i 57926919a60851a7 by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub

When he went past Hatton, who was holding the door wide, he put the child down on the floor and, tapping his bottom, said, "Go with Hatton.

Go on now." And the child stopped and looked to where his grandfather and aunt were walking away from him across the hall; then he looked again at his father, and when his father nodded at him, he held out his hand to Hatton, and Hatton walked him to the bottom of the stairs where he handed him to Mrs. Hat- ton. She took his hand and led him up the stairs to where the tearful nursemaid was standing, and he went with her. And there was no one to tell about the exciting adventure he had had with his papa because his nanny kept weeping all the time and would not listen. Everyone was weeping today.

In the study Clive looked at his father and Isabelle standing almost shoulder to shoulder, for once in complete harmony in their rage against him. He did not think they knew where he had been; he thought their anger was occasioned by sheer fright at his having taken the child outside the precincts of his small world at a time when the cholera was known to be raging not only ,in Sunderland but also in Jarrow, which was much nearer home. But when his father, his voice trembling with his anger, said, "Explain yourself. Sir," he felt for the first time that the matter went deeper with them than the mere fact of his taking the child outside the gates. And then he had it, the explanation, because Isabelle, unable to contain herself any longer, spat at him, "How dare you? How dare you take the child to that filthy hovel?"

Oh. He nodded his head at her. So that was it. They knew. How it had come about he didn't know, but they knew. And in a way he was pleased because it had saved him thinking up a way to break the news to them.

Now his father was speaking, grinding out his words through his thin lips.

"Have you no decency, Sir? Have you no feeling for what is right and proper? Even after your four years' chastisement?"

Now it was dive's turn to rear. The twisted smile went from his lips, the grey of his eyes turned bottle- hard, and his voice was the deck voice, the voice of the first mate as he cried, "You, to talk of decencyi You, to talk of what is right and wrongi You took the child away from her by force...."

"That is a lie."

"All right then, you paid for it, but by playing on the feelings of a simple girl and her ignorance of law, you bought the child for two pocket handkerchiefs. Isn't that so, Sir? Not for twenty-five shillings a week, as you would have me believe, but for two pocket handkerchiefs that her sister stole. You saved her sister from the House of Correction and the payment for it was her son.

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