I have been to Jean’s parlor. Such a turmoil of Christmas presents for
servants and friends! They are everywhere; tables, chairs, sofas, the
floor—everything is occupied, and over-occupied. It is many and many a
year since I have seen the like. In that ancient day Mrs. Clemens and I
used to slip softly into the nursery at midnight on Christmas Eve and
look the array of presents over. The children were little then. And now
here is Jean’s parlor looking just as that nursery used to look. The
presents are not labeled—the hands are forever idle that would have
labeled them today. Jean’s mother always worked herself down with her
Christmas preparations. Jean did the same yesterday and the preceding
days, and the fatigue has cost her her life. The fatigue caused the
convulsion that attacked her this morning. She had had no attack for
months.
Jean was so full of life and energy that she was constantly in danger
of overtaxing her strength. Every morning she was in the saddle by half
past seven, and off to the station for her mail. She examined the
letters and I distributed them: some to her, some to Mr. Paine, the
others to the stenographer and myself. She dispatched her share and
then mounted her horse again and went around superintending her farm
and her poultry the rest of the day. Sometimes she played billiards
with me after dinner, but she was usually too tired to play, and went
early to bed.
Yesterday afternoon I told her about some plans I had been devising
while absent in Bermuda, to lighten her burdens. We would get a
housekeeper; also we would put her share of the secretary-work into Mr.
Paine’s hands.
No—she wasn’t willing. She had been making plans herself. The matter
ended in a compromise, I submitted. I always did. She wouldn’t audit
the bills and let Paine fill out the checks—she would continue to
attend to that herself. Also, she would continue to be housekeeper, and
let Katy assist. Also, she would continue to answer the letters of
personal friends for me. Such was the compromise. Both of us called it
by that name, though I was not able to see where any formidable change
had been made.
However, Jean was pleased, and that was sufficient for me. She was
proud of being my secretary, and I was never able to persuade her to
give up any part of her share in that unlovely work.
In the talk last night I said I found everything going so smoothly that
if she were willing I would go back to Bermuda in February and get
blessedly out of the clash and turmoil again for another month. She was
urgent that I should do it, and said that if I would put off the trip
until March she would take Katy and go with me. We struck hands upon
that, and said it was settled. I had a mind to write to Bermuda by
tomorrow’s ship and secure a furnished house and servants. I meant to
write the letter this morning. But it will never be written, now.
For she lies yonder, and before her is another journey than that.
Night is closing down; the rim of the sun barely shows above the
sky-line of the hills.
I have been looking at that face again that was growing dearer and
dearer to me every day. I was getting acquainted with Jean in these
last nine months. She had been long an exile from home when she came to
us three-quarters of a year ago. She had been shut up in sanitariums,
many miles from us. How eloquently glad and grateful she was to cross
her father’s threshold again!
Would I bring her back to life if I could do it? I would not. If a word
would do it, I would beg for strength to withhold the word. And I would
have the strength; I am sure of it. In her loss I am almost bankrupt,
and my life is a bitterness, but I am content: for she has been
enriched with the most precious of all gifts—that gift which makes all
other gifts mean and poor—death. I have never wanted any released
friend of mine restored to life since I reached manhood. I felt in this
way when Susy passed away; and later my wife, and later Mr. Rogers.
When Clara met me at the station in New York and told me Mr. Rogers had
died suddenly that morning, my thought was, Oh, favorite of
fortune—fortunate all his long and lovely life—fortunate to his latest
moment! The reporters said there were tears of sorrow in my eyes.
True—but they were for _me_, not for him. He had suffered no loss. All
the fortunes he had ever made before were poverty compared with this
one.
Why did I build this house, two years ago? To shelter this vast
emptiness? How foolish I was! But I shall stay in it. The spirits of
the dead hallow a house, for me. It was not so with other members of my
family. Susy died in the house we built in Hartford. Mrs. Clemens would
never enter it again. But it made the house dearer to me. I have
entered it once since, when it was tenantless and silent and forlorn,
but to me it was a holy place and beautiful. It seemed to me that the
spirits of the dead were all about me, and would speak to me and
welcome me if they could: Livy, and Susy, and George, and Henry
Robinson, and Charles Dudley Warner. How good and kind they were, and
how lovable their lives! In fancy I could see them all again, I could
call the children back and hear them romp again with George—that
peerless black ex-slave and children’s idol who came one day—a flitting
stranger—to wash windows, and stayed eighteen years. Until he died.
Clara and Jean would never enter again the New York hotel which their
mother had frequented in earlier days. They could not bear it. But I
shall stay in this house. It is dearer to me tonight than ever it was
before. Jean’s spirit will make it beautiful for me always. Her lonely
and tragic death—but I will not think of that now.
Jean’s mother always devoted two or three weeks to Christmas shopping,
and was always physically exhausted when Christmas Eve came. Jean was
her very own child—she wore herself out present-hunting in New York
these latter days. Paine has just found on her desk a long list of
names—fifty, he thinks—people to whom she sent presents last night.
Apparently she forgot no one. And Katy found there a roll of
bank-notes, for the servants.
Her dog has been wandering about the grounds today, comradeless and
forlorn. I have seen him from the windows. She got him from Germany. He
has tall ears and looks exactly like a wolf. He was educated in
Germany, and knows no language but the German. Jean gave him no orders
save in that tongue. And so when the burglar-alarm made a fierce clamor
at midnight a fortnight ago, the butler, who is French and knows no
German, tried in vain to interest the dog in the supposed burglar. Jean
wrote me, to Bermuda, about the incident. It was the last letter I was
ever to receive from her bright head and her competent hand. The dog
will not be neglected.
There was never a kinder heart than Jean’s. From her childhood up she
always spent the most of her allowance on charities of one kind and
another. After she became secretary and had her income doubled she
spent her money upon these things with a free hand. Mine too, I am glad
and grateful to say.
She was a loyal friend to all animals, and she loved them all, birds,
beasts, and everything—even snakes—an inheritance from me. She knew all
the birds; she was high up in that lore. She became a member of various
humane societies when she was still a little girl—both here and
abroad—and she remained an active member to the last. She founded two
or three societies for the protection of animals, here and in Europe.
She was an embarrassing secretary, for she fished my correspondence out
of the waste-basket and answered the letters. She thought all letters
deserved the courtesy of an answer. Her mother brought her up in that
kindly error.
She could write a good letter, and was swift with her pen. She had but
an indifferent ear for music, but her tongue took to languages with an
easy facility. She never allowed her Italian, French, and German to get
rusty through neglect.
The telegrams of sympathy are flowing in, from far and wide, now, just
as they did in Italy five years and a half ago, when this child’s
mother laid down her blameless life. They cannot heal the hurt, but
they take away some of the pain. When Jean and I kissed hands and
parted at my door last, how little did we imagine that in twenty-two
hours the telegraph would be bringing words like these:
“From the bottom of our hearts we send our sympathy, dearest of
friends.”
For many and many a day to come, wherever I go in this house,
remembrancers of Jean will mutely speak to me of her. Who can count the
number of them?
She was in exile two years with the hope of healing her
malady—epilepsy. There are no words to express how grateful I am that
she did not meet her fate in the hands of strangers, but in the loving
shelter of her own home.
“MISS JEAN IS DEAD!”
It is true. Jean is dead.
A month ago I was writing bubbling and hilarious articles for magazines
yet to appear, and now I am writing—this.
CHRISTMAS DAY. NOON.—Last night I went to Jean’s room at intervals, and
turned back the sheet and looked at the peaceful face, and kissed the
cold brow, and remembered that heartbreaking night in Florence so long
ago, in that cavernous and silent vast villa, when I crept downstairs
so many times, and turned back a sheet and looked at a face just like
this one—Jean’s mother’s face—and kissed a brow that was just like this
one. And last night I saw again what I had seen then—that strange and
lovely miracle—the sweet, soft contours of early maidenhood restored by
the gracious hand of death! When Jean’s mother lay dead, all trace of
care, and trouble, and suffering, and the corroding years had vanished
out of the face, and I was looking again upon it as I had known and
worshiped it in its young bloom and beauty a whole generation before.
About three in the morning, while wandering about the house in the deep
silences, as one does in times like these, when there is a dumb sense
that something has been lost that will never be found again, yet must
be sought, if only for the employment the useless seeking gives, I came
upon Jean’s dog in the hall downstairs, and noted that he did not
spring to greet me, according to his hospitable habit, but came slow
and sorrowfully; also I remembered that he had not visited Jean’s
apartment since the tragedy. Poor fellow, did he know? I think so.
Always when Jean was abroad in the open he was with her; always when
she was in the house he was with her, in the night as well as in the
day. Her parlor was his bedroom. Whenever I happened upon him on the
ground floor he always followed me about, and when I went upstairs he
went too—in a tumultuous gallop. But now it was different: after
patting him a little I went to the library—he remained behind; when I
went upstairs he did not follow me, save with his wistful eyes. He has
wonderful eyes—big, and kind, and eloquent. He can talk with them. He
is a beautiful creature, and is of the breed of the New York
police-dogs. I do not like dogs, because they bark when there is no
occasion for it; but I have liked this one from the beginning, because
he belonged to Jean, and because he never barks except when there is
occasion—which is not oftener than twice a week.
In my wanderings I visited Jean’s parlor. On a shelf I found a pile of
my books, and I knew what it meant. She was waiting for me to come home
from Bermuda and autograph them, then she would send them away. If I
only knew whom she intended them for! But I shall never know. I will
keep them. Her hand has touched them—it is an accolade—they are noble,
now.
And in a closet she had hidden a surprise for me—a thing I have often
wished I owned: a noble big globe. I couldn’t see it for the tears. She
will never know the pride I take in it, and the pleasure. Today the
mails are full of loving remembrances for her: full of those old, old
kind words she loved so well, “Merry Christmas to Jean!” If she could
only have lived one day longer!
At last she ran out of money, and would not use mine. So she sent to
one of those New York homes for poor girls all the clothes she could
spare—and more, most likely.
CHRISTMAS NIGHT.—This afternoon they took her away from her room. As
soon as I might, I went down to the library, and there she lay, in her
coffin, dressed in exactly the same clothes she wore when she stood at
the other end of the same room on the 6th of October last, as Clara’s
chief bridesmaid. Her face was radiant with happy excitement then; it
was the same face now, with the dignity of death and the peace of God
upon it.
They told me the first mourner to come was the dog. He came uninvited,
and stood up on his hind legs and rested his fore paws upon the
trestle, and took a last long look at the face that was so dear to him,
then went his way as silently as he had come. _He knows._
At mid-afternoon it began to snow. The pity of it—that Jean could not
see it! She so loved the snow.
The snow continued to fall. At six o’clock the hearse drew up to the
door to bear away its pathetic burden. As they lifted the casket, Paine
began playing on the orchestrelle Schubert’s “Impromptu,” which was
Jean’s favorite. Then he played the Intermezzo; that was for Susy; then
he played the Largo; that was for their mother. He did this at my
request. Elsewhere in my Autobiography I have told how the Intermezzo
and the Largo came to be associated in my heart with Susy and Livy in
their last hours in this life.
From my windows I saw the hearse and the carriages wind along the road
and gradually grow vague and spectral in the falling snow, and
presently disappear. Jean was gone out of my life, and would not come
back any more. Jervis, the cousin she had played with when they were
babies together—he and her beloved old Katy—were conducting her to her
distant childhood home, where she will lie by her mother’s side once
more, in the company of Susy and Langdon.
DECEMBER 26TH. The dog came to see me at eight o’clock this morning. He
was very affectionate, poor orphan! My room will be his quarters
hereafter.
The storm raged all night. It has raged all the morning. The snow
drives across the landscape in vast clouds, superb, sublime—and Jean
not here to see.
2:30 P.M.—It is the time appointed. The funeral has begun. Four hundred
miles away, but I can see it all, just as if I were there. The scene is
the library in the Langdon homestead. Jean’s coffin stands where her
mother and I stood, forty years ago, and were married; and where Susy’s
coffin stood thirteen years ago; where her mother’s stood five years
and a half ago; and where mine will stand after a little time.
FIVE O’CLOCK.—It is all over.
When Clara went away two weeks ago to live in Europe, it was hard, but
I could bear it, for I had Jean left. I said _we_ would be a family. We
said we would be close comrades and happy—just we two. That fair dream
was in my mind when Jean met me at the steamer last Monday; it was in
my mind when she received me at the door last Tuesday evening. We were
together; WE WERE A FAMILY! the dream had come true—oh, precisely true,
contentedly, true, satisfyingly true! and remained true two whole days.
And now? Now Jean is in her grave!
In the grave—if I can believe it. God rest her sweet spirit!