She could hardly bring her trembling lips to utter the name, but it disarmed the angry protest she had read in his face. The child which had cost Penelope’s life! how could he regard it with anything but aversion? but how she had loved to think of it, planned for it, worked for it! He turned to Lady Haigh.
“I will see the—the child at once, if you please, that you may feel more at ease. Then Tarleton must take you in hand. Haigh must not be left alone, as I am.”
The ayah stood in the doorway, with a curiously wrapped-up bundle in her arms. Lady Haigh took it from her, and started in surprise, for on the child’s forehead was a large black smudge, something in the shape of a cross.
“Who did this?” she asked sharply. “Please take her, Colonel Keeling. My arms are so weak.”
“My Memsahib did it herself,” whimpered the ayah sullenly, with a frightened glance towards the bed.
“Nonsense, Dulya! Make her say what it is,” she appealed to Colonel Keeling.
“Speak!” he said, in the tone which no native ever disobeyed.
“It was shortly before the—the end, sahib, and Haigh Sahib’s Mem had swooned, so that the Doctor Sahib was busy with her, and my Memsahib, who had the baba lying beside her, asked me for water. Then I brought it, and she made that mark which the Sahib sees, on the baba’s forehead, and uttered a spell in the language of the Sahibs, saying ‘Jājia! Jājia!’ very loud. Then I saw that she was making a charm to avert the evil eye from the baba, but that her soul was even then departing, so that she used water instead of something that could be seen. Therefore, when she was dead, I made the mark afresh with lamp-black, saying ‘Jājia! Jājia!’ as my Memsahib had done, that her wish might be fulfilled. But the English words I knew not. Perhaps the Sahib can say them?” she added anxiously.
“What can it mean?” asked Lady Haigh, who had dropped into a chair.
“She was baptising her,” said Colonel Keeling simply. “Poor little Georgia—Penelope’s baby!”