The Vicar's Daughter - George MacDonald (read dune txt) 📗

objected to putting them on; seemed half-frightened at them, as if they might involve some shape of bondage, and begged to have her own again. At last Jemima, who, although so sparingly provided with brains, is not without genius, prevailed upon her, insisting that her little girl would turn away from her if she wasn’t well dressed, for she had been used to see ladies about her. With a deep sigh, she yielded; begging, however, to have her old garments restored to her.

She had brought with her a small bundle, tied up in a cotton handkerchief; and from it she now took a scarf of red silk, and twisted it up with her black hair in a fashion I had never seen before. In this head-dress she had almost a brilliant look; while her carriage had a certain dignity hard of association with poverty—not inconsistent, however, with what I have since learned about the gypsies. My husband admired her even more than I did, and made a very good sketch of her. Her eyes were large and dark—unquestionably fine; and if there was not much of the light of thought in them, they had a certain wildness which in a measure made up for the want. She had rather a Spanish than an Eastern look, I thought, with an air of defiance that prevented me from feeling at ease with her; but in the presence of Miss Clare she seemed humbler, and answered her questions more readily than ours. If Ethel was in the room, her eyes would be constantly wandering after her, with a wistful, troubled, eager look. Surely, the mother-passion must have infinite relations and destinies.

As I was unable to leave home, my father persuaded Miss Clare to accompany him and help him to take charge of her. I confess it was a relief to me when she left the house; for though I wanted to be as kind to her as I could, I felt considerable discomfort in her presence.

When Miss Clare returned, the next day but one, I found she had got from her the main points of her history, fully justifying previous conjectures of my father’s, founded on what he knew of the character and customs of the gypsies.

She belonged to one of the principal gypsy families in this country. The fact that they had no settled habitation, but lived in tents, like Abraham and Isaac, had nothing to do with poverty. The silver buttons on her father’s coat, were, she said, worth nearly twenty pounds; and when a friend of any distinction came to tea with them, they spread a table-cloth of fine linen on the grass, and set out upon it the best of china, and a tea-service of hall-marked silver. She said her friends—as much as any gentleman in the land—scorned stealing; and affirmed that no real gypsy would “risk his neck for his belly,” except he were driven by hunger. All her family could read, she said, and carried a big Bible about with them.

One summer they were encamped for several months in the neighborhood of Edinburgh, making horn-spoons and baskets, and some of them working in tin. There they were visited by a clergyman, who talked and read the Bible to them, and prayed with them. But all their visitors ware not of the same sort with him. One of them was a young fellow of loose character, a clerk in the city, who, attracted by her appearance, prevailed upon her to meet him often. She was not then eighteen. Any aberration from the paths of modesty is exceedingly rare among the gypsies, and regarded with severity; and her father, hearing of this, gave her a terrible punishment with the whip he used in driving his horses. In terror of what would follow when the worst came to be known, she ran away; and, soon forsaken by her so-called lover, wandered about, a common vagrant, until her baby was born—under the stars, on a summer night, in a field of long grass.

For some time she wandered up and down, longing to join some tribe of her own people, but dreading unspeakably the disgrace of her motherhood. At length, having found a home for her child, she associated herself with a gang of gypsies of inferior character, amongst whom she had many hardships to endure. Things, however, bettered a little after one of their number was hanged for stabbing a cousin, and her position improved. It was not, however, any intention of carrying off her child to share her present lot, but the urgings of mere mother-hunger for a sight of her, that drove her to the Hall. When she had succeeded in enticing her out of sight of the house, however, the longing to possess her grew fierce; and braving all consequences, or rather, I presume, unable to weigh them, she did carry her away. Foiled in this attempt, and seeing that her chances of future success in any similar one were diminished by it, she sought some other plan. Learning that one of the family was married, and had removed to London, she succeeded, through gypsy acquaintances who lodged occasionally near Tottenham Court Road, in finding out where we lived, and carried off Ethel with the vague intent, as we had rightly conjectured, of using her as a means for the recovery of her own child.

Theodora was now about seven years of age—almost as wild as ever. Although tolerably obedient, she was not nearly so much so as the other children had been at her age; partly, perhaps, because my father could not bring himself to use that severity to the child of other people with which he had judged it proper to treat his own.

Miss Clare was present, with my father and the rest of the family, when the mother and daughter met. They were all more than curious to see how the child would behave, and whether there would be any signs of an instinct that drew her to her parent. In this, however, they were disappointed.

It was a fine warm forenoon when she came running on to the lawn where they were assembled,—the gypsy mother with them.

“There she is!” said my father to the woman. “Make the best of yourself you can.”

Miss Clare said the poor creature turned very pale, but her eyes glowed with such a fire!

With the cunning of her race, she knew better than bound forward and catch up the child in her arms. She walked away from the rest, and stood watching the little damsel, romping merrily with Mr. Wagtail. They thought she recognized the dog, and was afraid of him. She had put on a few silver ornaments which she had either kept or managed to procure, notwithstanding her poverty; for both the men and women of her race manifest in a strong degree that love for barbaric adornment which, as well as their other peculiarities, points to an Eastern origin. The glittering of these in the sun, and the glow of her red scarf in her dark hair, along with the strangeness of her whole appearance, attracted the child, and she approached to look at her nearer. Then the mother took from her pocket a large gilded ball, which had probably been one of the ornaments on the top of a clock, and rolled it gleaming golden along the grass. Theo and Mr. Wagtail bounded after it with a shriek and a bark. Having examined it for a moment, the child threw it again along the lawn; and this time the mother, lithe as a leopard and fleet as a savage, joined in the chase, caught it first, and again sent it spinning away, farther from the assembled group. Once more all three followed in swift pursuit; but this time the mother took care to allow the child to seize the treasure. After the sport had continued a little while, what seemed a general consultation, of mother, child, and dog, took place over the bauble; and presently they saw that Theo was eating something.

“I trust,” said my mother, “she won’t hurt the child with any nasty stuff.”

“She will not do so wittingly,” said my father, “you may be sure. Anyhow, we must not interfere.”

In a few minutes more the mother approached them with a subdued look of triumph, and her eyes overflowing with light, carrying the child in her arms. Theo was playing with some foreign coins which adorned her hair, and with a string of coral and silver beads round her neck.

For the rest of the day they were left to do much as they pleased; only every one kept good watch.

But in the joy of recovering her child, the mother seemed herself to have gained a new and childlike spirit. The more than willingness with which she hastened to do what, even in respect of her child, was requested of her, as if she fully acknowledged the right of authority in those who had been her best friends, was charming. Whether this would last when the novelty of the new experience had worn off, whether jealousy would not then come in for its share in the ordering of her conduct, remained to be shown; but in the mean time the good in her was uppermost.

She was allowed to spend a whole fortnight in making friends with her daughter, before a word was spoken about the future; the design of my father being through the child to win the mother. Certain people considered him not eager enough to convert the wicked: whatever apparent indifference he showed in that direction arose from his utter belief in the guiding of God, and his dread of outrunning his designs. He would follow the operations of the Spirit.

“Your forced hot-house fruits,” he would say, “are often finer to look at than those which have waited for God’s wind and weather; but what are they worth in respect of all for the sake of which fruit exists?”

Until an opportunity, then, was thrown in his way, he would hold back; but when it was clear to him that he had to minister, then was he thoughtful, watchful, instant, unswerving. You might have seen him during this time, as the letters of Connie informed me, often standing for minutes together watching the mother and daughter, and pondering in his heart concerning them.

Every advantage being thus afforded her, not without the stirring of some natural pangs in those who had hitherto mothered the child, the fortnight had not passed, before, to all appearance, the unknown mother was with the child the greatest favorite of all. And it was my father’s expectation, for he was a profound believer in blood, that the natural and generic instincts of the child would be developed together; in other words, that as she grew in what was common to humanity, she would grow likewise in what belonged to her individual origin. This was not an altogether comforting expectation to those of us who neither had so much faith as he, nor saw so hopefully the good that lay in every evil.

One twilight, he overheard the following talk between them. When they came near where he sat, Theodora, carried by her mother, and pulling at her neck with her arms, was saying, “Tell me; tell me; tell me,” in the tone of one who would compel an answer to a question repeatedly asked in vain.

“What do you want me to tell you?” said her mother. “You know well enough. Tell me your name.”

In reply, she uttered a few words my father did not comprehend, and took to be Zingaree. The child shook her petulantly and with violence, crying,—

“That’s nonsense. I don’t know what you say, and I don’t know what to call you.”

My father had desired the household, if possible, to give no name to the