"They are all like that," Mrs. Tapscott said without turning round. "The one in the hall, the one on the stairs, the two in the drawing room, and the stable clock. Twenty past six, which was the hour the man came up from the ford. We stopped them that night, as is proper." A pause, exactly one beat long. "Nobody has given an order about starting them."
"Fourteen months, Mrs. Tapscott," said Mrs. Locksley.
"Sixteen," said Mrs. Tapscott. "This way."
The nursery was at the top of the house on the east side, and it was the only room they passed that had its shutters open. Somebody had thought about that, at least. There was a fire, a rug, books, a doll's cradle, a globe on a stand with the varnish worn off Africa.
Lady Ellen Rushmere was standing at the window with her back to the door. She was small for nine: black frock, black ribbon, black stockings, and a great deal of dark hair that somebody had brushed with more duty than love. She did not turn round when the door opened, nor when Mrs. Tapscott said her name. She stood exactly where she was, her forehead almost touching the glass, one hand gripping the other wrist. The whole room arranged itself around that small black back like a family standing round a bed.
"Lady Ellen," Mrs. Tapscott said. "The women have come about your clothes."
Nothing.
"She will not stand for it," Mrs. Tapscott said to the room in general, in the voice of a woman reporting a fact she has reported before. "She would not stand for the shoemaker in July, nor for the hairdresser. We have tried firmness."
"How very unusual," said Mrs. Locksley.
Catherine put her box down on the table and did not go towards the child and did not say her name. She unwrapped the tape, the paper of pins, then the marbled ledger with the corners worn white, and opened it flat on the table in the light. And she began, quite deliberately, to turn the pages of it as though she were alone in the room.
A ledger being turned makes a heavier sound than a book. Behind her, Mrs. Locksley began asking Mrs. Tapscott about linen presses. It was a kindness, and it was meant as one.
Catherine turned another page: a hand's width of striped dimity, and under it in pencil: Was a curtain at the Bledlow parsonage, made a morning dress, wore it two seasons.
The child's feet made no noise on the rug. What Catherine heard was the breathing arrive at her elbow. She did not look down. She turned another page.
"That is a book of pieces," said a voice, very small, very clear, and quite level.