Jane Field Part 30

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 gla.s.s 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-gla.s.s 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 n.o.body said, "Why did she call you Esther instead of Jane?"

They seemed as usual. Mrs. Babc.o.c.k 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. Babc.o.c.k.

"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. Babc.o.c.k, 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. Babc.o.c.k 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 b.u.t.tercups and daisies, the blackberries were ripe along the road-side, and there were st.u.r.dy thickets of weeds picked out with golden b.u.t.tons 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. Babc.o.c.k 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sing on, but he stopped her.

"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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed slowly down the drive-way.

The yard was largely overhung by evergreen trees, which held in their boughs cool ma.s.ses 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s at the edge of the terrace, and a cool breeze came in their faces from over the great hollow of the meadows below. The gra.s.s 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.