Littlebourne Lock Part 2

"Oh!" said Mrs. Rowles, much astonished; "I never thought of such a thing. Whatever shall I do? And all this green stuff to carry back again."

"Can't you take it to her?" asked the young woman more gently.

"I don't know where she has gone to. Australia most likely."

"Australia, indeed! She has only gone to the other end of the street, No. 103. And when you can't pay your rent, and three weeks running on to four, what can you expect from your landlord?"

The door was closed, and Mrs. Rowles left standing on the step, greatly shocked and agitated. Had the Mitch.e.l.ls been turned out by their landlord for not paying their rent? Had they grown dishonest?

Had Mitch.e.l.l taken to drink? What could it mean?

"No. 103. And this is only 42; the odd numbers are on the other side.

I must cross. What a lot of rubbish on the road; and do you think I would let my girl stand out bareheaded like that, gossiping with a lot of idle young chaps?" Thus thinking and moralizing Mrs. Rowles went down the street towards the eastern end of it.

She noticed the change in the houses. Their fronts grew narrower; there was a storey less; the door-steps were not hearth-stoned; the area railings were broken. No white curtains, or but few and soiled ones; hardly a flower; windowpanes filled with brown paper instead of gla.s.s; doors standing half open; heaps of cinders and refuse lying at the edge of the pavement; girls almost without frocks nursing dirty, white-faced babies. It seemed a long way to No. 103. No. 99 stood out from its fellows, and marked the point at which the street became narrower, dirtier, noisier than before. Was it possible that Edward Rowles's sister could be living here?

The comely, well-clad woman from Littlebourne looked into the entry of No. 103. She saw a narrow pa.s.sage, without floorcloth or carpet; a narrow, dirty staircase led up to the rooms above. From the front room on the ground floor came the whirring sound of a sewing-machine; it might perhaps be Mary Mitch.e.l.l at work.

Mrs. Rowles knocked on the door of the room.

"Who's there?"

"Please, does Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l live here?"

"Top floor, back," replied the voice, and the whirr was resumed.

Picking her way, for the stairs were thick with mud from dirty boots and with droppings from pails, beer-cans, and milk-jugs, Mrs. Rowles went up the first flight. In the front room a woman's voice was scolding in strong language; in the back room a baby was wailing piteously. On the next floor one door stood open, revealing a bare room, with filthy and torn wall-paper, with paint brown from finger-marks, with cupboard-doors off their hinges, and the grate thick with rust. The visitor shuddered. Through the next half-open door she saw linen, more brown than white, hanging from lines stretched across, and steaming as it dried in the room, which was that of five persons, eating, living, and sleeping in it.

Mrs. Rowles felt a little faint; she thought that so many stairs were very trying. From this point there was nothing in the way of hand-rail; so she kept close to the wall as she carried her basket up still higher.

At the door of the back room she knocked.

There was a sort of scuffling noise inside, and a few moments pa.s.sed before it was opened.

The sisters-in-law looked at each other in amazement. Rosy Emma Rowles, in her blue gown and straw bonnet with red roses, with her stout alpaca umbrella and her strong basket packed tight with vegetables, was an unaccustomed vision at No. 103; while the pale, thin, ragged, miserable Mary Mitch.e.l.l was an appalling representative of her former self.

"Mary!"

"Is it you, Emma Rowles? However did you get here?"

"I came by the train from Littlebourne," said Mrs. Rowles simply. "May I come in?"

"Oh, you may come in if you care to," was the bitter reply.

Mrs. Rowles looked round her as she entered, and was so much shocked at what she saw that for a few moments she could not speak.

In the middle of the room was a square table, on which lay a ma.s.s of thick black silk and rich tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, which even Emma Rowles's country eyes could see were being put together to form a very handsome mantle suitable for some rich lady. A steel thimble, a pair of large scissors, a reel of cotton and another of silk lay beside the materials. In strong contrast to this beautiful and expensive stuff was the sight which saddened the further corner of the small room.

Close under the sloping, blackened ceiling was a mattress laid on the floor, and on it a wan, haggard man, whom Mrs. Rowles supposed to be Thomas Mitch.e.l.l, though she hardly recognized him. There was also another mattress on the floor. The blankets were few, but well-worn counterpanes covered the beds. A little washstand with broken crockery, a kettle, some jam-pots, and some medicine bottles were about all the rest of the furniture. All that she saw told Mrs. Rowles very plainly that her relations had fallen into deep poverty.

"Why, Tom," she began, "I'm afraid you are ill."

"Been ill these two months," he replied in a weak voice.

"Sit down," said Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l, pushing the best chair to her sister-in-law, and standing by the table to resume her work.

"We did not know Tom was ill," said Mrs. Rowles.

"I daresay not," answered Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l.

"I would have come sooner to see him if I had known."

"Oh, it is no use to bother one's relations when one falls into misfortunes. It is the rich folks who are welcome, not the poor ones."

"I hope you will make _me_ welcome," said Mrs. Rowles, "though I am not rich."

"Well, you are richer than we are," remarked Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l, softening a little, "and you are welcome; I can't say more. But I daresay if you had known what a place you were coming to you would have thought twice about it. Six months we have had of it. First there were the changes made at the printing-office, and then the men struck work, and there was soon very little to live on; for it's when the strike allowance doesn't come in so fast that the pinch comes."

Mrs. Rowles looked round to see where the children could be hiding.

Not a child's garment was to be seen, nor a toy.

"Where are the children?" she asked, half fearing to hear that they were all dead.

"Albert has got a little place in the printing-office. He was took on when Tom was laid up with rheumatic fever. Juliet is gone to the kitchen to try if she can get a drop of soup or something. They only make it for sick people now the hot weather has set in. Florry and Tommy and Willie and Neddy are all at school, because the school-board officer came round about them the other day. But it is the church school as they go to, where they ain't kept up to it quite so sharp.

They will be in presently."

"And the baby?"

"Oh, the baby is out with Amy. He's that fractious with his teeth that Thomas can hardly put up with him in the house."

Mrs. Rowles was now taking out the good things from her basket. She produced a piece of bacon, some beans, about a peck of peas, a home-made dripping cake, and some new-laid eggs.

"Edward packed it with his own hands," she explained. "He hoped you would not be too proud to accept a few bits of things from the country."

"Proud? Me proud?" and Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l burst into tears.

"We are too hungry to be proud," said the sick man, with more interest in his tone. "They do smell good. They remind me of the country."

After rubbing her eyes Mrs. Rowles looked about for a saucepan, and, having found an old one in the cupboard, began to fill it with the bacon and the broad beans. "We killed a pig in the spring," she said; "and Rowles is a rare one to keep his garden stuff going."

Little was said while Mrs. Rowles cooked, and Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l sewed, and Thomas sniffed the reviving green odour of the fresh vegetables. This quiet was presently interrupted by the sound of someone coming up the stairs.

Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l listened. "That is Juliet. There! I expected it!"

And a crash was heard, and a cry, and they knew that something unpleasant had happened.

"There never was such a child!" said the mother; while the father moaned out, "Oh, dear!"

Mrs. Rowles went out on the landing at the top of the stairs, and saw a girl of about thirteen sitting crouched on the lower half of the double flight, beside her the broken remains of a jug, and some soup lying in a pool, which she was trying to sc.r.a.pe up with her fingers, sucking them after each attempt.

"Is that you, Juliet?" said her aunt.