Mrs. Field muttered a feeble assent.
“I'd know you anywhere, but you didn't have any color to lose to make a difference. You've always looked jest the way you do now since I've known you. I lived in this house a whole year with you once. I come here to live after Mr. Maxwell's wife died. My name is Jay.”
Mrs. Field stood staring. The woman, who had been looking in the glass while she talked, gave her front hair a little shake, and turned toward her inquiringly.
“Won't you sit down in this rockin'-chair, Mis' Jay?” said Mrs. Field.
“No, thank you, I guess I won't set down, I'm in a little of a hurry. I jest wanted to see you a minute.”
Mrs. Field waited.
“You know Mr. Maxwell's dyin' so sudden made a good deal of a change for me,” Mrs. Jay continued. She took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes softly; then she glanced in the glass. “I'd had my home here a good many years, an' it seemed hard to lose it all in a minute so. There he came home that Sunday noon an' eat a hearty dinner, an' before sunset he had that shock, and never spoke afterward. I've thought maybe there were things he would have said if he could have spoke.”
Mrs. Jay sighed heavily; her eyes reddened; she straightened her bonnet absently; her silvered fair hair was frizzed under it.
Mrs. Field stood opposite, her eyes downcast, her face rigid.
“I wanted to speak to you, Mis' Maxwell,” the other woman went on. “I ain't obliged to go out anywheres to live; I've got property; but it's kind of lonesome at my sister's, where I'm livin'. It's a little out of the village, an' there ain't much passin'. I like to be where I can see passin', an' get out to meetin' easy if it's bad weather. I've been thinkin'—I didn't know but maybe you'd like to have me—I heard you had some trouble with your hands, an' your niece wa'n't well—that I might be willin' to come an' stay three or four weeks. I shouldn't want to promise to stay very long.”
“I ain't never been in the habit of keepin' help,” returned Mrs. Field. “I've always done my own work.”
The other woman's face flushed deeply; she moved toward the door. “I don't know as anything was said about keepin' help,” said she. “I ain't never considered myself help. There ain't any need of my goin' out to live. I've got enough to live on, an' I've got good clothes. I've got a black silk stiff enough to stand alone; cost three dollars a yard. I paid seven dollars to have it made up, and the lace on it cost a dollar a yard. I ain't obliged to be at anybody's beck and call.”
“I hope I ain't said anything to hurt your feelin's,” said Mrs. Field, following her into the entry. “I've always done my own work, an'—”
“We won't speak of it again,” said Mrs. Jay. “I'll bid you good-mornin', Mis' Maxwell.” Her voice shook, she held up her black skirt, and never looked around as she went down the steps.
Mrs. Field returned to the kitchen. Lois sat beside the window, her head leaning against the sash, looking out. Her mother took some biscuits out of the stove oven and set them on the table with the coffee. “Breakfast is ready,” said she.
She sat down at the table. Lois never stirred.
“You needn't worry,” said Mrs. Field, in a sarcastic voice; “everything on this table is bought with your own money. I went out last night and got some flour. There's a whole barrelful in the buttery, but I didn't touch it.”
Lois drew her chair up to the table, and ate a biscuit and drank a cup of coffee without saying a word. Her eyes were set straight ahead; all her pale features seemed to point out sharply; her whole face had the look of a wedge that could pierce fate. After breakfast she went out of the room, and returned shortly with her hat on.
“Mother,” said she.
“What is it?”
“You'd better know what I'm going to do.”
“What are you goin' to do?”
“I'm goin' down to that lawyer's office, and—tell him.” Lois turned toward the door.
“I s'pose you know all you're goin' to do,” said her mother, in a hard voice.
“I'm going to tell the truth,” returned Lois, fiercely.
“You're goin' to put your mother in State's prison.”
Lois stopped. “Mother, you can't make me believe that.”
“It's true, whether you believe it or not. I don't know anything about law, but I'm sure enough of that.”
Lois stood looking at her mother. “Then I'll put you there,” said she, in a cruel voice. “That's where you ought to go, mother.”
She went out of the room, and shut the door hard behind her; then she kept on through the house to the front porch, and sat down. She sat there all the morning, huddled up against a pillar. Her mother worked about the house; Lois could hear her now and then, and every time she shuddered. She had a feeling that the woman in the house was not her mother. Had she been familiar with the vampire superstition, she might have thought of that, and had a fancy that some fiend animated the sober, rigid body of the old New England woman with evil and abnormal life.
At noon Lois went in and ate some dinner mechanically; then she returned. Presently, as she sat there, a bell began tolling, and a funeral procession passed along the road below. Lois watched it listlessly—the black-draped hearse, the slow-marching bearers, the close-covered wagons, and the nodding horses. She could see it plainly through the thin spring branches. It was quite a long procession; she watched it until it passed. The cemetery was only a little way below the house, on the same side of the street. By twisting her head a little, she could have seen the black throng at the gate.
After a while the hearse and the carriages went past on their homeward road at a lively pace, the gate clicked, and Mrs. Jane Maxwell and a young man came up the walk.
Lois stood up shrinkingly as they approached, the door behind her opened, and she heard her mother's voice.
“Good-afternoon,” said Mrs. Field, with rigid ceremony, her mouth widened in a smile.
“Good-afternoon, Esther,” returned Mrs. Maxwell. “I've been to the funeral, an' I thought I'd jest run in a minute on my way home. I wanted to ask you an' your niece to come over an' take tea to-morrow. Flora, she'd come, but she didn't get out to the funeral. This is my nephew, Francis Arms, my sister's son. I s'pose you remember him when he was a little boy.”
Mrs. Field bowed primly to the young man. The old lady was eying Lois. “I s'pose this is your niece, Esther? I heard she'd come,” she said, with sharp graciousness.
“This is Miss Lois Field; I'll make you acquainted, Mis' Maxwell,” replied Mrs. Field.
Mrs. Maxwell reached out her hand, and Lois took it trembling; her little girlish figure drooped before them all.
“She don't look much like you, Esther. I s'pose she takes after her mother,” said Mrs. Maxwell.
“I think she rather favors her father's folks,” said Mrs. Field.
“I heard she wa'n't very well, but seems to me she looks pretty smart.”
“She ain't been well at all,” returned Mrs. Field, in a quick, resentful manner.
“Well, I guess she'll pick up here; Elliot's a real healthy place. She must come over and see us real often. This is my nephew, Francis Arms, Lois. I shall have to get him to beau you around and show you the sights.”
Lois glanced timidly up at the young man, and returned his bow slightly.
“Won't you walk in?” said Mrs. Field.
Lois went into the house with the party; the old lady still held her hand in her black-mitted one.
“I want you and my nephew to get acquainted,” she whispered; “he's a real nice young man. I'm goin' to have you an' your aunt come over an' take tea to-morrow.”
They all seated themselves in the south front room. Lois sat beside Mrs. Maxwell on the high black sofa; her feet swung clear from the floor. The young man, who was opposite, beside the chimney, glanced now and then kindly across at her.
“Francis didn't have to go to the bank this afternoon,” said Mrs. Maxwell. “I don't know as I told you, Esther, but he's cashier in the bank; he's got a real good place. Francis ain't never had anything but a common-school education, but he's always been real smart an' steady. Lawyer Totten's son, that's been through college, wanted the place, but they gave it to Francis. Mr. Perry, whose mother was buried this afternoon, is president of the bank, an' that's why it's shut up. Francis felt as if he'd ought to go to the funeral, an' I told him he'd better come in here with me. I suppose you remember Francis when he was a little boy, Esther?”
“No, I guess I don't.”
“Why, I should think you'd be likely to. He lived with me when you was here. He came right after his father died, an' that was before you came here. He was quite a big boy. I should think you'd remember him. You sure you don't, Esther?”
“Yes, I guess I don't.”
“Seems to me it's dreadful queer; I guess your memory ain't as good as mine. I s'pose you're beginnin' to feel kind of wonted here, Esther? It's a pretty big house, but then it ain't as if you hadn't been here before. I s'pose it seems kind of familiar to you, if you ain't seen it for so long; I s'pose it all comes back to you, don't it?”
There was a pause. “No, I'm afraid it don't,” said Mrs. Field her pale severe face fronting the other woman. Although fairly started forth in the slough of deceit, she still held up her Puritan skirts arduously.
“It's kind of queer it don't, ain't it?” returned Mrs. Maxwell. “The house ain't been altered any, an' the furniture's jest the same. Thomas, he wouldn't have a thing altered; the carpet in his bedroom is wore threadbare, but he wouldn't get a new one nohow. Mis' Jay, she wanted him to get a new cookin'-stove, but he wouldn't hear to it; much as ever he'd let her have a new broom. And it wa'n't because he was stingy; it was jest because he was kind of set, an' had got into the way of thinkin' nothin' had ought to be changed. It wa'n't never my way; I never believed in hangin' on to old shackly things because you've always had 'em. There ain't no use tryin' to set down tables an' chairs as solid as the everlastin' hills. There was Mis' Perry, she that was buried this afternoon, Mr. Perry's mother, when she came here to live after her husband died, she sold off every stick of her old furniture, an' got the handsomest marble-top set that money could buy for her room. She got some pictures in gilt frames too, and a tapestry carpet, and vases and images for her mantel-shelf. She said folks could talk about associations all they wanted to, she hadn't no associations with a lot of old worm-eaten furniture; she'd rather have some that was clean an' new. H'm, anybody to hear folks talk sometimes would think they were blood-relations to old secretaries and bureaus.”
Mrs. Maxwell screwed her face contemptuously, as if the talking folk were before her, and there was a pause. The young man looked across at Lois, then turned to her mother, as if about to speak, but his aunt interposed.
“Esther,” said she, “I jest wanted to ask you if there wa'n't two of them old swell-front bureaus in the north chamber upstairs.”
“I guess there is,” replied Mrs. Field. She sat leaning forward toward her callers, with her face fairly strained into hospitable attention.
“Well, I wanted to know. I ain't come beggin', an' I'd 'nough sight rather have a good clean new one, but I'm kind of short of bureau drawers, an' I'd kind of like to have it because 'twas Thomas'. I wonder if you wouldn't jest as soon I'd have one of them bureaus?”
Mrs. Field's face gleamed suddenly. “You can have it jest as well as not,” said she.
“Well, there's another thing. I kind of hate to speak about it. Flora said I shouldn't; but I said I would, whether or no. I know you'd rather I would. There's a set of blue china dishes that Nancy, that's Thomas' wife, you know, always said Flora should have when she got done with them. Thomas, he never said anything about it after Nancy died. I didn't know but he might make mention of it in the will. But we all know how that was. I ain't findin' no fault, an' I ain't begrudgin' anything.”
“You can have the dishes jest as well as not,” returned Mrs. Field, eagerly.
“Well, I didn't know as you'd value them much. I s'posed you'd rather get some new ones. You can get real handsome ones now for ten dollars. Silsbee's got an elegant set in his window. Of course folks that can afford them would rather have them. But I s'pose Flora would think considerable of that old set because it belonged to her aunt Nancy. There's one or two other things I was thinkin' of, but it don't matter about those to-day. It's a beautiful day, ain't it?”
“What be they?” asked Mrs. Field. “If there's anything you want, you're welcome to it.”
Mrs. Maxwell glanced at her nephew. He was looking out of the window, with his forehead knitted and his lips compressed. Lois had just thought how cross he looked. “You ain't been out to see anything of the town, have you, Lois?” asked Mrs. Maxwell, sweetly.
Lois started. “No, ma'am,” she said, faintly.
“You ain't been into the graveyard, I s'pose?”
“No, ma'am.”
“You'd ought to go in there an' see the Mason monument. Francis, don't you want to go over there with her an' show her the Mason monument?”
Francis rose promptly.
“I guess I'd rather not,” Lois said, hurriedly.
“Oh, you run right along!” cried Mrs. Maxwell. “You'll want to see the flowers on Mis' Perry's grave, too. I never saw such handsome flowers as they had, an' they carried them all to the grave. Get your hat, and run right along, it'll do you good.”
“You'd better,” said the young man, smiling pleasantly down at Lois.
She got up and left the room, and presently returned with her hat on.
“Don't sit down on the damp ground,” Mrs. Field said as the two went out. And her voice sounded more like herself than it had done since she left Green River.
Lois walked gravely down the street beside Francis Arms. She had never had any masculine attention. This was the first time she had ever walked alone with a young man. She was full of that shy consciousness which comes to a young girl who has had more dreams than lovers, but her steady, sober face quite concealed it.
Francis kept glancing down at her, trying to think of something to say. She never looked at him, and kept her shabby little shoes pointed straight ahead on the extreme inside of the walk, as intently as if she were walking on a line. Nobody would have dreamed how her heart, in spite of the terrible exigency in which she was placed, was panting insensibly with the sweet rhythm of youth. In the midst of all this trouble and bewilderment, she had not been able to help a strange feeling when she first looked into this young man's face. It was as if she were suddenly thrust off her old familiar places, like a young bird from its nest into space, and had to use a strange new motion of her soul to keep herself from falling.
But Francis guessed nothing of this. “It's a pleasant day,” he remarked as they walked along.
“Yes, sir,” she replied.
The graveyard gates had been left open after the funeral. They entered, and passed up the driveway along the wheel ruts of the funeral procession. Pink garlands of flowering-almond arched over the old graves, and bushes of bridal-wreath sent out white spikes. Weeping-willows swept over them in lines of gold-green light, and evergreen trees stood among them as they had stood all winter. In many of these were sunken vases and bottles of spring flowers, lilacs and violets.
Lois and Francis Arms went on to the Mason monument.
“This is the one Aunt Jane was speaking about,” he said, in a deferential tone.
Lois looked up at the four white marble women grouped around the central shaft, their Greek faces outlined against the New England sky.
“It was made by a famous sculptor,” said Francis; “and it cost a great deal of money.”
Lois nodded.
“They box it up in the winter, so it won't be injured by the weather,” said Francis.
Lois nodded again. Presently they turned away, and went on to a new grave, covered with wreaths and floral devices. The fragrance of tuberoses and carnations came in their faces.
“This is the grave Aunt Jane wanted you to see,” said Francis.
“Yes, sir,” returned Lois.
They stood staring silently at the long mound covered with flowers. Francis turned.
“Suppose we go over this way,” said he.
Lois followed him as he strode along the little grassy paths between the burial lots. On the farther side of the cemetery the ground sloped abruptly to a field of new grass. Francis stooped and felt of the short grass on the bank.
“It's dry,” said he. “I don't think your aunt would mind. Suppose we sit down here and rest a few minutes?”
Lois looked at him hesitatingly.
“Oh, sit down just a few minutes,” he said, with a pleasant laugh.
They both seated themselves on the bank, and looked down into the field.
“It's pleasant here, isn't it?” said Francis.
“Real pleasant.”
The young man looked kindly, although a little constrainedly, down into his companion's face.
“I hear you haven't been very well,” said he. “I hope you feel better since you came to Elliot?”
“Yes, thank you; I guess I do,” replied Lois.
Francis still looked at her. Her little face bent, faintly rosy, under her hat. There was a grave pitifulness, like an old woman's, about her mouth, but her shoulders looked very young and slender.
“Suppose you take off your hat,” said he, “and let the air come on your forehead. I've got mine off; it's more comfortable. You won't catch cold. It's warm as summer.”
Lois took off her hat.
“That's better,” said Francis, approvingly. “You're going to live right along here in Elliot with your aunt, aren't you?”
Lois looked up at him suddenly. She was very pale, and her eyes were full of terror.
“Why, what is the matter? What have I said?” he cried out, in bewilderment.
Lois bent over and hid her face; her back heaved with sobs.
Francis stared at her. “Why, what is the matter?” he cried again. “Have I done anything?” He hesitated. Then he put his hand on her little moist curly head. Lois' hair was not thick, but it curled softly. “Why, you poor little girl,” said he; “don't cry so;” and his voice was full of embarrassed tenderness.
Lois sobbed harder.
“Now, see here,” said Francis. “I haven't known you more than an hour, and I don't know what the matter is, and I don't know but you'll think I'm officious, but I'll do anything in the world to help you, if you'll only tell me.”
Lois shook off his hand and sat up. “It isn't anything,” said she, catching her breath, and setting her tear-stained face defiantly ahead.
“Don't you feel well?”
Lois nodded vaguely, keeping her quivering mouth firmly set. They were both silent for a moment, then Lois spoke without looking at him.
“Do you know if there's any school here that I could get?” said she.
“A school?”
“Yes. I want to get a chance to teach. I've been teaching, but I've lost my school.”
“And you want to get one here?”
“Yes. Do you know of any?”
“Why, see here,” said Francis. “It's none of my business, but I thought you hadn't been very well. Why don't you take a little vacation?”
“I can't,” returned Lois, in a desperate tone. “I've got to do something.”
“Why, won't your aunt—” He stopped short. The conviction that the stern old woman who had inherited the Maxwell property was too hard and close to support her little delicate orphan niece seized upon him. Lois' next words strengthened it.
“I lost my school,” she went on, still keeping her face turned toward the meadow and speaking fast. “Ida Starr got it away from me. Her father is school-committee-man, and he said he didn't think I was able to teach, just because he brought me home in his buggy one day when I was a little faint. I had a note from him that morning mother—that morning she came down here. I was just going to school, and I was a good deal better, when Mr. Starr's boy brought it. He said he thought it was better for me to take a little vacation. I knew what that meant. I knew Ida had wanted the school right along. I told Amanda I was coming down here. She tried to stop me, but I had money enough. Mr. Starr sent me what was owing to me, and I came. I thought I might just as well. I thought mother—Amanda was dreadfully scared, but I told her I was going to come. I can't go back to Green River; I haven't got money enough.” Lois's voice broke; she hid her face again.
“Oh, don't feel so,” cried Francis. “You don't want to go back to Green River.”
“Yes, I do. I want to get back. It's awful here, awful. I never knew anything so awful.”
Francis stared at her pityingly. “Why, you poor little girl, are you as homesick as that?” he said.
Lois only sobbed in answer.
“Look here!” said Francis—he leaned over her, and his voice sank to a whisper—“it's none of my business, but I think you'd better tell me; it won't go any further—isn't your aunt good to you? Doesn't she treat you well?”
Lois shook her head vaguely. “I can't go back anyway,” she moaned. “Ida's got my school. I haven't got anything to do there. Don't you think I can get a school here?”
“I am afraid you can't,” said Francis. “You see, the schools have all begun now. But you mustn't feel so bad. Don't.” He touched her shoulder gently. “Poor little girl!” said he. “Perhaps I ought not to speak so to you, but you make me so sorry for you I can't help it. Now you must cheer up; you'll get along all right. You won't be homesick a bit after a little while; you'll like it here. There are some nice girls about your age. My cousin Flora will come and see you. She's older than you, but she's a real nice girl. She's feeling rather upset over something now, too. Now come, let's get up and go and see some more of the monuments. You don't want a school. Your aunt can lookout for you. I should laugh if she couldn't. She's a rich woman, and you're all she's got in the world. Now come, let's cheer up, and go look at some more gravestones.”
“I guess I'd rather go home,” said Lois, faintly.
“Too tired? Well, let's sit here a little while longer, then. You mustn't go home with your eyes red, your aunt will think I've been scolding you.”
Francis looked down at her with smiling gentleness. He was a handsome young man with a pale straight profile, his face was very steady and grave when he was not animated, and his smile occasioned a certain pleasant surprise. He was tall, and there was a boyish clumsiness about his shoulders in his gray coat. He reached out with a sudden impulse, and took Lois' little thin hand in his own with a warm clasp.
“Now cheer up,” said he. “See how pleasant it looks down in the field.”
They sat looking out over the field; the horizon sky stretched out infinitely in straight blue lines; one could imagine he saw it melt into the sea which lay beyond; the field itself, with its smooth level of young grass, was like a waveless green sea. A white road lay on the left, and a man was walking on it with a weary, halting gait; he carried a tin dinner-pail, which dipped and caught the western sunlight at every step. A cow lowed, and a pair of white horns tossed over some bars at the right of the field; a boy crossed it with long, loping strides and preliminary swishes of a birch stick. Then a whistle blew with a hoarse musical note, and a bell struck six times.
Lois freed her hand and got up. “I guess I must go,” said she. Her cheeks were blushing softly as she put on her hat.
“Well, I should like to sit here an hour longer, but maybe your aunt will think it's growing damp for you to be out-of-doors,” said Francis, standing up.
As they went between the graves, he caught her hand again, and led her softly along. When they reached the gate, he dropped it with a kindly pressure.
“Now remember, you are going to cheer up,” he said, “and you're going to have real nice times here in Elliot.” When they reached the Maxwell house, his aunt was coming down the walk.
“Oh, there you are!” she called out. “I was jest goin' home. Well, what did you think of the Mason monument, Lois?”
“It's real handsome.”
“Ain't it handsome? An' wa'n't the flowers on Mis' Perry's grave elegant? Good-night. I'm goin' to have you an' your aunt come over an' take tea to-morrow, an' then you can get acquainted with Flora.”
“Good-night,” said Francis, smiling, and the aunt and nephew went on down the road. She carried something bulky under her shawl, and she walked with a curious side-wise motion, keeping the side next her nephew well forward.
“Don't you want me to carry your bundle, Aunt Jane?” Lois heard him say as they walked off.
“No,” the old woman replied, hastily and peremptorily. “It ain't anything.”
When Lois went into the house, her mother gave her a curious look of stern defiance and anxiety. She saw that her eyes were red, as if she had been crying, but she said nothing, and went about getting tea.
After tea the minister and his wife called. Green River was a conservative little New England village; it had always been the custom there when the minister called to invite him to offer a prayer. Mrs. Field felt it incumbent upon her now; if she had any reluctance, she did not yield to it. Just before the callers left she said, with the conventional solemn drop of the voice, “Mr. Wheeler, won't you offer a prayer before you go?”
The minister was an elderly man with a dull benignity of manner; he had not said much; his wife, who was portly and full of gracious volubility, had done most of the talking. Now she immediately sank down upon her knees with a wide flare of her skirts, and her husband then twisted himself out of his chair, clearing his throat impressively. Mrs. Field stood up, and got down on her stiff knees with an effort. Lois slid down from the sofa and went out of the room. She stole through her mother's into her own bedroom, and locked herself in as usual, then she lay down on her bed. She could hear the low rumble of the minister's voice for some time; then it ceased. She heard the chairs pushed back; then the minister's wife's voice in the gracious crescendo of parting; then the closing of the front door. Shortly afterward she heard a door open, and another voice, which she recognized as Mrs. Maxwell's. The voice talked on and on; once in a while she heard her mother's in brief reply. It grew dark; presently she heard heavy shuffling steps on the stairs; something knocked violently against the wall; the side door, which was near her room, was opened. Lois got up and peered out of the window; her mother and Mrs. Maxwell went slowly and painfully down the driveway, carrying a bureau between them.
Chapter VI
Mrs. Maxwell had invited Mrs. Field and Lois to take tea with her the next afternoon, and had hinted there might be other company. “There's a good many I should like to ask,” she had said, “but I ain't situated so I can jest now, an' it's a dreadful puzzle to know who to leave out without offendin' them. I'm goin' to have the minister an' his wife anyhow, an' Lawyer Tuxbury an' his sister. I should ask Flora, but if she comes the children have got to, an' I can't have them anyhow; they're the worst-actin' young ones at the table I ever saw in my life. There's two or three men I'm goin' to ask. Now you an' Lois come real early, Esther.”
Mrs. Field's ideas of early, when invited to spend the afternoon and take tea, were primitive. Directly after the dinner dishes were put away, about one o'clock, she spoke to Lois in the harsh, defiant tone she now used toward her. “You'd better go an' get ready,” said she. “She wanted us to come early.”
A stubborn look came into Lois's face. “I ain't going,” said she, in an undertone.
“What did you say?”
“I ain't going.”
“Then you can stay to home, if you want to get your mother into trouble an' make folks think we're guilty of somethin'.”
Mrs. Field went into her bedroom to get ready. Presently Lois went softly through on her way to her own. Jane Field stood before her little mirror, brushed her gray hair in smooth curves around her ears, and pinned her black woollen dress with a gold-rimmed brooch containing her dead sister's and her husband's hair.
Lois, before her own glass, twisted up her pretty hair carefully; she pulled a few curly locks loose on her temples, thinking half indignantly and shamefacedly how she should see that young man again. Lois was bewildered and terrified, borne down by reflected guilt, almost as if it were her own. She had a wild dread of this going out to tea, meeting more strangers, and seeing her mother act out a further lie; but she could not help being a young girl, and arranging those little locks on her forehead for Francis Arms to see.
When she and her mother stepped out of the door, a strong wind came in their faces.
“Wait a minute,” said Mrs. Field. She went back into the house and got Lois's sack. “Put this on,” said she.
And Lois put it on.
The wind was from the east, and had the salt smell of the sea. All the white-flowering bushes in the yards and the fruit trees bowed toward the west. There was a storm of white petals. Lois, as she and her mother walked against the wind, kept putting her hand to her hair, to keep it in place.
Mrs. Maxwell's house was a large cottage with a steep Gothic roof jutting over a piazza on each side. The house was an old one, and originally very simple in its design; but there had been evidently at some time a flood-tide of prosperity in the fortunes of its owner, which had left marks in various improvements. There was a large ornate bay-window in front, which contrasted oddly with the severe white peak of wall above it; the piazzas had railings in elaborate scroll-work; and the windows were set with four large panes of glass, instead of the original twelve small ones. The front yard was inclosed by a fine iron fence. But the highest mark was shown by a little white marble statue in the midst of it. There was no other in the village outside of the cemetery. Mrs. Jane Maxwell's house was always described to inquiring strangers as the one with the statue in front of it.
Lois, as they went up the walk, looked wonderingly at this marble girl standing straight and white in the midst of a votive circle of box. The walk, too, was bordered with box, and there was a strange pungent odor from it.
Mrs. Field rang the door-bell, and she and Lois stood waiting. Nobody came.
Mrs. Field rang again and again. “I'm goin' round to the other door,” she announced finally. “Mebbe they don't use this one.”
Lois followed her mother around to the other side of the house to the door opening on the south piazza. Mrs. Field rang again, and they waited: then she gave a harder pull. A voice sounded unexpectedly close to them from behind the blinds of a window:
“You jest walk right in,” said the voice, which was at once flurried and ceremonious. “Open the door an' go right in, an' turn to the right, an' set down in the parlor. I'll be in in jest a minute. I ain't quite dressed.”
Lois and her mother went in as they were directed, and sat down in two of the parlor chairs. The room looked very grand to Mrs. Field. She stared at the red velvet furniture, the tapestry carpet, and the long lace curtains, and thought, with a hardening heart, how, at all events, she was not defrauding this other woman of a fine parlor. It was to her mind much more splendid than the sitting-room in the other house, with its dim old-fashioned state, and even than the great north parlor, whose furniture and paper had been imported from England at great cost nearly a hundred years ago.
Mrs. Maxwell did not appear for a half-hour. Now and then they heard a scurry of feet, the rattle of dishes, and the closing of a door. They sat primly waiting. They had not removed their wraps. Lois looked very pale against the red back of her chair.
“Don't you feel well?” asked her mother.
“Yes, I feel well enough,” replied Lois.
“You look sick enough,” said her mother harshly.
Lois looked out of the window at the marble girl in the yard, and her mouth quivered.
Presently Mrs. Maxwell came, in her soft flurry of silk and old ribbons. She had on a black lace head-dress trimmed with purple flowers, and she wore her black kid gloves.
“I'm real sorry I had to keep you waitin' so long, Esther,” said she; “but we were kinder late about dinner. Do take off your things. Flora she'll be down in a few minutes; she's jest gone upstairs to change her dress an' comb her hair. It's a beautiful day, ain't it?”
The three settled themselves in the parlor. Lois sat beside the window, her hands folded meekly in her lap; her mother and Mrs. Maxwell knitted.
“Don't you do any fancy-work, Lois?” asked Mrs. Maxwell.
“No, she don't do much,” replied her mother for her.
“Don't she? I'd like to know! Now Flora, she does considerable. She's makin' a real handsome tidy now. She'll show you how, Lois, if you'd like to make one. It's real easy an' it don't cost a great deal—but then cost ain't much object to you.” Mrs. Maxwell laughed an unpleasant snigger. Then she resumed: “Some tidies would look real handsome on some of them great bare chairs over to your house; there ain't one there so far as I know. Thomas he wouldn't never have a new thing in the house; he was terrible set and notional about it and he was terrible tight with his money. I don't care if I do say it; everybody knows it; an' I don't see why it's any worse to say things that's true about the dead than the livin'. With some folks it's all ‘Oh, don't say nothin'; he's dead. Cover it all up; he's buried an' bury it too, an' set all the roses an' pinks a-growin' over it.’ I tell you sometimes nettles will sprout, an' when they do, it don't make it any better to call 'em pinks. Thomas Maxwell was terrible tight. I ain't forgot how he talked because we bought this parlor furniture and put big lights in the windows, an' had that iron fence. Then my poor husband had gone into business with your husband, an' they seemed to be making money. Why shouldn't he have bought a few things we'd always done without, I'd like to know? You remember what a time the old man made when we bought these things, Esther, I suppose?”
“I can't say as I do,” returned Mrs. Field.
“Why, seems to me it's funny you don't. You sure?”
Mrs. Field nodded.
“Well, it's queer you don't. He made an awful time over it; but the worst of it was over that image out in the yard. I b'lieve he always thought my poor husband and yours failed up because we bought that image. There was one thing about it, your husband wa'n't never extravagant, though, was he? Thomas Maxwell couldn't say his son wasted his money, whatever else he said. Your husband was always prudent, wa'n't he, Esther?”
“Yes, I always thought Edward Maxwell was prudent,” returned Mrs. Field.
Lois, staring soberly and miserably out of the window, saw just then a stout girlish figure, leant to one side with the weight of a valise, pass hurriedly out of the yard. She wondered if it was Flora Maxwell, and watched the pink flowers in her hat and the blue folds of her dress out of sight down the street.
“I guess your husband took after his father a little; I guess he was a little savin',” said Mrs. Maxwell. “I know Edward looked kind of scared when he came over one night an' saw that image just after we'd got it set up, an' he asked how much it cost. It did cost considerable. We didn't ever tell anybody just how much; but I didn't care; I'd always wanted one; an' I made up my mind I'd rather have that if I had to go without some other things. An' my husband wanted it too; he was one of the Maxwells, you know, an' I think they all had a taste for such things if they wa'n't too tight to get 'em. As for me, I had to do without all my young days, an' I have to now except for the few things we got together along then when my poor husband seemed to be prospering; but I've always been crazy over images, an' I've always thought one in a front yard was about the most ornamental thing anybody could have. I've told Flora a good many times that I believed if I'd had advantages when I was young, I should have made images. Don't you think that one's handsome, Esther?”
“Real handsome,” said Mrs. Field.
“Some folks have found fault with it because it didn't have more clothes on, but it ain't as if it was in a cemetery. Of course it would have to be dressed different if it was. An' it ain't anything but marble, when you come right down to it. I think there's such a thing as bein' too particular, for my part, don't you?”
“Yes, I do,” replied Mrs. Field, looking out at the marble figure.
“Well, I do. Mis' Jay said, after my husband died, that she should think I'd like to put up that image for a kind of monument for him. I didn't feel as if I could put up anything more than stones; but I did think a little of it, and I knew if I did, I should have to have some wings made on it, and a cape or a shawl over the neck and arms; but out here it's different. I look out at it a good many times, an' I'm thankful it ain't got any more on, clothes do get so out of fashion. You know how they look in photographs sometimes. I s'pose that's the reason that the men who make these images don't put any more on. There! I must show you my photograph album, Esther.”
Mrs. Maxwell took a heavy album with gilt clasps from the centre-table, and drew a chair close to Mrs. Field.
“Now you get a chair, an' come on the other side, Lois,” said she, “an' I can show 'em to both of you.”
Lois obeyed, and Mrs. Maxwell turned over the album leaves and explained the pictures.
“This is a lady I used to know,” said she. “She lived in North Elliot. She's dead now. That's her husband; he's married again. His second wife's kind of silly. Ain't much like the first one. She was a real stepper. That's Flora Lowe's baby—the first one—an' that's Flora. I think it flatters her. That's my Flora. It ain't very good. She looks terrible sober. There's my poor husband. I s'pose you remember him, Esther? Of course you know how he used to look. Do you think it's a good likeness?”
“I don't know. I guess it's pretty good, ain't it?” stammered Mrs. Field.
“Well, some think it is, and some don't. I ain't never liked it very well myself, but it was all I had. It was taken some years before he died. I guess jest about the time you was down here. There! I s'pose you know whose this is?”
It was her own photograph that Mrs. Field leant over and saw, and Lois on the other side saw it also.
“Yes, I guess I do,” she said.
“Was it a pretty good one of your sister?”
There was a strange gulping sound in Mrs. Field's throat. She did not answer. Mrs. Maxwell thought she did not hear, and repeated her question.
“No, I don't think 'twas, very,” said Mrs. Field hoarsely.
“Well, of course I don't know. I never see her. You remember you gave this to me when you was here. I always thought you must look alike, judging from your pictures. I never see pictures so much alike in my life. I don't know how many folks have thought they were taken for the same person, an' I've always thought so too. If anything your sister's picture looks more like you than your own does; but I've always told which was which by that breast-pin in your sister's. Why, you've got on that breast-pin now, ain't you, Esther?”
“Yes, I have,” said Mrs. Field.
“I s'pose your sister left it to you. Well, Lois wouldn't want to wear it as I know of. It's rather old for her. Why, Lois, what's the matter?”
Lois had gotten up abruptly. “I guess I'll go over to the window,” said she, in a quick trembling voice.
Mrs. Maxwell looked at her sharply. “Why, you're dreadful pale. You ain't faint, are you?”
“No, ma'am.”
Mrs. Field turned over another page of the album. Her pale face had a hard, indifferent look. Mrs. Maxwell nudged her, and nodded toward Lois in the window.
“She looks dreadful,” she whispered.
“I don't see as she looks any worse than she's been doin' right along,” said Mrs. Field, without lowering her voice. “What baby is this?”
“It's Mis' Robinson's; it's dead. Hadn't I better get her something to take? I've got some currant wine. Maybe a little of that would do her good.”
“No, thank you; I don't care for any,” Lois interposed quickly.
“Hadn't you better have a little? You look real pale.”
“No, thank you.”
“Now you needn't mind takin' it, Lois, if you do belong to any temperance society. It wouldn't go to the head of a baby kitten.”
“I'm just as much obliged, but I don't care for any,” said Lois.
Mrs. Maxwell turned over a page of the album. “That's Mis' Robinson's sister. She's dead too. She married a man over at Milton, an' didn't live a year,” she said ostentatiously. “Hadn't I better get her a little?” she whispered.
“Mebbe it would do her good, if you've got it to spare,” Mrs. Field whispered back.
“Here's the minister's little boy that died,” said Mrs. Maxwell. “He wasn't sick but a day. He ate milk an' cherries. I wonder where Flora is? She didn't have a thing to do but comb her hair and change her dress. I guess I'll go call her.”
Mrs. Maxwell's face was frowning with innocent purpose, but there was a sly note in her voice. She hurried out of the room and they heard her call, “Flora! Flora!” in the entry. Then they heard her footsteps on the cellar stairs.
Lois turned to her mother. “Mother,” said she, “I can't stand it—I can't stand it anyway in the world.”
Her mother turned over another page of the photograph album. She looked at a faded picture of a middle-aged woman, whose severe and melancholy face seemed to have betrayed all the sadness and toil of her whole life to the camera. She noted deliberately the old-fashioned sweep of the skirt quite across the little card, and the obsolete sleeves, then she spoke as if she were talking to the picture: “I'm a-followin' out my own law an' my own right,” said she. “I ain't ashamed of it. If you want to be you can.”
“It's awful. Oh, mother, don't!”
“A good many things are awful,” said her mother. “Injustice is awful; if you want to set yourself up against your mother, you can. I've laid out this road that's just an' right, an' I'm goin' on it; you can do jest as you're a-mind to. If you want to tell her when she comes back, you can. I ain't ashamed of it, for I know I'm doin' what is just an' right.”
Mrs. Field noted how the photographed woman's dress was trimmed with fringe, after the fashion of one she had worn twenty years ago.
Lois looked across the room at her mother's pale, stern face bending over the album. The garlands on Mrs. Maxwell's parlor carpet might have been the flora of a whole age, she and her mother seemed so far apart, with that recession of soul which can cover more than earthly spaces. To the young girl with her scared, indignant eyes the older woman seemed actually living and breathing under new conditions in some strange element.
“Flora, Flora, where be you?” Mrs. Maxwell called out in the entry.
They heard her climbing the chamber stairs; but she soon came into the parlor with a little glass of currant wine.
“Here, you'd better drink this right down,” she said to Lois; “it won't hurt you. I don't see where Flora is, for my part. She ain't upstairs. Drink it right down.”
Lois drank the little glass of wine without any demur. Her mother glanced sharply at the album as she took it.
“I can't imagine where Flora is,” said Mrs. Maxwell.
“I saw somebody go out of the yard a while ago,” said Lois.
“You did? Was she kind of stout with light hair?”
“Yes, 'm.”
“It was Flora then. I don't see where she's gone. Mebbe she went down to the store to get some more thread for her tidy. Now I guess you'll feel better.”
“Who's this a picture of?” asked Mrs. Field.
“Hold it up. Oh, that's Mis' John Robbins! She's dead. Yes, I guess Flora must have gone after that thread. She'll show you how to make that tidy, Lois, if you want to learn; it's real handsome. I guess she'll be here before long.”
But when Mrs. Maxwell had shown her guests all the photographs in the album and a book of views in Palestine, and it was nearly four o'clock, Flora still had not come.
“Do you see anybody comin'?” Mrs. Maxwell kept asking Lois at the window.
Before Mrs. Maxwell spoke, a nervous vibration seemed to seize upon her whole body. She cleared her throat sharply. It was like a premonitory click of machinery before motion, and Lois waited, numb with fear, for what she might say. Suppose she should suddenly suspect, and should cry out, “Is this woman here Esther Maxwell?”
But all Mrs. Maxwell's thoughts were on her absent daughter. “I don't see where she is,” said she. “Here she's got to make cream-tarter biscuits for tea, an' it's 'most time for the folks to come.”
“I'm afraid we came too early,” said Mrs. Field.
“Oh, no, you didn't,” returned Mrs. Maxwell politely. “It ain't half as pleasant goin' as late as they do here when they're asked out to tea. You don't see anything of 'em; they begin to eat jest as soon as they come, an' it seems as if that was all they come for. The old-fashioned way of goin' right after dinner, an' takin' your sewin's, a good deal better, accordin' to my way of thinkin', but they ain't done so for years here. Elliot is a pretty fashionable place. I s'pose it must be very different up in Green River, where you come from?”
“Yes, I guess 'tis,” said Mrs. Field.
The front gate clicked, and Mrs. Maxwell peered cautiously around a lace curtain. Two ladies in their best black dresses came up the walk, stepping with a pleasant ceremony.
“There's Mis' Isaac Robbins an' Ann 'Liza White,” Mrs. Maxwell whispered agitatedly. “I shall have to go right out in the kitchen an' make them biscuits the minute they get here. I don't see what Flora Maxwell is thinkin' of.”
Mrs. Maxwell greeted her friends at the door with a dignified bustle, showed them into her bedroom to lay aside their bonnets; then she introduced them to Mrs. Field and Lois in the parlor.
“There!” said she; “now I've got to let you entertain each other a few minutes. I've got something to see to. Flora she's stepped out, an' I guess she's forgot how late 'tis.”
After Mrs. Maxwell had left the room, the guests sat around with a kind of solemn primness as if they were in meeting; they seemed almost hostile. The elder of the new-comers took out her knitting, and fell to work. She was a tall, pale, severely wrinkled woman, and a ruffled trimming on her dress gave her high shoulders a curiously girlish air. Finally the woman who had come with her asked pantingly how Mrs. Field liked Elliot, and if she thought it changed much. The color flashed over her little face, with its softly scalloping profile, as she spoke. Her hair was crimped in even waves. She wore nice white ruching in her neck and sleeves, and flat satin folds crossed each other exactly over her flat chest. Her nervous self-consciousness did not ruffle her fine order, and she did not smile as she spoke.
“I like it pretty well,” replied Mrs. Field. “I dunno as I can tell whether it's changed much or not.” She knitted fast.
“The meetin'-house has been made over since you was here,” volunteered the elder woman. She did not look up from her knitting.
Presently Lois, at the window, saw Mr. Tuxbury's sister, Mrs. Lowe, coming, and the minister's wife, hurrying with a voluminous swing of her skirts, in her wake. The minister's wife had been calling, but Mrs. Lowe, who was a little deaf, had not heard her, and it was not until she shut the iron gate almost in her face that she saw her. Then the two came up the walk together. Lois watched them. The coming of all these people was to her like the closing in of a crowd of witnesses, and for her guilt instead of her mother's. The minister's wife looked up and nodded graciously to her, setting the bunch of red and white cherries on her bonnet trembling. Lois inclined her pale young face soberly in response.
“That girl looks sick,” said the minister's wife to Mrs. Lowe.
There was no more silence and primness after the minister's wife entered. Her florid face beamed on them all with masterly smiles. She put the glasses fastened to her high satin bosom with a gold chain to her eyes, and began sewing on a white apron. “I meant to have come before,” said she, “and brought my sewing and had a real sociable time, but one thing after another has delayed me; and I don't know when Mr. Wheeler will get here; I left him with a caller. But we have been delayed very pleasantly in one respect;” she looked smilingly and significantly at Mrs. Maxwell.
All the other ladies stared. Mrs. Maxwell, standing in their midst, with a large cambric apron over her dress, and a powder of flour on one cheek, looked wonderingly back at the minister's wife.
“I suppose you all know what I mean?” said Mrs. Wheeler, still smiling. “I suppose Mrs. Maxwell has not kept the glad tidings to herself.” In spite of her smiling face, there was a slight doubt and hesitancy in her manner.
Mrs. Maxwell's old face suddenly paled, and at the same time grew alert. Her black eyes, on Mrs. Wheeler's face, were sharply bright.
“Mebbe I have, an' mebbe I ain't,” said she, and she smiled too.
“Well,” said the minister's wife, “I told Flora that her mother must be a brave woman to invite company to tea the afternoon her daughter was married, and I thought we all ought to appreciate it.”
The other women gasped. Mrs. Maxwell's face was yellow-white in its framework of curls; there was a curious noise in her throat, like a premonitory click of a clock before striking.
“Well,” said she, “Flora 'd had this day set for the weddin' for six months. When her uncle died, we talked a little about puttin' of it off, but she thought 'twas a bad sign. So it seemed best for her to get married without any fuss at all about it. An' I thought if I had a little company to tea, it would do as well as a weddin'.”
Mrs. Maxwell's old black eyes travelled slowly and unflinchingly around the company, resting on each in turn as if she had with each a bout of single combat. The other women's eyes were full of scared questionings as they met hers.
“They got off in the three-o'clock train,” remarked the minister's wife, trying to speak easily.
“That was the one they'd talked of,” said Mrs. Maxwell calmly. “Now I guess I shall have to leave you ladies to entertain each other a few minutes.”
When Mrs. Maxwell had left the room, the ladies stared at each other.
“Do you s'pose she didn't know about it?” whispered Mrs. Lowe.
“I don't know,” whispered the minister's wife. “I was very much afraid she didn't at first. I began to feel very nervous. I knew Mr. Wheeler would have been much distressed if he had suspected anything clandestine.”
“Did she have a new dress?” asked Mrs. Robbins.
“No,” replied the minister's wife; “and that was one thing that made me suspicious. She wore her old blue one, but George Freeman wore a nice new suit.”
“I heard,” said Mrs. Lowe, “that Flora had all her under-clothes made before old Mr. Maxwell died, an' she hadn't got any of her dresses. I had it pretty straight. She told my Flora.”
“I had heard that the wedding was postponed on account of Mr. Maxwell's death, and so I was a little surprised when Mr. Wheeler came to me and said they were in the parlor to be married,” said the minister's wife; “but I put on my dress as quick as I could, and went in to witness it.”
“How did Flora appear?” asked Mrs. Lowe.
“Well, I thought she looked rather sober, but I don't know as she looked any more so than girls usually do when they're married. I have seen them come to the parsonage looking more as if they were going to their own funerals than their weddings, they were so scared and quiet and sober. Now Flora—” The minister's wife stopped short, she heard Mrs. Maxwell coming and she turned the conversation with a jolt of conscience into another channel. “Yes, it is very dry,” said she effusively; “we need rain very much indeed.”
The little woman with the crimped hair colored very painfully.
Mrs. Maxwell made frequent errands into the room, and her daughter's wedding had to be discussed guardedly. Always after she went out, the women looked at each other in an agony of inquiry.
“Do you s'pose she knew?” they whispered.
Mrs. Field said nothing; she sat grimly quiet, knitting. Lois looked silently out of the window. Both of them knew that Mrs. Maxwell had not known of her daughter's wedding. Presently a man's voice could be heard out in the kitchen.
“It's Francis,” said Mrs. Lowe. “I wonder if he knew?”
Lois started, and blushed softly, but nobody noticed her.
There was a deep silence in the parlor; the women were listening to the hum of voices in the kitchen.
“Don't you think it's dreadful close here?” said Mrs. Lowe.
“Yes, I think it is,” assented the minister's wife.
“I think it would be a good plan to open the door a little ways,” said Mrs. Lowe, and she opened it cautiously.
Still they could distinguish nothing from the hum of voices out in the kitchen.
Mrs. Maxwell was in reality speaking low lest they should hear, although she was clutching her nephew's arm hard, and the veins in her thin temples and her throat were swelling purple. When he had entered she had sprung at him. “Did you hear about it? I want to know if you knew about it,” said she, grasping his arm with her wiry fingers, as if she were trying to wreak her anger on him.
“Knew about what?” said Francis wonderingly. “What is the matter, Aunt Jane?”
“Did you know Flora went to the minister's and got married this afternoon?”
“No,” said Francis slowly, “I didn't; but I knew she would, well enough.”
“Did Flora tell you?”
“No, she didn't tell me, but I knew she wouldn't do anything else.”
“Knew she wouldn't do anything else? I'd like to know what you're talkin' about, Francis Arms.”
“I knew as long as she was Flora Maxwell, and her wedding was set for to-day three months ago, it wasn't very likely that old Mr. Maxwell's dying and not leaving her his money, and your not liking it, was going to stop her.”
“Hadn't it ought to have stopped her? Hadn't the wishes of a mother that's slaved for her all her life, and didn't want her to get married without a silk gown to her back to a man that ain't any prospects of being able to buy her any, ought to have stopped her, I'd like to know?”
“I guess Flora didn't think much about silk gowns, Aunt Jane,” said Francis, and his face reddened a little. “I guess she didn't think much about anything but George.”
“George! What's George Freeman? What's all the Freemans? I ain't never liked them. They wa'n't never up to our folks. His mother ain't never had a black silk dress to her name—never had a thing better than black cashmere, an' they ain't never had a thing but oil-cloth in their front entry, an' the Perry's ain't never noticed them either. I ain't never wanted Flora to go into that family. I never felt as if she was lookin' high enough, an' I knew George couldn't get no kind of a livin' jest being clerk in Mason's store. But I felt different about it before Thomas died, for I thought she'd have money enough of her own, an' she was gettin' a little on in years, and George was good-lookin' enough. After Thomas died an' left all his money to Edward's wife, I hadn't an idea Flora would be such a fool as to think of marryin' George Freeman. She'd been better off if she'd never been married. I thought she'd given up all notions of it.”
“Well, don't you worry, Aunt Jane,” said Francis in a hearty voice. “Make the best of it. I guess they'll get along all right. If George can't buy Flora a silk dress I will. I'd have bought her one anyway if I'd known.”
“You can stand up for her all you want to, Francis Arms,” cried his aunt. “It's nothin' more than I ought to expect. What do you s'pose I'm goin' to do? Here I am with all these folks to tea an' Flora gone. She might have waited till to-morrow. Here they are all pryin' an' suspectin'. But they shan't know if I die for it. They shan't know that good-for-nothin' girl went off an' got married unbeknown to me. They've had enough to crow over because we didn't get Thomas Maxwell's money; they shan't have this nohow. You'll have to lend me some money, an' I'm goin' to Boston to-morrow an' I'm goin' to buy a silk dress for Flora an' get it made, so she can go out bride when she comes home; an' they've got to come here an' board. I might jest as well have the board-money as them Freemans, an' folks shan't think we ain't on good terms. Can you let me have some money to-morrow mornin'?”
“Of course I can, Aunt Jane,” said Francis soothingly. “I'll make Flora a wedding-present of it.”
“I don't want it for a weddin'-present. I'll pay you back some time. If you're goin' to give her a weddin'-present, I'd rather you'd give her somethin' silver that she can show. I ain't goin' to have you give her clothes for a weddin'-present, as if we was poor as the Freemans. You didn't have any pride. There ain't anybody in this family ever had any pride but me, an' I have to keep it up, an' nobody liftin' a finger to help me. Oh, dear!” the old woman quivered from head to foot. Her face worked as if she was in silent hysterics.
“Don't, Aunt Jane,” whispered her nephew—“don't feel so bad. Maybe it's all for the best. Why, what is the matter with your wrist?”
“I burned it takin' the biscuit out of the oven,” she groaned.
“Why, it's an awful burn. Don't you want something on it?”
“No, I don't mind no burns.”
Suddenly Mrs. Maxwell moved away from her nephew. She began arranging the plates on the table. “You go into the parlor,” said she sharply, “an' don't you let 'em know you didn't know about it. You act kind of easy an' natural when they speak about it. You go right in; tea won't be ready quite yet. I've got something a little extra to see about.”
Francis went into the parlor and greeted the guests, shaking hands with them rather boyishly and awkwardly. The minister's wife made room for him on the sofa beside her.
“I suppose you'd like to hear about your cousin's wedding that I went to this afternoon,” said she, with a blandness that had a covert meaning to the other women, who listened eagerly.
“Yes, I would,” replied Francis, with steady gravity.
“I suppose it wasn't such a surprise to you as it was to us?” said she directly, and the other women panted.
“No, I suppose it wasn't,” said Francis.
Mrs. Lowe and Mrs. Robbins glanced at each other.
“He knew,” Mrs. Lowe motioned with her lips, nodding.
“She didn't,” Mrs. Robbins motioned back, shaking her head.
Francis sat beside the minister's wife. She talked on about the wedding, and he listened soberly and assentingly.
“Well, it will be your turn next, Francis,” said she, with a sly graciousness, and the young man reddened, and laughed constrainedly.
Francis seldom glanced at Lois, but it was as if her little figure in the window was all he saw in the room. She seemed so near his consciousness that she shut out all else besides. Lois did not look at him, but once in a while she put up her hand and arranged the hair on her forehead, and after she had done so felt as if she saw herself with his eyes. The air was growing cool; presently Lois coughed.
“You'd better come away from that window,” said Mrs. Field, speaking out suddenly.
There was no solicitude in her tone; it was more like harsh command. Everybody looked at Lois; Francis with an anxious interest. He partly arose as if to make room for her on the sofa, but she simply moved her chair farther back. Presently Francis went over and shut the window.
The minister, Mr. Tuxbury, and Mrs. Robbin's husband all arrived together shortly afterward. Mrs. Maxwell announced that tea was ready.
“Will you please walk out to tea?” said she, standing at the door, in a ceremonious hush. And the company arose hesitatingly, looking at one another for precedence, and straggled out.
“You sit here,” said Mrs. Maxwell to Lois, and she pointed to a chair beside Francis.
Lois sat down and fixed her eyes upon her green and white plate while the minister asked the blessing.
“It's a pleasant day, isn't it?” said Francis's voice in her ear, when Mrs. Maxwell began pouring the tea.
“Real pleasant,” said Lois.
Mrs. Maxwell had on her black gloves pouring the tea. The women eyed them surreptitiously. She wore them always in company, but this was an innovation. They did not know how she had put them on to conceal the burn in her wrist which she had gotten in her blind fury as she flew about the kitchen preparing supper, handling all the household utensils as if they were weapons to attack Providence.
Mrs. Maxwell poured the tea and portioned out the sugar with her black-gloved hands, and Mrs. Field stiffly buttered her biscuits. Nobody dreamed of the wolves at the vitals of these two old women.
However, the eyes of the guests from the first had wandered to a cake in the centre of the table. It was an oblong black cake; it was set on a plate surrounded thickly with sprigs of myrtle, and upon the top lay a little bouquet of white flowers and green leaves. Mrs. Lowe and Mrs. Robbins, who sat side by side, looked at each other. Mrs. Lowe's eyes said, “Is that a wedding-cake?” and Mrs. Robbin's said: “I dunno; it ain't frosted. It looks jest like a loaf she's had on hand.”
But nothing could exceed the repose and dignity with which Mrs. Maxwell, at the last stage of the meal, requested her nephew to pass the cake to her. Nobody could have dreamed as she cut it, every turn of her burned wrist giving her pain, of the frantic haste with which she had taken that old fruit cake out of the jar down-cellar, and pulled those sprigs of myrtle from the bank under the north windows.
“Will you have some weddin'-cake?” said she.
The ladies each took a slice gingerly and respectfully. Mrs. Lowe and Mrs. Robbins nodded to each other imperceptibly. The cake was not iced with those fine devices which usually make a wedding-loaf, it was rather dry, and not particularly rich; but Mrs. Maxwell's perfect manner as she cut and served it, her acting on her own little histrionic stage, had swayed them to her will. Mrs. Lowe and Mrs. Robbins both thought she knew. But the minister's wife still doubted; and later, when the other women were removed from the spell of her acting, their old suspicions returned. It was always a mooted question in Elliot whether or not Mrs. Jane Maxwell had known of her daughter's marriage. Not all her subsequent behavior, her meeting the young couple with open arms at the station on their return, and Flora's appearance at church the next Sunday in the silk dress which her mother had concocted during her absence, could quite allay the suspicion, although it prevented it from gaining ground.
All that evening Mrs. Maxwell's courage never flagged. She entertained her guests as well as a woman of Sparta could have done. She even had the coolness to prosecute other projects which she had in mind. She kept Mrs. Field and Lois behind the rest, and walked home with the mother, that Francis might have the girl to himself. And she went into the house with Mrs. Field, and slipped a parcel into her pocket, while the two young people had a parting word at the gate.
Chapter VII
It was a hot afternoon in August. Amanda Pratt had set all her windows wide open, but no breeze came in, only the fervid breath of the fields and the white road outside.
She sat at a front window and darned a white stocking; her long, thin arms and her neck showed faintly through her old loose muslin sacque. The muslin was white, with a close-set lavender sprig, and she wore a cameo brooch at her throat. The blinds were closed, and she had to bend low over her mending in order to see in the green gloom.
Mrs. Babcock came toiling up the bank to the house, but Amanda did not notice her until she reached the front door. Then she fetched a great laboring sigh.
“Oh, hum!” said she, audibly, in a wrathful voice; “if I'd had any idea of it, I wouldn't have come a step.”
Then Amanda looked out with a start. “Is that you, Mis' Babcock?” she called hospitably through the blind.
“Yes, it's me—what's left of me. Oh, hum! Oh, hum!”
Amanda ran and opened the door, and Mrs. Babcock entered, panting. She had a green umbrella, which she furled with difficulty at the door, and a palm-leaf fan. Her face, in the depths of her scooping green barége bonnet, was dank with perspiration, and scowling with indignant misery. She sank into a chair, and fanned herself with a desperate air.
Amanda set her umbrella in the corner, then she stood looking sympathetically at her. “It's a pretty hot day, ain't it?” said she.
“I should think 'twas hot. Oh, hum!”
“Don't you want me to get you a tumbler of water?”
“I dunno. I don't drink much cold water; it don't agree with me very well. Oh, dear! You ain't got any of your beer made, I s'pose?”
“Oh, no, I ain't. I'm dreadful sorry. Don't you want a swaller of cold tea?”
“Well, I dunno but I'll have jest a swaller, if you've got some. Oh, dear me, hum!”
Amanda went out hurriedly, and returned with a britannia teapot and a tumbler. She poured out some tea, and Mrs. Babcock drank with desperate gulps.
“I think cold tea is better for anybody than cold water in hot weather,” said Amanda. “Won't you have another swaller, Mis' Babcock?”