Mavis and Jill stood outside Mrs Gowler's, in the late evening of the
Wednesday after the day on which Miss Nippett had commenced her long,
long rest. Mavis had left the trunk she was bringing at the station (a
porter was trundling it on), but before opening the gate of No. 9
Durley Road, she instinctively paused to take what she thought might
prove a last look at the world.
The contented serenity of the summer night enhanced the meanness of the
little street; but Mavis's imagination soared over the roofs, not only
of the road in which she stood, but of countless other roofs, till it
winged its way to Melkbridge. Instead of the depressing road, with its
infrequent down-at-heel passers-by, Mavis saw only the Avon as she had
known it a year ago. The river flowed lazily beneath the pollard
willows, as if complaisant enough to let these see their reflection in
the water. Forget-me-nots jewelled the banks; ragged robin looked
roguishly from, clumps of bushes; the scent of hay seemed to fill the
world. That was then.
Now--! Before she had set out for Durley Road, she had penned a little
note to Perigal. In this she had told him of the circumstances in which
she was writing it, and had said that if it proved to be the last
letter she should send him, that she would never cease to love and
trust him in any world to which it might please God to take her. This
was all she had written; but the moving simplicity of her words might
have touched even Perigal's heart. Besides writing to her lover, Mavis
had given Mrs Scatchard the address to which she was going, and had
besought her, in the event of anything untoward happening, either to
take Jill for her own or to find her a good home. Mrs Scatchard's
promise to keep and cherish Jill herself, should anything happen to her
mistress, cheered Mavis much.
Mavis took a last long look of the June night, sighed and entered the
gate of No. 9: her nerves were so disordered that it seemed as if it
shut behind her with a menacing clang. She knocked at the door, but,
upon no one coming, she knocked again and again. She knew there was
someone in the house, for the wailing of babies could be heard within.
For all anyone cared, her baby might have been born on the step. After
knocking and waiting for quite a long time, the door was opened by a
sad-faced girl, who, with the remains of a fresh complexion, looked as
if she were countryborn and bred.
"Mrs Gowler?" asked Mavis wearily.
Without making any reply, the young woman left the door open and
disappeared up the stairs. Mavis, followed by Jill, dragged herself
into the passage. The puling and smell of unwashed babies assailed her
ears and nostrils to such an extent, that, to escape from these, she
walked into the kitchen and closed the door. This room was empty, but,
as on her last visit, a fire roared in the kitchener, before which
innumerable rows of little garments were airing. Overpowered by the
stifling heat, Mavis sank on a chair, where a horde of flies buzzed
about her head and tried to settle on her face. She was about to seek
the passage in preference to the stuffy kitchen, when she heard a loud
single knock at the front door. Believing this to be the porter with
her luggage, she went to the door, to find that her surmise was correct.
"Which room shall I take it to, miss?"
"It will do if you put it in the hall," replied Mavis.
When she had paid the man and shut the door, she sat upon her box in
the passage. Jill nestled beside her, whilst Mavis rested with her
fingers pressed well against her ears, to deaden the continual crying
of babies which came from various rooms in the house.
As Mavis thus waited, disconsolate and alone, her heart sank within
her. Her present case seemed to foreshadow the treatment she would
receive at Mrs Gowler's hands during her confinement, which might now
occur at any moment. As she waited, she lost all count of time; her
whole being was concerned with an alteration in her habits of thought,
which had been imminent during the last few months, but which needed a
powerful stimulus to be completely effected. This was now supplied.
Hitherto, when it became a question whether she should consider others
before herself, she had, owing to an instinct in her blood, chosen the
way of self-abnegation. She often suspected that others took advantage
of this unselfishness, but found it hard to do otherwise than she had
always done. Whether it was owing to all she had lately endured, or
because her maternal instinct urged her to think only of her as yet
unborn little one, she became aware of a hardening of heart which
convinced her of the expediency of fighting for her own hand in the
future. Mrs Gowler's absence was the immediate cause of this
manifestation. Had she not loved Perigal so devotedly and trusted him
so completely, she would have left the miserable house in Durley Road
and gone to an expensive nursing home, to insist later upon his meeting
the bill. For all her awakened instinct of self, the fact of her still
deciding to remain at Mrs Gowler's was a yet further sacrifice on the
altar of the loved one. Perhaps this further self-effacement where her
lover was concerned urgently moved her to stand no trifling in respect
of others. Consequently, when about half-past ten Mrs Gowler opened the
door, accompanied by her idiot son, Oscar, who looked more imbecile
than ever in elaborate clothes, she was not a little surprised to be
greeted by Mavis with the words:
"What does this mean?"
"What does what mean?" replied Mrs Gowler, bridling.
"Keeping me waiting like this."
"Wot do you expect for wot you're payin'--brass banns and banners?"
"I don't expect impertinence from you!" cried Mavis.
"Imperence! imperence! And oo's Mrs Kenrick to give 'erself such airs!
And before my Oscar too!"
"Listen to me," said Mavis.
"I wonder you don't send for your 'usband to go for me."
"But--"
"Your lovin' 'usband wot's in Ameriky a-making a snug little 'ome for
you."
Mavis was, for the moment, vanquished by the adroitness of Mrs Gowler's
thrust.
"I'm not well enough to quarrel. Please to show me my room."
"That's better. An' I'll be pleased to show you what you call 'my room'
when I've given my Oscar 'is supper," shouted Mrs Gowler, as she sailed
into the kitchen, followed by her gibbering son, who twice turned to
stare at Mavis.
Alone in the unlit, stuffy passage, Mavis whispered her troubles to
Jill. Tears came to her eyes, which she held back by thinking
persistently of the loved one. While she waited, she heard the clatter
of plates and the clink of glasses in the kitchen. Mavis would have
gone for a short walk, but she had a superstitious fear of going out of
doors again till after her baby was born.
The sharp cry, as of one suddenly assailed by pain, came from the floor
overhead. Then a door opened, and footsteps came to the top of the
first flight of stairs.
"Mrs Gowler! Mrs Gowler!" cried a woman's voice frantically. But the
woman had to call many times before her voice triumphed over the
thickness of the kitchen door and the noise of the meal.
"Oo is it?" asked Mrs Gowler, when she presently came from the kitchen,
with her mouth full of bread, cheese, stout, and spring onions.
"Liz--Mrs Summerville!" replied the woman.
"'Arf a mo', an' I'll be up," grumbled Mrs Gowler, as she returned to
the kitchen, to emerge a few seconds later pinning on her apron.
"You finish yer supper, Oscar, but don't drink all the stout," she
called to her son, as she went up the stairs. Before she had got to the
landing, the cry was heard again and yet again. It sounded to Mavis
like some wounded animal being tortured beyond endurance. The cries
continued, to seem louder when a door was opened, and to be
correspondingly deadened when this was closed. Mavis shuddered;
anticipation of the torment she would have to endure chilled the blood
in her veins; cold shivers coursed down her back. It was as if she were
imprisoned in a house of pain, from which she could only escape by
enduring the most poignant of all torture inflicted by nature on
sensitive human bodies. The cries became continuous. Mavis placed her
fingers in her ears to shut them out. For all this precaution, a scream
of pain penetrated to her hearing. A few moments later, when she had to
use her hands in order to prevent Jill from jumping on to her lap, she
did not hear a sound. Some quarter of an hour later, Mrs Gowler
descended the stairs.
"A quick job that," she remarked to Mavis, who did not make any reply.
"Let's 'ope you'll be as sharp," added the woman, as she disappeared
into the kitchen.
Mavis gathered from these remarks that a mother had been delivered of a
child during Mrs Gowler's brief sojourn upstairs. The latter confirmed
this surmise by saying a little later, when she issued from the kitchen
drying her hands and bared arms on a towel:
"The worst of these here nursing 'omes is that yer never knows when
you're going to be on the job. I didn't expect Liz till termorrer."
Mavis made no reply.
"Would you like a glass of stout?" asked Mrs Gowler.
"No, thank you."
"I'm going to open another bottle an' thought you'd join, jes' friendly
like, as you might say. What with the work an' the 'eat of the kitchen,
I tell yer, I can do with it."
"I'm tired of sitting in this horrible passage. I wish you would show
me to my room."
"Wait till it's ready," retorted Mrs Gowler, angry at her hospitality
being refused.
"It ought to be ready. What else did I arrange to come for?"
"You can go up if you like, but Mrs May is bathing her baby, an'
there's no room to move."
"Does--does that mean that you haven't given me a room to myself?"
cried Mavis.
"Wot more d'ye expect for wot you're payin'?"
Mavis made up her mind.
"If you don't give me a room to myself, I shall go," declared Mavis.
"And 'ave yer baby in the street?"
"That's my affair."
Mavis rose as if to make good her words.
Seeing that she was in earnest, Mrs Gowler said:
"Don't be a mug. I'll see what I can do."
Mavis was much relieved when Mrs Gowler waddled up the stairs, taking
with her an evil-smelling oil lamp. The woman's presence was beginning
to inspire her with a nameless dread, which was alien to the repulsion
inspired by her appearance and coarse speech. Now and again, Mavis
caught a glimpse of terrifying depths of resolution in the woman's
nature; then she seemed as if she would stick at nothing in order to
gain her ends.
"This way, please, Mrs 'Aughty," Mrs Gowler presently called from the
landing above Mavis's head.
Mavis walked up the two flights of stairs, followed by Jill, where she
found Mrs Gowler in the passage leading to the two top-back rooms of
the house. One of these was small, being little larger than a box-room,
but to Mavis's eyes it presented the supreme advantage of being
untenanted by any other patient.
"We'd better 'ave most of the furniture out, 'ceptin' the bed and
washstand," declared Mrs Gowler.
"But where am I to keep my things?" asked Mavis.
"Can't you 'ave your box jes' outside the door? If there ain't no
space, you might pop off before I could hop round the bed."
"Is it often dangerous?" faltered Mavis.
"That depends. 'Ave you walked much?"
"A good deal. Why?"
"That's in yer favour. But I 'ope nothin' will 'appen, for my sake. I
can't do with any more scandals here. I've my Oscar to think of."
"Scandals?" queried Mavis.
"What about gettin' your box upstairs?" asked Mrs Gowler, as if wishful
to change the subject.
"Isn't there anyone who can carry it up?"
"Not to-night. Yer can't expect my Oscar to soil 'is 'ands with menial
work. I'm bringing him up to be the gent he is."
"Then I'll go down and fetch what I want for the night."
"Let me git 'em for yer," volunteered Mrs Gowler, as her eyes twinkled
greedily.
"I won't trouble you."
Mavis went down to the passage, taking with her the evil-smelling lamp:
the spilled oil upon the outside of this greased Mavis's fingers.
To save her strength, she cut the cords with which her trunk was bound
with a kitchen knife, borrowed from Mrs Gowler for this purpose. She
took from this box such articles as she might need for the night.
Amongst other things, she obtained the American clock which had
belonged to her old friend Miss Nippett. Mr Poulter, to whom the
accompanist had left her few possessions, had prevailed on Mavis to
accept this as a memento of her old friend.
Mavis toiled up the stairs with an armful of belongings, preceded by
Mrs Gowler carrying the lamp, the woman impressed at the cut and
material of which her last arrival's garments were made.
When Mavis had wound up the clock and placed it on the mantelpiece,
and, with a few deft touches, had made the room a trifle less
repellent, she saw her landlady come into the room with three bottles
and two glasses (one of these latter had recently held stout) tucked
under her arms.
"I thought we'd 'ave a friendly little chat, my dear," remarked Mrs
Gowler, as if to explain her hospitality.
Just then, Mavis's heart ached for the sympathy and support of some
motherly person in whom she could confide. A tender word, a hint of
appreciation of her present extremity, would have done much to give her
stay for the approaching dread ordeal. Perhaps this was why, for the
time being, she stifled her dislike of Mrs Gowler and submitted to the
woman's presence. Mrs Gowler unscrewed a bottle of stout, poured
herself out a glass, drank it at one draught, and then half filled a
glass for Mavis.
"Drink it, my dear. It will do us both good," cried Mrs Gowler, who
already showed signs of having drunk more than she could conveniently
carry.
Mavis, not to seem ungracious, sipped the stout as she sat on the bed.
"'Ow is it you ain't in a proper nursing 'ome?" asked Mrs Gowler, after
she had opened the second bottle.
"Aren't I?" asked Mavis quickly.
"I've 'eard of better," answered Mrs Gowler guardedly. "Though, after
all, I may be a better friend to you than all o' them together, with
their doctors an' all."
"Indeed!" remarked Mavis, wondering what she meant.
"But that's tellin's," continued Mrs Gowler, looking greedily at Mavis
from the depths of her little eyes.
"Is it?"
"Babies is little cusses; noisy, squally little brats."
"Not one's own."
"That's what I say. I love the little dears. Gawd's messages I call
them. All the same, they're there, as you might say. An' yer can't
explain them away."
"True," smiled Mavis.
"An' their cost!" grumbled Mrs Gowler, as she drained the second bottle
by putting it to her lips. "They simply eat good money, an' never 'ave
enough."
"One must look after one's own," remarked Mavis.
"Little dears! 'Ow I love their pretty prattle. It makes me think of
'eavens an' Gawd's angels," said Mrs Gowler. Then, as Mavis did not
make any remark, she added: "Six was born 'ere last week."
"So many!"
"But onny three's alive."
"The other three are dead!"
"It costs five bob a week an' extries to let a kid live, to say nothin'
of the lies and trouble an' all. An' no thanks you get for it."
"A mother loves and looks after her own," declared Mavis.
"Little dears! Ain't they pretty when they prattles their little
prayers?" asked Mrs Gowler, as her lips parted in a terrible smile.
"Many's the time I've given 'em gin from me own bottle to give the
little angels sleep."
She said more to the same effect, to pause before saying, with a return
to her practical manner:
"An' the gentlemen! They're always 'appy when anything 'appens to baby."
Mavis looked at the woman with questioning eyes; she wondered what she
meant. For a few moments Mrs Gowler attempted to lull Mavis's
uneasiness by extravagant praise of infants' ways, which culminated in
a hideous imitation of baby language. Suddenly she stopped; her little
eyes glared fiercely at Mavis, while her face became rigid.
"What's the matter?" asked the girl.
Mrs Gowler rose unsteadily to her feet and said:
"Ten quid down will save you from forking out five bob a week till
you're blue in the face from paying it."
Mavis stared at her in astonishment. Mrs Gowler backed to the door.
"Told yer you'd fallen on your feet. Next time you'll know better. No
pretty pretties: one little nightdress is all you'll want. But it's
spot cash."
Mavis was alone; it was, comparatively, a long time before she gathered
what Mrs Gowler meant. When she realised that the woman had as good as
offered to murder her child, when born, for the sum of ten pounds, her
first impulse was to leave the house. But it was now late; she was worn
out with the day's happenings; also, she reflected that, with the
scanty means at her disposal, a further move to a like house to Mrs
Gowler's might find her worse off than she already was. Her heart was
heavy with pain when she knelt by her bedside to say her prayers, but,
try as she might, she could find no words with which to thank her
heavenly Father for the blessings of the day and to implore their
continuance for the next, as was her invariable custom. When she got up
from her knees, she hoped that the disabilities of her present
situation would atone for any remissness of which she had been guilty.
Although she was very tired, it was a long time before she slept. She
lay awake, to think long and lovingly of Perigal. This, and Jill's
presence, were the two things that sustained her during those hours of
sleeplessness in a strange, fearsome house, troubled as she was with
the promise of infinite pain.
That night she loved Perigal more than she had ever done before. It
seemed to her that she was his, body and soul, for ever and ever; that
nothing could ever alter it. When she fell asleep, she did not rest for
long at a stretch. Every now and then, she would awaken with a start,
when, for some minutes, she would listen to the ticking of the American
clock on the mantelpiece. Her mind went back to the vigil she had spent
during Miss Nippett's kit night of life. Then, it had seemed as if the
clock were remorselessly eager to diminish the remaining moments of the
accompanist's allotted span. Now, it appeared to Mavis as if the clock
were equally desirous of cutting short the moments that must elapse
before her child was born.
The next morning, she was awakened soon after eight by the noise of a
tray being banged down just inside the door, when she gathered that
someone had brought her breakfast. This consisted of coarsely cut
bread, daubed with disquieting-looking butter, a boiled shop egg, and a
cup of thin, stewed tea. As Mavis drank the latter, she recollected the
monstrous suggestion which Mrs Gowler had insinuated the previous
evening. The horror of it filled her mind to the exclusion of
everything else. She had quite decided to leave the house as soon as
she could pack her things, when a pang of dull pain troubled her body.
She wondered if this heralded the birth of her baby, which she had not
expected for quite two days, when the pain passed. She got out of bed
and was setting about getting up, when the pain attacked her again, to
leave her as it had done before. She waited in considerable suspense,
as she strove to believe that the pains were of no significance, when
she experienced a further pang, this more insistent than the last. She
washed and dressed with all dispatch. While thus occupied, the pains
again assailed her. When ready, she went downstairs to the kitchen,
followed by Jill, to find the room deserted. She called "Mrs Gowler"
several times without getting any response. Before going to her box to
get some things she wanted, she gave Jill a run in the enclosed space
behind the house. When Mavis presently went upstairs with an armful of
belongings from her box, she heard a voice call from the further side
of a door she was passing:
"Was you wanting Piggy?"
"I wanted Mrs Gowler."
"She's gone out and taken Oscar with her."
"When will she be back?"
"Gawd knows. Was you wanting her pertikler?"
"Not very," answered Mavis, at which she sought her room.
For four hours, Mavis sat terrified and alone in the poky room, during
which her pains gradually increased. They were still bearable, and not
the least comparable to the mental tortures which continually
threatened her, owing to the dreariness of her surroundings and her
isolation from all human tenderness. Now and again, she would play with
Jill, or she would remake her bed. When the horror of her position was
violently insistent, she would think long and lovingly of Perigal, and
of how he would overwhelm her with caresses and protestations of
livelong devotion, could he ever learn of all she had suffered from her
surrender at Looe.
About one, the door was thrust open, and Mrs Gowler, hot and
perspiring, and wearing her bonnet, came into the room, carrying a
plate, fork, knife, and spoon in one hand and a steaming pot in the
other.
"'Elp yerself!" cried Mrs Gowler, as she threw the plate and spoon upon
the bed and thrust the pot beneath Mavis's nose.
"It's coming on," said Mavis.
"You needn't tell me that. I see it in yer face. 'Elp yerself."
"But--"
"I'll talk to you when I've got the dinners. 'Elp yerself."
"What is it?" asked Mavis.
"Lovely boiled mutting. Eat all you can swaller. You can do with it
before you've done," admonished the woman.
Six o'clock found Mavis lying face downwards on the bed, her body
racked with pain. Mrs Gowler sat impassively on the only chair in the
room, while Jill watched her mistress with frightened eyes from a
corner. Now and again, when a specially violent pain tormented her
body, Mavis would grip the head rail of the bed with her hands, or bite
Perigal's ring, which she wore suspended from her neck. Once, when Mrs
Gowler was considerate enough to wipe away the beads of sweat, which
had gathered on the suffering girl's forehead, Mavis gasped:
"Is it nearly over?"
"What! Over!" laughed Mrs Gowler mirthlessly. "I call that the
preliminary canter."
"Will it be much worse?"
"You're bound to be worse before you're better."
"I can't--I can't bear it!"
"Bite yer wedding ring and trus' in Gawd," remarked Mrs Gowler, in the
manner of one mechanically repeating a formula. "This is what some of
the gay gentlemen could do with."
"It's--it's terrible," moaned Mavis.
"'Cause it's your first. When you've been here a few times, it's as
easy as kiss me 'and."
Very soon, Mavis was more than ever in the grip of the fiend who seemed
bent on torturing her without ruth. She had no idea till then of the
immense ingenuity which pain can display in its sport with prey. During
one long-drawn pang, it would seem to Mavis as if the bones in her body
were being sawn with a blunt saw; the next, she believed that her flesh
was being torn from her bones with red-hot pincers. Then would follow a
hallowed, blissful, cool interval from searing pain, which made her
think that all she had endured was well worth the suffering, so vastly
did she appreciate relief. Then she would fall to shivering. Once or
twice, it seemed that she was an instrument on which pain was
extemporising the most ingenious symphonies, each more involved than
the last. Occasionally, she would wonder if, after all, she were
mistaken, and if she were not enjoying delicious sensations of
pleasure. Then, so far as her pain-racked body would permit, she found
herself wondering at the apparently endless varieties of torment to
which the body could be subjected.
Once, she asked to look at herself in the glass. She did not recognise
anything resembling herself in the swollen, distorted features, the
distended eyes, and the dilated nostrils which she saw in the glass
which Mrs Gowler held before her. She was soon lost to all sense of her
surroundings. She feared that she was going mad. She reassured herself,
however, because, by a great effort of will, she would conjure up some
recollection of the loved one's appearance, which she saw as if from a
great distance. Then, after eternities of torment, she was possessed by
a culminating agony. Sweat ran from her pores. Every nerve in her being
vibrated with suffering, as if the accumulated pain of the ages was
being conducted through her body. More and even more pain. Then, a
supreme torment held her, which made all others seem trifling by
comparison. The next moment, a new life was born into the world--a new
life, with all its heritage of certain sorrow and possible joy; with
all its infinite sensibility to pleasure or pain, to hope and love and
disillusion.