To Marcella it recalled days on Ben Grief with Wullie.
But they stayed indoors with blinds drawn to keep out the stifling airs
of the street, and sheets dipped in carbolic solution hung over doors
and windows to keep away the half dozen unidentified insect pests that
worried them.
She wrote long letters home during the morning. Louis smoked and
fidgetted and read the Sunday papers. She found it hard to write letters
when he was walking about, sometimes watching the point of her pen,
lifting a cup and putting it down again, reading a few paragraphs of the
paper and dropping it listlessly, opening the cupboard door motivelessly
and closing it again, lifting down books, peering behind them and
letting them slip from his hands to the floor with a bang.
She glanced up once or twice impatiently. Once, looking at her
apologetically he said:
"I keep worrying about those bally cigarettes, old thing." She saw that
his finger-nails, which three weeks' sanity had mended, were bitten and
gnawed to bleeding again. "I c-can't h-help it, girlie."
She felt raked up and nervous, too. Since they had been married she had
found such delight in preparing Louis's meals that she was miserable in
not doing it to-day. She felt that she was to blame, that she had been
remiss somewhere, though she could not see where.
Pages:
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381