“Polly put the kettle on, Polly put the kettle on, Polly put the kettle on—we’ll all have tea! Do you remember playing that, Mary, when we were children?”
“Yes, indeed I do.”
Elinor said:
“When we were children… It’s a pity, Mary isn’t it, that one can never go back…?”
Mary said:
“Would you like to go back?”
Elinor said with force:
“Yes… yes….”
Silence fell between them for a little while.
Then Mary said, her face flushing:
“Miss Elinor, you mustn’t think—”
She stopped, warned by the sudden stiffening of Elinor’s slender figure, the uplifted line of her chin.
Elinor said in a cold, steel-like voice:
“What mustn’t I think?”
Mary murmured:
“I—I’ve forgotten what I was going to say.”
Elinor’s body relaxed—as at a danger past.
Nurse Hopkins came in with a tray. On it was a brown teapot, and milk and three cups.
She said, quite unconscious of anticlimax:
“Here’s the tea!”
She put the tray in front of Elinor. Elinor shook her head.
“I won’t have any.”
She pushed the tray along towards Mary.
Mary poured out two cups.
Nurse Hopkins sighed with satisfaction.
“It’s nice and strong.”
Elinor got up and moved over to the window. Nurse Hopkins said persuasively:
“Are you sure you won’t have a cup, Miss Carlisle? Do you good.”
Elinor murmured, “No, thank you.”
Nurse Hopkins drained her cup, replaced it in the saucer and murmured: