He met Doctor Prance in the village the next morning, and as soon as he
looked at her he saw that the event which had been impending at Miss
Chancellor's had taken place. It was not that her aspect was funereal;
but it contained, somehow, an announcement that she had, for the
present, no more thought to give to casting a line. Miss Birdseye had
quietly passed away, in the evening, an hour or two after Ransom's
visit. They had wheeled her chair into the house; there had been nothing
to do but wait for complete extinction. Miss Chancellor and Miss Tarrant
had sat by her there, without moving, each of her hands in theirs, and
she had just melted away, towards eight o'clock. It was a lovely death;
Doctor Prance intimated that she had never seen any that she thought
more seasonable. She added that she was a good woman--one of the old
sort; and that was the only funeral oration that Basil Ransom was
destined to hear pronounced upon Miss Birdseye. The impression of the
simplicity and humility of her end remained with him, and he reflected
more than once, during the days that followed, that the absence of pomp
and circumstance which had marked her career marked also the
consecration of her memory. She had been almost celebrated, she had been
active, earnest, ubiquitous beyond any one else, she had given herself
utterly to charities and creeds and causes; and yet the only persons,
apparently, to whom her death made a real difference were three young
women in a small "frame-house" on Cape Cod. Ransom learned from Doctor
Prance that her mortal remains were to be committed to their rest in the
little cemetery at Marmion, in sight of the pretty sea-view she loved to
gaze at, among old mossy headstones of mariners and fisher-folk. She had
seen the place when she first came down, when she was able to drive out
a little, and she had said she thought it must be pleasant to lie there.
It was not an injunction, a definite request; it had not occurred to
Miss Birdseye, at the end of her days, to take an exacting line or to
make, for the first time in eighty years, a personal claim. But Olive
Chancellor and Verena had put their construction on her appreciation of
the quietest corner of the striving, suffering world so weary a pilgrim
of philanthropy had ever beheld.
In the course of the day Ransom received a note of five lines from
Verena, the purport of which was to tell him that he must not expect to
see her again for the present; she wished to be very quiet and think
things over. She added the recommendation that he should leave the
neighbourhood for three or four days; there were plenty of strange old
places to see in that part of the country. Ransom meditated deeply on
this missive, and perceived that he should be guilty of very bad taste
in not immediately absenting himself. He knew that to Olive Chancellor's
vision his conduct already wore that stain, and it was useless,
therefore, for him to consider how he could displease her either less or
more. But he wished to convey to Verena the impression that he would do
anything in the wide world to gratify _her_ except give her up, and as
he packed his valise he had an idea that he was both behaving
beautifully and showing the finest diplomatic sense. To go away proved
to himself how secure he felt, what a conviction he had that however she
might turn and twist in his grasp he held her fast. The emotion she had
expressed as he stood there before poor Miss Birdseye was only one of
her instinctive contortions; he had taken due note of that--said to
himself that a good many more would probably occur before she would be
quiet. A woman that listens is lost, the old proverb says; and what had
Verena done for the last three weeks but listen?--not very long each
day, but with a degree of attention of which her not withdrawing from
Marmion was the measure. She had not told him that Olive wanted to whisk
her away, but he had not needed this confidence to know that if she
stayed on the field it was because she preferred to. She probably had an
idea she was fighting, but if she should fight no harder than she had
fought up to now he should continue to take the same view of his
success. She meant her request that he should go away for a few days as
something combative; but, decidedly, he scarcely felt the blow. He liked
to think that he had great tact with women, and he was sure Verena would
be struck with this quality in reading, in the note he presently
addressed her in reply to her own, that he had determined to take a
little run to Provincetown. As there was no one under the rather
ineffectual roof which sheltered him to whose hand he could entrust the
billet--at the Marmion hotel one had to be one's own messenger--he
walked to the village post-office to request that his note should be put
into Miss Chancellor's box. Here he met Doctor Prance, for a second time
that day; she had come to deposit the letters by which Olive notified a
few of Miss Birdseye's friends of the time and place of her obsequies.
This young lady was shut up with Verena, and Doctor Prance was
transacting all their business for them. Ransom felt that he made no
admission that would impugn his estimate of the sex to which she in a
manner belonged, in reflecting that she would acquit herself of these
delegated duties with the greatest rapidity and accuracy. He told her he
was going to absent himself for a few days, and expressed a friendly
hope that he should find her at Marmion on his return.
Her keen eye gauged him a moment, to see if he were joking; then she
said, "Well, I presume you think I can do as I like. But I can't."
"You mean you have got to go back to work?"
"Well, yes; my place is empty in the city."
"So is every other place. You had better remain till the end of the
season."
"It's all one season to me. I want to see my office-slate. I wouldn't
have stayed so long for any one but her."
"Well, then, good-bye," Ransom said. "I shall always remember our little
expeditions. And I wish you every professional distinction."
"That's why I want to go back," Doctor Prance replied, with her flat,
limited manner. He kept her a moment; he wanted to ask her about Verena.
While he was hesitating how to form his question she remarked, evidently
wishing to leave him a little memento of her sympathy, "Well, I hope you
will be able to follow up your views."
"My views, Miss Prance? I am sure I have never mentioned them to you!"
Then Ransom added, "How is Miss Tarrant to-day? is she more calm?"
"Oh no, she isn't calm at all," Doctor Prance answered, very definitely.
"Do you mean she's excited, emotional?"
"Well, she doesn't talk, she's perfectly still, and so is Miss
Chancellor. They're as still as two watchers--they don't speak. But you
can hear the silence vibrate."
"Vibrate?"
"Well, they are very nervous."
Ransom was confident, as I say, yet the effort that he made to extract a
good omen from this characterisation of the two ladies at the cottage
was not altogether successful. He would have liked to ask Doctor Prance
whether she didn't think he might count on Verena in the end; but he was
too shy for this, the subject of his relations with Miss Tarrant never
yet having been touched upon between them; and, besides, he didn't care
to hear himself put a question which was more or less an implication of
a doubt. So he compromised, with a sort of oblique and general inquiry
about Olive; that might draw some light. "What do you think of Miss
Chancellor--how does she strike you?"
Doctor Prance reflected a little, with an apparent consciousness that he
meant more than he asked. "Well, she's losing flesh," she presently
replied; and Ransom turned away, not encouraged, and feeling that, no
doubt, the little doctress had better go back to her office-slate.
He did the thing handsomely, remained at Provincetown a week, inhaling
the delicious air, smoking innumerable cigars, and lounging among the
ancient wharves, where the grass grew thick and the impression of fallen
greatness was still stronger than at Marmion. Like his friends the
Bostonians he was very nervous; there were days when he felt he must
rush back to the margin of that mild inlet; the voices of the air
whispered to him that in his absence he was being outwitted.
Nevertheless he stayed the time he had determined to stay; quieting
himself with the reflexion that there was nothing they could do to elude
him unless, perhaps, they should start again for Europe, which they were
not likely to do. If Miss Olive tried to hide Verena away in the United
States he would undertake to find her--though he was obliged to confess
that a flight to Europe would baffle him, owing to his want of cash for
pursuit. Nothing, however, was less probable than that they would cross
the Atlantic on the eve of Verena's projected _début_ at the Music Hall.
Before he went back to Marmion he wrote to this young lady, to announce
his reappearance there and let her know that he expected she would come
out to meet him the morning after. This conveyed the assurance that he
intended to take as much of the day as he could get; he had had enough
of the system of dragging through all the hours till a mere fraction of
time was left before night, and he couldn't wait so long, at any rate,
the day after his return. It was the afternoon train that had brought
him back from Provincetown, and in the evening he ascertained that the
Bostonians had not deserted the field. There were lights in the windows
of the house under the elms, and he stood where he had stood that
evening with Doctor Prance and listened to the waves of Verena's voice,
as she rehearsed her lecture. There were no waves this time, no sounds,
and no sign of life but the lamps; the place had apparently not ceased
to be given over to the conscious silence described by Doctor Prance.
Ransom felt that he gave an immense proof of chivalry in not calling
upon Verena to grant him an interview on the spot. She had not answered
his last note, but the next day she kept the tryst, at the hour he had
proposed; he saw her advance along the road, in a white dress, under a
big parasol, and again he found himself liking immensely the way she
walked. He was dismayed, however, at her face and what it portended;
pale, with red eyes, graver than she had ever been before, she appeared
to have spent the period of his absence in violent weeping. Yet that it
was not for him she had been crying was proved by the very first word
she spoke.
"I only came out to tell you definitely it's impossible! I have thought
over everything, taking plenty of time--over and over; and that is my
answer, finally, positively. You must take it--you shall have no other."