"No, Aunt! I am only pleading for Jamie, trying to make you feel for him, when he was locked up in an asylum. How would you like it, Aunt, if you were s.n.a.t.c.hed away to Barthelmy fair, and suddenly found yourself among tight-rope dancers, and Jack Puddings?"
"Judith, I insist on you holding your tongue. I object to being a.s.sociated even in fancy, with such creatures."
"Well--but Jamie was a.s.sociated, not in fancy, but in horrible reality, with idiots."
"Jamie goes to Scantlebray"s Asylum to-day."
"Auntie!"
"He is already in the hands of the brothers Scantlebray."
"Oh, Auntie--no--no!"
"It is no pleasure to me to have to find the money, you may well believe. Seventy pounds is not, as I said, seventy pence, it is not seventy farthings. But duty is duty, and however painful and unpleasant and costly, it must be performed."
Then from the adjoining room, "the shop," came Mr. Menaida.
"I beg pardon for an interruption and for interference," said he. "I happen to have overheard what has pa.s.sed, as I was engaged in the next room, and I believe that I can make a proposal which will perhaps be acceptable to you, Miss Trevisa, and grateful to Miss Judith."
"I am ready to listen to you," said Aunt Dionysia, haughtily.
"It is this," said Uncle Zachie. "I understand that pecuniary matters concerning Jamie are a little irksome. Now the boy, if he puts his mind to it, can be useful to me. He has a remarkable apt.i.tude for taxidermy. I have more orders on my hands than I can attend to. I am a gentleman, not a tradesman, and I object to be oppressed--flattened out--with the orders piled on top of me. But if the boy will help, he can earn sufficient to pay for his living here with me."
"Oh, Mr. Menaida, dear Mr. Menaida! thank you so much," exclaimed Judith.
"Perhaps you will allow me to speak," said Miss Trevisa, with asperity. "I am guardian, and not you, whatever you may think from certain vague expressions breathed casually from my poor brother"s lips, and to which you have attached an importance he never gave to them."
"Aunt, I a.s.sure you, my dear papa----"
"That question is closed. We will not reopen it. I am a Trevisa. I can"t for a moment imagine where you got those ideas. Not from your father"s family, I am sure. Tight-rope dancers and Timbuctoos, indeed!" Then she turned to Mr. Menaida, and said, in her hard, constrained voice, as though she were exercising great moral control to prevent herself from snapping at him with her teeth. "Your proposal is kind and well intentioned, but I cannot accept it."
"Oh, Aunt! why not?"
"That you shall hear. I must beg you not to interrupt me. You are so familiar with the manners of Timbuctoo and of Barthelmy Fair, that you forget those pertaining to England and polished society." Then, turning to Mr. Menaida, she said: "I thank you for your well-intentioned proposal, which, however, it is not possible for me to close with. I must consider the boy"s ulterior advantage, not the immediate relief to my sorely-taxed purse. I have thought proper to place Jamie with a person, a gentleman of experience, and highly qualified to deal with those mentally afflicted. However much I may value you, Mr. Menaida, you must excuse me for saying that firmness is not a quality you have cultivated with a.s.siduity. Judith, my niece, has almost ruined the boy by humoring him. You cannot stiffen a jelly by setting it in the sun, or in a chair before the fire, and that is what my niece has been doing. The boy must be isingla.s.sed into solidity by those who know how to treat him. Mr. Obadiah Scantlebray is the man----"
"To manufacture idiots, madam, out of simple innocents, it is worth his while at seventy pounds a year," said Uncle Zachie, petulantly.
Miss Trevisa looked at him stonily, and said: "Sir! I suppose you know best. But it strikes me that such a statement, relative to Mr. Obadiah Scantlebray, is actionable. But you know best, being a solicitor."
Mr. Menaida winced and drew back.
Judith leaned against the mantel-shelf, trembling with anxiety and some anger. She thought that her aunt was acting in a heartless manner toward Jamie, that there was no good reason for refusing the generous offer of Uncle Zachie. In her agitation, unable to keep her fingers at rest, the girl played with the little chimney ornaments. She must occupy her nervous, twitching hands about something; tears of distressed mortification were swelling in her heart, and a fire was burning in two flames in her cheeks. What could she do to save Jamie?
What would become of the boy at the asylum? It seemed to her that he would be driven out of his few wits, by terror and ill-treatment, and distress at leaving her and losing his liberty to ramble about the cliffs where he liked. In a vase on the chimney-piece was a bunch of peac.o.c.k"s feathers, and in her agitation, not thinking what she was about, desirous only of having something to pick at and play with in her hands, to disguise the trembling of the fingers, she took out one of the plumes and trifled with it, waving it and letting the light undulate over its wondrous surface of gold and green and blue.
"As long as I have responsibility for the urchin----" said Miss Dionysia.
"Urchin!" muttered Judith.
"As long as I have the charge I shall do my duty according to my lights, though they may not be those of a rush-ap.r.o.ned squaw in Timbuctoo, nor of a Jack Pudding balancing a feather on his nose."
There was here a spiteful glance at Judith. "When my niece has a home of her own--is settled into a position of security and comfort--then I wash my hands of the responsibility; she may do what she likes then--bring her brother to live with her if she chooses and her husband consents--that will be naught to me."
"And in the mean time," said Judith, holding the peac.o.c.k"s feather very still before her, "in the mean time Jamie"s mind is withered and stunted--his whole life is spoiled. Now--now alone can he be given a turn aright and toward growth."
"That entirely depends on you," said Miss Trevisa, coldly. "You know best what opportunities have offered----"
"Aunt, what do you mean?"
"Wait," said Uncle Zachie, rubbing his hands. "My boy Oliver is coming home. He has written his situation is a good one now."
Miss Trevisa turned on him with a face of marble. "I entirely fail to see what your son Oliver has to do with the matter, more than the man in the moon. May I trouble you, as you so deeply interest yourself in our concerns, to step outside to Messrs. Scantlebray and that boy, and ask them to bring him in here. I have told them what the circ.u.mstances are, and they are prepared."
Mr. Menaida left the room, not altogether unwilling to escape.
"Now," said Aunt Dionysia, "I am relieved to find that for a minute, we are by ourselves, not subjected to the prying and eavesdropping of the impertinent and meddlesome. Mr. Menaida is a man who never did good to himself or to anyone else in his life, though a man with the best intentions under the sun. Now, Judith, I am a plain woman--that is to say--not plain, but straightforward--and I like to have everything above board. The case stands thus. I, in my capacity as guardian to that boy, am resolved to consign him immediately to the asylum, and to retain him there as long as my authority lasts, though it will cost me a pretty sum. You do not desire that he should go there. Well and good. There is but one way, but that is effectual, by means of which you can free Jamie from restraint. Let me tell you he is now in the hands of Mr. Obadiah, and gagged that he may not rouse the neighborhood with his screams." Miss Trevisa fixed her hard eyes on Judith. "As soon as you take the responsibility off me, and on to yourself, you do with the boy what you like."
"I will relieve you at once."
"You are not in a condition to do so. As soon as I am satisfied that your future is secure, that you will have a house to call your own, and a certainty of subsistence for you both--then I will lay down my charge."
"And you mean----"
"I mean that you must first accept Captain Coppinger, who has been good enough to find you not intolerable. He is--in this one particular--unreasonable, however, he is what he is, in this matter.
He makes you the offer, gives you the chance. Take it, and you provide Jamie and yourself with a home, he has his freedom, and you can manage or mismanage him as you list. Refuse the chance and Jamie is lodged in Mr. Scantlebray"s establishment within an hour."
"I cannot decide this on the spur of the moment."
"Very well. You can let Jamie go provisionally to the asylum--and stay there till you have made up your mind."
"No--no--no--Aunt! Never, never!"
"As you will." Miss Trevisa shrugged her shoulders, and cast a glance at her niece like a dagger-stab.
"Auntie--I am but a child."
"That may be. But there are times when even children must decide momentous questions. A boy as a child decides on his profession, a girl--may be--on her marriage."
"Oh, dear Auntie! Do leave Jamie here for, say a fortnight, and in a fortnight from to-day you shall have my answer."
"No," answered Miss Trevisa, "I also must decide as to my future, for your decision affects not Jamie only but me also."
Judith had listened in great self-restraint, holding the feather before her. She held it between thumb and forefinger of both hands, not concerning herself about it, and yet with her eyes watching the undulations from the end of the quill to the deep blue eye set in a halo of gold at the further end, and the feather undulated with every rise and fall of her bosom.
"Surely, Auntie! You cannot wish me to marry Cruel Coppinger?"
"I have no wishes one way or the other. Please yourself."
"But, Auntie----"
"You profess to be ready to do all you can for Jamie and yet hesitate about relieving me of an irksome charge, and Jamie of what you consider barbarous treatment."