CHAPTER VIII
"COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE."
"A look of pride, an eye of flame,
A full drawn lip that upward curled,
An eye that seemed to scorn the world."
The little town of Burnfield contained but one school, within the old brown walls and moss-grown eaves of which the "fathers of the hamlet" for many a generation had sat at the feet of some worthy pedagogue, or pedagoguess, as the case might be, to catch the wisdom that fell from their lips. In summer woman held her sway there, but in winter man reigned supreme on the throne of learning, and "boarded round," a custom not yet obsolete.
Once every year came the great anniversary of the school, the last day of April, when the "master's" term expired, and he left the town to the dominion of the new school-marm. Then took place the great public examination, in which lanky youths, weighed down with the consciousness of their responsibility and first tail-coats, and cherry-cheeked girls, bursting out of their hooks and eyes, showed off before the admiring Burnfieldians, and received their rewards of merit, more highly prized by them than the Cross of the Legion of Honor would be by some old French veteran. A new innovation had lately been introduced by one of the teachers – that of speaking dialogues at these distributions, and wonderful was the delight young Burnfield took in these displays. The more strait-laced of the parents at first objected to this, as smacking too much of "play acting," but young Burnfield had a decided will of its own, and looked contemptuously on the "slow" ideas of old Burnfield, and finally, in triumph, carried the day.
The great day arrived, and the anxious parents who had young ideas at school, were crowding rapidly toward the large old-fashioned school-house under the hill. Among them, in grim, unbending majesty, stalked Miss Jerusha Skamp, resplendent in what she was pleased to term her new "kaliker gound," a garment which partook of the nature of its forerunners in being exceedingly short and exceedingly skimpy, and the gorgeous patterns of which can be likened to nothing save a highly exaggerated rainbow. But Miss Jerusha, happy in the belief that nothing like it had appeared in modern times, walked majestically in, upsetting some loose benches, half a dozen small boys, and other trifles that lay in her way, and took her seat on one of the front benches. The boys, gorgeous in blue and gray homespun coats, with brass buttons of alarming size and brightness, were ranged on one side, and the girls, arrayed in all the hues of a flower-garden, on the other. Miss Jerusha's eyes wandered to the side where the girls sat, and rested with a look of evident pride and self-complaisance on one – a look that said as plainly as words, "There! look at that! there's my handiwork for you."
And certainly, amid the many handsome, blooming girls there, not one was more worth looking at than she on whom Miss Jerusha's eyes rested. The tall, slight, but well-portioned form had none of the awkwardness common to girls in their transition stages. The queenly little head was poised superbly on the sloping neck; the clear olive skin, with its glowing crimson lips and cheeks, was the very ideal of dark, rich, southern beauty; the jet-black shining hair, swept off the broad forehead in smooth silken braids, became well the scarlet ribbons that bound it, as did also the close-fitting crimson dress she wore.
Georgia (for of course every reader above the unsuspecting age of three years knows who it is), without being at all aware of it, always fell into the style of dress that best suited her and harmonized with her warm, tropical complexion – dark, rich colors, such as black, purple, crimson, or, in summer, white. The two years that have passed since we saw her last have changed her wonderfully; but the full, proud, passionate, flashing eyes are the same in their dark splendor; the short, curling upper lip and curved nostril tell a tale of pride, and passion, and daring, and scornful power – tell that time may have softened, but has not eradicated, the temper of our stormy little essence of wild-fire.
Yes, she sits there, leaning listlessly back in her seat, her little restless brown hands folded quietly enough in her lap, her long black lashes vailing her darkly glancing eyes, cast down by a sort of proud indolence; but it is the calm that precedes the tempest, the dangerous spirit of the drowsy and beautiful leopard, the deep, treacherous stillness that heralds the bursting sheets of fire from the volcano's bosom, the white ashes that overlie consuming flames hidden beneath them, but ready at any moment to burst forth. And there she sat, known only to those present as the "smart little girl," the star scholar of the school, good-looking, bright, generous, and warm-hearted, too, but "ugly tempered."
The dark, bright, handsome eyes of the girl of fifteen had already carried unexampled desolation into more than one susceptible breast, and some of the unhappy youths were so badly stricken as to be guilty of the atrocity of perpetrating soul-harrowing "pote" – ry to those same dangerous optics. But these were only the worst cases, and even they never tried it but in the first delirium of the attack, and, like all delirious fevers, it soon passed away, died out like a hot little fire under (to use a homely simile) the wet blanket of her cool, utter indifference, and they returned to their buckwheat cakes, and pork, and molasses with just as good an appetite as ever.
One by one the people came in until the school-house was filled, and then the exercises commenced. The premiums were arranged on a table, and on a desk beside it stood the master, who rose and called out:
"First prize for general excellence awarded to Miss Georgia Darrell."
There was a moment's profound silence, while every eye turned upon Georgia, and then, as if by general impulse, there was an enthusiastic round of applause, for her warm, ardent nature, and many generous impulses, made her schoolmates like her in spite of her ebullitions of temper. And in the midst of this Georgia rose, with a flashing eye and kindling cheek, and, advancing to where the teacher stood, received the first prize from his hand, courtesied, and, with head proudly erect, and cheeks hot with the excitement of triumph, walked back to her seat.
Then came the other premiums, for grammar, for geography, history, and astronomy; the first prize was still awarded to "Miss Georgia Darrell," until the good folks of Burnfield began to knit their brows in anger and jealousy, and accused the master of being swayed, like the rest, by a handsome face, and unjustly depriving their offspring for the sake of this "stuck-up Georgia Darrell," who – as Deacon Brown remarked, in a scandalized tone – seemed to despise the very "airth she walked on."
The distribution was over at last, and then came the dialogues. And here Georgia's star was in the ascendant again. She, and the teacher, perhaps, knew what acting was – not one of the rest had the remotest idea – and they held their very breath to listen, as losing her own identity her eyes blazed and her cheeks burned, and she strode up and down, declaiming with such vehement gestures, that they looked at one another in a sort of terror, wonder, and admiration. And once, when she and another were repeating a selection from Tamerlane, where she took the character of Bajazet, and Tamerlane, in a sort of wonder and admiration, says:
"The world! 'twould be too little for thy pride!
Thou wouldst scale heaven!"
Georgia's eyes of lightning blazed, and raising her hand with a passionate gesture, she strode over and fiercely thundered:
"I WOULD! Away! my soul
Disdains thy conference!"
The Tamerlane of the moment recoiled in terror, and there was an instant of death-like silence, while every heart thrilled with the knowledge that the dark, wild girl was not "acting," but speaking the truth.
It was all over at last, and, with a few words from the teacher, the assembly was dismissed. As Georgia gathered up her armful of prizes and put on her bonnet, the teacher came over, and, to the jealousy of the other pupils, held out his hand to her, who had from the first been his favorite.
"Good-by, Bajazet," he said, smiling; "you electrified the good people of Burnfield to-day."
Georgia laughed.
"Do you know you were not acting just now, Georgia? Do you know you are ambitious enough to scale heaven? Do you know that you have within you what hurled Lucifer from heaven?"
"Yes, sir," she said, lifting her eyes boldly; "I know it."
"And do you not fear?"
"No, sir."
"Do you know you are composed of elements that will make you either an angel or a —demon?"
"Miss Jerusha says I'm the latter now, sir," she said, with a light laugh.
He looked at her with a smile half fond, half sad.
"Georgia, take care."
"Of what, sir?"
"Of yourself– your worst enemy."
"Father Murray says everyone is his own worst enemy."
"You are not like everyone. You are a little two-edged sword in a remarkably thin sheath, my little sprite. Take care."
"Well, I know I'm thin," said Georgia, who was in one of her unserious moods; "but that is my misfortune, Mr. Coleman, not my fault. Wait a little while, and you'll see I'll turn out to be a female pocket edition of Daniel Lambert."
"Georgia!"
"Well, sir."
"Promise me one thing."
"What is it, first?"
"That you will study very hard till I come back next winter?"
"Of course I will, sir. I made that promise once before."
"Indeed? To whom? Miss Jerusha?"
"Miss Jerusha!" said Georgia, laughing. "I guess not! To a friend of mine – a young gentleman."
And the girl of fifteen glanced up from under her long lashes at the dignified man of forty.
"Pooh, Georgia! stick to your books, and never mind the genus homo. You're a pretty subject to be advised by young gentlemen. It was good advice, though, and I indorse it."
"Very well, sir; but why am I to attend to my studies more than any of the rest of your pupils – Mary Ann Jones, for instance?"
"Humph! there is a wide difference. Mary Ann Jones will go home and help her mother to knit stockings, scrub the floor, make pumpkin pies, and eat them, too, without even a thought of mischief, while you would be breaking your neck or somebody else's, setting the iron on fire, or bottling thunderbolts to blow up the community generally. As there is more truth than poetry in that couplet of the solemn and prosy Dr. Watts, wherein he assures us —
"'Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do,'
on that principle you need to be kept busy. Between you and Mary Ann Jones there is about as much difference as there is between that useful domestic fowl, a barnyard goose, and that dangerous, sharp-clawed, good-for-nothing thing, a tameless mountain eaglet; and you may consider the comparison anything but complimentary to you. Mary Ann is going to be a merry, contented, capital housekeeper, and you – what are you going to be?"
"A vagabones on the face of the airth," said Georgia, imitating Miss Jerusha's nasal twang so well that it nearly overset the good teacher's gravity.
"Ah, Georgia! I see you are in one of your wild moods to-day, and will not listen to reason. Well, good-by – be a good girl till I come back."
"Good-by, sir. I don't think I will ever be a good girl, but I will be as good as I can. Good-by, and thank you, sir."
There was something so darkly earnest in her face, that Mr. Coleman looked after her, more puzzled than he had ever before been by a pupil. She had always been an enigma to him – she was to most people – and to-day she was more unreadable than ever.
"I declare to skreech, Georgy!" said Miss Jerusha, as they walked home together, "you like to skeered the life out o' me to-day, the way you talked and shouted. Clare to gracious! ef it wasn't parfectly orful, not to say downright wicked. Talk about scalin' heaven! there's sense for you now! And it's not only sinful, as Deacon Brown remarked, but reglir onpossible. Where could a ladder, now, or even a fire escape be got, long enough to do it? Pah! it's disgustin', such nonsense! I wonder a man like that there Mr. Coleman would 'low of sich talk in his school hus, it's rale disgraceful – that's what it is!"
Georgia laughed. Georgia was more patient with Miss Jerusha than she used to be, and had her hot temper more under control. This was in a great measure owing to the instructions and gentle exhortations of good Mrs. Murray, little Emily's mother, who had taught her that instead of conferring a favor on the old maid by living with her, she owed her a debt of gratitude she would find it difficult to repay. And Georgia, whose faults were more of the head than of the heart, saw Mrs. Murray was right, and consented to try and "behave herself" for the future. Georgia found self-control a very difficult lesson to practice; and the impulses of her nature very often rose and mastered her good resolutions yet. Still it was something for her even to try, and it had such an effect on Miss Jerusha, that the vinegar in that sour spinster's composition became perceptibly less acid, and the ward and "dragon" got along much better than formerly. So true it is that every effort to do good is rewarded even here.
When Georgia got home she found her friend Emily Murray awaiting her. Despite the wide difference in their dispositions Emily and Georgia were still fast friends. Emily did not go to the public school, but was taught at home by her mother. But they saw each other every day, and Emily's sunny disposition helped not a little to soften down our savage little wild-cat into her present state of comparative civilization. Still the same rounded little lady was Emily, perhaps an inch or two higher than when thirteen years old, but still nothing to speak of, with the same smiling, rosy, sunshiny little face peeping out from its wealth of tangled yellow curls – for Emily's hair would persist in curling in spite of all attempts to comb it straight and respectable looking, and persisted in having its own way, and openly rebelling against all established authority.
"Oh, Georgia! I'm so glad!" exclaimed Emily, throwing her arms around Georgia's neck, and administering a dozen or two short, sharp little kisses that went off like the corks out of so many ginger-beer bottles. "I'm ever so glad that you got all the prizes! I knew you would; I said it all along. I knew you were dreadfully clever, if you only liked. And now I want you to come right over to our house and spend the evening with us. Mother told me to come for you. Oh, Georgia! we'll have a good time!"
"Well, there, Em, you needn't strangle me about it," said Georgia, laughingly releasing herself. "If Miss Jerusha doesn't want me particularly, I'll go."
Two years previously Georgia would no more have thought of asking Miss Jerusha's leave about any thing than she would of flying; but since she had come to a sense of her duty things were different. But as the leopard cannot change his spots, nor the Ethiope his skin, so neither could she entirely change her nature, and there was an involuntary defiant light in her eye and haughtiness in her tone when asking a favor, and a fierce bright flash and passionate gesture when refused.
Miss Jerusha looked undecided, and was beginning a dubious "Wal, raily, now – " when Emily's impulsive arms were around her neck, and her pretty face upturned.
"Ah, now, Miss Jerusha, please do; that's a dear! Do just let her come over this once. I want her so dreadfully! P-p-please now."
No heart, unless made of double-refined cast iron, could resist that sweet little face and pleading "please now;" so Miss Jerusha, who liked little Emily (as indeed nobody could help doing), accordingly "pleased," and Emily, giving her a kiss – of which commodity that small individual had a large stock in trade, that like the widow's cruse of old, never diminished – put on Georgia's hat, and, nodding a smiling good-by to Miss Jerusha, marched her off in triumph.
"I am so glad, Georgia, you got so many prizes. Oh! I knew all along you were real clever. I should like to be clever, but I'm not one bit; but you, I guess you're going to be a genius, Georgia," said Emily, soberly.
"Nonsense, Em! A genius! I hope I shall never be anything half so dreadful."
"Dreadful! Why, Georgia!"
"Why, Emily!" said Georgia, mimicking her, "geniuses are a nuisance, I repeat – just as comets, or meteors, or eclipses, or anything out of the ordinary course are. People make a fuss about them and blacken their noses looking through smoked glass at them, and then they are gone in a twinkling, and not worth all the time that was wasted looking at them. I know it is sacrilege and high treason to say so, but that doesn't alter my opinion on the subject, and so don't trouble that small, anxious head of yours, my dear little snow-flake, about my being a genius again."
"I know who thinks so as well as I do," said Emily.
"Who?"
"Why, Richmond Wildair. Do you recollect the day, long ago, he first told you to go to school?"
"Yes."
"Coming home that day he said he knew you were a little genius and should not hide your light under a bushel, but set it on the hill-top. I remember his words, because they sounded so funny then that they made me laugh."
"Pooh! what does he know about it? What a little simpleton I must have been to do everything he used to tell me to! Still, that was good advice about going to school, and I don't know but what, on the whole, I feel grateful to him for it. That was two years ago – wasn't it, Em? Why, it seems like yesterday."
"And that funny brother of his," said Emily, laughing at some recollections of her own, "he used to say things in such a droll way. I wonder if they'll ever come back."
"Why, what would bring them back, now that their uncle is gone away for his health? I wonder if traveling really does make sick people well?"
"Don't know, I'm sure. Isn't it a pity to have such a nice house as that shut up and so lonely and deserted looking?"
"I wish that house was mine," said Georgia. "I should like to live in a large, handsome place like that. I hate little old cramped places like our cottage – they're horrid."
"Why, that's coveting your neighbor's goods," said Emily. "Look out, Georgia."
"Well, then, I should like one as good as that. I wish I owned one just like it. I shall, too, some day," said Georgia, decidedly.
"Do tell," said Emily, "where are you going to get it? Are you going to rob a peddler?"
"No. I intend to be rich."
"You do? How?"
"I don't know yet; but I shall! I'm determined to be rich. I am quite sure I will be," said Georgia, in a tone of quiet decision.
"Well, really! But it's better to be poor than rich. 'It's easier for a camel – ' You know what the Testament says."
"I'd risk it. Why, Emily, it's riches moves the world; the whole earth is seeking it. Poverty is the greatest social crime in the whole category, and wealth covereth a multitude of sins. Don't tell me! I know all about it, and I am determined to be rich —I don't care by what means!"
Her wild eyes were blazing with that insufferable light that always illuminated them when she was excited, and the stern determination her set face expressed as she looked resolutely before her startled timid little Emily.
"Oh, Georgia, I don't think it's right to talk so!" she said, in a subdued tone; "I'm sure it's not. I don't think riches make people happy; do you?"
"No," said Georgia, quietly.
"Oh, Georgia, then why do you wish for it? Why do you crave so for wealth?"
"Because wealth brings power!"
"But neither does power bring happiness."
"To me it would. Power is the life of my life. Knowledge is power – therefore I studied; but it is only a means to an end. Wealth will attain that end, therefore wealth I must and will have."
The look of resolute determination deepened. She looked at that moment like one resolved to conquer even fate, and to tread remorselessly under foot all that stood between her and the goal of her daring ambition.
"What would you do if you were rich?"
"I would travel, for one thing – I should like to see the world. I would visit England, and France, and Germany, and Italy – dear, beautiful Italy! that I love as if it were my fatherland. I would visit the Alps – Oh, Em! how I love great sublime mountains rearing their heads up to heaven. I would sail down the Rhine, the bright flowing Rhine! I would visit the demons of the Black Forest, and see if I happen to be related to them, in any way. I would cultivate the acquaintance of the Black Horseman of the Hartz Mountains – and finally I should settle down and marry a prince. Yes, I rather think I shall marry some prince, Em!"
"Oh, Georgia! you're a case!" said Emily, breaking into one of her silvery peals of laughter; "marry a prince! what an idea!"
"Well, I am good enough for any prince or emperor that ever wore a crown," said Georgia, with a flash of her black eyes, and a proud lift of her haughty little head, "and I should consider that the honor was conferred upon him, and not me, if I did marry one – now then!"
"Oh, what a bump of self-esteem you have, Georgia!" said Emily, still laughing; "what a notion to talk about getting married, any way! whoever heard of such a thing."
"Well, it's nothing strange! you didn't suppose I was going to be an old maid like Miss Jerusha, did you? Of course I'll get married! I always intended to!" said Georgia, decidedly, "and so will you, Emily."
"To another prince," said Emily, shyly.
"No, to – Charley Wildair!"
"I guess not! But here we are at home, and what would mother say if she heard us talking like this? It all comes of your reading so many novels, Georgia. Here, mother; here she is. I've got her," cried Emily, flying into the pretty little parlor, where Mrs. Murray, a pleasant little lady, a faded copy of her bright little daughter, sat sewing. Mrs. Murray kissed Georgia, and congratulated her on her success, and then went out to see about tea.
Later in the evening Father Murray, a benign-looking old man, with silver-white hair, and a look so patriarchal that it had suggested Charley Wildair's graphic description of his being like one of those "blessed old what's-their-names in the Bible," came in, and the conversation turned upon Georgia's success.
"I suppose you felt quite elated, Georgia, at carrying off the highest honors to-day?" he said, smiling.
"A little, only," said Georgia. "It wasn't much to be proud of."
"What! To vanquish all competitors not much to be proud of! Why, Georgia?"
"Well, neither it is, sir —such competitors," said Georgia, scornfully. "I should like a greater conquest than that."
"Georgia's ambition takes a bolder flight; she looks down on the common people of this world," said Mrs. Murray, with a peculiar smile.
Georgia colored at the implied rebuke, but her disdainful look remained. Father Murray looked at her half pityingly, half sorrowfully.
"It will not do, Georgia," he said kindly: "you will have to stop. The Mountain of High-and-Mighty-dom is a very dazzling eminence to be sure, but the sun shines brighter in the valley below."
At that moment Fly entered for her young mistress, and Georgia arose to go.
"Good-by, Mrs. Murray; good-by, Em; good-night, Father Murray."
"Good-night, Georgia," he said, laying his hand on her shining, haughty young head, "and Heaven bless you, my child!"
She folded her hands almost meekly to receive his benediction, and feeling as though that blessing were sorely needed, she passed out and was gone.
Gone! As for you and me, reader, the child Georgia has gone forever. Let the curtain drop on the first act in her drama of life, to rise when the child shall be a woman.