She stood for a moment listening, then turned towards the hearth. She put her hand up to the mantelpiece and gripped it hard.
“If only he had helped me,” she said. “God, why didn’t you let me die with my baby?”
CHAPTER IX
VISITORS
MISS Mason was sitting in her studio at four o’clock on Sunday afternoon. She was reading a small, red-covered book, within whose pages was enshrined a brief account of the life and work of Whistler.
At intervals she looked up from her reading to glance round the studio and smile. It was her dream incarnate. She had waited forty-three years for its birth. She realized now that she had always wanted it, had always believed in it. All through the old days in the rose-beds, when she had pruned the trees, when she had grafted new buds, when she had watched the flowers expanding, she had dreamt of this studio. Only at moments it had looked real; generally it was far off and shadowy, but always it had been before her, and something had whispered to her heart, “Wait; one day it will come.”
And now it was no faint shadowy dream, but a living reality, and it would bring more glorious realities in its train. Nothing could be too wonderful to happen in the castle of her dreams.
Again she looked round the studio, and again she smiled. She would have liked to sing for happiness, only her voice was too gruff and cracked. She would have liked to dance for joy, only her old legs were too stiff. But she minded neither of these things, for her heart was beating to a little gay secret tune in which joy and thankfulness were woven in delicious harmony.
From behind the door that led to the tiny kitchen she heard murmured sounds and an occasional deep laugh. Sally’s scrappy little note had been answered by the appearance of Jim in his Sunday-best, shining from the washtub, redolent of yellow soap, every trace of his black weekday occupation removed. They were now cooing like a pair of young turtle-doves in a cage.
Suddenly Miss Mason was startled by a knock.