Читаем A Dangerous Fortune (1994) полностью

Maisie's office, a cozy sanctuary near the main entrance, had two comfortable chairs, flowers in a vase, a faded rug and bright curtains. On the wall was the framed poster of "The Amazing Maisie." The desk was unobtrusive, and the ledgers in which she kept her records were stowed in a cupboard.

The woman sitting opposite her was barefoot, ragged and nine months pregnant. In her eyes was the wary, desperate look of a starving cat that walks into a strange house hoping to be fed. Maisie said: "What's your name, dear?"

"Rose Porter, mum."

They always called her "mum," as if she were a grand lady. She had long ago given up trying to make them call her Maisie. "Would you like a cup of tea?"

"Yes, please, mum."

Maisie poured tea into a plain china cup and added milk and sugar. "You look tired."

"I've walked all the way from Bath, mum."

It was a hundred miles. "It must have taken you a week!" said Maisie. "You poor thing."

Rose burst into tears.

This was normal, and Maisie was used to it. It was best to let them cry as long as they wanted to. She sat on the arm of Rose's chair, put her arm around her shoulders and hugged her.

"I know I've been wicked." Rose sobbed.

"You aren't wicked," Maisie said. "We're all women here, and we understand. We don't talk of wickedness. That's for clergymen and politicians."

After a while Rose calmed down and drank her tea. Maisie took the current ledger from the cupboard and sat at her writing table. She kept notes on every woman admitted to the hospital. The records were often useful. If some self-righteous Conservative got up in Parliament and said that most unmarried mothers were prostitutes, or that they all wanted to abandon their babies, or some such rot, she would refute him with a careful, polite, factual letter, and repeat the refutation in the speeches she made up and down the country.

"Tell me what happened," she said to Rose. "How were you living, before you fell pregnant?"

"I was cook for a Mrs. Freeman in Bath."

"And how did you meet your young man?"

"He came up and spoke to me in the street. It was my afternoon off, and I had a new yellow parasol. I looked a treat, I know I did. That yellow parasol was the undoing of me."