Star over Bethlehem Read Free Page A

meetings for abolishing injustices, which was really more effort than anything else, because, of course, it meant close proximity to human bodies, and she hated to be touched. She was able easily to obey the admonitions posted up in public transport, such as: “Don’t travel in the rush hour”; because to go in trains and buses, enveloped tightly in a sweltering crowd of humanity, was definitely her idea of hell on earth.
    If children fell down in the street, she always picked them up and bought them sweets or small toys to “make them better.” She sent books and flowers to sick people in Hospital.
    Her largest subscriptions were to communities of nuns in Africa, because they and the people to whom they ministered, were so far away that she would never have to come in contact with them, and also because she admired and envied the nuns who actually seemed to enjoy the work they did, and because she wished with all her heart that she were like them.
    She was willing to be just, kind, fair, and charitable to people, so long as she did not have to see, hear or, touch them.
    But she knew very well that that was not enough.
    Mrs. Hargreaves was a middle-aged widow with a son and daughter who were both married and lived far away, and she herself lived in a flat in comfortable circumstances in London—and she didn’t like people and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it.
    She was standing on this particular morning by her daily woman who was sitting sobbing on a chair in the kitchen and mopping her eyes.
    â€œâ€”never told me nothing, she didn’t—not her own Mum! Just goes off to this awful place—and how she heard about it, I don’t know—and this wicked woman did things to her, and it went septic—or what ever they call it—and they took her off to Hospital and she’s lying there now, dying … Won’t say who the man was—not even now. Terrible it is, my own daughter—such a pretty little girl she used to be, lovely curls. I used to dress her ever so nice. Everybody said she was a lovely little thing …”
    She gave a gulp and blew her nose.
    Mrs. Hargreaves stood there wanting to be kind, but not really knowing how, because she couldn’t really feel the right kind of feeling.
    She made a soothing sort of noise, and said that she was very very sorry. And was there anything she could do?
    Mrs. Chubb paid no attention to this query.
    â€œI s’pose I ought to have looked after her better … been at home more in the evenings … found out what she was up to and who her friends were—but children don’t like you poking your nose into their affairs nowadays—and I wanted to make a bit of extra money, too. Not for myself—I’d been thinking of getting Edie a slap-up gramophone—ever so musical she is—or something nice for the home. I’m not one for spending money on myself …”
    She broke off for another good blow.
    â€œIf there is anything I can do?” repeated Mrs. Hargreaves. She suggested hopefully, “A private room in the Hospital?”
    But Mrs. Chubb was not attracted by that idea.
    â€œVery kind of you, Madam, but they look after her very well in the ward. And it’s more cheerful for her. She wouldn’t like to be cooped away in a room by herself. In the ward, you see, there’s always something going on.”
    Yes, Mrs. Hargreaves saw it all clearly in her mind’s eye. Lots of women sitting up in bed, or lying with closed eyes; old women smelling of sickness and old age—the smell of poverty and disease percolating through the clean impersonal odour of disinfectants. Nurses scurrying along, with trays of instruments and trolleys of meals, or washing apparatus, and finally the screens going up round a bed … ​The whole picture made her shiver—but she perceived quite clearly that to Mrs. Chubb’s daughter there would