"Eh?" he said, and then I told him that the doctor had been called and
what he had said about fresh air.
"So that's it, is it?" he said. "Good! Just reminds me of something I
want to say, so I'll introdooce the matter now, in a manner o' speaking.
Last night I 'ad to go to Mile End for you, and here's Lizer out on a
sim'lar arrand. If people 'ave got to be 'ospital nurses to a sick baiby
they ought to be paid, mind ye. We're only pore, and it may be a sacred
dooty walkin' in percession, but it ain't fillin'."
Choking with anger, I said:
"Put out your pipe, please."
"Ma'am to _you_!"
"Put it out this moment, sir, or I'll see if I can't find somebody to
make you."
The bricklayer laughed, then pointed with the shank of his pipe to the
two photographs over the mantelpiece, and said:
"See them? Them's me, with my dooks up. If any friend o' yourn as is
interested in the baiby comes to lay a 'and on me I'll see if I've
forgot 'ow to use 'em."
I felt the colour shuddering out of my cheeks, and putting baby into the
cot I turned on the man and cried:
"You scoundrel! The doctor has told me what is the immediate cause of my
baby's illness and your wife has confessed to giving overdoses of a
drug at your direction. If you don't leave this house in one minute I'll
go straight to the police-station and charge you with poisoning my
child."
The bully in the coward was cowed in a moment.
"Don't get 'uffy, ma'am," he said. "I'm the peaceablest man in the East
End, and if I mentioned anything about a friend o' yourn it slipped out
in the 'eat of the moment--see?"
"Out you go! Go! Go!" I cried, and, incredible as it may seem, the man
went flying before my face as if I had been a fury.
It would be a long tale to tell of what happened the day following, the
next and the next and the next--how baby became less drowsy, but more
restless; how being unable to retain her food she grew thinner and
thinner; how I wished to send for the doctor, but dared not do so from
fear of his fee; how the little money I had left was barely sufficient
to buy the food and stimulants which were necessary to baby's cure: how
I sat for long hours with my little lamb on my lap straining my dry eyes
into her face; and how I cried to God for the life of my child, which
was everything I had or wanted.
All this time I was still lodging at the Jew's, returning to it late
every night, and leaving it early in the morning, but nothing happened
there that seemed to me of the smallest consequence. One day Miriam,
looking at me with her big black eyes, said:
"You must take more rest, dear, or you will make yourself ill."
"No, no, I am not ill," I answered, and then remembering how necessary
my life was to the life of my child, I said, "I must not be ill."
At last on the Saturday morning--I know now it must have been Saturday,
but time did not count with me then--I overheard Mrs. Abramovitch
pleading for me with her husband, saying they knew I was in trouble and
therefore I ought to have more time to find lodging, another week--three
days at all events. But the stern-natured man with his rigid religion
was inexorable. It was God's will that I should be punished, and who was
he to step in between the All-high and his just retribution?
"The woman is displeasing to God," he said, and then he declared that,
the day being Sabbath (the two tall candlesticks and the Sabbath loaves
must have been under his eyes at the moment), he would give me until
nine o'clock that night, and if I had not moved out by that time he
would put my belongings into the street.
I remember that the Jew's threat made no impression upon my mind. It
mattered very little to me where I was to lodge next week or what roof
was to cover me.
When I reached the Olivers' that morning I found baby distinctly worse.
Even the brandy would not stay on her stomach and hence her strength was
plainly diminishing. I sat for some time looking steadfastly into my
child's face, and then I asked myself, as millions of mothers must have
done before me, why my baby should suffer so. Why? Why? Why?
There seemed to be no answer to that question except one. Baby was
suffering because I was poor. If I had not been poor I could have taken
her into the country for fresh air and sunshine, where she would have
recovered as the doctor had so confidently assured me.
And why was I poor? I was poor because I had refused to be enslaved by
my father's authority when it was vain and wrong, or my husband's when
it, was gross and cruel, and because I had obeyed the highest that was
in me--the call of love.
And now God looked down on the sufferings of my baby, who was being
killed for my conduct--killed by my poverty!
I tremble to say what wild impulses came at that thought. I felt that if
my baby died and I ever stood before God to be judged I should judge Him
in return. I should ask Him why, if He were Almighty, He permitted the
evil in the world to triumph over the good, and if He were our heavenly
Father why He allowed innocent children to suffer? Was there any _human_
father who could be so callous, so neglectful, so cruel, as that?
I dare say it was a terrible thing to bring God to the bar of judgment,
to be judged by His poor weak ignorant creature; but it was also
terrible to sit with a dying baby on my lap (I thought mine was dying),
and to feel that there was nothing--not one thing--I could do to relieve
its sufferings.
My faith went down like a flood during the heavy hours of that day--all
that I had been taught to believe about God's goodness and the
marvellous efficacy of the Sacraments of His Church.
I thought of the Sacrament of my marriage, which the Pope told me had
been sanctioned by my Redeemer under a natural law that those who
entered into it might live together in peace and love--and then of my
husband and his brutal infidelities.
I thought of the Sacrament of my baby's baptism, which was to exorcise
all the devils out of my child--and then of the worst devil in the
world, poverty, which was taking her very life.
After that a dark shadow crossed my soul, and I told myself that since
God was doing nothing, since He was allowing my only treasure to be torn
away from me, I would fight for my child's life as any animal fights for
her young.
By this time a new kind of despair had taken hold of me. It was no
longer the paralysing despair but the despair that has a driving force
in it.
"My child shall not die," I thought. "At least poverty shall not kill
her!"
Many times during the day I had heard Mrs. Oliver trying to comfort me
with various forms of sloppy sentiment. Children were a great trial,
they were allus makin' and keepin' people pore, and it was sometimes
better for the dears themselves to be in their 'eavenly Father's boosim.
I hardly listened. It was the same as if somebody were talking to me in
my sleep. But towards nightfall my deaf ear caught something about
myself--that "it" (I knew what that meant) might be better for me, also,
for then I should be free of encumbrances and could marry again.
"Of course you could--you so young and good-lookin'. Only the other day
the person at number five could tell me as you were the prettiest woman
as comes up the Row, and the Vicar's wife couldn't hold a candle to you.
'Fine feathers makes fine birds,' says she: 'Give your young lady a nice
frock and a bit o' colour in her checks, and there ain't many as could
best her in the West End neither.'"
As the woman talked dark thoughts took possession of me. I began to
think of Angela. I tried not to, but I could not help it.
And then came the moment of _my_ fiercest trial. With a sense of Death
hanging over my child I told myself that the only way to drive it off
was to make _some great sacrifice_.
Hitherto I had thought of everything I possessed as belonging to baby,
but now I felt that _I myself_ belonged to her. I had brought her into
the world, and it was my duty to see that she did not suffer.
All this time the inherited instinct of my religion was fighting hard
with me, and I was saying many Hail Marys to prevent myself from doing
what I meant to do.
"_Hail, Mary, full of grace: the Lord is with thee_ . . ."
I felt as if I were losing my reason. But it was of no use struggling
against the awful impulse of self-sacrifice (for such I thought it)
which had taken hold of my mind, and at last it conquered me.
"I must get money," I thought. "Unless I get money my child will die.
I--must--get--money."
Towards seven o'clock I got up, gave baby to Mrs. Oliver, put on my coat
and fixed with nervous fingers my hat and hatpins.
"Where are you going to, pore thing?" asked Mrs. Oliver.
"I am going out. I'll be back in the morning," I answered.
And then, after kneeling and kissing my baby again--my sweet child, my
Isabel--I tore the street door open, and pulled it noisily behind me.