CHAPTER LXII.BEGGING FOR FOOD.
In about half an hour, Jane Kelly returned with a basket of food upon her arm, and full of malicious cheerfulness. “There, old woman, do you see this? plenty to eat and a sharp appetite. When would that miserable old image have brought so much in your hands, I should like to know?”
“But where is my crucifix? You have not sold it?”
“No—no—spouted it, that’s all.”
“What do you mean? Who has got my crucifix?” shouted Madame, wild with terror and grief.
“A nice old Jew, who turned up his nose at your image, as if it had been a leg of pork; wouldn’t believe it wasgenuine gold at first, and made a reduction of twenty-five per cent. extra on the value, because of the insult I had offered in bringing the image to him. I told him you would redeem it with a thousand dollars, rather than lose it. A thousand dollars, you hear, old lady!”
“A thousand dollars,” muttered Madame De Marke, turning to the wall with a stifled moan, “a thousand dollars. This wicked wretch has ruined me!”
“Why, you old hypocrite, I couldn’t take less. Did you expect me to make a Judas Iscariot of myself, and ask only thirty pieces of silver. I a’n’t so irreverent a creature as that, anyhow.”
“A thousand dollars!” moaned the old woman.
“Don’t fret about that, mother. The Jews a’n’t going to give more now than they did in old times; the ticket says ten dollars; the heathen wouldn’t raise another sixpence.”
“Ten dollars—ten dollars—and all in her hands,” muttered the old woman,—“why, ten dollars will last me two months, and she’ll use it up in a meal almost. Oh, if I were but strong and well!”
“But you a’n’t strong nor well either, so just make the best of it and stop whining. I’m tired of it, let me tell you!” said Jane, peremptorily. “Hush up, now, and not another whimper.”
The old woman turned her face upon the pillow, and wept out her grief in silence; she dared not disobey her hard task-mistress.
With a good deal of clatter and noise, Jane went about the room, kindling a fire from some charcoal she had brought in her basket, and setting out the broken dishes on the bottom of an old chair that had lost its back. An expression of almost fiendish satisfaction was on her face, adding to the repulsion which hardship and wickedness had already left there. She was evidently planning some new torture for the woman, who had so justly earned her vengeance.
Directly, the charcoal began to crackle in a broken furnace that stood within the fireplace, and the fumes of a fine beefsteak filled the chamber with an odor that had probably never visited it before.
The famished old woman grew restless under this rich perfume. Her eyes gleamed, her fingers worked eagerly among the bed-clothes. At last she forgot the loss of her crucifix and every other pain, in the animal want thus keenly aroused.
“Oh!” she said, snuffing up the fragrant smoke, as it floated over her, “how delicious it is! How I long for a mouthful. Jane Kelly, dear Jane Kelly, make haste. No matter if it is underdone—I like beefsteak any way. Just one mouthful, on a fork, Jane, while you cook the rest!”
Jane Kelly laughed, and turned over the steak, pressing it beneath her knife till the juice ran out upon the coals, filling the room afresh with its appetizing fumes.
“What are you laughing at?” cried the old woman, breaking into hysterical muttering. “I ask for a mouthful of steak and you laugh!”
“I laugh, of course I do! Is there any law against laughing, let me ask?—anything immoral in it? because I’m getting rather particular on that point, since I handled the crucifix. Why shouldn’t I laugh, Madame De Marke?”
“Oh! you should. Why not? I could laugh myself at the thoughts of our supper. I could—I, I’m laughing. Come, come, be quick. I want something to eat. I am dying for something to eat!” Here the old woman struggled up in bed, and held out her arms, working her lean fingers eagerly, like the claws of a hungry parrot.
“Well, I hope you may get it!” said Jane, cruelly, “I hope you may get it!”
“What! what do you mean?” faltered the poor woman, falling helplessly back on her pillow, with a look of pale horror. “What do you mean?”
“I mean just what I say. That I hope you may get something to eat; for if you have one mouthful from me, it’ll be paid for, I tell you!” answered Jane, with brutal satisfaction.
The poor woman uttered a faint moan, and the gleam of her hungry eyes was quenched in tears of cruel disappointment.
“Oh! this is too wicked—you will not be so fiendish, Jane Kelly. If a mad dog, who had bitten you, were as hungry as I am, you would give him something to eat!”
“Yes, of course I should. One cannot hate a brute beast enough to starve it to death. Besides, they do not lock each other up for false swearing. Oh, yes! I would give a piece of this steak to a hungry dog—or a hungry cat either. Here, Peg, Peg, come here, Peg!”
As she spoke, Jane cast off a fragment of the steak, and held it up at a tantalizing height above the eager cat, who mewed, and leaped, and quivered all over with impatience, to seize upon it.
Madame De Marke watched the contest with gleaming eyes. When she saw the fragment fall, to be pounced upon by the voracious cat, a sharp yell broke from her, and she cried out with the pang of a mother over her ungrateful child.
“Oh! oh! how she devours it, while I am starving. Peg, oh! misery, Peg, how can you?” Again Jane Kelly burst into an unfeeling laugh.
“How much will you give now, old lady,” she said, “for a piece of steak, like that which poor, dear, grateful Peg is tearing with her claws?”
“How much will I give? Oh! if I had thousands here, you should have them—only for the least mouthful. But you have taken my all!” cried the old woman, piteously.
“Tell me where the box of gold and jewels is, and I’ll give you some,” replied Jane, flinging another piece of steak to the cat, and preparing to seat herself before the broken platter, on which she had placed the larger portion.
“The box? The box? Oh, I have told you. In the bank. I sent it there!” was the affrighted answer.
Jane divided the steak before her, and tearing out the heart of a white loaf with her hand, began to eat.
“Oh, Jane Kelly! how can you? Have pity, have pity. I am so hungry, Jane Kelly!”
“Of course you are, so is Peg; so am I, and the poor chickens too!” answered Jane, rising with her mouth full, and playfully aiming fragments of bread at the open bars of the hen-coop. “It’s human nature to be hungry.”
“Oh! it’s against nature. I shall perish with hunger—with enough to eat all around me, every living thing mocks my want. See them eat! see them eat! the greedy, ungrateful wretches—see them! and I starving, starving, starving!”
The poor woman made a desperate effort to spring up and seize the food before her; but her head reeled, her limbs quivered, and darkness filled her eyes instead of tears. She fell back upon the bed with an impatient cry of anguish, which was rendered hideous by the eager munching of the cat and the satisfied chuckle of the hens,—all too busy with their own wants for any thought of her.
“Come, come!” said Jane, more feelingly, “tell me where the box is, and you shall have a beautiful meal!”
“I cannot, I cannot!” moaned the old lady,—“ask anything else, and I will. Do!”
“That box, with the iron clamps. Nothing more, nothing less, tell me where it is!”
“In the bank. I have told you.”
“It is here. I will have it within an hour, whether you tell me or not. But if I am obliged to search for it, the fiends may feed you if they will—not a mouthful shall you have from me!”
“Oh! cruel, cruel. What can I say? how shall I move you?”
“Tell where the box is!”
“I cannot—I do not know. It is at the bank—in the bank.”