Part 9

"Did I say it?" returned Claire. She put one hand to her forehead. "I--I must have spoken aloud without knowing it." ... Immediately afterward she crossed the room, going very close to her mother's side, and looking with eager meaning into the cold, austere, aquiline face.

"Don't be unkind to-night," she went on. "Remember this dreadful thing that has happened. It--it ought to--to soften you, Mother. It has nearly crazed _me_. I cannot reason; I can scarcely think. I--I can only suffer!"

Mrs. Twining curled her mouth in bitter dissent. "Oh, you didn't know the poor man was sick when you ran off and staid for hours. No, indeed! If you had, you wouldn't 'a' worried him as you did when he come home to tea and found you gone. He fell like a log, just as he got up from the table. But he hadn't eaten hardly a thing, and I guess you know why he didn't."

Claire uttered a quick, flurried cry. She grasped her mother's arm. "You--you don't mean," she exclaimed, in a piteously fierce way, "that _I_ killed Father--or--or hastened his death by--by not being home? Oh, say, Mother, that you don't mean this! It would drive me mad if I believed so! Please say it isn't true!"

Claire's aspect breathed such desperation that it wrought havoc even with so stolid a perversity as that of the harsh, unpropitiable being whom she confronted.

"Well, no, I don't say _that_," murmured Mrs. Twining, with sullen alteration of mien and tone. "But I _do_ say, Claire, that you was off somewhere, and _he_ was fretted and pestered because you was, and" ...

Here the peculiar nature of this most tormenting woman suddenly revealed a change. Her grim mouth twitched; her nostrils produced a kind of catarrhal sniff; her cold black eyes winked, as if tears were lurking to assail them. The next words that she spoke were in a high, querulous key.

"Oh! so you're the only one that's fit to mourn for that poor dead one, hey? I, his lawful wedded wife, and your own mother, ain't got any right to grieve! Oh, very well! I'm nobody at all, here. I'd better get away. You're chief mourner. There's nobody but you. I s'pose you'll pay all the expenses of the funeral, since you're so dreadful stuck-up about it!"

Claire shook her head, in a pathetic, conciliating way. She lifted one finger, at the same time. Her face was still white, and her dark-blue eyes were burning feverishly.

"No, no, Mother!" she said. "This is all wrong. You mustn't speak like that, here. If you didn't love him, I did. There's a little money yet. It's yours, but you'll give it; you've told me of it; it will be enough to bury Father decently. I promise you that if you _do_ give it I will try very hard to get some work that will support us both."

Mrs. Twining put a hand on either hip. She stared at Claire for a moment. Then she answered her.

"No," she said. "I won't give a cent of it. It's only about a hundred dollars. He ain't led me such a nice life that I should be so awful grateful to him now he's gone. There's ways of burying that don't cost money. Yes, there's ways.... Let 'em come and take him. I ain't going to beggar myself because he wants a rosewood coffin, and"--

"Mother!" cried Claire, pointing toward the dead, "he is _here_!"

"Oh, well!" said Mrs. Twining. She spoke the two brief words in a sort of abrupt whimper, taking a step or two toward the calm sheeted form of her dead husband. "S'pose he _is_ here. I can't use that money, and I won't!"

Claire felt the hideous taste of those words. They who have thus far read this chronicle must have read it ill if they are not sure that no love for a mother so ceaselessly froward and hostile could now survive in her daughter's heart. But though she knew her mother capable of dread acts if occasion favored, Claire was thunderstruck by this last announcement.

It appeared to her monstrous and barbarous, as it indeed was. She clenched both hands, for an instant, and her eyes flashed.

"Say what you mean!" she retorted, not raising her voice, because of that piteous reverence which the still, prone shape inspired. "_Can_ you mean that you will let charity bury our dead for us? _Can_ you mean that?"

Mrs. Twining gave a quick, grim nod. "Yes, I do mean it," she returned. "And if you wasn't a fool you'd see why."

Claire folded her arms. Her next words came with grave, measured composure from white, set lips. "I may be a fool," she said, "but thank God I haven't your kind of wisdom! Keep your money, Mother. Do as you threaten. But when Potter's Field takes poor Father's body, that will be the end of everything between you and me. Remember that I said this. I will never speak to you, never notice you again, if you do so shameful a thing. If you spend that money as duty and as decency should both prompt, I will work for you, slave for you, cling to you always. But if not, we are no longer mother and daughter. You see, I don't speak with heat or with haste. I am perfectly calm. Now choose which course you will take. But never say that I did not fully warn you, when it will be too late for retraction!"

There was a splendidly quiet impressiveness in this speech of Claire's. She went and knelt once more beside her father's body after she had finished it. She had resolved upon no further entreaty or argument. The very atrocity of her mother's proposed design seemed to place continued discussion of it beyond the pale of all womanly dignity.

Mrs. Twining was too coarse a soul to see the matter as Claire saw it. She preferred to take the chances that her daughter would relent when the ignoble interment was over.

To-morrow came, and she gave no sign of altering her purpose. Claire scarcely addressed a word to her during this day. A few of the Greenpoint folk called at the house. Among these was Josie Morley, distressed at the tidings of death, and prepared to utter voluble regrets for having lost Claire in the crowd during the previous night.

But Claire would see no one. She remained with her father's body in the little room upstairs, locking its door when she thought there was any chance of a visitor being brought thither.

Now and then she wondered, with a dumb misery, whether her mother had made any attempt to bring about the loathed burial. She herself had a few dollars in her possession. This sum she meant to use in seeking employment after the earth had closed over her father's corpse. Once or twice a passionate impulse had seized her to go and seek help from those under whom her father had lately served in his drudging clerkship. But she repressed this feeling--or rather shame at the thought of possible refusal, mixed with a natural proud reluctance to own the sad need in which she stood, repressed it for her.

The next day she learned the full, torturing truth. Mrs. Twining had carried out her threat. Two shabby men came with a pine box. They placed the corpse herein. Claire had already paid it all the final reverential rites which her sex and her grief would allow. It was dressed in the same rusty outward garments which it had worn when death came. The men held a little discussion below stairs with Mrs. Twining. They afterward departed and remained away two good hours. When they returned they brought a dark wagon with an arched top. In the interval Claire still watched. She was quite silent. Perhaps if she had deigned now to plead with her mother, the latter, already a little frightened at the girl's stony, unvaried calmness, might have relented and agreed to more seemly obsequies. But except one glance of immeasurable reproach, during a brief visit which Mrs. Twining paid to the chamber, Claire gave no further sign of revolt.

When the men returned, she chanced to be looking from the window. She saw the wagon. She shuddered, and went back to her father. No one saw her bid him the last farewells. She showed no trace of tears when the men presently reëntered the room, but her dark-blue eyes shone from her hueless face with a dry, glassy glitter. Her mother now appeared. She looked at Claire in a covert, uneasy way, though there was much dogged obstinacy about the lines of her mouth. A moment later she spoke to the men. It seemed to Claire like the refinement of hypocrisy that she should set her voice in a mournful key.

"I s'pose you want to get it through right away," she said.

"Yes, ma'am," replied one of the men. "Those is always the orders."

Claire went to the window again. It was a raw, misty, drizzling day. She stared out into the dreary street. She did not want to see that pitiful box closed and sealed. She presently heard a grating sound which told her just what the men were doing.

And then she heard another sound that was quite as harsh. It was her mother's voice, lowered, and with a sort of whine in it.

"It's true enough that the dead ought to be buried properly, Claire, but that ain't any reason why the living shouldn't live--the best way they can. You take it hard now, but after a while you'll see you ain't got any real right to blame me. You'll see"--

"Don't touch me, please," interrupted Claire. Her mother had laid a hand on her arm, and she had receded instantly. Then she said, while steadying her voice, though not caring whether the men heard or no: "Did you intend going to--to the grave with him?"

Mrs. Twining gave a great elegiac sigh. "Oh, no, I couldn't stand it. I should break right down long before I got there."

"Very well," said Claire, "I am going."

One of the men looked up at her. He had a small, round face, an odd blond tuft of beard, and a pair of mild blue eyes. He held his screw-driver thrust into a screw while he spoke. His voice was very respectful. He had noticed Claire's look and mien before; he had a wife and children at home. Scarcely ever, in his experience, had he known a burial of this sort to take place from a dwelling as apparently thrifty as the present one.

"Excuse me, Miss," the man said, "but you couldn't ride in the wagon. There's just room for him and me." He indicated his companion by a little motion of the head. "And there's three other bodies. We're takin' 'em to the almshouse."

"Where is the almshouse?" asked Claire. She could not help giving her mother one shocked sidelong glance while this question left her lips.

"It's over in Flatbush," the man said.

Claire went close up to his side. If he had not seen the white distress in her face before, he must plainly have seen it now. "I know where that is," she said. "I could go there. The cars would take me." She put her hand on the rough wood of the box. The touch was so light that it resembled a caress. "Would they let me go to--to the almshouse and wait ... near _him_ ... till he is buried?"

Mrs. Twining at once began to weep. Or rather, she spoke in a wailing tone that indicated tears, even if no tears really either gathered or fell.

"Claire, you mustn't think of going! No, you mustn't! Things are bad enough, as it is. Now, promise me that you won't take any such notion! _Do_ promise!"

Claire paid no heed to this outburst. She was looking with eager fixity at the man. She had already roused his sympathy; she felt certain of it; his big, mild eye seemed to tell her so. "They won't all be buried till about two o'clock," he said. "There'll be five or six bodies to-day, I guess. If you start from here in about an hour, Miss, you can get to the buryin'-ground by just the right time. I'll see to it you do." The speaker here turned and winked one mild eye at his companion. The latter was staring rather lifelessly at Claire. He had a long, pale, tired-looking face.

"All right," he muttered, apathetically, as if he had not at all comprehended, but was willing to take matters on trust.

"I'll see to it that he ain't got in till you come," pursued Claire's new friend. "The Potter's Field ain't far from the County Buildings, as they call 'em. I s'pose you know how to get to Flatbush?" He scratched his sandy shock of hair for an instant, and told her just what cars to take.

Claire put faith in him. Something made her do so. When the pine box had been carried down stairs, placed inside the dark wagon, and driven away, she went to her own room and made a small, neat brown-paper parcel. Her clothes were few enough, and she left all of these except what seemed to her of vital necessity. "I don't want to look like a tramp," she told herself, with a darksome pleasantry. "I shall not, either. I shall only be a poor, shabby girl with a bundle."

When she emerged from her room her mother met her in the hall. Claire wore her bonnet. Mrs. Twining gave a frightened whimper as she saw this and the parcel.

"Oh, Claire," she said, "you ain't really going _to_ the--the grave?"

"Yes, I am," she said. Her tones were so frigid and so melancholy that they caused a palpable start in her who heard them.

"Oh, Claire," moaned her mother, "if you go, _I_ can't! I can't see him buried that way! Of course _you_ can, if you want!"

"I do want," said Claire.

"But you'll come back! you'll come home again!"

As she was passing her mother, there in the hall, Claire turned and faced her. "I shall never come home again," she said, scarcely raising her voice above a whisper. "You remember what I told you."

Mrs. Twining was no longer merely frightened; she was terrified. "Claire!" she burst forth, "I ain't done right, perhaps. But don't be headstrong--now, don't! if you'd spoke to me yesterday--if you'd even spoke to me this morning, I might, ... well, I might, after all, have given the money. But it's too late now, and" ...

"Yes, it is too late now," Claire interrupted, and somehow with the effect of a shaft, shot noiselessly, and tellingly aimed.

After that she hurried straight down stairs, passed along the lower hall, and made rapid exit from the house.

A number of heads had been thrust from neighboring windows while the body was being borne away. Claire, who endured what was thus far the supreme humiliation of her life, wondered whether any one was watching now, but she kept her eyes drooped toward the pavement as she moved along, and never once looked to left or right. She despised these possible watchers, and yet she remembered what her dead had been--how kindly, how pure, how noble; and it was to her sense an infamy that his ignominious burial should be made a theme of vulgar gossip.

"He is to be put in Potter's Field," she told her own aching, bursting heart, while she still hurried along. "Yes, _he_! And he was so good, so fine, so much a gentleman! He is to be put in Potter's Field!... But I will see the last sod placed over him.... That man _will_ keep his word.... I shall stand by poor Father, his only mourner. He will be glad if he knows. What a slight thing it is to do for him, after all the love he gave me! But it is all I _can_ do. All, and yet so little!"

A dreary ride in the cars at last brought her to Flatbush. After alighting she had quite a long walk through the gray, foggy atmosphere of a region which the sweetest mood of spring or summer finds no spell to beautify. It was now as hideous and lonesome as that hateful tract just beyond Greenpoint. The immense gloomy structures of the almshouses loomed beside the path she took. The conductor on the car had told her just how to reach the pauper graveyard. It lay at some distance from the grim buildings that she was obliged to pass, and within whose walls were prisoned the sin, the sickness and the madness of a great city.

Nothing could be more common, more neglectful, more wretchedly melancholy, than the place she at length gained. It was scarcely an acre in extent; it did not contain a single tree or shrub; it was enclosed by a fence of coarse, careless boarding. Its graves were so thick that you could scarcely pass between them. In each grave had been laid four bodies, and excepting a pathetic half-dozen or so of simple wooden crosses, there were no signs to tell who slept here, except rough, low stakes, each bearing four numbers. Never was the oblivion of death more sternly typified; never was its dark mockery more dolefully accentuated!

A little group of men stood near an open grave as Claire reached the gate. She saw them, and recognized one of them, who advanced toward her. She felt herself grow slightly faint as she perceived a box placed just at the rim of the earthy cavity.

"Was I in time?" she asked of the man, as they walked together inside the enclosure.

"Yes," he said, with a very kind voice. "You was just in time, Miss. All the others is turned in except him. I saved him on purpose."

VIII.

This same afternoon, about two hours later, Claire was in New York. She had crossed thither, spurred by an idea born of her desperation. It was a forlorn hope; it was like the straw clutched by the sinking hand; and yet it formed a comforting preventive against complete despair. She had remembered her old friend at Mrs. Arcularius's school, the plump-cheeked and yellow-haired Sophia Bergemann. She had determined to seek her out and ask her aid in obtaining work. Years had elapsed since Claire and Sophia had met; but if the buxom young creature had preserved even half of her old amiable friendship, there was excellent chance of cordial welcome and kindly assistance.

'I only hope that she still lives in Hoboken,' Claire thought, while taking the journey across town. 'Suppose the family have left there. Suppose I cannot find Sophia. Suppose that she is married and has gone to live elsewhere--in Europe, perhaps. Suppose that she is dead.'

More than once, before she had reached the central part of the city, Claire felt herself grow weak with dread. Night would soon approach. She had money enough to get lodgment, but in her ignorance and her loneliness how could she secure it? Her mother's face, clothed with the old mocking smile, repeatedly rose before her fancy. She seemed to see the hard, bitter mouth frame certain sentences. "Oh, you'll come back," it seemed to say. "You've got to. You can't go gallivanting round New York after dark. I ain't afraid. Oh, you'll come back to Greenpoint, _sure_!"

'I will never go back,' Claire said to her own thoughts, answering this phantasmal sort of taunt. 'No, not if I walk the streets to-night and many another night. Not if I have to beg for food. Not if I die of hunger. I will never go back _there_! No, no, no!'

There was nothing theatrically fervid about this silent resolve. The girl was quite capable of confronting any sharp ill rather than remeet the woman who had so pitilessly outraged her most sacred instincts. She knew well enough that her mother confidently counted upon her return. She knew well enough that her mother would undergo wild alarm on finding herself permanently deserted. Yet Claire, with a grim desire of inflicting punishment for the insult flung at her beloved dead, silently exulted in what she could not help but deem a just and rightful vengeance. True, her own act may have dealt the vengeance; but did it not really spring from that departed soul whose corpse had met the lash of so undeserved an indignity? When Claire had reached the centre of the city she suddenly determined to seek Mrs. Arcularius's establishment. The school might either have changed its locality or else ceased to exist. Still, she would apply at the old quarters. There she would inquire for Sophia Bergemann. They might know nothing concerning the girl. But if this resulted, she would still have all Hoboken left, in which the dwelling-place of so prominent a resident--even though one of past time--would most probably be known on inquiry. A throng of memories beset her as she rang the bell of Mrs. Arcularius's abode. The name of that august lady gleamed on a large silver-plated square, affixed to the second door, beyond the marble-paved vestibule. A smartly-dressed maid answered her summons. Claire stated in brief, civil terms what information she desired to gain. The maid left her standing in the well-known hall for several minutes, and at length returned with the tidings, apparently fresh from the lips of Mrs. Arcularius herself, that Miss Bergemann was then living at No. -- Fifth Avenue, only a slight distance away.

Claire felt a thrill of relief as she thanked the maid and resought the street. This intelligence seemed a most happy stroke of luck. It augured well for the success of her sad little enterprise.

The Fifth Avenue dwelling proved to be a mansion of imposing dimensions. It stood on a corner, and had a wide window at one side of its spacious entrance, and two at the other. From either panel of its polished walnut door jutted a griffon's head of bronze, holding a ring pendant from its tense lips. Beyond the glossy plate-glass of the casements gleamed misty folds of lace, and still further beyond these you caught a charming glimpse of large-leaved tropic plants in rich-hued vases. Claire pulled a bronze bell-handle that was wrought in the likeness of some close-folded flower. A dull yet distinct peal ensued, having in its sound a trim directness that suggested prompt and capable attendance from interior quarters. While Claire waited for admission she cast her look downward upon the middle street, and across at the line of opposite residences, all marked by a calm uniformity of elegance. The sight was very new to her after Greenpoint, but at the same time it stirred certain sources of youthful recollection. Many carriages were passing. One or two were shaped with fashionable oddity, having only a single pair of huge wheels and a booted and cockaded flunkey, who sat in cramped, oblique posture, with his back to the other occupants, a lady and a gentleman, and who seemed forever taking a resigned plunge off the vehicle, with stoically folded arms. Another was a heavy, sombre family coach, with two men on the box, both clad in dark, dignified livery. Still another was the so-called dog-cart, borne along by a team of responsible silver-trapped bays, and having on its second seat a footman graciously permitted, in this instance, to face the horses whose lustrous flanks his own hands had doubtless groomed into their present brilliance. The two parallel yet contrary streams of vehicles made an incessant subdued clatter; numerous pedestrians were also passing to and fro along either sidewalk; the weather had changed again from harsh to clement; the strip of clear, blue sky above the massive housetops wore a shining delicacy and airiness of tint; even Claire's new wound, that still bled unseen, could not distract her from a buoyant congeniality with the prosperous and festal tumult so amply manifest. She understood then, and perhaps with a qualm of shame as well, that no grief could quite repress, however transiently, her love for life, action, and refined social intercourse. The old desire to win a noted place among those of her own kind who were themselves notable, quickened within her, too, as she gazed upon the bright bustle and the palatial importance which were both so near at hand.

'Near,' she mused, 'and yet so far! Shall I ever do what _he_ bade me to do on that night long ago? Shall I ever climb the hill? Shall I not grow tired and sit down to rest? What chance have I _now_ of ever reaching the top? Where is the hand to help me even ever so little? Will Sophia Bergemann do it? Yes; if the ways of the world haven't changed her since we met at school.'

A man-servant, in what is termed full-dress, soon opened the door, and Claire asked if Miss Sophia Bergemann was at home. The man appeared to be a very majestic person. Claire felt a good deal of secret awe in his presence. He had a superb development of the chest, a sort of senatorial nose, and two oblong tufts of sorrel whisker, growing with a mossy density close to either ear.