CHAPTER XIV

In the afternoon of the following day Anne entered the common room of the Infirmary.  In this large room, with high windows spotlessly clean, a fireplace at one end in which a sufficiently generous fire was burning, and before which were two wicker cradles; women for the most part in extreme old age of body rather than years were sitting in every possible attitude on the wooden seat which ran round the wall on three sides of the room.  At the far end, near the fire, a blind woman was knitting men’s stockings.  Two very old women sat with their chins in their hands and heads bent, motionless, neither hearing nor seeing anything outward.  Three others, their white pleated caps nodding at different angles, were making aprons.  A young woman with a healthy but sullen face was nursing a large baby.  Another, younger, but early-developed, as girls are in the country, sat nearest the fire, a shawl half off her shoulders, her foot rocking one of the cradles.  There seemed no trace of coarseness in her face, refined now by illness and days indoors; only an infinite ignorance and bewilderment.  She seemed not more than seventeen.  The tone of the Matron in speaking to her was not unkind, but had in it the mixture of impatience and contempt, which sensible middle-aged women have for foolish girls who can’t look after themselves.  There was, too, unknown to herself, for she would have looked upon herself as a kind woman, a slight feeling of satisfaction that, though the silly girl was sheltered in this place and everyone was kind to her, she’d find out what it meant to get herself in that state when she went outside.  In the meantime, being really kind, if sensible, she said.

“Keep your shawl over your shoulders, Maggie.  You mustn’t catch cold your first day out of bed!”

“She doesn’t look fit for much does she?” said the other young mother contemptuously.  “Ten days and then to be as washed out as that.”

One of the old women, who had remained motionless, got up slowly and stretched out her hand, pointing at the girl vindictively.

“That girl’s next the fire!  That was my place before she come.”

“Oh, you’re all right, mother,” said the Matron cheerfully, pushing her gently back to her seat.  The old woman mumbled to herself as she sank back into the same stupor, in the midst of which she brooded on her grievance.  The other old woman began in a hard, high voice without raising her head: 

“That’s the way they do in this place.  Push out the old ones.”

“Now you two don’t begin talking and grumbling,” interrupted the Matron decidedly.  “You’re as well treated as anyone else.”

At this moment Anne made a movement in the corner where she had stood unnoticed.  From every bench withered hands were thrust at her, some grasping her arm, some her mantle, some were held open at her face.

“Give me a ha’penny—­just a ha’penny!” screamed a dozen old voices.  “A ha’penny!  Spare a ha’penny!”