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(17)

Abndrew the tall young gentleman killed; and Miss Prue with the
fair hair, masses of it twisted round her head, dead too they
said, with her first baby; but everyone had lost someone these
years. Prices had gone up shamefully, and didn't come down
again neither. She could well remember her in her grey cloak.
      "Good evening, Mrs. McNab," she would d say, and told cook
to keep a plate of milk soup for her, quite thought she wanted
it, carrying that heavy basket all the way up from town. She
could see her now, stooping over her flowers, with a little boy
there, (faint and flickering, like a yellow beam or the circle
at the end of a telescope, a lady in a grey cloak, stooping, over
her flowers went flickering, wandering, as Maggie stooped and
rose, over the bedroom wall, across the washstand, as Mrs.
McNab hobbled and ambled, dusting, straightening.)
      And cook's name now? Mildred? Marian? - some name like
that. Ah, she had forgotten - she did forget things. Fiery,
like all red haired women. Many a laugh they had had. She
was always welcome in the kitchen. She made them laugh, she did.
Things were better then than now.
      She sighed; there was too much work for one woman. She
wagged her head this side and that. Why, it was all damp in here;
the plaster was falling. What ever did they want to hang a
beast's skull there? gone mouldy too. And rats in all the
attics. The rain came in. But they never sent; never came.
Some of the locks had gone, so the doors banged. She didn't
like to be up here at dusk alone neither. It was too much for

 


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