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But she has her little garden. And, in the soft dew of the mornings, with an early sun, she would take her little seat and sit by the camellia bush, the early flowers just coming into bud. Hardly a sound came into the garden, in this early morn for Mrs Thorneycroft, and on some of these mornings it was not that she meant to cry, did not really feel that she wanted to, but somehow, it just started to happen, quietly, as she sat in the corner of the garden, did Mrs Thorneycroft.
It was a quiet spot to cry, down here in the corner of the garden, a nice spot, nice and quiet, no place for rantings and ravings, just a gentle spot. Mrs Thorneycroft had time to think, time to ponder, time to work out all the things she must be doing wrong, on any given day, or night, for that matter. She cleaned the house, swept the paths, planted the seedlings with a ruler so they were the correct distance apart, always, but always, put a tablecloth on the table before dinner, and generally fiddled and fussed about all the time.
This is what Mrs Thorneycroft did. This is what she knew she was supposed to do in her marriage to Mr Thorneycroft, the production supervisor of twenty-seven years. This is what she knew. So where did she go wrong in all of this? How did he change from what she thought was a nice man, with a lovely smile, warm hands that touched her, oh so nicely, to what she has now? This coldness, these stares, this look of hatred in his eyes. Where did the other man go? She could not work this out. She would have liked children, but that did not work out, either, for Mrs Thorneycroft.
