“Poor Chappy,” she thought mildly, “of course, he’s just a Pollit like the rest: only Ernie is a Collyer, and he doesn’t like me so much since the red money-box business—I don’t blame him! Well, Tommy—but I don’t want to see a son of mine to grow up getting women into messes; I’m not sorry for the stupid girls, but it’s not sugarplum for either side. How tired I feel!” She was surprised to feel tired after a holiday. She thought, “I can’t bear to get old, lose all my energy, not be able to sleep because I’m too weak to sleep, and snivel along after life. Oh, why shouldn’t I live with Sam?—he’s as good to me as any man would be: men are all the same. To beat them, you have to have so much energy—I haven’t got it.”
For a long time she thought of nothing but found it sweet to sit there and think of her boys’ future: strange to say, Evie never entered her mind. She had never bothered about Evie, or tried to dress her well, or taught her household matters or manners, for she regarded such a nice, obedient, pretty girl as cursed from birth: “Some man will break her or bend her,” she always said to Hassie bitterly; while about Louie she always said, “I’m sorry for the man she marries!” About the girls she only thought of marriage, and about marriage she thought as an ignorant, dissatisfied, but helpless slave did of slavery. She thought the boys would get on by the brutal methods of men, Pollit or Collyer. She fingered the little, dirty, glazed-chintz cover, the thin summer blanket with matted spots, the cotton sheet. Before she was married she had made up her mind never to have anything but linen sheets, but it was four years since she had had one, and the present sheets were of the shoddiest cotton, and Mrs. Lewis, who turned them yellow, with her conceit, kept saying, “I’m sure you never had whiter sheets, Miss!”
Henny thought, “I like a baby’s room best: there are no books, no lead, no nonsense,” and she thought of evenings when she had come in to see the usual sight, a baby’s head lying sideways, the eyes closed, the fine dark hair growing thicker over the thin-skinned oval skull, the little nightgown frill, the eyes closed, and one fist clenched on the pillow. She pulled the edge of the blanket straight thoughtfully, “A mother! What are we worth really? They all grow up whether you look after them or not. That poor miserable brat of his is growing up, and I certainly licked the hide off her; and she’s seen marriage at its worst, and now she’s dreaming about ‘supermen’ and ‘great men.’ What is the good of doing anything for them? Anyhow, He always wins! Well, that girl has been cooking for them for three days: I suppose I’d better see about some lunch.”
She looked out of the kitchen window and saw Louie lying on her back in the orchard, waving her arms in the air, with Sam and Saul sitting on her belly jigging up and down while she shrieked and laughed. The screen door swung, and Evie’s pattering came down the hall, “Mother! Mother! You came home! Oh, Mother, we had such fun last night—we all had dinner in our bathing suits and after we had a water party; and the people over on the houseboat had a party too, in bathing suits, and Louie and Ernie swam over and looked in.”
“Very nice. Did Louie tell you what she got for lunch?”
“Sausages and apple fritters; and last night we had ‘cah-nah-pay.’ ” Evie giggled, “It was raw bacon and almonds out of your drawer, and Saul spat it out.”
“I see you’re living on Pollit distinction,” said Henny. Sam’s voice on the heavy, electric summer air sang out, “Megalops, Megalops! What are you donin?” Henny heard him going past the back veranda with the three boys, saying, “See what Megalops donin: he don’t say nuffin, maybe he thinkin; wook [look], Little-Sam, Megalops drornin [drawing] designs in the dirt.”
“He’s eating dirt, Pad,” shrieked Saul appreciatively. Louie, who had been trying to swing on a branch of a peach tree, desisted and looked soulfully after the three boys and their father.
“The baby’s eating dirt, Looloo,” shouted Ernie.
“Well, stop him,” she shouted back, at the same time walking after them nonchalantly.
“Of course he’s eating dirt,” said Henny. “Who is looking after him? I’d give a lot to know what he’s eaten the last three days.”
There fell round the corner of the house a scatter of guffawing children, turning up the corners of their eyes and holding their hands over their mouths, “Moth! Oh-ho-ho! Mothering! The baby’s eating—shh!—well he is!—shh!—Megalops is eating—she doesn’t like you to call him that!—Daddy says to come and see, Mother: the baby’s eating his own crap—shh!—excrement, Mother.”
“Don’t be silly, that’s not a joke,” Evie told Saul severely.
“He is, he is, go and see!”
“Didn’t your silly fool of a father stop him?” cried Henny.
“Yes, Mother, but Daddy says its natural, it’s no harm, only he stopped him too.”
“And yesterday he ate a caterpillar,” said Ernie gravely. The boys burst out laughing, again holding their sides and each other. “Ooh,” cried Evie, “it’s so dirty, it squidged out. …” They shrieked with laughter. “And Louie ate a snail to show it wouldn’t make you sick,” Ernie said, “and Daddy said it didn’t matter.” Little-Sam dropped suddenly to the ground and began rolling about holding his belly, in a paroxysm of laughter. “We had a good time, Moth, we had such a good time,” Saul said hopping about, trying to convince her she should have been there. “But Louie made some nasty things, and I got sick.”
“I firmly believe that,” Henny said grimly. “It is quite a pity I came home: Mr. Lomasne could have done a nice business in a few days. Evie, why haven’t you emptied the slops? The little boys’ room hasn’t been touched. Has any work been done since I left? You’ll all have cholera or typhoid yet.”
“We have a schedule,” Ernie cried, “and we’re going to make a new bartenoom [bathroom], Moth: and I’m making the frun television.” (The twins chanted, “Front elevation, frun television, from Tilly Buzzum!”) “And next summer, Ermo is going away with his sissy Mervyn for a walking tour,” cried Little-Sam. “Oh, Mervyn the Pervyn sat under a tree, and Ernie the Mernie said, ‘What do I see?’ ”
“You shut up,” said Henny, “before I go mad. I don’t know why I came home. Why isn’t someone doing the potatoes? So you have a schedule? Get out of here before I scream.”
A great shout blew round the house, and they heard the sound of pelting footsteps. Sam was calling, “Kids! Kids and goats! Whistletime! Worktime! Gotta make da layout for da new bartenoom. Whar you got to, fellers?”
“Comin’! I’m a-comin’! O.K., Pad!” shouted the boys, running out and leaving Henny and Evie to get the dinner. Tommy burst in through the other door calling, “Molly! Molly!” looking wildly for the little blonde Lomasne girl; and at the same moment Ernie rushed in through the western door shouting, “I see Auntie Jo’s car! She’s coming to lunch! Auntie Jo’s coming!”
“Go and stop her at the gate and ask her if she got any choc?” shouted Sam. The children rushed off to meet her. Henny worried, “I wonder what the silly old upholstered frump wants at this hour in the day? Does she expect lunch? Did you expect your Auntie Jo? What can she expect coming without notice?” Henny sliced away at the apples anxiously.
“I wish I could go and see her car,” poor Evie pouted. “Look, Moth, I cut my finger.”
“Oh, then go and don’t drive me mad,” cried Henny, more vexed than ever. “God knows what the Man of Sorrows has been up to! What the deuce is his big slummicking sister down here for before lunch?” She went impatiently to the baby’s room to look out and saw Jo in great excitement walking about with Samuel, who seemed depressed; Jo expostulated, was bright with indignation; Sam put his hand to his eyes and brushed them. They turned and came towards the house.
“That’s it,” thought Henny, with indignation, “she pried and poked, and she found out—let the old maid go home, she knows nothing.”
But when the yellow-haired couple came towards her, she saw they were both crying; and Sam said, “We found Bonnie, or rather—she came to Jo.”
�
�I didn’t recognize her,” said Jo. “I opened the door and there was a terrible-looking woman, thin, with hair in a knot and looking”
“She got a taxi to bring her to Jo’s house because she knew she was going to be ill.” Sam looked humbly at Henny, with a face tortured by shame and distress. “Bonniferous is there now, in Jo’s flat: she had a baby there. I am going up to see the man.”
“Where is the baby?” asked Henny.
“I don’t know,” Jo said.
“It’s dead!”
“I don’t know!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Someone came and took it away: I don’t know. It wasn’t I that arranged it. I won’t keep her there, either. What am I to say? What can I tell them? She hasn’t even a wedding ring.”
“Where is the baby, Samuel?” Henny asked angrily. “What is it, a girl? A boy?”
“I didn’t look and I didn’t ask. Someone came last night and took it away and it may as well be dead: she will never see it again. I had to pay to have it taken away, and I don’t wish to hear any more about it. I’ve never seen anything like it: she tried to kill herself, and she asked me to kill her. I didn’t know what to do. She kept shrieking so loud you could have heard it a block away, and I tried to keep her quiet by putting a pillow over her mouth, but she was so strong I couldn’t hold her down. They came at the door knocking, too. She got there at four and she kept it up till eleven-thirty, and there was I in jail with this horrible thing going on and people knocking at my door. At last the woman on the floor underneath got her husband to break in the door. She said she would go and get a woman, but I said, ‘I would never allow my sister to be seen like that’; but she went anyhow. Think of my horrible position! She came back with a woman who did something—I don’t know what; I never looked towards her. Then she asked me if she would send the baby away and told me what it would cost. I told her I would never pay for it, I knew nothing about it; but she insisted—I would have to pay for its keep, if there was no father, as it seemed—” Jo’s voice broke in a sob.
She began to walk up and down the room, not looking at any of them, avoiding their glances, delivering a manifesto, “She isn’t my sister: to come there at the last moment without giving me any warning, after being silent all that time and in that state-why didn’t she die? I thought she was sure to. What am I to do? Everyone must know. She wouldn’t be quiet; I kept trying to stop her. I had to give the woman ten dollars to take the horrible thing away, the baby, early this morning, and she’s coming back on Monday. Don’t you see it’s blackmail? I’m ruined. I won’t have her; I’m finished with her. Sam can do what he likes. She’ll never see my face again. And this morning I had a telegram from Miss Atkinson—she was one of those who knocked at my door yesterday afternoon! What am I to say? I rang her up and told her someone was taken very ill with accidental poisoning, and we had to have the stomach-pump. But will she believe it? I’ve got to get that thing out of my rooms. What will I do, Henny?”
“Is she alive? What do you mean?”
“She’s ill,” said Jo solemnly.
“It would have been better if she’d died,” said Henny.
“Will you come and get her, Henny? Down here no one comes: she could stay here until she can get up. Then she must go away. I’m sorry I have to talk about her.”
Sam looked angry, “I’m going up at once to see the man.”
“What can he do? He’s married, isn’t he? The rotten coward took a young girl, knowing he couldn’t be stuck with her. Don’t be wasting your valuable time.”
“To think of the way I’ve lived and fought for every penny,” said Jo, stopping and standing in front of Henny. “Now I must sell the house. I can’t face the disgrace. I can’t go back while she’s there when I think of what she’s done to me. A sister of mine!—oh, I don’t know how I can bear it! How can this happen to me, when I’ve worked so hard. Miss Atkinson came with two of the teachers—we were going to have a cup of tea and go to the cinema. What can I say to them on Monday? I can’t face it. I must get temporary leave. Oh, it’s dreadful, it might ruin me, a thing like that.”
“What about Bonnie, Jo?” Sam asked gently.
Jo shouted rudely, “Do you think I care about a thing like that, a prostitute trailing around with married men and having babies in the street? Oh, it’s awful. It’s awful, Henny. I don’t know what to do. In our family—I didn’t know such things happened.”
“You big brass-mouthed old-maid cow,” said Henny, “I hope a thousand worse things happen to you to teach you to be a bit human, instead of always prancing about with your head in the air.”
“Henny! I thought that you at least—Henny! Don’t, don’t say that! You don’t understand. You have your father’s money and estate: I had to build up every cent of this with my own hands; don’t you see? It might ruin me. You don’t know what it means to have to be your own father and mother the way I had to, and look out for your old age. You have a husband, little ones for your old age; but who is there for me? I’m darned if I’ll stand such a thing,” cried Jo, suddenly getting angry again. “I should have strangled her with my own hands, yesterday: I had the chance; I was too cursed weak. What difference would it make?”
“You ought to have had a man to make you wash floors and kick you in the belly when you didn’t hurry up for him,” said Henny with all the hate of a dozen years. “I’m as rotten as she is—I’ve had men too—I’ve gone trailing my draggletail in all sorts of low dives—I’ve taken money from a man to keep his children—I’m a cheat and a liar and a dupe and a weak idiot and there’s nothing too low for me, but I’m still ‘mountains high’ above you and your sickly fawning brother who never grew up—I’m better than you who go to church and than him who is too good to go to church, because I’ve done everything. I’ve been dirty and low and done things you’re both too stupid and too cowardly to do, but however low I am, I’m not so filthy crawling in the stench of the gutter, I haven’t got a heart of stone, I don’t sniff, sniff, sniff when I see a streetwalker with a ragged blouse, too good to know what she is: I hate her but I hate myself. I’m sick of the good ones; I’m sick of that stupid staring idiot standing goggling at me who’s going to be as good as you are; nothing’s too good for you, nothing’s too bad for me; I’ll go and walk the streets with that poor miserable brat sister of yours—we’ll both get something to eat and some men to be decent to us, instead of loudmouthed husbands and sisters who want to strangle us—that’s what you said, that’s what you said, you can never go back on that, and in that your whole black cruel cold heart came out of you and you tried to strike her down with it, like a stone as he’d like to strike me down when he gets all he can out of me—and I know you both, I know you all—she’s the only decent one and that’s because she’s like me—no good—good because she’s no good—take your eyes off me, you staring idiot, get out of here, you filthy child—tell your daughter to get out of here—I can’t stand it—” Henny could say no more but began to scream and then fell to the floor, bumping her head hard. Her eyes were closed; she seemed cold as stone.
Louie, with streaming eyes, went slowly to get her a cushion as so often before, while Jo said, “Well, in all my life!”
“Shut up, Jo: the trouble with you is you don’t understand anything and you don’t try to learn,” Sam said, in a voice low and mortified. “Let us go outside and leave her alone. Louie, leave your mother to come to herself. Jo, I can’t go on. You don’t know what I have to put up with, so don’t give me advice. I will go up with you, and you and I will get Bonnie out of your place. I’ll bring her down here. Jo, you must try to be kinder. You are beyond human life.”
“I’ve never done any wrong,” said Jo, stony with pride and passion; “I’ve never done wrong to a single human being: no one can say that.”
“Get your hat, Jo: we’ll go and see Bonnie.”
Henny groaned and stirred slowly. Louie, who had been watching, snuffling and sobbing in the corne
r of the room, came forward, “Will I help you up, Mother?”
“Yes, take me into the baby’s room.”
But when she got up she withdrew her hand quickly from the hated child’s touch, and, going into the baby’s room, slammed the door. Louie went round outside and peered in the window. Henny was lying on Tommy’s bed, under the picture of the girl with oranges, and large tears were rolling from under her dry, tanned lids.
The boys, who had been playing down on the beach, now rushed up shrieking, “Auntie Jo; can we take your car to the ferry to get the marlin? It’s coming now.” So it happened that, as they couldn’t let the marlin lie corrupting on the street end where the Matapeake ferry comes in, they went and brought home the marlin before Jo and Sam went to see Bonnie. The boys staggered down to the beach with the weighty spikefish. Its great eyes were sunken; it looked exhausted from its battle for life; there was a gaping wound in its deepest part. They attached it by a cord to a stake and immersed it in the creek, to keep it as fresh as possible till Sam came home. The children began to run towards Spa House from all over Eastport, and people started to look at them from the bridge and Shipwright’s Street. The children were proud and happy and would not stir from the beach all the morning. The air was crisp, electric, nervous, but the children only flickered, leaped, and played like fish.
The Man Who Loved Children Page 53