I sit here, in Edward's gun-room,
all day and all day in a house that is absolutely quiet. No one visits
me, for I visit no one. No one is interested in me, for I have no
interests. In twenty minutes or so I shall walk down to the village,
beneath my own oaks, alongside my own clumps of gorse, to get
the American mail. My tenants, the village boys and the
tradesmen will touch their hats to me. So life peters out. I shall
return to dine and Nancy will sit opposite me with the old nurse
standing behind her. Enigmatic, silent, utterly well-behaved as far
as her knife and fork go, Nancy will stare in front of her with the
blue eyes that have over them strained, stretched brows. Once, or
perhaps twice, during the meal her knife and fork will be
suspended in mid-air as if she were trying to think of something
that she had forgotten. Then she will say that she believes in an
Omnipotent Deity or she will utter the one word "shuttle-cocks",
perhaps. It is very extraordinary to see the perfect flush of health
on her cheeks, to see the lustre of her coiled black hair, the poise
of the head upon the neck, the grace of the white hands--and to
think that it all means nothing--that it is a picture without a
meaning.
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