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Esther Waters

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<h2 id="id02314" style="margin-top: 4em">XXXIV</h2> Things went well enough as long as her savings lasted. When her money was gone Bill returned to the race-course in the hope of doing a bit of welshing. Soon after he was "wanted" by the police; they escaped to Belgium, and it devolved on Sarah to support him. The hue and cry over, they came back to London. She had been sitting up for him; he had come home exasperated and disappointed. A row soon began; and she thought that he would strike her. But he refrained, for fear, perhaps, of the other lodgers. He took her instead by the arm, dragged her down the broken staircase, and pushed her into the court. She heard the retreating footsteps, and saw a cat slink through a grating, and she wished that she too could escape from the light into the dark. A few belated women still lingered in the Strand, and the city stood up like a prison, hard and stark in the cold, penetrating light of morning. She sat upon a pillar's base, her eyes turned towards the cabmen's shelter. The horses munched in their nose-bags, and the pigeons came down from their roosts. She was dressed in an old black dress, her hands lay upon her knees, and the pose expressed so perfectly the despair and wretchedness in her soul that a young man in evening clothes, who had looked sharply at her as he passed, turned and came back to her, and he asked her if he could assist her. She answered, "Thank you, sir." He slipped a shilling into her hand. She was too broken-hearted to look up in his face, and he walked away wondering what was her story. The disordered red hair, the thin, freckled face, were expressive, and so too was the movement of her body when she got up and walked, not knowing and not caring where she was going. There was sensation of the river in her thoughts; the river drew her, and she indistinctly remembered that she would find relief there if she chose to accept that relief. The water was blue beneath the sunrise, and it seemed to offer to end her life's trouble. She could not go on living. She could not bear with her life any longer, and yet she knew that she would not drown herself that morning. There was not enough will in her to drown herself. She was merely half dead with grief. He had turned her out, he had said that he never wanted to see her again, but that was because he had been unlucky. She ought to have gone to bed and not waited up for him; he didn't know what he was doing; so long as he didn't care for another woman there was hope that he might come back to her. The spare trees rustled their leaves in the bright dawn air, and she sat down on a bench and watched the lamps going out, and the river changing from blue to brown. Hours passed, and the same thoughts came and went, until with sheer weariness of thinking she fell asleep. She was awakened by the policeman, and she once more continued her walk. The omnibuses had begun; women were coming from market with baskets on their arms; and she wondered if their lovers and husbands were unfaithful to them, if they would be received with blows or knocks when they returned. Her slightest mistakes had often, it seemed, merited a blow; and God knows she had striven to pick out the piece of bacon that she thought he would like, and it was not her fault that she couldn't get any money nowhere. Why was he cruel to her? He never would find another woman to care for him more than she did…. Esther had a good husband, Esther had always been lucky. Two hours more to wait, and she felt so tired, so tired. The milk-women were calling their ware—those lusty short-skirted women that bring an air of country into the meanest alley. She sat down on a doorstep and looked on the empty Haymarket, vaguely conscious of the low vice which still lingered there though the morning was advancing. She turned up Shaftesbury Avenue, and from the beginning of Dean Street she watched to see if the shutters were yet down. She thought they were, and then saw that she was mistaken. There was nothing to do but to wait, and on the steps of the Royalty Theatre she waited. The sun was shining, and she watched the cab horses, until the potboy came through and began cleaning the street lamp. She didn't care to ask him any questions; dressed as she was, he might answer her rudely. She wanted to see Esther first. Esther would pity and help her. So she did not go directly to the "King's Head," but went up the street a little way and came back. The boy's back was turned to her; she peeped through the doors. There was no one in the bar, she must go back to the steps of the theatre. A number of children were playing there, and they did not make way for her to sit down. She was too weary to argue the point, and walked up and down the street. When she looked through the doors a second time Esther was in the bar. "Is that you, Sarah?" "Yes, it is me." "Then come in…. How is it that we've not seen you all this time? What's the matter?" "I've been out all night. Bill put me out of doors this morning, and I've been walking about ever since." "Bill put you out of doors? I don't understand." "You know Bill Evans, the man we met on the race-course, the day we went to the Derby…. It began there. He took me home after your dinner at the 'Criterion.'… It has been going on ever since." "Good Lord! …Tell me about it." Leaning against the partition that separated the bars, Sarah told how she had left her home and gone to live with him. "We got on pretty well at first, but the police was after him, and we made off to Belgium. There we was very hard up, and I had to go out on the streets." "He made you do that?" "He couldn't starve, could he?" The women looked at each other, and then Sarah continued her story. She told how they had come to London, penniless. "I think he wants to turn honest," she said, "but luck's been dead against him…. It's that difficult for one like him, and he's been in work, but he can't stick to it; and now I don't know what he's doing—no good, I fancy. Last night I got anxious and couldn't sleep, so I sat up. It was about two when he came in. We had a row and he dragged me downstairs and he put me out. He said he never wanted to see my ugly face again. I don't think I'm as bad as that; I've led a hard life, and am not what I used to be, but it was he who made me what I am. Oh, it don't matter now, it can't be helped, it is all over with me. I don't care what becomes of me, only I thought I'd like to come and tell you. We was always friends." "You mustn't give way like that, old girl. You must keep yer pecker up. You're dead beat…. You've been walking about all night, no wonder. You must come and have some breakfast with us." "I should like a cup of tea, Esther. I never touches spirits now. I got over that." "Come into the parlour. You'll be better when you've had breakfast. We'll see what we can do for you." "Oh, Esther, not a word of what I've been telling you to your husband. I don't want to get Bill into trouble. He'd kill me. Promise me not to mention a word of it. I oughtn't to have told you. I was so tired that I didn't know what I was saying." There was plenty to eat—fried fish, a nice piece of steak, tea and coffee. "You seem to live pretty well," said Sarah, "It must be nice to have a servant of one's own. I suppose you're doing pretty well here." "Yes, pretty well, if it wasn't for William's health." "What's the matter? Ain't he well?" "He's been very poorly lately. It's very trying work going about from race-course to race-course, standing in the mud and wet all day long…. He caught a bad cold last winter and was laid up with inflammation of the lungs, and I don't think he ever quite got over it." "Don't he go no more to race meetings?" "He hasn't been to a race meeting since the beginning of the winter. It was one of them nasty steeplechase meetings that laid him up." "Do 'e drink?" "He's never drunk, but he takes too much. Spirits don't suit him. He thought he could do what he liked, great strong-built fellow that he is, but he's found out his mistake." "He does his betting in London now, I suppose?" "Yes," said Esther, hesitating—"when he has any to do. I want him to give it up; but trade is bad in this neighbourhood, leastways, with us, and he don't think we could do without it." "It's very hard to keep it dark; some one's sure to crab it and bring the police down on you." Esther did not answer; the conversation paused, and William entered. "Halloa! is that you, Sarah? We didn't know what had become of you all this time." He noticed that she looked like one in trouble, and was very poorly dressed. She noticed that his cheeks were thinner than they used to be, and that his broad chest had sunk, and that there seemed to be strangely little space between it and his back. Then in brief phrases, interrupting each other frequently, the women told the story. William said— "I knew he was a bad lot. I never liked to see him inside my bar." "I thought," said Esther, "that Sarah might remain here for a time." "I can't have that fellow coming round my place." "There's no fear of his coming after me. He don't want to see my ugly face again. Well, let him try to find some one who will do for him all I have done." "Until she gets a situation," said Esther. "I think that'll be the best, for you to stop here until you get a situation." "And what about a character?" "You needn't say much about what you've been doing this last twelve months; if many questions are asked, you can say you've been stopping with us. But you mustn't see that brute again. If he ever comes into that 'ere bar, I'll give him a piece of my mind. I'd give him more than a piece of my mind if I was the man I was a twelvemonth ago." William coughed, and Esther looked at him anxiously. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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