"Come, Georgia, be reasonable. What evil spirit has got into you of late? Why will you persist in treating our friends in this way?"
"_Our_ friends!--_your_ friends, you mean."
"It is all the same; for my sake you ought to treat my friends differently."
Her heart swelled and her lip quivered. Yes, his friends might slight and insult her, but she was to put her head under their heels, and smile on those who crushed her.
"Well, Georgia, you do not speak," he would say, watching her closely.
"Mr. Wildair, I have nothing to say. Your mother and cousin are mistresses here; my part is to stand aside and obey them. If you _command_ me to go to-morrow, I have no alternative. I am still capable of submitting to a great deal, sooner than willingly displease you."
"My mother and cousin undertook no authority here, Georgia, until you neglected all your duties as hostess, and they were obliged to do so. It is all your own fault, and you know it, Georgia."
She smiled bitterly.
"We will not discuss the subject, if you please, Richmond. I make no complaint; they are welcome to do as they please, and all I ask for is the same privilege. I cannot have it, it appears, and--I will go to-morrow, since you insist; my absence or presence will make little difference to your friends."
"Georgia, why _will_ you persist in this absurd nonsense?" he would exclaim, almost angrily. "Really you are enough to try the patience of a saint. I wish some of this foolish, morbid pride of yours had been kept where it came from, and a little plain, practical common sense put in its place. You have taken a most unaccountable prejudice to my mother and cousin, which, if you had that regard for me you profess, you certainly would not pain me by displaying; in fact, you resolved from the first to dislike _all_ I invited, and you have kept that promise wonderfully well I must say, except as regards the two Arlingfords, toward whom you evince a partiality that makes your neglect of the rest all the more glaring. It is certainly a pity you did not receive the education of a lady, Georgia, and then common politeness would teach you to act differently."
In silence, and with a curling lip and an unutterable depth of scorn in her beautiful eyes, Georgia would listen to this conjugal tirade, but her lips would be sealed; and Richmond, indignant and deeply offended, would leave the room, and the next moment, all smiles and suavity, rejoin his guests. And Georgia, left alone, would press her hand to her breast with that feeling of suffocation rising again until the very air of the perfumed room would seem to stifle her. And such scenes as this were of frequent occurrence now, and one and all sank deep in her heart, to rankle there in anguish and bitterness untold.
Perhaps it may seem strange that Mrs. Wildair and Miss Richmond should hate Georgia; but so it was. Mrs. Wildair was the haughtiest, the most overbearing, and the most ambitious of women. Her sons were her pride and her boast, in public as well as in private, and she had often been heard to declare that they should marry among the highest in the land, and perpetuate the ancient glory of the Richmonds. When Charley had disappointed all this expectation, and had become an alien from her heart and home, the shock, given more to her ambition than to her affections, was terrible, and when she recovered from it, all her hopes centered in her first-born, Richmond.
There was an English lady of rank, the daughter of an earl, at that time visiting an acquaintance of Mrs. Wildair in New York, and to this high-born girl did she lift her eyes and determine upon as her future daughter-in-law. But before she had time to write to Richmond, and desire him to return home for that purpose, _his_ letter came, and there she read the quiet announcement that, in a week or two, he was to be married in Burnfield to a young, penniless girl, "rich alone in beauty,"
he wrote.
Mrs. Wildair sat nearly stunned by the shock. Down came her gilded coroneted _chateau d" Espagne_ with a crash, to rise no more. Her son was his own master; she knew his strong, determined, unconquerable will of old, to combat which was like beating the air. Nothing remained for her but to consent, which she did with a bitter hatred against the unconscious object that had thwarted her burning in her heart, and a determination to make her pay dearly for what she had done, which resolution she proceeded to carry into effect the moment she arrived in Richmond House.
"To think that she--a thing like that--sprang from the dregs of the city, for she is not even an honest farmer"s daughter--should have dared to become my son"s wife," she said, hissing the words through her clenched teeth; "a low wretch, picked up out of the slime and slough of the city filth, to come between me and my son. Oh! was Charley"s act not degradation enough, that this must fall upon us too?"
"Let us hope, my dear aunt, that the place she has had the effrontery to usurp will not long be hers," murmured the dulcet voice of her niece, to whom she had spoken. "We have built up already a wall of bra.s.s between them, and I have a plan in my head that will transform it to one of fire. Recollect, aunt, divorces are easily obtained, and then your son will be free once more, and our queenly pauper will be ignominiously cast back into the slime she rose from."
Miss Freddy"s hatred came from pretty much the same cause as Mrs.
Wildair"s. In any case, she would have considered it her duty to follow that lady"s lead: but now she had her own private reasons for hating her with all the bitter intensity of a mean little mind.
Miss Freddy was to have married Charley, and was quite ready and willing to do so at a moment"s notice, but in her secret heart she would have far preferred his elder brother. Differing from the rest of the world, Richmond, even "from boyhood"s hours," had been her favorite; but when she saw his mother"s hopes aspire to a coronet and a t.i.tle, she was overawed, and made up her mind to be cast into the shade. To be rivaled by a lady like this could be borne, but that a peasant girl--a nameless, unknown girl--should win the prize for which she had sought in vain--oh! it was a humiliation not to be endured. So she entered heart and soul into all her aunt"s plans, and won that lady"s approbation for her dutiful conduct, while she carefully concealed her own motives. And this, then, was the secret of Georgia"s persecutions.
The "wall of fire" the amiable young lady had referred to was to make Richmond jealous. Now, jealousy was never a fault of his, but artful people can work wonders, and Miss Freddy went carefully, but surely, to work, with Mrs. Wildair for her stanch backer. And Georgia, all unconscious, walked headlong into the snare laid for her.
As her husband had said, the Arlingfords were the only ones in the house whom Georgia could at all endure. The frank, genial, honest straightforwardness of brother and sister pleased her; and, indignant at the treatment so openly offered her, they devoted themselves in every way to interest and amuse her. And Miss Freddy seeing this, her little keen eyes fairly snapped with gratification, and by a thousand little devices and pretenses she would manage to dispose of the sister, and leave Georgia altogether to be entertained by the brother. And then the attention of the company would be artfully directed to the twain who were so much together, and Richmond would hear from one and another:
"What friends Mrs. Georgia" (so she was called to distinguish her from the other) "and captain Arlingford are!"
"How _very_ intimate they are!"
"Yes, _indeed_; just see how she smiles upon him--don"t you think her handsome when she smiles?"
"Very much so. Captain Arlingford seems to think so, too. What a pity he is the only one she will honor by one of them."
"Well, it is fortunate she has met some one who can please her--she seems so dull, poor thing!"
"A handsome man like Captain Arlingford does not find it very hard to be agreeable, I fancy; he is decidedly the best-looking young man here."
"Mrs. Georgia"s opinion exactly," said Miss Harper, sending a spiteful glance at the unconscious objects of these remarks, who sat conversing on a sofa at some distance. "I asked her, yesterday, and she said, "Yes, she thought he most decidedly was.""
"Poor, dear Georgia!" chimed in Miss Freddy, looking tenderly toward her; "I am so glad she likes him; she seems to like so few, and indeed n.o.body could help liking him, he is so charming. What a nice nose, and lovely mustache, and sweet curling hair he has, to be sure!"
"And, by George! he shows his good taste, too, in flirting with the prettiest woman among you," exclaimed Harry Gleason, bluntly.
"Arlingford knows what"s what, I tell you; he"ll go in and win, I"ll bet!"
Now these remarks, though at first he paid no attention to them beyond what the words conveyed, jarred disagreeably on Richmond"s mind. But as days pa.s.sed on and they grew more frequent and more meaning in tone, and he saw the curious smiles with which they were regarded, and the expression of his mother"s face as she watched them, and saw his cousin look first at them and then at him with a sort of anxiety and tender pity, he felt a growing disagreeable sensation of uneasiness for which he could hardly account. Even to himself, he was ashamed to own he was jealous of Georgia--his leal, true-hearted, straightforward Georgia, whom he had never known to be guilty of a dishonorable thought in her life. Fiery, rash, high-spirited she was, but treacherous, deceitful, _wicked_ she was not. He could have staked his soul upon her truth, and yet--and yet by slow degrees the poison began to enter his mind, and he commenced to watch his wife with an angry, suspicious eye.
Oh, Richmond! Richmond! that you should fall so low as this! You, whom Georgia once regarded as a demi-G.o.d; you whom she still believes, in spite of your sorrowful misunderstanding, everything that is upright and true; you, whom, had heaven, and earth, and hades accused of infidelity, she would not have believed. And now, you are growing jealous of your rash but leal-hearted wife, whom you have completely neglected yourself, to attend to others. Oh, Richmond!
"Really, my dear, you are a jewel without price--worth a million in cash!" exclaimed Mrs. Wildair to Freddy, delighted at the success of her diabolical scheme. "Your plan has succeeded beyond all my expectations.
I really did not think you could make Richmond jealous without alarming him, and putting him on his guard against us; but, positively, he is growing as jealous as a Turk, and never suspects either of us in the least."
Miss Freddy smiled her sinister and most evil smile.
"Poor Richmond! What a hard time he is going to have of it with that green-eyed monster! And how delightfully unconscious Mrs. Georgia walks into the pit with her eyes open! Really, it is as good as a farce! Oh!
the stupidity of these earthworms!"
"Poor Rich! he _did_ look so deliciously miserable to-night when he saw those two sitting together in a corner by themselves, turning over those prints, just as innocent as a couple of angels."
And both ladies leaned back in their seats and laughed immoderately.
Poor Georgia! the sky was rapidly darkening around her, though this, the blackest cloud, was still invisible to her eyes. Sometimes, in her desolation, it seemed to her as if she had not a single friend in the world, for Emily never ventured near Richmond House now, and she had only seen Miss Jerusha once since her return. She _could not_ dissimulate. She had tried it in vain, and she would not bring her haggard face and anguished eyes to tell the tale her tongue was too proud to speak. So she did not visit the cottage, until at last Miss Jerusha grew seriously uneasy, and resolved to brave all obstacles, the impudent footman included, and go up to the house and see Georgia.
Until she was fairly gone, Miss Jerusha had never known how large a share of her heart her _protegee_ had monopolized; and so, worthy reader, behold her arrayed in that respected "kaliker geownd" you are acquainted with, for brown silk could not be worn on a week-day, with the faded shawl, and a pink calico sun-bonnet, a recent addition to her wardrobe, knocking at the hall door of Richmond House.
It was some time in the afternoon, and the household were dressing for dinner, and so the servant told her, respectfully enough, for her first visit had taught them a lesson they did not soon forget.
"Dinner! you git out!" said Miss Jerusha, indignantly, "and it nigh onto four o"clock. Don"t tell me no such stuff! Jist be off and tell Georgey I want to see her. Clear!"
The man hesitated; Miss Jerusha looked dangerous; he expected the dinner-bell to ring every moment, and his mistress was in her room; so while he stood hesitating, a rustling of silk was heard behind him, and the next moment Mrs. Wildair stood gazing in haughty surprise on the intruder.
Now, Mrs. Wildair knew well enough who Miss Jerusha was; her niece had pointed her out one day; but as this was an excellent opportunity for mortifying Georgia, she chose to be quite ignorant of the matter.
"What is this?" she said, stepping back haughtily. "What does she want?
Wilson, how dare you allow beggars to enter the hall-door?"
"She--she ain"t no beggar, ma"am," said Wilson, casting an apprehensive glance at Miss Jerusha, "she"s----"
"I don"t care what she is. Persons of her cla.s.s should go round to the kitchen door. Send her out, and let her go there if she wants anything,"
exclaimed Mrs. Wildair, sharply.
Up to this point Miss Jerusha had stood fairly stupefied. She mistaken for a beggar! She--Miss Jerusha Glory Ann Skamp--whose ward was lady of this great house! For an instant she was speechless, with the blood of all the Skamps boiling within her, and then she burst out:
"Why, you yeller old lantern-jawed be-frizzled be-flowered, impident old woman, to call me a beggar! Oh, my gracious! to think I should be called that in my old ages o" life? _A beggar!_ My-y-y conscience! If you hev the impidence to call me that agin, I"ll--I"ll----"