alerted yesterday to a crisis in the household and discovered early this morning that the young woman who was her mother—’
He broke off and glanced anxiously at the child. He was used to the stares of children, but this one’s eyes drifted towards him and didn’t stop but kept on going, past, past, as if she hadn’t seen him. Perhaps it was a form of shyness. Cats also did not like to meet an unfamiliar person’s eye – they looked in your direction and then away again. He kept a length of string in his pocket to which was tied a feather; it was marvellously effective with kittens. For little girls he had a small doll made of a coat peg with a painted face and a rabbit-skin coat. He took it out now and put it in the child’s lap. She felt it placed there, and looked down. Her hand closed around the doll. Rita and Margot watched her with the same attentiveness as the man and exchanged glances.
‘You were saying, about the poor mite’s mother …’ Margot then prompted in a low voice, and while the child was occupied with the doll, Armstrong went on in a low murmur.
‘The young woman passed away yesterday evening. Nothing was known of the whereabouts of the child. I enquired of the first man I met on the towpath and he told me to apply to you here. Though he had the story entirely upside down and I arrived believing her to be drowned.’
‘She was drowned,’ said Margot. ‘Till Rita brought her in again and then she was alive.’ No matter how many times her tongue repeated it, it still sounded wrong to her ears.
Armstrong frowned and turned to Rita for clarification. Her face gave little away. ‘She appeared dead, but wasn’t,’ she said. The briefness of the formulations elided the impossibilities better than any other, and for the moment this was her version. It was laconic, but it was true. As soon as you started to put more words in, you came to unreason.
‘I see,’ said Armstrong, though he didn’t.
The three of them looked at the girl again. The doll was lying abandoned at her side and she had returned to a state of listlessness.
‘She is a droll little thing,’ Margot admitted unhappily. ‘Everybody finds her so. And yet, in a way that is hard to explain, you cannot help but take to her. Why, even the gravel-diggers last night – and they are not known for being soft-hearted – were won over. Weren’t they, Rita? If nobody had claimed her, that Higgs would have taken her home like a lost puppy. And even with all the children and grandchildren I’ve got to worry about, I’d keep her, if she had nowhere else to go. And so would you, wouldn’t you, Rita?’
Rita did not reply.
‘We did think he was the father, the man who brought her in,’ Margot said. ‘But from what you say …’
‘How is he? This Mr Daunt?’
‘He will be all right. His injuries look worse than they are. His breathing does not falter and his colour improves with every hour that passes. I think it will not be long before he awakes.’
‘I will go to Oxford and find my son, then. By dusk he will be here and by nightfall this matter will be settled.’
He put on his hat and took his leave.
Margot set about readying the winter room for the day ahead. Word would have got out and she expected to be busy. She might even have to open the large summer room. Rita moved between the child and the man asleep in the bed. Joe came in for a time. The little girl turned her eyes to him and watched his every move as he poured tea into Rita’s cup and arranged the curtain so that the light did not disturb the sleeper in the bed. When he had done these things and came to see the child herself, she stretched out her arms to him.
‘Well!’ he exclaimed. ‘What a funny little girl you are! Fancy being interested in old Joe.’
Rita stood to let him sit and placed the child on his lap. She stared up into his face.
‘What colour would you say her eyes are?’ he wondered. ‘Blue? Grey?’
‘Greeny-blue?’ Rita suggested. ‘Depends on the light.’
They were considering the matter together when there came a sudden hammering at the door for the third time that day. It made them both start.