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Page 53
Her mamma was so distressed that she fell into hysterics, and hardly
knew what she was saying. She said the bulldog must be shot for fear he
should go mad, and Amelia's wound must be done with a red-hot poker for
fear _she_ should go mad (with hydrophobia). And as of course she
couldn't bear the pain of this, she must have chloroform, and she would
most probably die of that; for as one in several thousands dies
annually under chloroform, it was evident that her chance of life was
very small indeed. So, as the poor lady said, "Whether we shoot Amelia
and burn the bulldog--at least I mean shoot the bulldog and burn Amelia
with a red-hot poker--or leave it alone; and whether Amelia or the
bulldog has chloroform or bears it without--it seems to be death or
madness every way!"
And as the doctor did not come fast enough, she ran out without her
bonnet to meet him, and Amelia's papa, who was very much distressed
too, ran after her with her bonnet. Meanwhile the doctor came in by
another way, and found Amelia sitting on the dining-room floor with the
bulldog, and crying bitterly. She was telling him that they wanted to
shoot him, but that they should not, for it was all her fault and not
his. But she did not tell him that she was to be burnt with a red-hot
poker, for she thought it might hurt his feelings. And then she wept
afresh, and kissed the bulldog, and the bulldog kissed her with his red
tongue, and rubbed his pink nose against her, and beat his own tail
much harder on the floor than Amelia had ever hit it. She said the same
things to the doctor, but she told him also that she was willing to be
burnt without chloroform if it must be done, and if they would spare
the bulldog. And though she looked very white, she meant what she said.
But the doctor looked at her leg, and found that it was only a snap,
and not a deep wound; and then he looked at the bulldog, and saw that
so far from looking mad, he looked a great deal more sensible than
anybody in the house. So he only washed Amelia's leg and bound it up,
and she was not burnt with the poker, neither did she get hydrophobia;
but she had got a good lesson on manners, and thenceforward she always
behaved with the utmost propriety to animals, though she tormented her
mother's friends as much as ever.
Now although Amelia's mamma's acquaintances were too polite to complain
before her face, they made up for it by what they said behind her back.
In allusion to the poor lady's ineffectual remonstrances, one gentleman
said that the more mischief Amelia did, the dearer she seemed to grow
to her mother. And somebody else replied that however dear she might be
as a daughter, she was certainly a very _dear_ friend, and proposed
that they should send in a bill for all the damages she had done in the
course of the year, as a round robin to her parents at Christmas. From
which it may be seen that Amelia was not popular with her parents'
friends, as (to do grown-up people justice) good children almost
invariably are.
If she was not a favourite in the drawing-room, she was still less so
in the nursery, where, besides all the hardships naturally belonging to
attendance on a spoilt child, the poor Nurse was kept, as she said, "on
the continual go" by Amelia's reckless destruction of her clothes. It
was not fair wear and tear, it was not an occasional fall in the mire,
or an accidental rent or two during a game at "Hunt the Hare," but it
was constant wilful destruction, which Nurse had to repair as best she
might. No entreaties would induce Amelia to "take care" of anything.
She walked obstinately on the muddy side of the road when Nurse pointed
out the clean parts, kicking up the dirt with her feet; if she climbed
a wall she never tried to free her dress if it had caught; on she
rushed, and half a skirt might be left behind for any care she had in
the matter. "They must be mended," or "They must be washed," was all
she thought about it.
"You seem to think things clean and mend themselves, Miss Amelia," said
poor Nurse one day.
"No, I don't," said Amelia, rudely. "I think you do them; what are you
here for?"
But though she spoke in this insolent and unlady-like fashion, Amelia
really did not realize what the tasks were which her carelessness
imposed on other people. When every hour of Nurse's day had been spent
in struggling to keep her wilful young lady regularly fed, decently
dressed, and moderately well behaved (except, indeed, those hours when
her mother was fighting the same battle down-stairs); and when at last,
after the hardest struggle of all, she had been got to bed not more
than two hours later than her appointed time, even then there was no
rest for Nurse. Amelia's mamma could at last lean back in her chair and
have a quiet chat with her husband, which was not broken in upon every
two minutes, and Amelia herself was asleep; but Nurse must sit up for
hours wearing out her eyes by the light of a tallow candle, in
fine-darning great, jagged, and most unnecessary holes in Amelia's
muslin dresses. Or perhaps she had to wash and iron clothes for
Amelia's wear next day. For sometimes she was so very destructive, that
towards the end of the week she had used up all her clothes and had no
clean ones to fall back upon.
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