She then examined the pullets attentively, to make sure that there were no trade-marks upon them in the shape of tickets, adjusted her bonnet, wiped her face, and walked across the road.
Holdsworth waited in the passage until she returned. She was absent a few minutes, and then came back smiling, with the lid of the basket raised to let Holdsworth see that it was empty.
“Did you see Mrs. Conway?”
“No, sir, I wouldn’t ask for her,” replied Mrs. Parrot, wiping her feet on the door-mat. “I jest says to the gal, ‘Give this here to your missis with my compliments, and tell her that they’re ready for cookin’ at once, as they’re been killed long enough.’ I niver see any gal look like that wench did when she took the pullets. I thought she’d ha’ fainted. She turned as pale as pale, and then she grinned slow-like, and then laughed wi’ a sound for all the world like the squeak of a dog that’s smotherin’ under a cushion. Here’s your change, sir. Pullets, six shillin’, and one is seven, and two is nine, and two sixpences makes it right. Will you please to count it?”
Holdsworth thanked her, and returned to the sitting-room with a relieved mind. But scarcely was he seated when Mrs. Parrot knocked on the door, and mysteriously beckoned him into the passage.
“I forgot to say, sir, that I ast the gal before coming away if her master was in, and she said ‘No.’ I says, ‘When will he be in?’ She says, ‘I don’t know, missis; he went out this mornin’, an’ he’s not been back since.’ Mark what I say, sir!” added Mrs. Parrot, raising an emphatic forefinger, “he’ll not give a penny o’ that money to his poor wife, but jest keep away from her till he’s drunk it all out.”
Accompanying which prophecy with many indignant nods, she walked defiantly towards the kitchen.
The idea of Dolly’s miserable position, never before impressed upon him as it had been that day, made Holdsworth wretched. He seated himself at the window and stared gloomily and sadly into the road. Nelly came to him and tried to coax him to play with her, but he had no heart even to meet the little creature’s sweet entreating eyes with a smile. He caught her up, pressed her to him, and kissed her again and again, while the hot tears rolled down his thin face.
Never before was his impulse to tell Dolly who he was and snatch her from the misery, the unmeet sorrow that encompassed her, so powerful. Love and pity strove with the dread of dishonouring her by the revelation. Could he endure to think that this delicate, gentle girl was linked to a man who neglected her, who might even ill-treat her, who at that moment might be squandering the money that had been given him on his own gross appetites, without thought of the wife and child wanting bread at home? What must be the issue of such a life if it were permitted to endure? Sooner or later Holdsworth must avow himself to save her and his child from that uttermost degree of ruin and misery to which Conway was dragging them.
He had hoped to devote his life to them. His dream had been that Conway’s character was not irretrievably bad, that kindly entreaty, cordial advice, and pecuniary help might bring him to a knowledge of his folly and set him once more on the high-road to respectability. Such a redemption would have been Holdsworth’s sacrifice; but his own happiness was as nothing in his eyes compared to Dolly’s. Faithfully would he have performed his duty to her, nobly would he have vindicated his own most honourable, most exalted devotion, could he have reclaimed this erring man and taught him to give his wife as much happiness as it was possible for a heart that ceaselessly mourned a dead love, to know. Thus he could have been his Dolly’s good angel, and whilst God permitted him, have kept watch over her and her child, dead to her belief, but active as the holiest love could make life in his helpful secret guardianship.