AMONG THE SHADOWS.
Now Abigail Williams sat waiting for her brother, in vague expectation,
for Wahpee had given no account of his chief's movements, and Abby could
only listen for the sound of his footsteps on the forest turf.
All at once, as her eyes wandered toward the woods, she heard a
movement, but not in that direction. The meeting-house stood close on
the verge of the forest, and the arched window, back of its pulpit, was
almost touched by the swinging tree-branches. Between them and the
building Abby saw a human figure moving swiftly through the gloom.
"Tituba, Tituba--look up," she whispered, hushing her very breath, for
the figure came out into the starlight, and glided toward them like a
ghost.
Tituba lifted her face, and held the chant trembling on her lips; they
were both in the deep darkness of the pines; but the woman who came
forward had the starlight on her face.
"Is it--is it my mother?" whispered Abby, prompt to believe any thing
strange in the excitement of the moment. "See how sad, how beautiful she
is."
Tituba pressed back against her young mistress, striving to bury herself
more deeply in the darkness.
"Is it my mother--or the one you loved so much?"
Tituba drew a long breath, but did not answer; for the figure came close
up to the two graves, and stooping down, tried to make out the
moss-grown letters on the stone, tracing the outline with her
fore-finger when the light proved insufficient.
"Mother!"
The word died on Abby's lips, and was carried off in the whisper of the
pine leaves.
Tituba lifted her hand, grasping that in Abby's lap with a warning
force.
"Elizabeth--yes! it is Elizabeth--Elizabeth Pa-r-ris! The moss chokes up
the name, but it is here. Poor girl--poor young wife!" murmured a low,
sweet voice from out of the shadows. "And this grave, so close, with the
vines creeping over both. Who can this be? Elizabeth Parris was an
orphan, a beautiful charity child of the church--who can be lying so
close?"
The woman knelt down, as she uttered these disjointed words, and touched
the foliage on the two graves lightly with her hands.
"Here it was they buried the old man's heart. I almost feel the blossoms
springing out of it!" murmured the voice. "Oh, if there were only a
place for another here--surely this spot would be quiet and roomy enough
for us all!"
The strange woman took a ribbon slowly from her waist, as she spoke, and
held it in the starlight.
"I have but to tighten this about my throat, and lie down--a pang or
two--a struggle, and when the light drives these shadows back into the
woods, some one would find me here--in charity they would dig through
the turf a little, and lay me down by sweet Elizabeth Parris. Who would
know of it? Who, on the broad earth, would care? It would only be a
poor, lone woman, dropping into death before her time--a wanderer, worn
out with travel through a weary, weary world, who asked only to lie down
and be still."
The tender sadness of these words--the despondency in that face, touched
Abby Williams to the heart. She was about to rise, but Tituba held her
back.
The woman's hand dropped, trailing the ribbon on the grass. She seemed
to fall into thought. Her eyes were uplifted towards the stars, and with
solemn mournfulness she spoke again:
"A little while, and this soul would be yonder, standing before those
bright gates, and asking for that love in heaven which earth has denied;
asking this of God, who has not summoned me, but who will look first on
the crimson mark around my neck. No, no; even death is not mine to
take--I must wander on and on, till God is merciful and calls me!"
With a slow, weary movement of the hands, she tied the ribbon around her
waist again, and, sitting down on the grave of Elizabeth Parris, folded
her arms, with a gesture of unutterable despondency, as if she were
waiting for the death she dared not take.
That moment there was a movement in the forest. Abby and the Indian
woman looked that way, but it was only a young fawn, which came leaping
through the brushwood, and basked a moment in the starlight before she
returned to the thicket, from which some stronger animal had frightened
her.
When Abby looked toward the grave again, nothing was there. The cool,
green leaves twinkled in the starlight, as if no human thing had touched
them. She arose and searched the grass. Not a footprint could be found,
and the open space, which lay between them and the meeting-house, was
vacant. She looked at the Indian woman in vague alarm.
"Who was this woman? and where has she gone?"
Tituba shook her head. She was a firm believer in ghosts and witchcraft.
The apparition had filled her with terrible awe. Once before, in her
life, she had seen the same face gleaming before her in the starlight of
a summer's evening; and after that came sore trouble on the household.
"Was it my mother searching for rest? Will she wander forever and ever,
unless I avenge her?"
"Come into the house, child, it is near morning: the chief will not be
here to-night."
"Tell me," cried Abigail, solemnly, "for I must know: was it my mother?"
"I did not see her face. Something came across my eyes and blinded them;
but she was tall and stately like your mother."
"She need not come again, I will not falter," said Abigail, with
sorrowful earnestness.
They went together into the house, full of vague dread. Tituba followed
the young girl up-stairs, and forcing her to lie down, coiled herself up
at the foot of the bed, and lay with her bright, black eyes wide open,
till the morning broke. Then she arose softly, and going down to the
kitchen, began to prepare breakfast. Wahpee had not yet returned from
the woods, and there was no one to provide for but the young girl
up-stairs; but the old woman mixed her corn bread, stamped the pats of
golden butter, and set her rye coffee down to boil in its conical tin
pot, with as much bustle of preparation as if the whole family were to
partake of the meal she was preparing.
When all was ready, when the round, cherry-wood table was turned down
from its place in a corner of the sitting-room, and drawn up to the
window, through which the sweet summer air came rippling among the wild
roses and bitter-sweet vines, Tituba went up to the room where Abby was
sleeping. It was a singular face upon which the old woman gazed. The
masses of raven hair, the long, inky lashes, and the mouth, so
beautifully red, possessed a rare loveliness, which the agitation of
other features could not altogether destroy. But the forehead was
contracted with a frown, the lips writhed with a troubled expression,
and her billowy hair rippled to and fro on the pillow from the constant
change of position, sought for in her restless sleep.
"Abby--Abby!" whispered the old woman, "come, wake up; it is most seven
o'clock, and the breakfast all ready."
Abby turned on the pillow, and her forehead gathered into a heavy frown.
"Do not call me, mother. Why will you wander on--on--on forever and
ever, so restlessly, as if your child would not keep her oath? Wait a
little, while I look on your face. The wave of your white garments
troubles me. The starlight is dim. I cannot hold you in my look, or
grasp you with my hand--oh--"
She opened her eyes with a groan, and sat up in bed. The gentle shake
which Tituba had given her seemed to wrench the garments, she had seized
upon in her dreams, rudely from her grasp.
"Breakfast is ready, child."
"Breakfast!"
"Yes, child, breakfast; warm Johnny cake, and a nice little bit of ham.
Don't think any more about it. If the Great Spirit sends witches, he
knows how to keep 'em under."
"I will come down," said Abby, wearily, holding one hand to her
forehead.
"That's a good child--and do try and look a little like old times. What
if the minister and our Lizzy should come back to-day?--who knows?"
"Heaven forbid!" cried the young girl, in pale affright. "I am not ready
yet. How can I tell what the woman wants till she speaks to me? If Anna
Hutchinson must be avenged, explain how the evil thing is to be done.
Dear Tituba, tell me truly. You don't expect the minister home to-day?"
"Why, how can I tell for certain? He ought to have been home weeks ago."
"Am I changed, Tituba? Hold up the looking-glass, and let me see for
myself."
Tituba raised the little looking-glass, in its carved cherry-wood frame,
and held it before the girl's face.
Abby shook her head mournfully.
"How old I look! What a strange glitter comes and goes in these eyes. It
is the Indian blood, I suppose. That, and the things I have been told,
Tituba. Don't it seem a great deal more than three weeks since the
minister went away?"
"I don't know--yes! I shouldn't wonder if it seems so; but Tituba counts
time from the week when Miss Elizabeth went off to visit Lady Phipps in
her grand, new house at Boston. Oh, it will be like a bird getting back
to its nest when she comes home."
"A bird getting back to its nest--old Tituba? Well, why not? She will
sleep quietly, and dream sweetly as ever. It is only I--I. Come, old
Tituba, let's go down to breakfast; at least we have twelve hours of day
before us: who knows what another night will bring?"
"Yes, yes--come to breakfast; it's unhealthy talking on an empty
stomach."
As they went through the little entry way below stairs, a soft knock
came to the outer door. Abby went forward and sat down at the
breakfast-table, while Tituba lifted the wooden latch and opened the
door.
A lady stood on the step, wrapped in a scarlet mantle, with the hood
drawn over her face. She was pale, and seemed to have walked a great
distance, for her light boots of foreign make were torn at the sides,
and soiled with moist earth, while the edge of a light gray silk dress,
which fell below her mantle, was frayed and spotted, as if it had been
dragged over wet grass.
The woman lifted her eyes to Tituba an instant before she spoke; then,
in a voice singularly low and gentle, she inquired if Mr. Parris had
reached home yet.
Old Tituba replied, with a little unaccountable hesitation, that the
minister had gone to Boston; that he intended to bring Miss Elizabeth
home with him; but that there was no saying, for a certainty, when they
would come.
"You may expect them within an hour or two," said the stranger, gently,
"so I will step in and wait."
She glided softly into the hall while speaking, opened the sitting-room
door like one used to the house, and went in.
Abby had seated herself at the table, but she arose as the stranger
entered, naturally looking that way. The thrill that passed through her
frame amounted almost to a shock. Two contending wishes seized upon her.
She longed to dash through the window and flee; yet was impelled toward
the stranger by a power she could neither understand nor resist.
With this conflict of the nerves visible on her face, she came forward
and laid her hand in that of the stranger. Again the thrill passed over
her, but as those soft fingers closed upon her hand, this singular
agitation went off in a pleasant shiver, and the two females smiled
sadly on each other, like persons who had met for the first time after
some severe bereavement.
"Your old servant tells me that the minister is not at home yet," said
the lady, "so I have ventured to come in and wait. Do not let me disturb
you at breakfast though; I will walk toward the meeting-house yonder; it
seems a quaint, old building."
She turned as if to go, but Abby could not give up the hand in hers
without a feeling of emotion amounting almost to pain.
"No, lady, stay and take breakfast with me. I am alone, you see; old
Tituba never sits at a table, but eats her meals as she goes about her
work. You look tired, and as if a warm cup of coffee would refresh you.
Take off your mantle and sit down in this chair."
Abby drew the great oak chair up to the table, and stood with one hand
on the back, waiting for her guest to throw off her mantle. But the lady
only pushed the hood back to her shoulders, revealing a quantity of
splendid hair, that was swept from her white temples in heavy waves. The
face thus exhibited was not young, nor would a common-place observer
have called it beautiful; but it was a grand face, nevertheless, and one
which no great-hearted man or woman could have looked upon without a
glow of enthusiasm.
She sat down in the oak chair, took the earthen coffee-cup which Abby
had filled for her, and began slowly and wearily to drink the contents.
She broke off a morsel of the corn bread now and then, with the
indifferent air of one whose appetite is forced, but did not fail to say
a few gentle words to her hostess, with that delicate self-abnegation
which makes a well-bred woman forget her own weariness or suffering, at
all times, where the feelings of others are concerned.
The reaction of a strong excitement was on Abigail. But the fascination
which surrounded this woman was so irresistible that she forgot every
thing but the charm of her presence.
Old Tituba came in and out of the room, clearing away the breakfast
things as the two females drew back from their meal. At last, eying the
stranger with keen interest, the old woman drew close up to the oak
chair, and, peering over the lady's shoulder, said, in her curt way,
"You forgot to tell me what your name was when you asked for the
minister."
"My name," said the lady, with a faint smile. "Yes! I did forget it. My
name is Barbara Stafford."