ABOUT THE PINCH
Only well-to-do people, those who have many changes of raiment and can
afford to poke the fire expensively, are happy in the winter. For others
there are various degrees of the pinch; lack of fuel pinch, want of food
pinch, insufficient clothes pinch, or the pinch of desolation and
dreariness. To those who dwell in lonely places winter pays no dividends
in the way of amusement, and increases the expense of living at the rate
of fifty per cent. No wonder they tumble down in adoration when the sun
comes. The smutty god of coal, and the greasy deity of oil are served in
winter; there is the lesser divinity of peat also. Each brings round a
bag and demands a contribution; and those who cannot pay are pinched
remorselessly.
Mrs. Bellamie sat in her drawing-room, and the fire burnt expensively,
and she spread her fragile feet towards it, without worshipping because
it was too common, and around her were luxuries on the top of luxuries;
and yet she was being pinched. It was not the horrid little note, rather
blurred and blotted, lying upon her lap which was administering the
pinch directly, but the thoughts brought on by that note. Mrs. Bellamie
was opening her secret drawer and turning out the rubbish. She was
thinking of the past which had been almost forgotten until that small
voice had come from Dartmoor. She had only to turn to the window to see
the snow-capped tors. The small voice was crying there and saying: "I am
only eighteen, and I am going to try and make a living by letting
lodgings. I promise you I will not write to Aubrey again." Those words
were so many crabs, pinching horribly; and at the bottom of the secret
drawer was a story, not written, because the drawer was the lady's mind,
and the story was about a little girl whose father had fallen on evil
days; a very respectable father, and a proud gentleman who would not
confess to his friends that his position had become desperate, but his
family knew all about it for they had to be hungry, and a very hard
winter came, and the coal-god sent his bag round as usual and they had
nothing to put into it. The father said he didn't want a fire. It was
neither necessary nor healthy. He preferred to sit in his cold damp
study with a greatcoat on and a muffler round his neck, and shiver. As
long as there was a bit of cold mutton in the house he didn't care, and
he talked about his ancestors who had suffered privations on fields
where English battles had been won, and declared that people of leisure
had got into a disgraceful way of coddling themselves; but he kept on
coughing, and the little girl heard him and it made her miserable. At
last she decided to wrap her morals up, and put them away in the secret
drawer, and forget all about them until the time of adversity was over.
There was a big house close by, belonging to wealthy friends of theirs,
and it was shut up for the winter. After dark the little girl climbed
over the railing, found her way to the coal-shed, took out some big
lumps, and threw them one by one into her father's garden. It made her
dreadfully dirty, but she didn't care, for she had put on her oldest
clothes. The next day her father found a fire burning in his study, and
he didn't seem angry. Indeed, when the little girl looked in, to tell
him it was cold mutton time, he was sitting close to it as if he had
forgotten all about the ancestors who had been frozen upon battlefields.
She did the same wicked thing that night, and the night after; and her
father lost his cough and became cheerful again. This robbery of the
rich went on for some time, until one night the little girl slipped
while climbing the railing and cut her knee badly, which kept her in bed
for some days, while she heard her father grumbling because he had no
fire; but he didn't grumble for long, because fine weather came, and his
circumstances improved, and a young gentleman came along and said he
wanted to be a robber too, and went off with the little coal-thief. It
was all so long ago that Mrs. Bellamie found herself wondering if it had
ever happened; but there was still a small mark upon her knee which
seemed to suggest that she ought to have known a good deal about the
little girl who had stolen coals during the days of the great pinch.
Some of the wintry mist from Dartmoor had got into the room, and had
settled between the lady and the fire, which suddenly became blurred and
looked like a scarlet waterfall. Part of the origin of the mist tickled
her cheek, and she put up her handkerchief to wipe it away; but the
voices went on talking. "I am only eighteen, and I am going to try and
make a living by letting lodgings," said the voice from the moor.
"Mother, I know I'm young, but I shall never change. I love her with my
whole heart." That was a voice from the sea. Mrs. Bellamie rose and went
to find her husband. She came upon him engrossed upon the
characteristics of Byzantine architecture.
"How are you going to answer this?" she said, dropping the note before
him like a cold fall of snow.
"Does it require any answer?" he said, looking up with a frown. "She
must struggle on. She is one out of millions struggling, and her case is
only more painful to us because we know of it. We will help her as much
as we can, indirectly."
"I should like to go and see her. I want to have her here for
Christmas," said the lady.
"It would be foolish," said Mr. Bellamie. "It would make her unsettled,
and more dissatisfied with her lot. She might also get to look upon this
house as her home."
"I am miserable about her. I wish I had never kissed her. She has kissed
me every day since," said the lady. "She is always on my mind, and now,"
she went on, glancing at the note, "I think of her alone, absolutely
alone, a child of eighteen, in a dreary cottage upon the moor, among
those savage people."
"If you had seen that weird old man--" began her husband.
"He is dead, I have seen her, and she haunts me."
Perhaps Mrs. Bellamie would not have been haunted if she had never
stolen those coals. Adversity breeds charity, and tenderness is the
daughter of Dame Want. Love does not fly out of the window when poverty
comes in. Only the imp who masquerades as the true god does that. The
son of Venus gets between husband and wife and hugs them tighter to warm
himself.
"I am a descendant of Richard Bellamie," said her husband, getting his
crest up like a proud cockatoo, "father of Alice, _quasi bella et
amabilis_, who was mother of Bishop Jewel of famous memory. You, my
dear, are a daughter of the Courtenays, _atavis editi re gibus_, and
royalty itself can boast of blood no better. Let the whole country
become Socialist, the Bellamies and Courtenays will stand aloof."
Mr. Bellamie smiled to himself. There was a classical purity about his
utterance which stimulated his system like a glass of rare wine.
"I know," said the lady. "I am referring to my feelings, nothing else."
She was still thinking of the coals, and it seemed to her that a certain
portion of her knee began to throb.
"When it comes to affairs of the heart, even the Bellamies and
Courtenays are Socialists," she said archly.
Mr. Bellamie did not reply directly to that. He loved his wife, and yet
he carried her off, when the days of coal-stealing had been
accomplished, as much for her name as anything else.
"My dear, let me understand you," he said. "Do you want Aubrey to marry
this nameless girl?"
"I don't know myself what I want," came the answer. "I only know it is
horrible to think of the poor brave child living alone and unprotected
on the moor. Suppose one of those rough men broke into her cottage?"
This was melodrama, which is bad art, and Mr. Bellamie frowned at it,
and changed the subject by saying: "She has promised not to write to
Aubrey again."
"While he has absolutely refused to give her up," his wife added.
"Directly he comes back he will go to her."
"I can't think where Aubrey gets it from," Mr. Bellamie murmured. "The
blood is so entirely unpolluted--but no, in the eighteenth century there
was an unfortunate incident, Gretna Green and a chambermaid, or
something of the kind. Young men were particularly reckless in that
century. If it had not been for that incident Aubrey would never have
run after this girl."
"I expect he would," she said.
"Then he is tainted. This terrible new democracy has tarred him with its
brush," said her husband. "I suppose the end of it will be he will run
off with this girl and bring her back married."
"There is not the slightest fear of that. The girl would not consent."
"Not consent!" cried Mr. Bellamie. "Not consent to marry into our
family!"
"My dear, there is such a thing as nobility of character, though we
don't see much of it, perhaps. I may be allowed to know something of my
sex, and I am certain this girl would never marry Aubrey without our
consent."
"Why, then, she's a good girl. I'll do all that I can for her if she is
like that," said Mr. Bellamie cheerfully.
"What do you suppose she is doing now? Sobbing herself to death," said
his wife.
The full-blooded gentleman stirred uneasily. Bad art again. "You are
pleading for her, my dear. Most distinctly you are pleading for her. If
you are going to side with Aubrey I will give in, of course. I will
write to the secretary of the Socialists' League, if there is such a
thing, and beg humbly to be enrolled as a member, and I will also state
that if the name of Bellamie is too much for them I shall be pleased to
adopt that of Tomkins or Jenkins. I cannot permit pride to stand in my
way, seeing that my future daughter-in-law has no name at all, unless it
is the highly aristocratic one of Smith-Robinson, the father being Smith
and the mother Robinson." He spoke with some heat, employing the weapon
of cynicism as a perfectly legitimate form of art.
"Surely you do not suggest she is an illegitimate child," said his wife,
with some horror.
"I suggest nothing, my dear, because I know nothing. I have heard all
sorts of stories about her--probably lies, like those the old man told
me. Understand, please, I cannot see the girl," he went on quickly. "I
like her. She is _bella et amabilis_, and if I saw much of her, pity and
admiration might make a fool of me. You know me, my dear. I am not
heartless, as my words might suggest. I want Aubrey to do well, marry
well, rise in his profession. If I went to see the child in her cottage
the sight would make me miserable. When I left the old man, after he had
choked me with the wildest lot of lies you ever heard, I was sad enough
for tears. His heart was so good though his art was so bad. The play
upon words was unintentional," he added, with a frown.
Mrs. Bellamie said no more, but the coals continued to trouble her, and
at last the fire kindled, and she ordered a carriage and drove up on
Dartmoor without telling her husband. It was the week before Christmas,
and the road was sprinkled with carts passing up and down filled with
good things, and the men who drove them were filled with good things
too, which made them desire the centre of the road at any price. The
lady's carriage was often kept at a walking pace by these human slugs
with their fill of sloe-gin.
Lewside Cottage was found with difficulty, most of the residents
appealed to declaring they had never heard of such a place, but the
driver found it at last, and brought the carriage up before the little
whitewashed house which looked very wet and dreary amid its wintry
surroundings. Mrs. Bellamie shivered as she got out and felt the wind
with a sharp edge of frost to it. Somebody else was shivering too, but
not with cold. Boodles watched from a corner of one of the windows, and
when the lady knocked she wanted to go and hide somewhere and pretend
she was miles away.
"Perhaps she has come to tell me about old maids for lodgers," she
murmured. Then she ran down, opened the door, and straightway became
speechless.
"I have come to see you, my dear," said the lady. The fact was obvious
enough to need no comment, but when people are embarrassed, and have to
say something, idiotic remarks serve as well as anything. Boodles tried
to reply that she perceived the visitor standing before her in the
flesh; but her tongue seemed to occupy the whole of her mouth, and she
could only smile and flush.
Mrs. Bellamie, finding the conversation left to herself, observed that
it was exceedingly cold, while poor Boodles was thinking how hot it was.
She knew that her note had brought Mrs. Bellamie, and she was dreadfully
afraid the lady was going to be charitable; open her purse and give her
half-a-sovereign, or call to the driver to bring in a hamper of food, or
perhaps of toys, for Boodles was feeling fearfully young and shy. "If
she gives me anything I shall stamp and scream," she thought.
"Are you really living here alone?" said Mrs. Bellamie, which was quite
as foolish as her other remarks, as she could not possibly have expected
to see people of various sizes and complexions tumbling suddenly from
the cupboards. "How very dreary it must be for you--dear."
The last word was not intended to escape. It was on the tip of the
lady's tongue, and rolled off before she could stop it. "Dear" alone
sounds much more tender without any possessive pronoun attached, and the
sound of it made Boodles attempt to swallow something that felt like a
lump of clay in her throat. She knew she would have to howl if that lump
got any higher and reached the tear mark. She felt that if she opened
her mouth she would begin to cry. It was such an awful and a pleasant
thing to have a visitor, and Aubrey's mother; and she was thinking
already how terrible it would be when the visitor went away.
They went into the little sitting-room. Their breath seemed to fill it
with cold steam, for there was no fire, which was a bad thing for Mrs.
Bellamie, for she thought at once of the past coal-age and the
resemblance of that room to her father's study; and just then Boodles
began to cough. It was all over with Mrs. Bellamie. Her secret drawer
was wide open, and all that she ought to have been ashamed of was
revealed. She was listening again at a certain keyhole, feeling the cold
current of air upon her ear, and with it the gentle persistent noise of
her proud old father coughing because he hadn't got any fire. She was
getting on in life, but her spirit was the same. She would have gone
then, and climbed a railing, and stolen coal to give the poor girl a
fire.
Boodles looked up with a smile, without in the least knowing that her
eyes were hungry for a caress. Mrs. Bellamie bent and kissed her, and
Boodles promptly wept.
"My poor child, how can you sit here in the cold? Why don't you have
a fire?" said the lady, who seemed bent on saying foolish things that
day.
"I--I am so glad to see you," sobbed Boodles, obtaining relief and the
use of her tongue. "I would have lighted a fire if I had known you were
coming. I only use the kitchen and my bedroom."
"Would you like to show me over the cottage?" said the lady, becoming
more sensible.
"It won't take long," said Boodles. "I am sorry for crying. This is
Thursday, isn't it? I lose track of the days rather, but the baker comes
Wednesdays and Saturdays, and he came yesterday, and it isn't Sunday, so
it must be Thursday. Well, I hadn't cried since Tuesday. Yesterday was a
day off."
"You poor child," murmured Mrs. Bellamie.
"Sometimes I think I ought to keep a record, a sort of rain-gauge," went
on Boodles in quite a lively fashion. It was a part of her idea. She was
playing her game of "not standing it," and after all she was telling the
truth so far. "Monday, three-hundred drops. Tuesday,
one-hundred-and-twenty-and-a-half drops. Wednesday, none. Thursday, not
over yet. It's like a prescription. I'm all right now, you made me feel
funny, as I've never had a civilised visitor before. It is very good of
you to come and discover me."
Then she took the lady over the tiny house, from the kitchen to her
bedroom, taking pride in the fact that it was all very neat, and
apologising for the emptiness of the larder by saying that she was only
one small girl, and she was well able to live upon air, especially as
the wind of Dartmoor was notoriously fattening.
"Eating is only one of the habits of civilisation," declared Boodles.
"So long as you live alone you never get hungry, but directly you go
among other people you want to eat. I have often seen two moormen meet
on the road. They didn't want anything while they were alone, but so
soon as they caught sight of one another they felt thirsty. May I get
you a cup of tea?"
"Well, the sight of you has made me thirsty," said Mrs. Bellamie.
Then they laughed together and felt better.
"Look at this basket," said Boodles, pointing to a familiar battered
object covered with a scrap of oilcloth. "It belongs to a poor man who
is in prison now. I brought him here because the people were hunting
him, and the policeman came and took him for stealing some clothes,
though I'm sure he was innocent. Aubrey gave him half-a-crown on Goose
Fair Day, and perhaps he bought the clothes with that. Can you buy a
suit of clothes for half-a-crown? If you can't, I don't know how these
men live. I am keeping the basket for the poor thing, and when they let
him out I expect he will come for it."
Boodles alluded to Brightly and his basket since they gave her the
opportunity of mentioning Aubrey. She wanted to see if the lady would
accept the opening, and explain the real object of her visit; but Mrs.
Bellamie, who was still respectable, only said that it was rather
shocking to think that Boodles had tried to protect a common thief, and
then she thought again of the coals, for the theft of which she had
never been punished until then. She ought to have been sent to prison
too, although she had done much more good than harm in stealing from a
wealthy man to give comfort to a poor one. It had made her tender and
soft-hearted also. She would never have felt so deeply for Boodles had
it not been for that little hiatus of poverty and crime. Rigid honesty
has its vices, and some sins have many virtues. Virtues are unpleasant
things to carry about in any quantity, like a pocketful of stones; but
little sins are cheery companions while they remain little. Mrs.
Bellamie was a much better woman for having been once a thief.
"Is that clock right?" asked the lady. "I told the driver to come for me
at five."
Boodles said she hadn't the least idea. There were two clocks, and each
told a different story, and she had nothing to check them by. She
thought it would be past four as it was getting so dark. She lighted the
lamp, and the lady noticed the little hands were getting rather red.
When the room was filled with light she noticed more; the girl was quite
thin, and she coughed a good deal; nearly all the colour had gone out of
her face, and there were lines under her eyes, lines that ought never to
be seen at eighteen; her mouth often quivered, and she would start at
every sound. Then Mrs. Bellamie heard the wind, and she started too.
"My dear, you cannot, you must not, live here alone," she said,
shivering at the idea, and the atmosphere. "It would drive me mad. The
loneliness, the wind, and the horrible black moor."
"I have got to put up with it. I have no friends," said Boodles at once.
"I don't know whether I shall pull through, as the worst time is ahead,
but I must try. You can't think what it is when the wind is really high.
Sometimes in the evenings I run about the place, and they chase me from
one room to another."
"Not men?" cried the lady in horror.
"Things, thoughts, I don't know what they are. The horrors that come
when one is always alone. Some nights I scream loud enough for you to
hear in Tavistock. I don't know why it should be a relief to scream, but
it is."
"You must get away from here," said Mrs. Bellamie decidedly. "We will
arrange something for you. Would you take a position as governess,
companion to a lady--"
"No," cried Boodles, as if the visitor had insulted her. "I am not going
to prison. I would rather lose my senses here than become a servant. If
I was companion to a lady I should take the dear old thing by the
shoulders and knock her head against the wall every time she ordered me
about. Why should I give up my liberty? You wouldn't. I have got a home
of my own, and with lodgers all summer I can keep going."
"You cannot do it. You cannot possibly do it," said Mrs. Bellamie. "Will
you come and spend Christmas with us?" she asked impulsively. It was a
sudden quiver of the girl's mouth that compelled her to give the
invitation.
"Oh, I should love it," cried Boodles. Then she added: "Does Mr.
Bellamie wish it?"
The lady became confused, hesitated, and finally had to admit that her
husband had not authorised her to speak in his name.
"Then I cannot come. It would have been a great pleasure to me, but of
course I couldn't come if he does not want me, and I shouldn't enjoy
myself in the least if I thought he had asked me out of charity," she
added rather scornfully.
Mrs. Bellamie only smiled and murmured: "Proud little cat."
"Well, I suppose I must be," said Boodles. "Poverty and loneliness
sharpen one's feelings, you know. If I was a rich lady I would come and
stay at your house, whether Mr. Bellamie wanted me or not. I shouldn't
care. But as I am, poor and lonely, and pretty miserable too, I feel I
should want to bite and scratch if any one came to do me a favour.
Aubrey is not coming home for Christmas then?" she added quickly, and
the next instant was scolding herself for alluding to him again. "I mean
you wouldn't ask me if he was coming home."
The lady asked abruptly for another cup of tea, not because she desired
it or intended to drink it, but because her son was the one subject she
wanted to avoid. That was the second time Boodles had made mention of
him, and the first time the lady had been worried by a pain in her knee,
and now she was haunted by the voice which had spoken so lovingly of the
little girl when it declared: "I will never give her up." That little
girl was standing with the lamplight on her hair, which was as radiant
as ever, and with a longing look in her eyes, which had become sad and
dreamy and altogether different from the eyes of fun and laughter which
she had worn on Goose Fair Day.
"Oh, Mrs. Bellamie, do say something," Boodles whispered.
The lady began to choke. What could she say that the child would like to
hear?
"You know I have given him up, at least my tongue has," the girl went
on. "But I want to know if he is going to give me up?"
"I cannot tell you, my dear," the lady murmured, glancing at the clock.
"I think you must know, for he told me he was going to speak to you and
his father. My life is quite miserable enough, and I don't want it made
worse. It will be much worse if he comes to see me when he returns, and
says he is the same as ever, and you are the same as ever. I promise I
won't see him again, if he leaves me alone, and I won't marry him
without your consent. Does he really love me, Mrs. Bellamie?"
"Yes, my dear," the lady whispered. "Do you think that is the carriage?"
"It is only the wind. Well, I know he does, but I wanted to hear you say
it. What am I to do when he comes home? He will ask me to meet him, and
if I refuse he will come up here and want to kiss me. What am I to do? I
love him. I have loved him since I was a small child. I am not going to
tell him I don't love him to please you or any one. I have done a good
deal. I will not do that."
"We will beg him not to come and trouble you," said the lady.
"But if he does come?"
"I think, my dear, it will be best for all of us if you ask him not to
come again."
That was too much for the little girl. She could hardly be expected to
enter into an alliance with Aubrey's parents against herself. She began
to breathe quickly, and there was plenty of colour in her cheeks as she
replied: "I shall do nothing of the kind. How can you expect me to tell
him to go away, and leave me, when I love him? I have got little enough,
and only one thing that makes me happy, and you want me to deprive
myself of that one thing. If you can deprive me of it you may. But I am
not going to torture myself. I have made my promise, and that is all
that can be expected from me. Were you never in love when you were
eighteen?"
The lady rather thought that at the susceptible age mentioned she fell
in love with every one, though the disease was only taken in a mild form
and was never dangerous. She had a distinct recollection of falling
violently in love with a choir boy, who sang like an angel and looked
like one, but she had never spoken to him because he was only the
baker's son. She had been rather more than twenty when Mr. Bellamie had
fallen in love with her blood, and she had been advised to fall in love
with his. She had been quite happy, she loved her husband in a restful
kind of way, but of the intense passion which lights up the whole
universe with one face and form she knew nothing; she hardly believed
that such love existed outside fairy-tales; and in her heart she thought
it scarcely decent. She had never kissed her husband before marrying
him, and she was very much shocked to think that her son had been
kissing Boodles. She would have been still more shocked had she seen
them together. She would have regarded their conduct as grossly immoral,
when it was actually the purest thing on earth. There is nothing cleaner
than a flame of fire.
Mrs. Bellamie tried to turn the conversation from her son. She was
uncomfortable and depressed. The surroundings and the atmosphere pinched
her, and she felt she would not have a proper sympathy for Boodles until
she was back in her luxurious drawing-room with a fire roaring shillings
and pence away up the chimney. She would feel inclined to cry for the
girl then, but at the present time, surrounded by winds and Weevil
furniture, she felt somewhat out of patience with her.
"I came to see if I could do anything for you," she said. "But you are
so independent. If I found you a comfortable--"
"Situation," suggested Boodles, when she hesitated.
"I suppose you wouldn't accept it?"
"I should not," said the girl, holding her head up. "The old man who is
dead spoilt me for being trodden on. Most girls who go into situations
have to grin and pretend they like it, but I should flare up. Thank you
all the same," she added stiffly.
Mrs. Bellamie looked at the little rebel again and wished she would be
more reasonable. It was a very different Boodles from the merry girl who
had come to tea with her in Tavistock. The girl looked years older, and
the babyish expression had gone for ever. Every month of that lonely
life would leave its mark upon her. December had written itself beneath
her eyes, and before long January would be signed upon her forehead, and
February perhaps would write upon her mind. Mrs. Bellamie saw the little
ring of forget-me-nots, and guessed who had given it her; and then she
began to wonder whether it was worth while fighting against Nature. Why
not let youth and love have their own sweet way, why not ignore the
accident of birth, which had made her a Courtenay and Boodles a blank,
why let pride straddle across the way to stop the youngsters from
getting into the happy land? Little could be gained from preventing
happiness, and much might be lost. That was the influence of the coals,
burning again, although the fire was dying lower; and then the influence
of prosperity and a restful life did their work, and suggested Boodles
in her drawing-room as Aubrey's wife, a pretty sight, a graceful
ornament; and outside the people talking, as they can talk when they
smell the carrion of scandal.
"Have you no one to look after you?" she asked. "No guardians? Did
your--did Mr. Weevil leave no will?"
"He left nothing, except the story of my birth," said Boodles. "I don't
know if he left any relations, but if there are any they are entitled to
what he left, as I am no connection of his. It would be dreadful for me
if there is any one, and they hear of his death."
"You know the story of your birth then now?" Mrs. Bellamie suggested.
"Yes," said Boodles; "I do."
She tossed her head and stood defiant. She was losing her temper, and
had already said what she had not intended to say. Having made up her
mind "not to stand it," she had prepared a simple story to tell to
Aubrey if he asked for it. Old Weevil had really been her grandfather,
and her parents had been obscure people of no better station than
himself. She was going to tell a lie, one thorough lie, and then be good
for ever. She was going to make herself legitimate, that and nothing
more, not a very serious crime, she was merely going to supply herself
with a couple of parents and a wedding-service, so that she should not
be in the position of Brightly and suffer for the sins of others. But
the sight of that cold lady was making Boodles mad. She did not know
that Mrs. Bellamie had really a tender feeling for her, and it was only
her artistic nature which prevented her from showing it. Boodles did not
understand the art which strives to repress all emotion. She did not
care about anything just then, being persuaded that both the Bellamies
were her enemies, and the lady had come with the idea of trying to make
her understand what a miserable little wretch she was, fitted for
nothing better than a situation where she would be trampled on. She felt
she wanted to disturb that tranquil surface, make the placid lady jump
and look frightened. Possibly her mind was not as sound as it should
have been. The solitude and the "windy organ," added to her own sorrows,
had already made a little mark. One of the first symptoms of insanity is
a desire to frighten others. So Boodles put her head back, and laughed a
little, and said rather scornfully: "I came upon some diaries that he
kept, and they told me all about myself. I will tell you, if you care to
hear."
"I should like to know," said Mrs. Bellamie. "But I think that must be
the carriage."
"It is," said Boodles, glancing out of the window and seeing
unaccustomed lights. "What I have to tell you won't take two minutes.
Mine is a very short story. Here it is. One night, eighteen years ago,
Mr. Weevil was sitting in this room when he heard a noise at the door.
He went out. Nobody was there, but at his feet he found a big bundle of
dry bracken. Inside it was a baby, and round its neck was a label on
which he read: 'Please take me in, or I shall be drowned to-morrow.'
What is the matter, Mrs. Bellamie?"
Boodles had her wish. The lady was regarding her already with fear and
horror.
"Don't tell me you were that child," she gasped.
"Why, of course I was. I told you my story was a short one. I have told
it you already, for that is all I know about myself, and all Mr. Weevil
ever knew about me. But he always thought my father must have been a
gentleman."
"The carriage is there, I think?"
"So you see I am what is known as a bastard," Boodles went on, with a
laugh. "I don't know the names of my parents. I was thrown out because
they didn't want me, and if Mr. Weevil had not taken me in I should have
been treated like a kitten or a rat. I am sorry that he did take me in,
as I am alone in the world now."
Mrs. Bellamie stood in the doorway, trembling and agitated, her face
white and her eyes furious. The coals would not trouble her again. Good
Courtenay blood had washed them, and made them as white as her own
cheeks.
"You let me kiss you," she murmured.
"Probably I've poisoned you," said the poor child, almost raving.
"My son has made love to you, kissed you, given you a ring."
There was a light in the girl's eyes, unnaturally bright. "If you tried
to take this ring from me I would kill you." She was guarding it with a
shivering hand. "I know what I am, Mrs. Bellamie. I knew before that
look in your eyes told me. I know what a beastly little creature I am,
to have a gentleman for a father and some housemaid for a mother. I know
it was all my own fault. It must have been the wicked soul in me that
made them do what was wrong. I know I deserve to be punished for daring
to live. I am young, but I have learnt all that; and now you are
teaching me more--you are teaching me that if I had been left at your
door you would have sent me to my proper place."
Mrs. Bellamie was outside, and the driver was assisting her towards the
carriage, as it was too dark for her to see. Then the wheels jolted away
over the rough road, and down the long hill towards luxury and
respectability; and the unlit night pressed heavily upon the moor; and
Boodles was lying upon her bed, talking to the things unseen.