_Wherein the Widow Snacheur separates the Milk from Human Kindness_
In a large and shabby room on the ground floor of the court, a dark
blur in the gloom of the gathering dusk, crouched rather than sat the
widow Snacheur--_La bête noire_, the street urchins had it in awed
whisper, thrusting out mocking chins behind her back.
With hard old fingers she was smoothing out upon the bare table the
crumpled sheet of newspaper which she had just unfolded from a package
sent by a tradesman; the hawklike eyes strained to read the print, but
the fading daylight smudged the page.
She drew her soiled black shawl more closely about her bent shoulders:
She lifted up a reedy voice:
“Madelaine!” she cried harshly.
A door opened, and there stepped through the opened way a lean girl of
fourteen, the drudge that is called maid-of-all-work.
“Yes, madame,” said Madelaine, or what was the half-starved embodiment
of Madelaine, her long bare arms thrust out through her turned-up
sleeves, her dingy black dress a world too short for her and showing
bare legs, her stockingless feet in down-at-heels boots that had
already served another owner.
The child held herself insolently. Indeed, the old woman Snacheur had
beaten her the night before, falling upon the slender shoulders with a
stout stick; and for the first time the girl had flown at the brutality
and struck back--the old woman shuffling backwards into a corner of the
room before the onslaught, retreating in sullen surprise, wiping a long
tingling nose with the back of a sinewy hand as the pain sent the tears
trickling down the runnels of her withered cheeks. Through scowling
evil eyes she had realized that the harsh thrashings of these poor
lean shoulders were at an end--that the four years of grim domination
since she had taken this poor outcast child to be her drudge were
gone--and that whatever cruelty of starvation and neglect her miserly
wits might still impose upon her hungry years, the rod had fallen from
her gloating fingers and the blue weals upon the poor thin shoulders
were painted with the hellish brand of her cruel hand for the last
time. The child was springing up into starved youth--nay, girlhood was
almost gone--indeed, within the gaunt body lurked some strange hint of
womanhood, smiling forth even from the starved body of this hireling
thing.
“Yes, madame,” said Madelaine.
The brooding old woman came back out of the humiliating past:
“There are halfpence on the table,” she said--“go and buy milk--and see
that the thieving beast gives you full measure--there was no milk in
the neck of the bottle last night--he is a scoundrel--unless you drank
it on the way and are yourself the thief.”
Madelaine shrugged her lean shoulders, and gathered up the halfpence.
As she left the room the old woman called after her:
“And see that you are back before the darkness--there will be no light
to show you to bed.”
When the child had gone, the old woman arose and shuffled to a
cupboard. She listened to the girl fumbling at the latch of the outer
door--heard her depart--waited so until the brisk footsteps died away
into the traffic of the street. Searching in her skirts for a bunch
of keys, she glanced carefully round the darkening room, opened the
cupboard door, and took out an old tin canister. She held the canister
to the fading light of the high window, chose an end of candle from
some others, and carefully locked up the tin in the cupboard again. She
set the candle in a bottle and lit it.
Sitting down by the table again, she smoothed out the crumpled
newspaper.
It was said that the widow Snacheur was rich. She owned at any rate the
block in which she lived--from the ground floor she herself occupied up
to the top floor where Moll Davenant rendered tribute to her.
As Betty crossed the twilit court and entered the deeper gloom of the
house, she found Madelaine, a lean shadow in the dusk, fumbling with
the latch on the outer door of the widow Snacheur’s apartments.
“Is Mademoiselle the American at home, Madelaine?” she asked the girl.
Madelaine left the door, walked out into the courtyard and looked up.
“Madame, there is a candle burning on the sixth floor,” she called
across the court. She came to Betty: “And there is a shadow cast.
Mademoiselle the American must be at home,” she added; and got to
fumbling with the latch of the door again.
“Can’t you unlock it, Madelaine?” Betty asked the girl. “Shall I hold
your bottle? Your hands will be free.”
“Thank you, madame, no--you are very kind. The widow will not have the
lock mended--so I have to tie it with string from the inside--when I go
out.”
Betty stood on one side to let a young workman go by. He was a
pasty-faced slouching young fellow of powerful loose build; he had come
down the stair with curious stealthy step; and he took off his hat
clumsily as he passed.
Madelaine laughed as the awkward youth slouched out into the court:
“That dirty fool Hiéne wants to be my lover,” she said--“he pesters
me--but I am not going to love workmen--I am going to be driven in
carriages.”
“Hush, Madelaine--you must not say such things.”
Madelaine gave her good-night, laughter in her eyes, and with the
grace of coming womanhood took herself off airily towards the city’s
lights--a promise of lithe beauty in her walk for all her bedraggled
rags.
Moll Davenant had heard Betty’s light step upon the stair; she opened
the door for her to enter as Betty reached the landing. When she had
shut it, the two girls embraced each other.
“Come, Moll--and sit on the bed; and we’ll gossip.”
Moll suffered herself to be led to the sommier, and they sat down upon
the snowy whiteness of it.
Moll was watching Betty’s face hungrily.
“Moll,” said Betty--“I have been to look for Eustace Lovegood--ah, such
a mean shabby little hotel it was, poor fellow! but he was gone. The
waiter said he went back to England yesterday--after waiting restlessly
about the place for a letter that did not come.... I wish Eustace would
spend a little money on himself instead of giving it to every pitiful
person that cries out to him.”
Moll was seized with a violent fit of coughing.
She slipped on to the floor, buried her face in Betty’s lap, and sobbed
miserably.
Betty stayed with her until far into the night--until the heart-rent
girl slept peacefully upon the white bed.
She covered the poor sleeping soul with her meagre blankets....
As she rose to leave, her glance fell on a new book which lay beside
the lamp. It was a volume of erotic verse. She opened it and found an
inscription on the fly-leaf from Aubrey.
Betty sighed--put the lamp low--and slipped on tip-toe from the room.
* * * * *
In the dusk that held the city the next evening, Betty tapped at Moll’s
door; and she thought she heard a sob for answer.... She listened
awhile; but all was still. She rattled at the door and called. Only
silence.
Slowly she descended the stairs again.
At the bottom she came upon Madelaine, lean and cheery. There was some
talk.
She was just about to leave the girl when a man entered from out the
dusk of the court, passed them, and began to ascend the stair.
It was Aubrey.
She heard him climb flight after flight. He reached the top. Her eyes
were on Madelaine’s gossip, but her ears were listening for only one
sound.
A door opened and slammed.
There was silence.