h, ain''t it?'' he says, as he fills his plate. ''—Or would be, if it wasn''t for the lady there.''
Mrs Sucksby sees him scowling at me; and leans and hits him.
After that, if the men and women who come to the house ask after Sue, they are taken aside and told, like John and Dainty, that she has turned out wicked, double-crossed Mrs Sucksby and broken her heart. They all say the same: ''Sue Trinder? Who''d have thought her so fly? That''s the mother, that is, coming out in the child . . .'' They shake their heads, look sorry. But it seems to me, too, that they forget her quickly enough. It seems to me that even John and Dainty forget her. It is a short-memoried house, after all. It is a
short-memoried district. Many times I wake in the night to the sound of footsteps, the creak of wheels—a man is running, a family taking flight, quietly, in darkness. The woman with the bandaged face, who nurses her baby on the step of the house with the shutters with the heart-shaped holes, disappears; her place is taken by another—who, in her turn, moves on, to be replaced by another, who drinks. What''s Sue, to them?
What''s Sue, to me? I''m afraid, here, to remember the pressing of her mouth, the sliding of her hand. But I''m afraid, too, of forgetting. I wish I could dream of her. I never do. Sometimes I take out the picture of the woman I supposed my mother, and look for her features there—her eyes, her pointed chin. Mrs Sucksby sees me do it. She watches, fretfully. Finally she takes the picture away.