Part 94 (2/2)

Her baby's illness quickly called to life all the immense maternal instinct which she possessed, but, at the same time, her recent awakening to her own claims to consideration made her realise, with a heartfelt sigh, that, in loving her boy as she now did, she was only giving a further precious hostage to happiness.

For three days the mother was kept in a suspense that served to protract the boy's illness, but, at the end of this time, largely owing to Mrs Gowler's advice, he began to improve. The day that his disquieting symptoms disappeared, which was also the day on which he recovered his appet.i.te, was signalised by the arrival of Perigal's reply to Mavis's letter from Durley Road, announcing the birth of their son. In this, he congratulated her on her fort.i.tude, and a.s.sured her that her happiness and well-being would always be his first consideration. It also told her that she was the best and most charming girl he had ever met; meeting with other women only the more strengthened this conviction.

Mavis's heart leapt with a great joy. So long as she was easily first in her lover's eyes, nothing else mattered. She had been foolish ever to have done other than implicitly trust him. His love decorated the one-time sparrow that she was with feathers of gorgeous hue.

Days succeeded each other within the four walls of Mrs Gowler's nursing home much as anywhere else, although in each twenty-four hours there usually occurred what were to Mavis's sensitive eyes and ears unedifying sights, agonised cries of women in torment. All day and night, with scarcely any intermission, could be heard the wailing of one or more babies in different rooms in the house. Mrs Gowler's nursing home attracted numberless girls from all parts of the great city, whose condition necessitated their temporary retirement from employment, whatever it might be. Mavis gathered that they were mostly the mean sort of general servant, who had succ.u.mbed to the blandishments of the men who make it a practice to prey on this cla.s.s of woman. So far as Mavis could see, they were mostly plain and uninteresting-looking; also, that the majority of them stayed only a few days, lack of means preventing them being at Mrs Gowler's long enough to recover their health. They would depart, hugging their baby and carrying their poor little parcel of luggage, to be swallowed up and lost in London's ravening and cavernous maw. As they sadly left the house, Mavis could not help thinking that these deserted women were indeed human sparrows, who needed no small share of their heavenly Father's loving kindness to prevent them from falling and being utterly lost in the mire of London. Once or twice during Mavis's stay, the house was so full that three would sleep in one room, each of whom would go downstairs to the parlour, which was the front room on the ground floor, for the dreaded ordeal, to be taken upstairs as soon as possible after the baby was born. Mavis, who had always looked on the birth of a child as something sacred and demanding the utmost privacy, was inexpressibly shocked at the wholesale fas.h.i.+on in which children were brought into the world at Mrs Gowler's.

There was much that was casual, and, therefore, callous about the circ.u.mstances attending the ceaseless succession of births; they might as well have been kittens, their mothers cats, so Mavis thought, owing to the mean indignities attaching to the initial stages of their motherhood. It did not occur to her how house-room, furniture, doctors, nurses, and servants supply dignity to a commonplace process of nature.

It seemed to Mavis that Mrs Gowler lived in an atmosphere of horror and pain. At the same time, the girl had the sense to realise that Mrs Gowler had her use in life, inasmuch as she provided a refuge for the women, which salved their pride (no small matter) by enabling them to forego entering the workhouse infirmary, which otherwise could not have been avoided.

Oscar inspired Mavis with an inexpressible loathing. For the life of her, she could not understand why such terrible caricatures of humanity were permitted to live, and were not put out of existence at birth. The common trouble of Mrs Gowler's lodgers seemed to establish a feeling of fellows.h.i.+p amongst them during the time that they were there. Mavis was not a little surprised to receive one day a request from a woman, to the effect that she should give this person's baby a ”feed,” the mother not being so happily endowed in this respect as Mavis. The latter's indignant refusal gave rise to much comment in the place.

The ”permanent” was soon on her feet, an advantage which she declared was owing to her previous fecundity. Mavis could see how the ”permanent” despised her because she was merely nursing her first-born.

”'As Piggy 'ad a go at your box yet?” she one day asked Mavis, who replied:

”I'm too careful. I always keep it locked.”

”Locks ain't nothin' to her. If you've any letters from a gentleman, as would compromise him, burn them.”

”Why?”

”If she gets hold of 'em, she'll make money on 'em.”

”Nonsense! She wouldn't dare.”

”Wouldn't she! Piggy 'ud do anythink for gin or that there dear comic Oscar.”

In further talks with the ”permanent,” Mavis discovered that, for all her acquaintance's good nature, she was much of a liar, although her frequent deviations from the truth were caused by the woman's boundless vanity. Time after time she would give Mavis varying accounts of the incidents attending her many lapses from virtue, in all of which drugging by officers of His Majesty's army played a conspicuous part.

Mavis, except at meal times, saw little of Mrs Gowler, who was usually in the downstair parlour or in other rooms of the house. Whenever she saw Mavis, however, she persistently urged her to board out her baby with one of the several desirable motherly females she was in a position to recommend. Mrs Gowler pointed out the many advantages of thus disposing of Mavis's boy till such time as would be more convenient for mother and son to live together. But Mavis now knew enough of Mrs Gowler and her ways; she refused to dance to the woman's a.s.siduous piping. But Mrs Gowler was not to be denied. One day, when Mavis was sitting up in bed, Mrs Gowler burst into the room to announce proudly that Mrs Bale had come to see Mavis about taking her baby to nurse.

”Who is Mrs Bale?” asked Mavis, much annoyed at the intrusion.

”Wait till you see her,” cried Mrs Gowler, as if her coming were a matter of rare good fortune.

Mavis had not long to wait. In a few moments a tall, spare, masculine-looking woman strode into the room. Mrs Bale's red face seemed to be framed in s.p.a.cious black bonnet strings. Mavis thought that she had never seen such a long upper lip as this woman had. This was surmounted by a broken, turned-up nose, on either side of which were boiled, staring eyes, which did not hold expression of any kind.

If Mavis had frequented music halls, she would have recognised the woman as the original of a type frequently seen on the boards of those resorts, played by male impersonators. Directly she saw Mavis, Mrs Bale hurried to the bedside and seized the baby, to dandle it in her arms, the while she made a clucking noise not unlike the cackling of a hen.

Mavis noticed that Mrs Bale's breath reeked of gin.

”Put my baby down,” said Mavis.

”I'll leave you two ladies to settle it between yer,” remarked Mrs Gowler, as she left the room.

”I'm not going to put my baby out to nurse. Good morning.”

”Not for five s.h.i.+llings a week?” asked Mrs Bale.

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