Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - Jane Field

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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.

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