Do you clip over and tell Annie,” John had said to Seth, when the first
excitement of the scene had passed off, and they stood at the kitchen
window, watching the Sheriff’s buggy fade off in the dusk down the hill
toward Thessaly jail. “It’s the thing for you to do--the quicker the
better!”
Annie had been home from her day’s task some minutes, and sat by
her grandmother’s bedside. The patient was in a semi-comatose state,
breathing with unnatural heaviness, and Samantha had been dispatched
with all haste to bring a doctor from Thessaly. It seemed terribly
probable that Mrs. Warren’s last day had come.
Yet as she sat by the curtained recess, holding in her’s the withered
hand which lay inanimate on the high edge of the bed, Annie still
thought very little of the great change impending over her home; she had
faced this death in life so long that its climax did not startle her,
or wear the garb of strangeness. Instead, she was pondering the
unaccountable, unwelcome fact with which Samantha had greeted her on her
return--that Isabel was in the adjoining room, and had asked to see her.
What could it mean? What could Isabel’s purpose be in coming? And ought
she to sacrifice her own feelings to the dictates of politeness, and go
in to see this wicked, cruel woman? Perhaps she had come to retract and
apologize for the fearful words of Tuesday. Perhaps her intention was to
reiterate them, or worse, to recount that now the whole world would know
of them--and gloat over her pain. No, that could scarcely be, for
since her interview with Milton Annie felt satisfied at least of Seth’s
innocence. But still something new might have been disclosed--Isabel
might have evil tidings of some sort with which to overwhelm her afresh.
What should she do?
The parlor door was ajar, and though she could not see her visitor, she
could plainly hear the snapping of the wood fire within, which Samantha
had kindled. Isabel must be perfectly aware of her return, and of her
presence in this sick chamber. Every minute that she hesitated would
only augment the widow’s anger at being thus inhospitably neglected.
Even if she had relented, and had come with kindly intent, this
reception might alter her impulses.
She rose to enter the parlor, but still stood irresolute, holding her
grandmother’s hand, when there came the sound of footsteps in the front
hall--then of a hasty knock on the door opening from the hall into this
room in which she was. She opened the door, and before her, excited and
jubilant, stood her cousin Seth.
“I’ve come to tell you!” he burst out, “It’s all cleared up. There
_was_ a murder. Milton did it! He’s just been arrested! I tried to
ring your bell, but it didn’t seem to work. So I _had_ to come in! And
now----”
He opened his arms with an unmistakable gesture, and they closed fondly
upon an overjoyed maiden, who sobbed upon his breast for very relief.
When she found breath and words, it was to say:
“Oh, you can’t guess what I have suffered these last two days; I thought
I should never live through them! And now it seems as if I should go
wild with joy--as if I couldn’t keep my feet down on the floor!”
“Yes, yes, I know, my darling. But we shall be all the happier for
this spell of wretchedness. Dry your eyes, pet. There shall be no more
thought or talk of tears--much less of dying.”
“O Seth!--I forgot!--my grandmother!”
She lowered her voice, and told him her fears.
Hand in hand, and with his arm about her shoulder, they moved softly to
the bedside of the dying woman. The noise of the talking, or some less
apparent influence, had aroused her from her lethargy. Her pale eyes
were brilliant still, with an unearthly light, it seemed to the awed
young man, and she rested their gaze fixedly upon the couple.
“Who is that?” she asked in a querulous whisper.
“It is Seth, Granny,” the girl answered, relapsing unconsciously into
the familiar form she had not used since childhood.
The aged woman restlessly moved her head, and her eyes snapped with
impatience at her inability to raise herself from the pillow.
“I won’t have him here! Tell him to take his arm away. What’s he doin’
here, anyway? He desarted yeh! His own father told me so! Tell him to go
away! I hate the sight of the hull breed!”
“But he’s come back to me, Granny,” the girl pleaded, while Seth shrank
backward in the shadow of the curtain. “Truly he has, and he’s not to
blame. And I love him very dearly”--a pressure from the young man’s
hand answered the sweetness of this avowal--“and he will be all I shall
have left when--when--” she stopped, unwilling to conclude her thought
in words.
“An’ will he take yeh away, an’ do by yeh ez a husban’ ought to do, or
will he take yeh onto that Fairchild farm, an’ break yer heart out ez
his father did his mother’s, an’ ez his uncle did yer mother’s, an’ ez
his brother, so they tell me, is doin’ with his wife?”
“Oh, mercy!” the girl exclaimed, involuntarily; then she whispered
to Seth, back of the curtains: “What shall I do! I forgot all about
it--Isabel is there in the parlor and she has heard every word we’ve
said.”
The quick ears of the invalid caught the whispered explanation. .
“Isabel!” she said, sharply. “That’s Albert Fairchild’s wife ain’t it?”
“Yes!” the girl answered. She tried in dumb show to convey to Seth that
her grandmother was ignorant of his brother’s death.
“Go an’ fetch her in here,” said Mrs. Warren, with more animation in her
voice than it had shown before. “I want to see her--to talk with her.”
“But, Granny, you ought’nt to see strangers; you know, the doctor----”
“I guess she ain’t much more of a stranger than this young man you’ve
got here. Go an’ fetch her, I say! I won’t hurt her, an’ she won’t hurt
me.”
There was nothing for Annie to do, but go into the parlor, and bow
shamefacedly to Isabel, and say, with embarrassment in every syllable:
“Excuse me for not coming before, but I think my grandmother is dying.
She wants very much to see you. Won’t you come, please?”
Isabel had risen to her feet upon Annie’s entrance. To the latter’s
surprise and increased confusion she held forth her hand with a friendly
gesture. “Yes, I will come with you,” she said, as Annie doubtingly took
the proffered hand, and the two women entered the sick-room.
Isabel did not seem to see Seth, who stood at the head of the bed, among
the drawn curtains, but walked to the bedside and said softly: “I am
Isabel, Mrs. Warren; I am sorry that our first meeting should find you
so low.”
“So you’re Albert’s wife, eh?” The old woman eyed her keenly, for what
seemed a long time. “I’ve heered tell o’ you. Would you mind gettin’
that candle there, on the mantle-piece, an’ holdin’ it, so’t I kin see
yer face?”
Isabel gravely complied with the request, and stood before the invalid
again, with the yellow light glowing upon her throat and lower chin and
nostrils and full, Madonna-like brows. Her face was at its best with
this illumination from below. She would have been a rare beauty close
before the footlights.
“Well,” said Mrs. Warren, after a long inspection, “P’raps it’ll sound
ridiculous to yeh, but yeh don’t look unlike what I did when I was your
age. The farm ain’t had time to tell on yeh yit. But it will! It made
me the skeercrow that you see; it’ll do the same for you. When I was a
girl, I was a Thayer, the best fam’ly in Norton, Massachusetts. We held
our heads high, I kin tell yeh. Why, when I brought my side-saddle
here, stitched with silk, ’twas the fust one they’d ever seen in these
parts. But I married beneath me, an’ I come up here into York State to
live, on this very farm. With us, farmin’ don’t mean a livin’ death.
P’raps we don’t hev sech fine big barns ez yeh build here, but our
houses are better. We don’t git such good crops, but we pay more heed
to education and godly livin’. It’s th’ diff’rence ’twixt folks who
b’lieve there’s somethin’ else in life b’sides eatin’ an’ drinkin’ an’
makin’ money, an’ folks that don’t. Well, I left a good home, an’ I
come here, an’ here I am. Look at me! Look at Lemuel Fairchild’s wife,
Cicely--she was a relation of yours, wasn’t she?--see how the farm made
an ole woman o’ her, an’ broke her down, an’ killed her! You’re young,
an’ you’re good lookin’ yit, but it’ll break yeh, sure’s yer born.
Husban’s on these farms ain’t what they air in the cities, nor even
in the country in New England. I’m told your husban’ don’t treat you
right.”
“Don’t let us talk about that--please!” said Isabel: she stole a swift,
momentary glance toward Seth as she spoke.
The keen eyes in the recess followed this look. “Well, no,” the husky,
whispering voice went on, “p’raps it ain’t none o’ my business. But
tell me about this young man here--yer husband’s brother. I want to know
about him.”
“What about him?” asked Isabel slowly, after a pause.
“Why, is he a likely man? Air his habits good? Could he take this girl
o’ mine--an’ she’s a good girl, Annie is--could he take her to Tecumsy,
an’ make a fit home fer her? An’ _would_ he do it? Would he make her a
good husban’--ez good ez she desarves? I ask you, ’cause you know him.
I leave it to you--would you yerself marry him ef yeh was free, an’ feel
safe about him? Come, now, tell me that!”
Isabel hesitated so long that the old woman, seemingly wandering a
little after her long, laborious concentration of thought, broke in
again:
“Oh, I know ’em! I know ’em! Of all the Fair-childses, there never
was one decent one. They stole my daughter, an’ let her die ’mongst
strangers, an’ they made a broken ole woman o’ me, an’ they slaved
Cicely’s life out o’ her, an’ now they want my Annie----”
“No,” said Isabel here, speaking softly, and putting her hand on the
wasted arm which lay above the coverlet. “I think you wrong Seth.
Whatever the rest may have done, I think he will be a good husband to
Annie. I am _sure_ he will.”
No answer, save a low, incoherent murmuring, came from the recess. The
invalid had lapsed into the lethargy of exhausted nature. As the trio
stood by the bedside even this sound ceased. Nothing was to be heard but
the labored, unnatural breathing.
Isabel placed the candle again upon the shelf. She had not removed her
bonnet and wrap, and she turned now irresolutely toward the door.
Annie went to her, and silently took her hand. “I forgive you,” she
whispered. “Was there anything else? Did you want to speak to me?”
“I don’t know what I wanted when I came. Let me go now. Perhaps if I
said any more, I should hate myself afterward.”
And thus, without a glance at Seth, she went.