ANNELLA.
“She is our perplexity,
A creature light and wild;
Though on the verge of beggary,
As careless as a child.”
When the door had closed behind Malcolm Montrose, and Eudora was left
alone in her strange lodgings for the first time in her life, then all
the extreme miseries of her position rushed back upon her memory, and
despair overwhelmed her soul.
To be charged with an unnatural and monstrous crime, at the very name of
which her pure heart shuddered;—to be hunted like a wild beast;—to be
hiding like a burrowing fox;—the situation was terrible in its danger;
but oh, how much more terrible in its degradation! And through all her
own personal consciousness of wrong, shame, sorrow, and peril, two
questions continually forced themselves upon her attention:
WHO was the poisoner of her uncle’s family?
WHAT was the motive for the fell deed?
Although the last two days had been a season of unexampled distress,
excitement, and fatigue—and although for the last three nights she had
not once closed her eyes in slumber—yet she could not now rest for one
moment in her chair.
She started up with her hands pressed to her throbbing and burning
temples, and with a distracted manner and irregular steps paced the
floor.
One of the most perplexing elements in her misery was that she could not
adequately comprehend her own situation. She understood “a horror” in
her state, but not her state. Knowing her own innocence, it seemed to
her absolutely incredible that every one else should not know it also,
and monstrous that any one should suspect her of crime, and especially
of such an atrocious crime. She could not fully credit the fidelity of
her own memory, the evidence of her own experience, or the testimony of
her own senses. She was haunted with a vague suspicion that this was all
a frightful dream, from which she should presently awake in surprise and
joy.
This distrust of the actual is a dangerous state of mind, being the
intermediate stage between the last extremity of mental suffering and
the insanity to which it tends. Just as the wretched girl was beginning
to lose herself in these metaphysical miseries the real world broke in
upon her with the voice of her landlady, who was heard outside the door,
saying:
“Here, Charley, set down the box; I’ll take it in myself; and now you
go, like a clever boy, and mind the shop till I come.”
There was a sound of the box set down upon the floor and of the retreat
of Charley down the stairs, and then a rap at the door.
“Come in,” said Eudora, pausing in her walk.
The landlady entered, and inquired:
“Where will you have this set, Miss Miller?”
“In my chamber,” replied Eudora, in a startled voice, like one suddenly
roused from a dream.
Our landlady looked wistfully at her, and after depositing the box in a
corner of the bed-room, she came back, and in a motherly manner took
Eudora by the hand, and made her sit down again in the arm-chair, while
she stood by her and said:
“Now, don’t ye take on so, that’s a darling! Sure we’ve all got to lose
our parents, unless we ourselves die afore our time. I’ve lost my mother
and father; yes, and the father of my thirteen children, too! And _I_
don’t take on about it! Sure if I did the house would go to ruin and the
children to the union! And then there’s that poor child up-stairs, with
a father as is worse nor dead, coming home every night drunk, and
beating and starving her nearly to death! Why, _she_ don’t take on, but
is as merry as a monkey, with her lantern jaws and large eyes. And more
be token, if it wasn’t for the child, I’d ha’ sent the father packing
long ago, which he has never paid me the first penny of rent for his
rooms the six weeks he has been here, and swears at me when I ask him
for it! So you see, dear, everybody has their own troubles in this
world, but for all that we musn’t take on about it, but must do the best
we can for ourselves and each other too. Now I make no doubt you would
be the greatest of blessings to that young girl up-stairs, and she’d be
the best of amusement to you! _She’d_ take you off your sorrows; she’s
the liveliest, queerest, funniest—There, _that’s_ her now! Listen!”
At this moment a bounding step was heard upon the stairs, and a
carolling voice broke forth in song:
“I care for nobody—no, not I!
And nobody cares for me!”
as the singing-girl vanished up into the upper stories of the house.
“There! that’s her! she’s always just like that! Now it’s ten to one as
that child will have any dinner this day, yet listen how she sings like
a lark! Shall I go and fetch her down to you? She’d be a world of
entertainment to you!”
“Oh, no, no, not for the world. I am not fit for any company, least of
all for that of a light-hearted girl. Yet I thank you for the kind
thought,” replied Eudora.
“Well, then, dear, since you are too heavy-hearted to be soothed by
anything lively, you must try to interest yourself in something
serious—anything to take your mind off from brooding over your own
troubles,” said the landlady, and taking a folded newspaper from her
pocket, she added:
“Now here, here’s this morning’s _Times_ as I’ve been and borrowed from
the library at the corner, o’ purpose to read the true account of this
horrible poisoning case up in the North! Lawk! only to think of it, my
dear—a whole family p’isoned by one young girl, and she their own orphan
niece as they fotched over from Indy, and did so much for! But they’ve
_got_ her, that’s a comfort! they’ve _got_ her safe enough! She’ll never
get off! To think of any young girl being of such a born devil and
coming for to be hung at last. Lawk! it do make my blood run cold.”
“But how do you know that she poisoned the family?” asked Eudora, in a
faltering voice, and with a shudder that she could not control.
“Lawk! dear, it’s all as clear as a sunshiny noonday. Here, read it for
yourself. I see my landlord coming across the street towards the house,
and he’s a-coming after his money, which, thanks to Mr. Miller’s
liberality, I have got all ready for him.” And so saying, the landlady
put the _Times_ into the hands of her panic-stricken lodger and went
away down-stairs and into her shop, where she found her surly landlord
waiting.
“Well, mum,” began the latter, turning a contemptuous glance around the
little shop, “I have come to tell you that I will not wait another day!
There are now two quarters’ rent due, and if the money is not
forthcoming I intend to sell you out. You needn’t tell me any more about
lodgers that can’t pay; if you _will_ keep paupers in the house you must
take the consequence.”
“Mr. Grubbins,” said the landlady, going behind her counter with a
bustling air of self-confidence, “luck is like a pendulum as sways first
to the right and then to the left, and so on backwards and forwards. And
if I have one lodger as can’t pay all at once, poor gentleman, I have
another as pays like a princess! You see the Lord hasn’t forgot me and
my thirteen orphans. So, if you please, Mr. Grubbins, write me a receipt
for a half year’s rent; for I mean to pay you all, and get out of _your_
debt, though I mayn’t have five shillings left.”
Mr. Grubbins stared in astonishment, and then, with but little abatement
of his severity, wrote out the receipt, while Mrs. Corder laid two
five-pound notes and five sovereigns in gold down upon the counter.
“Be more punctual for the future, and don’t let one quarter run into
another, and then, maybe, you’ll keep out of trouble,” said Mr.
Grubbins, for he did not believe in the continuous prosperity of a poor
widow with thirteen children, even with Providence to remember her and
them.
And so Mr. Grubbins relieved the little shop of his oppressive presence.
Meantime, up-stairs, Eudora, under the spell of a strange fascination,
pored over the _Times’_ account of the tragedy at Allworth Abbey. There
she saw her own blameless name held up to public scorn and execration.
When she had finished reading, she let the paper drop listlessly from
her hands, while she herself fell again into that stupor of despair
which threatened to undermine her reason.
In this miserable torpor she sat motionless, until the entrance of the
landlady to lay the cloth for her solitary dinner.
The good woman was, as usual, full of kindness, solicitude, and gossip,
but all this availed nothing in arousing the wretched girl from her
apathy. Even the dinner, when prepared, remained untasted, nor could the
landlady prevail upon her stricken lodger to approach the table.
“Oh, this will never do in the world! The girl will kill herself,”
thought good Mrs. Corder, as at length she carried away the untouched
spring chicken and green peas. “I’ll just wait till tea-time, and then
if a cup of good strong green tea don’t rouse her out of this, I know
what I’ll do. I’ll just make free to call in the medical man from over
the way to look at her. I’m not a-going to let such a profitable lodger
as _she_ is die for want of seeing after, _I_ know.”
And accordingly, an hour after the failure of the dinner, Mrs. Corder
brought up Eudora’s tea, with some delicate cream toast and delicious
guava jelly, all of which she arranged in the most tempting manner upon
the table. She then besought her young lodger to partake of it, hinting
at the same time that unless the latter would listen to reason in a
matter in which her own health was concerned, it would really be
necessary to call in the medical man over the way to see her.
The threat of a visit from the doctor had more effect than all the other
arguments by Mrs. Corder. Eudora suffered herself to be seated at the
table, and drank off the cup of tea that the careful hostess put into
her hand.
And such was the beneficial effect of that blessed gift to woman, “the
cup that cheers, and not inebriates,” that Eudora, notwithstanding all
her wrongs, griefs and terrors, felt her vital spirits returning, and
with them her natural relish for food. And to Mrs. Corder’s great joy
she ate a round of toast and a spoonful of jelly.
“Now, there’s for you! now then you’ll do. See what it is to take
advice. If you had had your own way, you’d a’starved yourself nearly to
death, and been ill. And now, if you’ll take more advice, you’ll go
right to bed and to sleep,” said the delighted woman as she cleared away
the table.
Eudora followed her counsel, and retired almost immediately to bed,
where as soon as her light was put out, and her head was dropped upon
her pillow, a feeling of drowsiness stole over her brain, and she slept
and forgot her sorrows.
Late that evening—after Mrs. Corder had given her children their supper,
and sent them to their beds up in the attic, and had closed up her shop
for the night—she came up-stairs and paused for a moment on the first
landing to listen at Eudora’s chamber door. Hearing her breathe deeply,
like one soundly sleeping, the landlady nodded and smiled confidentially
to herself, murmuring:
“Ah, ha! she is sleeping like a baby, the poor, dear, motherless
child!—sleeping like an innocent infant baby without a trouble in the
world, thanks be to the laudamy drops as I put into her tea-cup, and to
Him as made the poppy grow for the sake of sorrowful mortals; for if it
hadn’t a’ been for that, sure she’d a’ gone mad to-night instead o’
going peaceably to sleep. Well, laudamy is a blessing for which we
should be thankful, as well I know as I would a’ gone crazy the night
Corder died if so be the medical man hadn’t a given me laudamy drops!”
So saying, and being perfectly satisfied with the result of her own
medical experience, good Mrs. Corder glided noiselessly up the second
pair of stairs, and paused again upon the second landing.
Seeing a light shine through a half-open door, she, without the ceremony
of knocking, entered a fireless and cheerless bed-chamber, where a young
girl of about fifteen years of age sat reading by the light of a
farthing candle.
Mrs. Corder sat her own candle down upon the chest of drawers, and
dropped into a chair to recover her breath, while she gazed with
interest and curiosity upon the young girl who was so absorbed in the
perusal of her book as not to notice the entrance of the landlady.
No one—not even the most careless observer—could have looked upon that
girl with indifference. Her form was slight and fragile, and her face
pale and thin from that unmistakable emaciation which attends a slow
starvation—a slow starvation that saps life as surely as a slow poison.
Yet, withal, the character of her face was full of spirit, courage, and
even mischief. Her bright brown hair rippled back from a full round,
white forehead, and flowed down her shoulders in wavelets that were
golden in the light and bronze in the shade. Her eyebrows, of a darker
hue, were depressed towards the root of her nose, and elevated towards
the temples, giving a peculiarly arch expression to her large, clear,
gray eyes, that, fringed with their long, thick lashes, might otherwise
have seemed too thoughtful and melancholy for one so young. Her slightly
turned-up nose, and short upper lip and rounded chin, were also full of
that expression of archness which seemed the natural characteristic of
her face. For the rest, she wore a faded light gray dress, without any
addition except a white linen collar.
When Mrs. Corder had watched her for about a minute, she called her
attention by saying:
“Miss Annella!”
The young girl started, and looked up, and with a laugh exclaimed,
“Oh, Mrs. Corder, is that you? How you startled me! bringing me so
suddenly down from dream-land to sober earth. I feel as if I had fallen
from a balloon, and struck the ground in a very damp, cold marsh.”
“Miss Annella, dear, I just dropped in to say if so be you are awaiting
up for the captain, you may as well go to bed, because, if he comes home
to-night—which is very uncertain, you know—I can just let him in
myself.”
“Thank you, dear, kind Mrs. Corder; you are really too good for this
wicked world! But you are tired with this day’s work, and you need your
full night’s rest to prepare you for to-morrow’s; therefore, you see you
must go to bed and go to sleep. As for me, I have got an interesting
book here, and I could not leave it until I get to the end of it if it
were to save my life! So sitting up will be no act of self-denial on my
part.”
“La, now! what sort of a book is it as can keep a young gal out of her
bed at this time o’night?” inquired the landlady, with interest.
“It is the history of a brave boy, that took his father’s crime upon his
own childish shoulders, and ran away to draw off the chase from his
father’s house, and threw himself upon the world to seek his fortune!
Yes, and he will find it too; or, at least, I shall not lay the book
down until he does.”
“Lawk! I wonder if it is true?”
“To be sure it is true; every word of it is true. It is too good not to
be true!” replied the girl, enthusiastically.
“Well, I declare!”
“Oh, how I wish I was a boy!”
“Lawk, Miss Annella?”
“Yes, I do! Oh, don’t I wish I was a boy! If I were, oh, wouldn’t I go
and seek my fortune, too!”
“Lawk-a-daisy me, Miss Annella, whatever do you mean?” inquired the
astounded landlady.
“I mean just what I say!” exclaimed the girl, throwing down her book,
and laughing gaily. “I mean that I would like to be as free as I should
be if I were a boy, or rather if I were a man. I would like to go where
I please, to do as I wish; to struggle with the goddess Fortune until I
had made the capricious vixen my slave!” concluded the girl; and it was
strange to see the fire that gleamed from her dark-gray eyes, and glowed
upon her wan cheeks, as she spoke.
“La, bless my soul,” thought the terrified landlady, “what a misfortin
it is for young creatures to lose their mothers, for sure, never was a
woman so beset with two such luny gals as I am by these two motherless
young things. The one down-stairs is a-going melancholy mad, and the one
up here is gone merry mad.” Then aloud she asked:
“Miss Annella, do you remember your mother?”
“My poor, dear mother!” said the girl, in a tone of deep pathos, and
with a total change of expression and manner. “No, I am very sorry that
I cannot remember her. How should I, when she died while I was yet in
the cradle—died broken-hearted, it is said, because my grandfather would
never forgive her for having married my father.”
“Well, that was hard, too; for though it’s undutiful for a child to
marry against the wishes of her parents, and never turns out to no
good—as you may see yourself—still it is unnatural for a parent to hold
out forever agin a child. So she died, poor woman, while you were a
baby!”
“She died in the second year of her marriage, when I was but a few
months old.”
“Ah, then, that accounts for all your oddities, poor child. I daresay,
now, you never even had a female aunt to look after you?”
“Not since I can recollect. I never had one but my father. We used to
live about in barracks, wherever his regiment might be quartered for the
time, until the evil days came, and poor father was cashiered—”
“Umph, ah! for drink, I suppose,” thought the landlady; but she said
nothing, and Annella continued:
“Since that time we have lived about in London lodgings, but never in
any lodgings, Mrs. Corder, where I have been so happy as I have been
here with you,” said the poor girl, with grateful tears swimming in her
eyes.
“Hum! I can easily comprehend _that_; I’ve never pressed the captain for
his rent, which I don’t suppose his other landladies has been so
forbearing,” thought the good woman; but instead of expressing such a
thought, she said, kindly:
“Well, child, having so many fatherless children of my own, it came
natural to me to try to make a motherless girl comfortable; for, as I
often says to myself, suppose my children had been motherless, for
though it is bad enough to be fatherless, it is ten thousand times worse
to be motherless, as every orphan child knows. So now, my dear, I think,
as you are determined to finish your book before you go to bed, the
sooner I go and leave you to do it the better. And so good-night, my
dear.”
“Good-night, dear, good Mrs. Corder,” replied the young girl, warmly
pressing the kind hand that was extended to her.
And the worthy landlady took up her candle and went up a third flight of
stairs to the attic, where she slept with her numerous progeny in
quarters nearly as close as those of the fabulous “old woman that lived
in a shoe, and had so many children she didn’t know what to do.”