Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead Read Free Page B

crossly, “Where is your grandmother?”
    “Oh, somewhere prowling around. She is in a rage.”
    “Is she indeed? It’s all this cleaning, I suppose; but she can’t expect me to help; my hands are my best feature, and they would be ruined. Anyway I loathe housework, and any man who does it is a fool—or any woman for that matter. What’s that saying about a whistling hen and a working woman? … I don’t know,” and he stretched his arms and gave a large yawn. “I think I’ll go and see Dr. Hatt. There won’t be any cleaning women there because I hear his wife is away ill in a nursing home. Change of life, I expect,” and he gave a titter and wandered out through the back door.
    “Father makes me hate men,” thought Emma as she pumped water into the bucket. A slug tumbled out of the pump and she caught it and put it in a dark damp corner under the sink.
    “Poor creature,” she thought, “if the maids find it, it will be burnt; but, if I put it outside, it will be found by Ives and put in a bucket of salt or fed to the ducks.”

- CHAPTER II -
    E BIN WILLOWEED walked down the village street with his tripping walk. He unsuccessfully tried to get into conversation with several passers-by, but they were hurrying home to their twelve o’clock dinner. The labourers were carrying forks over their shoulders. Each prong had a large potato stuck on it. In theory this was for safety, but actually they achieved about eight potatoes a day by this ruse. Ebin went a little way over the bridge, which was built of stones from the Alcester Monastery by the Normans. The stones had been worn away in several places by generations of butchers sharpening their knives on them.
    He stood looking down at the river, which had returned to its banks but was flowing very fast and full. In some way the river flowing with such purpose and determination depressed Willoweed. He felt humiliated and a failure in everything he undertook; the thought of all those half-completed, mouse-nibbled manuscripts in his room saddened him even more. He bit his lower lip and gave the bridge a kick, then turned away towards Dr. Hatt’s house. Dr. Hatt was an old family friend, and regarded by the villagers as a miracle man since he had brought Hattie into the world after her mother’s death. She had been named after him.
    Willoweed walked up the steep flight of steps that led to the doctor’s house and rang the highly polished brass bell with the word ‘Visitors’ engraved on it. An elderly servant with a twisted back came to the door and asked him into the cool, flagstoned hall while she hobbled off to find Dr. Hatt. Francis Hatt was a rather melancholy-looking man until he smiled; then his whole face lit up in a delightful way and people talking to him often found themselves saying all manner of wild things to try to bring this smile back to his grave face. This morning he was distressed by his wife’s sudden illness and felt he could hardly bear Ebin Willoweed’s company. Nevertheless he asked his servant to bring some sherry, and decided to give half an hour to his old, but rather trying friend.
    It was over ten years ago that Ebin had returned to his mother’s house bringing with him his beautiful young wife and Emma, then a child of seven. The Daily Courier , which employed him as a gossip writer, had dismissed him because his carelessness had resulted in a libel action which had cost them a considerable amount of money. Jenny Willoweed was expecting a baby at that time, and Dr. Hatt attended her at her very difficult confinement. After Dennis’s birth he warned her that it might kill her to have another child. Eighteen months later she died giving birth to Hattie. She died some minutes before the child was born, but Francis Hatt had saved the child’s life. In the years that followed Ebin Willoweed had turned to the Doctor for friendship and used his house as a place of refuge from his mother. Francis Hatt had been shocked by the