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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 17/09/21, SPi
A Social Archaeology
of Roman and
Late Antique Egypt
Artefacts of Everyday Life
ELLEN SWIFT
JO STONER
and
A P R I L P U D SEY
1
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 17/09/21, SPi
1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
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© Ellen Swift, Jo Stoner, and April Pudsey 2022
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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 17/09/21, SPi
Acknowledgements
The project for which this is one of the published outputs, ‘Roman and Late Antique
Artefacts from Egypt: Understanding Society and Culture’, was funded by an Arts
and Humanities Research Council project grant, we are very grateful to the AHRC
for this support. Thanks also to current and former staff at the Petrie Museum of
Egyptian Archaeology, University College London, especially Louise Bascombe,
Anna Garnett, Maria Ragan, Alice Stevenson, Alice Williams, and Catriona Wilson.
It was a real pleasure working with Petrie Museum staff and we are very grateful to
them for their contribution in making this project a successful one.
Thanks also to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Bristol Museum and Art
Gallery; the British Museum, London; the Egypt Centre, University of Swansea;
the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York;
the Museum of London; the Petrie Museum; Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden; the
Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and World Museum, Liverpool, for permis-
sions to reproduce images of objects in their collection, and/or assistance with study
visits. The Brigham Young University Egypt Excavation Project, and Alexandra
Pleşa, also assisted with illustrations for the book.
Many thanks to Karlis Karklins, St John Simpson, Joanna Then-Obłuska, and
Marilee Wood, for assistance with object identifications, and to Elisabeth O’Connell,
Joanna Then-Obłuska, and Carol van Driel-Murray for comments on draft chapters.
Csaba La’da kindly assisted with a Greek inscription, and Tian Tian provided infor-
mation from a beads list from Xia Nai’s archive, and translated it from Chinese.
Thanks also to David Creese, Jenny Cromwell, and Joachim Quack for their
comments.
We would also like to thank our project advisory board, Kevin Dawe from the
University of Kent, David Creese from Newcastle University, and Richard Alston
from Royal Holloway, University of London. They provided invaluable advice and
support throughout the project.
Making the replica objects and sound recordings was a particular challenge and
could not have been achieved without substantial help. David Walsh and Ada Nifosi
kindly assisted by playing some instruments for sound recording, and Frank Walker
made the recordings. Egert Pöhlmann kindly allowed us to use his transcripts of
music in the recordings. Eric Hall, formerly a professional potter, provided advice
about the replica creation for the ceramic artefacts, and Andrew Lamb, of the Oxford
Bate Collection, assisted with information about comparative ethnographic musical
instruments; Keith Greenhow, Daniel Knox, George Morris, Julien Soosaipillai, and
Georgia Wright, currently or formerly at the University of Kent, and jeweller Justin
Richardson, made the replicas of the sound-making objects. Many thanks to all
of them.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 17/09/21, SPi
vi Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Tables xv
1. Introduction 1
I E X P L O R I N G T H E S O C IA L F U N C T IO N S
OF DRESS OBJECTS
2. Introduction to Part I 33
3. Original String and Bead Assemblages 60
4. Bracelets and Torcs 115
5. Shoes and Sandals 162
6. Concluding Discussion to Part I 195
I I T H E D OM E S T IC R E A L M A N D EV E RY DAY
EXPERIENCE
7. Introduction to Part II 207
8. Production and Experience: Objects Related to Textile Production 228
9. Children’s Material Culture 263
10. Sound-Making Objects 289
11. Concluding Discussion to Part II 325
12. Egypt in the Roman and Late Antique World: An Artefacts Perspective 335
References 407
Index 445
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 17/09/21, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 17/09/21, SPi
List of Figures
x List of Figures
List of Figures xi
4.23. Graph showing individual skull lengths in order of size, from Dendera and
Lachish, compared with diameters of extant torcs from Egypt. 155
5.1. Example of sandals with border decoration. 166
5.2. Graph showing frequency of decoration types for shoes in the data set. 168
5.3. Example of sandals with red fibre. 169
5.4. Sandals showing red strap stubs on treadsole. 169
5.5. Example of a plaited leather toe strap. 170
5.6. Several examples of red dyed leather shoes. 171
5.7. A red gilt sandal. 172
5.8. Example of shoes with red trim. 173
5.9. A second example of shoes with red trim. 174
5.10. A third example of shoes with red trim. 175
5.11. Detail from an ancient portrait of a woman wearing red socks. 175
5.12. Pair of red socks. 176
5.13. Example of sandals with cross-hatched soles. 177
5.14. Example of sandals with zigzag tool marks. 178
5.15. Example of a sandal sole with a pointed toe. 179
5.16. Example of children’s slippers with gilt scrollwork. 180
5.17. Example of unworn fibre sandals. 186
5.18. Example illustrating wear to the underneath of a fibre sandal. 187
5.19. Example of a wide sandal with wear to the ball area of the sole. 188
5.20. A sandal from Buhen, Sudan. 189
5.21. Example of a wide leather sandal. 190
5.22. Examples of sandals with a notch by the toe. 191
7.1. A ceramic vessel used for cooking. 210
7.2. A fragment of a glass drinking vessel. 211
7.3. Examples of mirrors. 214
7.4. An example of a soft brush. 220
7.5. A plant fibre mat with a handle on one side. 223
7.6. A bung made from reused textile rags. 224
7.7. Wooden curtain rings with fragments of attached textile. 225
8.1. Complete spindle. 231
8.2. Example of wooden whorl. 232
8.3. Spindle with multiple bone whorls and skein of wool. 233
8.4. Graph of materials represented in the data set of spindle whorls. 235
8.5. Examples of ceramic whorls. 236
8.6. Examples of ceramic whorls made from potsherds. 237
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 17/09/21, SPi
xii List of Figures
List of Tables
1
Introduction
The first in-depth study of the society and culture of Roman and late antique Egypt
(c.30 bce to 700 ce) to use everyday artefacts as its principal source of evidence, this
book presents the results of the major AHRC-funded research project ‘Roman and
Late Antique Artefacts from Egypt: Understanding Society and Culture’. Its central
focus is the outstanding collection of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology,
UCL, which contains more than 8,000 objects dating to the periods under study,
including many objects in organic materials that rarely survive elsewhere. Through
its detailed investigation of these artefacts, the book transforms our understanding
of aspects of the society and culture of Egypt. By taking a social archaeology approach
to a substantial body of artefact data, it provides significant insights into everyday
social practices and social relations. For instance, in Part I it illuminates how social
structures centred on the life course and family status are constructed through dress
objects, especially for women, and examines the particular social functions of
selected artefact types. In Part II, it investigates topics in social archaeology such as
the character of Romano-Egyptian childhood, the socially embedded nature of
production, and the importance of sound to communal activities including play,
entertainment, and ritual practice. The book also constitutes a fundamental refer-
ence work for scholars of artefacts from Egypt and beyond, with much new and
essential information on a range of Roman and late antique artefact categories. It
additionally provides evidence on wider topics of interest to historians and archae-
ologists, such as long-distance trade patterns with Roman and late antique Egypt,
and wider economic and social changes across the period.
The potential of artefact evidence has been very under-exploited in scholarly
research on Egypt in the periods under study.1 Museums hold significant collections
from Roman and late antique Egypt, yet most of these objects have never been stud-
ied systematically. Most come from archaeological excavations carried out in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.2 They are rarely published—and the same
is, surprisingly, true of artefacts which stem from much more recent excavations,
although assemblages from the Red Sea and Eastern Desert are an exception (Bagnall
and Davoli 2011; Peacock and Blue 2006; Sidebotham and Wendrich 2001). They
have potential, however, to illuminate many aspects of life that are rarely covered in
the written sources. We focus on two areas in particular: ordinary dress objects, and
everyday functional objects in their domestic context. Together, they make up the
suite of material culture most often used by people within their daily lives (discussed
1 An exception is Brooks Hedstrom 2017, a rare study which integrates evidence relating to artefacts
into a consideration of monastic spaces.
2 For the historiography of early archaeology in Egypt, including the selective acquisition of objects
focusing mainly on textiles, papyri, and inscriptions, see O’Connell 2014a; Reid 2015, 19–37 and 81–107.
A Social Archaeology of Roman and Late Antique Egypt: Artefacts of Everyday Life. Ellen Swift, Jo Stoner, and April Pudsey,
Oxford University Press. © Ellen Swift, Jo Stoner, and April Pudsey 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198867340.003.0001
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 17/09/21, SPi
further below, pp. 8–9). The Petrie Museum provides a rich resource in both these
areas, and most of the relevant objects in their collection have not been the subject of
any previous research. Material from the museum is, additionally, supplemented with
data from research visits to other UK museums with relevant collections.3 There have
been substantial developments in theoretical and methodological approaches to the
study of Roman material culture in recent years, many of them fostered by the lead
author for this book (for example, Swift 2017, 2012b, 2009; Eckardt 2014; and Cool
2006) and a renewed interest in the contribution of artefacts to studies of daily life
(for instance, Allason-Jones 2011, 2008; Cool and Baxter 2002). We examine the
neglected artefacts from Roman and late antique Egypt within this wider research
context. Although the approach is principally archaeological, it is also interdisciplin
ary, drawing on further evidence regarding the topics under study from papyri and
other textual sources, and from visual sources. It is informed by perspectives from
archaeological theory, anthropology, and also historical and archaeological studies of
both the wider Roman world, and other periods and regions.
In addition to the new social interpretation of everyday life that is proposed,
fundamental advances presented in the book include more accurate dating of both
individual objects and assemblages, and reconstruction of contextual information
for some dress objects, through the study of site archives held in the Petrie Museum.
A large proportion of the material under study is shown to be late antique in date (c. fifth
to seventh century ce), rather than Roman (c. first century bce to fourth century ce)
as had been previously assumed; however, this material shows significant cultural
continuity with the earlier Roman period, in both the types and functions of every-
day objects. Although the focus is on the interactions of daily life within communi-
ties, the book also illuminates how individual communities were connected to the
wider social world of Egypt and beyond through trade, shared cultural practices, and
the movement of individuals. Moreover, the evidence from objects shows how political
and economic changes in Egypt, particularly towards the end of the Byzantine occu-
pation of the province, impacted on the lives of communities at a local level.
This introductory chapter first gives an overview of interpretative approaches con-
ducive to our goal of achieving a social archaeology of everyday life. Methodological
issues relating to the research are then explored; for example, we outline the rationale
that lies behind our selection of object categories for study, and give an assessment of
the quality of the data available for investigation. The latter includes an account of
research undertaken that significantly improves the accuracy of dating for objects
and enhances our knowledge of their site provenance and archaeological context.
The final section sets out the social and cultural background relating to Egypt in the
period studied, together with a brief overview of the distinct regions that make up
Egypt and their different character, in order to provide a broad framework for the
subsequent data studies.
3 There are many museums worldwide with significant collections which could have been included, for
example the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, the Musée du Louvre, Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York, and the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan. For these museums, and others, we
have made use of the published catalogues and online databases that exist. The remit of our project, how-
ever, funded by the UK government through the Arts and Humanities Research Council, was to focus on
neglected UK collections in particular.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 17/09/21, SPi
Introduction 3
A social archaeology approach is one that foregrounds everyday life and social
experience. The aim is not simply to document the types of objects that existed as
components of daily living, but to understand how they functioned within society to
achieve particular human goals (Preucell and Meskell 2004, 16). We can examine, for
example, how objects were used in the construction and enactment of social roles
within both the family and the wider community, as well as the other various ways in
which they assisted, constrained, or otherwise affected the social lives of the people
to whom they belonged. In order to achieve this, we use a range of interpretative
perspectives that, together, enable us to make connections between the physical fea-
tures of the objects and the social world that they constituted along with their human
users. Importantly, our approaches do not rely on the availability of information
from excavation contexts. This is generally poor for museum artefacts from Egypt
(although occasionally, information relating to archaeological context can be util
ized). Instead, we focus on the features of the artefacts themselves, including the
physical form, materials, and decoration that constitute their design, and evidence of
wear and repair. We then draw on what is known from historical and visual sources
of the broader social context, to further enhance our understanding. Such sources
form an especially rich resource for Egypt, as many commentators have observed,
because of the survival of numerous fragments of papyrus documents.
The design features of objects can be examined to understand how they were
intended to be used at the point of production (for an exploration of this, defined as
‘proper function’, see Swift 2017, 9–10; and Preston 2013). A consideration of their
subsequent uses, sometimes represented by the extant material changes to the object,
provides some additional evidence, and allows us to examine further changing uses,
values, and meanings for the objects (termed ‘object biography’: see Joy 2009; Gosden
and Marshall 1999; and Kopytoff 1986). A Roman life course perspective (Harlow
and Laurence 2002) is combined with these approaches, enabling us to consider the
features of many of the objects as they relate to different gender and age categories
within society. We are able to show how the properties of objects make them suitable
for use, or constrain their use, by particular groups, and/or within limited social set-
tings, and how the objects functioned in the embodiment of life course stages. Let us
now unpack these ideas, relating to design, object biography, and the life course, a
little more, to provide some background, and show how the intersection between
them allows substantive new insights to be reached from a social archaeology
perspective.
Life Course
The individual life course is a key element of broader social structures, and its inves-
tigation in relation to material culture has been central to research that takes a social
archaeology approach in other periods and/or regions (Gilchrist 2004; Joyce 2004;
Meskell 2000). The ways in which the human life course underpins and potentially
shapes the operation of social and cultural values and practices are a prime example
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“Here with us, in the drawing-room,” Pelleas explained. “Why not?
There were fifty in the room for that Lenten morning musicale.
There’s the piano for the music. And the lilies—the lilies—”
“Of course we will,” I cried. “But, O, will they come? Do you think
they will come?”
I turned to our little friend, and she had risen and was waiting with
shining eyes.
“O, ma’am,” she said, trembling, “why, ma’am! O, yes’m, they’ll
come. I’ll get ’em here myself. O, Mr. Lovelow, he’ll be so glad....”
She flew to her bright hat and worn coat and crimson muffler.
“Mr. Lovelow says,” she cried, “that a shabby church is just as much
a holy temple as the ark of the gover’ment—but he was so glad
when we dyed the spread for the orgin—O, ma’am,” she broke off,
knotting the crimson scarf about her throat, “do you really want ’em?
They ain’t—you know they don’t look—”
“Hurry, child,” said Pelleas, “and mind you don’t let one of them
escape!”
When she was gone we looked at each other in panic.
“Pelleas,” I cried, trembling, “think of all there is to be done in ten
minutes.”
Pelleas brushed this aside as a mere straw in the wind.
“Think of Nichola,” he portentously amended.
In all our flurry we could not help laughing at the frenzy of our old
servant when we told her. Old Nichola was born upon the other side
of every argument. In her we can see the history of all the world
working out in a miniature of wrinkles. For Nichola would have cut off
her gray hair with Sparta, hurled herself fanatically abroad on St.
Bartholomew’s day, borne a pike before the Bastile, broken and
burned the first threshing-machine in England, stoned Luther, and
helped to sew the stars upon striped cloth in the kitchen of Betsy
Ross.
“For the love of heaven,” cried Nichola, “church in the best room! It is
not holy. Whoever heard o’ church in a private house, like a
spiritualist seeonce or whatever they are. An’ me with a sponge-cake
in the oven,” she concluded fervently. “Heaven be helpful, mem, I
wish’t you’d ’a’ went to church yourselves.”
Chairs were drawn from the library and dining-room and from above-
stairs, and frantically dusted with Nichola’s apron. The lilies were
turned from the windows to look inward on the room and a little table
for the Bible was laid with a white cloth and set with a vase of lilies.
And in spite of Nichola, who every moment scolded and prophesied
and nodded her head in the certainty that all the thunders of the
church would descend upon us, we were ready when the door-bell
rang. I peeped from the drawing-room window and saw that our
steps were filled!
“Nichola,” said I, trembling, “you will come up to the service, will you
not?”
Nichola shook her old gray head.
“It’s a nonsense,” she shrilly proclaimed. “It will not be civilized. It will
not be religious. I’ll open the door on ’em, but I won’t do nothink elst,
mem.”
When we heard their garments in the hall and the voice of Little
Friend, Pelleas pushed back the curtains and there was our Easter,
come to us upon the threshold.
I shall not soon forget the fragile, gentle figure who led them. The
Reverend Stephen Lovelow came in with outstretched hand, and I
have forgotten what he said or indeed whether he spoke at all. But
he took our hands and greeted us as the disciple must have greeted
the host of that House of the Upper Room. We led the way to the
table where he laid his worn Bible and he stood in silence while the
others found their places, marshaled briskly by Little Friend who as
captain was no less efficient than as deliverer. There were chairs to
spare, and when every one was seated, in perfect quiet, the young
clergyman bowed his head:—
“Lord, thou hast made thy face to shine upon us—” he prayed, and it
seemed to me that our shabby drawing-room was suddenly quick
with a presence more intimate than that of the lilies.
When the hymn was given out and there was a fluttering of leaves of
the hymn-books they had brought, five of our guests at a nod from
Mr. Lovelow made their way forward. One was a young woman with
a ruddy face, but ruddy with that strange, wrinkled ruddiness of age
rather than youth, who wore a huge felt hat laden with flaming roses
evidently added expressly for Easter day. She had on a thin waist of
flimsy pink with a collar of beads and silver braid, and there were
stones of all colours in a half-dozen rings on her hands. She took her
place at the piano with an ease almost defiant and she played the
hymn not badly, I must admit, and sang in a full riotous soprano.
Meanwhile, at her side was ranged the choir. There were four—a
great watch-dog of a bass with swelling veins upon his forehead and
erect reddish hair; a little round contralto in a plush cap and a dress
trimmed with the appliquéd flowers cut from a lace curtain; a tall, shy
soprano who looked from one to another through the hymn as if she
were in personal exhortation; and a pleasant-faced tenor who sang
with a will that was good to hear and was evidently the choir leader,
for he beat time with a stumpy, cracked hand set with a huge black
ring on its middle finger. The little woman next me offered her book
and I had a glimpse of a pinched side-face, with a displaced strand
of gray hair and a loose linen collar with no cravat, but I have seldom
heard a sweeter voice than that which up-trembled beside me—
although, poor little woman! she was sadly ill at ease because the
thumb which rested on the book next me was thrust in a glove fully
an inch too long. As for Pelleas, he was sharing a book with a
youngish man, stooped, long-armed, with a mane of black hair,
whom Mr. Lovelow afterward told me had lost his position in a sweat-
shop through drawing some excellent cartoons on the box of his
machine. Mr. Lovelow himself was “looking over” with a mother and
daughter who were later presented to us, and who embarrassed any
listener by persistently talking in concert, each repeating a few words
of what the other had just said, quite in the fashion of the most gently
bred talkers bent upon assuring each other of their spontaneous
sympathy and response.
And what a hymn it was! After the first stanza they gained in
confidence, and a volume of sound filled the low room—ay, and a
world of spirit, too. “Christ the Lord is risen to-day, Hallelu—jah! ...”
they caroled, and Pelleas, who never can sing a tune aloud although
he declares indignantly that in his head he keeps it perfectly, and I,
who do not sing at all, both joined perforce in the triumphant chorus.
Ah, I dare say that farther down the avenue were sweet-voiced
choirs that sang music long rehearsed, golden, flowing, and yet I
think there was no more fervent Easter music than that in which we
joined. It was as if the other music were the censer-smoke, and we
were its shadow on the ground, but a proof of the sun for all that.
I cannot now remember all that simple service, perhaps because I so
well remember the glory of the hour. I sat where I could see the park
stretching away, black upon silver and silver upon black, over the
Ascension lilies. The face of the young minister was illumined as he
read and talked to his people. I think that I have never known such
gentleness, never such yearning and tenderness as were his with
that handful of crude and careless and devout. And though he spoke
passionately and convincingly I could not but think that he was like
some dumb thing striving for the utterance of the secret fire within—
striving to “burn aloud,” as a violin beseeches understanding.
Perhaps there is no other way to tell the story of that first day of the
week—“early, when it was yet dark.”
“They had brought sweet spices,” he said, “with which to anoint Him.
Where are the spices that we have brought to-day? Have we aught
of sacrifice, of charity, of zeal, of adoration—let us lay them at His
feet, an offering acceptable unto the Lord, a token of our presence at
the door of the sepulcher from which the stone was rolled away.
Where are the sweet spices of our hands, where the pound of
ointment of spikenard wherewith we shall anoint the feet of our living
Lord? For if we bring of our spiritual possession, the Christ will suffer
us, even as He suffered Mary; and the house shall be filled with the
odour of the ointment.”
“And the house shall be filled with the odour of the ointment,” I said
over to myself. Is it not strange how a phrase, a vista, a bar of song,
a thought beneath the open stars, will almost pierce the veil?
“And the house shall be filled with the odour of the ointment,” I said
silently all through the last prayer and the last hymn and the
benediction of “The Lord make his face to shine upon you, the Lord
give you peace.” And some way, with our rising, the abashment
which is an integral part of all such gatherings as we had convoked
was not to be reckoned with, and straightway the presentations and
the words of gratitude and even the pretty anxiety of Little Friend
fluttering among us were spontaneous and unconstrained. It was
quite as if, Pelleas said afterward, we had been reduced to a
common denominator. Indeed, it seems to me in remembering the
day as if half the principles of Christian sociology were illustrated
there in our shabby drawing-room; but for that matter I would like to
ask what complexities of political science, what profound bases of
solidarité, are not on the way to be solved in the presence of Easter
lilies? I am in all these matters most stupid and simple, but at all
events I am not blameful enough to believe that they are exhausted
by the theories.
Every one lingered for a little, in proof of the success of our venture.
Pelleas and I talked with the choir and with the pianiste, and this lady
informed us that our old rosewood piano, which we apologetically
explained to have been ours for fifty years, was every bit as good
and every bit as loud as a new golden-oak “instrument” belonging to
her sister. The tall, shy soprano told us haltingly how much she had
enjoyed the hour and her words conveyed sincerity in spite of her
strange system of overemphasis of everything she said, and of
carrying down the corners of her mouth as if in deprecation. The
plump little contralto thanked us, too, with a most winning smile—
such round open eyes she had, immovably fixed on the object of her
attention, and as Pelleas said such evident eyes.
“Her eyes looked so amazingly like eyes,” he afterward commented
whimsically.
We talked too with the little woman of the long-thumbed gloves who
had the extraordinary habit of smiling faintly and turning away her
head whenever she detected any one looking at her. And the sweat-
shop cartoonist proved to be an engaging young giant with the figure
of a Greek god, classic features, a manner of gravity amounting
almost to hauteur, and as pronounced an East Side dialect as I have
ever heard.
“Will you not let us,” I said to him, after Mr. Lovelow’s word about his
talent, “see your drawings sometime? It would give us great
pleasure.”
Whereupon, “Sure. Me, I’ll toin de whol’ of ’em over to youse,” said
the Greek god, thumbs out and shoulders flickering.
But back of these glimpses of reality among them there was
something still more real; and though I dare say there will be some
who will smile at the affair and call that interest curiosity and those
awkward thanks mere aping of convention, yet Pelleas and I who
have a modest degree of intelligence and who had the advantage of
being present do affirm that on that Easter morning countless little
doors were opened in the air to admit a throng of presences. We
cannot tell how it may have been, and we are helpless before all
argument and incredulity, but we know that a certain stone was
rolled away from the door of the hearts of us all, and there were with
us those in shining garments.
In the midst of all I turned to ask our Little Friend some trivial thing
and I saw that which made my old heart leap. Little Friend stood
before a table of the lilies and with her was young Mr. Lovelow. And
something—I cannot tell what it may have been, but in these matters
I am rarely mistaken; and something—as she looked up and he
looked down—made me know past all doubting how it was with
them. And this open secret of their love was akin to the mysteries of
the day itself. The gentle, sad young clergyman and our Little Friend
of the crimson muffler had suddenly opened to us another door and
admitted another joyous presence. I cannot tell how it may be with
every one else but for Pelleas and me one such glimpse—a glimpse
of two faces alight with happiness on the street, in a car, or wherever
they may be—is enough to make glad a whole gray week. Though to
be sure no week is ever wholly gray.
I was still busy with the sweet surprise of this and longing for
opportunity to tell Pelleas, when they all moved toward the door and
with good-byes filed into the hall. And there in the anteroom stood
Nichola, our old servant, who brushed my elbow and said in my ear:
—
“Mem, every one of ’em looks starvin’. I’ve a kettle of hot coffee on
the back of the range an’ there’s fresh sponge-cake in plenty. I’ve put
cups on the dinin’-room table, an’ I thought—”
“Nichola!” said I, in a low and I must believe ecstatic tone.
“An’ no end o’ work it’s made me, too,” added our old servant sourly,
and not to be thought in the least gracious.
It was a very practical ending to that radiant Easter morning but I
dare say we could have devised none better. Moreover Nichola had
ready sandwiches and a fresh cheese of her own making, and a
great bowl of some simple salad dressed as only her Italian hands
can dress it. I wondered as I sat in the circle of our guests, a vase of
Easter lilies on the table, whether Nichola, that grim old woman who
scorned to come to our service, had yet not brought her pound of
ointment of spikenard, very precious.
“You and Mr. Lovelow are to spend the afternoon and have tea with
us,” I whispered Little Friend, and had the joy of seeing the tell-tale
colour leap gloriously to her cheek and a tell-tale happiness kindle in
his eyes. I am never free from amazement that a mere word or so
humble a plan for another’s pleasure can give such joy. Verily, one
would suppose that we would all be so busy at this pastime that we
would almost neglect our duties.
So when the others were gone these two lingered. All through the
long Spring afternoon they sat with us beside our crackling fire of
bavin-sticks, telling us of this and that homely interest, of some one’s
timid hope and another’s sacrifice, in the life of the little mission. Ah,
I dare say that Carlyle and Hugo have the master’s hand for
touching open a casement here and there and letting one look in
upon an isolated life, and sympathizing for one passionate moment
turn away before the space is closed again with darkness; but these
two were destined that day to give us glimpses not less poignant, to
open to us so many unknown hearts that we would be justified in
never again being occupied with our own concerns. And when after
tea they stood in the dusk of the hall-way trying to say good-bye, I
think that their secret must have shone in our faces too; and, as the
children say, “we all knew that we all knew,” and life was a thing of
heavenly blessedness.
Young Mr. Lovelow took the hand of Pelleas, and mine he kissed.
“The Lord bless you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you, the
Lord give you peace,” was in his eyes as he went away.
“And, O, sir,” Little Friend said shyly to Pelleas as she stood at the
top of the steps, knotting her crimson muffler, “ain’t it good, after all,
that Easter was all over ice?”