At the quickening of the second dawn after Christmas, Jennie and Bert
arose, and Jennie having hidden her wedding-ring, they two went about
their business; and when at noon Olwen proceeded to number seven, she
found that Lisbeth had been taken sick of the palsy and was fallen upon
the floor. Lisbeth was never well again, and what time she understood
all that Olwen had done for her, she melted into tears.
"I should have gone but for you," she averred. "The money's Jennie's,
which is the same as I had it and under the mattress, and the house is
Jennie's."
"She's fortunate," returned Olwen. "She'll never want for ten shillings
a week which it will fetch. You are kind indeed."
"Don't neglect them for me," Lisbeth urged. "I'll be quite happy if you
drop in occasionally."
"Are you not my sister?" Olwen cried. "I'm having a bed for you in our
front sitting-room. You won't be lonely."
Winter, spring, and summer passed, and the murmurs of Jennie and Charlie
against Lisbeth were grown into a horrid clamor.
"Hush, she'll hear you," Olwen always implored. "It won't be for much
longer. The doctor says she may go any minute."
"Or last ages," said Charlie.
"Jennie will have the house and the money," Olwen pleaded. "And the
money hasn't been touched. Same as you gave it to her. She showed it to
me under the mattress. Not every one have two houses."
"By then you will have bought it over and over again," said Charlie.
"Doesn't give Jennie and me much chance of saving, does it?"
"And she can't eat this and can't eat that," Jennie screamed. "She
won't, she means."
Weekly was Olwen harassed with new disputes, and she rued that she had
said: "I'll have a bed for you in our front sitting-room"; and as it
falls out in family quarrels, she sided with her daughter and her
daughter's husband.
So the love of the sisters became forced and strained, each speaking and
answering with an ill-favored mouth; it was no longer entire and
nothing that was professed united it together.
"I must make my will now," Lisbeth hinted darkly.
"Perhaps Charlie will oblige you," replied Olwen.
"Charlie! You make me smile. Why, he can't keep a wife."
"I thought you had settled all that," Olwen faltered.
"Did you? Anyway, I'll have it in black and white. The minister will do
it."
After the minister was gone away, Lisbeth said: "I couldn't very well
approach him. He's worried about money for the new vestry. Why didn't
you tell me about the new vestry? It was in the magazine."
Olwen mused and from her musings came this: "It'll be a pity to spoil it
now. For Jennie's sake."
She got very soft pillows and clean bed-clothes for Lisbeth and she
placed toothsome dishes before Lisbeth; and it was Lisbeth's way to
probe with a fork all the dishes that Olwen had made and to say "It's
badly burnt," or "You didn't give much for this," or "Of course you were
never taught to cook."
For three years Olwen endured her sister's taunts and the storms of her
daughter and her son-in-law; and then Jennie said: "I'm going to have a
baby." If she was glad and feared to hear this, how much greater was her
joy and how much heavier was her anxiety as Jennie's space grew
narrower? She left over going to the aid of Lisbeth, from whom she took
away the pillows and for whom she did not provide any more toothsome
dishes; she did not go to her aid howsoever frantic the beatings on the
wall or fierce the outcry. Never has a sentry kept a closer look-out
than Olwen for Jennie. Albeit Jennie died, and as Olwen looked at the
hair which was faded from the hue of daffodils into that of tow and at
the face the cream of the skin of which was now like clay, she hated
Lisbeth with the excess that she had loved her.
"My dear child shall go to Heaven like a Princess," she said; and she
sat at her work table to fashion a robe of fine cambric and lace for her
dead.
Disturbed by the noise of the machine, Lisbeth wailed: "You let me
starve but won't let me sleep. Why doesn't any one help me? I'll get the
fever. What have I done?"
Olwen moved to the doorway of the room, her body filling the frame
thereof, her scissors hanging at her side.
"You are wrong, sister, to starve me," Lisbeth said. "To starve me. I
cannot walk you know. You must not blame me if I change my mind about my
money. It was wrong of you."
Olwen did not answer.
"Dear me," Lisbeth cried, "supposing our father in Heaven knew how you
treat me. Indeed the vestry shall have my bit. I might be a pig in a
pigsty. I'll get the fever. Supposing our father is looking through the
window of Heaven at your cruelty to me."
Olwen muttered the burden of her care: "'The wife would pull through if
she had plenty of attention. How could she with her about? The two of
you killed her. You did. I warned you to give up everything and see to
her. But you neglected her.' That's what Charlie will say. Hoo-hoo.
'It's unheard of for a woman to die before childbirth. Serves you right
if I have an inquest.'..."
"For shame to keep from me now," said Lisbeth in a voice that was higher
than the continued muttering of Olwen. "Have you no regard for the
living? The dead is dead. And you made too much of Jennie. You spoiled
her...."
On a sudden Olwen ceased, and she strode up to the bed and thrust her
scissors into Lisbeth's breast.