CHAPTER XX
Susie, meanwhile, was performing prodigies of peace and goodwill at the Mary Popley Home. She radiated the most suitable atmosphere that a lady visitor to a rescue home could possibly have evolved after years of thought, and she did it without any thought at all! The “inmates,” as they were called, and as we will call them for want of a less lively word, literally basked in her smile. Grave kindness they were accustomed to; breeziness they knew to satiety; Mrs. Abel’s generous pity almost inconvenienced them; but Susie’s veil of aloofness from everything real wrapped them in gossamer of the angels who have no bodies. “Isn’t she a nice lady?” they said among themselves, feeling that, where she was, neither shame nor hope of doing well eventually, nor gratitude for tolerance would be expected of them. “It must be nice to be a lady and able to do what yer like without any ’arm coming of it,” was what they mostly thought, in place of the bitter reflections that stung them in the presence of Mrs. Carpenter. “What does she know about it?” they were used to mutter, when that excellent visitor explained to them the duties of self-respect, the necessity for self-control, the joys of home that they had forfeited, and the useful-even-though-damaged lives they might yet lead. “That there Jack, I used to tell you about, would ’ave taught ’er what for,” was a favourite comment of one of them after these occasions. “Telling us as men is what we makes them, and ’adn’t ought to be encouraged! ’E don’t want much encouragin’, she’d find, if she got ’im ’ome, in spite of ’er face.” It seems almost a pity that this inmate could not have heard Susie second the vote of thanks to the committee at the Town Hall; for one feels that justice was hardly done to Mrs. Carpenter, while Susie, who had said the same thing in other words, was so much admired. But that, of course, was never known, and probably if it had been, her manner and her expression would have caused a different interpretation to be put upon her words. The inmates would have pictured themselves as partakers in a scene of innocent pleasure, ended in sorrow by the devil, while Mrs. Carpenter only succeeded in offending them by the suggestion of mischief done to an honest fellow.
“’Ain’t she a nice lady!” they repeated in admiration. “I do like ’er ’at, and the way it is done at the back. Just pass my cup up along there, Veronica, would you?”
“Give old pasty-face something to do for ’er living,” said Veronica, as she passed the cup up the line, to where the under-matron was presiding over the urns.
“You know, some of them are such nice girls,” Mrs. Abel was saying enthusiastically to Susie at the same moment. “I can’t tell you what splendid natures they have. That one down there—Veronica Baker—it’s the saddest history, but I won’t tell you now. She is simply devoted to the baby—such a darling it is—and I am hoping to get her a really good job where she can keep it with her. It is with her mother at present.”
“I do hope the old woman is good to it,” said Susie. “It would be terrible if anything happened to it while the mother is here. That is the worst of Homes I always think, although they are so necessary and splendid in every way. But so few of them are able to arrange to keep the mothers and children together, and it does separate them so in cases where it isn’t possible. Don’t you think there is that about them?”
“Yes, but then what can one do?” said Mrs. Abel a little sadly. “One can’t leave them to go on with the life, and in many cases it is better that the child should be sent to some place that is known to be all right, so that the mother may not be hampered in finding work. It goes against them very much with some people if the child is seen.”
“I do think,” said Susie, “that if the girls could be got to see before they go so far what will happen if they do, it might prevent them. It seems to me sadder than any amount of difficulty in making ends meet.”
“Yes, indeed, it does,” said Mrs. Abel, greatly touched, poor little thing. “When I think of my own home and how difficult things are just now, and yet how we have been kept from all unhappiness, I think I hardly know how to be thankful enough.”
“It must be so delightful to have your husband with you in everything,” Susie said with a little sigh. “It must make up for any anxiety. If one is thoroughly understood nothing else matters. I was so glad you did so well with the sale of work in the summer. Drink is really another of the worst problems, I think. Do you find many in your Home are any better?”