her. She then proceeded upstairs to perform her toilette, as on Monday afternoons she always arranged to go out "dressed". This in itself was a direct challenge to Fenton Street, which had to stay at home and attend to the cleansing of its linen. Her toilette finished, Mrs. Bindle slipped into the back bedroom. Below, her two neighbours were engaged in hanging-out the second instalment of their wash, the first batch having been gathered-in ready for the mangle. After that, they would eat their mid-day meal. Although no gossip, Mrs. Bindle was not unobservant, and she knew the movements of her neighbours as well as they knew hers. A quarter of an hour later, the front door of No. 7 banged-to. Mrs. Bindle, in brown alpaca, a brown bonnet with a dash of purple, and biscuit-coloured[Pg 54] gloves, was going to see her niece, Millie Dixon, née Hearty, with whom she had arranged to spend the afternoon. [Pg 54] IV "Mrs. Sawney! Mrs. Sawney! Come and look at your clothes!" Mrs. Grimps, her hands on the top of the fence, shouted her thrilling appeal across the intervening garden. Mrs. Sawney appeared, as if propelled from her scullery door by some unseen force. For a moment she stood blinking stupidly, as dense volumes of smut-laden smoke ascended to the blueness of heaven from the garden of No. 7. It was only the smoke, however, that ascended. One glance at the piebald garments hanging from her linen-lines was sufficient to convince Mrs. Sawney of that. "It's that woman," she almost screamed, as she began to pound at the fence dividing her garden from that of Mrs. Bindle. "I'll show 'er." "Yes; but what about the——" Mrs. Grimps broke-off, stifled by a volume of dense black smoke that curled across to her. "Look at them smuts." Mrs. Bindle had taken the precaution of adding some paraffin and colza oil to her bonfire, which was now blazing merrily, sending forth an ever-increasing deluge of smuts, as if conscious of what was expected of it.[Pg 55] [Pg 55] Mrs. Sawney continued to bang on the fence, whilst Mrs. Grimps dashed through her house and proceeded to pound at Mrs. Bindle's front door with a vigour born of hate and desperation.
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