The answer to this when it did come was an extraordinarily dignified No.
In April Baroness Glambeck drove over one fine afternoon and questioned her as to her preparations, and was astonished to find there were none.
"But, my dear Frau Pastor!" she cried, holding up both her yellow kid hands.
"What ought there to be?" asked Ingeborg, who had been too busy wrestling with her daily tasks in her heavily handicapped state to think of further labours.
"Many things—necessary, indispensable things."
"What things?" asked Ingeborg faintly.
She had little spirit. She was more tired every day. Just the difficulty of keeping even with her housekeeping, of keeping herself tidy in dresses that seemed to shrink smaller each time she put them on, took up what strength she had. There was none left over. "What things?" she asked; and her hands, lying listlessly on her lap, were flaccid and damp.
Then the Baroness poured forth an endless and bewildering list with all the gusto and interest of health and leisure. When her English gave out she went on in German. Her list ended with a midwife.
"Have you spoken with her?" she asked.
"No," said Ingeborg. "I didn't know—where is she?"