The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

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

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