He realized that Mrs. Tenssen had not as yet sufficiently made up her wicked mind about him. She was hesitating, he perceived, as to whether he was worth her while or no. He had no doubt but that she had been making inquiries about him and his family. Was she speculating about him as a husband for her daughter? Or had she some other plans in her evil head?
To-day the room was close and stuffy and dingy in spite of the pink silk. There was a smell of cooking that writhed in and out of the furniture, some evil, but savoury mess that was onions and yet not onions at all, here black pudding, and there stewing eels, once ducks' eggs and then again sheeps' brains—just such a savoury mess as any witch would have stewing in her cauldron.
Mrs. Tenssen, on this afternoon, proceeded to deliver herself of some of her thoughts, her large face crimson above her purple dress, her rings flashing over the shabby dog-eared cards. Henry sat there, his eyes on the door, listening, listening for the step that he would give all the world to hear.
"You know," she said, cursing through her teeth at the bad order of the cards, "the matter with me is that I'm too good-natured. I've got a kind heart—that's the matter with me. I'm sorry for it. I'm a fool to let myself go as I do. And what have I ever got for my kindness—damn that club. What but ingratitude and cheating. It's the way of the world. You're young. You just remember that. Don't let your heart go. Use your intelligence."
"What," asked Henry who wished to discover from her something about Christina's earlier life, "kind of a town is Copenhagen? How did you like Denmark?"
"Ugh!" said Mrs. Tenssen. "I'm an Englishwoman, I am—born in Bristol and bred there, thank God. None of your bloody foreign countries for me. Twenty years of my life wasted in that stinking hole. Not that my husband was so bad—not as husbands go that is. He was a sailor and away many a time, and a good thing too. Fine upstanding man he was with yellow curls and a chest broad enough to put a table on. He'd smack my ass and say, 'There's a woman for you!' and so I was and am still for the matter of that."
"Was Christina your only child," asked Henry.
"Yes. What do you take me for? No more children for me after the first one. 'No,' I said to David. 'Behave as you like,' I said, 'but no more children for me.' Wouldn't have had that one if I hadn't been such a blighted young fool. What's life for if you're lying up all the time? But David was all right. Drowned at sea. I always told him he would be."
"Well, then, why weren't you happy?"
"Happy," she echoed. "I tell you Copenhagen's a stinking town. Dirty little place. And his relations! There was a crew for you, especially a damned brother of his with a long beard, like a goat who was always round interfering. Didn't want me to have any gentlemen friends. 'Oh you go to hell,' I said. 'I'll have what friends I damn well please.' Wanted to take my girl away from me. There's a nice thing! When a woman's a widow and all alone in the world and doing all she can for her girl, for a bloody relation to come along and try to take her away."