CHAPTER XXXI.
GONE.
On the night that Clara Tarbot faced the awful fact that she was not long for this world, that consumption had claimed her for its prey, and when she had also discovered that her great secret was in jeopardy, and that at any moment her husband’s plans would be brought to utter ruin, Mrs. Ives was also restless and uneasy. Mrs. Ives did not like sleeping in Luke Tarbot’s house.
“It don’t suit me,” said the little woman to herself, “a bed like this. I want my feather bed. I don’t like these sort of springs under me—shaky and unnatural, and mighty like earthquakes they seems to me. And I don’t like carpets all over the floor, unwholesome they is, they don’t let enough air in, and you can’t clean ’em often enough, and I hates heavy curtains to the winders.
“Finery don’t suit me, nor luxuries—I weren’t born to ’em, and the worst of it is that Clary, my own darter, don’t suit me neither. No, she nor her ’ouse ain’t my sort. I hope to goodness I’ll soon be able to get out of this. I’ll get back to Cornwall as fast as ever I can go. If I don’t go away she’ll be after wringing a promise out of me. Well, I just won’t make it—I’d rather a deal lose the money. What’s money, after all, if it only brings you things like this? My word! my old bones will be shook into a jelly if I lie much longer on this bed. I can’t move without the thing jumping under me. I’ll be out of this house at dawn.”
Mrs. Ives sat up in bed. The perfectly-balanced springs annoyed her much; finally she rose and seated herself on a hard-bottomed chair. There were two or three easy chairs in the room, but she chose the hard and stiff one by preference.
“That’s it,” she said. “Now I’m easy. I can turn and twist, and the thing don’t rock under me. Now I can think for a bit. Clary, my own darter, is agen me, I can see that. Well, I’ll be off afore she knows anything about it.”
There was a clock on the mantelpiece. Mrs. Ives found herself watching the hours. The clock struck one, two, three, then four. When it gave out its four strokes Mrs. Ives began to tidy herself in front of the glass. She was careful not to make the slightest noise.
“For Clary wor always a light sleeper,” she said to herself. She poured a little water with great skill and care into the heavy basin, grumbling at the weight and beauty of the jug as she did so. At each process of her toilet she objected more and more to the comforts which surrounded her.
“I ’ates them soft towels,” she muttered to herself, as she dried her face.
Having dressed and once more arranged her little black shawl and her neat poke bonnet, the old woman made for the door. She took a long time opening it, but she succeeded at last.