The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [126]
‘Lennie isn’t trying to muscle in. He’s fond of me, I know, but only as if I was his mother. His mother isn’t very nice to him.’
‘I’ve heard that one before, too,’ Joe said, with a grin. ‘ “He loves me like a son,” and the first thing you know, there’s incest brewing. Keep him downstairs, Jin,’ he said more seriously. ‘He can stay, if that keeps you happy; but he must stay downstairs.’
‘All right,’ she said, ‘if that’s what you want. I want to keep you happy too, you see. I hate it when you’re so belligerent.’
‘You don’t hate it. You hate me. Isn’t that more like it?’
‘No, darling.’ Virginia went to him, and stood close to him.
‘I love you. You know that.’
‘Yes.’ He let out his breath on a long sigh. ‘If I thought you didn’t, I’d kill you.’ He kissed her fiercely, while the baby whimpered and fretted in the crib behind them.
*
‘That child will never stand the winter,’ Mrs Batey said, crossing her arms in front of her, lifting up her bosom and letting it drop again. She had come to visit Virginia, bringing with her a huge, cracked leather shopping bag in case she saw any bargains in Marylebone High Street. Mrs Batey never went on an expedition without taking the bag for possible booty. Even the short trip from Weston House to the Olive Branch was an expedition, and might yield a cut-price cauliflower or a set of pig’s feet.
In the bag was a dented sponge-cake with the jam oozing out, which she had made for Virginia. ‘Not that you need it as much as you used, love,’ she said, looking round the little upstairs room with its bright curtains and pink walls and gay nursery rugs on the floor. ‘My stars, you have fallen on your feet, and no mistake. A bit different to dear old Weston House. Not that I grudge it to you, love. You deserve it, every bit of it, and perhaps that husband of yours deserves his luck too, if any man ever deserves anything. Running a pub! Edgar will eat his heart out with envy when I tell him about it. “Wouldn’t do for you,” I’ll tell him. “You’d drink up all the profits before a week was out.”’
Jenny had been sleeping when Mrs Batey came, but the raucous laugh induced by the thought of Edgar running a public-house woke her up, and as so often, she announced her awakening by a fretful cry.
Mrs Batey tiptoed weightily to the crib, and leaned over it for a long time making chirping and sucking sounds, before she straightened herself up and announced in the voice of an expert: ‘That child will never stand the winter.’
She did not mean it unkindly. She did not mean to frighten Virginia. It was just a piece of news that was worth giving out because it was sensational.
‘What nonsense,’ Virginia said, trying not to mind. ‘There’s nothing wrong with her. She has a cold now, that’s why she looks so pale.’
‘Well, you watch her, that’s all,’ Mrs Batey said. ‘I’ve seen them come, and I’ve seen them go, and they sometimes go quicker than they come, that’s where it is. I lost my first, you know, at four months. That’s a bad time for the little ones, with winter coming on.’
‘Jenny isn’t much more than four months old,’ Virginia said. ‘Please don’t talk like that, Mrs Batey. I don’t like it.’
‘Have I upset you?’ Mrs Batey was amazed. ‘I wouldn’t do that for the world. Don’t take it to heart so, love,’ she said, as Virginia picked up the baby and cuddled her, caressing the back of her neck. ‘I just said what came into my head, and there I go again, putting my foot in it as usual. Edgar says I’ll rise up out of my box at the funeral and speak out of turn to the preacher.’ Her laugh made Jenny jump and quiver a little in Virginia’s arms.
‘Let me hold her,’ Mrs Batey said. She took Jenny and sat down with her, making a wide lap, and settling the baby into the crook of her arm as naturally as a violinist tucks his fiddle under his chin. She ducked her head and clucked her tongue and made hideous grimaces, which Jenny accepted passively.
‘You see, she’s all right,’ Virginia said nervously. ‘She’s not crying now. I’m sure she’s