Her cousin took out his pocket-handkerchief. He seemed to be
drifted absorbed into the sermon. He put his handkerchief to his
face. Then something dropped on to his knee. There lay the bit
of flowering currant! He was looking down at it in real
astonishment. A wild snort of laughter came from Anna. Everybody
heard: it was torture. He had shut the crumpled flower in his
hand and was looking up again with the same absorbed attention
to the sermon. Another snort of laughter from Anna. Fred nudged
her remindingly.
Her cousin sat motionless. Somehow he was aware that his face
was red. She could feel him. His hand, closed over the flower,
remained quite still, pretending to be normal. Another wild
struggle in Anna's breast, and the snort of laughter. She bent
forward shaking with laughter. It was now no joke. Fred was
nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another
vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off
in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She
wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket.
Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at
her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower
away.
In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly
depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She
hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite
haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more.
When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin
was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In
spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it
amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement.
And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was
mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out,
it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood
and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a
figure of shame.
"What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the
moment they were out of the church.
"Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless,
half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's
singing set me off."
"What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he
asked.
"It was so loud," she said.
They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again,
both reddening.
"What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked
Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes
bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in
the choir.
She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her,
waiting for her to speak.
"It was Cousin Will's singing," she said.