Part 12 (1/2)

”Tell me of your mother's garden.” I picked up the tiny flower and put it on Lillie's cot, where its fragrance waked faint stirrings of other days. ”I've always wanted a garden like my grandmother Heath used to have. I remember it very well, though I was only nine when she died.

There were cherry-trees and fig-trees in it, and a big arbor covered with scuppernong grape-vines, and wonderful strawberries in one corner.

All of her flowers were the old-fas.h.i.+oned kind. There was a beautiful yellow rose that grew all over the fence which separated the flowers from the vegetables, and close to the wood-house was a big moss-rose bush. There were Micrafella roses, too. I loved them best, and Jacqueminots, and tea-roses, and--”

”Did she have princess-feather in hers, and candytuft, and sweet-williams?” Lillie turned over on her side, her hand under her cheek, and in her eyes a quick, eager glow. ”In mother's garden were all sorts of old-fas.h.i.+oned flowers also. We lived two miles from town and father sold vegetables and chickens to the market-men, who sold them to their customers. But he never had as good luck with his vegetables as mother had with her flowers. She loved them so. There was a big mock-orange bush right by the well. Did you ever shut your eyes and see things again just as they were a long time ago? If I were blind-folded and my hands tied behind me I could find just where every flower used to grow in mother's garden, if I could go in it again.”

Like a flood overleaping the barrier that held it back, the words came eagerly. To keep her from talking would do more harm than to let her talk. The fever in her soul was greater, more consuming, than that in her body. I did not try to stop her.

”I don't remember where each thing was in grandmother's garden.” I moved my chair a little closer to her cot. ”But I remember the gooseberry-bushes were just behind a long bed of lilies-of-the-valley.

It seemed so queer they should be together.”

”Lilies of the valley grow anywhere. Mother's bed got bigger every year. There was a large circle of them around a mound in the middle of our garden, and they were fringed with violets. One February our minister's wife died. They didn't have any flowers, and it seemed so dreadful not to have any that I went into the garden to see if I couldn't find something. The ground was covered with snow, but the week before had been warm, and, going to one of the beds, I brushed the snow away and found a lot of white violets. They were blooming under the snow. I pulled them and took them to the minister, and he put them in her hands. They used to put flowers in people's hands when they were dead. I don't know whether they do it now or not.”

”Sometimes it is done.” I took up the sewing an my lap and made a few st.i.tches. ”Tell me some more of your mother's garden. Did she have winter pinks and bachelor's b.u.t.tons and snap-dragons and hollyhocks in it? I used to hate grandmother's hollyhocks. They were so haughty.”

”We did not have any, but we had bridal-wreath and spirea and a big pomegranate-bush. There were two large oleanders in tubs at the foot of the front steps. One was mine, the other was my sister's. My sister is married now and lives out West. She has two children.”

A bird on the bough of the apple-tree began to twitter. For a moment Lillie listened, then again she looked at me, in her eyes that which I had noticed several times before, a look of torturing fear and pain and shame.

”Do”--her voice was low--”do you know about me?”

”Yes, I know about you.”

”You know--and--and still you talk to me? I don't understand. Why did you come down here? You don't belong in Scarborough Square.”

”Why not? I have no one who needs me.” I held my bit of sewing off, looked at it carefully. ”Other women have their homes, their husbands and children, or their families, or duties or obligations of some sort, which they cannot leave, even if they wanted to know, to understand better how they might--” I leaned forward. ”I think you can help me, Lillie, help me very much.”

”Help you--” Half lifting herself up, Lillie stared at me as if not understanding, then the flush in her face deepened. ”I help anybody!

Oh, my G.o.d! if I only could! If I only could!”

”I'm sure you can.” I picked up the flower, which again had fallen.

”The doctor says you can go in the country soon, but before you go--”

”I hope I won't live long enough to go anywhere, but before I go away for good if I could tell you what you could tell to others, and make them understand how different it is from what they think, make them know the awfulness--awfulness--”

She turned her head away, buried it in her arms, her body shaking in convulsive sobs. The bird on the apple-tree had stopped its singing, and the sun was no longer s.h.i.+ning. In the hall I heard Mrs. Mundy go to the door, heard it open; then heavier footsteps came toward us, I looked around. Selwyn was standing in the doorway.

CHAPTER XVI

Selwyn closed the door, put his hat and overcoat on a chair beside it, and came over to the fire. Standing in front of it, hands in his pockets, he looked at me. I, also, was standing.

”Why don't you sit down? Are you in a hurry? Am I interrupting you?”

I shook my head. ”I am not in a hurry, and you are not interrupting.

I thought perhaps--”

”Thought what?”