The three women from Green River had been six days in Elliot, they
were going to leave the next morning, and Mrs. Field's secret had not
been discovered. Nothing but her ill favor in the village had saved
her. Nobody except Mrs. Jane Maxwell had come to call. Mrs. Babcock
talked and wondered about it a great deal to Mrs. Green and Amanda.
"It's mighty queer, seems to me, that there ain't a soul but that one
old woman set foot inside this house since we've been here," said
she. "It don't look to me as if folks here thought much of Mis'
Field. I know one thing: there couldn't three strange ladies come
visitin' to Green River without I should feel as if I'd ought to go
an' call an' find out who they was, an' pay 'em a little attention,
if I thought anything at all of the folks they was visitin'. There's
considerable more dress here, but I guess, on the whole, it ain't any
better a place to live in than Green River."
The three women had not had a very lively or pleasant visit in
Elliot. Jane Field, full of grim defiance of her own guilt and misery
and of them, was not a successful entertainer of guests. She fed them
as best she could with her scanty resources, and after her house-work
was done, took her knitting-work and sat with them in her gloomy
sitting-room, while they also kept busy at the little pieces of
handiwork they had brought with them.
They talked desperately of Green River and the people there; they
told Mrs. Field of this one and that one whom she had known, and in
whom she had been interested; but she seemed to have forgotten
everybody and everything connected with her old life.
"Ida Starr is goin' to marry the minister in October," Mrs. Babcock
had said the day but one after their arrival. "You know there was
some talk about it before you went away, Mis' Field. You remember
hearin' about it, don't you?"
"I guess I don't remember it," said Mrs. Field.
"Don't remember it? Why, Mis' Field, I should think you'd remember
that! It was town's talk how she followed him up. Well, she's got
him, an' she's been teachin'--you know she had Lois's school--to get
money for her weddin' outfit. They say she's got a brown silk dress
to be married in, an' a new black silk one too. Should you think the
Starrs could afford any such outlay?"
"I dunno as I should," replied Mrs. Field.
When she went out of the room presently, Mrs. Babcock turned to the
others. "She didn't act as if she cared no more about it than nothin'
at all," she said indignantly. "She don't act to me as if she had any
more interest in Green River than Jerusalem, nor the folks that live
there. I keep thinkin' I won't tell her another thing about it. I
never see anybody so changed as she is."
"Mebbe she ain't well," said Mrs. Green. "I think she looks awfully.
She's as thin as a rail, an' she ain't a mite of color. Lois looks
better."
"Mis' Field never did have any flesh on her bones," Mrs. Babcock
rejoined; "an' as for Lois, nothin' ever did ail her but spring
weather an' fussin'. I guess Mis' Field's well enough, but havin' all
this property left her has made a different woman of her. I've seen
people's noses teeter up in the air when their purses got heavy
before now."
"It ain't that," said Amanda.
"What is it, then?" asked Mrs. Babcock sharply.
"I dunno. I know one thing: home's the best place for everybody if
they've got one."
"I don't think 'tis always. I b'lieve when you're off on an excursion
ticket in makin' the best of things, for my part. To-morrow's Sunday,
an' I expect to enjoy the meetin' an' seein' the folks. I shall be
kinder glad, for my part, not to see exactly the same old bonnets an'
made-over silks that I see every Sunday to home. I like a change
sometimes. It puts new ideas into your head, an' I feel as if I had
spunk enough to stan' it."
On Sunday Mrs. Field led her procession of guests into church; and
they, in their best black gowns and bonnets, sat listening to the
sermon, and looking about with decorous and furtive curiosity.
Mrs. Babcock had a handsome fan with spangles on it, and she fanned
herself airily, lifting her head up with the innocent importance of a
stranger.
She had quite a fine bonnet, and a new mantle with some beaded fringe
on it; when she stirred, it tinkled. She looked around and did not
see another woman with one as handsome. It was the gala moment of her
visit to Elliot. Afterward she was wont to say that when she was in
Elliot she did not go out much, nobody came to the house nor
anything, but she went to meeting and she enjoyed that.
It was the evening following that Mrs. Jane Maxwell came. Mrs. Field,
sitting with her guests, felt a strange contraction of her heart when
she heard the door open.
"Who's that comin'?" asked Mrs. Babcock.
"I guess it's old Mr. Maxwell's brother Henry's wife," replied Mrs.
Field.
She arose. Lois went quickly and softly out of the other door. She
felt sure that exposure was near, and her first impulse was to be out
of sound and hearing of it. She sat there in the dark on the front
door-step awhile, then she went into the house. Sitting there in
doubt, half hearing what might be dreadful to hear, was worse than
certainty. She had at once a benumbing terror and a fierce desire
that her mother should be betrayed, and withal a sudden impulse of
loyalty toward her, a feeling that she would stand by her when
everybody else turned against her.
She crept in and sat down. Mrs. Maxwell was talking to Mrs. Babcock
about the state of the church in Elliot. It was wonderful that this
call was made without exposure, but it was. Twice Mrs. Maxwell called
Jane Field "Esther," but nobody noticed it except Amanda, and she
said nothing. She only caught her breath each time with a little
gasp.
Mrs. Maxwell addressed herself almost wholly to Mrs. Babcock
concerning her daughter, her daughter's husband, and the people of
Elliot. Mrs. Babcock constantly bore down upon her, and swerved her
aside with her own topics. Indeed, all the conversation lay between
these two. There was a curious similarity between them. They belonged
apparently to some one subdivision of human nature, being as birds of
the same feather, and seemed to instinctively recognize this fact.
They were at once attracted, and regarded each other with a kind of
tentative cordiality, which might later become antagonism, for they
were on a level for either friendship or enmity.
Mrs. Maxwell made a long call, as she was accustomed to do. She was a
frequent visitor, generally coming in the evening, and going home
laden with spoil, creeping from cover to cover like a cat. She was
afraid to have her daughter and nephew know of all the booty she
obtained. She had many things snugly tucked away in bureau drawers
and the depths of closets which she had carried home under her shawl
by night. Jane Field was only too glad to give her all for which she
asked or hinted.
To-night, as Mrs. Maxwell took leave of the three strange women
standing in a prim row, she gave a meaning nod to Mrs. Field, who
followed her to the door.
"I was thinkin' about that old glass preserve-dish," she whispered.
"I don't s'pose it's worth much, but if you don't use it ever, I
s'pose I might as well have it. Flora has considerable company now,
an' ours ain't a very good size."
When Mrs. Maxwell had gone out of the yard with the heavy cut-glass
dish pressed firmly against her side under her black silk shawl, Jane
Field felt like one who had had a reprieve from instant execution,
although she had already suffered the slow torture. She went back to
her guests as steady-faced as ever. She was quite sure none of them
had noticed Mrs. Maxwell's calling her Esther, but her eyes were like
a wary animal's as she entered the room, although not a line in her
long pale face was unsteady.
The time went on and nobody said, "Why did she call you Esther
instead of Jane?"
They seemed as usual. Mrs. Babcock questioned her sharply about Mrs.
Maxwell--how much property she had and if her daughter had married
well. Amanda never looked in her face, and said nothing, but she was
often quiet and engrossed in a new tidy she was knitting.
"They don't suspect," Mrs. Field said to herself.
They were going home the next day but one; she went to bed nearly as
secure as she had been for the last three months. Mrs. Maxwell was to
be busy the next day--she had spoken of making pear sauce--she would
not be in again. The danger of exposure from the coming of these
three women to Elliot was probably past. But Jane Field lay awake all
night. Suddenly at dawn she formed a plan; her mind was settled.
There was seemingly no struggle. It was to her as if she turned a
corner, once turned there was no other way, and no question about it.
When it was time, she got up, dressed herself, and went about the
house, as usual. There was no difference in her look or manner, but
all the morning Lois kept glancing at her in a startled,
half-involuntary way; then she would look away again, seeing nothing
to warrant it, but ere long her eyes turned again toward her mother's
face. It was as if she had a subtle consciousness of something there
which was beyond vision, and to which her vision gave the lie. When
she looked away she saw it again, but it vanished when her eyes were
turned, like a black robe through a door.
After dinner, when the dishes were cleared away, the three visitors
sat as usual in company state with their needle-work. Amanda's bag
upstairs was all neatly packed. She would need to unpack it again
that night, but it was a comfort to her. She had scarcely spoken all
day; her thin mouth had a set look.
"Mandy's gettin' so homesick she can't speak," said Mrs. Babcock.
"She can't hardly wait till to-morrow to start, can you, Mandy?"
"No, I can't," replied Amanda.
Mrs. Field was in her bedroom changing her dress when Lois put on her
hat and went down the street with some finished work for the
dressmaker for whom she sewed.
"Where you goin', Lois?" asked Mrs. Babcock, when she came through
the room with her hat on.
"I'm going out a little ways," answered Lois evasively. She had tried
to keep the fact of her sewing for a living from the Green River
women. She knew how people in Elliot talked about it, and estranged
as she was from her mother, she wanted no more reflections cast upon
her.
But Mrs. Babcock peeped out of a window as Lois went down the path.
"She's got a bundle," she whispered. "I tell you what 'tis, I suspect
that girl is sewin' for somebody to earn money. I should think her
mother would be ashamed of herself."
Lois had a half mile to walk, and she stayed awhile at the
dressmaker's to sew. When she started homeward it was nearly three
o'clock.
It was a beautiful afternoon, the house yards were full of the late
summer flowers, the fields were white and gold with arnica and
wild-carrot instead of buttercups and daisies, the blackberries were
ripe along the road-side, and there were sturdy thickets of weeds
picked out with golden buttons of tansy over the stone walls. Lois
stepped along lightly. She did not look like the same girl of three
months ago. It was strange that in spite of all her terrible distress
of mind and hard struggles since she came to Elliot it should have
been so, but it was. Every life has its own conditions, although some
are poisons. Whether it had been as Mrs. Babcock thought, that the
girl had been afflicted with no real malady, only the languor of the
spring, intensified and fostered in some subtle fashion by her
mother's anxiety, or whether it had been the purer air of Elliot that
had brought about the change, to whatever it might have been due, she
was certainly better.
Lois had on an old pink muslin dress that she had worn many a summer,
indeed the tucks had been let down to accord with her growth, and
showed in bars of brighter pink around the skirt. But the color of
the dress became her well, her young shoulders filled out the thin
fabric with sweet curves that overcame the old fashion of its make;
her slender arms showed through the sleeves; and her small fair face
was set in a muslin frill like a pink corolla. She had to pass the
cemetery on her way home. As she came in sight of its white shafts,
and headstones gleaming out from its dark foliage, she met Francis
Arms. She started when she saw him, and said, "Good-afternoon"
nervously; then was passing on, but he stopped her.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"I was going home."
"See here--I don't know as you want to--but--do you remember how we
went to walk in the cemetery that first day after you came?"
Lois nodded. He could see only the tip of her chin under her broad
hat.
"Suppose--if you haven't anything else to do--if you are not
busy--that we go in there now a little ways?" said Francis.
"I guess I'd better not," replied Lois, in a trembling voice.
"It's real cool in there."
"I'm afraid I'd better not."
"Well," said Francis, "of course I won't tease you if you don't want
to."
He tried to make his tone quite unconcerned and to smile. He was
passing on, but Lois spoke.
"I might go in there just a minute," she said.
Francis turned quickly, his face lighted up. They walked along
together to the cemetery gate; he opened it and they entered and
passed slowly down the drive-way.
The yard was largely overhung by evergreen trees, which held in their
boughs cool masses of blue gloom. It was cool there, as Francis had
said, although it was quite a warm day. The flowers on the sunny
graves hung low, unless they had been freshly tended, when they stood
erect in dark circles. Some of the old uncared-for graves were
covered with rank growths of grass and weeds, which seemed fairly
instinct with merry life this summer afternoon. Crickets and cicadas
thrilled through them; now and then a bird flew up. It was like a
resurrection stir.
"Let's go where we went that first day," said Francis; "it's always
pleasant there on the bank."
Lois followed him without a word. They sat down on the grass at the
edge of the terrace, and a cool breeze came in their faces from over
the great hollow of the meadows below. The grass on them had been cut
short, and now had dried and turned a rosy color in the sun. The two
kept their eyes turned away from each other, and looked down into the
meadow as into the rosy hollow of a cup; but they seemed to see each
other's faces there.
"It's cool here, isn't it?" said Francis.
"Real cool."
"It always is on the hottest day. There is always a breeze here, if
there isn't anywhere else."
Francis's words were casual, but his voice was unsteady with a tender
tone that seemed to overweight it.
Lois seemed to hear only this tone, and not the words. It was one of
the primitive tones that came before any language was made, and
related to the first necessities of man. Suddenly she had ears for
that only. She did not say anything. Her hands were folded in her lap
quietly, but her fingers tingled.
"Lois," Francis began; then he stopped.
Lois did not look up.
"See here, Lois," he went on, "I don't know as there is much use in
my saying anything. You've hardly noticed me lately. There was one
spell when I thought maybe-- But-- Well, I'm going to ask you, and
have it over with one way or the other. Lois, do you think--well, do
you feel as if you could ever--marry me some time?"
Lois dropped her head down on her hands.
"Now don't you go to feeling bad if you can't," said Francis. "It
won't be your fault. But if you'd just tell me, Lois."
Lois did not speak.
"If you'd just tell me one way or the other, Lois."
"I can't. I can't anyway!" cried Lois then, with a great sob.
"Well, if you can't, don't cry, little girl. There's nothing to cry
about. I can stand it. All the trouble is, it does seem to me that I
could take care of you better than any other fellow on earth, but
maybe that's my conceit, and you'll find somebody else that will do
better than I. Now don't cry." Francis pulled her hat off gently,
and patted her head. His face was quite white, but he tried to smile.
"Don't cry, dear," he said again. "It was nothing you could help. I
didn't much suppose you liked me. There's nothing much in me to like.
I'm an ordinary kind of a fellow."
Francis got up and walked off a little way.
Lois sobbed harder. Finally she stole a glance at him between her
fingers. She could see his profile quite pale and stern as he stood
on the edge of the terrace. She made a little inarticulate call, and
he turned quickly.
"What is it, Lois?" he asked, coming toward her.
"I didn't say--I--didn't like you," she whispered faintly.
"Lois!"
"I didn't say so."
"Lois, do you? Answer me quick."
She hid her face again.
"Lois, you must answer me now."
"I like you well enough, but I can't marry you."
"Lois, is there any fellow in Green River that wants you? Is that the
reason?"
She shook her head. "I can't ever marry anybody," she said, and her
voice was suddenly quite firm. She wiped her eyes.
Francis sat down beside her. "O Lois, you do love me, after all?"
"I can't marry you," said she.
"Why not, dear?"
"I can't. You mustn't ask me why."
Francis looked down at her half laughing. "Some dreadful obstacle in
the way?"
She nodded solemnly.
Francis put his arm around her. "Oh, my dear," he said, "don't you
know obstacles go for nothing if you do like me, after all? Wait a
little and you'll find out. O Lois, are you sure you do like me? You
are so pretty."
"I can't," repeated Lois, trembling.
"Suppose this obstacle were removed, dear, you would then?"
"It never can be."
"But if it were, you would? Yes, of course you would. Then I shall
remove it, you depend upon it, I shall, dear. Lois, I liked you the
minute I saw you, and, it's terribly conceited, but I do believe you
liked me a little. Dear, if it ever can be, I'll take care of you all
my life."
The two sat there together, and the long summer afternoon passed
humming and singing with bees and birds, and breathing sweetly
through the pine branches. They themselves were as a fixed heart of
love in the midst of it, and all around them in their graves lay the
dead who had known and gone beyond it all, but nobody could tell if
they had forgotten.