My Neighbors | Page 5

money hasn't been touched. Same as you gave it to her. She showed it
to me under the mattress. Not every one have two houses."
"By then you will have bought it over and over again," said Charlie.
"Doesn't give Jennie and me much chance of saving, does it?"
"And she can't eat this and can't eat that," Jennie screamed. "She won't,
she means."
Weekly was Olwen harassed with new disputes, and she rued that she
had said: "I'll have a bed for you in our front sitting-room"; and as it

falls out in family quarrels, she sided with her daughter and her
daughter's husband.
So the love of the sisters became forced and strained, each speaking
and answering with an ill-favored mouth; it was no longer entire and
nothing that was professed united it together.
"I must make my will now," Lisbeth hinted darkly.
"Perhaps Charlie will oblige you," replied Olwen.
"Charlie! You make me smile. Why, he can't keep a wife."
"I thought you had settled all that," Olwen faltered.
"Did you? Anyway, I'll have it in black and white. The minister will do
it."
After the minister was gone away, Lisbeth said: "I couldn't very well
approach him. He's worried about money for the new vestry. Why
didn't you tell me about the new vestry? It was in the magazine."
Olwen mused and from her musings came this: "It'll be a pity to spoil it
now. For Jennie's sake."
She got very soft pillows and clean bed-clothes for Lisbeth and she
placed toothsome dishes before Lisbeth; and it was Lisbeth's way to
probe with a fork all the dishes that Olwen had made and to say "It's
badly burnt," or "You didn't give much for this," or "Of course you
were never taught to cook."
For three years Olwen endured her sister's taunts and the storms of her
daughter and her son-in-law; and then Jennie said: "I'm going to have a
baby." If she was glad and feared to hear this, how much greater was
her joy and how much heavier was her anxiety as Jennie's space grew
narrower? She left over going to the aid of Lisbeth, from whom she
took away the pillows and for whom she did not provide any more
toothsome dishes; she did not go to her aid howsoever frantic the

beatings on the wall or fierce the outcry. Never has a sentry kept a
closer look-out than Olwen for Jennie. Albeit Jennie died, and as
Olwen looked at the hair which was faded from the hue of daffodils
into that of tow and at the face the cream of the skin of which was now
like clay, she hated Lisbeth with the excess that she had loved her.
"My dear child shall go to Heaven like a Princess," she said; and she sat
at her work table to fashion a robe of fine cambric and lace for her
dead.
Disturbed by the noise of the machine, Lisbeth wailed: "You let me
starve but won't let me sleep. Why doesn't any one help me? I'll get the
fever. What have I done?"
Olwen moved to the doorway of the room, her body filling the frame
thereof, her scissors hanging at her side.
"You are wrong, sister, to starve me," Lisbeth said. "To starve me. I
cannot walk you know. You must not blame me if I change my mind
about my money. It was wrong of you."
Olwen did not answer.
"Dear me," Lisbeth cried, "supposing our father in Heaven knew how
you treat me. Indeed the vestry shall have my bit. I might be a pig in a
pigsty. I'll get the fever. Supposing our father is looking through the
window of Heaven at your cruelty to me."
Olwen muttered the burden of her care: "'The wife would pull through
if she had plenty of attention. How could she with her about? The two
of you killed her. You did. I warned you to give up everything and see
to her. But you neglected her.' That's what Charlie will say. Hoo-hoo.
'It's unheard of for a woman to die before childbirth. Serves you right if
I have an inquest.'..."
"For shame to keep from me now," said Lisbeth in a voice that was
higher than the continued muttering of Olwen. "Have you no regard for
the living? The dead is dead. And you made too much of Jennie. You

spoiled her...."
On a sudden Olwen ceased, and she strode up to the bed and thrust her
scissors into Lisbeth's breast.

II
ACCORDING TO THE PATTERN
On the eve of a Communion Sunday Simon Idiot espied Dull Anna
washing her feet in the spume on the shore; he came out of his
hiding-place and spoke jestingly to Anna and enticed her into Blind
Cave,