 | XX.
THE RETURN OF ELIZA. Neighbor's wives |  |
20. XX.
THE RETURN OF ELIZA.
The letter went the next day to its destination. The
day after was Saturday. Would Eliza be here before
the Sabbath? Would she come at all?
It is another moonshiny night; — the chill mists
rising, the village dogs barking, the elm-trees drooping
in the dew, with now and then a liquid rustle, and
a young woman hurrying across the common through
shadow and gloom.
It is a plain, earnest face you see under the brown
bonnet, — pale, in the moonlight, and full of anxious
thought, — gazing toward Abel's house. Why does her
bosom swell so, and her heart beat so fast?
Oh, the realization that she is going home, — that
here she is again in sight of the house, which stands
with its white gable to the moon, waiting as in the well-remembered
bygone sheeny nights! No, it is not a
dream, Eliza; you are fully awake.
The feeling of the old, frequented paths under her
feet; the familiar scent of the soil and trees; Abel's
shop, Cooper John's shop, and Cooper John's squatty
house, which always to her mind bore such a ludicrous
up from the hollow, mingled with which comes an
indefinable, tantalizing sense of change in the native
atmosphere of the town; something, after all, foreign
and forbidding in the features of the landscape lying
dim in the moonlight; — all this makes her strangely
afraid and strangely glad.
Her hands are encumbered with travelling-gear; yet
she walks swiftly. And now she is near the gate; and
now she pauses and shrinks. What is this that rushes
upon her? All the past in a flood, — the old, warm
current of love; the cutting ice of disappointment;
the wrecks of happiness; faces of dead friendships;
pleasures and hopes and pains; all which she sees, like
a drowning person, in one wild, stifling instant of time.
Then comes a sudden dash through the yard. Old
Turk, who has been for the last hour assiduously serenading
the moon, — his big, bluff barytone, distinguishable
afar off amid the chorus of village curs, — leaves
that thankless occupation, gives a bounce at the gate,
which flies open, and, with yelps of furious delight and
frenzied wags of tail, madly leaping and licking, gives
her a devouring welcome. Eliza drops bag and bandbox,
and hugs the dear old monster in her arms, crying
for very joy.
“Old Turk! dear Turk! There, stop, you saucy
boy! Can't you be glad without tearing me to pieces?
You dear fellow! Down!”
To be thus remembered and greeted by her dumb
omen, and her heart grows light, — only to grow heavy
again, however, a moment later.
Her hand is on the latch. Shall she open, as in old
times, — the good old times, forever past, when she
was as the mistress of that house? She remembers
that another woman is mistress there now, and, awkward
and unnatural as it seems, she knocks like any
wayfarer. What tremor, what suspense, — waiting
there on that door-step for some one to open unto her!
Who will come? Will Abel's face be the first to meet
her, or the beautiful Faustina's, which she somehow
dreads, or dear old Mrs. Dane's, benevolent and beloved?
Oh, to think she is now to see these faces once
more, — that the moment, which she thought would
never come, has at last arrived! If only the door
would open! But it doesn't.
She knocks again, less timidly, — louder even than
her heart is knocking all this time. And now there is a
stir within. She is aware of some one peeping out at
her from the window. Then the door is cautiously
opened, and the edge of a face appears, — a face unknown
to Eliza.
“Is Abel — Mr. Dane — at home?”
Alas, Eliza! that ever you should come to that door
with such a formal question, and stand coldly outside
till a stranger's tongue has answered it!
“No; gone away,” says the face through the crack —
the door yielding only about a hand's breadth.
In her disappointment, Eliza is half a mind to go
away too, and come again no more. Indeed, what business
has she there? The letter which brought her —
she must have merely dreamed of such a letter. Or,
even were it a reality, why was she so foolishly eager to
answer the summons? Abel did not expect she would
be, it is evident. Since he had been so long reticent and
cold, ought she not to be ashamed of her ready and ardent
zeal?
“I would like to see old Mrs. Dane,” she falters.
“She's wus; don't see nobody,” replies the face
through the crack.
What shall she do? Is this then coming home? Is
this the hour she looked forward to with such palpitating
hope during her long journey? She turns half
round. She sees the moon shining on the trees and fields
as she has seen it a hundred times before. Its cold
beams are more hospitable than the glimpse of light in
the forbidden house. The wide, roofless night is not
so solitary as this half-shut guarded door. “Abel!
Abel!” says her heart, “if you sent for me, why are you
not here to welcome me?”
“But this is morbid,” says her better sense.
“Is young Mrs. Dane at home?” she forces herself to
inquire.
“Yes'm; but she's sick a-bed too. Don't see nobody.”
This, then, is Abel's trouble, Eliza thinks. His wife
is ill, — perhaps dying, — and she has been sent for to
duty.
“Will Abel be home soon?”
“Don't know. Guess bimeby. Didn't say, when he
went out.”
“I will come in and wait,” says Eliza. Still the door
does not open; and the face at the crack looks out suspiciously
at her, with a foolish, doubting smile.
“Do you know if they were expecting any one to-night?”
“Guess not; hain't heerd 'em say.”
“This used to be my home. Did you ever hear them
speak of Eliza?”
At which word, Turk, grown impatient of delay,
brushes past her, forcing the door.
“La, ma'am! is this Eliza?” cries the flustered
housemaid, recovering from Turk and the surprise.
“I've heerd old Mrs. Dane talk of you ever so many
times! My name's Melissy, — Melissy Jones, ye
know; though mabby ye never heerd of me afore,
seein' as how my folks only jest moved into the place a
little more'n a year ago. Old Mrs. Dane 'll be dreadful
tickled to see ye, I know! La, I thought 'twas a straggler!
and I'm kind o' skeery, folks bein' sick so, and
Abel away from home. Take a seat and set down, won't
ye?”
Eliza is gazing vacantly about the room, and beginning
to take off her things. What object is it which
suddenly fixes her sight?
“That's baby, — that's Ebby,” Melissa explains. “I
was lonesome, so I kep' him up for comp'ny; but, la!
he dropt right off to sleep, jest as he never will evenings
when we want him to.”
In the rocking-chair, sunken in pillows, dimpled
cheek on dimpled arm, with the smile of some happy
dream just stirring the sweet mouth, the chubby cherub
sleeps. Eliza bends over him, kneeling. Her face,
bowed low, is hidden from Melissa. Long she gazes,
silent. O fortunate Abel, parent of that darling boy!
O proud Faustina, to be the mother, and the father's
cherished wife! Eliza touches, with quivering lips, the
lily-white, dewy skin, the warm, aromatic, rosy mouth.
Then she says, calmly, —
“He looks like Abel, I think.”
“Yes'm,” assents Melissa, “he dooes. Most folks
thinks he favors his pa the most.”
“How long has his mother been sick?”
“Only sence yist'day.”
“Is she very sick?” asks Eliza, surprised.
“Don't know. Perty considerable, — though not very,
I guess,” Melissa confusedly answers.
“Does she see the doctor?”
“No, ma'am; she don't see nobody. Better take a
seat and set down.”
Melissa would like to change the subject. Eliza,
seating herself, persists in questioning her.
“But she must see somebody. Who takes her food
to her?”
“I do; but she won't eat, and she sca'cely looks at
me, but keeps her head kivered up under the bedclo'es.
Oh, dear!” sighs Melissa, remembering the secret,
which she dreads to keep, yet fears to betray.
“But she sees her husband!” says the astonished
Eliza.
“Ruther guess not; for he sleeps in t'other room
now, 'long 'ith Ebby.”
“How long has he done so?”
“Only last night and the night afore, ma'am.”
“She can't be very sick, then, — or else he would go
to her.”
“Wal, I do'no; she don't git up. I guess it's trouble
more'n anything.”
“What trouble? Tell me! I am come to help them,
and I must know.”
“Don't ax me! it's too bad! Oh, dear!” And up
goes Melissa's apron, and down goes her face into it,
with a sob.
Eliza, with her quick sense of the comical, smiles, but
faintly. There is no laughter in her heart to-night.
“Melissa,” — she assumes authority, — “put down
your apron!”
The girl only clutches it more closely to her weeping
face.
“Will crying mend matters? Don't keep me in
suspense! Tell me at once!”
“O ma'am,” — Melissa uncovers her interesting lineaments,
but holds the apron under them with both hands,
all sence day before yist'day. She was well enough
then. But that night — that night,” — another explosion
is coming; she has the extinguisher ready, — “he — he
— was took up for stealing!”
This time she flings the apron completely over her
head, and rocks and wrings herself in it tempestuously.
Eliza is calm, you would say. But how very white! It
is a minute before she can get herself heard. She takes
hold of Melissa's hands as she would a child's, and endeavors
to remove the muffler. At length the weeper
permits her frizzled head and one corner of the corrugated
countenance to be uncovered, peeps out with one
streaming red eye over the saturated calico, and whimpers
forth the story. It is given in bursts and snatches,
incoherently enough; and, of course, one very important
portion of it is suppressed, in terror of her mistress and
her oath.
Eliza listens, sick at her very soul.
“And Abel is in jail to-night! Why didn't you tell
me?”
“Oh, he ain't! He's innocent, ye know. And they
can't keep him in jail, can they? Say!” Both eyes
come out of their retreat, and appeal earnestly to Eliza,
— “Do you s'pose they can?”
“How do you know he is innocent?”
“Oh, I don't know — only — his wife says he is!” so
much she dares confess.
“If she says so, and thinks so, why does she give up
instead of rising, like a woman, to cheer and help him?”
demands Eliza, her heart growing great within her. “I
am sure he is innocent! My Abel! steal? — Come,
come, Melissa! We have something else to do besides
lying in bed or hiding our heads in our aprons. Go and
tell mother I have come. It will comfort her to see me,
I know. Has she heard about Abel?”
“I guess he told her yesterday,” answered Melissa,
finding a dry edge of her apron to wipe up with.
“They was alone together for ever so long; and I could
see something had a'most killed her afterwards. Oh, I'm
so glad you've come!” — looking up with hope and
confidence at Eliza. “The house seems so dreadful
lonesome! Le'me pump you some water, if you want
to wash. La, now, there's Ebby waking up jest at the
wrong time!”
“I'll take care of him. Go and prepare mother for
seeing me,” said Eliza.
| XX.
THE RETURN OF ELIZA. Neighbor's wives | |