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The case of the Ward Lane Tabernacle (1896) by Arthur Morrison
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THE CASE
OF THE WARD LANE TABERNACLE
by Arthur Morrison
from Windsor magazine, vol. III (1896)
I.
AMONG the few personal friendships that Martin Hewitt has allowed himself to
make there is one for an eccentric but very excellent old lady named Mrs.
Mallett. She must be more than seventy now, but she is of robust and active, not
to say masculine, habits, and her relations with Hewitt are irregular and
curious. He may not see her for many weeks, perhaps for months, until one day
she will appear in the office, push Kerrett (who knows better than to attempt to
stop her) into the inner room, and salute Hewitt with a shake of the hand and a
savage glare of the eye which would appal a stranger, but which is quite amiably
meant. As for myself, it was long ere I could find any resource but instant
retreat before her gaze, though we are on terms of moderate toleration now.
After her first glare she sits in the chair by the window and directs her
glance at Hewitt's small gas grill and kettle in the fireplace--a glance which
Hewitt, with all expedition, translates into tea. Slightly mollified by the tea,
Mrs. Mallett condescends to remark in tones of tragic truculence, on passing
matters of conventional interest--the weather, the influenza, her own health,
Hewitt's health, and so forth, any reply of Hewitt's being commonly received
with either disregard or contempt. In half an hour's time or so she leaves the
office with a stern command to Hewitt to attend at her house and drink tea on a
day and at a time named--a command which Hewitt obediently fulfils, when he
passes through a similarly exhilarating experience in Mrs. Mallett's back
drawing-room at her little freehold house in Fulham. Altogether Mrs. Mallett, to
a stranger, is a singularly uninviting personality, and indeed, except Hewitt,
who has learnt to appreciate her hidden good qualities, I doubt if she has a
friend in the world. Her studiously concealed charities are a matter of as much
amusement as gratification to Hewitt, who naturally, in the course of his
peculiar profession, comes across many sad examples of poverty and suffering,
commonly among the decent sort, who hide their troubles from strangers' eyes and
suffer in secret. When such a case is in his mind it is Hewitt's practice to
inform Mrs. Mallett of it at one of the tea ceremonies. Mrs. Mallett receives
the story with snorts of incredulity and scorn but takes care, while expressing
the most callous disregard and contempt of the troubles of the sufferers, to
ascertain casually their names and addresses; twenty-four hours after which
Hewitt need only make a visit to find their difficulties in some mysterious way
alleviated.
Mrs. Mallett never had any children, and was early left a widow. Her
appearance, for some reason or another, commonly leads strangers to believe her
an old maid. She lives in her little detached house with its square piece of
ground, attended by a house-keeper older than herself and one maid-servant. She
lost her only sister by death soon after the events I am about to set down, and