And crying made one's nose and eyes red. On this occasion she
actually forgot her nose and eyes and cried until she scarcely
knew herself when she got up and looked in the glass.
She rang the bell for her maid and sat down to wait her coming.
Tonson should bring her a cup of beef tea.
"It's time for lunch," she thought. "I'm faint with crying. And
she shall bathe my eyes with rose-water."
It was not Tonson's custom to keep her mistress waiting but today
she was not prompt. Feather rang a second time and an impatient
third and then sat in her chair and waited until she began to feel
as she felt always in these dreadful days the dead silence of the
house. It was the thing which most struck terror to her soul--that
horrid stillness. The servants whose place was in the basement
were too much closed in their gloomy little quarters to have
made themselves heard upstairs even if they had been inclined to.
During the last few weeks feather had even found herself wishing
that they were less well trained and would make a little noise--do
anything to break the silence.
The room she sat in--Rob's awful little room adjoining--which was
awful because of what she had seen for a moment lying stiff and
hard on the bed before she was taken away in hysterics--were dread
enclosures of utter silence. The whole house was dumb--the very
street had no sound in it.
Pages:
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46