The Actress' Daughter Part 4

"And did you tell Georgey to go down to Bunfield for some yaller soap?"

"Please, Miss Jerry, I couldn't find her."

"Couldn't find her, hey? What's the reason you couldn't find her?" said Miss Jerusha, in a high key.

"'Case she'd been and gone away some whars. Please, ole miss, dar ain't nebber no sayin' whar anybody can find dat ar young gal," replied Fly, beginning to whimper in antic.i.p.ation of getting her ears boxed for not performing an impossibility.

"Gone away! arter being told to stay at home and help with the house-cleaning! Oh, the little shif'less villain. I 'clare ef I hadn't a good mind to give her the best switchin' ever she got next time I ketch holt of her. Told me this morning she wasn't going to be a dish-washing old maid like me! a sa.s.sy, impident little monster! Old, indeed! I vow to gracious only for she dodged I'd hev twisted her neck for her! Old!

hump! a pretty thing to be called at my time o' life! Old, indeed! A nasty, ungrateful little imp!"

While she spoke, the outer gate was slammed violently to; a slight little figure ran swiftly up the walk, and burst like a whirlwind into the sacred precincts of the best room--a small, light, airy figure, dressed in black, with crimson cheeks, and dancing, sparkling, flashing black eyes, fairly blazing with life and health, and freedom, and high spirits--a swift, blinding, dark, bright vision, so quick and impetuous in every motion as to startle you--a "thing all life and light," a little tropical b.u.t.terfly, with the hidden sting of a wasp, impressing the beholder with the idea of a barrel of gunpowder, a pop-gun, a firecracker, or anything else, very harmless and quiet-looking, but ready to explode and go off with a bang at any moment.

It was Georgia--our little Georgia; and how she came to be an inmate of Miss Jerusha's cottage it requires us to go back a little to tell.

On that very Christmas Eve, when with Deacon Brown she discovered the sleeping child and the ruined cottage, she was for a moment at a loss what to do. She knew the girl had fallen asleep, unconscious of the dread presence, and she had seen enough of her to be aware of the frantic and pa.s.sionate scene that must ensue when she awoke and discovered her loss. She bent over her, and finding her sleeping heavily, she lifted her gently in her arms, and in a few whispered words desired the deacon not to remove the corpse, but to drive her home first with the orphan.

Wrapping the half-frozen child in her warm cloak, she had taken her seat, and was driven to the cottage without arousing her from her heavy slumber, and safely deposited her in Fly's little bed, to the great astonishment, not to say indignation, of that small, black individual, at finding her couch thus taken summary possession of.

It was late next morning when the little dancing girl awoke, and then she sprang up and gazed around her with an air of complete bewilderment.

Her first glance fell on Miss Jerusha, who was bustling around, helping Fly to get breakfast, and the sight of that yellow, rigid frontispiece seemed to recall her to a realization of what had pa.s.sed the preceding night.

She sprang up, shook back her thick, disordered black hair, and exclaimed:

"Who brought me here?"

"I did, honey," said Miss Jerusha, speaking as gently as _she_ knew how, which is not saying much.

"Where is mamma?"

"Oh, she's--how did you sleep last night?" said Miss Jerusha, actually quailing inwardly in antic.i.p.ation of the coming scene; for, with her strong nerves and plain, practical view of things in general, the good old lady had a masculine horror of scenes.

"Where is my mamma?" said the child, sharply, fixing her piercing black eyes on Miss Jerusha's face.

"Oh, she's--well, she ain't here."

"Where is she, then? You ugly old thing, what have you done to my mamma?"

"Ugly old thing! Oh, dear bless me! _there's_ a way to speak to her elders!" said the deeply shocked Miss Jerusha.

"_Where's my mamma?_" exclaimed the child, with a fierce stamp of the foot.

"Little gal, look here! that ain't no way to talk to--"

"WHERE'S MY MAMMA?" fairly shrieked the little girl, as she sprang forward and clutched Miss Jerusha's arm so fiercely as to extort from her a cry of pain.

"Ah-a-a-a-a-a! Oh-h-h-h! you little crab-fish, if you ain't pinched my arm black and blue! Your mamma's dead, and it's a pity you ain't along with her," said Miss Jerusha, in her anger and pain, giving the girl a push that sent her reeling against the wall.

"Dead!"

The word fell like a blow on the child, stunning her into quiet. Her mamma dead! She could not realize--she could not comprehend it.

She stood as if frozen, her hand uplifted as it had been when she heard it, her lips apart, her eyes wide open and staring. Dead! She stood still, stunned, bewildered.

Miss Jerusha was absolutely terrified. She had expected tears, cries, pa.s.sionate grief, but not this ominous stillness. That fixed, rigid, unnatural look chilled her blood. She went over and shook the child in her alarm.

"Little girl! Georgey! don't look so--_don't_! It ain't right, you know!"

She turned her eyes slowly to Miss Jerusha's face, her lips parted, and one word slowly dropped out:

"Mamma!"

"Honey, your ma's dead, and gone to heaven--I _hope_," said Miss Jerusha, who felt that common politeness required her to say so, although she had her doubts on the subject. "You mustn't take on about it, you--Oh, gracious! the child's gone stark, staring mad!"

Her words had broken the spell. Little Georgia realized it all at last.

With a shriek,--a wild, terrific shriek, that Miss Jerusha never forgot--she threw up her arms and fell prostrate on the ground.

And there she lay and _shrieked_. She did not faint. Miss Jerusha, with her hands clasped over her bruised and wounded ear-drums, wished from the bottom of her heart she _would_; but Georgia was of too sanguine a temperament to faint. Shriek after shriek, sharp, prolonged, and shrill, broke from her lips as she lay on her face on the floor, her hands clasped over her head.

Miss Jerusha and Fly, nearly frantic with the ear-splitting torture, strove to raise her up, but the little fury seemed endowed with supernatural strength, and screamed and struggled, and _bit_ at them like a mad thing, until they were glad enough to go off and leave her alone. And there she lay and screamed for a full hour, until even _her_ lungs of bra.s.s gave way, and shrieks absolutely refused to come.

Then a new spirit seemed to enter the child. She leaped to her feet as if those members were furnished with steel springs, and made for the door. Fortunately, Miss Jerusha had locked it, somehow antic.i.p.ating some such movement, and in that quarter she was foiled. She seized the lock and shook the door furiously, stamping with impotent pa.s.sion at finding it resist all her efforts.

"Open the door!" she screamed, with a stamp, turning upon Miss Jerusha a pair of eyes that glowed like those of a young tigress.

The old lady actually shrank under the burning light of that dark, pa.s.sionate glance, but composedly sat still and knit away.

"OPEN THE DOOR!" shrieked the mad child, shaking it so fiercely that Miss Jerusha fairly expected to see the lock come off before her eyes.

But the lock resisted her efforts. Delirious with her frantic rage, the wild girl dashed her head against it with a shriek of foiled pa.s.sion--dashed it against it again and again, until it was all cut and bleeding; and then she flew at the horrified Miss Jerusha like a very fury, sinking her long nails in her face and tearing off the skin, like a maniac as she was.

That at last aroused all Miss Jerusha's wiry strength, and, grasping the child's wrists in a vise-like grip, she held her fast while she struggled to free herself in vain, for the fict.i.tious strength given her by her storm of pa.s.sion had exhausted itself by its very violence, and every effort now to free herself grew fainter and fainter, until at last she swayed to and fro, tottered, and would have fallen had not Miss Jerusha held her fast.

Lifting her in her arms, Miss Jerusha bore her upstairs and laid her in her own bed. And then over-charged nature gave way, and, burying her face in the pillow, Georgia burst into a pa.s.sionate flood of tears, sobbing convulsively. Long she wept, until the fountains of her tears were dry, and then, worn out by her own violence, she fell into a dreamless sleep.

"Well, my sakes alive!" said Miss Jerusha, drawing a long breath and getting up, "of all the children ever I seen I never saw any like that there little limb. 'Clare to gracious! there's something bad inside that young gal--that's my opinion. Sich eyes, like blazin' coals of fire! My conscience! I really don't feel safe with her in the house."

But Georgia awoke calm and utterly exhausted, and thus pa.s.sed away the first violence of her grief, which like a blaze of straw, burned up fiercely for a moment and then went out in black ashes. Still grave and unsmiling the little girl went about, with no life in her face save what burned in her great wild eyes.

Her mother was buried, and so Miss Jerusha with some inward fear and trembling ventured to tell her at last; but the child heard it quietly enough. She need not have feared, for it was morally and physically impossible for the little girl to ever get up another pa.s.sion-gust like the last.

One source of secret and serious anxiety to Miss Jerusha was the fate of the little boy, Warren Darrell. Since that night when she had turned him from the door, nothing had ever been heard of him; no one had seen him, no traces of him could be found, and one and all came to the conclusion that he must have perished in the storm that night. Miss Jerusha too, had to adopt the same belief at last, and in that moment she felt as though she had been guilty of a murder. No one knew he had come to the cottage, and she had her own reason for keeping it a secret, and for politely informing Fly she would twist her neck for her if she ever mentioned it; and in dread of that disagreeable operation, Fly consented to hold her tongue.

Feeling as if she ought to do something to atone for the guilt of which her conscience, so often referred to by herself, accused her, Miss Jerusha resolved, by way of the severest penance she could think of, to adopt Georgia. Several of the "selectmen" offered to take the child and send her to the workhouse, but Miss Jerusha curtly refused in terms much shorter than sweet, and snappishly requested them to go and mind their own affairs and she would mind little Georgia Darrell.

And so, from that day the little dancer became an inmate of the lonely sea-side cot. For the first few weeks she was preternaturally grave and still--"in the dumps" Miss Jerusha called it; then this pa.s.sed away--like all the grief of childhood, ever light and short-lived--and _then_ Miss Jerusha began to realize the trouble and tribulations in store for her, and the life of worry and vexation of spirit the restless elf would lead her.

In the first place, Miss Georgia emphatically and decidedly "put her foot down," and gave her _guardianess_ (if such a word is admissible) to understand, in the plainest possible English, that she had not the remotest or faintest idea of doing one single hand's turn of work.