Читать книгу Carried by Storm - May Agnes Fleming - Страница 10
ОглавлениеA DEED OF DARKNESS.
o it befalls, that in spite of threats and horsewhip, Joanna has her own way, and does not go for the tea. Giles Sleaford retires to the chimney-corner, grumbling internally, as is his sullen wont, and looking darkly askance at the small intruder. He makes uneasy signs to his daughters to take her back whence she came, as he fills his after-supper pipe. Both his sons are already smoking, and the tobacco-laden atmosphere half chokes the child.
"Come, dear," says Lora, taking her by the hand.
"But what is she to have to eat?" queries Liz. "I suppose, Jud, you wouldn't go for the tea?"
"No, I wouldn't," answers Jud, promptly. "I'm dead tired. I don't stir out o' this corner, 'cept to go to bunk to-night. Besides, she says she don't drink it—heerd her yourself, didn't yer?"
"Perhaps she'll take milk," suggests Dan. "Ask her, Lorry."
"Oh, yes, please, I will take milk," Olga responds, shrinking into herself; "anything. Indeed, I am not in the least hungry."
"And I'll poach her an egg," says Liz, brightening, now that this difficult question of the commissariat is settled. "I'll fetch it in in five minutes. You undress her, Lora, and put her to bed."
"But I want to go home!" Olga says, beginning to tremble again. "I must not stay here all night. Papa and mamma do not know where I am. You must not undress me, please. I must go home."
"But, little missy, you can't go home to-night. See, it is eleven o'clock now, and even if Frank Livingston does come, which ain't likely (though what keeps him I can't think), it will be too late for you to go back to your home with him. It is a good three miles if it is an inch."
"Oh! what shall I do?" poor little Olga sobs, "and papa will be frightened to death, and mamma will worry herself sick. Oh! I wish Cousin Frank would come. But he will not—I know he will not. I made him promise this afternoon."
"What?" says Lora Sleaford, blankly.
"I made him promise. He stays out so late, you know, and I made him promise he would not any more. And that is why he has not come," explains Olga, with a sob.
"Well, I do declare!" cries Miss Sleaford, looking anything but pleased. "You made him promise! A bit of a dolly like you! Well—you see it's yourself you have punished after all. If you had let him alone he would have been here two hours ago, and you might have been home by this."
Miss Ventnor covers her face with her mite of a pocket-handkerchief, and sobs within its folds. She is too much a little lady to do her weeping, or anything else, loudly or ungracefully, but none the less they are very real tears the cobweb cambric quenches.
"So you didn't want Mr. Frank to come here," goes on Lora, still sulkily; "how did you know he came?"
"I did—didn't know. I only knew he—he stopped out late. And he said—said—it was up the village. And I made him prom—promise he wouldn't do so any more. Oh, dear, dear, dear!"
"There, there, stop crying," says Lora, relenting; "you'll certainly make yourself sick. Here's Liz with something to eat. It ain't what you're used to, I dare say, but you must take something, you know, or you won't be able to go home to-morrow either."
This argument effectually rouses the child. She dries her tears, and remembers suddenly she is hungry. Liz comes forward with a big black tray which is found to contain a glass of milk, a poached egg, some raspberries, a bit of butter, and a triangular wedge of short-cake.
"Now," she says, "that's the best we can do for you. So eat something and go to bed." She places the tray before the child, and Lora draws her to a window, where a whispered conference takes place.
"Well, I never!" says Miss Sleaford the second, in high dudgeon; "the idea! Gracious me! a chit like that, too!"
It is evident Lora is retailing the embargo laid on Master Frank's visits.
"It is lucky she doesn't know about the presents, the jewelry and things. What an old-fashioned little puss!"
There is more whispering, some giggling, and Olga feels in every shrinking little nerve that it is all about her. She drinks the milk, and eats the fruit, essays the egg, and mingles her tears with her meat. Oh! how alarmed papa and mamma will be, and what a dreadful place this is to spend a whole long night. Will they leave her alone in this room? will they leave her in the dark——
"Now then!" exclaims Liz, briskly, "I see you've done, so I'll just take the things, and go to bed. Father and the boys have gone already, and I'm as blinky as an owl. Lora——"
"I'll stay for a bit," says Lora. She is not an ill-natured girl, and she sees the speechless terror in the child's eyes. "You go to bed. I can sleep it out to-morrow morning."
Liz goes without more ado. Lora sits down beside the little girl, and begins to unbutton her boots. "You know you can't go home to-night," she says, soothingly, "and you are sleepy and nearly tired to death. Now you must just let me fix you up a bed here on the lounge, and I'll only take off your dress, because you've no night-gown to put on. I'll stay here with you, and to-morrow the first thing my brother Judson will go over to your cottage, and tell your folks. Now be good; don't look so pale and scary; there's nothing to be afraid of here, and I'm going to stay with you all night."
"All night?" questions Olga, lifting two large earnest eyes.
"Oh, yes, all night," says Lora, who differs from George Washington, and can tell a lie. "Now, I'll fix your bed, and sing you to sleep, and you will be at home to-morrow morning before you know it."
She produces sheets and a quilt, and improvises a bed, lays Olga in it, and takes a seat by her side.
"I will sing for you," she says. "You shut those pretty blue peepers right away, and don't open them till breakfast-time to-morrow."
She begins in a sweet, crooning voice a camp-meeting hymn. The low singing sound soothes the child's still quivering nerves. Gradually her eyelids sway heavily, close, open again, shut once more, and she is fast. Then Miss Sleaford rises with a great yawn.
"Off at last, and a tough job it was. Hush! twelve o'clock! I thought it was twenty. I wonder if that young limb, Joanna, is back? Most likely not, though. It's queer she don't take her death o' fever 'n ague, sleeping out doors."
She gives a last look at the sleeper.
"Fast as a church," she whispers.
She takes the lamp, leaves the room, shuts the door softly, and goes up-stairs under the rafters to join her sleeping sister. The old red farm-house is very still. In the kitchen black beetles hold high carnival; in the parlor the moonlight streams in on the pale hair and quiet face of the little lost heiress. Outside, the trees sway and rustle in the night breeze, and the stars burn big and bright in the mysterious silence of early morning.
One! two! three!
With a start Olga Ventnor awakes. It is the wooden Connecticut clock in the kitchen, loudly proclaiming the hour. Awakes with a chill and a thrill of terror, to find herself quite alone. Lora gone, the light fled, the pale, solemn shine of the moon filling the place, and that loud strident clock striking three. Oh, to hear Cousin Frank's footsteps now stealing up and on to his room! Oh, for Jeannette—Lora—any one—anything but this silent, spectral, moonlit room!
Stay! What is that?
She is not alone. Yonder in the corner, under the chimney-piece, crouches a figure all huddled in a heap, knees drawn up, and arms clasped around them. With appalling distinctness she sees it, the shock head of hair, the thin, fierce face, the bare feet and legs. She has seen it before. The moonlight is full upon it, the eyes are wide open and gleam like a cat's. The creature sits perfectly motionless, and stares before her. Perfectly motionless, also, Olga lies, in a trance of terror, scarcely breathing, feeling numb and frozen with deadly fear. The thing stirs at last, shakes itself, turns to the bed, glares at it, and rises slowly to its feet. Olga's heart has stopped beating, she has no voice to cry out, all her faculties are absorbed in one—seeing. The apparition speaks in a muffled whisper to itself:
"I'll do it! I'll do it if they kill me—if they whip me till I'm dead. I hate her; I always hated her. I hate 'em all, but her most. I never thought I'd have the chance, and now she's here and asleep, and I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it!"
She tiptoes to the bed; there is a gleam of blue steel. Is it a knife? She is close—she stretches out one long, thin hand, clutches a handful of fair, floating hair. The malignant face, the gleaming eyes, the wild hair, are within three inches of Olga. Then, with a shock, the child leaps from the bed, rushes frantically across the room, her shrieks rending the stillness, flings open the door, and falls headlong in the passage.
