Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - Jane Field
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Mary E. Wilkins Freeman >> Jane Field
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11 Jane Field
A Novel
By
Mary E. Wilkins
Author of "A Humble Romance, and other stories"
"A New England Nun, and other stories"
"Young Lucretia, and other stories"
Illustrated
New York
Harper & Brothers Publishers
Chapter I
Amanda Pratt's cottage-house was raised upon two banks above the
road-level. Here and there the banks showed irregular patches of
yellow-green, where a little milky-stemmed plant grew. It had come up
every spring since Amanda could remember.
There was a great pink-lined shell on each side of the front
door-step, and the path down over the banks to the road was bordered
with smaller shells. The house was white, and the front door was dark
green, with an old-fashioned knocker in the centre.
There were four front windows, and the roof sloped down to them; two
were in Amanda's parlor, and two were in Mrs. Field's. She rented
half of her house to Mrs. Jane Field.
There was a head at each of Amanda's front windows. One was hers, the
other was Mrs. Babcock's. Amanda's old blond face, with its folds of
yellow-gray hair over the ears and sections of the softly-wrinkled,
pinky cheeks, was bent over some needle-work. So was Mrs. Babcock's,
darkly dim with age, as if the hearth-fires of her life had always
smoked, with a loose flabbiness about the jaw-bones, which seemed to
make more evident the firm structure underneath.
Amanda was sewing a braided rug; her little veiny hands jerked the
stout thread through with a nervous energy that was out of accord
with her calm expression and the droop of her long slender body.
"It's pretty hard sewin' braided mats, ain't it?" said Mrs. Babcock.
"I don't care how hard 'tis if I can get 'em sewed strong," replied
Amanda, and her voice was unexpectedly quick and decided. "I never
had any feelin' that anything was hard, if I could only do it."
"Well, you ain't had so much hard work to do as some folks. Settin'
in a rockin'-chair sewin' braided mats ain't like doin' the housework
for a whole family. If you'd had the cookin' to do for four
men-folks, the way I have, you'd felt it was pretty hard work, even
if you did make out to fill 'em up." Mrs. Babcock smiled, and showed
that she did not forget she was company, but her tone was quite
fierce.
"Mebbe I should," returned Amanda, stiffly.
There was a silence.
"Let me see, how many mats does that make?" Mrs. Babcock asked,
finally, in an amiable voice.
"Like this one?"
"Yes."
"This makes the ninth."
Mrs. Babcock scrutinized the floor. It was almost covered with
braided rugs, and they were all alike.
"I declare I don't see where you'll put another in here," said she.
"I guess I can lay 'em a little thicker over there by the what-not."
"Well, mebbe you can; but I declare I shouldn't scarcely think you
needed another. I shouldn't think your carpet would wear out till the
day of judgment. What made you have them mats all jest alike?"
"I like 'em better so," replied Amanda, with dignity.
"Well, of course, if you do there ain't nothin' to say; it's your
carpet an' your mats," returned Mrs. Babcock, with grim apology.
There were two curious features about Amanda Pratt's parlor: one was
a gentle monotony of details; the other, a certain savor of the sea.
It was like holding a shell to one's ear to enter Amanda's parlor.
There was a faint suggestion of far-away sandy beaches, the breaking
of waves, and the rush of salt winds. In the centre of the
mantel-shelf stood a stuffed sea-gull; on either side shells were
banked. The fire-place was flanked by great branches of coral, and on
the top of the air-tight stove there stood always in summer-time,
when there was no fire, a superb nautilus shell, like a little pearl
vessel. The corner what-not, too, had its shelves heaped with shells
and coral and choice bits of rainbow lava from volcanic islands.
Between the windows, instead of the conventional mahogany cardtable,
stood one of Indian lacquer, and on it was a little inlaid cabinet
that was brought from over seas. The whole room in this little inland
cottage, far beyond the salt fragrance of the sea, seemed like one of
those marine fossils sometimes found miles from the coast. It
indicated the presence of the sea in the lives of Amanda's race. Her
grandfather had been a seafaring man, and so had her father, until
late in life, when he had married an inland woman, and settled down
among waves of timothy and clover on her paternal acres.
Amanda was like her mother, she had nothing of the sea tastes in her
nature. She was full of loyal conservatism toward the marine
ornaments of her parlor, but she secretly preferred her own braided
rugs, and the popular village fancy-work, in which she was quite
skilful. On each of her chairs was a tidy, and the tidies were all
alike; in the corners of the room were lambrequins, all worked after
the same pattern in red worsted and beads. On one wall hung a group
of pictures framed in cardboard, four little colored prints of
crosses twined with flowers, and they were all alike. "Why didn't you
get them crosses different?" many a neighbor had said to her--these
crosses, with some variation of the entwining foliage, had been very
popular in the rural neighborhood--and Amanda had replied with quick
dignity that she liked them better the way she had them. Amanda
maintained the monotony of her life as fiercely as her fathers had
pursued the sea. She was like a little animal born with a rebound to
its own track, from whence no amount of pushing could keep it long.
Mrs. Babcock glanced sharply around the room as she sewed; she was
anxious to divert Amanda's mind from the mats. "Don't the moths ever
git into that stuffed bird over there?" she asked suddenly,
indicating the gull on the shelf with a side-wise jerk of her head.
"No; I ain't never had a mite of trouble with 'em," replied Amanda.
"I always keep a little piece of camphor tucked under his wing
feathers."
"Well, you're lucky. Mis' Jackson she had a stuffed canary-bird all
eat up with 'em. She had to put him in the stove; couldn't do nothin'
with him. She felt real bad about it. She'd thought a good deal of
the bird when he was alive, an' he was stuffed real handsome, an'
settin' on a little green sprig. She use to keep him on her parlor
shelf; he was jest the right size. It's a pity your bird is quite so
big, ain't it?"
"I s'pose he's jest the way he was made," returned Amanda shortly.
"Of course he is. I ain't findin' no fault with him; all is, I
thought he was kind of big for the shelf; but then birds do perch on
dreadful little places." Mrs. Babcock, full of persistency in
exposing herself to rebuffs, was very sensitive and easily cowed by
one. "Let me see--he's quite old. Your grandfather bought him, didn't
he?" said she, in a mollifying tone.
Amanda nodded. "He's a good deal older than I am," said she.
"It's queer how some things that ain't of no account really in the
world last, while others that's worth so much more don't," Mrs.
Babcock remarked, meditatively. "Now, there's that bird there,
lookin' jest as nice and handsome, and there's the one that bought
him and brought him home, in his grave out of sight."
"There's a good many queer things in this world," rejoined Amanda,
with a sigh.
"I guess there is," said Mrs. Babcock. "Now you can jest look round
this room, an' see all the things that belonged to your folks that's
dead an' gone, and it seems almost as if they was immortal instead of
them. An' it's goin' to be jest the same way with us; the clothes
that's hangin' up in our closets are goin' to outlast us. Well,
there's one thing about it--this world ain't _our_ abidin'-place."
Mrs. Babcock shook her head resolutely, and began to fold up her
work. She rolled the unbleached cloth into a hard smooth bundle, with
the scissors, thimble, and thread inside, and the needle quilted in.
"You ain't goin'?" said Amanda.
"Yes, I guess I must. I've got to be home by half-past five to get
supper, an' I thought I'd jest look in at Mis' Field's a minute. Do
you s'pose she's to home?"
"I shouldn't wonder if she was. I ain't seen her go out anywhere."
"Well, I dun'no' when I've been in there, an' I dun'no' but she'd
think it was kinder queer if I went right into the house and didn't
go near her."
Amanda arose, letting the mat slide to the floor, and went into the
bedroom to get Mrs. Babcock's bonnet and light shawl.
"I wish you wouldn't be in such a hurry," said she, using the village
formula of hospitality to a departing guest.
"It don't seem to me I've been in much of a hurry. I've stayed here
the whole afternoon."
Suddenly Mrs. Babcock, pinning on her shawl, thrust her face close to
Amanda's. "I want to know if it's true Lois Field is so miserable?"
she whispered.
"Well, I dun'no'. She don't look jest right, but she an' her mother
won't own up but what she's well."
"Goin' the way Mis' Maxwell did, ain't she?"
"I dun'no'. I'm worried about her myself--dreadful worried. Lois is a
nice girl as ever was."
"She ain't give up her school?"
Amanda shook her head.
"I shouldn't think her mother'd have her."
"I s'pose she feels as if she'd got to." Mrs. Babcock dropped her
voice still lower. "They're real poor, ain't they?"
"I guess they ain't got much."
"I s'pose they hadn't. Well, I hope Lois ain't goin' down. I heard
she looked dreadful. Mis' Jackson she was in yesterday, talkin' about
it. Well, you come over an' see me, Mandy. Bring your sewin' over
some afternoon."
"Well, mebbe I will. I don't go out a great deal, you know."
The two women grimaced to each other in a friendly fashion, then
Amanda shut her door, and Mrs. Babcock pattered softly and heavily
across the little entry, and opened Mrs. Field's door. She pressed
the old brass latch with a slight show of ceremonious hesitancy, but
she never thought of knocking. There was no one in the room, which
had a clean and sparse air. The chairs all stood back against the
walls, and left in the centre a wide extent of faded carpet, full of
shadowy gray scrolls.
Mrs. Babcock stood for a moment staring in and listening.
There was a faint sound of a voice seemingly from a room beyond. She
called, softly, "Mis' Field!" There was no response. She advanced
then resolutely over the stretch of carpet toward the bedroom door.
She opened it, then gave a little embarrassed grunt, and began
backing away.
Mrs. Field was in there, kneeling beside the bed, praying.
She started and looked up at Mrs. Babcock with a kind of
solemn abashedness, her long face flushed. Then she got up.
"Good-afternoon," said she.
"Good-afternoon," returned Mrs. Babcock. She tried to smile and
recover her equanimity. "I've been into Mandy Pratt's," she went on,
"an' I thought I'd jest look in here a minute before I went home, but
I wouldn't have come in so if I'd known you was--busy."
"Come out in the other room an' sit down," said Mrs. Field.
Mrs. Babcock's agitated bulk followed her over the gray carpet, and
settled into the rocking-chair at one of the front windows. Mrs.
Field seated herself at the other.
"It's been a pleasant day, ain't it?" said she.
"Real pleasant. I told Mr. Babcock this noon that I was goin' to git
out somewheres this afternoon come what would. I've been cooped up
all the spring house-cleanin', an' now I'm goin' to git out. I
dun'no' when I've been anywhere. I ain't been into Mandy's sence
Christmas that I know of--I ain't been in to set down, anyway; an'
I've been meanin' to run in an' see you all winter, Mis' Field." All
the trace of confusion now left in Mrs. Babcock's manner was a weak
volubility.
"It's about all anybody can do to do their housework, if they do it
thorough," returned Mrs. Field. "I s'pose you've been takin' up
carpets?"
"Took up every carpet in the house. I do every year. Some folks
don't, but I can't stand it. I'm afraid of moths, too. I s'pose
you've got your cleanin' all done?"
"Yes, I've got it about done."
"Well, I shouldn't think you could do so much, Mis' Field, with your
hands."
Mrs. Field's hands lay in her lap, yellow and heavily corrugated, the
finger-joints in great knots, which looked as if they had been tied
in the bone. Mrs. Babcock eyed them pitilessly.
"How are they now?" she inquired. "Seems to me they look worse than
they used to."
Mrs. Field regarded her hands with a staid, melancholy air. "Well, I
dun'no'."
"Seems to me they look worse. How's Lois, Mis' Field?"
"She's pretty well, I guess. I dun'no' why she ain't."
"Somebody was sayin' the other day that she looked dreadfully."
Mrs. Field had heretofore held herself with a certain slow dignity.
Now her manner suddenly changed, and she spoke fast. "I dun'no' what
folks mean talkin' so," said she. "Lois ain't been lookin' very well,
as I know of, lately; but it's the spring of the year, an' she's
always apt to feel it."
"Mebbe that is it," replied the other, with a doubtful inflection.
"Let's see, you called it consumption that ailed your sister, didn't
you, Mis' Field?"
"I s'pose it was."
Mrs. Babcock stared with cool reflection at the other woman's long,
pale face, with its high cheek-bones and deep-set eyes and wide,
drooping mouth. She was deliberating whether or not to ask for some
information that she wanted. "Speakin' of your sister," said she
finally, with a casual air, "her husband's father is livin', ain't
he?"
"He was the last I knew."
"I s'pose he's worth considerable property?"
"Yes, I s'pose he is."
"Well, I want to know. Somebody was speakin' about it the other day,
an' they said they thought he did, an' I told 'em I didn't believe
it. He never helped your sister's husband any, did he?"
Mrs. Field did not reply for a moment. Mrs. Babcock was leaning
forward and smiling ingratiatingly, with keen eyes upon her face.
"I dun'no' as he did. But I guess Edward never expected he would
much," said she.
"Well, I told 'em I didn't believe he did. I declare! it seemed
pretty tough, didn't it?"
"I dun'no'. I thought of it some along there when Edward was sick."
"I declare, I should have thought you'd wrote to him about it."
Mrs. Field said nothing.
"Didn't you ever?" Mrs. Babcock asked.
"Well, yes; I wrote once when he was first taken sick."
"An' he didn't take any notice of it?"
Mrs. Field shook her head.
"He's a regular old skinflint, ain't he?" said Mrs. Babcock.
"I guess he's a pretty set kind of a man."
"Set! I should call it more'n set. Now, Mis' Field, I'd really like
to know something. I ain't curious, but I've heard so many stories
about it that I'd really like to know the truth of it once. Somebody
was speakin' about it the other day, an' it don't seem right for
stories to be goin' the rounds when there ain't no truth in 'em. Mis'
Field, what was it set Edward Maxwell's father agin' him?" Mrs.
Babcock's voice sank to a whisper, she leaned farther forward, and
gazed at Mrs. Field with crafty sweetness.
Mrs. Field looked out of the window.
"Well, I s'pose it was some trouble about money matters."
"Money matters?"
"Yes, I s'pose so."
"Mis' Field, _what did he do?"_
Mrs. Field did not reply. She looked out of the window at the green
banks in front. Her face was inscrutable.
Mrs. Babcock drew herself up. "Course I don't want you to tell me
nothin' you don't want to," said she, with injured dignity. "I ain't
pryin' into things that folks don't want me to know about; it wa'n't
never my way. All is, I thought I'd like to know the truth of it,
whether there was anything in them stories or not."
"Oh, I'd jest as soon tell you," rejoined Mrs. Field quietly. "I was
jest a-thinkin'. As near as I can tell you, Mis' Babcock, Edward's
father he let him have some money, and Edward he speculated with it
on something contrary to his advice, an' lost it, an' that made the
trouble."
"Was that all?" asked Mrs. Babcock, with a disappointed air.
"Yes, I s'pose it was."
"I want to know!" Mrs. Babcock leaned back with a sigh. "Well,
there's another thing," she said presently. "Somebody was sayin' the
other day that you thought Esther caught the consumption from her
husband. I wanted to know if you did."
Mrs. Field's face twitched. "Well," she replied, "I dun'no'. I've
heard consumption was catchin', an' she was right over him the whole
time."
"Well, I don't know. I ain't never been able to take much stock in
catchin' consumption. There was Mis' Gay night an' day with Susan for
ten years, an' she's jest as well as anybody. I should be afraid
'twas a good deal likelier to be in your family. Does Lois cough?"
"None to speak of."
"Well, there's more kinds of consumption than one."
Mrs. Babcock made quite a long call. She shook Mrs. Field's hand
warmly at parting. "I want to know, does Lois like honey?" said she.
"Yes, she's real fond of it."
"Well, I'm goin' to send her over a dish of it. Ours was uncommon
nice this year. It's real good for a cough."
On her way home Mrs. Babcock met Lois Field coming from school
attended by a little flock of children. Mrs. Babcock stopped, and
looked sharply at her small, delicately pretty face, with its pointed
chin and deep-set blue eyes.
"How are you feelin' to-night, Lois?" she inquired, in a tone of
forcible commiseration.
"I'm pretty well, thank you," said Lois.
"Seems to me you're lookin' pretty slim. You'd ought to take a little
vacation." Mrs. Babcock surveyed her with a kind of pugnacious pity.
Lois stood quite erect in the midst of the children. "I don't think I
need any vacation," said she, smiling constrainedly. She pushed
gently past Mrs. Babcock, with the children at her heels.
"You'd better take a little one," Mrs. Babcock called after her.
Lois kept on as if she did not hear. Her face was flushed, and her
head seemed full of beating pulses.
One of the children, a thin little girl in a blue dress, turned
around and grimaced at Mrs. Babcock; another pulled Lois' dress.
"Teacher, Jenny Whitcomb is makin' faces at Mis' Babcock," she
drawled.
"Jenny!" said Lois sharply; and the little girl turned her face with
a scared nervous giggle. "You mustn't ever do such a thing as that
again," said Lois. She reached down and took the child's little
restive hand and led her along.
Lois had not much farther to go. The children all clamored, "Good-by,
teacher!" when she turned in at her own gate.
She went in through the sitting-room to the kitchen, and settled down
into a chair with her hat on.
"Well, so you've got home," said her mother; she was moving about
preparing supper. She smiled anxiously at Lois as she spoke.
Lois smiled faintly, but her forehead was frowning. "Has that Mrs.
Babcock been here?" she asked.
"Yes. Did you meet her?"
"Yes, I did; and I'd like to know what she meant telling me I'd ought
to take a vacation, and I looked bad. I wish people would let me
alone tellin' me how I look."
"She meant well, I guess," said her mother, soothingly. "She said she
was goin' to send you over a dish of her honey."
"I don't want any of her honey. I don't see what folks want to send
things in to me, as if I were sick, for."
"Oh, I guess she thought I'd like some too," returned her mother,
with a kind of stiff playfulness. "You needn't think you're goin' to
have all that honey."
"I don't want any of it," said Lois. The window beside which she sat
was open; under it, in the back yard, was a little thicket of mint,
and some long sprays of sweetbrier bowing over it. Lois reached out
and broke off a piece of the sweetbrier and smelled it.
"Supper's ready," said her mother, presently; and she took off her
hat and went listlessly over to the table.
The table, covered with a white cloth, was set back against the wall,
with only one leaf spread. There were bread and butter and custards
and a small glass dish of rhubarb sauce for supper.
Lois looked at the dish. "I didn't know the rhubarb was grown," said
she.
"I managed to get enough for supper," replied her mother, in a casual
voice.
Nobody would have dreamed how day after day she had journeyed stiffly
down to the old garden spot behind the house to watch the progress of
the rhubarb, and how triumphantly she had brought up those green and
rosy stalks. Lois had always been very fond of rhubarb.
She ate it now with a keen relish. Her mother contrived that she
should have nearly all of it; she made a show of helping herself
twice, but she took very little. But it was to her as if she also
tasted every spoonful which her daughter ate, and as if it had the
flavor of a fruit of Paradise and satisfied her very soul.
After supper Lois began packing up the cups and saucers.
"Now you go in the other room an' set down, an' let me take care of
the dishes," said Mrs. Field, timidly.
Lois faced about instantly. "Now, mother, I'd just like to know what
you mean?" said she. "I guess I ain't quite so far gone but what I
can wash up a few dishes. You act as if you wanted to make me out
sick in spite of myself."
"I thought mebbe you was kind of tired," said her mother,
apologetically.
"I ain't tired. I'm jest as well able to wash up the supper dishes as
I ever was." Lois carried the cups and saucers to the sink with a
resolute air, and Mrs. Field said no more. She went into her bedroom
to change her dress; she was going to evening meeting.
Lois washed and put away the dishes; then she went into the
sitting-room, and sat down by the open window. She leaned her cheek
against the chairback and looked out; a sweet almond fragrance of
cherry and apple blossoms came into her face; over across the fields
a bird was calling. Lois did not think it tangibly, but it was to her
as if the blossom scent and the bird call came out of her own future.
She was ill, poor, and overworked, but she was not unhappy, for her
future was yet, in a way, untouched; she had not learned to judge of
it by hard precedent, nor had any mistake of hers made a miserable
certainty of it. It still looked to her as fair ahead as an untrodden
field of heaven.
She was quite happy as she sat there; but when her mother, in her
black woollen dress, entered, she felt instantly nervous and fretted.
Mrs. Field said nothing, but the volume and impetus of her anxiety
when she saw her daughter's head in the window seemed to actually
misplace the air.
Presently she went to the window, and leaned over to shut it.
"Don't shut the window, mother," said Lois.
"I'm dreadful afraid you'll catch cold, child."
"No, I sha'n't, either. I wish you wouldn't fuss so, mother."
Mrs. Field stood back; the meeting bell began to ring.
"Goin' to meetin', mother?" Lois asked, in a pleasanter voice.
"I thought mebbe I would."
"I guess I won't go. I want to sew some on my dress this evenin'."
"Sha'n't you mind stayin' alone, if I go?"
"Mind stayin' alone? of course I sha'n't. You get the strangest ideas
lately, mother."
Mrs. Field put on her black bonnet and shawl, and started. The bell
tolled, and she passed down the village street with a stiff
steadiness of gait. She felt eager to go to meeting to-night. This
old New England woman, all of whose traditions were purely orthodox,
was all unknowingly a fetich-worshipper in a time of trouble. Ever
since her daughter had been ill, she had had a terrified impulse in
her meeting-going. It seemed to her that if she stayed away, Lois
might be worse. Unconsciously her church attendance became a species
of spell, or propitiation to a terrifying deity, and the wild
instinct of the African awoke in the New England woman.
When she reached the church the bell had stopped ringing, and the
vestry windows were parallelograms of yellow light; the meeting was
in the vestry.
Mrs. Field entered, and took a seat well toward the front. The room
was half filled with people, and the mass of them were elderly and
middle-aged women. There were rows of their homely, faded, and
strong-lined faces set in sober bonnets, a sprinkling of solemn old
men, a few bright-ribboned girls, and in the background a settee or
two of smart young fellows. Right in front of Mrs. Field sat a pretty
girl with roses in her hat. She was about Lois' age, and had been to
school with her.
Mrs. Field, erect and gaunt, with a look of goodness so settled and
pre-eminent in her face that it had almost the effect of a smile, sat
and listened to the minister. He was a young man with boyish
shoulders, and a round face, which he screwed nervously as he talked.
He was vehement, and strung to wiriness with new enthusiasm; he
seemed to toss the doctrines like footballs back and forth before the
eyes of the people.
Mrs. Field listened intently, but all the time it was as if she were
shut up in a corner with her own God and her own religion. There are
as many side chapels as there are individual sorrows in every church.
After the minister finished his discourse, the old men muttered
prayers, with long pauses between. Now and then a young woman played
a gospel tune on a melodeon, and a woman in the same seat with Mrs.
Field led the singing. She was past middle age, but her voice was
still sweet, although once in a while it quavered. She had sung in
the church choir ever since she was a child, and was the prima donna
of the village. The young girl with roses in her hat who sat in front
of Mrs. Field also sang with fervor, although her voice was little
more than a sweetly husky breath. She kept her eyes, at once bold and
timid, fixed upon the young minister as she sang.
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