Patience Kite was a tall woman, with black hair just turning grey, a wrinkled face, and a pointed chin. She had lost most of her teeth, and mouthed her words, but spoke distinctly. Her nose was like the beak of a hawk; her eyes were grey, and wild under heavy dark brows. When she spoke to Arminell she curtsied, and the curtsey of the gaunt creature was grotesque. The girl could not read whether it were intended as respectful, or done in mockery. Her dress was tidy, but of the poorest materials, much patched. She wore no cap; her abundant hair was heaped on her head, but was less tidy than her clothing; it was scattered about her face and shoulders.
Her cottage was close at hand, very small, built of quarry-stone that corroded rapidly with exposure—the air reduced it to black dust. The chimney threatened to fall; it was gnawed into on the south-west side like a bit of mice-eaten cheese. The thatch was rotten, the rafters were exposed and decayed. The walls, bulged out by the thrust of the bedroom floor-joists, were full of rents and out of the perpendicular.
The place looked so ruinous, so unsafe, that Arminell hesitated to enter.
The door had fallen, because the frame had rotted away. Patience led her guest over it into the room. There everything was tidy and clean. Tidiness and cleanliness were strangely combined with ruin and decay. In the window was a raven in a cage.
“This house is dangerous to live in,” said Arminell. “Does Mr. Macduff not see that repairs are done? It is unfit for human habitation.”
“Macduff!” scoffed Mrs. Kite. “Do y’ think that this house belongs to his lordship? It is mine, and because it is mine they cannot force me to leave it, and to go into the workhouse.”
“But you are in peril of your life here, the chimney might fall and bury you any windy night. The roof might crash in.”
“So the sanitary officer says. He has condemned the house.”
“Then you are leaving?”
“No. He has done his duty. But I am not going to turn out.”