Part 6

“Tain’t a nasty river,” said the child, “I like it. But I won’t go tummling in no more, Dad. ’Cos it frights ye, don’t it?”

“It do!” agreed the man fervently.

“And I might ha’ been drownded dead, I might,” added Daisy with impressiveness, though of course without any understanding of the words which she repeated merely as she had heard them from his lips when enjoining caution upon her. “And then what would my poor old Dad ha’ done, wivout ’is little maid?”

“Whativer would he?” repeated Wycombe with a shudder, realizing the terror in quite a different manner! And he sighed so deeply and looked so scared that she was frightened too.

“But I bain’t goin’ away now, be I, Dad?” asked she, sitting up in bed, uneasiness in the blue eyes.

Then he smiled, and folding her in his rough arms kissed her passionately.

“No, darlin’, please God ye won’t never go away from your old Dad—not so long as ’e be above ground,” added he, beneath his breath.

She flung her little arms round his neck and hugged him, and after a few minutes, still softly kissing her, he said: “And now Daisy must kneel up like a good girl and say ’er prayers ’cos she was too cold to say ’em when she went to bed, and she’s got to thank God for sparin’ of ’er to ’er old Dad.”

And the little creature turned round dutifully and knelt, in her coarse white night-dress, upon the little white bed, with her curly head dusky in the twilight and her innocent face—tuned to momentary seriousness—clear against the solemn blue of the night sky behind the window-pane, and thanked God, as she was bid, for sparing her to her dear Dad.

Then with a little laugh of satisfaction at a duty performed, and sleep weighing the long lashes down once more, she turned and let him tuck her up again in the cot, and nestled down as before into her pillow.

He watched her till she had dropped to sleep, and then he went out to smoke his evening pipe on the bench beside the garden door. And as he looked through the warm dusk across the warm plain to the sea, he kept repeating to himself the words: “Thank God for sparin’ ’er to ’er old Dad!” And his rugged, emotionless face was tender and solemn as he said them, and there were tears in his eyes, but he brushed them hurriedly away with his coat-sleeve as a knock sounded on the outer door. The cottage looked to the sea, and its pretty garden overhung the cliff above the wide marsh-land, but one door opened on to the road opposite the ancient Abbey Church, whence the quavering clock was even now striking its nine slow strokes. It was too late for a visitor, in all conscience, and Tom Wycombe saw no reason why he should say “Come in.” He did not say it, but the latch was lifted nevertheless, and Mrs. Goodenough stepped warily into the cottage.

“And ’ow be our pretty little pet now?” said she, stealing up to the cot in spite of the fact that Wycombe stood forbiddingly in front of it, trying to bar the way. “Why, she looks as sound as a bell and as sweet as clover,” added she, turning down the coverlet to peep at the child. “But ye didn’t ought to keep ’er so ’ot, Mr. Wycombe. ’Tain’t ’olesome for children.” And she drew off a blanket as she spoke.

A spasm of anger flew to the man’s heart.

“Thank ye,” said he shortly, replacing the covering, “but I’ll manage my own child my own way, if _you_ please. And I’ll thank you not to interfere.”

Mrs. Goodenough flushed.

“Oh, very well,” said she. “Then it weren’t no sort o’ good my turnin’ out at this time ’o night. I thought as you might need a woman to make that poultice as I ’eard the doctor order for ’er chest if she should cough.”

“No, thank ye,” said he in the same tone. “I can make a poultice as well as most. But Daisy ain’t coughed once, and she don’t fancy poultices.”

“Oh, and she ain’t never to ’ave nothin’ as she don’t fancy, o’ course!” sneered the woman. “Ye’d best bring ’er up a borned lady! She won’t never ’ave no cause to ’ide ’er ’ead and be thankful for what she can get—no, not she, I s’pose!”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said the man. “She’ll ’ave what I can give ’er so long as I be above ground. It’d be queer if she didn’t and she my only one.”

“Yes, but ye won’t be above ground for ever, Tom Wycombe. Ye be old—and she but a mite. And then what’ll she do? Folk may look askance at her then as don’t now, mind ye! A pretty piece o’ goods you’re a-makin’ of ’er to stand what she’ll ’ave to stand!”

“What’ll she ’ave to stand?” asked Wycombe, suspicious, though he knew not of what.

“Well, I’ve give ye warnin’s enough,” began the busybody evasively, drawing her shawl pettishly around her preparatory to departure; but the man interrupted her with a muttered oath.

“Yes, warnin’s enough and to spare, thank ye,” said he. “Daisy’s to my likin’, and I don’t care to ’oo’s else’s she be or no! She be my child, and I’ll bring ’er up as I please and be damned to them as don’t approve.”

Mrs. Goodenough flushed. She was wont to be thought an oracle upon all subjects connected with children, because she had, in her youth, been a nurse for a year or so; and she had vowed in the village that she would make Tom Wycombe hear reason about this brat.

She had vowed it, and instead of that, she was being sworn at for her pains; it was too much.

She flushed, and her anger bubbled.

“For shame on ye, then, Tom Wycombe, for a godless ungrateful wretch!” shrieked she. “Oh, ye’ve ’ad warnin’s enough, ’ave ye! Well, ye shall jist ’ave this one afore I’ve done wi’ ye! She be yer own child, be she? Just you make quite sure o’ that afore ye swear at yer old friends, a-worritin’ as to ’ow ye shall bring ’er up!”

Her anger had bubbled and boiled over; it would not go down all at once, though she was frightened at the effect of her words.

For Wycombe had turned not white but blue: his features twitched, his lips trembled, but no words came from them.

“If it weren’t as I ha’ knowed ye this twenty year, and closed yer pore mother’s eyes for ye fifteen year ago come Martinmas, and was with that pore wife o’ yours in ’er trouble, I’d ha’ spoke long ago, I would,” said the woman, as though trying to find good reason and excuse for her hastiness. “I allers said as ye did ought to know and you wastin’ yerself on that brat! And them’s my feelin’s.”

Tom Wycombe found his voice.

“Get o’ my ’ouse!” stammered he, in a low sort of growl like a dog about to spring.

“Well, I never!” retorted the woman, but she turned a bit pale.

“Get o’ my ’ouse,” panted the man again, “and don’t dare come to me with no more cowardly lies!”

At the word the flush flew back to her cheek.

“Lies!” shrieked she. “Ask the neighbours, ask the ’ole parish, ask the parson if it be a lie as this ’ere brat be Ben Forester’s!”

A shudder ran through him: she noticed it.

“But, Lord love ye,” she said with a brutal laugh, “_you_ know well enough ’tain’t no lies! A blind bat ye was, I know, and so terrible sot on that woman, ye was the very one to be made a ninny on. But the wind do blow, and when smoke flies in yer face ye be bound to wonder where the fire be! _You_ knowed they was old sweet’earts same as others did! Why didn’t ye see to it as they shouldn’t ’ave a chance to get so chummy? Pore soul, she weren’t all bad-like, p’r’aps! It were kind of agin ’er will. I was sorry for ’er, I was, when she took to pinin’ wus ’n ever as soon as ’e were gone to sea, and she in the family way! Why, the little un’ was born afore ’er time, if ye mind, the very night the _Mary Jane_ went down with all ’ands. And as like that pore lad as two peas, it were, when I first dressed it! Why, you won’t go for to say Daisy be like you, I reckon! Nor yet like ’er mother, seein’ as yer wife was black-eyed as a gipsy. But there be none so blind as them as won’t see!”

Mrs. Goodenough had moved towards the door as she finished this speech, her back half turned towards the man, who was standing by the fender. She laughed again as she spoke the last words, the flush of anger still on her cheek.

But it paled once more as she turned to him for a last thrust.

He had stooped and had taken up the poker that lay at his feet: his face was horrible to behold. Wycombe had the name of a kindly man in deed, though surly and chary of speech; everybody said he had spoiled his wife, and was gentle to every woman for her sake; but Mrs. Goodenough opened his door and fled from him that night.

Tom Wycombe heaved a deep sigh.

That awful peevish, maddening voice rambling on, like cinders dropping on a wound, had nearly driven him crazy. If she had not gone away he would have hunted her forth with blows. He had never beaten a woman in his life—he had never raised his hand on a man—but he knew that he must have fallen upon that woman now.

Slowly—for he was cold and stiff though it was a June night—he dragged himself to the door and locked and bolted it. Then he went to the recess in which stood the child’s cot, and drew the curtains in front of it—curtains which he had put up with his own hand to keep her tiny chamber sacred, and to shield her tender little head from the night draughts.

After he had done that, he let himself drop wearily into his old chair by the empty hearth, and sat gazing vacantly into the dead embers. He could not think—he was stunned; only he felt old for the first time—very old, older than his fifty odd years.

Without, the summer night had, for a short space, dropped the whole cloak of its darkness upon the wide plain. Unconsciously, he was glad of it: glad that the moon was hidden behind a deep bank of cloud that had overlapped the horizon and was gradually creeping up the sky: glad that, as he looked through the door, left open because of the heat, he could scarcely make out the cabbages and sweet-peas in his terrace garden: glad that the darkness covered him—that the earth could not see his misery.

He sat, stupid, almost senselessly stupid, not trying to realize his woe. But gradually the blood flowed back to his brain, and with it the power of thought came to him; the woman’s words, though he had scarcely been conscious of them all at the time, came dropping back into his recollection, and, with the remembrance of each careless thrust, the tide of his conviction slowly but surely gathered strength till it flooded his reason and rushed in at last and swamped his soul in terrible certainty.

He had told the woman to get out of his house, he had longed to kill her for what she had said—but it was not because he had not believed her.

Alas! if he had not believed her perhaps he could have done it! But from the first word that she had spoken an awful fore-knowledge that he should have to _come_ to believe her had been borne in upon him.

Yes, Ben Forester, the good-looking, easy-going, pleasant-spoken sailor-lad whom his wife had known all her life down at the Harbour, who had been away at sea when he had wooed her—but who had come back—who had come back!

But why, if she loved Ben, had she married him? The answer was easy enough. She had a brute of a drunken father, and neither kith nor kin beside. Her only chance of escape from a life of slavery, spiced with blows, was marriage, and—fancied as she had been by many—he was the only one who had offered her that. Ben was a rolling stone that gathered no moss, and he was sure enough Ben had never offered her marriage. Why, yes, she had told him the very day he asked her last, that his was the only offer she had had!

He could hear her now, aye, and see her too! There—down on the beach, on a warm October night with the after-glow, still a fire in the west, casting rosy reflections over the sea, and the harvest moon rising red behind the hill.

Why had he been so eager to get her that he had never noticed how listless she was—how gently anxious to withdraw from his kiss? He called it all to mind now.... If Ben had not been away at sea—even then ... but he would have hated him a little sooner, that is all, and he would not have had those five years.

It was no use hating him now, he was dead. And Milly was dead and could never tell the truth....

Never tell the truth? Why, she _had_ told it! In a flash there rose up before him the scene of her death-bed—the moment that he had thought till then was the bitterest that life could bring to him.

“Ye won’t ’ate ’er, Tom! Ye won’t never visit it on _’er_, come what may! Oh, do promise me that!” she had cried. “’Tain’t _’er_ fault, no ways, Tom!”

And he had promised, not knowing what he promised. She had been weak, delirious, he had thought, and he had supposed she had meant that he was not to hate the child for being the cause of the wife’s death.

He remembered to have said in his haste that he _should_ so hate the little one, little guessing how it might ... how it _might_ come true!

Yes, he remembered that he had said: “I couldn’t never forgive ’er, Milly, if ye was to die and leave me ’cos of ’er.”

And then she had said what she had said.

But of course he knew now what she had meant by her passionate prayer! And he had promised that which he could not perform!

The little one moved and moaned in her sleep. He started instinctively towards her, the long habit of five years compelling; then remembrance rushed upon him and choked him, and he sat down again, moaning himself. Ah, could it be that those idle words of his were going to come true under this different stress—that he was going to hate her—his little maid whom he had reared and nursed as a mother nurses her first-born? Had he indeed blindly promised that which he could not perform?

Remembrance rushed in upon him.

Now that the veil was lifted the past lay vivid and hard before him, as the familiar marsh-land would lie to-morrow morning, when the kindly night had lifted her cloak and the whole world would smile, bright and garish, with never a covered place, with never a secret, and different, different from yesterday!

It had been a good world on the whole till now, but now he was fain to say in his haste that it had never been good! For he remembered that Milly had never had any happiness in it save that which she had had apart from him; he remembered that her sunniest days had been those when the _Mary Jane_ was in port, and she had asked leave to walk down to the harbour to see her father; or when Ben Forester had come up to the village—never, as he recollected, consenting to come in to the cottage—but certainly, oh, most certainly wandering with _her_ along the quiet lanes, or upon the lonely downs while he was at work.

Why remember any more? Why torture himself with further proof? He was quite soundly enough convinced. He saw that he ought to have guessed it long ago. He scarcely even blamed them—they were dead. He blamed himself: himself for having so often asked her to have him; himself for not guessing; himself for having been a fool, and for having been _old_. Yes, there had been the mischief—he had been too old to understand, and it was hard he had not been too old to love.

His anger was slowly dying out, but with the fire of his wrath was dying also the fire of his life.

He felt very old.

Milly had been taken from him, but Daisy had been left, and she had made life new for him—she had made him young. But Milly had gone from him afresh to-day, and she had taken Daisy away with her. There was no one left to him, and he knew that he was too old ever to begin caring for anything again—ever to make another clutch at life in its fulness.

His appointed days he would have to run, and to that end he must needs work that he might eat; but the savour of work was gone, for the savour of life was gone—with his child.

He sat there beside the dead hearth and faced it all out, while the cool dawn crept slowly into the sky behind the downs, first putting out the stars in the blue-black heaven, then softly washing it with faintest grey, then slowly streaking it and flushing it with violet and with rose and with gold.

Rising out of the plain, a red-roofed town caught the first of the morning light, its buildings clustered thick on a steep hill crowned by an ancient church that was pinnacled upon its summit, its feet girdled by the pale purple mists of the marsh which the sun would soon pierce and disperse.

Many a time had he seen that crown take the earliest wave of the morning as though it were the first thing that the new day looked at, but he had never noticed it before as he noticed it now, remembering that it was in that very church he had wed his wife; in that same town he had been wont to take his little maid to buy her new shoes, or the stuff for her best frocks.

But the dawn was waxing into daybreak; the clouds had vanished with the night; the town was reddening, the marsh was yellowing, the river was pearling silver-white: the sun rose.

The world was bright and light as he had foreseen it: full of hope, full of work, full also of prying curiosity and eager, cruel cheerfulness.

The day was here, darker for him now than the night—and he knew that he must face it.

He went to the little recess behind which was the child’s cot and drew aside the curtains.

She was sleeping still, and there was a little flush on her cheek that would have troubled him at any other moment. But as he looked he saw her with fresh eyes—he saw the round face, the dimple in the chin, the clear skin, the golden-brown curly hair, and even the eyes that, when open, were as veronicas in the sunshine: the skin, the eyes, the hair, and the dimple of Ben Forester. Yes, he saw it all now in one complete picture. His wife had been oval-faced, ox-eyed, sallow-hued—and he—he was but a sandy nondescript. He saw it—and one last great wave of hate swept over his heart. In the little person of the child he saw Ben Forester before him, and the morning sky swam red in his sight.

Daisy awoke. Daddie had forgotten to draw the chintz curtain that shaded the little window opposite to her bed, and the first sunbeam shot straight at her eyes and lifted the curtains there and shone into the blue depths beneath.

She stirred, rubbing the eyes with her chubby fists, then she called out “Dad!”

She did not generally need to call at all, but this morning she called twice—then a third time, lustily; then she sat up in her cot and looked round, and seeing the room empty she began to cry.

Still Dad did not come to his little maid—to his little maid who had unconsciously learnt to think that to cry was the safe way to get everything she wanted.

The garden door stood open; the scent of the morning dew on the earth came stealing in with here and there a whiff from the sweet-pea hedge beyond the path; the sun was slanting across the threshold, and had almost reached her bed. She slipped down and ran to the door with her feet bare; she knew that she should get a scolding for that, but she was frightened, and she risked it.

What she saw when she got to the threshold did not stop her tears.

The June lilies were a-bloom against the grey wall at the garden’s edge; the wall was low and the lilies were higher—they stood white and tall against the green marsh and the blue sea in the distance.

In front of the lilies on the grass plot Daddie knelt on the ground with his head bowed down on the garden wall. She was too little to be definitely alarmed, but she was vaguely frightened, and she cried louder than ever.

Then as he did not immediately respond she gathered her little night-dress about her and trotted across the wet turf towards him.

“Daddie, Daddie!” cried she, shaking him, “I wants to get up; I wants my breakfast!”

A shiver ran through him; then slowly he pulled himself up by the wall and sat on it as though he were afraid to stand on his feet; he passed his hand across his face and through his hair: Daisy thought his face looked very funny.

She stopped crying, but fright was still in the blue eyes as she gazed at him with her finger in her mouth. Instinctively she felt that something was amiss.

“Has ’oo been to bed in the garden?” she asked in a puzzled way—“be ’oo very sleepy and cold like me was when me tummled into the river?”

He nodded his head.

“Be ’oo still frightened ’cos me tummled in? She won’t never go for to do it again. ’Cos whatever would ’oo do wivout me?” said she, trying to console. But he only groaned, and she was sore puzzled.

Then his eyes fell on her little night-dress and on her bare, brown feet, and automatically he said what he would have said on any other occasion:

“Ye didn’t ought to ha’ come out with no frock and no shoes and stockings on,” said he. “Run in directly, like a good girl.”

He spoke in a low, dull voice; but she was reassured at getting the expected scolding, and stopped the whimper that she was about to start upon afresh.

“Ain’t ye comin’?” said she. “I want my breakfast.”

“Well, run in and get dressed, and I’ll get it for ye,” said he.

She looked at him again, still a little puzzled that he did not kiss her, that he did not hasten to do all her bidding, but on the whole consoled, since things seemed to be resuming their ordinary routine of getting dressed and having breakfast.

So she took her finger out of her mouth and gathered up her night-dress again and ran back through the morning dew.

On the threshold she turned to see if he were coming; the sun shone on her golden head and into her blue eyes; her little robe gleamed white in it, but on her creamy cheeks was the flush of recent sleep: she was like the morning dew herself—and like the spring-time.

He gazed at her fascinated—but he gazed as one who looks through a heavy mist into a great distance; he gazed at her as though she were already only a memory.

Not an hour afterwards he was leading her out into the distance himself. No soul had been stirring in the village as the two had passed through the silent little street and under the old gateway, down the hill.

Alone and unnoticed they took their way across the wide marsh that glistened with the sunlight on the mists of the night; she was prattling gaily—the “long journey” on which he had told her they were going, was a great treat, and so was the wearing of her best blue frock on a week-day: but his face was heavy, and he did not look at her.

Daisy jumped along at his side; her saucy chatter which had called many a smile to the dull face where others rarely saw anything but gloom—woke never a ghost of one to-day.

But she was too much excited to notice that.

“Be we goin’ to buy a new frock?” she cried in high glee as they neared the town on the marsh. “It were a good job it were the old one as I messed when I tummled into the river, weren’t it, Dad? And it were a good job I weren’t drownded, weren’t it?” she added, loth to leave a subject which she felt invested her with an additional importance.

He groaned, but she was too much pre-occupied to hear it.

“We’ll ’ave a pink frock, this time, won’t we, Dad? ’cos it were such a good job I didn’t get drownded,” she insisted. “You said we wouldn’t ’ave blue again, and I want pink, so I will ’ave it, won’t I?” And she kept on repeating “won’t I?” until he was forced to reply.

But he only said: “We ain’t goin’ to buy no frocks to-day.” And as he said it he struck off towards the lower road that skirted the base of the hill.

“But I’d rather see the shops, Daddie,” declared she. And as he took no notice, she added fretfully: “’Tain’t the right way to the sweet shop—no ’tain’t.”

It was the first time he had ever refused her an innocent wish; his heart tightened as he answered:

“We ain’t got no time to buy sweets to-day. We’se got a long way to go. Ye must come along like a good girl, and maybe ye shall ’ave some sweets another time.”

“Does ’oo promise?” said she authoritatively.

And with the tightening at his heart again, he said: “I promise!”

They struck out again on to the sun-scorched marsh-land beyond the town. She was a sunny-souled babe, and she was reconciled, but as the heat began to pour down on them, she began to flag.