Lifes Little Ironies | Page 5

walls of baskets enclosing masses of beans and peas,
pyramids of snow-white turnips, swaying howdahs of mixed
produce--creeping along behind aged night-horses, who seemed ever
patiently wondering between their hollow coughs why they had always
to work at that still hour when all other sentient creatures were
privileged to rest. Wrapped in a cloak, it was soothing to watch and
sympathize with them when depression and nervousness hindered sleep,
and to see how the fresh green-stuff brightened to life as it came

opposite the lamp, and how the sweating animals steamed and shone
with their miles of travel.
They had an interest, almost a charm, for Sophy, these semirural people
and vehicles moving in an urban atmosphere, leading a life quite
distinct from that of the daytime toilers on the same road. One morning
a man who accompanied a waggon-load of potatoes gazed rather hard
at the house-fronts as he passed, and with a curious emotion she
thought his form was familiar to her. She looked out for him again. His
being an old-fashioned conveyance, with a yellow front, it was easily
recognizable, and on the third night after she saw it a second time. The
man alongside was, as she had fancied, Sam Hobson, formerly gardener
at Gaymead, who would at one time have married her.
She had occasionally thought of him, and wondered if life in a cottage
with him would not have been a happier lot than the life she had
accepted. She had not thought of him passionately, but her now dismal
situation lent an interest to his resurrection--a tender interest which it is
impossible to exaggerate. She went back to bed, and began thinking.
When did these market-gardeners, who travelled up to town so
regularly at one or two in the morning, come back? She dimly
recollected seeing their empty waggons, hardly noticeable amid the
ordinary day-traffic, passing down at some hour before noon.
It was only April, but that morning, after breakfast, she had the window
opened, and sat looking out, the feeble sun shining full upon her. She
affected to sew, but her eyes never left the street. Between ten and
eleven the desired waggon, now unladen, reappeared on its return
journey. But Sam was not looking round him then, and drove on in a
reverie.
'Sam!' cried she.
Turning with a start, his face lighted up. He called to him a little boy to
hold the horse, alighted, and came and stood under her window.
'I can't come down easily, Sam, or I would!' she said. 'Did you know I
lived here?'

'Well, Mrs. Twycott, I knew you lived along here somewhere. I have
often looked out for 'ee.'
He briefly explained his own presence on the scene. He had long since
given up his gardening in the village near Aldbrickham, and was now
manager at a market-gardener's on the south side of London, it being
part of his duty to go up to Covent Garden with waggon-loads of
produce two or three times a week. In answer to her curious inquiry, he
admitted that he had come to this particular district because he had seen
in the Aldbrickham paper, a year or two before, the announcement of
the death in South London of the aforetime vicar of Gaymead, which
had revived an interest in her dwelling-place that he could not
extinguish, leading him to hover about the locality till his present post
had been secured.
They spoke of their native village in dear old North Wessex, the spots
in which they had played together as children. She tried to feel that she
was a dignified personage now, that she must not be too confidential
with Sam. But she could not keep it up, and the tears hanging in her
eyes were indicated in her voice.
'You are not happy, Mrs. Twycott, I'm afraid?' he said.
'O, of course not! I lost my husband only the year before last.'
'Ah! I meant in another way. You'd like to be home again?'
'This is my home--for life. The house belongs to me. But I
understand'--She let it out then. 'Yes, Sam. I long for home--our home!
I should like to be there, and never leave it, and die there.' But she
remembered herself. 'That's only a momentary feeling. I have a son,
you know, a dear boy. He's at school now.'
'Somewhere handy, I suppose? I see there's lots on 'em along this road.'
'O no! Not in one of these wretched holes! At a public school--one of
the most distinguished in England.'

'Chok' it all! of course! I forget, ma'am, that you've been a lady for so
many years.'
'No, I am not a lady,' she said sadly. 'I never shall be. But he's a
gentleman, and that--makes it--O how difficult for me!'
CHAPTER III