Four

It was no mere¹ housemaid who wakened Elinor the following morning. It was Mrs. Bishop² inperson, rustling³ in her old-fashioned black, and weeping unashamedly.

“Oh, Miss Elinor, she’s gone….”

“What?”

Elinor sat up in bed.

“Your dear aunt. Mrs. Welman. My dear mistress. Passed away in her sleep.”

“Aunt Laura? Dead?”

Elinor stared. She seemed unable to take it in.

Mrs. Bishop was weeping now with more abandon.

“To think of it,” she sobbed⁴. “After all these years! Eighteen years I’ve been here. But indeed itdoesn’t seem like it….”

Elinor said slowly:

“So Aunt Laura died in her sleep—quite peacefully… What a blessing⁵ for her!”

Mrs. Bishop wept.

“So sudden. The doctor saying he’d call again this morning and everything just as usual.”

Elinor said rather sharply:

“It wasn’t exactly sudden. After all, she’s been ill for some time. I’m just so thankful she’s beenspared more suffering.”

Mrs. Bishop said tearfully that there was indeed that to be thankful for. She added:

“Who’ll tell Mr. Roderick?”

Elinor said:

“I will.”

She threw on a dressing⁶ gown and went along to his door and tapped. His voice answered,saying, “Come in.”

She entered.

“Aunt Laura’s dead, Roddy. She died in her sleep.”

Roddy, sitting up in bed, drew a deep sigh.

“Poor dear Aunt Laura! Thank God for it, I say. I couldn’t have borne to see her go on lingeringin the state she was yesterday.”

Elinor said mechanically:

“I didn’t know you’d seen her?”

He nodded rather shamefacedly.

“The truth is, Elinor, I felt the most awful coward, because I’d funked it! I went along thereyesterday evening. The nurse, the fat one, left the room for something—went down with a hot-water bottle, I think—and I slipped in. She didn’t know I was there, of course. I just stood a bitand looked at her. Then, when I heard Mrs. Gamp stumping⁷ up the stairs again, I slipped away.

But it was—pretty terrible!”

Elinor nodded.

“Yes, it was.”

Roddy said:

“She’d have hated it like hell—every minute of it!”

“I know.”

Roddy said:

“It’s marvellous the way you and I always see alike over things.”

Elinor said in a low voice:

“Yes it is.”

He said:

“We’re both feeling the same thing at this minute: just utter thankfulness that she’s out of itall….”

 

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