Part 10
But she would not let him finish. His look frightened her. It was aloof and far away as it had been when he watched the line of marching men go by. She caught his hand and began to talk very fast.
“Oh, Tim,” she begged, “think of Miss Fogg! She’s getting better: I know she is. She kissed my hand to-day an’ said I’d given her back life.”
“Julie--” he began again, but again she cut him short.
“Think what our love’s done,” she persisted. “It’s given life to her: it’s our love that’s done it.”
His expression was still aloof, and he struggled once more to speak. “Julie,” he began, but she would not have it.
“Oh, Tim--honey! _Don’t!_” she begged; and with a little sob she buried her face against his breast. He stooped and kissed her then, and said no more.
XVII
As the days drifted by, it seemed indeed as though Julie’s passion of loving service had worked a miracle in old Miss Fogg--that broken vessel which life had cast upon the midden of the world. Her canary bird, restored to life, sang in the window. The geranium was dead; but Julie bought another, so the effect of the room was gay, with white curtains blowing in the wind, the bird’s song, and the flower in the sunshine.
The room’s vigor and cleanliness inspired Miss Fogg to attempt mending her clothes and putting them in order.
“It would be a right funny thing,” she said, “if I couldn’t put my own old duds to rights, me that always did the fine sewin’ for all the swellest brides in town.”
Her fits of depression and indifference persisted but, sustained by Julie, she was more alive between the attacks, more able to look after herself.
One morning when Julie went up to her, she found the old woman, a fantastic gingham cap upon her head, busy turning out all her drawers, with a spasmodic energy.
“I got to get everything straight--all nice and clean,” she announced. “Wait,” she added. She tiptoed across to the door and closed it. “Sh-sh!” she whispered. “There ain’t a soul in this house a person can trust. They spy on me all the time. They peep at me over the transom an’ spy in at the keyhole. Ain’t it just awful what some folks will do?”
She stood close to Julie and spoke into her ear mysteriously. “Sh-sh! there’s one of ’em at the keyhole now.”
Julie went quickly over and threw wide the door. The hall was completely empty.
“There’s nobody there,” she said. “You just thought you heard somebody.”
“Hm!” the old woman retorted scornfully but still whispering. “So _you_ think; but they don’t fool me. They’re quick enough to jump away when you open the door. I’ve quit doin’ _that_. I’m up to their tricks, an’ I got a way to fool ’em all right.”
Catching up an old spotted handkerchief, she hung it stealthily on the handle of the door. “There, that’ll fix ’em!” she triumphed. “If they want to peep, let ’em peep into that handkerchief. They’ll see all them red spots, an’ then they’ll run out in the street an’ say, ‘Old Miss Fogg’s done killed herself, an’ her blood’s all over the floor.’ That’d be funny, wouldn’t it?” She gave a sudden crazy laugh. “I _kin_ kill myself all right, but it won’t be none er their business if I do. It won’t be their brains on the floor.”
A shiver ran through Julie.
The old woman sank down upon the edge of her bed and stared at the floor. “That’s what comes of livin’ with common people,” she moaned. “I ain’t used to common folks an’ I ain’t a-goin’ to start runnin’ with ’em now, me that’s sewed for all the best folks in town. I wouldn’t mix with this common lot, not to save their souls I wouldn’t; an’ my little baby child wouldn’t neither; she wouldn’t turn her hand over for er one of ’em.”
“Maybe your little niece will come soon,” Julie said catching at that one bright hope.
“Sh-sh!” the other commanded. Rising, she tiptoed over to the door again and, raising the handkerchief, bent her old back and peeped out through the keyhole. Then dropping it, she came back to Julie. “That was what I wanted to tell you,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she was to come soon now--real soon. I had a dream last night--I’m mighty apt to have dreams when anything’s goin’ to happen--an’ the dream said she was comin’ soon. That’s why I got to get everything straight for her.”
“I’ll help you!” Julie cried eagerly. “We’ll get everything all nice before she comes.”
Julie fell to work at once. The old woman attempted a fitful assistance, but her burst of energy gave out before it had carried her far, and soon she retired to the easy chair by the window, watching Julie with dull eyes, or staring down at her lap and moaning, “Oh my Lord, Oh my Lord!” from time to time.
Julie was amazingly happy. So happy that she broke into little snatches of song as she moved about the room, dusting and cleaning it, and straightening the wild heap of garments in Miss Fogg’s drawers. So happy that the moaning old woman crumpled up in her chair did not seem repulsive to her, but rather, as always now, an outlet for the abounding joy that surged through her.
There was only one little rift the whole morning through. That was when Julie essayed to open a small drawer in Miss Fogg’s bureau. She had turned out and straightened all the others, but when she came to this one it refused to open. Thinking it merely stuck, she tugged upon the handles, but was stopped by a sudden cry, almost a scream, from the old woman. “Leave that drawer alone, leave it alone, I tell you!” she cried. Julie jumped round, startled.
Miss Fogg had sprung to her feet, and was glaring at her.
“Oh my Lord!” she cried, “Can’t you leave _nothing_ be?”
“I’m sorry; I didn’t know it was locked,” Julie apologized hastily.
“My Lord! Can’t I have _no_ place to myself no more?” the other stormed, sinking down again and running her trembling hands wildly through her hair.
“I’m so sorry,” Julie pleaded again. “See, I’m not touching it. I won’t touch it again.”
But it took her some time to soothe Miss Fogg and to win her confidence once more; and always afterward Julie was conscious of a certain uneasiness on the old woman’s part whenever she came near that especial drawer.
But on the whole it was a happy and beautiful morning for Julie, and even for Miss Fogg it held a faint return to life.
Julie tried again that night to tell Tim what Miss Fogg meant to her. It was a mystery that she could not quite explain to herself. She was constantly drawn back to interpret it to him.
“It’s like she was my child,” she said. “I’m giving her life. She’s mine. Everybody’s forgotten her. Life’s forgot her, an’ gone on by; but now I’ve come along, an’ brought some of it back to her. It’s like all the sufferings of the world had got a-hold of my heart, an I _had_ to go down into hell to drag folks out. It isn’t just that poor old soul. She stands for all the rest: all of ’em that’s suffering. It’s something bigger almost than I can feel, but it’s got a-hold of me, an’ it’ll _never_ let me go. Oh, my honey! my love!” she burst out, holding the lapels of his coat and staring up into his face. “You know what it is! It’s our love gone beyond itself--beyond just us, an’ out into all the world.” For a moment her eyes blazed up into his and her face was a white flame, then he put his hand over the wide gaze and turned her face against his breast pressing it there with both hands.
“Little honey, don’t!” he cried. “You’re mine. Don’t slip away to all the world.”
It made Julie happy when anyone in the house commented upon Miss Fogg’s improved condition. She was pleased when Mrs. Watkins said, “Well, you certainly are the miracle-worker! Who ever would have thought you could get that old soul to look so spruced up an’ reasonable. Why, she looks almost like real folks now.”
Mrs. Watkins was rocking back and forth in a chair which creaked regularly as it struck a certain board in the floor, the while she fanned herself and the baby in her arms with a frayed palm-leaf fan, which she used also to emphasize her remarks.
“She _is_ better, isn’t she?” Julie said, eager for more praise of her creation.
“She is that,” Mrs. Watkins assented cordially. “But it’s you that’s done it.” She pointed the fan at Julie. “You mark what I say, it’s you that’s put life into the old graveyard-deserter. She hasn’t got any real life of her own: she’s just what you’ve made of her. You’ve put life into her like a kid blowing up a toy balloon; but if you was to quit blowing at her she’d go flat again, or maybe bust.”
“I know,” Julie admitted uneasily. “That’s the reason I wish her niece would come to her.”
“Niece?” Mrs. Watkins swept a fly off the sleeping baby’s face and paused, staring at Julie. “Niece?” she snorted. “I’m mighty doubtful about any niece, myself.”
“Why, she’s got a photograph on her mantel of a girl that she says is her niece,” Julie cried.
“Well, maybe she is. I don’t know for certain,” Mrs. Watkins returned, still doubtfully. “I know the picture. Miss Fogg used to let me into her room sometimes before she got so cranky an’ suspicious. An’ I know she _says_ it’s her niece, but if it is, believe me, she certainly don’t care one thing about her old aunt. Miss Fogg’s been in this house for all the eight years I’ve been here--for all she thinks we’re so common, she keeps a stayin’ with us--an’ I’ve never seen any niece in all that time; an’ she don’t ever seem to have no letters, or word of any kind from the niece--not even at Christmas--that I know of. My, ain’t it hot!” she interpolated, putting up one languid hand and plucking a wisp of hair back from her forehead. “I just b’lieve that photograph’s a picture of some girl she used to sew for, and she likes to b’lieve it’s kin to her, poor soul.”
“Oh! it must be her niece,” Julie cried, distressfully. “It would be awful if it weren’t. Why, she’s all poor old Miss Fogg has in the world--the last straw of life that she clings to. It would be awful if she didn’t have her!”
“Well, I hope in my heart she has got a niece,” Mrs. Watkins returned.
“She ought to be here,” Julie persisted. “She ought to come to Miss Fogg, in case I have to leave.”
“Why, you thinkin’ of goin’ away?”
“No--Oh, no. Not really,” Julie evaded hastily, with that little breathless catch in her voice which was characteristic of her under any stress. “No. But I might.”
“Well, it would be a sad day for everybody in this house if you was to leave,” Mrs. Watkins said heartily. “You’ve got something about you most people ain’t got. You’re so--so good.”
Julie looked up, her eyes wide and horrified.
“Oh--Oh, no! I’m not. Don’t say that,” she faltered blindly.
It was after her talk with Mrs. Watkins that Julie made a fresh attempt to get Miss Fogg to write to her niece. The old woman would never give her either the niece’s name or her address. That and the locked drawer in her bureau were the only things over which she evinced the secretive suspicion toward Julie that she showed toward every one else. When Julie tried again that afternoon to persuade her, she firmed her lips obstinately.
“I’ll write if I want, an’ I’ll not if I don’t,” she announced.
“Look,” Julie coaxed. “See, I’ve brought you in ink and paper and everything. See what nice paper this is.”
Miss Fogg took the paper and inspected it critically. “That’s right nice,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t write to her on any but the best paper; she thinks a heap of having things stylish.”
Julie drew up a table and spread the writing materials invitingly upon it.
“There now, just write her a few lines,” she begged.
The old woman looked at all the preparation dimly, but presently she really did pick up the pen, and squaring herself at the table made a few trembling strokes. “My baby child,” she scrawled, the line running slantingly down the paper. “My little baby,” she attempted again and then, staring at the words, she broke down in tears. “I can’t do it,” she wept. “I can’t. I can’t get beyond ‘My baby child.’ I just think of her like that. She don’t seem to me like a grown person, an’ it’s all I can think to say.”
“That’s plenty: that’s all she’ll need,” Julie comforted her. “I’ll write her a letter and tell her all about everything, and put in what you’ve written.”
“Well,” the old woman consented shakingly, “well, tell her--Oh, tell her please to come! Tell her not to be mad at me.” And then all at once the secret of the old woman’s heart burst forth. “She’s mad at me about something. She won’t come. I’ve written and written--of course I have. But she don’t even answer. She don’t send a word. She’s gone back on me.” She looked up at Julie, her old face all distorted and twitching. “Don’t tell--don’t you tell any of these onery folks--but she’s gone back on me. She don’t ever write nor nothin’. Not even Christmas time. I ain’t told on her. I’ve kep’ it all to myself, here in my breast--but it’s erbout killed me. All I’ve got in the world! All--” The words fell into sobs.
“But she _will_ come now!” Julie promised with poignant sympathy. “She just doesn’t understand. But I’ll write so she’ll see she must come.”
“Well--you write,” the other agreed with a pathetic confidence in Julie. “Maybe she’ll come for you. Tell her--Oh, tell her her old Tannie is sick an’ wants her. ‘Tannie,’ that was what she always called me: it was as near as she could come to saying ‘Aunt Annie’ when she was little.”
Julie did write. She did not know the niece’s name, and was afraid to ask, dreading a return of that sly suspicious look that was always brought out on Miss Fogg’s face when she questioned her too closely about anything. So she began the letter “Madam,” and when she came to the signing of her own name, she hesitated. She had never yet brought herself to write, “Julie Freeman.” She had always managed in some way to avoid doing so. For all that she had said that the name was no lie, she could not make herself write it. But her own name she dared not put. So in the end she signed it, “From a Friend.”
She wrote urgently, and enclosed the sheet on which Miss Fogg’s trembling words, “My baby child,” went slanting down the paper. Then she sealed the envelope and stamped it.
“Now then,” she said with an assumption of confidence that she did not feel, “what’s her address?”
To her despair she was met by the old crafty look in Miss Fogg’s eyes.
“That’s all right--that’s all right,” the old woman said with dignity. “Just lay it there, an’ I’ll back it when I git ready.”
Julie was blank with disappointment, but it was useless to insist, so she left the letter sealed and stamped and ready for the address. She did not know it, but that night when all the house was quiet, old Miss Fogg slipped out and, going secretly down a side street, posted the letter which she had managed to address, after looking all about and up and down to be sure that no one was spying at her.
XVIII
The summer days slipped by. The intense city heat of mid-August burned itself up toward September.
Old Miss Fogg waited and waited, but there came no answer to the letter. Julie fought against the old woman’s despairing disappointment, buoying her up with the power of her own spirit. She had often the feeling that wide wings spread themselves, out of the sheer force of her devotion, and bore that broken and defeated bit of old age up into a sunny atmosphere. Then she would be rewarded for all her pains. A faint flush would run into the old cheeks, she would look at Julie out of clear eyes from which all the crafty despair was momentarily gone, and which were almost as serene as the eyes of a happy child. It was that look which was a reward for all Julie’s efforts. She was thinking of it, hoping for it one day as she came along the street late in the afternoon. She was to have a little party for Miss Fogg that evening. The old woman was coming down to have supper with Julie and Tim and perhaps, if they could coax her into it, to go to a moving picture afterward. For the occasion Julie had done up one of Miss Fogg’s white muslin waists for her, earlier in the afternoon. She had done it with especial care, and was proud of her handiwork. She took it upstairs, holding it daintily on a coat-hanger so as not to wrinkle its perishable freshness, and displayed it to the old woman. Miss Fogg had looked really pleased, and had promised to put it on.
Julie was bringing home now a number of small packages for the supper party. All the preparations filled her with an intensity of happiness. So much so that merely doing them was not enough; she must sit down a moment and think them all over. Accordingly, when she came to Monroe Park on her homeward way, she sat down for a moment on one of its benches. The park was shady, with the slanting green-gold light of late afternoon sifting through the trees. Silver showers from the fountain sprayed up and caught the sunlight, and groups of very small children, looking almost unearthly in that glamour of green and gold effulgence, ran and played upon the grass, or up and down the paths, their laughter a whimsical undercurrent beneath the grown-up noises of the city.
Julie let her eyes rest happily upon them, while through her mind there drifted one pleasant picture after another: Miss Fogg’s crisp shirt-waist, the pleased look on her old face when Julie had brought it to her; the purchasing of the materials for the party, all of which lay now in her market basket beside her; the little basket itself, which had been a gift from Tim, so neat and pretty with a gay pink pattern woven into it. Then going forward she visualized the supper-table spread with clean linen and set forth with her rosebud china, which also had been a gift from Tim. Julie was an artist in homemaking, and these small and happy things were the material of her art. Out of them she was to weave a little supper which was for her almost as much a creative act as is the composition of a symphony for a musician. In the ardent contemplation of her small creation, she overflowed with joy.
“Oh Lord, I’m so happy--so happy! I got to make a gift out of the happiness!”
She rose then and made her way home. Arrived there, she put her bundles carefully away in their little makeshift ice-box, which Tim had devised and which was really very successful, and then passed through into the front room to look forth and see if he might by any chance be coming. The shutters were drawn together to exclude the heat. Stooping, she peeped through them and, in the bright sunlight without, saw a figure coming up the walk, the sight of which made her suddenly fall down upon her knees beneath the window sill, crouching close against the wall.
It was Elizabeth Bixby; and she was entering the house now.
She came so close upon Julie’s entrance that it was impossible not to suppose she had seen her and was following. Julie crouched helplessly beneath the window. She wanted to run to the door and lock it fast, but she felt powerless to move. She cowered in a heap upon the floor, waiting for Elizabeth to enter and find her.
“I must get up. I must stand up on my feet,” she kept thinking. But still she did not rise. She felt utterly defenseless, utterly uncovered and at the other’s mercy.
If she could only have slipped across and locked the door, that would have given her an instant’s pause to gather herself together before Elizabeth’s entrance; but she could not move to do it.
“I’ll stand up. I’ll stand right up on my feet and meet her as soon as I hear her hand on the door,” she whispered to herself, every nerve in her body keyed for the expected sound.
But the sound did not come; a miracle happened; Elizabeth did not pause at Julie’s door. Julie heard her enter, heard her ask Mrs. Watkins some question, and then heard her feet beat a sharp patter along the passage and upstairs. Had she made a mistake? Been directed to the wrong room? Very slowly Julie relaxed and got upon her feet, her knees weak beneath her. She crept across and turned the key in the lock at last. Now there was a momentary barrier set between herself and that hand upon the door which she felt sure must come. Then she sat down in a chair and waited, her hands clinging tight together in her lap. She waited a very long time, an hour at least it seemed, and, except for an occasional shifting in her chair, a clasping and unclasping of her hands, or a faint dumb turning of her head from side to side, she did not stir. There was nothing she could do. She did not know where to find Tim, even if she had dared to slip out and search for him. He had told her he had some errands to do for the printer, and would probably be a little late. She did not know by which street he would return. There was nothing therefore to do but wait--wait for the footsteps to come down from upstairs, or for Tim’s to come up the cement walk outside. So she sat staring helplessly down at her clasped hands. She looked at them so long and steadfastly that they seemed at last to be detached from herself, not to be her hands any more, but to be separate personalities, small personalities--little people clinging very tight together there in the world of her lap, as though some disaster menaced. She felt dimly sorry for them.
At last she heard a door upstairs open--she was not sure which one it was--and then the steps that she knew were Elizabeth Bixby’s came down the stairs and down the hall. They would be at her door in an instant. The two little personalities in her lap, that were made of her hands, jumped desperately tight together. But again the feet did not pause, but pattered definitely past and out into the street. Julie leaped up and peered through the blinds. Perhaps she was mistaken: perhaps it was not Elizabeth after all. But it was. She saw her face distinctly as she went down the steps--and saw something else as well. Elizabeth had been crying--was still wiping her eyes rather blindly. How strange that was! What could have moved _her_ to tears? The surprise of this stayed for a space the leap of relief over her departure; but in a moment it came, and Julie relaxed all over as though a warm beneficent tide flowed through her. Perhaps they were safe after all. Safe--
At this point there came an imperative knock and, when Julie forced herself to go over and open the door, she found Mrs. Watkins there eager with news.
“Well, you was right after all!” she announced. “The miracle’s happened. Miss Fogg’s niece’s been to see her--that was her just went down the steps.”
“_That?_” stammered Julie. “That--that lady that just went down the steps--Miss Fogg’s niece?”
Mrs. Watkins nodded. “M--h’m, that’s the wonderful niece. She asked me did Miss Fogg live here, and when she went away she told me she was her niece. She’s been upstairs with the old soul a right smart spell, an’ I heard her tell her when she left she’d be back to see her again in a couple of days. She said she was going to Camp Lee for a day or so. When she left I seen she’d been cryin’.”
“Yes,” Julie said, “I saw that, too.”
“I reckon it must of upset her to find the old lady so bad off. Soon as she’d gone I flew upstairs to see how the old soul was takin’ it. But she’s got her door locked, an’ wouldn’t answer or let on she was there when I called her name. Oh, I reckon I’m too common to hear about the grand niece! But you go up, dearie, an’ hear the news. She’s your baby--she’ll talk for you.”
“I--I _can’t_!” Julie gasped and put her hand to her head. “I feel so--Oh, I feel so bad,” she faltered.
“Why, you do look real white!” Mrs. Watkins exclaimed with concern. “What’s the matter? How do you feel bad?”
Julie sat weakly down in a chair. “I--feel--shaky,” she got out slowly, speaking with difficulty.
“You lie right down, an’ don’t do a thing for a spell. I’ll bet it’s the heat--you ain’t used to this city heat--an’ you seem to have a kind of a nervous chill, too.”
“I’m--I’m all right,” Julie got out, struggling to keep her teeth from chattering. “I reckon it is the heat. I--Oh don’t--don’t bother. I’ll just lie--down a little bit.”