III
Thenceforward, as day followed day, Aunt Rachel rocked no more; and with the packing and partial melting of the snow the gipsies up at the caravans judged it time to be off about their business. It was on the morning of Christmas Eve that they came down in a body to the Abbey Farm to express their thanks to those who had befriended them; but the bailiff was not there. He and the farm men had ceased work, and were down at the church, practising the carols. Only Aunt Rachel sat, still and knitting, in the black walnut chair; and the children played on the floor.
A night in the toy-box had apparently bred discontent between Jack and Flora—or perhaps they sought to keep their countenances before the world; at any rate, they sat on opposite sides of the room, Jack keeping boon company with the lead soldiers, his spouse reposing, her lead-balanced eyes closed, in the broken clockwork motor-car. With the air of performing some vaguely momentous ritual, the children were kissing one another beneath the bunch of mistletoe that hung from the centre beam. In the intervals of kissing they told one another in whispers that Aunt Rachel was not very well, and Angela woke Flora to tell her that Aunt Rachel had Brown Titus also.
"Stay you here; I will give the lady dear our thanks," said Annabel to the group of gipsies gathered about the porch; and she entered the great hall-kitchen. She approached the chair in which Aunt Rachel sat.
There was obeisance in the bend of her body, but command in her long almond eyes, as she spoke.
"Lady dear, you must rock or you cannot live."
Aunt Rachel did not look up from her work.
"Rocking, I should not live long," she replied.
"We are leaving you."
"All leave me."
"Annabel fears she has taken away your comfort."
"Only for a little while. The door closes behind us, but it opens again."
"But for that little time, rock—"
Aunt Rachel shook her head.
"No. It is finished. Another has seen…. Say good-bye to your companions; they are very welcome to what they have had; and God speed you."
"They thank you, lady dear…. Will you not forget that Annabel saw, and rock?"
"No more."
Annabel stooped and kissed the hand that bore the betrothal hoop of pearls. The other hand Aunt Rachel placed for a moment upon the smoky head of the babe in the sling. It trembled as it rested there, but the tremor passed, and Annabel, turning once at the porch, gave her a last look. Then she departed with her companions.
That afternoon, Jack and Flora had shaken down to wedlock as married folk should, and sat together before the board spread with the dolls' tea-things. The pallid light in the great hall-kitchen faded; the candles were lighted; and then the children, first borrowing the stockings of their elders to hang at the bed's foot, were packed off early—for it was the custom to bring them down again at midnight for the carols. Aunt Rachel had their good-night kisses, not as she had them every night, but with the special ceremony of the mistletoe.
Other folk, grown folk, sat with Aunt Rachel that evening; but the old walnut chair did not move upon its rockers. There was merry talk, but Aunt Rachel took no part in it. The board was spread with ale and cheese and spiced loaf for the carol-singers; and the time drew near for their coming.
When at midnight, faintly on the air from the church below, there came the chiming of Christmas morning, all bestirred themselves.
"They'll be here in a few minutes," they said; "somebody go and bring the children down;" and within a very little while subdued noises were heard outside, and the lifting of the latch of the yard gate. The children were in their nightgowns, hardly fully awake; a low voice outside was heard giving orders; and then there arose on the night the carol.
"Hush!" they said to the wondering children; "listen!…"
It was the Cherry Tree Carol that rose outside, of how sweet Mary, the
Queen of Galilee, besought Joseph to pluck the cherries for her Babe, and
Joseph refused; and the voices of the singers, that had begun
hesitatingly, grew strong and loud and free.
"… and Joseph wouldn't pluck the cherries," somebody was whispering to the tiny Angela….
"Mary said to Cherry Tree,
'Bow down to my knee,
That I may pluck cherries
For my Babe and me.'"
the carollers sang; and "Now listen, darling," the one who held Angela murmured….
"_The uppermost spray then
Bowed down to her knee;
'Thus you may see, Joseph,
These cherries are for me.'
"'O, eat your cherries, Mary,
Give them your Babe now;
O, eat your cherries, Mary,
That grew upon the bough._'"
The little Angela, within the arms that held her, murmured, "It's the gipsies, isn't it, mother?"
"No, darling. The gipsies have gone. It's the carol-singers, singing because Jesus was born."
"But, mother … it is the gipsies, isn't it?… 'Cos look…"
"Look where?"
"At Aunt Rachel, mother … The gipsy woman wouldn't go without her little baby, would she?"
"No, she wouldn't do that."
"Then has she lent it to Aunt Rachel, like I lend my new toys sometimes?"
The mother glanced across at Aunt Rachel, and then gathered the night-gowned figure more closely.
"The darling's only half awake," she murmured…. "Poor Aunt Rachel's sleepy too…."
Aunt Rachel, her head dropped, her hands lightly folded as if about some shape that none saw but herself, her face again ineffable with that sweet and peaceful smile, was once more rocking softly in her chair.