Chapter XXII: Will Harcourt’s Waif

It was growing lighter. A bright dawn, shining over the bay and into the back windows, lighted up the room.

Harcourt laid the child down on his white bed, shrinking involuntarily from the offensiveness of the foul rag that wrapped her.

“And she talks of Roma, and Mr. Merritt, and Dr. Shaw! It is very strange. I cannot comprehend it all. But I will appeal to Annie. Annie will be able to learn more from her than I could,” he said to himself.

“Oh, please, sir, will you give me something to eat?” asked the child.

“Yes, dear. Are you so very hungry?” kindly inquired Harcourt.

“Oh! so hungry—so very hungry! I never was so hungry in all my life before. I am all sunk in, and my stomach has all gone to my backbone—it has, indeed, though you mayn’t believe it.”

“What would you like to have, dear?”

“Bread and butter, with sugar on it,” promptly replied the child.

Harcourt went to his corner cupboard and brought out a pitcher of milk and a loaf of bread.

He cut a slice, spread it with butter, then with sugar, and placed it on a plate; then filled a cup with milk, and took the repast to his little guest.

She sat up on the side of the bed to eat it.

“When did you leave your lady?” he inquired, as he seated himself on a chair near her.

“Oh! I don’t know. I—I—I——No! it’s no use—I don’t know. It was—was—ever so long ago,” sighed the child.

“Were you lost?”

“Yes; I lost myself. I went out to try to find Lady; and she found me.”

“Lady found you?”

“Oh, no; of course not! If Lady had found me I shouldn’t be here, looking this way,” said the elf, rather indignantly.

“Then who found you?”

“The nasty old woman, of course.”

“Ah! And what then?”

“I did ask her the way to Goblin Hall, and she told me she would go with me and show me the way.”

“Oh! And what next did she do?”

“Oh, she took hold of my hand and led me a long way through such nasty streets, and to the nastiest house you ever saw in all your life. It made me awful ill all over.”

“And what did you do, you poor child?”

“I went dead—stone dead!” said the little guest, and then she paused in her speech and applied herself diligently to the “bread and butter with sugar on it.”

“But you came to life again,” said Harcourt, with a smile.

“Oh, yes; I came to life again,” said the imp, with her mouth full of bread and butter with sugar on it. “I always do. I’m used to it—I mean, I am getting used to it.”

“Used to what, my dear?”

“Used to going dead and coming to life again. I know it sounds as if I wasn’t possessed of common sense to say so, but it is the truth, for all that. I have been dead several times since I lost Lady,” added the elf, with a deep sigh.

“Do you mean you fainted?”

“Fainted? I don’t know what you are talking about ‘fainted.’ I went dead—stone dead—dead as a doornail! and I’ve gone dead two or three times, and the last time I was dead was in that horrid, nasty house.”

“And when you came to life again——”

“Oh, yes; when I came to life again I was out in the street, wrapped up in this—phew!—shawl, and lying on the ragged old woman’s lap, and she sitting on the cellar door, close by the stoop where you found me,” said the child, and then she stopped to take a draught of milk from the cup.

“And so you found that all your nice clothes had been taken off you, and this ragged shawl wrapped around you?”

“Yes; but, you see, I reckon it rained while I was dead, and my clothes must have got wet, and that poor, old, ragged woman took off my wet clothes and hung ’em to dry, and put her own poor shawl round me. I do think she had nothing else to wrap me up in, poor old thing, and it was good in her to do it, too. But, all the same, I wish she hadn’t; I’d rather be soaked to the skin than wear anything so nasty—wouldn’t you?”

“I think I should,” answered the young man, quite sincerely.

“It’s awful, you know—just awful! But one must have patience. Oh! what will Lady say to me when she sees me in this?”

“We must try to get you a nice suit of clothes to take you in to Lady.”

“Oh! will you—will you? That will be so jolly nice! Thank you ever so much, sir.”

“Where did that woman leave you, my dear?”

“Oh, just where you found me.”

“What did she say when she left you?”

“Didn’t I tell you? She said she was going to ask a boy to tell her which was the nearest way to get to the house.”

“Which house?”

“Lady’s house.”

“My dear, do you mean Goblin Hall?”

“’Course I do. Everybody knows Lady’s house is named Goblin Hall.”

“And do you think it is anywhere near this place?”

“I don’t know. I reckon it is. Not among the houses, though. Among the hills, and woods, and the trees and flowers. That’s where Lady’s house is.”

By this time the elfin child had eaten up all her “bread and butter with sugar on it,” and had drank up all her milk, and seemed satisfied—for the time being, at least.

Harcourt began to prepare his own breakfast. He heard his neighbor in the next room preparing hers.

“I will speak to Annie before I go to work,” he said to himself, as he went about his task.

When his breakfast of coffee, bread, butter and chops was on the table, he turned to the child, and said:

“Now, then, would you like to sit up to the table and have some breakfast with me?”

“Oh, yes; please! What you did give me was awful good, but it only stayed my stomach. I don’t think I ever got so hungry again so soon after eating in all my born days.”

“Come, then,” he said, as he lifted her up, folded the tattered wrap more closely around her, sat her in a chair and pushed the chair to the table.

He helped the child first.

“She must have been half famished,” he said to himself, as he noticed the avidity with which she consumed the food placed before her; for he did not know that she had but recently recovered from a long and severe illness and had the appetite of a healthy convalescent.

“Well, I must leave her in the care of Annie to-day. Our Annie will be able to get more information out of her in one hour than I could in a year,” he reflected.

Before he had finished his meal he heard the thumper-thumper-thumper-thumper of his neighbor’s indefatigable sewing machine in full blast.

As soon, therefore, as he had risen from the table and put his room in order, and given the child some old picture papers to look at, he thought he would go and see Annie.

He felt the strongest possible temptation to stay home that day to investigate the interesting mystery—to him—of this child picked up in the streets of New York, who could talk of nothing else, and of no one else, but Roma, Dr. Shaw and Mr. Merritt, whose homes were in Western Maryland or in Washington City; but he did not yield to that temptation. He had laid down for himself an iron-cast rule of life, to go daily to his hard labor, as though, indeed, he were under prison discipline for penal servitude.

So he resisted the temptation to stay at home, and resolved to leave the child and the solution of the problem to his neighbor for this day.

Then he went to her door and knocked and called.

The sound of the sewing machine stopped in an instant, and the pleasant voice of the woman demanded:

“Well, what is it, Mr. William? What can I do for you?”

“Come here, dear heart, I wish to speak to you at once,” Harcourt said.

Annie started up and came and opened the door.

“What is it, Mr. William?” she inquired again.

“Oh, Annie, I have picked up a wretched child out of the street—out of the gutter, I might say—under our very doorstep here,” Harcourt replied.

“A child! A baby?” exclaimed Annie, staring.

“Yes!—No!—that is, a little girl of about five or six or seven years old. I am no judge of children’s ages.”

“Lost?”

“It is hard to say. Lost, or dropped, or stolen, I am not sure which. But robbed of her clothing certainly.”

“Well, don’t stand there in the hall. Come in here, Mr. William, and sit down and tell me all about it. Where is the child?” Annie inquired.

Harcourt went into the room, took the chair she offered, sat down and said:

“The child is in my apartment. I think she must have been stolen for blackmailing, or other evil purposes, from a country house away down South in Maryland, and brought to New York! then ran away from her abductor and lost herself in this city, was picked up by a female thief, beguiled into some den, robbed of her clothing and abandoned in these streets. There, that is my theory; but I am not sure it is the correct one.”

“Poor little thing! What can I do for her? I will do anything in the world. Do you want me to take care of her while you go and inform the police?” inquired the gentle woman, in a tone of ready sympathy and helpfulness.

Harcourt hesitated. Then:

“I never once thought of the police,” he said, slowly. And, after a thoughtful pause: “No,” he said, “I do not think I shall trouble the police with this child’s care; at least not just yet a while. The fact is, Annie, that I have strong reasons for believing that this girl is the protégée of a Southern lady whom I once knew. And I hope to be able to restore the child to her without the unpleasant publicity which an application to the police would involve.”

“Yes?” said his neighbor, interrogatively.

“Yes. But you see there are difficulties. I am not quite sure of the truth of my theory. The child is, besides, very young, ignorant, and mentally confused. She cannot give a clear account of herself, at least in answer to my own questions; but, then, I am not used to children, do not know how to question them, least of all do I know how to cross-examine them.” Harcourt hesitated, in perplexity.

“What do you wish me to do, Mr. William? Indeed, I should be very glad to be of any use at all in this case. I have so little opportunity of doing any good,” said the seamstress, earnestly.

“I wanted you—but I am afraid it will take up too much of your time—to have this little waif in here with you to-day, while I shall be away to my day’s work, and to draw from her, as you women know so well how to do, the whole truth about herself and her friends, and the manner in which she was separated from them.”

“I will take her in with pleasure. And I will do my very best by her,” heartily responded the seamstress.

“Thank you, Annie. I thank you very much. This is for the child,” he said, as he drew a two-dollar note from his pocket and handed it to her. It was the last money he had, with the exception of some small silver change, or that he would have until he should be paid off at the end of the current week.

“What is this for?” Annie inquired, as she received the note.

“To get something clean to put on the child. She is clothed in rags foul enough to give her the plague. Burn them, Annie, and clothe her cleanly, though I fear that note is absurdly small for the purpose,” he said, uneasily.

“Oh,” said Annie, with a laugh, “this will do quite well. I can get a good calico frock and two changes of underclothing with this. Of course they won’t be very fine, but they will be clean and decent.”

She said nothing about shoes, or stockings, or hat, nor did Will Harcourt think of them. But Annie had already planned to supply these necessaries by breaking a five-dollar gold piece, which represented the whole of the poor sewing woman’s savings for the proverbial “rainy day” that the poor and thrifty expect and try to provide for. Annie thought that the “rain” was now falling on the forlorn child, and that the money would, after all, go to its legitimate use.

“At the end of the week I shall be able to give more,” added Harcourt.

“All right, Mr. William. And now you may bring the little girl in to me, or let me go to her, whichever you please,” said the seamstress, cheerfully.

“Then, if you are willing, I will take you in to her. You can make her acquaintance and win her confidence, and then invite her into your room. Would not that be the best way of dealing with this poor baby?”

“Of course it would,” Annie answered, with a laugh. “She would be less shy of me if I were to go to her first. And you said you did not know anything about children. Oh, Mr. William! I believe you know all about them. I believe you have been elder brother to a long line of baby girls and boys, and young uncle to a numerous tribe of little nieces and nephews.”

“Oh, no, Annie,” said poor Will Harcourt, with a profound sigh, given to the memory of his brave brothers and fair sisters who had left the earth in the early bloom of youth. “But come, now,” he said. “I will take you in to our little waif.”

The seamstress arose to accompany him.

“I hope,” he said, “that she will not be much trouble to you or hindrance to your work.”

“Oh, no,” Annie answered, cheerfully. “I do not think she need be. And, besides, Mr. William, what if she should? I have so very little to trouble me, or to interrupt my work, in comparison to the trials and hindrances of other women in my line of life, that when a real duty comes to me I ought to jump at it, so to speak.”

The end of this little speech brought them into Harcourt’s room.

They found the child standing at the back window, gazing out over the roofs of houses and stacks of chimneys, to the distant sea. She was, of course, still draped in the dreadful shawl which hung about her as before, like the sooty blanket of some small, old-fashioned chimney sweep.

“Oh! what an object! Poor child!” whispered Annie. “And how pretty,” she added, as the child turned around and faced her.

“Little one,” said Harcourt, “I have brought you a very kind, good friend, who will be a mother to you, until we can find your lady.”

The waif looked and “took stock” of the woman, and then solemnly expressed her approval.

“Yes, I like her.”

“She will get you some clean clothes to wear,” added Harcourt.

“And let me have a bath first?” inquired the child.

“Yes, indeed!” Annie exclaimed, breaking into the conversation, “that will be the very first thing I will do for you, and right away, too.”

“Oh, thank you, ma’am; thank you ever so much! I like you ever so much, too. I think—yes, I am quite sure you are possessed of common sense.”

Annie looked surprised, and then laughed merrily.

The child was rather disconcerted, and hastened to say, in explanation:

“Of course, I only meant that you knew I could not go back to Lady in this trim, and I could not put on clean clothes without taking a bath first after this,” she added, taking up the end of her drapery with a grimace.

“Of course you couldn’t,” assented Harcourt.

“If I did, I don’t know what Lady would think of me. Or even Ducky Darling.”

“And now, my little girl, will you stay here with this good friend, Mrs. Moss, while I go uptown?” inquired the young man.

“Will you come back—faithful—and take me to Lady?”

“My dear child, I shall have to find out where your lady is first. But don’t you be afraid. I know how to find her.”

“She lives in Goblin Hall. But, of course, she may be on a visit, or she may be away hunting all about for me.”

“Yes; I will inquire.”

“Oh, now, will you really? this very, very day??”

“Indeed, I will, my dear. Indeed, I will, my dear, this very day. Now, good-by, until I see you again,” he added, stooping and kissing her on the forehead.

“Hurry off, Mr. William; I will take care of the little girl,” said Annie.

“Yes,” said Harcourt to himself, as he left the house, “if I should be an hour late I should be ‘docked’ half a day. But that dear, good woman, she will lose her whole day’s work, I fear. But, after all, she will like it,” he added.

But Annie did not lose her whole day’s work.

She led the child into her own room, prepared a warm bath in a large washtub, put her into it, gave her a sponge and a bit of soap, and said:

“Now, play about in that, like a little duck in a pond, to your heart’s content, while I go and throw this tangle of fever away,” she said, as she left the child splashing in the water, took the tongs and picked up the shawl with them, carried it into Harcourt’s room, and threw it out of the back window.

“I had no means of burning such a thing in my small stove. But I am afraid it will become the treasure-trove of some other ragpicker, and so fulfill its destiny of a pestilence breeder,” she said, with a sigh, as she closed the window.

When she returned she found the child still luxuriating in the warm bath.

She rolled up her sleeves and knelt down by her side, rubbed the little creature down, admiring a form as beautiful as one of Raphael’s cherubs, took her out of the tub, wiped her dry, and laid her between the fresh sheets of her—Annie’s—white bed.

“Now that you are so sweet, and clean, and comfortable, I hope you will not mind staying here by yourself while I go out to buy some clothes to put on you. It is only a little way I shall have to go, and I will not be gone long,” said Annie, as she smoothed the counterpane over the bed.

“Oh, no, thank you, ma’am, I shall not mind staying alone, for, you must know, I really am possessed of common sense,” said the elf, with impressive gravity.

“I decidedly think that you are. But, I forgot, I shall have to get the measure for your shoes. Put out your foot.”

The child obeyed. Annie got a bit of tape from her workbasket and took the length of the little foot. Then she put her room in order and went out to purchase, from the cheap store at the corner, a very plain and limited outfit for the child—namely, two changes of cheap, cotton underclothing, a small, flannel petticoat, a pink calico frock, a white apron, a straw hat, with one band of blue ribbon around it, a pair of leather shoes, and two pairs of white cotton stockings. This purchase took the whole of Harcourt’s two-dollar note, and a dollar and sixty-five cents out of Annie’s half-eagle.

When she got back to her room she found her charge sleeping deliciously in the white bed. The little face was flushed with healthful life, and partly shaded by the luxuriant tangles of the golden brown hair.

“What a lovely possession a child is,” smiled and sighed the childless widow. “How I wish she was mine!”

She gazed at the pretty picture, but forbore to disturb the sweet sleeper.

Then, remembering that she could not lose time in this way, she went to her sewing machine, pushed it silently to the furthest part of the room from the bed, so that its sound should not wake the child, sat down and went to work, and worked hard at it for three or four hours before the sleeper moved.