Dialstone Lane, Part 1 by W.W. Jacobs

Mr. Chalk, with his mind full of the story he had just heard, walked / homewards like a man in a dream. The air was fragrant with spring and / the scent of lilac revived memories almost forgotten. It took him back / forty years, and showed him a small boy treading the same road, passing / the same houses. Nothing had changed so much as the small boy himself; / nothing had been so unlike the life he had pictured as the life he had / led. Even the blamelessness of the latter yielded no comfort; it / savoured of a lack of spirit.

His mind was still busy with the past when he reached home. Mrs. Chalk, / a woman of imposing appearance, who was sitting by the window at / needlework, looked up sharply at his entrance. Before she spoke he had a / dim idea that she was excited about something.

"I've got her," she said, triumphantly.

"Oh! " said Mr. Chalk.

"She didn't want to come at first," said Mrs. Chalk; "she'd half promised / to go to Mrs. Morris. Mrs. Morris had heard of her through Harris, the / grocer, and he only knew she was out of a place by accident. He -- "

Her words fell on deaf ears. Mr. Chalk, gazing through the window, heard / without comprehending a long account of the capture of a new housemaid, / which, slightly altered as to name and place, would have passed muster as / an exciting contest between a skilful angler and a particularly sulky / salmon. Mrs. Chalk, noticing his inattention at last, pulled up sharply.

"You're not listening! " she cried.

"Yes, I am; go on, my dear," said Mr. Chalk.

"What did I say she left her last place for, then? " demanded the lady.

Mr. Chalk started. He had been conscious of his wife's voice, and that / was all. "You said you were not surprised at her leaving," he replied, / slowly; "the only wonder to you was that a decent girl should have stayed / there so long."

Mrs. Chalk started and bit her lip. "Yes," she said, slowly. "Ye-es. / Go on; anything else?"

"You said the house wanted cleaning from top to bottom," said the / painstaking Mr. Chalk.

"Go on," said his wife, in a smothered voice. "What else did I say?"

"Said you pitied the husband," continued Mr. Chalk, thoughtfully.

Mrs. Chalk rose suddenly and stood over him. Mr. Chalk tried desperately / to collect his faculties.

"How dare you? " she gasped. "I've never said such things in my life. / Never. And I said that she left because Mr. Wilson, her master, was dead / and the family had gone to London. I've never been near the house; so / how could I say such things?"

Mr. Chalk remained silent.

"What made you think of such things? " persisted Mrs. Chalk.

Mr. Chalk shook his head; no satisfactory reply was possible. "My / thoughts were far away," he said, at last.

His wife bridled and said, "Oh, indeed! " Mr. Chalk's mother, dead some / ten years before, had taken a strange pride -- possibly as a protest / against her only son's appearance -- in hinting darkly at a stormy and / chequered past. Pressed for details she became more mysterious still, / and, saying that "she knew what she knew," declined to be deprived of the / knowledge under any consideration. She also informed her daughter-in-law / that "what the eye don't see the heart don't grieve," and that it was / better to "let bygones be bygones," usually winding up with the advice to / the younger woman to keep her eye on Mr. Chalk without letting him see / it.