This forenoon Martha heard Annie’s bell at the foot of Cowpen Street. It was always an irritation to Martha, that bell of Annie’s, but to-day when Martha saw Annie she forgot all about the bell. One eagle glance from Martha’s eye deduced the fact that Hannah Brace was right. Annie was that way.
Along the street Martha went, slow and formidable, until she came abreast of Annie, who had laid down her creel on the pavement to serve Mrs. Dale of the Middlerig Dairy. Martha stood watching Annie while Annie took the clean gutted fish in her clean chapped hands and put them on the plate Mrs. Dale gave her. Martha had to admit that Annie was clean. Her weather-blown face was hard-scrubbed, her blue apron newly washed and stiff from ironing, her arms, bare to the elbow, pink and firm, her eyes clear as though they had been polished by the wind. This grudging admission of Annie’s cleanness made Martha more bitter. With her lips drawn in she stood waiting until Annie had finished with Mrs. Dale.
Annie straightened herself from the creel at last. She noticed Martha and her face lightened slowly, imperceptibly. Annie’s expression never changed quickly; it had a quiet, almost stolid repose, but now it did undoubtedly brighten. She thought Martha wanted her fish and that was an honour which Martha had never bestowed on Annie before. Annie smiled diffidently.
“I have nice whiting, Mrs. Fenwick,” she said. A pause while Annie reflected she might have been too forward. So she added: “They’re bigger than usual, anyway.”
Martha did not say anything, she continued to look at Annie.
Annie did not understand yet. With an easy movement of her fine body, she lifted the creel by its black leather strap and showed the catch to Martha.
“Dad and me got these at four this morning,” she said. “They take best with a mist on the water. I’ll put a couple on your step as I go past, there’s no need for you to carry them up.” It was a long speech for Annie, an extremely long speech; it was extremely long because Annie was extremely anxious to please.
Martha said nothing, but as Annie raised her eyes from the freshly caught fish, Martha gave Annie one insolent ice-bound look: the look knew everything, said everything, was significant of everything. Annie understood. Then Martha said:
“I don’t want your fish nor anything else you’re like to have.” Then she waited, tall, erect, formidable, waiting for Annie to answer her back. But Annie did not speak. Her eyes fell towards her creel, as if humiliated.
A cruel wave of triumph swept over Martha. She still waited until, seeing that Annie would not speak, she turned, with her head high in the air, and walked away.
Annie lifted her eyes and stood looking after Martha’s retreating figure. There was a nobility about Annie at that moment. Her open, weather-burnished face expressed neither shame nor confusion nor anger, but a kind of sorrow was mirrored there. She remained for a moment as though steeped in some profound regret, then she shouldered her basket and went up the street. Her bell rang out quiet and clear.
After that Martha went out of her way to humiliate Annie. She did not hesitate to “give Annie her character” in the Terraces. It was a strange reaction. Martha was never one for idle talk: as for scandal, she scorned and despised the mention of the word; but now she took a bitter pleasure in spreading the news of Annie’s trouble.
She made it her duty to encounter Annie as often as she could and she never passed without giving Annie that withering look. Nothing was said; but there was always that look. She discovered a favourite walk of Annie’s, a walk Annie took by herself in the evening, which was the only time she had a moment to herself, a walk which led along the shore and up the steep hill beyond the Snook. Martha, who never went beyond the Terraces of the town, began to take this walk too. Sometimes Annie was on the cliff first, staring out across the sea, and sometimes Martha was there first; but whatever the way of it Martha always gave Annie that silent look. Often Annie seemed to wish to speak to Martha, but Martha’s look froze all speech. For years she had suffered because of Annie; now Annie could suffer because of her!
Not that Martha gave a hint of the situation to Sammy; in her letters to Sammy Martha never said a word. She was too wise for that. She sent him more parcels than ever, most wonderful parcels she sent to Sammy; she made Sammy feel her worth. She had Sammy’s allowance every week on Sammy’s ring paper and that allowance enabled Martha to do what she wanted. She could never have got along without Sammy’s allowance.
The days and the weeks passed. Little enough was happening in Sleescale. At the Neptune they were well advanced with the new road into the Paradise. Jenny was still living in Tynecastle with her people and Martha never heard from her. Harry Ogle, son of old Tom Ogle, had been elected to the Town Council. Hans Messuer had been removed from the cottage hospital to an internment camp. Mrs. Wept kept her pie shop open on two days of the week. Jack Reedy had returned from the front with bad gas-poisoning. Letters from David arrived regularly, once a month. Life still went on.
And Annie Macer still went on hawking the fish which she and her father hand-lined in the early morning when the pale mist lay on the water. Everyone said it was a disgrace that Annie should go on hawking fish, but Annie could not very well do anything else. Annie’s brother, Pug, was not the kind to send allowances and hawking that fish was the livelihood of Annie and her dad. So Annie went on with it in spite of the disgrace.
But one day Annie did not go on with it. The day was the 22nd March and on that day Annie did not appear with her basket and her little bell. Martha looked for Annie in vain. And Martha thought with a savage thought, Is this her time, is she come to it at last?
It was not Annie’s time. In the evening Martha took the walk along the shore, past the Snook and up the cliff beyond. She took the walk partly from her newly formed habit and partly to see if Annie would be there. Annie was not there. And Martha stood erect and vigorous, looking down the path, thinking her savage thought that it was Annie’s time, that Annie had come to the bearing of her bastard at last.
But it was not Annie’s time. As Martha stood there she stiffened slightly, for at the foot of the cliff path she saw Annie, and Annie was coming up the path.
Annie came up the path slowly and Martha waited with her look ready, waited until Annie should come up. Tonight Annie took a long time. She climbed slowly, slowly as though labouring under a great burden. But at last she got to the top. Then Martha threw her look at Annie.
But Annie took no notice of the look. She paused before Martha, unusually pale and breathless from her climb and she stooped slightly as if tired, as though still she laboured under a great burden. She gazed at Martha, then she gazed out to the sea, as she always had done, gazing towards the place where Sammy might be. Then, as though she spoke the simplest fact:
“Sammy and me got married in August.”
Martha drew back as if she had been stung. Then she straightened herself.
“It’s a lie,” she said.
Still looking towards the place where Sammy might be, Annie said again, sadly, almost wearily:
“We were married, Sammy and me, his last leave in August.”
“It’s not true,” Martha said. “It can’t be true.” With a triumphant rush, “I’m getting Sammy’s allowance.”
Still looking towards the place where Sammy might be, Annie said:
“We wanted you to get the allowance, Sammy and me. We didn’t want it stopped on you.”