Kitabı oku: «The Vicar's Daughter», sayfa 14

In a few moments the room was empty of all but ourselves. The rush on the stairs was tremendous for a single minute, and then all was still. Even the children had rushed out to tell what other children they could find.

"What must we do next?" said my husband.

Miss Clare thought for a moment.

"I would go and tell Mr. Blackstone," she said. "It is a long way from here, but whoever has taken the child would not be likely to linger in the neighborhood. It is best to try every thing."

"Right," said my husband. "Come, Wynnie."

"Wouldn't it be better to leave Mrs. Percivale with me?" said Miss Clare.

"It is dreadfully fatiguing to go driving over the stones."

It was very kind of her; but if she had been a mother she would not have thought of parting me from my husband; neither would she have fancied that I could remain inactive so long as it was possible even to imagine I was doing something; but when I told her how I felt, she saw at once that it would be better for me to go.

We set off instantly, and drove to Mr. Blackstone's. What a long way it was! Down Oxford Street and Holborn we rattled and jolted, and then through many narrow ways in which I had never been, emerging at length in a broad road, with many poor and a few fine old houses in it; then again plunging into still more shabby regions of small houses, which, alas! were new, and yet wretched! At length, near an open space, where yet not a blade of grass could grow for the trampling of many feet, and for the smoke from tall chimneys, close by a gasometer of awful size, we found the parsonage, and Mr. Blackstone in his study. The moment he heard our story he went to the door and called his servant. "Run, Jabez," he said, "and tell the sexton to ring the church-bell. I will come to him directly I hear it."

I may just mention that Jabez and his wife, who formed the whole of Mr. Blackstone's household, did not belong to his congregation, but were members of a small community in the neighborhood, calling themselves Peculiar Baptists.

About ten minutes passed, during which little was said: Mr. Blackstone never seemed to have any mode of expressing his feelings except action, and where that was impossible they took hardly any recognizable shape. When the first boom of the big bell filled the little study in which we sat, I gave a cry, and jumped up from my chair: it sounded in my ears like the knell of my lost baby, for at the moment I was thinking of her as once when a baby she lay for dead in my arms. Mr. Blackstone got up and left the room, and my husband rose and would have followed him; but, saying he would be back in a few minutes, he shut the door and left us. It was half an hour, a dreadful half-hour, before he returned; for to sit doing nothing, not even being carried somewhere to do something, was frightful.

"I've told them all about it," he said. "I couldn't do better than follow Miss Clare's example. But my impression is, that, if the woman you suspect be the culprit, she would make her way out to the open as quickly as possible. Such people are most at home on the commons: they are of a less gregarious nature than the wild animals of the town. What shall you do next?"

"That is just what I want to know," answered my husband.

He never asked advice except when he did not know what to do; and never except from one whose advice he meant to follow.

"Well," returned Mr. Blackstone, "I should put an advertisement into every one of the morning papers."

"But the offices will all be closed," said Percivale.

"Yes, the publishing, but not the printing offices."

"How am I to find out where they are?"

"I know one or two of them, and the people there will tell us the rest."

"Then you mean to go with us?"

"Of course I do,—that is, if you will have me. You don't think I would leave you to go alone? Have you had any supper?"

"No. Would you like something, my dear?" said Percivale turning to me.

"I couldn't swallow a mouthful," I said.

"Nor I either," said Percivale.

"Then I'll just take a hunch of bread with me," said Mr. Blackstone, "for I am hungry. I've had nothing since one o'clock."

We neither asked him not to go, nor offered to wait till he had had his supper. Before we reached Printing-House Square he had eaten half a loaf.

"Are you sure," said my husband, as we were starting, "that they will take an advertisement at the printing-office?"

"I think they will. The circumstances are pressing. They will see that we are honest people, and will make a push to help us. But for any thing I know it may be quite en règle."

"We must pay, though," said Percivale, putting his hand in his pocket, and taking out his purse. "There! Just as I feared! No money!—Two—three shillings—and sixpence!"

Mr. Blackstone stopped the cab.

"I've not got as much," he said. "But it's of no consequence. I'll run and write a check."

"But where can you change it? The little shops about here won't be able."

"There's the Blue Posts."

"Let me take it, then. You won't be seen going into a public-house?" said Percivale.

"Pooh! pooh!" said Mr. Blackstone. "Do you think my character won't stand that much? Besides, they wouldn't change it for you. But when I think of it, I used the last check in my book in the beginning of the week. Never mind; they will lend me five pounds."

We drove to the Blue Posts. He got out, and returned in one minute with five sovereigns.

"What will people say to your borrowing five pounds at a public-house?" said Percivale.

"If they say what is right, it won't hurt me."

"But if they say what is wrong?"

"That they can do any time, and that won't hurt me, either."

"But what will the landlord himself think?"

"I have no doubt he feels grateful to me for being so friendly. You can't oblige a man more than by asking a light favor of him."

"Do you think it well in your position to be obliged to a man in his?" asked Percivale.

"I do. I am glad of the chance. It will bring me into friendly relations with him."

"Do you wish, then, to be in friendly relations with him?"

"Indubitably. In what other relations do you suppose a clergyman ought to be with one of his parishioners?"

"You didn't invite him into your parish, I presume."

"No; and he didn't invite me. The thing was settled in higher quarters. There we are, anyhow; and I have done quite a stroke of business in borrowing that money of him."

Mr. Blackstone laughed, and the laugh sounded frightfully harsh in my ears.

"A man"—my husband went on, who was surprised that a clergyman should be so liberal—"a man who sells drink!—in whose house so many of your parishioners will to-morrow night get too drunk to be in church the next morning!"

"I wish having been drunk were what would keep them from being in church. Drunk or sober, it would be all the same. Few of them care to go. They are turning out better, however, than when first I came. As for the publican, who knows what chance of doing him a good turn it may put in my way?"

"You don't expect to persuade him to shut up shop?"

"No: he must persuade himself to that."

"What good, then, can you expect to do him?"

"Who knows? I say. You can't tell what good may or may not come out of it, any more than you can tell which of your efforts, or which of your helpers, may this night be the means of restoring your child."

"What do you expect the man to say about it?"

"I shall provide him with something to say. I don't want him to attribute it to some foolish charity. He might. In the New Testament, publicans are acknowledged to have hearts."

"Yes; but the word has a very different meaning in the New Testament."

"The feeling religious people bear towards them, however, comes very near to that with which society regarded the publicans of old."

"They are far more hurtful to society than those tax-gatherers."

"They may be. I dare say they are. Perhaps they are worse than the sinners with whom their namesakes of the New Testament are always coupled."

I will not follow the conversation further. I will only give the close of it. Percivale told me afterwards that he had gone on talking in the hope of diverting my thoughts a little.

"What, then, do you mean to tell him?" asked Percivale.

"The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," said Mr. Blackstone. "I shall go in to-morrow morning, just at the time when there will probably be far too many people at the bar,—a little after noon. I shall return him his five sovereigns, ask for a glass of ale, and tell him the whole story,—how my friend, the celebrated painter, came with his wife,—and the rest of it, adding, I trust, that the child is all right, and at the moment probably going out for a walk with her mother, who won't let her out of her sight for a moment."

He laughed again, and again I thought him heartless; but I understand him better now. I wondered, too, that Percivale could go on talking, and yet I found that their talk did make the time go a little quicker. At length we reached the printing-office of "The Times,"—near Blackfriars' Bridge, I think.

After some delay, we saw an overseer, who, curt enough at first, became friendly when he heard our case. If he had not had children of his own, we might perhaps have fared worse. He took down the description and address, and promised that the advertisement should appear in the morning's paper in the best place he could now find for it.

Before we left, we received minute directions as to the whereabouts of the next nearest office. We spent the greater part of the night in driving from one printing-office to another. Mr. Blackstone declared he would not leave us until we had found her.

"You have to preach twice to-morrow," said Percivale: it was then three o'clock.

"I shall preach all the better," he returned. "Yes: I feel as if I should give them one good sermon to-morrow."

"The man talks as if the child were found already!" I thought, with indignation. "It's a pity he hasn't a child of his own! he would be more sympathetic." At the same time, if I had been honest, I should have confessed to myself that his confidence and hope helped to keep me up.

At last, having been to the printing-office of every daily paper in London, we were on our dreary way home.

Oh, how dreary it was!—and the more dreary that the cool, sweet light of a spring dawn was growing in every street, no smoke having yet begun to pour from the multitudinous chimneys to sully its purity! From misery and want of sleep, my soul and body both felt like a gray foggy night. Every now and then the thought of my child came with a fresh pang,—not that she was one moment absent from me, but that a new thought about her would dart a new sting into the ever-burning throb of the wound. If you had asked me the one blessed thing in the world, I should have said sleep—with my husband and children beside me. But I dreaded sleep now, both for its visions and for the frightful waking. Now and then I would start violently, thinking I heard my Ethel cry; but from the cab-window no child was ever to be seen, down all the lonely street. Then I would sink into a succession of efforts to picture to myself her little face,—white with terror and misery, and smeared with the dirt of the pitiful hands that rubbed the streaming eyes. They might have beaten her! she might have cried herself to sleep in some wretched hovel; or, worse, in some fever-stricken and crowded lodging-house, with horrible sights about her and horrible voices in her ears! Or she might at that moment be dragged wearily along a country-road, farther and farther from her mother! I could have shrieked, and torn my hair. What if I should never see her again? She might be murdered, and I never know it! O my darling! my darling!

At the thought a groan escaped me. A hand was laid on my arm. That I knew was my husband's. But a voice was in my ear, and that was Mr. Blackstone's.

"Do you think God loves the child less than you do? Or do you think he is less able to take care of her than you are? When the disciples thought themselves sinking, Jesus rebuked them for being afraid. Be still, and you will see the hand of God in this. Good you cannot foresee will come out of it."

I could not answer him, but I felt both rebuked and grateful.

All at once I thought of Roger. What would he say when he found that his pet was gone, and we had never told him?

"Roger!" I said to my husband. "We've never told him!"

"Let us go now," he returned.

We were at the moment close to North Crescent. After a few thundering raps at the door, the landlady came down. Percivale rushed up, and in a few minutes returned with Roger. They got into the cab. A great talk followed; but I heard hardly any thing, or rather I heeded nothing. I only recollect that Roger was very indignant with his brother for having been out all night without him to help.

"I never thought of you, Roger," said Percivale.

"So much the worse!" said Roger.

"No," said Mr. Blackstone. "A thousand things make us forget. I dare say your brother all but forgot God in the first misery of his loss. To have thought of you, and not to have told you, would have been another thing."

A few minutes after, we stopped at our desolate house, and the cabman was dismissed with one of the sovereigns from the Blue Posts. I wondered afterwards what manner of man or woman had changed it there. A dim light was burning in the drawing-room. Percivale took his pass-key, and opened the door. I hurried in, and went straight to my own room; for I longed to be alone that I might weep—nor weep only. I fell on my knees by the bedside, buried my face, and sobbed, and tried to pray. But I could not collect my thoughts; and, overwhelmed by a fresh access of despair, I started again to my feet.

Could I believe my eyes? What was that in the bed? Trembling as with an ague,—in terror lest the vision should by vanishing prove itself a vision,—I stooped towards it. I heard a breathing! It was the fair hair and the rosy face of my darling—fast asleep—without one trace of suffering on her angelic loveliness! I remember no more for a while. They tell me I gave a great cry, and fell on the floor. When I came to myself I was lying on the bed. My husband was bending over me, and Roger and Mr. Blackstone were both in the room. I could not speak, but my husband understood my questioning gaze.

"Yes, yes, my love," he said quietly: "she's all right—safe and sound, thank God!"

And I did thank God.

Mr. Blackstone came to the bedside, with a look and a smile that seemed to my conscience to say, "I told you so." I held out my hand to him, but could only weep. Then I remembered how we had vexed Roger, and called him.

"Dear Roger," I said, "forgive me, and go and tell Miss Clare."

I had some reason to think this the best amends I could make him.

"I will go at once," he said. "She will be anxious."

"And I will go to my sermon," said Mr. Blackstone, with the same quiet smile.

They shook hands with me, and went away. And my husband and I rejoiced over our first-born.

CHAPTER XXV.
ITS SEQUEL

My darling was recovered neither through Miss Clare's injunctions nor Mr. Blackstone's bell-ringing. A woman was walking steadily westward, carrying the child asleep in her arms, when a policeman stopped her at Turnham Green. She betrayed no fear, only annoyance, and offered no resistance, only begged he would not wake the child, or take her from her. He brought them in a cab to the police-station, whence the child was sent home. As soon as she arrived, Sarah gave her a warm bath, and put her to bed; but she scarcely opened her eyes.

Jemima had run about the streets till midnight, and then fallen asleep on the doorstep, where the policeman found her when he brought the child. For a week she went about like one dazed; and the blunders she made were marvellous. She ordered a brace of cod from the poulterer, and a pound of anchovies at the crockery shop. One day at dinner, we could not think how the chops were so pulpy, and we got so many bits of bone in our mouth: she had powerfully beaten them, as if they had been steaks. She sent up melted butter for bread-sauce, and stuffed a hare with sausages.

After breakfast, Percivale walked to the police-station, to thank the inspector, pay what expenses had been incurred, and see the woman. I was not well enough to go with him. My Marion is a white-faced thing, and her eyes look much too big for her small face. I suggested that he should take Miss Clare. As it was early, he was fortunate enough to find her at home, and she accompanied him willingly, and at once recognized the woman as the one she had befriended.

He told the magistrate he did not wish to punish her, but that there were certain circumstances which made him desirous of detaining her until a gentleman, who, he believed, could identify her, should arrive. The magistrate therefore remanded her.

The next day but one my father came. When he saw her, he had little doubt she was the same that had carried off Theo; but he could not be absolutely certain, because he had seen her only by moonlight. He told the magistrate the whole story, saying, that, if she should prove the mother of the child, he was most anxious to try what he could do for her. The magistrate expressed grave doubts whether he would find it possible to befriend her to any effectual degree. My father said he would try, if he could but be certain she was the mother.

"If she stole the child merely to compel the restitution of her own," he said. "I cannot regard her conduct with any abhorrence. But, if she is not the mother of the child, I must leave her to the severity of the law."

"I once discharged a woman," said the magistrate, "who had committed the same offence, for I was satisfied she had done so purely from the desire to possess the child."

"But might not a thief say he was influenced merely by the desire to add another sovereign to his hoard?"

"The greed of the one is a natural affection; that of the other a vice."

"But the injury to the loser is far greater in the one case than in the other."

"To set that off, however, the child is more easily discovered. Besides, the false appetite grows with indulgence; whereas one child would still the natural one."

"Then you would allow her to go on stealing child after child, until she succeeded in keeping one," said my father, laughing.

"I dismissed her with the warning, that, if ever she did so again, this would be brought up against her, and she would have the severest punishment the law could inflict. It may be right to pass a first offence, and wrong to pass a second. I tried to make her measure the injury done to the mother, by her own sorrow at losing the child; and I think not without effect. At all events, it was some years ago, and I have not heard of her again."

Now came in the benefit of the kindness Miss Clare had shown the woman. I doubt if any one else could have got the truth from her. Even she found it difficult; for to tell her that if she was Theo's mother she should not be punished, might be only to tempt her to lie. All Miss Clare could do was to assure her of the kindness of every one concerned, and to urge her to disclose her reasons for doing such a grievous wrong as steal another woman's child.

"They stole my child," she blurted out at last, when the cruelty of the action was pressed upon her.

"Oh, no!" said Miss Clare: "you left her to die in the cold."

"No, no!" she cried. "I wanted somebody to hear her, and take her in. I wasn't far off, and was just going to take her again, when I saw a light, and heard them searching for her. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"

"Then how can you say they stole her? You would have had no child at all, but for them. She was nearly dead when they found her. And in return you go and steal their grandchild!"

"They took her from me afterwards. They wouldn't let me have my own flesh and blood. I wanted to let them know what it was to have their child taken from them."

"How could they tell she was your child, when you stole her away like a thief? It might, for any thing they knew, be some other woman stealing her, as you stole theirs the other day? What would have become of you if it had been so?"

To this reasoning she made no answer.

"I want my child; I want my child," she moaned. Then breaking out—"I shall kill myself if I don't get my child!" she cried. "Oh, lady, you don't know what it is to have a child and not have her! I shall kill myself if they don't give me her back. They can't say I did their child any harm. I was as good to her as if she had been my own."

"They know that quite well, and don't want to punish you. Would you like to see your child?"

She clasped her hands above her head, fell on her knees at Miss Clare's feet, and looked up in her face without uttering a word.

"I will speak to Mr. Walton," said Miss Clare; and left her.

The next morning she was discharged, at the request of my husband, who brought her home with him.

Sympathy with the mother-passion in her bosom had melted away all my resentment. She was a fine young woman, of about five and twenty, though her weather-browned complexion made her look at first much older. With the help of the servants, I persuaded her to have a bath, during which they removed her clothes, and substituted others. She objected to putting them on; seemed half-frightened at them, as if they might involve some shape of bondage, and begged to have her own again. At last Jemima, who, although so sparingly provided with brains, is not without genius, prevailed upon her, insisting that her little girl would turn away from her if she wasn't well dressed, for she had been used to see ladies about her. With a deep sigh, she yielded; begging, however, to have her old garments restored to her.

She had brought with her a small bundle, tied up in a cotton handkerchief; and from it she now took a scarf of red silk, and twisted it up with her black hair in a fashion I had never seen before. In this head-dress she had almost a brilliant look; while her carriage had a certain dignity hard of association with poverty—not inconsistent, however, with what I have since learned about the gypsies. My husband admired her even more than I did, and made a very good sketch of her. Her eyes were large and dark—unquestionably fine; and if there was not much of the light of thought in them, they had a certain wildness which in a measure made up for the want. She had rather a Spanish than an Eastern look, I thought, with an air of defiance that prevented me from feeling at ease with her; but in the presence of Miss Clare she seemed humbler, and answered her questions more readily than ours. If Ethel was in the room, her eyes would be constantly wandering after her, with a wistful, troubled, eager look. Surely, the mother-passion must have infinite relations and destinies.

As I was unable to leave home, my father persuaded Miss Clare to accompany him and help him to take charge of her. I confess it was a relief to me when she left the house; for though I wanted to be as kind to her as I could, I felt considerable discomfort in her presence.

When Miss Clare returned, the next day but one, I found she had got from her the main points of her history, fully justifying previous conjectures of my father's, founded on what he knew of the character and customs of the gypsies.

She belonged to one of the principal gypsy families in this country. The fact that they had no settled habitation, but lived in tents, like Abraham and Isaac, had nothing to do with poverty. The silver buttons on her father's coat, were, she said, worth nearly twenty pounds; and when a friend of any distinction came to tea with them, they spread a table-cloth of fine linen on the grass, and set out upon it the best of china, and a tea-service of hall-marked silver. She said her friends—as much as any gentleman in the land—scorned stealing; and affirmed that no real gypsy would "risk his neck for his belly," except he were driven by hunger. All her family could read, she said, and carried a big Bible about with them.

One summer they were encamped for several months in the neighborhood of Edinburgh, making horn-spoons and baskets, and some of them working in tin. There they were visited by a clergyman, who talked and read the Bible to them, and prayed with them. But all their visitors ware not of the same sort with him. One of them was a young fellow of loose character, a clerk in the city, who, attracted by her appearance, prevailed upon her to meet him often. She was not then eighteen. Any aberration from the paths of modesty is exceedingly rare among the gypsies, and regarded with severity; and her father, hearing of this, gave her a terrible punishment with the whip he used in driving his horses. In terror of what would follow when the worst came to be known, she ran away; and, soon forsaken by her so-called lover, wandered about, a common vagrant, until her baby was born—under the stars, on a summer night, in a field of long grass.

For some time she wandered up and down, longing to join some tribe of her own people, but dreading unspeakably the disgrace of her motherhood. At length, having found a home for her child, she associated herself with a gang of gypsies of inferior character, amongst whom she had many hardships to endure. Things, however, bettered a little after one of their number was hanged for stabbing a cousin, and her position improved. It was not, however, any intention of carrying off her child to share her present lot, but the urgings of mere mother-hunger for a sight of her, that drove her to the Hall. When she had succeeded in enticing her out of sight of the house, however, the longing to possess her grew fierce; and braving all consequences, or rather, I presume, unable to weigh them, she did carry her away. Foiled in this attempt, and seeing that her chances of future success in any similar one were diminished by it, she sought some other plan. Learning that one of the family was married, and had removed to London, she succeeded, through gypsy acquaintances who lodged occasionally near Tottenham Court Road, in finding out where we lived, and carried off Ethel with the vague intent, as we had rightly conjectured, of using her as a means for the recovery of her own child.

Theodora was now about seven years of age—almost as wild as ever. Although tolerably obedient, she was not nearly so much so as the other children had been at her age; partly, perhaps, because my father could not bring himself to use that severity to the child of other people with which he had judged it proper to treat his own.

Miss Clare was present, with my father and the rest of the family, when the mother and daughter met. They were all more than curious to see how the child would behave, and whether there would be any signs of an instinct that drew her to her parent. In this, however, they were disappointed.

It was a fine warm forenoon when she came running on to the lawn where they were assembled,—the gypsy mother with them.

"There she is!" said my father to the woman. "Make the best of yourself you can."

Miss Clare said the poor creature turned very pale, but her eyes glowed with such a fire!

With the cunning of her race, she knew better than bound forward and catch up the child in her arms. She walked away from the rest, and stood watching the little damsel, romping merrily with Mr. Wagtail. They thought she recognized the dog, and was afraid of him. She had put on a few silver ornaments which she had either kept or managed to procure, notwithstanding her poverty; for both the men and women of her race manifest in a strong degree that love for barbaric adornment which, as well as their other peculiarities, points to an Eastern origin. The glittering of these in the sun, and the glow of her red scarf in her dark hair, along with the strangeness of her whole appearance, attracted the child, and she approached to look at her nearer. Then the mother took from her pocket a large gilded ball, which had probably been one of the ornaments on the top of a clock, and rolled it gleaming golden along the grass. Theo and Mr. Wagtail bounded after it with a shriek and a bark. Having examined it for a moment, the child threw it again along the lawn; and this time the mother, lithe as a leopard and fleet as a savage, joined in the chase, caught it first, and again sent it spinning away, farther from the assembled group. Once more all three followed in swift pursuit; but this time the mother took care to allow the child to seize the treasure. After the sport had continued a little while, what seemed a general consultation, of mother, child, and dog, took place over the bauble; and presently they saw that Theo was eating something.

"I trust," said my mother, "she won't hurt the child with any nasty stuff."

"She will not do so wittingly," said my father, "you may be sure. Anyhow, we must not interfere."

In a few minutes more the mother approached them with a subdued look of triumph, and her eyes overflowing with light, carrying the child in her arms. Theo was playing with some foreign coins which adorned her hair, and with a string of coral and silver beads round her neck.

For the rest of the day they were left to do much as they pleased; only every one kept good watch.

But in the joy of recovering her child, the mother seemed herself to have gained a new and childlike spirit. The more than willingness with which she hastened to do what, even in respect of her child, was requested of her, as if she fully acknowledged the right of authority in those who had been her best friends, was charming. Whether this would last when the novelty of the new experience had worn off, whether jealousy would not then come in for its share in the ordering of her conduct, remained to be shown; but in the mean time the good in her was uppermost.

She was allowed to spend a whole fortnight in making friends with her daughter, before a word was spoken about the future; the design of my father being through the child to win the mother. Certain people considered him not eager enough to convert the wicked: whatever apparent indifference he showed in that direction arose from his utter belief in the guiding of God, and his dread of outrunning his designs. He would follow the operations of the Spirit.