Paddington Green, page 16
It reminded him powerfully and suddenly of a room he had seen somewhere else, long ago, and he blinked and tried to bring into focus the image that was hovering on the edge of his mind’s eye; a shabbily carpeted floor, a blanketed little bed, a scrubbed wooden table with blue cups on it, a little fireplace where a few sticks burned brightly, and before it a figure crouching, holding bacon on a fork and turning it in the flames to toast it. A slight figure, narrow and yet with a curve to the back that could clutch at the throat, and looking over the shoulder at him a face so bright, so vivid, so full of colour and life as it sparkled up at him that his young heart turned over—
He had to do something active to banish that painful and most unwanted memory and almost without thinking he moved forwards and gave the door a sharp push, without knowing what he expected to see. At once he felt the resistance behind it, and pulled back as the faint mewing became a more definite cry.
He put his head round the door, screwing up his eyes against the dimness, and then as his vision adjusted, he could see. There was a child there behind the door, a scrap of a creature some fifteen months old, he estimated, sitting with little sticks of legs stuck out at sharp angles to its body, its hands lying in a helpless sort of way on its minuscule lap, and its face streaked and crumpled with tears. The nose was running profusely, the eyes were red-rimmed and the little object looked altogether as miserable a creature as any he had ever seen.
At the sight of him the baby began its weak howling again, a little shriller this time, and lifted small and very dirty hands to cover the crumpled face. Abel made a soft irritated noise between his teeth, and moving carefully insinuated himself around the door and bent to pick up the child.
It resisted a little, pushing its puny arms against his chest, and turning its head away, crying louder than ever, and he rocked it gently for a moment, holding it close in his experienced arms, for although he had dealt little with his own children in their infancy he had handled many hundreds in his hospital; and gradually the child’s cries eased until it was doing little more than whimpering softly and staring at him suspiciously from under half closed lids.
He could see now that the child was wearing quite decent clothes, not the usual rags he was accustomed to seeing on Seven Dials infants, and even had a napkin tied around his buttocks—a wet and reeking one, but still a napkin, a rare object to find in these poverty-stricken slums, where babies were lucky to have a sheet to be wrapped in and had to lie in their own ordure and tolerate it.
As well as being better dressed than most, the child was better fed too. Thin as he was, Abel could feel some weight there, could recognize the firm muscle and flesh on those birdlike bones, and the belly was decently flat, not swollen with hunger as was usually the case.
He looked at the child, and the child looked at him, and then turned his head towards the curtain at the end of the little passageway, and now Abel heard it too; another faint sound of a human voice, and he moved towards the curtain, the baby straining away from him with arms out-stretched towards it, now making a definite sound with its whimpers; ‘ma-ma-ma-ma’— the eternal cry of every human baby seeking its mother.
Abel, shouldering aside the curtain and stepping through, found himself in a room in which there were not the usual deal boxes serving as table and chairs and piles of rags to be used as a bed, which was all most homes in these parts boasted, but real furniture. He could see a tall mahogany chest, a piecrust table, a pair of neat chairs, and against one wall a bed, a real bed with a post at each corner and heavy blankets on it.
Again he had to wait to accustom his eyes to the dimness, for the furniture was so dark and heavy it blotted out what little light came from the tiny window in the far wall; and since that gave only on to a stinking little enclosed yard, with an open midden in the centre, it let in little of the March daylight. But after a moment he could see.
There, lying on the bed under the heap of blankets was the wasted figure of a girl. She looked very young in the dimness, very small and fragile, and for a moment he doubted she could be the infant’s mother, but at the sight of her the baby had restarted its caterwauling, holding out matchstick arms even more urgently, and she turned her head on the pillow (and that too was a surprising sight, for who in these parts had pillows with white linen covers on them? Abel thought) and moved her shoulders as though she too wanted to extend her arms.
Abel moved across the room to her, stepping carefully in the gloom, and leaned over to set the child beside her. Now she managed to extricate herself, and moving with what seemed an infinite languor reached for the baby, who crept immediately into her arms, tucked his head into her neck, put two fingers in his mouth and started sucking noisily on them; and almost at once turned his head again so that although he lay close beside the girl, and still kept pressed hard against her, he could observe every one of Abel’s movements with one watchful eye.
‘I found him behind the open door,’ Abel said gently. ‘And since the door was open, no doubt he would soon have found his way out into the street. And that is no place for so small a creature.’
‘No,’ she said. Her voice was so faint it was little more than a breath, and she turned her head closer to the child, and seemed to tighten her grasp on his small body, but again with so effortful a movement it seemed to be lazy. But Abel knew disease when he saw it, and after a moment he sat down beside her on the bed, and pulled off his glove and felt for her wrist.
Her pulse was thin and thready, and she was cold to the touch, and after a moment he said quietly, ‘How long have you been so?’
She looked up at him and he could see her more clearly now; pale, so pale as to seem almost yellow and her eyes, which in health must have been a most charming blue, were red-rimmed and cloudy. Her hair was thin and a nondescript brown, and he could see her chest beneath her cotton shift, bony and moving with such erratic rhythm that it was clear that each breath was an effort.
‘Peter—he had to go to work—’ she said, and still her voice was breathy and very low. ‘Two weeks ago, I think, and the woman didn’t come when she saw I was ill—’
She closed her eyes for a moment, and seemed to fall into a light sleep; after a moment Abel increased the pressure of his finger tips on her wrist and she opened her eyes again and looked at him in blank puzzlement, then her face cleared and she said again, ‘The woman didn’t come. The baby—he is—no one has fed him. And he fell down from the bed and crawled away. So frightened—so frightened—’
Tears had escaped from beneath her closed lids now, and she was weeping with the sudden helplessness of the very weak. Abel nodded with sudden decision, and stood up, looking about the room.
‘You have a key?’ he asked, and then repeated the question more loudly. She woke and her eyes moved and looked at the Welsh dresser that stood against one wall, adorned with cups and bowls and platters, and he nodded, and went over to it and rummaged in the various dishes until he found it, hidden behind a jug.
‘We shall lock the door, so none of your neighbours can pay you unwelcome visits,’ he said crisply. ‘And you will find all well when you return. Come along—’ He moved back to the bedside, leaned down and with one sharp tug pulled up the bedding and wrapped it round the two of them, and picked them up bodily, slinging her into his arms as easily as if she had been no bigger than the baby; and indeed his burden seemed as light as an infant, for all he was holding them both.
‘Where—no—put me back—’ Fear gave her the strength to struggle; she was like a small and captive bird that could be held in one cupped hand, and he said brusquely but with an underlying warmth, ‘To a room at the hospital where you will be looked after. You have nothing to fear from me. I am Mr Lackland—’ She stopped struggling and looked up wonderingly at him and then tightened her grasp of the baby, let her head fall against his shoulder and closed her eyes.
’Even there—’ she murmured after a moment. ‘Anywhere. Feed him for me—’ then she lay very still, and he did not know whether she had fallen asleep or swooned, and either way it did not matter.
He locked the door of the little house and tucked the key carefully into his waistcoat pocket, looking about him sharply before moving away down the street, but none seemed to have noticed or cared what was happening, with the usual Londoner’s disregard for anyone’s affairs but his own. So, satisfied that no would-be thief had seen him and would know the place was empty and worth the robbing, he set off swiftly for the hospital. Nancy would take this pathetic little woman and her baby to her capacious self and feed them and care for them and he would see what ill it was that afflicted her, apart from hunger and neglect (and he suspected from the look of her that she had chlorosis, that her blood was thin and weak and useless to her, and that she needed much feeding up with stimulants and tonics and good red meat) before sending her home to her little house. And perhaps by then, Peter, whoever he might be, might have returned. That was not Abel’s concern, and he gave the matter no further thought.
But he was thinking about the matter of William again, and the money that would be available to him from the projected sale of the Wapping establishment. Not more hospital buildings, but more of the hospital’s care—that was what was needed, he was thinking, as he carried his pathetically light burden along Endell Street and up the steps of the first of the medical houses.
We shall start a visiting service, sending students and perhaps nurses and whoever we can prepare for the work to go about the streets and houses and look for such cases as these, people too weak to come to us for the care they need, too frightened, perhaps, to seek us out. The hospital was there for those that would come to it; well and good. Now, with William’s help, he would send the hospital out to those who had need and could not come of their own volition. Surely, even inefficient and lazy William would see the good sense of such a scheme.
Abel was almost happy as, with his burden held close, he ran up the first staircase in search of Nancy.
14
On Sunday morning London woke to one of those absurd blue and white springlike days that sometimes catch the metropolis completely unawares. For the past week there had been grey days of blustery winds which had sent street dust flying painfully into eyes, skirts whirling immodestly above chilled female ankles and top hats tumbling into the gutters, while slates and chimney pots crashed about the roofs and doors and windows rattled furiously in their frames. In the weeks to come there could be more such days, and worse, too, with rain and sleet and even snow, for that could come even in April to cover the cobbles with icy treacherous slush.
But today there was a sky of so tender a blue that even the most curmudgeonly of citizens felt his heart lift a little, and only the softest of little clouds decorated the sky without blocking the warmth of the early sun. The streets looked washed and clean—as well they might be after the assault they had suffered all week—and the gardens and parks glittered with crocuses and snowdrops and early daffodils.
The hot muffin and new bread sellers going early about the streets seeking breakfast-time customers for their wares did a spanking business, and went home long before they usually did, all wares sold and their pockets cheerfully chinking, to take themselves and their families out for the day to sample the rural joys of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, or even as far afield as Highgate Hill and Hampstead Heath, lying fresh and lush with the earliest of young greenery on the roof of London far to the North.
Abby woke early, and smelling the newness and brightness of the morning could not wait for Ellie to bring her chocolate but went padding along the passageway and downstairs to collect her own hot water to wash, only to find that Frederick and Phoebe had risen even earlier, for they were in the kitchen stuffing themselves with hot toast which he was making before the banked-up kitchen fire and then besmearing plentifully with butter and honeycomb for her.
Abby stood for a moment at the top of the steps that led into the basement kitchen, looking down on them and smiling a little. The red tiled floor was chequered with the light which came pouring in through the railed area window, and the scrubbed deal table in the middle sat in a little pool of spilled sunshine of its own with Phoebe perched on it, her white muslin skirts spread about her, and her black stockinged ankles and black buttoned boots swinging cheerfully. She had managed to dress herself well enough, though her scarlet sash was untied and the buttons at the back of her dress were unevenly matched with their holes, but her hair had quite defeated her, and lay on her shoulders in a tumble of unbrushed black curls. Her face was streaked with honey and she was holding in both hands her enormously thick piece of toast (for Frederick had cut the bread most inexpertly, as the remains of the loaf on the table beside Phoebe showed) and eating very seriously indeed.
Frederick, crouched red-faced and sweating in front of the fire, with one piece of bread on a long fork held to the glow in one hand and another dripping buttery honey in the other, looked totally absorbed in his efforts. His neat brown broadcloth trousers and white cambric shirt were covered with a towel he had tied across his chest under his arms, and his thatch of thick springing hair had been vigorously brushed up over his broad forehead to make a halo which shone redly in the sunlight. He looked most careful and responsible and very aware of the seniority of his ten years over Phoebe’s seven, and together they made up a picture of contented youngness that was very appealing.
‘Good morning!’ Abby said briskly, after a moment and came down the steps and Freddy looked up and grinned cheerfully at her.
‘Oh, Mamma, could you not sleep either? It it not the most perfect morning? The birds woke me so early, and I looked out and the Green looked so splendid! So I crept in and woke Phoebe and she said she was hungry, and—oh, dear—’ for his toast was beginning to smoke threateningly. ‘Oh, well, never mind! I can scrape off the burnt bits, I daresay! Mamma, shall I make you some toast?’
She laughed. ‘I think I will wash and dress first, thank you Freddy, and then wait for Ellie. Did you wash, or is that a question which will embarrass you?’
‘I did not!’ Phoebe announced in a muffled voice, for her mouth was full. ‘Because I will be just as dirty again very soon, for Freddy said we shall go to the park immediately after breakfast and play and run and that will make me very dirty!’
‘Indeed?’ Abby said. ‘And what about Church, young sir? And Miss Phoebe’s lessons? You know she must read with Miss Miller today, at least for a little while, for Phoebe cannot have lessons every weekday, as you do, but must do all that she can on the days she is with us.’
‘Oh, Mamma, cannot we go to the park after Church, then? And could not Miss Miller talk with Phoebe a little about natural philosophy and so forth, as we walk? That is what Mr Corrigan does with us when the weather is too agreeable to be wasted indoors in the schoolroom. We walk about the wilder parts of Hyde Park and he discourses on the beetles and botany and so forth and we learn a great deal, and it is most healthy for our lungs. Mr Corrigan says so, and I am sure Miss Miller will say the same, for she looks a most sensible person!’ He scrambled to his feet. ‘Are you sure you would not like this piece of toast, Mamma? It is only a little burned, and the honey is very good and will quite disguise the black bits—’
She laughed and began to fill a brass can from the big kettle that was steaming gently at the back of the big range. ‘No, you have it, Freddy, for I am sure your need is greater than mine. As for the park and Mr Corrigan’s natural philosophy—well I have no doubt your young Mr Corrigan means well, but you will agree that you learn more at a desk with your books than you ever do skipping about the grass!’
‘Oh, please, Aunt!’ Phoebe cried, and scrambled down from her perch on the table to pull at Abby’s peignoir and look up at her with grey eyes wide and appealing. ‘I should like Miss Miller to teach me botany and beetles in the park above all things!’
Abby looked down at the small face with its pointed chin and soft dimples and dark lashes and could not help but smile, for the child was a most beguiling little creature, and she wondered for one brief moment who it was she looked like, for she had none of her father in her physiognomy. Was she then more her mother’s daughter? It would be interesting to know, but Celia, Jonah had told her in some embarrassment, had refused the invitation to visit her sister-in-law’s house, in spite of the fact that her child was to stay in it for four days of each week, and the two women had never met in the past so it was not possible for Abby to make any such judgements. Although, she thought fleetingly, there is perhaps a little of her grandmother about her, with those curls of hers and that charm.
She shook her head with a sudden involuntary movement and looked at Freddy, who was staring at her with his red head cocked on one side and his green eyes full of hope, and dismissed as ignoble the moment of doubt that had crept into her. Of course she was doing the right thing in having Phoebe here, both for her niece’s sake and for her son’s. The boy had blossomed in the little time he had known her, becoming quite gentle in his attentions, controlling his natural boisterousness for her in a way that any mother must approve of; to regard small Phoebe with any sort of suspicion simply because she had once met the child’s grandmother and had good cause to dislike and fear her, would be most unjust.
So Abby smiled, and picked up her can of hot water and turned back to the steps to return to her room to wash and dress. ‘Well, we shall speak to Miss Miller and see what we can contrive!’ she said. ‘And when Ellie comes down, young man, see to it that you tell her you have eaten breakfast already. There is no need for her to waste time or food preparing more for you, if you are going to be too full to eat it!’
