Chapter V: The Child Meets Her Fate

“The sun himself is coming up this way.”

That night “a most horrid spectre,” wrapped in a long winding sheet, and bearing a corpse candle that cast a cadaverous color over his countenance, stalked through the lower regions of the house, frightening the maids, and the men too, for that matter, from their propriety, and raising such a row in the dignified residence of the chief justice as might have brought the police down upon any house of a less assured standing.

And upon an investigation of the matter next morning, Mr. Richard was discovered to be at the bottom of the business.

And the quiet little girl in the housekeeper’s room heard again of his delinquencies and pitied him and wished that he was more like Mr. Alexander, that splendid paragon of youth whom his mother was always praising. The child, closely confined to her mother’s chamber, had never seen the hero of her admiration. But the hour was near at hand when she was to meet him in an interview destined to determine the whole course of her future life.

It was on Christmas Eve. All the preparations for the Christmas festival were made. The turkeys were already killed and dressed for the roaster; the hams were in soak; the plum pudding was mixed; the pies and cakes baked; and all the materials for the egg-nogg and apple-toddy laid out on the pantry table; and the notable housekeeper might have taken her ease but for one thing.

There was to be a pantomime at the city theatres that evening. And the three young people were to go. And as there were no reserved seats, they were to go very early in order to secure good places, for it was foreseen that the house would be very much crowded. And thus dinner was ordered two hours earlier than usual, so that they might get off in time.

Mrs. Sterling, having finished her morning’s work, was putting off her working gown of brown alpacca to put on a nice dress of black silk in honor of Christmas Eve, when old Mrs. Lyon came in to give the instructions about the dinner, and having given them, immediately left the room.

The housekeeper was in no plight to go all the way down to the kitchen, so she sent the child to tell the cook to come up to her for orders.

The little one went and delivered her message faithfully; and was returning to her mother’s room, when, in passing through the back hall, she suddenly met the god of her infant idolatry face to face. She knew him at once, either by instinct or because there was no other young man beside Mr. Richard (whom she knew by sight) in the house. She backed up into a corner to let him pass.

“Heyday! Who have we here? A child in the house? I haven’t seen such a thing here for years! Or are you a fairy changling?” inquired Mr. Alexander, in surprise.

The child did not reply, but—I am sorry to say—put her finger in her mouth, dropped her chin and rolled up her eyes in a shy glance at the splendid youth.

“Ah bah! that’s very nasty! Don’t stick your finger in your mouth and stare, but hold up your head and answer when you are spoken to. Tell me who you are, little girl!” said Mr. Alexander.

Prince Solomon had condescended to issue orders and they were immediately obeyed by his loyal subject. Down went the little finger; up went the little face, and she answered:

“I am Mrs. Sterling’s little girl.”

“And a very nice little girl, too, to do as you are bid. Always do so, do you hear?”

“Yes sir.”

“And so you are the housekeeper’s daughter?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How is it that I haven’t seen anything of you before?”

“Because mother never lets me go out of her room.”

“Never lets you go out of her room?”

“No, sir.”

“Why?”

“Because she is afraid that the——” Here the child lowered her voice to a tone of mysterious awe—“_chief justice_ would be angry if he saw me about.”

“Bosh about his being angry! He is not a King Herod to hate the sight of a child, or desire the death of the innocents. You don’t mean to tell me that you are cooped up in the housekeeper’s room all the time?”

“Oh no, sir, I am not cooped up anywhere any of the time; only the poultry for Christmas was cooped up, and that was in the back yard; I saw them through the window. But I sit on a nice little stool in mother’s room and sew pretty quilt pieces.”

“All day long?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And every day?”

“Oh, no, sir, not every day. I go to Sunday school on Sundays.”

“But on all other days you are kept confined to that room all day long?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, you look just as if you were, you poor little pale thing, and that is the truth. It is horrid. I’ll speak to my mother about it. Why, you ought to be romping all over the house, you know, and going to pantomimes o’ Christmas, like other children. Say, little a—a—What is your name?”

“Anna Drusilla Sterling, sir,” said the child, beginning to grow restive under all this questioning, and to swing her shoulders from side to side, after the manner of some children when saying their lessons.

“There—don’t do that; it’s ugly,” said Mr. Alexander.

And the swinging instantly ceased.

“‘Anna Drusilla Sterling?’ Well, I have one Anna already, so I shall call you Drusilla,” said the young man.

“But my mother calls me Anny.”

“Never mind what your mother calls you—I shall call you Drusilla. Well, little Drusilla, wouldn’t you like to go to the pantomime with us to-night?”

“I don’t know, sir. Please, what is it?”

“It is something got up to amuse little children like you, though big children like myself find it equally diverting. Wouldn’t you like to go? I should like to take you, and to see it through your great staring eyes, as well as through my own. It would be a ‘new sensation.’ Come, what do you say?”

“Thank you, sir. Is it pretty?”

“Beautiful!”

“And good!”

“It is heavenly!”

“Then I think I should like to go, sir, if mother will let me.”

“Oh, she will let you fast enough, for I shall make a point of it.”

“What did you call it, sir, please?”

“A pantomime.”

“Oh, I know now,” said the child, with a sudden look of bright intelligence; “it is something about Moses and the children of Israel, isn’t it, sir?”

“Eh? ‘Moses and the children of Israel?’ What put that into your little noddle?” laughed the young man.

“Why, sir, you know the books of Moses are called the panta—panta—something; it’s a very hard word, sir.”

“Oh, you are talking of the pentateuch?”

“Yes, sir, a very hard word. I always miss it at the class, it is so very hard.”

“Very,” laughed the young man.

And now, as the voice of the housekeeper was heard calling her child, the little girl made her Sunday school curtsey, and ran away from her new friend to join her mother.

Mr. Alexander gazed after her as he might if she had been sixteen instead of six, for he was fond of children, as well as of kittens and puppies, and all small creatures. They amused him. He was now determined that this quaint little child should go to the pantomime with himself and his friends, for he knew perfectly well that to watch _her_, and witness _her_ wonder and delight, would be as diverting as to see the play itself—it would, in that way double his own entertainment.

Mr. Alick was benevolent, but not very scrupulous, I regret to confess. So, when he went to the housekeeper’s room to ask leave to take the child to the pantomime, judging that the Baptist preacher’s widow would set her face against all such exhibitions, he took a hint from the child’s mistake, and was so unprincipled as to persuade that pious matron that the spectacle in question was a historical affair, illustrative of the Israelites, and very instructive and edifying to the youthful mind. And so, with Mr. Richard to back him he talked the housekeeper into consenting that her child should accompany them, especially as Miss Anna was to be one of the party. And Mrs. Sterling began to dress little Drusilla—we shall call the child by her second name, for the same reason that Mr. Alexander did, to distinguish her from the other Anna.

Immediately after dinner the young party set out, and reached the theatre in time to get good front seats.

The pantomime was “Jack the Giant Killer.” But as Mr. Alexander kept little Drusilla beside himself, and kept the play bill in his own hands, he found it easy to persuade the simple child that the exhibition was of “David and Goliath,” Jack was David, and Jack’s first giant was Goliath.

And the child was exceedingly edified, as well as highly entertained.

Mr. Alexander found it “as good as a play,” and much better than a pantomime, to watch her. Her credulity was equal to her delight, and both were unbounded. But she thought it was not exactly like the Scripture story, after all.

Mr. Alexander explained to her that they could not make it exactly like, because things were so different now to what they were then.

Little Drusilla accepted the explanation in full faith, saying in her solemn way, that she supposed they did the best they could, and that we must “take the will for the deed.”

The pantomime was over a little after ten o’clock, and the youthful party returned home.

Little Drusilla, restored to her mother’s charge, would have rehearsed for her benefit all the great spectacle of “David and Goliath,” but that the good lady told her that it was time for her to be asleep, and made her go immediately to bed.

Notwithstanding the late hour at which the young people had retired on Christmas Eve, they were all up by times on Christmas day. All was lively bustle throughout the house. Everybody had Christmas gifts, at which each pretended to be as much surprised as he or she was expected to be.

Miss Anna had a little set of diamonds, consisting of ear-rings and brooch, presented by her grandfather; an ermine tippet and muff from her uncle; a set of antique lace from her aunt; a diamond bracelet from her betrothed; and from scape-grace Dick a real King Charles lap-dog, which she openly preferred to all her other presents, because she said it was alive, and could give love for love.

The old lady had a new patent easy chair, a new pair of gold spectacles, and a set of sables.

And the gentlemen of the party were overwhelmed with embroidered slippers, smoking-caps, dressing-gowns, penwipers, and so forth.

The housekeeper was presented with a new brown silk dress. And there was not a servant in the house but received a present.

“And who has got anything for little Drusilla?” inquired Mr. Alexander.

But nobody answered him.

“Well, I’m dashed! Only one bit of a baby in the house, and nobody has thought of her. And this especially a child’s festival, because it celebrates the birth of the Divine Child, who also loved little children! Say, mother, the shops are open in the city this morning, are they not?” inquired Mr. Alexander.

“Until ten o’clock, Alick; not after,” replied the old lady.

“All right, it is only eight now—plenty of time. I’m off; but I’ll be back to breakfast,” said Mr. Alexander, darting out of the drawing-room, seizing his hat in the hall, and rushing from the house.

“Ah, what a kind heart has this child of our old age, John!” said the old lady, turning proudly and fondly to her husband.

“Yes—yes; a good boy—a good boy,” answered the Chief Justice.

“Ah, Anna, my dear, you will be a happy woman if you live long enough, for you will have a good husband,” she continued, turning to her intended daughter-in-law.

Anna shrugged her shoulders.

“You don’t seem to agree with me, Anna.”

“Oh yes I do, Aunt Lyon, to some extent. I think Alick is really very kind when it amuses him; but I don’t think he would be kind to any living creature when it would bore him to be so. For instance, he would bring me home a present, and be really delighted with my delight in it; but he wouldn’t give up a skating party to take me to a wax-work show if I were to cry myself ill from disappointment.”

“Oh, I suppose you have had a tiff with him; that’s of no consequence at all. ‘The quarrel of lovers is the renewal of love,’” said the old lady, laughing to herself.

But Anna had had no tiff with her betrothed, and her judgment of him was a righteous one.

Mr. Alick soon came rushing in with his arms full of packages, and looking like a railway porter. He set down three large ones on the floor, threw himself into a chair, and exclaimed:

“Now then, mother, send for little Drusilla. It will be fun to watch her eyes when she sees these things.”

Mrs. Lyon rang the bell, and sent a servant to fetch the little girl to the drawing-room.

The child’s mother being in a particularly good humor since receiving the new brown silk dress, made no objection, but sent her along in charge of the servant.

Little Drusilla entered the drawing-room, looking very pretty in her new red merino frock, which suited well with her dark hair and dark eyes, and clear, pale face.

She made her little curtsy at the door, and then as Mr. Alexander held out his arms she ran straight up to him.

“Now, then,” said the young gentleman, taking her on his knee, while the mysterious packages lay all around his feet, “if you could have your wish, what would you wish for?”

“Mother says it is foolish and wicked to wish for anything, because if it is for our good, the Lord will give it to us whether or not.”

“Well but suppose you were so foolish and wicked as to wish for anything, what would it be?” persisted the young man, while all the other members of the Christmas party looked on, smilingly.

The child pondered gravely.

“Come—what would it be?”

“I think a work-box,” answered the child, looking up at length.

“What! not a doll-baby?”

“Oh, I would rather have a doll-baby, but I thought it would be _too_ wicked to wish for that, because it is useless,” said the little one.

“Well, look here, now! First, here’s the doll-baby,” said Mr. Alick, unwrapping one of the parcels, and taking from a mass of tissue paper a splendid wax doll, with rosy cheeks, blue eyes and golden hair, all dressed in blue satin and white lace.

“Oh-h-h! m-y-y!” exclaimed the child, in breathless delight, as she took the doll and held it up before her, and gazed at it with ever-widening eyes.

Mr. Alexander laughed and squeezed her, he so much enjoyed her enjoyment, and the whole party looked on, amused and interested.

“Isn’t it a beauty?” asked the youth, giving the child another squeeze.

“It is a love! it is a darling! it is as pretty as—as—as Miss Anna!” she exclaimed, turning her eyes from the golden-haired doll to the golden-haired girl.

“Thank you, little one! That compliment is sincere, however flattering,” laughed the heiress.

“And now look here!” said Mr. Alexander, taking up another parcel; “she is wearing her ball dress, you know, which is very proper for Christmas, but would never do for every day. And a thrifty little woman like you would never let her doll wear her best clothes for common; so you must fit her out with a wardrobe, and here are the goods to do it with.”

And he unrolled a second parcel, and displayed a yard each of pink, blue and buff cambric, and several yards of white muslin, and some remnants of ribbon and lace.

“And now,” he said, as the child was contemplating these additional treasures with increased delight, “now you will require something to make them up with, won’t you?”

“Oh, no; I mustn’t wish for anything more. This is too much!” said the little one, with eyes dancing for joy.

“Except what you wished for first of all, which I think was something like this,” said Mr. Alexander opening a third parcel, and producing a pretty little work-box fitted out with scissors, thimble, needles, thread, and every requisite for sewing.

“Oh, how much I do thank you, sir. Once before I dreamt I had pretty things like these all to myself, and I was sorry I ever woke up. Do you think I’ll wake up this time, sir?” inquired the little girl, evidently perplexed between delight and dismay.

Mr. Alexander laughed, and intensely enjoyed the pastime that he had purchased at so small an outlay, but the old lady said, very gravely:

“You have bewildered the child, Alick. She is not used to presents, and you should have treated her upon the same principle as that upon which the doctors treat their patients, who have been suffering from a long starvation, and given her but a little at a time. And now put her off your knee and come to breakfast; or if you can’t part with her, bring her along.”

Mr. Alexander immediately put the little creature down, and told her to take up her treasures and run away with them to her mother as fast as she could.

Mr. Alexander could give the child presents and divert himself with her delight in them, but he could not consent to be bothered with her at the breakfast table, where he wished to give “his whole mind” to the business there to be on hand.

His mother, more considerate, touched the bell, and told the servant who answered it to help the child to carry her presents to the housekeeper’s room.

The man gathered the parcels up and took Drusilla by the hand; but as he led her from the room she suddenly looked back, impulsively broke away from her guard, and ran up to her benefactor and took his hand and kissed it.

“Why, what a grateful little imp you are, to be sure! It is worth while trying to please _you_; one succeeds so well and one’s efforts are appreciated and thanked,” said the young man, raising the child in his arms and kissing her, and then darting a half-merry, half-reproachful glance at his cousin Anna.

“If you meant that for _me_, Mr. Alick, I don’t see the point of it. You never do anything to please _me_, unless it still better pleases yourself. You are one of the sort of folk who would carelessly fling a dollar to a strange beggar, but would not lose an hour’s rest by the bedside of a sick friend,” said plain-spoken Anna.

“Well, there’s somebody that will do both,” said Mr. Alexander, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Dick. “He sat up with old Jerry Brown, who had the smallpox. I wonder if you would have liked him so well, Anna, if he had taken it; as he might have done; and lost his hair and eyebrows and been otherwise badly marked?”

“Yes I would, Alick! But, thank goodness, Dick, darling, you didn’t get it, and you are not marked; but just as good-looking as ever,” said Anna, defiantly.

“Come, come, this is pretty quarrelling among cousins on Christmas morning, too! Put a stop to it,” said Mrs. Lyon.

The young people laughed and obeyed. They were only “sparring.” And they all sat down to the breakfast table in high, good humor.

And little Drusilla went back to her mother, as happy as it was possible for a child to be. And her happiness was all associated with the idea of Mr. Alexander, that splendid being who had been the central object of all her wonder, curiosity and admiration, long before she had set eyes on him. She had never dreamed of such bliss as she now enjoyed, and all through him!

Up to this time her little life had been dreary enough, more dreary than even she knew since she had known nothing better with which to compare it. Her very earliest recollections were of her father’s sick room, and his long and painful illness; and then came his death, and her mother’s sorrow and their poverty; and finally, this situation in the family of the Chief Justice, where the child had been led to believe that her presence could be only tolerated for the sake of her mother’s valuable services, and upon condition of herself being kept out of the sight and hearing of the family.

All these were very miserable and gloomy antecedents; but now they had passed away like the shadows of the night; for now came this bright, young Mr. Alexander, to bring daylight and sunshine into her infant life.

His kindness to the pale orphan did not cease with Christmas Day. So long as the Christmas and New-Year’s holidays lasted, Mr. Alick insisted on little Drusilla sharing all the young people’s amusements; because, in point of fact, it greatly enhanced his enjoyment to have her with them.

When the holidays were over, General Lyon took his grand-daughter back to school; Mr. Alexander returned to college; and the house was emptied of its visitors.

In taking leave of his pet, Mr. Alick had said:

“And now, Drusilla, when I am gone you must be my mother’s little girl, do you hear?”

“Oh, how I wish I might! Oh, how I _do_ wish I might!” said the child, weeping and clinging to her friend.

“Mother, when I am gone, you’ll be good to the poor little thing, if only for my sake, won’t you?” he inquired, as a feeling of real pity moved his heart.

“Indeed I will, Alick,” earnestly replied the old lady.

“And you will not let old Bishop Sterling keep her mewed up in that horrid room all the time?”

“Not if I can prevent it, Alick.”

With this promise Mr. Alick departed.

And little Drusilla clung to the old lady’s skirts, and wept as if her heart would break.

For her the day had departed with the sun that had made its light, and the darkness of the night had come again.

You may depend upon it that the old lady sincerely sympathized with the child who wept for _her_ son’s departure, and so she petted little Drusilla, and took her out that day, when she went in the carriage to purchase some articles that were needed in the housekeeping.