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She perceived now, by her tightly shut up lips, and the little compression, which was scarcely a frown, between her brows, that she could get nothing more out of her at present. She prepared the tea, therefore; and when the children came in she cut bread and margerine for them, for butter had long ago ceased to appear on Grannie's board.
Dave was beginning to earn about half a crown a week, which kept him in shoes and added a very tiny trifle to the general purse; but Harry was still not only an expense, but an anxiety to the family. The three younger children were, of course, all expense at present, but Grannie's feather-stitching and lovely work and Alison's help kept the little family well-off.
So, at Cæsar's invitation and Grannie's welcome, he pushed through the bar-room to the kitchen, exchanged salutations, and then sat down to watch and to listen. The conversation beyond the glass partition was eager and enthusiastic. Ross was fluent and Kate was vivacious. "My friend Monty?" "Yes; who is Monty?" "He's the centre of the Fancy." "The Fancy!" "Ornaments of the Ring, you know.
In spite of all her pain and weakness, a flush of shame came into the old cheeks. "It is nigh here, very nigh," said Grannie, "but it aint my home; it's Beverley workhouse, please, sir." "All right," said the man. He did not notice Grannie's shame. The next moment he had pulled the bell at the dreary gates, and Grannie was taken in. She was conveyed straight up to the infirmary.
In ten minutes the pain returned, the powerless finger and thumb refused to grasp the needle. Large drops of sweat stood out now on Grannie's forehead. "Wot do it mean?" she said to herself. "I never heerd tell of rheumatis like this, and for certain it aint writers' cramp, for I never write. Oh, what an awful sort of thing writing is, when a letter once in six months knocks you over in this way.
"There is no need at all " "No need, I know; but all the same it would be a pleasure to me to see you safely there and back." She hurried on without speaking. If there had been any light, and he had dared to peep inside the black sun-bonnet, he might perhaps have found the hint of a smile overlaying her anxiety on Grannie's account.
'But, I said, turning to my uncle, 'if her body goes to the grave, and her soul to heaven, what's to become of poor grannie without either of them, you see? My uncle had been thinking while we talked. 'That can't be the way to represent the thing, Jane; it puzzles the child. No, Willie; grannie's body goes to the grave, but grannie herself is gone to heaven.
The weather had taken a sudden backward lurch into winter again, so we had a fire. Harold sat beside it all the time, and interposed yes and no at the proper intervals in grannie's brisk business conversation, but he never addressed one word to me beyond "Good afternoon, Miss Melvyn," on his arrival, and "Good night, Miss Melvyn," when leaving. I studied him attentively all the while.
His inclination was to go up to her, take her head between his hands, raise the tearful face, kiss the tears away, and, in short, take the fortress by storm. But Grannie's presence prevented this, and Alison would not once look up. The old woman gave him an intelligent and hopeful glance, and he was obliged to be content with it and hurry off.
The sutor's wife was one of Grannie's best cronies, and there was no fear of her being deserted through the night.
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