Jane Field Part 20

"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 hoa.r.s.ely.

"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 alb.u.m. 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 alb.u.m. "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 alb.u.m. 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 alb.u.m. 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 s.p.a.ces. 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s of wine without any demur. Her mother glanced sharply at the alb.u.m 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 alb.u.m 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."