Then speaking with renewed arrogance, he said:
"Well, sir, I will see to these things. For to-night, I consent--for
to-night only, mind you--reserving entirely my liberty of action for
to-morrow."
Undershaw nodded, and they left the room together.
Dixon and Mrs. Dixon were both waiting in the passage outside, watching
for Melrose, and hanging on his aspect. To their amazement they were told
that a room was to be got ready for the nurses, a girl was to be fetched
to wait on them from the farm, and food was to be cooked.
The faces of both the old servants showed instant relief. Dixon went
off to the farm, and Mrs. Dixon flew to her kitchen. She was getting
old, and the thought of the extra work to be done oppressed her.
Nevertheless after these years of solitude, passed as it were in a
besieged camp--Threlfall and its inmates against the world--this new and
tardy contact with humanity, this momentary return to neighbourly, kindly
ways brought with it a strange sweetness. And when night fell, and a
subdued, scarcely perceptible murmur of life began to creep about the
passages of the old house, in general so dead and silent, Mrs. Dixon
might have been heard hoarsely crooning an old song to herself as she
went to and fro in the kitchen. All the evening she and Dixon were
restless, inventing work, when work was finished, running from yard to
house and house to yard, calling to each other without reason, and
looking at each other with bewildered eyes.
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