Such a state of things could not have continued if the old rector had been at home, but he was away holiday-making in Switzerland, and the locum tenens, a young curate from the neighbouring town, could not be expected to notice a matter of the kind.
One Sunday afternoon it chanced that Farmer Joyce, who lived up Riverton way, drove over to Little Branston, and was good enough to give a lift to his neighbour, Martha Hansford, Ann’s married daughter, who was feeling, as she confessed, a bit anxious at not hearing from her mother.
“There, she haven’t a-wrote since I can’t say when,” she explained to the farmer, as the trap went spinning along the road; “she don’t write herself, mother don’t, but she do generally get somebody to drop me a line for her, and I haven’t heard a word to-month; no, nor last month either.”
“Rheumatics perhaps,” suggested the farmer.
“I’m sure I hope not, Mr. Joyce. My mother have never had sich a thing in her life, an’ ’tis to be hoped she bain’t a-goin’ to begin now.”
“The wold lady’s busy, very like,” hazarded Mr. Joyce, after ruminating a while. “The time do slip away so quick, an’ one day do seem so like another, folks can’t always be expected to put their minds to letter-writin’.”
“Lard love ’ee, sir,” returned Martha, startled into familiarity, “farmer folks mid be busy enough, an’ lab’rin’ folks too—I can scarce find the day long enough to put in all as I’ve a-got to do—but mother! what can a poor wold body like mother have to work at, wi’out it’s a bit o’ knittin’, or some such thing. No, it’s summat else, an’ I’m sure I can’t think what it can be.”
Mr. Joyce was not imaginative enough to assist her by any further hypothesis; therefore, he merely touched up the horse and remarked reassuringly that they would soon be there. And for the rest of the drive Martha devoted herself to the somewhat difficult task of keeping her three-year-old boy, Ally, from wriggling out of her arms.
Dropped at the bottom of the “dip” wherein was situated Mrs. Kerley’s cottage, Martha hastened towards it, Ally trotting gleefully beside her. Instead of finding the cottage door open—as might have been expected this sunny October afternoon—and catching a glimpse of her mother’s quiet figure in its elbow-chair, she found the house shut up, and apparently no sign of life about the place. The very garden had a neglected look, or so it seemed to her; and the little window, usually gay with flowers, was blank and desolate, the check curtain within being drawn across it.
“Mother!” cried Martha, in a tone of such anguish that Ally immediately set up a corresponding wail. “Oh mother, whatever is to do? Be you dead? Oh, mother! be you dead?”