The Cottage of Delight Part 37

He had to clean and oil the wheels of his road-wagon, and he went to the barn-yard and set to work.

CHAPTER XLII

There was but scant attendance at the burial of Jane Holder. The men she had known, and with whom she had laughed, danced, jested, and sung, under the veil of night, for obvious reasons could not attend in open daylight such rites, simple and un.o.btrusive though they were. In like manner, Jane's female a.s.sociates were chary about being in evidence.

Moreover, such irresponsible human b.u.t.terflies are said to have morbid fears of death, and this particular case was surely nature's grimmest reminder.

Lizzie Trott went, of course, and Mandy and Jake walked behind her, solemnly and sedately self-righteous. The spot set aside for Jane's remains to repose in was in an unused, weed-overgrown corner of the public cemetery--the spot decided on by the town clerk, who granted the permit at the price required alike for respected or unrespected interment. The undertaker's men, in a perfunctory way, did the work of lowering the flower-covered casket into the damp red clay which was intermixed with round, prehistoric pebbles. The white s.e.xton of the cemetery, an old man, bowed and gray, took charge of the filling of the grave with earth and shaping a mound on the surface.

The hea.r.s.e, the black-plumed horses, and the undertaker's men went away.

Jake and Mandy again fell in behind Lizzie and they walked down the hill to the deserted house.

"I cooked enough fer yo' supper, Mis' Trott," Mandy said at the gate.

"Jake say dat I mustn't come back ter you any mo'."

"Very well, Mandy," Lizzie said, wearily. "Good-by."

"Good-by, Mis' Trott. Me 'n' Jake bofe sorry fer you."

"Yas'm, we is," Jake intoned, doffing his hat and sliding his flat feet backward.

The interior of the house was still and shadowy. Lizzie sat down in that best dark dress of hers in the parlor. She was beginning to pity herself, for it was all so very, very terrible. How could she go on living there? And yet, whither was she to go? She rose. She started up the stairs with the strange intention of again visiting John's old room, but in the hall she stopped. "How silly!" she thought. "What am I going up there for?" The slanting rays of the lowering sun fell through the narrow side-lights of the door and lay on the floor at her feet. She shuddered. It would soon be night again and how could she pa.s.s the dark hours?--for something told her that she would not sleep soundly. She had never felt less like sleeping, though she had not lost consciousness for two days and two nights. Then a self-protective idea entered her confused reflections, and she acted on it. She found among her belongings a piece of broad black ribbon, and, forming a bow and streamers of it, she hung it on the front door-k.n.o.b, together with a card on which she had written, "Not at home." That would keep people away--her friends and Jane's--and she was in no mood to entertain any one. The ribbon and card would speak of John, of Dora, of Jane, and the boldest would respect their significance.

In her own room Lizzie changed her dress. She felt like it, and she put on her oldest and plainest gown. She drew off her rings and bracelets and dropped them into a drawer. Something psychological was happening to her which she could not have a.n.a.lyzed had she had far more occult knowledge than she possessed. She remembered that her mother had dressed plainly in those far-off days which now seemed so sweet and restful, and somehow she wanted to be like her mother.

It was sundown. It would soon be dark, she told herself, with a cool shudder and a little groan of despair. Suddenly she heard a sound as of the gate being closed. Then there was a light step on the porch, followed by a low rap on the door. Lizzie crept down the stairs, not knowing whether she should open the door or not. There was another rap, a timid one, it seemed to Lizzie, who now stood hesitating in the hall close to the door. There was a brief silence, then a low, awed voice was heard calling:

"Mrs. Trott! Oh, Mrs. Trott! May I see you for a moment?"

Lizzie fired up with a touch of her old irascibility, and, putting her lips to the keyhole, she cried out, sharply:

"There is no one at home! Can't you read the card on the door?"

"Yes, Mrs. Trott," came back after a pause, "but I've come a long way to see you. Don't you know me? I'm Tilly, John's wife."

"John's wife!" Lizzie gasped under her breath. "John's wife!" Then with fumbling fingers she unlocked and opened the door and stood staring at the quaint little visitor whose black costume was covered with the dust of travel and who seemed quite frightened under the ordeal upon her.

"Oh, Mrs. Trott," Tilly went on, in a pleading tone, "do forgive me! I know I have no right to intrude on you like this, but I simply couldn't stay away any longer. Oh, Mrs. Trott, you are alone and in trouble and I want to help you!"

"Want to help me--you want to help me?" Lizzie stammered, taking Tilly's outstretched hand and leading her into the parlor. "Of course, of course you are welcome, but you mustn't stand there. Some one pa.s.sing might see you. You say--you say that you want to see me?"

"Yes, you are his mother-- I'm his wife, and we have lost him. Oh, Mrs.

Trott, what are we to do--how can we bear it?"

Tilly's voice quivered and hung in her throat and broke into sobs. The woman within the woman of the world took the weeping child to her breast and held her there. She, too, was weeping now and afraid to trust her abashed voice to utterance. Locked in a mutual embrace, they stood for several minutes. Then Lizzie, the weaker vessel of the two, found her voice.

"Why did you come _here_?" she cried. "Oh, why did you come _here_?"

"I had to see you," Tilly made husky reply. "I know how you feel because I know how I feel. Oh, Mrs. Trott, you are his mother--actually his mother. I see the look of him in your face, in your eyes, in your hair and hands, and hear his voice in yours. Do you know that I killed him?

If I had not left him as I did he would have been alive to-day. I was a coward--but, oh, it was for John, for John's sake that I did it!"

"I understand," Lizzie half groaned, "but you were not to blame, my child. I am the one. It's just me, child--just me and no one else. I spoiled his life and yours. I know it--I know it. You ought to hate me, as all the rest do, and not come here like this. Don't you know that if people knew you were here they would--would--"

"Hush!" Tilly said, pressing Lizzie's hands to her breast and holding them there. "I love you--I love you even more--yes, more than I do my own mother. You are my mother. Death has parted John and me, but nothing should part me from you. Some day you must let me stay with you--live with you, care for you, work for you. Oh, Mrs. Trott, I want to be to you what John would have been had he lived to see you so lonely and unhappy as you are now."

As she stared Lizzie Trott seemed fairly to wilt in the rays of the new sun that was blazing over her. "Why, child, darling child," she sobbingly cried out, "you could never live with me. It is out of all reason. Even this visit is imprudent. You must go home--you must go back to your mother. Surely you know that this very roof--"

"I don't care for that," Tilly broke in. "I can't live with my people-- I don't want to live anywhere but with you. You need me--yes, that is the truth; you need me, and I need you. I feel rested and soothed here, as if G.o.d Himself were with me. I don't feel so anywhere else."

They sat down on the old sofa, side by side. They wept and clung together. After a while Tilly raised her head. "I've always wanted to see John's room. May I?" she asked. "Would you mind? It is silly, perhaps, but I want to see it. He told me how he used to study and work there at night."

Lizzie nodded and rose. It was dark now and she lighted a lamp. At the foot of the stairs, however, she stopped abruptly.

"Oh, I forgot," she cried. "You ought not to look at it. It is upset, unclean; it was never well attended to even while he was here. It will make you hate me."

"No, no; let me see it, please," Tilly pleaded, taking the lamp into her own hand. "I can go alone--in fact, in fact, I'd like to be alone there for a little while, Mrs. Trott, if you wouldn't mind."

Lizzie hesitated a moment and then gave in. "It is the last door on the left," she said. "I'm sorry it is in such a bad condition."

"Very well, I'll find it," Tilly answered, and, leaving Lizzie below, she went up the stairs.

CHAPTER XLIII

She was absent more than an hour. Lizzie was becoming afraid of something she knew not what--something due, perhaps, to the suggestion laid upon her by Jane Holder's abortive attempt, when Tilly appeared at the head of the stairs, her nunlike face in the disk of the lamp's rays.

"I've swept and dusted, and made the bed," she said. "There are a few of his things that I'd like to have, provided you don't want to keep them--the books, the drawings, and his hat and shoes."

"You may have them," Lizzie answered, as they went back into the parlor and sat down.

"I am going to ask another favor," Tilly went on. "I intended to spend the night at the cottage, but if you wouldn't mind I'd like to stay here with you and sleep in John's old bed. You may think it odd, but I want to do it, Mrs. Trott. I want to do it more than anything in the world."

"Oh!" Lizzie started and protested, "you couldn't stay here, my child.

It would never do. You are too young and inexperienced to understand why. I've harmed you and John enough already; surely you see--you see--"

"I know what you mean, but it doesn't matter," Tilly insisted. "I want to stay to-night, for I must go back to-morrow. Don't refuse me--please, please don't! I want to sleep there and I want to get up in the morning and cook your breakfast and make your coffee for you. Please, please let me."

Lizzie lowered her head. Her features were in the shadow. She was very silent. Then Tilly felt some tears falling on her hands, and with her black-bordered handkerchief she wiped Lizzie's wet cheeks and drew her head down to her shoulder. Suddenly, as if ashamed of her emotion, Lizzie rose, went to the front door and stood there in silence, looking out.

"How could I let her do it?" she reflected. "If it got out she would be stamped as I am by the public. No, it won't do--it won't do; and yet, and yet, the dear, sweet child--"

She turned back to Tilly and sat down. "I don't know what to do," she faltered. "You are upset now with grief, and are willing to do things that later on you may be sorry for. Go back to the cottage and stay there. It will be best."