Part 3

‘No; but we can write to Jane and ask her to answer our questions with just yes or no. When she is Mrs. Hiram (I wonder if he ever had a last name) she will get it out of him if we can only interest her.’

* * * * *

‘Jane,’ said Hiram that evening, ‘if you could manage to wash on Saturday, so as to have an off-day on Monday, I don’no but we might as well be married then as any other time. I should feel sort of easier in my mind if Maria came down to live with us before they think her room is better than her company up to the Fifes’, if Hannah should die.’

‘That’s so, Hiram. I’ll hurry round and fix things, and you better stop to-night and tell Maria that I’ll be real glad to have her come and live with us; and Hiram, I’ve been thinking that if the men folks did save that blue-chintz sofy--’

‘Wait a minute, Jane, I sort of want to tell you somethin’; ’taint anythin’ I should want you to repeat, but it’s somethin’ that sort of troubles me some. You see, Miss Hannah she’s always been good to me, and I shouldn’t want to say anythin’ to set folks a-talkin’; but Miss Hannah haint been exactly well for some weeks, and only the day before the fire she came to me and she says she thought ’twas about time she put that old trunk full of duds, the one she’s always kept in her closet, out of the way, and she guessed she’d have me burn it up. I thought ’twas most a pity to destroy the trunk--it was a real good one, and hadn’t never seen no travel to speak of--and so I said I’d take the things out and burn ’em; that seemed to trouble her, and she was real short with me. She said I was no better than all the other folks, that I was pryin’ round to see what she kep’ in it. I sort of soothed her, and then she said she’d been pestered most to death by folks always askin’ her about some old blue chintz, and about a little room; and she guessed that if she could put that trunk out of sight, mebby folks would mind their own business and let her have some peace. So when Maria was out to the garden for some stuff for dinner, Miss Hannah she got me to help her carry the trunk out of her room and put it in the hall-closet; it wan’t no kind of a place to keep it, but I thought it was better to humor her a mite, seein’ she was out of sorts.

‘In the middle of the night,’ continued Hiram, dropping his voice and looking round to see that nobody was coming up the walk, ‘in the middle of the night I smelt smoke, and thought right off that the barn must be a-burnin’, but I couldn’t see no light; then I heard a sort of smothered noise, and I suspicioned right off what was the matter. I run to Maria’s room and found her stumblin’ round in the dark--her room bein’ full of smoke she was sort of confused--and there was a turrible glare out in the hall. We found Miss Hannah out there wringin’ her hands and callin’ out: “Oh, the trunk will be burnt up, the trunk will be burnt up!” We couldn’t coax her to go away, and it did seem as she’d burn up in her tracks if I hadn’t just took her and carried her out. By that time the house was all blazin’, and, though the folks began to come, it wan’t no use--it had to go. Hannah she was all dressed, and I don’t believe she had been to bed.’

‘You don’t think she _set_ the house afire, Hiram?’

‘No, not a-meanin’ to; but what I think is that she felt lonesome without that trunk, and so she went down to the hall-closet when she thought we was asleep, and either she dropped her candle or else the things that hung in the closet caught fire, and she didn’t see it till ’t was too late, and then she was so fearful that the trunk would burn she wouldn’t go away.’

‘What was in the trunk?’

Hiram shuffled from one foot to the other, then hesitated a little, and said:

‘Jane, I’ve been comin’ to see you a good many years, most ever since we was young, and yet we haint never exactly spoke of gittin’ married till lately; but they aint so slow down in the city, and I guess Hannah sort of expected to git married to that sea-captain down to Salem. Anyways, whatever she kept in that trunk it came from Salem, and I _guess_ ’twas some stuff he gave her.’

‘You don’t say so, all these years!’

* * * * *

In Paris, Mrs. Grant, with her husband, sat over the breakfast coffee in their little parlor in the Hotel St. Romain. The window opened on the balcony overhanging the Rue St. Roch. From the narrow street below floated the cry, ‘_Les moules, les moules?_’ mingled with the clap, clap of the horses’ hoofs on the asphalt below. The _concierge_ sang as he swept the sidewalk before the door, and the newsboys cried, with their plaintive intonation, ‘_Le Figaro, Le Figaro! Le P’tit Journal!_’

‘Roger,’ said Mrs. Grant, ‘I had such a curious dream last night. I suppose I must have been asleep, but I seemed to be awake, when suddenly I saw Aunt Hannah standing at the foot of my bed, just between the two posts. She stood quite still, and her eyes were fixed on me with her peculiar expression of reserve, but also as if she had an intense desire to speak. I was just going to cry out, “Why, Aunt Hannah, is that you?” when suddenly I felt very passive, and as if a change was going on. The curtains of my bed moved back slowly, and I was again in that mysterious little room. I seemed to see either myself or my mother, I could not tell which it was, as a little girl, lying on the sofa; it was that same blue-chintz sofa I told you about; everything in the room was exactly as I remember seeing it when I was a child, even to the shell and the book on the shelf.

‘I can’t express to you how it was that I saw the little girl lying there; it was as if my mind was compelled by some other mind to see the little girl and the little room; and all the time I did not know whether it was my mother or myself as a child that I was looking at, and I could feel all the time my Aunt Hannah’s gray eyes, though I could not see her while the vision of the little room lasted.

‘It was some minutes before the scene began to fade, and it did so very gradually, just as it came: first, the roses and blue morning-glories on the paper began to waver and grow indistinct; then one object after another trembled and faded. It was exactly as if something outside of myself compelled me to see these things; and then, as the pressure of that other will was removed, the impression gradually disappeared. The last to go was the figure of the little girl, but she too faded; the bed-curtains seemed to evolve out of the walls of the room, and I was lying on my bed; but Aunt Hannah still stood between the foot-posts, with her eyes fixed on mine. Then came the impression that she could not speak, but that she wanted to convey some thought to me; and then these words came to me--not as if a voice spoke them, but as if they were being printed on my mind or consciousness:

‘“Margaret, you must not worry any more about the Little Room, it has no connection with you or your mother, and it never had any: it all belongs to me. I am sorry that my secret ever troubled anyone else; I tried to keep it to myself, but sometimes it would get out. There’ll never be any Little Room to trouble anybody else any more.”

‘All the time I was hearing these words I felt Aunt Hannah’s eyes; and then she began to move backward, slowly, and she seemed to vanish down a long, long distance, till I lost sight of her. The last thing I saw was her gray eyes fastened on my face. I awoke, and found myself sitting up, with my head bent forward, looking right between the foot-posts of the bed.’

‘Your Aunt Hannah seems to be more fond of travelling than she used to be. Paris is further from Titusville than Brooklyn,’ said Mr. Grant, lightly.

‘Oh, don’t, Roger, don’t! I think Aunt Hannah must be dead.’

MY GHOST OF A CHANCE.

‘Truly, a most fitting place for the Starvation Act,’ said the Author, as he laid a fresh supply of stationery on the table, ‘and a whole week to do it in, unless the story pans out well, which of course it won’t; I don’t suppose there’s a ghost of a chance of that.’

‘Here I am!’

‘Oh, there you are! yes, to be sure, so you are. And how do you do? I hope you will excuse my saying it, but aren’t you an uncommonly small ghost?’

‘Yes, I am slim; but I’ve seen smaller chances, and you know I am all the one you have got.’

‘Why, yes, as William has it, “A poor thing, but mine own.” Allow me to help you up on the table; there, how is that? Do you think you could sit on that cuff-box and rest your feet on the pen-wiper? I am afraid the table is rather bare and cold, and you don’t look very well. Is that comfortable?’

‘Oh, very, thank you;--and now you may begin.’

‘Yes, in a minute. I want to ask you first if you really are my only chance?’

‘Yes, absolutely your only one,’ said the small figure sitting on the box, with his hands resting on his knees. He was a clever-looking little ghost, eight or nine inches high, clean shaven, with his hair brushed back to hide an evidently increasing tendency to baldness--he was not in his first youth. He was plainly but neatly dressed, though his clothes looked a little shiny at the seams. His face was careworn and anxious in its expression, but attractive, and his manners were unobjectionable.

‘So you are my only chance, are you? May I ask where you came from?’

‘Oh, I am sent here from the “Bureau of Chances”; we have to go just wherever we are sent, you know; we haven’t any choice in the matter.’

‘Yes, of course, that stands to reason; I can readily understand no ghost of the slightest financial instinct would have chosen me to come to; I am all the more obliged for any chance at all, on any terms. It is very encouraging to have you sit there; I like it. I think I will try and do some work.’

‘Yes, I would,’ said the little Ghost, with alacrity.

The Author leaned back, and, clasping his hands behind his head, he fixed his eyes on the little Ghost, and began:

‘It is to be a story, you know--a romance. _She_ is to be the central figure--a splendid red-haired creature, with great instincts, primeval, untrained, capacious; she is to _devour_ the world; she can’t wait for experience; she hungers and thirsts for sensations; she is to _boom_ through the story--no lagging, no questioning; see?’

‘Yes,’ nodded the little Ghost.

‘And then,’ continued the Author, ‘she is to meet the hero; he is to be Tradition, Culture, Development, Conservatism; and there will be, so to speak, no one else in the world except these two forces, and the battle royal will be between these two.’

‘Yes,’ nodded the little Ghost.

‘I think I will write that out before I go any further with the plot.’

‘I would,’ said the little Ghost.

‘Well, here goes,’ said the Author, drawing himself up to the table.

He wrote for some hours; his pen moved ceaselessly over the pages, and from time to time he laid a sheet at the feet of the little Ghost. The clock struck twelve, the clock struck one; the Author’s hair fell lankly over his pale face; on and on went his pen. At two, he looked up and saw the little Ghost sitting, all alert, on the cuff-box, with his blue eyes wide open; he gave a bright little smile in answer to the Author’s glance.

‘Why bless me! I had clean forgotten you! aren’t you tired?’ said the Author.

‘Not in the least; I feel quite fresh.’

‘Upon my word, you look it; I believe you are going to be a tough little chap, and will see me through. And now where will you sleep?’

‘Why, here, anywhere--I am not particular.’

‘Aren’t you hungry? you haven’t had anything to eat since you came. By the way, what do you eat?’

‘Oh, I’m all right, don’t bother about me; I live very well on hope, and we are supposed to supply that ourselves.’

‘That’s extremely lucky for you; I haven’t had a scrap of hope for a month, and I’m afraid you’d starve if you depended on me.’

‘Thank you, that’s all right--good night.’

The Author slept heavily, all dressed as he was when he threw himself down on the bed. The little Ghost took off his necktie and his little boots, and, folding his coat carefully for a pillow, he too slept, after adjusting the pen-wiper for a coverlid. At six o’clock the little Ghost got up and rambled about the table for a while. He regulated the loose sheets of manuscript and counted the pages. He looked quite well in the morning light, and his step had the assurance and measured quality that comes only to the prosperous. He carried his left hand carelessly in his pocket, with his elbow slightly raised, after the manner of the man of the world. He began to be restless towards seven o’clock, and at half-past seven he took his breakfast, very sparingly, off of his stock of hope, evidently considering the possibility of a longer stay than he had anticipated when he first got up. At eight o’clock, his face was full of anxiety, and he had dropped his nonchalant air and had taken his hand out of his pocket. At nine, his head was bent, and he paced to and fro from the inkstand to the dictionary, with his hands clasped behind him. He looked old and feeble. At ten, he had a slight fainting turn and had to sit down on the cuff-box. His forehead was damp and he shivered; he was evidently deeply disturbed, and he was a pitiful little object to look at.

Then the Author awoke, and, sitting up, called out: ‘Why, great heavens! what is the matter, are you ill?’

‘Thank you, I do feel a little off this morning.’

‘Morning, is it? Why, I feel as if I had just dropped off; you haven’t been drinking my ink, have you? You are all blue around the gills?’

The little Ghost was offended, but he did not answer except by a reproachful look.

‘Oh, don’t play the lacrimoso role; I’ll be up in no time, and you must remember I wrote a pile last night; just hear me read some of it. Why, did I do all this? It reads better than I thought.’

‘Yes, it reads very well--_very well indeed_. I think I will go out and take a stroll, and lunch at the club, and not write any more till to-night; I do my best work at night.’

As the Author said this, he looked right at the Ghost; there was a feeling in the room that somebody was justifying himself, but the little Ghost said nothing. Then the Author made himself a cup of coffee and freshened himself up, all the time not looking at the little Ghost. Then he took his cane, and, going out, he nodded carelessly, and said:

‘Good-bye, old boy; I will be back in good time, don’t worry.’

All the way down the street the Author kept hearing the words: ‘I am all the chance you’ve got--I am all the chance you’ve got,--I am all the chance you’ve got.’

‘Hang it all,’ said he, ‘I might as well go back and grind; it will please the little chap, and it don’t matter to anyone else. I don’t suppose he is much of a critic--he’ll never know how bad the stuff is that I wrote last night.’

So back he went. When the door opened he was shocked to see his little Ghost of a chance apparently on the verge of dissolution. He lay across the dictionary, where he had evidently thrown himself in despair; his arm hung down over the edge of the book, and he was limp and almost like a lifeless thing. He smiled a wan but forgiving smile on the Author and then wearily composed himself, as if for death. The Author bent his head over the little Ghost to see if he was still breathing. The Ghost was alive, and he heard him whisper:

‘_Write, write, write!_’

Seizing his pen, the Author dashed ahead, hardly knowing what words came; he knew that write he must to save his dear little Ghost of a chance--his only little chance. By the time he had written one chapter the Ghost was up and strutting around the table like a little king, but the poor Author was in the depths of despair; he knew that every word he was writing was trash; that nobody, even the most philanthropic of editors, would ever take his story, and that starve he must. Still, the little Ghost improved; he grew stout, he grew rosy, he even seemed to be getting a fresh accession of yellow hair to cover his bald spot. At last the Author spoke:

‘Little _fiend_,’ said he, ‘you fatten on my despair; you are nourished on my misery; the vagaries of my tired brain are wine and bread to your morbid taste. Why should I drain my brain to feed you, you _pigmy_ of chance! you respectable little _vampire_! you masquerader in the form of “my chance,” “my only chance!” Away with you, vanish, wither, be gone! I will burn my words, even though you perish with the flame. I will not be saved by such a chance, if the price of my life be this unworthy work!’

And the Author thrust his manuscript into the fire. He turned, thinking to see the Ghost wither and die before him; but instead of that there was the queer little contradictory fellow dancing on the table. He danced, he capered, he looked fairly fat; in truth he began to puff with his exertions, and then he shouted out:

‘O you authors! O you strange creatures! You think you can kill me by burning your manuscript; why, you are feeding me, you are pampering me, and you yourself are improving in spite of yourself. Your chance is great, your chance is sure, you will _write_ now; you will be a success!’

And sure enough the next day the story was done. The Author went out with it, knowing it to be good; it was a go. The Author’s hand rested lightly in his trousers’ pocket, and he walked with the assurance of a prosperous man. As he came back, he said to himself:

‘Now, I am going to say to that little Ghost chap: “Here, half of this gold is yours, half is mine; remain with me, and we will be partners, share and share alike.”’

But when he went into the room, the fat little Ghost had gone back to the ‘Bureau of Chances,’ to be sent out again along with all the other little Ghost Chances. I recognized him the other day sleeping in the pigeonhole of the desk of a friend of mine.

IN GRANADA.

‘Pepita,’ said I, ‘do tell me a story.’

‘Señora Maria Madalena, would you like to hear about Seraphita? She was born in Granada. That was one hundred years ago.

‘She was born in a high place; her mother was of a great family, and her father was great too, but he was very wild, and Seraphita was the prettiest thing that ever was born in Granada; everybody said so, and her mother used to think that the sun rose on the east side of her little bed, and set on the west.

‘The days ran merrily, and the father felt so happy that he went all the time to the bull-fights, and threw even money, yes, not only cigars but real money, to the torreadors. And all was beautiful till Seraphita was four months old; then she died. She had been very ill, so ill that her father did not go to the bull-fights for one whole week, and he paid for a great ceremony in the church, and everybody said, “Now Seraphita will get well,” for he had paid more than one hundred pieces of gold for prayers. But Seraphita died, and her mother had so much heart-grief that she lost her wits. For one whole day she sat, cold and still, without a tear, and then she cried aloud and began to tear out handfuls of her smooth black hair, and it was a great pity, for her hair was black and long, and glistened like satin--she was called the Satin-haired. But she forgot how beautiful she was, and she would not eat anything, or even sleep.

‘Two nights after Seraphita died, and was lying as white and beautiful as an angel, with wax candles at her head and feet and with a white flower in her hand, her mother went quietly into the room, and sent the old nurse, who was watching over Seraphita, away. Then she closed the door and threw herself on her knees, and prayed so hard that her prayers could not get up to Heaven, for they were more like curses than prayers,--and, Señora Maria Madalena, it is not good to pray like that; one must not send up prayers that are not fit to go to Heaven, for then Saint Peter shuts the gates of Heaven, and the prayers go wandering up and down in the great spaces of air, where there is no one to answer them.

‘The Devil, who is everywhere but in Heaven, came to her and asked, with a very sweet voice--for he can use any voice he likes--“What is it that Seraphita’s mother is praying for?”

‘“I want my child back; I want her in my arms that are so empty, and my heart that aches so.”

‘And then the Devil told her--I do not know exactly how he told her, but he made her know that he could give Seraphita back to her, just as she had been, with her rosy cheeks, and her black eyes, and her pretty black hair which was going to be like her mother’s; he could do this, only he could not give her soul back--she must be always without a soul.

‘And Seraphita’s mother talked with the Devil, for her wits were gone and she did not know right from wrong; and she promised him anything if he would only give her baby back to her again, even without any soul. And the Devil very politely said he did not want anything to be given to him; he was glad to give the child back, so long as she did not ask for the soul.

‘And then, while the mother looked at Seraphita, the pink came into the baby’s cheeks and she smiled; and then, because her joy was so great, the mother cried out loud, and her voice could be heard way down in the street. Then everybody came running in to see what was the matter; and the father was so happy he carried Seraphita again to the church and they had another ceremony, and this time he paid even more gold, and there was a great _festa_ in Granada.

‘You see, nobody but the mother knew that only Seraphita’s body was there, that she hadn’t any soul and never could have one; only the mother knew, and she could not be happy.

‘She grew very thin, and her smooth satin hair turned white on top, just where the Devil had laid his hand; so she wore a veil, even in the house, and she hid her eyes as if she was afraid, and she prayed day and night. Nobody knew what she prayed, because she did not dare to tell even her husband.

‘Bye and bye she grew so afraid and sad, because Seraphita somehow didn’t seem to her any more like her own child; she was like a beautiful wax doll; but she was not wax, and she looked just like herself to everybody else; only to her mother she seemed strange, and she could not get the warm love back into her heart, even though she pressed Seraphita to her bosom night and day.

‘The little baby grew in spite of that, and she grew prettier and prettier all the time. Everybody loved her except her mother, and that was just what the Devil wanted.

‘The day Seraphita was one year old her mother could not bear it any longer, and she went to her priest and confessed to him all about it; and then very soon she died, because she had kept her secret so long it had just burned her heart out.

‘After that--no one knew how it happened--but pretty soon everybody began to whisper and look queerly at Seraphita when the nurse carried her into the street; and her father seemed troubled, and he talked with the priest and wanted to pay some more money to the Church; but they wouldn’t have any more ceremonies for Seraphita, and the priests tried to make the people stop talking; what they said was “_nonsense_.” But it was not nonsense, and so they went on talking among themselves; and they would take their own children out of the way when Seraphita was old enough to play about.

‘So she grew up all alone except for her father and her nurse and the priest who went to live in the house--which showed that the Church thought there was something in it, else why should a priest go and live in the house?