Doomsday by Warwick Deeping

She cooked, she scrubbed, she cleaned, and washed and polished, and made her bed, and worked her garden, and for the first month she went to her room so weary that she felt too tired to do her hair. But she made herself sit down at the dressing-table, and satisfy her self's pride and her mirror. She was soft and out of practice. She was full of aches; her hands were blistered and survived them; she knocked her knuckles and managed to laugh. She laughed at her softness. She made wilful fun of the exquisite Mrs. Percival Fream, that soft and perfumed creature in her rosy marble bath. The Mrs. Freams of the world had their uses; they flowered, they developed the beauty and the charm of an elegant leisure, but a social mannequin was not much use to a working partner. She had set herself to be a working woman, to clasp repetition to her bosom, and to transmute it into service.

As her young muscles grew firm she found herself less tired at night. She slept serenely. She saw very little of her neighbours, for she was seeing so much of her new self. She was able to quiz the future Mary. She supposed that some day she might see herself as a round-backed, slack-bosomed creature with a rather scraggy neck, and hair growing thin, and a complexion that had lost its bloom. A working woman, rather worn and anxious and grey, and perennially tired? Was that the inevitable prospect? If so, was it any uglier than the prospect of becoming a young old girl, mutton dressed as lamb, clutching at every artifice, living in fear of the day when men would cease to look? Did men never look at a woman in any other way? Was there not the comrade's look? "Dear heart,--a wrinkle or two! My wrinkles as well as yours. Scars of honour, beloved pledges." A man might glance at the baby faces, but he would look at the sacred face of his mate.