"Don't you worry, Maggie dear. I've always noticed that things are
never bad for long. You've still got your old uncle, and you're young,
and there are plenty of fish in the sea ... there are indeed. You cheer
up! It will be all right soon."
She put her hands on his.
"Oh I'm not--worrying." But as she spoke a strange strangled little sob
had crept unbidden into her throat, choking her.
He thought, as he got up, "It's that damned young feller I gave dinner
to. I'd like to wring his neck."
But he said no more, bent closer and kissed her, said he was soon
coming again, and went away.
After he had gone the house sank into its grey quiet again. What was
Maggie thinking? No one knew. What was Aunt Anne thinking? No one knew
... But there was something between these two, Maggie and Aunt Anne.
Every one felt it and longed for the storm to burst. Bad enough things
outside with Mr. Warlock dead, members leaving right and left, and the
Chapel generally going to wrack and ruin, but inside!
Old Martha, who had never liked Maggie, felt now a strange,
uncomfortable pity for her. She didn't want to feel pity, no, not she,
pity for no one, and especially not for an ugly untidy girl like that,
but there it was, she couldn't help herself! Such a child that girl,
and she'd been as nearly dead as nothing, and now she was suffering,
suffering awful ... Any one could see ... All that Warlock boy. Martha
had seen him come stumbling down the stairs that day and had heard
Maggie's cry and then the fall. Awful noise it made. Awful. She'd stood
in the hall, looking up the stairs, her heart beating like a hammer.
Yes, just like a hammer! Then she'd gone up. It wasn't a nice sight,
the poor girl all in a lump on the floor and Miss Anne just as she
always looked before one of her attacks, as though she were made of
grey glass from top to toe ...
But Martha hadn't pitied Maggie then. Oh, no. Might as well die as not.
Who wanted her? No one. Not even her young man apparently.
Better if she died. But slowly something happened to Martha. Not that
she was sentimental. Not in the least. But thoughts would steal
in--steal in just when you were at your work. The girl lying there so
good and patient--all the pots and pans winking at you from the
kitchen-wall. Must remember to order that ketchup--cold last night in
bed--think another blanket ... yes, very good and patient. Can't deny
it. Always smiles just that same way. Smiles at every one except Miss
Arne. Won't smile at her. Wonder why not? Something between those two.
What about dinner? A little onion fry--that's the thing these damp
days--Onion fry--Onion Fry. ONION FRY ... One last look back before the
world is filled with the sense, smell, and taste of it.--Poor girl, so
white and so patient--the young man will never come back--never ...
never ... ONION FRY.
No; no one knew what Maggie was thinking. No one found out until Maggie
had her second visitor, Miss Avies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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