THE ACTRESS--LITTLE GEORGIA.
"Death is the crown of life."
"She was a strange and willful sprite
As ever startled human sight."
The road to the old house was as familiar to Miss Jerusha as a road
could well be to any one, yet she found it extremely difficult to make
her way to it to-night. The piercing sleet dashed into her very eyes,
blinding her, as she floundered on, and the raw, cutting wind penetrated
even the warm folds of her thick woolen mantle. Now and then she would
have to stop and catch hold of a tree, to brace her body against the
fierce, cutting blasts, and then, with bent head and closed eyes, plunge
on through the huge snow-heaps and thick drifts.
She had not fully realized the violence of the storm until now, and she
thought, with a sharp pang of remorse, of the slight, delicate child she
had turned from her door to brave its pitiless fury.
"Poor little feller! _poor_ little feller!" thought Miss Jerusha,
piteously. "Lor', what a nasty old dragon I am, to be sure! Should
admire to know where I'll go to, if I keep on like this. Yar-r! you
thought you did it, didn't you? Just see what it is to be mistaken."
This last apostrophe was addressed to a sudden blast of wind that nearly
overset her; but, by grasping the trunk of a tree, she saved herself,
and now, with a contemptuous snarl at its foiled power, she plunged and
sank, and rose and floundered on through the wild December storm, until
she approached the old ruined cottage, from the window of which streamed
the light.
The window was still sound, and Miss Jerusha, cautiously approaching it,
began prudently to reconnoiter before going any farther.
Desolate indeed was the scene that met her eye. The room was totally
without furniture, the plastering had in many places fallen off and lay
in drifts all along the floor. A great heap of brush was piled up in the
chimney-corner, and close by it crouched a small, dark figure feeding
the slender flame that burned on the hearth. Opposite lay extended the
thin, emaciated form of a woman, wrapped in a shawl, almost her only
covering. As the firelight fell on her face, Miss Jerusha started to see
how frightfully ghastly it was, with such hollow cheeks, sunken eyes,
and projecting bones. So absorbed was she in gazing on that skeleton
face, that she did not observe the little figure crouching over the fire
start up, gaze on her a moment, and then approach the window, until,
suddenly turning round, she beheld a small, dark, elfish face, with
wild, glittering eyes, gleaming through masses of uncombed elf locks,
pressed close to the window, with its goblin gaze fixed full upon her.
Miss Jerusha was not nervous nor superstitious, but at the sudden vision
of that face from elf-land she uttered a shriek that might have awakened
the dead, and shrank back in dismay from the window.
While she still stood, horror-struck, the door opened, and a high,
shrill voice called:
"Now, then, whoever you are, come in if you want to!"
It was the voice of a mortal child, and Miss Jerusha was re-assured.
Thoroughly ashamed of herself, and provoked at having betrayed so much
fear, she approached the open door, passed in, and it was closed after
her.
"So I scared you, did I? Well, it serves you right, you know, for
staring in people's windows," said the shrill little voice; and Miss
Jerusha, looking down, saw the same small, thin, dark face, with its
great, wild, glittering black eyes, long, tangled masses of coal-black
hair, high, broad brow, and a slight lithe figure.
It was a strange, unique face for a child, full of slumbering power,
pride, passion, strength, and invincible daring; but Miss Jerusha did
not see this, and looking down only beheld an odd-looking, rather ugly
child, of twelve or thirteen, or so, with what she regarded as an
impudent, precocious gaze, disagreeable and unnatural in one so young.
"Little gal, don't be sassy," said Miss Jerusha, sharply: "you ought to
hev more respect for your elders, and not stand there and give them
such empidence. Pretty broughten you must hev got, I know--a sassy
little limb."
The latter part of this address was delivered in a muttered soliloquy,
as she pushed the hood back from her face and shook the snow off her
cloak. The "little limb," totally unheeding the reprimand, still stood
peering up in her face, scanning its iron lineaments with an amusing
mixture of curiosity and impudence.
As Miss Jerusha again turned round and encountered the piercing stare of
those great, dark, bright eyes fixed so unwinkingly on her face, she
felt, for the first time in her life, perhaps, restless and uneasy under
the infliction.
"My conscience! little gal, don't stare so! I 'clare to gracious I never
see sich a child! I don't know what she looks like," said Miss Jerusha.
The latter sentence was not intended for the child's ears, but it
reached those sharp little organs nevertheless, and, still keeping her
needle-like gaze fixed on the wrinkled face of the spinster, she said:
"Well, if you don't, I know what _you_ look like, anyway--I do!"
"And what do I look like?" said Miss Jerusha, in rising anger, having a
presentiment something impudent was coming.
"Why just exactly like one of the witches in Macbeth."
Now, our worthy maiden lady had never heard of the "Noble Thane," but
she had a pretty strong idea of what witches riding on broomsticks were
like, and here this little black goblin girl had the audacity to compare
her to one of them. For one awful moment Miss Jerusha glared upon the
daring little sinner in impotent rage, while her fingers fairly ached to
seize her and pound her within an inch of her life. Her face must have
expressed her amiable desire, for the elf sprang back, and throwing
herself into a stage attitude, uttered some words in a tragic voice,
quite overpowering, coming from so small a body.
The noise awoke the sleeper near the fire. She turned restlessly, opened
her eyes, and called:
"Georgia!"
"Here, mamma; here I am," said the elf, springing up and bending over
her. "Do you want anything?"
"No, dear. I thought I heard you talking. Hasn't Warren come yet?"
"No, mamma."
"Then who were you talking to a moment ago? Is there any one here?"
"Yes, mamma, the funniest looking old woman--here, _you_!" said the elf,
beckoning to Miss Jerusha.
Mechanically that lady obeyed the peremptory summons, too completely
stunned and shocked by this unheard-of effrontery to fully realize for a
moment that her ears had not deceived her.
She approached and bent over the sufferer. Two hollow eyes were raised
to her face, and feeling herself in the awful presence of death, all
Miss Jerusha's indignation faded away, and she said, in a softened
voice:
"I am sorry to see you in this wretched place. Can I do anything for
you?"
"Who are you?" said the woman, transfixing her with a gaze quite as
uncompromising as her little daughter's had been.
"My name is Jerusha Skamp. I saw a light in this here cottage, and came
over to see who was here. What can I do for you?"
"Nothing for me--I am dying," said the woman, in a husky, hollow voice.
"Nothing for me; nothing for me."
"Oh, mamma! oh, mamma!" screamed the child, passionately. "Oh, not
dying! Oh, mamma!"
"Oh, Georgia, hush!" said the woman, turning restlessly. "Don't shriek
so, child; I cannot bear it."
But Georgia, who seemed to have no sort of self-control, or any other
sort of control, still continued to scream her wild, passionate cry,
"Oh, not dying! oh, mamma!" until Miss Jerusha, losing all patience,
caught her arm in a vise-like grip, and, giving her a furious shake,
said, in a deep, stern whisper:
"You little limb! Do you want to kill your mother? Hold your tongue,
afore I shake the life out of you!"
The words had the effect of stilling the little tempest before her, who
crouched into the corner and buried her face in her hands.
"Poor Georgia! poor little thing! what will become of her when I am
gone?" said the sufferer, while a spasm of intense pain shot across her
haggard face.
"The Lord will provide," said Miss Jerusha, rolling up the whites, or,
more properly speaking, the yellows of her eyes. "Don't take on about
that. Tell me how you came to be here! But first let me give you a
drink. You look as if you needed something to keep life in you. Wait a
minute."
Miss Jerusha's hawk-like eye went roving round the room until it
alighted on a little tin cup. Seizing this, she filled it with the
currant wine she had brought, and held it to the sick woman's lips.
Eagerly she drank, and then Miss Jerusha folded the shawl more closely
around her, and, sitting down on the floor, drew her head upon her lap,
and, with a touch that was almost tender, smoothed back the heavy locks
of her dark hair.
"Now, then," she said, "tell me all about it."
"You are very kind," said the sick woman, looking up gratefully. "I
feared I should die all alone here. I sent my little boy to the nearest
house in search of help, but he has not yet returned."
"Ah! you're a widder, I suppose?" said Miss Jerusha, trying to keep down
a pang of remorse and dread, as she thought of the child she had so
cruelly turned out into the bitter storm.
"Yes, I have been a widow for the last seven years. My name is Alice
Randall Darrell."
"And hain't you got no friends nor nothin', Mrs. Darrell, when you come
to this old place, not fit for pigs, let alone human Christians?"
"No; no friends--not one friend in all this wide world," said the dying
woman, in a tone so utterly despairing that Miss Jerusha's hand fell
soothingly and pityingly on her forehead.
"Sho, now, sho! I want ter know," said Miss Jerusha, quite unconscious
that she was making rhyme, a species of literature she had the
profoundest contempt for. "That's _too_ bad, 'clare if it ain't! Are
they all dead?"
"I do not know--they are all dead to me."
"Why, what on airth hed you done to them?" said Miss Jerusha, in
surprise.
"I married against my father's consent."
"Ah! that _was_ bad; but then he needn't hev made a fuss. He didn't ask
_your_ consent when he got married, I s'pose. Didn't like the young man
you kept company with, eh?"
"No; he hated him. My father was rich, and I ran off with a poor actor."
"A play-acter! Why, you must hev bin crazy!"
"Oh, I was--I was! I was a child, and did not know what I was doing. I
thought my life with him would have been all light, and music, and
glitter, and dazzle, such as I saw on the stage; but I soon found out
the difference."
"'Spect you did. Law, law! what fools there is in this 'ere world!" said
Miss Jerusha, in a moralizing tone.
"My father disowned me." ("And sarved you right, too!" put in Miss
Jerusha _sotto voce_.) "My family cast me off. I joined the company to
which my husband belonged, and did the tragedy business with him; and so
for eight years we wandered about from city to city, from town to town,
always poor and needy, for Arthur drank and gambled, and as fast as we
earned money it was spent."
"And _you're_ a play-acter, too!" cried Miss Jerusha recoiling in
horror.
Miss Jerusha, trained in the land of "steady habits," had, from her
earliest infancy, been taught to look upon theaters as only a little
less horribly wicked than the place unmentionable to ears polite, and
upon all "play-actors" as the immediate children and agents of the
father of evil himself. She had never until now had the misfortune to
come in contact with one personally, having only heard of them as we
hear of goblins, warlocks, demons, and other "children of night." What
wonder, then, that at this sudden, awful revelation she started back and
almost hurled the frail form from her in loathing and horror. But a
fierce clutch was laid on her shoulder--she almost fancied for an
instant it was Satan himself come for his child--until, looking up, she
saw the fiercely blazing eyes and witch-like face of little Georgia
gleaming upon it.
"You ugly, wicked old woman!" she passionately burst out with, "if you
dare to hurt my mamma, I'll--I'll _kill_ you!"
And so dark, and fierce, and elfish did she look at that moment, that
Miss Jerusha fairly quailed before the small, unearthly looking sprite.
"I'm not a-going to tetch your ma. Get out o' this, and leave me go!"
said Miss Jerusha, shaking off with some difficulty the human burr who
clung to her with the tenacity of a crab, and glared upon her with her
shining black eyes.
"Georgia, love, go and sit down. Oh, you wild, stormy, savage child,
what _ever_ will become of you when I am gone? Do, pray, excuse her,"
said the woman, faintly, lifting her eyes pleadingly to Miss Jerusha's
angry face; "she has had no one to control her, or subdue her wild,
willful temper, and has grown up a crazy, mad-headed, half-tamed thing.
If you have children of your own, you will know how to make allowance
for her."
"I have no children of my own, and I thank goodness that I haven't!"
said Miss Jerusha, shortly; "a set of plagues, the whole of 'em! Ef that
there little gal was mine, I'd spank her while I could stand, and see ef
_that_ wouldn't take some of the nonsense out of her."
The last words did not reach the invalid's ear, and the little
tempest-in-a-teapot retreated again to her corner, scowling darkly on
Miss Jerusha, whom she evidently suspected of some sinister designs on
her mother, which it was her duty to frustrate.
"Is she a play-acter, too?" said Miss Jerusha, after a sullen pause.
"Who? Georgia? Oh, yes; she plays juvenile parts, and dances and sings,
and was a great favorite with the public. She has a splendid voice, and
dances beautifully, and whenever she appeared she used to receive
thunders of applause. Georgia will make a star actress if she ever goes
on the stage again," said the woman, with more animation than she had
yet shown.
"And do you want your darter to grow up a wicked good-for-nothing hussy
of a play-acter?" said Miss Jerusha, sternly. "Mrs. Darrell, you ought
for to be ashamed of yourself. Ef she was mine, I would sooner see her
starve decently first."
The dying woman turned away with a groan.
"She won't starve here, though," said Miss Jerusha, feeling called upon
to administer a little consolation; "there's trustees and selectmen, and
one thing and another to look arter poor folks and orphans. She'll be
took care of. And now, how did it happen you came here?"
"I came with the company to which I belong, and we stopped at a town
about fifty miles from here. Georgia, as you can see, has a dreadful
temper--poor little fiery, passionate thing--and the manager of the
theater, being an insolent, overbearing man, was always finding fault
with her, and scolding about something, whereupon Georgia would fly into
one of her fits of passion, and a dreadful scene would ensue. I strove
to keep them apart as much as I could, but they often met, as a matter
of course, and never parted without a furious quarrel. He did not wish
to part with her, for I--and it is with little vanity, alas! I say
it--was his best actress, and Georgia's name in the bills never failed
to draw a crowded house. I used to talk to Georgia, and implore her to
restrain her fierce temper, and she would promise; but when next she
would meet him, poor child, and listen to his insulting words, all would
be forgotten, and Georgia would stamp and scold, and call him all manner
of names, and sometimes go so far as to refuse appearing at all, and
_that_ last act of disobedience never failed to put him fairly beside
himself with rage. I foresaw how it would end, but I could do nothing
with her. Poor little thing! Nature cursed her with that fierce,
passionate temper, and she could not help it."
"Humph!" muttered Miss Jerusha; "couldn't help it! That's all very fine;
but I know one thing, ef _I_ had anything to do with her, I'd take the
fierceness out of her, or know for why--a ugly tempered, savage little
limb!"
"One night," continued the sick woman, "Georgia had been dancing, and
when she left the stage the whole house shook with the thunders of
applause. They shouted and shouted for her to reappear, but I was sick
that night, and Georgia was in a hurry to get home, and would not go.
The manager ordered her in no very gentle tone to go back, and Georgia
flatly and peremptorily refused. Then a dreadful scene ensued. He caught
her by the arms, and dragged her to her feet, as if he would force her
out, and when she resisted he struck her a blow that sent her reeling
across the room.
"Aha! that was good for you, my lady!" said Miss Jerusha, with a grim
chuckle, as she glanced at the little dancing girl.
"It was the first time any one had ever struck her," said Mrs. Darrell,
in a sinking voice, "and a very fury seemed to seize her. A large black
bottle lay on a shelf near, and with a perfect _shriek_ of passion she
seized it and hurled it with all her strength at his head."
"My gracious!" ejaculated the horrified Miss Jerusha.
"It struck him on the forehead, and laid it open with a frightful gash.
He attempted to spring upon her, but some of the men interposed, and
Georgia was forced off by the rest. Her brother Warren was there, and,
almost terrified to death, he brought her home with him, and that very
night we were told our services were no longer needed, and, what was
more, Mr. B., the manager, refused to pay us what he owed us, and even
threatened to begin an action against us for assault and battery, and I
don't know what besides. I knew him to be an unprincipled, vindictive
man, and the threat terrified me nearly to death, terrified me so much
that, with my two children, I fled the next morning from the town where
we were stopping, fled away with only one idea--that of escaping from
his power. I had a little money remaining, but it was soon spent, and I
was so weak and ill that but for my poor children I felt at times as if
I could gladly have lain down and died.
"Coming from Burnfield to-night, we were overtaken by this storm, and
must have perished had not Warren discovered this old hut. The exposure
of this furious storm completed what sorrow and suffering had long ago
begun, and I felt I was dying. It was terrible to think of leaving poor
little Warren and Georgia all alone without one single friend in the
world, and at last I sent Warren out to the nearest house in the hope
that some hospitable person might come who would procure some sort of
employment for them that would keep them at least from starving. _You_
came, thank Heaven! but my poor Warren has not returned. Oh! I fear, I
_fear_ he has perished in this storm," cried the dying woman, wringing
her pale fingers.
"Oh, I guess not," said Miss Jerusha, more startled than she chose to
appear; "most likely he's gone some place else and stayed there to get
warm; but you, _you_, what are we to do for you? It doesn't seem
Christian like nor proper no ways to leave you to die here in this
miserable old shed."
"Dear, kind friend, never mind me," said the invalid, gratefully; "my
short span of life is nearly run, and oh! what does it matter whether
for the few brief moments yet remaining where they are spent. But my
children, my poor, poor children! Oh, madam, you have a kind heart, I
know you have,"--(Miss Jerusha gave a skeptical "humph!")--"do, _do_,
for Heaven's sake, try if some charitable person will not take them and
give them their food and clothing. Not so much for Warren do I fear, for
he is quiet and sensible, very wise indeed for his age; but for the
wild, stormy Georgia. Oh, madam, do something for her, and my dying
thanks will be yours!"
"Well, there, don't take on! I'll see what can be done," said Miss
Jerusha, fidgeting, and glancing askance at the wild eyed, tempestuous
little spirit, "and though you don't seem to mind it much, still it
don't seem right nor decent for you to die here like I don't know what,"
(Miss Jerusha's favorite simile), "so I'll jest step over to Deacon
Brown's and get him to look arter you, and maybe he will hev an eye to
the children, too."
"But you will be exposed to the storm," feebly remonstrated the dying
woman.
"Bah! who keers for the storm?" said Miss Jerusha, glancing out of the
window with a look of grim defiance. "Besides, its clarin' off, and
Deacon Brown's ain't more than two miles from here. There, keep up your
sperrits, and I'll be back in an hour or two with the deacon."
So saying, Miss Jerusha, who once she considered it her _duty_ to do
anything, would have gone through fire and flood to do it, stepped
resolutely out to brave once more the cold, wintry blast.
The storm had abated considerably, but it was still piercingly cold, and
Miss Jerusha's fingers and toes tingled as she walked rapidly over the
hard, frosty ground. It had ceased snowing, and a pale, watery moon,
appearing at intervals from behind a cloud, cast a faint, sickly light
over the way. The high, leafless trees sent long black, ominous shadows
across the road, and Miss Jerusha cast apprehensive glances on either
side as she walked.
Not the fear of ghosts, nor the fear of robbers troubled the
stout-hearted spinster; but the dread of seeing a slight, boyish form,
stark and frozen, across her path. In mingled dread and remorse, she
thought of what she had done and only the hope of finding him in the old
cottage on her return could dispel for an instant her haunting fear.
Deacon Brown's was reached at last, and great was the surprise of that
orthodox pillar of the church at beholding his un-looked-for visitor. In
very few words Miss Jerusha gave him to understand the object of her
visit, and, rather ruefully, the good man rose to harness up his old
gray mare and start with Miss Jerusha on this charitable errand.
A quick run over the hard, frozen ground brought them to the cottage,
and, fastening his mare to a tree, the deacon followed Miss Jerusha into
the old house.
And there a pitiful sight met his eyes. The fire had gone out, and the
room was scarcely warmer than the freezing atmosphere without. Mother
and child lay clasped in each other's arms, still and motionless. With a
stifled ejaculation, Miss Jerusha approached and bent over them. The
child was asleep, and the mother was _dead_!