Until she comes to grips with her mother's death, she has no hope of putting it behind her.

an upwinged fly

But her laugh stuck in her throat, for at that moment a shadow overfell the two houses

If we clung as devotedly as some philosophers pretend we do to the abstract idea of life, or were half as frightened as they make out we are, for the subversive accident that ends it all, the trumpets might sound by the hour and no one would follow them into battle - the blue-peter might fly at the truck, but who would climb into a sea-going ship?