"Has baby been out to-day, nurse?" Mrs. Oliver would make some lame
excuse and pass quickly to another subject.
At last, being unable to bear the strain any longer, I burst out on the
woman with bitter reproaches, and then she broke down into tears and
explained everything. She was behind with her rent, the landlord was
threatening, and she dared not leave the house for a moment lest he
should lock her out altogether.
"I don't mind telling you, it's all along of Ted, ma'am. He's on strike
wages but he spends it at the 'Sun.' He has never been the man to
me--never once since I married him. I could work and keep the house
comfortable without him, but he wouldn't let me a-be, because he knows I
love, him dear. Yes, I do, I love him dear," she continued, breaking
into hysterical sobs, "and if he came home and killed me I could kiss
him with my last breath."
This touched me more than I can say. A sense of something tragic in the
position of the poor woman, who knew the character of the man she loved
as well as the weakness which compelled her to love him, made me
sympathise with her for the first time, and think (with a shuddering
memory of my own marriage) how many millions of women there must be in
the world who were in a worse position than myself.
On returning to my room that night I began to look about to see if I had
anything I could sell in order to help Mrs. Oliver, and so put an end to
the condition that kept my baby a prisoner in her house.
I had nothing, or next to nothing. Except the Reverend Mother's rosary
(worth no more than three or four shillings) I had only my mother's
miniature, which was framed in gold and set in pearls, but that was the
most precious of all my earthly possessions except my child.
Again and again when I looked at it in my darkest hours I had found new
strength and courage. It had been like a shrine to me--what the image of
the Virgin was in happier days--and thinking of all that my darling
mother had done and suffered and sacrificed for my sake when I was
myself a child, I felt that I could never part with her picture under
the pressure of any necessity whatever.
"Never," I thought, "never under any circumstances."
It must have been about a week after this that I went to Ilford on one
of those chill, clammy nights which seem peculiar to the East End of
London, where the atmosphere, compounded of smoke and fog and thin
drizzling rain; penetrates to the bone and hangs on one's shoulders like
a shroud.
Thinking of this, as I thought of everything, in relation to baby, I
bought, as I was passing a hosier's shop, a pair of nice warm stockings
and a little woollen jacket.
When I reached the Olivers' I found, to my surprise, two strange men
stretched out at large in the kitchen, one on the sofa and the other in
the rocking-chair, both smoking strong tobacco and baby coughing
constantly.
Before I realised what had happened Mrs. Oliver called me into the
scullery, and, after closing the door on us, she explained the position,
in whispers broken by sobs.
It was the rent. These were the bailiff's men put into possession by the
landlord, and unless she could find two pounds ten by nine o'clock
to-morrow morning, she and her husband would be sold up and turned into
the street.
"The home as I've been scraping and pinching to keep together!" she
cried. "For the sake of two pound ten! . . . You couldn't lend us that
much, could you?"
I told her I could not, but she renewed her entreaties, asking me to
think if I had not something I could pawn for them, and saying that Ted
and she would consider it "a sacred dooty" to repay.
Again I told her I had nothing--I was trying not to think of the
miniature--but just at that moment she caught sight of the child's
jacket which I was still holding in my hand, and she fell on me with
bitter reproaches.
"You've money enough to spend on baby, though. It's crool. Her living in
lukshry and getting new milk night and day, and fine clothes being
bought for her constant, and my pore Ted without a roof to cover him in
weather same as this. It breaks my heart. It do indeed. Take your child
away, ma'am. Take her to-night, afore we're turned out of house and home
to-morrow morning."
Before the hysterical cries with which Mrs. Oliver said this had come
to an end I was on my way back to my room at the Jew's. But it was baby
I was thinking of in relation to that cold, clammy night--that it would
be impossible to take her out in it (even if I had somewhere to take her
to, which I had not) without risk to her health and perhaps her life.
With trembling fingers and an awful pain at my heart I took my mother's
miniature from the wall and wrapped it up in tissue paper.
A few minutes afterwards I was back in the damp streets, walking fast
and eagerly, cutting over the lines of the electric trams without
looking for the crossings.
I knew where I was going to--I was going to a pawnbroker's in the Mile
End Waste which I had seen on my West End journeys. When I got there I
stole in at a side door, half-closing my eyes as I did so, by that
strange impulse which causes us to see nothing when we do not wish to be
seen.
I shall never forget the scene inside. I think it must have left a scar
on my brain, for I see it now in every detail--the little dark
compartment; the high counter; the shelves at the back full of parcels,
like those of a left-luggage room at a railway station; the heavy,
baggy, big-faced man in shirt-sleeves with a long cigar held between his
teeth at the corner of his frothy mouth; and then my own hurried
breathing; my thin fingers opening the tissue paper and holding out the
miniature; the man's coarse hands fumbling it; his casual air as he
looked at it and cheapened it, as if it had been a common thing scarcely
worthy of consideration.
"What's this 'ere old-fashion'd thing? Portrait of your
great-grandmother? Hum! Not 'arf bad-looking fice, neither."
I think my eyes must have been blazing like hot coals. I am sure I bit
my lips (I felt them damp and knew they were bleeding) to prevent myself
from flinging out at the man in spite of my necessity. But I did my best
to control my trembling mouth, and when he asked me how much I wanted on
the miniature I answered, with a gulp in my throat:
"Two pounds ten, if you please, sir."
"Couldn't do it," said the pawnbroker.
I stood speechless for a moment, not knowing what to say next, and then
the pawnbroker, with apparent indifference, said:
"I'll give you two ten for it out and out."
"You mean I am to _sell_ . . ."
"Yus, take it or leave it, my dear."
It is no use saying what I suffered at that moment. I think I became ten
years older during the few minutes I stood at that counter.
But they came to an end somehow, and the next thing I knew was that I
was on my way back to Ilford; that the damp air had deepened into rain;
that miserable and perhaps homeless beings, ill-clad and ill-fed, were
creeping along in the searching cold with that shuffling sound which bad
boots make on a wet pavement; and that I was telling myself with a
fluttering heart that the sheltering wings of my beautiful mother in
heaven had come to cover my child.
On reaching the Olivers', hot and breathless, I put three gold coins,
two sovereigns and a half-sovereign, on to the table to pay off the
broker's men.
They had been settling themselves for the night, and looked surprised
and I thought chagrined, but took up the money and went away.
As they were going off one of them called me to the door, and in the
little space at the foot of the stairs he said, tipping his fingers
towards the cot:
"If that's your kiddie, miss, I recommend you to get it out o' this 'ere
place quick--see?"
I stayed an hour or two longer because I was troubled about baby's
cough; and before I left, being still uneasy, I did what I had never
done before--wrote my address at the Jew's house, so that I could be
sent for if I was ever wanted.