Her body
seemed to have dwindled, but her features were strong and harsh, and
Henrietta said to herself, 'This is the real Aunt Caroline, not what I
thought, not what I thought. I've never seen her before.' She wondered
how she had ever dared to joke with her: she had been a funny, vain
old woman without much sensibility, immune from much that others
suffered, and now she was a mere human creature, breathing with
difficulty and in pain.
Henrietta stood by the bed, saying and doing nothing: Rose had slipped
away; the nurse was quietly busy at a table and Aunt Sophia was
kneeling before a high-backed chair with her elbows on the cushioned
seat, her face in her hands. She was praying; it was as bad as that.
Her back, the sash-encircled waist, the thick hair, looked like those
of a young girl. She was praying. Henrietta looked again at Aunt
Caroline's grey face and saw that the eyes had opened, the lips were
smiling a little. 'Good child,' she said, with immense difficulty, as
though she had been seeking those words for a long time and had at
last fitted them to her thought.
Sophia stirred, dropped her hands and looked round: the nurse came
forward with a little crackle of starched clothes. 'Say good night to
her and go.'
Henrietta leaned over the empty space of bed and kissed Caroline on
the temple. 'Good night, dear Aunt Caroline,' she said softly.
There was no answer. The eyes were closed again and the harsh
breathing went on cruelly, like waves falling back from a pebbled
shore, and Henrietta felt the dampness of death on her lips.
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