Part 9
“Mrs. Worden went on with her doin’s, whatever they was, and along couple hours later she sees the sky darkenin’. There had been a good many small boats out on the water, and she felt uneasy when she noticed ’twas getting dark. Everythin’ along the bank was different then to what it’s now, you know. Some of them long slopes was all green and right pretty to sit out on, and lots of people used to walk there and look at the lake and do their sparkin’, and sometimes people would crowd the bank to watch a wreck and shout and yell, if anyone was saved. Well, as I was sayin’, Mrs. Worden she goes to look out, when a girl comes screechin’ to her ‘that a boat had been capsized, and the folks that had gone out to save the upset people were now in danger from the wind that was blowin’, and there was crowds out there watchin’ already!’ Mrs. Worden wraps herself up in a cloak and goes out, too, to the bank. Lord! Lord! that storm! and the shortness of it. I had a sailor boardin’ here then--nasty, drunken brute he was, too--he said somethin’ about their having where he come from what was called a ‘black squall,’ and that that was one. Well, I don’t know nothin’ about black squalls, but I do know, and you know, and every one else as knows ‘Old Erie’ at all, knows there ain’t no lake on God’s earth that’s as treacherous or as lightenin’ quick in evil-doing, and when Mrs. Worden gets out there, the crowd was already cryin’ out, and wringin’ hands, and runnin’ up and down. And, sure enough, there right close in was a bit of a pleasure boat of some sort, and, oh, dear! I can’t tell you no rights or wrongs, I was there too, but when I seen them poor creatures hold out their arms towards us standin’ safe on solid ground, I jest sot right down on the bank, for my legs couldn’t hold me up. Then a rumor ran through the crowd that there was children on the boat, and one great groan went up, and Mrs. Worden says: ‘God pity some poor mother’s heart! my own children might have been there, for they begged to go out to-day, but I forbade it,’ and right behind her stopped a woman who had come up runnin’ like mad, and was movin’ her lips and not makin’ a single sound, and that woman was Aunt Anna. At that moment a vivid flash of color was seen on the deck, it was a girl’s pink dress; next instant the crowd groaned: ‘The children, oh! God! see the children! and they are holdin’ hands, they look this way!’ A man was standin’, holdin’ a pair of glasses to his eyes, and without a word Mrs. Worden put out her shakin’ hand and seized them, while the silent woman, with the ashen grey face, fell down upon her knees and bowed her head behind her. The instant the glass was at her eyes Mrs. Worden stopped shakin’. She stood solid as a rock and she jest said: ‘Oh! Mother of God!’ and there she stood, and it was only a moment or two after that, oh! well, there was awful screechin’ from the women and some groans from the men, and it was all over. I looked at her. She took the glass from her eyes, and holdin’ it in her hand a minute, she stood looking down at it, then she gave a kind of start-like, and she holds it out to the man, and she said slowly, each word kind of by itself, ‘I thank you, sir, it is a good glass,’ and she turned and walked a step or two, and then without a sound, fell all her length, upon the ground. They carried her to her home, but Aunt Anna was taken to another house and cared for, and there she told how she had not been strong enough to refuse them, when they had entreated, and the people who invited them were old friends of hers, and would, she knew, be very careful; but where she took on the worst, was when she told about how the dog had to be tied, to keep him from following them. The ladies feared he might jump into the water and get in the boat again and spoil their dresses; and he fought like mad to get loose, and howled and barked his voice clean away. And I haven’t no doubt but he’d a saved one of ’em, for he was that strong, and a regular water-dog, and he’d brought the boy out against his will more than once, when people had sent him after Phil just for fun. Well, Aunt Anna was afraid of her life to meet Mrs. Worden, but she needn’t have been, for she hardly noticed her when she did see her. The doctors that come that time didn’t like her doin’s at all. She never cried a minute. That’s the truth, and she had seen her own and only children go to the bottom of the lake hand in hand. People that went there cried; the help just cried buckets full, and she looked at ’em, and one day she said: ‘I wonder how they do it? I can’t!’ and the doctor, once he got kind of mad-like, and he says: ‘Bend, woman, bend, or you’re bound to break! Do you think you have the strength to bear this blow as you bore the other one?’ but she only answered calmly: ‘I am what I am! I did not make myself.’ When he left he felt all upsot and he was cross as a bear with a sore head, and he said when Aunt Anna came up to ask about her, ‘She will cry, or die, or go mad; and the last looks the likeliest to me,’ and off he went. The minister he tried what he could do. He was a pudgy, kind-hearted man, and he had young children of his own, and he tried to talk resignation and that sort of thing, and she jest said to him when he got good and through, ‘Has _your_ house been made desolate to you in one hour?’ and he jest burst right out crying, and he says, ‘Ah! you poor woman, how can you bear it?’ and she jumped from her chair and lifted up her face, and beating on her breast with both her clinched fists, she almost screamed out: ‘Bear it? Bear it? Why I--’ she stopped right in a minute and she sat down and said, ‘You will pardon me, won’t you? But, see now, you have little ones, yours, your own blood in their veins, and you can imagine, can’t you, the hunger, the agony of hunger I suffer for a sight of my little ones’ faces? I could wait a thousand years if only I could see them then, but they’re out there!’ waving her hand toward the lake. ‘Never, never, shall I see them again!’ and he, poor, old man, he jest sobbed and said: ‘Never, till the sea gives up its dead!’ At them words she gave a great cry--that’s the way the minister put it--she gave a great cry and she said: ‘My God! My God! I had forgotten--when the sea gives up its dead, and His words stand firmer than the everlasting hills!’ She threw herself upon her knees, and holding up her hands she cried out loud, ‘Lord, thou hast sent my soul down into hell, but for Thy great words, will I praise Thee forever!’ She turned and kissed the minister’s hand and blessed him for reminding her. ‘They are truthful children, and have long memories,’ she said, ‘and when the sea gives up its dead, they will give the promised sign, and I will join them, and we will all go on together. So I will watch and wait, just watch and wait for my dear ones’ sign!’ And that was full fifty years ago, for I was but eighteen then, and Myra Worden has watched at that lake’s side faithful ever since; though from that day people have called her mad, and I suppose she _is_, poor soul.”
I bowed my head upon my hands; dully I heard Mrs. Bulkley going on about some bank’s failure, something about a fire that had followed close upon the failure, and the word ruin, many times repeated, but my real attention was fixed upon a picture that rose before me. I saw, as plainly as I ever saw anything in my life, a great, level plain, and far away against the angry sunset sky, a line of low unwooded hills encircled it. It was unspeakably dreary--no trees, no water, no rise and fall, dip or break in the monotonous, dead level of the ground. Far away to the left, in the growing darkness, I saw the towers and cupolas of a fair, white city, and from its distant gates a path was worn across the dismal plain--a path so faint, so narrow, it could only have been made by one lone traveler’s feet. At the very farthest end, and on either side, there were faint outlines as of fallen bodies, and there were broken urns, and jars, and some withered garlands; but for all its greater length, it was narrow, faint and bare. And while I looked, suddenly, at its opposite end, that nearest to the hills, there appeared the figure of that traveler whose weary feet had worn that piteous path. Behind her, the fair, white city; before her, the bleak and savage hills. The tall figure, in its sombre garments, seemed the very spirit of desolation. The face was turned away from me, but there was that in the figure which made my heart leap up in quick recognition, and then, so truly as you live, _then_ I heard a voice, clear and distinct, but seemingly very, very far away, and it said: “I am Myra, ‘she who weeps!’”
I gave a start so violent that I turned my tea-cup completely over, and, putting it hastily to rights again, saw Mrs. Bulkley looking her grimy handkerchief over carefully to find a promising bit to rub her glasses with. Her false front was much awry, and her small eyes were red, and she was finishing, as she had begun, with the assertion that “Mrs. Worden was breaking up, no doubt of that, since she had taken up with a theatre-girl, of all people on the footstool, well! well!”
I thanked the “Busy B” for her tea and her information, and I greatly fear I proved an unsatisfactory confidant for Mary, who dearly loved plenty of “oh’s!” and “ah’s!” and “did you ever’s?” while she poured forth tales of the numbers of magnificent male creatures who madly pursued her through life, she always baffling them, however. By the way, she must have kept up her habit of baffling the magnificent ones, because she eventually married a baker with a veritable low-comedy name, by the side of which “Bowersocks,” would look grave and dignified.
The pain I felt in hearing Mrs. Worden coarsely and disrespectfully spoken of opened my eyes to the extent of the veneration and affection I had grown to feel for her. That creature in whom the world saw a desolate woman, whose haughty, old head was held high, and whose piercing, hawk’s eye spied out its weakness, but in whom I saw the wearily faithful, old watcher, by the restless lake, waiting through the long years, always “waiting for the sign.” To me, her sorrows had made her sacred.
I had never seen any creature who seemed so absolutely bloodless as did old Mrs. Worden, and no matter how often I might meet her, the moment my eye took in the waxen pallor of her face, I experienced an uncanny feeling of familiarity. I would ask myself, “Of whom does she remind me?” knowing all the time that I had never seen anyone who resembled her in the slightest degree.
But one day as she sat, as ever, facing the lake, with her eyes cast down upon her cup, the cold, dull light falling upon the clear-cut features of her wax-white face, turning it into a veritable mask of death, I looked steadily at the hollow of her temples--not the faintest pulsation there. I gazed steadily at her throat--not a pulse-beat could I see, though I knew my own full throat would throb and swell at times as though it had an independent existence. As I looked, I thought, if she should run a needle deep into her finger I believe nothing would follow its withdrawal, and so, like a flash, it leaped into my mind who she was like. The very counterpart of old King Duncan! He of the mighty tragedy--the victim of that woman who raved in her crime-haunted sleep; not of pity at his “taking off,” not of remorse, but only of that stupendous surprise: “Who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him!”
The good, old man with the wool-white locks, and the saintly soul housed in the parchment-like body--yes! like this he looked. Yet her dagger thrust had been followed by a rush of royal blood that not only “laced” all his followers and “pooled” about his body, but stained her hand with a stain too deep for an ocean’s waves to wash away.
Never since have I read or thought of Duncan without seeing Mrs. Worden’s features beneath the golden round of sovereignty. All the life, the strength, the spirit she had left, was gathered up into the fire of her eyes, and when the ashes of her lids covered their glow, her face was as the face of Duncan, dead. Were Mrs. Worden living now, she would probably be called a “mind reader.” Then many people declared her to be clairvoyant. Be that as it may, she had, beyond doubt, a wonderful power of reading or guessing other people’s thoughts, a power which added greatly to the terror with which she inspired some of her townsmen whose thoughts were not always of a quality or nature to invite close feminine inspection. As for myself, she had divined my thoughts, time and again, with a calm exactitude that filled me with awe; and that day, while I still gazed at her mask-like face, she raised her eyes, looked steadily into mine a moment, and in an even voice asked: “Well? Whom am I like? The Witch of Endor?” and, without a moment’s pause, obediently as a little child, I made answer: “No, ma’am, you are like King Duncan!”
A quick frown knit her black brows. Never since that far-away day of the giving of the shawl-pin, had she, by word or sign, hinted at her knowledge of my being an actress, and I saw the allusion to Macbeth was unwelcome to her. However, she quickly recovered from her annoyance, and, with her usual aptness, asked: “Do you find the likeness purely physical, or do I, like the old soldier king, ‘lag superfluous on the stage of life’?”
To which I gaily and gratefully replied: “At all events I shall not, like Mistress Macbeth, try to ‘push you from your stool’!”
And her answer, to my annoyance, was: “How--how--is she going to do it?”
She was thinking aloud, but I knew only too well that her question referred to me; and equally well I knew that a bad quarter of an hour was directly before me. Several times the old lady had declared that I was going to make my mark in the world, but she was greatly puzzled, very naturally, to know how I was to do it. She had, therefore, fallen into a way of analyzing my character, before my very face, with positively brutal frankness, and, so far, she had always failed to find out how I was to attain the success she foretold for me.
Really, it seemed a form of vivisection she subjected me to, and I squirmed in unpleasant anticipation when I heard that: “How--how is she going to do it?”
I had no suggestion to offer, so I drank my coffee silently. She studied my face a moment, and then she said: “Yes--yes, you will, I tell you! But, _how_! You are not aggressive enough to win by _force_! Oh, you can fight fast enough, flaring nostrils! but you will always fight on the defensive. You are clever, but you are not clever enough! Intellect isn’t going to win for you. How _are_ you going to do it? Yet you are to dominate, to have power. I’ve seen it in the arch of your bared foot, in the unbeautiful square of your shoulders, in the tenacious grasp of your hand. If you had great beauty now--there, don’t redden that way: never blush above the eyes, it’s not becoming--you are all right; you’re straight, and fair, and wholesome. You have enough good looks for men to hang their lies upon, but you have not a world-conquering beauty. Deuce take me, girl, if I can make it!”
While she had been harrying me I had once turned my head to see why the room had darkened so noticeably, and saw a heavy fog was creeping in from the lake, and now that she had come to her “giving it up” place, she turned her eyes slowly toward their usual resting place, the lake, and a quick change came over her. She started a little, then her head drooped slowly until her chin rested on her hand. With unwinking eyes she stared straight ahead of her, while gradually the brightness all died out of them, a slightly distressed raising of her brows threw deep furrows across her forehead, her nostrils were pinched, her thin lips tight pressed, while over all her face grew a look only to be described by one word--a look of woe!
It wrung my heart! I looked and looked at her--the tears rose thick in my eyes, then slowly, slowly I seemed to understand, to _know_, what was grieving her. It was the surrounding fog, silently, steadily, blotting out everything between heaven and earth! Even her longing mother’s eyes could not pierce that soft density, could not distinguish the purplish, dark line that, to her belief, marked her darlings’ resting place out there in the great lake.
I bore it as long as I could, and then I leant across the tiny table, and, laying my warm hand upon her chill one, I said: “Dear Mrs. Worden, do not grieve, the fog often lifts at sunset. Then, perhaps, you may see the purple line before the night comes on!”
Her eyes came slowly back to mine, she smiled gratefully at me, and then all suddenly the fire flashed into them again. She rose to her feet, her head held high in her imperious way, and cried, triumphantly: “I have it now, girl! You have given me the clue! You will succeed by your power of sympathy! You will not fight the world, you will open your great heart to its sorrows, and the many-headed public will neither growl at nor tear you, but will come at your call, your friend and your defender. When you know you have succeeded, say once to yourself, ‘Old Myra saw, old Myra told me true.’”
Then with an indescribably tragic gesture she pressed one hand upon her breast and said: “She who weeps!” while her other hand fell softly upon my head, and she murmured, “Clear, Light, Illustrious!”
Her tone thrilled me, there was such sincerity, such intensity in it. I sat quite silent, but I drew her cold hand down and pressed my check against it, and that moment there came a heavy knocking on the lower front door. I sprang up, saying: “Let me go, Mrs. Worden, please!” and, without awaiting permission, went cautiously down the sagging stairs and found a man at the door with the usual sealed package for Mrs. Worden. When the signing for it was all over, I ran back, calling out joyously, “Lace! lace! Mrs. Worden--more lace! You will open it before I go, won’t you, so that I may see it?”
Mrs. Worden, meeting my request with, “You girl! When are you going to learn not to prance when you are pleased? Can’t you keep your joy out of your legs?” went, all the same, to the other table for scissors to cut the cord and seals at once; for she really enjoyed showing me her precious charges; and I eagerly watched her every movement. The note enclosed she laid aside with a scornful, “Humph! as if I didn’t know what to do without their telling me.”
Then she unrolled the inner tissue-paper. There were two pieces of lace within. One delicate, oh! as cobweb, I thought, as it lay there in its folds. The other heavier, and a mere scrap.
“Why,” said she, taking it up first, “why, this must be, is a bit of old Flanders cut-work, but what a scrap! Oh, yes! I see now, it belongs to some collector; it is simply an example of the brave, old work, and I see, girl Clara, it needs two, yes, three, little brides or braces--see where they are broken? I’ll have a time, now, to wait for thread to darken to anything like that tone.”
And she talked earnestly, almost happily on, about her little tricks and devices for staining threads, etc. Then she laid her hands upon the folded lace: “Ah, I think you’re going to have a treat now, this is--” the words died on her lips. From her throat came a sound, strange, startling, neither sob nor groan, and yet like unto both! She held a length of lace between her hands; she swayed slightly back and forth, and turning my frightened eyes upon her face, I thought: “Behold! a miracle!”
From somewhere, somehow, the weary, old heart had forced through her shrunken veins one wave of blood strong enough to mount to her face, where the pained color slowly grew until it burned into two bright spots high upon her cheeks. Those two fierce spots, glowing in the awful pallor of her face, to me were terrible. I ran to her and, throwing my arm about her, lowered her light body into the chair close to the table. Her haughty, old head was bent; one hand still clutched the lace. I did not know what to do, but it hurt me to the heart to see her bow her head. Timidly I laid my hand upon her shoulder. She looked up at me, and in a husky voice she said, with a glance at the lace: “I owned it once, yes, it was mine! I wore it while I was yet a happy bride!”
I shivered and turned away, while I mutely prayed that torturing color might fade from her face before I looked again. I pressed my forehead to the window, I could see nothing; no tree, no building loomed darkly through the fog; I could not even see the pavement below me. So far as sight went, there were but two living creatures in the world, and one of _them_ longed to leave it!
I was so lonely and so sad, I turned back again. She sat there still, one hand moving back and forth over the lace. The spots were yet on her cheeks, but they were not so fiercely bright. I did not know her like that. I wish she would accuse me of “prancing,” or tell me I “sat down too quickly,” or “jumped up” when I rose. I wished she would snap at me--that her dear, old head would lift itself imperiously again. I had not spoken one word since she told me the lace had been hers, and so, still silent, I crossed back to her and sat down at her feet and, hesitatingly, I asked: “Dear Mrs. Worden, is the lace much injured?”
The words acted like magic upon her. In one moment she had the length of lace passing swiftly between her inquiring fingers, and an instant later she gave a cry of anger: “Oh! shame! just look at this--the cruel hurt! and the soil! Why, some vulgar, new, rich, money-flaunting creature owns this dear lace now! She is ignorant and coarse! Oh, I know, girl! Don’t you see? She has dragged this delicate web about on the _bottom_ of her gown! Its beauty was lost in such a position. It was simply done to show the owner’s utter indifference to expense. I’d wager something that it has been sent, now, by some maid or companion to be repaired. Ah! I should have recognized it any way--but look you, here is the proof that it is mine!”
She held out to me a fold of the lace, and careful examination showed where a former tear had been exquisitely repaired. I nodded my head and she went on, her eyes fixed upon the old scar: “As if I could forget! He did that, my fair-haired giant--man without soul--therefore, husband without honor! But, truly, he was good to look upon!”