When they tired of green peas they chose hot pies,full of rich gravy that ran out if you were not careful how you bit;or they preferred the plump saveloy,smoking hot from the can,giving out a savoury odour that made your mouth water.Then Ada fetched a jug of beer from the corner to wash it down.Soon Jonah stayed at the house on Saturday night as a matter of course.
But Jonah drew the line when the mother hinted that he might as well stay there altogether.He feared a trap;and when she pointed out the danger of two women living alone in the house,he looked at her brawny arms and smiled.
Haunted by her scheme for marriage,she set to work to undermine Jonah's obstinacy.She proceeded warily,and made no open attack;but Jonah began to notice with uneasiness that he could not talk for five minutes without stumbling on marriage.In the midst of a conversation on the weather,he would be amazed to find the theme turn to the praise of marriage,brought mysteriously to this hateful word as a man is led blindfold to a giddy cliff.When his startled look warned the mother,she changed the subject.
Still she persevered,sapping Jonah's prejudices with the terrible zeal of a priest making a convert.When he saw her drift,it set him thinking,and he watched Ada with curious attention as she moved about the house helping her mother.
It was Sunday morning,and Ada was shelling peas.The pods split with a sharp crack under her fingers,and the peas rattled into a tin basin.
She wore an old skirt,torn and shabby;her bodice was split under the arms,showing the white lining.Her hair lay flat on her forehead,screwed tightly in curling-pins,which brought into relief her fiat face and high cheekbones,for she was no beauty.By a singular coquetry,she wore her best shoes,small and neat,with high French heels.
Jonah looked at the girl with satisfaction,but she stirred no sentiment,for all women were alike to him.His view of them was purely animal.
The procession of Chook's loves crossed his mind,and he smiled.At regular intervals Chook "went balmy"over some girl or other,and,while the fit lasted,worshipped her as a savage worships an idol.And Jonah was stupefied by this passionate preference for one woman.He had never felt that way for Ada.
He returned to his own affairs.Marriage meant a wife,a family,and steady work,for Ada would leave the factory if he married her.The thought filled him with weariness.The vagabond in him recoiled from the set labours and common burdens of his kind.Ever since he could remember he had been more at home in the streets than in the four walls of a room.
The Push,the corner,the noise and movement of the streets--that was life for him.And he decided the matter for ever;there was nothing in it.
But,as the months slipped by,and Jonah remained impregnable to her masked batteries,Mrs Yabsley attacked him openly.Jonah stood his ground,and pointed out,with cynical candour,his unfitness to keep a wife.But Mrs Yabsley seized the opportunity to sketch out a career for him,with voluminous instances,for she had foreseen and arranged all that.
"An''oo's ter blame fer that?"she cried,"a feller that oughter be gittin''is three pounds a week.W'y,look at Dave Brown.Don't Iremember the time 'e used ter 'awk a basket o'fish on Fridays,an'doss in park?An'now 'e goes round in a white shirt,an'draws 'is rents.
An'mark me,it was gittin'married did that fer 'im.W'en a man's married,'e's got somethin'better to do than smokin'cigarettes an'playin'a mouth-orgin."
"Yes,"said Jonah,grinning."Git up an'light the fire,an'graft 'is bloomin''ead off."Mrs Yabsley feigned deafness.
"Anyhow,'e didn't git 'is 'ouses 'awkin'fish,"pursued Jonah;"'e got 'em while 'e kep'a pub."Then,with feverish vivacity,Mrs Yabsley mapped out half a dozen careers for him,chiefly in connection with a shop,for to her,who lived by the sweat of her brow,shopkeepers were aristocrats,living in splendid ease.
"It's no go,missis,"said Jonah."Marriage is all right fer them as don't know better,but anyhow,it ain't wot it's cracked up ter be."He avoided the house for some weeks after this conversation,patrolling the streets with the gang,with the zest of a drunkard returning to his cups.Mrs Yabsley,who saw that she had pushed her attack too far,waited in patience.
Jonah found the Push thirsting for blood.One of them had got three months for taking a fancy to a copper boiler that he had found in an empty house,and they discovered that a bricklayer,who lived next door,had put the police on his track.The Push resolved to stoush him,and had lain in wait for a week without success.Jonah took the matter in hand,and inquired secretly into the man's habits.He discovered that the bricklayer,sober as a judge through the week,was in the habit of fuddling himself on pay-day.Jonah arranged a plan,which involved a search of every hotel in the neighbourhood.
But one Saturday night,as they were stealthily scouting the streets for their man,Jonah suddenly thought of Ada.It was weeks since he had last seen her.He was surprised by a faint longing for her presence,and,with a word to Chook,he slipped away.
The cottage was in darkness and the door locked;but after a moment's hesitation,he took the key from under the flowerpot and went in.He struck a match and looked round.The irons were on the table.
Mrs Yabsley had evidently gone out with the shirts.He lit the candle and sat down.
The room was thick with shadows,that fled and advanced as the candle flickered in the draught.He looked with quiet pleasure on the familiar objects--the deal table,propped against the wall on account of a broken leg,the ragged curtain stretched across the window,the new shelf that he had made out of a box.He studied,with fresh interest,the coloured almanacs on the wall,and spelt out,with amiable derision,the Scripture text over the door.He felt vaguely that he was at home.
