Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 129.djvu/352

344 "This little inn is wanting in comforts," said Yorke, trying to give a turn to the conversation; "there is hardly room for all of you. It will be a good thing to move into another house. This room is small and close," he added, by way of diversion, while Olivia looked at him earnestly, as if weighing the proposition.

She replied abruptly, "The room is good enough for a bad woman like me; I am not a fit woman to live with decent people. Mrs. Polwheedle came to see me to-day, but she has gone away again; she did not care to stay with a bad woman like me."

Just then the door was pushed open, and the youngest child came into the room, toddling with uncertain step, just able to walk. It stood looking at its mother for a while, with one little hand in its mouth, as if afraid to come near; and then as Yorke, who was sitting near the door, held out his arms, it came up to him.

Olivia meanwhile had been gazing on the ground as if busied with her thoughts. Looking up, and seeing the child on Yorke's knee, she cried, "Why don't you send it away, wretched little bastard brat?"

As she called this out in a harsh voice, the very tones of which seemed to be changed, the frightened child began to cry.

Then Olivia jumping forward caught it in her arms. "My darling, my darling," she said, "don't you cry. Your mother's no better than a street-walker; but it's not my darling's fault, is it?" And she rocked the child to and fro, holding it to her breast, and crooning over it till the crying ceased.

Yorke, unwilling to disturb her while in this mood, sat silent. While they were in this situation, Mrs. Polwheedle entered the room.

She seemed relieved to find Olivia so quiet, and announced the arrival of the carriage.

Olivia at this rose, the child still in her arms, as if intending to obey the summons.

"If you will go down and take your place, my dear," said Mrs. Polwheedle, "I will get the children ready, and follow you with the things;" and she made a sign to Yorke which he understood to mean that they should take advantage of Olivia's present humour to make a start.

There came up to Yorke the doubt whether this plan for giving her shelter ought now to be pursued; but it seemed too late to alter it now. And what else could be done?

Olivia without saying a word handed the child to Mrs. Polwheedle, and moved to the door. On the landing outside the elder child was standing, holding the banister with one hand, a doll which had come from "The Beeches" in the other. Her mother stooped down and kissed her without saying a word, and then descended the stairs, and made for the entrance-door.

As she passed along the little passage, she stopped at the parlour-door as if in doubt, and then turning to Yorke, who was following, she put her finger on her lips, and said, "Hush, that is where they have laid him," and then passed out into the open air. This was the first reference to her knowledge that Falkland's corpse was in the house; nor did she know that it had been moved into another room; but how much of the facts was understood by the poor clouded brain could not be told.

The carriage-road was at the back of the inn; the front door opened on to the little terrace, set out with benches, which reached down to the river. The evening was dull and gloomy, with slight rain falling; the wind moaned sadly through the bare trees, and night was fast closing in.

Olivia wore no hat, or other wrapper than the scarf, but Yorke forbore to check her action by noticing this.

She stood for a few seconds looking in front of her, not seeming to notice the rain falling on her bare head; and at last Yorke said that the carriage was at the back of the house — they had better go that way.

At the sound of his voice she turned round and looked at him in a vacant way, and then started off at a quick pace towards the ruins of her own house, the outline of which could still be made out in the dim evening light, about a couple of hundred yards higher up the river.

Yorke followed and overtook her, and they stepped side by side in silence, passing the spot where only two days before, in his walk with Lucy, he had first met her children. It seemed as if weeks had passed since that walk.

Olivia stopped at the garden-fence and looked up at the ruins. "See," she said, "the fire has gone from there now; but it is still here," she continued, clasping her head with both hands; "it is still here, and burning; it never stops burning." And she stood holding up her hands to her forehead, and looking bewildered at the ground.