Flamsted quarries Part 47

eloquence--the eloquence of one who was wont to be slow of speech before matrimony loosened her tongue and home love taught her the right word in the right place.

"Straight, is it? Then I'll mount down an' we'll sit out in the kitchen an' hem the rest. It's Doosie Caukins has begged the loan of the two little gells for the afternoon. The twins seem to me most like my own--rale downright swate gells, an' it's hopin' I am they'll do well when it' comes to their marryin'."

Aileen laughed merrily at the matrimonial persistence of her old chum's thoughts.

"Oh, Maggie, you are an incorrigible matchmaker!"

She picked up the baby and the yards of muslin she had been measuring for window lengths; leaving Maggie to follow, she went out into the kitchen and deposited Billy in the basket-crib beside her chair. Maggie joined her in a few minutes.

"It seems like old times for you an' me to be chattin' together again so friendly-like--put a finger's length into the hem of the long ones; do you remember when Sister Angelica an' you an' me was cuddled together to watch thim dance the minute over at the Van Ostends'?--Och, you darlin'!"

She rose from her chair and caught up the baby who was holding out both arms to her and trying in his semi-articulate way to indicate his preference of her lap to the basket.

"What fun we had!" Aileen spoke half-heartedly; the mention of that name intensified the pain of an ever present thought.

"An' did ye read her marriage in the papers, I guess 't was a year gone?"

Aileen nodded.

"Jim read it out to me wan night after supper, an' I got so homesick of a suddin' for the Caukinses, an' you, an' the quarries, an' Mrs.

Googe--it was before me b'y come--that I fell to cryin' an' nearly cried me eyes out; an' Jim promised me then and there he'd come back to Flamsted for good and all. But he couldn't help sayin': 'What the divil are ye cryin' about, Maggie gell? I was readin' of the weddin' to ye, and thinkin' to hearten ye up a bit, an' here ye be cryin' fit to break yer heart, an' takin' on as if ye'd niver had a weddin' all by yerself!'

An' that made me laugh; but, afterwards, I fell to cryin' the harder, an' told him I couldn't help it, for I'd got such a good lovin' husband, an' me an orphan as had n.o.body--

"An' then I stopped, for Jim took me in his arms--he was in the rockin'-chair--and rocked back an' forth wid me like a mother does wid a six-months' child, an' kept croonin' an' croonin' till I fell asleep wid my head on his shoulder--" Mrs. McCann drew a long breath--"Och, Aileen, it's beautiful to be married!"

For a while the two worked in silence, broken only by little Billy McCann, who was blissfully gurgling emphatic endors.e.m.e.nt of everything his mother said. The bright suns.h.i.+ne of February filled the barren Gore full to the brim with sparkling light. From time to time the sharp crescendo _sz-szz-szzz_ of the trolleys, that now ran from The Corners to Quarry End Park at the head of The Gore, teased the still cold air.

Maggie was in a reminiscent mood, being wrought upon unwittingly by the sunny quiet and homey kitchen warmth. She looked over the head of her baby to Aileen.

"Do you remember the B'y who danced with the Marchioness, and when they was through stood head downwards with his slippers kicking in the air?"

"Yes, and the butler, and how he hung on to his coat-tails!"

Maggie laughed. "I wonder now could it be _the_ B'y--I mane the man she married?"

Aileen looked up from her work. "Yes, he's the one."

"An' how did you know that?" Maggie asked in some surprise.

"Mrs. Champney told me--and then I knew she liked him."

"Who, the Marchioness?"

"Yes; I knew by the way she wrote about him that she liked him."

"Well, now, who'd 'a' thought that! The very same B'y!" she exclaimed, at the same time looking puzzled as if not quite grasping the situation.

"Why, I thought--I guess 't was Romanzo wrote me just about that time--that she was in love with Mr. Champney Googe." Her voice sank to a whisper on the last words. "Wouldn't it have been just awful if she had!"

"She might have done a worse thing than to love him." Aileen's voice was hard in spite of her effort to speak naturally.

Maggie broke forth in protest.

"Now, how can you say that, Aileen! What would the poor gell's life have been worth married to a man that's in for seven years! Jim says when he comes out he can't niver vote again for prisident, an' it's ten chanct to wan that he'll get a job."

In her earnestness she failed to notice that Aileen's face had borrowed its whiteness from the muslin over which she was bending.

"Aileen--"

"Yes, Maggie."

"I'm goin' to tell you something. Jim told me the other day; he wouldn't mind my tellin' you, but he says he don't want anny wan of the fam'ly to get wind of it."

"What is it?" Aileen looked up half fearfully.

"Gracious, you look as if you'd seen a ghost! 'T isn't annything so rale dreadful, but it gives you a kind of onaisy feelin' round your heart."

"What is it? Tell me quick." She spoke again peremptorily in order to cover her fear. Maggie looked at her wonderingly, and thought to herself that Aileen had changed beyond her knowledge.

"There was a man Jim knew in the other quarries we was at, who got put into that same prison for two years--for breakin' an' enterin'--an' Jim see him not long ago; an' when Jim told him where he was workin' the man said just before he was comin' out, Mr. Googe come in, an' he see him _breakin' stones wid a prison gang_--rale toughs; think of that, an' he a gentleman born! Jim said that was tough; he says it's back-breakin'

work; that quarryin' an' cuttin' ain't nothin' to that--ten hours a day, too. My heart's like to break for Mrs. Googe. I think of it ivery time I see her now; an' just look how she's workin' her fingers to the bone to support herself widout help! Mrs. Caukins says she's got seventeen mealers among the quarrymen now, an' there'll be more next spring. What do you s'pose her son would say to that?"

She pressed her own boy a little more closely to her breast; the young mother's heart was stirred within her. "Mrs. Caukins says Mrs. Champney could help her an' save her lots, but she won't; she's no mind to."

"I don't believe Mrs. Googe would accept any help from Mrs.

Champney--and I don't blame her, either. I'd rather starve than be beholden to her!" The blood rushed into the face bent over the muslin.

"Why don't you lave her, Aileen? I would--the stingy old screw!"

Aileen folded her work and laid it aside before she answered.

"I _am_ going soon, Maggie; I've stood it about as many years as I can--"

"Oh, but I'm glad! It'll be like gettin' out of the jail yerself, for all you've made believe you've lived in a palace--but ye're niver goin'

so early?" she protested earnestly.

"Yes, I must, Maggie. You are not to tell anyone what I've said about leaving Mrs. Champney--not even Jim."

Maggie's face fell. "Dear knows, I can promise you not to tell Jim; but it's like I'll be tellin' him in me slape. It's a trick I have, he says, whin I'm tryin' to kape something from him."

She laughed happily, and bade Billy "shake a day-day" to the pretty lady; which behest Billy, half turning his rosy little face from the maternal fount, obeyed perfunctorily and then, smiling, closed his sleepy eyes upon his mother's breast.

II

Aileen took that picture of intimate love and warmth with her out into the keen frosty air of late February. But its effect was not to soften, to warm; it hardened rather. The thought of Maggie with her baby boy at her breast, of her cosy home, her loyalty to her husband and her love for him, of her thankfulness for the daily mercy of the wherewithal to feed the home mouths, reacted sharply, harshly, upon the mood she was in; for with the thought of that family life and family ties--the symbol of all that is sane and fruitful of the highest good in our humanity--was a.s.sociated by extreme contrast another thought:--

"And _he_ is breaking stones with a 'gang of toughs'--breaking stones!

Not for the sake of the pittance that will procure for him his daily bread, but because he is forced to the toil like any galley slave. The prison walls are frowning behind him; the prison cell is his only home; the tin pan of coa.r.s.e food, which is handed to him as he lines up with hundreds of others after the day's work, is the only subst.i.tute for the warm home-hearth, the lighted supper table, the merry give-and-take of family life that eases a man after his day's toil."

Her very soul was in rebellion.