He had resumed the old habit of eating before he washed himself. Miss Louisa served his dinner. It was strange and exciting to her. She was strung up tense, trying to understand him and his mother. She watched him as he sat. He was turned away from his food, looking in the fire. Her soul watched him, trying to see what he was. His black face and arms were uncouth; he was foreign. His face was masked black with coal-dust. She could not see him; she could not know him. The brown eyebrows, the steady eyes, the coarse, small moustache above the closed mouth—these were the only familiar indications. What was he, as he sat there in his pitdirt· She could not see him, and it hurt her.
She ran upstairs, presently coming down with flannels and the bran-bag, to heat them, because the pain was on again.
He was half-way through his dinner. He put down the fork, suddenly nauseated.
“They will soothe the wrench, ”she said. He watched, useless and left out.
“Is she bad·” he asked.
“I think she is,” she answered.
It was useless for him to stir or comment. Louisa was busy. She went upstairs. The poor old woman was in a white, cold sweat of pain. Louisa’s face was sullen with suffering as she went about to relieve her. Then she sat and waited. The pain passed gradually; the old woman sank into a state of coma. Louisa still sat silent by the bed. She heard the Sound of water downstairs. Then came the voice of the old mother, faint but unrelaxing:“Alfred’s washing himself—he’ll want his back washing—”
Louisa listened anxiously, wondering what the sick woman wanted.
“He can’t bear if his back isn’t washed—” the old woman persisted, in a cruel attention to his needs. Louisa rose and wiped the sweat from the yellowish brow.
“I will go down,” she said soothingly.
“If you would,” murmured the sick woman.
Louisa waited a moment. Mrs. Durant closed her eyes, having discharged her duty. The young woman went downstair. Herself, or the man, what did they matter· Only the suffering woman must be considered.
Alfred was kneeling on the hearth-rug, stripped to the waist, washing himself in a large panchion of earthenware. He did so every evening, when he had eaten his dinner; his brothers had done so before him. But Miss Louisa was strange in the house.
He was mechanically rubbing the white lather on his head, with a repeated, unconscious movement, his hand every now and then passing over his neck. Louisa watched. She had to brace herself to this also. He bent his head into the water, washed it free of soap, and pressed the water out of his eyes.
“Your mother said you would want your back washing,” she said.
Curious how it hurt her to take part in their fixed routine of life!Louisa felt the almost repulsive intimacy being forced upon her. It was all so common, so like herding. She lost her own distinctness.
