To-day, however, as she stopped at the Vincents' door, she noticed that the doorstep, which was as a rule shining white, was muddy and neglected. Then nobody came to open, though she knocked and rang repeatedly. At last a neighbour, who had been watching the strange nurse through her own parlour window, came out to the street.
"I think, miss," she said, with an air of polite mystery, "as you'd better walk in. Mrs. Vincent 'asn't been enjyin' very good 'ealth this last few days."
Marcella turned the handle, found it yielded, and went in. It was after six o'clock, and the evening sun streamed in through a door at the back of the house. But in the Vincents' front parlour the blinds were all pulled down, and the only sound to be heard was the fretful wailing of a child. Marcella timidly opened the sitting-room door.
The room at first seemed to her dark. Then she perceived Mrs. Vincent sitting by the grate, and the two children on the floor beside her. The elder, the little invalid, was simply staring at his mother in a wretched silence; but the younger, the baby of three, was restlessly throwing himself hither and thither, now pulling at the woman's skirts, now crying lustily, now whining in a hungry voice, for "Máma! din-din! Máma! din-din!"
Mrs. Vincent neither moved nor spoke, even when Marcella came in. She sat with her hands hanging over her lap in a desolation incapable of words. She was dirty and unkempt; the room was covered with litter; the breakfast things were still on the table; and the children were evidently starving.
Marcella, seized with pity, and divining what had happened, tried to rouse and comfort her. But she got no answer. Then she asked for matches. Mrs. Vincent made a mechanical effort to find them, but subsided helpless with a shake of the head. At last Marcella found them herself, lit a tire of some sticks she discovered in a cupboard, and put on the kettle. Then she cut a slice of bread and dripping for each of the children—the only eatables she could find—and after she had dressed Bertie's leg she began to wash up the tea things and tidy the room, not knowing very well what to be at, but hoping minute by minute to get Mrs. Vincent to speak to her.
In the midst of her labours, an elderly woman cautiously opened the door and beckoned to her.
Marcella went out into the passage.
"I'm her mother, miss! I 'eered you were 'ere, an' I follered yer. Oh! such a business as we 'ad, 'er 'usband an' me, a gettin' of 'er 'ome last night. There's a neighbour come to me, an' she says: 'Mrs. Lucas, there's your daughter a drinkin' in that public 'ouse, an' if I was you I'd go and fetch her out; for she's got a lot o' money, an' she's treatin' everybody all round.' An' Charlie—that's 'er 'usband—ee come along too, an' between us we got holt on her. An' iver sence we brought her 'ome last night, she set there in that cheer, an' niver a word to nobody! Not to me 't any rate, nor the chillen. I believe 'er 'usband an' 'er 'ad words this mornin'. But she won't tell me nothin'. She sits there—just heart-broke"—the woman put up her apron to her eyes and began crying. "She ain't eatin' nothink all day, an' I dursen't leave the 'ouse out o' me sight—I lives close by, miss—for fear of 'er doing 'erself a mischief."
"How long has she been like this?" said Marcella, drawing the door cautiously to behind her.