For a moment or two Matt listened in silent torture. The frequency of these episodes had made him resigned, but not callous. Now Harriet’s sobs were added to the horror of the altercation, and Matt fancied he heard a sound of scuffling. He jumped out of bed in an agony of alarm. He pulled on his trousers, caught up his coat, and slipped it on as he flew barefoot down the rough wooden stairs, with his woollen braces dangling behind him.
In the narrow icy passage at the foot of the stairs, in the bleak light from the row of little crusted panes on either side of the door, he found his mother and sister, their rubber-cased shoes half-buried in snow that had drifted in under the door. Mrs. Strang was fully dressed in her “frolickin’ ” costume, which at that period included a crinoline; she wore an astrakhan sacque, reaching to the knees, and a small poke-bonnet, plentifully beribboned, blooming with artificial flowers within and without, and tied under the chin by broad, black, watered bands. Round her neck was a fringed afghan, or home-knit muffler. She was a tall, dark, voluptuously-built woman, with blazing black eyes and handsome features of a somewhat Gallic cast, for she came of old Huguenot stock. She stood now drawing on her mittens in terrible silence, her bosom heaving, her nostrils quivering. Harriet was nearer the door, flushed and panting and sobbing, a well-developed auburn blonde of sixteen, her hair dishevelled, her bodice unhooked, a strange contrast to the other’s primness.
“Where you goin’?” she said, tremulously, as she barred her mother’s way with her body.
“I’m goin’ to drownd myself,” answered her mother, carefully smoothing out her right mitten.
“Nonsense, mother,” broke in Matt. “You kin’t go out—it’s snowin’.”
He brushed past the pair and placed himself with his back to the door, his heart beating painfully. His mother’s mad threats were familiar enough, yet they never ceased to terrify. Some day she might really do something desperate. Who knew?
“I’m goin’ to drownd myself,” repeated Mrs. Strang, carefully winding the muffler round her head.
She made a step towards the door, sweeping the limp Harriet roughly behind her.
“You kin’t get out,” Matt said, firmly. “Why, you hevn’t hed breakfast yet.”
“What do I want o’ breakfus? Your sister is breakfus ’nough for me. Clear out o’ the way.”