Free The Snow Globe by Judith Kinghorn Page A

weary. But he had not always been like this, she thought, her heart lurching once again.
    At first, she had blamed her husband’s neglect on the war. Not that Howard had gone to the front, thank God. He had escaped that horror because he and his business were deemed necessary, and because he’d been too old anyway, even then. No, she had blamed the war simply because
it
was blamed for everything: from a general collective malaise to each individual shift in attitude.
It’s because of the war
had been said by so many and for so long that Mabel came to believe it was also in some way responsible for the state of her marriage; that the profound anxiety of those long dark years had eked away Howard’s love for her.
    She could, she thought now, have allowed him some sort of reprieve, perhaps, then. But their estrangement had continued.
And all this time, all these years . . . untouched . . .
smiling at late arrivals, smiling at early departures, smiling at telegrams to say DELAYED ; smiling back at the children, alone. All the time hoping, hoping that this year—this month, this week, this night—he might come to her, reach out to her and love her once more. Through six springs, six summers, six autumns and winters, she had waited . . . Or had she?
Five,
she corrected herself, smiling and closing her eyes.

    Downstairs in the kitchen, Mrs. Jessop was also counting: “Half a dozen guinea fowl, four brace of pheasant . . . makes eight . . . three rabbit, four pigeon, two goose, one turkey, one ham.”
    She would get Mr. Jessop to pluck a few of the birds and skin the rabbits first thing, make a fricassee . . . get Hilda on to the ice cream for the peach melba while she made the meat loaf and pastry for the pies: two ham and egg and two pigeon. But four pigeons wouldn’tdo, wouldn’t be enough . . . She’d have to send Stephen out with his gun again. But no, Stephen would be needed to clear the driveways and then for chauffeuring from the station. And she couldn’t ask Mr. Jessop, because that was what had set him off the last time: the sound of the gun or the feel of it in his hands—she could never be sure which it had been.
    Mrs. Jessop’s husband didn’t say much. In fact, he had barely spoken since returning from the war. And though at first, it had been queer to be with someone so silent, Mrs. Jessop was long used to it now, and long in the habit of improvising during their one-sided conversations, answering any questions she (and others) posed to him
for
him. And he was a very agreeable sort. And he adored Stephen, and Stephen was ever so good with him, so patient and gentle and caring.
    Mrs. Jessop had long since hung up her apron and sat next to the range, still warm, in a wheel-back chair. Beside her hung a variety of long-handled copper pans and ladles and skimmers and large spoons—slotted and wooden. A toasting fork and two flatirons stood on a rack in front of the range, along with the old bellows she still liked to use, and hanging below the knife box were the old snuffers and scissors for candles.
    These hard objects were a queer source of comfort to Mrs. Jessop, and she liked to look at them. They hadn’t changed, and they reminded her of her childhood, that time when she’d worked in the fields, harvesting and haymaking from dawn till dusk with her grandfather and grandmother, her parents and siblings. At seven years old she’d been driving small birds from the turnip seeds; scattering off rooks from the peas; waving about a stick tied with awhite handkerchief; working from six in the morning until nine at night.
    Mrs. Jessop liked to remember. She liked to sit there at that time of night, when she didn’t have to share the kitchen with anyone else, when the only sounds were those reassuring creaks and clanks and shudders of pipes or floorboards, or the drip of a tap, and now