"Esther, I can get a divorce."
"You'd much better go back to your wife. Once married, always married,
that's my way of thinking."
"I'm sorry to hear you say it, Esther. Do you think a man should stop with
his wife who's been treated as I have been?"
Esther avoided a direct reply. Why should he care about the child? He had
never done anything for him. William said that if he had known there was a
child he would have left his wife long ago. He believed that he loved the
child just as much as she did, and didn't believe in marriage without
children.
"That would have been very wrong."
"We ain't getting no for'arder by discussing them things," he said,
interrupting her. "We can't say good-bye after this evening and never see
one another again."
"Why not? I'm nothing to you now; you've got a wife of your own; you've no
claim upon me; you can go your way and I can keep to mine."
"There's that child. I must do something for him."
"Well, you can do something for him without ruining me."
"Ruining you, Esther?"
"Yes, ruining me. I ain't going to lose my character by keeping company
with a married man. You've done me harm enough already, and should be
ashamed to think of doing me any more. You can pay for the boy's schooling
if you like, you can pay for his keep too, but you mustn't think that in
doing so you'll get hold of me again."
"Do you mean it, Esther?"
"Followers ain't allowed where I am. You're a married man. I won't have
it."
"But when I get my divorce?"
"When you get your divorce! I don't know how it'll be then. But here's
Mrs. Lewis; she's a-scolding of Jackie for swinging on that 'ere gate.
Naughty boy; he's been told twenty times not to swing on the gate."
Esther complained that they had stayed too long, that he had made her
late, and treated his questions about Jackie with indifference. He might
write if he had anything important to say, but she could not keep company
with a married man. William seemed very downcast. Esther, too, was
unhappy, and she did not know why. She had succeeded as well as she had
expected, but success had not brought that sense of satisfaction which she
had expected it would. Her idea had been to keep William out of the way
and hurry on her marriage with Fred. But this marriage, once so ardently
desired, no longer gave her any pleasure. She had told Fred about the
child. He had forgiven her. But now she remembered that men were very
forgiving before marriage, but how did she know that he would not reproach
her with her fault the first time they came to disagree about anything?
Ah, it was all misfortune. She had no luck. She didn't want to marry
anyone.
That visit to Dulwich had thoroughly upset her. She ought to have kept out
of William's way--that man seemed to have a power over her, and she hated
him for it. What did he want to see the child for? The child was nothing
to him. She had been a fool; now he'd be after the child; and through this
fever of trouble there raged an acute desire to know what Jackie thought
of his father, what Mrs. Lewis thought of William.
And the desire to know what was happening became intolerable. She went to
her mistress to ask for leave to go out. Very little of her agitation
betrayed itself in her demeanour, but Miss Rice's sharp eyes had guessed
that her servant's life was at a crisis. She laid her book on her knee,
asked a few kind, discreet questions, and after dinner Esther hurried
towards the Underground.
The door of the cottage was open, and as she crossed the little garden she
heard Mrs. Lewis say--
"Now you must be a good boy, and not go out in the garden and spoil your
new clothes." And when Esther entered Mrs. Lewis was giving the finishing
touches to the necktie which she had just tied. "Now you'll go and sit on
that chair, like a good boy, and wait there till your father comes."
"Oh, here's mummie," cried the boy, and he darted out of Mrs. Lewis's
hand. "Look at my new clothes, mummie; look at them!" And Esther saw her
boy dressed in a suit of velveteen knickerbockers with brass buttons, and
a sky-blue necktie.
"His father--I mean Mr. Latch--came here on Thursday morning, and took him
to----"
"Took me up to London----"
"And brought him back in those clothes."
"We went to such a big shop in Oxford Street for them, and they took down
many suits before they could get one to fit. Father is that difficult to
please, and I thought we should go away without any clothes, and I
couldn't walk about London with father in these old things. Aren't they
shabby?" he added, kicking them contemptuously. It was a little grey suit
that Esther had made for him with her own hands.
"Father had me measured for another suit, but it won't be ready for a few
days. Father took me to the Zoological Gardens, and we saw the lions and
tigers, and there are such a lot of monkeys. There is one----But what
makes you look so cross, mummie dear? Don't you ever go out with father in
London? London is such a beautiful place. And then we walked through the
park and saw a lot of boys sailing boats. Father asked me if I had a boat.
I said you couldn't afford to buy me toys. He said that was hard lines on
me, and on the way back to the station we stopped at a toy-shop and he
bought me a boat. May I show you my boat?"
Jackie was too much occupied with thoughts of his boat to notice the gloom
that was gathering on his mother's face; Mrs. Lewis wished to call upon
him to desist, but before she could make up her mind what to do, he had
brought the toy from the table and was forcing it into his mother's hands.
"This is a cutter-rigged boat, because it has three sails and only one
mast. Father told me it was. He'll be here in half-an-hour; we're going to
sail the boat in the pond on the Rye, and if it gets across all right
he'll take me to the park where there's a big piece of water, twice, three
times as big as the water on the Rye. Do you think, mummie, that I shall
ever be able to get my boat across such a piece of water as the--I've
forgotten the name. What do they call it, mummie?"
"Oh, I don't know; don't bother me with your boat."
"Oh, mummie, what have I done that you won't look at my boat? Aren't you
coming with father to the Rye to see me sail it?"
"I don't want to go with you. You want me no more. I can't afford to give
you boats.... Come, don't plague me any more with your toy," she said,
pushing it away, and then in a moment of convulsive passion she threw the
boat across the room. It struck the opposite wall, its mast was broken,
and the sails and cords made a tangled little heap. Jackie ran to his toy,
he picked it up, and his face showed his grief. "I shan't be able to sail
my boat now; it won't sail, its mast and the sails is broke. Mummie, what
did you break my boat for?" and the child burst into tears. At that moment
William entered.
"What is the child crying for?" he asked, stopping abruptly on the
threshold. There was a slight tone of authority in his voice which angered
Esther still more.
"What is it to you what he is crying for?" she said, turning quickly
round. "What has the child got to do with you that you should come down
ordering people about for? A nice sort of mean trick, and one that is just
like you. You beg and pray of me to let you see the child, and when I do
you come down here on the sly, and with the present of a suit of clothes
and a toy boat you try to win his love away from his mother."
"Esther, Esther, I never thought of getting his love from you. I meant no
harm. Mrs. Lewis said that he was looking a trifle moped; we thought that
a change would do him good, and so----"
"Ah! it was Mrs. Lewis that asked you to take him up to London. It is a
strange thing what a little money will do. Ever since you set foot in this
cottage she has been curtseying to you, handing you chairs. I didn't much
like it, but I didn't think that she would round on me in this way." Then
turning suddenly on her old friend, she said, "Who told you to let him
have the child?... Is it he or I who pays you for his keep? Answer me
that. How much did he give you--a new dress?"
"Oh, Esther, I am surprised at you: I didn't think it would come to
accusing me of being bribed, and after all these years." Mrs. Lewis put
her apron to her eyes, and Jackie stole over to his father.
"It wasn't I who smashed the boat, it was mummie; she's in a passion. I
don't know why she smashed it. I didn't do nothing."
William took the child on his knee.
"She didn't mean to smash it. There's a good boy, don't cry no more."
Jackie looked at his father. "Will you buy me another? The shops aren't
open to-day." Then getting off his father's knee he picked up the toy, and
coming back he said, "Could we mend the boat somehow? Do you think we
could?"
"Jackie, dear, go away; leave your father alone. Go into the next room,"
said Mrs. Lewis.
"No, he can stop here; let him be," said Esther. "I want to have no more
to say to him, he can look to his father for the future." Esther turned on
her heel and walked straight for the door. But dropping his boat with a
cry, the little fellow ran after her and clung to her skirt despairingly.
"No, mummie dear, you mustn't go; never mind the boat; I love you better
than the boat--I'll do without a boat."
"Esther, Esther, this is all nonsense. Just listen."
"No, I won't listen to you. But you shall listen to me. When I brought you
here last week you asked me in the train what I had been doing all these
years. I didn't answer you, but I will now. I've been in the workhouse."
"In the workhouse!"
"Yes, do that surprise you?"
Then jerking out her words, throwing them at him as if they were
half-bricks, she told him the story of the last eight years--Queen
Charlotte's hospital, Mrs. Rivers, Mrs. Spires, the night on the
Embankment, and the workhouse.
"And when I came out of the workhouse I travelled London in search of
sixteen pounds a year wages, which was the least I could do with, and when
I didn't find them I sat here and ate dry bread. She'll tell you--she saw
it all. I haven't said nothing about the shame and sneers I had to put up
with--you would understand nothing about that,--and there was more than
one situation I was thrown out of when they found I had a child. For they
didn't like loose women in their houses; I had them very words said about
me. And while I was going through all that you was living in riches with a
lady in foreign parts; and now when she could put up with you no longer,
and you're kicked out, you come to me and ask for your share of the child.
Share of the child! What share is yours, I'd like to know?"
"Esther!"
"In your mean, underhand way you come here on the sly to see if you can't
steal the love of the child from me."
She could speak no more; her strength was giving way before the tumult of
her passion, and the silence that had come suddenly into the room was more
terrible than her violent words. William stood quaking, horrified, wishing
the earth would swallow him; Mrs. Lewis watched Esther's pale face,
fearing that she would faint; Jackie, his grey eyes open round, held his
broken boat still in his hand. The sense of the scene had hardly caught on
his childish brain; he was very frightened; his tears and sobs were a
welcome intervention. Mrs. Lewis took him in her arms and tried to soothe
him. William tried to speak; his lips moved, but no words came.
Mrs. Lewis whispered, "You'll get no good out of her now, her temper's up;
you'd better go. She don't know what she's a-saying of."
"If one of us has to go," said William, taking the hint, "there can't be
much doubt which of us." He stood at the door holding his hat, just as if
he were going to put it on. Esther stood with her back turned to him. At
last he said--
"Good-bye, Jackie. I suppose you don't want to see me again?"
For reply Jackie threw his boat away and clung to Mrs. Lewis for
protection. William's face showed that he was pained by Jackie's refusal.
"Try to get your mother to forgive me; but you are right to love her best.
She's been a good mother to you." He put on his hat and went without
another word. No one spoke, and every moment the silence grew more
paralysing. Jackie examined his broken boat for a moment, and then he put
it away, as if it had ceased to have any interest for him. There was no
chance of going to the Rye that day; he might as well take off his velvet
suit; besides, his mother liked him better in his old clothes. When he
returned his mother was sorry for having broken his boat, and appreciated
the cruelty. "You shall have another boat, my darling," she said, leaning
across the table and looking at him affectionately; "and quite as good as
the one I broke."
"Will you, mummie? One with three sails, cutter-rigged, like that?"
"Yes, dear, you shall have a boat with three sails."
"When will you buy me the boat, mummie--to-morrow?"
"As soon as I can, Jackie."