In the Days of the Comet Read online

  Section 1

  NEXT day I came home to Clayton.

  The new strange brightness of the world was all the brighter there,for the host of dark distressful memories, of darkened childhood,toilsome youth, embittered adolescence that wove about the placefor me. It seemed to me that I saw morning there for the first time.No chimneys smoked that day, no furnaces were burning, the peoplewere busy with other things. The clear strong sun, the sparkle inthe dustless air, made a strange gaiety in the narrow streets. Ipassed a number of smiling people coming home from the publicbreakfasts that were given in the Town Hall until better thingscould be arranged, and happened on Parload among them. "You wereright about that comet," I sang out at the sight of him; and hecame toward me and clasped my hand.

  "What are people doing here?" said I.

  "They're sending us food from outside," he said, "and we're goingto level all these slums--and shift into tents on to the moors;"and he began to tell me of many things that were being arranged,the Midland land committees had got to work with remarkable celerityand directness of purpose, and the redistribution of populationwas already in its broad outlines planned. He was working atan improvised college of engineering. Until schemes of work weremade out, almost every one was going to school again to get as muchtechnical training as they could against the demands of the hugeenterprise of reconstruction that was now beginning.

  He walked with me to my door, and there I met old Pettigrew comingdown the steps. He looked dusty and tired, but his eye was brighterthan it used to be, and he carried in a rather unaccustomed manner,a workman's tool basket.

  "How's the rheumatism, Mr. Pettigrew?" I asked.

  "Dietary," said old Pettigrew, "can work wonders. . . ." He lookedme in the eye. "These houses," he said, "will have to come down,I suppose, and our notions of property must undergo very considerablerevision--in the light of reason; but meanwhile I've been doingsomething to patch that disgraceful roof of mine! To think thatI could have dodged and evaded------"

  He raised a deprecatory hand, drew down the loose corners of hisample mouth, and shook his old head.

  "The past is past, Mr. Pettigrew."

  "Your poor dear mother! So good and honest a woman! So simple andkind and forgiving! To think of it! My dear young man!"--he saidit manfully--"I'm ashamed."

  "The whole world blushed at dawn the other day, Mr. Pettigrew," Isaid, "and did it very prettily. That's over now. God knows, whois NOT ashamed of all that came before last Tuesday."

  I held out a forgiving hand, naively forgetful that in this placeI was a thief, and he took it and went his way, shaking his headand repeating he was ashamed, but I think a little comforted.

  The door opened and my poor old mother's face, marvelously cleaned,appeared. "Ah, Willie, boy! YOU. You!"

  I ran up the steps to her, for I feared she might fall.

  How she clung to me in the passage, the dear woman! . . .

  But first she shut the front door. The old habit of respect for myunaccountable temper still swayed her. "Ah deary!" she said, "ahdeary! But you were sorely tried," and kept her face close to myshoulder, lest she should offend me by the sight of the tears thatwelled within her.

  She made a sort of gulping noise and was quiet for a while, holdingme very tightly to her heart with her worn, long hands . . .

  She thanked me presently for my telegram, and I put my arm abouther and drew her into the living room.

  "It's all well with me, mother dear," I said, "and the dark timesare over--are done with for ever, mother."

  Whereupon she had courage and gave way and sobbed aloud, nonechiding her.

  She had not let me know she could still weep for five grimy years. . . .