Black Pearls - Louise Hawes [3]
***
So if you had asked her, Tabby would have said she was not expecting it, did not want it at all. But when the man came back the next fall, carrying the girl in his arms, her eyes had filled with tears of relief. She could not speak, but drank up the child with a thirsty heart: already pretty, the tiny thing had yellow curls and eyes as blue as the irises that grew in a thick, companionable cluster by Tabby's well. But it was not the dainty features or fair hair that stunned her, that flooded her own face with warmth. It was the way the baby leaned from her father's hold and reached her arms toward Tabby, as if she meant to fly across the space between them.
Though Tabby was speechless, the man was a veritable gossip. His wife was pregnant again, he told her, and though he hated to part with his firstborn, he knew, fiend that she was, Tabby would hex the second babe if he did not. This one was weaned and walking, and a stout little soul besides. Her needs were few, and she looked as though she would grow into a strong worker. But four were a lot of mouths to feed, and if the new child was a son, why, he bore no grudge. Even witches could be made to serve God's plan.
Tabby said nothing, only stared at the treasure he carried.
"Farewell, my Rampion, my tender babe," he told his daughter at last, setting her down and striding to the door. "God keep you in his care." He stepped outside and without another word left the child standing in front of the hearth. He did not look back or wave to the babe he had named after a kitchen green, but hurried off as if Tabby might change her mind.
The girl did not look after him, only studied Tabby solemnly, then climbed onto her lap and fell asleep. Tabby had wanted to run after the man, to find out where he lived, to ask the countless questions that suddenly occurred to her. She needed clothes for the child, and shoes, and toys. She wondered if Rampion had ever been sick or whether there were foods she must not have. But the weight of that small creature kept her pinned to her chair, fearful of talking or moving lest the moment dissolve like a bubble in a stream.
Rampion. A strange name, but a good one, Tabby thought. Some girls were called Rose, after all, and some Violet or Pansy or Blossom. Wasn't it better to bear the name of a sturdy little plant, a green that flowered in the summer and gave food the rest of the year? As she listened to the shallow, even breaths of the babe in her lap, she closed her eyes and tried to feel her way through the years that lay ahead. Tabby was not blessed, as some in the coven were, with the gift of second sight, so the image she saw was more yearning than certainty, but it was a comfort nonetheless—a girl fair enough to be a princess, with a slender, graceful form and a laugh that tumbled like falls down a mossy bank.
She did not know how long they sat, the little one curled against her with her left thumb in her mouth, Tabby rigid with bliss, counting the small heartbeats that drummed against her own chest. But when Rampion finally stirred, her father was long gone and it was too late to ask him anything at all. They must make do, the two of them, with just each other.
And make do, they did. Though she could speak only baby nonsense, Tabby's new daughter (daughter! the word was too sweet to say aloud) made her wants clear. And each one was given her, nearly as soon as she pointed or cried or smiled at it.
Tabby hugged and fed and petted and played. She sang and clapped and laughed and jigged. She made dolls from old bed sheets and crowns from dried periwinkle and sweet William. By spring, the girl had spoken her first words, and by late summer, she was chattering like a magpie, telling her rag dolls secrets or begging her mother for treats. Though Tabby