“Emma! Oh, she’s very well, thank you!” The schoolmistress was very red, but she spoke with sharp, ironical defiance. The man grunted. Then he handed her the bag, and watched her out of the shop without bidding her “Good afternoon”.
She had the whole length of the main street to traverse, a half-mile of slow-stepping torture, with shame flushing over her neck. But she carried her white bag with an appearance of steadfast unconcern. When she turned into the field she seemed to droop a little. The wide valley opened out from her, with the far woods withdrawing into twilight, and away in the centre the great pit steaming its white smoke and chuffing as the men were being turned up. A full rose-coloured moon, like a flamingo flying low under the far, dusky east, drew out of the mist. It was beautiful, and it made her irritable sadness soften, diffuse.
Across the field, and she was at home. It was a new, substantial cottage, built with unstinted hand, such a house as an old miner could build himself out of his savings. In the rather small kitchen a woman of dark, saturnine complexion sat nursing a baby in a long white gown; a young woman of heavy, brutal cast stood at the table, cutting bread and butter. She had a downcast, humble mien that sat unnaturally on her, and was strangely irritating. She did not look round when her sister entered. Hilda put down the bag of cakes and left the room, not having spoken to Emma, nor to the baby, nor to Mrs. Carlin, who had come in to help for the afternoon.
Almost immediately the father entered from the yard with a dust-pan full of coals. He was a large man, but he was going to pieces. As he passed through, he gripped the door with his free hand to steady himself, but turning, he lurched and swayed. He began putting the coals on the fire, piece by piece. One lump fell from his hands and smashed on the white hearth. Emma Rowbotham looked round, and began in a rough, loud voice of anger: “Look at you!” Then she consciously moderated her tones. “I’ll sweep it up in a minute—don’t you bother; you’ll only be going head-first into the fire.”
Her father bent down nevertheless to clear up the mess he had made, saying, articulating his words loosely and slavering in his speech:
“The lousy bit of a thing, it slipped between my fingers like a fish.”
As he spoke he went tilting towards the fire. The darkbrowed woman cried out; he put his hand on the hot stove to save himself; Emma swung round and dragged him off.
“Didn’t I tell you!” she cried roughly. “Now, have you burnt yourself?”
She held tight hold of the big man, and pushed him into his chair.
“What’s the matter?” cried a sharp voice from the other room. The speaker appeared, a hard well-favoured woman of twenty-eight. “Emma, don’t speak like that to father.” Then, in a tone not so cold, but just as sharp: “Now, father, what have you been doing?”
