"Call him up," I says.
She shook her head again and made her pretty mouth all tight.
"I couldn't," she says. "I couldn't."
She seemed to like to sit and talk it over, kind of luxurious. She told
me how it began--some twopenny thing about screens in the parlor window.
She told me how one thing led to another. I let her talk and I sat there
thinking. Pretty soon she went home and she never sung once all day. It
didn't seem as if anybody's screens were worth that.
I'm not one that's ashamed of looking at anything I'm interested in.
When it came time for the folks from the afternoon local, I sat down in
my parlor behind the Nottinghams. I saw she never came out to the gate.
And when he came home I could see her white dress out in the back garden
where she was pretending to work.
He sat down on the front porch and smoked, and seemed to read the paper.
She came in the house after a while, and finally she appeared in the
front door for three-fourths of a second.
"Your supper's ready for you," I heard her say. And then I knew,
certain sure, how they were both sitting there at their table not
speaking a word.
I ate my own supper, and I felt like a funeral was going on. It kills
something in me to have young folks, or any folks, act like that. And
when I went back in the parlor I saw him on the front porch again,
smoking, and her on the side porch playing with the kitten.
"It's the first death," I says. "It's their first kind of death. And I
can't stand it a minute longer."
So when I saw him start out pretty soon to go downtown alone--I went to
my front gate and I called to him to come over. He came--a fine,
close-knit chap he was, with the young not rubbed out of his face yet,
and his eyes window-clear.
"The catch on my closet-door don't act right," I says. "I wonder if
you'll fix it for me?"
He went up and done it, and I ran for the tools for him and tried to get
my courage up. When he got through and came down I was sitting on my
hall-tree.
"Mr. Groom," I says--that was my name for him--"I hope you won't think
I'm interfering _too_ much, but I want to speak to you serious about
your wife."
"Yes," he says, short.
I went on, never noticing: "I dunno whether you've took it in, but
there seems to be something wrong with her."
"Wrong with her?" he says.
"Yes, sir," I says. "And I dunno but awfully wrong. I've been noticing
lately." (I didn't say _how_ lately.)
"What do you mean?" says he, and sat down on the bottom step.
"Don't you see," I says, "that she don't look well? She don't act no
more like herself than I do. She hasn't," says I, truthful, "half the
spirit to her to-day that she had when you first came here to the
village."
"Why--no," he says, "I hadn't noticed--"
"You wouldn't," says I. "You wouldn't be likely to. But it seems to me
that you ought to be warned--and be on your guard."
"_Warned!_" he says, and I saw him get pale--I tell you I saw him get
pale.
"I'm not easy alarmed," I told him. "And when I see anything serious, it
ain't in my power to stand aside and not say anything."
"Serious," he says over. "Serious? But, Miss Marsh, can you give me any
idea--"
"I've give you a hint," says I, "that it's something you'd ought to be
mighty careful about. I dunno's I can do much more; I dunno's I ought to
do that. But if anything should happen--"
"Good heavens!" he says. "You don't think she's that bad off?"
"--if anything should happen," I went on, calm, "I didn't want to have
myself to blame for not having spoke up in time. Now," says I, brisk,
"you were just going downtown. And I've got a taste of jell I want to
take over to her. So I won't keep you."
He got up, looking so near like a tree that's had its roots hacked at
that I 'most could have told him that I didn't mean the kind of death he
was thinking of at all. But I didn't say anything more. And he thanked
me, humble and grateful and scared, and went off downtown. He looked
over to the cottage, though, when he shut my gate--I noticed that. She
wasn't anywhere in sight. Nor she wasn't when I stepped up onto her
porch in a minute or two with a cup-plate of my new quince jell that I
wanted her to try.
"Hello," I says in the passage. "Anybody home?"
There was a little shuffle and she came out of the dining-room. There
was a mark all acrost her cheek, and I judged she'd been lying on the
couch out there crying.
"Get a teaspoon," says I, "and come taste my new receipt."
She came, lack-luster, and like jell didn't make much more difference
than anything else. We sat down, cozy, in the hammock, me acting like
I'd forgot everything in the world about what had gone before. I rattled
on about the new way to make my jell and then I set the sample on the
sill behind the shutter and I says:
"I just had Mr. Groom come over to fix the latch on my closet-door. I
dunno what was wrong with it--when I shut it tight it went off like a
gun in the middle of the night. Mr. Groom fixed it in just a minute."
"Oh, he did," says she, about like that.
"He's awful handy with tools," I says. And she didn't say anything. And
then says I:
"Mrs. Bride, we're old friends by now, ain't we?"
"Why, yes," says she, "and good friends, I hope."
"That's what I hope," I says. "And now," I went on, "I hope you won't
think I'm interfering too much, but I want to speak to you serious about
your husband."
"My husband?" says she, short.
I went on, never noticing. "I don't know whether you've took it in, but
there seems to be something wrong with him."
"What do you mean?" she says, looking at me.
"Well, sir," I says, "I ain't sure. I can't tell just how wrong it is.
But something is ailing him."
"Why, I haven't noticed anything," she says, and come over to a chair
nearer to me.
"You don't mean," I says, "that you don't notice the change there's been
in him?"--I didn't say in how long--"the lines in his face and how
different he acts?"
"Oh, no," she says. "Why, surely not!"
"Surely _yes_," says I. "It strikes me--it struck me over there
to-night--that something is the matter--_serious_."
"Oh, don't say that," she says. "You frighten me."
"I'm sorry for that," says I. "But it's better to be frightened too soon
than too late. And if anything should happen I wouldn't want to think--"
"Oh!" she says, sharp, "what do you think could happen?"
"--I wouldn't want to think," I went on, "that I had suspicioned and
hadn't warned you."
"But what can I do--" she began.
"You can watch out," I says, "now that you know. Folks get careless
about their near and dear--that's all. They don't notice that anything's
the matter till it's too late."
"Oh, dear!" she says. "Oh, if anything should happen to Harry, why, Miss
Marsh--"
"Exactly," says I.
We talked on a little while till I heard what I was waiting for--him
coming up the street. I noticed that he hadn't been gone downtown long
enough to buy a match.
"I'm going over to Miss Matey's for some pie-plant," I says. "Her second
crop is on. Can I go through your back gate? Maybe I'll come back this
way."
When I went around their house I saw that she was still standing on the
porch and he was coming in the gate. And I never looked back at all--bad
as I wanted to.
It was deep dusk when I came back. The air was as gentle as somebody
that likes you when they're liking you most.
When I came by the end of the porch I heard voices, so I knew that they
were talking. And then I caught just one sentence. You'd think I could
have been contented to slip through the front yard and leave them to
work it out. But I wasn't. In fact I'd only just got the stage set ready
for what I meant to do.