sand-glass

[_Choyo Chagas]

actuated by jealousy of bob bobberson - i've stolen this sketch

Lucille: It’s usually Hob who has the interesting relatives, Aunt Aggie, Uncle Tom, Albert, Theophilus — to mention just a few of them, but, though it is not about an actual relative, I could tell you a story about my old nurse Anna.
May I do so ?
Mr. Priestley: We should be delighted to listen to you, Lucille.
Please tell us the story.
Lucille: Well, Anna was a dear old servant in our house in Paris.
She had been a servant in our family before I was born and had been nurse to my sisters Marie and Yvonne and to me.
She helped with the work in the house, she did the sewing, she could cook an omelette, or any other dish, better than anyone else I know.
We all loved her, she was so kind, so helpful and so constantly busy.
From early morning till late at night she never rested and nothing was too much trouble for her.
If ever we were in difficulties, from a torn frock to a broken heart, it was to Anna that we went for help and comfort.
Then, one day, she came to say that she was leaving us.
“Leaving us, Anna!” I said, hardly able to believe my ears.
“Yes, Miss Lucille”, she said, and then, blushing and looking rather confused, she said, “I’m going to be married”.
You could, as Hob said, have knocked me down with a feather.
Because we had known her all our lives, we girls naturally thought of Anna as old, but I don’t suppose she was more than forty when she left us; for had she did leave us, and married Henri Behr.
It was the greatest mistake she ever made in her life, and, though than Anna never said a word about it, I am sure she regretted it almost from the day she was married.
Anna had saved quite a bit of money during the years she had been with us, and with it she bought a house in Tours.
It was quite a big old house, and she made her living by letting rooms in it.
And when I say she made the living, I mean that, for Henri did absolutely nothing at all.
My father and mother and my sisters and I at some time or other all visited Anna, but none of us liked Henri.
He was ten or twelve years older then Anna, a big, unpleasant, selfish, bad-tempered man.
I never once saw him smile or say a kind word to anyone.
But all this was nothing compared with his laziness.
That was almost beyond belief.
I don’t think he had ever done a stroke of work in his life.
He certainly never did after he married Anna.
He got up about ten o’clock in the morning (by which time Anna had been up for four or five hours) and sat in his armchair by the big stove, and there he would sit until it was time to go to bed.
Anna had to leave her work and hurry to bring him his breakfast of rolls and butter and coffee.
Then he sat and read his paper and smoked his pipe or slept while Anna ran about upstairs cleaning all the rooms (and with Anna everything was always as clean and bright as a new pin), making the beds, doing the washing, or running downstairs half a dozen times to answer the door-bell.
And in the midst of it all she had to prepare the vegetables and cook the huge meal that he always expected promptly at one o’clock.
A dozen times a day you would hear him shout, “Anna”, and she had to leave her work and hurry to see what he wanted.
It would usually be to pick up the pipe that he had dropped, or find another cushion for his head, get him a glass of wine or put some more wood on the fire.
If she didn’t come running the moment he called, he would burst into a fit of rage, his face would go red with anger and you could hear his shouting all over the house.
Well, for the next year or two we lost touch with Anna.
Tours is a hundred and fifty miles or so from Paris, and in any case we hated to see her so unhappy, so we never went to see her.
Then, one day, I went to Tours to visit some friends and I thought I would call and see Anna.
I went to the house where she lived near the Church of Notre-Dame-la-Riche.
I rang the bell — it was one of those old-fashioned ones that you pulled — and I could hear it ringing through the house.
I waited, but there was no sound of footsteps in the house.
I waited, perhaps for two minutes, but still all was silent.
But the house was occupied; there was smoke coming from the chimney (it was in December), and I recognised Anna’s clean, bright curtains in the windows.
I rang again, louder than before, and then, after another minute or so, I heard footsteps slowly coming down the stairs.
The door opened and I saw Anna.
The moment she saw me her face lighted up with a smile.
I threw my arms round her and said, “Oh, Anna, how nice to see you again!” There was no doubt about her joy at seeing me.
She took me upstairs to her cosy room, neat and clean and tidy as Anna’s rooms always were.
The room was exactly as I had always known it — except that Henri wasn’t there.
Oh, yes, and except for one other thing.
On the table near Anna’s chair (the chair where Henri always used to sit) was a big sand-glass, I think you call it an egg-timer.
Frieda: I know what you mean.
The sand takes four minutes to run through from the top to the bottom of the glass; and that’s the time you need to boil an egg.
Olaf: I saw a big one like that in an old church in Scotland.
But they called them “hour-glasses”.
The sand took an hour to run through, and when the preacher began his sermon he used to turn the glass upside down and then he preached until all the sand had run through.
The old Scots liked good value for their money!
Hob: Never mind the Scots.
Let Lucille get on with her story.
I want to hear what happened to Henri.
I think Anna had murdered him; I hope she had.
Lucille: Well, I noticed that Anna looked every now and then at the sand-glass and whenever she saw that the sand (a peculiar, dark-coloured sand) had run through, she turned the glass and let the sand run through again.
Just then the front doorbell rang again, but instead of jumping up at once to answer it as Anna always used to do, she just turned the sand-glass over and sat still.
When the sand had all run through, she got up quietly and went downstairs to answer the door.
So that was why I had to wait so long! It all seemed very funny, but I didn’t say anything.
She came back and we continued our chat, and then she said, “But you must be hungry, Miss Lucille; I’ll make lunch.
Would you like an omelette?” I certainly was hungry and, knowing Anna’s omelette of old, I said there was nothing I should like better.
But again she didn’t get up.
She just turned over the sand-glass and when she saw the sand had run through, she got up and cooked the lunch.
It was not until we had finished lunch that I said, “Where’s Henri?” Anna said, “He’s dead; he died about a year ago”.
I couldn’t say, “I’m sorry to hear it”, I just sat silent.
Anna continued, “He got into one of his rages and suddenly dropped down dead”.
There was a pause.
She picked up the sand-glass.
“I had him cremated”, she said.
“These”, and she pointed to the sand, “are his ashes. He never worked while he was alive, but I see to it that he does now he’s dead”.

And she turned the sand-glass over again.