quotes_jun22_2003.htm

…’Put a cloth over my ‘ead…I’ve got it good, an’ I don’t want Miss Eva to see. I ain’t pretty this time.’
‘Who was it ?’ said the curate.
‘Man from outside. Never seed ‘im no more’n Adam. Drunk, I s’pose’.

This is from “The Record of Badalia Herodsfoot” in Many Inventions. Badalia, a woman of the slums, has been deserted by her drunken husband. She becomes an assistant to the local curate, and gives out small sums of money to the needy on his behalf. Her husband comes back, and beats her to death for the money. Dying, she refuses to betray him.

‘…it came over me, sudden-like – about dat woman from Rye…That day she had it in for you with a hay-fork – time was we was all hayin’ at Smalldene – for stealin’ her man.’
‘But you heered me tell her she had my leave to keep him ?’ …
‘I did – an we was all lookin’ that she’d prong the fork spang through your breastes when you said it’…

This is from “The Wish House” in Debits and Credits.

Two feisty old Sussex women, Mrs Ashcroft and Mrs Fettley, are reminiscing about old times. Later in the story Mrs Ashcroft tells how she had taken on the evil that was coming to the man she had loved – and lost. Now she is suffering from a painful and incurable cancer.

…’An’ then – ‘give you me word I didn’t recognise the voice – he stretches out ‘is neck a bit, in a way ‘e ‘ad, an’ he says: “Why Bella!” ‘e says…”Thank Gawd!” ‘e says. Just like that! An’ then I saw – I tell you I saw – Auntie Armine herself, standin’ by the old dressin’-station door…’

This is from “A Madonna of the Trenches” in Debits and Credits.

Strangwick, a young soldier, broken by his time in the trenches, is haunted by the experience of seeing the ghost of his Aunt Armine, standing by the dressing-station door. His uncle, a sergeant, who had been having an affair with Armine, sees her too, and kills himself to be reunited with his love.