Volume Ii Part 19 (2/2)
”But tell me one thing, darling, only one. Why stay with him? Why not leave him?”
”Because of baby; I cannot desert my little one, Grace: and if I left him merely because he is unkind and allows me no liberty and is 'odd,'
he would have the right to keep baby, not I, its mother.”
”Then if that is the law it is abominable!” exclaimed Grace.
”I think it _is_ terrible,” said Margaret; ”even if he was cruel, if he struck me, if he were in other ways infamous, I might leave him; I should be free; but even then it is doubtful if I might have my child.”
”And we boast of English justice!” exclaimed Grace.
”It is cruelly unjust,” said Margaret. ”Oh darling, how often we have laughed at women wanting their 'rights,' and made fun of those who made a stir about having votes: but this one thing, this one frightful injustice, makes me feel that women should, in some way, be able to make their great needs felt; surely a mother should have equal rights with the father, and have something to say in a child's destiny!”
”And we have to submit, and I, _I_ have brought you into this position!”
and Grace burst into tears.
Jean hurried into the room.
”Bairns, my dear bairns, whist, for any sake. You'll make me feel I did wrong in leaving the two of you together.”
”We were talking of an unjust law,” said Margaret; ”we were talking of my child, Jean, and that _if_ I ever left my husband, he would have it probably, and not me.”
”It's a man made that law,” said Jean, ”and it's a real cruel one and not Christian. I never had any opinion of men, they're just poor creatures all round, poor selfish creatures--except, maybe, the police,”
she added, with a sense of ingrat.i.tude for the way in which a policeman had helped her in her hour of need.
”Tell me of your baby, Margaret,” said Grace, turning with real interest to her sister; ”it is more than a year old now, is it not?”
”My little darling is a year and almost three months old, in five days now it will be fifteen months old. It can run about, and calls me so prettily. Oh, darling, I wish, I wish it were with me at this moment. I feel so anxious if I am away from it; only once before, since its birth, have I been away.”
”And does that man shut you up, darling? Do you mean to say that those smoky trees and that walled-in place, looking like a prison, is all you have? Oh, your life is one long trial!”
Margaret did not speak; her life was so utterly wretched, so utterly devoid of hope, that she could not speak of it.
”I have baby,” she said, softly, ”and, Gracie, dearest, when one is very wretched G.o.d is very near.”
The sisters parted with all the anguish of a vagueness about their next meeting, which filled them both with a sense of having nothing to look forward to, and Margaret tore herself away and hurried into Mr. Skidd's presence.
Mrs. Dorriman had boldly authorised Jean to look to Mr. Sandford for all expenses, so that she no longer cared about the money so much.
But this lessened sense of requirement did not in any way make her grat.i.tude to the editor for his kindness, less. With no real knowledge to guide her she did not know that everything must bear the test of criticism, and that it would have been false kindness to encourage her to write without any merit in sight.
But Mr. Skidd had discovered real merit in all Margaret did; there was the impress of truth, and no fict.i.tious feeling. The cry was the cry of a starved, human soul pining for sympathy and an outlet, under a life of great misery and repression, haunted by a never-ending fear.
He was so amazed when Margaret stood before him--at her youth and the graceful way she expressed her thanks, that he was dumb before her.
Next a vivid colour blushed over his bald head, for he remembered that he stood in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves.
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