“What, my precious one? What do you wish?”
“Nancy—if things are difficult—we haven’t saved much money—difficult—go to Caleb—too bitter about my people—too hard—faults on both sides—Nancy, kiss me once—quick—quick—I don’t think I shall know soon if you kiss me....”
She touched his cold lips with hers.
“Such a darling wife—always such a darling—very happy together—happy memories—your father’s speech—yes, Caleb will look after you if things very difficult—give my love to grandmamma—always kind to me—happy memories—Nancy! Nancy! I wish—oh, my own Nancy, I do wish....”
The dim voice was lost in the great abyss of eternity that stretched beyond this fantastic ordinary street, beyond this silent bright unnatural stage.
“Sweetheart, what do you wish? What do you wish?”
But the Clown was dead.
CHAPTER XII
LOOKING FOR WORK
There was not much money left when the funeral expenses had been paid and Nancy had bought her mourning—those poor black suits of woe that in their utter inadequacy even to symbolise still less to express her grief seemed like an insult to the beloved dead. It was a desperate challenge to fortune to abandon the Greenwich engagement. But Nancy could not bring herself to the point of returning to the cast of the pantomime. That was beyond the compass of her emotional endurance. The management offered her a larger salary to play the Fairy Queen only, without appearing as Columbine; but she refused. The Employers’ Liability Act did not exist at this date; and when the management suggested, as a reason for not paying her direct compensation, that the accident had already cost them dearly enough in the gloom it had shed over what promised to be a really successful production, Nancy’s grief would not allow her even to comment on such a point of view. Bram was dead. People told her that she had a good case against the theatre. But Bram was dead. He was dead. He was dead. All she wanted was to leave Greenwich for ever, and when Mrs. Pottage offered her hospitality she refused.