‘Thet’s good stuff. ‘Ave a drop more.’
‘Na,’ said Liza, ‘I ain’t used ter drinkin’ spirits.’
She felt dull and miserable, and a heavy pain throbbed through her head. If she could only forget!
‘Na, I know you’re not, but, bless your soul, thet won’ ‘urt yer. It’ll do you no end of good. Why, often when I’ve been feelin’ thet done up thet I didn’t know wot ter do with myself, I’ve just ‘ad a little drop of whisky or gin—I’m not partic’ler wot spirit it is—an’ it’s pulled me up wonderful.’
Liza took another sip, a slightly longer one; it burnt as it went down her throat, and sent through her a feeling of comfortable warmth.
‘I really do think it’s doin’ me good,’ she said, wiping her eyes and giving a sigh of relief as the crying ceased.
‘I knew it would. Tike my word for it, if people took a little drop of spirits in time, there’d be much less sickness abaht.’
They sat for a while in silence, then Mrs. Kemp remarked:
‘Yer know, Liza, it strikes me as ‘ow we could do with a drop more. You not bein’ in the ‘abit of tikin’ anythin’ I only brought just this little drop for me; an’ it ain’t took us long ter finish thet up. But as you’re an invalid like we’ll git a little more this time; it’s sure ter turn aht useful.’
‘But you ain’t got nothin’ ter put it in.’
‘Yus, I ‘ave,’ answered Mrs. Kemp; ‘there’s thet bottle as they gives me at the ‘orspital. Just empty the medicine aht into the pile, an’ wash it aht, an’ I’ll tike it round to the pub myself.’
Liza, when she was left alone, began to turn things over in her mind. She did not feel so utterly unhappy as before, for the things she had gone through seemed further away.
‘After all,’ she said, ‘it don’t so much matter.’
Mrs. Kemp came in.
‘’Ave a little drop more, Liza.’ she said.
‘Well, I don’t mind if I do. I’ll get some tumblers, shall I? There’s no mistike abaht it,’ she added, when she had taken a little, ‘it do buck yer up.’
‘You’re right, Liza—you’re right. An’ you wanted it badly. Fancy you ‘avin’ a fight with a woman! Oh, I’ve ‘ad some in my day, but then I wasn’t a little bit of a thing like you is. I wish I’d been there, I wouldn’t ‘ave stood by an’ looked on while my daughter was gettin’ the worst of it; although I’m turned sixty-five, an’ gettin’ on for sixty-six, I’d ‘ave said to ‘er: “If you touch my daughter you’ll ‘ave me ter deal with, so just look aht!”’
She brandished her glass, and that reminding her, she refilled it and Liza’s.
‘Ah, Liza,’ she remarked, ‘you’re a chip of the old block. Ter see you settin’ there an’ ‘avin’ your little drop, it mikes me feel as if I was livin’ a better life. Yer used ter be rather ‘ard on me, Liza, ‘cause I took a little drop on Saturday nights. An’, mind, I don’t sy I didn’t tike a little drop too much sometimes—accidents will occur even in the best regulated of families, but wot I say is this—it’s good stuff, I say, an’ it don’t ‘urt yer.’
‘Buck up, old gal!’ said Liza, filling the glasses, ‘no ‘eel-taps. I feel like a new woman now. I was thet dahn in the dumps—well, I shouldn’t ‘ave cared if I’d been at the bottom of the river, an’ thet’s the truth.’
‘You don’t sy so,’ replied her affectionate mother.
‘Yus, I do, an’ I mean it too, but I don’t feel like thet now. You’re right, mother, when you’re in trouble there’s nothin’ like a bit of spirits.’
‘Well, if I don’t know, I dunno ‘oo does, for the trouble I’ve ‘ad, it ‘ud be enough to kill many women. Well, I’ve ‘ad thirteen children, an’ you can think wot thet was; everyone I ‘ad I used ter sy I wouldn’t ‘ave no more—but one does, yer know. You’ll ‘ave a family some day, Liza, an’ I shouldn’t wonder if you didn’t ‘ave as many as me. We come from a very prodigal family, we do, we’ve all gone in ter double figures, except your Aunt Mary, who only ‘ad three—but then she wasn’t married, so it didn’t count, like.’
They drank each other’s health. Everything was getting blurred to Liza, she was losing her head.
‘Yus,’ went on Mrs. Kemp, ‘I’ve ‘ad thirteen children an’ I’m proud of it. As your poor dear father used ter sy, it shows as ‘ow one’s got the blood of a Briton in one. Your poor dear father, ‘e was a great ‘and at speakin’ ‘e was: ‘e used ter speak at parliamentary meetin’s—I really believe ‘e’d ‘ave been a Member of Parliament if ‘e’d been alive now. Well, as I was sayin’, your father ‘e used ter sy, “None of your small families for me, I don’t approve of them,” says ‘e. ‘E was a man of very ‘igh principles, an’ by politics ‘e was a Radical. “No,” says ‘e, when ‘e got talkin’, “when a man can ‘ave a family risin’ into double figures, it shows ‘e’s got the backbone of a Briton in ‘im. That’s the stuff as ‘as built up England’s nime and glory! When one thinks of the mighty British Hempire,” says ‘e, “on which the sun never sets from mornin’ till night, one ‘as ter be proud of ‘isself, an’ one ‘as ter do one’s duty in thet walk of life in which it ‘as pleased Providence ter set one—an’ every man’s fust duty is ter get as many children as ‘e bloomin’ well can.” Lord love yer—’e could talk, I can tell yer.’
‘Drink up, mother,’ said Liza. ‘You’re not ‘alf drinkin’.’ She flourished the bottle. ‘I don’t care a twopanny ‘ang for all them blokes; I’m quite ‘appy, an’ I don’t want anythin’ else.’
‘I can see you’re my daughter now,’ said Mrs. Kemp. ‘When yer used ter round on me I used ter think as ‘ow if I ‘adn’t carried yer for nine months, it must ‘ave been some mistike, an’ yer wasn’t my daughter at all. When you come ter think of it, a man ‘e don’t know if it’s ‘is child or somebody else’s, but yer can’t deceive a woman like thet. Yer couldn’t palm off somebody else’s kid on ‘er.’
‘I am beginnin’ ter feel quite lively,’ said Liza. ‘I dunno wot it is, but I feel as if I wanted to laugh till I fairly split my sides.’
And she began to sing: ‘For ‘e’s a jolly good feller—for ‘e’s a jolly good feller!’
Her dress was all disarranged; her face covered with the scars of scratches, and clots of blood had fixed under her nose; her eye had swollen up so that it was nearly closed, and red; her hair was hanging over her face and shoulders, and she laughed stupidly and leered with heavy, sodden ugliness.
‘Disy, Disy! I can’t afford a kerridge.But you’ll look neat, on the seatOf a bicycle mide for two.’
She shouted out the tunes, beating time on the table, and her mother, grinning, with her thin, grey hair hanging dishevelled over her head, joined in with her weak, cracked voice—
‘Oh, dem golden kippers, oh!’
Then Liza grew more melancholy and broke into ‘Auld Lang Syne’.
‘Should old acquaintance be forgot. And never brought to mind?
For old lang syne’.
Finally they both grew silent, and in a little while there came a snore from Mrs. Kemp; her head fell forward to her chest; Liza tumbled from her chair on to the bed, and sprawling across it fell asleep.
‘Although I am drunk and bad, be you kind, Cast a glance at this heart which is bewildered and distressed. O God, take away from my mind my cry and my complaint. Offer wine, and take sorrow from my remembrance. Offer wine.’
XII
ABOUT THE MIDDLE of the night Liza woke; her mouth was hot and dry, and a sharp, cutting pain passed through her head as she moved. Her mother had evidently roused herself, for she was lying in bed by her side, partially undressed, with all the bedclothes rolled round her. Liza shivered in the cold night, and taking off some of her things—her boots, her skirt, and jacket—got right into bed; she tried to get some of the blanket from her mother, but as she pulled Mrs. Kemp gave a growl in her sleep and drew the clothes more tightly round her. So Liza put over herself her skirt and a shawl, which wa
s lying over the end of the bed, and tried to go to sleep.
But she could not; her head and hands were broiling hot, and she was terribly thirsty; when she lifted herself up to get a drink of water such a pang went through her head that she fell back on the bed groaning, and lay there with beating heart. And strange pains that she did not know went through her. Then a cold shiver seemed to rise in the very marrow of her bones and run down every artery and vein, freezing the blood; her skin puckered up, and drawing up her legs she lay huddled together in a heap, the shawl wrapped tightly round her, and her teeth chattering. Shivering, she whispered:
‘Oh, I’m so cold, so cold. Mother, give me some clothes; I shall die of the cold. Oh, I’m freezing!’
But after awhile the cold seemed to give way, and a sudden heat seized her, flushing her face, making her break out into perspiration, so that she threw everything off and loosened the things about her neck.
‘Give us a drink,’ she said. ‘Oh, I’d give anythin’ for a little drop of water!’
There was no one to hear; Mrs. Kemp continued to sleep heavily, occasionally breaking out into a little snore.
Liza remained there, now shivering with cold, now panting for breath, listening to the regular, heavy breathing by her side, and in her pain she sobbed. She pulled at her pillow and said:
‘Why can’t I go to sleep? Why can’t I sleep like ‘er?’
And the darkness was awful; it was a heavy, ghastly blackness, that seemed palpable, so that it frightened her and she looked for relief at the faint light glimmering through the window from a distant street-lamp. She thought the night would never end—the minutes seemed like hours, and she wondered how she should live through till morning. And strange pains that she did not know went through her.
Still the night went on, the darkness continued, cold and horrible, and her mother breathed loudly and steadily by her side.
At last with the morning sleep came; but the sleep was almost worse than the wakefulness, for it was accompanied by ugly, disturbing dreams. Liza thought she was going through the fight with her enemy, and Mrs. Blakeston grew enormous in size, and multiplied, so that every way she turned the figure confronted her. And she began running away, and she ran and ran till she found herself reckoning up an account she had puzzled over in the morning, and she did it backwards and forwards, upwards and downwards, starting here, starting there, and the figures got mixed up with other things, and she had to begin over again, and everything jumbled up, and her head whirled, till finally, with a start, she woke.
The darkness had given way to a cold, grey dawn, her uncovered legs were chilled to the bone, and by her side she heard again the regular, nasal breathing of the drunkard.
For a long while she lay where she was, feeling very sick and ill, but better than in the night. At last her mother woke.
‘Liza!’ she called.
‘Yus, mother,’ she answered feebly.
‘Git us a cup of tea, will yer?’
‘I can’t, mother, I’m ill.’
‘Garn!’ said Mrs. Kemp, in surprise. Then looking at her: ‘Swop me bob, wot’s up with yer? Why, yer cheeks is flushed, an’ yer forehead—it is ‘ot! Wot’s the matter with yer, gal?’
‘I dunno,’ said Liza. ‘I’ve been thet bad all night, I thought I was goin’ ter die.’
‘I know wot it is,’ said Mrs. Kemp, shaking her head; ‘the fact is, you ain’t used ter drinkin’, an’ of course it’s upset yer. Now me, why I’m as fresh as a disy. Tike my word, there ain’t no good in teetotalism; it finds yer aht in the end, an’ it’s found you aht.’
Mrs. Kemp considered it a judgment of Providence. She got up and mixed some whisky and water.
‘’Ere, drink this,’ she said. ‘When one’s ‘ad a drop too much at night, there’s nothin’ like havin’ a drop more in the mornin’ ter put one right. It just acts like magic.’
‘Tike it awy,’ said Liza, turning from it in disgust; ‘the smell of it gives me the sick. I’ll never touch spirits again.’
‘Ah, thet’s wot we all says sometime in our lives, but we does, an’ wot’s more we can’t do withaht it. Why, me, the ‘ard life I’ve ‘ad—’ It is unnecessary to repeat Mrs. Kemp’s repetitions.
Liza did not get up all day. Tom came to inquire after her, and was told she was very ill. Liza plaintively asked whether anyone else had been, and sighed a little when her mother answered no. But she felt too ill to think much or trouble much about anything. The fever came again as the day wore on, and the pains in her head grew worse. Her mother came to bed, and quickly went off to sleep, leaving Liza to bear her agony alone. She began to have frightful pains all over her, and she held her breath to prevent herself from crying out and waking her mother. She clutched the sheets in her agony, and at last, about six o’clock in the morning, she could bear it no longer, and in the anguish of labour screamed out, and woke her mother.
Mrs. Kemp was frightened out of her wits. Going upstairs she woke the woman who lived on the floor above her. Without hesitating, the good lady put on a skirt and came down.
‘She’s ‘ad a miss,’ she said, after looking at Liza. ‘Is there anyone you could send to the ‘orspital?’
‘Na, I dunno ‘oo I could get at this hour?’
‘Well, I’ll git my old man ter go.’
She called her husband, and sent him off. She was a stout, middle-aged woman, rough-visaged and strong-armed. Her name was Mrs. Hodges.
‘It’s lucky you came ter me,’ she said, when she had settled down. ‘I go aht nursin’, yer know, so I know all abaht it.’
‘Well, you surprise me,’ said Mrs. Kemp. ‘I didn’t know as Liza was thet way. She never told me nothin’ abaht it.’
‘D’yer know ‘oo it is ‘as done it?’
‘Now you ask me somethin’ I don’t know,’ replied Mrs. Kemp. ‘But now I come ter think of it, it must be thet there Tom. ‘E’s been keepin’ company with Liza. ‘E’s a single man, so they’ll be able ter get married—thet’s somethin’.’
‘It ain’t Tom,’ feebly said Liza.
‘Not ‘im; ‘oo is it, then?’
Liza did not answer.
‘Eh?’ repeated the mother, ‘’oo is it?’
Liza lay still without speaking.
‘Never mind, Mrs. Kemp,’ said Mrs. Hodges, ‘don’t worry ‘er now; you’ll be able ter find aht all abaht it when she gits better.’
For a while the two women sat still, waiting the doctor’s coming, and Liza lay gazing vacantly at the wall, panting for breath. Sometimes Jim crossed her mind, and she opened her mouth to call for him, but in her despair she restrained herself.
The doctor came.
‘D’you think she’s bad, doctor?’ asked Mrs. Hodges.
‘I’m afraid she is rather,’ he answered. ‘I’ll come in again this evening.’
‘Oh, doctor,’ said Mrs. Kemp, as he was going, ‘could yer give me somethin’ for my rheumatics? I’m a martyr to rheumatism, an’ these cold days I ‘ardly knows wot ter do with myself. An’, doctor, could you let me ‘ave some beef-tea? My ‘usbind’s dead, an’ of course I can’t do no work with my daughter ill like this, an’ we’re very short—’
The day passed, and in the evening Mrs. Hodges, who had been attending to her own domestic duties, came downstairs again. Mrs. Kemp was on the bed sleeping.
‘I was just ‘avin’ a little nap,’ she said to Mrs. Hodges, on waking.
‘’Ow is the girl?’ asked that lady.
‘Oh,’ answered Mrs. Kemp, ‘my rheumatics ‘as been thet bad I really ‘aven’t known wot ter do with myself, an’ now Liza can’t rub me I’m worse than ever. It is unfortunate thet she should get ill just now when I want so much attendin’ ter myself, but there, it’s just my luck!’
Mrs. Hodges went over and looked at Liza; she was lying just as when she left in the morning, her cheeks flushed, her mouth open for breath, and tiny beads of sweat stood on her forehead.
‘’Ow are yer, ducky?’ aske
d Mrs. Hodges; but Liza did not answer.
‘It’s my belief she’s unconscious,’ said Mrs. Kemp. ‘I’ve been askin’ ‘er ‘oo it was as done it, but she don’t seem to ‘ear wot I say. It’s been a great shock ter me, Mrs. ‘Odges.’
‘I believe you,’ replied that lady, sympathetically.
‘Well, when you come in and said wot it was, yer might ‘ave knocked me dahn with a feather. I knew no more than the dead wot ‘ad ‘appened.’
‘I saw at once wot it was,’ said Mrs. Hodges, nodding her head.
‘Yus, of course, you knew. I expect you’ve ‘ad a great deal of practice one way an’ another.’
‘You’re right, Mrs. Kemp, you’re right. I’ve been on the job now for nearly twenty years, an’ if I don’t know somethin’ abaht it I ought.’
‘D’yer finds it pays well?’
‘Well, Mrs. Kemp, tike it all in all, I ain’t got no grounds for complaint. I’m in the ‘abit of askin’ five shillings, an’ I will say this, I don’t think it’s too much for wot I do.’
The news of Liza’s illness had quickly spread, and more than once in the course of the day a neighbour had come to ask after her. There was a knock at the door now, and Mrs. Hodges opened it. Tom stood on the threshold asking to come in.
‘Yus, you can come,’ said Mrs. Kemp.
He advanced on tiptoe, so as to make no noise, and for a while stood silently looking at Liza. Mrs. Hodges was by his side.
‘Can I speak to ‘er?’ he whispered.
‘She can’t ‘ear you.’
He groaned.
‘D’yer think she’ll get arright?’ he asked.
Mrs. Hodges shrugged her shoulders.
‘I shouldn’t like ter give an opinion,’ she said, cautiously.
Tom bent over Liza, and, blushing, kissed her; then, without speaking further, went out of the room.
‘Thet’s the young man as was courtin’ ‘er,’ said Mrs. Kemp, pointing over her shoulder with her thumb.
Soon after the Doctor came.
‘Wot do yer think of ‘er, doctor?’ said Mrs. Hodges, bustling forwards authoritatively in her position of midwife and sick-nurse.
The Great Novels and Short Stories of Somerset Maugham Page 74
