v

To look at the three of them sitting there munching away was a sight not
altogether pleasing. Pa's veins stood out from his forehead, and the two
girls devoted themselves to the food as if they needed it. There was
none of the airy talk that goes on in the houses of the rich while maids
or menservants come respectfully to right or left of the diners with
decanters or dishes. Here the food was the thing, and there was no
speech. Sometimes Pa's eyes rolled, sometimes Emmy glanced up with
unconscious malevolence at Jenny, sometimes Jenny almost winked at the
lithograph portrait of Edward the Seventh (as Prince of Wales) which
hung over the mantelpiece above the one-and-tenpenny-ha'penny clock that
ticked away so busily there. Something had happened long ago to Edward
the Seventh, and he had a stain across his Field Marshal's uniform.
Something had happened also to the clock, which lay upon its side, as if
kicking in a death agony. Something had happened to almost everything in
the kitchen. Even the plates on the dresser, and the cups and saucers
that hung or stood upon the shelves, bore the noble scars of service.
Every time Emmy turned her glance upon a damaged plate, as sharp as a
stalactite, she had the thought: "Jenny's doing." Every time she looked
at the convulsive clock Emmy said to herself: "That was Miss Jenny's
cleverness when she chucked the cosy at Alf." And when Emmy said in this
reflective silence of animosity the name "Alf" she drew a deep breath
and looked straight up at Jenny with inscrutable eyes of pain.


vi