“Yes. He’s got a girl now. He says she’s the one who used to sing to him in the brook.”
This statement surprised but did not enlighten me. I did not know whether to understand that the Pagan employed a maid or was somehow in possession of a daughter. It appeared, however, that the latter was the case. And it furthermore appeared—at least to my subliminal consciousness—that in Mary a tacit forbearance with her master’s failings, as being more of the head than of the heart, was less unquestioning than it had been. It may have been that I saw more than there was. I generally do. At any rate, when it occurred to me to ask whether Marvin still kept up his bar, I certainly touched something. I could see it in the way Mary told me that everything had changed since the girl came. I felt for her. I felt, that is, as if some bungler had got hold of my rather original little sketch and had finished it off in the conventional old fashion.
Marvin had a child. That was the bare fact. But the full story I did not get then. Nor, for that matter, do I suppose I ever shall. I did pick up one thing and another, though, and the result of my pickings I shall now attempt to set forth. It will take less time if I do it in my own way. Particularly as I have no love for the dialect in which my information came to me. If Truth lie within that pale, let me forever go without!
The affair must have caused a good deal of scandal at the time. Marshbury took even less pride in the possession of a Potter’s Field than in its lack of tenants. And when a strange woman turned up from somewhere, and had the ill grace to die in the Poorhouse, people felt that their good intentions had been imposed upon. Although they did grant that it was the best thing the woman had ever done.... But the worst of it was that a shock-headed little girl of nine or ten was left on the Overseers’ hands—a small imp into whom her mother’s devil had returned with seven wickeder than himself. It took no time at all for the matron of the Poorhouse to shake her head and sigh: “Blood will tell!” Indeed, she openly expressed surprise that the Most High in his mercy had neglected to take the child unto himself at the same time as the mother. It certainly would have saved Mrs. Lovejoy an infinity of trouble. The mischief that child was not up to! She was as unmanageable as quicksilver. Her worst trick though, was running away; and she had a passion for playing in the brook of which no amount of whipping could cure her. Time and again the countryside was beaten by night, the brook dragged from one end to the other, only to have her turn up safe and sound and very hungry, without any idea where she had been or what anxiety she had caused. Nothing ever happened to her, either. It was so notorious that Mrs. Lovejoy would often have been glad to let her go, just to have the child off her mind.
It did not take this inquiring young lady long to discover Marvin. Two causes operated powerfully toward that effect. The first of them was that she had been warned against him, as being the nearest and most dangerous of her neighbours. The second was that her brook ran through his orchard. Accordingly she waded singing upon him one day as he sat with his book under an apple-tree.
“Well!” he exclaimed, as the childish voice suddenly stopped and he looked up to find a bare-legged little apparition holding scant skirts in both hands above the water. “Who are you?”
“I’m Sassy,” she answered, taking him in with big black eyes. “That ain’t my real name, though. The old woman says it ain’t Christian. My real name’s Daphne.”
“Well, well!” ejaculated Marvin. “Mary!” he called to that young woman, who happened to be out at the pump, “here’s the naiad of the brook come to pay me a visit!” And to the child, who balanced herself on a smooth stone while she splashed an overhanging branch with her foot: “What old woman is that?”
“Mis’ Lovejoy,” answered she of the unruly hair.
“Lovejoy,” repeated Marvin. “Love-Joy. That’s a nice name.” He was a little at a loss for something to say. “Is she your mother?”