My Neighbors | Page 4

so much."

"The house and cash will be a nice egg-nest for Jennie," Olwen
announced.
"And number seven and mine will make it more," added Lisbeth.
"It's a great comfort that she'll never want a roof over her," said Olwen.
Mindful of their vows to their father, the sisters lived at peace and held
their peace in the presence of their prattling neighbors. On Sundays,
togged in black gowns on which were ornaments of jet, they worshiped
in the Congregational Chapel; and as they stood up in their pew, you
saw that Olwen was as the tall trunk of a tree at whose shoulders are the
stumps of chopped branches, and that Lisbeth's body was as a billhook.
Once they journeyed to Aberporth and they laid a wreath of wax
flowers and a thick layer of gravel on their mother's grave. They tore a
gap in the wall which divided their little gardens, and their feet, so
often did one visit the other, trod a path from backdoor to backdoor.
Nor was their love confused in the joy that each had in Jennie, for
whom sacrifices were made and treasures hoarded.
But Jennie was discontented, puling for what she could not have,
mourning her lowly fortune, deploring her spinsterhood.
"Bert and me are getting married Christmas," she said on a day.
"Hadn't you better wait a while," said Olwen. "You're young."
"We talked of that. Charlie is getting on. He's thirty-eight, or will be in
January. We'll keep on in the shop and have sleep-out vouchers and
come here week-ends."
As the manner is, the mother wept.
"You've nothing to worry about," Lisbeth assuaged her sister. "He's
steady and respectable. We must see that she does it in style. You look
after the other arrangements and I'll see to her clothes."
She walked through wind and rain and sewed by day and night, without

heed of the numbness which was creeping into her limbs; and on the
floor of a box she put six jugs which had been owned by the
Welshwoman who was Adam's grandmother, and over the jugs she
arrayed the clothes she had made, and over all she put a piece of paper
on which she had written, "To my darling niece from her Aunt
Lisbeth."
Jennie examined her aunt's handiwork and was exceedingly wrathful.
"I shan't wear them," she cried. "She might have spoken to me before
she started. After all, it's my wedding. Not hers. Pwf! I can buy better
jugs in the six-pence-apenny bazaar."
"Aunt Liz will alter them," Olwen began.
"I agree with her," said Charlie. "Aunt Liz should be more considerate
seeing what I have done for her. But for me she wouldn't have any
money at all."
Charlie and Jennie stirred their rage and gave utterance to the harshest
sayings they could devise about Lisbeth; "and I don't care if she's
listening outside the door," said Charlie; "and you can tell her it's me
speaking," said Jennie.
Throughout Saturday and Sunday Jennie pouted and dealt rudely and
uncivilly with her mother; and on Monday, at the hour she was
preparing to depart, Olwen relented and gave her twenty pounds,
wherefore on the wedding day Lisbeth was astonished.
"Why aren't you wearing my presents?" she asked.
"That's it," Jennie shouted. "Don't you forget to throw cold water, will
you? It wouldn't be you if you did. I don't want to. See? And if you
don't like it, lump it."
Olwen calmed her sister, whispering: "She's excited. Don't take notice."
At the quickening of the second dawn after Christmas, Jennie and Bert

arose, and Jennie having hidden her wedding-ring, they two went about
their business; and when at noon Olwen proceeded to number seven,
she found that Lisbeth had been taken sick of the palsy and was fallen
upon the floor. Lisbeth was never well again, and what time she
understood all that Olwen had done for her, she melted into tears.
"I should have gone but for you," she averred. "The money's Jennie's,
which is the same as I had it and under the mattress, and the house is
Jennie's."
"She's fortunate," returned Olwen. "She'll never want for ten shillings a
week which it will fetch. You are kind indeed."
"Don't neglect them for me," Lisbeth urged. "I'll be quite happy if you
drop in occasionally."
"Are you not my sister?" Olwen cried. "I'm having a bed for you in our
front sitting-room. You won't be lonely."
Winter, spring, and summer passed, and the murmurs of Jennie and
Charlie against Lisbeth were grown into a horrid clamor.
"Hush, she'll hear you," Olwen always implored. "It won't be for much
longer. The doctor says she may go any minute."
"Or last ages," said Charlie.
"Jennie will have the house and the money," Olwen pleaded. "And the