The Case of the Ward Lane Tabernacle

The Case of the Ward Lane Tabernacle
by Arthur Morrison
from Windsor magazine, Vol. III (1896)

I.
Among the few personal friendships that Martin Hewitt has allowed
himself to make there is one for an eccentric but very excellent old lady
named Mrs. Mallett. She must be more than seventy now, but she is of
robust and active, not to say masculine, habits, and her relations with
Hewitt are irregular and curious. He may not see her for many weeks,
perhaps for months, until one day she will appear in the office, push
Kerrett (who knows better than to attempt to stop her) into the inner
room, and salute Hewitt with a shake of the hand and a savage glare of
the eye which would appal a stranger, but which is quite amiably meant.
As for myself, it was long ere I could find any resource but instant
retreat before her gaze, though we are on terms of moderate toleration
now.
After her first glare she sits in the chair by the window and directs her
glance at Hewitt's small gas grill and kettle in the fireplace--a glance
which Hewitt, with all expedition, translates into tea. Slightly mollified
by the tea, Mrs. Mallett condescends to remark in tones of tragic
truculence, on passing matters of conventional interest--the weather,
the influenza, her own health, Hewitt's health, and so forth, any reply of
Hewitt's being commonly received with either disregard or contempt.
In half an hour's time or so she leaves the office with a stern command
to Hewitt to attend at her house and drink tea on a day and at a time
named--a command which Hewitt obediently fulfils, when he passes
through a similarly exhilarating experience in Mrs. Mallett's back
drawing-room at her little freehold house in Fulham. Altogether Mrs.
Mallett, to a stranger, is a singularly uninviting personality, and indeed,

except Hewitt, who has learnt to appreciate her hidden good qualities, I
doubt if she has a friend in the world. Her studiously concealed
charities are a matter of as much amusement as gratification to Hewitt,
who naturally, in the course of his peculiar profession, comes across
many sad examples of poverty and suffering, commonly among the
decent sort, who hide their troubles from strangers' eyes and suffer in
secret. When such a case is in his mind it is Hewitt's practice to inform
Mrs. Mallett of it at one of the tea ceremonies. Mrs. Mallett receives
the story with snorts of incredulity and scorn but takes care, while
expressing the most callous disregard and contempt of the troubles of
the sufferers, to ascertain casually their names and addresses;
twenty-four hours after which Hewitt need only make a visit to find
their difficulties in some mysterious way alleviated.
Mrs. Mallett never had any children, and was early left a widow. Her
appearance, for some reason or another, commonly leads strangers to
believe her an old maid. She lives in her little detached house with its
square piece of ground, attended by a house-keeper older than herself
and one maid-servant. She lost her only sister by death soon after the
events I am about to set down, and now has, I believe, no relations in
the world. It was also soon after these events that her present
housekeeper first came to her in place of an older and very deaf woman,
quite useless, who had been with her before. I believe she is moderately
rich, and that one or two charities will benefit considerably at her death;
also I should be far from astonished to find Hewitt's own name in her
will, though this is no more than idle conjecture. The one possession to
which she clings with all her soul--her one pride and treasure--is her
great-uncle Joseph's snuff-box, the lid of which she steadfastly believes
to be made of a piece of Noah's original ark discovered on the top of
Mount Ararat by some intrepid explorer of vague identity about a
hundred years ago. This is her one weakness, and woe to the unhappy
creature who dares hint a suggestion that possibly the wood of the ark
rotted away to nothing a few thousand years before her great-uncle
Joseph ever took snuff. I believe he would be bodily assaulted. The box
is brought for Hewitt's admiration at every tea ceremony at Fulham,
when Hewitt handles it reverently and expresses as much astonishment
and interest as if he had never seen or heard of it before. It is on these

occasions only that Mrs. Mallett's customary stiffness relaxes. The
sides of the box are of cedar of Lebanon, she explains (which very
possibly they are), and the gold mountings were worked up from spade
guineas (which one can believe without undue strain on the reason).
And it is usually these times,