Zoe Part 4

As spring glided into summer, and June's long, bright, hay-scented days pa.s.sed by, followed by July, with its hot sun pouring down on the ripening wheat and shaven hayfields, and on the trees, which had settled down into the monotonous green of summer, the little, brown-faced baby at the Grays' throve and flourished, and entwined itself round the hearts of the kindly people in whose care Providence, by the hands of the organist, had placed it. It grew close to them like the branches of the Virginia creeper against a battered, ugly, old wall, putting out those dainty little hands and fingers that cling so close, not even the roughest wind or driving rain can tear them apart.

Gray, coming in dirty and tired in the evening, after a long day's work in the hayfield or carting manure, was never too tired, nor for the matter of that too dirty, to take the baby, and let it dab its fat hands on his face, or claw at his grizzled whiskers or s...o...b..r open-mouthed kisses on his cheeks.

Tom, who had bought a blue tie, let Zoe scrabble at that vivid article, and pull the bit of southernwood out of his b.u.t.ton-hole, and rumple his well-oiled locks out of all symmetry; while Bill expended boundless ingenuity and time in cutting whistles, and fashioning whirligigs, which were summarily disposed of directly they got into the baby's hands.

As for Mrs Gray, it is unnecessary to say that she was the most complete slave of all Zoe's abject subjects, and the neighbours all agreed that she was downright silly-like over that little, brown-faced brat as was no better--no, nor nothing to hold a candle to my Johnnie, or Dolly, or Bobby as the case might be.

An unprejudiced observer might have thought that Mrs Gray had some reason for her high opinion of Zoe, for she was certainly a very much prettier baby than the majority in Downside, who were generally of the dumpling type, with two currants for eyes. And she was also a very good baby--'And easy enough too for anyone to be good,' would be the comment of any listening Downside mother, 'when they always gets their own way!' which, however, is not so obvious a truth as regards babies under a year as it is of older people. Certainly to be put to bed awake and smiling at seven o'clock, and thereupon to go to sleep, and sleep soundly, till seven o'clock next morning, shows an amount of virtue in a baby which is unhappily rare, though captious readers may attribute it rather to good health and digestion, which may also be credited, perhaps, with much virtue in older people.

'And I do say,' Mrs Gray was never tired of repeating to anyone who had patience to listen, 'as nothing wouldn't upset that blessed little angel, as it makes me quite uneasy thinking as how she's too good to live, as is only natural to mortal babies to have the tantrums now and then, if it 's only from stomach-ache.'

The only person who seemed to sympathise in the Grays' admiration for the baby was the organist. It was really wonderful, Mrs Gray said, the fancy he had taken to the child--'Ay, and the child to him too, perking up and looking quite peart like, as soon as ever his step come along the path.' The wonder was mostly in the baby taking to him, in Mrs Gray's opinion, as there was nothing to be surprised at in anyone taking to the baby; but 'he, with no chick nor child of his own, and with that quiet kind of way with him as ain't general what children like; though don't never go for to tell me as Mr Robins is proud and stuck up, as I knows better.'

There was a sort of fascination about the child to the organist, and when he found that no one seemed to have the slightest suspicion as to who the baby really was, or why he should be interested in it, he gave way more and more to the inclination to go to the Grays' cottage, and watch the little thing, and trace the likeness that seemed every day to grow more and more strong to his dead wife and to her baby girl.

Perhaps anyone sharper and less simple than Mrs Gray might have grown suspicious of some other reason than pure, disinterested admiration for little Zoe, as the cause which brought the organist so often to her house; and perhaps, if the cottage had stood in the village street, it might have occasioned remarks among the neighbours; but he had always, of late years, been so reserved and solitary a man that no notice was taken of his comings and goings, and if his way took him frequently over the hillside and down the lane--why, it was a very nice walk, and there was nothing to be surprised at.

The only person who might have noticed where he went, and how long he sometimes lingered, was Jane Sands, and I cannot help thinking that in old days she would have done so; but then, as we have seen, she was not quite the same Jane Sands she used to be, or at any rate not quite what we used to fancy her, devoted above all things to her master and his interests, but much absorbed in her own matters, and in those Stokeley friends of hers. She had asked for a rise in her wages too, which Mr Robins a.s.sented to; but without that cordiality he might have done a few months before, and he strongly suspected that when quarter-day came, the wages went the same way as those baby clothes, for there was certainly no outlay on her own attire, which, though always scrupulously neat, seemed to him more plain and a shade more shabby than it used to be.

As the summer waxed and waned, the love for little Zoe grew and strengthened in the organist's heart. It seemed a kind of possession, as if a spell had been cast on him; in old times it might have been set down to witchcraft; and, indeed, it seemed something of the sort to himself, as if a power he could not resist compelled him to seek out the child--to think of it, to dream of it, to have it so constantly in his mind and thoughts, that from there it found its way into his heart.

To us, who know his secret, it may be explained as the tie of blood, the drawing of a man, in spite of himself, towards his own kith and kin; blood is thicker than water, and the organist could not reject this baby grandchild from his natural feelings, though he might from his house. And beyond and above this explanation, we may account for it, as we may for most otherwise unaccountable things, as being the leading of a wise Providence working out a divine purpose.

Perhaps the punishment that was to come to the organist by the hands of little Zoe--those fat, dimpled, brown hands, that flourished about in the air so joyously when he whistled a tune to her--began from the very first, for it was impossible to think of the child without thinking of the mother, and to look at Zoe without seeing the likeness that his fond fancy made far plainer than it really was; and to think of the mother and to see her likeness was to remember that meeting in the churchyard, and the sad, pleading voice and hollow cough, and the cold denial he had given, and the beating rain and howling wind of that dreary night. He grew by degrees to excuse himself to himself, and to plead that he was taken unawares, and that, if she had not taken his answer as final, but had followed him to the house, he should certainly have relented.

And then he went a step further. I think it was one July day, when the baby had been more than usually gracious to him, and he had ventured, in Mrs Gray's absence, to lift her out of the cradle and carry her down the garden path, finding her a heavier weight than when he had first taken her to the Grays' cottage. She had clapped her hands at a great, velvet-bodied humble bee; she had nestled her curly head into his neck, and with the feeling of her soft breath on his cheek he had said to himself: 'If Edith were to come back now, I would forgive her for the baby's sake, for Zoe's sake.' He forgot that he had need to be forgiven too. 'She will come back,' he told himself, 'she will come back to see the child. She could not be content to hear nothing more of her baby and never to see her, in spite of what she said. And when she comes it shall be different, for Zoe's sake.'

He wondered if Jane Sands knew where Edith was, or ever heard from her.

He sometimes fancied that she did, and yet, if she knew nothing of the baby, it was hardly likely that she had any correspondence with the mother. He was puzzled, and more than once he felt inclined to let her into the secret, or at least drop some hint that might lead to its discovery.

It pleased him to imagine her delight over Edith's child, her pride in, and devotion to it; she would never rest till she had it under her care, and ousted Mrs Gray from all share in little Zoe. And yet, whenever he had got so far in his inclination to tell Jane, some proof of her absorption in that baby at Stokeley, for whom he had a sort of jealous dislike, threw him back upon himself, and made him doubt her affection for her young mistress, and resolve to keep the secret to himself, at any rate for the present.

He came the nearest telling her one day in August, when, as he was watering his flowers in the evening, Mrs Gray pa.s.sed the gate with that very little Zoe, who was so constantly in his thoughts.

She had a little white sun-bonnet on, which Jane Sands had actually bestowed upon her--rather grudgingly, it is true, and only because there was some defect about it which made it unworthy of the pampered child at Stokeley. Zoe saw the organist, or, at least, Mrs Gray imagined that she did, for the cry she gave might equally well have been intended as a greeting to a pig down in the ditch.

'Well a-never, who 'd a' thought! she see you ever so far off, bless her! and give such a jump as pretty near took her out of my arms. Why there! Mr Robins don't want you, Miss Saucy, no one don't want such rubbige; a naughty, tiresome gal! as won't go to sleep, but keeps jumping and kicking and looking about till my arm's fit to drop with aching.'

Jane Sands was sitting at work just outside the kitchen door at the side of the house. He had seen her there a minute ago when he filled the watering-can at the pump, and a sudden impulse came into his mind to show her the child.

He did not quite decide what he should say, or what he should do, when the recognition, which he felt sure was unavoidable, followed the sight of the child; but he just yielded to the impulse, and took the child from Mrs Gray's arms and carried her round to the back-door. The recognition was even more instantaneous than he had expected. As he came round the corner of the house, with the little, white-bonneted girl in his arms, Jane sprang up with a cry of glad surprise and delight, such as swept away in a moment all his doubt of her loyalty to him and his, and all his remembrance of her absorption in that little common child at Stokeley. She made a step forward and then stood perfectly still, and the light and gladness faded out of her face, and her hands, that had been stretched out in delighted greeting, fell dull and lifeless to her sides.

He said nothing, but held the child towards her; it was only natural that she should doubt, being so unprepared, but a second glance would convince her.

'I thought,' she said, looking the baby over, with what in a less kind, gentle face, might have been quite a hard, critical manner, 'I thought for a minute'----

'Well?'

'I was mistaken,' she said; 'of course I was mistaken.' And then she added to herself more than to him, 'It is not a bit like'----

'Look again,' he said, 'look again; don't you see a likeness?'

'Likeness? Oh, I suppose it's the gypsy child up at Mrs Gray's, and you mean the likeness to the woman who came here that day she was left; but I don't remember enough of her to say. It's plain the child's a gypsy. What a swarthy skin, to be sure!'

Why, where were her eyes? To Mr Robins it was little Edith over again.

He wondered that all the village did not see it and cry out on him.

But it was not likely that after this his confidence should go further, and just then the child began a little grumble, and he took her back hastily to Mrs Gray with a disappointed, crest-fallen feeling.

Jane Sands was conscious that her reception of the baby had not been satisfactory, and she tried to make amends by little complimentary remarks, which annoyed him more than her indifference.

'A fine, strong child, and does Mrs Gray great credit.'

'It's a nice bright little thing, and I daresay will improve as it grows older.'

She could not imagine why the organist grunted in such a surly way in reply to these remarks, for what on earth could it matter to him what anyone thought of a foundling, gypsy child?

CHAPTER VII.

Gray Taken to the Hospital--Bill and the Baby--Mrs Gray Home Again--Edith, Come Home!

It was near the end of September that John Gray broke his leg. They were thrashing out a wheat-rick at Farmer Benson's, and somehow he tumbled from the top of the rick, and fell with his leg bent under him, and found that he could not stand when he tried to struggle up to his feet.

They ran to tell 'his missus,' who came straight off from the washtub, with the soapsuds still about her skinny red elbows, catching up Zoe from the cradle as she pa.s.sed, at sight of whom Gray, in spite of the pain and the deadly faintness that was dimming his eyes and clutching his breath, made an effort to chirrup and snap his fingers at the little one.

'It's his innerds as is hurted,' explained one of the bystanders, with that wonderful openness and way of making the worst of everything that is found in that cla.s.s.

'The spine of his back most like,' said another, 'like poor Johnson, over to Stokeley, as never walked another step arter his fall.'

'Ay, he do look mortal bad! 'Tis a terrible bad job!'

'Cut off like a flower!' sighed one of the women. 'There, bear up, my dear,' to Mrs Gray, with whom she had not been on speaking terms for some weeks, owing to a few words about her cat's thieving propensities, 'Dontee take on! I knows well enough what you feels, as is only three weeks since father was took with his fit.'

'Don't be skeered, old gal,' sounded Gray's voice, odd and unnatural to the ears of the hearers, and far away and independent to himself, 'I ain't so bad as that comes to'----

And then mercifully he became unconscious, for to go six miles with a broken leg in a cart without springs on the way to the hospital is not a joke, and the neighbours' kindly attempts to bring him round were happily unsuccessful. The worst part of that drive fell to the share of his wife, who sat holding his head on her lap as they jolted along, trying to keep the jars and b.u.mps from jerking his leg, though all the time she firmly believed he was dead, and was already, in her dulled mind, making pitiful little arrangements about mourning and the funeral, and contemplating, with dreary equanimity, a widowed existence with three-and-sixpence a week for her and Tom and Bill and Zoe to live upon. She never left Zoe out of the calculation, even when it became most difficult to adjust the number of mouths to be fed with the amount of food to be put into them, and over this dark future fell the darker shadow of the workhouse, which closes the vista of life to most of the poor. No wonder they live entirely in the present, and shut their eyes persistently to the future!

There was not much going back into the past when she was a girl and the 'master' a lad, and they went courting of a Sunday afternoon along the green lanes. Life had been too matter-of-fact and full of hard work to leave much sentiment even in memory.

Mr Robins heard of the accident in the evening, and went up to the cottage, where he found Bill taking care of Zoe, who was having a fine time of it, having soon discovered that she had only to cry for anything that evening to get it, and that it was an occasion for displaying a will of her own in the matter of going to bed, and being preternaturally wide awake and inclined for a game, when on other nights she was quite content to be laid down in the wooden cradle, which was rapidly becoming too small for her increasing size.

Poor Bill had been at school when the accident happened, and, of course, the neighbours had made the very worst of the matter, so the poor boy hardly knew what part of his father had not been crushed or injured, or if he had been killed on the spot, or had been taken barely alive to the hospital. The baby had been pushed into his arms, so that he could not go up to the farm, nor find Tom to learn the rights of the matter; so that, when Mr Robins came into the cottage, he found both Bill and the baby crying together, the fire out, and the kettle upset into the fender.

'Give me the child,' the organist said. And Bill obeyed, as he did at the choir practice when he was told to pa.s.s a hymn-book, and too miserable to wonder much at this new aspect of his master, and at seeing him take the baby as if he knew all about it, and sit down in father's arm-chair.

'See if you can't make the fire burn up,' he went on; 'the child's cold.'