The mistress of the British School stepped down from her school gate, and instead of turning to the left as usual, she turned to the right. Two women who were hastening home to scramble their husbands’ dinners together — it was five minutes to four — stopped to look at her. They stood gazing after her for a moment; then they glanced at each other with a woman’s little grimace.

To be sure, the retreating figure was ridiculous: small and thin, with a black straw hat, and a rusty cashmere dress hanging full all round the skirt. For so small and frail and rusty a creature to sail with slow, deliberate stride was also absurd. Hilda Rowbotham was less than thirty, so it was not years that set the measure of her pace; she had heart disease. Keeping her face, that was small with sickness, but not uncomely, firmly lifted and fronting ahead, the young woman sailed on past the market-place, like a black swan of mournful, disreputable plumage.

She turned into Berryman’s, the baker’s. The shop displayed bread and cakes, sacks of flour and oatmeal, flitches of bacon, hams, lard and sausages. The combination of scents was not unpleasing. Hilda Rowbotham stood for some minutes nervously tapping and pushing a large knife that lay on the counter, and looking at the tall, glittering brass scales. At last a morose man with sandy whiskers came down the step from the house-place.

“What is it?” he asked, not apologizing for his delay.

“Will you give me six-pennyworth of assorted cakes and pastries — and put in some macaroons, please?” she asked, in remarkably rapid and nervous speech. Her lips fluttered like two leaves in a wind, and her words crowded and rushed like a flock of sheep at a gate.

“We’ve got no macaroons,” said the man churlishly.

He had evidently caught that word. He stood waiting.

“Then I can’t have any, Mr Berryman. Now I do feel disappointed. I like those macaroons, you know, and it’s not often I treat myself. One gets so tired of trying to spoil oneself, don’t you think? It’s less profitable even than trying to spoil somebody else.” She laughed a quick little nervous laugh, putting her hand to her face.

“Then what’ll you have?” asked the man, without the ghost of an answering smile. He evidently had not followed, so he looked more glum than ever.

“Oh, anything you’ve got,” replied the schoolmistress, flushing slightly. The man moved slowly about, dropping the cakes from various dishes one by one into a paper bag.

“How’s that sister o’ yours getting on?” he asked, as if he were talking to the flour scoop.

“Whom do you mean?” snapped the schoolmistress.

“The youngest,” answered the stooping, pale-faced man, with a note of sarcasm.

“Emma! Oh, she’s very well, thank you!” The schoolmistress was very red, but she spoke with sharp, ironical defiance. The man grunted. Then he handed her the bag and watched her out of the shop without bidding her “Good afternoon”.

She had the whole length of the main street to traverse, a half-mile of slow-stepping torture, with shame flushing over her neck. But she carried her white bag with an appearance of steadfast unconcern. When she turned into the field she seemed to droop a little. The wide valley opened out from her, with the far woods withdrawing into twilight, and away in the centre the great pit streaming its white smoke and chuffing as the men were being turned up. A full, rose-coloured moon, like a flamingo flying low under the far, dusky east, drew out of the mist. It was beautiful, and it made her irritable sadness soften, diffuse.

Across the field, and she was at home. It was a new, substantial cottage, built with unstinted hand, such a house as an old miner could build himself out of his savings. In the rather small kitchen a woman of dark, saturnine complexion sat nursing a baby in a long white gown; a young woman of heavy, brutal cast stood at the table, cutting bread and butter. She had a downcast, humble mien that sat unnaturally on her, and was strangely irritating. She did not look round when her sister entered. Hilda put down the bag of cakes and left the room, not having spoken to Emma, nor to the baby, not to Mrs Carlin, who had come in to help for the afternoon.

Almost immediately the father entered from the yard with a dustpan full of coals. He was a large man, but he was going to pieces. As he passed through, he gripped the door with his free hand to steady himself, but turning, he lurched and swayed. He began putting the coals on the fire, piece by piece. One lump fell from his hand and smashed on the white hearth. Emma Rowbotham looked round, and began in a rough, loud voice of anger: “Look at you!” Then she consciously moderated her tones. “I’ll sweep it up in a minute — don’t you bother; you’ll only be going head first into the fire.”

Her father bent down nevertheless to clear up the mess he had made, saying, articulating his words loosely and slavering in his speech:

“The lousy bit of a thing, it slipped between my fingers like a fish.”

As he spoke he went tilting towards the fire. The dark-browed woman cried out: he put his hand on the hot stove to save himself: Emma swung round and dragged him off.

“Didn’t I tell you!” she cried roughly. “Now, have you burnt yourself?”

She held tight hold of the big man, and pushed him into his chair.

“What’s the matter?” cried a sharp voice from the other room. The speaker appeared, a hard well-favoured woman of twenty-eight. “Emma, don’t speak like that to father.” Then, in a tone not so cold, but just as sharp: “Now, father, what have you been doing?”

Emma withdrew to her table sullenly.

“It’s n?wt,” said the old man, vainly protesting. “It’s n?wt, at a’. Get on wi’ what you’re doin’.”

“I’m afraid ‘e’s burnt ‘is ‘and,” said the black-browed woman, speaking of him with a kind of hard pity, as if he were a cumbersome child. Bertha took the old man’s hand and looked at it, making a quick tut-tutting noise of impatience.

“Emma, get that zinc ointment — and some white rag,” she commanded sharply. The younger sister put down her loaf with the knife in it, and went. To a sensitive observer, this obedience was more intolerable than the most hateful discord. The dark woman bent over the baby and made silent, gentle movements of motherliness to it. The little one smiled and moved on her lap. It continued to move and twist.

“I believe this child’s hungry,” she said. “How long is it since he had anything?”

“Just afore dinner,” said Emma dully.

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Bertha. “You needn’t starve the child now you’ve got it. Once every two hours it ought to be fed, as I’ve told you; and now it’s three. Take him, poor little mite — I’ll cut the bread.” She bent and looked at the bonny baby. She could not help herself: she smiled, and pressed its cheek with her finger, and nodded to it, making little noises. Then she turned and took the loaf from her sister. The woman rose and gave the child to its mother. Emma bent over the little sucking mite. She hated it when she looked at it, and saw it as a symbol, but when she felt it, her love was like fire in her blood.

“I should think ‘e canna be comin’,” said the father uneasily, looking up at the clock.

“Nonsense, father — the clock’s fast! It’s but half-past four! Don’t fidget!” Bertha continued to cut the bread and butter.

“Open a tin of pears,” she said to the woman, in a much milder tone. Then she went into the next room. As soon as she was gone, the old man said again: “I should ha’e thought he’d ‘a’ been ’ere by now, if he means comin’.”

Emma, engrossed, did not answer. The father had ceased to consider her, since she had become humbled.

“‘E’ll come —‘e’ll come!” assured the stranger.

A few minutes later Bertha hurried into the kitchen, taking off her apron. The dog barked furiously. She opened the door, commanded the dog to silence, and said: “He will be quiet now, Mr Kendal.”

“Thank you,” said a sonorous voice, and there was the sound of a bicycle being propped against a wall. A clergyman entered, a big-boned, thin, ugly man of nervous manner. He went straight to the father.

“Ah — how are you?” he asked musically, peering down on the great frame of the miner, ruined by locomotor ataxy.

His voice was full of gentleness, but he seemed as if he could not see distinctly, could not get things clear.

“Have you hurt you hand?” he said comfortingly, seeing the white rag.

“It wor n?wt but a pestered bit o’ coal as dropped, an’ I put my hand on th’ hub. I thought tha worna commin’.”

The familiar ‘tha’, and the reproach, were unconscious retaliation on the old man’s part. The minister smiled, half wistfully, half indulgently. He was full of vague tenderness. Then he turned to the young mother, who flushed sullenly because her dishonoured breast was uncovered.

“How are YOU?” he asked, very softly and gently, as if she were ill and he were mindful of her.

“I’m all right,” she replied, awkwardly taking his hand without rising, hiding her face and the anger that rose in her.

“Yes — yes”— he peered down at the baby, which sucked with distended mouth upon the firm breast. “Yes, yes.” He seemed lost in a dim musing.

Coming to, he shook hands unseeingly with the woman.

Presently they all went into the next room, the minister hesitating to help his crippled old deacon.

“I can go by myself, thank yer,” testily replied the father.

Soon all were seated. Everybody was separated in feeling and isolated at table. High tea was spread in the middle kitchen, a large, ugly room kept for special occ............