Chapter 5

A DAY OF HER LIFE

I should like to call back a day of her life as it was at this
time, when her spirit was as bright as ever and her hand as eager,
but she was no longer able to do much work. It should not be
difficult, for she repeated herself from day to day and yet did it
with a quaint unreasonableness that was ever yielding fresh
delight. Our love for her was such that we could easily tell what
she would do in given circumstances, but she had always a new way
of doing it.

Well, with break of day she wakes and sits up in bed and is
standing in the middle of the room. So nimble was she in the
mornings (one of our troubles with her) that these three actions
must be considered as one; she is on the floor before you have time
to count them. She has strict orders not to rise until her fire is
lit, and having broken them there is a demure elation on her face.
The question is what to do before she is caught and hurried to bed
again. Her fingers are tingling to prepare the breakfast; she
would dearly love to black-lead the grate, but that might rouse her
daughter from whose side she has slipped so cunningly. She catches
sight of the screen at the foot of the bed, and immediately her
soft face becomes very determined. To guard her from draughts the
screen had been brought here from the lordly east room, where it
was of no use whatever. But in her opinion it was too beautiful
for use; it belonged to the east room, where she could take
pleasant peeps at it; she had objected to its removal, even become
low-spirited. Now is her opportunity. The screen is an unwieldy
thing, but still as a mouse she carries it, and they are well under
weigh when it strikes against the gas-bracket in the passage. Next
moment a reproachful hand arrests her. She is challenged with
being out of bed, she denies it - standing in the passage. Meekly
or stubbornly she returns to bed, and it is no satisfaction to you
that you can say, 'Well, well, of all the women!' and so on, or
'Surely you knew that the screen was brought here to protect you,'
for she will reply scornfully, 'Who was touching the screen?'

By this time I have wakened (I am through the wall) and join them
anxiously: so often has my mother been taken ill in the night that
the slightest sound from her room rouses the house. She is in bed
again, looking as if she had never been out of it, but I know her
and listen sternly to the tale of her misdoings. She is not
contrite. Yes, maybe she did promise not to venture forth on the
cold floors of daybreak, but she had risen for a moment only, and
we just t'neaded her with our talk about draughts - there were no
such things as draughts in her young days - and it is more than she
can do (here she again