May Fleming - The Actress' Daughter - A Novel

"Just you try to turn him out, you cross, ugly old thing! If you do I'll – I'll kill you; I'll set fire to this hateful old hut, and burn it down! You see if I don't. There!"

The savage gleam of her eyes at that moment, her face white with concentrated passion, was something horrible and unnatural in one of her years. Miss Jerusha drew back a step, and interposed a chair between them in salutary dread of the little vixen's claw-like nails.

At that moment the form of Richmond Wildair appeared in the door-way. Both youths had arrived in time to witness the fierce altercation between the mistress of the house and her half-savage little ward, and Richmond now interposed.

Taking off his hat, he bowed to Miss Jerusha saying in his calm, gentlemanly tones:

"I beg your pardon, madam, for this intrusion, but my brother being really unable to walk, I beg you will have the kindness to allow him to remain here until I can return from Burnfield with a carriage. You will not be troubled with him more than an hour."

Inhospitable as she was, Miss Jerusha could not really refuse this, so she growled out a churlish assent; and Richmond, secretly amused at the whole thing, helped in Charley, while Georgia set the rocking-chair for him, and placed a stool under his wounded foot, without, however, favoring him with a single smile, or word, or glance. She was in no mood just then either to forget or forgive.

"And now I'm off," said Richmond, after seeing Charley safely disposed of. "I will be back in as short a time as I possibly can; and meantime, Miss Georgia," he added, turning to her with a smile as he left the room, "I place my brother under your care until I come back."

But Georgia, with her back to them both, was looking sullenly out of the window, and neither moved nor spoke until Richmond had gone, and then she followed him out, and stood looking irresolutely after him as he walked down the road.

He turned round, and seeing her there, stopped as though expecting she would speak; but she only played nervously with the hop-vines crowning the walls, without lifting her voice.

"Well, Georgia?" he said inquiringly.

"I – I don't want to stay here. I'll go with you to Burnfield, if you like. Miss Jerusha's cross," she said, looking up half shyly, half defiantly in his face.

A strange expression flitted for an instant over the grave, thoughtful face of Richmond Wildair, passing away as quickly as it came. Without a word he went up to where Georgia stood, with that same light in her eyes, half shy, half fierce, that one sees in the eyes of a half-tamed and dangerous animal when under the influence of a master-eye.

"Georgia, look at me," he said, laying one hand lightly on her shoulder.

She stepped back, shook off the hand, and looked defiantly up in his face. It was not exactly a handsome face, yet it was full of power – full of calm, deep, invincible power – with keen, intense, piercing eyes, whose steady gaze few could calmly stand. Child as she was, the hitherto unconquered Georgia felt that she stood in the presence of a strong will, that surmounted and overtopped her own by its very depth, intensity and calmness. She strove to brave out his gaze, but her own eyes wavered and fell.

"Well?" she said, in a subdued tone.

"Georgia, will you do me a favor?"

"Well?" she said, compressing her lips hard, as though determined to do battle to the death.

"My brother is alone, he is in pain, he did not mean to offend you, he is under your roof. Georgia, I want you to stay with him till I come back."

"He laughed at me – he made fun of me. I won't ! I hate him!" she said, with a passionate flush.

"He is sorry for that. When people are sorry for their faults, a magnanimous enemy always forgives."

"I don't care. I won't forgive him. I was doing everything I could for him. I would have helped him up hill if I could, and he laughed at me ! I won't stay with him!" she exclaimed, tearing the hop branches off and flinging them to the ground in her excitement.

He caught the destructive little hands in his and held them fast.

"Georgia, you will !"

"I won't ! not if I die for it!" she flashed.

"Georgia!"

"Let me go!" she cried out, trying to wrench her hands from his grasp. "I never will! Let me go!"

"Georgia, do you know what hospitality means?"

"Yes."

"Well, he is your guest now. Have you ever read about the Arabs of the desert, my proud little lady?"

"Yes."

"Well, you know once their most deadly enemy entered their house, they treated him as though he were the dearest friend they had in the world. Now, Georgia, you will be a lady some day, I think, and – "

"I will stay with your brother till you come back," she said, proudly; "but I won't be his friend – never again! I liked him then, and I wanted to do everything I could for him. I would have had my ankle sprained if it would have made his well. I was so sorry, and – he – laughed at me!"

In spite of all her evident efforts her lips quivered, and turning abruptly, she walked away and entered the house.

Richmond Wildair stood for an instant in the same spot, looking after her, and again that nameless, inexplicable smile flitted over his face.

" Conquered !" he said, with a sort of exultation in his voice; "and for the first time in her life, I believe. Strange, wild child that she is. I see the germs of a fine but distorted character there."

He walked down the road, whistling "My love is but a lassie yet," while Georgia re-entered the house, and with a dark cloud still on her face, walked to the window and looked sullenly after the retreating figure of Richmond.

Master Charley, who had a taste for strange animals, had been devoting his time to drawing out Miss Jerusha, practicing all his fascinations on her with a zeal and determination worthy of a better cause, and at last succeeded in wheedling that deluded lady into a recital of her many and peculiar troubles, to all of which he listened with the most sympathizing, not to say painful attention, and with a look so intensely dismal that it quite won the old lady's heart. But when he praised Betsey Periwinkle, and stroked her down, and spoke in terms of enthusiastic admiration of a pair of moleskin pantaloons Miss Jerusha was making, bespeaking another pair exactly like them for himself, his conquest was complete, and he took a firm hold of Miss Jerusha's unappropriated affections, which from that day he never lost. And on the strength of this new and rash attack of "love at first sight," Miss Jerusha produced from some mysterious corner a glass of currant wine and a plate of sliced gingerbread, which she offered to her guest – a piece of reckless extravagance she had never been guilty of before, and which surprised Fly to such a degree that she would have there and then taken out a writ of lunacy against her mistress, had she known anything whatever about such a proceeding. Master Charley, being blessed with an excellent appetite of his own, which his accident had in no way diminished, graciously condescended to partake of the offered dainties, and launched out into such enthusiastic praises of both, that the English language actually foundered and gave out, in his transports.

And all this time Georgia had stood by the window, silent and sullen, with a cloud on her brow, and a bright, angry light in her eyes, that warned both Miss Jerusha and Charley Wildair that it was safer to let her alone than speak to her just then. For though the girl's combustible nature was something like a blaze of tow, burning fiercely for a moment and then going out, she did not readily forgive injuries, slights, or affronts, or what she considered such. No, she brooded over them until they sank deep among the many other rank things that had been allowed to take root in her heart, and which only the spirit of true religion could now ever eradicate.