The spectacle of her
engaged in the high act of being equal to the occasion was exquisite.
But Louis had no eye for it.
CHAPTER V
NEWS OF THE NIGHT
I
The next morning, Mrs. Tarns, the charwoman whom Rachel had expressly
included in the dogma that all charwomen are alike, was cleaning the
entranceway to Mrs. Maldon's house. She had washed and stoned the
steep, uneven flight of steps leading up to the front door, and the
flat space between them and the gate; and now, before finishing the
step down to the footpath, she was wiping the grimy ledges of the
green iron gate itself.
Mrs. Tarns was a woman of nearly sixty, stout and--in
appearance--untidy and dirty. The wet wind played with grey wisps of
her hair, and with her coarse brown apron, beneath which her skirt was
pinned up. Human eye so seldom saw her without a coarse brown apron
that, apronless, she would have almost seemed (like Eve) to be
unattired. It and a pail were the insignia of her vocation.
She was accomplished and conscientious; she could be trusted; despite
appearances, her habits were cleanly. She was also a woman of immense
experience. In addition to being one of the finest exponents of the
art of step-stoning and general housework that the Five Towns could
show, she had numerous other talents.
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