Judith surmised that Lavinia would not miss the child. For an hour there was no sign of life in the big house. Then the widow emerged clad in all her weeds. From the florist’s shop, at the corner, she returned with a great cornucopia. It was evident that her destination was the cemetery, and that she intended to walk. For Lavinia Trench, on a steamy August day, such a walk was nothing short of a penance.
Noon went by ... one, two o’clock ... and she came staggering up the steps, and into the cool living-room of Judith Trench’s home. Without a word she sank into the nearest chair and drew aside the crêpe veil, revealing a countenance from which every vestige of youth had been erased. With the toe of her small shoe she began to trace the winding pattern of the Oriental rug, her lips set hard together.
“Take off your hat, mother. You don’t want that hot veil around your neck.”
“Yes, I’ll take it off. I don’t intend ever to wear the thing again. If it isn’t in your heart—crêpe veils and flowers on graves won’t put it there. Oh, my God in heaven, why did David have to die—at such a time? What right had he to die—and expose me to such an insult?”
She had hurled the mourning hat from her, and sat staring at her moist shaking hands. Then came the reaction, a flood of colour, not scarlet but dull raspberry, that spread over neck, cheek and brow. Stiffening in her chair, she cried:
“It was you who did it, Judith Ascott, every bit of it.”
“I did what?” Judith’s eyes blazed with sudden anger. No, she would no longer palliate ... spare this woman, who had always contrived to shift responsibility to shoulders less blameworthy than her own, who had taken the best she could snatch from life, giving not even decent gratitude in return.
“You said that Sydney married Eileen and made her happy, because she didn’t resist the temptation to do wrong.”
“Oh, how monstrous!”
“Well, I hope you aren’t going to deny that you told me, point-blank, that nothing but a broken axle prevented you from being untrue to your husband. Was it my fault that the axle didn’t break for me?” She talked wildly, her thin neck drawn and throbbing.