after. ‘Mrs. Myra Worden,’ that’s what her cards said _then_; they
used to say Mrs. Philip Worden--but when the black went on the ‘Philip’
came off. Mother said that she never heard her speak that name but jest
once, after the time she stood laughin’ like mad over his last letter.
Some one told Mrs. Worden that some one else had said that ‘she had a
tongue like a serpent’s,’ and mother says her eyes give a flash and
she throw’d up her head and she said almost wild-like: ‘I swore me an
oath and I’m keepin’ it. You should have waited; my nails are long now,
and sharp; already I have a serpent’s tongue. I might yet learn to
cuff, and curse and tear you with the rest! Ah! you should have waited,
Philip!’ My Suz! then came the trouble. Didn’t the biggest man, most,
we had in town up and blow out his miserable, dishonest, old brains,
because he had first lost his own money, and then had thrown away a
hull lot of Myra Worden’s after it--expectin’ to get both back, he
said. It was an awful loss. She didn’t say anythin’, hardly, but she
shook her head a bit, while she watched the young ones playing; she
only cared for their sakes. Some one said to her, ‘Such a disgrace, I
do wonder what his family will do?’ and she says so quiet-like: ‘Get
a much larger monument than is usual, and see that it’s of whitest
Carrara, I suppose. That’s what’s generally done in such cases.’
“Well, she give up livin’ in that house, and give up all the carriages
but jest a family affair that the children could be sent about in,
and came down to Lake Street. It was a pretty house, but Lord! not
like _her_ a bit. And if you’ll believe me, that girl, that Edith of
hern, cut up more monkey-shines and was madder than a hornet about it.
Little Phil thought it was fine; fact was, the little devil was in the
lake about half his time, but nobody liked to tell, and everybody knew
the dog would take care of him anyhow. They got along all right for a
while, she living for the work she could do for the poor and for the
love of them children, and they for lessons and fun. My Suz! she had
’em so they could jabber French all the time they was dressin’ and
until lunch, and then at that meal that Dutch woman she had, great
flat-faced, stupid thing, used to pitch in and make ’em eat that
meal in Dutch, or German she call’d it--though I vum! I can’t see no
difference between the two. And dancin’ lessons! and, O, Lord! I can’t
remember half they were studyin’ at, and so their mother let ’em have
lots of play too. So one day, she’d promised to take ’em to the circus
at night, and they were sure the day would be a year long; and some one
invited ’em to go out on the lake for a sail, and she ups and says,
‘_no_.’ Well, they was mad; but she was weather-wiser than any woman I
ever see, and she said to ’em, ‘No, my dearies, it’s fair now, but it’s
a treacherous fairness. I dare not let you go.’ Well, after sulkin’ a
bit, they asked if they might go and spend the day at Auntie Anna’s?
She wasn’t their true aunt, they jest called her that, and she was
nothin’ but a slave to ’em, and spoiled ’em--well, don’t talk! ‘But,’
said their mother, ‘if you go there to take tea, you will not have time
to dress for the circus!’ ‘Why, then, dress us now; we’ll be careful of
our things, mammy,’ said Edith, ‘and then we’ll come right from tea,
by our ownselves--oh! please, mammy, yes by our ownselves, and we’ll
stand on the corner over there and wave our hands and handkerchers to
you for a sign for you to come to us, and then we’ll all go on up town
together.’ They were jest sot on that plan. They felt it would be so
big for them to come alone, those few blocks, and then to stand on the
corner and make signs for her to come to them, and seein’ as she had
already cross’d them once, she consented, and right away they were
dressed and started off under the servant’s care to their auntie’s
house for the rest of the day. When they had kissed her good-by about a
dozen times--for the way they loved her jest was a caution now, I tell
you--little Phil runs back and he up and said, ‘Mammy, I’ll take care
of Edie--she’s the biggest, but I’m the strongest, and I’m the nearest
to a man, ain’t I? So, I’ll hold her hand all the way when we’re alone,
mammy, and I won’t let anybody speak to her, ’till you come down to
us,’ and she kissed him again, and called him, as she often did, her
‘man-child,’ and away he went after Edie. The next time she saw the
poor, little things, Phil was a keepin’ his word.
“Mrs. Worden went on with her doin’s, whatever they was, and along
couple hours later she sees the sky darkenin’. There had been a good
many small boats out on the water, and she felt uneasy when she
noticed ’twas getting dark. Everythin’ along the bank was different
then to what it’s now, you know. Some of them long slopes was all
green and right pretty to sit out on, and lots of people used to walk
there and look at the lake and do their sparkin’, and sometimes people
would crowd the bank to watch a wreck and shout and yell, if anyone
was saved. Well, as I was sayin’, Mrs. Worden she goes to look out,
when a girl comes screechin’ to her ‘that a boat had been capsized,
and the folks that had gone out to save the upset people were now in
danger from the wind that was blowin’, and there was crowds out there
watchin’ already!’ Mrs. Worden wraps herself up in a cloak and goes
out, too, to the bank. Lord! Lord! that storm! and the shortness of it.
I had a sailor boardin’ here then--nasty, drunken brute he was, too--he
said somethin’ about their having where he come from what was called
a ‘black squall,’ and that that was one. Well, I don’t know nothin’
about black squalls, but I do know, and you know, and every one else
as knows ‘Old Erie’ at all, knows there ain’t no lake on God’s earth
that’s as treacherous or as lightenin’ quick in evil-doing, and when
Mrs. Worden gets out there, the crowd was already cryin’ out, and
wringin’ hands, and runnin’ up and down. And, sure enough, there right
close in was a bit of a pleasure boat of some sort, and, oh, dear! I
can’t tell you no rights or wrongs, I was there too, but when I seen
them poor creatures hold out their arms towards us standin’ safe on
solid ground, I jest sot right down on the bank, for my legs couldn’t
hold me up. Then a rumor ran through the crowd that there was children
on the boat, and one great groan went up, and Mrs. Worden says: ‘God
pity some poor mother’s heart! my own children might have been there,
for they begged to go out to-day, but I forbade it,’ and right behind
her stopped a woman who had come up runnin’ like mad, and was movin’
her lips and not makin’ a single sound, and that woman was Aunt Anna.
At that moment a vivid flash of color was seen on the deck, it was
a girl’s pink dress; next instant the crowd groaned: ‘The children,
oh! God! see the children! and they are holdin’ hands, they look this
way!’ A man was standin’, holdin’ a pair of glasses to his eyes, and
without a word Mrs. Worden put out her shakin’ hand and seized them,
while the silent woman, with the ashen grey face, fell down upon her
knees and bowed her head behind her. The instant the glass was at
her eyes Mrs. Worden stopped shakin’. She stood solid as a rock and
she jest said: ‘Oh! Mother of God!’ and there she stood, and it was
only a moment or two after that, oh! well, there was awful screechin’
from the women and some groans from the men, and it was all over. I
looked at her. She took the glass from her eyes, and holdin’ it in
her hand a minute, she stood looking down at it, then she gave a kind
of start-like, and she holds it out to the man, and she said slowly,
each word kind of by itself, ‘I thank you, sir, it is a good glass,’
and she turned and walked a step or two, and then without a sound,
fell all her length, upon the ground. They carried her to her home,
but Aunt Anna was taken to another house and cared for, and there she
told how she had not been strong enough to refuse them, when they had
entreated, and the people who invited them were old friends of hers,
and would, she knew, be very careful; but where she took on the worst,
was when she told about how the dog had to be tied, to keep him from
following them. The ladies feared he might jump into the water and get
in the boat again and spoil their dresses; and he fought like mad to
get loose, and howled and barked his voice clean away. And I haven’t
no doubt but he’d a saved one of ’em, for he was that strong, and a
regular water-dog, and he’d brought the boy out against his will more
than once, when people had sent him after Phil just for fun. Well, Aunt
Anna was afraid of her life to meet Mrs. Worden, but she needn’t have
been, for she hardly noticed her when she did see her. The doctors
that come that time didn’t like her doin’s at all. She never cried a
minute. That’s the truth, and she had seen her own and only children go
to the bottom of the lake hand in hand. People that went there cried;
the help just cried buckets full, and she looked at ’em, and one day
she said: ‘I wonder how they do it? I can’t!’ and the doctor, once he
got kind of mad-like, and he says: ‘Bend, woman, bend, or you’re bound
to break! Do you think you have the strength to bear this blow as you
bore the other one?’ but she only answered calmly: ‘I am what I am! I
did not make myself.’ When he left he felt all upsot and he was cross
as a bear with a sore head, and he said when Aunt Anna came up to ask
about her, ‘She will cry, or die, or go mad; and the last looks the
likeliest to me,’ and off he went. The minister he tried what he could
do. He was a pudgy, kind-hearted man, and he had young children of his
own, and he tried to talk resignation and that sort of thing, and she
jest said to him when he got good and through, ‘Has _your_ house been
made desolate to you in one hour?’ and he jest burst right out crying,
and he says, ‘Ah! you poor woman, how can you bear it?’ and she jumped
from her chair and lifted up her face, and beating on her breast with
both her clinched fists, she almost screamed out: ‘Bear it? Bear it?
Why I--’ she stopped right in a minute and she sat down and said, ‘You
will pardon me, won’t you? But, see now, you have little ones, yours,
your own blood in their veins, and you can imagine, can’t you, the
hunger, the agony of hunger I suffer for a sight of my little ones’
faces? I could wait a thousand years if only I could see them then, but
they’re out there!’ waving her hand toward the lake. ‘Never, never,
shall I see them again!’ and he, poor, old man, he jest sobbed and
said: ‘Never, till the sea gives up its dead!’ At them words she gave a
great cry--that’s the way the minister put it--she gave a great cry and
she said: ‘My God! My God! I had forgotten--when the sea gives up its
dead, and His words stand firmer than the everlasting hills!’ She threw
herself upon her knees, and holding up her hands she cried out loud,
‘Lord, thou hast sent my soul down into hell, but for Thy great words,
will I praise Thee forever!’ She turned and kissed the minister’s hand
and blessed him for reminding her. ‘They are truthful children, and
have long memories,’ she said, ‘and when the sea gives up its dead,
they will give the promised sign, and I will join them, and we will
all go on together. So I will watch and wait, just watch and wait for
my dear ones’ sign!’ And that was full fifty years ago, for I was but
eighteen then, and Myra Worden has watched at that lake’s side faithful
ever since; though from that day people have called her mad, and I
suppose she _is_, poor soul.”
I bowed my head upon my hands; dully I heard Mrs. Bulkley going on
about some bank’s failure, something about a fire that had followed
close upon the failure, and the word ruin, many times repeated, but my
real attention was fixed upon a picture that rose before me. I saw, as
plainly as I ever saw anything in my life, a great, level plain, and
far away against the angry sunset sky, a line of low unwooded hills
encircled it. It was unspeakably dreary--no trees, no water, no rise
and fall, dip or break in the monotonous, dead level of the ground.
Far away to the left, in the growing darkness, I saw the towers and
cupolas of a fair, white city, and from its distant gates a path was
worn across the dismal plain--a path so faint, so narrow, it could
only have been made by one lone traveler’s feet. At the very farthest
end, and on either side, there were faint outlines as of fallen bodies,
and there were broken urns, and jars, and some withered garlands; but
for all its greater length, it was narrow, faint and bare. And while
I looked, suddenly, at its opposite end, that nearest to the hills,
there appeared the figure of that traveler whose weary feet had worn
that piteous path. Behind her, the fair, white city; before her, the
bleak and savage hills. The tall figure, in its sombre garments, seemed
the very spirit of desolation. The face was turned away from me, but
there was that in the figure which made my heart leap up in quick
recognition, and then, so truly as you live, _then_ I heard a voice,
clear and distinct, but seemingly very, very far away, and it said: “I
am Myra, ‘she who weeps!’”
I gave a start so violent that I turned my tea-cup completely over,
and, putting it hastily to rights again, saw Mrs. Bulkley looking her
grimy handkerchief over carefully to find a promising bit to rub her
glasses with. Her false front was much awry, and her small eyes were
red, and she was finishing, as she had begun, with the assertion that
“Mrs. Worden was breaking up, no doubt of that, since she had taken up
with a theatre-girl, of all people on the footstool, well! well!”
I thanked the “Busy B” for her tea and her information, and I greatly
fear I proved an unsatisfactory confidant for Mary, who dearly loved
plenty of “oh’s!” and “ah’s!” and “did you ever’s?” while she poured
forth tales of the numbers of magnificent male creatures who madly
pursued her through life, she always baffling them, however. By the
way, she must have kept up her habit of baffling the magnificent ones,
because she eventually married a baker with a veritable low-comedy
name, by the side of which “Bowersocks,” would look grave and dignified.
The pain I felt in hearing Mrs. Worden coarsely and disrespectfully
spoken of opened my eyes to the extent of the veneration and affection
I had grown to feel for her. That creature in whom the world saw a
desolate woman, whose haughty, old head was held high, and whose
piercing, hawk’s eye spied out its weakness, but in whom I saw the
wearily faithful, old watcher, by the restless lake, waiting through
the long years, always “waiting for the sign.” To me, her sorrows had
made her sacred.
I had never seen any creature who seemed so absolutely bloodless as did
old Mrs. Worden, and no matter how often I might meet her, the moment
my eye took in the waxen pallor of her face, I experienced an uncanny
feeling of familiarity. I would ask myself, “Of whom does she remind
me?” knowing all the time that I had never seen anyone who resembled
her in the slightest degree.
But one day as she sat, as ever, facing the lake, with her eyes cast
down upon her cup, the cold, dull light falling upon the clear-cut
features of her wax-white face, turning it into a veritable mask of
death, I looked steadily at the hollow of her temples--not the faintest
pulsation there. I gazed steadily at her throat--not a pulse-beat could
I see, though I knew my own full throat would throb and swell at times
as though it had an independent existence. As I looked, I thought, if
she should run a needle deep into her finger I believe nothing would
follow its withdrawal, and so, like a flash, it leaped into my mind who
she was like. The very counterpart of old King Duncan! He of the mighty
tragedy--the victim of that woman who raved in her crime-haunted sleep;
not of pity at his “taking off,” not of remorse, but only of that
stupendous surprise: “Who would have thought the old man had so much
blood in him!”
The good, old man with the wool-white locks, and the saintly soul
housed in the parchment-like body--yes! like this he looked. Yet her
dagger thrust had been followed by a rush of royal blood that not only
“laced” all his followers and “pooled” about his body, but stained her
hand with a stain too deep for an ocean’s waves to wash away.
Never since have I read or thought of Duncan without seeing Mrs.
Worden’s features beneath the golden round of sovereignty. All the
life, the strength, the spirit she had left, was gathered up into
the fire of her eyes, and when the ashes of her lids covered their
glow, her face was as the face of Duncan, dead. Were Mrs. Worden
living now, she would probably be called a “mind reader.” Then many
people declared her to be clairvoyant. Be that as it may, she had,
beyond doubt, a wonderful power of reading or guessing other people’s
thoughts, a power which added greatly to the terror with which she
inspired some of her townsmen whose thoughts were not always of a
quality or nature to invite close feminine inspection. As for myself,
she had divined my thoughts, time and again, with a calm exactitude
that filled me with awe; and that day, while I still gazed at her
mask-like face, she raised her eyes, looked steadily into mine a
moment, and in an even voice asked: “Well? Whom am I like? The Witch of
Endor?” and, without a moment’s pause, obediently as a little child, I
made answer: “No, ma’am, you are like King Duncan!”
A quick frown knit her black brows. Never since that far-away day of
the giving of the shawl-pin, had she, by word or sign, hinted at her
knowledge of my being an actress, and I saw the allusion to Macbeth was
unwelcome to her. However, she quickly recovered from her annoyance,
and, with her usual aptness, asked: “Do you find the likeness purely
physical, or do I, like the old soldier king, ‘lag superfluous on the
stage of life’?”
To which I gaily and gratefully replied: “At all events I shall not,
like Mistress Macbeth, try to ‘push you from your stool’!”
And her answer, to my annoyance, was: “How--how--is she going to do
it?”
She was thinking aloud, but I knew only too well that her question
referred to me; and equally well I knew that a bad quarter of an hour
was directly before me. Several times the old lady had declared that I
was going to make my mark in the world, but she was greatly puzzled,
very naturally, to know how I was to do it. She had, therefore, fallen
into a way of analyzing my character, before my very face, with
positively brutal frankness, and, so far, she had always failed to find
out how I was to attain the success she foretold for me.
Really, it seemed a form of vivisection she subjected me to, and I
squirmed in unpleasant anticipation when I heard that: “How--how is she
going to do it?”
I had no suggestion to offer, so I drank my coffee silently. She
studied my face a moment, and then she said: “Yes--yes, you will, I
tell you! But, _how_! You are not aggressive enough to win by _force_!
Oh, you can fight fast enough, flaring nostrils! but you will always
fight on the defensive. You are clever, but you are not clever enough!
Intellect isn’t going to win for you. How _are_ you going to do it?
Yet you are to dominate, to have power. I’ve seen it in the arch of
your bared foot, in the unbeautiful square of your shoulders, in the
tenacious grasp of your hand. If you had great beauty now--there, don’t
redden that way: never blush above the eyes, it’s not becoming--you
are all right; you’re straight, and fair, and wholesome. You have
enough good looks for men to hang their lies upon, but you have not a
world-conquering beauty. Deuce take me, girl, if I can make it!”
While she had been harrying me I had once turned my head to see why the
room had darkened so noticeably, and saw a heavy fog was creeping in
from the lake, and now that she had come to her “giving it up” place,
she turned her eyes slowly toward their usual resting place, the lake,
and a quick change came over her. She started a little, then her head
drooped slowly until her chin rested on her hand. With unwinking eyes
she stared straight ahead of her, while gradually the brightness all
died out of them, a slightly distressed raising of her brows threw deep
furrows across her forehead, her nostrils were pinched, her thin lips
tight pressed, while over all her face grew a look only to be described
by one word--a look of woe!
It wrung my heart! I looked and looked at her--the tears rose thick
in my eyes, then slowly, slowly I seemed to understand, to _know_,
what was grieving her. It was the surrounding fog, silently, steadily,
blotting out everything between heaven and earth! Even her longing
mother’s eyes could not pierce that soft density, could not distinguish
the purplish, dark line that, to her belief, marked her darlings’
resting place out there in the great lake.
I bore it as long as I could, and then I leant across the tiny table,
and, laying my warm hand upon her chill one, I said: “Dear Mrs. Worden,
do not grieve, the fog often lifts at sunset. Then, perhaps, you may
see the purple line before the night comes on!”
Her eyes came slowly back to mine, she smiled gratefully at me, and
then all suddenly the fire flashed into them again. She rose to her
feet, her head held high in her imperious way, and cried, triumphantly:
“I have it now, girl! You have given me the clue! You will succeed
by your power of sympathy! You will not fight the world, you will
open your great heart to its sorrows, and the many-headed public will
neither growl at nor tear you, but will come at your call, your friend
and your defender. When you know you have succeeded, say once to
yourself, ‘Old Myra saw, old Myra told me true.’”
Then with an indescribably tragic gesture she pressed one hand upon her
breast and said: “She who weeps!” while her other hand fell softly upon
my head, and she murmured, “Clear, Light, Illustrious!”
Her tone thrilled me, there was such sincerity, such intensity in it.
I sat quite silent, but I drew her cold hand down and pressed my check
against it, and that moment there came a heavy knocking on the lower
front door. I sprang up, saying: “Let me go, Mrs. Worden, please!” and,
without awaiting permission, went cautiously down the sagging stairs
and found a man at the door with the usual sealed package for Mrs.
Worden. When the signing for it was all over, I ran back, calling out
joyously, “Lace! lace! Mrs. Worden--more lace! You will open it before
I go, won’t you, so that I may see it?”
Mrs. Worden, meeting my request with, “You girl! When are you going to
learn not to prance when you are pleased? Can’t you keep your joy out
of your legs?” went, all the same, to the other table for scissors to
cut the cord and seals at once; for she really enjoyed showing me her
precious charges; and I eagerly watched her every movement. The note
enclosed she laid aside with a scornful, “Humph! as if I didn’t know
what to do without their telling me.”
Then she unrolled the inner tissue-paper. There were two pieces of lace
within. One delicate, oh! as cobweb, I thought, as it lay there in its
folds. The other heavier, and a mere scrap.
“Why,” said she, taking it up first, “why, this must be, is a bit of
old Flanders cut-work, but what a scrap! Oh, yes! I see now, it belongs
to some collector; it is simply an example of the brave, old work,
and I see, girl Clara, it needs two, yes, three, little brides or
braces--see where they are broken? I’ll have a time, now, to wait for
thread to darken to anything like that tone.”
And she talked earnestly, almost happily on, about her little tricks
and devices for staining threads, etc. Then she laid her hands upon the
folded lace: “Ah, I think you’re going to have a treat now, this is--”
the words died on her lips. From her throat came a sound, strange,
startling, neither sob nor groan, and yet like unto both! She held a
length of lace between her hands; she swayed slightly back and forth,
and turning my frightened eyes upon her face, I thought: “Behold! a
miracle!”