“Just as you see her, she is, Mademoiselle,” Dowson said. “Any sensible woman would know, when she heard her talk about her child. I found it all out bit by bit when first I came here. I’m going to talk plain and have done with it. Her first six years she spent in a sort of dog kennel on the top floor of this house. No sun, no real fresh air. Two little holes that were dingy and gloomy enough to dull a child’s senses. Not a toy or a bit of colour or a picture, but clothes fine enough for Buckingham Palace children—and enough for six. Fed and washed and taken out every day to be shown off. And a bad nurse, Miss—a bad one that kept her quiet by pinching her black and blue.”
“Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! That little angel!” cried Mademoiselle, covering her eyes.
Dowson hastily wiped her own eyes. She had shed many a motherly tear over the child. It was a relief to her to open her heart to a sympathizer.
“Black and blue!” she repeated. “And laughing and dancing and all sorts of fast fun going on in the drawing-rooms.” She put out her hand and touched Mademoiselle’s arm quite fiercely. “The little thing didn’t know she had a mother! She didn’t know what the word meant. I found that out by her innocent talk. She used to call her ‘The Lady Downstairs’.”
“Mon Dieu!” cried the Frenchwoman again. “What a woman!”
“She first heard of mothers from a little boy she met in the Square Gardens. He was the first child she had been allowed to play with. He was a nice child and he had a good mother. I only got it bit by bit when she didn’t know how much she was telling me. He told her about mothers and he kissed her—for the first time in her life. She didn’t understand but it warmed her little heart. She’s never forgotten.”
Mademoiselle even started slightly in her chair. Being a clever Frenchwoman she felt drama and all its subtle accompaniments.
“Is that why——” she began.
“It is,” answered Dowson, stoutly. “A kiss isn’t an ordinary thing to her. It means something wonderful. She’s got into the way of loving me, bless her, and every now and then, it’s my opinion, she suddenly remembers her lonely days when she didn’t know what love was. And it just wells up in her little heart and she wants to kiss me. She always says it that way, ‘Dowie, I want to kiss you,’ as if it was something strange and, so to say, sacred. She doesn’t know it means almost nothing to most people. That’s why I always lay down my work and hug her close.”
“You have a good heart—a good one!” said Mademoiselle with strong feeling.