“You always will have the oven too ’ot,” he said, in his cool Cockney accent which he retained after nearly thirty years in this country.
“Mind your own business,” she returned briefly in her Ontario voice.
“Are you suggesting that it ain’t my business?” he asked. “When I take burnt gingerbread in on the tea tray I’d like to know who’ll get the glum looks — you or me.”
“The old gentlemen never complain.”
“Don’t they? And ’ow do you know?”
“They never complain to me.”
“That’s it. All the complaints are reserved for yours truly. Whatever goes wrong. Now there’s gas escaping! ’Aven’t you got no sense of smell?” He sprang from the table, went to the stove, and turned off the leaking faucet.
“In some ways,” she remarked, “I liked me old coal range better.
“Then why don’t you use it? It’s standing there.”
“Light a fire in it for me then. The boss likes it best too.”
“He likes everything that gives more trouble. They all do.”
“Tell him that.”
“Oh, him and me get on all right. Don’t you worry.”
She banged the oven door shut and carried the gingerbread into the pantry. “It’d take more than you to make me worry,” she said.
When she came back she found old Noah Binns, a former farm labourer at Jalna but long since retired because of age and rheumatism, sitting in the kitchen. He frequently dropped in for a cup of tea and a chat for old times’ sake.
“Howd’do, Mrs. Wragge,” he said, in his pessimistic tones. “Tarrible weather, ain’t it?”
“I haven’t time to notice weather,” she said. “It takes my husband here to do that.”
“There ain’t,” said Noah Binns, “goin’ to be no spring.”
“No spring!” She stared.
“No spring whatever.” He grinned, showing his one upper tooth. “We’re goin’ straight from the depths of winter straight into roastin’ boilin’ bakin’ summer — the worst yet. All the signs pint to it.”
“Well, I never.”
“Nor did anyone never. It’ll beat all.”
Rags said, — “Don’t go discouraging the wife. She’s just burnt her gingerbread.”
“I prefer it burnt,” said Binns. “It tastes less like gingerbread.”
“I guess I won’t offer you a piece after that,” said the cook.
“Whatever you bake is good, Mrs. Wragge,” Binns hastened to say.
With her rolling gait she went into the pantry and returned with a plate of gingerbread cut into squares.
“I see the kettle is biling,” said Binns.
“It’s always boiling in this kitchen. Make us a cup of tea, wife, do.” Rags now spoke affectionately.
Noah Binns continued with his gloomy weather predictions till they all sat about the table with their cups full of hot tea. The light came into the basement windows direct off snow mounded outside the windows. Rows of aluminum and even a few old copper utensils hung on the walls. There were shelves covered by packages and bottles of cleaning mixtures, so many that Alayne often wondered how the Wragges could use them all. There was a large rack in which stood platters from many bygone dinner services mostly having their enamel cracked by much overheating. A table was crowded with brass and silver objects waiting to be cleaned.
Rags nodded toward them. “Silver-cleaning day tomorrow. Like to come and give me a hand, Noah?”
Binns was for a moment speechless from gingerbread, then he said, — “My working days are over. Nobody in this neighbourhood has worked so long and hard as me. And the way I’ve rung that bell.”
The two Wragges winked simultaneously at each other.
“The church bell you mean, Noah,” said Mrs. Wragge.
“I rung that bell,” he said, his voice vibrating with pride, “for fifty years. Nobody before or after has rung it so loud. When I was in my prime the churchwardens spoke to me for fear I’d bust it. I could put words into the mouth of that bell. Whenever I seen Colonel Whiteoak late for church I’d make that bell say — ‘Hurry up, you redheaded son of a gun, dang you — dang you — dang you!’ And the bell would ring it clear.”
The Wragges shook with laughter. “And would he hurry?” she asked, making a picture of it in her mind.
“Hurry? Why, he’d come on the run. But the work got too heavy for me. For a year I ain’t been able to ring the bell and I never seen so much lateness as there is now.”
“There’s a new drug what cures rheumatism,” said Rags. “But it won’t be ready for a year or two.”
“I’ve no faith in drugs,” said Noah. “I’ve took enough drugs to make an atom bomb and they done me no good. The only medicine I take now is senna. I started off with senna and I’ll end with senna.”
A knock came on the outer door. Mrs. Wragge called out — “Come in” — and Wright the head stableman entered. He was ruddy-cheeked, square built, and had been working at Jalna since he was eighteen, thirty years ago. He made a clatter stamping off snow, then greeted them with a cheerfully sarcastic, — “Lovely spring day, isn’t it?”
Noah Binns groaned. “It’s all the spring we’ll see. Straight from this we’ll go into roastin’ boilin’ bakin’ summer. All the signs pint to it.”
“Well, I guess we can stand it after all we’ve been through,” said Wright, drawing up a chair.
“We don’t know what trouble is in this country,” said Rags, “except what we make for ourselves.”
“We don’t make the bugs and the blight, do we?” Noah Binns demanded, his voice trembling with anger.
“The greatest troublemaker about here,” said Wright, “is old Clapperton.”
Mrs. Wragge placed tea and gingerbread in front of him. “What’s his latest?” she asked.
“Well, you know about the Black place?”
“Yes. He’s bought it.
“That was a dirty trick,” said Rags, “selling it to old Clapperton without giving Colonel Whiteoak a chance to buy it.”
“Black knew where he could get the biggest price.” Wright gloomily stirred his tea. “I’ve heard on good authority that there’s going to be a factory built there.”
Noah Binns tee-heed into his cup. “There’ll be factories and service stations everywhere before I’m dead. There’ll be one right here where we sit.”
“Well, you are cheerful, aren’t you?” exclaimed Rags.
And Wright added, — “I hope I’m underground before that day.”
Mrs. Wragge thumped a fat fist on the table. “The Colonel’d never allow it! All them that owns property would be up in arms.”
Noah Binns pushed his face close to hers. “Have you ever knowed property owners able to stop anything?”
“Colonel Whiteoak stopped him building bungalows,” she declared.
“Raikes tells me,” said Wright gloomily, “that they’re