“For she is incurable,” he remarked next day. “She was as drunk as Chloe for three days running last week. I wouldn’t have Clarissa know I knew for a fortune. I wouldn’t hurt a fly if I could help it, Groome. But if someone would take Mrs. Neaves out in a pleasure boat on Sunday, or for an excursion down to Southend, or—you know accidents do happen. Don’t you think you might take her down to Epping Forest and lose her? Or Regent’s Canal with a brick round her——”
“Don’t be a fool. There’s only one way out, and that is to give up Clarissa. A girl who would treat her mother like that——”
“If I had a mother like that I’d choke her,” he said violently.
Then, cooling down, he added, digging the ash out of his pipe with a scrooping scrape of the pocket knife:
“The thing would be a country cottage. When people get old, nature is soothing to them. She could keep a pig and a few hens.”
“She wouldn’t stay there a week. You are making a tremendous trouble out of a trifle. Ask her. Find out what she wants and give it her.”
“That’s not a bad idea. I never thought of it.”
He went back to his set. Mrs. Neaves was making his bed. She was looking very heavy after her three-days’ indulgence. Her black eye had reached the green-and-purple stage. It was a lovely color study. Arnold, who was a kind-hearted little chap, felt sorry for her. Perhaps it was grief that had made her get drunk. He sat down on the window ledge and stared at her thoughtfully as she doubled down to tuck in the blanket.
“What do you think of doing when you get old?” he asked carelessly. “Charring is hard work, I should say.”
She stopped bed-making, put her hands on her hips,—it was her favorite conversational attitude,—and looked at him plaintively.