Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - Jane Field

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So far Mrs. Field had maintained a certain strained composure, but
now her long, stern face began flushing beneath this old lady's gaze.

"I conclude you know this lady," said the lawyer, with a blandly
facetious air to the new-comer.

At that she stepped forward promptly, with a jerk as if to throw off
her irresolution, and a certain consternation. "Yes, I s'pose I do,"
said she, in a voice like a shrill high chirp. "It's Mis' Maxwell,
ain't it--Edward's wife? How do you do, Esther? I hadn't seen you for
so long, I wasn't quite sure, but I see who you are now. How do you
do?"

"I'm pretty well, thank you," said Mrs. Field, with a struggle,
putting her twisted hand into the other woman's, extended quiveringly
in a rusty black glove.

"When did you come to town, Esther?"

"Jest now."

"Let me see, where from? I can't seem to remember the name of the
place where you've been livin'. I know it, too."

"Green River."

"Oh, yes, Green River. Well, I'm glad to see you, Esther. You ain't
changed much, come to look at you; not so much as I have, I s'pose. I
don't expect you'd know me, would you?"

"I--don't know as I would." Mrs. Field recoiled from a lie even in
the midst of falsehood.

The old lady's face contracted a little, but she could spring above
her emotions. "Well, I don't s'pose you would, either," responded
she, with fine alacrity. "I've grown old and wrinkled and yellow,
though I ain't gray," with a swift glance at Mrs. Field's smooth
curves of white hair. "You turned gray pretty young, didn't you,
Esther?"

"Yes, I did."

The old lady's front hair hung in dark-brown spirals, a little bunch
of them against either cheek, outside her bonnet. She set them
dancing with a little dip of her head when she spoke again. "I
thought you did," said she. "Well, you're comin' over to my house,
ain't you, Esther? You'll find a good many changes there. My daughter
Flora and I are all that's left now, you know, I s'pose."

Mrs. Field moved her head uncertainly. This old woman, with her
straight demands for truth or falsehood, was torture to her.

"I suppose you'll come right over with me pretty soon," the old lady
went on. "I don't want to hurry you in your business with Mr.
Tuxbury, but I suppose my nephew will be home, and--"

"I'm jest as much obliged to you, but I guess I'd better not. I've
made some other plans," said Mrs. Field.

"Oh, we are going to keep Mrs. Maxwell with us to-night," interposed
the lawyer. He had stood by smilingly while the two women talked.

"I'm jest as much obliged, but I guess I'd better not," repeated Mrs.
Field, looking at both of them.

The old lady straightened herself in her flimsy silk draperies.
"Well, of course, if you've got other plans made, I ain't goin' to
urge you, Esther," said she; "but any time you feel disposed to come,
you'll be welcome. Good-evenin', Esther. Good-evenin', Mr. Tuxbury."
She turned with a rustling bob, and was out the door.

The lawyer pressed forward hurriedly. "Why, Mrs. Maxwell, weren't you
coming in? Isn't there something I can do for you?" said he.

"No, thank you," replied the old lady, shortly. "I've got to go home;
it's my tea-time. I was goin' by, and I thought I'd jest look in a
minute; that was all. It wa'n't anything. Good-evenin'." She was
half down the walk before she finished speaking. She never looked
around.

The lawyer turned to Mrs. Field. "Mrs. Henry Maxwell was not any too
much please to see you sitting here," he whispered, with a
confidential smile. "She wouldn't say anything; she's as proud as
Lucifer; but she was considerably taken aback."

Mrs. Field nodded. She felt numb. She had not understood who this
other woman was. She knew now--the mother of the young woman who was
the rightful heir to Thomas Maxwell's property.

"The old lady has been pretty anxious," Mr. Tuxbury went on. "She's
been in here a good many times--made excuses to come in and see if I
had any news. She has been twice as much concerned as her daughter
about it. Well, she has had a pretty hard time. That branch of the
family lost a good deal of property."

Mrs. Field rose abruptly. "I guess I'd better be goin'," said she.
"It must be your tea-time. I'll come in again to-morrow."

The lawyer put up his hand deprecatingly. "Mrs. Maxwell, you will, of
course, stay and take tea with us, and remain with us to-night."

"I'm jest as much obliged to you for invitin' me, but I guess I'd
better be goin'."

"My sister is expecting you. You remember my sister, Mrs. Lowe. I've
just sent word to her. You had better come right over to the house
with me now, and to-morrow morning we can attend to business. You
must be fatigued with your journey."

"I'm real sorry if your sister's put herself out, but I guess I'd
better not stay."

The lawyer turned his ear interrogatively. "I beg your pardon, but I
didn't quite understand. You think you can't stay?"

"I'm--much obliged to your sister an' you for invitin' me, but--I
guess--I'd better--not."

"Why--but--Mrs. Maxwell! Just be seated again for a moment, and let
me speak to my sister; perhaps she--"

"I'm jest as much obliged to her, but I feel as if I'd better be
goin'." Mrs. Field stood before him, mildly unyielding. She seemed
to waver toward his will, but all the time she abided toughly in her
own self like a willow bough. "But, Mrs. Maxwell, what _can_ you do?"
said the lawyer, his manner full of perplexity, and impatience thinly
veiled by courtesy. "The hotel here is not very desirable, and--"

"Can't I go right up to--the house?"

"The Maxwell house?"

"Yes, sir; if there ain't anything to hinder."

Mr. Tuxbury stared at her. "Why, I don't know that there is really
anything to hinder," he said, slowly. "Although it is rather-- No, I
don't know as there is any actual objection to your going. I suppose
the house belongs to you. But it is shut up. I think you would find
it much pleasanter here, Mrs. Maxwell." His eyebrows were raised,
his mouth pursed up.

"I guess I'd better go, if I can jest as well as not; if I can get
into the house." Mrs. Field spoke with deprecating persistency.

Mr. Tuxbury turned abruptly toward his desk, and began fumbling in a
drawer. She stood hesitatingly watchful. "If you would jest tell me
where I'd find the key," she ventured to remark. She had a vague idea
that she would be told to look under a parlor blind for the key, that
being the innocent country hiding-place when the house was left
alone.

"I have the key, and I will go to the house with you myself
directly."

"I hate to make you so much trouble. I guess I could find it myself,
if--"

"I will be ready immediately, Mrs. Maxwell," said the lawyer, in a
smoothly conclusive voice which abashed her.

She stood silently by the door until he was ready. He took her black
bag peremptorily, and they went side by side down the street. He held
his head well back, his lips were still tightly pursed, and he swung
his cane with asperity. His important and irascible nature was oddly
disturbed by this awkwardly obstinate old woman stalking at his side
in her black clothes. Feminine opposition, even in slight matters,
was wont to aggravate him, but in no such degree as this. He found it
hard to recover his usual courtesy of manner, and indeed scarcely
spoke a word during the walk. He could not himself understand his
discomposure. But Mrs. Field did not seem to notice. She walked on,
with her stern, impassive old face set straight ahead. Once they met
a young girl who made her think of Lois, her floating draperies
brushed against her black gown, for a second there was a pale,
innocent little face looking up into her own.

It was not a very long walk to the Maxwell house.

"Here we are," said the lawyer, coldly, and unlatched a gate, and
held it open with stiff courtesy for his companion to pass.

They proceeded in silence up the long curve of walk which led to the
front door. The walk was brown and slippery with pine needles. Tall
old pine trees stood in groups about the yard. There were also elm
and horse-chestnut trees. The horse-chestnuts were in blossom,
holding up their white bouquets, which showed dimly. It was now quite
dusky.

Back of the trees the house loomed up. It was white and bulky, with
fluted cornices and corner posts, and a pillared porch to the front
door. Mrs. Field passed between the two outstanding pillars, which
reared themselves whitely over her, like ghostly sentries, and stood
waiting while Mr. Tuxbury fitted the key to the lock.

It took quite a little time; he could not see very well, he had
forgotten his spectacles in his impatient departure. But at last he
jerked open the door, and a strange conglomerate odor, the very
breath of the life of the old Maxwell house, steamed out in their
faces.

All bridal and funeral feasts, all daily food, all garments which had
hung in the closets and rustled through the rooms, every piece of
furniture, every carpet and hanging had a part in it.

The rank and bitter emanations of life, as well as spices and sweet
herbs and delicate perfumes, went to make up the breath which smote
one in the face upon the opening of the door. Still it was not a
disagreeable, but rather a suggestive and poetical odor, which should
affect one like a reminiscent dream. However, the village people
sniffed at it, and said "How musty that old house is!"

That was what Daniel Tuxbury said now. "The house is musty," he
remarked, with stately nose in the air.

Mrs. Field made no response. She stepped inside at once. "I'm much
obliged to you," said she.

The lawyer looked at her, then past her into the dark depths of the
house. "You can't see," said he, "you must let me go in with you and
get a light." He spoke in a tone of short politeness. He was in his
heart utterly out of patience with this strange, stiff old woman.

"I guess I can find one. I hate to make you so much trouble."

Mr. Tuxbury stepped forward with decision, and began fumbling in his
pocket for a match. "Of course you cannot find one in the dark, Mrs.
Maxwell," said he, with open exasperation.

She said nothing more, but stood meekly in the hall until a light
flared out from a room on the left. The lawyer had found a lamp, he
was himself somewhat familiar with the surroundings, but on the way
to it he stumbled over a chair with an exclamation. It sounded like
an oath to Mrs. Field, but she thought she must be mistaken. She had
never in her life heard many oaths, and when she did had never been
able to believe her ears.

"I hope you didn't hurt you," said she, deprecatingly, stepping
forward.

"I am not hurt, thank you." But the twinge in the lawyer's ankle was
confirming his resolution to say nothing more to her on the subject
of his regret and unwillingness that she should choose to refuse his
hospitality, and spend such a lonely and uncomfortable night. "I
won't say another word to her about it," he declared to himself. So
he simply made arrangements with her for a meeting at his office the
next morning to attend to the business for which there had been no
time to-night, and took his leave.

"I never saw such a woman," was his conclusion of the story, which he
related to his sister upon his return home. His sister was a widow,
and just then her married daughter and two children were visiting
her.

"I wish you'd let me know she wa'n't comin'," said she. "I cut the
fruit cake an' opened a jar of peach, an' I've put clean sheets on
the front chamber bed. It's made considerable work for nothin'." She
eyed, as she spoke, the two children, who were happily eating the
peach preserve. She and her brother were both quite well-to-do, but
she had a parsimonious turn.

"I'd like to know what she'll have for supper," she remarked further.

"I didn't ask her," said the lawyer, dryly, taking a sip of his
sauce. He was rather glad of the peach himself.

"I shouldn't think she'd sleep a wink, all alone in that great old
house. I know I shouldn't," observed the children's mother. She was a
fair, fleshy, quite pretty young woman.

"That woman would sleep on a tomb-stone if she set out to," said the
lawyer. His speech, when alone with his own household, was more
forcible and not so well regulated. Indeed, he did not come of a
polished family; he was the only educated one among them. His sister,
Mrs. Low, regarded him with all the deference and respect which her
own decided and self-sufficient character could admit of, and often
sounded his praises in her unrestrained New England dialect.

"She seemed like a real set kind of a woman, then?" said she now.

"Set is no name for it," replied her brother.

"Well, if that's so, I guess old Mr. Maxwell wa'n't so far wrong when
he didn't have her down here before," she remarked, with a judicial
air. Her spectacles glittered, and her harsh, florid face bent
severely over the sugar-bowl and the cups and saucers.

The lamp-light was mellow in the neat, homely dining-room, and there
was a soft aroma of boiling tea all about. The pink and white
children ate their peach sauce in happy silence, with their pretty
eyes upon the prospective cake.

"I suppose there must be some bed made up in all that big house,"
remarked their mother; "but it must be awful lonesome."

Of the awful lonesomeness of it truly, this smiling, comfortable
young soul had no conception. At that moment, while they were
drinking their tea and talking her over, Jane Field sat bolt-upright
in one of the old flag-bottomed chairs in the Maxwell sitting-room.
She had dropped into it when the lawyer closed the door after him,
and she never stirred afterward. She sat there all night.

The oil was low in the lamp which the lawyer had lighted, and left
standing on the table between the windows. She could see distinctly
for a while the stately pieces of old furniture standing in their
places against the walls. Just opposite where she sat was one of
lustreless old mahogany, extending the width of the wall between two
doors, rearing itself upon slender legs, set with multitudinous
drawers, and surmounted by a clock. A piece of furniture for which
she knew no name, an evidence of long-established wealth and
old-fashioned luxury, of which she and her plain folk, with their
secretaries and desks and bureaus, had known nothing. The clock had
stopped at three o'clock. Mrs. Field thought to herself that it might
have been the hour on which old Mr. Maxwell died, reflecting that
souls were more apt to pass away in the wane of the night. She would
have like to wind the clock, and set the hands moving past that
ghostly hour, but she did not dare to stir. She gazed at the large,
dull figures sprawling over the old carpet, at the glimmering satiny
scrolls on the wall-paper. On the mantel-shelf stood a branching gilt
candlestick, filled with colored candles, and strung around with
prisms, which glittered feebly in the low lamp-light. There was a
bulging, sheet-iron wood stove--the Maxwells had always eschewed
coal; beside it lay a little pile of sticks, brought in after the
chill of death had come over the house. There were a few old
engravings--a head of Washington, the Landing of the Pilgrims, the
Webster death-bed scene, and one full-length portrait of the old
statesman, standing majestically, scroll in hand, in a black frame.

As the oil burned low, the indistinct figures upon the carpet and
wall-paper grew more indistinct, the brilliant colors of the prisms
turned white, and the fine black and white lights in the death-bed
picture ran together.

Finally the lamp went out. Mrs. Field had spied matches over on the
shelf, but she did not dare to rise to cross the room to get them and
find another lamp. She did not dare to stir.

After her light went out, there was still a pale glimmer upon the
opposite wall, and the white face of the silent clock showed out
above the cumbersome shadow of the great mahogany piece. The glimmer
came from a neighbor's lamp shining through a gap in the trees. Soon
that also went out, and the old woman sat there in total darkness.

She folded her hands primly, and held up her bonneted head in the
darkness, like some decorous and formal caller who might expect at
any moment to hear the soft, heavy step of the host upon the creaking
stair and his voice in the room. She sat there so all night.

Gradually this steady-headed, unimaginative old woman became
possessed by a legion of morbid fancies, which played like wild fire
over the terrible main fact of the case--the fact that underlay
everything--that she had sinned, that she had gone over from good to
evil, and given up her soul for a handful of gold. Many a time in the
night, voices which her straining fancy threw out, after the manner
of ventriloquism, from her own brain, seemed actually to vibrate
through the house, footsteps pattered, and garments rustled. Often
the phantom noises would swell to a very pandemonium surging upon her
ears; but she sat there rigid and resolute in the midst of it, her
pale old face sharpening out into the darkness. She sat there, and
never stirred until morning broke.

When it was fairly light, she got up, took off her bonnet and shawl,
and found her way into the kitchen. She washed her face and hands at
the sink, and went deliberately to work getting herself some
breakfast. She had a little of her yesterday's lunch left; she
kindled a fire, and made a cup of tea. She found some in a caddy in
the pantry. She set out her meal on the table and drew a chair before
it. She had wound up the kitchen clock, and she listened to its tick
while she ate. She took time, and finished her slight repast to the
last crumb. Then she washed the dishes, and swept and tidied the
kitchen.

When that was done it was still too early for her to go to the
lawyer's office. She sat down at an open kitchen window and folded
her hands. Outside was a broad, green yard, inclosed on two sides by
the Maxwell house and barn. A drive-way led to the barn, and on the
farther side a row of apple-trees stood. There was a fresh wind
blowing, and the apple blossoms were floating about. The drive was
quite white with them in places, and they were half impaled upon the
sharp green blades of grass.

Over through the trees Mrs. Field could see the white top of a market
wagon in a neighboring yard, and the pink dress of a woman who stood
beside it trading. She watched them with a dull wonder. What had she
now to do with market wagons and daily meals and housewifely matters?
That fair-haired woman in the pink dress seemed to her like a woman
of another planet.

This narrow-lived old country woman could not consciously moralize.
She was no philosopher, but she felt, without putting it into
thoughts, as if she had descended far below the surface of all
things, and found out that good and evil were the root and the life
of them, and the outside leaves and froth and flowers were fathoms
away, and no longer to be considered.

At ten o'clock she put on her bonnet and shawl, and set out for the
lawyer's office. She locked the front door, put the key under a
blind, and proceeded down the front walk into the street.

The spring was earlier here than in Green River. She started at a
dancing net-work of leaf shadows on the sidewalk. They were the first
she had seen that season. There was a dewy arch of trees overhead,
and they were quite fully leaved out. Mr. Tuxbury was in his office
when she got there. He rose promptly and greeted her, and pushed
forward the leather easy-chair with his old courtly flourish.

"I suppose that old stick of a woman will be in pretty soon," he had
remarked to his sister at breakfast-time.

"Well, you'll keep on the right side of her, if you know which side
your bread is buttered," she retorted. "You don't want her goin' to
Sam Totten's."

Totten was the other lawyer of Elliot.

"I think I am quite aware of all the exigencies of the case," Daniel
Tuxbury had replied, lapsing into stateliness, as he always did when
his sister waxed too forcible in her advice.

But when Mrs. Field entered his office, every trace of his last
night's impatience had vanished. He inquired genially if she had
passed a comfortable night, and on being assured that she had,
pressed her to drink a cup of coffee which he had requested his
sister to keep warm. This declined, with her countrified courtesy, so
shy that it seemed grim, he proceeded, with no chill upon his
graciousness, to business.

Through the next two hours Mrs. Field sat at the lawyer's desk, and
listened to a minute and wearisome description of her new
possessions. She listened with very little understanding. She did not
feel any interest in it. She never opened her mouth except now and
then for a stiff assent to a question from the lawyer.

A little after twelve o'clock he leaned back in his chair with a
conclusive sigh, and fixed his eyes reflectively upon the ceiling.
"Well, Mrs. Maxwell," said he, "I think that you understand pretty
well now the extent and the limitations of your property."

"Yes, sir," said she.

"It is all straight enough. Maxwell was a good business man; he kept
his affairs in excellent order. Yes, he was a very good business
man."

Suddenly the lawyer straightened himself, and fixed his eyes with
genial interest upon his visitor; business over, he had a mind for a
little personal interview to show his good-will. "Let me see, Mrs.
Maxwell, you had a sister, did you not?" said he.

"Yes, sir."

"Is she living?"

"No, sir." Mrs. Field said it with a gasping readiness to speak one
truth.

"Let me see, what was her name?" asked the lawyer. "No; wait a
moment; I'll tell you. I've heard it." He held up a hand as if
warding off an answer from her, his face became furrowed with
reflective wrinkles. "Field!" cried he, suddenly, with a jerk, and
beamed at her. "I thought I could remember it," said he. "Yes, your
sister's name was Field. When did she die, Mrs. Maxwell?"

"Two years ago."

There was a strange little smothered exclamation from some one near
the office door. Mrs. Field turned suddenly, and saw her daughter
Lois standing there.

Chapter IV

There Lois stood. Her small worn shoes hesitated on the threshold.
She was gotten up in her poor little best--her dress of cheap brown
wool stuff, with its skimpy velvet panel, her hat trimmed with a fold
of silk and a little feather. She had curled her hair over her
forehead, and tied on a bit of a lace veil. Distinct among all this
forlorn and innocent furbishing was her face, with its pitiful,
youthful prettiness, turning toward her mother and the lawyer with a
very clutch of vision.

Mrs. Field got up. "Oh, it's you, Lois," she said, calmly. "You
thought you'd come too, didn't you?"

Lois gasped out something.

Her mother turned to the lawyer. "I'll make you acquainted with Miss
Lois Field," said she. "Lois, I'll make you acquainted with Mr.
Tuxbury."

The lawyer was looking surprised, but he rose briskly to the level of
the situation, and greeted the young girl with ready grace. "Your
sister's daughter, I conclude," he said, smilingly, to Mrs. Field.

Mrs. Field set her mouth hard. She looked defiantly at him and said
not one word. There was a fierce resolve in her heart that, come what
would, she would not tell this last lie, and deny her daughter before
her very face.

But the lawyer did not know she was silent. Not having heard any
response, with the vanity of a deaf man, he assumed that she had
given one, and so concealed his uncertainty.

"Yes, so I thought," said he, and went on flourishingly in his track
of gracious reception.

Lois kept her eyes fixed on his like some little timid animal which
suspects an enemy, and watches his eyes for the first impetus of a
spring. Once or twice she said, "Yes, sir," faintly.

"Your niece does not look very strong," Mr. Tuxbury said to Mrs.
Field.

"She ain't been feelin' very well this spring. I've been considerable
worried about her," she answered, with harsh decision.

"Ah, I am very sorry to hear that. Well, she will soon recuperate if
she stays here. Elliot is considered a very healthy place. We shall
soon have her so hearty and rosy that her old friends won't be able
to recognize her." He bowed with a smiling flourish to Lois.

Her lips trembled with a half-smile in response, but she looked more
frightened than ever.

"Now, Mrs. Maxwell," said the lawyer, "you and your niece must
positively remain and dine with us to-day, can't you?"

"I'm afraid it will put your sister out."

"Oh, no, indeed." The lawyer, however, had a slightly nonplussed
expression. "She will be delighted. I will run over to the house,
then, and tell her that you will stay, shall I not?"

"I hate to make her extra work," said Mrs. Field. That was her rural
form of acceptance.

"You will not, I assure you. Don't distress yourself about that, Mrs.
Maxwell."

Nevertheless, he was quite ill at ease as he traversed the yard. In
his life with his sister there were exigencies during which he was
obliged to descend from his platform of superiority. He foresaw the
approach of one now.

Dinner was already served when he entered the dining-room, and his
sister was setting the chairs around the table. They kept no servant.

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