"A child?" He stared at her curiously, reverently. "How do you know?"
"Some people get a brown stain on their face when they're having a baby, and afterwards it lingers on. I had it with you. Not with Roger. She has it now." She slowly drew her fingers over her face, her eyes wide in wonder. "It's a queer thing, birth...."
Ellen tingled with shame because such things were spoken of aloud, by someone old. But Richard muttered huskily: "I wonder what the story is...."
"Something horrible. She's come from a good home. Her teeth were well looked after when she was a girl. That hair took some conscientious torturing to make it what it is. She was caught, I suppose, by her love of beauty. Did you ever hear anything more pathetic than her name—Poppy Alicante?"
"I don't see anything more in it than it's an obvious lie."
"It was much more than that. Think of her as a little girl going with her mother into a greengrocer's and hearing about Alicante grapes, and asking what Alicante was, and being told it was in Spain, and making the most lovely pictures of it in her mind and keeping them there ever since. Oh, she's a poor, beauty-loving thing. That's how the handsome sailor picked her up in Chatham High Street on Saturday night."
"No doubt you're right," he said, looking into the fire.
"And she hated giving up the child. That's why she snarls at Roger. Until she gets another she'll be famished. It was taken over, I expect, by a married sister or brother who've got no children of their own. She's not allowed to see it now. Not since she left the nice place that was found for her after she'd got over her trouble. Twenty pounds a year—because of her lost character; and for the same reason rather more work than the rest of the servants, who all found out about it. So she ran away."
He interrupted her: "Supposing all that's true. And I know it is. It's like you, mother, to read from a patch of brown skin on a woman's face things that other people would have found out only by searching registry records and asking the police. It's like the way you always turned your back on the barometer and read the sky for news of the weather. You're an old peasant woman under your skin, mother." His voice was hazed with delight. He had forgotten the moment in the timeless joy of his love for her. Ellen, in the shadows, stirred and coughed. He broke out again: "Well, supposing all that's true! Are you going to be honest and be as clear-sighted about what happened after she ran away? Mother, think of the things that have been done to her, think of the things she's seen!"
The indifferent tone continued now, although she said: "Think of the horrible things that have been done to me, think of the horrible things I've seen! Oh, you're right, of course. Unhappy people are dangerous. They clutch at the happy people round them and drag them down into the vortex of their misery. But if you're going to hate anybody for doing that, hate me. Look how I've dominated you with my misfortunes, look how I've eaten up your life by making you feel it a duty to compensate me for what I've endured. Hate me. But don't hate Poppy. Oh, that poor, simple creature. Even now, after all that's happened, she'd be pleased like a child if you took her to a fair where there were merry-go-rounds. Oh, don't hate her. And don't hate Roger." Wildness flashed through her like lightning through a dense dark cloud. "Don't hate him, Richard! Take your mind off both of us. We're all right. I can manage everything quite well. I'm hard. I haven't got all those fine feelings you think I have. I'm quite hard. I can arrange everything beautifully. Roger's happy in the Hallelujah Army. He's gone to Jesus for the love I ought to have given him. I know they're thinking of turning him out. But I'll see to it that they keep him. I'll pretend to have leanings towards their religion, and I'll give them money from time to time so that they won't dare get rid of him. It will be rather amusing squaring them. I shall enjoy it. We will be all right. Leave us alone. Don't think of us. Think of Ellen. Think of Ellen. How you hold back from your happiness!" she cried gibingly. "I tell you, if I had had your chance of happiness when I was young, neither my mother nor my father would have held me back from it!"