Then whispering together in the vernacular, after the manner of the Welsh, crying a little from time to time to keep one another company, and sustained throughout the long journey by peppermint drops of amazing pungency, they were whirled out of the land of their fathers into the unknown.
Among the passengers who shared their carriage later on was a dignified, elderly lady, with silver-white hair and a face of a singular, though rather sad, sweetness of expression. She was dressed in deep black, and listened intently as the old woman told her story for the benefit of their fellow passengers. She did not smile, as did the others, when Maggie Ann of the reddened eyes and nose, with wisps of untidy hair protruding from under her married sister's hat, was bidden to display the tickets in token of an Empire's solicitude for the women of the humblest of her sons.
"You are lucky," she said gently. "You can at least bury your dead. That was denied me. I lost my first-born in that battle too. He was a sailor like your son was."
They reached Paddington as the dusk was falling, and in the vast echoing dimness of the station the immensity of the unknown descended upon the two Welsh women, as they stood bewildered upon the platform among the jostling throng of passengers.
"Find a policeman, Maggie Ann," said the elder woman, consulting the sheet of directions given her by the registrar. "An' ask 'im where to find a tidy li'l' public-'ouse where we can stop the night."
But before Maggie Ann could invoke the aid of the law in quest of lodgings, the grey-haired lady who had spoken to them in the train again approached the pair.
"My car is waiting," she said. "Will you both come home with me for the night? I have a big house and a very empty one; there is room for you both. Cook will give you breakfast early, and you can start for the East Coast to-morrow morning in good time for the funeral."
"Well, indeed to goodness!" said Mrs. Jones, and suffered herself to be led to a waiting car in which, to the visible astonishment of an elderly chauffeur, she and Maggie Ann were placed. "There's kind you are, Mum."
"Not at all," said the grey-haired lady as the car started. "I have very few servants now, and there are plenty of spare servants' rooms. I am grateful to Providence for bringing us together into the same railway carriage," she continued simply. "I—I am so glad to be able to help"—her hands twisted together on her lap with a little nervous, rather pathetic gesture—"another mother."
The visitors supped in a vast spotless servants' hall, where the floor was of polished linoleum in black and white squares, and the electric light shone down on burnished copper pans and scoured woodwork.