“Much good it will do you here. I don’t suppose there are two persons in town who know a word of it, unless maybe Jeremy Todd; the Todds live next door.”
“But you were in France and must speak it.”
“A smattering, merely a smattering. I picked up a little, naturally, but most of my dealings were with our own boys, and I had enough to do without studying French grammar. Did your mother do her own work? How big was your flat?”
“Only three rooms besides the bath. The studio and two rooms were all we needed. Mother got breakfast on a little gas stove; we had just any sort of lunch, and went out to dinner, sometimes to one place, sometimes to another; that was while Father lived. It was fun to decide which restaurant we could afford to go to. If Dad was flush, we’d go to a swell place; if he wasn’t, we’d go to a cheap cafeteria, but we didn’t mind. Often we’d have a late supper. Some of our artist friends would call up and say they were going to bring some specially nice thing from the delicatessen; then Mother would make coffee, and it would be awfully jolly.”
“Humph!” Miss Rindy grunted. “What did you do when you were not at school?”
“Oh, I just knocked around, practised, of course. Sometimes I sat for Dad when he had an illustration to make, and often I washed his brushes. Often, too, we’d all go out to some exhibition or a musicale. I loved the musicales. Mother had a lovely voice, you know; she sang in a church choir, and sometimes, after Dad went, she sang at private houses.”
“You still kept the studio while your father was in France, and after he came back?”
“Yes, for he was always hoping to get back to work, but he couldn’t, though he tried. You see it was shell-shock, and he was gassed, too.”
“I know, I know,” Miss Rindy breathed. “Poor boys, poor boys, how many I have seen suffer. You kept right on in the studio then while your mother lived.”
“Yes, for she couldn’t bear to give it up; we had all been so happy there, but at last the money gave out and everything had to go. I hated to see Dad’s pictures go for so little, and Mother’s piano, too, but it had to be. I think it was the grief and shock and all that which wore Mother out. The doctor said she had no resistance, and when she took a heavy cold and had pneumonia she hadn’t the strength to fight against it.” Ellen tried to choke back her sobs.