Materfamilias by Ada Cambridge — Read

The little sound that is as common as silence -- a familiar step, a murmured word, an opening door -- one hears it a thousand times with contented indifference, as one hears the singing of the tea-kettle. But one day it falls on the heart as well as on the ear, like the stroke of a swift sword. It seems exactly the same, but one knows at once that it is not the same. In the twentieth part of a second one recognises the voice of a dire calamity -- especially if one is a mother, and has heard it before.

Tom came into the house by way of the kitchen, and I heard him say to Jane, in quite a quiet tone, "Where's Mrs. Braye?" That was all. I sprang from my chair, wild with terror, dropping my needlework to the floor. For I knew -- I knew -- I didn't want to be told -- that something had happened to Harry. My boy! my boy! I had been scolding him, only an hour ago, for making love to Lily's governess -- a minx, whom I had just requested to find another situation -- and he had slammed the door almost in my face on leaving me. I had been longing for Tom to come in, that I might tell him all about it, and have a little cry on his shoulder, and my dignity and authority in the house supported; but now that he was here my tongue was paralysed. And I had no grievance, but an immeasurable remorse.