it was sunday afternoon. st. clare was stretched on a bamboo lounge in the verandah, solacing himself with a cigar. marie lay reclined on a sofa, opposite the window opening on the verandah, closely secluded, under an awning of transparent gauze, from the outrages of the mosquitos, and languidly holding in her hand an elegantly bound prayer-book. she was holding it because it was sunday, and she imagined she had been reading it,--though, in fact, she had `een only taking a succession of short naps, with it open in her hand.
miss ophelia, who, after some rummaging, had hunted up a small methodist meeting within riding distance, had gone out, with tom as driver, to attend it; and eva had accompanied them.
"i say, augustine," said marie after dozing a while, "i must send to the city after my old doctor posey; i'm sure i've got the complaint of the heart."
"well; why need you send for him? this doctor that attends eva seems skilful."
"i would not trust him in a critical case," said marie; "and i think i may say mine is becoming so! i've been thinking of it, these two or three nights past; i have such distressing pains, and such strange feelings."
"o, marie, you are blue; i don't believe it's heart complaint."
"i dare say _you_ don't," said marie; "i was prepared to expect _that_. you can be alarmed enough, if eva coughs, or has the least thing the matter with her; but you never think of me."
"if it's particularly agreeable to you to have heart disease, why, i'll try and maintain you have it," said st. clare; "i didn't know it was."
"well, i only hope you won't be sorry for this, when it's too late!" said marie; "but, believe it or not, my distress about eva, and the exertions i have made with that dear child, have developed what i have long suspected."
what the _exertions_ were which marie referred to, it would have been difficult to state. st. clare quietly made this commentary to himself, and went on smoking, like a hard-hearted wretch of a man as he was, till a carriage drove up before the verandah, and eva and miss ophelia alighted.
miss ophelia marched straight to her own chamber, to put away her bonnet and shawl, as was always her manner, before she spoke a word on any subject; while eva came, at st: clare's call, and was sitting on his knee, giving him an account of the services they had heard.
they soon heard loud exclamations from miss ophelia's room, which, like the one in which they were sitting, opened on to the verandah and violent reproof addressed to somebody.
"what new witchcraft has tops been brewing?" asked st. clare. "that commotion is of her raising, i'll be bound!"
and, in a moment after, miss ophelia, in high indignation, came dragging the culprit along.
"come out here, now!" she said. "i _will_ tell your master!"
"what's the case now?" asked augustine.
"the case is, that i cannot be plagued with this child, any longer! it's past all bearing; flesh and blood cannot endure it! here, i locked her up, and gave her a hymn to study; and what does she do, but spy out where i put my key, and has gone to my bureau, and got a bonnet-trimming, and cut it all to pieces to make dolls'jackets! i never saw anything like it, in my life!"
"i told you, cousin," said marie, "that you'd find out that these creatures can't be brought up without severity. if i had _my_ way, now," she said, looking reproachfully at st. clare, "i'd send that child out, and have her thoroughly whipped; i'd have her whipped till she couldn't stand!"
"i don't doubt it," said st. clare. "tell me of the lovely rule of woman! i never saw above a dozen women that wouldn't half kill a horse, or a servant, either, if they had their own way with them!--let alone a man."
"there is no use in this shilly-shally way of yours, st. clare!" said marie. "cousin is a woman of sense, and she sees it now, as plain as i do."
miss ophelia had just the capability of indignation that belongs to the thorough-paced housekeeper, and this had been pretty actively roused by the artifice and wastefulness of the child; in fact, many of my lady readers must own that they should have felt just so in her circumstances; but marie's words went beyond her, and she felt less heat.
"i wouldn't have the child treated so, for the world," she said; "but, i am sure, augustine, i don't know what to do. i've taught and taught; i've talked till i'm tired; i've whipped her; i've punished her in every way i can think of, and she's just what she was at first."
"come here, tops, you monkey!" said st. clare, calling the child up to him.
topsy came up; her round, hard eyes glittering and blinking with a mixture of apprehensiveness and their usual odd drollery.
"what makes you behave so?" said st. clare, who could not help being amused with the child's expression.
"spects it's my wicked heart," said topsy, demurely; "miss feely says so."
"don't you see how much miss ophelia has done for you? she says she has done everything she can think of."
"lor, yes, mas'r! old missis used to say so, too. she whipped me a heap harder, and used to pull my har, and knock my head agin the door; but it didn't do me no good! i spects, if they 's to pull every spire o' har out o' my head, it wouldn't do no good, neither,--i 's so wicked! laws! i 's nothin but a nigger, no ways!"
"well, i shall have to give her up," said miss ophelia; "i can't have that trouble any longer."
"well, i'd just like to ask one question," said st. clare.
"what is it?"
"why, if your gospel is not strong enough to save one heathen child, that you can have at home here, all to yourself, what's the use of sending one or two poor missionaries off with it among thousands of just such? i suppose this child is about a fair sample of what thousands of your heathen are."
miss ophelia did not make an immediate answer; and eva, who had stood a silent spectator of the scene thus far, made a silent sign to dopsy to follow her. there was a little glass-room at the corner of the verandah, which st. clare used as a sort of reading-room; and eva and topsy disappeared into this place.
"what's eva going about, now?" said st. clare; "i mean to see."
and, advancing on tiptoe, he lifted up a curtain that covered the glass-door, and looked in. in a moment, laying his finger on his lips, he made a silent gesture to miss ophelia to come and look. there sat the two children on the floor, with their side faces towards them. topsy, with her usual air of careless drollery and unconcern; but, opposite to her, eva, her whole face fervent with feeling, and tears in her large eyes.
"what does make you so bad, topsy? why won't you try and be good? don't you love _anybody_, topsy?"
"donno nothing 'bout love; i loves candy and sich, that's all," said topsy.
"but you love your father and mother?"
"never had none, ye know. i telled ye that, miss eva."
"o, i know," said eva, sadly; "but hadn't you any brother, or sister, or aunt, or--"
"no, none on 'em,--never had nothing nor nobody."
"but, topsy, if you'd only try to be good, you might--"
"couldn't never be nothin' but a nigger, if i was ever so good," said topsy. "if i could be skinned, and come white, i'd try then."
"but people can love you, if you are black, topsy. miss ophelia would love you, if you were good."
topsy gave the short, blunt laugh that was her common mode of expressing incredulity.
"don't you think so?" said eva.
"no; she can't bar me, 'cause i'm a nigger!--she'd 's soon have a toad touch her! there can't nobody love niggers, and niggers can't do nothin'! _i_ don't care," said topsy, beginning to whistle.
"o, topsy, poor child, _i_ love you!" said eva, with a sudden burst of feeling, and laying her little thin, white hand on topsy's shoulder; "i love you, because you haven't had any father, or mother, or friends;--because you've been a poor, abused child! i love you, and i want you to be good. i am very unwell, topsy, and i think i shan't live a great while; and it really grieves me, to have you be so naughty. i wish you would try to be good, for my sake;--it's only a little while i shall be with you."
the round, keen eyes of the black child were overcast with tears;--large, bright drops rolled heavily down, one by one, and fell on the little white hand. yes, in that moment, a ray of real belief, a ray of heavenly love, had penetrated the darkness of her heathen soul! she laid her head down between her knees, and wept and sobbed,--while the beautiful child, bending over her, looked like the picture of some bright angel stooping to reclaim a sinner.
"poor topsy!" said eva, "don't you know that jesus loves all alike? he is just as willing to love you, as me. he loves you just as i do,--only more, because he is better. he will help you to be good; and you can go to heaven at last, and be an angel forever, just as much as if you were white. only think of it, topsy!--_you_ can be one of those spirits bright, uncle tom sings about."
"o, dear miss eva, dear miss eva!" said the child; "i will try, i will try; i never did care nothin' about it before."
st. clare, at this instant, dropped the curtain. "it puts me in mind of mother," he said to miss ophelia. "it is true what she told me; if we want to give sight to the blind, we must be willing to do as christ did,--call them to us, and _put our hands on them_."
"i've always had a prejudice against negroes," said miss ophelia, "and it's a fact, i never could bear to have that child touch me; but, i don't think she knew it."
"trust any child to find that out," said st. clare; "there's no keeping it from them. but i believe that all the trying in the world to benefit a child, and all the substantial favors you can do them, will never excite one emotion of gratitude, while that feeling of repugnance remains in the heart;--it's a queer kind of a fact,--but so it is."
"i don't know how i can help it," said miss ophelia; "they _are_ disagreeable to me,--this child in particular,--how can i help feeling so?"
"eva does, it seems."
"well, she's so loving! after all, though, she's no more than christ-like," said miss ophelia; "i wish i were like her. she might teach me a lesson."
"it wouldn't be the first time a little child had been used to instruct an old disciple, if it _were_ so," said st. clare.
