Part 9 (1/2)

”Four,” said Mrs. Reeve, and she thought of them asleep in the firelight.

The old woman--a mere bundle with a pair of eyes in it--looked at her for a moment, and pretending out of delicacy to be talking to herself, she muttered loud enough to be heard: ”Oh, that's where it is, is it?

There's four, same as I've buried. And a deal too many to bring up decent on ten s.h.i.+llin' a week. Why, I'd sooner let the Poor Law 'ave 'em, though me and the old man 'ad to go into the 'Ouse for it. And that's what I said to Mrs. Green when Mrs. Turner was left with six. And Mrs. Turner she went and done it. An uncommon sensible woman, was Mrs.

Turner, not like some as don't care what comes to their children, so long as they're 'appy theirselves.”

In the woman's words Mrs. Reeve heard the voice of mankind condemning her. She knew it was all true. The thought had haunted her for days, and that she might not hear more, she drowned the words by sousing about the dirty water under the hiss of the scouring brush.

But when she reached home just before midnight, her mind was made up.

Her husband had always insisted that the children should be well fed and healthy. He had spoken with a countryman's contempt of the meagre c.o.c.kney bodies around them. One at least should go. She lit the candle, and stood listening to their sleep. Suddenly the further question came--which of the four? Should it be Alfred, the child of her girlhood, already so like his father, though he was only just nine? She couldn't get on without him, he was so helpful, could be trusted to light the lire, sweep the room and wash up. It could not possibly be Alfred.

Should it be Lizzie, her little girl of five, so pretty and nice to dress in the old days when even her father would look up from his book with a grunt of satisfaction at her bits of finery on Sundays? But a girl must always need the mother's care. It couldn't possibly be Lizzie.

Or should it be little Ben, lying there with eyes sunk deep in his head, and one arm outside the counterpane? Why, Ben was only three. A few months ago he had been the baby. It couldn't possibly be little Ben. And then there was the baby herself--well, of course, it couldn't be the baby.

So the debate went on, in a kind of all-night sitting. At half-past five she started for the offices again, sleepless and undecided.

That afternoon she went to the relieving officer at the workhouse. Two days later she was waiting among other ”cases” in a pa.s.sage there, under an illuminated text: ”I have not seen the righteous forsaken.” In her turn she was ushered into the presence of the Board from behind a black screen. A few questions were put with all the delicacy which time and custom allowed. There was a brief discussion.

”Quite a simple case,” said the chairman. ”My good woman, the Guardians will undertake to relieve you of two children to prevent the whole lot of you coming on the rates. Send the two eldest to the House at once, and they will be drafted into our school in due course. Good morning to you. Next case, please.”

She could do nothing but obey. Alfred and Lizzie were duly delivered at the gate. Bewildered and terrified, hoping every hour to be taken home, they hung about the workhouse, and became acquainted with the flabby pallor and desperate sameness of the pauper face. After two days they were whirled away, they knew not where, in something between a brougham and an ambulance cart.

”You lay, Liz, they're goin' to make us Lord Mayors of London, same as Whittington, and we'll all ride in a coach together,” said Alfred, excited by the drive, and amazed at the two men on the box. Then they both laughed with the cheerful irony of London children.

II

It was an afternoon in early October, the day after Alfred and Lizzie had been removed from the workhouse. They were now in the probation ward of one of the great district schools. Lizzie was sitting in the girls'

room, whimpering quietly to herself, and every now and then saying, ”I want my mother.” To which the female officer replied, ”Oh, you'll soon get over that.”

Alfred was standing on the outside of a little group of boys gathered in idleness round a stove in a large whitewashed room on the opposite side of the building. Nearest the warmth stood Clem Bowler, conscious of the dignity which experience gives. For Clem had a reputation to maintain. He was a redoubtable ”in and out.” Four times already within a year his parents had entrusted themselves and him to the care of the State, and four times, overcome by individualistic considerations, they had recalled him to their own protection. His was not an unusual case.

The superintendent boasted that his ”turn-over” ran to more than five hundred children a year. But there was distinction about Clem, and people remembered him.

”You 'ear, now,” he said, looking round with a veteran's contempt upon the squad of recruits in pauperism, ”if none on yer don't break out with somethink before the week's over, I'll flay the lot. I'm not pertikler for what it is. Last time it was measles first, and then ringworm. Nigh on seven weeks I stopt 'ere with nothink to do only eat, and never got so much as a smell of the school. What's them teachers got to learn _me_, I'd like to know?”

He paused with rhetorical defiance, but as no one answered he proceeded to express the teachers and officers in terms of unmentionable quant.i.ties. Suddenly he turned upon a big, vacant-looking boy at his side.

”What's yer name, fat-'ead?” he asked.

The boy backed away a pace or two, and stood gently moving his head about, and staring with his large pale eyes, as a calf stares at a dog.

”Speak, you dyin' oyster!” said Clem, kicking his s.h.i.+ns.

”Ernest,” said the boy, with a sudden gasp, turning fiery red and twisting his fingers into knots.

”Ernest what?” said Clem. ”But it don't matter, for your sort always belongs to the fine old family of Looney. You're a deal too good for the likes of us. Why, you ought to 'ave a private asylum all to yerself. Hi, Missus!” he shouted to the porter's wife who was pa.s.sing through the room. ”This young n.o.bleman's name's Looney, isn't it?”

”Looks as if it 'ad ought to be,” she answered, with a smile, for she avoided unnecessary difficulties. It was her duty to act as mother to the children in the probation ward, and she had already mothered about five thousand.

”Well, Looney,” Clem went on as soon as she had gone, ”I'll give you a fair run for your money. By next Sunday week you must 'ave a sore 'ead or sore eyes, or I'll see as you get both. But p'raps I may as well take two of the lot of yer in 'and at once.”