But at last the journey was over, and Audrey, feeling almost as though she was walking in a dream, crossed the well-remembered park—where the only change was that the grass was now burnt brown, and summer flowers took the place of the tulips and daffodils she had left behind her—and entered once more the orderly, roomy house which was so little changed that she might have gone out from it only the day before, except that now the moving spirit was gone, and the silence was not restful, as of old, but oppressive.
Phipps met her, with tears in her eyes. "Perhaps you would like to go to your room first, Miss Audrey. Are you very hot and tired, miss?"
"I think I am," said Audrey wearily, "but that is nothing. How is granny now, Phipps?"
But Phipps only shook her head, and the tears brimmed over. "I can't say she is any better, Miss Audrey, and—and I won't say she is worse, I can't bring myself to," and Phipps began to sob aloud.
"Poor Phipps!" said Audrey in a choky voice. "Is she as bad as that!" She knew what it all meant for Phipps. If Granny Carlyle died, her home of forty years was gone from her. For the first time in her life Audrey realised what we all come to realise as we grow older—that the sorrowfulness of death is not with those who go, but with those who are left behind.
"I shall lose everything," sobbed Phipps, "everything I care for. My dear mistress, my home—everything, and I shall never be happy in another."
"Oh, poor Phipps!" cried Audrey, genuinely troubled. What could one do or say to comfort such sorrow! But her sympathy comforted Phipps a little, and she cheered up somewhat.
"If you will come down when you are ready, miss, I will have tea waiting for you," she said as she left the room, "and after tea the mistress would like to see you."
But, tired and exhausted though she was, Audrey could only make a pretence of taking the meal. To be sitting alone in that big room, which she had hitherto never known without her granny, and feeling that in all probability she would never, never see her there again, was sufficient in itself to destroy any appetite she had. Her thoughts, too, were full of the coming interview. What could she say and do? Would granny be much changed? These and a dozen other questions hammered at her brain as she poured herself out a cup of tea. How she had once longed to be allowed to pour tea from that silver tea-pot, and pick up the sugar with those dainty little tongs, which granny would never allow her to touch. What a proud day it would be, so she used to think, when she might! But now—now that the day had come, she found no pride or pleasure in it, only a sort of shrinking. It seemed to her to be taking advantage of granny's helplessness—that she had no right. She was haunted by the sight of granny's fragile, delicate hand clasping that handle, and delicately turning over the lumps of sugar to find one of a suitable size.
"Would she be much changed?" Her thoughts flew again to the coming interview, which she so dreaded.