A White Heron and Other Stories

by Sarah Orne Jewett

  “Oh dear!” I sighed. “Oh, Mrs. Todd, what did you do?”

  “She beheld our countenances,” answered Mrs. Todd solemnly. “I expect they was telling everything plain enough, but Cap’n Lorenzo. spoke the sad words to her as if he had been her father; and she wavered a minute and then over she went on the floor before we could catch hold of her, and then we tried to bring her to herself and failed, and at last we carried her upstairs, an’ I told uncle to run down and put out the lights, and then go fast as he could for Mrs. Begg, being very experienced in sickness, an’ he so did. I got off her clothes and her poor wreath, and I cried as I done it. We both stayed there that night, and the doctor said ‘twas a shock when he come in the morning; he’d been over to Black Island an’ had to stay all night with a very sick child.”

  “You said that she lived alone some time after the news came,” I reminded Mrs. Todd then.

  “Oh yes, dear,” answered my friend sadly, “but it wa’n’t what you’d call livin’; no, it was only dyin’, though at a snail’s pace. She never went out again those few months, but for a while she could manage to get about the house a little, and do what was needed, an’ I never let two days go by without seein’ her or hearin’ from her. She never took much notice as I came an’ went except to answer if I asked her anything. Mother was the one who gave her the only comfort.”

  “What was that?” I asked softly.

  “She said that anybody in such trouble ought to see their minister, mother did, and one day she spoke to Mis’ Tolland, and found that the poor soul had been believin’ all the time that there weren’t any priests here. We’d come to know she was a Catholic by her beads and all, and that had set some narrow minds against her. And mother explained it just as she would to a child; and uncle Lorenzo sent word right off somewhere up river by a packet that was bound up the bay, and the first o’ the week a priest come by the boat, an’ uncle Lorenzo was on the wharf ‘tendin’ to some business; so they just come up for me, and I walked with him to show him the house. He was a kind-hearted old man; he looked so benevolent an’ fatherly I could ha’ stopped an’ told him my own troubles; yes, I was satisfied when I first saw his face, an’ when poor Mis’ Tolland beheld him enter the room, she went right down on her knees and clasped her hands together to him as if he’d come to save her life, and he lifted her up and blessed her, an’ I left ‘em together, and slipped out into the open field and walked there in sight so if they needed to call me, and I had my own thoughts. At last I saw him at the door; he had to catch the return boat. I meant to walk back with him and offer him some supper, but he said no, and said he was comin’ again if needed, and signed me to go into the house to her, and shook his head in a way that meant he understood everything. I can see him now; he walked with a cane, rather tired and feeble; I wished somebody would come along, so’s to carry him down to the shore.

  “Mis’ Tolland looked up at me with a new look when I went in, an’ she even took hold o’ my hand and kept it. He had put some oil on her forehead, but nothing anybody could do would keep her alive very long; ‘twas his medicine for the soul rather ’n the body. I helped her to bed, and next morning she couldn’t get up to dress her, and that was Monday, and she began to fail, and ’t was Friday night she died.” (Mrs. Todd spoke with unusual haste and lack of detail.) “Mrs. Begg and I watched with her, and made everything nice and proper, and after all the ill will there was a good number gathered to the funeral. ‘Twas in reverend Mr. Bascom’s day, and he done very well in his prayer, considering he couldn’t fill in with mentioning all the near connections by name as was his habit. He spoke very feeling about her being a stranger and twice widowed, and all he said about her being reared among the heathen was to observe that there might be roads leadin’ up to the New Jerusalem from various points. I says to myself that I guessed quite a number must ha’ reached there that wa’n’t able to set out from Dunnet Landin’!”

  Mrs. Todd gave an odd little laugh as she bent toward the firelight to pick up a dropped stitch in her knitting, and then I heard a heartfelt sigh.

  “‘Twas most forty years ago,” she said; “most everybody’s gone a’ready that was there that day.”

  V

  Suddenly Mrs. Todd gave an energetic shrug of her shoulders, and a quick look at me, and I saw that the sails of her narrative were filled with a fresh breeze.

  “Uncle Lorenzo, Cap’n Bowden that I have referred to”—

  “Certainly!” I agreed with eager expectation.

  “He was the one that had been left in charge of Cap’n John Tolland’s affairs, and had now come to be of unforeseen importance.

  “Mrs. Begg an’ I had stayed in the house both before an’ after Mis’ Tolland’s decease, and she was now in haste to be gone, having affairs to call her home; but uncle come to me as the exercises was beginning, and said he thought I’d better remain at the house while they went to the buryin’ ground. I couldn’t understand his reasons, an’ I felt disappointed, bein’ as near to her as most anybody; ‘twas rough weather, so mother couldn’t get in, and didn’t even hear Mis’ Tolland was gone till next day. I just nodded to satisfy him, ‘twas’n’t no time to discuss anything. Uncle seemed flustered; he’d gone out deep-sea fishin’ the day she died, and the storm I told you of rose very sudden, so they got blown off way down the coast beyond Monhegan, and he’d just got back in time to dress himself and come.

  “I set there in the house after I’d watch her away down the straight road far’s I could see from the door; ‘twas a little short walkin’ funeral an’ a cloudy sky, so everything looked dull an’ gray, an’ it crawled along all in one piece, same’s walking funerals do, an’ I wondered how it ever come to the Lord’s mind to let her begin down among them gay islands all heat and sun, and end up here among the rocks with a north wind blowin’. ‘Twas a gale that begun the afternoon before she died, and had kept blowin’ off an’ on ever since. I’d thought more than once how glad I should be to get home an’ out o’ sound o’ them black spruces a-beatin’ an’ scratchin’ at the front windows.

  “I set to work pretty soon to put the chairs back, an’ set outdoors some that was borrowed, an’ I went out in the kitchen, an’ I made up a good fire in case somebody come an’ wanted a cup o’ tea; but I didn’t expect any one to travel way back to the house unless ‘twas uncle Lorenzo. ‘Twas growin’ so chilly that I fetched some kindlin’ wood and made fires in both the fore rooms. Then I set down an’ begun to feel as usual, and I got my knittin’ out of a drawer. You can’t be sorry for a poor creatur’ that’s come to the end o’ all her troubles; my only discomfort was I thought I’d ought to feel worse at losin’ her than I did; I was younger then that I be now. And as I set there, I begun to hear some long notes o’ dronin’ music from upstairs that chilled me to the bone.”

  Mrs. Todd gave a hasty glance at me.

  “Quick’s I could gather me, I went right upstairs to see what ‘twas,” she added eagerly, “an’ ‘twas just what I might ha’ known. She’d always kept her guitar hangin’ right against the wall in her room; ‘twas tied by a blue ribbon, and there was a window left wide open; the wind was veerin’ a good deal, an’ it slanted in and searched the room. The strings was jarrin’ yet.

  “‘Twas growin’ pretty late in the afternoon, an’ I begun to feel lonesome as I shouldn’t now, and I was disappointed at having to stay there, the more I thought it over, but after a while I saw Cap’n Lorenzo polin’ back up the road all alone, and when he come nearer I could see he had a bundle under his arm and had shifted his best black clothes for his everyday ones. I run out and put some tea into the teapot and set it back on the stove to draw, an’ when he come in I reached down a little jug o’ spirits,—Cap’n Tolland had left his house well provisioned as if his wife was goin’ to put to sea same’s himself, an’ there she’d gone an’ left it. There was some cake that Mis’ Begg an’ I had made the day before. I thought that uncle an’ me had a good right to the funeral supper, even if ther
e wa’n’t any one to join us. I was lookin’ forward to my cup o’ tea; ’twas beautiful tea out of a green lacquered chest that I’ve got now.”

  “You must have felt very tired,” said I, eagerly listening.

  “I was ‘most beat out, with watchin’ an’ tendin’ and all,” answered Mrs. Todd, with as much sympathy in her voice as if she were speaking of another person. “But I called out to uncle as he came in, ‘Well, I expect it’s all over now, an’ we’ve all done what we could. I thought we’d better have some tea or somethin’ before we go home. Come right out in the kitchen, sir,’ says I, never thinking but we only had to let the fires out and lock up everything safe an’ eat our refreshment, an’ go home.

  ‘“I want both of us to stop here tonight,’ says uncle, looking at me very important.

  “‘Oh, what for?’ says I, kind o’ fretful.

  “‘I’ve got my proper reasons,’ says uncle. ‘I’ll see you well satisfied, Almira. Your tongue ain’t so easy-goin’ as some o’ the women folks, an’ there’s property here to take charge of that you don’t know nothin’ at all about.’

  “‘What do you mean?’ says I.

  “‘Cap’n Tolland acquainted me with his affairs; he hadn’t no sort o’ confidence in nobody but me an’ his wife, after he was tricked into signin’ that Portland note, an’ lost money. An’ she didn’t know nothin’ about business; but what he didn’t take to sea to be sunk with him he’s hid somewhere in this house. I expect Mis’ Tolland may have told you where she kept things?’ said uncle.

  “I see he was dependin’ a good deal on my answer,” said Mrs. Todd, “but I had to disappoint him; no, she had never said nothin’ to me.

  “‘Well, then, we’ve got to make a search,’ says he, with considerable relish; but he was all tired and worked up, and we set down to the table, an’ he had somethin’, an’ I took my desired cup o’ tea, and then I begun to feel more interested.

  “‘Where you goin’ to look first?’ says I, but he give me a short look an’ made no answer, an’ begun to mix me a very small portion out of the jug, in another glass. I took it to please him; he said I looked tired, speakin’ real fatherly, and I did feel better for it, and we set talkin’ a few minutes, an’ then he started for the cellar, carrying an old ship’s lantern he fetched out o’ the stairway an’ lit.

  ‘“What are you lookin’ for, some kind of a chist?” I inquired, and he said yes. All of sudden it come to me to ask who was the heirs; Eliza Tolland, Cap’n John’s own sister, had never demeaned herself to come near the funeral, and uncle Lorenzo faced right about and begun to laugh, sort o’ pleased. I thought queer of it; ‘twa’n’t what he’d taken, which would be nothin’ to an old weathered sailor like him.

  “‘Who’s the heir?” says I the second time.

  “‘Why, it’s you, Almiry,’ says he; and I was so took aback I set right down on the turn o’ the cellar stairs.

  “‘Yes ‘tis,’ said uncle Lorenzo. ‘I’m glad of it too. Some thought she didn’t have no sense but foreign sense, an’ a poor stock o’ that, but she said you was friendly to her, an’ one day after she got news of Tolland’s death, an’ I had fetched up his will that left everything to her, she said she was goin’ to make a writin’, so’s you could have things after she was gone, an’ she give five hundred to me for bein’ executor. Square5 Pease fixed up the paper, an’ she signed it; it’s all accordin’ to law.’ ”There, I begun to cry,” said Mrs. Todd; ”I couldn’t help it. I wished I had her back again to do somethin’ for, an’ to make her know I felt sisterly to her more’n I’d ever showed, an’ it come over me ‘twas all too late, an’ I cried the more, till uncle showed impatience, an’ I got up an’ stumbled along down cellar with my apern to my eyes the greater part of the time.

  ‘“I’m goin’ to have a clean search,’ says he; ‘you hold the light.’ An’ I held it and he rummaged in the arches an’ under the stairs, an’ over in some old closet where he reached out bottles an’ stone jugs an’ canted some kags an’ one or two casks, an’ chuckled well when he heard there was somethin’ inside,—but there wa’n’t nothin’ to find but things usual in a cellar, an’ then the old lantern was givin’ out an’ we come away.

  “‘He spoke to me of a chist, Cap’n Tolland did,’ says uncle in a whisper. ‘He said a good sound chist was as safe a bank as there was, an’ I beat him out of such nonsense, ‘count o’ fire an’ other risks.’ ‘There’s no chist in the rooms above,’ says I; ‘no, uncle, there ain’t no sea-chist, for I’ve been here long enough to see what there was to be seen.’ Yet he wouldn’t feel contented till he’d mounted up into the toploft; ‘twas one o’ them single, hip roofed houses that don’t give proper accommodation for a real garret, like Cap’n Littlepage’s down here at the Landin’. There was broken furniture and rubbish, an’ he let down a terrible sight o’ dust into the front entry, but sure enough there wasn’t no chist. I had it all to sweep up next day.

  “‘He must have took it away to sea,’ says I to the cap’n, an’ even then he didn’t want to agree, but we was both beat out. I told him where I’d always seen Mis’ Tolland get her money from, and we found much as a hundred dollars there in an old red morocco wallet. Cap’n John had been gone a good while a’ready, and she had spent what she needed. ‘Twas in an old desk o’ his in the settin’ room that we found the wallet.”

  “At the last minute he may have taken his money to sea,” I suggested.

  “Oh yes,” agreed Mrs. Todd. “He did take considerable to make his venture to bring home, as was customary, an’ that was drowned with him as uncle agreed; but he had other property in shipping, and a thousand dollars invested in Portland in a cordage shop, but ‘twas about the time shipping begun to decay, and the cordage shop failed, and in the end I wa’n’t so rich as I thought I was goin’ to be for those few minutes on the cellar stairs. There was an auction that accumulated something. Old Mis’ Tolland, the cap’n’s mother, had heired some good furniture from a sister: there was above thirty chairs in all, and they’re apt to sell well. I got over a thousand dollars when we come to settle up, and I made uncle take his five hundred; he was getting along in years and had met with losses in navigation, and he left it back to me when he died, so I had a real good lift. It all lays in the bank over to Rockland, and I draw my interest fall an’ spring, with the little Mr. Todd was able to leave me; but that’s kind o’ sacred money; ‘twas earnt and saved with the hope o’ youth, an’ I’m very particular what I spent it for. Oh yes, what with ownin’ my house, I’ve been enabled to get along very well, with prudence!” said Mrs. Todd contentedly.

  “But there was the house and land,” I asked,—“what became of that part of the property?”

  Mrs. Todd looked into the fire, and a shadow of disapproval flitted over her face.

  “Poor old uncle!” she said, “he got childish about the matter. I was hoping to sell at first, and I had an offer, but he always run of an idea that there was more money hid away, and kept wanting me to delay; an’ he used to go up there all alone and search, and dig in the cellar, empty an’ bleak as ‘twas in winter weather or any time. An’ he’d come and tell me he’d dreamed he found gold behind a stone in the cellar wall, or somethin’. And one night we all see the light o’ fire up that way, an’ the whole Landin’ took the road, and run to look, and the Tolland property was all in a light blaze. I expect the old gentleman had dropped fire about; he said he’d been up there to see if everything was safe in the afternoon. As for the land, ‘twas so poor that everybody used to have a joke that the Tolland boys preferred to farm the sea instead. It’s ‘most all grown up to bushes now where it ain’t poor water grass in the low places. There’s some upland that has a pretty view, after you cross the brook bridge. Years an’ years after she died, there was some o’ her flowers used to come up an’ bloom in the door garden. I brought two or three that was unusual down here; they always come up and remind me of her, constant as the spring. But I never did want to fetch h
ome that guitar, some way or ‘nother; I wouldn’t let it go at the auction, either. It was hangin’ right there in the house when the fire took place. I’ve got some o’ her other little things scattered about the house: that picture on the mantelpiece belonged to her.”

  I had often wondered where such a picture had come from, and why Mrs. Todd had chosen it; it was a French print of the statue of the Empress Josephine in the Savane at old Fort Royal, in Martinique.

  VI

  Mrs. Todd drew her chair closer to mine; she held the cat and her knitting with one hand as she moved, but the cat was so warm and so sound asleep that she only stretched a lazy paw in spite of what must have felt like a slight earthquake. Mrs. Todd began to speak almost in a whisper.

  “I ain’t told you all,” she continued; “no, I haven’t spoken of all to but very few. The way it came was this,” she said solemnly, and then stopped to listen to the wind, and sat for a moment in deferential silence, as if she waited for the wind to speak first. The cat suddenly lifted her head with quick excitement and gleaming eyes, and her mistress was leaning forward toward the fire with an arm laid on either knee, as if they were consulting the glowing coals for some augury. Mrs. Todd looked like an old prophetess as she sat there with the firelight shining on her strong face; she was posed for some great painter. The woman with the cat was as unconscious and as mysterious as any sibyl of the Sistine Chapel.