Sissie

“ Cecilia's dresses lay about on bed and chairs; Cecilia's little treasures were tossed together on the floor. What Theodosia's object could have been in leaving things thus, Lettice was unable to conjecture.
A torrent of recollections took possession of her, at the sight of an old brown merino, which Sissie had worn incessantly the last autumn, going to and from her lessons . . . Those dear old days! Gone for ever!
Sissie's face came back with an extraordinary vividness: and Lettice knelt by the bed, kissing passionately the old merino which Sissie's hand had touched. ”

“ Sissie and Mrs. Bailey were mending near a lamp at the far end of the table. Miriam’s thoughts left her suddenly. The tide of life had swept away leaving an undisturbed stillness, a space swept clear. She was empty and nothing. In all the clamour that had passed she had no part. In all the noise that lay ahead, no part. Strong people came and went and never ceased, coming and going and acting ceaselessly, coming and going, and here, at her centre, was nothing, lifeless thoughtless nothingness. ”

“ And Sissy, outraged in all the dignity of her eleven years at being carried like a child, but unspeakably happy in her father's favor, looked over his shoulder with a sheepish, smiling, [Pg. 37] sleepy face, murmuring, "Sour grapes, Split, sour grapes!"
Afterward, encouraged by the darkness and the strangeness of being laid in bed from her father's arms, Sissy held him a moment by her side.
"When men make promises on paper that they can't keep, father," she whispered, "what do they do?" ”

“ The sharpness of sound when it did come, the strangeness of suppressed excitement, the unfamiliar place with Split's quick figure missing, the loneliness of being without her, the boredom of lacking a playmate or a fighting-mate—it all affected Sissy as the prelude of a drama the end of which has something terrifyingly fascinating in it. It must be wonderful to die, thought Sissy, with a swift, satisfying vision of pretty young death—herself in white and the mysterious glamour of the silent sleep. ”

“ There was a strange intense note in the brief word.
“Then come with me, Sisily. I love you more than all the world. We have nobody to please except our two selves.”
“You have your duty to your father to consider.”
“Let us leave him out of the question,” said the young man hurriedly. “He is as selfish and heartless as—his brother. I tell you again, I’ll have nothing to do with this title or your father’s money. I will make my own way with you by my side. I have a friend in London who would be only too glad to receive you until we could be married. ”

“ A train meant domesticity and dignity to Sissy. In Split it bred and fostered a spirit of coquetry; she believed herself [Pg. 225] to be very French in long skirts. "I'll just say she said 'Yes' when I asked her. She never knows what she says when she's writing."
Sissy nodded understandingly, and rustled in a most ladylike manner after her senior. The twins saw the two beautiful creatures swishing down the front steps, bound for the street to show their glory and feel the peacock's delight in dragging his tail in the dust. ”

“ Still, as I have said already, I am disappointed."
"I wish I could have made a better acknowledgment, sir, of your kindness to a poor forlorn girl who had no claim upon you, and of your protection of her." said Sissy, weeping.
"Don't shed tears," added Mr. Gradgrind, "I don't complain of you. You are an affectionate, earnest, good young woman, and we must make that do."
"Thank you, sir, very much," said Sissy, with a grateful curtsey.
"You are useful to Mrs. Gradgrind, and you are serviceable in the family also; so I understand from Miss Louisa, and indeed, so I have observed myself. ”

“ Susy, who was thoughtful beyond her years, suffered terribly from anxiety about her little sister. More than that, she suffered from remorse.
"O, grandma Read," said she one evening, as she sat looking up at the solemn, shining stars, with overflowing eyes—"O, grandma!" The words came from the depths of a troubled heart. "I may live to be real old; but I never shall be happy again! I can't, for, if it hadn't been for me? Prudy would be running round the house as well as ever!"
Mrs. Read had a gentle, soothing voice. She could comfort Susy when anybody could. ”

“ Sissy hesitated before replying, and so plainly showed her sense that they were entering on forbidden ground, that Louisa added, ‘No one hears us; and if any one did, I am sure no harm could be found in such an innocent question.’
‘No, Miss Louisa,’ answered Sissy, upon this encouragement, shaking her head; ‘father knows very little indeed. It’s as much as he can do to write; and it’s more than people in general can do to read his writing. ”

“ Warner, and am so glad your father has asked me to be godfather to the wee motherless babe; but the real charge, Sissy, will devolve on you. You have, indeed, a great work before you in the care of all these children, for it is to you, far more than to Miss Vernon, they will look to fill their mother's place. And such a mother! You have, indeed, a work to do which even the angels might envy!"
The girl looked up, restraining with an effort the choking sob which the sound of her pet name had evoked. ”

“ His tone unconsciously patronized Cissie's prettiness with the patronage of the male for the less significant thing, as though her ripeness for love and passion and children were, after all, not comparable with what he, a male, could do in the way of significantly molding life.
Cissie lifted her head and dried her eyes.
“So you aren't going to marry me, Peter?” Woman-like, now that she was well into the subject, she was far less embarrassed than Peter. She had had her cry. ”

“ His overwrought brain caught up the fancy that Death and he were side by side, racing together through the dark, at breathless, headlong speed, to Sissy, where she waited for them both.
Outside, the landscape lay dim and small, dwarfed by the presence of the night. And with the lights burning on its breast, as Sissy saw them in her half-waking visions, the express rushed southward across the level blackness of the land, beneath the arch of midnight sky. ”

“ Perhaps he will give us another good king or queen, like King Edward. I ask Him to do, every day. But, please, what is a vocation?”
“Thou dost, thou wicked maid? I never heard thee.”
“But I don’t ask you, Sister Joan. I ask God. And I think He’ll do it, too. What is a vocation, please?”
“What I’m afeared thou wilt never have, thou sinful heretic child—the call to become a holy Sister.”
“Who is to call me? I am a sister now; I’m Will’s and Baby’s sister. Nobody can’t call me to be a sister to nobody else,” said Cissy, getting very negative in her earnestness.
Sister Joan rose from her seat. ”

“ Sissy was perplexed for a few moments, and then their talk on the terrace a month before flashed into her mind—"Jael, or Judith, or Charlotte Corday," and she remembered the very intonation with which Percival had repeated "Judith." "Ah!" said the girl half aloud, with a sudden intuition, "he was thinking of her when he talked of heroic women!—Why wasn't I born noble and heroic as well as others? Is it my fault if I can't bear people to be angry with me—if I always stop and think and hesitate, and then the moment is gone? ”

“ The artist in Peter, the thing the girl loved in him, caught again that Messianic vision of himself.
“Why, no, Cissie,” he said, with a return of his inspiration of an hour ago; “I'll be going here and there all over the South preaching this gospel of kindliness and tolerance, of forgiveness of the faults of others.” Cissie looked at him with a queer expression. “I'll show the white people that they should treat the negro with consideration not for the sake of the negro, but for the sake of themselves. ”

“ She didn’t come to my bedside to wake me, as she always does; and I went to look for her. She was not in her own room either; and I went looking for her all over the house, until I found her here taking care of you and cooling your head. Will you see father? Sissy said I was to tell him when you woke.’
‘What a beaming face you have, Jane!’ said Louisa, as her young sister - timidly still - bent down to kiss her.
‘Have I? I am very glad you think so. I am sure it must be Sissy’s doing.’
The arm Louisa had begun to twine around her neck, unbent itself. ”

“ She was;’ Sissy made the terrible communication nervously; ‘she was a dancer.’
‘Did your father love her?’ Louisa asked these questions with a strong, wild, wandering interest peculiar to her; an interest gone astray like a banished creature, and hiding in solitary places. ”

“ If you should hear a dog, sir, it's only Merrylegs, and he only barks."
They followed the girl up some steep stairs, and stopped while she went on for a candle. Reappearing, with a face of great surprise, she said, "Father is not in our room, sir. If you wouldn't mind walking in, sir? I'll find him directly."
They walked in; and Sissy having set two chairs for them, sped away with a quick, light step. They heard the doors of rooms above opening and shutting, as Sissy went from one to another in quest of her father. ”

“ Sissy. Yith ma'am, I geth tho; and tell Mith Peath, the thent her thome of her pickleth.
Sadie and Bessie. Pickles! O, you dear little thing!
Jenny. O, isn't she a darling! (They all crowd round Sissy, take off her bonnet, kiss and hug her.) Isn't she splendid?
Bessie. I'll take the pail, little girl.
Sissy. (Putting pail behind her.) Yith marm; I geth not. My mother thed I muthn't give it to nobody but Mith Peath.
Bessie. Well, take off the cover, little girl. The pickles will spoil.
Sissy. I geth not. My mother's pickleth never thpoil.
Jenny. The little plague! Say, Sissy; do you like candy? ”

“ Sisily could be told that there is some obstacle which prevents her succeeding to the title. Robert has not brought her up as an heiress with expectations. He has never treated her fairly, poor girl. It was his dream to have a son to succeed him. Not that it would have made any difference if Sisily had been a son, after what’s come to light! Sisily would never question anything that was told her about this wretched title, for I’m quite sure that the idea of inheriting it has never entered her head. ”

“ Cissy, Mary, never re-appeared with him; he was always either alone or accompanied only by some gentleman who was lost in the blaze of his glory. There was another sense, however—and indeed there was more than one—in which she mostly found herself counting in the splendid creature with whom she had originally connected him. He addressed this correspondent neither as Mary nor as Cissy; but the girl was sure of whom it was, in Eaten Square, that he was perpetually wiring to—and all so irreproachably!—as Lady Bradeen. ”

“ Cissie had served sandwiches and coffee on a little table in the arbor, and then had kept Peter hours afterward. Around him still hung the glamour of Cissie's little supper. He could still see her rounded elbows that bent softly backward when she extended an arm, and the glimpses of her bosom when she leaned to hand him cream or sugar. She had accomplished the whole supper in the white manner, with all poise and daintiness. In fact, no one is more exquisitely polite than an octoroon woman when she desires to be polite, when she elevates the subserviency of her race into graciousness. ”

“ The whole night between herself and Percival! The darkness must come and must go, the sun must set and must again be high in the heavens, before he could stand by her side. It seemed to Sissy as if she were going down into the blackness of an awful gulf, where Death was waiting for her. Would she have strength to escape him, to toil up the farther side, and to reach the far-off to-morrow and Percival? "Aunt Harriet," she said, "shall I live till then? ”

“ Was it strange that Susy felt vexed when she found that her nice little surprise was all spoiled?
"Try to be patient," said Mrs. Parlin, gently. "Remember how young and thoughtless your sister is. She never means any harm."
"O, but, mamma," replied Susy, "she keeps me being patient all the whole time, and it's hard work."
So Susy, in her vexation, said to Prudy, rather sternly, "You little naughty thing, to go and tell when you promised not to! You're almost as bad as Dotty. "What makes you act so?" ”

“ Whenever a Zeppelin alarm scared the lodgers out of their "honey-heavy dew of slumber," Sisi had the sport of his life. Knowing that his mistress, even if a bomb were crashing through her ceiling, would not abandon him, he would dash hither and yon in a rapture of disobedience, now under the bed, now behind a bookcase, continually evading her frenzied clutches. Slippered feet went skurrying past the door, but still Sisi sprang and scampered, even wheeling about in giddy circles as if this were the chance of chances for a kitten to catch its tail. ”

“ But after she got up there, Sissy faded out of the world. In Baldy Bob's coach Split was [Pg. 200] seized with Wanderlust. She sat erect and still up there in front, her hands clasped in her lap, her shining eyes averted from the motionless tongue below and fixed on the unrolling landscapes of the world; on plains and valleys, on villages nestling in trees and flying past, on great rolling fields of grain—perhaps a smooth, light, continuous sort of sage-brush, wrinkling in the wind as the sunflowers seem to when one looks up at the mountain from the sluice-box. ”

“ With her bare foot on the soft pedal, that none might hear her, Sissy played. It was dark and very quiet; the hush-hush of the throbbing mines filled the night and stilled it. At times her heart stood still for fear that she might be discovered; at other times the longing for a sensational uncovering of her belated and extraordinary goodness seized her, and her naked foot slipped from the cold pedal only to be hurriedly replaced before the jangle of the keys could escape. ”