The Actress' Daughter Part 20

There was no answer.

"Good-lookin', too," pursued Miss Jerusha, looking reflectively at Betsey Periwinkle, "and rich. Hem! I say, Georgia--you're fond of money--wouldn't it be pleasant if you was to be mistress bime-by of the big house--hey?"

She looked up for an answer, but Georgia was gone.

CHAPTER X.

DREAMING.

"And underneath that face, like summer's ocean, Its lips as moveless and its cheek as clear, Slumbers a whirlpool of the heart's emotions-- Love, hatred, pride, hope, sorrow, all save fear."

HALLECK.

"Well, this _is_ pleasant," said Richmond, throwing himself carelessly on the gra.s.s, and sending pebbles skimming over the surface of the river; "this _is_ pleasant," he repeated, looking up at his companion, as she sat drawing under the shadow of an old elm down near the sh.o.r.e.

Three months had pa.s.sed since his return, and the glowing golden midsummer days had come. All this time he had been a frequent visitor at the cottage--to see _Miss Jerusha_, of course; and very gracious, indeed, was that lady's reception of the young lord of the manor.

Georgia was freezing at first, most decidedly below zero, and enough to strike terror into the heart of any less courageous knight than the one in question. But Mr. Richmond Wildair was not easily intimidated, and took all her chilling hauteur coolly enough, quite confident of triumphing in the end. It was a drawn battle between them, but he knew he was the better general of the two, so he was perfectly easy as to the issue. In fact, he rather liked it than otherwise, on the principle of the "greater the trial, the greater the triumph," and, accustomed to be flattered and caressed, this novel mode of treatment was something new and decidedly pleasant. So he kept on "never minding," and visited the cottage often, and talked gayly with Miss Jerusha, and was respectful and quiet with Miss Georgia, until, as constant dropping will wear a stone, so Georgia's unnatural stiffness began to give way, and she learned to laugh and grow genial again, but remained still on the alert to resist any attempt at command. No such attempt was made, and at last Georgia and Richmond grew to be very good friends.

Georgia had a talent for drawing, and Richmond, who was quite an artist, undertook to teach her, and those lessons did more than anything else to put them on a sociable footing. Richmond liked to give his lessons out under the trees, where his pupil might sketch from nature, and Georgia rather liked it herself, too. It was very pleasant, those lessons; Georgia liked to hear about great cities, about this rush, and roar, and turmoil, and constant flow of busy life, and Richmond had the power of description in a high degree, and used to watch, with a sly, repressed smile, pencil and crayon drop from her fingers, and her eyes fix themselves in eager, unconscious interest on his face, as she grew absorbed in his narrative.

Dangerous work it was, with a pupil and master young and handsome, the romantic sea-sh.o.r.e and murmuring old trees for their school-room, and talking not forbidden either. How Miss Jerusha chuckled over it in confidence to Betsey Periwinkle--she didn't dare to trust Fly--and indulged in sundry wild visions of a brand-new brown silk dress and straw bonnet suitable for the giving away a bride in.

Little did Georgia dream of these extravagant peeps into futurity, or the lessons would have ended then and there, this new-fledged intimacy been unceremoniously nipped in the bud, and Miss Jerusha's castles in Spain tumbled to the ground with a cras.h.!.+ But Georgia was in a dream and said nothing. Richmond _did_, and laughed quietly over it in the shadow of the old ancestral mansion.

"Yes, this is pleasant," said Richmond, one morning, as he lay idly on the gra.s.s, and Georgia sat on the trunk of a fallen tree near, taking her drawing lesson.

She lifted her head and laughed.

"What is pleasant?" she said.

"This--this feeling of rest, of peace, of indolence, of idleness. I never sympathized with Charley's love for the _dolce far niente_ before, but I begin to appreciate it now. One tires of this hurrying, bustling, jostling, uproarious life in the city, and then laziness in the country is considered the greatest of earthly boons. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, you know."

"And do you really like the country better than the city?" asked Georgia.

"I like it--yes--in slices. I shouldn't fancy being buried in the woods among catamounts, and panthers, and settlers hardly less savage. I shouldn't fancy sleeping in wigwams and huts, and living on bear's flesh and Johnny-cake; but I like _this_. I like to lie under the trees, away out of sight and hearing of the city, yet knowing three or four hours in the cars will bring me to it whenever I feel like going back. I like the feeling of languid repose these still, voiceless, midsummer noondays inspire; I like to have nothing to do; and plenty of time to do it in."

"What an epicure you are," said Georgia, smiling; "now it seems to me after witnessing the ever-changing, ever-restless life in Was.h.i.+ngton and New York, and all those other great cities, you would find our sober little humdrum Burnfield insupportably dull. I know I should; I would like above all things to live in a great city, life seems to be so fully waked up, so earnest there. I _shall_, too, some day," she said, in her calm, decided way, as she took up another pencil and went on quietly drawing.

"Indeed!" he said, slowly, watching the pebbles he sent skimming over the water as intently as if his whole life depended on them. "Indeed!

how is that?"

"Oh! I shall go to seek my fortune," she said, laughingly, yet in earnest, too. "Do you know I am to be rich and great? 'Once upon a time there was a king and queen with three sons, and the youngest was called Jack.' I am Jack, and you know how well he always came out at the end of the story."

"Georgia, you are a--dreamer."

"I shall be a worker one of these days. My hour has not yet come." And Georgia hummed:

"I am asleep and don't waken me."

"What will you do when you awake, Georgia?"

"What Heaven and my own genius pleases; found a colony, find a continent, make war on Canada, run for President, teach a school, set fire to Cuba, learn dressmaking, or set up a menagerie, with Betsey Periwinkle for my stock in trade," she said, with one of her malicious, quizzical laughs.

"Georgia, talk sense."

"Mr. Wildair, I flatter myself I am doing that now."

"Miss Darrell, shall I tell you your future?"

"I defy you to do it, sir."

"Don't be too sure. Now listen. In the first place, you will get married."

"No, _sir-r_!" exclaimed Georgia, with emphasis: "I scorn the insinuation! I am going to be an old maid, like Miss Jerusha."

"Don't interrupt, Miss Darrel; it's not polite. You will marry some sweet youth with nice curling whiskers, and his hair parted in the middle, and you will mend his old coats, and read him the newspaper, and trudge with him to market, and administer curtain lectures, and raise Shanghai roosters, and take a prize every year for the best b.u.t.ter and the nicest quilts in the county; and finally you will die, and go up to heaven, where you will belong, and have a wooden tombstone erected to your memory, with your virtues inscribed on it in letters five inches long."

"Shall I, indeed! that's all you know about it," said Georgia, half inclined to be provoked at this picture; "no, sir; I am bound to astonish the world some of these days--_how_, I haven't quite decided, but I know I shall do it. As for your delightful picture of conjugal felicity, _you_ may be a Darby some day, but I will never be a Joan."

"You might be worse."

"And will be, doubtless. I never expect to be anything very good. Emily Murray will do enough of that for both of us."

"Emily is a good girl. Do you know what she reminds one of?"

"A fragrant little spring rose, I imagine."

"Yes, of that, too; but she is more like the river just now as it flows on smooth, serene, untroubled and s.h.i.+ning, smiling in the suns.h.i.+ne, unruffled and calm."

"And I am like that same river lashed to a fury in a December storm,"

said Georgia, with a darkening brow.

"Exactly--pre-cisely! though you are quiet enough now; but as those still waters _must_ be lashed into tempests, just so certain will you--"

"Mr. Wildair, I don't relish your personalities," said Georgia, with a flus.h.i.+ng cheek and kindling eye.

"I beg your pardon--it was an ungallant speech--but I did not know you cared for compliments. What shall I say you look like?--some gorgeous tropical flower?"

"No, sir! you shall compare me to nothing! Georgia Darrell looks like herself alone! There! how do you like my drawing?"

He took it and looked long and earnestly. It was rather a strange one.

It represented a wintry sea and coast, with the dark, sluggish waves tossing like a strong heart in strong agony, and only lit by the fitful, watery, glimmer of a pale wintry moon breaking through the dark, lowering clouds above. Down on the sh.o.r.e knelt a young girl, her long hair and thin garments streaming behind her in the wind, her hands clasped, her face blanched, her eyes strained in horror far over the troubled face of the sea on a drowning form. Far out a female face rose above the devouring waves--_such_ a face, so full of a terrible, nameless horror, despair and utter woe as no fancy less vivid than that of Georgia could ever have conceived. One arm was thrown up far over her head in the death struggle, and the eyes in that strange face were appalling to look on.

Richmond Wildair held his breath as he gazed, and looked up in Georgia's dark face in a sort of fear.