Fraternity | Page 5

creature," thought Cecilia Dallison, "whose nose is
so unpleasant. I don't really think I--" and she felt for a penny in her
little bag. Standing beside the "poor old creature" was a woman clothed
in worn but neat black clothes, and an ancient toque which had once
known a better head. The wan remains of a little bit of fur lay round her
throat. She had a thin face, not without refinement, mild, very clear
brown eyes, and a twist of smooth black hair. Beside her was a skimpy
little boy, and in her arms a baby. Mrs. Dallison held out two-pence for
the paper, but it was at the woman that she looked.
"Oh, Mrs. Hughs," she said, "we've been expecting you to hem the
curtains!"
The woman slightly pressed the baby.
"I am very sorry, ma'am. I knew I was expected, but I've had such
trouble."
Cecilia winced. "Oh, really?"
"Yes, m'm; it's my husband."
"Oh, dear!" Cecilia murmured. "But why didn't you come to us?"
"I didn't feel up to it, ma'am; I didn't really--"
A tear ran down her cheek, and was caught in a furrow near the mouth.
Mrs. Dallison said hurriedly: "Yes, yes; I'm very sorry."

"This old gentleman, Mr. Creed, lives in the same house with us, and
he is going to speak to my husband."
The old man wagged his head on its lean stalk of neck.
"He ought to know better than be'ave 'imself so disrespectable," he
said.
Cecilia looked at him, and murmured: "I hope he won't turn on you!"
The old man shuffled his feet.
"I likes to live at peace with everybody. I shall have the police to 'im if
he misdemeans hisself with me!... Westminister, sir?" And, screening
his mouth from Mrs. Dallison, he added in a loud whisper: "Execution
of the Shoreditch murderer!"
Cecilia felt suddenly as though the world were listening to her
conversation with these two rather seedy persons.
"I don't really know what I can do for you, Mrs. Hughs. I'll speak to Mr.
Dallison, and to Mr. Hilary too."
"Yes, ma'am; thank you, ma'am."
With a smile which seemed to deprecate its own appearance, Cecilia
grasped her skirts and crossed the road. "I hope I wasn't
unsympathetic," she thought, looking back at the three figures on the
edge of the pavement--the old man with his papers, and his discoloured
nose thrust upwards under iron-rimmed spectacles; the seamstress in
her black dress; the skimpy little boy. Neither speaking nor moving,
they were looking out before them at the traffic; and something in
Cecilia revolted at this sight. It was lifeless, hopeless, unaesthetic.
"What can one do," she thought, "for women like Mrs. Hughs, who
always look like that? And that poor old man! I suppose I oughtn't to
have bought that dress, but Stephen is tired of this."
She turned out of the main street into a road preserved from commoner

forms of traffic, and stopped at a long low house half hidden behind the
trees of its front garden.
It was the residence of Hilary Dallison, her husband's brother, and
himself the husband of Bianca, her own sister.
The queer conceit came to Cecilia that it resembled Hilary. Its look was
kindly and uncertain; its colour a palish tan; the eyebrows of its
windows rather straight than arched, and those deep-set eyes, the
windows, twinkled hospitably; it had, as it were, a sparse moustache
and beard of creepers, and dark marks here and there, like the lines and
shadows on the faces of those who think too much. Beside it, and apart,
though connected by a passage, a studio stood, and about that
studio--of white rough-cast, with a black oak door, and peacock-blue
paint--was something a little hard and fugitive, well suited to Bianca,
who used it, indeed, to paint in. It seemed to stand, with its eyes on the
house, shrinking defiantly from too close company, as though it could
not entirely give itself to anything. Cecilia, who often worried over the
relations between her sister and her brother- in-law, suddenly felt how
fitting and symbolical this was.
But, mistrusting inspirations, which, experience told her, committed
one too much, she walked quickly up the stone-flagged pathway to the
door. Lying in the porch was a little moonlight-coloured lady bulldog,
of toy breed, who gazed up with eyes like agates, delicately waving her
bell-rope tail, as it was her habit to do towards everyone, for she had
been handed down clearer and paler with each generation, till she had
at last lost all the peculiar virtues of dogs that bait the bull.
Speaking the word "Miranda!" Mrs. Stephen Dallison tried to pat this
daughter of the house. The little bulldog withdrew from her caress,
being also unaccustomed to commit herself....
Mondays were Blanca's "days,"