May Fleming - The Actress' Daughter - A Novel

"You may laugh, but I really feel a deep interest in that child," said Richmond.

"Well, for my part," said Charley, "I don't believe in vixens, young or old, but you — you always had a taste for monsters."

"Not exactly," said Richmond, untying a knot in his whip; "but she is something new; she suits me; I like her."

All that day little Georgia went wandering aimlessly, restlessly, through the woods, possessed by some walking spirit that would not let her sit still for an instant. She had kept her vow; she had resisted the power of a master mind; she had maintained her free will, and refused to do as he commanded her. Yes, she felt it as a command. She had thrown off the yoke he would have laid on her, and she ought to have exulted in her triumph – in her victory. But, strange to say, it surprised even herself that she had not ; she felt angry, sullen and dissatisfied. The consciousness that she was wrong and he was right – that she ought to have done as he told her – would force itself upon her in spite of her efforts. How mean and narrow her own conduct did look now that she came to think it over, and the fever of passion had passed away; had she been brave and generous she felt she would have forgiven him when he so often apologized; it was galling to be laughed at, it was true, but when he was sorry for his fault she knew she ought to have pardoned him. How they both must despise her; what a wicked, ugly, disagreeable little girl they must think her. How she wished she had been better, and had made up friends, and not let them go away thinking her so cross and sullen and obstinate.

"Miss Jerusha says I'm ugly and good for nothing and bad-tempered, and so does every body else. Nobody loves me or cares for me, and every body says I've got the worst temper they ever knew. People don't do anything but laugh at me and make fun of me and call me names. Mamma and Warren liked me, but they're dead, and I wish I was dead and buried, too – I do so! I'll never dance again; I'll never sing for anyone; I'll go away somewhere, and never come back. I wish I was pretty and good-tempered and pleasant, like Em Murray: every body loved her; but I ain't, and never will be. I'm black and ugly and bad-tempered, and every one hates me. Let them hate me, then – I don't care! I hate them just as much; and I'll be just as cross and ugly as ever I like. I was made so, and I can't help it, and I don't care for any body. I'll do just as I like, I will so! I can hate people as much as they can hate me, and I will do it, too. I don't see what I was ever born for; Miss Jerusha says it was to torment people: but I couldn't help it, and it ain't my fault, and they have no business to blame me for it. Emily Murray says God makes people die, and I don't see why he didn't let me die, too, when mamma did. Mamma was good, and I expect she's in heaven, but I'm so bad they'll never let me there I know! I don't care for that either. I was made bad, and if they send me to the bad place for it, they may. Em Murray'll go to Heaven, because she's good and pretty, and Miss Jerusha says she'll go, but I don't believe it. If she does, I sha'n't go even if they ask me to, for I know she'll scold all the time up there just as she does down here. If they do let her in, I guess they'll be pretty sorry for it after, and wish they hadn't. I 'pose them two young gentlemen from New York will go, too, and I know that Charley fellow will laugh when he sees me turned off, just as he did this morning. I don't believe I ought to have made up with him, after all. I won't either, if his brother says I must . If he lets me alone I may, but I'll never offer to do anything for him again as long as I live. Oh, dear! I don't see what I ever was born for at all, and I do wish I never had been, or that I had died with mamma and Warren."

And so, with bitterness in her heart, the child wandered on and on restlessly, as if to escape from herself, with a sense of wrong, and neglect, and injustice forcing itself upon her childish uncultivated mind. She thought of all the hard names and opprobrious epithets Miss Jerusha called her, and "unjust! unjust!" was the cry of her heart as she wandered on. She felt that in all the world there was not such a wicked, unloved child as she, and the untutored heart resolved in its bitterness to repay scorn with scorn, and hate with hate.

It was dark when she came home. She had had no dinner, but with the conflict going on within she had felt no hunger. Miss Jerusha's supper was over and long since cleared away, and, as might be expected, she was in no very sweet frame of mind at the long absence of her protegee .

"Well, you've got home at last, have you?" she began sharply, and with her voice pitched in a most aggravating key. "Pretty time o' night this, I must say, to come home, after trampin' round like a vagabone on the face o' the airth all the whole blessed day. You desarve to be switched as long as you can stand, you worthless, lazy, idle young varmint you! Be off to the kitchen, and see if Fly can't get you some supper, though you oughtn't to get a morsel if you were rightly sarved. Other folks has to toil for what they eat, but you live on other folks' vittals, and do nothing, you indolent little tramper you!"

Miss Jerusha paused for want of breath, expecting the angry retort this style of address never failed to extort from the excitable little bomb-shell before her, but to her surprise none came. The child stood with compressed lips, dark and gloomy, gazing into the fading fire.

"Well, why don't you go?" said Miss Jerusha angrily. "You ought to take your betters' leavin's and be thankful, though there's no such thing as thankfulness in you, I do believe. Go!"

"I don't want your supper; you may keep it," said Georgia, with proud sullenness.

"Oh, you don't! Of course not! it's not good enough for your ladyship, by no manner of means," said Miss Jerusha, with withering sarcasm. "Hadn't I better order some cake and wine for your worship? Dear, dear! what ladies we are, to be sure! Is there anything particularly nice I could get for you, marm, eh? P'raps Fly'd better run to Burnfield for some plum puddin' or suthin', hey? Oh, dear me, ain't we dainty, though."

Georgia actually gnashed her teeth, and turned livid with passion as she listened, and, with a spring, she stood before the startled Miss Jerusha, her eyes glaring in the partial darkness like those of a wild-cat. Miss Jerusha, in alarm, lifted a chair as a weapon of defense against the expected attack; but the attack was not made.

Clasping her hands over her head with a sort of irrepressible cry, she fled from the room, up the stairs into her own little chamber, fastened the door, and then sank down, white and quivering, on the floor of the room.

How long she lay there she could not tell; gusts of passion swept through her soul. Wild, fierce, and maddening raged the conflict within – one of those delirious storms of the heart – known and felt only by those whose fiery, tropical veins seem to run fire instead of blood.

She heard Miss Jerusha's step on the stairs, heard her approach her door and listen for a moment, and then go to her own chamber and securely lock the door.

In that moment the half crazed child hated her; hated all the world; feeling as though she could have killed her were it in her power. Then this unnatural mood passed away – it was too unnatural to last – and she rose from the floor, looking like a spirit, with her streaming hair, wild eyes, and white face. She went to the window and opened it, for her head throbbed and ached, and leaning her forehead against the cool glass, she looked out.