"Is father coming back no more?"
"Do you want him back?"
Jackie hesitated; his mother pressed him for an answer.
"Not if you don't, mummie."
"But if he was to give you another boat, one with four sails?"
"They don't have four sails, not them with one mast."
"If he was to give you a boat with two masts, would you take it?"
"I should try not to, I should try ever so hard."
There were tears in Jackie's voice, and then, as if doubtful of his power
to resist temptation, he buried his face in his mother's bosom and sobbed
bitterly.
"You shall have another boat, my darling."
"I don't want no boat at all! I love you better than a boat, mummie,
indeed I do."
"And what about those clothes? You'd sooner stop with me and wear those
shabby clothes than go to him and wear a pretty velvet suit?"
"You can send back the velvet suit."
"Can I? My darling, mummie will give you another velvet suit," and she
embraced the child with all her strength, and covered him with kisses.
"But why can't I wear that velvet suit, and why can't father come back?
Why don't you like father? You shouldn't be cross with father because he
gave me the boat. He didn't mean no harm."
"I think you like your father. You like him better than me."
"Not better than you, mummie."
"You wouldn't like to have any other father except your own real father?"
"How could I have a father that wasn't my own real father?"
Esther did not press the point, and soon after Jackie began to talk about
the possibility of mending his boat; and feeling that something
irrevocable had happened, Esther put on her hat and jacket, and Mrs. Lewis
and Jackie accompanied her to the station. The women kissed each other on
the platform and were reconciled, but there was a vague sensation of
sadness in the leave-taking which they did not understand. And Esther sat
alone in a third-class carriage absorbed in consideration of the problem
of her life. The life she had dreamed would never be hers--somehow she
seemed to know that she would never be Fred's wife. Everything seemed to
point to the inevitableness of this end.
She had determined to see William no more, but he wrote asking how she
would like him to contribute towards the maintenance of the child, and
this could not be settled without personal interviews. Miss Rice and Mrs.
Lewis seemed to take it for granted that she would marry William when he
obtained his divorce. He was applying himself to the solution of this
difficulty, and professed himself to be perfectly satisfied with the
course that events were taking. And whenever she saw Jackie he inquired
after his father; he hoped, too, that she had forgiven poor father, who
had never meant no harm at all. Day by day she saw more clearly that her
instinct was right in warning her not to let the child see William, that
she had done wrong in allowing her feelings to be overruled by Miss Rice,
who had, of course, advised her for the best. But it was clear to her now
that Jackie never would take kindly to Fred as a stepfather; that he would
never forgive her if she divided him from his real father by marrying
another man. He would grow to dislike his stepfather more and more; and
when he grew older he would keep away from the house on account of the
presence of his stepfather; it would end by his going to live with him. He
would be led into a life of betting and drinking; she would lose her child
if she married Fred.