Charlotte dropped her work instantly. "Worse?" she said, all the brightness flying from her face. "Why, I was in yesterday, and she seemed much better. Jeff, I must go down there this minute."
"It"s after ten--you can"t. Wait till morning."
"Oh, no!" The girl was making ready as she spoke. "You"ll go with me.
Think of the baby. There"ll be a houseful of women, all wailing, if anything goes wrong with Annie. They did it before, when they thought she wasn"t doing well. The baby was so frightened. She knows me. Of course I must go. Think what mother would do for Annie--after all the years Annie was such a faithful maid."
That brought Jeff round at once. In ten minutes he and Charlotte had quietly left the house. A rapid walk through the crisp January night brought them to the poorer quarter of the town and the Donohue cottage.
A woman with a shawl over her head met them just outside.
"Annie"s gone," she said, at sight of Charlotte. "Took a turn for the worse an hour ago. I never thought she"d get well, she"s had too hard a life with that brute of a man of hers."
Charlotte stood still on the door-step when the woman had gone on. She was thinking hard. Jeff remained quiet beside her. Charlotte had known more of Annie than he; Annie had been Charlotte"s nurse.
All at once Charlotte turned and laid a hand on his arm. "Jeff," she said, very softly and close to his ear, "we must take little Ellen home with us to-night."
"What!"
"Yes, we must. She"s such a shy little thing. Every time I"ve been here I"ve found her frightened half to death. It worried Annie dreadfully."
"Well--but, Charlotte--some of these women can take care of her--Annie"s friends."
"They are not Annie"s friends; they"re just her neighbours. Not Annie"s kind at all. They"re good-hearted enough, but it distressed Annie all the time to have any of them take care of Ellen. They give her all sorts of things to eat. She"s only a baby. She was half-sick when I was here Thursday. Oh, don"t make a fuss, Jeff! Please, dear!"
"But you don"t know anything about babies."
"I know enough not to give them pork and cabbage. I can put the little thing to sleep in Just"s crib. It"s up in the attic. You can get it down. Jeff, we must!"
But Jeff still held her firmly by the arm. "Girl, you"re crazy! If you once take her, you"ve got her on your hands. Annie has no relations. You told me that yourself. The child"ll have to go to an asylum. It"s a good thing that husband of hers is dead. If he wasn"t, you"d have some cause to be worried."
"Jeff," said Charlotte, pleadingly, "you must let me do what I think is right. I couldn"t sleep, thinking of little Ellen to-night. Besides, when Annie was worrying about her Thursday, I as much as promised we"d see that no harm came to the baby."
Jeff relaxed his hold. "I never saw such a girl!" he grumbled. "As if you hadn"t things enough on your shoulders already, without adopting other people"s kids!"
Dr. Andrew Churchill opened the door which led from the room of one of his patients into the small, slenderly furnished living-room of the tiny house which had been her home. It was her home no longer. Doctor Churchill had just lost his first patient in private practice.
In the room were several women, gathered about a baby not yet two years old. Over the child a subdued but excited discussion was being held, as to who should take home and, for the present, care for poor Annie Donohue"s orphan baby.
Doctor Churchill closed the door behind him and stood for a moment, looking down at the baby, a pretty little girl with a pair of big frightened blue eyes.
"Well, I guess I"ll have to be the one," said the youngest woman of the company, with a sigh. "You"re all worse fixed than I am, and I guess we can make room for her somehow, till it"s decided what to do with her.
Poor Mis" Donohue"s child has got to stay somewhere to-night besides here, that I do say."
"Well, that"s kind of you, Mary, and we"ll all lend a hand to help you out. I"ll bring over some extra milk I can spare and----"
A sudden draft of January air made everybody turn. A girlish figure, in a big dark cape with a scarlet lining which seemed to reflect the colour from a face brilliant with frost-bloom, stood in the outer door. The next instant Charlotte Birch, closing the door softly behind her, had crossed the room and was addressing the women, in low quick tones. The doctor she did not seem to notice.
"I"ve come for the baby," she said, with a gentle imperiousness. "I"ve just heard about poor Annie. Of course we are the ones to see to little Ellen. If mother were here she would insist upon it. Where are her wraps, please? And has one of you an extra shawl she can lend me? It"s a sharp night."
As she spoke, Charlotte knelt before the child and held out her arms.
Baby Ellen stared at her for an instant, then seemed to recognise a friend and lifted two little arms, her tiny lips quivering. Charlotte drew her gently up, and rising, walked away across the room with her, the small golden head nestling in her neck. The women looked after her rather resentfully.
"I suppose the child wouldn"t be sufferin" with such as us," said one, "if we ain"t got no silk quilts to put over her."
"Neither have I," said Charlotte, with a smile, as she caught the words.
"But I"m so fond of her. Annie was my nurse, you know."
"May I carry her home for you?" asked the doctor, at her elbow.
"Jeff is here," she answered.
But it was the doctor who carried the baby, after all, for she cried at sight of Jeff. She was ready to cry at sight of any strange face, poor little frightened child! But Doctor Churchill held her so tenderly and spoke so soothingly that she grew quiet at once.
It was a silent walk, and it was only as they reached the house that the doctor said softly to Charlotte, "If you need advice or help, don"t hesitate to call on Mrs. Fields. She"s a wise woman, and her heart is warm, you know."
"Yes, I know, thank you! And thank you, doctor, for--not scolding me about this!"
"Scold you?" he said, as Charlotte took the baby from him at the door.
"Why should I do that?"
"Jeff did, and I didn"t dare tell Lanse."
"If you hadn"t brought the baby home," whispered the doctor, "I should have." And Charlotte, looking quickly up at him as Jeff opened the door and the light streamed out upon them, surprised upon his face, as his eyes rested upon the baby"s pink cheek, an expression which could hardly have been more tender if he had been Ellen"s father.
"Now, Jeffy, get the crib down, please, as softly as you can," begged Charlotte, when she had laid the baby on her own white bed and noiselessly closed the door. Jeff tried hard to do her bidding, but the crib did not get down-stairs without a few sc.r.a.pings and b.u.mpings, which made Charlotte hold her breath lest they rouse a sleeping household.
"Now go down and warm some milk for her in the blue basin. Don"t get it hot--just lukewarm. Put the tiniest pinch of sugar in it."
"You seem to know a lot about babies," Jeff murmured, pausing an instant to watch his sister gently pulling off the baby"s clothes.
"I do. Didn"t I have the care of you?" answered Charlotte, with a mischievous smile.
"Two years younger than yourself? Oh, of course, I forgot that," and Jeff crept away down-stairs after the milk. It took him some time, and when he came tiptoeing back he found the baby in her little coa.r.s.e flannel nightgown, her round blue eyes wide-awake again.
"She seems to accept you for a mother all right," he commented, as Charlotte held the cup to the baby"s lips, cuddling her in a blanket meanwhile. But the girl"s eyes filled at this, remembering poor Annie, and Jeff added hastily, "What"ll happen if she wakes up and cries in the night? Babies usually do, don"t they?"
"Annie has always said Ellen didn"t, much, and she"s getting to sleep so late I hope she won"t to-night. I don"t feel equal to telling the others what I"ve done till morning," and Charlotte smiled rather faintly. Now that she had the baby at home she was beginning to wonder what Lanse and Celia would say.
"Never mind. I"ll stand by you. You"re all right, whatever you do--if I did think you were rather off your head at first," promised Jeff, st.u.r.dily. He was never known to fail Charlotte in an emergency.
Whether it was the strange surroundings or something wrong about the last meal of the day cannot be stated, but Baby Ellen did wake up. It was at three o"clock in the morning that Charlotte, who, excited by the strangeness of the situation, had but just fallen asleep, was roused by a small wail.
The baby seemed not to know her in the trailing blue kimono, with her two long curly braids swinging over her shoulders, and in spite of all that Charlotte could do, the infantile anguish of spirit soon filled the house.
Charlotte walked the floor with her, alternately murmuring consolation and singing the lullabies of her own childhood; but the uproar continued. It is astonishing what an amount of disturbance one small pair of lungs can produce. It was not long before the anxious nurse, listening with both ears for evidences that the family were aroused, heard the tap of Celia"s crutches, which the invalid had just learned to use. And almost at the same moment Lanse"s door opened and shut with a bang.
"Here they come!" murmured Charlotte, trying distractedly to hush the baby by means which were never known to have that effect upon a startled infant in a strange house.