She was happy, her babe lay beside her. All her joints were loosened, and the long hospital days passed in gentle weariness. Lady visitors came and asked questions. Esther said that her father and mother lived in the Vauxhall Bridge Road, and she admitted that she had saved four pounds. There were two beds in this ward, and the woman who occupied the second bed declared herself to be destitute, without home, or money, or friends. She secured all sympathy and promises of help, and Esther was looked upon as a person who did not need assistance and ought to have known better. They received visits from a clergyman. He spoke to Esther of God's goodness and wisdom, but his exhortations seemed a little remote, and Esther was sad and ashamed that she was not more deeply stirred. Had it been her own people who came and knelt about her bed, lifting their voices in the plain prayers she was accustomed to, it might have been different; but this well-to-do clergyman, with his sophisticated speech, seemed foreign to her, and failed to draw her thoughts from the sleeping child.
The ninth day passed, but Esther recovered slowly, and it was decided that she should not leave the hospital before the end of the third week. She knew that when she crossed the threshold of the hospital there would be no more peace for her; and she was frightened as she listened to the never-ending rumble of the street. She spent whole hours thinking of her dear mother, and longing for some news from home, and her face brightened when she was told that her sister had come to see her.
"Jenny, what has happened; is mother very bad?"
"Mother is dead, that's what I've come to tell you; I'd have come before, but——"
"Mother dead! Oh, no, Jenny! Oh, Jenny, not my poor mother!"
"Yes Esther. I knew it would cut you up dreadful; we was all very sorry, but she's dead. She's dead a long time now, I was just a-going to tell you——"
"Jenny, what do you mean? Dead a long time?"
"Well, she was buried more than a week ago. We were so sorry you couldn't be at the funeral. We was all there, and had crape on our dresses and father had crape on his 'at. We all cried, especially in church and about the grave, and when the sexton threw in the soil it sounded that hollow it made me sob. Julia, she lost her 'ead and asked to be buried with mother, and I had to lead her away; and then we went 'ome to dinner."
"Oh, Jenny, our poor mother gone from us for ever! How did she die? Tell me, was it a peaceful death? Did she suffer?"
"There ain't much to tell. Mother was taken bad almost immediately after you was with us the last time. Mother was that bad all the day long and all night too we could 'ardly stop in the 'ouse; it gave one just the creeps to listen to her crying and moaning."