Pither!” went on Mrs. Pither in her depressing voice, “him a-digging at his age, with his rheumatism that bad! Ain’t it cruel hard, Miss? And he’s had a kind of a pain between his legs, Miss, as he can’t seem to account for—terrible bad he’s been with it, these last few mornings. Ain’t it bitter hard, Miss, the lives us poor working folks has to lead?”
“It’s a shame,” said Dorothy. “But I hope you’ve been keeping a little better yourself, Mrs. Pither?”
“Ah, Miss, there’s nothing don’t make me better. I ain’t a case for curing, not in this world, I ain’t. I shan’t never get no better, not in this wicked world down here.”
“Oh, you mustn’t say that, Mrs. Pither! I hope we shall have you with us for a long time yet.”
“Ah, Miss, you don’t know how poorly I’ve been this last week! I’ve had the rheumatism a-coming and a-going all down the backs of my poor old legs, till there’s some mornings when I don’t feel as I can’t walk not so far as to pull a handful of onions in the garden. Ah, Miss, it’s a weary world we lives in, ain’t it, Miss? A weary, sinful world.”
“But of course we must never forget, Mrs. Pither, that there’s a better world coming. This life is only a time of trial—just to strengthen us and teach us to be patient, so that we’ll be ready for Heaven when the time comes.”
At this a sudden and remarkable change came over Mrs. Pither. It was produced by the word “Heaven.” Mrs. Pither had only two subjects of conversation; one of them was the joys of Heaven, and the other the miseries of her present state. Dorothy’s remark seemed to act upon her like a charm. Her dull grey eye was not capable of brightening, but her voice quickened with an almost joyful enthusiasm.
“Ah, Miss, there you said it! That’s a true word, Miss! That’s what Pither and me keeps a-saying to ourselves. And that’s just the one thing as keeps us a-going—just the thought of Heaven and the long, long rest we’ll have there. Whatever we’ve suffered, we gets it all back in Heaven, don’t we, Miss? Every little bit of suffering, you gets it back a hundredfold and a thousandfold. That is true, ain’t it, Miss? There’s rest for us all in Heaven—rest and peace and no more rheumatism nor digging nor cooking nor laundering nor nothing. You do believe that, don’t you, Miss Dorothy?”
“Of course,” said Dorothy.
“Ah, Miss, if you knew how it comforts us—just the thoughts of Heaven! Pither he says to me, when he comes home tired of a night and our rheumatism’s bad, ‘Never you mind, my dear,’ he says, ‘we ain’t far off from Heaven now,’ he says. ‘Heaven was made for the likes of us,’ he says; ‘just for poor working folks like us, that have been sober and godly and kept our Communions regular.’ That’s the best way, ain’t it, Miss Dorothy—poor in this life and rich in the next? Not like some of them rich folks as all their motor-cars and their beautiful houses won’t save from the worm that dieth not and the fire that’s not quenched. Such a beautiful text, that is. Do you think you could say a little prayer with me, Miss Dorothy? I been looking forward all the morning to a little prayer.”
Mrs. Pither was always ready for a “little prayer” at any hour of the night or day. It was her equivalent to a “nice cup of tea.” They knelt down on the rag mat and said the Lord’s Prayer and the Collect for the week; and then Dorothy, at Mrs. Pither’s request, read the parable of Dives and Lazarus, Mrs. Pither coming in from time to time with “Amen! That’s a true word, ain’t it, Miss Dorothy? ‘And he was carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom.’ Beautiful! Oh, I do call that just too beautiful! Amen, Miss Dorothy—Amen!”
Dorothy gave Mrs. Pither the cutting from the Daily Mail about angelica tea for rheumatism, and then, finding that Mrs. Pither had been too “poorly” to draw the day’s supply of water, she drew three bucketfuls for her from the well. It was a very deep well, with such a low parapet that Mrs. Pither’s final doom would almost certainly be to fall into it and get drowned, and it had not even a winch—you had to haul the bucket up hand over hand. And then they sat down for a few minutes, and Mrs. Pither talked some more about Heaven. It was extraordinary how constantly Heaven reigned in her thoughts; and more extraordinary yet was the actuality, the vividness with which she could see it. The golden streets and the gates of orient pearl were as real to her as though they had been actually before her eyes. And her vision extended to the most concrete, the most earthly details. The softness of the beds up there! The deliciousness of the food! The lovely silk clothes that you would put on clean every morning! The surcease from everlasting to everlasting from work of any description! In almost every moment of her life the vision of Heaven supported and consoled her, and her abject complaints about the lives of “poor working folks” were curiously tempered by a satisfaction in the thought that, after all, it is “poor working folks” who are the principal inhabitants of Heaven. It was a sort of bargain that she had struck, setting her lifetime of dreary labour against an eternity of bliss. Her faith was almost too great, if that is possible. For it was a curious fact, but the certitude with which Mrs. Pither looked forward to Heaven—as to some kind of glorified home for incurables—affected Dorothy with strange uneasiness.
Dorothy prepared to depart, while Mrs. Pither thanked her, rather too effusively, for her visit, winding up, as usual, with fresh complaints about her rheumatism.
“I’ll be sure and take the angelica tea,” she concluded, “and thank you kindly for telling me of it, Miss. Not as I don’t expect as it’ll do me much good. Ah, Miss, if you knew how cruel bad my rheumatism’s been this last week! All down the backs of my legs, it is, like a regular shooting red-hot poker, and I don’t seem to be able to get at them to rub them properly. Would it be asking too much of you, Miss, to give me a bit of a rub-down before you go? I got a bottle of Elliman’s under the sink.”
Unseen by Mrs. Pither, Dorothy gave herself a severe pinch. She had been expecting this, and—she had done it so many times before—she really did not enjoy rubbing Mrs. Pither down. She exhorted herself angrily. Come on, Dorothy! No sniffishness, please! John xiii. 14. “Of course I will, Mrs. Pither!” she said instantly.
They went up the narrow, rickety staircase, in which you had to bend almost double at one place to avoid the overhanging ceiling. The bedroom was lighted by a tiny square of window that was jammed in its socket by the creeper outside, and had not been opened in twenty years. There was an enormous double bed that almost filled the room, with sheets perennially damp and a flock mattress as full of hills and valleys as a contour map of Switzerland. With many groans the old woman crept on to the bed and laid herself face down. The room reeked of urine and paregoric. Dorothy took the bottle of Elliman’s embrocation and carefully anointed Mrs. Pither’s large, grey-veined, flaccid legs.
Outside, in the swimming heat, she mounted her bicycle and began to ride swiftly homewards. The sun burned in her face, but the air now seemed sweet and fresh. She was happy, happy! She was always extravagantly happy when her morning’s “visiting” was over; and, curiously enough, she was not aware of the reason for this. In Borlase the dairy-farmer’s meadow the red cows were grazing, knee-deep in shining seas of grass. The scent of cows, like a distillation of vanilla and fresh hay, floated into Dorothy’s nostrils. Though she had still half a morning’s work in front of her she could not resist the temptation to loiter for a moment, steadying her bicycle with one hand against the gate of Borlase’s meadow, while a cow, with moist shell-pink nose, scratched its chin upon the gatepost and dreamily regarded her.
Dorothy caught sight of a wild rose, flowerless of course, growing beyond the hedge, and climbed over the gate with the intention of discovering whether it were not sweetbriar. She knelt down among the tall weeds beneath the hedge. It was very hot down there, close to the ground. The humming of many unseen insects sounded in her ears, and the hot summery fume from the tangled swathes of vegetation flowed up and enveloped her. Near by, tall stalks of fennel were growing, with trailing fronds of foliage like the tails of sea-green horses. Dorothy pulled a frond of the fennel against her face and breathed in the strong sweet scent. Its richness overwhelmed her, almost dizzied her for a moment. She drank it in, filling her lungs with it. Lovely, lovely scent—scent of summer days, scent of