"Us" Part 12

"Diana," he said breathlessly, "I've heard all he said. You don't mean to take part with him, do you? You'll never help to sell those pretty babies like that? I'll do anything--anything you tell me--if you'll join with me to get them sent home."

In her turn Diana caught hold of him and held him fast.

"Tim," she said, "you want to get off yourself, and you'd do your best for them. I've seen it. But alone you'd never manage it. I'll help you, Tim. I won't have it on my conscience that I stood by and saw those innocents sold to such a life. If it had been to keep them a while longer with us, I mightn't have done anything, not just yet, not till I saw a chance. But whatever Mick and the others say, I won't see them taken away unless it is to go back to their own people."

"That's right, Diana," said Tim.

"And I'll help you. Keep your wits about you and be ready when I give the sign. Now get out of the way and take care. If Mick hadn't made himself stupid lately he'd have seen you were thinking of something. You mustn't say a word to the children; leave them to me," and again squeezing the boy's arm meaningly, she climbed up into the waggon, where the two little prisoners, tired of waiting for her, had fallen fast asleep.

Tim, for his part, tumbled into his so-called bed that night, with a wonderfully lightened heart, and his dreams were filled with the most joyous hopes.

CHAPTER VIII.

NEW HOPES.

"I am a friend to them and you."

_Winter's Tale._

It was a good thing Tim had some new ground of hope, for otherwise the next day or two would have sadly distressed him. He never once could get near the children. And, what he found very strange, Diana herself seemed to be doing her utmost to keep him from them. Two or three times, especially when Mick or the Missus happened to be near, she roughly pushed him back when he was making his way to the door of the van, where Duke and his sister were. And at first the boy was not only surprised, but rather offended.

"What for will you not let me play with them a bit?" he said to her, half inclined to appeal to Mick, who did not interfere.

"They've no need of _you_--keep out of my way," Diana answered roughly, at which Mick and the others laughed as if it was a very good joke, for hitherto Diana had been always accused of "favouring" the boy.

Tim looked up resentfully. He had it on his tongue--for after all he was only a child--to say something which might have done harm never to be undone, for he could not understand Diana. But something in her face, as she looked at him steadily, stopped the words of reproach as they rose to his lips.

"You'll make an end of them, you will, if you keep them choked up in there all day," he said sullenly. "Why can't you let 'em out for a bit of a run with me, like you've done before?"

"I'll let them out when it suits me, and not before. It's none of your business," she replied, while adding in a lower tone that no one else could overhear: "I'd never have thought you such a fool, Tim;" and Tim, feeling rather small,--for he began to understand her a little,--walked off.

All this was at what they called dinner-time, when the vans generally halted for an hour or so and hitherto--even when they were travelling too quickly for the children to have walked beside for a change, as they had sometimes done when going slowly--Mick or Diana had always let them out at this hour for a breath of fresh air. But to-day, though it was beautifully fine and the sun was s.h.i.+ning most temptingly, poor Duke and Pamela had to be content with the sight of it through the tiny little window in the side of the van, which Diana opened, and with such air as could get in by the same means. It was hot and stuffy inside, and their little heads ached with being jolted along, and with having had no exercise such as they were accustomed to. Still they did not look altogether miserable or unhappy, as they tried to eat the dinner the gipsy girl had brought them on a tin plate, from the quickly-lighted fire by the hedge, where the old hag who did the cooking for the party had been stewing away at a mess in a great pot. She ladled out the contents all round for the others, but Diana helped herself. She picked out the nicest bits she could see for the two little prisoners, and stood by them for a minute or two to see if they really were going to eat.

"I'll come back in a bit to see if it's all gone," she said, when she had seen them at work, "and remember what I said this morning. That'll help to make you eat hearty."

"Her's very kind," said Duke; but as he spoke he laid down the coa.r.s.e two-p.r.o.nged fork Diana had given him to eat with, and seemed glad of an excuse to rest in his labours for a while. "But I can't eat this, can you, sister?"

Pamela looked up--she had got a small bone in her fingers, at which she was trying to nibble.

"I'm pretending to be Toby eating a bone," she said gravely. "Sometimes it makes it seem nicer."

"_I_ don't think so," said Duke. "It only makes it worser to think of Toby," and his voice grew very doleful, as if he were going to cry.

"Now don't, bruvver," said Pamela. "Let's think of what Diana said."

"What was it?" said Duke. "Say it again."

"'Twas that, p'raps, if us was very good and did just ezactly what her tells us, us'd go somewhere soon, where us'd be _very_ happy," said Pamela. "Where do you fink it can be, Duke? Us mustn't tell _n.o.body_, not even Tim; but I don't mind, for Diana said she thought Tim'd go too.

Do you fink she meant" (and here poor little Pam, who had learnt unnatural caution already, glanced round her--as if any one could have been hidden in the small s.p.a.ce of the van!--and lowered her voice)--"that she meant us was to go _home_ again to dear Grandmamma and Grandpapa?"

Duke shook his head.

"No," he said, "they'll never send us home now. Mick'd be put in prison if he took us home. I know that. I heard what they was saying about it one day when they didn't know I was there. And it's too far away--it's a dreadful way away. We can never go home. I daresay Grandpapa and Grandmamma and everybody's dead by now," concluded Duke, who talked with a sort of reckless composure sometimes, altogether too much for Pamela, who burst into tears.

"Oh bruvver!" she cried between her sobs, "don't talk like that. I _fink_ G.o.d's too good to have let dear Grandpapa and Grandmamma die. And us has said our prayers such many many times about going home. I'm sure Grandpapa would never put Mick in prison if us asked him not, and p'raps if Mick was sure of that he'd take us home. Oh don't you fink us might go and ask him," and she started up.

"Us can't promise it; Grandpapa'd _have_ to do it. It'd be his _dooty_,"

said Duke sternly--his ideas on all subjects were very grim at present--"he'd have to stop Mick going and stealing away other children like he did us. And Diana said us mustn't speak to _n.o.body_ about what she told us."

"I don't care about it if it isn't that us is going home," said Pamela, crying quietly. "I don't care about gold frocks like fairies and all that if dear Grandmamma and Grandpapa can't see us."

Duke looked at her gloomily.

"P'raps Diana meant us'd soon be going to heaven," he said at last. "I heard them saying us'd 'not stand it long,' and I know that means going to die."

"I don't care," sobbed Pamela again, "if Grandpapa and Grandmamma are dead, heaven'd be the best place for us to go to;" and regardless of all Diana had said to her about trying to eat and to keep up her spirits, the little girl let the tin plate, with the greasy meat and gravy, slip off her knees on to the floor, and, leaning her head on the hard wooden bench, she went off in a fit of piteous and hopeless sobbing. In a moment Duke's arms were around her, and he was kissing and hugging and doing his best to console her.

"Dear little sister," he cried, "don't be so _very_ unhappy. It was very naughty of me to say dear Grandpapa and Grandmamma and everybody would be dead."

"And Toby," interrupted Pamela. "Did you mean Toby too?"

Duke considered.

"No, I don't think I meant Toby. He must be a good deal younger than Grandpapa and Grandmamma, and I don't think he'd be _quite_ so unhappy about us as they'd be."

"If _I'd_ been Toby I'd have come to look for us," said Pamela, crying now less violently. "Us could have wrote a letter and tied it to his collar, and then Grandpapa could have come to look for us. Toby can run so fast," and she was going on to describe what she would have done in Toby's place when the little door of the van opened and Diana reappeared. Her face clouded as she looked at the children.

"Crying again! Oh missie," she said reproachfully, "that's not good of you. You'll cry yourself ill, and then----" Diana in turn looked round and lowered her voice, "have you forgotten the secret I told you? You'll never get away where you'd like to be if you make yourself ill. And scarce a bite of dinner have you touched," she went on, looking at the bits of meat reposing beside the overturned plate.

Pamela lifted up her tear-swollen face and drew herself out of Duke's arms, to fling herself into Diana's.

"If us is going to die, it's no good eating," she said.

"Who said you was a-going to die?" exclaimed the gipsy girl.

"Duke and I was talking, and us thought p'raps heaven was the nice place you said us'd go to if us was good," replied Pamela.

Diana gave a little laugh, half sad and half bitter.

"It isn't here you'll learn much about going to _that_ place," she said.

"But that wasn't what I meant. Listen, master and missy; but, mind you, never you say one word,--now hush and listen," and in a very low voice she went on: "To-night we'll get to a big town where there's a fair.

Mick's got it all settled to give you to a--a gentleman there, who'd dress you up fine and teach you to sing and to dance."

"Would he be kind to us?" asked both children eagerly. Diana shook her head.

"Maybe, and maybe not. That's just why I cannot stand by and see you given to him," said Diana, half as if speaking to herself. "It was a bad day's work when he took them," she went on. Then suddenly rousing herself: "Listen children, again," she said. "If that man as I'm speaking of comes to see you to-night, as he most likely will, you must, for my sake and your own, speak very pretty, and try to laugh and look happy and answer all he says. It's only for once. For to-morrow--I can't say for sure to-morrow--but I think it will be, and I can't say the time--I'm going to do my best to get you sent back to where you should never have been taken from." She stopped a moment as if to judge of the effect of her words. For an instant the children did not speak; they just stared at her with their blue eyes opened to their widest extent, their little white faces looking whiter than before, till gradually a rush of rosy colour spread over them, the blue eyes filled with tears, and both Duke and Pamela flung themselves into the gipsy girl's arms.