‘Which one?’ Miss Femm was asking. ‘The quiet dark one or the other?’
‘Yes, the quiet dark one.’ Margaret rubbed away and suddenly felt proud of Philip for being a quiet dark one.
‘The other’s a godless lad. I saw him. There isn’t much I don’t see. He’s got wild eyes, and he’s one of Satan’s own. I’ve seen too many of them, coming here laughing and singing and drinking and bringing their lustful red and white women here, not to know. He’ll come to a quick bad end. If I’d have known, he wouldn’t have set foot in this house.’ Miss Femm was screaming again and she had now moved forward a pace or two. But it was quite evident that she had no intention of going, so Margaret did not hesitate any longer but continued changing hastily. The room was horribly oppressive; you seemed to breathe dirty old wool. As she pulled on dry stockings she was annoyed to find that her hands were trembling.
‘Yes, they’d even bring their women here.’ Miss Femm’s voice was edged with hate. ‘This house was filled with sin. Nobody took any notice of me, except to laugh. Even the women, brazen lolling creatures, smothered in silks and scents, would laugh. They went years ago, and they’re not laughing now, wherever they are. And you don’t hear any laughing here. If I came among them—my own father and brothers, my own blood—they’d tell me to go away and pray, though they never used to tell Rachel to go away and pray. Yes, and I went away and prayed Oh yes, I prayed.’
This was poor crazed stuff, but Margaret seemed to hear those prayers, terribly freighted. She stood up now, before pulling off her dress, and saw, so vividly in the candle-light from the mantelshelf, one side of the swollen face, a fungus cheek. It looked like grey seamed fat, sagging into putrefaction. The woman’s whole figure seemed so much dead matter, something that would just stay there and rot. Only her voice and her little eyes were alive, but these were dreadfully alive; and they would remain, screeching and cursing, staring and snapping, when everything else had rotted. Oh, what nonsense was this? The poor old creature was infecting her. She must be sensible, she told herself, and found relief in pulling off her dress.
After the last outburst, Miss Femm’s mood seemed to change. ‘I’ve kept myself free from all earthly love, which is nothing but vanity and lusts of the flesh. You’ll come to see that in time, and then it may be too late to give yourself, as I’ve done, to the Lord. Just now, you’re young and handsome and silly, and probably think of nothing but your long straight legs and white shoulders and what silks to put on and how to please your man; you’re revelling in the joys of fleshly love, eh?’
Margaret was only too glad that she was busy rubbing her shoulders with the towel, for this talk made her want to rub and rub, to wipe every word away as soon as it reached her. This stuff was even worse than the other. She towelled away at her bared arms and shoulders and made no reply.
Miss Femm didn’t seem to care. She went on staring, and said at last: ‘Have you given him a child?’
That, at least, could be answered. ‘Yes, we’ve one child,’ Margaret told her, ‘a girl, four years old. Her name’s Betty.’ How queer to think of Betty now! She suddenly saw her asleep in that nursery, far away, not merely in Hampstead, in another world. But no, Betty wasn’t in another world—that was the awful thing—she had come into the same world as this Femm woman, yes, and that other, Rachel, who had once screamed on that bed. Her heart shook. She wanted to rush back to Betty at once.
‘Betty,’ Miss Femm began. ‘I once knew a Betty.’