There was but scant attendance at the burial of Jane Holder. The men she
had known, and with whom she had laughed, danced, jested, and sung,
under the veil of night, for obvious reasons could not attend in open
daylight such rites, simple and unobtrusive though they were. In like
manner, Jane's female associates were chary about being in evidence.
Moreover, such irresponsible human butterflies are said to have morbid
fears of death, and this particular case was surely nature's grimmest
reminder.
Lizzie Trott went, of course, and Mandy and Jake walked behind her,
solemnly and sedately self-righteous. The spot set aside for Jane's
remains to repose in was in an unused, weed-overgrown corner of the
public cemetery--the spot decided on by the town clerk, who granted the
permit at the price required alike for respected or unrespected
interment. The undertaker's men, in a perfunctory way, did the work of
lowering the flower-covered casket into the damp red clay which was
intermixed with round, prehistoric pebbles. The white sexton of the
cemetery, an old man, bowed and gray, took charge of the filling of the
grave with earth and shaping a mound on the surface.
The hearse, the black-plumed horses, and the undertaker's men went away.
Jake and Mandy again fell in behind Lizzie and they walked down the hill
to the deserted house.
"I cooked enough fer yo' supper, Mis' Trott," Mandy said at the gate.
"Jake say dat I mustn't come back ter you any mo'."
"Very well, Mandy," Lizzie said, wearily. "Good-by."
"Good-by, Mis' Trott. Me 'n' Jake bofe sorry fer you."
"Yas'm, we is," Jake intoned, doffing his hat and sliding his flat feet
backward.
The interior of the house was still and shadowy. Lizzie sat down in that
best dark dress of hers in the parlor. She was beginning to pity
herself, for it was all so very, very terrible. How could she go on
living there? And yet, whither was she to go? She rose. She started up
the stairs with the strange intention of again visiting John's old room,
but in the hall she stopped. "How silly!" she thought. "What am I going
up there for?" The slanting rays of the lowering sun fell through the
narrow side-lights of the door and lay on the floor at her feet. She
shuddered. It would soon be night again and how could she pass the dark
hours?--for something told her that she would not sleep soundly. She had
never felt less like sleeping, though she had not lost consciousness for
two days and two nights. Then a self-protective idea entered her
confused reflections, and she acted on it. She found among her
belongings a piece of broad black ribbon, and, forming a bow and
streamers of it, she hung it on the front door-knob, together with a
card on which she had written, "Not at home." That would keep people
away--her friends and Jane's--and she was in no mood to entertain any
one. The ribbon and card would speak of John, of Dora, of Jane, and the
boldest would respect their significance.
In her own room Lizzie changed her dress. She felt like it, and she put
on her oldest and plainest gown. She drew off her rings and bracelets
and dropped them into a drawer. Something psychological was happening to
her which she could not have analyzed had she had far more occult
knowledge than she possessed. She remembered that her mother had dressed
plainly in those far-off days which now seemed so sweet and restful, and
somehow she wanted to be like her mother.
It was sundown. It would soon be dark, she told herself, with a cool
shudder and a little groan of despair. Suddenly she heard a sound as of
the gate being closed. Then there was a light step on the porch,
followed by a low rap on the door. Lizzie crept down the stairs, not
knowing whether she should open the door or not. There was another rap,
a timid one, it seemed to Lizzie, who now stood hesitating in the hall
close to the door. There was a brief silence, then a low, awed voice was
heard calling:
"Mrs. Trott! Oh, Mrs. Trott! May I see you for a moment?"
Lizzie fired up with a touch of her old irascibility, and, putting her
lips to the keyhole, she cried out, sharply:
"There is no one at home! Can't you read the card on the door?"
"Yes, Mrs. Trott," came back after a pause, "but I've come a long way to
see you. Don't you know me? I'm Tilly, John's wife."
"John's wife!" Lizzie gasped under her breath. "John's wife!" Then with
fumbling fingers she unlocked and opened the door and stood staring at
the quaint little visitor whose black costume was covered with the dust
of travel and who seemed quite frightened under the ordeal upon her.
"Oh, Mrs. Trott," Tilly went on, in a pleading tone, "do forgive me! I
know I have no right to intrude on you like this, but I simply couldn't
stay away any longer. Oh, Mrs. Trott, you are alone and in trouble and I
want to help you!"
"Want to help me--you want to help me?" Lizzie stammered, taking Tilly's
outstretched hand and leading her into the parlor. "Of course, of course
you are welcome, but you mustn't stand there. Some one passing might see
you. You say--you say that you want to see me?"
"Yes, you are his mother-- I'm his wife, and we have lost him. Oh, Mrs.
Trott, what are we to do--how can we bear it?"
Tilly's voice quivered and hung in her throat and broke into sobs. The
woman within the woman of the world took the weeping child to her breast
and held her there. She, too, was weeping now and afraid to trust her
abashed voice to utterance. Locked in a mutual embrace, they stood for
several minutes. Then Lizzie, the weaker vessel of the two, found her
voice.
"Why did you come _here_?" she cried. "Oh, why did you come _here_?"
"I had to see you," Tilly made husky reply. "I know how you feel because
I know how I feel. Oh, Mrs. Trott, you are his mother--actually his
mother. I see the look of him in your face, in your eyes, in your hair
and hands, and hear his voice in yours. Do you know that I killed him?
If I had not left him as I did he would have been alive to-day. I was a
coward--but, oh, it was for John, for John's sake that I did it!"
"I understand," Lizzie half groaned, "but you were not to blame, my
child. I am the one. It's just me, child--just me and no one else. I
spoiled his life and yours. I know it--I know it. You ought to hate me,
as all the rest do, and not come here like this. Don't you know that if
people knew you were here they would--would--"
"Hush!" Tilly said, pressing Lizzie's hands to her breast and holding
them there. "I love you--I love you even more--yes, more than I do my
own mother. You are my mother. Death has parted John and me, but nothing
should part me from you. Some day you must let me stay with you--live
with you, care for you, work for you. Oh, Mrs. Trott, I want to be to
you what John would have been had he lived to see you so lonely and
unhappy as you are now."
As she stared Lizzie Trott seemed fairly to wilt in the rays of the new
sun that was blazing over her. "Why, child, darling child," she
sobbingly cried out, "you could never live with me. It is out of all
reason. Even this visit is imprudent. You must go home--you must go back
to your mother. Surely you know that this very roof--"
"I don't care for that," Tilly broke in. "I can't live with my people--
I don't want to live anywhere but with you. You need me--yes, that is
the truth; you need me, and I need you. I feel rested and soothed here,
as if God Himself were with me. I don't feel so anywhere else."
They sat down on the old sofa, side by side. They wept and clung
together. After a while Tilly raised her head. "I've always wanted to
see John's room. May I?" she asked. "Would you mind? It is silly,
perhaps, but I want to see it. He told me how he used to study and work
there at night."
Lizzie nodded and rose. It was dark now and she lighted a lamp. At the
foot of the stairs, however, she stopped abruptly.
"Oh, I forgot," she cried. "You ought not to look at it. It is upset,
unclean; it was never well attended to even while he was here. It will
make you hate me."
"No, no; let me see it, please," Tilly pleaded, taking the lamp into her
own hand. "I can go alone--in fact, in fact, I'd like to be alone there
for a little while, Mrs. Trott, if you wouldn't mind."
Lizzie hesitated a moment and then gave in. "It is the last door on the
left," she said. "I'm sorry it is in such a bad condition."
"Very well, I'll find it," Tilly answered, and, leaving Lizzie below,
she went up the stairs.