for her, some passer-by having thoughtlessly dropped over the post the
loop of faded blue ribbon which served in the place of a latch. How like
Miss Judy that poor little scrap of daintiness was! As he stood holding
the gate back for Miss Pettus to pass, seeing that her hands were full,
he heard the rumble of wheels, the rattle of some approaching vehicle.
The great, brown cloud of dust lifted, drifting farther down the big
road, and out of it came an old-fashioned buggy drawn by an old gray
horse. This was driven by a white-haired negro, who had once been
Colonel Fielding's coachman, and who was now long since become his
nurse. Beside the driver sat the colonel himself, and Lynn sprang to
assist him in getting down from the buggy; but the negro made a sly
restraining gesture, and when the young man came near he saw that the
colonel's beautiful old head was shaking strangely, and that his fine
old eyes appeared not to see what they were resting upon. The colonel
gazed vaguely down at Lynn before he spoke:--
"Ah, yes--my compliments to little Mistress Judy. _That_ was what I came
to say. Will you be so very kind, young sir, as to give my compliments
to the elder of the major's daughters, and also to the major himself?
Say, if you please, that Colonel Fielding has called this morning to pay
his compliments to her and to her honored father. A man of honor, sir, a
soldier, and a gentleman. Gad--sir--what more would you have? What more
could any man be?" he said, suddenly turning upon his servant with a
piteous touch of bewildered asperity.
"_Toe_-be-shore, sir! _Toe_-be-shore!" said the old negro, soothingly.
"I--I seem--to disremember something," the colonel went on, forgetting
this momentary, formless annoyance. He sat still and silent for a space,
trying to remember why he had come. He put his shapely hand to his high
forehead in mild confusion. His thick, curling, silver hair fell around
his face and upon his shoulders in rather wild disorder.
"Little Judy is a mighty pretty girl--delicate, sweet, and fair as a
sweet-brier blossom. No prettier nor sweeter girl ever footed the
Virginia Reel in this whole Pennyroyal Region. You will give her and her
honored father my message, if you please, young sir. 'Colonel Fielding's
compliments and also Miss Alice Fielding's compliments to Major Bramwell
and his daughter.' You will not forget?"
"I will not forget, sir," said Lynn Gordon, as steadily as he could
speak.
"And--and what else was it? What else did I come for? Tell me this
instant, you black rascal!" the colonel now cried, again turning upon
his servant in excited, displeased bewilderment. "What do you mean--I
say, sir--by sitting there without saying a word? What was it I wanted
to say about that young John Stanley, who's eternally hanging round my
house? What did somebody tell me about him--only this morning? What's
the matter with you, can't you speak, boy?"
The old negro's heavy lips were trembling so that he could not have
spoken had there been anything to say. He sat bolt upright, gazing
straight before him at the dust of the deserted highway; his ragged coat
was as carefully buttoned as his fine livery used to be; he held the
reins--broken and spliced with rope--over the poor old horse, which
stood with a dejected droop, precisely as he used to hold the fine,
strong, lines over his master's spirited bays.
"Well--drive on home, then," the colonel said, after a moment's
hesitation, suddenly recovering his usual mildness. "Perhaps I may
remember--and if so you may fetch me back."
Lynn watched the buggy disappear amid the thickening clouds of dust, and
when it was out of sight he turned with a sigh toward the people who
were still coming and going, looking sadder when they went than when
they came. He was surprised to see how many were passing through that
humble little broken gate, with its pathetic fastening of a loop of
faded ribbon, too weak to bar a butterfly. He had not thought there were
so many in all Oldfield, counting both black and white, for both were
now coming and going. He presently realized that some of these sad
comers and sadder goers were not Oldfield people, that some lived
farther away, and this knowledge filled him with greater surprise. For
he would not have supposed that Miss Judy was known by any one beyond
the compassing hills, so completely had her life seemed bound about by
the wooded borders of the village. He had never known until now how
far-reaching the influence of gentleness may be; he had never realized
until this moment that goodness always wins more friends than greatness.
He said something of this to the doctor's wife, when she came softly
after an hour had passed and silently sat down beside him on the bench
under the window. She did not reply at once, but she took his hand and
pressed it with the sympathy which common trouble begets in every
feeling heart. She did not know how keenly he was craving sympathy, how
sorely he himself was needing it, how bruised and broken he was by the
spiritual crisis--the greatest of his life--through which he was passing
so hardly. It was only that her tender heart was tenderer than ever,
because she had come direct from the tavern.
Thus the two sat for a few moments in silence, listening to the soft
sounds which came at long intervals from the shadowed quiet within Miss
Judy's room. At length the doctor's wife began to talk in the hushed
tone which the feeling use near the dying--who appear to hear nothing
but the Call; and near the dead--who appear to hear nothing--nothing for
evermore. She said that Miss Judy had not been told of the judge's
death; and that she mercifully knew nothing of the horror which had gone
before the tragedy. There was no need now that she ever should know, so
the doctor's wife said, with filling eyes. It would be time enough when
the two met on the Other Side. And then--with that resistless reaching
toward the unknowable, which always moves us when we feel the Mystery
near, so near that it appears as if we have but to put out our hand to
seize the invisible black wings which forever elude mortal grasp--she
asked him if he believed that Miss Judy would know even then. She,
herself, she said, could not see how a soul as gentle as the soft one
then fluttering to escape its frail earthly prison, or how a soul as
just as the one which had already found sacrificial release from a life
of suffering, could be happy in heaven if it still knew the pain and the
wrong and the cruelty of this world. But, however that might be, all
would surely be well hereafter with these two. The doctor's wife, rising
to go back to the tavern, where other sad duties were yet waiting to be
done, declared this with conviction. These two had not had their just
share of happiness here; in fairness it must be awaiting them elsewhere,
she concluded, lapsing into the simple audacity of everyday faith.
Lynn walked with her a little way along the big road, and when she had
gone some distance and he still stood looking after her, he heard again
the sound of wheels and saw a vehicle approaching through the clouds of
dust. He thought at first that the colonel had "remembered" and was
returning; but as the dust-clouds shifted he recognized his
grandmother's coach with a start of surprise, and a feeling very like
alarm came over him as he saw that she herself, erect, massive,
white-robed, sat within the coach. He waited, standing still till the
coach drew nearer, and then went outside and turned down the folding
steps--from which the little black boy sprang--and assisted her to
descend. But he did not speak, nor did she. Silently he offered his arm
and she took it as silently as it had been offered, and they went
together toward the passage door. It touched him to see with what
difficulty she walked. It moved him thus to realize suddenly how old she
was. It seemed to him that age was a very pitiful thing. Yet it also
impressed him to see what a fine, stately personage she still was; to
read in the respectful eyes which followed her that she was still the
great lady of the country, as she always had been.
The abrupt withdrawal of her hand from his arm when they reached the
door told him that she did not wish him to enter the house with her, and
he as abruptly drew back, feeling the blood rush to his face as Sidney
came out of Miss Judy's room to receive his grandmother. Returning to
his seat on the bench under the window, he tried not to strain his ears
toward what was passing within the room, and he heard only the
indistinct murmur of voices. But he could not help wondering miserably
why his grandmother had come. He knew her too well to think that she had
been induced to come by pure fondness for Miss Judy, such as had brought
all these other people, who were so patiently waiting with heavy hearts
and wet eyes. The sudden thought of Doris--a formless fear for her--made
him leap to his feet. And then he put away the vague alarm as unworthy
of the rough justice, the haughty generosity, of his grandmother's
character. He sat down humbly, ashamed of his passing suspicion, to wait
with such patience and composure as he might muster till she should come
from Miss Judy's room. But the intensity of his suspense became almost
unendurable before it was ended. When his grandmother finally appeared
in the passage door, he sprang up with a nervous start and hurried to
help her to the coach. Again they were both silent until she was
comfortably settled on the easy cushions, silent even until the bag had
been rehung closer to her hand, and the little black boy was again
seated on the refolded step. Then she told him, speaking slowly and
gruffly as though she found the few words hard and bitter to utter, that
Miss Judy had asked her to send him to the bedside. When this had been
said, and he had made no reply, old lady Gordon sat still and silent for
a moment, looking grimly straight ahead, as if there were something else
which she wished to say. But if so it was never said; she suddenly and
roughly ordered Enoch Cotton to drive her home, and went away--poor old
lady Gordon--without a single backward glance.
The young man then turned swiftly and went softly into Miss Judy's room,
as the reverential enter a holy place. Doris, bending over the bed, did
not see him come. Miss Sophia was dozing, worn out with watching and
grief and--most of all--with trying to understand. Sidney sat motionless
in the farthest corner of the quiet, shadowy old room, where the shadows
were deepest. The only sound was the hushed murmur of the voices of the
many others who loved Miss Judy and who watched and waited without; some
in the parlor, which had been opened wide at last, others in the
passage, and more in the yard.
The little figure on the big bed lay motionless and with closed eyes.
Such a little creature, so white, so beautiful, so wonderfully
young--almost like a child, with the soft rings of silver hair wreathing
the border of the snowy cap, and the little arms which always had been
so strong for burdens, and the little, little hands, which always had
been so busy for everybody but herself, resting now--as still and cold
as snowflakes--on the deep blue of the old quilt. Looking down with dim
sight and swelling heart, Lynn thought of the Divine Bambino lying
asleep on its azure shield; he could think of nothing else so unearthly
in its loveliness.
The blue eyes opened as if Miss Judy had felt his presence, and the
flicker of a smile went over the sweet, quiet face. The young man,
leaning down, thought that she murmured something in apology, that she
tried to say something about a gentlewoman's bedchamber. But the words
were so faintly uttered, and the pauses between were so long, that he
could not be sure.
"Dear Miss Judy, is there anything--anything in the whole world--that I
can do?" he said, with all his heart.
"It is about the selling of the house. We can't depend on John Stanley
to sell it--to pay himself," panted Miss Judy with long, anguished waits
between the words, almost between the breaths.
There was a still longer pause after this, a still longer wait for a
slow wandering breeze to bring the needed breath.
"Dear John," Miss Judy murmured, when she could speak again, "he must
not know--till the note is paid. He doesn't quite realize what is due
our father. You must overlook it, sister Sophia. He means only to be
kind--so, so kind."
"Just so, sister Judy," replied poor Miss Sophia, through the habit of a
long lifetime, not knowing what she said.
"Dear John. Dear John," Miss Judy said again, hardly louder than her
fluttering breath.
There was a slight movement of her hand, and although the nerveless,
cold little fingers fell powerless on the old blue quilt, the girl who
hung over her knew what the movement meant. Doris understood that Miss
Judy wished to have the judge's letter read to her again; but before it
could be drawn from beneath the pillow the blue eyes were closed, and
Miss Judy seemed softly to fall asleep. In the deep silence which
followed the shadowed room was filled with the hushed hum of the voices
of the people waiting outside.
It seemed to the watchers a long time before Miss Judy's blue eyes
opened gently, yet suddenly and with a clearer look. It was a look quite
like her old sweet self. There was in it even a fleeting expression
almost like her old innocent artfulness.
"I hope you won't mind--the--trouble," she said, going on after a long
pause, after waiting for her reluctant breath to return; after waiting
for her true heart to beat once more. "I--should like--you--to--to
consult Doris--often."
The blue eyes wandered from the young man's face to the golden head
bowed at the bedside. At least the young man thought so, but his own
eyes were very dim, his own heart was beating very, very fast, and he
could not see very clearly.
"I will do all that you wish, as nearly as I can," he said tremulously.
"But--dear Miss Judy, have you considered? This is your sister's
home--all that she has in the world."
Miss Judy's little hand tried to creep toward her sister's, but its
strength failing Doris tenderly took it in hers and laid it on Miss
Sophia's. Yet even then, when it had grown cold--with the coldness that
never passes, and had become weak with the weakness that can never gain
strength--it made a slight protecting movement.
"Sister Sophia--isn't--willing--to keep what is--not--our own. And
Doris--"
There now followed so long a pause that Doris, who had been quiet and
calm in her self-control up to this moment, thought it too late for her
grief to disturb Miss Judy--believed it to be time to say quickly what
she wished to say, if Miss Judy ever were to hear--and, dropping all
guard, she burst into a passion of protest and weeping.
"Oh, you do believe that I can do what I have promised, dear, dear Miss
Judy. You surely believe that I can do what I have promised!" she cried.
"It would break my heart to think that you doubted. I don't know how I
can do it, but I will--I will--I will--somehow. I will take care of Miss
Sophia--always--I will work so hard. There must be work--somewhere, for
me to do. Whatever I can make shall be hers. Anyway, our home is hers. I
will try to be as good to her--as you have been to me."
"I do believe--my child," the faint and distant but sweet and loving
voice said quite distinctly, and then, after one of the long, fluttering
pauses, "but--you must let--Lynn--advise you."
"Oh, if Doris only would--if you only could persuade her," Lynn cried.
He fell on his knees beside the slender bowed figure, and laid his
trembling hand on the golden head which rested now, shaken by sobbing,
on the pillow close to the silver head that lay so quiet. He made no
further vain effort to restrain a man's rare, reluctant tears, nor to
steady his broken voice.
"If you will ask Doris--maybe she can forgive me--for what I never meant
to do--for what I did not know I was doing--till too late. Won't you
ask?" he implored. "Dear, dear Miss Judy, she can refuse nothing--not
even that--to you. And I love her so--with all my heart and soul and
mind and strength. Won't you ask her to let me help her in caring for
Miss Sophia--then all would be well; then there need be no more trouble.
Can't you speak, dear Miss Judy? Just one word. Try--_try_ to ask her to
let me help her--even though she may never consent to be my wife."
But this late-found, powerful plea seemed for a space to come too late,
to fall all unheeded away from death's deaf ears. A wonderful radiance,
such as rarely dawns in the face of the living, was now slowly dawning
in the sweet, still whiteness of Miss Judy's face. The young man could
not look upon it; he could not bear to hear Doris's helpless,
heart-broken sobbing; he could only keep to his knees and lay his
humbled head lower on the old quilt and nearer hers.
And then after a long time, after all hope of hearing the gentle voice
again seemed wholly lost, it came back like a whisper in a dream, and
Lynn and Doris heard Miss Judy say:--
"I do--ask--it--Doris--dear one. But--unless--you are--married--it
wouldn't--be----"
She could say no more, but she had said enough. With this crowning
triumph of her last artless plot the smile on the little white face
brightened forever into unearthly sweetness. With these last words Miss
Judy's gentle spirit breathed itself out of the world.