gas and in the smell of fried fish.
The old woman raised a wail again.
“And, my dear, I must see that poor boy every Sunday. He won’t
mind spending the day with his old mother – ”
Winnie screamed out stolidly:
“Mind! I should think not. That poor boy will miss you something
cruel. I wish you had thought a little of that, mother.”
Not think of it! The heroic woman swallowed a playful and
inconvenient object like a billiard ball, which had tried to jump
out of her throat. Winnie sat mute for a while, pouting at the
front of the cab, then snapped out, which was an unusual tone with
her:
“I expect I’ll have a job with him at first, he’ll be that restless
– ”
“Whatever you do, don’t let him worry your husband, my dear.”
Thus they discussed on familiar lines the bearings of a new
situation. And the cab jolted. Mrs Verloc’s mother expressed some
misgivings. Could Stevie be trusted to come all that way alone?
Winnie maintained that he was much less “absent-minded” now. They
agreed as to that. It could not be denied. Much less – hardly at
all. They shouted at each other in the jingle with comparative
cheerfulness. But suddenly the maternal anxiety broke out afresh.
There were two omnibuses to take, and a short walk between. It was
too difficult! The old woman gave way to grief and consternation.
Winnie stared forward.
“Don’t you upset yourself like this, mother. You must see him, of
course.”
“No, my dear. I’ll try not to.”
She mopped her streaming eyes.
“But you can’t spare the time to come with him, and if he should
forget himself and lose his way and somebody spoke to him sharply,
his name and address may slip his memory, and he’ll remain lost for
days and days – ”
The vision of a workhouse infirmary for poor Stevie – if only
during inquiries – wrung her heart. For she was a proud woman.
Winnie’s stare had grown hard, intent, inventive.
“I can’t bring him to you myself every week,” she cried. “But
don’t you worry, mother. I’ll see to it that he don’t get lost for
long.”
They felt a peculiar bump; a vision of brick pillars lingered
before the rattling windows of the cab; a sudden cessation of
atrocious jolting and uproarious jingling dazed the two women.
What had happened? They sat motionless and scared in the profound
stillness, till the door came open, and a rough, strained
whispering was heard:
“Here you are!”
A range of gabled little houses, each with one dim yellow window,
on the ground floor, surrounded the dark open space of a grass plot
planted with shrubs and railed off from the patchwork of lights and
shadows in the wide road, resounding with the dull rumble of
traffic. Before the door of one of these tiny houses – one without
a light in the little downstairs window – the cab had come to a
standstill. Mrs Verloc’s mother got out first, backwards, with a
key in her hand. Winnie lingered on the flagstone path to pay the
cabman. Stevie, after helping to carry inside a lot of small
parcels, came out and stood under the light of a gas-lamp belonging
to the Charity. The cabman looked at the pieces of silver, which,
appearing very minute in his big, grimy palm, symbolised the
insignificant results which reward the ambitious courage and toil
of a mankind whose day is short on this earth of evil.
He had been paid decently – four one-shilling pieces – and he
contemplated them in perfect stillness, as if they had been the
surprising terms of a melancholy problem. The slow transfer of
that treasure to an inner pocket demanded much laborious groping in
the depths of decayed clothing. His form was squat and without
flexibility. Stevie, slender, his shoulders a little up, and his
hands thrust deep in the side pockets of his warm overcoat, stood
at the edge of the path, pouting.
The cabman, pausing in his deliberate movements, seemed struck by
some misty recollection.
“Oh! `Ere you are, young fellow,” he whispered. “You’ll know him