“Yes’m.... I’m sure you’d a kept him if you could have borne to see him about.”
“You know, Maggie, that was not the reason why you left. If I take you back you must try not to be careless and forgetful.”
“I shan’t ‘ave nothing to make me. Before, it was first Baby’s father and then ‘im.”
She could see that Maggie didn’t hold her responsible. After all, why should she? If Maggie had made bad arrangements for her baby, Maggie was responsible.
She went round to Lizzie and Sarah to see what they thought. Sarah thought: Well—it was rather a difficult question, and Harriett resented her hesitation.
“Not at all. It rested with Maggie to go or stay. If she was incompetent I wasn’t bound to keep her just because she’d had a baby. At that rate I should have been completely in her power.”
Lizzie said she thought Maggie’s baby would have died in any case, and they both hoped that Harriett wasn’t going to be morbid about it.
Harriett felt sustained. She wasn’t going to be morbid. All the same, the episode left her with a feeling of insecurity.
XII
The young girl, Robin’s niece, had come again, bright-eyed, eager, and hungry, grateful for Sunday supper.