Susan, Amy Walton [most read books in the world of all time TXT] 📗

superior air; "but I haven't got her now."

"Where is she?" asked Susan.

"I killed her," said Sophia Jane in a cold voice.

"Oh!" said Susan stopping still a moment; "what did you do that for?"

"I hated her," replied Sophia Jane shortly; "she had such starin' eyes."

Susan gazed at the small murderess with awe. "How did you do it?" she asked at length in a lowered tone.

"Drove a nail right through her skull," answered Sophia Jane, with a spiteful gleam in her blue eyes. "Here's the attic!"

They had reached the top storey after a last short flight of stairs without any carpet. Here there were only two rooms, one for Buskin, the maid-servant, and the other unfurnished. Sophia Jane flung open the door of this last with an air of triumph. "We can do just as we like here," she said; "and down-stairs we couldn't talk above a whisper while they're doing lessons."

Susan entered wondering. Everything seemed very odd at Aunt Hannah's; but somehow its strangeness made it rather interesting, it was such a contrast to home. There she had always played in well-furnished rooms with plenty of toys, and good fires in winter. The attic had no carpet and no fire, and the only things in it were one broken old chair, a poker, some rolls of dusty wall-paper, and some large black boxes. Its single attraction was its lone-ness; there was no one here who could say "don't," and no need for lowered voices and quietness. This Susan soon found to be a very delightful thing, for her life at home had been carried on as it were on tip-toe, for fear of disturbing Freddie, and she had always been taught that little girls should be never heard, and very seldom seen.

"If you like dolls," continued Sophia Jane in an off-hand manner, "perhaps Nanna would lend you Black Dinah. She's more good-natured than Margaretta."

"I don't want to ask her, thank you," said Susan. "Why does she have a doll? she's too old to play with it, isn't she?"

"Oh, gracious me, yes, of course," said Sophia Jane with a shrug. "They're both quite grown-up. Nanna's seventeen, and Margaretta's eighteen. They only keep it as a cur'osity; all made of rags and covered with black silk, and dressed like a native. The nuns made it in the convent at Bahia."

"What is Bahia?" asked Susan.

"It's a place in America where they come from. They came over in a ship."

"What for?"

"Why, to learn English, of course, you silly thing!--and French too--and all sorts of things. There's a French master comes once a week to teach them. And they learn lessons with Aunt too. They're doing them now."

So this was the meaning of Bahia girls! Susan thought it over a little and then asked:

"Did you come over in the ship too?"

Sophia Jane paused in the midst of a fantastic dance she was performing, with the poker brandished in one hand.

"Of course not," she said scornfully. "I'm English."

"Who are you, then?" asked Susan. She felt that the question sounded rude, but it was a thing that she must know.

"I'm an orphan," said Sophia Jane cheerfully, and she took an agile leap on to one of the old bores.

Susan gazed at her. She was not at all her idea of an orphan. In pictures they always wore black and looked sad, and at home there was a crossing-sweeper who said he was an orphan, and seemed to think it a hard thing, and that he was much to be pitied. Then another thought struck her: "If Aunt Hannah's your aunt as well as mine, I suppose we're cousins--ain't we?" she asked.

"She isn't," said Sophia Jane, swinging her arms round and preparing to jump off the box. "We all call her Aunt. She likes it better. See if you can jump as far as I can."

In these and other amusements the morning passed quickly away in a very different manner to anything Susan had known before. It was certainly better than playing alone, though the attic was bare and Sophia Jane's speech and behaviour were sometimes strange and startling. Susan almost forgot her home-sickness for a while, and found a companion of her own age far more interesting than imaginary conversations with dolls. After they were both tired of jumping, in which exercise Sophia Jane's spare form was by far the most successful, the headless body of the murdered doll was dragged out from behind a box and examined.

"She _used_ to be a pretty doll," said its owner, looking enviously at Grace.

"It's a pity you killed her," said Susan, "because we could play at so many more things if we had a doll each."

"Well, she's dead," said Sophia Jane recklessly. "Where's her head?" asked Susan; "perhaps we might mend it."

"Broken all up into tiny little bits," said the other.

Susan looked silently at the limp pink leather body stretched out on the floor, then she exclaimed suddenly:

"I tell you what!"

"What?" said Sophia Jane.

"We'll get a new head for her at the shop. I know you can do it, because Maria once bought one for one of mine."

"That's all very well," said Sophia Jane sharply; "but I haven't got enough money. I've only got twopence-halfpenny left."

"Oh, that wouldn't do, of course," said Susan. "You couldn't get one large enough for the body under eighteenpence. When will you have some more?"

"Not till Saturday week, because I've lost all the next in bad marks."

"What do you have bad marks for?" asked Susan.

"Lots of things: rumpling my pinafores, leaving the door open, standing on one side of my foot, making faces, not knowing my lessons--a farthing every time."

Susan's eyes opened wide.

"Why don't you leave off doing them?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't care to," said Sophia Jane; pressing her lips tightly together. "I like to vex 'em sometimes. I'd rather do it than have the money."

Susan's round face grew more and more serious. She did not know what to make of Sophia Jane, who seemed a very naughty little girl and certainly did not deserve to be helped. She had thought of offering to give her something towards the doll's head, but now she did not quite know whet to do.

"Well," she said patronisingly, "if you want to buy the new head you'll have to be good, you know; and then you'll save your money."

"Fiddle-di-dee!" was Sophia Jane's rude reply, tauntingly. This might have led to a quarrel, for Susan, much shocked, was just preparing a reproachful speech, but fortunately the voice of Nanna was heard calling them down to dinner. During this both the little girls were silent and subdued, and were seldom spoken to, except that Sophia Jane was repeatedly corrected. It was wonderful how often she was told not to fidget, not to eat so fast, not to shrug her shoulders, not to make faces. As surely as anyone looked in her direction there was something wrong. It did not seem to make much impression on her, although her thin little face looked very sullen; and once when Nanna called Susan "darling" a dark frown gathered on her brow.

"Unless you can look more pleasant and aimiable, Sophia Jane," said Aunt Hannah, observing this, "you will be left at home this afternoon."

All this strengthened Susan's opinion that Sophia Jane was a very naughty little girl. If it were not so they would not surely speak to her so sharply and reprove her so often. She hoped, nevertheless, that this last threat would not be carried out, for however naughty she might be she was a companion with whom conversation was possible, and a walk alone with Nanna and Margaretta would be dull. She was relieved, therefore, at three o'clock to find that Sophia Jane was ready to go too, dressed in a very unbecoming poke bonnet and black cape. They might be out one hour and a half, Aunt Hannah said, but there was a little delay at starting because each of the elder girls wished to go in a different direction. Nanna preferred the town, and Margaretta to walk on the parade, and it was some minutes before it was settled that they should go one way and return the other, dividing the time equally.

"Which way do you like best?" inquired Susan as she and Sophia Jane followed closely behind their companions.

"Neither of 'em," answered she. "I like to go on the beach and pick up things, but they won't ever do that except in summer when they bathe."

Neither of the little girls cared much about the walk in the town; for though some of the shops looked interesting, these were not the ones near which Nanna and Margaretta lingered. They only stopped and looked in at the windows of bonnet shops or jewellers' shops, and these were not attractive to Sophia Jane or Susan. But after a while they turned down a street where there were no shops at all, and at the end of it they came on to the parade and saw the sea. It was a wonderful sight to Susan, for she had been too tired to notice it much the day she had arrived, and now it burst upon her suddenly like something new. It was so beautiful and there was so much of it that it made her quite gasp for breath; the sun shining on it made a great glittering high-road stretching away in the distance till it joined the sky and was lost there; the waves came rolling, rolling, one after the other, up to the shore, curled over, and dashed themselves down so hard that they were broken up into hissing silver foam and tossed their spray high in the air. Everything seemed to be silver and gold and diamonds at the sea-side, it all sparkled, and twinkled, and shone so much. Susan's eyes were dazzled and she put up her hand to shield them, for she was used to the shadow and gloom of the London streets.

"Oh," she cried, "how I should like to go down on the sands!"

"Perhaps they'll let us go some day," said Sophia Jane. "It's best to go on the rocks when the sea's out."

"Out!" said Susan in astonishment. "Does it ever go quite away?"

Sophia Jane was so amused at this innocent question that she was unable to answer for some moments. She giggled so much and so loud that Margaretta turned round and said angrily:

"Vulgar child! Be quiet and walk properly."

Susan did not like to be laughed at. She walked along in silence, with hot cheeks, and determined that she would ask no more questions.

Sophia Jane continued to chuckle softly to herself for a little while and then said:

"There's a low tide and a high tide, of course. When it's low it's ever so far out, and when it's high it's ever so far in."

"Oh yes, I know, I remember now; I've learned that," said Susan hastily, for she did not wish Sophia Jane to think her quite ignorant.