I must have been sitting a full hour or more on the end of my
bed--stunned, stupefied, unable to think--when Miriam, back from the
synagogue, came stealthily upstairs to say that a messenger had come for
me about six o'clock the night before.
"He said his name was Oliver, and father saw him, and that's how he came
to know. 'Tell her that her child is ill, and she is to come
immediately,' he said."
I was hardly conscious of what happened next--hardly aware of passing
through the streets to Ilford. I had a sense of houses flying by as they
seem to do from an express train; of my knees trembling; of my throat
tightening; and of my whole soul crying out to God to save the life of
my child until I could get to her.
When I reached the house of the Olivers the worst of my fears were
relieved. Mrs. Oliver was sitting before the fire with baby on her lap.
At sight of me the woman began to mumble out something about my delay,
and how she could not be held responsible if anything happened; but
caring nothing about responsibility, hers or mine, I took baby from her
without more words.
My child was in a state of deep drowsiness, and when I tried to rouse
her I could not do so. I gathered that this condition had lasted
twenty-four hours, during which she had taken no nourishment, with the
result that she was now very thin.
I knew nothing of children's ailments but a motherly instinct must have
come to my aid, for I called for a bath, and bathed baby, and she awoke,
and then took a little food.
But again she dropped back into the drowsy condition, and Mrs. Oliver,
who was alarmed, called in some of the neighbours to look at her.
Apparently the mission of the good women was to comfort Mrs. Oliver, not
me, but they said, "Sleep never did no harm to nobody," and I found a
certain consolation in that.
Hours passed. I was barely sensible of anything that happened beyond the
narrow circle of my own lap, but at one moment I heard the squirling of
a brass band that was going up the street, with the shuffling of an
irregular procession.
"It's the strike," said Mrs. Oliver, running to the window. "There's
Ted, carrying a banner."
A little later I heard the confused noises of a strike meeting, which
was being held on the Green. It was like the croaking of a frog-pond,
with now and then a strident voice (the bricklayer's) crying "Buckle
your belts tighter, and starve rather than give in, boys." Still later I
heard the procession going away, singing with a slashing sound that was
like driving wind and pelting rain:
"_The land, the land, the blessed, blessed land,
Gawd gave the land to the people_."
But nothing awakened baby, and towards three in the afternoon (the idea
that she was really ill having taken complete possession of me) I asked
where I could find the nearest doctor, and being told, I went off in
search of him.
The doctor was on his rounds, so I left a written message indicating
baby's symptoms and begging him to come to her immediately.
On the way back I passed a number of children's funerals--easily
recognisable by the combined coach and hearse, the white linen "weepers"
worn by the coachman and his assistant, and the little coffin, sprinkled
with cheap flowers, in the glass case behind the driver's seat. These
sights, which brought back a memory of the woman who carried my baby
down the Mile End Road, almost deprived me of my senses.
I had hardly got back and taken off my coat and warmed my hands and
dress by the fire before taking baby in my lap, when the doctor, in his
gig, pulled up at the door.
He was a young man, but he seemed to take in the situation in a moment.
I was the mother, wasn't I? Yes. And this woman was baby's nurse? Yes.
Then he drew up a chair and looked steadfastly down at baby, and I went
through that breathless moment, which most of us know, when we are
waiting for the doctor's first word.
"Some acute digestive trouble here apparently," he said, and then
something about finding out the cause of it.
But hardly had he put his hands on my child as she lay in my lap than
there came a faintly discoloured vomit.
"What have you been giving her?" he said, looking round at Mrs. Oliver.
Mrs. Oliver protested that she had given baby nothing except her milk,
but the doctor said sharply:
"Don't talk nonsense, woman. Show me what you've given her."
Then Mrs. Oliver, looking frightened, went upstairs and brought down a
bottle of medicine, saying it was a soothing syrup which I had myself
bought for baby's cough.
"As I thought!" said the doctor, and going to the door and opening it,
he flung the bottle on to the waste ground opposite, saying as he did
so:
"If I hear of you giving your babies any more of your soothing syrup
I'll see what the Inspector has to say."
After that, ignoring nurse, he asked me some searching and intimate
questions--if I had had a great grief or shock or worry while baby was
coming, and whether and how long I had nursed her.
I answered as truthfully as I could, though I saw the drift of his
inquiries, and was trembling with fear of what he would tell me next.
He said nothing then, however, except to make his recommendations. And
remembering my loss of work, my heart sank as he enumerated baby's
needs--fresh cow's milk diluted with lime water, small quantities of
meat juice, and twenty to thirty drops of the best brandy three or four
times a day.
When he rose to go I paid his fee. It was only half-a-crown, but he
cannot have known how much that meant to me, for as he was leaving the
kitchen he told me to send for him again in the morning if there were a
change in the symptoms.
Feeling that I did not yet know the whole truth (though I was trembling
in terror of it), I handed baby to Mrs. Oliver and followed the doctor
to the door.
"Doctor," I said, "is my baby very ill?"