A Woman's War by Warwick Deeping

It is the privilege of short-tempered women to wax testy under the touch of trouble, and Mrs. Baxter, her hard face querulous and unlovely, stood in the doorway of Boland's Farm, watching the road for the flash of the doctor's lamps. A couple of cypress-trees, dead and brown towards the house, built a deep porch above the door. Beyond the white palings of the garden the broad roof of a barn swept up against the sombre azure of the summer night; and the blackness of the byres and outhouses contrasted with the lawn that was lit by the lighted windows. To the west stood four great Lombardy poplars whose leaves made the night breeze seem restless about the house.

The austere figure of her sister joined itself to Mrs. Baxter's under the cypresses. They talked together in undertones as they watched the road, their voices harsh and unmusical even in an attempted whisper. Mrs. Baxter and Miss Harriet Season were tall and sinewy women, narrow of face and mind, hard in eye and body, their sense of sex reduced to insignificance. The unfortunate Inglis, who sat pulling at his watch-chain beside Mr. Thomas Baxter's bed, had found their hawk faces too keen and uncompromising for his self-esteem. They had scented out his incompetence as two old crows will scent out carrion.