Gone to Earth | Page 5

her so radiant that her aunt shook her head.
'You take after your ma, 'Azel,' she said. Her tone was irritated.
'I be glad.'
Her aunt sniffed.
'You ought to be as glad to take after one parent as another, if you were
jutiful,' she said.
'I dunna want to take after anybody but myself.' Hazel flushed
indignantly.
'Well! we are conceited!' exclaimed her aunt. 'Albert, don't give 'Azel
all the liver and bacon. I s'pose your mother can eat as well as
schoolgirls?'
Albert was gazing at Hazel so animatedly, so obviously approving of
all she said, that her aunt was very much ruffled.
'No wonder you only want to be like yourself,' he said. 'Jam! my word,
Hazel, you're jam!'
'Albert!' cried his mother raspingly, with a pathetic note of pleading,
'haven't I always taught you to say preserve?' She was not pleading
against the inelegant word, but against Hazel.
When Albert went back to the shop, Hazel helped her aunt to wash up.
All the time she was doing this, with unusual care, and cleaning the
knives--a thing she hated--she was waiting anxiously for the expected
invitation to stay the night. She longed for it as the righteous long for
the damnation of their enemies. She never paid a visit except here, and
to her it was a wild excitement. The gas-stove, the pretty china, the
rose-patterned wall-paper, were all strange and marvellous as a

fairy-tale. At home there was no paper, no lath and plaster, only the
bare bricks, and the ceiling was of bulging sailcloth hung under the
rafters.
Now to all these was added the new delight of Albert's admiring
gaze--an alert, live gaze, a thing hitherto unknown to Albert. Perhaps, if
she stayed, Albert would take her out for the evening. She would see
the streets of the town in the magic of lights. She would walk out in her
new dress with a real young man--a young man who possessed a gilt
watch-chain. The suspense, as the wintry afternoon drew in, became
almost intolerable. Still her aunt did not speak. The sitting-room looked
so cosy when tea was laid; the firelight played over the cups; her aunt
drew the curtains. On one side there was joy, warmth--all that she could
desire; on the other, a forlorn walk in the dark. She had left it until so
late that her heart shook at the idea of the many miles she must cover
alone if her aunt did not ask her.
Her aunt knew what was going on in Hazel's mind, and smiled grimly
at Hazel's unusual meekness. She took the opportunity of administering
a few hometruths.
'You look like an actress,' she said.
'Do I, auntie?'
'Yes. It's a disgrace, the way you look. You quite draw men's eyes.'
'It's nice to draw men's eyes, inna it, auntie?'
'Nice! Hazel, I should like to box your ears! You naughty girl! You'll
go wrong one of these days.'
'What for will I, auntie?'
'Some day you'll get spoke to!' She said the last words in a hollow
whisper. 'And after that, as you won't say and do what a good girl
would, you'll get picked up.'

'I'd like to see anyone pick me up!' said Hazel indignantly. 'I'd kick!'
'Oh! how unladylike! I didn't mean really picked up! I meant
allegorically--like in the Bible.'
'Oh! only like in the Bible,' said Hazel disappointedly. 'I thought you
meant summat real.'
'Oh! You'll bring down my grey hairs,' wailed Mrs. Prowde.
An actress was bad, but an infidel! 'That I should live to hear it--in my
own villa, with my own soda cake on the cake-dish--and my own son,'
she added dramatically, as Albert entered, 'coming in to have his
God-fearing heart broken!'
This embarrassed Albert, for it was true, though the cause assigned was
not.
'What's Hazel been up to?' he queried.
The affection beneath his heavy pleasantry strengthened his mother in
her resolve that Hazel should not stay the night.
'There's a magic-lantern lecture on tonight, Hazel,' he said. 'Like to
come?'
'Ah! I should that.'
'You can't walk home at that time of night,' said Mrs. Prowde. 'In fact,
you ought to start now.'
'But Hazel's staying the night, mother, surely?'
'Hazel must get back to her father.'
'But, mother, there's the spare-room.'
'The spare-room's being spring-cleaned.'

Albert plunged; he was desperate and forgetful of propriety.
'I can sleep on this sofa,' he said. 'She can have my room.'
'Hazel can't have your room. It's not suitable.'
'Well, let her share yours, then.'
Mrs. Prowde played her trump-card. 'Little I thought,' she said, 'when
your dear father went, that before three years had passed you'd be so
forgetful of my comfort (and his memory) as to suggest such a thing.
As long as I live, my