Chapter 5 - Page 2

stairs casting a frightened
glance at the emptiness of the drawing-rooms which seemed to stare
at her as she passed them. There was sun in the dining-room and
when she opened the sideboard she found some wine in decanters and
some biscuits and even a few nuts and some raisins and oranges.
She put them on the table and sat down and ate some of them and
began to feel a little less shaky.

If she had been allowed time to sit longer and digest and reflect
she might have reached the point of deciding on what she would write
to Lord Coombe. She had not the pen of a ready writer and it must
be thought over. But just when she was beginning to be conscious
of the pleasant warmth of the sun which shone on her shoulders from
the window, she was almost startled our of her chair by hearing
again stealing down the staircase from the upper regions that faint
wail like a little cat's.

"Just the moment--the very MOMENT I begin to feel a little
quieted--and try to think--she begins again!" she cried out. "It's
worse then ANYTHING!"

Large crystal tears ran down her face and upon the polished table.

"I suppose she would starve to death if I didn't give her some
food--and then _I_ should be blamed! People would be horrid about
it. I've got nothing to eat myself."

She must at any rate manage to stop the crying before she could
write to Coombe. She would be obliged to go down into the pantry
and look for some condensed milk. The creature had no teeth but
perhaps she could mumble a biscuit or a few raisins. If she could
be made to swallow a little port wine it might make her sleepy. The
sun was paying its brief morning visit to the kitchen and pantry
when she reached there, but a few cockroaches scuttled away before
her and made her utter a hysterical little scream. But there WAS
some condensed milk and there was a little warm water in a kettle
became the fire was not quite out. She imperfectly mixed a decoction
and filled a bottle which ought not to have been downstairs but
had been brought and left there by Louisa as a result of tender
moments with Edward.

When she put the bottle and some biscuits and scraps of cold ham
on a tray because she could not carry them all in her hands, her
sense of outrage and despair made her almost sob.

"I am just like a servant--carrying trays upstairs," she wept.
"I--I might be Edward--or--or Louisa." And her woe increased when
she added in the dining-room the port wine and nuts and raisins
and macaroons as viands which MIGHT somehow add to infant diet
and induce sleep. She was not sure of course--but she knew they
sucked things and liked sweets.

A baby left unattended to scream itself to