The Actress' Daughter: A Novel

by May Agnes Fleming

The next was a fairer face, a small head set on an arching neck; a low, smooth, childish brow; small, regular, dainty features; sweet, wondering, wistful eyes; a little dimpled chin, and softly smiling lips, just revealing the pearly teeth within. It might have been the face of an angel had it not been Emily Murray's, spiritualized, as everything Georgia's magic pencil touched was. Such a lovely, child-like, innocent face as it was, smiling up from the paper with such a look of heavenly calm and serenity, that no breath of worldly passion had ever disturbed.

"Oh, dear little Emily! dear little Emily!" said Georgia, in a trembling voice. "My good angel! if I had only been like you. Calm, peaceful, happy little Emily! what will you think of me when you hear what I have done."

She hesitated a moment before she commenced the next, and then, as if a sudden inspiration had seized her, she rapidly began to sketch. Soon there appeared a noble, intellectual-looking head—a high, broad, princely brow—square eyebrows, meeting across the strongly marked nose—large, strong, earnest eyes—a fine resolute mouth, and square, resolute chin. Heavy waves of dark hair were shaken carelessly off the noble forehead, and it needed nothing now but the thick dark mustache, and the calm, handsome, kingly face of Richmond Wildair looked at her from the paper. In the seemingly fathomless eyes there shone a look of sorrowful reproach, and a sort of sad sternness pervaded the whole face. The very lips seemed to part and say, "oh, Georgia, what have you done?" and with a great cry of "oh, Richmond! Richmond! Richmond!" she flung down her pencil, then threw herself on her face on the couch, and for the first time in years, for the first time almost since she could remember, she wept, wept long, passionately, and bitterly.

It was a strange thing to see this stone-like Georgia weep. In all her misery she had shed no tears; in her stormy childhood she had wept not, and the tears of childhood are an easily flowing spring; yet now she lay, and wept, and sobbed, wildly, passionately, vehemently, wept for hours, until the very source of her tears seemed dried up, and would flow no longer.

And from that day Georgia grew calmer and more rational than she had ever been before. It was strange the consolation she derived from these "counterfeit presentments" of those she loved, and yet it was so. For hours she would sit gazing at them, and sometimes she would fancy Emily's smiling lips seemed saying, "Hope on, Georgia! before morning dawns night is ever darkest."

The Leonards, grateful for being made such handsome people, were quite solicitous in their efforts to make the governess comfortable. Georgia had a heart easily won by kindness, and as time passed on, she seemed, for the present at least, to grow reconciled to her lot. Perhaps the secret of this was that she had begun an achievement that had long been in her thoughts, and in which she was so completely absorbed as to be for a time quite insensible to outward things. This was a large painting of Hagar in the Wilderness, a wild, weird thing, on which she worked night and day in a fever of enthusiasm.

Had any one seen her, in the still, mystic watches of the night, bending over her easel, her dark hair flowing behind her, her wild eyes blazing, her whole face inspired—they might have taken her for the very genius of art descended on earth. She scarcely knew what was her design in painting this; probably, at the time, she had none, but a love of the work itself—a love that increased to a perfect fever, as it grew under her brush. None of the family knew aught of it, and they puzzled themselves in vain wondering what she could be doing to keep a light burning so late every night.

It was drawing toward the close of February that the severest snow storm that they had during the season fell. For nearly a week it raged with unceasing violence, and several gentlemen and ladies from the city were storm-bound at Mr. Leonard's. During their stay, Georgia, as usual, absented herself from the table and drawing-room, and the young ladies were so busy with their guests that even Miss Maggie found no time to visit her. Georgia did not regret this circumstance, as it gave her more time to devote to her painting, and secured her from interruption.

One wild, snowy evening, when it was too dark to paint and too soon to light the lamp, Georgia passed from her room and walked swiftly in the direction of the library in search of a book. She knew the library was seldom visited, especially in the evening, when other amusements ruled the hour, and so, not fearing detection, she went in, found the book she was in search of, and, seating herself within a deep bay-window, drew the crimson damask curtains close, and thus shut in on one side by red drapery and on the other by the clear glass, through which she could watch the drifting snow, she began to read.

It was a volume of poems by W. D. Randall, the young poet, whose fame was already resounding through the land. Such a sweet, dreamy, delicious volume as it was! Fascinated, absorbed, Georgia strained her eyes, and read and read on as long as one ray of light remained, unable to tear herself away from the enchanted pages, and feeling as if she were transported to some Arcadia, some fairy-land, by the magic power of the poet's pen.