“Several. You don’t write letters to me.”
“No. It’s from Mrs. Lipsett. She lives here. She said she’d written to you about me. You’d better come and see her. She lives here.”
“Friends of yours?”
“Not exactly friends. I’ve only known her a fortnight. It’s about her daughter.”
“Oh!”
Francis turned and followed Frederic into the house, and down a narrow little passage into the kitchen at the back. This was a little dark room looking into a backyard. Both kitchen and yard were full of washing, for it was Monday. The remnants of a meal were on the table, walled in with piles of damp linen. From the cellar door just outside the kitchen came clouds of steam.
Mrs. Lipsett was a little, faded woman, very thin, very untidy. She was sitting in a hard Windsor chair gazing into the fire, as though she were hypnotised by it. She did not look up as the father and son entered. Frederic placed a chair for his father, introduced him to Mrs. Lipsett, and without worrying as to whether she heard him or not hurried away and shut the door. Mrs. Lipsett turned to Francis and said:
“My husband left me with five children and went off with a theatre woman. He takes young girls and trains them for the dancing. He’s a rich man now, but I don’t have a penny from him. It’s hard work making a living with the lodgers, and you can’t do it when there’s illness.”
“No, I suppose not. I’m very sorry,” replied Francis uneasily. “If I can do anything. . .”
“Do anything!” Mrs. Lipsett was scornful. “As if you could. I’ve worked my fingers to the bone. Two of the girls are in a shop. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it had been them, though it would have been bad enough. But Annie’s stayed at home helping me, and I don’t see what’s to be done. I don’t see what’s to be done. He’s owned up to it. There’s that much to be said for him. But that doesn’t help much, does it?”