"Then they asked me to retire, and the Master told me to come back 'ere, and I should know the result later. Oh, Lord! I'm that 'ot and upset with the worry of it all, I feel I'll never cool again," and Mrs. Cleaver wiped her brow and fanned herself with her apron.
"Single life has its advantages," said a tall, handsome woman, who was nursing a baby by the window. "You with the lines ain't been as perlite as might be to us who ain't got 'em, but we 'as the laugh over you really. I'm taking my discharge to-morrow morning, and not one of 'em dare say me nay; I needn't appear afore Boards and be worried and upset with 'usbands and Guardians and things afore I can take myself off the parish and eat my bread independent."
"But why weren't you married, Pennyloaf? Not for want of asking, I'll be bound."
"No, it warn't for want of asking; fact is, I was put off marriage at a very early age. I 'ad a drunken beast of a father as spent his time a-drinking by day and a-beating mother by night--one night he overdid it and killed 'er; he got imprisonment for life, and we was put away in the workhouse schools; it would have been kinder of the parish to put us in the lethal chamber, as they do to cats and dogs as ain't wanted. But we grew up somehow, knowing as we weren't wanted, and then the parish found me a situation, under-housemaid in a big house; and then I found as the young master wanted me, the first time as any human soul had taken any interest in me, and, oh, Lord! I laughs now when I think what a 'appy time it was. Since then I've had four children, and I have twenty-five shillings a week coming in regular besides what I can make at the cooking. I lives clean and respectable--no drinking, no bad language; my children never see nor hear what I saw and heard, and they are mine--mine--mine. I always comes into the House for confinement, liking quiet and skilled medical attendance. I never gets refused--the law daren't refuse such as me. I always leaves the coming in till the last moment; then there are no awkward questions, and when they begin to inquire as to settlement, I'm off. All the women in our street are expecting next week, their husbands all out of work, and not a pair of sheets or the price of a pint of milk between them, all lying in one room, too, with children and husbands about, as I don't consider decent, but having the lines, it's precious hard for them to get in here, and half of them daren't come for fear he and some one else will sell up the 'ome whilst they're away. You remember Mrs. Hall, who died here last week? Well, she told me that her husband swore at her so fearful for having twins that the doctor sent her in here out of his way, and what with all the upset and the starvation whilst she was carrying the children, she took fever and snuffed out like a candle. No, the neighbours don't know as I'm a bad woman; I generally moves before a confinement, and I 'as a 'usband on the 'igh seas.