ABOUT THE PINCH
Only well-to-do people, those who have many changes of raiment and can afford to poke the fire expensively, are happy in the winter. For others there are various degrees of the pinch; lack of fuel pinch, want of food pinch, insufficient clothes pinch, or the pinch of desolation and dreariness. To those who dwell in lonely places winter pays no dividends in the way of amusement, and increases the expense of living at the rate of fifty per cent. No wonder they tumble down in adoration when the sun comes. The smutty god of coal, and the greasy deity of oil are served in winter; there is the lesser divinity of peat also. Each brings round a bag and demands a contribution; and those who cannot pay are pinched remorselessly.
Mrs. Bellamie sat in her drawing-room, and the fire burnt expensively, and she spread her fragile feet towards it, without worshipping because it was too common, and around her were luxuries on the top of luxuries; and yet she was being pinched. It was not the horrid little note, rather blurred and blotted, lying upon her lap which was administering the pinch directly, but the thoughts brought on by that note. Mrs. Bellamie was opening her secret drawer and turning out the rubbish. She was thinking of the past which had been almost forgotten until that small voice had come from Dartmoor. She had only to turn to the window to see the snow-capped tors. The small voice was crying there and saying: "I am only eighteen, and I am going to try and make a living by letting lodgings. I promise you I will not write to Aubrey again." Those words were so many crabs, pinching horribly; and at the bottom of the secret drawer was a story, not written, because the drawer was the lady's mind, and the story was about a little girl whose father had fallen on evil days; a very respectable father, and a proud gentleman who would not confess to his friends that his position had become desperate, but his family knew all about it for they had to be hungry, and a very hard winter came, and the coal-god sent his bag round as usual and they had nothing to put into it. The father said he didn't want a fire. It was neither necessary nor healthy. He preferred to sit in his cold damp study with a greatcoat on and a muffler round his neck, and shiver. As long as there was a bit of cold mutton in the house he didn't care, and he talked about his ancestors who had suffered privations on fields where English battles had been won, and declared that people of leisure had got into a disgraceful way of coddling themselves; but he kept on coughing, and the little girl heard him and it made her miserable. At last she decided to wrap her morals up, and put them away in the secret drawer, and forget all about them until the time of adversity was over. There was a big house close by, belonging to wealthy friends of theirs, and it was shut up for the winter. After dark the little girl climbed over the railing, found her way to the coal-shed, took out some big lumps, and threw them one by one into her father's garden. It made her dreadfully dirty, but she didn't care, for she had put on her oldest clothes. The next day her father found a fire burning in his study, and he didn't seem angry. Indeed, when the little girl looked in, to tell him it was cold mutton time, he was sitting close to it as if he had forgotten all about the ancestors who had been frozen upon battlefields. She did the same wicked thing that night, and the night after; and her father lost his cough and became cheerful again. This robbery of the rich went on for some time, until one night the little girl slipped while climbing the railing and cut her knee badly, which kept her in bed for some days, while she heard her father grumbling because he had no fire; but he didn't grumble for long, because fine weather came, and his circumstances improved, and a young gentleman came along and said he wanted to be a robber too, and went off with the little coal-thief. It was all so long ago that Mrs. Bellamie found herself wondering if it had ever happened; but there was still a small mark upon her knee which seemed to suggest that she ought to have known a good deal about the little girl who had stolen coals during the days of the great pinch.
Some of the wintry mist from Dartmoor had got into the room, and had settled between the lady and the fire, which suddenly became blurred and looked like a scarlet waterfall. Part of the origin of the mist tickled her cheek, and she put up her handkerchief to wipe it away; but the voices went on talking. "I am only eighteen, and I am going to try and make a living by letting lodgings," said the voice from the moor. "Mother, I know I'm young, but I shall never change. I love her with my whole heart." That was a voice from the sea. Mrs. Bellamie rose and went to find her husband. She came upon him engrossed upon the characteristics of Byzantine architecture.
"How are you going to answer this?" she said, dropping the note before him like a cold fall of snow.
"Does it require any answer?" he said, looking up with a frown. "She must struggle on. She is one out of millions struggling, and her case is only more painful to us because we know of it. We will help her as much as we can, indirectly."
"I should like to go and see her. I want to have her here for Christmas," said the lady.
"It would be foolish," said Mr. Bellamie. "It would make her unsettled, and more dissatisfied with her lot. She might also get to look upon this house as her home."
"I am miserable about her. I wish I had never kissed her. She has kissed me every day since," said the lady. "She is always on my mind, and now," she went on, glancing at the note, "I think of her alone, absolutely alone, a child of eighteen, in a dreary cottage upon the moor, among those savage people."
"If you had seen that weird old man—" began her husband.
"He is dead, I have seen her, and she haunts me."
Perhaps Mrs. Bellamie would not have been haunted if she had never stolen those coals. Adversity breeds charity, and tenderness is the daughter of Dame Want. Love does not fly out of the window when poverty comes in. Only the imp who masquerades as the true god does that. The son of Venus gets between husband and wife and hugs them tighter to warm himself.
"I am a descendant of Richard Bellamie," said her husband, getting his crest up like a proud cockatoo, "father of Alice, quasi bella et amabilis, who was mother of Bishop Jewel of famous memory. You, my dear, are a daughter of the Courtenays, atavis editi re gibus, and royalty itself can boast of blood no better. Let the whole country become Socialist, the Bellamies and Courtenays will stand aloof."
Mr. Bellamie smiled to himself. There was a classical purity about his utterance which stimulated his system like a glass of rare wine.
"I know," said the lady. "I am referring to my feelings, nothing else." She was still thinking of the coals, and it seemed to her that a certain portion of her knee began to throb.
"When it comes to affairs of the heart, even the Bellamies and Courtenays are Socialists," she said archly.
Mr. Bellamie did not reply directly to that. He loved his wife, and yet he carried her off, when the days of coal-stealing had been accomplished, as much for her name as anything else.
"My dear, let me understand you," he said. "Do you want Aubrey to marry this nameless girl?"
"I don't know myself what I want," came the answer. "I only know it is horrible to think of the poor brave child living alone and unprotected on the moor. Suppose one of those rough men broke into her cottage?"
This was melodrama, which is bad art, and Mr. Bellamie frowned at it, and changed the subject by saying: "She has promised not to write to Aubrey again."
"While he has absolutely refused to give her up," his wife added. "Directly he comes back he will go to her."
"I can't think where Aubrey gets it from," Mr. Bellamie murmured. "The blood is so entirely unpolluted—but no, in the eighteenth century there was an unfortunate incident, Gretna Green and a chambermaid, or something of the kind. Young men were particularly reckless in that century. If it had not been for that incident Aubrey would never have run after this girl."
"I expect he would," she said.
"Then he is tainted. This terrible new democracy has tarred him with its brush," said her husband. "I suppose the end of it will be he will run off with this girl and bring her back married."
"There is not the slightest fear of that. The girl would not consent."
"Not consent!" cried Mr. Bellamie. "Not consent to marry into our family!"
"My dear, there is such a thing as nobility of character, though we don't see much of it, perhaps. I may be allowed to know something of my sex, and I am certain this girl would never marry Aubrey without our consent."
"Why, then, she's a good girl. I'll do all that I can for her if she is like that," said Mr. Bellamie cheerfully.
"What do you suppose she is doing now? Sobbing herself to death," said his wife.
The full-blooded gentleman stirred uneasily. Bad art again. "You are pleading for her, my dear. Most distinctly you are pleading for her. If you are going to side with Aubrey I will give in, of course. I will write to the secretary of the Socialists' League, if there is such a thing, and beg humbly to be enrolled as a member, and I will also state that if the name of Bellamie is too much for them I shall be pleased to adopt that of Tomkins or Jenkins. I cannot permit pride to stand in my way, seeing that my future daughter-in-law has no name at all, unless it is the highly aristocratic one of Smith-Robinson, the father being Smith and the mother Robinson." He spoke with some heat, employing the weapon of cynicism as a perfectly legitimate form of art.
"Surely you do not suggest she is an illegitimate child," said his wife, with some horror.
"I suggest nothing, my dear, because I know nothing. I have heard all sorts of stories about her—probably lies, like those the old man told me. Understand, please, I cannot see the girl," he went on quickly. "I like her. She is bella et amabilis, and if I saw much of her, pity and admiration might make a fool of me. You know me, my dear. I am not heartless, as my words might suggest. I want Aubrey to do well, marry well, rise in his profession. If I went to see the child in her cottage the sight would make me miserable. When I left the old man, after he had choked me with the wildest lot of lies you ever heard, I was sad enough for tears. His heart was so good though his art was so bad. The play upon words was unintentional," he added, with a frown.
Mrs. Bellamie said no more, but the coals continued to trouble her, and at last the fire kindled, and she ordered a carriage and drove up on Dartmoor without telling her husband. It was the week before Christmas, and the road was sprinkled with carts passing up and down filled with good things, and the men who drove them were filled with good things too, which made them desire the centre of the road at any price. The lady's carriage was often kept at a walking pace by these human slugs with their fill of sloe-gin.
Lewside Cottage was found with difficulty, most of the residents appealed to declaring they had never heard of such a place, but the driver found it at last, and brought the carriage up before the little whitewashed house which looked very wet and dreary amid its wintry surroundings. Mrs. Bellamie shivered as she got out and felt the wind with a sharp edge of frost to it. Somebody else was shivering too, but not with cold. Boodles watched from a corner of one of the windows, and when the lady knocked she wanted to go and hide somewhere and pretend she was miles away.
"Perhaps she has come to tell me about old maids for lodgers," she murmured. Then she ran down, opened the door, and straightway became speechless.
"I have come to see you, my dear," said the lady. The fact was obvious enough to need no comment, but when people are embarrassed, and have to say something, idiotic remarks serve as well as anything. Boodles tried to reply that she perceived the visitor standing before her in the flesh; but her tongue seemed to occupy the whole of her mouth, and she could only smile and flush.
Mrs. Bellamie, finding the conversation left to herself, observed that it was exceedingly cold, while poor Boodles was thinking how hot it was. She knew that her note had brought Mrs. Bellamie, and she was dreadfully afraid the lady was going to be charitable; open her purse and give her half-a-sovereign, or call to the driver to bring in a hamper of food, or perhaps of toys, for Boodles was feeling fearfully young and shy. "If she gives me anything I shall stamp and scream," she thought.
"Are you really living here alone?" said Mrs. Bellamie, which was quite as foolish as her other remarks, as she could not possibly have expected to see people of various sizes and complexions tumbling suddenly from the cupboards. "How very dreary it must be for you—dear."
The last word was not intended to escape. It was on the tip of the lady's tongue, and rolled off before she could stop it. "Dear" alone sounds much more tender without any possessive pronoun attached, and the sound of it made Boodles attempt to swallow something that felt like a lump of clay in her throat. She knew she would have to howl if that lump got any higher and reached the tear mark. She felt that if she opened her mouth she would begin to cry. It was such an awful and a pleasant thing to have a visitor, and Aubrey's mother; and she was thinking already how terrible it would be when the visitor went away.
They went into the little sitting-room. Their breath seemed to fill it with cold steam, for there was no fire, which was a bad thing for Mrs. Bellamie, for she thought at once of the past coal-age and the resemblance of that room to her father's study; and just then Boodles began to cough. It was all over with Mrs. Bellamie. Her secret drawer was wide open, and all that she ought to have been ashamed of was revealed. She was listening again at a certain keyhole, feeling the cold current of air upon her ear, and with it the gentle persistent noise of her proud old father coughing because he hadn't got any fire. She was getting on in life, but her spirit was the same. She would have gone then, and climbed a railing, and stolen coal to give the poor girl a fire.
Boodles looked up with a smile, without in the least knowing that her eyes were hungry for a caress. Mrs. Bellamie bent and kissed her, and Boodles promptly wept.
"My poor child, how can you sit here in the cold? Why don't you have a fire?" said the lady, who seemed bent on saying foolish things that day.
"I—I am so glad to see you," sobbed Boodles, obtaining relief and the use of her tongue. "I would have lighted a fire if I had known you were coming. I only use the kitchen and my bedroom."
"Would you like to show me over the cottage?" said the lady, becoming more sensible.
"It won't take long," said Boodles. "I am sorry for crying. This is Thursday, isn't it? I lose track of the days rather, but the baker comes Wednesdays and Saturdays, and he came yesterday, and it isn't Sunday, so it must be Thursday. Well, I hadn't cried since Tuesday. Yesterday was a day off."
"You poor child," murmured Mrs. Bellamie.
"Sometimes I think I ought to keep a record, a sort of rain-gauge," went on Boodles in quite a lively fashion. It was a part of her idea. She was playing her game of "not standing it," and after all she was telling the truth so far. "Monday, three-hundred drops. Tuesday, one-hundred-and-twenty-and-a-half drops. Wednesday, none. Thursday, not over yet. It's like a prescription. I'm all right now, you made me feel funny, as I've never had a civilised visitor before. It is very good of you to come and discover me."
Then she took the lady over the tiny house, from the kitchen to her bedroom, taking pride in the fact that it was all very neat, and apologising for the emptiness of the larder by saying that she was only one small girl, and she was well able to live upon air, especially as the wind of Dartmoor was notoriously fattening.
"Eating is only one of the habits of civilisation," declared Boodles. "So long as you live alone you never get hungry, but directly you go among other people you want to eat. I have often seen two moormen meet on the road. They didn't want anything while they were alone, but so soon as they caught sight of one another they felt thirsty. May I get you a cup of tea?"
"Well, the sight of you has made me thirsty," said Mrs. Bellamie.
Then they laughed together and felt better.
"Look at this basket," said Boodles, pointing to a familiar battered object covered with a scrap of oilcloth. "It belongs to a poor man who is in prison now. I brought him here because the people were hunting him, and the policeman came and took him for stealing some clothes, though I'm sure he was innocent. Aubrey gave him half-a-crown on Goose Fair Day, and perhaps he bought the clothes with that. Can you buy a suit of clothes for half-a-crown? If you can't, I don't know how these men live. I am keeping the basket for the poor thing, and when they let him out I expect he will come for it."
Boodles alluded to Brightly and his basket since they gave her the opportunity of mentioning Aubrey. She wanted to see if the lady would accept the opening, and explain the real object of her visit; but Mrs. Bellamie, who was still respectable, only said that it was rather shocking to think that Boodles had tried to protect a common thief, and then she thought again of the coals, for the theft of which she had never been punished until then. She ought to have been sent to prison too, although she had done much more good than harm in stealing from a wealthy man to give comfort to a poor one. It had made her tender and soft-hearted also. She would never have felt so deeply for Boodles had it not been for that little hiatus of poverty and crime. Rigid honesty has its vices, and some sins have many virtues. Virtues are unpleasant things to carry about in any quantity, like a pocketful of stones; but little sins are cheery companions while they remain little. Mrs. Bellamie was a much better woman for having been once a thief.
"Is that clock right?" asked the lady. "I told the driver to come for me at five."
Boodles said she hadn't the least idea. There were two clocks, and each told a different story, and she had nothing to check them by. She thought it would be past four as it was getting so dark. She lighted the lamp, and the lady noticed the little hands were getting rather red. When the room was filled with light she noticed more; the girl was quite thin, and she coughed a good deal; nearly all the colour had gone out of her face, and there were lines under her eyes, lines that ought never to be seen at eighteen; her mouth often quivered, and she would start at every sound. Then Mrs. Bellamie heard the wind, and she started too.
"My dear, you cannot, you must not, live here alone," she said, shivering at the idea, and the atmosphere. "It would drive me mad. The loneliness, the wind, and the horrible black moor."
"I have got to put up with it. I have no friends," said Boodles at once. "I don't know whether I shall pull through, as the worst time is ahead, but I must try. You can't think what it is when the wind is really high. Sometimes in the evenings I run about the place, and they chase me from one room to another."
"Not men?" cried the lady in horror.
"Things, thoughts, I don't know what they are. The horrors that come when one is always alone. Some nights I scream loud enough for you to hear in Tavistock. I don't know why it should be a relief to scream, but it is."
"You must get away from here," said Mrs. Bellamie decidedly. "We will arrange something for you. Would you take a position as governess, companion to a lady—"
"No," cried Boodles, as if the visitor had insulted her. "I am not going to prison. I would rather lose my senses here than become a servant. If I was companion to a lady I should take the dear old thing by the shoulders and knock her head against the wall every time she ordered me about. Why should I give up my liberty? You wouldn't. I have got a home of my own, and with lodgers all summer I can keep going."
"You cannot do it. You cannot possibly do it," said Mrs. Bellamie. "Will you come and spend Christmas with us?" she asked impulsively. It was a sudden quiver of the girl's mouth that compelled her to give the invitation.
"Oh, I should love it," cried Boodles. Then she added: "Does Mr. Bellamie wish it?"
The lady became confused, hesitated, and finally had to admit that her husband had not authorised her to speak in his name.
"Then I cannot come. It would have been a great pleasure to me, but of course I couldn't come if he does not want me, and I shouldn't enjoy myself in the least if I thought he had asked me out of charity," she added rather scornfully.
Mrs. Bellamie only smiled and murmured: "Proud little cat."
"Well, I suppose I must be," said Boodles. "Poverty and loneliness sharpen one's feelings, you know. If I was a rich lady I would come and stay at your house, whether Mr. Bellamie wanted me or not. I shouldn't care. But as I am, poor and lonely, and pretty miserable too, I feel I should want to bite and scratch if any one came to do me a favour. Aubrey is not coming home for Christmas then?" she added quickly, and the next instant was scolding herself for alluding to him again. "I mean you wouldn't ask me if he was coming home."
The lady asked abruptly for another cup of tea, not because she desired it or intended to drink it, but because her son was the one subject she wanted to avoid. That was the second time Boodles had made mention of him, and the first time the lady had been worried by a pain in her knee, and now she was haunted by the voice which had spoken so lovingly of the little girl when it declared: "I will never give her up." That little girl was standing with the lamplight on her hair, which was as radiant as ever, and with a longing look in her eyes, which had become sad and dreamy and altogether different from the eyes of fun and laughter which she had worn on Goose Fair Day.
"Oh, Mrs. Bellamie, do say something," Boodles whispered.
The lady began to choke. What could she say that the child would like to hear?
"You know I have given him up, at least my tongue has," the girl went on. "But I want to know if he is going to give me up?"
"I cannot tell you, my dear," the lady murmured, glancing at the clock.
"I think you must know, for he told me he was going to speak to you and his father. My life is quite miserable enough, and I don't want it made worse. It will be much worse if he comes to see me when he returns, and says he is the same as ever, and you are the same as ever. I promise I won't see him again, if he leaves me alone, and I won't marry him without your consent. Does he really love me, Mrs. Bellamie?"
"Yes, my dear," the lady whispered. "Do you think that is the carriage?"
"It is only the wind. Well, I know he does, but I wanted to hear you say it. What am I to do when he comes home? He will ask me to meet him, and if I refuse he will come up here and want to kiss me. What am I to do? I love him. I have loved him since I was a small child. I am not going to tell him I don't love him to please you or any one. I have done a good deal. I will not do that."
"We will beg him not to come and trouble you," said the lady.
"But if he does come?"
"I think, my dear, it will be best for all of us if you ask him not to come again."
That was too much for the little girl. She could hardly be expected to enter into an alliance with Aubrey's parents against herself. She began to breathe quickly, and there was plenty of colour in her cheeks as she replied: "I shall do nothing of the kind. How can you expect me to tell him to go away, and leave me, when I love him? I have got little enough, and only one thing that makes me happy, and you want me to deprive myself of that one thing. If you can deprive me of it you may. But I am not going to torture myself. I have made my promise, and that is all that can be expected from me. Were you never in love when you were eighteen?"
The lady rather thought that at the susceptible age mentioned she fell in love with every one, though the disease was only taken in a mild form and was never dangerous. She had a distinct recollection of falling violently in love with a choir boy, who sang like an angel and looked like one, but she had never spoken to him because he was only the baker's son. She had been rather more than twenty when Mr. Bellamie had fallen in love with her blood, and she had been advised to fall in love with his. She had been quite happy, she loved her husband in a restful kind of way, but of the intense passion which lights up the whole universe with one face and form she knew nothing; she hardly believed that such love existed outside fairy-tales; and in her heart she thought it scarcely decent. She had never kissed her husband before marrying him, and she was very much shocked to think that her son had been kissing Boodles. She would have been still more shocked had she seen them together. She would have regarded their conduct as grossly immoral, when it was actually the purest thing on earth. There is nothing cleaner than a flame of fire.
Mrs. Bellamie tried to turn the conversation from her son. She was uncomfortable and depressed. The surroundings and the atmosphere pinched her, and she felt she would not have a proper sympathy for Boodles until she was back in her luxurious drawing-room with a fire roaring shillings and pence away up the chimney. She would feel inclined to cry for the girl then, but at the present time, surrounded by winds and Weevil furniture, she felt somewhat out of patience with her.
"I came to see if I could do anything for you," she said. "But you are so independent. If I found you a comfortable—"
"Situation," suggested Boodles, when she hesitated.
"I suppose you wouldn't accept it?"
"I should not," said the girl, holding her head up. "The old man who is dead spoilt me for being trodden on. Most girls who go into situations have to grin and pretend they like it, but I should flare up. Thank you all the same," she added stiffly.
Mrs. Bellamie looked at the little rebel again and wished she would be more reasonable. It was a very different Boodles from the merry girl who had come to tea with her in Tavistock. The girl looked years older, and the babyish expression had gone for ever. Every month of that lonely life would leave its mark upon her. December had written itself beneath her eyes, and before long January would be signed upon her forehead, and February perhaps would write upon her mind. Mrs. Bellamie saw the little ring of forget-me-nots, and guessed who had given it her; and then she began to wonder whether it was worth while fighting against Nature. Why not let youth and love have their own sweet way, why not ignore the accident of birth, which had made her a Courtenay and Boodles a blank, why let pride straddle across the way to stop the youngsters from getting into the happy land? Little could be gained from preventing happiness, and much might be lost. That was the influence of the coals, burning again, although the fire was dying lower; and then the influence of prosperity and a restful life did their work, and suggested Boodles in her drawing-room as Aubrey's wife, a pretty sight, a graceful ornament; and outside the people talking, as they can talk when they smell the carrion of scandal.
"Have you no one to look after you?" she asked. "No guardians? Did your—did Mr. Weevil leave no will?"
"He left nothing, except the story of my birth," said Boodles. "I don't know if he left any relations, but if there are any they are entitled to what he left, as I am no connection of his. It would be dreadful for me if there is any one, and they hear of his death."
"You know the story of your birth then now?" Mrs. Bellamie suggested.
"Yes," said Boodles; "I do."
She tossed her head and stood defiant. She was losing her temper, and had already said what she had not intended to say. Having made up her mind "not to stand it," she had prepared a simple story to tell to Aubrey if he asked for it. Old Weevil had really been her grandfather, and her parents had been obscure people of no better station than himself. She was going to tell a lie, one thorough lie, and then be good for ever. She was going to make herself legitimate, that and nothing more, not a very serious crime, she was merely going to supply herself with a couple of parents and a wedding-service, so that she should not be in the position of Brightly and suffer for the sins of others. But the sight of that cold lady was making Boodles mad. She did not know that Mrs. Bellamie had really a tender feeling for her, and it was only her artistic nature which prevented her from showing it. Boodles did not understand the art which strives to repress all emotion. She did not care about anything just then, being persuaded that both the Bellamies were her enemies, and the lady had come with the idea of trying to make her understand what a miserable little wretch she was, fitted for nothing better than a situation where she would be trampled on. She felt she wanted to disturb that tranquil surface, make the placid lady jump and look frightened. Possibly her mind was not as sound as it should have been. The solitude and the "windy organ," added to her own sorrows, had already made a little mark. One of the first symptoms of insanity is a desire to frighten others. So Boodles put her head back, and laughed a little, and said rather scornfully: "I came upon some diaries that he kept, and they told me all about myself. I will tell you, if you care to hear."
"I should like to know," said Mrs. Bellamie. "But I think that must be the carriage."
"It is," said Boodles, glancing out of the window and seeing unaccustomed lights. "What I have to tell you won't take two minutes. Mine is a very short story. Here it is. One night, eighteen years ago, Mr. Weevil was sitting in this room when he heard a noise at the door. He went out. Nobody was there, but at his feet he found a big bundle of dry bracken. Inside it was a baby, and round its neck was a label on which he read: 'Please take me in, or I shall be drowned to-morrow.' What is the matter, Mrs. Bellamie?"
Boodles had her wish. The lady was regarding her already with fear and horror.
"Don't tell me you were that child," she gasped.
"Why, of course I was. I told you my story was a short one. I have told it you already, for that is all I know about myself, and all Mr. Weevil ever knew about me. But he always thought my father must have been a gentleman."
"The carriage is there, I think?"
"So you see I am what is known as a bastard," Boodles went on, with a laugh. "I don't know the names of my parents. I was thrown out because they didn't want me, and if Mr. Weevil had not taken me in I should have been treated like a kitten or a rat. I am sorry that he did take me in, as I am alone in the world now."
Mrs. Bellamie stood in the doorway, trembling and agitated, her face white and her eyes furious. The coals would not trouble her again. Good Courtenay blood had washed them, and made them as white as her own cheeks.
"You let me kiss you," she murmured.
"Probably I've poisoned you," said the poor child, almost raving.
"My son has made love to you, kissed you, given you a ring."
There was a light in the girl's eyes, unnaturally bright. "If you tried to take this ring from me I would kill you." She was guarding it with a shivering hand. "I know what I am, Mrs. Bellamie. I knew before that look in your eyes told me. I know what a beastly little creature I am, to have a gentleman for a father and some housemaid for a mother. I know it was all my own fault. It must have been the wicked soul in me that made them do what was wrong. I know I deserve to be punished for daring to live. I am young, but I have learnt all that; and now you are teaching me more—you are teaching me that if I had been left at your door you would have sent me to my proper place."
Mrs. Bellamie was outside, and the driver was assisting her towards the carriage, as it was too dark for her to see. Then the wheels jolted away over the rough road, and down the long hill towards luxury and respectability; and the unlit night pressed heavily upon the moor; and Boodles was lying upon her bed, talking to the things unseen.