The afternoons were growing very short now. The flat was altogether dark when she let herself in, and she went from room to room, to light the gas jets and turn them very low. First in the long hall, then in Mr. Humbert’s room, with its flat top desk covered with papers and its severe orderliness, then in Miss Amy’s room, where, in the mirror over the bureau, she caught a glimpse of herself, still in her hat and jacket, looking oddly blurred and misty in the dim light. Somehow that image frightened her; she hurried into the dining room, her own little cell, and at last, with relief, into the kitchen. Never had the rambling old place seemed so large and so gloomy, or herself so desolate.
She put on her big apron and set to work preparing the supper, a shocking meal of fried steak, fried potatoes, coffee, a tin of tomatoes left unaltered in their watery insipidity, and a flabby little lemon pie from the baker’s. She was nervous; she fancied she heard sounds from all those silent dimly lighted rooms behind her. She started when a paper bag on the table rattled stiffly all by itself. She was, for once, glad to hear the sound of a key in the lock and Miss Amy’s heavy tread coming down the hall.
She had been to the library; she was carrying four big volumes which she flung down on the dining room couch. Then she looked into the kitchen.
“Mmmm! The coffee smells good!” she said, affably, and went off to her own room. She never offered any assistance, even to setting the table. She considered all that to be Rosaleen’s affair. Nor did she notice that the child looked tired and pale and dejected.
Nor did she notice that Rosaleen ate almost nothing. They had, all three of them, very small appetites, which, when added to their highly unappetizing meals, made life very economical. Moreover, she considered it meritorious to eat very little, and not to enjoy what you did eat.
They finished. Mr. Humbert rose, said, very pleasantly, “Ah...!” and went off to his writing. Miss Amy sat down on the couch to look over her library books, and Rosaleen, putting on her apron again, began carrying out the dishes. She was slow that evening; she didn’t want to finish.
“If I only had a place where I could go and sit by myself!” she thought, not for the first time. “I don’t want to go and sit there with her! And if I go in my own room, she’ll be after me, to see what’s the matter.”
She sat down in the kitchen and began to polish a copper tea kettle which was never used.
Suddenly the door bell rang. She jumped up, pressed the button which opened the down stairs door, and hurried along the passage. But Miss Amy was before her, and stood squarely in the doorway.
In a dream, a nightmare, Rosaleen heard Nick’s voice: