What did it matter now when the little china tea-set which had been one of her birthday gifts to Charlie was dashed to the ground and almost every piece of it shivered to fragments? It grieved her once; now it did not affect her at all, save as a type of the general wreckage into which life seemed breaking up.
She did not give much attention to Clementina’s eagerly-tendered defence concerning the accident, given thus—
“I had nothing to do with it, ma’am. I was in the back kitchen at the time, and I’d left it sitting safely on the dresser. Then all of a sudden I heard the crash, and when I looked in, there it was—all in fragments on the floor.”
“You must have placed it too near the edge of the dresser, Clementina,” urged Miss Latimer, “and the slight oscillation caused by some heavy vehicle passing by must have caused it to tilt over.”
It was strange that Clementina repudiated this explanation.
“I didn’t hear any heavy traffic,” she answered. “There’s never much of it near here, anyway. No, ma’am, such things will happen sometimes, and there’s no accounting for them and there’s no use in trying to do it.”
If Lucy’s attention could have been directed towards anything but the terrible fear which absorbed all her soul, she might have noticed that at this time Miss Latimer became rather anxious and observant concerning Clementina. The old lady was aware that the servant was growing restless and uneasy. Her superstitions seemed all astir. She began to see omens on every side. The tense atmosphere of the household mind evidently affected her very much. Miss Latimer could only hope that it would not affect her so much as to cause her to “give notice.” For in many ways the old lady’s experience told her that Clementina was a treasure not to be found every day, since she was scrupulously honest, clean and industrious, and the very last person likely to have questionable “followers.”
So the dreary days went on in the shadow of the storm-cloud, now so lowering that it became too much to hope that it would pass over harmlessly.
The monotony was broken at last by a telegram which came in late one evening. But it did not come to end Lucy’s agony of suspense, either by joy or sorrow. It was simply a telegram from Mrs. Grant of Peterhead, announcing that by the time it reached Lucy she would be on her way to London, as she had despatched the message just as her train was starting. She might be expected by the first train reaching London in the morning.
“What does this mean?” asked Lucy with white lips.