1909
I
Once in a while there come to me out of the long ago the fragments of a
story I have not thought of for years--one that has been hidden in the
dim lumber-room of my brain where I store my by-gone memories.
These fragments thrust themselves out of the past as do the cuffs of
an old-fashioned coat, the flutings of a flounce, or the lacings of a
bodice from out a quickly opened bureau drawer. Only when you follow
the cuff along the sleeve to the broad shoulder; smooth out the crushed
frill that swayed about her form, and trace the silken thread to the
waist it tightened, can you determine the fashion of the day in which
they were worn.
And with the rummaging of this lumber-room come the odors: dry smells
from musty old trunks packed with bundles of faded letters and worthless
deeds tied with red tape; musty smells from dust-covered chests, iron
bound, holding mouldy books, their backs loose; pungent smells
from cracked wardrobes stuffed with moth-eaten hunting-coats,
riding-trousers, and high boots with rusty spurs--cross-country riders
these--roisterers and gamesters--a sorry lot, no doubt.
Or perhaps it is an old bow-legged high-boy--its club-feet slippered on
easy rollers--the kind with deep drawers kept awake by rattling brass
handles, its outside veneer so highly polished that you are quite sure
it must have been brought up in some distinguished family. The scent of
old lavender and spiced rose leaves, and a stick or two of white orris
root, haunt this relic: my lady’s laces must be kept fresh, and so must
my lady’s long white mitts--they reach from her dainty knuckles quite
to her elbow. And so must her cobwebbed silk stockings and the filmy
kerchief she folds across her bosom:
It is this kind of a drawer that I am opening now--one belonging to the
Little Gray Lady.
As I look through its contents my eyes resting on the finger of a glove,
the end of a lace scarf, and the handle of an old fan, my mind goes back
to the last time she wore them. Then I begin turning everything upside
down, lifting the corner of this incident, prying under that no bit of
talk, recalling what he said and who told of it (I shall have the whole
drawer empty before I get through), and whose fault it was that the
match was broken off, and why she, of all women in the world, should
have remained single all those years. Why, too, she should have lost her
identity, so to speak, and become the Little Gray Lady.
And yet no sobriquet could better express her personality: She was
little--a dainty, elf-like littleness, with tiny feet and wee hands;
she was gray--a soft, silver gray--too gray for her forty years (and
this fragment begins when she was forty); and she was a lady in every
beat of her warm heart; in every pressure of her white hand; in her
voice, speech--in all her thoughts and movements.
She lived in the quaintest of old houses fronted by a brick path
bordered with fragrant box, which led up to an old-fashioned porch,
its door brightened by a brass knocker. This, together with the
knobs, steps, and slits of windows on each side of the door, was kept
scrupulously clean by old Margaret, who had lived with her for years.
But it is her personality and not her surroundings that lingers in my
memory. No one ever heard anything sweeter than her voice; in and nobody
ever looked into a lovelier face, even if there were little hollows in
the cheeks and shy, fanlike wrinkles lurking about the corners of her
lambent brown eyes. Nor did her gray hair mar her beauty. It was not
old, dry, and withered--a wispy gray. (That is not the way it happened.)
It was a new, all-of-a-sudden gray, and in less than a week--so
Margaret once told me--bleaching its brown gold to silver. But the
gloss remained, and so did the richness of the folds, and the wealth and
weight of it.
Inside the green-painted door, with its white trim and brass knocker and
knobs, there was a narrow hall hung with old portraits, opening into a
room literally all fireplace. Here there were gouty sofas, and five or
six big easy-chairs ranged in a half-circle, with arms held out as
if begging somebody to sit in them; and here, too, was an embroidered
worsted fire screen that slid up and down a standard, to shield one’s
face from the blazing logs; and there were queer tables and old-gold
curtains looped back with brass rosettes--ears really--behind which
the tresses of the parted curtains were tucked; and there were more old
portraits in dingy frames, and samplers under glass, and a rug which
some aunt had made with her own hands from odds and ends; and a huge
work-basket spilling worsteds, and last, and by no manner of means
least, a big chintz-covered rocking-chair, the little lady’s very
own--its thin ankles and splay feet hidden by a modest frill. There were
all these things and a lot more--and yet I still maintain that the
room was just one big fireplace. Not alone because of its size (and it
certainly was big: many a doubting curly head, losing its faith in Santa
Claus, has crawled behind the old fire-dogs, the child’s fingers tight
about the Little Gray Lady’s, and been told to look up into the blue--a
lesson never forgotten all their lives), but because of the wonderful
and never-to-be-told-of things which constantly took place before its
blazing embers.
For this fireplace was the Little Gray Lady’s altar. Here she dispensed
wisdom and cheer and love. Everybody in Pomford village had sat in one
or the other of the chairs grouped about it and had poured out their
hearts to her. All sorts of pourings: love affairs, for instance, that
were hopeless until she would take the girl’s hand in her own and smooth
out the tangle; to-say nothing of bickerings behind closed doors, with
two lives pulling apart until her dear arms brought them together.
But all this is only the outside of the old mahogany high-boy with its
meerschaum-pipe polish, spraddling legs, and rattling handles.
Now for the Little Gray Lady’s own particular drawer.