Everyone was glad that Tom was at Eastbourne, as it could be reached from Sunday Street in a few hours by carrier’s cart and train. The very next morning Mrs. Beatup and Mrs. Honey set out together, the latter with a basket of eggs and flowers, and her pockets bulging with Player’s cigarettes, the former nursing a weighty dough-cake, beloved of Tom in ancient times, and so baked that she fondly hoped he would never notice the nearly total absence of sugar and plums. Thyrza looked very unlike herself in a close-fitting blue jersey and knitted cap; Mrs. Beatup wore what she called her Sunday cape, which is to say the cape she would have worn on Sundays if she had ever had the leisure to go out, likewise her Sunday bonnet (similarly conditioned), made of black straw and bearing a good crop of wheat. The two women went by carrier’s cart to Hailsham, where they took the train, arriving at Eastbourne soon after one. They went first to a creamery, where they rather hesitatingly ordered poached eggs and a pot of tea. The eggs were stale and the tea had not that “body” which their custom required. Mrs. Beatup began to wonder what Tom was getting to eat—if this was what you got when you paid for it, what did you get when you didn’t pay for it? she’d like to know. She was a little relieved at the sight of Tom, looking much fatter and browner and better in hospital than she had ever seen him outside it. He looked happy, too, with his broad face all grins to see them, his mother and sweetheart. And since he looked so brown and well and happy, she wondered why it was that she wanted so much to cry. Thyrza did not want to cry. She held Tom’s hand, and laughed, and was quite talkative, for her. She made him tell her over and over again how he had been wounded, and how they had taken him to the base hospital and then to Boulogne, and then in a hospital ship all signed with the cross to Blighty. Mrs. Beatup made up her mind that next time she would come alone. And so she did—much to the surprise of her family, who had hitherto found her full of qualms and fears even at the thought of a visit to Senlac. “I mun have my boy to myself whiles I’ve got the chance,” she said. “Well,” remarked Ivy tactlessly, “I reckon he’d sooner have you separate—he’ll be wanting Thyrza aloan a bit.” “Will he, miss? That aun’t why I’m going different days. We aun’t all lik you wud your kissings and loverings. I wish to goodness you’d git married and have done.” “And taake some poor boy away from his mother,” mocked Ivy. “I wouldn’t be so cruel.” Her mother made a swoop at her with her open hand, but Ivy dodged, and ran off, laughing good-naturedly.