To even vaguely put to herself any question involving would not
have been within the scope of her mentality. Even when she began to
realize that she was beginning to feel faint for want of food she
did not dare to contemplate going downstairs to look for something
to eat. What did she know about downstairs? She had never there
and had paid no attention whatever to Louisa's complaints that the
kitchen and Servants' Hall were small and dark and inconvenient
and that cockroaches ran about. She had cheerfully accepted the
simple philosophy that London servants were used to these things
and if they did their work it did not really matter. But to go
out of one's room in the horrible stillness and creep downstairs,
having to turn up the gas as one went, and to face the basement
steps and cockroaches scuttling away, would be even more impossible
than to starve. She sat upon the floor, her hair tumbling about
her shoulders and her thin black dress crushed.
"I'd give almost ANYTHING for a cup of coffee," she protested
feebly. "And there's no USE in ringing the bell!"
Her mother ought to have come whether her father was ill or not.
He wasn't dead. Robert was dead and her mother ought to have come
so that whatever happened she would not be quite alone and SOMETHING
could be done for her. It was probably this tender thought of
her mother which brought back the recollection of her wedding day
and a certain wedding present she had received.
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