We have one last glimpse of the old lady--a month or two after Kenneth's
death in action. It would be rosemary to us to see her in her black
dress, of which she is very proud; but let us rather peep at her in the
familiar garments that make a third to her mop and pail. It is early
morning, and she is having a look at her medals before setting off on
the daily round. They are in a drawer, with the scarf covering them, and
on the scarf a piece of lavender. First, the black frock, which she
carries in her arms like a baby. Then her War Savings Certificates,
Kenneth's bonnet, a thin packet of real letters, and the famous
champagne cork. She kisses the letters, but she does not blub over them.
She strokes the dress, and waggles her head over the certificates and
presses the bonnet to her cheeks, and rubs the tinsel of the cork
carefully with her apron. She is a tremulous old 'un; yet she exults,
for she owns all these things, and also the penny flag on her breast.
She puts them away in the drawer, the scarf over them, the lavender on
the scarf. Her air of triumph well becomes her. She lifts the pail and
the mop, and slouches off gamely to the day's toil.
THE NEW WORD
Any room nowadays must be the scene, for any father and any son are the
_dramatis personae_. We could pick them up in Mayfair, in Tooting,
on the Veldt, in rectories or in grocers' back parlours, dump them down
on our toy stage and tell them to begin. It is a great gathering to
choose from, but our needs are small. Let the company shake hands, and
all go away but two.
The two who have remained (it is discovered on inquiry) are Mr. Torrance
and his boy; so let us make use of them. Torrance did not linger in
order to be chosen, he was anxious, like all of them, to be off; but we
recognised him, and sternly signed to him to stay. Not that we knew him
personally, but the fact is, we remembered him (we never forget a face)
as the legal person who reads out the names of the jury before the court
opens, and who brushes aside your reasons for wanting to be let off. It
pleases our humour to tell Mr. Torrance that we cannot let him off.
He does not look so formidable as when last we saw him, and this is
perhaps owing to our no longer being hunched with others on those
unfeeling benches. It is not because he is without a wig, for we saw
him, on the occasion to which we are so guardedly referring, both in a
wig and out of it; he passed behind a screen without it, and immediately
(as quickly as we write) popped out in it, giving it a finishing touch
rather like the butler's wriggle to his coat as he goes to the door.
There are the two kinds of learned brothers, those who use the screen,
and those who (so far as the jury knows) sleep in their wigs. The latter
are the swells, and include the judges; whom, however, we have seen in
the public thoroughfares without their wigs, a horrible sight that has
doubtless led many an onlooker to crime.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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