Star of Light (10 page)

Jenny’s mother touched her, and she stopped dreaming and started clapping very loudly so that the blind children would hear how pleased she was. And then it was over, and the children crowded around to say good-bye, touching and feeling and chattering, and the smallest ones were carried away happy and sleepy to bed. But the bigger ones stayed around the doorway to wave and shout to the sound of cars driving away, and that was the last Jenny saw of them.

She was very quiet on the way home and her mother, thinking she was tired, hurried her up to her room, lit her gas fire, and hustled her into bed. Jenny had been ill, and this had been her first real outing in three months. Her mother had wondered whether she ought to go, but Jenny had insisted, and as usual had her way. Her father had recently joined the council of the blind school, and they had all been invited to the Christmas party.

Jenny nestled down under her pink comforter and looked at all her Christmas presents—the books, the games, the cozy new dressing gown, the little gold wristwatch, and the travelling case. It had been a good Christmas, and the best present of all—a pony of her own—was down in the stable. For the first time in her rather self-centered life, Jenny suddenly realized that she was really a very fortunate child. She thought of the blind children with the toys they
could not see, and the children in Morocco who had no toys at all and often no food. Her Aunt Rosemary looked after some of them, and had written her an early Christmas letter all about them, and Jenny had been thrilled. It had been like a new, exciting story, giving her a peep into a world she knew nothing about, a world where children like herself went about in rags and earned their own living and slept by themselves out-of-doors—a world where little babies got ill because they didn’t have enough to eat. Jenny adored babies, but the only ones she had ever met had nannies who took care of them, and she had not been allowed to hold them in her arms as she had longed to do. These other babies were probably too poor to have nannies, and perhaps she would be allowed to pick them up.

The wonderful thing was that in a very short time Jenny would actually see the children that Aunt Rosemary had written about. Only six weeks after Christmas, she and her parents were going by car on a long journey to visit her and her beggar children in the mountains of North Africa.

The doctor had said that Jenny needed sunshine. She had had plenty of medicines, creams, tonics, and drives out in the car, but she could not get warm sunshine in England in January, so they were going southward to a land of blue skies and yellow beaches and calm seas where she would grow strong and brown and healthy.

She sleepily wondered how her father would know the way, and supposed they would just follow the sun, as the wise men had followed the star. When
her mother returned with a drink and biscuits on a tray, she found her little daughter fast asleep. She stood looking down on the flushed face and tumbled hair for a moment, then put out the light, opened the big window, and slipped away, leaving Jenny to dream of stars, sunshine, and Christmas trees.

The Holiday Begins

V
ery early one morning in March, the English nurse woke, got out of bed at once, and ran up to her flat roof to look at the weather. It was going to be a fine day, she decided happily, and this was just as it should be, for this was the day she had looked forward to for so long. Her cousin from England was arriving to stay in the hotel for two weeks. Her husband was coming with her, and they were bringing Jenny.

It was the thought of Jenny that made the English nurse very happy. She woke Kinza, who was lying in a ball on a mattress on the floor, her ginger kitten close beside her. The first thing she always did on waking was to stretch out her hand and make sure that the kitten was there, and if it had gone for a
walk she made a terrible fuss. But this morning all was well.

Hand in hand, the English nurse and Kinza climbed the stairs onto the flat roof and sat down at a low round table, eating breakfast together under a blue spring sky.

“The little girl is coming today,” announced the nurse, as she tidied up and tried not to trip over Kinza and the kitten, who were playing on the floor with a ball. “We are going to take a holiday. We will go to the market together and buy nice things to eat, and then we’ll make a feast for the little girl.”

“A feast! A feast!” shouted Kinza, jumping about like a clumsy goat kid, and falling over the wastepaper basket. “I will carry the basket for you. Let’s go now.”

“Yes, let’s,” said the nurse, and off they went into the sunshine hand in hand. The nurse had not had a weekday holiday for a long time. She usually stayed inside in the morning. But today she had told the people not to come. She was going to be free to get ready for Jenny. Now, while it was still early, she was going to climb up the hillside behind the town and pick flowers.

It was too far for Kinza, so when they had finished their shopping, she left her on the step of the doughnut shop in the charge of Hamid. She often did this when she was busy, for she felt quite sure that the two children were probably brother and sister and should spend some time together. Kinza was always perfectly safe and happy when Hamid looked after her, although she sometimes ended up rather greasy
and not very keen on her dinner. She was very fond of doughnuts and would eat all that were offered her.

Once by herself, the nurse almost ran up the steep, cobbled streets, past the tumbledown shacks on the outskirts of the town, and out through the gate in the ruined wall that led on to the hillside. She suddenly forgot that she would soon be middle-aged and felt very young indeed. She began picking the flowers that were growing all around her.

How beautiful they are!
she thought.
I shall bring Jenny up here and we’ll pick them together
.

As she thought of Jenny, she began to wonder how they would all get on together. Their lives were so different. Once, when they had been growing up together, she and Elizabeth had been like sisters, but Elizabeth had married a rich man and had gone to live in his beautiful home. Jenny had been brought up surrounded by beauty and peace, and had had everything that love and money could give. Aunt Rosemary could have made her home with them, too, but while she was training to be a nurse she had felt that God wanted her to go to Africa to help people and to care for poor, ragged children. Elizabeth and her husband thought it was a foolish thing to do, and Aunt Rosemary had found it difficult to write and tell them about her life.

Their letters had mainly been about Jenny, and every Christmas Elizabeth had sent Rosemary a photograph of her as she grew up, and Rosemary had kept them all in a little photo album. The last picture had been of Jenny on her pony. Rosemary wondered
how Jenny would feel about the simple toys the Moorish children enjoyed. She was used to expensive dolls and proper beds and riding her pony about her father’s estate. She would probably get very bored. Feeling rather sad, Rosemary hurried back down the mountain with her flowers, collected a happy, sticky Kinza, and went home.

She went to the toy cupboard and inspected it rather sadly. There were some shabby scrapbooks, faded puzzles, and chipped bricks, some scruffy little dolls, and a box of stubby chalk. They had all obviously been enjoyed by children who had never seen toys before, and all the toys were well-worn. Rosemary shut the cupboard with a sigh and went to the kitchen to make buns.

By half-past four the little house was as bright as scrubbing and polishing could make it, and the sitting room was sweet with the scent of wildflowers. Tea was ready, the kettle was singing on the stove, and Rosemary and Kinza set out to meet the car in front of the hotel.

It arrived punctually, a smart, streamlined vehicle, and the little boys surged around, fighting each other in their efforts to carry the luggage. Rosemary stood waiting for her relatives to get out, and above the pandemonium she heard a child’s voice cry out, “Oh, Mummy, look! What a sweet little girl! You never told me Aunt Rosemary had a little girl.”

The moment they extricated themselves from the mob of little boys, Elizabeth, looking just as young as she had looked ten years before, was kissing her cousin warmly. Jenny was squatting on the ground,
trying to make friends with Kinza.

“Jenny,” said her mother sharply, “you haven’t greeted Aunt Rosemary.”

Jenny got up, kissed her aunt politely, and turned back to Kinza. While the adults sorted out the luggage, passports, and forms, Rosemary stood quietly watching the child whom for years she had longed to see.
An elfin-looking child
, she thought, and went over to make friends.

Jenny turned a troubled face to her aunt. “What is the matter with this little girl?” she asked. “I showed her my pretty brooch, and she just stared in front of her.”

“I’m afraid she’s blind, Jenny,” said Rosemary gently. “But it doesn’t mean you can’t play with her. You must give her toys she can feel, and you must sing to her and let her touch you. She’ll soon love you.”

Rosemary lifted Kinza’s tiny hand and passed it lightly over Jenny’s face and hair. “That’s how she gets to know people,” she explained, and then turned to speak to Jenny’s mother and father. But before she could say anything, Jenny had seized her mother’s hand and was looking up at her, her grey eyes brimming with tears.

“She’s blind, Mummy,” she whispered, “like the little Christmas children.”

“Never mind,” replied Mrs. Swift gently. “She looks like a very happy little girl, and we must find her a little present. Now, let’s come and see Aunt Rosemary’s house.”

They set off across the market, the grown-ups walking ahead and Jenny leading Kinza, too interested in
her new playmate to notice much of the town about her. She was happier than she had been all the holiday for, much as she loved her mother and father, she was only nine, and she longed for other children to play with. Most of all she longed for something to look after. She was too old for dolls, her pets had all been left at home, and she missed them dreadfully. But a curly-haired blind baby of three was far better than pets. She had never dreamed of anything so exciting.

They had reached the narrow backstreet where Rosemary lived, and Mrs. Swift was talking in a rather strained voice and trying not to look too horrified at the babies sitting on the cobbles and the ragged old beggar chanting in one of the doorways. Then she suddenly looked very horrified indeed, for Rosemary had stopped in front of the last house and was taking out her key. On the doorstep sat a very poor woman, holding something to her breast under her rags.

Rosemary spoke to the woman, who pulled aside her rags and held out a baby, all skin and bones, half-dead with sickness and exhaustion. Mrs. Swift put out her hand to take hold of Jenny, but she was too late. Her child had stepped forward, and both she and Rosemary were stooping over the pathetic little creature, quite absorbed.

“Jenny!” commanded her mother. “Come here!” But Jenny took not the slightest notice. She turned tragic eyes to her aunt.

“Is it going to die?” she whispered.

“I don’t know; I hope not,” replied Rosemary. “Let’s go in.”

She opened the front door, led the woman into the room where she gave out the medicines, and told her to sit down while she turned back to her guests. Mrs. Swift was standing very still, recovering from her shock at finding such a wretched creature on Rosemary’s doorstep. She noticed that the young mother had a patient face, one used to suffering, with beautiful dark eyes that gleamed with hope as she lifted her baby toward the nurse.

“Rosemary,” she urged, “don’t worry about us; we can look after ourselves. You go and see to that poor baby.”

Rosemary hesitated. “Well, come upstairs,” she said, “and I can show you where the sitting room is. Tea is all ready, and the kettle is boiling.”

It was a surprise to enter a house on that dingy street and find it bright with pictures and flowers, and a delicious meal set out on pretty china. Rosemary sat them down on the low mattress seats and made tea. Then she spoke rather shyly.

“It seems awfully rude,” she said, “but would you mind if I left you just for ten minutes? You see, I know this woman. She’s lost four babies—this one is all she’s got.”