The Cobweb

by H.H. Munro (SAKI)

　　

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The farmhouse kitchen probably stood where it did asa matter of accident or haphazard choice; yet itssituation might have been planned by a master-strategistin farmhouse architecture. Dairy and poultry-yard, andherb garden, and all the busy places of the farm seemedto lead by easy access into its wide flagged haven, wherethere was room for everything and where muddy boots lefttraces that were easily swept away. And yet, for allthat it stood so well in the centre of human bustle, itslong, latticed window, with the wide window-seat, builtinto an embrasure beyond the huge fireplace, looked outon a wild spreading view of hill and heather and woodedcombe. The window nook made almost a little room initself, quite the pleasantest room in the farm as far assituation and capabilities went. Young Mrs. Ladbruk,whose husband had just come into the farm by way ofinheritance, cast covetous eyes on this snug corner, andher fingers itched to make it bright and cosy with chintzcurtains and bowls of flowers, and a shelf or two of oldchina. The musty farm parlour, looking out on to a prim,cheerless garden imprisoned within high, blank walls, wasnot a room that lent itself readily either to comfort ordecoration."When we are more settled I shall work wonders inthe way of making the kitchen habitable," said the youngwoman to her occasional visitors. There was an unspokenwish in those words, a wish which was unconfessed as wellas unspoken. Emma Ladbruk was the mistress of the farm;jointly with her husband she might have her say, and to acertain extent her way, in ordering its affairs. But shewas not mistress of the kitchen.On one of the shelves of an old dresser, in companywith chipped sauce-boats, pewter jugs, cheese-graters,and paid bills, rested a worn and ragged Bible, on whosefront page was the record, in faded ink, of a baptismdated ninety-four years ago. "Martha Crale" was the namewritten on that yellow page. The yellow, wrinkled olddame who hobbled and muttered about the kitchen, lookinglike a dead autumn leaf which the winter winds stillpushed hither and thither, had once been Martha Crale;for seventy odd years she had been Martha Mountjoy. Forlonger than anyone could remember she had pattered to andfro between oven and wash-house and dairy, and out tochicken-run and garden, grumbling and muttering andscolding, but working unceasingly. Emma Ladbruk, ofwhose coming she took as little notice as she would of abee wandering in at a window on a summer's day, used atfirst to watch her with a kind of frightened curiosity.She was so old and so much a part of the place, it wasdifficult to think of her exactly as a living thing. OldShep, the white-nozzled, stiff-limbed collie, waiting forhis time to die, seemed almost more human than thewithered, dried-up old woman. He had been a riotous,roystering puppy, mad with the joy of life, when she wasalready a tottering, hobbling dame; now he was just ablind, breathing carcase, nothing more, and she stillworked with frail energy, still swept and baked andwashed, fetched and carried. If there were something inthese wise old dogs that did not perish utterly withdeath, Emma used to think to herself, what generations ofghost-dogs there must be out on those hills, that Marthahad reared and fed and tended and spoken a last goodbyeword to in that old kitchen. And what memories she musthave of human generations that had passed away in hertime. It was difficult for anyone, let alone a strangerlike Emma, to get her to talk of the days that had been;her shrill, quavering speech was of doors that had beenleft unfastened, pails that had got mislaid, calves whosefeeding-time was overdue, and the various little faultsand lapses that chequer a farmhouse routine. Now andagain, when election time came round, she would unstoreher recollections of the old names round which the fighthad waged in the days gone by. There had been aPalmerston, that had been a name down Tiverton way;Tiverton was not a far journey as the crow flies, but toMartha it was almost a foreign country. Later there hadbeen Northcotes and Aclands, and many other newer namesthat she had forgotten; the names changed, but it wasalways Libruls and Toories, Yellows and Blues. And theyalways quarrelled and shouted as to who was right and whowas wrong. The one they quarrelled about most was a fineold gentleman with an angry face - she had seen hispicture on the walls. She had seen it on the floor too,with a rotten apple squashed over it, for the farm hadchanged its politics from time to time. Martha had neverbeen on one side or the other; none of "they" had everdone the farm a stroke of good. Such was her sweepingverdict, given with all a peasant's distrust of theoutside world.When the half-frightened curiosity had somewhatfaded away, Emma Ladbruk was uncomfortably conscious ofanother feeling towards the old woman. She was a quaintold tradition, lingering about the place, she was partand parcel of the farm itself, she was something at oncepathetic and picturesque - but she was dreadfully in theway. Emma had come to the farm full of plans for littlereforms and improvements, in part the result of trainingin the newest ways and methods, in part the outcome ofher own ideas and fancies. Reforms in the kitchenregion, if those deaf old ears could have been induced togive them even a hearing, would have met with shortshrift and scornful rejection, and the kitchen regionspread over the zone of dairy and market business andhalf the work of the household. Emma, with the latestscience of dead-poultry dressing at her finger-tips, satby, an unheeded watcher, while old Martha trussed thechickens for the market-stall as she had trussed them fornearly four-score years - all leg and no breast. And thehundred hints anent effective cleaning and labour-lightening and the things that make for wholesomenesswhich the young woman was ready to impart or to put intoaction dropped away into nothingness before that wan,muttering, unheeding presence. Above all, the covetedwindow corner, that was to be a dainty, cheerful oasis inthe gaunt old kitchen, stood now choked and lumbered witha litter of odds and ends that Emma, for all her nominalauthority, would not have dared or cared to displace;over them seemed to be spun the protection of somethingthat was like a human cobweb. Decidedly Martha was inthe way. It would have been an unworthy meanness to havewished to see the span of that brave old life shortenedby a few paltry months, but as the days sped by Emma wasconscious that the wish was there, disowned though itmight be, lurking at the back of her mind.She felt the meanness of the wish come over her witha qualm of self-reproach one day when she came into thekitchen and found an unaccustomed state of things in thatusually busy quarter. Old Martha was not working. Abasket of corn was on the floor by her side, and out inthe yard the poultry were beginning to clamour a protestof overdue feeding-time. But Martha sat huddled in ashrunken bunch on the window seat, looking out with herdim old eyes as though she saw something stranger thanthe autumn landscape."Is anything the matter, Martha?" asked the youngwoman."'Tis death, 'tis death a-coming," answered thequavering voice; "I knew 'twere coming. I knew it.'Tweren't for nothing that old Shep's been howling allmorning. An' last night I heard the screech-owl give thedeath-cry, and there were something white as run acrossthe yard yesterday; 'tweren't a cat nor a stoat, 'tweresomething. The fowls knew 'twere something; they alldrew off to one side. Ay, there's been warnings. I knewit were a-coming."The young woman's eyes clouded with pity. The oldthing sitting there so white and shrunken had once been amerry, noisy child, playing about in lanes and hay-loftsand farmhouse garrets; that had been eighty odd yearsago, and now she was just a frail old body cowering underthe approaching chill of the death that was coming atlast to take her. It was not probable that much could bedone for her, but Emma hastened away to get assistanceand counsel. Her husband, she knew, was down at a tree-felling some little distance off, but she might find someother intelligent soul who knew the old woman better thanshe did. The farm, she soon found out, had that facultycommon to farmyards of swallowing up and losing its humanpopulation. The poultry followed her in interestedfashion, and swine grunted interrogations at her frombehind the bars of their styes, but barnyard andrickyard, orchard and stables and dairy, gave no rewardto her search. Then, as she retraced her steps towardsthe kitchen, she came suddenly on her cousin, young Mr.Jim, as every one called him, who divided his timebetween amateur horse-dealing, rabbit-shooting, andflirting with the farm maids."I'm afraid old Martha is dying," said Emma. Jimwas not the sort of person to whom one had to break newsgently."Nonsense," he said; "Martha means to live to ahundred. She told me so, and she'll do it.""She may be actually dying at this moment, or it mayjust be the beginning of the break-up," persisted Emma,with a feeling of contempt for the slowness and dulnessof the young man.A grin spread over his good-natured features."It don't look like it," he said, nodding towardsthe yard. Emma turned to catch the meaning of hisremark. Old Martha stood in the middle of a mob ofpoultry scattering handfuls of grain around her. Theturkey-cock, with the bronzed sheen of his feathers andthe purple-red of his wattles, the gamecock, with theglowing metallic lustre of his Eastern plumage, the hens,with their ochres and buffs and umbers and their scarletcombs, and the drakes, with their bottle-green heads,made a medley of rich colour, in the centre of which theold woman looked like a withered stalk standing amid ariotous growth of gaily-hued flowers. But she threw thegrain deftly amid the wilderness of beaks, and herquavering voice carried as far as the two people who werewatching her. She was still harping on the theme ofdeath coming to the farm."I knew 'twere a-coming. There's been signs an'warnings.""Who's dead, then, old Mother?" called out the youngman."'Tis young Mister Ladbruk," she shrilled back;"they've just a-carried his body in. Run out of the wayof a tree that was coming down an' ran hisself on to aniron post. Dead when they picked un up. Aye, I knew'twere coming."And she turned to fling a handful of barley at abelated group of guinea-fowl that came racing toward her.* * * *The farm was a family property, and passed to therabbit-shooting cousin as the next-of-kin. Emma Ladbrukdrifted out of its history as a bee that had wandered inat an open window might flit its way out again. On acold grey morning she stood waiting, with her boxesalready stowed in the farm cart, till the last of themarket produce should be ready, for the train she was tocatch was of less importance than the chickens and butterand eggs that were to be offered for sale. From whereshe stood she could see an angle of the long latticedwindow that was to have been cosy with curtains and gaywith bowls of flowers. Into her mind came the thoughtthat for months, perhaps for years, long after she hadbeen utterly forgotten, a white, unheeding face would beseen peering out through those latticed panes, and a weakmuttering voice would be heard quavering up and downthose flagged passages. She made her way to a narrowbarred casement that opened into the farm larder. OldMartha was standing at a table trussing a pair ofchickens for the market stall as she had trussed them fornearly fourscore years.

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