An unprejudiced observer might have thought that Mrs Gray had some reason for her high opinion of Zoe, for she was certainly a very much prettier baby than the majority in Downside, who were generally of the dumpling type, with two currants for eyes. And she was also a very good baby—'And easy enough too for anyone to be good,' would be the comment of any listening Downside mother, 'when they always gets their own way!' which, however, is not so obvious a truth as regards babies under a year as it is of older people. Certainly to be put to bed awake and smiling at seven o'clock, and thereupon to go to sleep, and sleep soundly, till seven o'clock next morning, shows an amount of virtue in a baby which is unhappily rare, though captious readers may attribute it rather to good health and digestion, which may also be credited, perhaps, with much virtue in older people.
'And I do say,' Mrs Gray was never tired of repeating to anyone who had patience to listen, 'as nothing wouldn't upset that blessed little angel, as it makes me quite uneasy thinking as how she's too good to live, as is only natural to mortal babies to have the tantrums now and then, if it 's only from stomach-ache.'
The only person who seemed to sympathise in the Grays' admiration for the baby was the organist. It was really wonderful, Mrs Gray said, the fancy he had taken to the child—'Ay, and the child to him too, perking up and looking quite peart like, as soon as ever his step come along the path.' The wonder was mostly in the baby taking to him, in Mrs Gray's opinion, as there was nothing to be surprised at in anyone taking to the baby; but 'he, with no chick nor child of his own, and with that quiet kind of way with him as ain't general what children like; though don't never go for to tell me as Mr Robins is proud and stuck up, as I knows better.'
There was a sort of fascination about the child to the organist, and when he found that no one seemed to have the slightest suspicion as to who the baby really was, or why he should be interested in it, he gave way more and more to the inclination to go to the Grays' cottage, and watch the little thing, and trace the likeness that seemed every day to grow more and more strong to his dead wife and to her baby girl.
Perhaps anyone sharper and less simple than Mrs Gray might have grown suspicious of some other reason than pure, disinterested admiration for little Zoe, as the cause which brought the organist so often to her house; and perhaps, if the cottage had stood in the village street, it might have occasioned remarks among the neighbours; but he had always, of late years, been so reserved and solitary a man that no notice was taken of his comings and goings, and if his way took him frequently over the hillside and down the lane—why, it was a very nice walk, and there was nothing to be surprised at.
The only person who might have noticed where he went, and how long he sometimes lingered, was Jane Sands, and I cannot help thinking that in old days she would have done so; but then, as we have seen, she was not quite the same Jane Sands she used to be, or at any rate not quite what we used to fancy her, devoted above all things to her master and his interests, but much absorbed in her own matters, and in those Stokeley friends of hers. She had asked for a rise in her wages too, which Mr Robins assented to; but without that cordiality he might have done a few months before, and he strongly suspected that when quarter-day came, the wages went the same way as those baby clothes, for there was certainly no outlay on her own attire, which, though always scrupulously neat, seemed to him more plain and a shade more shabby than it used to be.
As the summer waxed and waned, the love for little Zoe grew and strengthened in the organist's heart. It seemed a kind of possession, as if a spell had been cast on him; in old times it might have been set down to witchcraft; and, indeed, it seemed something of the sort to himself, as if a power he could not resist compelled him to seek out the child—to think of it, to dream of it, to have it so constantly in his mind and thoughts, that from there it found its way into his heart. To us, who know his secret, it may be explained as the tie of blood, the drawing of a man, in spite of himself, towards his own kith and kin; blood is thicker than water, and the organist could not reject this baby grandchild from his natural feelings, though he might from his house. And beyond and above this explanation, we may account for it, as we may for most otherwise unaccountable things, as being the leading of a wise Providence working out a divine purpose.
Perhaps the punishment that was to come to the organist by the hands of little Zoe—those fat, dimpled, brown hands, that flourished about in the air so joyously when he whistled a tune to her—began from the very first, for it was impossible to think of the child without thinking of the mother, and to look at Zoe without seeing the likeness that his fond fancy made far plainer than it really was; and to think of the mother and to see her likeness was to remember that meeting in the churchyard, and the sad, pleading voice and hollow cough, and the cold denial he had given, and the beating rain and howling wind of that dreary night. He grew by degrees to excuse himself to himself, and to plead that he was taken unawares, and that, if she had not taken his answer as final, but had followed him to the house, he should certainly have relented.
And then he went a step further. I think it was one July day, when the baby had been more than usually gracious to him, and he had ventured, in Mrs Gray's absence, to lift her out of the cradle and carry her down the garden path, finding her a heavier weight than when he had first taken her to the Grays' cottage. She had clapped her hands at a great, velvet-bodied humble bee; she had nestled her curly head into his neck, and with the feeling of her soft breath on his cheek he had said to himself: 'If Edith were to come back now, I would forgive her for the baby's sake, for Zoe's sake.' He forgot that he had need to be forgiven too. 'She will come back,' he told himself, 'she will come back to see the child. She could not be content to hear nothing more of her baby and never to see her, in spite of what she said. And when she comes it shall be different, for Zoe's sake.'
He wondered if Jane Sands knew where Edith was, or ever heard from her. He sometimes fancied that she did, and yet, if she knew nothing of the baby, it was hardly likely that she had any correspondence with the mother. He was puzzled, and more than once he felt inclined to let her into the secret, or at least drop some hint that might lead to its discovery.