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Updated: June 11, 2025
"So many!" "But onny three's alive." "The other three are dead!" "It costs five bob a week an' extries to let a kid live, to say nothin' of the lies and trouble an' all. An' no thanks you get for it." "A mother loves and looks after her own," declared Mavis. "Little dears! Ain't they pretty when they prattles their little prayers?" asked Mrs Gowler, as her lips parted in a terrible smile.
"I won't give it to you; I'll give it to Mrs Gowler." "An' a lot of it I'd see." Mrs Gowler, who had been listening at the door, came into the room and demanded to know what Mrs Bale meant. Then followed a stream of recriminations, in which each accused the other of a Newgate calendar of crime. Mavis at last got rid of them by giving them threepence each.
Once, when Mrs Gowler was considerate enough to wipe away the beads of sweat, which had gathered on the suffering girl's forehead, Mavis gasped: "Is it nearly over?" "What! Over!" laughed Mrs Gowler mirthlessly. "I call that the preliminary canter." "Will it be much worse?" "You're bound to be worse before you're better." "I can't I can't bear it!"
"Got a shillin'?" asked Mrs Gowler after she had made some pretence of examining her. "What for?" asked Mavis. "Doctor's fee. You'll be bad if you don't see 'im." "Is he clever?" asked the patient. "Clever! 'E be that clever, it drops orf 'im."
Mavis began her story, to be interrupted by a repressed cry of pain proceeding from the partly open door on the right. Mrs Gowler quickly closed it. Mavis resumed her story. When she got to the part where her supposed husband was in America, Mrs Gowler impatiently interrupted her by saying: "Where 'e's making a 'ome for you." "How did you know?" asked the astonished Mavis.
Mrs Gowler unscrewed a bottle of stout, poured herself out a glass, drank it at one draught, and then half filled a glass for Mavis. "Drink it, my dear. It will do us both good," cried Mrs Gowler, who already showed signs of having drunk more than she could conveniently carry. Mavis, not to seem ungracious, sipped the stout as she sat on the bed.
There was no contradicting Mrs Gowler, who had said that "babies take a lot of explaining away." She reflected that, if the fight for daily bread had been severe when she had merely to fight for herself, it would be much harder to live now that there was another mouth to fill, to say nothing of the disabilities attending her unmarried state.
As Mavis drank the latter, she recollected the monstrous suggestion which Mrs Gowler had insinuated the previous evening. The horror of it filled her mind to the exclusion of everything else. She had quite decided to leave the house as soon as she could pack her things, when a pang of dull pain troubled her body.
The time came when Mavis was able to leave Durley Road. Whither she was going she knew not. She paid her bill, refusing to discuss the many extras which Mrs Gowler tried to charge, had her box taken by a porter to the cloak room at the station, dressed her darling baby, said good-bye to Piggy and went downstairs, to shudder as she walked along the passage to the front door.
The tea was quickly made, there being a plentiful supply of boiling water. Whilst Mavis was gratefully sipping hers, a noise of something falling was heard in the scullery behind. "It's that dratted cat," cried Mrs Gowler, as she caught up a broom and waddled from the kitchen. She returned, a moment later, with something remotely approaching a look of tenderness in her eyes.
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