“You are dead sure they know I ain't comin' on?” Polly asked with a lingering suspicion in her voice.
“Dead sure”; and Douglas smiled to himself as he lapsed into her vernacular.
There was a moment's pause. Polly realised for the first time that she must actually readjust herself to a new order of things. Her eyes again roved about the room. It was a cheerful place in which to be imprisoned—even Polly could not deny that. The broad window at the back with its white and pink chintz curtains on the inside, and its frame of ivy on the outside, spoke of singing birds and sunshine all day long. Everything from the white ceiling to the sweet-smelling matting that covered the floor was spotlessly clean; the cane-bottomed rocker near the curved window-seat with its pretty pillows told of days when a convalescent might look in comfort at the garden beneath; the counterpane, with its old-fashioned rose pattern, the little white tidies on the back of each chair, and Mandy crooning beside the window, all helped to make a homelike picture.
She wondered what Jim and Toby would say if they could see her now, sitting like a queen in the midst of her soft coverlets, with no need to raise even a finger to wait upon herself.
“Ain't it the limit?” she sighed, and with that Jim and Toby seemed to drift farther away. She began to see their life apart from hers. She could picture Jim with his head in his hands. She could hear his sharp orders to the men. He was always short with the others when anything went wrong with her.
“I'll bet 'Muvver Jim's' in the dumps,” she murmured, as a cloud stole across the flower-like face; then the tired muscles relaxed, and she ceased to rebel.
“Muvver Jim”? Douglas repeated, feeling that he must recall her to a knowledge of his presence.
“That's what I calls him,” Polly explained, “but the fellows calls him 'Big Jim.' You might not think Jim could be a good mother just to look at him, but he is; only, sometimes, you can't tell him things you could a real mother,” she added, half sadly.
“And your real mother went away when you were very young?”
“No, she didn't go AWAY——”