Chapter X: Dot's Opinion

"BY the bye, Pattie, were you out this morning about half-past eleven?" Mr. Cragg put the question at tea-time, nothing leading up to it.

"Half-past eleven! Yes; just about then I took Dot for a walk."

"I couldn't find Mrs. Cragg, so I tried to find you, and your door was locked."

Mrs. Cragg writhed, conscious of a change of colour.

"Was it? I remember. I came back with Dot to get my purse, and I could not get in either. Somebody must have locked it by accident, or else the bolt may have slipped. It seemed all right a little later, when we came back again."

"You don't know who locked it, my dear?" Cragg noticed his wife's uncomfortable look.

"How should I know, pray?" demanded Mrs. Cragg.

"Somebody probably knows. It might be you or any one."

"As if I troubled myself with Pattie's concerns! I'm much too busy."

"Pattie's concerns have to be attended to, like everybody else's concerns, now and then," Cragg said, with a kind look at the girl. Pattie was gazing at Mrs. Cragg, and did not see the look. A recollection had come to mind of finding her cupboard that afternoon in a disordered state. Pattie was very neat, and she always knew exactly where each article in box, or drawer, or cupboard lay. She had supposed that the girl had been turning out her things for dusting purposes. But the discomfited expression and reddened colouring of Mrs. Cragg's face suggested something different. Pattie, however, said nothing. "Anyhow, I'll take a look at the lock, and see if it wants oiling," remarked Cragg,—"eh, Pattie?"

"Thank you very much," Pattie answered; and the subject was dropped.

Now that Mrs. Cragg had gained the information she wanted, the question arose—how to use it? She could not tell her husband what she had learnt, because she dared not tell him by what mode she had learnt it. She dared not refer to Pattie's past in the presence of Pattie. The questions that she had meant to put to Pattie became impossible, in the face of her own secret knowledge. She had small command of feature, and she knew that at any moment her face might betray her.

It was disgusting, she said to herself. To think of a girl, who might have been a convict's daughter but for the forbearance of this Mr. Peterson, fondling and petting Dot half the day, sitting at their table, being called "Miss Pattie" by the servant—for upon that Mr. Cragg had insisted. The whole thing was really too bad.

These thoughts made Mrs. Cragg additionally unpleasant to Pattie, and Pattie noticed the fact with some wonder. She supposed that Mrs. Cragg was growing tired of her presence in the house, and she began to cast about in her mind where to look for work. When she consulted Cragg, he put the matter aside, and said, "No hurry yet awhile." But Pattie did not fall in with this view.

Hers was not a suspicious temperament. Although the idea had flashed across her, in connection with Mrs. Cragg's look and with the fact of her disturbed cupboard, that Mrs. Cragg might have been examining something in her room, and might have locked the door, she had not encouraged the notion, but had done her best to dismiss it. She had a horror of suspecting falsely.

That she would sooner or later leave the Craggs, and go out to make her own way, was settled in her mind, though she knew that it might not be possible for a while. When the time should come, her trouble would be having to say good-bye to Dot. The child had twisted herself in and out among Pattie's heart-strings, and life apart from Dot wore a forlorn aspect.

On Sunday afternoon Dot was always supposed to be in Mrs. Cragg's charge, while the nursery-maid went to church. Of late, being with her mother had really meant being with Pattie. Next Sunday Mrs. Cragg, having eaten a heavy dinner, was, or appeared to be, particularly sleepy, and she sat nodding drowsily on the sofa.

The sleepiness was partly put on, for Mrs. Cragg was deep in cogitation. She had not yet restored the letters to their box in Pattie's cupboard. If she could not put them back soon, she would have to burn them, for fear of accidental discovery; but that she was reluctant to do, for more reasons than one —and by no means for Pattie's sake. There had been some talk of letting Dot go to the children's service with Pattie, and Mrs. Cragg presently asked, with a yawn,—

"Are you going to take Dot to church?"

"Dot would like it, if I may."

"I don't care if you do. You'll have to be in good time. And Dot must sit still."

"Dot will behave like a mouse. Yes, we will go early. It is too soon yet. The bells won't begin for some time."

"Tell me that tory adain," begged Dot. "About wicked naughty Gazi."

"But you know it, Dot. Suppose you tell me instead."

Dot pulled herself upright, and assumed a solemn air.

"Gazi was a naughty wicked tory-teller," she said. "Tory-tellers am always wicked. And when Lisha asked him, 'Where'd he'd been and wented to?'—Gazi said he'd not been wented nowhere. And then he got all twite whited all over him."

"But he had been somewhere, hadn't he?"

"Oh,—m-yes,—he'd been and wented after that other man, what was made well. He was naughty, too, only he didn't tell no tories, and then he was good. And he wanted for to give Lisha fings,—lots and lots of fings, and nice focks and ever so much pennies. And Lisha wouldn't have nofink; 'n so Gazi thoughted he'd go an' get somefink nice. And he wented and telled a lot of big tories—big, big tories," repeated Dot impressively. "And so he gotted all white, all over hims."

"That was his punishment, wasn't it?"

"Him's punishment," repeated Dot.

"Dot, you don't mean ever to tell stories, do you?"

Dot shook her head vehemently.

"Cause I'd get all white."

"I think if you told stories, you would have to be punished in some way. It might not be in the same way as Gehazi. But God is our Father, you know, and a Father has to punish His little children when they are naughty, so as to make them learn to be good. You don't want to be naughty, do you, and to make God sorry?"

Another shake.

"Does drown-up peoples evern tell tories now?"

"Sometimes, I'm afraid."

"Does ma-ma?"

"Hush, Dot. You must never ask such silly questions. The question that you have to ask is, 'Does Dot?'"

Dot was not easily turned from her purpose. She said, in a loud and clear whisper:

"I know twite well when ma-ma telled a wicked tory. When she saided she was out and she wasn't. 'Cause she was in your room, own Pattie darlin'."

Pattie was startled.

"No, Dot, no. You are talking nonsense. Hush!"

Dot spoke more energetically, running her words together.

"I not spawking nonsense. Ma-ma was in, and she saided she was out. Ann telled me. 'Cause Ann saw ma-ma come out."

Mrs. Cragg sat up with a jerk.

"Really, Pattie, if you encourage the child in that sort of impertinence, I shall have—I think the less you're with her the better for Dot. She is growing insufferable, and it is your fault."

Pattie met the angry gaze quietly.

"I am not encouraging Dot indeed," she said.

"Ma-ma angly," remarked Dot.

"If I hear any more such impertinence—mind, Dot, I mean what I say— if you say such things again, I shan't let you be with Pattie. So you'd better take care."

Dot hung her head, and tears came to her eyes.

"I am sure Dot did not mean to be rude, did you, Dot?" asked Pattie, even while it flashed through her mind that Mrs. Cragg had made no attempt to deny the truth of Dot's assertions. But then, perhaps, Mrs. Cragg did not think it worth while. "Come, I think it is time for us to get ready for church. If I take you, will you be a good girl?"

"Vely dood," Dot declared cheerfully, restored to her usual spirits, and the two went off together. Mrs. Cragg remained gloomily behind.