Sparrows Part 94

"Is he clever?" asked the patient.

"Clever! 'E be that clever, it drops orf 'im."

When, with the patient's consent, Mrs Gowler set out to fetch the doctor, she, also at the girl's request, sent a telegram to Mrs Scatchard, asking her to send on at once any letters that may have come for Mavis. She was sustained by a hope that Perigal may have written to her former address.

"Got yer shillin' ready?" asked Mrs Gowler, an hour or so later. "'E'll be up in a minute."

Two minutes later, Mrs Gowler threw the door wide open to admit Dr Baldock. Mavis saw a short, gross-looking, middle-aged man, who was dressed in a rusty frock-coat; he carried an old bowler hat and two odd left-hand gloves. Mrs Gowler detailed Mavis's symptoms, the while Dr Baldock stood stockstill with his eyes closed, as if intently listening to the nurse's words. When she had finished, the doctor caught hold of Mavis's wrist; at the same time, he fumbled for his watch in his waistcoat pocket; not finding it, he dropped her arm and asked her to put out her tongue. After examining this, and asking her a few questions, he told her to keep quiet; also, that he would look in again during the evening to see how she was getting on.

"Doctor's fee," said Mrs Gowler, as she thrust herself between the doctor and the bed.

Mavis put the shilling in her hand, at which the landlady left the room, to be quickly followed by the doctor, who seemed equally eager to go. Mavis, with aching head, wondered if the evening post would bring her the letter she hungered for from North Kensington.

An hour later, a note was thrust beneath her door. She got out of bed to fetch it, to read the following, scrawled with a pencil upon a soiled half sheet of paper:--

"Don't you go and be a fool and have no more of Piggy's doctors. He isn't a doctor at all, and is nothing more than a coal merchant's tally-man, who got the sack for taking home coals in the bag he carried his dinner in. My baby is all right, but he squints. Does yours?--I remain yours truly, the permannente, MILLY BURT."

Anger possessed Mavis at the trick Mrs Gowler had played in order to secure a further shilling from her already attenuated store, an emotion which increased her distress of mind. When Mrs Gowler brought in the midday meal, which to-day consisted of fried fish and potatoes from the neighbouring fried fish shop, Mavis said:

"If that man comes here again, I'll order him out."

"The doctor!" gasped Mrs Gowler.

"He's an impostor. He's no doctor."

"'E's as good as one any day, an' much cheaper."

"How dare he come into my room! I shall stop the shilling out of my bill."

"You will, will yer! You try it on," cried Mrs Gowler defiantly.

"I believe he could be prosecuted, if I told the police about it,"

remarked Mavis.

At the mention of "police," Mrs Gowler's face became rigid. She recovered herself and picked out for Mavis the least burned portion of fish; she also gave her a further helping of potatoes, as she said:

"We won't quarrel over that there shillin', an' a cup o' tea is yours whenever you want it."

Mavis smiled faintly. She was beginning to discover how it paid to stick up for herself.

As the comparative cool of the evening succeeded to the heat of the day, Mavis's agitation of mind was such that she could scarcely remain in bed. The fact of her physical helplessness served to increase the tension in her mind, consequently her temperature. She feared what would happen to her already over-taxed brain should she not receive the letter she desired. When she presently heard the postman's knock at the door, her heart beat painfully; she lay in an immense suspense, with her hands pressed against her throbbing head. After what seemed a great interval of time (it was really three minutes), Mrs Gowler waddled into the room, bringing a letter, which Mavis s.n.a.t.c.hed from her hands. To her unspeakable relief, it was in Perigal's handwriting, and bore the Melkbridge postmark. She tore it open, to read the following:--

"MY DEAREST GIRL,--Why no letter? Are you well? Have you any news in the way of a happy issue from all your afflictions? I have left Wales for good. Love as always, C. D. P."

These hastily scribbled words brought a healing joy to Mavis's heart.

She read and re-read them, pressing her baby to her heart as she did so. As a special mark of favour, Jill was permitted to kiss the letter.

If Mavis had thought that a communication, however sc.r.a.ppy, from her lover would bring her unalloyed gladness, she was mistaken. No sooner was her mind relieved of one load than it was weighted with another; the subst.i.tution of one care for another had long become a familiar process. The intimate a.s.sociation of mind and body being what it is, and Mavis's offspring being dependent on the latter for its well-being, it was no matter for surprise that her baby developed disquieting symptoms. Hence, Mavis's new cause for concern.

Contrary to the case of unwedded mothers, as usually described in the pages of fiction, Mavis's love for her baby had, so far, not been particularly active, this primal instinct having as yet been more slumbering than awake. As soon after his birth as she was capable of coherent thought, she had been much concerned at the undeniable existence of the new factor which had come into her life. There was no contradicting Mrs Gowler, who had said that "babies take a lot of explaining away." She reflected that, if the fight for daily bread had been severe when she had merely to fight for herself, it would be much harder to live now that there was another mouth to fill, to say nothing of the disabilities attending her unmarried state. The fact of her letter to Perigal having been returned through the medium of the dead-letter office had almost distracted her with worry, and it is a commonplace that this variety of care is inimical to the existence of any form of love.

Her baby's illness quickly called to life all the immense maternal instinct which she possessed, but, at the same time, her recent awakening to her own claims to consideration made her realise, with a heartfelt sigh, that, in loving her boy as she now did, she was only giving a further precious hostage to happiness.

For three days the mother was kept in a suspense that served to protract the boy's illness, but, at the end of this time, largely owing to Mrs Gowler's advice, he began to improve. The day that his disquieting symptoms disappeared, which was also the day on which he recovered his appet.i.te, was signalised by the arrival of Perigal's reply to Mavis's letter from Durley Road, announcing the birth of their son. In this, he congratulated her on her fort.i.tude, and a.s.sured her that her happiness and well-being would always be his first consideration. It also told her that she was the best and most charming girl he had ever met; meeting with other women only the more strengthened this conviction.

Mavis's heart leapt with a great joy. So long as she was easily first in her lover's eyes, nothing else mattered. She had been foolish ever to have done other than implicitly trust him. His love decorated the one-time sparrow that she was with feathers of gorgeous hue.

Days succeeded each other within the four walls of Mrs Gowler's nursing home much as anywhere else, although in each twenty-four hours there usually occurred what were to Mavis's sensitive eyes and ears unedifying sights, agonised cries of women in torment. All day and night, with scarcely any intermission, could be heard the wailing of one or more babies in different rooms in the house. Mrs Gowler's nursing home attracted numberless girls from all parts of the great city, whose condition necessitated their temporary retirement from employment, whatever it might be. Mavis gathered that they were mostly the mean sort of general servant, who had succ.u.mbed to the blandishments of the men who make it a practice to prey on this cla.s.s of woman. So far as Mavis could see, they were mostly plain and uninteresting-looking; also, that the majority of them stayed only a few days, lack of means preventing them being at Mrs Gowler's long enough to recover their health. They would depart, hugging their baby and carrying their poor little parcel of luggage, to be swallowed up and lost in London's ravening and cavernous maw. As they sadly left the house, Mavis could not help thinking that these deserted women were indeed human sparrows, who needed no small share of their heavenly Father's loving kindness to prevent them from falling and being utterly lost in the mire of London. Once or twice during Mavis's stay, the house was so full that three would sleep in one room, each of whom would go downstairs to the parlour, which was the front room on the ground floor, for the dreaded ordeal, to be taken upstairs as soon as possible after the baby was born. Mavis, who had always looked on the birth of a child as something sacred and demanding the utmost privacy, was inexpressibly shocked at the wholesale fashion in which children were brought into the world at Mrs Gowler's.

There was much that was casual, and, therefore, callous about the circ.u.mstances attending the ceaseless succession of births; they might as well have been kittens, their mothers cats, so Mavis thought, owing to the mean indignities attaching to the initial stages of their motherhood. It did not occur to her how house-room, furniture, doctors, nurses, and servants supply dignity to a commonplace process of nature.

It seemed to Mavis that Mrs Gowler lived in an atmosphere of horror and pain. At the same time, the girl had the sense to realise that Mrs Gowler had her use in life, inasmuch as she provided a refuge for the women, which salved their pride (no small matter) by enabling them to forego entering the workhouse infirmary, which otherwise could not have been avoided.

Oscar inspired Mavis with an inexpressible loathing. For the life of her, she could not understand why such terrible caricatures of humanity were permitted to live, and were not put out of existence at birth. The common trouble of Mrs Gowler's lodgers seemed to establish a feeling of fellowship amongst them during the time that they were there. Mavis was not a little surprised to receive one day a request from a woman, to the effect that she should give this person's baby a "feed," the mother not being so happily endowed in this respect as Mavis. The latter's indignant refusal gave rise to much comment in the place.

The "permanent" was soon on her feet, an advantage which she declared was owing to her previous fecundity. Mavis could see how the "permanent" despised her because she was merely nursing her first-born.

"'As Piggy 'ad a go at your box yet?" she one day asked Mavis, who replied:

"I'm too careful. I always keep it locked."

"Locks ain't nothin' to her. If you've any letters from a gentleman, as would compromise him, burn them."

"Why?"

"If she gets hold of 'em, she'll make money on 'em."

"Nonsense! She wouldn't dare."

"Wouldn't she! Piggy 'ud do anythink for gin or that there dear comic Oscar."

In further talks with the "permanent," Mavis discovered that, for all her acquaintance's good nature, she was much of a liar, although her frequent deviations from the truth were caused by the woman's boundless vanity. Time after time she would give Mavis varying accounts of the incidents attending her many lapses from virtue, in all of which drugging by officers of His Majesty's army played a conspicuous part.

Mavis, except at meal times, saw little of Mrs Gowler, who was usually in the downstair parlour or in other rooms of the house. Whenever she saw Mavis, however, she persistently urged her to board out her baby with one of the several desirable motherly females she was in a position to recommend. Mrs Gowler pointed out the many advantages of thus disposing of Mavis's boy till such time as would be more convenient for mother and son to live together. But Mavis now knew enough of Mrs Gowler and her ways; she refused to dance to the woman's a.s.siduous piping. But Mrs Gowler was not to be denied. One day, when Mavis was sitting up in bed, Mrs Gowler burst into the room to announce proudly that Mrs Bale had come to see Mavis about taking her baby to nurse.

"Who is Mrs Bale?" asked Mavis, much annoyed at the intrusion.

"Wait till you see her," cried Mrs Gowler, as if her coming were a matter of rare good fortune.

Mavis had not long to wait. In a few moments a tall, spare, masculine-looking woman strode into the room. Mrs Bale's red face seemed to be framed in s.p.a.cious black bonnet strings. Mavis thought that she had never seen such a long upper lip as this woman had. This was surmounted by a broken, turned-up nose, on either side of which were boiled, staring eyes, which did not hold expression of any kind.

If Mavis had frequented music halls, she would have recognised the woman as the original of a type frequently seen on the boards of those resorts, played by male impersonators. Directly she saw Mavis, Mrs Bale hurried to the bedside and seized the baby, to dandle it in her arms, the while she made a clucking noise not unlike the cackling of a hen.

Mavis noticed that Mrs Bale's breath reeked of gin.

"Put my baby down," said Mavis.

"I'll leave you two ladies to settle it between yer," remarked Mrs Gowler, as she left the room.

"I'm not going to put my baby out to nurse. Good morning."

"Not for five shillings a week?" asked Mrs Bale.