NEW HOPES.
| "I am a friend to them and you." |
| Winter's Tale. |
It was a good thing Tim had some new ground of hope, for otherwise the next day or two would have sadly distressed him. He never once could get near the children. And, what he found very strange, Diana herself seemed to be doing her utmost to keep him from them. Two or three times, especially when Mick or the Missus happened to be near, she roughly pushed him back when he was making his way to the door of the van, where Duke and his sister were. And at first the boy was not only surprised, but rather offended.
"What for will you not let me play with them a bit?" he said to her, half inclined to appeal to Mick, who did not interfere.
"They've no need of you—keep out of my way," Diana answered roughly, at which Mick and the others laughed as if it was a very good joke, for hitherto Diana had been always accused of "favouring" the boy.
Tim looked up resentfully. He had it on his tongue—for after all he was only a child—to say something which might have done harm never to be undone, for he could not understand Diana. But something in her face, as she looked at him steadily, stopped the words of reproach as they rose to his lips.
"You'll make an end of them, you will, if you keep them choked up in there all day," he said sullenly. "Why can't you let 'em out for a bit of a run with me, like you've done before?"
"I'll let them out when it suits me, and not before. It's none of your business," she replied, while adding in a lower tone that no one else could overhear: "I'd never have thought you such a fool, Tim;" and Tim, feeling rather small,—for he began to understand her a little,—walked off.
All this was at what they called dinner-time, when the vans generally halted for an hour or so and hitherto—even when they were travelling too quickly for the children to have walked beside for a change, as they had sometimes done when going slowly—Mick or Diana had always let them out at this hour for a breath of fresh air. But to-day, though it was beautifully fine and the sun was shining most temptingly, poor Duke and Pamela had to be content with the sight of it through the tiny little window in the side of the van, which Diana opened, and with such air as could get in by the same means. It was hot and stuffy inside, and their little heads ached with being jolted along, and with having had no exercise such as they were accustomed to. Still they did not look altogether miserable or unhappy, as they tried to eat the dinner the gipsy girl had brought them on a tin plate, from the quickly-lighted fire by the hedge, where the old hag who did the cooking for the party had been stewing away at a mess in a great pot. She ladled out the contents all round for the others, but Diana helped herself. She picked out the nicest bits she could see for the two little prisoners, and stood by them for a minute or two to see if they really were going to eat.
"I'll come back in a bit to see if it's all gone," she said, when she had seen them at work, "and remember what I said this morning. That'll help to make you eat hearty."
"Her's very kind," said Duke; but as he spoke he laid down the coarse two-pronged fork Diana had given him to eat with, and seemed glad of an excuse to rest in his labours for a while. "But I can't eat this, can you, sister?"
Pamela looked up—she had got a small bone in her fingers, at which she was trying to nibble.
"I'm pretending to be Toby eating a bone," she said gravely. "Sometimes it makes it seem nicer."
"I don't think so," said Duke. "It only makes it worser to think of Toby," and his voice grew very doleful, as if he were going to cry.
"Now don't, bruvver," said Pamela. "Let's think of what Diana said."
"What was it?" said Duke. "Say it again."
"'Twas that, p'raps, if us was very good and did just ezactly what her tells us, us'd go somewhere soon, where us'd be very happy," said Pamela. "Where do you fink it can be, Duke? Us mustn't tell nobody, not even Tim; but I don't mind, for Diana said she thought Tim'd go too. Do you fink she meant" (and here poor little Pam, who had learnt unnatural caution already, glanced round her—as if any one could have been hidden in the small space of the van!—and lowered her voice)—"that she meant us was to go home again to dear Grandmamma and Grandpapa?"
Duke shook his head.
"No," he said, "they'll never send us home now. Mick'd be put in prison if he took us home. I know that. I heard what they was saying about it one day when they didn't know I was there. And it's too far away—it's a dreadful way away. We can never go home. I daresay Grandpapa and Grandmamma and everybody's dead by now," concluded Duke, who talked with a sort of reckless composure sometimes, altogether too much for Pamela, who burst into tears.
"Oh bruvver!" she cried between her sobs, "don't talk like that. I fink God's too good to have let dear Grandpapa and Grandmamma die. And us has said our prayers such many many times about going home. I'm sure Grandpapa would never put Mick in prison if us asked him not, and p'raps if Mick was sure of that he'd take us home. Oh don't you fink us might go and ask him," and she started up.
"Us can't promise it; Grandpapa'd have to do it. It'd be his dooty," said Duke sternly—his ideas on all subjects were very grim at present—"he'd have to stop Mick going and stealing away other children like he did us. And Diana said us mustn't speak to nobody about what she told us."
"I don't care about it if it isn't that us is going home," said Pamela, crying quietly. "I don't care about gold frocks like fairies and all that if dear Grandmamma and Grandpapa can't see us."
Duke looked at her gloomily.
"P'raps Diana meant us'd soon be going to heaven," he said at last. "I heard them saying us'd 'not stand it long,' and I know that means going to die."
"I don't care," sobbed Pamela again, "if Grandpapa and Grandmamma are dead, heaven'd be the best place for us to go to;" and regardless of all Diana had said to her about trying to eat and to keep up her spirits, the little girl let the tin plate, with the greasy meat and gravy, slip off her knees on to the floor, and, leaning her head on the hard wooden bench, she went off in a fit of piteous and hopeless sobbing. In a moment Duke's arms were around her, and he was kissing and hugging and doing his best to console her.
"Dear little sister," he cried, "don't be so very unhappy. It was very naughty of me to say dear Grandpapa and Grandmamma and everybody would be dead."
"And Toby," interrupted Pamela. "Did you mean Toby too?"
Duke considered.
"No, I don't think I meant Toby. He must be a good deal younger than Grandpapa and Grandmamma, and I don't think he'd be quite so unhappy about us as they'd be."
"If I'd been Toby I'd have come to look for us," said Pamela, crying now less violently. "Us could have wrote a letter and tied it to his collar, and then Grandpapa could have come to look for us. Toby can run so fast," and she was going on to describe what she would have done in Toby's place when the little door of the van opened and Diana reappeared. Her face clouded as she looked at the children.
"Crying again! Oh missie," she said reproachfully, "that's not good of you. You'll cry yourself ill, and then——" Diana in turn looked round and lowered her voice, "have you forgotten the secret I told you? You'll never get away where you'd like to be if you make yourself ill. And scarce a bite of dinner have you touched," she went on, looking at the bits of meat reposing beside the overturned plate.
Pamela lifted up her tear-swollen face and drew herself out of Duke's arms, to fling herself into Diana's.
"If us is going to die, it's no good eating," she said.
"Who said you was a-going to die?" exclaimed the gipsy girl.
"Duke and I was talking, and us thought p'raps heaven was the nice place you said us'd go to if us was good," replied Pamela.
Diana gave a little laugh, half sad and half bitter.
"It isn't here you'll learn much about going to that place," she said. "But that wasn't what I meant. Listen, master and missy; but, mind you, never you say one word,—now hush and listen," and in a very low voice she went on: "To-night we'll get to a big town where there's a fair. Mick's got it all settled to give you to a—a gentleman there, who'd dress you up fine and teach you to sing and to dance."
"Would he be kind to us?" asked both children eagerly. Diana shook her head.
"Maybe, and maybe not. That's just why I cannot stand by and see you given to him," said Diana, half as if speaking to herself. "It was a bad day's work when he took them," she went on. Then suddenly rousing herself: "Listen children, again," she said. "If that man as I'm speaking of comes to see you to-night, as he most likely will, you must, for my sake and your own, speak very pretty, and try to laugh and look happy and answer all he says. It's only for once. For to-morrow—I can't say for sure to-morrow—but I think it will be, and I can't say the time—I'm going to do my best to get you sent back to where you should never have been taken from." She stopped a moment as if to judge of the effect of her words. For an instant the children did not speak; they just stared at her with their blue eyes opened to their widest extent, their little white faces looking whiter than before, till gradually a rush of rosy colour spread over them, the blue eyes filled with tears, and both Duke and Pamela flung themselves into the gipsy girl's arms.
"Home, do you mean, Diana?" they said. "Home to our own dear Grandpapa and Grandmamma?"
"And Toby," echoed Pam.
Diana clasped them tight; her eyes, that for many a day had not shed a tear, were running over.
"Yes, home, my blessed darlings," she said.
"But you'll come with us" was the next idea. "You've been so good to us. Grandpapa'd never put you in prison, Diana."
They sat up now and looked at her anxiously.
"Perhaps not," she said, shaking her head nevertheless. "But I dursn't go with you. I must stay here to stop them going the right way after you for one thing. And then—you didn't know it, but, bad as he is, Mick's my brother. I dursn't get him into trouble."
"Mick's your bruvver!" repeated Pam; "the same as bruvver is to me. And he speaks so naughty to you, Diana. I don't fink he can be your bruvver. I fink you've made a mistake. Oh do come wif us, dear Diana. You and Tim."
"Yes for Tim, it'd be the best thing he could do, and the best chance for you to get safe home. But for me," and again Diana shook her head. "Let alone Mick, I'm only a poor wild gipsy girl," she said. "I couldn't take to your pretty quiet ways; no, it'd kill me. It's in the gipsy blood—we must for ever be on the go. It wasn't so bad long ago when father and mother was alive. Father was honest—he was a gentleman gipsy, he was. But Mick's another sort. If I could get away from him I would—but not so as to get him into trouble. I'll try some day to get among a better lot. There's bad and good among us, though you mightn't believe it. But here am I wasting time talking of myself, and I want to tell you all I'm thinking of. First, do you know the name of the village or town nearest where you live?"
"Sandle'ham," said the children.
"But is that near your home?" pursued Diana. The twins shook their heads. They didn't know.
"Us was there once," said Duke. "But it was a long time ago. It seemed a very far way."
"And is there no village nearer?"
"Yes, of course," said Pamela. "There's where Barbara Twiss and the butcher Live, and where the church is."
"And what's it called?"
"What's it called?" repeated the children. "Why, it's just called the village. It isn't called anything else."
"That's what I was afraid of," said Diana. "And it was all new country thereabouts to me. Well, there's nothing for it but to make for Sandle'ham, and once there Tim must go to the police."
At this dreadful word the children set up a shriek, but Diana quickly stopped them.
"Hush, hush!" she said, "you'll have them all coming to see what's the matter. The police won't hurt you, you silly children. They'd be your best friends if only they could find you. I'd rather have had nothing to say to them, for fear they should get too much out of Tim, but I see no other way to get you safe home. But now we mustn't talk any more, only remember all I've said if that man comes. And to-morrow, when I give you the word, you must be ready," she went on impressively; "you won't be afraid with Tim. I'll do the best I can, but we'll have to trust a deal to Tim; and you must do just what he tells you, and never mind if it seems strange and hard. It's the only chance for them," she added to herself, with a strange longing in her beautiful dark eyes, as she again left them, "but if I could but have taken them safe back myself I'd have felt easier in my mind."
She put in her head again to warn the children not to try to speak to Tim, and if they must speak to each other to do so in a whisper.
But at first their hearts seemed too full to speak. They just sat with their arms round each other, too bewildered and almost stunned with the good news to take it in.
"Bruvver," said Pamela at last, "don't you fink it's because us has said our prayers such many many times?"
"P'raps," replied Duke.
"And you don't fink now what—you know what you said about Grandpapa and Grandmamma," said Pamela, her voice faltering.
Duke hesitated. He was not quite generous enough to own that his gloomy prophecies had been a good deal the result of his being tired and cross and contradictory. In his heart he had no misgiving such as he had expressed to Pamela—he had no idea that what he had said might really have been true.
"You don't fink so, bruvver?" persisted Pam.
"I daresay if us goes back very soon it'll make them better even if they are very ill. I think us had better put that in our prayers too—for us to get back to them so quick that there won't be time for them to get very ill. I wouldn't mind them being just a little ill, would you, sister? It'd be so nice to see them getting better."
"I'd rather they wasn't ill at all," said Pamela, "but I daresay God'll understand. Oh I wish it was to-morrow! don't you, bruvver?"
"Hush," said Duke. "Diana said us mustn't talk loud—and see, sister, they're going to put the horse in and go on again. Oh how tired I am of going along shaking like this all day! And don't you remember, sister, when us was little us used to think it would be so nice to live in a cart like a house, like this?"
"Us never thought how nugly it would be inside," said Pamela, glancing round the little square space in which they were with great dissatisfaction. And no wonder—the waggon was stuffed with bundles and packages of all shapes and sizes; on the sides hung dirty coats and cloaks belonging to some of the tribe, and the only pleasant object to be seen was a heap of nice clean-looking baskets and brooms, which had been brought in here, as the basket-cart was already filled to overflowing. For the gipsies expected to do a good trade in these things at the Crookford fair.
"I wish Diana would give us one of these nice baskets to take home—a present to Grandmamma," continued Pamela, as her glance fell upon them.
"You're very silly, sister," said Duke. "Don't you understand that us is going to run away, like Tim has always been wanting. And Diana's going to help us to run away. Mick mustn't know and nobody, not till us is too far for them to catch us. I think it's a great pity Diana told you; you're too little to understand."
"I'm as big as you, bruvver, and my birfday's the same. You're very unkind to say I'm littler than you, and I do understand."
She spoke indignantly, but the last words ended in tears. Poor little people!—life in a gipsy caravan was not the sort of thing to improve their tempers. But the dispute was soon followed by a reconciliation, and then they decided it was better not to talk any more about what Diana had told them, but to "make plans" inside their heads about how nice it would be to go home again; how they would knock at the door so softly, and creep into the parlour where Grandmamma would be sitting by the fire with Toby at her feet, and Grandpapa at the table with the newspaper; and how they would hug them both! At which point you will see the plan making was no longer confined to the "inside of their heads."
"And Duke," added Pamela half timidly. "Us must tell all about the broken bowl. And us must always tell everything like that to Grandmamma."
"Yes," said Duke.
"I fink my voice that Grandmamma told us about did tell me to tell," pursued the little girl thoughtfully. "Didn't yours, bruvver?"
"I sometimes think it did," said Duke with unusual humility. "I think it must have been that I wouldn't listen. You would have listened, sister. It was much more my fault than yours. I shall tell that."
"No, no, it was bof our faults," said Pamela. "But I fink Grandpapa and Grandmamma will be so very pleased to have us that they won't care whose fault it was."
And then the two little creatures leant their heads each on the other's, and tried to keep themselves steady against the rough jolting, till by degrees—and it was the best thing they could have done—they both fell asleep, and were sleeping as peacefully as in their own white cots at home when, later in the afternoon, Diana got into the waggon again, and, rolling up an old shawl, carefully laid it as a pillow under the two fair heads. It was getting dusk by now, and the gipsies all disappeared into the vans, for they began to drive too quickly for it to be possible for them to keep up by walking alongside.
The gipsy girl sat there gazing at the two little faces she had learnt to love. She gazed at them with a deep tenderness in her dark eyes. She knew it was almost the last time she should see them, but it was not of that she was thinking.
"If I could but have taken them back myself and seen them safe!" she kept thinking. "But I daren't. With Tim no one will notice them much, but with me it'd be different. And it'd get Mick and the others into trouble, even if I didn't care for myself. It's safer for them too for me to stay behind. But how to get them safe out of Crookford! I must speak to Tim. And I don't care what Mick says or does after this. I'll never, never again have a hand in this kind of business; he may steal horses and poultry and what he likes, but I'll have no more to do with stealing children. If ill had come, or did come, to these innocent creatures I'd never know another easy moment."