Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - Jane Field

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"Where are you going?" he asked.

"I was going home."

"See here--I don't know as you want to--but--do you remember how we
went to walk in the cemetery that first day after you came?"

Lois nodded. He could see only the tip of her chin under her broad
hat.

"Suppose--if you haven't anything else to do--if you are not
busy--that we go in there now a little ways?" said Francis.

"I guess I'd better not," replied Lois, in a trembling voice.

"It's real cool in there."

"I'm afraid I'd better not."

"Well," said Francis, "of course I won't tease you if you don't want
to."

He tried to make his tone quite unconcerned and to smile. He was
passing on, but Lois spoke.

"I might go in there just a minute," she said.

Francis turned quickly, his face lighted up. They walked along
together to the cemetery gate; he opened it and they entered and
passed slowly down the drive-way.

The yard was largely overhung by evergreen trees, which held in their
boughs cool masses of blue gloom. It was cool there, as Francis had
said, although it was quite a warm day. The flowers on the sunny
graves hung low, unless they had been freshly tended, when they stood
erect in dark circles. Some of the old uncared-for graves were
covered with rank growths of grass and weeds, which seemed fairly
instinct with merry life this summer afternoon. Crickets and cicadas
thrilled through them; now and then a bird flew up. It was like a
resurrection stir.

"Let's go where we went that first day," said Francis; "it's always
pleasant there on the bank."

Lois followed him without a word. They sat down on the grass at the
edge of the terrace, and a cool breeze came in their faces from over
the great hollow of the meadows below. The grass on them had been cut
short, and now had dried and turned a rosy color in the sun. The two
kept their eyes turned away from each other, and looked down into the
meadow as into the rosy hollow of a cup; but they seemed to see each
other's faces there.

"It's cool here, isn't it?" said Francis.

"Real cool."

"It always is on the hottest day. There is always a breeze here, if
there isn't anywhere else."

Francis's words were casual, but his voice was unsteady with a tender
tone that seemed to overweight it.

Lois seemed to hear only this tone, and not the words. It was one of
the primitive tones that came before any language was made, and
related to the first necessities of man. Suddenly she had ears for
that only. She did not say anything. Her hands were folded in her lap
quietly, but her fingers tingled.

"Lois," Francis began; then he stopped.

Lois did not look up.

"See here, Lois," he went on, "I don't know as there is much use in
my saying anything. You've hardly noticed me lately. There was one
spell when I thought maybe-- But-- Well, I'm going to ask you, and
have it over with one way or the other. Lois, do you think--well, do
you feel as if you could ever--marry me some time?"

Lois dropped her head down on her hands.

"Now don't you go to feeling bad if you can't," said Francis. "It
won't be your fault. But if you'd just tell me, Lois."

Lois did not speak.

"If you'd just tell me one way or the other, Lois."

"I can't. I can't anyway!" cried Lois then, with a great sob.

"Well, if you can't, don't cry, little girl. There's nothing to cry
about. I can stand it. All the trouble is, it does seem to me that I
could take care of you better than any other fellow on earth, but
maybe that's my conceit, and you'll find somebody else that will do
better than I. Now don't cry." Francis pulled her hat off gently,
and patted her head. His face was quite white, but he tried to smile.
"Don't cry, dear," he said again. "It was nothing you could help. I
didn't much suppose you liked me. There's nothing much in me to like.
I'm an ordinary kind of a fellow."

Francis got up and walked off a little way.

Lois sobbed harder. Finally she stole a glance at him between her
fingers. She could see his profile quite pale and stern as he stood
on the edge of the terrace. She made a little inarticulate call, and
he turned quickly.

"What is it, Lois?" he asked, coming toward her.

"I didn't say--I--didn't like you," she whispered faintly.

"Lois!"

"I didn't say so."

"Lois, do you? Answer me quick."

She hid her face again.

"Lois, you must answer me now."

"I like you well enough, but I can't marry you."

"Lois, is there any fellow in Green River that wants you? Is that the
reason?"

She shook her head. "I can't ever marry anybody," she said, and her
voice was suddenly quite firm. She wiped her eyes.

Francis sat down beside her. "O Lois, you do love me, after all?"

"I can't marry you," said she.

"Why not, dear?"

"I can't. You mustn't ask me why."

Francis looked down at her half laughing. "Some dreadful obstacle in
the way?"

She nodded solemnly.

Francis put his arm around her. "Oh, my dear," he said, "don't you
know obstacles go for nothing if you do like me, after all? Wait a
little and you'll find out. O Lois, are you sure you do like me? You
are so pretty."

"I can't," repeated Lois, trembling.

"Suppose this obstacle were removed, dear, you would then?"

"It never can be."

"But if it were, you would? Yes, of course you would. Then I shall
remove it, you depend upon it, I shall, dear. Lois, I liked you the
minute I saw you, and, it's terribly conceited, but I do believe you
liked me a little. Dear, if it ever can be, I'll take care of you all
my life."

The two sat there together, and the long summer afternoon passed
humming and singing with bees and birds, and breathing sweetly
through the pine branches. They themselves were as a fixed heart of
love in the midst of it, and all around them in their graves lay the
dead who had known and gone beyond it all, but nobody could tell if
they had forgotten.

Chapter X

When Lois left home that afternoon her mother had been in her bedroom
changing her dress. When she came out she had on her best black
dress, her black shawl and gloves, and her best bonnet. The three
women stared at her. She stood before them a second without speaking.
The strange look, for which Lois had watched her face, had appeared.

"Why, what is the matter, Mis' Field?" cried Mrs. Babcock. "Where be
you going?"

"I'm goin' out a little ways," replied Mrs. Field. Then she raised
her voice suddenly. "I've got something to say to all of you before I
go," said she. "I've been deceivin' you, and everybody here in
Elliot. When I came down here, they all took me for my sister, Esther
Maxwell, and I let them think so. They've all called me Esther
Maxwell here. That's how I got the money. Old Mr. Maxwell left it to
Flora Maxwell if my sister didn't outlive him. I shouldn't have had a
cent. I stole it. I thought my daughter would die if we didn't have
it an' get away from Green River; but that wa'n't any excuse. Edward
Maxwell had that fifteen hundred dollars of my husband's, an' I never
had a cent of it; but that wa'n't any excuse. I thought I'd jest stay
here an' carry it out till I got the money back; but that wa'n't any
excuse. I ain't spent a cent of the money; it's all put away just as
it was paid in, in a sugar-bowl in the china closet; but that ain't
any excuse. I took it on myself to do justice instead of the Lord,
an' that ain't for any human bein' to do. I ain't Esther Maxwell. I'm
brought up short. I ain't Esther Maxwell!" Her voice rose to a stern
shriek.

The three women stared at her, then at each other. Their faces were
white. Amanda was catching her breath in faint gasps. Jane Field
rushed out of the room. The door closed heavily after her.

Three wild, pale faces huddled together in a window watched her out
of the yard. Mrs. Babcock called weakly after her to come back, but
she kept on. She went out of the yard and down the street. At the
first house she stopped, went up to the door and rang the bell. When
a woman answered her ring, she looked at her and said, "I ain't
Esther Maxwell!" Then she turned and went down the walk between the
rows of marigolds and asters, and the woman stood staring after her
for a minute, then ran in, and the windows filled with wondering
faces.

Jane Field stopped at the next house with the same message. After she
left a woman pelted across the yard in a panic to compare notes with
her neighbors. She kept on down the street, and she stopped at every
door and said, "I ain't Esther Maxwell."

Now and then somebody tried to delay her to question her and obtain
an explanation, but she broke away. There was about her a terrible
mental impetus which intimidated. People stood instinctively out of
her way, as before some rushing force which might overwhelm them.

Daniel Tuxbury followed her out to the street; then he fell back.
Mrs. Jane Maxwell caught hold of her dress, but she let go, and
leaned trembling over her iron gate looking after the relentless
black figure speeding to the next door.

She went on and on, all the summer afternoon, and canvassed the
little village with her remorse and confession of crime. Finally the
four words which she said at the doors seemed almost involuntary.
They became her one natural note, the expression of her whole life.
It was as if she had never said any others. At last, going along the
street, she repeated them to everybody she met. Some she had told
before, but she did not know it. She said them to a little girl in a
white frock, with her hair freshly curled, carrying a doll, and she
ran away crying with fright. She said them to three barefooted boys
loping along in the dust, with berry-pails, and they laughed and
turned around and mocked her, calling the words after her. When she
went up the path to the Maxwell house, she said them where the shadow
of a pine-tree fell darkly in front of her like the shadow of a man.
She said them when she stood before the door of the house whose
hospitality she had usurped. There was a little crowd at her heels,
but she did not notice them until she was entering the door. Then she
said the words over to them: "I ain't Esther Maxwell."

She entered the sitting-room, the people following. There were her
three old friends and neighbors, the minister and his wife, Daniel
Tuxbury, his sister and her daughter, Mrs. Jane Maxwell and her
daughter, and her own Lois. She faced them all and said it again: "I
ain't Esther Maxwell."

The lawyer jerked himself forward; his face was twitching. "This
woman's mind is affected," he declared with loud importance. "She is
Esther Maxwell. I will swear to it in any court. I recognize her, and
I never forget a face."

"I ain't Esther Maxwell," said Jane Field, in her voice that was as
remorseless and conclusive as fate.

Lois pressed forward and clung to her.

"Mother!" she moaned; "mother!"

Then for once her mother varied her set speech. "Lois wa'n't to
blame," she said; "I want you to know it, all of you. Lois wa'n't to
blame. She didn't know until after I'd done it. She wanted to tell,
but I told her they'd put me in prison. Lois wa'n't to blame. I ain't
Esther Maxwell."

"O mother, don't, don't!" Lois sobbed.

She hung about her mother's neck, and pressed her lips to that pale
wrinkled face, whose wrinkles seemed now to be laid in stone. Not a
muscle of Jane Field's face changed. She kept repeating at intervals,
in precisely the same tone, her terrible under-chord to all the
excitement about her: "I ain't Esther Maxwell."

Some of the women were crying. Amanda Pratt sat sewing fast, with her
mouth set. She clung to her familiar needle as if it were a rope to
save her from destruction. Francis Arms had come in, and stood close
to Lois and her mother.

Suddenly Jane Maxwell spoke. She was pale, and her head-dress was
askew.

"I call this pretty work," said she.

Then Mrs. Babcock faced her. "I should call it pretty work for
somebody else besides poor Mis' Field," she cried. "I'd like to know
what business your folks had takin' her money an' keepin' it. She
wa'n't goin' to take any more than belonged to her, an' she had a
perfect right to, accordin' to my way of thinkin'."

Mrs. Maxwell gasped. Flora laid her hand on her arm when she tried to
speak again.

"I'm goin' to tell her how I've been without a decent dress, an' how
I've been luggin' my own things out of this house, an' now I've got
to lug 'em all back again," she whispered defiantly.

"Mother, you keep still," said Flora.

Mrs. Green went across the room and put her arm around Lois, standing
by her mother. "Let's you an' me get her in her bedroom, an' have her
lay down on the bed, an' try an' quiet her," she whispered. "She's
all unstrung. Mebbe she'll be better."

Mrs. Field at once turned toward her.

"I ain't Esther Maxwell," said she.

"O Mis' Field! oh, poor woman! it ain't for us to judge you,"
returned Mrs. Green, in her tender, inexpressibly solemn voice.
"Come, Lois."

"Yes, that'll be a good plan," chimed in Mrs. Babcock. "She'd better
go in her bedroom where it's quiet, or she'll wind up with a fever.
There's too many folks here."

"I wonder if some of my currant wine wouldn't be good for her?" said
Mrs. Jane Maxwell, with an air of irrepressible virtue.

"She don't want none of your currant wine," rejoined Mrs. Babcock
fiercely. "She's suffered enough by your family."

"I guess you needn't be so mighty smart," returned Mrs. Maxwell,
jerking her arm away from Flora. "I dunno of anything she's suffered.
I should think Flora an' me had been the ones to suffer, an' now we
shan't never go to law, nor make any fuss about it. I ain't goin' to
stay here an' be talked to so any longer if I know, especially by
folks that ain't got any business meddlin' with it, anyway. I suppose
this is my daughter's house, an' I've got a perfect right in it, but
I'm a-goin'."

Mrs. Jane Maxwell went out, her ribbons and silken draperies
fluttering as if her own indignation were a wind, but Flora stayed.

The women led Jane Field into her little bedroom, took off her bonnet
and shawl and dress as if she were dead, and made her lie down. They
bathed her head with camphor, they plied her with soothing arguments,
but she kept on her one strain. She was singularly docile in all but
that. Mrs. Green dropped on her knees beside the bed and prayed. When
she said amen, Jane Field called out her confession as if in the ear
of God. They sent for the doctor and he gave her a soothing draught,
and she slept. The women watched with her, as ever and anon she
stirred and murmured in her sleep, "I ain't Esther Maxwell." And she
said it when she first awoke in the morning.

"She's sayin' it now," whispered Mrs. Babcock to Mrs. Green, "and I
believe she'll say it her whole life."

And Jane Field did. The stern will of the New England woman had
warped her whole nature into one groove. Gradually she seemed more
like herself, and her mind was in other respects apparently clear,
but never did she meet a stranger unless she said for greeting, "I
ain't Esther Maxwell."

And she said it to her own daughter on her wedding-day, when she came
in her white dress from the minister's with Francis. The new joy in
Lois's face affected her like the face of a stranger, and she turned
on her and said, "I ain't Esther Maxwell."

THE END

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