THE TRUMPET IN THE DUST

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

CRUMP FOLK GOING HOME THE LONELY PLOUGH THE OLD ROAD FROM SPAIN BEAUTIFUL END THE SPLENDID FAIRING

THE TRUMPET IN THE DUST

BY CONSTANCE HOLME SECOND EDITION MILLS & BOON, LIMITED 49 RUPERT STREET LONDON, W. 1

Published 1921

TO LORD HENRY BENTINCK, THIS WEED FROM AN UNCULTIVATED GARDEN

“I was on my way to the temple with my evening offerings, Seeking for the heaven of rest after the day’s dusty toil; Hoping my hurts would be healed and stains in my garment washed white, When I found thy trumpet lying in the dust. Has it not been the time for me to light my lamp? Has my evening not come to bring me sleep? O, thou blood-red rose, where have my poppies faded? I was certain my wanderings were over and my debts all paid When suddenly I came upon thy trumpet lying in the dust.

From thee I had asked peace only to find shame. Now I stand before thee—help me to don my armour! Let hard blows of trouble strike fire into my life. Let my heart beat in pain—beating the drum of thy victory. My hands shall be utterly emptied to take up thy trumpet.”

The Trumpet—Rabindranath Tagore.

CHAPTER I

Mrs. Clapham got up on that fine September morning like some king of the East going forth to Bethlehem. She awoke with a heady sense of excitement and power, not wearily, and with a dulled brain, as she so often did now that she was beginning to grow old, but with vivid perceptions and a throbbing heart. First of all, opening her eyes on the sunny square of her little window, she was conscious of actual enrichment, as if the sunshine itself were a tangible personal gift. To the pleasure of this was added the happy anticipation of something not yet quite within reach, thrilling her nerves as they had not been thrilled for years. Then, as the thought of what the day might possibly bring flashed upon her in full force, she warmed from head to foot in a passion of exultation, wonder and grateful joy.

She started up presently to peer at the little clock by the bedside, and then remembered that she had no engagement, and sank back happily. Had not the Vicar’s wife called, only the evening before, to inform her that she would not want her to-day? Mrs. Clapham chuckled as she lay in bed, telling herself that if Mrs. Wrench did not have her to-day, in all probability she would never have her again at all.

Mrs. Wrench, she remembered now, had been called to London to her daughter’s wedding, one of those nowadays weddings which could only be called catching a bird on the wing—snapping up a sailor when he was a few days in port, or a soldier when the War Office happened to take its eye off him for a couple of minutes. The actual war was over, of course, but the war weddings still continued. In Mrs. Clapham’s young days weddings were things which took years to come to their full conclusion, slowly ripening to their end like mellowing cheeses or maturing port. The weddings of these days seemed to her like hastily-tossed pancakes by comparison; half-cooked efforts which had only a poor choice at the best between the frying-pan and the fire.

She was pleased for Miss Marigold, however, that she had succeeded in catching her bird at last. It was just as well not to waste any time, seeing how long she had been about it. Why, she was the same age as Mrs. Clapham’s daughter Tibbie, who had been married these last eight years, and a widow for going on two! Mrs. Clapham experienced the conscious superiority of the mother whose daughter has long since been disposed of in no matter what unfortunate circumstances. She had always been perfectly convinced that the Vicar’s wife was jealous because Tibbie had got off first, and had even rallied her about it in her jolly, good-tempered fashion. Now, however, Miss Marigold had suddenly seen her way towards making things even, and Mrs. Wrench had rushed off in a fluster to see her do it.

Looking in, the evening before, in order to deliver her message, she had been so full of the impending change in Miss Marigold’s life that she had quite forgotten the impending change in Mrs. Clapham’s. Seated in the armchair that had been made by the long-departed Jonty Clapham, she had talked excitedly of her daughter in the Government office, who would be snatched out of it, pen in hand, so to speak, to be married to a bridegroom who, metaphorically, would still have one foot on his ship. She had also wept a little in the way that women and mothers have, and Mrs. Clapham, whose own tears over a daughter’s bridal had been shed so many superior years before, had consoled her with words of sympathy and wisdom, and her well-known kindly laugh. Presently Mrs. Wrench had dried her tears and begun to tell her about her daughter’s frocks, and Mrs. Clapham, whose Tibbie happened to be a dressmaker by profession, was able to shine a second time as a qualified judge. But never once during the conversation had she as much as hinted

at her own bright hope which was so near its wonderful fulfilment. She had just allowed Mrs. Wrench to babble happily on, and kept her own thoughts hugged to herself where they lay so snug and warm.

Not even when Mrs. Wrench had risen at last to go had she referred to any possible alteration in her own affairs. She had merely sent her love and respects to the bride, and the bride’s mother had promised to come and tell her about the wedding. “And of course next week as usual, please!” she had said as she hurried away, and the charwoman had said neither yea nor nay, but had merely dropped her old-fashioned curtsey. It was no use reminding the Vicar’s wife that, by the time next week came round, things might have become anything but “usual.” There was always the possibility, too, that it might be unlucky, with the whole entrancing affair still hanging breathlessly in the balance. So she had let her go away without even dropping a hint of her personal prospects, and it was only after the door was shut that she had allowed herself to smile. Then she had begun to chuckle and chuckle, and sat down and chuckled, and stood up and chuckled, and sat down again and chuckled and chuckled and chuckled and chuckled....

She chuckled afresh now as she lay thinking, and then reflected that it might possibly be as unlucky as singing too early, and therefore desisted. It occurred to her also that she might be tempting Providence by lying in bed, behaving, as it were, as if the decree which would set her free to lie in bed had actually been spoken; and, sitting up in a flurry, she threw off the bed-clothes and began to dress. It was more than probable that she would have as much bed as anybody could want, in the near future. She who had always been a phenomenally early riser need not grudge an exhibition of the accomplishment on this possibly last day.

The boards creaked under her feet as she stirred about the cottage bedroom, moving cleverly in the limited space and under the sloping ceiling. She had always been a big woman, coming of big, upstanding stock, and now at sixty-five she was stout as well. To all outward appearance, though, she was strong and sound, and it was only lately that her comely pink face had begun its network of fine lines. Always as neat as a new pin, to-day she took greater pains over dressing than usual, giving an extra polish to her healthy skin and an extra shine to her white hair. The day which was bringing her so much—as she serenely hoped—could not be encountered in any other spirit. She looked at herself in the glass when she had finished, and was glad to see that she stood her age so well. Her hands alone troubled her—those toil-worn, charwoman’s hands which spoke so clearly of her profession. Not that she was ashamed of her work—on the contrary, she was proud—but in that moment of personal satisfaction she was ashamed of her hands.

She turned away at last, and creaked across the boards to the stairs, full of that pleasant consciousness of sound health and of coming good. She forgot that lately she had begun to feel old, that she had had doubts about her heart, and that the knee which she had damaged years ago on Mrs. Fletcher’s stairs was often too painful to let her sleep. She forgot that there had been a day—not so long ago, either—when she had suddenly found herself coming home thoroughly tired out, not only in body, but in mind. The spirit had gone clean out of her for the time being. She had wondered, indeed, whether she would ever be able to persuade herself to enter other people’s houses again, so utterly weary was she of their unvarying routine, their anything but unvarying servants, their dull furniture and their duller meals. She had even felt a spasm of real hatred for the houses themselves, which, no matter how often or how thoroughly she scrubbed them from roof to floor, were always waiting for her to come and scrub them again.

That unexpected breakdown of hers had lasted at least twenty-four hours. The following morning she had actually refused to go to Mrs. Hogg, whose dwelling at any time was never one of those that she liked best. She had sent back word at the last minute—an unforgivable crime in her scrupulous code—and had sat indoors all day brooding and doing nothing. Towards evening she had had a vision of herself as a helpless old woman, and then she had broken down and wept; but next day her courage had come surging back, and next week as usual she had gone to Mrs. Hogg. Her work was as good as ever it had been, and outsiders had seen no difference. Nevertheless, there was a difference, as she knew very well. That day had marked the point at which she had begun definitely to grow old. From that day she realised that she had been scarred by the battle of life, and that before very long she must seek some haven to be healed.

This morning, however, sadness and doubt were gone from her mind as if they had never been. She went downstairs briskly, carrying the little clock, and set to work at her usual tasks with the zest of a young lass. Her knee did not pain her when she knelt to light the kitchen fire; her heart did not trouble her when she filled the bucket at the pump. She moved from one room to another as lightly as in the days when she had been a well-known local dancer, steady and tireless on her feet. She had never felt stronger or more fit for her life’s work than on the morning of the day which was to see her bid that work farewell.

The very day itself seemed to know that something uncommon was afoot, drawing by slow degrees to some poised and perfect hour. It was one of those days which are at the same time sharply etched and yet soft in tone, with their vivid colours as smooth as if seen through water or in a glass. In the village street, where the pillars of smoke were not yet set on their stacks, the low cottage-rows had clear black shadows under their eaves, and clear black edges along their roofs. The flag-staff on the church-tower was like a needle poised in a steady hand, and the tower itself was not so much built as flung by a brush on the gilded air. Below the dropping, curving street and the painted church the river was shedding its sheath of steel, ready for drawing on the faint-coloured robe that it would wear during the day. And always the hills to the west were growing in beauty with bracken and bent, the warm tones of turning trees, the fine sharp blue of stone, and the heather that seemed to keep all day long the colours of sunrise over the sea.

But in Mrs. Clapham’s heart this morning there was so much beauty already that she scarcely heeded the extra loveliness of the outside world. She was glad, of course, that it was going to be fine, because life altogether was easier when it was fine. She was glad that the sun greeted her when she came down, splashing about the little kitchen that was always so greedy of its light, catching at it in the morning before it was well in the sky, and through the scullery door at the back snatching the last beam from the fading west. She opened the scullery door now, not only for a sight of the Michaelmas daisies bunched in the garden beyond, but because of the extra space it seemed to afford the exultation in her heart. As she went to and fro, her eyes drew to them as to flowers set upon some altar of thanksgiving, and the glow in her heart deepened as she passed through the warm sun. But the beauty of the day seemed only a natural background for the miracle that was coming. She trusted it contentedly, just as she was trusting other things in life. It was not one of those

days of exquisite promise which languished and faded before it was noon. The perfect day was perfect and reliable all through, just as the perfect happenings of life went steadily to their appointed end....

She thought of Miss Marigold again while she forced herself to eat her breakfast, difficult as she found it to sit still because of the tremor in her nerves. The Vicar’s daughter would make a handsome bride, she said to herself, though no power on earth could make her a young one. She would look clever and nice and rather fine, but not the sweet little bundle of youth that Tibbie had looked. But then Tibbie had always had the pull in the matter of looks, even although Miss Marigold might be supposed to have scored in the matter of brains. Even that point, however, so Mrs. Clapham considered, was open to dispute. Tibbie, rosy and laughing and fair, and looking as though she hadn’t a care in the world, had been clever enough in her own way. It was real shrewdness of character which had led her to choose for a husband the tamest youth in the place, whom everybody knew now to have been a hero in disguise. And she was so clever with her fingers that each one of them was worth at least the whole of another person’s hand. Young as she was, she had been the village

dressmaker par excellence before she married Stephen Catterall, and Mrs. Clapham’s memories of Tibbie’s youth were always shot through by the colours in which she had worked. Her bright head, gleaming about the cottage, had always a background of coloured cottons and silks. Mrs. Clapham’s own best gown, still “best” after years of wearing, had been also of Tibbie’s making. Her heart leaped and her nerves thrilled as she told herself that, if things happened as she expected, she would crown the occasion by appearing in it to-day....

Tibbie had even made gowns for Miss Marigold and Mrs. Wrench, and she had actually been commissioned to make a frock for Miss Marigold’s trousseau. That had been part of the information proceeding so copiously from the Vicar’s wife, the evening before.

“It’s a pale blue crêpe de Chine, Mrs. Clapham,” Mrs. Wrench had said, “and Marigold writes that she’s quite delighted with it. Tibbie was always so dainty in everything she did, and Marigold wanted a frock from her for the sake of old times. It’s the sort of frock that would have suited Tibbie herself, from the description. I remember she always looked pretty in pale blue.”

Mrs. Clapham had remembered it, too, throwing a glance at the photograph of the young widow, framed on a shelf near. The sober colours of life were Tibbie’s wear now; not the delicate shades of youth making ready to be a bride. Yet the face looking out of the picture was neither bitter nor sad; thinner, perhaps, and deepened in shadow and meaning, but laughing and valiant as of old. Tibbie’s husband had gone down in the War, together with many another lad whom Mrs. Clapham had first seen as a much bewrapped bundle in his mother’s arms; but Tibbie’s spirit had not gone down with him. By that time she had made for herself a nice little dress-making business in Whalley, where she had lived since her marriage, and when Stephen was dead she continued to carry it on. Mrs. Clapham, of course, had wanted her to come home, but Tibbie and her two children were very comfortable in their little house, and there were the clients to think of, as well as other reasons. She, on her side, had wanted her mother to join her in Whalley, but

Mrs. Clapham, too, had had her reasons for staying where fortune had happened to place her. She thought of those reasons now as she finished her breakfast—and chuckled; and took her last drink of tea and chuckled and chuckled and chuckled and chuckled....

It was strange how full her mind was this morning of Tibbie and Tibbie’s doings; not that the girl and her children were ever far from the old woman’s thoughts. Probably it was Miss Marigold’s wedding that was making her think of her own lass, and of the way life fuses and separates and alters and breaks. With what mixed smiles and tears must Tibbie have fashioned that gown for the Vicar’s daughter, feeling a hundred years older in experience, although born on the same day! She knew something of Tibbie’s feelings as she sewed at the blue gown, because Mrs. Wrench had told her that she had written a letter.

“Such a nice letter it was, Mrs. Clapham! Marigold was so pleased. But Tibbie always had such nice ways ... you brought her up so well. She said she hoped Marigold would have better luck than hers, though she couldn’t have a better happiness while it had lasted.... As a matter of fact, she ran the crêpe de Chine rather late, though she didn’t say why. Marigold was really getting rather anxious about it, but in the end it turned up all right.”

“Nay, Tibbie’d never fail nobody,” Mrs. Clapham had said, though rather absently, wishing herself alone so that she might sit and chuckle over the happiness that was coming.

“Nor you, either!” (Thank goodness she was getting to her feet at last!) “I’ve never known you send me back word yet, and I don’t think you ever will.” (Incredible as it seemed, she was out at the door and in the road.) “Very well, then, good night; and I’ll expect you as usual next week!”

Yes, it must be Miss Marigold’s wedding that was making her think of the absent Tibbie, thinking so vividly that instead of absent she was very much present. In the little room where the sun kept pushing its way she seemed almost there in the flesh, catching and reflecting the light with her shimmering scissors and silks. The children, too, seemed unaccountably near, so that she felt as if at any moment she might hear their gentle if chattering voices and their sober if pattering feet. Their post-card photographs were on the shelf with that of their mother, seven-year-old Libby and five-year-old Stevie—stiff, grave, patient little people, who looked as if they couldn’t possibly belong to laughing Tibbie. Those who noticed the difference said that they looked as though they had been born protesting against the sorrows of a great war, but those who had known their father and their father’s mother said something else. It was from Stephen Catterall that they inherited their pale, haunted faces and their mournful dark eyes. When Stephen was killed,

they said in Whalley that he had always looked as though the hand of death was never far from his tragic face, but those who had known him as a child knew it was never a little thing like death that had made Stephen afraid....