CHAPTER 5. FAMILY AFFAIRS
As the city clocks struck nine on Monday morning, Mrs Clennam was wheeled by Jeremiah Flintwinch of the cut-down aspect to her tall cabinet. When she had unlocked and opened it, and had settled herself at its desk, Jeremiah withdrew—as it might be, to hang himself more effectually—and her son appeared.
‘ Are you any better this morning, mother?’
She shook her head, with the same austere air of luxuriousness that she had shown over-night when speaking of the weather. ‘I shall never be better any more. It is well for me, Arthur, that I know it and can bear it.’
Sitting with her hands laid separately upon the desk, and the tall cabinet towering before her, she looked as if she were performing on a dumb church organ. Her son thought so (it was an old thought wi
