Chapter Five.
’Twixt Father and Son.
When her son went home, Mrs Hexton was sitting up very straight and stern-looking in her chair, with a knitted stocking in one hand, a worsted-threaded needle in the other, and a handkerchief tied over her head to keep off the draught, for the new drawing-room was cold.
Mr Hexton was seated in an easy-chair—at least, he was in the easy-chair; but it is not fair to say that he was seated, for he was filling up the chair just as if he had no bones, and making a rather sonorous noise as he breathed.
It was past one o’clock, and the servants had gone to bed at ten, soon after which time Mr Hexton had proposed that they should follow, but Mrs Hexton had declared her intention of sitting up for her son.
“Why, what nonsense!” her husband had said. “Come along to bed.”
“You can go, dear,” she replied quietly. “I should not be happy if I did not see him safely back. And, besides, he will want a cup of tea and a bit of toast.”
“And his face washed, and his feet put in warm water, while his mother brushes his hair, and fusses over him,” said Mr Hexton pettishly. “For goodness’ sake, don’t go on petting and coddling the boy like that.”
Mrs Hexton said nothing—only rose from her chair, and placed the tea-tray and the caddy ready, for they had been brought in the last thing by one of the maids. Then she lifted the bright copper kettle out of the fender and placed it on the hob, where it began to sing a song of its own composition, and she ended by taking up three pairs of her son’s stockings to darn.
There was not the slightest need for Mrs Hexton to perform such a duty as this, but she had darned her husband’s stockings when they were poor people, and she could not easily give up her old habits when they were comparatively rich. And now, as she ran the long, glistening needle in and out amongst the worsted threads, her husband sat back in his chair and said it was absurd; but all the same, as he watched her with half-closed eyes, he thought what a good woman she was, and how happy it made him to think that she was not in the slightest degree spoiled by prosperity, while he fervently prayed that she might continue as she was to the end.