The Girls of St. Olave's Part 22

"So I do!" answered Jane fiercely, "but he _would_ have his sister's, now it's my turn for _my_ sister's!"

As she turned up the stairs her own words came back to her with a sudden qualm. Her sister's child! What about Tom?

He would know that this was not his sister's child--he might even know whose child it was, for he must probably have seen it with Pattie!

But even as the disquieting thought came, a rea.s.suring one followed.

Tom was gone away for a month on a special job for his master, and long before that time had elapsed, Pattie would be dismissed and the child could be returned.

Jim did not come home till very late, and when he did, he was more than half intoxicated, and he accepted Jane's story without demur, indeed he scarcely listened to what she said; and as the little girl was still asleep when he went to work in the morning, he really had no idea that there was any addition to his family circle.

Harry was enchanted with a playmate so pretty, so gentle, so near his own age. He wanted to take her to walk in the street to show her off, but Jane promptly boxed his ears and forbade any such thing, on pain of terrific wrath, so Harry contented himself with offering her every toy he possessed, and Maud accepted his attentions like a little queen, and was really quite happy, except when she thought of her mother or Denys. But always there was the same answer to her pleadings to go home.

"To-morrow--to-morrow--if you don't cry."

So the days pa.s.sed on. Each day Jim drank more and more heavily as he ceased to resist the temptation, and it took stronger hold upon him, and each day Jane grew a little more restless and anxious as she waited for news of Pattie's downfall. She had counted on going over to Old Keston, ostensibly to see her sister and the new baby, but really to pick up any gossip she could about Pattie; but though night after night she made up her mind to go the next day, yet in the morning her heart failed her. The chance of recognition was possible, and to take Maud through the streets to the Nursery, in the glare of the morning sunshine, seemed to be courting discovery. Nor did she dare to leave the child at home alone, because of the neighbours. She would have left Harry alone with the utmost indifference, and locked him in, and he might have been frightened and screamed and cried all day, for all she would have cared, and the neighbours could have made any remarks they liked; but this was different.

She was certainly beginning to be nervous, and she took more beer than she had ever taken before, because she felt so much more cheerful for a little while, and when the inevitable depression it caused, returned, why then she took some more!

As her neighbour had remarked, she hated children, and she became so unutterably wearied of the care of these three all day and every day, that she began to wish she had never troubled about paying Pattie out, or chosen some way which had not entailed the plague of three children upon herself.

Still, she had triumphed; she had had her vengeance. The thought was very sweet, and the bother to herself would soon be over now. Indeed, it must be, or Tom would be coming back.

One Sat.u.r.day had already pa.s.sed, since Maud came, and on the second Sat.u.r.day three things happened. News of Pattie came to her. Wrapped round a haddock which she had purchased for dinner, was a crumpled piece of newspaper. The name upon it, "Old Keston Gazette," caught her eye instantly. She turned it over and glanced down its columns, and her eyes rested on one, and a look and a smile of triumph flashed into her face.

But as she read, her look changed, a deep and angry flush mounted to her forehead and spread to her neck. In a sudden transport of rage, she crumpled up the paper into a ball, cast it upon the floor and trampled on it, and then stooping, she picked it up and thrust it into the fire.

She had failed--she had been deceived--tricked--foiled. All her efforts had been in vain! Pattie had escaped from her toils scot-free.

Pattie had never gone to the station at all. She had stolen the child from one of its own sisters! She had risked so much for that! She could have shrieked in her impotent anger.

Turning, she met the wondering gaze of the two children, who had stopped in their play to watch her. She gave them both a smart box on the ears, and then, further enraged when they both began to cry, she seized them roughly and thrust them into the bedroom. She would gladly have smacked her own baby, only that he happened to be asleep.

The second happening was a postcard in the afternoon, from the maid who lived where she used to wash in Old Keston. Her mistress was away, she said; the new washerwoman had not put in an appearance and if Mrs.

Adams was not engaged on Monday, would she come and oblige?

Mrs. Adams was not engaged. She thought things over and she decided to go. Not by her usual trains, however. Something must be devised about ridding herself of Maud. She was sick of seeing after the child and she found herself listening to every heavy footstep on the stairs. She would go over late on Monday morning, and returning by a later train, could observe the movements of the St. Olave's household when the dusk fell. She must do something or Tom would be back.

The third happening came late at night.

As might have been expected, Jim came home at last with very little money in his pocket.

He threw over to Jane her usual housekeeping money and growled out that he had not got any extra for Harry this week. She must make do without it. A child like that couldn't cost much, anyhow!

That put the finishing touch to Jane's day. She stormed and raved, she called her husband names, she threatened all sorts of things, but as Jim observed, hard words would not draw blood out of a stone, and he sat there stolidly smoking and listening to the torrent of words, till suddenly his patience gave way all at once, and he declared that if he heard another word, he would take the money back and do the housekeeping himself.

That would have suited Jane very ill, and it sobered her somewhat, and when Jim added that if they were all going short of food next week, she had better send that kid of her sister's home, she became quite silent. It occurred to her that it might be well not to push Jim too hard till the child was safely gone. After that she would have a free hand.

She maintained a sulky silence all Sunday, but Jim took no notice of her. He went out directly after breakfast, taking Harry with him, and they did not return till late at night.

On Monday morning she announced that she was going to work, and demanded the money for the Nursery for Harry, which Jim had always paid cheerfully, but now he only retorted that he had no more money, and went angrily out, apparently heedless of her reply that if he did not pay, Harry could stop at home. For a full minute Jim stood outside on the landing, his hand in his pocket, irresolute. He was quite unaware that the Nursery charge was fivepence for one child, eightpence for two, and tenpence for three, and that Jane had pocketed any benefit which arose from sending more than one. He had sixpence to last him through Monday, but if he left fivepence of that for the Nursery, he would have but one penny for beer!

Yesterday his heart had turned away from his temptation to the fair, innocent little chap that he meant to be a father to, and he had taken him out all day, and had never touched one drop of intoxicating beverage, contenting himself, and very happily too, with iced lemonade and soda water and coffee.

But this morning was different. The cruel trick of his mates rose up in his mind and held him back from trying again. Then he had no coffee ready for dinner, even if he meant to begin again, and it would not hurt the boy to be left at home alone. Still he hesitated, conscious that he was weighing two loves--the child's welfare; his own desire.

And his own desire conquered.

He went quietly downstairs and out to his work, and Jane dressed the baby and Maud, and took them down to her obliging neighbour.

"Take these two down to the Nursery for me," she said, "I've to go back to my old work to-day."

Poor little Harry! He stood forlornly in the middle of the empty room, listening to the sound of the key turning in the lock, listening to the sound of his aunt's retreating footsteps.

Then he thought of the happy Nursery where Maud and Baby had gone; he thought of his place at the head of the long dinner-table that somebody else would have this Monday, and he sat down in a heap on the floor and cried.

Presently he got up and looked about for something to do. His dinner stood on the table, and he thought he might as well eat it now, and when that was disposed of, he strolled into the bedroom, and there he spied the corner of the box that held his best frock, sticking out from under the bed.

Now was his chance! He would have his own again, his bright penny and his bestest pocket-handkerchief with lace upon it.

But the box stuck fast.

Nothing daunted, Harry wrestled with it. He pushed and pulled, under the bed and behind the bed, this way and that, till suddenly, as he pulled, the obstruction which held it gave way, the box came out with a run, and Harry toppled over backwards with a crash, and an awful sound of breaking china, and a rushing of cold water.

For a moment Harry lay there stunned, the broken toilet jug lying in shivers around him, the water soaking into him from head to foot; then, as he came to himself, his startled screams filled the room and he struggled up and sat looking round.

He was more frightened than hurt, but the sight of that broken jug terrified him more than the fall and the wetting. Wouldn't Aunt Jane whip him when she knew!

There was great tenacity in Harry's character. He gathered himself up at last, and opened the box and found his frock and its pocket and its precious contents. He looked at the frock a long time lovingly, then he replaced it, pushed back the box, set the bed straight and gave an involuntary shiver.

He was soaked from head to foot, and though it was summer weather, he felt very, very cold.

He sat down by the empty fireplace and shivered again, and by-and-by he fell fast asleep and dreamed strange dreams, but always he was very, very cold.

CHAPTER XXII.

OUT OF THE NORTH.

In the stillness of a quiet summer evening, when the darkness had fallen and the stars looked down from a far sky, and the soft moonbeams shone silvery on dark trees and velvet lawns, John Gray, Bank Manager, knelt at an open window, his arms resting on the sill, his face turned skywards.

In the silence, in the stillness of that summer night, the great battle of his life was being fought out beneath the stars.

Backwards and forwards raged the battle. Thoughts of what he must give up if he turned his back on this temptation and did not satisfy his desire for strong drink; the friends who would flaunt him; the friends who would pity him for his weakness in yielding to the influence of abstaining noodles; the friends who would smile and bid one another wait a bit, and John Gray would be taking his gla.s.s with them again; the awful haunting fear that they were right, that he would only make himself ridiculous and never hold out; all these things seemed ranged on one side against him, and on the other side what was there?

His wife Elaine. She had promised to help him, for them to start together, to turn out of their home and their entertaining all intoxicating beverages, to stand side by side in their social circle and be abstainers. Then there was Reggie. He was helping already. Not ostentatiously, not in a burdensome way. Only just a cycle ride here and there, or a walk, or a concert, or an hour on the church organ, when Reggie would blow and Mr. Gray, who was musical, would play as n.o.body in the town, not excepting the organist, could play. Or a game of chess in Mrs. Gray's drawing-room, while Elaine played or sang to them and served them with delicious coffee.

There were other friends too--friends who had been shy of him and Elaine lately, but who had once been pleasant, intellectual friends, and who would be friends again if things were different.