The Missing Bride Part 24

"Hand it here, I command you, madam!" cried the professor, trying to compose himself and recover his dignity.

"Command away--I like to hear you. Command a regiment, if you like!"

said the elf.

"Give it up!" thundered the professor, losing his slight hold upon self-control.

"Couldn't do it, sir," said Jacko, gravely.

"It is an appointment, you impudent ----! Hand it here."

"Not as you know of!" laughed Jacko, tauntingly shaking it over her head.

He made a rush to catch it.

She sprang nimbly away, and clapped the paper into her mouth.

He overtook and caught her by the arm, and shaking her roughly, exclaimed, under his breath:

"Where is it? What have you done with it? You exasperating, unprincipled little wretch, where is it?"

"'Echo anfers fere?'" mumbled the imp, chewing up the paper, and keeping her lips tight.

"Give it me! give it me! or I'll be the death of you, you diabolical little ----!" he exclaimed, hoa.r.s.ely, shaking her as if he would have shaken her breath out.

But Jacko had finished chewing up the paper, and she swallowed the pulp with an effort that nearly choked her, and then opening her mouth, and inflating her chest, gave voice in a succession of piercing shrieks, that brought the whole family rus.h.i.+ng into the room, and obliged the professor to relax his hold, and stand like a detected culprit.

For there was the commodore roused up from his sleep, with his gray hair and beard standing out all ways, like the picture of the sun in an almanac. And there was Mrs. Waugh, with the great-tooth comb in her hand. And Mary L'Osieau, with the pantry keys. And the maid, Maria, with the wooden tray of flour on her head. And Festus, with a bag of meal in his hands. And all with their eyes and ears and mouths agape with amazement and inquiry.

"In the fiend's name, what's the matter? What the d----l's broke loose?

Is the house on fire again?" vociferated the commodore, seeing that no one else spoke; "what's all this about, Nace Grimshaw?"

"Ask your pretty niece, sir!" said the professor, sternly, turning away.

"Oh, it's you, is it, you little termagant you? Oh, you're a honey-cooler. What have you been doing now, Imp?" cried the old man, turning fiercely to Jacquelina. "Answer me, you little vixen!--what does all this mean?"

"Better ask 'the gentlemanly professor' why he seized and nearly shook the head off my shoulders and the breath out of my bosom!" said Jacquelina, half-crying, half-laughing.

The commodore turned furiously toward Grim. Shaking a woman's head off her shoulders, and breath out of her body, in his house, did not suit his ideas of gallantry at all, rough as he was.

"By heaven! are you mad, sir? What have you been doing? I never laid the weight of my hand on Jacquelina in all my life, wild as she has driven me at times. Explain your brutality, sir."

"It was to force from her hand a paper which she has swallowed," said Dr. Grimshaw, with stern coldness regarding the group.

"Swallowed! swallowed!" shrieked Mrs. Waugh, rus.h.i.+ng toward Jacquelina, and seizing one of her arms, and gazing in her face, thinking only of poisons and of Jacko's frequent threats of suicide. "Swallowed!

swallowed! Where did she get it? Who procured it for her? What was it?

Oh, run for the doctor, somebody. What are you all standing like you were thunderstruck for? Dr. Grimshaw, start a boy on horseback immediately for a physician. Tell him to tell the doctor to bring a stomach pump with him. You had better go yourself. Oh, hasten; not a single moment is to be lost. Jacquelina, my dear, do you begin to feel sick? Do you feel a burning in your throat and stomach? Oh, my dear child! how came you to do such a rash act?"

Jacko broke into a loud laugh.

"Oh! crazy! crazy! it is something that affects her brain she has taken.

Oh! Dr. Grimshaw, how can you have the heart to stand there and not go?

Probably opium."

Jacko laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks--never, since her marriage, had Jacko laughed so much.

"Oh, Dr. Grimshaw! Don't you see she is getting worse and worse. How can you have the heart to stand there and not go for a physician?" said Mrs.

Waugh, while Mary L'Oiseau looked on, mute with terror, and the commodore stood with his fat eyes protruding nearly to bursting.

"Go, oh, go, Dr. Grimshaw!" insisted Mrs. Waugh.

"I a.s.sure you it is not necessary, madam," said the professor, with stern scorn.

"There is no danger, aunty. I haven't taken any poison since I took a dose of Grim before the altar!" said Jacko, through her tears and laughter.

"What have you taken, then, unfortunate child?"

"I have swallowed an a.s.signation," said the elf, as grave as a judge.

"A what?" exclaimed all, in a breath,

"An a.s.signation," repeated Jacko, with owl-like calmness and solemnity.

"What in the name of common sense do you mean, my dear?" inquired Mrs.

Waugh, while the commodore and Mary L'Oiseau looked the astonishment they did not speak. "Pray explain yourself, my love."

"He--says--I--swallowed--an--a.s.signation--whole!" repeated Jacquelina, with distinct emphasis. Her auditors looked from one to another in perplexity.

"I see that I shall have to explain the disagreeable affair," said the professor, coming forward, and addressing himself to the commodore. "Mr.

Thurston Willc.o.xen was here this afternoon on a visit to your niece, sir. In taking leave he slipped into her hand a small note, which, when I demanded, she refused to let me see."

"And very properly, too. What right had you to make such a 'demand?'"

said Mrs. Waugh, indignantly.

"I was not addressing my remarks to you, madam," retorted the professor.

"That will not keep me from making a running commentary upon them, however," responded the lady.

"Hold your tongue, Henrietta. Go on, Nace. I swear you are enough to drive a peaceable man mad between you," said the commodore, bringing his stick down emphatically. "Well what next?"

"On my attempting to take it from her she put it in her mouth and swallowed it."

"Yes! and then he seized me and shook me, as if I had been a fine-bearing little plum tree in harvest time."

"And served you right, I begin to think, you little limb, you. What was it you had, you little hussy?"

"An a.s.signation, he says, and he ought to know--being a professor."

"Don't mock us, Minx! Tell us instantly what were the contents of that note?"