He says it mildly; and I become aware of myself, my hands at a baby's throat. I set the child carefully down upon the table, among the plates and china cups. At once, the boy takes his knife from the lock of my bag and waves it over its head.
'Ha-ha!' he cries. 'The lady wouldn't do it. John Vroom shall have him— lips, nose and ears!'
The girl squeals, as if tickled. The woman says sharply, 'That's enough. Or are all my infants to be worried out of their cradles, into their graves? Fine farm I should be left with then. Dainty, see to little Sidney before he scalds himself, do. Miss Lilly will suppose herself come among savages. Miss Lilly, I can see you're a spirited girl. I expected nothing less. But you don't imagine we mean to hurt you?' She comes to me again. She cannot stand without touching me— now she puts her hand upon me and strokes my sleeve. 'You don't imagine you ain't more welcome here, than anyone?'
I still shake, a little. 'I can't imagine,' I say, pulling myself away from her hands, 'that you mean me any kind of good, since you persist in keeping me here, when I so clearly wish to leave.'
She tilts her head. 'Hear the grammar in that, Mr Ibbs?' she says. The man says he does. She strokes me again. 'Sit down, my darling. Look at this chair: got from a very grand place, it might be waiting for you. Won't you take off your cloak, and your bonnet? You shall swelter, we keep a very warm kitchen. Won't you slip off your gloves?— Well, you know best.'
I have drawn in my hands. Richard catches the woman's eye. 'Miss Lilly,' he says quietly, 'is rather particular about the fingers. Was made to wear gloves, from an early age'— he lets his voice drop still further, and mouths the last few words in an exaggerated way— 'by her uncle.'
The woman looks sage.
'Your uncle,' she says. 'Now, I know all about him. Made you look at a lot of filthy French books. And did he touch you, dear,
where he oughtn't to have? Never mind it now. Never mind it, here. Better your own uncle than a stranger, I always say.— Oh, now ain't that a shame?'
I have sat, to disguise the trembling of my legs; but have pushed her from me. My chair is close to the fire and she is right, it is hot, it is terribly hot, my cheek is burning; but I must not move, I must think. The boy still picks at the lock. 'French books,' he says, with a snigger. The red-haired girl has the fingers of the baby's hands in her mouth and is sucking on them, idly. The man has come nearer. The woman is still at my side. The light of the fire picks out her chin, her cheek, an eye, a lip. The lip is smooth. She wets it.
I turn my head, but not my gaze. 'Richard,' I say. He doesn't answer. 'Richard!' The woman reaches to me and unfastens the string of my bonnet and draws it from my head. She pats my hair, then takes up a lock of it and rubs it between her fingers.
'Quite fair,' she says, in a sort of wonder. 'Quite fair, like gold almost.'
'Do you mean to sell it?' I say then. 'Here, take it!' I snatch at the lock she has caught 203
up and rip it from its pins. 'You see,' I say, when she winces, 'you cannot hurt me as much as I can hurt myself. Now, let me go.'
She shakes her head. 'You are growing wild, my dear, and spoiling your pretty hair.
Haven't I said? We don't mean to harm you. Here is John Vroom, look; and Delia Warren, that we call Dainty: you shall think them cousins, I hope, in time. And Mr Humphry Ibbs: he has been waiting for you— haven't you, Mr Ibbs? And here am I.
I've been waiting for you, hardest of all. Dear me, how hard it has been.'
She sighs. The boy looks up at her and scowls. 'Jigger me,' he says, 'if I know which way the wind is blowing now.' He nods to me. 'Ain't she meant to be'— he hugs his arms about himself, shows his tongue, lets his eyes roll— 'on a violent ward?'
The woman lifts her arm, and he winks and draws back. 'You watch your face,' she says savagely. And then, gazing gently at me: 'Miss Lilly is throwing in her fortunes with ours. Miss Lilly
don't know her own mind just yet— as who would, in her place? Miss Lilly, I daresay you ain't had a morsel of food in hours. What we got, that will tempt you?' She rubs her hands together. 'Should you care for a mutton chop? A piece of Dutch cheese? A supper of fish? We got a stall on the corner, sells any kind of fish— you name me the breed, Dainty shall slip out, bring it back, fry it up, quick as winking. What shall it be?
We got china plates, look, fit for royalty. We got silver forks— Mr Ibbs, pass me one of them forks. See here, dear. A little rough about the handle, ain't it? Don't mind it, darling. That's where we takes the crest off. Feel the weight of it, though. Ain't them prongs very shapely? There's a Member of Parliament had his mouth about those.
Shall it be fish, dear? Or the
chop?'
She stands, bending to me, with the fork close to my face. I push it aside.
'Do you suppose,' I say, 'I mean to sit and eat a supper with you? With any of you?
Why, I should be ashamed to call you servants! Throw in my fortunes with yours? I should rather be beggared. I should rather die!'
There is a second of silence; then: 'Got a dander,' says the boy. 'Don't she?'
But the woman shakes her head, looks almost admiring. 'Dainty's got a dander,' she answers. 'Why, I've got one myself. Any ordinary girl can have one of them. What a lady has, they call something else. What do they call it, Gentleman?' She says this to Richard, who is leaning tiredly to tug upon the ears of the slavering dog.
'Hauteur,' he answers, not looking up.
'Hauteur,' she repeats.
'Mersee,' says the boy, giving me a leer. 'I should hate, after all, to have mistook it for common bad manners, and punched her.'
He returns to the clasp of my bag. The man watches, and winces. 'Ain't you learned yet,' he says, 'the handling of a lock? Don't prise it, boy, and mash the levers. That's sweet little work. You are just about to bust it.'
The boy makes a final stab with his knife, his face darkening, ruck!' he says.— The first time I have ever heard the word used as
a curse. He takes the point of the blade from the lock and puts it to the leather beneath, 204
and before I can cry out and stop him he slices it, swiftly, in one long gash.
'Well, that's like you,' says the man complacently.
He has taken out a pipe, and lights it. The boy puts his hands to the slit in the leather. I watch him do it and, though my cheek is still burning from the heat of the fire, I grow cold. The cutting of the bag has shocked me, more than I can say. I begin to tremble.
'Please,' I say. 'Please give me back my things. I shall not trouble about the policeman, if you will only give back what is mine, and let me go.'
I suppose my voice has some new, piteous note to it; for now they all turn their heads and study me, and the woman comes close again and again strokes my hair.
'Not frightened, still?' she says amazedly. 'Not frightened, of John Vroom? Why, he is just being playful.— John, how dare you? Put your knife away and pass me Miss Lilly's bag.— There. Are you sorry for it, dear? Why, it's a creased old thing, that looks like it ain't been used in fifty years. We shall get you a proper one. Shan't we, though!'
The boy makes a show of grumbling but gives up the bag; and when the woman hands it to me I take it and hug it. There are tears, rising in my throat.
'Boo-hoo,' says the boy in disgust, when he sees me swallow. He leans and leers at me again. 'I liked you better,' he says, 'when you was a chair.'
I am sure he says that. The words bewilder me, and I shrink away. I twist to look at Richard. 'Please, Richard,' I say. 'For God's sake, isn't it enough to have tricked me?
How can you stand so coolly while they torment me?'
He holds my gaze, stroking his beard. Then he says to the woman: 'Haven't you a quieter place, for her to sit in?'