"Hush, you little beast!" Becky e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, but she moved mechanically within, and her grandmother followed her.
All the ancient grandeur of the sitting-room seemed overclouded with shabbiness and untidiness. To Natalya everything looked and smelt like the things in her bag. And there in a stuffy cradle a baby wrinkled its red face with shrieking.
Becky had bent over it, and was soothing it ere its existence penetrated at all to the old woman"s preoccupied brain. Its pipings had been like an unheeded wail of wind round some centre of tragic experience. Even when she realized the child"s existence her brain groped for some seconds in search of its ident.i.ty.
Ah, the baby whose birth had cost that painted poppet"s life! So it still lived and howled in unwelcome reminder and perpetuation of that brief but shameful episode. "Grow dumb like your mother," she murmured resentfully. What a bequest of misery Henry Elkman had left behind him! Ah, how right she had been to suspect him from the very first!
"But where is my little Joseph?" she said aloud.
"He"s playing somewhere in the street."
"_Ach, mein Gott!_ Playing, when he ought to be weeping like this child of shame. Go and fetch him at once!"
"What do you want him for?"
"I am going to take you both away--out of this misery. You"d like to come and live with me--eh, my lamb?"
"Rather--anything"s better than this."
Natalya caught her to her breast again.
"Go and fetch my Joseph! But quick, quick, before the public-house woman comes back!"
Becky flew out, and Natalya sank into a chair, breathless with emotion and fatigue. The baby in the cradle beside her howled more vigorously, and automatically her foot sought the rocker, and she heard herself singing:
"Sleep, little baby, sleep, Thy father shall be a Rabbi; Thy mother shall bring thee almonds; Blessings on thy little head."
As the howling diminished, she realized with a shock that she was rocking this misbegotten infant--nay, singing to it a Jewish cradle-song full of inappropriate phrases. She withdrew her foot as though the rocker had grown suddenly red-hot. The yells broke out with fresh vehemence, and she angrily restored her foot to its old place.
"_Nu, nu_," she cried, rocking violently, "go to sleep."
She stole a glance at it, when it grew stiller, and saw that the teat of its feeding-bottle was out of its mouth. "There, there--suck!" she said, readjusting it. The baby opened its eyes and shot a smile at her, a wonderful, trustful smile from great blue eyes. Natalya trembled; those were the blue eyes that had supplanted the memory of f.a.n.n.y"s dark orbs, and the lips now sucking contentedly were the cherry lips of the painted poppet.
"_Nebbich_; the poor, deserted little orphan," she apologized to herself. "And this is how the new Jewish wife does her duty to her step-children. She might as well have been a Christian." Then a remembrance that the Christian woman had seemingly been an unimpeachable step-mother confused her thoughts further. And while she was groping among them Becky returned, haling in Joseph, who in his turn haled in a kite with a long tail.
The boy, now a st.u.r.dy lad of seven, did not palpitate towards his grandmother with Becky"s eagerness. Probably he felt the domestic position less. But he surrendered himself to her long hug. "Did she beat him," she murmured soothingly, "beat my own little Joseph?"
"Don"t waste time, granny," Becky broke in petulantly, "if we _are_ going."
"No, my dear. We"ll go at once." And, releasing the boy, Natalya partly undid the lower b.u.t.tons of his waistcoat.
"You wear no four-corner fringes!" she exclaimed tragically. "She neglects even to see to that. Ah, it will be a good deed to carry you from this G.o.dless home."
"But I don"t want to go with you," he said sullenly, reminded of past inquisitorial worryings about prayers.
"You little fool!" said Becky. "You _are_ going--and in that cab."
"In that cab?" he cried joyfully.
"Yes, my apple. And you will never be beaten again."
"Oh, _she_ don"t hurt!" he said contemptuously. "She hasn"t even got a cane--like at school."
"But shan"t we take our things?" said Becky.
"No, only the things you stand in. They shan"t have any excuse for taking you back. I"ll find you plenty of clothes, as good as new."
"And little Daisy?"
"Oh, is it a girl? Your stepmother will look after that. She can"t complain of one burden."
She hustled the children into the cab, where, with the sack and herself, they made a tightly-packed quartette.
"I say, I didn"t bargain for extras inside," grumbled the cabman.
"You can"t reckon these children," said Natalya, with confused legal recollections; "they"re both under seven."
The cabman started. Becky stared out of the window. "I wonder if we"ll pa.s.s Mrs. Elkman," she said, amused. Joseph busied himself with disentangling the tails of his kite.
But Natalya was too absorbed to notice their indifference to her. That poor little Daisy! The image of the baby swam vividly before her. What a terrible fate to be left in the hands of the public-house woman! Who knew what would happen to it? What if, in her drunken fury at the absence of Becky and Joseph, she did it a mischief? At the best the besotted creature would not take cordially to the task of bringing it up. It was no child of hers--had not even the appeal of pure Jewish blood. And there it lay, smiling, with its beautiful blue eyes. It had smiled trustfully on herself, not knowing she was to leave it to its fate. And now it was crying; she heard it crying above the rattle of the cab. But how could she charge herself with it--she, with her daily rounds to make? The other children were grown up, pa.s.sed the day at school. No, it was impossible. And the child"s cry went on in her imagination louder and louder.
She put her head out of the window. "Turn back! Turn back! I"ve forgotten something."
The cabman swore. "D"ye think you"ve taken me by the week?"
"Threepence extra. Drive back."
The cab turned round, the innocent horse got a stinging flip of the whip, and set off briskly.
"What have you forgotten, grandmother?" said Becky. "It"s very careless of you."
The cab stopped at the door. Natalya looked round nervously, sprang out, and then uttered a cry of despair.
"_Ach_, we shut the door!" And the inaccessible baby took on a tenfold desirability.
"It"s all right," said Becky. "Just turn the handle."
Natalya obeyed and ran in. There was the baby, not crying, but sleeping peacefully. Natalya s.n.a.t.c.hed it up frenziedly, and hurried the fresh-squalling bundle into the cab.
"Taking Daisy?" cried Becky. "But she isn"t yours!"
Natalya shut the cab-door with a silencing bang, and the vehicle turned again Ghettowards.
VI
The fact that Natalya had taken possession of the children could not be kept a secret, but the step-mother"s family made no effort to regain them, and, indeed, the woman herself shortly went the way of all Henry Elkman"s wives, though whether she, like the rest, had a successor, is unknown.
The sudden change from a lone old lady to a mater-familias was not, however, so charming as Natalya had imagined. The cost of putting Daisy out to nurse was a terrible tax, but this was nothing compared to the tax on her temper levied by her legitimate grandchildren, who began to grumble on the first night at the poverty and pokiness of the garret, and were thenceforward never without a lament for the good old times. They had, indeed, been thoroughly spoilt by the father and the irregular menage. The Christian wife"s influence had been refining but too temporary. It had been only long enough to wean Joseph from the religious burdens indoctrinated by f.a.n.n.y, and thus to add to the grandmother"s difficulties in coaxing him back to the yoke of piety.