to treat people," said a little woman with a dirty face, a dingy black bonnet and a velvet dolman, to which portions of the original jet-tr.i.m.m.i.n.g still despairingly adhered. "Some folks don"t seem to know "ow to be"ave."
There was another murmur of agreement.
"Kick the blinkin" door in," suggested a pacifist.
"I"d like to get at "er with my nails," said a sharp-faced woman with a baby in her arms. "I know "_er_ sort."
"Deserves to "ave "er stutterin" windows smashed, the stuck-up baggage!"
cried another.
""Ullo, look at all them people."
A big, puffy man with a person that rendered his boots invisible, guided the hand-cart he was pushing into the kerb in front of No. 7 Fenton Street. A pale, dispirited lad was harnessed to the vehicle by a dilapidated piece of much-knotted rope strung across his narrow chest.
As the barrow came to a standstill, he allowed the rope to drop to the ground and, stepping out of the harness, he turned an apathetic and unspeculative eye towards the crowd.
The big man, whose clothing consisted of a shirt, a pair of trousers and some braces, stood looking at the applicants for the altar of Mrs.
Bindle"s life. The crowd returned the stare with interest. The furniture piled upon the barrow caused them some anxiety. Was that the explanation of the unfriendly reception accorded them?
"Now then, Charley, when you"ve done a-drinkin" in this bloomin"
beauty-show, you can give me a "and."
""Oo are you calling a beauty-show?" demanded the woman in the dolman.
"You ain"t got much to talk about, with a stummick like yours."
"My mistake, missis," said the big man imperturbably. "Sorry I made you cry." Then, turning to Charley, he added: "If you "adn"t such a thick "ead, Charley, you"d know it was a sugar queue. They"re wearin" too much for a beauty-show. Now, then, over the top, my lad." He indicated the railings with a nod, the gateway was blocked.
With the leisurely movements of a fatalist, Charley moved his inconspicuous person towards the railings of No. 7, while the big man proceeded to untie the rope that bound a miscellaneous collection of household goods to the hand-cart, an operation which entirely absorbed the attention of the queue.
"You took it?" interrogated the rag-and-bone man.
"Don"t you worry, c.o.c.ky," said the big man as he lifted from the barrow a cane-bottomed chair, through which somebody had evidently sat, and placed it on the pavement. "Once inside the garding and the "ouse is mine. "Ere, get on wiv it, Charley," he admonished the lad, who was standing by the kerb as if reluctant to trespa.s.s.
With unexpressive face, the boy turned and climbed the railings.
"Catch "old," cried the man, thrusting into Charley"s unwilling hands a dilapidated saucepan.
The boy tossed it on to the small flower-bed in the centre of the garden, where Mrs. Bindle was endeavouring to cultivate geraniums from slips supplied by a fellow-worshipper at the Alton Road Chapel. These geranium slips were the stars in the grey firmament of her life. She tended them a.s.siduously, and always kept a jug of water just inside the parlour-window with which to discourage investigating cats. It was she too that had planted the lobelia-border.
The queue seemed hypnotised by the overwhelming personality of the big man. With the fatalism of despair they decided that the G.o.ds were against them, and that he really had achieved the success he claimed.
They still lingered, as if instinct told them that dramatic moments were pending.
"I don"t doubt but wot I"ll be very comfortable," remarked the big man contentedly. ""Ere, catch "old, Charley," he cried, tossing the lad a colander, possessed of more holes than the manufacturer had ever dreamed of.
Charley turned too late, and the colander caught a geranium which, alone among its fellows, had shown a half-hearted tendency to bloom. That particular flower was Mrs. Bindle"s ewe-lamb.
"Ain"t "e a knock-out?" cried the big man, pausing for a moment to gaze at his offspring. "Don"t take after "is pa, and that"s a fact," and he exposed three or four dark-brown stumps of teeth.