ALTHOUGH death often leaves old women alone for a long time, he sometimes pounces upon them two or three at a time and takes them off with him.
Old women, and especially those who have little or no money—Miss Pink, since the strange disappearance of her brother, lived upon the charity of a good Roddy, who, although he collected stones, had a heart of flesh—are not always unwilling to die. But there are some old women who don’t want to go.
Earlier in the summer, Mr. Caddy, though this must have cost him an effort, left the bed out of the story when he happened to meet Mrs. Pring by the church gate, and merely told her that the doctor had been to see Miss Pink, and had put on his gloves slowly and had shaken his head before he started his car that he always drove so carefully.
‘’E don’t shake ’is head for nothing,’ said Mr. Caddy.
‘Were she in front room or upstairs?’ inquired Mrs. Pring, expecting the usual word from Mr. Caddy.
Mr. Caddy looked at a gravestone and never replied.
In Mockery every one notices which way a person takes who leaves a cottage to go for a little walk.
Up till the day of the doctor’s visit, Miss Pink would usually take the lane that went by the churchyard, and going a few hundred yards further she would turn when she reached Farmer Cheney’s old barn and come home by the same way.
But now she always went in the opposite direction.
Besides this sign of a certain difference in Miss Pink’s ways, she had begun to do something else a little while after her brother went, that the people of Mockery couldn’t in the least understand.
For Miss Pink had taken to visiting her poorer neighbours.
When a morning knock was heard at any cottage door, there would be Miss Pink with her large shawl, her little nose looking smaller than ever, and her eyes looking afraid—‘ as if,’ Mrs. Pottle said, ‘something nasty were running after she.’
Miss Pink would, of course, be shown into the front room, and would take the best chair, and sigh heavily, and look up at the clock—when she called at Mrs. Pottle’s—without speaking. She would stay looking for half an hour, and then go out into the lane again.
Mr. Caddy couldn’t help — seeing how things were with Miss Pink—making a remark or two to his ducks about her.
‘’Twill be t’ other turning for she soon,’ Mr. Caddy would say, nodding to the ducks in the pond, whenever Miss Pink came out of her cottage and went up the lane.
‘An’ bed thik wold maid be a-going to be a silent one.’
Miss Pink was now worse; indeed, her pain rarely left her. But she still kept her front room as tidy as she could, and waited for her expected visitor.
Summer weather, though our joys are heightened by the clear and plenteous shining of the sun, cannot lift the dark shadow of the cloud of death when it is near; but rather the summer darkens the horror by the very beauty of its shining.
The beast—Miss Pink had known for some while now what he was—horned and fearful, was coming up out of the sea to take her away.
But now she was smiling; this wasn’t because her pain had stopped for a moment, but merely because her front room, the morning after the children had come out of the Mockery wood singing, looked so neat and tidy, and Miss Pink felt sure that if ever she were going to receive an answer to her letter she would receive it now.
And there—for Miss Pink had peeped out of the window—was Mr. Pring, that faithful messenger, picking up a piece of paper in the road.
A message from—no, not from Mr. Gulliver; she had long given him up—but from some other one who wanted her at His wedding.
Miss Pink’s heart beat fast; she watched Mr. Pring.
He took an envelope out of his trousers pocket, looked at it, and put it back into his pocket again.
He then folded the paper that he had picked up, and walked slowly and thoughtfully towards Miss Pink’s cottage, muttering to himself.
Miss Pink waited, waited in excited expectation for her letter—was he bringing it to her? Yes, Mr. Pring was even then murmuring words by her little gate: ‘Pring be the one to carry a message; wold Pring don’t never lose a letter.’ The next thing he did was to drop the folded paper with careful deliberation into the road again, and go back to his work still muttering how good he was at carrying a letter.
‘It’s my letter,’ said Miss Pink; ‘my brother always said I would have it one day.’
Her pain came again; it had only left her for a moment so as to gather strength for a new attack. And now it came and told her that the beast was very near.
Miss Pink stepped from her gate, found the paper, and read the message. It was merely a page that had fluttered from Mr. Pattimore’s Bible on his way to church. Some words were underlined. Miss Pink read them: ‘Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.’
And Miss Pink went out into the Mockery lanes to find her lover.