At what precise moment the idea came to her she did not know, but it intruded by degrees. She began to think idly of money, to turn over in her mind the exact allowance with which Osborn had left her, and she knew herself rich. Till yesterday her domestic budget, for herself, the children and Osborn, had been at the rate of about one hundred and forty pounds a year. He had to have the rest. Now she had two hundred and no man to keep. It would have taken a woman to understand why she suddenly sprang up, why her sallowed face took on a hasty colour, and with what an incredulously beating heart she hastened down the grey stone stairs to the hall-porter's box.
"Porter," she said, controlling her voice with difficulty, "I want a charwoman at once; and—and for two or three hours every morning. You could find one for me?"
Like every other block of flats, the place was infested with ladies of the charing profession, and he promised her one within half an hour. Returning to her children, she sat down at ease in the dining-room to await the woman's arrival.
When she came, it was joy to show her round; to say: "I want the bedroom and hall and kitchen done; these things washed up; and these vegetables prepared. And these things of the children's washed out, please. I shall be back before you've finished."
Then she put on the children's outdoor things, established the baby and the three-year-old at either end of the perambulator and, with George walking manfully by her side, set out upon an errand.
She was going to tell her mother of what had befallen; she hardly knew why, but the wisdom of matronly counsel and opinion, irritating as it was, had impressed her forcibly during the past years. So she and George trundled the shabby grey perambulator, Rokeby's gift, across the Heath, and along the intervening streets to Grannie Amber's.
They left the perambulator in the courtyard and made a slow journey up the stairs to her nice flat on the first floor. That flat, which had seemed so small and old-fashioned to the girl Marie, appeared as a haven of refuge and comfort to the woman. It was so warm, so quiet and still. When they arrived there, Grannie Amber was comfortably sewing by her cosy fire, while her charwoman got through the work there was to do. She was surprised and somewhat uneasy to see her daughter so early, but she bustled about to settle them comfortably, taking the baby upon her lap, and bringing out queer old games from cunning hiding-places for the others, as grannies do.
When George and the three-year-old were presumably absorbed, she lifted an anxious, cautionary eyebrow at Marie, and waited to hear the news.
"Osborn's gone away for a year, mother," Marie announced quietly.
Mrs. Amber did not reply for a few moments, but her elderly face flushed with red and her eyes with tears; she was so nonplussed that she hardly knew what to say, but at length she asked: