"I'm grateful, Miss Privet," she said. "We Brownrigs ain't much, but we're grateful. I hope you won't let 'em bury my handsome gel till I've seen her," she went on, with a manner pitifully wheedling. "She was my gel before she was anybody else's, and it ain't goin' to hurt nobody for me to see her. I'd like to see that shroud."
How much natural grief, how much vanity, how much maudlin excitement was in her wish, I cannot tell; but manifestly there was nothing to do but to have the coffin opened. When the face of the dead woman had once more been uncovered to the light, the dreadful mother hung over it raving and chuckling. Now she shrieked for her handsome Jule, and wailed in a way that pierced to the marrow; then she would fall to imbecile laughter over the shroud, "just like a lady's,—but then Jule was a lady after she was married." Miss Charlotte, Tom, and I stood apart, while Mr. Thurston tried to get the excited creature away; and the grave-diggers looked on with open curiosity. I could not help thinking how they would tell the story, and of how Tom's name would be bandied about in connection with it. Sometimes I feel as if it were harder to bear the vulgarities of life than actual sorrows. Father used to say that pain is personal, but vulgarity a violation of general principles. This is one of his sayings which I do not feel that I understand entirely, and yet I have some sense of what he meant. A thing which is vulgar seems to fly in the face of all that should be, and outrages our sense of the fitness of things.
Well, somehow we got through it all. It is over, and Julia is in her grave. I cannot but think that it is better if she does not remember; if she has gone out like an ill-burning candle. Nothing is left now but to consider what can be done for the lives that we can reach. I am afraid that the mother is beyond me, but for Tom I can, perhaps, do something. For baby I should do much.
April 25. It is so strange to have a child in the house. I feel queer and disconcerted when I think of it, although things seem to go easily enough. The responsibility of taking charge of a helpless life overwhelms me, and I do not dare to let my thoughts go when they begin to picture possibilities in the future. I wonder that I ever dared to undertake to have baby; and yet her surroundings will be so much better here than with the dreadful Brownrig grandmother that she must surely be better for them. In any case I had to help Tom.
I proposed a permanent nurse for baby, but Hannah and Rosa took up arms at once, and all but upbraided me with having cast doubts on their ability and faithfulness. Surely we three women among us should be able to take care of one morsel, although none of us ever had babies of our own.
April 29. Nothing could be more absurd than the way in which the entire household now revolves about baby. All of us are completely slaves already, although the way in which we show it is naturally different. Rosa has surrendered frankly and without reservations. She sniffed and pouted at the idea of having the child "of that Brownrig creature" in the house. She did not venture to say this to me directly, of course; but she relieved her mind by making remarks to Hannah when I could not help hearing. From the moment baby came, however, Rosa succumbed without a struggle. It is evident she is born with the full maternal instinct, and I see if she does not marry her Dennis, or some more eligible lover, and take herself away before baby is old enough to be much affected, the child will be spoiled to an unlimited extent. As for Hannah, her method of showing her affection is to exhibit the greatest solicitude for baby's spiritual welfare, mingled with the keenest jealousy of Rosa's claims on baby's love. I foresee that I shall have pretty hard work to protect my little daughter from Hannah's well-meant but not very wise theology; and how to do this without hurting the good old soul's feelings may prove no easy problem.
As for myself—of course I love the little, helpless, pink thing; the waif from some outside unknown brought here into a world where everything is made so hard to her from the start. She woke this afternoon, and looked up at me with Tom Webbe's eyes, lying there as sweet and happy as possible, so that I had to kiss and cuddle her, and love her all at once. It is wonderful how a baby comes out of the most dreadful surroundings as a seedling comes out of the mud, so clean and fresh. I said this to Aunt Naomi yesterday, and she sniffed cynically.
"Yes," she answered, "but a weed grows into a weed, no matter how it looks when it is little."
The thought is dreadful to me. I will not believe that because a human being is born out of weakness and wickedness there is no chance for it. The difference, it seems to me, is that every human being has at least the germs of good as well as of bad, and one may be developed as well as the other. Baby must have much that is good and fine from her father, and the thing I have to do is to see to it that the best of her grows, and the worse part dies for want of nourishment. Surely we can do a great deal to aid nature. Perhaps my baby cannot help herself much, at least not for years and years; but if she is kept in an atmosphere which is completely wholesome, whatever is best in her nature must grow strong and crowd down everything less noble.