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.av
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.aw
“There, that’s the last struggle o’ the gale,” said Mrs. Todd, nodding her head with impressive certainty and still looking into the bright embers of the fire. “You’ll see!” She gave me another quick glance, and spoke in a low tone as if we might be overheard.
“ ’T was such a gale as this the night Mis’ Tolland died. She appeared more comfortable the first o’ the evenin’; and Mrs. Begg was more spent than I, bein’ older, and a beautiful nurse that was the first to see and think of everything, but perfectly quiet an’ never asked a useless question. You remember her funeral when you first come to the Landing? And she consented to goin’ an’ havin’ a good sleep while she could, and left me one o’ those good little pewter lamps that burnt whale oil an’ made plenty o’ light in the room, but not too bright to be disturbin’.
“Poor Mis’ Tolland had been distressed the night before, an’ all that day, but as night come on she grew more and more easy, an’ was layin’ there asleep; ’t was like settin’ by any sleepin’ person, and I had none but usual thoughts. When the wind lulled and the rain, I could hear the seas, though more distant than this, and I don’ know’s I observed any other sound than what the weather made; ’t was a very solemn feelin’ night. I set close by the bed; there was times she looked to find somebody when she was awake. The light was on her face, so I could see her plain; there was always times when she wore a look that made her seem a stranger you’d never set eyes on before. I did think what a world it was that her an’ me should have come together so, and she have nobody but Dunnet Landin’ folks about her in her extremity. ‘You’re one o’ the stray ones, poor creatur’,’ I said. I remember those very words passin’ through my mind, but I saw reason to be glad she had some comforts, and didn’t lack friends at the last, though she’d seen misery an’ pain. I was glad she was quiet; all day she’d been restless, and we couldn’t understand what she wanted from her French speech. We had the window open to give her air, an’ now an’ then a gust would strike that guitar that was on the wall and set it swinging by the blue ribbon, and soundin’ as if somebody begun to play it. I come near takin’ it down, but you never know what’ll fret a sick person an’ put ’em on the rack, an’ that guitar was one o’ the few things she’d brought with her.”
I nodded assent, and Mrs. Todd spoke still lower.
“I set there close by the bed; I’d been through a good deal for some days back, and I thought I might’s well be droppin’ asleep too, bein’ a quick person to wake. She looked to me as if she might last a day longer, certain, now she’d got more comfortable, but I was real tired, an’ sort o’ cramped as watchers will get, an’ a fretful feeling begun to creep over me such as they often do have. If you give way, there ain’t no support for the sick person; they can’t count on no composure o’ their own. Mis’ Tolland moved then, a little restless, an’ I forgot me quick enough, an’ begun to hum out a little part of a hymn tune just to make her feel everything was as usual an’ not wake up into a poor uncertainty. All of a sudden she set right up in bed with her eyes wide open, an’ I stood an’ put my arm behind her; she hadn’t moved like that for days. And she reached out both her arms toward the door, an’ I looked the way she was lookin’, an’ I see someone was standin’ there against the dark. No, ’t wa’n’t Mis’ Begg; ’t was somebody a good deal shorter than Mis’ Begg. The lamplight struck across the room between us. I couldn’t tell the shape, but ’t was a woman’s dark face lookin’ right at us; ’t wa’n’t but an instant I could see. I felt dreadful cold, and my head begun to swim; I thought the light went out; ’t wa’n’t but an instant, as I say, an’ when my sight come back I couldn’t see nothing there. I was one that didn’t know what it was to faint away, no matter what happened; time was I felt above it in others, but ’t was somethin’ that made poor human natur’ quail. I saw very plain while I could see; ’t was a pleasant enough face, shaped somethin’ like Mis’ Tolland’s, and a kind of expectin’ look.
“No, I don’t expect I was asleep,” Mrs. Todd assured me quietly, after a moment’s pause, though I had not spoken. She gave a heavy sigh before she went on. I could see that the recollection moved her in the deepest way.
“I suppose if I hadn’t been so spent an’ quavery with long watchin’, I might have kept my head an’ observed much better,” she added humbly; “but I see all I could bear. I did try to act calm, an’ I laid Mis’ Tolland down on her pillow, an’ I was a-shakin’ as I done it. All she did was to look up to me so satisfied and sort o’ questioning, an’ I looked back to her.
“ ‘You saw her, didn’t you?’ she says to me, speakin’ perfectly reasonable. ‘ ’T is my mother,’ she says again, very feeble, but lookin’ straight up at me, kind of surprised with the pleasure, and smiling as if she saw I was overcome, an’ would have said more if she could, but we had hold of hands. I see then her change was comin’, but I didn’t call Mis’ Begg, nor make no uproar. I felt calm then, an’ lifted to somethin’ different as I never was since. She opened her eyes just as she was goin’—
“ ‘You saw her, didn’t you?’ she said the second time, an’ I says, ‘Yes, dear, I did; you ain’t never goin’ to feel strange an’ lonesome no more.’ An’ then in a few quiet minutes ’t was all over. I felt they’d gone away together. No, I wa’n’t alarmed afterward; ’t was just that one moment I couldn’t live under, but I never called it beyond reason I should see the other watcher. I saw plain enough there was somebody there with me in the room.
VII
“ ’T WAS JUST SUCH a night as this Mis’ Tolland died,” repeated Mrs. Todd, returning to her usual tone and leaning back comfortably in her chair as she took up her knitting. “ ’T was just such a night as this. I’ve told the circumstances to but very few; but I don’t call it beyond reason. When folks is goin’ ’t is all natural, and only common things can jar upon the mind. You know plain enough there’s somethin’ beyond this world; the doors stand wide open. There’s somethin’ of us that must still live on; we’ve got to join both worlds together an’ live in one but for the other. The doctor said that to me one day, an’ I never could forget it; he said ’t was in one o’ his old doctor’s books.”
We sat together in silence in the warm little room; the rain dropped heavily from the eaves, and the sea still roared, but the high wind had done blowing. We heard the far complaining fog horn of a steamer up the Bay.
“There goes the Boston boat out, pretty near on time,” said Mrs. Todd with satisfaction. “Sometimes these late August storms’ll sound a good deal worse than they really be. I do hate to hear the poor steamers callin’ when they’re bewildered in thick nights in winter, comin’ on the coast. Yes, there goes the boat; they’ll find it rough at sea, but the storm’s all over.”
WILLIAM’S WEDDING
I
THE HURRY OF LIFE in a
large town, the constant putting aside of preference to yield to a most unsatisfactory activity, began to vex me, and one day I took the train, and only left it for the eastward-bound boat. Carlyleax says somewhere that the only happiness a man ought to ask for is happiness enough to get his work done; and against this the complexity and futile ingenuity of social life seems a conspiracy. But the first salt wind from the east, the first sight of a lighthouse set boldly on its outer rock, the flash of a gull, the waiting procession of seaward-bound firs on an island, made me feel solid and definite again, instead of a poor, incoherent being. Life was resumed, and anxious living blew away as if it had not been. I could not breathe deep enough or long. It was a return to happiness.
The coast had still a wintry look; it was far on in May, but all the shore looked cold and sterile. One was conscious of going north as well as east and as the day went on the sea grew colder, and all the warmer air and bracing strength and stimulus of the autumn weather, and storage of the heat of summer, were quite gone. I was very cold and very tired when I came at evening up the lower bay, and saw the white houses of Dunnet Landing climbing the hill. They had a friendly look; these little houses, not as if they were climbing up the shore, but as if they were rather all coming down to meet a fond and weary traveler, and I could hardly wait with patience to step off the boat. It was not the usual eager company on the wharf. The coming-in of the mail-boat was the one large public event of a summer day, and I was disappointed at seeing none of my intimate friends but Johnny Bowden, who had evidently done nothing all winter but grow, so that his short sea-smitten clothes gave him a look of poverty.
Johnny’s expression did not change as we greeted each other, but I suddenly felt that I had shown indifference and inconvenient delay by not coming sooner; before I could make an apology he took my small portmanteau,ay and walking before me in his old fashion he made straight up the hilly road toward Mrs. Todd’s. Yes, he was much grown—it had never occurred to me the summer before that Johnny was likely, with the help of time and other forces, to grow into a young man; he was such a well-framed and well-settled chunk of a boy that nature seemed to have set him aside as something finished, quite satisfactory, and entirely completed.
The wonderful little green garden had been enchanted away by winter. There were a few frost-bitten twigs and some thin shrubbery against the fence, but it was a most unpromising small piece of ground. My heart was beating like a lover’s as I passed it on the way to the door of Mrs. Todd’s house, which seemed to have become much smaller under the influence of winter weather.
“She hasn’t gone away?” I asked Johnny Bowden with a sudden anxiety just as we reached the doorstep.
“Gone away!” he faced me with blank astonishment—“I see her settin’ by Mis’ Caplin’s window, the one nighest the road, about four o’clock!” And eager with suppressed news of my coming he made his entrance as if the house were a burrow.
Then on my homesick heart fell the voice of Mrs. Todd. She stopped, through what I knew to be excess of feeling, to rebuke Johnny for bringing in so much mud, and I dallied without for one moment during the ceremony; then we met again face to face.
II
“I DARE SAY YOU can advise me what shapes they are goin’ to wear. My meetin’-bunnit ain’t goin’ to do me again this year; no! I can’t expect ’t would do me forever,” said Mrs. Todd, as soon as she could say anything. “There! do set down and tell me how you have been! We’ve got a weddin’ in the family, I s’pose you know?”
“A wedding!” said I, still full of excitement.
“Yes; I expect if the tide serves and the line stormaz don’t overtake him they’ll come in and appear out on Sunday, I shouldn’t have concerned me about the bunnit for a month yet, nobody would notice, but havin’ an occasion like this I shall show consider’ble. ’Twill be an ordeal for William!”
“For William!” I exclaimed. “What do you mean, Mrs. Todd?”
She gave a comfortable little laugh. “Well, the Lord’s seen reason at last an’ removed Mis’ Cap’n Hight up to the farm, an’ I don’t know but the weddin’s goin’ to be this week. Esther’s had a great deal of business disposin’ of her flock, but she’s done extra well—the folks that owns the next place goin’ up country are well off. ’Tis elegant land north side o’ that bleak ridge, an’ one o’ the boys has been Esther’s right-hand man of late. She instructed him in all matters, and after she markets the early lambs he’s goin’ to take the farm on halves, an’ she’s give the refusal to him to buy her out within two years. She’s reserved the buryin’ lot, an’ the right o’ way in, an’—”
I couldn’t stop for details. I demanded reassurance of the central fact.
“William going to be married?” I repeated; whereat Mrs. Todd gave me a searching look that was not without scorn.
“Old Mis’ Hight’s funeral was a week ago Wednesday, and ’t was very well attended,” she assured me after a moment’s pause.
“Poor thing!” said I, with a sudden vision of her helplessness and angry battle against the fate of illness; “it was very hard for her.”
“I thought it was hard for Esther!” said Mrs. Todd without sentiment.
III
I HAD AN ODD feeling of strangeness: I missed the garden, and the little rooms, to which I had added a few things of my own the summer before, seemed oddly unfamiliar. It was like the hermit crab in a cold new shell—and with the windows shut against the raw May air, and a strange silence and grayness of the sea all that first night and day of my visit, I felt as if I had after all lost my hold of that quiet life.
Mrs. Todd made the apt suggestion that city persons were prone to run themselves to death, and advised me to stay and get properly rested now that I had taken the trouble to come. She did not know how long I had been homesick for the conditions of life at the Landing the autumn before—it was natural enough to feel a little unsupported by compelling incidents on my return.
Some one has said that one never leaves a place, or arrives at one, until the next day! But on the second morning I woke with the familiar feeling of interest and ease, and the bright May sun was streaming in, while I could hear Mrs. Todd’s heavy footsteps pounding about in the other part of the house as if something were going to happen. There was the first golden robinba singing somewhere close to the house, and a lovely aspect of spring now, and I looked at the garden to see that in the warm night some of its treasures had grown a hand’s breadth; the determined spikes of yellow daffiesbb stood tall against the doorsteps, and the blood-root was unfolding leaf and flower. The belated spring which I had left behind farther south had overtaken me on this northern coast. I even saw a presumptuous dandelion in the garden border.
It is difficult to report the great events of New England; expression is so slight, and those few words which escape us in moments of deep feeling look but meager on the printed page. One has to assume too much of the dramatic fervor as one reads; but as I came out of my room at breakfast-time I met Mrs. Todd face to face, and when she said to me, “This weather’ll bring William in after her; ’tis their happy day!” I felt something take possession of me which ought to communicate itself to the least sympathetic reader of this cold page. It is written for those who have a Dunnet Landing of their own: who either kindly share this with the writer, or possess another.
“I ain’t seen his comin’ sail yet; he’ll be likely to dodge round among the islands so he’ll be the less observed,” continued Mrs. Todd. “You can get a dory up the bay, even a clean new painted one, if you know as how, keepin’ it against the high land.” She stepped to the door and looked off to sea as she spoke. I could see her eye follow the gray shores to and fro, and then a bright light spread over her calm face. “There he comes, and he’s strikin’ right in across the open bay like a man!” she said with splendid approval. “See, there he comes! Yes, there’s William, and he’s bent his new sail.”
I looked too, and saw the fleck of white no larger than a gull’s wing
yet, but present to her eager vision.
I was going to France for the whole long summer that year, and the more I thought of such an absence from these simple scenes the more dear and delightful they became. Santa Teresa saysbc that the true proficiency of the soul is not in much thinking, but in much loving, and sometimes I believed that I had never found love in its simplicity as I had found it at Dunnet Landing in the various hearts of Mrs. Blackett and Mrs. Todd and William. It is only because one came to know them, these three, loving and wise and true, in their own habitations. Their counterparts are in every village in the world, thank heaven, and the gift to one’s life is only in its discernment. I had only lived in Dunnet until the usual distractions and artifices of the world were no longer in control, and I saw these simple natures clear. “The happiness of life is in its recognitions. It seems that we are not ignorant of these truths, and even that we believe them; but we are so little accustomed to think of them, they are so strange to us—”
“Well now, deary me!” said Mrs. Todd, breaking into exclamation: “I’ve got to fly round—I thought he’d have to beat; he can’t sail far on that tack, and he won’t be in for a good hour yet—I expect he’s made every arrangement, but he said he shouldn’t go up after Esther unless the weather was good, and I declare it did look doubtful this morning.”
I remembered Esther’s weather-worn face. She was like a Frenchwoman who had spent her life in the fields. I remembered her pleasant look, her childlike eyes, and thought of the astonishment of joy she would feel now in being taken care of and tenderly sheltered from wind and weather after all these years. They were going to be young again now, she and William, to forget work and care in the spring weather. I could hardly wait for the boat to come to land, I was so eager to see his happy face.
The Country of the Pointed Firs and Selected Short Fiction Page 23