Chapter VI The nursery
As Flora approached the nursery, its vicinity was sufficiently indicated by the sound of loud, passionate crying, and then that of several sharp slaps; which made her quicken her steps, lest the black nurse, whose looks she distrusted, should be maltreating any of the children. The first glance at the interior of the room, however, showed her that the fat old negress was not the giver, but the recipient of the blows! Before her was a little boy in a furious tempest of passion, kicking, striking, and roaring, while Flora’s pretty book of pictures lay in a hundred fragments at his feet!
“Oh! Massa Johnny, Massa Johnny!” exclaimed old Chloe in an expostulating tone, as he struck her again and again with the ferocity of a little tiger. Flora sprang forward and caught his hand, but only turned his passion upon herself. The child clutched at her flowing locks, and it was not without difficulty and pain that she extricated her hair from his grasp. He then flung himself down on the floor, and rolled on it in impotent passion.
“What can be the meaning of all this?” exclaimed Flora, surprised and ruffled by the unexpected attack.
“Oh! Massa Johnny, he only want to pull de swing ’uns off de clock; he very angry cause he cannot get em.”
“I am afraid that Johnny is a very naughty boy,” said Flora, smoothing down her disordered tresses, and looking down with the reverse of admiration on the dark little savage before her.
“Oh! Massa Johnny, he have great speerit, he have mighty great speerit!” was the nonchalant reply, as the negress slowly rose from her seat to attend to the baby, who had been sleeping in a cradle, but who, awakened by the noise, now swelled it with his fretful cry.
“I’m sure, if one doesn’t want a dozen hands atween them all!” pursued the old woman, trying to hush the child; “there’s Miss Lyddie now, there’s no knowing where she’s agone—I’ve not set eyes on her this half-hour!”
“Not know where she is!” said Flora, glancing round anxiously. Emmie, the youngest child but one, was quietly amusing herself in a corner, breaking off the legs of the wooden animals belonging to an ark which Mrs. Vernon had provided for her amusement. But no trace of Miss Lyddie was to be seen. Flora hurried from the room to search for the little truant.
It was not long before she found her in the dining-room, close to a small press in which various preserves and other little dainties were kept. Lyddie was several years older than the other children, and tall for her age; her lank over-grown form, untidy hair, awkward carriage and sickly face, conveying to the mind the idea that she was like some idle weed, which had sprung up uncared-for and untended, She started slightly on seeing Flora, and hastily closed the door of the press, which had stood a little ajar.
“O Lyddie!” exclaimed Flora, “it is very wrong indeed to take sweets without asking leave!”
“I didn’t!” said the child, shrinking back from her touch, and eyeing her with a furtive glance.
“Look there!” cried Flora, pointing very gravely to some unmistakable crimson stains on the dress and hands of the girl. “It is still worse to tell an untruth about it.”
The girl pouted, and put two fingers into her mouth.
“O Lyddie! has no one taught you who sees our actions, and—” Flora was commencing a gentle, but very serious reproof, when it was suddenly cut short by her auditor darting from the room.
“What dreadful children!” said poor Flora to herself; “they seem more unmanageable, more uncared for, both as regards their physical and moral condition, than the poorest cottager in the village! We must speak seriously to their mother about them; it is impossible to let them go on in this way.”
To speak to Mrs. John Vernon was not at that moment practicable, as she had gone to sleep on the sofa, and was on no account to be disturbed. The dinner, which had been delayed for some hours for her arrival, was thus again indefinitely postponed, as both Mrs. Vernon and her daughter thought it more courteous to take their meal with their guest, instead of sharing that prepared for the children. Flora felt irritated and tired, and very little disposed to look at the bright side of affairs. The noisy voices of the children seemed never to be silent. They penetrated every part of the house; no room appeared safe from the intrusion of unwelcome little guests: for a spirit of active curiosity was a characteristic of Lyddie, and Johnny was prosecuting a search for his negro Sambo, which carried him to places where he was unlikely, as well as those where he was likely to find him.
At length Emma awoke from her siesta, but Mrs. Vernon found that her politeness towards the lady had been carried to an unnecessary extent. Emma declined joining the family at table; she preferred having her dinner carried to her in her boudoir. Flora, desirous to please her new guest, herself took the refreshment to her, and had the mortification to find that it consisted of the only thing, as Emma declared with a sickly smile, that really she could not touch; while, when pressed to say what she fancied, she named something which it was difficult, if not impossible to procure!
Flora dined alone with her mother. This was a relief, for she was weary, and out of spirits and out of patience. She resolved not to trouble her mother more than she could possibly help with her own annoyances and perplexities, for Mrs. Vernon looked harassed and anxious already. When the lady had gone to superintend the sleeping arrangements of the children, Flora sought the boudoir of her sister-in-law, having previously rehearsed many times in her mind the conversation which she thought might take place between them, and having studied how she could tell painful truths in the most gentle and least irritating way.
The widow was still reclining on the sofa, her cap put aside on account of the heat, a fan and scent-bottle beside her; and she received Flora with the languid, affected smile, which to that young lady was peculiarly unpleasing.
“I hope that you have now recovered a little from your fatigue,” said Flora, seating herself beside Emma.
The only reply was a languid sigh, accompanied by a slight elevation of the eyebrows, and then a closing of the eyes.
Flora paused for awhile, and played with the clasp of her bracelet, before she ventured to say, “Emma, there was one thing which I wished to ask you—have you perfect confidence in your black nurse?”
The lady opened her eyes. “Oh! she’s the best creature in the world!” Here the scent-bottle was in requisition.
“You know, of course, whether she is a Christian?”
“Well—oh! why”—(each word was drawled forth as though to speak were too fatiguing)—“yes; she has a crucifix and beads; she is a Christian, I am sure of it.”
“And is it possible—” Flora felt herself beginning to warm with her subject, but with an effort of self-control she commanded herself, and proceeded in the same gentle tones as those in which she had commenced.
“Do you think it desirable to trust her so entirely with the children? I viewed a little scene in the nursery to-day which gave me an idea that Johnny’s temper requires more judicious management.”
Emma looked so utterly indifferent, that Flora gave her a more lively description of the little scene, and of her own unpleasant part in it, than she had intended to have done.
“Poor dear! he has so much spirit!” was the only observation of the mother.
“But I have more painful things to tell you,” said Flora, feeling utterly provoked; and without further reserve, she gave an account of Lyddie’s conduct at the press, which would greatly have distressed a tender and conscientious parent, but which only elicited the words “Poor dear!” uttered in a more sleepy tone than before.
“But, Emma, this must not be!” exclaimed Flora, with kindling indignation; “these poor unhappy orphans are not to be left to acquire habits of dishonesty and untruth—”
She stopped suddenly, for she knew that she had said too much; she saw it in the malignant expression which lighted for a moment the sleepy black eye, she felt it in the quick throbbing of her own heart. Glad was Flora that her mother’s entrance gave her an excuse for quitting the room. She sought her own in a very bitter spirit.
“Mamma,” said Flora to Mrs. Vernon, when they were both retiring to rest, “I fear that we shall have a dreadful time with this family! There will be no more comfort in the house. Those miserable, neglected children will be the torments of our lives!”
“We must have patience with them, my love; they will not be neglected here.”
“But Emma will hang as a drag-chain on all our efforts to improve them. She seems to regard nothing upon earth but her own comfort and convenience, and listens with that odious smile to things which should make a mother blush for very shame!”
“My love—” expostulated Mrs. Vernon.
“I do not like that woman, mother, and I am certain that I never shall. She looks so heartless, and silly, and affected!”
“We must not be hard upon her, my Flora; her own education has probably been neglected. You have had a day of fatigue and excitement, and it re-acts on your own spirits, my dear. Go and rest now, you need it; all may seem more sunshiny in the morning.”
Flora sought rest, but that night she was not destined to find it. In the room next to hers was the baby, and hour after hour his wailing cry sounded in her ears, driving away sleep; thrice she started up and hastened to see if nothing could be done to soothe him. As morning dawned the babe fell asleep, and so did the exhausted Flora, to dream of the house being attacked by a legion of negroes, till she was awakened at an earlier hour than usual by the sound of a furious quarrel between Johnny and Lyddie.