She was not sure of course--but she knew they
sucked things and liked sweets.
A baby left unattended to scream itself to sleep and awakening
to scream itself to sleep again, does not present to a resentful
observer the flowerlike bloom and beauty of infancy. When Feather
carried her tray into the Night Nursery and found herself confronting
the disordered crib on which her offspring lay she felt the child
horrible to look at. Its face was disfigured and its eyes almost
closed. She trembled all over as she put the bottle to its mouth
and saw the fiercely hungry clutch of its hands. It was old enough
to clutch, and clutch it did, and suck furiously and starvingly--even
though actually forced to stop once or twice at first to give vent
to a thwarted remnant of a scream.
Feather had only seen it as downy whiteness and perfume in
Louisa's arms or in its carriage. It had been a singularly vivid
and brilliant-eyed baby at whom people looked as they passed.
"Who will give her a bath?" wailed Feather. "Who will change her
clothes? Someone must! Could a woman by the day do it? Cook said
I could get a woman by the day."
And then she remembered that one got servants from agencies. And
where were the agencies? And even a woman "by the day" would demand
wages and food to eat.
And then the front door bell rang.
What could she do--what could she do? Go downstairs and open the
door herself and let everyone know! Let the ringer go on ringing
until he was tired and went away? She was indeed hard driven,
even though the wail had ceased as Robin clutched her bottle to
her breast and fed with frenzy.
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