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(22)

Which was it? Mrs. Bast didn't know for certain either. The
young gentleman was dead. That she was sure. She had read
his name in the papers.
     There was the cook now, Mildred, Marian, some such name as
that - a red headed woman, quick tempered like all her sort, but
kind, too, if you knew the way with her. Many a laugh they had
had together. She saved a plate of soup for Maggie; a bite of
ham, sometimes; whatever was over. They lived well in those
days. They had everything they wanted (glibly,, jovially, with the
tea hot in her, she unwound her ball of memories, sitting in the
wicker arm chair). There was always plenty doing, people in the
house, twenty staying sometimes, and washing up till long past
midnight.
     Mrs. Bast (she had never known them; had lived in Glasgow
at that time) wondered, putting her cup down, whatever they hung
that beast's skull there for? Shot in foreign parts no doubt.
     It might well be, said Mrs. McNab, wantoning on with her
memories; they had friends in eastern countries; gentlemen
staying there; and cook had tomadke curriesdishes for them; she had seen them
once through the dining room door (she crept up behind the French
girl who waited at table). Sehe could see them now sittinng at
dinner, twenty she dared say all in their jewellery, and she
stayed to help wash up might be till after midnight.
     Ah, said Mrs. Bast, they'd find it changed. She leant out
of the window. She watched her son George cuttingscything the grass.
They might well ask, what had been done to it? seeing how old

 


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