EDNA AND ANNIE.
Bright and cheery as was the parlor at No. 30 on that autumnal morning
when Edna was expected, the brightest, prettiest thing by far in it was
the little girl whom Aunt Luna had dressed with so much care, and who
sat propped with cushions and pillows in her easy chair, with her hair
falling in soft curls about her face, and her eyes shining with eager
expectancy. She was a little vain, and as she settled herself among her
cushions and saw Aunt Luna’s evident admiration, she asked:
“Do I look nice, Aunt Luna? Do I make a pretty picture? I hope so, for
Mrs. Churchill is an _artist_, you know, and ’preciates such things.”
Aunt Luna’s reply was satisfactory, and after making some change in the
adjustment of the shawl on the arm of her chair, and lifting her dress
so as to show her high-heeled slipper with its scarlet rosette, Annie
was ready for her visitor. Nor had she long to wait ere a step was heard
on the stairs, and Aunt Luna opened the door to Edna. Jack had said she
was young and small, but neither Aunt Luna nor Annie was prepared for
any one so very young looking and so small as the little lady who asked
if Mr. Heyford lived there, and announced herself as Mrs. Churchill.
“Yes, he do live here,” a blithe voice replied, and Edna walked straight
up to the chair whence the voice came, and bending over the little girl
kissed her tenderly, saying:
“And you are Annie, I know.”
“And you are Mrs. Churchill,” Annie said, winding her arms around Edna’s
neck. “Jack said I’se sure to love you, and I know it, without his
saying so.”
That was their introduction to each other, and they grew familiar very
fast, so that before lunch was ready, Annie had told Edna how funny it
seemed to think her a big married woman, and how glad she was she had
come, and how sure she was to love her.
“I think I begin to know what Aunt Luna meant by God’s making it up to
me,” she said, after a moment’s silence, during which she had been
holding and caressing Edna’s hand.
Edna looked inquiringly at her, and she continued:
“I was so sorry about Georgie,—that’s sister, you know. You seen her,
Jack said.”
“Yes.”
And Edna gave a little shiver as she recalled the face which had looked
so coldly and proudly upon her.
It had evidently never looked thus to this little child, who went on:
“I cried so hard when she didn’t come, and was kind of mad at Heaven, I
guess, and Aunt Luna talked and said how He’d make it up some way, if I
was good, and so He sent me you, though it’s funny you didn’t go back
with that poor man. He was your beau, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, my husband,” Edna faltered, adding: “I was sick, hurt, you know.”
She could not explain why she had not gone with her husband’s body, as
it seemed natural that she should have done. Neither did Annie wait for
any explanation, but went on talking in her old-fashioned way, which
greatly surprised Edna, who was not much accustomed to children. Annie
was an odd mixture of childish simplicity and womanly maturity. From
having lived all her life with no other companions than grown-up people,
she was in some respects much older than her years, and astonished Edna
with her shrewd remarks and her mature ways of thinking. Georgie was the
theme of which she never tired, and Edna found herself feeling more
lenient toward the haughty woman whom she had instinctively disliked.
There must be something good in her, or this little child would not love
her so devotedly.
“The bestest sister and the beautifulest,” Annie said, and when Edna,
who had gathered from Jack that it was nearly two years since Georgie
had been in Chicago, remarked that she should hardly suppose Annie could
remember how she looked, Annie replied: “Oh yes, I ’members ’stinctly,
or thinks I do. Any way, I has her picture and her letters; they are so
nice. I want to show you one.”
She touched a little bell on the table beside her, and summoning Luna
from the kitchen, bade her bring the portfolio which held sister’s
letters.
“There they are; read any of them,” she said.
And more to please the child than from curiosity, Edna did read one of
the notes, bearing date six or seven months before, and as she read she
felt a growing interest and even liking for Georgie Burton, who, however
cold and proud she might be to strangers, showed a deep interest in
Annie’s well-being.
One thing struck Edna forcibly, and that was the hope Georgie expressed
that her dear little sister would grow up truthful, and break herself of
the habit she had of sometimes equivocating. At Annie’s request Edna
read the letter aloud, and when she had finished it she saw that Annie’s
face was crimson with a look of sorrow and shame.
“I didn’t know as ’twas that one,” she said, “and I don’t want you to
hate me. I did use to tell lies, oh, so many”—and the voice sank to a
whisper—“and mother spanked me once and wrote it to Georgie, and told me
how wicked it was, and I do try not to now, so much, though Jack says I
will _romance_ a little, that’s what he calls it, meaning, you know,
that I made up _some_. It’s my blood; I heard Jack tell mother so. Bad
blood, he said, though that time I cut my finger so and bleeded so much,
it looked like Jack’s did when he had the nose-bleed.”
She had taken the matter literally, and Edna could not repress a smile
at her interpretation of _bad blood_, while she began to wonder how much
of this same blood, if any, was in Jack Heyford’s veins. Georgie was
only his half-sister she knew, while Annie was still further removed,
although she called him brother. Any questions, however, which she might
have put to Annie with regard to the relationship, were prevented by the
appearance of Luna with the lunch.
It was a very tempting lunch, and Edna felt her lost appetite returning
when she saw the oysters fried to just the brown she liked, the slices
of rich baked ham, the delicate rolls, home-made and fresh from the
oven, the creamy butter, the pot of raspberry jam, and the steaming
chocolate which Annie liked so much and was occasionally allowed to
drink. A dish of apples and oranges with clusters of rich purple grapes
completed the bill of fare, and Annie proved herself a very competent
little hostess, as she did the honors of the table and urged the good
things upon Edna, who enjoyed it nearly as much as Annie herself, and
forgot in part the dark shadow which had fallen upon her life. As if
they had been princes lunching in some palatial mansion, old Luna waited
upon them, showing a skill and readiness which rather surprised Edna
until she heard from the negress herself that she had been a house
servant in her late mistress’s family in St. Augustine, Florida, that
her duties had been wholly confined to the dining-room and its
appointments until three years since, when she came to Mrs. Heyford.
Since then, to use her own words, “she has done little of everything,
tend here, tend there, bake, and wash, and iron, and do what only
low-lived trash does at home.”
She seemed a very capable, intelligent woman, and evidently regarded
“Master Jack and Miss Annie” with feelings amounting almost to
adoration. Of Georgie she said but little, and that little showed
conclusively her opinion of a young lady “who would turn her back on her
own flesh and blood, and never come a nigh even when they sickened and
died, just because they was poor and couldn’t give her all the jimcracks
she wanted.”
“She was here oncet, two years or so ago,” she said to Edna, who, after
lunch, went with her to the kitchen for a moment. “She staid about three
weeks, and seemed to think it was such a piece of condescension on her
part to do even that. And we waited on her as if she’d been a queen, and
Master Jack’s bill for the ices, and creams, and fruit, and carriages,
which he got for her was awful, and pinched us for three months or more.
I must say though that she took wonderfully to Miss Annie. Never seen
anything like it. Don’t understand it, no how, and ’taint none of my
business if I did.”
Here Aunt Luna broke off abruptly, and Edna went back to Annie, to whom
she gave the first lesson in drawing. Annie bade fair to prove an apt
pupil, and Edna felt all her old ambition and love for the work coming
back as she directed the child’s hand, and then with a few rapid curves
and lines made a little sketch of her pupil’s face. The likeness was
perfect, and Annie screamed with delight as she took it in her hand and
inspected it more closely.
“It looks some like Jack,” she said, “but none like Georgie. I wish I
was like her, but Jack says I’m most like my father.”
“How long has he been dead?” Edna asked, and Annie replied:
“Oh, ever so many years; before I was born, I guess. I never ’member
him.”
Edna laughed heartily at this characteristic reply, and as the afternoon
was drawing to a close, she bade her pupil good-by, promising to come
again the next day if Annie felt equal to another lesson so soon.
Regularly each day after this Edna went to Annie Heyford, who improved
rapidly and evinced almost as much talent for drawing as Edna herself.
Jack, who sometimes came in while Edna was there, became greatly
interested and tried to secure other pupils for Edna. But his immediate
friends were mostly too poor to incur any additional expense, while the
ladies whom he only knew as he served them behind the counter did not
care to patronize a total stranger who had no recommendation save that
given her by her enthusiastic admirer, Jack. And so poor Edna was not
making money very fast, and Jack was contemplating taking lessons
himself by way of adding a little to her store, when an event occurred
which changed the whole tenor of Edna’s life and drove her to seek a
home elsewhere than in Chicago. Without a shadow of warning, Mrs. Dana
was suddenly smitten with paralysis, and after three days of silent
suffering, died, leaving her five children to such care as the
motherless poor can find. For a week or two Edna devoted herself to them
entirely, and then the father startled her with an offer of marriage,
saying, by way of excuse for his haste, that he must have a housekeeper,
that he preferred her to any one he knew, and that in order to save talk
they might as well be married then if she was willing.
Edna did not leave his house at once as some would have done, for she
knew he meant well, though he had erred greatly in his judgment of her.
Firmly, but kindly, she declined his offer, and then again stunned and
bewildered, sat down to think what she should do next, and as she
thought, her heart began to go out longingly for that old house by the
graveyard. It was her home, the only one she had ever known, and Aunt
Jerusha, with all her peculiarities, had many excellent traits of
character, and would perhaps be glad to see her by this time.
Since that first letter, no communication whatever had passed between
them, and Edna did not know how much Aunt Jerry might have softened
toward her. As she could no longer remain with Mr. Dana, and as she
could not afford to board elsewhere, and would not accept of the home
which Jack Heyford offered her temporarily, it seemed that the only
thing left for her was to go back to Aunt Jerry until some better
situation presented itself to her. Jack himself advised it, after he
found she would not stay with him, and so Edna bade adieu to Chicago,
and with a sad heart turned her face toward Aunt Jerry, feeling many
misgivings with regard to her reception the nearer she came to home.