LIFE IN DEATH
"Drive to Miss Dane's!" said Mrs. Tree.
"Drive where?" asked old Anthony, pausing with one foot on the step of
the ancient carryall.
"To Miss Dane's!"
"Well, I snum!" said old Anthony.
The Dane Mansion, as it was called, stood on the outskirts of the
village; a gaunt, gray house, standing well back from the road, with
dark hedges of Norway spruce drawn about it like a funeral scarf. The
panelled wooden shutters of the front windows were never opened, and a
stranger passing by would have thought the house uninhabited; but all
Elmerton knew that behind those darkling hedges and close shutters,
somewhere in the depths of the tall many-chimneyed house, lived--"if you
can call it living!" Mrs. Tree said--Miss Virginia Dane. Miss Dane was a
contemporary of Mrs. Tree's,--indeed, report would have her some years
older,--but she had no other point of resemblance to that lively
potentate. She never left her house. None of the present generation of
Elmertonians had ever seen her face; and to the rising generation, the
boys and girls who passed the outer hedge, if dusk were coming on, with
hurried step and quick affrighted glances, she was a kind of spectre, a
living phantom of the past, probably terrible to look upon, certainly
dreadful to think of. These terrors were heightened by the knowledge,
diffused one hardly knew how, that Miss Dane was a spiritualist, and
that in her belief at least, the silent house was peopled with departed
Danes, the brothers and sisters of whom she was the last remaining one.
Things being thus, it was perhaps not strange that old Anthony, usually
the most discreet of choremen, was driven by surprise to the extent of
"snumming" by the order he received. He allowed himself no further
comment, however, but flecked the fat brown horse on the ear with his
whip, and said "Gitty up!" with more interest than he usually
manifested.
Mrs. Tree was arrayed in her India shawl, and crowned with the
bird-of-paradise bonnet, from which swept an ample veil of black lace.
She sat bolt upright in the carriage, her stick firmly planted in front
of her, her hands crossed on its crutch handle, and her whole air was
one of uncompromising energy.
"Shall I knock?" said Anthony, glancing up at the blind house-front with
an expression which said plainly enough "It won't be any use."
"No, I'm going to get out. Here, help me! the other side, ninnyhammer!
You have helped me out on the wrong side for forty years, Anthony
Barker; I must be a saint after all, or I never should have stood it."
The old lady mounted the granite steps briskly, and knocked smartly on
the door with the top of her stick. After some delay it was opened by a
grim-looking elderly woman with a forbidding squint.
"How do you do, Keziah? I am coming in. You may wait for me, Anthony."
"I don't know as Miss Dane feels up to seein' company, Mis' Tree," said
the grim woman, doubtfully, holding the door in her hand.
"Folderol!" said Mrs. Tree, waving her aside with her stick. "She's in
her sitting-room, I suppose. To be sure! How are you, Virginia?"
The room Mrs. Tree entered was gaunt and gray like the house itself;
high-studded, with blank walls of gray paint, and wintry gleams of
marble on chimneypiece and furniture. Gaunt and gray, too, was the
figure seated in the rigid high-backed chair, a tall old woman in a
black gown and a close muslin cap like that worn by the Shakers, with a
black ribbon bound round her forehead. Her high features showed where
great beauty, of a masterful kind, had once dwelt; her sunken eyes were
cold and dim as a steel mirror that has lain long buried and has
forgotten how to give back the light.
These eyes now dwelt upon Mrs. Tree, with recognition, but no warmth or
kindliness in their depths.
"How are you, Virginia?" repeated the visitor. "Come, shake hands! you
are alive, you know, after a fashion; where's the use of pretending you
are not?"
Miss Dane extended a long, cold, transparent hand, and then motioned to
a seat.
"I am well, Marcia," she said, coldly. "I have been well for the past
fifteen years, since we last met."
"I made the last visit, I remember," said Mrs. Tree, composedly, hooking
a gray horsehair footstool toward her with her stick, and settling her
feet on it. "You gave me to understand then that I need not come again
till I had something special to say, so I have stayed away."
"I have no desire for visitors," said Miss Dane. She spoke in a hollow,
inward monotone, which somehow gave the impression that she was in the
habit of talking to herself, or to something that made no response. "My
soul is fit company for me."
"I should think it might be!" said Mrs. Tree.
"Besides, I am surrounded by the Blessed," Miss Dane went on. "This room
probably appears bare and gloomy to your eyes, Marcia, but I see it
peopled by the Blessed, in troops, crowding about me, robed and
crowned."
"I hope they enjoy themselves," said Mrs. Tree. "I will not interrupt
you or them more than a few minutes, Virginia. I want to ask if you have
made your will. A singular question, but I have my reasons for asking."
"Certainly I have; years ago."
"Have you left anything to Mary Jaquith--Mary Ashton?"
"No!" A spark crept into the dim gray eyes.
"So I supposed. Did you know that she was poor, and blind?"
There was a pause.
"I did not know that she was blind," Miss Dane said, presently. "For her
poverty, she has herself to thank."
"Yes! she married the man she loved. It was a crime, I suppose. You
would have had her live on here with you all her days, and turn to stone
slowly."
"I brought Mary Ashton up as my own child," Miss Dane went on; and there
was an echo of some past emotion in her deathly voice. "She chose to
follow her own way, in defiance of my wishes, of my judgment. She sowed
the wind, and she has reaped the whirlwind. We are as far apart as the
dead and the living."
"Just about!" said Mrs. Tree. "Now, Virginia Dane, listen to me! I have
come here to make a proposal, and when I have made it I shall go away,
and that is the last you will see of me in this world, or most likely in
the next. Mary Ashton married a scamp, as other women have done and will
do to the end of the chapter. She paid for her mistake, poor child, and
no one has ever heard a word of complaint or repining from her. She got
along--somehow; and now her boy, Will, has come home, and means to be a
good son, and will be one, too, and see her comfortable the rest of her
days. But--Will wants to marry. He is engaged to Andrew Bent's daughter,
a sweet, pretty girl, born and grown up while you have been sitting here
in your coffin, Virginia Dane. Now--they won't take any more help from
me, and I like 'em for it; and yet I want them to have more to do with.
Will is clerk in the post-office, and his salary would give the three of
them skim milk and red herrings, but not much more. I want you to leave
them some money, Virginia."
There was a pause, during which the two pairs of eyes, the dim gray and
the fiery black, looked into each other.
"This is a singular request, Marcia," said Miss Dane, at last. "I
believe I have never offered you advice as to the bestowal of your
property; nor, if I remember aright, is Mary Ashton related to you in
any way."
"Cat's foot!" said Mrs. Tree, shortly. "Don't mount your high horse with
me, Jinny, because it won't do any good. I don't know or care anything
about your property; you may leave it to the cat for aught I care. What
I want is to give you some of mine to leave to William Jaquith, in case
you die first."
She then made a definite proposal, to which Miss Dane listened with
severe attention.
"And suppose you die first," said the latter. "What then?"
"Oh, my will is all right, I have left him money enough. But there's no
more prospect of my dying than there was twenty years ago. I shall live
to be a hundred."
"I also come of a long-lived family," said Miss Dane.
"I thought the Blessed might get tired of waiting, and come and fetch
you," said Mrs. Tree, dryly; "besides, you haven't so far to go as I
have. Seriously, one of us must in common decency go before long,
Virginia; it is hardly respectable for both of us to linger in this
way. Now, if you will only listen to reason, when the time does come for
either of us, Willy Jaquith is sure of comfort for the rest of his days.
What do you say?"
Miss Dane was silent for some time. Finally:
"I will consider the matter," she said, coldly. "I cannot answer you at
this moment, Marcia. You have broken in upon the current of my thoughts,
and disturbed the peace of my soul. I will communicate with you by
writing, when my decision is reached; no second interview will be
necessary."
"I'm glad you think so," said Mrs. Tree, rising. "I wasn't intending to
come again. You knew that Phoebe Blyth was dead?"
"I knew that Phoebe had passed out of this sphere," replied Miss Dane.
"Keziah learned it from the purveyor."
She paused a moment, and then added, "Phoebe was with me last night."
"Was she?" said Mrs. Tree, grimly. "I'm sorry to hear it. Phoebe was a
good woman, if she did have her faults."
"You may be glad to hear that she is in a blessed state at present," the
cold monotone went on. "She came with my sisters Sophia and Persis;
Timothea was also with them, and inquired for you."
"H'm!" said Mrs. Tree.
"I have no wish to rouse your animosity, Marcia," continued Miss Dane,
after another pause, "and I am well aware of your condition of hardened
unbelief; but we are not likely to meet again in this sphere, and since
you have sought me out in my retirement, I feel bound to tell you, that
I have received several visits of late from your husband, and that he is
more than ever concerned about your spiritual welfare. If you wish it, I
will repeat to you what he said."
The years fell away from Marcia Darracott like a cloak. She made two
quick steps forward, her little hands clenched, her tiny figure towering
like a flame.
"_You dare_--" she said, then stopped abruptly. The blaze died down, and
the twinkle came instead into her bright eyes. She laughed her little
rustling laugh, and turned to go. "Good-by, Jinny," she said; "you don't
mean to be funny, but you are. Ethan Tree is in heaven; but if you think
he would come back from the pit to see you--te hee! Good-by, Jinny
Dane!"
Mrs. Tree sat bolt upright again all the way home, and chuckled several
times.
"Now, that woman's jealousy is such," she said, aloud, "that, rather
than have me do for her niece, she'll leave her half her fortune and die
next week, just to spite me." (In point of fact, this prophecy came
almost literally to pass, not a week, but a month later.)
"Yes, Anthony, a very pleasant call, thank ye. Help me out; _the other
side_, old step-and-fetch-it! I believe you were a hundred years old
when I was born. Yes, that's all. Direxia Hawkes, give him a cup of
coffee; he's got chilled waiting in the cold. No, I'm warm enough; I had
something to warm me."
In spite of this last declaration, when little Mrs. Bliss came in half
an hour later to see the old lady, she found her with her feet on the
fender, sipping hot mulled wine, and declaring that the marrow was
frozen in her bones.
"I have been sitting in a tomb," she said, in answer to the visitor's
alarmed inquiries, "talking to a corpse. Did you ever see Virginia
Dane?"
Mrs. Bliss opened her blue eyes wide. "Oh, no, Mrs. Tree. I didn't know
that any one ever saw Miss Dane. I thought she was--"
"She is dead," said Mrs. Tree. "I have been talking with her corpse, I
tell you, and I don't like corpses. You are alive and warm, and I like
you. Tell me some scandal."
"Oh, Mrs. Tree!"
"Well, tell me about the baby, then. I suppose there's no harm in my
asking that. If I live much longer, I sha'n't be allowed to talk about
anything except gruel and nightcaps. How's the baby?"
"Oh, he is _so_ well, Mrs. Tree, and such a darling! He looks like a
perfect beauty in that lovely cloak. I must bring him round in it to
show to you. It is the handsomest thing I ever saw, and it didn't look a
bit yellow after it was pressed."
"I got it in Canton," said Mrs. Tree. "My baby--I never had but one--was
born in the China seas. Here's her coral."
She motioned toward her lap, and Mrs. Bliss saw that a small chest of
carved sandalwood lay open on her knees, full of trinkets and odds and
ends.
"It is very pretty," said little Mrs. Bliss, lifting the coral and bells
reverently.
"Her name was Lucy," said Mrs. Tree. "She married Arthur Blyth, cousin
to the girls, and died when little Arthur was born. You may have that
for your baby; I'm keeping Arthur's for little Vesta's child. If you
thank me, you sha'n't have it."