Part 19 (2/2)
The ninth day pa.s.sed, but Esther recovered slowly, and it was decided that she should not leave the hospital before the end of the third week. She knew that when she crossed the threshold of the hospital there would be no more peace for her; and she was frightened as she listened to the never-ending rumble of the street. She spent whole hours thinking of her dear mother, and longing for some news from home, and her face brightened when she was told that her sister had come to see her.
”Jenny, what has happened; is mother very bad?”
”Mother is dead, that's what I've come to tell you; I'd have come before, but----”
”Mother dead! Oh, no, Jenny! Oh, Jenny, not my poor mother!”
”Yes Esther. I knew it would cut you up dreadful; we was all very sorry, but she's dead. She's dead a long time now, I was just a-going to tell you----”
”Jenny, what do you mean? Dead a long time?”
”Well, she was buried more than a week ago. We were so sorry you couldn't be at the funeral. We was all there, and had c.r.a.pe on our dresses and father had c.r.a.pe on his 'at. We all cried, especially in church and about the grave, and when the s.e.xton threw in the soil it sounded that hollow it made me sob. Julia, she lost her 'ead and asked to be buried with mother, and I had to lead her away; and then we went 'ome to dinner.”
”Oh, Jenny, our poor mother gone from us for ever! How did she die? Tell me, was it a peaceful death? Did she suffer?”
”There ain't much to tell. Mother was taken bad almost immediately after you was with us the last time. Mother was that bad all the day long and all night too we could 'ardly stop in the 'ouse; it gave one just the creeps to listen to her crying and moaning.”
”And then?”
”Why, then the baby was born. It was dead, and mother died of weakness; prostration the doctor called it.”
Esther hid her face in the pillow. Jenny waited, and an anxious look of self began to appear on the vulgar London street face.
”Look 'ere, Esther, you can cry when I've gone; I've a deal to say to yer and time is short.”
”Oh, Jenny, don't speak like that! Father, was he kind to mother?”
”I dunno that he thought much about it; he spent 'alf 'is time in the public, 'e did. He said he couldn't abide the 'ouse with a woman a-screaming like that. One of the neighbours came in to look after mother, and at last she had the doctor.” Esther looked at her sister through streaming tears, and the woman in the other bed alluded to the folly of poor women being confined ”in their own 'omes--in a 'ome where there is a drunken 'usband, and most 'omes is like that nowadays.”
At that moment Esther's baby awoke crying for the breast. The little lips caught at the nipple, the wee hand pressed the white curve, and in a moment Esther's face took that expression of holy solicitude which Raphael sublimated in the Virgin's downward-gazing eyes. Jenny watched the gluttonous lips, interested in the spectacle, and yet absorbed in what she had come to say to her sister.
”Your baby do look 'ealthy.”
”Yes, and he is too, not an ache or a pain. He's as beautiful a boy as ever lived. But think of poor mother, Jenny, think of poor mother.”
”I do think of her, Esther. But I can't help seeing your baby. He's like you, Esther. I can see a look of you in 'is eyes. But I don't know that I should care to 'ave a baby meself--the expense comes very 'eavy on a poor girl.”
”Please G.o.d, my baby shall never want for anything as long as I can work for him. But, Jenny, my trouble will be a lesson to you. I hope you will always be a good girl, and never allow yourself to be led away; you promise me?”
”Yes, I promise.”
”A 'ome like ours, a drunken father, and now that poor mother is gone it will be worse than ever. Jenny, you are the eldest and must do your best to look after the younger ones, and as much as possible to keep father from the public-house. I shall be away; the moment I'm well enough I must look out for a place.”
”That's just what I came to speak to you about. Father is going to Australia. He is that tired of England, and as he lost his situation on the railway he has made up his mind to emigrate. It is pretty well all arranged; he has been to an agency and they say he'll 'ave to pay two pounds a 'ead, and that runs to a lot of money in a big family like ours.
So I'm likely to get left, for father says that I'm old enough to look after myself. He's willing to take me if I gets the money, not without.
That's what I came to tell yer about.”
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