Fashion and Famine Part 48

"No," cried another. "If we had a drop of brandy now. But water, bah!"

"It's the horrors--see how she trembles," exclaimed a third, with a chuckle and a toss of the head.

"No such thing. She's too young--too handsome!"

"Oh, get away! Don't I know the symptoms?" interrupted the first speaker, with a coa.r.s.e laugh. "Ain't I young--ain't I handsome? Who says no to that? And yet haven't you heard me yell--haven't you heard me rave with the horrors?"

"That was because the doctor prescribes brandy," interposed a sly-looking mulatto woman, folding her arms and turning her head saucily on one side. "When that medicine comes, you are still enough."

This retort was followed by a general laugh, in which the object joined, till the tears rolled down her cheeks.

In the midst of this coa.r.s.e glee, Julia had fallen like a withered flower, upon the bench. That moment, the huge negress, who had so terrified the poor creature at the grating, plunged out from a cell in the upper end of the hall, and came toward the group with a tin cup full of water in her hand.

Had a fiend come forth on an errand of mercy, it would not have seemed more out of place than that hideous creature under the influence of a kind impulse. She came down the hall as rapidly as her naked feet, hampered by an old pair of slip-shod shoes, could move. The dress hung in rents and festoons of dirty and faded calico around her gaunt limbs, trailing the stone floor on one side, and lifted high above her clumsy ankles on the other.

The women scattered as she approached, giving her a full view of the fainting girl.

"So you've done it among you--smothered her. How dare you? Didn't you see that I took a fancy to her, before she came in? Let her alone. I want a pet, and she's mine."

"Yours!" "Why, it was your face that frightened her to death. There hasn't been a bit of color in her lips since she saw you," answered the woman that had so eagerly recommended brandy, and who kept her place in spite of the formidable negress. "Here, give me the water, and get out of my sight."

The negress pushed this woman roughly aside, and kneeling down by the senseless girl, bathed her forehead with the water. Julia did not stir.

Her face continued deathly white; a faint violet tinge lay upon her lips and around her eyes; her little hands fell down to the stone floor; her feet dropped heavily from the bench. This position, more than the still face even, was fearfully like death.

"Call a keeper," cried half a dozen voices, "she is scared to death!"

"The doctor!" urged as many more voices. "It will take a doctor to bring her out of that fit!"

"We won't have a doctor," exclaimed the old negress, stoutly. "He'd call it tremens, and give her brandy or laudanum. I tell you, she isn't one of that sort! Don't believe a drop of the ardent ever touched her lips!"

Again a coa.r.s.e laugh broke up from among the prisoners.

The negress dashed a handful of water across the poor face over which that laughter floated like the orgies of fiends around a death couch.

She rose to one knee, and turned her fierce eyes upon the scoffers.

I have never stained a page in my life with profane language, even when describing a profane person; never have placed the name of G.o.d irreverently into the lips of an ideal character. Sooner would I feel an oath burning upon my own soul, than register one where it might familiarize itself to a thousand souls, surprised into its use by their confidence in the author. Even here, where profanity is the common language of the place, I will risk a feebler description in my own language, rather than for one instant break through the rule of a life.

Yet amid language and scenes which I could not force this pen to write, and creatures, most of them, brutalized by vice to a degree that I shrink from describing, this young guileless creature was plunged by the laws of an enlightened people. When she opened her eyes, that scarred, black face, less repulsive from a touch of kindly feeling, but hideous still, was the first object that greeted them.

The woman, as I have said, had risen to one knee. The holy name of G.o.d trembled on her coa.r.s.e lips, prefacing a torrent of abusive expostulation that broke from them in the rudest and most repulsive language.

"You needn't laugh, don't I know better--fifty times better than any of you? Haven't I been here--this is the fifteenth time? Don't I go to my country-seat on Blackwell's Island every summer of my life? How many times have you been there, the best of you, I should like to ask? Twice, three times. Bah! what should you know of life? Stand out of the way.

She's beginning to sob. You shan't stifle her again, I promise you. It was the water did it. Which of you could be got out of a fit with water--tell me that? Here, just come one of you and feel her breath, while the tears are in it--sweet as a rose, moist as dew. I tell you, she never tasted anything stronger than bread and milk in her life!"

The woman clenched this truth with an imprecation on herself which made the young girl start up and look wildly around, as if she believed herself encompa.s.sed by a band of demons.

"What is the matter? Are you afraid?" said the white prisoner, that had formerly spoken, bending over her.

"Get out of the way," said the negress, with another oath. "It's my pet, I tell you."

The terrible creature, whose very kindness was brutal, reached forth her arm and attempted to draw Julia to her side, but the poor girl recoiled, shuddering from the touch, and fell upon her knees, covering her ears with both hands.

"Are you afraid of _me_? Is that it?" shouted the negress, almost touching the strained fingers with her mouth.

"Yes, yes!" broke from her tremulous lips, and Julia kept her eyes upon the woman in a wild stare. "I am afraid."

"This is grat.i.tude," said the woman, fiercely. "I brought her to, and she looks at me as if I was a mad dog."

Julia cowered under the fiery glance with which these words were accompanied. This only exasperated her hideous friend, and with an angry grip of the teeth, she seized one little hand, forcing it away from the ear, that was on the instant filled with a fresh torrent of curses.

"Oh, don't! Pray, pray. It is dreadful to swear so!"

"Swear! Why, I didn't swear--not a word of it. Have been talking milk and water all the time just for your sake. Leave it all to these ladies, if I haven't!" said the woman, evidently impressed with the truth of her a.s.sertion, and appealing, with an air of simple confidence, to her fellow-prisoners: for profanity had become with her a fixed habit, and she was really unconscious of it.

A laugh of derision answered this singular appeal, and a dozen voices gave mocking a.s.surance that there had been a mistake about the matter, saying,

"Oh, no! old Mag never swore in her life."

Tortured by the wild tumult, and driven to the very confines of insanity, Julia could scarcely forbear screaming for help. She started up, avoiding the negress with a desperate spring sidewise, and staggered toward the grated door. It seemed to her impossible to draw a deep breath, in the midst of those wretched beings!

"Mamma, mamma!" said a soft, sweet voice, from one of the cells, and as Julia turned her face, she saw through the narrow iron door-way the head of a child, bending eagerly forward and radiant with joyous surprise.

Julia paused, held forth both her trembling hands, and entered the cell, smiling through her tears as if an angel had called.

The child arose from the floor, for it had been upon its hands and knees, and putting back its golden hair, that broke into waves and curls in spite of neglect, with two soiled and dimpled hands, it gazed upon the intruder in speechless disappointment. Julia saw this, and her heart sank again.

"It was not me you wanted," she said, laying her hand tremblingly on the child's shoulder. "You are sorry that I came?"

"Yes," answered the child, and his soft, brown eyes filled with tears.

"I thought it was mamma. It was dark, and I could not see, but it seemed as if you were mamma."

Julia stooped down and kissed the child. In that dim light, it was difficult to say which of those beautiful faces seemed the most angelic.

"But I love you. I am glad to see you," she said, in a voice that made the little boy smile through his tears. He fixed his eyes upon her in a long, earnest gaze, and then nestling close to her side, murmured, "And I love you!"

There was a narrow bed in the cell, and Julia sat down upon it, lifting the child to her knee. In return, she felt a little arm steal around her neck and a warm cheek laid against her own. The innocent nature of the child blended with that of the maiden, as blossoms in a strange atmosphere may be supposed to lean toward each other.

"Do they shut up children in this wicked place? How came you here, darling?"

"I don't know!" answered the child, shaking its beautiful head.

"But did you come alone?"

"Oh, no! _She_ came with me."

"Who--your mamma?" questioned Julia, so deeply interested in the child, that for the moment, her own grief was forgotten.

"No, not her. They call her my mamma, but she isn't. Come here, softly, and I will let you see."

He drew Julia to the entrance, and pointed with his finger toward a female, who sat cowering by a stove a little distance up the pa.s.sage.