Mrs. Fettley had spoken very precisely for some time without interruption, before she wiped her eyes. “And,” she concluded, “they read ’is death-notice to me, out o’ the paper last month. O’ course it wadn’t any o’ my becomin’ concerns—let be I ’adn’t set eyes on him for so long. O’ course I couldn’t say nor show nothin’. Nor I’ve no rightful call to go to Eastbourne to see ’is grave, either. I’ve been schemin’ to slip over there by the ’bus some day; but they’d ask questions at ’ome past endurance. So I ’aven’t even that to stay me.”
“But you’ve ’ad your satisfactions?”
“Godd! Yess! Those four years ’e was workin’ on the rail near us. An’ the other drivers they gave him a brave funeral, too.”
“Then you’ve naught to cast-up about. ’Nother cup o’ tea?”
The light and air had changed a little with the sun’s descent, and the two elderly ladies closed the kitchen-door against chill. A couple of jays squealed and skirmished through the undraped apple-trees in the garden. This time, the word was with Mrs. Ashcroft, her elbows on the tea-table, and her sick leg propped on a stool....
“Well I never! But what did your ’usband say to that?” Mrs. Fettley asked, when the deep-toned recital halted.
“’E said I might go where I pleased for all of ’im. But seein’ ’e was bedrid, I said I’d ’tend ’im out. ’E knowed I wouldn’t take no advantage of ’im in that state. ’E lasted eight or nine week. Then he was took with a seizure-like; an’ laid stone-still for days. Then ’e propped ’imself up abed an’ says: ‘You pray no man’ll ever deal with you like you’ve dealed with some.’ ‘An’ you?’ I says, for you know, Liz, what a rover ’e was. ‘It cuts both ways,’ says ’e, ‘but I’m death-wise, an’ I can see what’s comin’ to you.” He died a-Sunday an’ was buried a-Thursday.... An’ yet I’d set a heap by him—one time or—did I ever?”
“You never told me that before,” Mrs. Fettley ventured.