Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - Jane Field

M >> Mary E. Wilkins Freeman >> Jane Field

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Flora sped out of the yard. Her blue dress, lashing around her feet,
changed color in the ghastly light of the storm. Some flying leaves
struck her in the face. At the gate a cloud of dust from the road
nearly blinded her. She realized in a bewildered fashion that there
were three women on the other side struggling frantically with the
latch.

"Does Mis' Jane Field live here?" inquired one of them, breathlessly.

"No," replied Flora; "that isn't her name."

"She don't?"

"No," gasped Flora, her head lowered before the wind.

"Well, I want to know, ain't this the old Maxwell place?"

"Yes," said Flora.

Some great drops of rain began to fall; there was another flash. The
woman struggled mightily, and prevailed over the gate-latch. She
pushed it open. "Well, I don't care," said she, "I'm comin' in,
whether or no. I dunno but my bonnet-strings will spot, an' I ain't
goin' to have my best clothes soaked. It's mighty funny nobody knows
where Mis' Field lives; but this is the old Maxwell house, where she
wrote Mandy she lived, an' I'm goin' in."

Flora stood aside, and the three women entered with a rush. Lois,
standing near the door front, saw them coming through the
greenish-yellow gloom, their three black figures scudding before the
wind like black-sailed ships.

"Land sakes!" shrieked out Mrs. Babcock, "there's Lois now! Lois, how
are you? I'd like to know what that girl we met at the gate meant
telling us they didn't live here. Why, Lois Field, how do you do?
Where's your mother? I guess we'd better step right in, an' not stop
to talk. It's an awful tempest. I'm dreadful afraid my bonnet
trimmin' will spot."

They all scurried up the steps and into the house. Then the women
turned and kissed Lois, and raised a little clamor of delight over
her. She stood panting. She did not ask them into the sitting-room.
Her head whirled. It seemed to her that the end of everything had
come.

But Mrs. Babcock turned toward the sitting-room door. She had pulled
off her bonnet, and was wiping it anxiously with her handkerchief.
"This is the way, ain't it?" she said.

Lois followed them in helplessly. The room was dark as night, for the
shutters were closed. Mrs. Babcock flung one open peremptorily.

"We'll break our necks here, if we don't have some light," she said.
The hail began to rattle on the window-panes.

"It's hailin'!" the women chorussed.

"Are your windows all shut?" Mrs. Babcock demanded of Lois.

And the girl said, in a dazed way, that the bedroom windows were
open, and then went mechanically to shut them.

"Shut the blinds, too!" screamed Mrs. Babcock. "The hail's comin' in
this side terrible heavy. I'm afraid it'll break the glass." Mrs.
Babcock herself, her face screwed tightly against an onslaught of
wind and hail, shut the blinds, and the room was again plunged in
darkness. "We'll have to stan' it," said she. "Mis' Field don't want
her windows all broke in. That's dreadful sharp."

Thunder shook the house like an explosion. The women looked at each
other with awed faces.

"Where is your mother? Why don't she come in here?" Mrs. Babcock
asked excitedly of Lois returning from the bedroom.

"She's gone berrying," replied Lois, feebly. She sank into a chair.

"Gone berryin'!" screamed Mrs. Babcock, and the other women echoed
her.

"Yes'm."

"When did she go?"

"Right after dinner."

"Right after dinner, an' she ain't got home yet! Out in this awful
tempest! Well, she'll be killed. You'll never see her again, that's
all. A berry pasture is the most dangerous place in creation in a
thunder-shower. Out berryin' in all this hail an' thunder an'
lightnin'!"

Mrs. Green pressed close up to Lois. "Ain't you any idea where she's
gone?" said she. "If you have, I'll jest slip off my dress skirt, an'
you give me an old shawl, an' I'll go with you an' see if we can't
find her."

"I'll go, too," cried Amanda. "Don't you know which way they went,
Lois?"

Just then the south side-door slammed sharply.

"She's come," said Lois, in a strained voice.

"Well, I'm thankful!" cried Mrs. Green. "Hadn't you better run out
an' help her off with her wet things, Lois?"

But the sitting-room door opened, and Mrs. Field stood there, a tall
black shadow hardly shaped out from the gloom. The women all arose
and hurried toward her. There was a shrill flurry of greeting. Mrs.
Field's voice arose high and terrified above it.

"Who is it?" she cried out. "Who's here?"

"Why, your old neighbors, Mrs. Field. Don't you know us--Mandy an'
Mis' Green an' Mis' Babcock? We come down on an excursion ticket to
Boston--only three dollars an' sixty cents--an' we thought we'd
surprise you."

"Ain't you dreadful wet, Mis' Field?" interposed Mrs. Green's
solicitous voice.

"You'd better go and change your dress," said Amanda.

"When did you come?" said Mrs. Field.

"Jest now. For the land sakes, Mis' Field, your dress is soppin' wet!
Do go an' change it, or you'll catch your death of cold."

Mrs. Field did not stir. The hail pelted on the windows. "Now, you go
right along an' change it," cried Mrs. Babcock.

"Well," said Mrs. Field vaguely, "mebbe I'd better." She fumbled her
way unsteadily toward her bedroom door.

"You go help her; it's dark as a pocket," said Mrs. Babcock
imperatively to Lois; and the girl followed her mother.

"They act dreadful queer, seems to me," whispered Mrs. Babcock, when
the bedroom door was closed.

"I guess it's jest because they're so surprised to see us," Mrs.
Green whispered back.

"Well, if I ain't wanted, I can go back to where I come from, if I do
have to throw the money away," Mrs. Babcock said, almost aloud. "I
think they act queer, both on 'em. I should think they might seem a
little mite more pleased to see three old neighbors so."

"Mebbe it's the thunder-shower that's kind of dazed 'em," said
Amanda. She herself was much afraid of a thunder-shower. She had her
feet well drawn up, and her hand over her eyes.

"It's a mercy Mis' Field wa'n't killed out in it," said Mrs. Green.

"I don't see what in creation she stayed out so in it for," rejoined
Mrs. Babcock. "She must have seen the cloud comin' up. This is a
pretty big house, ain't it? An' I should think it was furnished nice,
near's I can see, but it's terrible old-fashioned."

Amanda huddled up in her chair, looked warily at the strange shadows
in this unfamiliar room, and wished she were at home.

The storm increased rather than diminished. When Mrs. Field and Lois
returned, all the women, at Mrs. Babcock's order, drew their chairs
close together in the middle of the room.

"I've always heard that was the safest place," said she. "That was
the way old Dr. Barnes always used to do. He had thirteen children;
nine of 'em was girls. Whenever he saw a thunder-shower comin' up, he
used to make Mis' Barnes an' the children go into the parlor, an'
then they'd all set in the middle of the floor, an' he'd offer
prayer. He used to say he'd do his part an' get in the safest place
he knew of, an' then ask the Lord to help him. Mandy Pratt!"

"What say, Mis' Babcock?" returned Amanda, trembling.

"Have you got your hoop-skirt on?"

Amanda sprang up. "Yes, I have. I forgot it!"

"For the land sakes! I should think you'd thought of that, scared as
you pretend to be in a thunder-shower. Do go in the bedroom an' drop
it off this minute! Lois, you go with her."

While Amanda and Lois were gone there was a slight lull in the storm.

"I guess it's kind of lettin' up," said Mrs. Babcock. "This is a nice
house you've got here, ain't it, Mis' Field?"

"Yes, 'tis," replied Jane Field.

"I s'pose there was a good deal of nice furniture in it, wa'n't
there?"

"Considerable."

"Was there nice beddin'?"

"Yes."

"I s'pose there was plenty of table-cloths an' such things? Have you
bought any new furniture, Mis' Field?"

"No, I ain't," said Mrs. Field. She moved her chair a little to make
room for Lois and Amanda when they returned. Lois sat next her
mother.

"I didn't know but you had. I thought mebbe the furniture was kind of
old-fashioned. Have you--oh, ain't it awful?"

The storm had gathered itself like an animal for a fiercer onset. The
room was lit up with a wild play of blue fire. The thunder crashed
closely in its wake.

"Oh, we hadn't ought to talk of anything but the mercy of the Lord
an' our sins!" wailed Mrs. Babcock. "Don't let's talk of anything
else. That struck somewheres near. There's no knowin' where it'll
come next. I never see such a shower. We don't have any like it in
Green River. Oh, I hope we're all prepared!"

"That's the principal thing," said Mrs. Green, in a solemn trembling
voice.

Amanda said nothing. She thought of her will; a vision of the nicely
ordered rooms she had left seemed to show out before her in the flare
of the lightning; in spite of her terror it was a comfort to her.

"We'd ought to be thankful in a time like this that we ain't any of
us got any great wickedness on our consciences," said Mrs. Babcock.
"It must be terrible for them that have, thinkin' they may die any
minute when the next flash comes. I don't envy 'em."

"It must be terrible," assented Mrs. Green, like an amen.

"It's bad enough with the sins we've got on all our minds, the best
of us," continued Mrs. Babcock. "Think how them that's broken God's
commandments an' committed murders an' robberies must feel. I
shouldn't think they could stan' it, unless they burst right out an'
confessed to everybody--should you, Mis' Field?"

"I guess so," said Mrs. Field, in a hard voice.

Mrs. Babcock said no more; somehow she and the others felt repelled.
They all sat in silence except for awed ejaculations when now and
then came a louder crash of thunder. All at once, after a sharp
flash, there was a wild clamor in the street; a bell clanged out.

"It's struck! it's struck!" shrieked Mrs. Babcock.

"Oh, it ain't this house, is it?" Amanda wailed.

They all rushed to the windows and flung open the blinds; a red glare
filled the room; a large barn nearly opposite was on fire. They
clutched each other, and watched the red gush of flame. The barn
burned as if lighted at every corner.

"Are there any cows or horses in it?" panted Mrs. Babcock. "Oh, ain't
it dreadful? Are there any, Mis' Field?"

"I dunno," said Mrs. Field.

She stood like a grim statue, the red light of the fire in her face.
Lois was sobbing. Mrs. Green had put an arm around her.

"Don't, Lois, don't," she kept saying, in a solemn, agitated voice.
"The Lord will overrule it all; it is He speakin' in it."

The women watched while the street filled with people, and the barn
burned down. It did not take long. The storm began to lull rapidly.
The thunder came at long intervals, and the hail turned into a gentle
rain. Finally Mrs. Field went out into the kitchen to prepare supper,
and Lois followed her.

"I never see anything like the way she acts," said Mrs. Babcock
cautiously.

"She always was kind of quiet," rejoined Mrs. Green.

"Quiet! She acts as if she'd had thunder an' lightnin' an' hail an'
barns burnt down every day since she's been here. I never see anybody
act so queer."

"I 'most wish I'd stayed to home," said Amanda.

"Well, I wouldn't be backin' out the minute I'd got here, if I was
you," returned Mrs. Babcock sharply. "It's comin' cooler, that's one
thing, an' you won't need that white sacque. I should think you'd
feel kinder glad of it, for them shoulder seams did look pretty long
to what they wear 'em. An' I dare say folks here are pretty dressy. I
declare I shall be kinder glad when supper's ready. I feel real faint
to my stomach, as if I'd like somethin' hearty. I should have gone
into one of them places in Boston if things hadn't been so awful
dear."

But when Mrs. Field finally called them out to partake of the meal
which she had prepared, there was little to satisfy an eager
appetite. Nothing but the berries for which she had toiled so hard, a
few thin slices of bread, no butter, and no tea, so little sugar in
the bowl that the guests sprinkled it sparingly on their berries.

"I'll tell you what 'tis," Mrs. Babcock whispered when they were
upstairs in their chambers that night, "Mis' Field has grown tight
since she got all that money. Sometimes it does work that way. I
believe we should starve to death if we stayed here long. If it
wa'n't for gittin' my money's worth, I should be for goin' home
to-morrow. No butter an' no tea after we've come that long journey. I
never heard of such a thing."

"I don't care anything about the butter and the tea," rejoined
Amanda, "but I 'most feel as if I'd better go home to-morrow."

"If," said Mrs. Babcock, "you want to go home instead of gittin' the
good of that excursion ticket, that you can stay a week on, you can,
Amanda Pratt. I'm goin' to stay now, if it kills me."

Chapter IX

The three women from Green River had been six days in Elliot, they
were going to leave the next morning, and Mrs. Field's secret had not
been discovered. Nothing but her ill favor in the village had saved
her. Nobody except Mrs. Jane Maxwell had come to call. Mrs. Babcock
talked and wondered about it a great deal to Mrs. Green and Amanda.

"It's mighty queer, seems to me, that there ain't a soul but that one
old woman set foot inside this house since we've been here," said
she. "It don't look to me as if folks here thought much of Mis'
Field. I know one thing: there couldn't three strange ladies come
visitin' to Green River without I should feel as if I'd ought to go
an' call an' find out who they was, an' pay 'em a little attention,
if I thought anything at all of the folks they was visitin'. There's
considerable more dress here, but I guess, on the whole, it ain't any
better a place to live in than Green River."

The three women had not had a very lively or pleasant visit in
Elliot. Jane Field, full of grim defiance of her own guilt and misery
and of them, was not a successful entertainer of guests. She fed them
as best she could with her scanty resources, and after her house-work
was done, took her knitting-work and sat with them in her gloomy
sitting-room, while they also kept busy at the little pieces of
handiwork they had brought with them.

They talked desperately of Green River and the people there; they
told Mrs. Field of this one and that one whom she had known, and in
whom she had been interested; but she seemed to have forgotten
everybody and everything connected with her old life.

"Ida Starr is goin' to marry the minister in October," Mrs. Babcock
had said the day but one after their arrival. "You know there was
some talk about it before you went away, Mis' Field. You remember
hearin' about it, don't you?"

"I guess I don't remember it," said Mrs. Field.

"Don't remember it? Why, Mis' Field, I should think you'd remember
that! It was town's talk how she followed him up. Well, she's got
him, an' she's been teachin'--you know she had Lois's school--to get
money for her weddin' outfit. They say she's got a brown silk dress
to be married in, an' a new black silk one too. Should you think the
Starrs could afford any such outlay?"

"I dunno as I should," replied Mrs. Field.

When she went out of the room presently, Mrs. Babcock turned to the
others. "She didn't act as if she cared no more about it than nothin'
at all," she said indignantly. "She don't act to me as if she had any
more interest in Green River than Jerusalem, nor the folks that live
there. I keep thinkin' I won't tell her another thing about it. I
never see anybody so changed as she is."

"Mebbe she ain't well," said Mrs. Green. "I think she looks awfully.
She's as thin as a rail, an' she ain't a mite of color. Lois looks
better."

"Mis' Field never did have any flesh on her bones," Mrs. Babcock
rejoined; "an' as for Lois, nothin' ever did ail her but spring
weather an' fussin'. I guess Mis' Field's well enough, but havin' all
this property left her has made a different woman of her. I've seen
people's noses teeter up in the air when their purses got heavy
before now."

"It ain't that," said Amanda.

"What is it, then?" asked Mrs. Babcock sharply.

"I dunno. I know one thing: home's the best place for everybody if
they've got one."

"I don't think 'tis always. I b'lieve when you're off on an excursion
ticket in makin' the best of things, for my part. To-morrow's Sunday,
an' I expect to enjoy the meetin' an' seein' the folks. I shall be
kinder glad, for my part, not to see exactly the same old bonnets an'
made-over silks that I see every Sunday to home. I like a change
sometimes. It puts new ideas into your head, an' I feel as if I had
spunk enough to stan' it."

On Sunday Mrs. Field led her procession of guests into church; and
they, in their best black gowns and bonnets, sat listening to the
sermon, and looking about with decorous and furtive curiosity.

Mrs. Babcock had a handsome fan with spangles on it, and she fanned
herself airily, lifting her head up with the innocent importance of a
stranger.

She had quite a fine bonnet, and a new mantle with some beaded fringe
on it; when she stirred, it tinkled. She looked around and did not
see another woman with one as handsome. It was the gala moment of her
visit to Elliot. Afterward she was wont to say that when she was in
Elliot she did not go out much, nobody came to the house nor
anything, but she went to meeting and she enjoyed that.

It was the evening following that Mrs. Jane Maxwell came. Mrs. Field,
sitting with her guests, felt a strange contraction of her heart when
she heard the door open.

"Who's that comin'?" asked Mrs. Babcock.

"I guess it's old Mr. Maxwell's brother Henry's wife," replied Mrs.
Field.

She arose. Lois went quickly and softly out of the other door. She
felt sure that exposure was near, and her first impulse was to be out
of sound and hearing of it. She sat there in the dark on the front
door-step awhile, then she went into the house. Sitting there in
doubt, half hearing what might be dreadful to hear, was worse than
certainty. She had at once a benumbing terror and a fierce desire
that her mother should be betrayed, and withal a sudden impulse of
loyalty toward her, a feeling that she would stand by her when
everybody else turned against her.

She crept in and sat down. Mrs. Maxwell was talking to Mrs. Babcock
about the state of the church in Elliot. It was wonderful that this
call was made without exposure, but it was. Twice Mrs. Maxwell called
Jane Field "Esther," but nobody noticed it except Amanda, and she
said nothing. She only caught her breath each time with a little
gasp.

Mrs. Maxwell addressed herself almost wholly to Mrs. Babcock
concerning her daughter, her daughter's husband, and the people of
Elliot. Mrs. Babcock constantly bore down upon her, and swerved her
aside with her own topics. Indeed, all the conversation lay between
these two. There was a curious similarity between them. They belonged
apparently to some one subdivision of human nature, being as birds of
the same feather, and seemed to instinctively recognize this fact.

They were at once attracted, and regarded each other with a kind of
tentative cordiality, which might later become antagonism, for they
were on a level for either friendship or enmity.

Mrs. Maxwell made a long call, as she was accustomed to do. She was a
frequent visitor, generally coming in the evening, and going home
laden with spoil, creeping from cover to cover like a cat. She was
afraid to have her daughter and nephew know of all the booty she
obtained. She had many things snugly tucked away in bureau drawers
and the depths of closets which she had carried home under her shawl
by night. Jane Field was only too glad to give her all for which she
asked or hinted.

To-night, as Mrs. Maxwell took leave of the three strange women
standing in a prim row, she gave a meaning nod to Mrs. Field, who
followed her to the door.

"I was thinkin' about that old glass preserve-dish," she whispered.
"I don't s'pose it's worth much, but if you don't use it ever, I
s'pose I might as well have it. Flora has considerable company now,
an' ours ain't a very good size."

When Mrs. Maxwell had gone out of the yard with the heavy cut-glass
dish pressed firmly against her side under her black silk shawl, Jane
Field felt like one who had had a reprieve from instant execution,
although she had already suffered the slow torture. She went back to
her guests as steady-faced as ever. She was quite sure none of them
had noticed Mrs. Maxwell's calling her Esther, but her eyes were like
a wary animal's as she entered the room, although not a line in her
long pale face was unsteady.

The time went on and nobody said, "Why did she call you Esther
instead of Jane?"

They seemed as usual. Mrs. Babcock questioned her sharply about Mrs.
Maxwell--how much property she had and if her daughter had married
well. Amanda never looked in her face, and said nothing, but she was
often quiet and engrossed in a new tidy she was knitting.

"They don't suspect," Mrs. Field said to herself.

They were going home the next day but one; she went to bed nearly as
secure as she had been for the last three months. Mrs. Maxwell was to
be busy the next day--she had spoken of making pear sauce--she would
not be in again. The danger of exposure from the coming of these
three women to Elliot was probably past. But Jane Field lay awake all
night. Suddenly at dawn she formed a plan; her mind was settled.
There was seemingly no struggle. It was to her as if she turned a
corner, once turned there was no other way, and no question about it.
When it was time, she got up, dressed herself, and went about the
house, as usual. There was no difference in her look or manner, but
all the morning Lois kept glancing at her in a startled,
half-involuntary way; then she would look away again, seeing nothing
to warrant it, but ere long her eyes turned again toward her mother's
face. It was as if she had a subtle consciousness of something there
which was beyond vision, and to which her vision gave the lie. When
she looked away she saw it again, but it vanished when her eyes were
turned, like a black robe through a door.

After dinner, when the dishes were cleared away, the three visitors
sat as usual in company state with their needle-work. Amanda's bag
upstairs was all neatly packed. She would need to unpack it again
that night, but it was a comfort to her. She had scarcely spoken all
day; her thin mouth had a set look.

"Mandy's gettin' so homesick she can't speak," said Mrs. Babcock.
"She can't hardly wait till to-morrow to start, can you, Mandy?"

"No, I can't," replied Amanda.

Mrs. Field was in her bedroom changing her dress when Lois put on her
hat and went down the street with some finished work for the
dressmaker for whom she sewed.

"Where you goin', Lois?" asked Mrs. Babcock, when she came through
the room with her hat on.

"I'm going out a little ways," answered Lois evasively. She had tried
to keep the fact of her sewing for a living from the Green River
women. She knew how people in Elliot talked about it, and estranged
as she was from her mother, she wanted no more reflections cast upon
her.

But Mrs. Babcock peeped out of a window as Lois went down the path.
"She's got a bundle," she whispered. "I tell you what 'tis, I suspect
that girl is sewin' for somebody to earn money. I should think her
mother would be ashamed of herself."

Lois had a half mile to walk, and she stayed awhile at the
dressmaker's to sew. When she started homeward it was nearly three
o'clock.

It was a beautiful afternoon, the house yards were full of the late
summer flowers, the fields were white and gold with arnica and
wild-carrot instead of buttercups and daisies, the blackberries were
ripe along the road-side, and there were sturdy thickets of weeds
picked out with golden buttons of tansy over the stone walls. Lois
stepped along lightly. She did not look like the same girl of three
months ago. It was strange that in spite of all her terrible distress
of mind and hard struggles since she came to Elliot it should have
been so, but it was. Every life has its own conditions, although some
are poisons. Whether it had been as Mrs. Babcock thought, that the
girl had been afflicted with no real malady, only the languor of the
spring, intensified and fostered in some subtle fashion by her
mother's anxiety, or whether it had been the purer air of Elliot that
had brought about the change, to whatever it might have been due, she
was certainly better.

Lois had on an old pink muslin dress that she had worn many a summer,
indeed the tucks had been let down to accord with her growth, and
showed in bars of brighter pink around the skirt. But the color of
the dress became her well, her young shoulders filled out the thin
fabric with sweet curves that overcame the old fashion of its make;
her slender arms showed through the sleeves; and her small fair face
was set in a muslin frill like a pink corolla. She had to pass the
cemetery on her way home. As she came in sight of its white shafts,
and headstones gleaming out from its dark foliage, she met Francis
Arms. She started when she saw him, and said, "Good-afternoon"
nervously; then was passing on, but he stopped her.

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