In the kitchen she unfolded the story. It seemed that for the last fortnight their mother had been queer.
"Oh, she was funny," said May. "She used to sit moping over the fire—never doing nothing and saying all the time how her head hurt."
"Didn't dad fetch in a doctor?" Jenny demanded.
"Not at first he wouldn't. You know what dad's like. I said she was really ill and he kept on saying: 'Nonsense, why look at me. I'm as ill as I can be, but I don't want no doctor. I've got a sort of a paralytic stroke running up and down my arm fit to drive anybody barmy. And here am I going off to work so cheerful, the chaps down at the shop say they don't know how I does it.'"
"He ought to be bumped," Jenny asserted wrathfully. "I only wish I'd been at home to tell him off. Go on about mother. And why wasn't I sent for directly?" she asked.
"Well, I did think about fetching you back. But I didn't really think myself it was anything much at first. She got worse all of a sudden like. She took a most shocking dislike to me and said I was keeping her indoors against her will, and then she carried on about you, said you was—well, I don't know what she didn't say. And when the doctor come, she said he was a detective and asked him to lock you and me both up, said she had the most wicked daughters. I was quite upset, but the doctor he said not to worry as it was often like that with mad people, hating the ones they liked best. And I said, 'She's never gone mad? Not my mother? Oh, whatever shall I do?' And he said, 'She has,' and then she started off screaming enough to make anyone go potty to hear her, and a lot of boys come and hung about the gate and people was looking out of windows and the greengrocer was ringing all the time to know if there was any orders this morning."
"When was all this?" asked Jenny, frozen by the terrible narrative.
"This morning, I keep telling you."
"Just now?"
"No, early. They come and took her away to an asylum somewhere in the country and we can go and see her once a fortnight. But she's very ill, the doctor says—some sort of abscess on her brain."