Meantime, her mother had toiled up--her jewels glittering curiously in
the dusk--and now poured herself out to the fresh auditor in a
breathless wail; recapitulated her long years of devotion and the
abstracted contents of the house. But Lazarus soon wearied of the
inventory of her virtues and furniture.
"What's the use of crying over spilt milk?" he said. "You must get a
new jug."
"A new jug! And what about the basin and the coffee-pot and the
saucepans and the plates! And my new blue dish with the
willow-pattern. Oh, my God!"
"Don't be so stupid."
"She's a little dazed, Lazarus, dear. Have patience with her. Lazarus
says it's no use crying and letting the neighbours hear you: we must
make the best of a bad job, and cover it up."
"You'll soon cover me up. I won't need my clothes then--only a clean
shroud. After twenty years--he wipes his mouth and he goes away! Tear
the rent in your garments, children mine, your mother is dead."
"How can any one have patience with her?" cried Lazarus. "One would
think it was such a treat for her to live with father. Judging by the
rows you've had, mother, you ought to be thankful to be rid of him."
"I _am_ thankful," she retorted hysterically. "Who said I wasn't? A
grumbling, grunting pig, who grudged me my horsehair couch because he
couldn't sit on it. Well, let him squat on it now with his lady. I
don't care. All my enemies will pity me, will they? If they only knew
how glad I was!" and she broke into more sobs.
"Come, mother; come downstairs, Lazarus: don't let us stay up in the
dark."
"Not me," said Lazarus. "I'm not going down to hear this all over
again. Besides, where am I to sit or to sleep? I must go to an hotel."
He struck a match to relight his cigar and it flared weirdly upon the
tear-smudged female faces. "Got any money, Salvina," he said more
gently.
"Only five shillings."
"Well, I daresay I can manage on that. Good-night, mother, don't take
on so, it'll be all the same a hundred years hence." He opened the
door; then paused with his hand on the knob, and said awkwardly: "I
suppose you'll manage to find something to sleep on just for
to-night."
"Oh, yes," said Salvina reassuringly; "we'll manage. Don't worry,
dear."
"I'll be in the first thing in the morning. We'll have a council of
war. Good-night. It _is_ a beastly mean trick," and he went out
meditatively.
When he was gone, Salvina remembered that the five shillings were for
the mattress. But she further bethought herself that the sum would
scarcely have sufficed even for a straw mattress, and that the little
gold ring Kitty had given her when she matriculated would fetch more.
Her mother's jewellery must be left sacred; the poor creature was
smarting enough from the sense of loss. Bidding her sit on the stairs
till she returned, she hastened into Mare Street, the great Hackney
highway, christened "The Devil's Mile" by the Salvation Army. Early
experience had familiarized her with the process of pawning, but now
she slipped furtively into the first pawn-shop and did not stay to
make a good bargain. She spent on a telegram to the central
post-office sixpence of the proceeds, so that she might be able to
draw out without delay the few pounds she had laid by for her summer
holiday. While she was purchasing the mattress at the garishly
illuminated furniture store, the words "Hire System" caught her eye,
and seemed a providential solution of the position. She broached
negotiations for the furnishing of a bed-room and a kitchen, minus
carpet and oilcloth (for these would not fit the cheaper apartments
into which they would now have to revert), but she found there were
tedious formalities to be gone through, and that her own signature
would be invalid, as she was legally a child. However, she was able to
secure the porterage of the mattress at once, and, followed by a
bending Atlas, she hurried back to her mother--who sat on her stair,
moaning--and diverted her from her griefs by teaching her to sign her
name, in view of the legal exigencies of the morrow. It was a curious
wind-up to her day's teaching. Poor Mrs. Brill's obstinate objection
to education had to give way at last under such unexpected conditions,
but she insisted on the shortest possible spelling, and so the uncouth
"Esther Brills" pencilled at the top of the sheet were exchanged for
more flowing "E. Brills" lower down. Even then, the good woman took
the thing as a pictorial flourish, or a section of a map, and
disdained acquaintance with the constituent letters, so that her
progress in learning remained only nominal.
Then the "infant" at law put her mother to bed and lay down beside her
on the mattress, both in their clothes for lack of blankets. The
mother soon dozed off, but the "child" lay turning from side to side.
The pressure of her little tasks had dulled the edge of emotion, but
now, in the silence of the night, the whole tragic position came back
with all its sordid romanticism, its pathetic meanness; and when at
last she slept, its obsession lay heavy upon her dreams, and she sat
at her examination desk in the London University, striving horridly to
recall the irregularities of Greek verbs, and to set them down with a
pen that could never dip up any ink, while the inexorable hands of the
clock went round, and her father, in the coveted Bachelor's gown,
waited to spirit away her desk and seat as soon as the hour should
strike.