“All right,” said the woman, rising to her feet. “Take the little thing in.”
When Norah re-entered her own room the boy was coughing weakly but insistently in the darkness. She lit a candle, sat down on the corner of the bed and was immediately deep in thought. Her money had now dwindled away; she had only one and threepence in her possession. She even felt hungry; for a long while this sensation was almost foreign to her. The weekly rent was due on the morrow, and the child needed the doctor, needed food, needed fresh air and, above all, the attention which she was unable to give him.
She lifted him tenderly from the bed and carried him in to Meg, who began to crow with delight when the child was placed in her withered arms. Once back in her own room Norah resumed her seat on the bedside and seemed to be debating some very heavy problem. The candle flared faintly in the sconce on the floor; large shadows chased one another on the grimy ceiling ... the cripple came upstairs, Norah could hear the rattle of his crutches ... the noise of the city was loud outside the windows.
Norah rose, swept the floor, lit the lamp, a thing which she had not done for many nights, candles being much cheaper than oil. She went out, bought some coal and a penny bundle of firewood: these she placed on the grate, ready for lighting. The bed she sorted with nervous care, sighing as she spread out the blankets and arranged the pillows.
She then began to dress herself carefully, brushing back her hair with trembling fingers as she looked into the little broken hand-mirror, one of Sheila Carrol’s belongings. Her well-worn dress still retained a certain coquetry of cut and suited her well, her broad-brimmed hat, which she had not worn for a long while, gave an added charm to her white brow and grey eyes.
When dressed she stood for a moment to listen to the child coughing in Meg’s room. Stifling with an effort the impulse to go in and have one look at the boy, she crossed herself on forehead and lips and went out on the landing. For a moment something seemed to perplex her; she stood and looked round on all sides. The place was deserted; nothing could be heard but the cripple singing “Annie Laurie” in a loud, melodious voice. Norah again crossed herself, stepped slowly down the stairs, and went out to the street.
II
AT midnight she returned for her child. The boy was still coughing, but more quietly than before, and the old woman was lying flat upon her stomach, asleep by the fireside. Norah lifted the child, took him into her own room and placed the frail bundle, in which was wrapped up all her life and all her hopes, on the bed.
The fire was burning brightly, the oil-lamp gave out a clear, comforting light which showed up the whole room, the bare floor, the black walls enlivened by no redeeming feature save the crude picture of the Virgin and Child and the little black cross hanging from a rusty nail near the window; the pile of dongaree jackets shoved into a corner, the orange-box and the bed with the blankets, which Norah had sorted such a short time before, now in strange disorder.
Old Meg suddenly bustled into the room, a frightened look on her face. “I thought that some yin had stolen the little dear,” she cried, her breath reeking with alcohol. “Ah, here he is, the wee laddie,” she cooed on seeing the little pink face in the bed. “I hae got a fright, I hae indeed, Norah Ryan!”