Ninian met them in the hall. "She's dead," he said. "Her husband's in the kitchen. I found him in a lodging-house in Camden Town, and I should say he's a first-class rotter!"
5
They sat together that evening without speaking. There was to have been a meeting of the Improved Tories to talk over Roger's plan for enlarging the Army and mitigating the problem of unemployment. They could not get messages to people in time, and so part of the evening was spent in whispered explanations at the door to those who turned up.
"I think I'll go to bed," Ninian said, but he did not move, nor did any of them move. It was as if they wished to keep together as long as possible.
Magnolia, red-eyed from weeping, had come to them earlier in the evening, declaring that she was frightened.
"What are you afraid of?" Roger snapped at her.
"'Er!" she answered.
"But she's dead!..."
"Yes, sir," Magnolia said, "that's why! I don't like goin' upstairs be meself, sir!..."