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Barbadoes Girl, The

<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> AT length the long-wished-for day arrived, and the young foreigner made her appearance in the family of Mr. Harewood. She was a fine, handsome-looking girl, and though younger in fact, was taller and older-looking than Ellen, but was not nearly so well shaped, as indolence, and the habit of being carried about instead of walking, had occasioned her to stoop, and to move as if her limbs were too weak to support her. The kindness and politeness with which she was received in the family of Mr. Harewood, did not appear to affect the Barbadoes girl in any other way than to increase that self-importance which was evidently her [Pg 11]characteristic; and even the mild, affectionate Ellen, who had predisposed her heart to love her very dearly, shrunk from the proud and haughty expression which frequently animated her features, and was surprised to hear her name her mamma with as much indifference as if she were a common acquaintance; for Ellen did not know that the indulgence of bad passions hardens the heart, and renders it insensible to those sweet and tender ties which are felt by the good and amiable, and which constitute their highest happiness. In a very short time, it became apparent that passion and peevishness were also the traits of this unfortunate child, who had been indulged in the free exercise of a railing tongue, and even of a clawing hand, towards the numerous negro dependants that swarmed in her father’s mansion, over whom she had exercised all the despotic sovereignty of a queen, with the capriciousness of a petted child, and thereby obtained a habit of tyranny over all whom she deemed her inferiors, as appeared from the style in which she now conducted herself constantly towards the menials of Mr. Harewood’s family, and not unfrequently towards the superiors. For a few days Mr. Harewood bore with this conduct, and only opposed it with [Pg 12]gentleness and persuasion; but as it became evident that this gentleness emboldened the mistaken child to proceed to greater rudeness, he commenced a new style of treatment, and the English education of Matilda, so far as concerned that most important part of all education, the management of the temper, in the following manner: On the family being seated at the dinner-table, Miss Hanson called out, in a loud and angry tone, “Give me some beer!” Mr. Harewood had previously instructed the servant who waited upon them how to act, in case he was thus addressed; and in consequence of his master’s commands, the man took no notice whatever of this claim upon his attention. “Give me some beer!” cried she again, in so fierce a manner that the boys started, and poor Ellen blushed very deeply, not only from the sense of shame which she felt for the vulgarity of the young lady’s manners, but from a kind of terror, on hearing such a shrill and threatening voice. The servant still took no notice of her words, though he did not do it with an air of defiance, but rather as if it were not addressed to him. The little angry child muttered, loud enough to be heard—“What a fool the[Pg 13] wretch is!” but as nobody answered what was in fact addressed to no one, she was at length compelled to look for redress to Mrs. Harewood, whom, regarding with a mixture of rage and scorn, she now addressed—“Pray, ma’am, why don’t you tell the man to give me some beer? I suppose he’ll understand you, though he seems a fool, and deaf.” “My children are accustomed to say—‘Please, Thomas, give me some beer;’ or, ‘I’ll thank you for a little beer;’ and the loud rude manner in which you spoke, probably astonished and confused him. As, however, I certainly understand you, I will endeavour to relieve you.—Pray, Thomas, be so kind as to give Miss Hanson some beer,” said Mrs. Harewood. Thomas instantly offered it; but the little girl cried out in a rage—“I won’t have it—no! that I won’t, from that man: I’ll have my own negro to wait—that I will!—Must I say please to a servant? must a nasty man in a livery be kind to me?—no! no! no! Zebby, Zebby, I say, come here!” The poor black woman, hearing the loud tones of her young lady, to which she had been pretty well used, instantly ran into the room, before Mr. Harewood had time to prevent it, and very humbly cried out—“What does Missy please wanty?” [Pg 14]“Some beer, you black beetle!” “Is, Missy,” said the poor woman, with a sigh, reaching the beer from Thomas with a trembling hand, as if she expected the glass to be thrown in her face. Charles had with great difficulty refrained from laughter on the outset of this scene; but indignation now suffused his countenance. The young vixen was an acute observer, and, had she not been cruelly neglected, might have been a sensible child. It instantly struck her, that his features disputed her right; and, determined not to endure this from any one, she instantly threw the beer in the face of poor Zebby, saying—“There’s that for you, madam.” It was not in the forbearance of the children to repress their feelings; even Edmund exclaimed—“What a brute!” Ellen involuntarily started up, and hid her face in her mother’s lap, while Charles most good-naturedly offered his handkerchief to the aggrieved Zebby, kindly condoling with her on her misfortune. Mr. Harewood now, for the first time, spoke.—“Zebby,” said he, in a calm but stern tone, “it is my strict command, that so long as you reside under my roof, you never give that young lady any thing again, nor hold any conversation with her: if you[Pg 15] disobey my commands, I shall be under the necessity of discharging you.” The young lady checked herself, and for a moment looked alarmed; but recovering, she said—“She is not yours, and you sha’n’t discharge her: she is my own slave, and I will do what I please with her; poor papa bought her for me, as soon as I was born, and I’ll use her as I please.” “But you know your mamma told you, that as soon as she arrived in England she would be free, and might either return or remain, as she pleased. Now it so happens that she is much pleased with my family, and having a sincere regard for your mother, she this morning requested Mrs. Harewood to engage her in any service she could undertake: convinced that she was worthy our protection, we have done this, and therefore all your claims upon her are over.” The little girl, bursting into a passionate flood of tears, ran out of the room. Poor Zebby, courtesying, said—“Sir, me hopes you will have much pity on Missy—she was spoily all her life, by poor massa—her mamma good, very good; and when Missy pinch Zebby, and pricky with pin, then good mississ she be angry; but massa say only—‘Poo! poo! she be child—naughty[Pg 16] tricks wear off in time.’ He be warm man himself.” The poor negro’s defence affected the little circle, and Mr. Harewood observing it, said—“You perceive, my dear children, that this child is in fact far more an object of compassion than blame, for she has been permitted to indulge every bad propensity of her nature, and their growth has destroyed that which was good; of course, her life has been unhappy in itself, yet punishment has not produced amendment. Poor thing! how many of the sweetest pleasures of existence are unknown to her! She is a stranger to the satisfaction of obliging others, and to the consciousness of overcoming herself, which, I trust, you all know to be an inestimable blessing. I truly pity her; but I am compelled to treat her as if I blamed her only; I am obliged to be harsh, in order that I may be useful, and give pain to produce ease.” In about an hour, finding that no one approached, and feeling the want of the dinner her shameful rudeness and petulance had interrupted, and which she had but just begun, Matilda came down stairs, with the air of a person who is struggling to hide, by effrontery, the chagrin she is conscious of deserving: no person took any notice of her entrance,[Pg 17] and all appearance of the good meal she wanted was removed. There was a certain something in the usually-smiling faces of the heads of the mansion that acted as a repellent to her, and she sat for some time silent; but at length she spoke to Ellen, who, from her gentle meekness, was ever easy of access, and whom, intending to mortify, she accosted thus—“Nelly, did you eat my chicken?” Charles burst into a loud laugh, as Ellen, who had never heard herself thus addressed, for a moment looked rather foolish; on which he answered for her, with a somewhat provoking sauciness of countenance—“No, Matty, she did not eat your chicken.” “My name is not Matty—it is Matilda Sophia, and you are a great booby for calling me so; but Nelly, or Nell, is short for Ellen, and by one of those names I shall call her, whenever I choose, if it be only to vex you.” “Perhaps, too, you will choose to prick her, and pinch her, Miss Matilda Sophia Hanson?” answered Charles, sneeringly, drawing out her name as long and as pompously as it was possible. “Fie, Charles!” said Edmund; “I am sure you act as if you had forgotten all that papa told us about Miss Hanson.” Charles, after a moment’s thought, [Pg 18]acknowledged that he was wrong, very, very wrong. Matilda was much struck with this; she was well aware that, under the same circumstances, she should have said much more than he had, and she was curious as to what had been said of her, which could have produced this effect on a boy generally so vivacious and warm-tempered as Charles. After cogitating upon it some time, she at length concluded that Mr. Harewood had endeavoured to impress on the minds of his family the consequence she possessed, as an only child and a great heiress; and although he had appeared so lately to act under a very different impression, yet it was very possible that he had only done so because he was out of temper himself, and, now his mind was become tranquil again, he had repented of his conduct, and been anxious to prevent his children from following his example in this respect. The more Matilda thought of this, the more fully she fixed it in her mind as an article of belief; but yet there was something in the calm, firm tones of Mr. Harewood, when he spoke to her, and in his present open, yet unbending countenance, when he happened to cast his eyes towards her, which rendered her unsatisfied with the answer she[Pg 19] thus gave her own internal inquiries; and although she had been exceedingly angry with him, for presuming to speak to her, she yet felt as if his esteem, and indeed his forgiveness, were necessary for her happiness; and her pride, thus strengthened, contended with her fears and consciousness of guilt and folly; and while she resolved inwardly to keep up her dignity with the young ones, she yet, from time to time, cast an anxious eye towards her new monitor. In a short time, to Matilda’s great relief, Mr. Harewood stepped into the library to get a book; and the children, in the hope that, when he returned, he would kindly indulge them, either by reading to them, or relating occasionally such anecdotes or observations as the work he read might furnish him with, left their seats, and pressed round the place where their parents were sitting. Matilda did not like to be left alone, nor did she feel as if she had a right to be held as a child among the rest: again her pride and her repentance had a great struggle, and she knew not to which she should give the preference, for her heart swelled alike with pride and sorrow; she moved towards the same place, and sought, in the bustle of the moment, to divert the painful feeling which oppressed her. [Pg 20]In a few moments, Mr. Harewood was heard to shut the library-door; and as, of course, he might be expected to re-enter very soon, and would now be much nearer to her than he had been, and would certainly adopt some more decided kind of conduct and language towards her, Matilda became again extremely desirous of knowing what he really had said about her, and she two or three times essayed to speak; but a little remaining modesty, which was nearly all the good which her unhappy education had left her, prevented her, until she found that she had no time beyond the present instant left for satisfying her curiosity on so important a point, when, in a considerable flutter of spirits, she whispered to Ellen, but in a voice sufficiently articulate to be heard by others—“Pray what did your papa say of me?” “That you were very much to be pitied.” “Pitied! Pray what am I to be pitied for?” Ellen blushed very deeply: she could not answer a question which called down confusion on the head of her who asked it—one, too, whom she was inclined to love, and whose petulance towards herself, however unprovoked, she had already forgiven. She looked wistfully in the face of her mamma,[Pg 21] who replied for her—“We all think you are much to be pitied, because you are evidently a poor, little, forlorn, ignorant child, without friends, and under the dominion of a cruel enemy, that renders you so frightful, it is scarcely possible for even the most humane people to treat you with kindness, or even endure you.” Matilda involuntarily started up, and examined herself in the looking-glass.—“If I had happened to be your own daughter, ma’am,” she said, crying again, “you would not have thought me ugly; but because I come from Barbadoes, you don’t like me; and it is cruel and wicked to treat me so. But I will go back—I will—I will.” “I wish most sincerely you had never come, for it is painful to me to witness the folly and sin you are guilty of; but, since you are here, I will endeavour to bear with you, until I have found a good school to send you to. If you would give yourself time to consider, you would know that the enemy I spoke of is your own temper, which would render even perfect beauty hideous; you know very well that I received you with the greatest kindness, and that you have outraged that kindness. But I can forgive you, because I see that you are a silly child, who fancies herself of importance;[Pg 22] whereas children, however they may be situated, are poor dependent creatures.” Matilda answered only by a scornful toss of her head, and uttering the word—“Dependent!” “Edmund,” said Mrs. Harewood, taking no notice of her insolent look, “you are a strong healthy boy, forward in your education, capable of reflection, and decidedly superior, not only in age, but wisdom, to any other in the room; answer me candidly, as if you were speaking to a boy like yourself—Do you feel it possible so to conduct yourself, that, if you were left alone in the world, you could be happy and independent?” “My dear mamma,” said Edmund, “you must be laughing at me; a pretty figure I should cut, if I were to set up for a man, without any one to advise me how to act, to tell me when I was wrong, and to manage every thing for me! how could I do right without my papa, or some proper guardian? and how could I be happy without you, mamma?” As Edmund spoke, he threw his arms round his mother; and the others followed his example, saying—“No, no, we could do nothing without you and dear papa; pray do stay with us, and make us good.” [Pg 23]As they spoke, the tears were in their eyes, and Matilda was affected: she remembered the tenderness of her own mother, and how often she had turned a deaf ear to her expostulations. She was convinced that these children, at this very time, enjoyed a sweeter pleasure than she had ever experienced from the gratification of her desires, and she even longed to confess her folly, and gain her share of Mrs. Harewood’s caresses; but pride still struggled in her heart; and though her reason was convinced of the truth, that children are indeed dependent on their friends for all that renders life valuable, yet her temper still got the better, and she resolutely held her tongue, though she ceased to look haughty and ill-humoured. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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