Part 65 (2/2)
”Yes, here it is,” she cried. ”No--oh no, no!” and she began to wring her hands.
”Told yer so,” said the woman, and with a wicked grin she pointed to a memorial card which hung on the wall.
Aggie's child was dead and buried. Diarrhoea! The doctor at the dispensary had given a certificate of death, and Charlie had shared the insurance money. ”Wish to Christ it was ended!” he had said. He had been drunk ever since.
The poor girl was stunned. She was no longer crying. ”Oh, oh, oh! What shall I do?” she said.
”Who's child is this?” said John, standing over the wicker cradle. The little sufferer from inflamed gums had sobbed itself to sleep.
”A real laidy's,” said the woman. ”Mrs. Jupe told us to tyke great kear of it. The father is Lord something.”
”My poor girl,” said John, turning to Aggie, ”could you carry this child home for me?”
”Oh, oh, oh!” said the girl, but she wrapped the shawl about the child and lifted it up sleeping.
”Now, you down't!” said the man, putting himself on guard before the door. ”That child is worth 'undrids of pounds to me, and----”
”Stand back, you brute!” said John, and with the girl and her burden he pa.s.sed out of the house.
The front door stood open and the neighbourhood had been raised.
Trollopy women in their under-petticoats and with their hair hanging about their necks were gathered at the end of the court. Aggie was crying again, and John pushed through the crowd without speaking.
They went back by Broad Sanctuary, where a solitary policeman was pacing to and fro on the echoing pavement. Big Ben was chiming the half-hour after midnight. The child coughed like a sheep constantly, and Aggie kept saying, ”Oh, oh, oh!”
Mrs. Pincher, in her widow's cap and white ap.r.o.n, was waiting up for them, and John committed the child to her keeping. Then he said to Aggie, who was turning away, ”My poor child, you have suffered deeply, but if you will leave this man I will help you to begin life again, and if you want money I will find it.”
”Well, he _is_ a Father and no mistake!” said Mrs. Pincher; but the girl only answered in a hopeless voice, ”I don't want no money, and I don't want to begin life again.”
As she crossed the court to her room in the tenement house they heard her ”Oh, oh, oh!”
Before going to bed that night John Storm wrote to Glory:
”Hurrah! Have got poor Polly's baby, so you may set your heart at ease about it. All the days of my life I have been thought to be a dreamer, but it is surprising what a man can do when he sets to work for somebody else! Your former landlady turns out to be the wife of my 'organ man,'
and it was pitiful to see the dear old simpleton's devotion to his bogus little baggage. I have lost him, of course, but that was unavoidable.
”It was by help of another victim that I traced the child at last. She is a ballet girl of some sort, and it was as much as I could stand to see the poor young thing carrying Polly's baby, her own being dead and buried without a word said to her. Short of the grace of G.o.d she will go to the bad now. Oh, when will the world see that in dealing with the starved hearts of these poor fallen creatures G.o.d Almighty knows best how to do his own business? Keep the child with the mother, foster the maternal instinct, and you build up the best womanhood. Drag them apart, and the child goes to the dogs and the mother to the devil.
”But Polly's baby is safely lodged with Mrs. Pincher, a dear old grandmotherly soul who will love it like her own, and all the way home I have been making up my mind to start baby-farming myself on fresh lines.
He who wrongs the child commits a crime against the State. However low a woman has fallen, she is a subject of the Crown, and if she is a mother she is the Crown's creditor. These are my first principles, the application will come anon. Meantime you have given me a new career, a glorious mission! Thank G.o.d and Glory Quayle for it for ever and ever!
Then--who knows?--perhaps you will come back and take it up yourself some day. When I think of the precious time I spent, in that monastery ... but no, only for that I should not be here.
”Oh, life is wonderful! But I feel afraid that I shall wake up--perhaps in the streets somewhere--and find I have been dreaming. Deeply grieved to hear of the grandfather's attack. Trust it has pa.s.sed. But if not, certain I am that all is well with him and that he is staid only on G.o.d.
”Hope you are well and plodding through this wilderness in comfort, avoiding the thorns as well as you can. Glenfaba may be dull, but you do well to keep out of the whirlpool of London for the present. Yours is a snug spot, and when storms are blowing even the sea-gulls shelter about your house, I remember ... But why Rosa? Is Peel the only place for a summer holiday?”
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