‘That’s the kid.’
‘Kid!’ I echoed, scarcely understanding, for, knowing how little the poor love their children, I had asked William no questions about the baby.
‘Didn’t you know his missis had a kid?’
‘Yes; but that is no excuse for William’s staying away from his sick wife,’ I answered, sharply. A baby in such a home as William’s, I reflected, must be trying; but still – besides, his class can sleep through any din.
‘The kid ain’t in our court,’ the girl explained. ‘He’s in W., he is, and I’ve never been out of W.C.; leastwise, not as I knows of.’
‘This is W. I suppose you mean that the child is at West Kensington? Well, no doubt it was better for William’s wife to get rid of the child–’
‘Better!’ interposed the girl. ‘’Tain’t better for her not to have the kid. Ain’t her not having him what she’s always thinking on when she looks like a dead one?’
‘How could you know that?’
‘’Cause,’ answered the girl, illustrating her words with a gesture, ‘I watches her, and I sees her arms going this way, just like as she wanted to hug her kid.’
‘Possibly you are right,’ I said, frowning; ‘but William had put the child out to nurse because it disturbed his night’s rest. A man who has his work to do–’
‘You are green!’
‘Then why have the mother and child been separated?’
‘Along of that there measles. Near all the young ’uns in our court has ’em bad.’
‘Have you had them?’
‘I said the young ’uns.’
‘And William sent the baby to West Kensington to escape infection?’
‘Took him, he did.’
‘Against his wife’s wishes?’
‘Na-o!’
‘You said she was dying for want of the child?’
‘Wouldn’t she rayther die than have the kid die?’
‘Don’t speak so heartlessly, child. Why does William not go straight home from the club? Does he go to West Kensington to see it?’
‘’Tain’t a hit, it’s an ’e. Course he do.’
‘Then he should not. His wife has the first claim on him.’
‘Ain’t you green! It’s his missis as wants him to go. Do you think she could sleep till she knowed how the kid was?’
‘But he does not go into the house at West Kensington?’
‘Is he soft? Course he don’t go in, fear of taking the infection to the kid. They just holds the kid up at the window to him, so as he can have a good look. Then he comes home and tells his missis. He sits foot of the bed and tells.’
‘And that takes place every night? He can’t have much to tell.’
‘He has just.’
‘He can only say whether the child is well or ill.’
‘My! He tells what a difference there is in the kid since he seed him last.’
‘There can be no difference!’
‘Go ’long! Ain’t a kid always growing? Haven’t Mr. Hicking to tell how the hair is getting darker, and heaps of things beside?’
‘Such as what?’
‘Like whether he larfed, and if he has her nose, and how as he knowed him. He tells her them things more ’n once.’
‘And all this time he is sitting at the foot of the bed?’
‘’Cept when he holds her hand.’
‘But when does he get to bed himself?’
‘He don’t get much. He tells her as he has a sleep at the club.’
‘He cannot say that.’
‘Hain’t I heard him? But he do go to his bed a bit, and then they both lies quiet, her pretending she is sleeping so as he can sleep, and him ’feard to sleep case he shouldn’t wake up to give her the bottle stuff.’
‘What does the doctor say about her?’
‘He’s a good one, the doctor. Sometimes he says she would get better if she could see the kid through the window.’
‘Nonsense!’
‘And if she was took to the country.’
‘Then why does not William take her?’
‘My! you are green! And if she drank port wines.’
‘Doesn’t she?’
‘No; but William, he tells her about the gentlemen drinking them.’
On the tenth day after my conversation with this unattractive child I was in my brougham, with the windows up, and I sat back, a paper before my face lest anyone should look in. Naturally, I was afraid of being seen in company of William’s wife and Jenny, for men about town are uncharitable, and, despite the explanation I had ready, might have charged me with pitying William. As a matter of fact, William was sending his wife into Surrey to stay with an old nurse of mine, and I was driving her down because my horses needed an outing. Besides, I was going that way at any rate.
I had arranged that the girl Jenny, who was wearing an outrageous bonnet, should accompany us, because, knowing the greed of her class, I feared she might blackmail me at the club.
William joined us in the suburbs, bringing the baby with him, as I had foreseen they would all be occupied with it, and to save me the trouble of conversing with them. Mrs. Hicking I found too pale and fragile for a workingman’s wife, and I formed a mean opinion of her intelligence from her pride in the baby, which was a very ordinary one. She created quite a vulgar scene when it was brought to her, though she had given me her word not to do so, what irritated me even more than her tears being her ill-bred apology that she ‘had been ‘feared baby wouldn’t know her again.’ I would have told her they didn’t know any one for years had I not been afraid of the girl Jenny, who dandled the infant on her knees and talked to it as if it understood. She kept me on tenter-hooks by asking it offensive questions, such as, ‘Oo know who give me that bonnet?’ and answering them herself, ‘It was the pretty gentleman there;’ and several times I had to affect sleep because she announced, ‘Kiddy wants to kiss the pretty gentleman.’
Irksome as all this necessarily was to a man of taste, I suffered even more when we reached our destination. As we drove through the village the girl Jenny uttered shrieks of delight at the sight of flowers growing up the cottage walls, and declared they were ‘just like a music-’all without the drink license.’ As my horses required a rest, I was forced to abandon my intention of dropping these persons at their lodgings and returning to town at once, and I could not go to the inn lest I should meet inquisitive acquaintances. Disagreeable circumstances, therefore, compelled me to take tea with a waiter’s family – close to a window too, through which I could see the girl Jenny talking excitedly to the villagers, and telling them, I felt certain, that I had been good to William. I had a desire to go out and put myself right with those people.
William’s long connection with the club should have given him some manners, but apparently his class cannot take them on, for, though he knew I regarded his thanks as an insult, he looked them when he was not speaking them, and hardly had he sat down, by my orders, than he remembered that I was a member of the club, and jumped up. Nothing is in worse form than whispering, yet again and again, when he thought I was not listening, he whispered to Mrs. Hicking, ‘You don’t feel faint?’ or ‘How are you now?’ He was also in extravagant glee because she ate two cakes (it takes so little to put these people in good spirits), and when she said she felt like another being already the fellow’s face charged me with the change. I could not but conclude, from the way Mrs. Hicking let the baby pound her, that she was stronger than she had pretended.
I remained longer than was necessary, because I had something to say to William which I knew he would misunderstand, and so I put off saying it. But when he announced that it was time for him to return to London, – at which his wife suddenly paled, so that he had to sign to her not to break down, – I delivered the message.
‘William,’ I said, ‘the head waiter asked me to say that you could take a fortnight’s holiday just now. Your wages will be paid as usual.’
Confound them! William had me by the hand, and his wife was in tears before I could reach the door.