It seemed to Richard that this was the very thing, alike in tone and phrasing. A week or two previously a certain statesman had written to the same effect in reply to calumnious statements, and Richard consciously made that letter his model. The statesman had probably been sounder in his syntax, but his imitator had, no doubt, the advantage in other points. Richard perused his composition several times, and sent it to the post.
At eleven o’clock Mrs. Mutimer descended to the hall, ready for her journey. She would not enter any room. Her eldest son came out to meet her, and got rid of the servant who had fetched a cab.
‘Good-bye for the present, mother,’ he said, giving his hand ‘I hope you’ll find everything just as you wish it.’
‘If I don’t, I shan’t complain,’ was the cold reply.
The old woman had clad herself, since her retreat, in the garments of former days; and the truth must be told that they did not add to the dignity of her appearance. Probably no costume devisable could surpass in ignoble ugliness the attire of an English working-class widow when she appears in the streets. The proximity of Alice, always becomingly clad, drew attention to the poor mother’s plebeian guise. Richard, watching her enter the cab, felt for the first time a distinct shame. His feelings might have done him more credit but for the repulse he had suffered.
‘Arry contented himself with standing at the front-room window, his hands in his pockets.
Later in the same day Daniel Dabbs, who had by chance been following the British workman’s practice and devoting Monday to recreation, entered an omnibus in which Mrs. Clay was riding. She had a heavy bundle on her lap, shopwork which she was taking home. Daniel had already received Mutimer’s reply, and was nursing a fit of anger. He seated himself by Kate’s side, and conversed with her.
‘Heard anything from him lately?’ he asked, with a motion of the head which rendered mention of names unnecessary.
‘Not we,’ Kate replied bitterly, her eyes fixing themselves in scorn.
‘No loss,’ remarked Daniel, with an expression of disgust.