Part 92 (1/2)
”That's what I say. I love the little dears. Gawd's messages I call them. All the same, they're there, as you might say. An' yer can't explain them away.”
”True,” smiled Mavis.
”An' their cost!” grumbled Mrs Gowler, as she drained the second bottle by putting it to her lips. ”They simply eat good money, an' never 'ave enough.”
”One must look after one's own,” remarked Mavis.
”Little dears! 'Ow I love their pretty prattle. It makes me think of 'eavens an' Gawd's angels,” said Mrs Gowler. Then, as Mavis did not make any remark, she added: ”Six was born 'ere last week.”
”So many!”
”But onny three's alive.”
”The other three are dead!”
”It costs five bob a week an' extries to let a kid live, to say nothin'
of the lies and trouble an' all. An' no thanks you get for it.”
”A mother loves and looks after her own,” declared Mavis.
”Little dears! Ain't they pretty when they prattles their little prayers?” asked Mrs Gowler, as her lips parted in a terrible smile.
”Many's the time I've given 'em gin from me own bottle to give the little angels sleep.”
She said more to the same effect, to pause before saying, with a return to her practical manner:
”An' the gentlemen! They're always 'appy when anything 'appens to baby.”
Mavis looked at the woman with questioning eyes; she wondered what she meant. For a few moments Mrs Gowler attempted to lull Mavis's uneasiness by extravagant praise of infants' ways, which culminated in a hideous imitation of baby language. Suddenly she stopped; her little eyes glared fiercely at Mavis, while her face became rigid.
”What's the matter?” asked the girl.
Mrs Gowler rose unsteadily to her feet and said:
”Ten quid down will save you from forking out five bob a week till you're blue in the face from paying it.”
Mavis stared at her in astonishment. Mrs Gowler backed to the door.
”Told yer you'd fallen on your feet. Next time you'll know better. No pretty pretties: one little nightdress is all you'll want. But it's spot cash.”
Mavis was alone; it was, comparatively, a long time before she gathered what Mrs Gowler meant. When she realised that the woman had as good as offered to murder her child, when born, for the sum of ten pounds, her first impulse was to leave the house. But it was now late; she was worn out with the day's happenings; also, she reflected that, with the scanty means at her disposal, a further move to a like house to Mrs Gowler's might find her worse off than she already was. Her heart was heavy with pain when she knelt by her bedside to say her prayers, but, try as she might, she could find no words with which to thank her heavenly Father for the blessings of the day and to implore their continuance for the next, as was her invariable custom. When she got up from her knees, she hoped that the disabilities of her present situation would atone for any remissness of which she had been guilty.
Although she was very tired, it was a long time before she slept. She lay awake, to think long and lovingly of Perigal. This, and Jill's presence, were the two things that sustained her during those hours of sleeplessness in a strange, fearsome house, troubled as she was with the promise of infinite pain.
That night she loved Perigal more than she had ever done before. It seemed to her that she was his, body and soul, for ever and ever; that nothing could ever alter it. When she fell asleep, she did not rest for long at a stretch. Every now and then, she would awaken with a start, when, for some minutes, she would listen to the ticking of the American clock on the mantelpiece. Her mind went back to the vigil she had spent during Miss Nippett's kit night of life. Then, it had seemed as if the clock were remorselessly eager to diminish the remaining moments of the accompanist's allotted span. Now, it appeared to Mavis as if the clock were equally desirous of cutting short the moments that must elapse before her child was born.
The next morning, she was awakened soon after eight by the noise of a tray being banged down just inside the door, when she gathered that someone had brought her breakfast. This consisted of coa.r.s.ely cut bread, daubed with disquieting-looking b.u.t.ter, a boiled shop egg, and a cup of thin, stewed tea. As Mavis drank the latter, she recollected the monstrous suggestion which Mrs Gowler had insinuated the previous evening. The horror of it filled her mind to the exclusion of everything else. She had quite decided to leave the house as soon as she could pack her things, when a pang of dull pain troubled her body.
She wondered if this heralded the birth of her baby, which she had not expected for quite two days, when the pain pa.s.sed. She got out of bed and was setting about getting up, when the pain attacked her again, to leave her as it had done before. She waited in considerable suspense, as she strove to believe that the pains were of no significance, when she experienced a further pang, this more insistent than the last. She washed and dressed with all dispatch. While thus occupied, the pains again a.s.sailed her. When ready, she went downstairs to the kitchen, followed by Jill, to find the room deserted. She called ”Mrs Gowler”
several times without getting any response. Before going to her box to get some things she wanted, she gave Jill a run in the enclosed s.p.a.ce behind the house. When Mavis presently went upstairs with an armful of belongings from her box, she heard a voice call from the further side of a door she was pa.s.sing: