She decided that Maggie must go. Maggie was not doing her work properly. Harriett found flue under the bed.
“I’m sure,” Maggie said, “I’m doing no worse than I did, ma’am, and you usedn’t to complain.”
“No worse isn’t good enough, Maggie. I think you might have tried to please me. It isn’t every one who would have taken you in the circumstances.”
“If you think that, ma’am, it’s very cruel and unkind of you to send me away.”
“You’ve only yourself to thank. There’s no more to be said.”
“No, ma’am. I understand why I’m leaving. It’s because of Baby. You don’t want to ‘ave ‘im, and I think you might have said so before.”
That day month Maggie packed her brown-painted wooden box and the cradle and the perambulator. The greengrocer took them away on a handcart. Through the drawing-room window Harriett saw Maggie going away, carrying the baby, pink and round in his white-knitted cap, his fat hips bulging over her arm under his white shawl. The gate fell to behind them. The click struck at Harriett’s heart.
Three months later Maggie turned up again in a black hat and gown for best, red-eyed and humble.
“I came to see, ma’am, whether you’d take me back, as I ‘aven’t got Baby now.”
“You haven’t got him?”