Читать книгу Who Would Have Thought It? - María Ruiz de Burton - Страница 6

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"Don't you know, doctor, that you kissed that Indian child more affectionately than you kissed your own daughters?" said Mrs. Norval to her husband, fiercely, when they had closed their bedroom door to the outer world.

"Maybe I did; for I pity the poor orphan. My daughters, thank God, have yet their parents to take care of them; but this poor little waif has no one in the world, perhaps, to protect her and care for her but myself."

"As for that, she'll get along well enough. She is not so timid as to need anybody's particular protection. Her eyes are bold enough. She will learn to work,-I'll see to that, -and a good worker is sure of a home in New England. Mrs. Hammerhard will want just such a girl as this, I hope, to mind the baby, and she will give her some of her cast-off clothes and her victuals."

"Cast-off clothes and victuals!" the doctor repeated, as if he could not believe that his ears had heard rightly.

"Why, yes. We certainly couldn't expect Mrs. Hammerhard would give more to a girl ten years old, to mind a little baby in the cradle."

"And how is she to go to school, if she is to mind Mrs. Hammerhard's baby for old clothes and cold victuals?"

"Doctor," said Mrs. Norval, tying her night-cap with deliberation, "I said nothing about cold victuals. She can eat her victuals cold or warm, just as she likes: this is a free country. But I do say this, that this is the first day I have laid eyes on you for four years (you left in '53, and now we are in '57), and I think it is very hard that this first day we should have so many disagreeables about a stranger, and that an Indian child. I'll do the best I can for her: I shall do my duty as a Christian woman; but she can't expect to grow up in idleness and be a burden to us.

She must learn to work and earn her living. In the winters, perhaps, she might go to school at nights; I'll see what I can do about that. She will go to our Sunday-school, of course; but-"

"She will go to Sunday-school if any one will teach her the Catholic Catechism, but certainly not the Presbyterian," said the doctor, pulling his coat off, as if making ready to fight on that point; "and as for her learning to work, she will learn to do what ladies learn, and she will suit herself in that, when she has finished her education."

"Finish her education! A Catholic Catechism!" faintly echoed Mrs. Norval, letting her cap-strings go, and sinking into her arm-chair.

The doctor, in his shirt-sleeves, crossed his arms over his breast, and, standing before his wife, also repeated,

"Finish her education, Mrs. Norval; yes, and a Catholic Catechism. I said those words, Mrs. Norval; and I mean them, too, madam."

A contemptuous smile played around the pale lips of the agitated Mrs. Norval, as she said,

"And pray who is to teach her that abominable idolatry here? and who is to pay for her magnificent education? for I suppose she must have several masters to teach her foreign languages, and music, and painting."

The doctor nodded his head in the affirmative, entirely disregarding his wife's sarcasm, and, taking a bunch of keys from his pocket, said,

"If you will follow me, madam, I'll show you with what Lola's education is to be paid." And the doctor, taking a candle, led the way to Julian's room. Mrs. Norval followed her husband, not knowing but that he had gone crazy and meant to set the house on fire with the lighted candle he carried.

The doctor set the candle on the bureau, and Mrs. · Norval seated herself on a chair, silently waiting to see what he would do next.

The doctor selected a key from the bunch he held in his hand, and opened a trunk, from which he took a screw-driver. Then he went to one of the heavy boxes, brought with so much labor, and began to unscrew from the lid several large screws, saying,—

"Arthur Sinclair is to blame for these boxes taking this trip up to New England. I told him distinctly that I wished them to be left at his brother's in New York; and he must, of course, go to work and ship them by express all the way here. When I went to William Sinclair's office to see if the boxes were there, he told me they had been shipped that morning. I went to the depot to stop their coming up; but only two boxes had not been put into the baggage-car, and those I sent back to Sinclair's. The other four came up; and now I shall have to take them back."

"So you were bringing six boxes full of rocks?" "But only to New York."

Now the doctor took out the last screw, opened the box with the key, and began by taking out some articles of clothing. Mrs. Norval smiled. Then he came to some specimens of ores, very rough-looking stones. He lifted a piece of canvas, on which these rough stones were laid, and said to his wife,

"This is what will pay for Lola's education."

Mrs. Norval stood up, uttering a cry of delighted surprise; then, clasping her hands, remained silent, with open mouth and staring eyes, transfixed by her amazement and joy.

"But is it real gold?" she whispered, hoarsely, after some moments of bewildered silence.

"All is not gold that glitters," the doctor replied, smiling; "but this is."

"And whose is it? Ours? Yours? Whose?"

"Don't you guess? If I say it will pay for Lolita's education, it is because it belongs to her."

What?" ejaculated Mrs. Norval, falling back in her chair. "You are jesting; you can't mean that. No, no! I can't believe that this horrible little negro girl

"Once for all, let me tell you that the blood of that child is as good as, or better than, yours or mine; that she is neither an Indian nor a negro child, and that, unless you wish to doubt my word, my veracity, you will not permit yourself or anybody else to think her such."

Mrs. Norval was incapable of controversy now; her soul was floating over those yellow, shining lumps of cold, unfeeling metal. She made no reply to her husband; but, as if obeying a natural impulse, she knelt by the chest, and, with childlike simplicity, began to take pieces of gold and examine them attentively and toss them up playfully; then she took a handful, then two handfuls, trying to see how many pieces she could lift up. The sedate, severe, sober, serious lady of forty was a playful, laughing child again.

The doctor watched her and smiled, but his smile was sad. He had not seen that expression on her face since they were gathering apples and he asked her to marry him, twenty-one years ago!

"I think that Lola, instead of being a burden to us, will be a great acquisition. Don't you think so?" said the doctor, after his wife had toyed with the gold for some time.

"How much is it?" asked Mrs. Norval, in a scarcely audible voice, tremulous with emotion,

"I really can't tell how much is in this one box, but, according to our calculation in San Francisco, there must be about a million dollars in the six boxes."

"A million!" screamed Mrs. Norval.

"Hush, wife! If you indulge in such loud exclamations, some one will hear you; and I don't want it to be known that there is so much gold in my house. I shall certainly send it back to New York as soon as possible."

"But what will you do with so much gold? Won't they steal it from you?"

"I'll look out for that. William Sinclair is an honest man, and he will take charge of it. I arranged all that with him. He is to have the gold coined immediately, and will take it for three years at six per cent. interest, giving me good securities on real estate."

"But the child doesn't want sixty thousand dollars a year," said Mrs. Norval, deprecatingly, as if speaking to the gold, and in a timid, plaintive voice,-she was so subdued, so humbled, before the yellow god!