from Le Fanu, M .R . James, and the Lovecraftians. It is
perhaps one of the ancestors of Ray Bradbury.
Close to the village street stood the one-story house in
which Luella Miller, who had an evil name in the
village, had dwelt. She had been dead for years, yet there
were those in the village who, in spite of the clearer light
which comes on a vantage-point from a long-past danger,
half believed in the tale which they had heard from their
childhood. In their hearts, although they scarcely would
have owned it, was a survival of the wild horror and
frenzied fear of their ancestors who had dwelt in the
same age with Luella Miller. Young people even would
stare with a shudder at the old house as they passed, and
children never played around it as was their wont around
an untenanted building. Not a window in the old Miller
house was broken: the panes reflected the morning
sunlight in patches of emerald and blue, and the latch of
the sagging front door was never lifted, although no bolt
secured it. Since Luella Miller had been carried out of it,
the house had had no tenant except one friendless old
soul who had no choice between that and the far-off
shelter of the open sky. This old woman, who had
survived her kindred and friends, lived in the house one
week, then one morning no smoke came out of the
chimney, and a body of neighbours, a score strong,
entered and found her dead in her bed. There were dark
whispers as to the cause of her death, and there were
those who testified to an expression of fear so exalted
that it showed forth the state of the departing soul upon
the dead face. The old woman had been hale and hearty
when she entered the house, and in seven days she was
dead; it seemed that she had fallen a victim to some
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273
uncanny power. The minister talked in the pulpit with
covert severity against the sin of superstition; still the
belief prevailed. Not a soul in the village but would have
chosen the almshouse rather than that dwelling. No
vagrant, if he heard the tale, would seek shelter beneath
that old roof, unhallowed by nearly half a century of
superstitious fear.
There was only one person in the village who had
actually known Luella Miller. That person was a woman
well over eighty, but a marvel of vitality and unextinct
youth. Straight as an arrow, with the spring of one
recently let loose from the bow of life, she moved about
the streets, and she always went to church, rain or shine.
She had never married, and had lived alone for years in a
house across the road from Luella Miller’s.
This woman had none of the garrulousness of age, but
never in all her life had she ever held her tongue for any
will save her own, and she never spared the truth when
she essayed to present it. She it was who bore testimony
to the life, evil, though possibly wittingly or designedly
so, of Luella Miller, and to her personal appearance.
When this old woman spoke— and she had the gift of
description, although her thoughts were clothed in the
rude vernacular of her native village— one could seem to
see Luella Miller as she had really looked. According to
this woman, Lydia Anderson by name, Luella Miller had
been a beauty of a type rather unusual in New England.
She had been a slight, pliant sort of creature, as ready
with a strong yielding to fate and as unbreakable as a
willow. She had glimmering lengths of straight, fair hair,
which she wore softly looped round a long, lovely face.
She had blue eyes full of soft pleading, little slender,
clinging hands, and a wonderful grace of motion and
attitude.
“Luella Miller used to sit in a way nobody else could if
they sat up and studied a week of Sundays,” said Lydia
Anderson, “and it was a sight to see her walk. If one of
them willows over there on the edge of the brook could
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start up and get its roots free of the ground, and move
off, it would go just the way Luella Miller used to. She
had a green shot silk she used to wear, too, and a hat with
green ribbon streamers, and a lace veil blowing across
her face and out sideways, and a green ribbon flyin’ from
her waist. That was what she came out bride in when
she married Erastus Miller. Her name before she was
married was Hill. There was always a sight of ‘Is’ in
her name, married or single. Erastus Miller was good
lookin’, too, better lookin’ than Luella. Sometimes I
used to think that Luella wa’n’t so handsome after all.
Erastus just about worshiped her. I used to know him
pretty well. He lived next door to me, and we went to
school together. Folks used to say he was waitin’ on me,
but he wa’n’t. I never thought he was except once or
twice when he said things that some girls might have
suspected meant somethin’. That was before Luella
came here to teach the district school. It was funny how
she came to get it, for folks said she hadn’t any education, and that one of the big girls, Lottie Henderson, used to do all the teachin’ for her, while she sat back and
did embroidery work on a cambric pocket-handkerchief.
Lottie Henderson was a real smart girl, a splendid scholar, and she just set her eyes by Luella, as all the girls did.
Lottie would have made a real smart woman, but she
died when Luella had been here about a year—just
faded away and died: nobody knew what ailed her. She
dragged herself to that schoolhouse and helped Luella
teach till the very last minute. The committee all knew
how Luella didn’t do much of the work herself, but they
winked at it. It wa’n’t long after Lottie died that Erastus
married her. I always thought he hurried it up because
she wa’n’t fit to teach. One of the big boys used to help
her after Lottie died, but he hadn’t much government,
and the school didn’t do very well, and Luella might
have had to give it up, for the committee couldn’t have
shut their eyes to things much longer. The boy that
helped her was a real honest, innocent sort of fellow, and
Luella M iller
275
he was a good scholar, too. Folks said he overstudied,
and that was the reason he was took crazy the year after
Luella married, but I don’t know. And I don’t know what
made Erastus Miller go into consumption of the blood
the year after he was married: consumption wa’n’t in his
family. He just grew weaker and weaker, and went almost bent double when he tried to wait on Luella, and he spoke feeble, like an old man. He worked terrible hard
till the last trying to save up a little to leave Luella. I’ve
seen him out in the worst storms on a wood-sled— he
used to cut and sell wood— and he was hunched up on
top lookin’ more dead than alive. Once I couldn’t stand
it: I went ove
r and helped him pitch some wood on the
cart— I was always strong in my arms. I wouldn’t stop
for all he told me to, and I guess he was glad enough for
the help. That was only a week before he died. He fell on
the kitchen floor while he was gettin’ breakfast. He
always got the breakfast and let Luella lay abed. He did
all the sweepin’ and the washin’ and the ironin’ and most
of the cookin’. He couldn’t bear to have Luella lift her
finger, and she let him do for her. She lived like a queen
for all the work she did. She didn’t even do her sewin’.
She said it made her shoulder ache to sew, and poor
Erastus’s sister Lily used to do all her sewin’. She wa’n’t
able to, either; she was never strong in her back, but she
did it beautifully. She had to, to suit Luella, she was so
dreadful particular. I never saw anythin’ like the fagot-
tin’ and hemstitchin’ that Lily Miller did for Luella. She
made all Luella’s weddin’ outfit, and that green silk
dress, after Maria Babbit cut it. Maria she cut it for
nothin’, and she did a lot more cuttin’ and fittin’ for
nothin’ for Luella, too. Lily Miller went to live with
Luella after Erastus died. She gave up her home, though
she was real attached to it and wa’n’t a mite afraid to stay
alone. She rented it and she went to live with Luella right
away after the funeral.”
Then this old woman, Lydia Anderson, who remembered Luella Miller, would go on to relate the story of
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Lily Miller. It seemed that on the removal of Lily Miller
to the house of her dead brother, to live with his widow,
the village people first began to talk. This Lily Miller had
been hardly past her first youth, and a most robust and
blooming woman, rosy-cheeked, with curls of strong,
black hair overshadowing round, candid temples and
bright dark eyes. It was not six months after she had
taken up her residence with her sister-in-law that her
rosy colour faded and her pretty curves became wan
hollows. White shadows began to show in the black rings
of her hair, and the light died out of her eyes, her features
sharpened, and there were pathetic lines at her mouth,
which yet wore always an expression of utter sweetness
and even happiness. She was devoted to her sister; there
was no doubt that she loved her with her whole heart,
and was perfectly content in her service. It was her sole
anxiety lest she should die and leave her alone.
“The way Lily Miller used to talk about Luella was
enough to make you mad and enough to make you cry,”
said Lydia Anderson. “I’ve been in there sometimes
toward the last when she was too feeble to cook and
carried her some blanc-mange or custard— somethin’ I
thought she might relish, and she’d thank me, and when I
asked her how she was, say she felt better than she did
yesterday, and asked me if 1 didn’t think she looked
better, dreadful pitiful, and say poor Luella had an awful
time takin’ care of her and doin’ the work— she wa’n’t
strong enough to do anythin’— when all the time Luella
wa’n’t liftin’ her finger and poor Lily didn’t get any care
except what the neighbours gave her, and Luella eat up
everythin’ that was carried in for Lily. I had it real
straight that she did. Luella used to just sit and cry and
do nothin’. She did act real fond of Lily, and she pined
away considerable, too. There was those that thought
she’d go into a decline herself. But after Lily died, her
Aunt Abby Mixter came, and then Luella picked up and
grew as fat and rosy as ever. But poor Aunt Abby begun
to droop just the way Lily had, and I guess somebody
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111
wrote to her married daughter, Mrs. Sam Abbot, who
lived in Barre, for she wrote her mother that she must
leave right away and come and make her a visit, but Aunt
Abby wouldn’t go. I can see her now. She was a real
good-lookin’ woman, tall and large, with a big, square
face and a high forehead that looked of itself kind of
benevolent and good. She just tended out on Luella as if
she had been a baby, and when her married daughter
sent for her she wouldn’t stir one inch. She’d always
thought a lot of her daughter, too, but she said Luella
needed her and her married daughter didn’t. Her daughter kept writin’ and writin’, but it didn’t do any good.
Finally she came, and when she saw how bad her mother
looked, she broke down and cried and all but went on her
knees to have her come away. She spoke her mind out to
Luella, too. She told her that she’d killed her husband
and everybody that had anythin’ to do with her, and
she’d thank her to leave her mother alone. Luella went
into hysterics, and Aunt Abby was so frightened that she
called me after her daughter went. Mrs. Sam Abbot
she went away fairly cryin’ out loud in the buggy, the
neighbours heard her, and well she might, for she never
saw her mother again alive. I went in that night when
Aunt Abby called for me, standin’ in the door with her
little green-checked shawl over her head. I can see her
now. ‘Do come over here, Miss Anderson,’ she sung out,
kind of gasping for breath. I didn’t stop for anythin’. I
put over as fast as I could, and when I got there, there
was Luella laughin’ and cryin’ all together, and Aunt
Abby trying to hush her, and all the time she herself was
white as a sheet and shakin’ so she could hardly stand.
‘For the land sakes, Mrs. Mixter,’ says I, ‘you look worse
than she does. You ain’t fit to be up out of your bed.’
“ ‘Oh, there ain’t anythin’ the matter with me,’ says
she. Then she went on talkin’ to Luella. ‘There, there,
don’t, don’t, poor little lamb,’ says she. ‘Aunt Abby is
here. She ain’t goin’ away and leave you. Don’t, poor
little lamb.’
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“ ‘Do leave her with me, Mrs. Mixter, and you get back
to bed,’ says I, for Aunt Abby had been layin’ down
considerable lately, though somehow she contrived to do
the work.
‘“ I’m well enough,’ says she. ‘Don’t you think she had
better have the doctor, Miss Anderson?’
“ ‘The doctor,’ says I, ‘I think you had better have the
doctor. I think you need him much worse than some
folks I could mention.’ And I looked right straight at
Luella Miller laughin’ and cryin’ and goin’ on as if she
was the centre of all creation. All the time she was actin’
so— seemed as if she was too sick to sense anythin’— she
was keepin’ a sharp lookout as to how we took it out of
the corner of one eye. I see her. You could never cheat me
about Luella Miller. Finally I got real mad and I run
home and I got a bottle of valerian I had, and 1 poured
mixed up that catnip tea with most half a wineglass of
valerian, and I went with it over to Luella’s. I marched
right up to Luella, a-holdin’ out of that cup, all smokin’.
‘Now,’ says I, ‘Luella Miller, ‘you swatter this!’
“ ‘What is— what is it, oh, what is it?’ she sort of
screeches out. Then she goes off a-laughin’ enough to kill.
“ ‘Poor lamb, poor little lamb,’ says Aunt Abby,
standin’ over her, all kind of tottery, and tryin’ to bathe
her head with camphor.
“‘You swatter this right down,’ says I. And I didn’t
waste any ceremony. I just took hold of Luella Miller’s
chin and I tipped her head back, and I caught her mouth
open with laughin’ and I clapped that cup to her lips, and
I fairly hollered at her: ‘Swaller, swaller, swaller!’ and she
gulped it right down. She had to, and I guess it did her
good. Anyhow, she stopped cryin’ and laughin’ and let
me put her to bed, and she went to sleep like a baby
inside of half an hour. That was more than poor Aunt
Abby did. She lay awake all that night and I stayed with
her, though she tried not to have me; said she wa’n’t sick
enough for watchers. But I stayed, and I made some good
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commeal gruel and I fed her a teaspoon every little while
all night long. It seemed to me as if she was jest dyin’
from bein’ all wore out. In the momin’ as soon as it was
light I run over to the Bisbees and sent Johnny Bisbee for
the doctor. I told him to tell the doctor to hurry, and he
come pretty quick. Poor Aunt Abby didn’t seem to know
much of anythin’ when he got there. You couldn’t hardly
tell she breathed, she was so used up. When the doctor
had gone, Luella came into the room lookin’ like a baby
in her ruffled nightgown. I can see her now. Her eyes
were as blue and her face all pink and white like a
blossom, and she looked at Aunt Abby in the bed sort of
innocent and surprised. ‘Why,’ says she, ‘Aunt Abby
ain’t got up yet?’
“ ‘No, she ain’t,’ says I, pretty short.
“ ‘I thought I didn’t smell the coffee,’ says Luella.
“ ‘Coffee,’ says I. ‘I guess if you have coffee this
momin’ you’ll make it yourself.’
Visions of Fear - Foundations of Fear III (1992) Page 34