Читать книгу The Chronicles of Rhoda - Florence Tinsley Cox - Страница 5

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LILY-ANN

"This is Lily-Ann, Rhoda," my mother said, in an introductory tone. "She is to be your little nurse, and play with you. Do you know many nice games, Lily-Ann?"

From the shelter of my mother's chair I stared at the new-comer. I almost thought at first that it might be a little girl, until I noticed the shining folds of white apron. Lily-Ann was all white apron, down to the tops of her large, patched shoes. She was fourteen years old, perhaps, with the dignity of forty. She had a wide, smiling face, and appeared to be very agreeable in manner, so when she put out her hand I slipped mine cordially into it.

"I can play at wild beasts, and puss-in-the-corner, and 'ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross,'" she told my mother over my head. "I am experienced. I have helped to raise three children, ma'am."

She looked so small as she ended in this impressive fashion that my mother laughed, and my grandmother gleamed responsively through her glasses.

"It must be only quiet games, mind," my mother said. "You mustn't teach Miss Rhoda to be noisy."

Lily-Ann promised to observe this caution faithfully, and I suppose she thought that they were only quiet games which we played that morning. We had all three—Banbury Cross, then puss-in-the-corner, and, finally, wild beasts. Lily-Ann crawled under the bed and roared at me, now like a tiger, now plaintively, like a big pussy cat, and again with a deeper note that carried menace in its tone.

"That's a lion," she explained, in between great volumes of sound. "Lions eat people all up. So do wolves. Now I'm a wolf. Hear me crunch their bones!"

There was a horrible snarl under the bed, and something white and shining made a snatch at my foot, and then retreated, to return the next moment in a panting rush, much too real to be pleasant.

"Oh, please, Lily-Ann, I don't want to play wild beasts any more!" I exclaimed, half afraid; but only half afraid, for she was very obedient to my whims, and, when I cried loud enough, came out in a crushed state to be a little girl again.

At first I liked Lily-Ann. She was so companionable, and then she knew such quantities of strange things. For instance, it was she who showed me how to make my hair curl. It could be done by eating crusts! There had always been a great deal of trouble about my crusts. I would never eat them, not even after I had been reminded of all the poor children in the world who had not a crust apiece to stay their hunger on, and whom it seemed that I should benefit in some marvelous way by eating mine.

"They can have these," I replied, generously, to such appeals to my feelings. "I'll save them for them every day."

That, however, was before Lily-Ann came, and I learned that a crusty diet was warranted to make the hair curl. To think that little Rhoda Harcourt might have curly hair! What a nice thing that would be! Of course it meant months of work, but Lily-Ann, whose hair twisted from the roots, must surely know. Under her encouragement I ate all my own crusts, and begged so earnestly for more at the table that I became a wonder to the family.

"Is the curl coming, Lily-Ann?" I would ask, eagerly, in the mornings when she stood over me, comb in hand.

"It's coming more and more every day," she asserted, to my great satisfaction.

"Ouch! How you do hurt, Lily-Ann!"

"That's because it's so curly. See that long, beautiful one. I can't hardly get my comb through!"

I sighed blissfully with my eyes full of tears, and wondered when my mother would notice the change in her little girl, for, indeed, something must have happened to my hair, judging from the jerks.

It was Lily-Ann again who taught me how to catch sparrows by throwing salt on their tails. I ran about very hot and eager all one morning, and ended by feeling rather foolish, for not a bird would be caught, though I crept persistently on their track, always sure that the next time I should be successful. Still, I did not bear any grudge against Lily-Ann. It was not her fault that I was unfortunate, and then, too, she was very sympathetic.

"Why, my cousin caught one only yesterday!" she cried, in astonishment. "But then she is older than you are. And so smart! She turned a horsehair into a snake once. Did you ever do that, ma'am?"

"No," I answered, doubtfully; and immediately added, with growing enthusiasm, "oh, I should so like to do that!"

The end of it was that a faint suspicion which had crept upon me after the sparrow episode was quenched in the zeal with which I set myself to the awful task of raising snakes by the wholesale. There was always a touch of dread in the eagerness with which I visited the snake incubator—a rusty pan half-filled with water, and hidden in a secret space behind the lilac bush. Little by little the horror of the situation so overcame me that I hurriedly weeded the horsehairs out; but the six that remained were the finest and longest which I could find, destined, I could easily expect from their size, to become boa-constrictors.

I believed everything that Lily-Ann told me. Up to that time there had never been occasion for me to question any one's truth, nor had there been anything of which to be afraid. Now I learned of a new world that lay about me—the Land of the Dark—in which familiar furniture played wild pranks, and shadows came to have a very terrible meaning.

"After you go to bed at night," Lily-Ann said, impressively, holding up a fat forefinger, "there are Things that come out and run all about the floor! Under the chairs and under the bed they creep around. Especially under the bed. If you should let your hand hang down, a Thing would take it and shake it!"

I peered at her from out the shelter of the bed-clothes, for I was in bed when this was first related, and she was sitting by me until I should go to sleep.

"I shall never do that, Lily-Ann," I said, faintly, gluing my arms closer to my sides.

"You might in your sleep," she returned, with grim significance.

"And that ain't all," she went on, after a short but terrible pause. "There's a Bear in the garret. He wants something."

"What does he want?" I asked, fearfully, determined to know the worst at once.

"He wants a bad child. He's hungry!"

Now I was bad, as I had just reason to know. Lily-Ann used to examine my record every night, and she was the greatest one that I have ever seen for pointing out flaws in character.

"I don't think I've been very bad to-day, Lily-Ann," I said, trembling.

"You took your little brother's ball," she answered, shortly.

"But I gave it back to him!" I cried, aghast.

"You slapped your little sister."

"But she slapped me, too!" I pleaded.

"Not until after you slapped her. And you are six years old."

That was one of the unkindest things about Lily-Ann; she was always trying to make me live up to my station. And it was so hard to be good, and hardest of all to be good enough for my great age. That night, however, I made a compact with her.

"Dear Lily-Ann," I said, piteously, "if I go right to sleep by myself, so you can get your supper, will you chase away the Things and tell the Bear that there is no bad child in this house?"

I was not prone to criticise my elders and betters; but somehow I had remarked that Lily-Ann was fond of her supper.

She went away without much urging, and I lay there miserably in the dark. It seemed to me that there was a stir all through the quiet room, and out in the hall the garret door creaked in a new manner. The dark was so much blacker than it had ever been before, and even when I went down head and all under the covers I could hear the Things pattering about the floor, and the Bear rattling at the knob. Many a night after that I huddled myself up into a heap, afraid to sleep lest my hands should unclasp and slip out of bed, afraid to move lest the Bear on the prowl for bad children should pounce on me and eat me up, sins and all. I used to pretend to sleep very loudly and heavily that he might think me a good child. Still, I felt that it must be hard to deceive a Bear, and that sooner or later he would make an end of me. As for the Things, I never had any hope of getting the better of them. All through the long nights they slipped and slid about, or stood waiting at the edge of the bed to shake hands, with a friendliness that was truly awful.

Even in my greatest fear, however, I never betrayed Lily-Ann. I was too much in her power to dare to tell tales about her. I used to marvel when the family commented on her faithfulness, or devised schemes for improving the home from which she had come. Many large bundles went out of our house, and I often heard my mother speaking in a sympathetic fashion of the little girl whose childhood was passed in the service of others.

"Poor Lily-Ann, she's never had any childhood of her own," she would say, regretfully.

Out in the kitchen, too, I had heard our Norah exchanging confidences on the subject with her cousin, who came in sometimes, when there was company, to help with the work.

"I give her all the cold things to take home every night," Norah confided. "The praties and bits of mate; just anything. They are that starving that they are not particular. Every smithereen of clothes that she has the mistress gave her, and the old lady has been open-handed, too. There's many a ten-dollar bill finds its way to that house."

The cousin sniffed.

"The rest of us have to work for our own," she said. "Faith, it's fine to be reckless sometimes."

"But I'm not trusting her," Norah continued, darkly. "She tells lies. And she's cross to my child!"

"Who is your child, Norah?" I asked, with sudden eagerness, pressing up close to her gingham apron.

Norah lifted me upon her capacious lap and patted my back.

"And it's herself that wants to know," she cried, with a rallying laugh. "See that now! Ain't she growing a big girl, Bridget? See the praties in her cheeks! Sure, she's purty enough to be Irish."

"But who is your child, Norah?" I persisted, jealously; and it was only when a burst of laughter broke from the two women that I understood, and hid my face in the concealing folds of the gingham apron.

I was very good to Lily-Ann after this time. Not that I had ever been bad to her before; but now I began to join in the work of charity. I made her a present of the little gold locket which my grandmother Lawrence gave me on my last birthday, and of my second-best pair of shoes, which had been red once, and still retained a delightful color. I wanted to give her my Sunday cloak, also, but she reminded me that there were other Sundays yet to come. She did take my bank with its one jingling gold coin in it. Unfortunately, all the money of less value had been pried out long ago to buy candy, but I told Lily-Ann how sorry I was that the little red house was not filled to the chimney with pennies. I promised that I would give her all my money in the future to take home to her family, so that they might never be hungry again. Lily-Ann heard me in silence. She did not thank me with her lips, but when the Things grew too rampant at night she would reprove them sometimes in a stern manner.

"Go away!" she would cry, stamping her foot energetically. "Rhoda is a good child."

The Things and the Bear all grunted with the same voice as they retreated in discontent to their lairs; but I was not critical. It was enough for me that they went, if only for a time. Always I remembered that Lily-Ann could summon them at will, and her importance grew greater day by day.

There were hours, however, when I escaped into the safety of my mother's room. I was not too small to understand the delights of that cheerful room—the glittering objects on the dressing-table, the deep bureau drawers filled with wonders much too dainty for a child to touch. There were keepsakes, also, mementos of my mother's childhood and youth; prize books in foreign tongues, won at school and laid away in tissue paper; bits of costly lace, and many little worthless, well-beloved possessions. In the closet there was a box on an upper shelf. Quite an ordinary box it was on the outside, made of pasteboard and tied with bands of yellow ribbon which had once been white. My mother lifted the cover one day, and showed me what was inside. It was the most wonderful thing, and it had come off her wedding-cake. There was a white platform surrounded with a wreath of white roses and leaves, and in the center of the platform there stood under a wreathed arch two little dolls, arm in arm.

"They are going to be married," my mother said. "They came off the top of my cake when I was married."

"Oh, isn't it too sweet for anything!" I cried, in an ecstasy. "But, mother, why does the lady doll wear a veil?"

"All brides do. You shall, too, some day."

"Shall I?" I questioned, doubtfully. "But, mother, dear, suppose I should grow up, and never get married, won't you give me these little dolls to play with?"

"If that should happen I suppose I must," my mother said, with a laugh, and tied the box up tightly again, and put it back on the upper shelf.

I dreamed about that box. I talked of it to Lily-Ann, and described the enchanting veil at great length; and I even condescended to tell the twins about the dolls that mother had. Once, with great pain from the acute rasping of my knees, I climbed up the closet shelves, and peeked in a loose corner of the box. Then I came down again, perfectly satisfied, for the dolls were still there, and if I escaped marriage they were to be my own. I determined that I would never marry. It would be at too great a cost.

Soon after this there came a day when everything seemed to go wrong. Lily-Ann was very cross, while my mother looked sad and even frightened. She went up and down stairs many times. She watched me furtively, and asked whispered questions of Lily-Ann. I wondered what Lily-Ann could possibly be telling her. I knew that it was not about me, for I had been very good that afternoon. To be sure, I had pulled the cat's tail; but she and I had kissed each other affectionately afterwards, and were friends again. Nor was Lily-Ann apt to reveal my misdeeds. She liked to judge me herself in that dread hour when the dark brought repentance. Still, as the questions went on and on, I was sure that I heard my name, not once but many times, now from Lily-Ann, and now from my mother, with a gasp of dismay.

Then my mother took me in her arms and kissed me, and rocked me as if I were a baby again, and in the middle of it all made me a little confidence.

"Rhoda, mother always meant to give you those little dolls," she said.

"Oh, did you, mother!" I cried, eagerly.

"But giving is different from taking. Do you know what it means to steal a thing, Rhoda?"

I nodded solemnly.

"'Thou shalt not steal,' you know the Bible says."

"Yes, mother."

"Did you climb up into my closet one day?"

I hung my head.

"Rhoda, when you knew that you had only to ask for mother to give them to you, why did you take away my little dolls?"

"But I did not take them," I cried, in surprise. "I only looked at them. Was I very bad, mother?"

"You didn't take them? Think what you are saying, Rhoda."

"I did not take them," I protested, breaking into tears, for though I was bad, I knew that I was not that bad.

I could see that she did not believe me. She sighed in a way that I had never heard my mother sigh before, and set me down on the floor beside her. Then she took me by the hand, and we made a very solemn pilgrimage up the stairs, and through her room into the one which was my own, straight up into the corner where my doll-house stood. She opened the little door, and motioned me to look in. The bride and groom were leaning stiffly side by side against the sofa in the parlor! They stared back at me with scorn on their sugar faces, and there was, also, something accusing in their expression, as if they were saying, "Little girl, how do we come here?" Still I would not confess. I had not taken them. I had wanted them very much, but now I did not want them at all. I should have liked to smash their sugar heads, for it was their fault. They had done it themselves, stepping down from their high shelf in the middle of the night. They were tired of living tied up in a box, and wanted my doll-house to set up housekeeping in. They had done it themselves just to plague me. There was no other way to explain it.

"What does she say?" grandmother asked, creeping in behind us.

"Not the truth!" my mother cried. "I should never have suspected my child of lying and stealing! But Lily-Ann says it is not the first time!"

I stood and looked at them. It almost seemed as if I did not love them any more. They knew me so little that they thought I could steal those sugar dolls.

"Grandma, put her to bed for me," my mother said, still with that frightened look on her face. "I don't know what to say to her. I must ask her father."

Grandmother put me to bed, with slow, patient fingers. She tucked me in, and kissed me in quite a tender way.

"Tell grandma," she urged, in a whisper, bending down until her spectacles touched my hot cheek.

But still I would not confess.

It was very quiet in my little room after she had gone. I could hear the dishes rattling down-stairs, as Norah set the table with a bang of the plates and a thump of the knives. We were going to have honey for supper and little cakes with frosted tops baked in scolloped patty-pans. I wondered whether I should have any supper, or must lie there in the dark, while they talked about me at the supper-table. I did not think that I could enjoy frosted cake baked in scolloped patty-pans if my little girl were alone up-stairs in the dark. When I grew up and married, for I might as well marry now, I would never treat any one so. Never! Never!! Never!!!

"Oh, please, God, let me hurry and grow up," I whispered to the darkness. "And, oh, please, God, let me have frosted cake for my supper!"

I waited for the prayer to bear fruit. Sometimes prayers were rather slow. I heard my father come home with a cheerful rustle of parcels. He hung up his coat and hat in the hall, and tiptoed upstairs to wash his hands. He knew that the twins were asleep in their cribs; but he did not know that I was beyond in the darkness, afraid to speak to him. He did not miss me, although I was always the first to welcome him at the door. Nobody seemed to miss me. I heard them draw up their chairs to the table. Now they were eating honey. Now they were eating frosted cake. Lily-Ann would have some of the cake. They believed in her. It was only their own little girl whom they sent to bed without her supper. It was only Rhoda whom nobody loved. If God would let me grow up quick, I would go away and not be a trouble to them any more. Perhaps off in the country I might find somebody who would love me, and believe in me, for I did not want to be loved unless I was believed in. I should be very lonely at first, nearly as lonely as I was now. A sore place came in my throat that made me cry because it hurt so.

The kitchen door opened in the distance, and a whirlwind swept into the dining-room. There was a pause, punctuated by loud remarks delivered in a high Irish voice, and then the whirlwind came up the stairs, and swept me out of my bed. It was Norah. I clung to her, for she was the only thing which I had left to love in the whole world. My father and mother had deserted me, but Norah was staunch. She kissed me as she carried me, big girl as I was, straight down the steps into the dazzling light of the supper-table. Norah was excited. She had a red spot on each cheek, and her eyes shone like stars. She held me tightly with one arm and gesticulated with the other. Against the white panel of the kitchen door Lily-Ann was crouched in a timid, frightened fashion, with all the spirit gone out of her wide face, and almost the very curl gone out of her hair.

"She had them dolls yisterday," Norah cried, accusingly, her finger pointed straight at the kitchen door. "I saw them in her box. Sure, I thought that the mistress gave them to her, and it's not for the likes of me to say what the mistress shall give or not give. Then this morning when there was questions asked, she crept upstairs and put them in the doll-house. The sarpent! Is my child to lie in the dark crying her heart out, and that sarpent set at my kitchen-table drinking her tay, and telling me wicked tales of my child?"

Nobody answered her. They stared at her in bewilderment. Norah had never acted like that before.

"If there was questions to be asked, why wasn't I asked?" she went on, angrily. "If the mistress or the master had said to me, 'Norah, where's them little dolls?' I would have told them the truth. I would have said, 'Lily-Ann stole them yisterday, ma'am, and to-day she put them in the doll-house, sur.' But, no, they don't ask honest old Norah. They listen to that sarpent backbiting my child. The little innocent creatur! The dear little old-fashioned thing that niver took nought from nobody!"

I put my arms around Norah's neck, and hugged her until I nearly strangled her.

"Give Rhoda to me, Norah," my mother said, jealously.

"There's only one thing more to be said, ma'am," Norah continued, obstinately standing her ground, still with my arms about her neck. "Either old Norah goes or that sarpent goes. I'll have no sarpents in my kitchen."

They were all looking at Lily-Ann now. There was a ring of truth about Norah's story which had convinced them at last.

"Have you anything to say, Lily-Ann?" my father asked, sternly.

She had nothing to say. As she drooped a little closer to the door and wiped her eyes in a miserable fashion, I felt that I could forgive her all the harm which she had done me. Poor Lily-Ann, who my mother said had never been a child!

"Oh, please, Norah, let Lily-Ann stay!" I cried, piteously. "I'll be so good if you'll let Lily-Ann stay!"

Norah might, perhaps, have been softened by my appeal, but my father would not listen. The words which he used were very stern ones, and his was the hand that held open the door for Lily-Ann to pass out of the house. She went slowly, almost regretfully, as though at the last she felt repentance. I never saw her again.

It was many a long year, however, before I cast off her evil spell. Even in the illnesses of my maturer years those crawling Things have come back, passing across the mirror of a pain-racked mind with all the horror of childish ignorance and fear. Yet I still feel that I have forgiven Lily-Ann. Coming from the home that she did, and unwatched and unsuspected as she was, she might easily have destroyed the holy innocence of a child's life. But she left me as she found me.

I went upstairs very quietly that night. There was a candle burning on the bedroom table, and something which my prayer had brought, something frosted, with scolloped edges, was tucked under my pillow. The whole family came to put me to bed, and made so much of me that I glowed under their affection.

"She will forget it all in time," my father said, tenderly, unwitting of my long memory. "Evil dies away quickly from a child's mind."

My mother was more impulsive. She went down on her knees and put her arms about me.

"Forgive mother," she whispered, with her mouth against my ear. "Mother knows how true you are, Rhoda!"

After all there was really something for which to thank Lily-Ann.