I then noticed that Lucy was standing in the doorway, also weeping. Rebecca noticed this too.
‘Lucy, you go to your kitchen this minute,’ she said sharply, and then turned to me and began to cry again. ‘Miss Peel—how can I tell you?’
‘Why do you call me Miss Peel?’ I asked her.
But I knew why. The thing flashed over me instantly. My dear aunt was dead.
‘You’ve got no aunt,’ said Rebecca. ‘My poor dear! And you at the concert!’
I dropped my head and my bosom on the bare mahogany table and cried. Never before, and never since, have I spilt such tears—hot, painful drops, distilled plenteously from a heart too crushed and torn.
‘There, there!’ muttered Rebecca. ‘I wish I could have told you different—less cruel; but it wasn’t in me to do it.’
‘And she’s lying upstairs this very moment all cold and stiff,’ a wailing voice broke in.
It was Lucy, who could not keep herself away from us.
‘Will you go to your kitchen, my girl!’