"Because I must have someone. Someone of my own."
XIII.
It was three weeks now since the funeral.
Mamma and Aunt Bella sat in the dining-room, one on each side of the fireplace. Mamma looked strange and sunken and rather yellow in a widow's cap and a black knitted shawl, but Aunt Bella had turned herself into a large, comfortable sheep by means of a fleece of white shawl and an ice-wool hood peaked over her cap.
There was a sweet, inky smell of black things dyed at Pullar's. Mary picked out the white threads and pretended to listen while Aunt Bella talked to Mamma in a woolly voice about Aunt Lavvy's friendship with the Unitarian minister, and Uncle Edward's lumbago, and the unreasonableness of the working classes.
She thought how clever it was of Aunt Bella to be able to keep it up like that. "I couldn't do it to save my life. As long as I live I shall never be any good to Mamma."
The dining-room looked like Mr. Metcalfe, the undertaker. Funereal hypocrisy. She wondered whether Roddy would see the likeness.
She thought of Roddy's nervous laugh when Catty brought in the first Yorkshire cakes. His eyes had stared at her steadily as he bit into his piece. They had said: "You don't care. You don't care. If you really cared you couldn't eat."
There were no more threads to pick.
She wondered whether she would be thought unfeeling if she were to take a book and read.