I hung up the receiver and turned round. Mother was standing
in her doorway. She wore her old rose kimono, and her hair was hanging
down her back in a long thick braid, and her eyes were shining. She
looked just like a young girl.
"'There is word from Jem?' she said.
"How did she know? I hadn't said a word at the phone except 'Yes--yes--
yes.' She says she doesn't know how she knew, but she did know. She was
awake and she heard the ring and she knew that there was word from Jem.
"'He's alive--he's well--he's in Holland,' I said.
"Mother came out into the hall and said, 'I must get your father on the
'phone and tell him. He is in the Upper Glen.'
"She was very calm and quiet--not a bit like I would have expected her
to be. But then I wasn't either. I went and woke up Gertrude and Susan
and told them. Susan said 'Thank God,' firstly, and secondly she said
'Did I not tell you Dog Monday knew?' and thirdly, 'I'll go down and
make a cup of tea'--and she stalked down in her nightdress to make it.
She did make it--and made mother and Gertrude drink it--but I went
back to my room and shut my door and locked it, and I knelt by my window
and cried--just as Gertrude did when her great news came.
"I think I know at last exactly what I shall feel like on the
resurrection morning."
4th October 1918
"Today Jem's letter came. It has been in the house only six hours and it
is almost read to pieces.
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