Free The Silver Shawl by Elisabeth Grace Foley

 

The Silver Shawl
     
    GLOUCESTER. In my opinion yet thou seest not
well.
    SIMCOX. Yes, master, clear as day, I thank God and
St. Alban.
    GLOUCESTER. Say’st thou me so? What colour is this
cloak of?
    - William Shakespeare, Henry VI.
     
    Mrs. Henney knocked lightly at the door. The
early morning sunlight was streaming in through the potted plants
in the window at the end of the hall, over the faded strip of
carpet down the middle of the floor, and gleaming on the polished
wood of the door by which Mrs. Henney stood. Having waited with
lifted hand, but received no answer, she knocked again.
    “Miss Charity?” she said. “Breakfast is
ready.”
    She listened with her head tilted toward the
door, but there was no sound. Mrs. Henney smiled indulgently to
herself and turned away. Sleeping a little late, she didn’t
doubt—Miss Charity’d been that busy these last few weeks, and down
to Miss Lewis’s last evening as usual. No harm in letting her get a
bit of rest, Mrs. Henney thought as she descended the back stairs
to the kitchen—she would take a tray up to Miss Charity’s room
after she had served breakfast to her other ladies and
gentlemen.
    (There was, strictly speaking, only one
elderly gentleman among Mrs. Henney’s boarders, but Mrs. Henney
always pluralized him when she referred to them as a group. It made
her little establishment sound so much more flourishing.)
    Breakfast was over, and Mrs. Henney had just
finished clearing away the dishes from the dining-room to the
kitchen, when the front door banged smartly and Randall Morris took
the main stairs to the upstairs hall two at a time, whistling
merrily, his quirt swinging from his left hand. He stopped at the
same hall door and knocked. “Charity?” he called.
    He waited a few seconds, as Mrs. Henney had
done, and then knocked again. “Charity, are you there?”
    The door across the hall opened and Mrs.
Meade looked out. Randall Morris glanced over his shoulder.
“’Morning, Mrs. Meade,” he said, a friendly smile flashing across
his handsome face. “Say, is Charity in? I’ve got to go over to
Jewel Point to see Hart about a yearling, and I just stopped by to
see her on the way.”
    “Good morning, Randall,” said Mrs. Meade,
smiling pleasantly up at him in return. She was a widow lady of
middle age, but one whom age seemed to have softened rather than
hardened. Her graying hair still showed hints of the soft brown it
had once been, and all the lines of her face were kind. But behind
the kindness in her gray-blue eyes there was an expression of
quaint humor, as though she knew a good deal more about you than
you realized, but was too kind to let you know it.
    “Charity hasn’t been down this morning,” she
said. “Mrs. Henney told us she knocked at her door before
breakfast, but she didn’t answer. Mrs. Henney supposed she must
have been sleeping a little late.”
    “That’s odd,” said Randall. He tried the
doorknob and found it locked, and knocked once more. “Charity!” he
called in a louder voice.
    Mrs. Meade had drawn nearer, and they both
listened attentively, Randall with his ear close to the door, but
neither could hear any sound.
    Randall cast an alarmed glance at Mrs. Meade.
“You don’t think she’s ill or something!” he said.
    Without waiting for an answer he pounded on
the door with his fist in a way that startled all the other
boarders in their respective rooms, and then would have immediately
forced the door with his shoulder had not Mrs. Meade laid detaining
hands on his arm and prudently suggested applying to Mrs. Henney
for the spare key.
    She performed this office herself, and when
she escorted the short and puffing landlady to the top of the
stairs Randall was still listening outside the door with a look of
strained anxiety.
    “I can’t hear anything,” he said, and the
look in his eyes as he thus appealed to Mrs. Meade was almost
desperate.
    Mrs. Meade put her hand gently on his arm as
they watched Mrs.