Part 26 (1/2)
”Yes, I'm glad for her that it isn't that. That would have been much worse. Being sent away to quiet places to rest might have been no good.”
”But even as it is, mamma is more anxious I am sure than she likes to own to herself. You and I must manage to convey to people that it is better not even to verge on making fussy inquiries. Mamma has too many burdens on her mind to be as calm as she used to be.”
It was an entirely uncomplicated situation. It became understood that the d.u.c.h.ess had become much attached to her companion as a result of her sweet faithfulness to her work. She and Dr. Redcliff had taken her in charge and prepared for her comfort and well-being in the most complete manner. A few months would probably end in a complete recovery. There were really no special questions even for the curious to ask and no one was curious. There was no time for curiosity. So Robin disappeared from her place at the small desk in the corner of the d.u.c.h.ess' sitting room and Kathryn took her place and used her pen.
CHAPTER XXI
In the front window of one of the row of little flat-faced brick houses on a narrow street in Manchester, Dowie sat holding Henrietta's new baby upon her lap. They were what is known as ”weekly” houses, their rent being paid by the week and they were very small. There was a parlour about the size of a compartment in a workbox, there was a still smaller room behind it which was called a dining room and there was a diminutive kitchen in which all the meals were eaten unless there was ”company to tea” which in these days was almost unknown. Dowie had felt it very small when she first came to it from the fine s.p.a.ces and heights of the house in Eaton Square and found it seemingly full of very small children and a hysterically weeping girl awaiting the impending arrival of one who would be smaller than the rest.
”You'll never stay here,” said Henrietta, crying and clutching the untidy half-b.u.t.toned front of her blouse. ”You come straight from d.u.c.h.esses and grandeur and you don't know how people like us live. How can you stand us and our dirt, Aunt Sarah Ann?”
”There needn't be dirt, Henrietta, my girl,” said Dowie with quite uncritical courage. ”There wouldn't be if you were yourself, poor la.s.s.
I'm not a d.u.c.h.ess, you know. I've only been a respectable servant. And I'm going to see you through your trouble.”
Her sober, kindly capableness evolved from the slovenly little house and the untended children, from the dusty rooms and neglected kitchen the kind of order and neatness which had been plain to see in Robin's more fortune-favoured apartment. The children became as fresh and neat as Robin's nursery self. They wore clean pinafores and began to behave tidily at table.
”I don't know how you do it, Aunt Sarah Ann,” sighed Henrietta. But she washed her blouse and put b.u.t.tons on it.
”It's just seeing things and picking up and giving a touch here and there,” said Dowie. She bought little comforts almost every day and Henrietta was cheered by cups of hot tea in the afternoon and found herself helping to prepare decent meals and sitting down to them with appet.i.te before a clean tablecloth. She began to look better and recovered her pleasure in sitting at the front window to watch the people pa.s.sing by and notice how many new black dresses and bonnets went to church each Sunday.
When the new baby was born there was neither turmoil nor terror.
”Somehow it was different from the other times. It seemed sort of natural,” Henrietta said. ”And it's so quiet to lie like this in a comfortable clean bed, with everything in its place and nothing upset in the room. And a bright bit of fire in the grate--and a tidy, swept-up hearth--and the baby breathing so soft in his flannels.”
She was a pretty thing and quite unfit to take care of herself even if she had had no children. Dowie knew that she was not beset by sentimental views of life and that all she wanted was a warm and comfortable corner to settle down into. Some masculine creature would be sure to begin to want her very soon. It was only to be hoped that youth and flightiness would not descend upon her--though three children might be supposed to form a barrier. But she had a girlish figure and her hair was reddish gold and curly and her full and not too small mouth was red and curly also. The first time she went to church in her little widow's bonnet with the reddish gold showing itself under the pathetic little white crepe border, she was looked at a good deal. Especially was she looked at by an extremely respectable middle-aged widower who had been a friend of her dead husband's. His wife had been dead six years, he had a comfortable house and a comfortable shop which had thriven greatly through a connection with army supplies.
He came to see Henrietta and he had the good sense to treat Dowie as if she were her mother. He explained himself and his circ.u.mstances to her and his previous friends.h.i.+p for her nephew. He asked Dowie if she objected to his coming to see her niece and bringing toys to the children.
”I'm fond of young ones. I wanted 'em myself. I never had any,” he said bluntly. ”There's plenty of room in my house. It's a cheerful place with good solid furniture in it from top to bottom. There's one room we used to call 'the Nursery' sometimes just for a joke--not often. I choked up one day when I said it and Mary Jane burst out crying. I could do with six.”
He was stout about the waist but his small blue eyes sparkled in his red face and Henrietta's slimness unromantically but practically approved of him.
One evening Dowie came into the little parlour to find her sitting upon his knee and he restrained her when she tried to rise hastily.
”Don't get up, Hetty,” he said. ”Your Aunt Sarah Ann'll understand.
We've had a talk and she's a sensible woman. She says she'll marry me, Mrs. Dowson--as soon as it's right and proper.”
”Yes, we've had a talk,” Dowie replied in her nice steady voice. ”He'll be a good husband to you, Henrietta--kind to the children.”
”I'd be kind to them even if she wouldn't marry me,” the stout lover answered. ”I want 'em. I've told myself sometimes that I ought to have been the mother of six--not the father but the mother. And I'm not joking.”
”I don't believe you are, Mr. Jenkinson,” said Dowie.
As she sat before the window in the sc.r.a.p of a parlour and held the sleeping new baby on her comfortable lap, she was thinking of this and feeling glad that poor Jem's widow and children were so well provided for. It would be highly respectable and proper. The ardour of Mr.
Jenkinson would not interfere with his waiting until Henrietta's weeds could be decorously laid aside and then the family would be joyfully established in his well-furnished and decent house. During his probation he would visit Henrietta and bring presents to the children and unostentatiously protect them all and ”do” for them.