The rain fell all that night. It made rivers of water that ran ^y beh the basement doors, into the kit, the still-room and the pantries. We had to cut short our supper so that Mr Way and Charles might lay down sacks. I stood with Mrs Stiles at a backstairs window, watg the boung raindrops and the flashes of lightning. She rubbed her arms and gazed at the sky.
Pity the sailors at sea, she said.
I went up early to Mauds rooms, and sat in the darkness, and when she came she did not know, for a mihat I was there: she stood and put her hands to her face. Then the lightning flashed again, and she saw me, and jumped.
Are you here? she said.
Her eyes seemed large. She had been with her uncle, and with Gentleman. I thought, Shell tell me now. But she only stood gazing at me, and whehunder sounded she turned and moved away. I went with her to her bedroom. She stood as weakly for me to
undress her as she had stood ilemans arms, and the hand he had kissed she held off a little from her side, as if to guard it. In her bed she lay very still, but lifted her head, now and then, from her pillow. There was a steady drip, drip in one of the attics. Do you hear the rain? she said; and then, in a softer voice: The thunder is moving away
I thought of the basements, filling with water. I thought of the sailors at sea. I thought of the Bh. Rain makes London houses groan. I wondered if Mrs Sucksby was lying in bed, while the damp house groaned about her, thinking of me.
Three thousand pounds! she had said. My crikey!
Maud lifted her head again, and drew in her breath. I closed my eyes. Here it es, I thought.
But after all, she said nothing.
When I woke, the rain had stopped and the house was still. Maud lay, as pale as milk: her breakfast came and she put it aside and would it. She spoke quietly, about nothing. She did not look or act like a lover. I thought she would say something lover-like soon, though. I supposed her feelings had dazed her.
She watched Gentleman walk and smoke his cigarette, as she always did; and then, when he had goo Mr Lilly, she said she would like to walk, herself. The sun had e up weak. The sky was grey again, and the ground was filled with what seemed puddles of lead. The air was so washed and pure, it made me bilious. But we went, as usual, to the wood and the ice-house, and then to the chapel and the graves. When we reached her mrave she sat a little near it, and gazed at the sto was dark with rain. The grass between the graves was thin aen. Two or three great black birds walked carefully about us, looking for worms. I watched them peck. Then I think I must have sighed, for Maud looked at me and her face—that had been hard, through frowning—grew gentle. She said,
You are sad, Sue.
I shook my head.
I think you are, she said. Thats my fault. I have brought you to
this lonely place, time after time, thinking only of myself. But you have known what it is, to have a mothers love and then to lose it.
I looked away.
Its all right, I said. It doesnt matter.
She said, You are brave ..."
I thought of my mother, dying game on the scaffold; and I suddenly wished—what I had never wished before—that she had been some ordinary girl, that had died in a regular way. As if she guessed it, Maud said quietly now,
And what—it doesnt trouble you, my asking?—what did your mother die of?
I thought for a moment. I said at last