Part 27 (2/2)

These little flashes lit up her brown and somber face, and discovered the slow tears upon her weathered cheeks. For a long time she sat thus, then at last she lifted her head and looked around the room. Her table stood as she had left it in the morning, no food had pa.s.sed her lips since then. But the frantic turmoil of the first hours after Joe had been led away to jail had quieted.

A plan of action had shaped itself in her mind. In the morning she would go to Shelbyville and seek her husband's old friend, Colonel Henry Price, to solicit his advice and a.s.sistance. In a manner comforted by this resolution, she prepared herself a pot of coffee and some food.

After the loneliest and most hopeless meal that she ever had eaten in her life, she went to bed.

In the house of Isom Chase, where neighbors sat to watch the night out beside the shrouded body, there was a waste of oil in many lamps, such an illumination that it seemed a wonder that old Isom did not rise up from his gory bed to turn down the wicks and speak reproof. Everybody must have a light. If an errand for the living or a service for the dead called one from this room to that, there must be a light. That was a place of tragic mystery, a place of violence and death. If light had been lacking there on the deeds of Isom Chase, on his h.o.a.rdings and hidings away; on the hour of his death and the mystery of it, then all this must be balanced tonight by gleams in every window, beams through every crevice; lamps here, lanterns there, candles in cupboards, cellar, and nook.

Let there be light in the house of Isom Chase, and in the sharp espionage of curious eyes, for dark days hang over it, and the young widow who draws the pity of all because she cannot weep.

No matter how hard a woman's life with a man has been, when he dies she is expected to mourn. That was the standard of fealty and respect in the neighborhood of Isom Chase, as it is in more enlightened communities in other parts of the world. A woman should weep for her man, no matter what bruises on body his heavy hand may leave behind him, or what scars in the heart which no storm of tears can wash away. Custom has made hypocrites of the ladies in this matter the wide world through. Let no man, therefore, lying bloodless and repellent upon his cooling-board, gather comfort to his cold heart when his widow's tears fall upon his face. For she may be weeping more for what might have been than was.

Isom Chase's widow could not weep at all. That was what they said of her, and their pity was more tender, their compa.s.sion more sweet. Dry grief, they said. And that is grief like a covered fire, which smolders in the heart and chars the foundations of life. She ought to be crying, to clear her mind and purge herself of the dregs of sorrow, which would settle and corrode unless flushed out by tears; she ought to get rid of it at once, like any other widow, and settle down to the enjoyment of all the property.

The women around Ollie in her room tried to provoke her tears by reference to Isom's good qualities, his widely known honesty, his ceaseless striving to lay up property which he knew he couldn't take with him, which he realized that his young wife would live long years after him to enjoy. They glozed his faults and made virtues out of his close-grained traits; they praised and lamented, with sighs and mournful words, but Isom's widow could not weep.

Ollie wished they would go away and let her sleep. She longed for them to put out the lamps and let the moonlight come in through the window and whiten on the floor, and bring her soft thoughts of Morgan. She chafed under their chatter, and despised them for their shallow pretense. There was not one of them who had respected Isom in life, but now they sat there, a solemn conclave, great-breasted sucklers of the sons of men, and insisted that she, his unloved, his driven, abused and belabored wife, weep tears for his going, for which, in her heart, she was glad.

It was well that they could not see her face, turned into the shadow, nestled against the pillow, moved now and then as by the zephyr breath of a smile. At times she wanted to laugh at their pretense and humbug.

To prevent it breaking out in unseemly sound she was obliged to bite the coverlet and let the spasms of mirth waste themselves in her body and limbs.

When the good women beheld these contractions they looked at each other meaningly and shook dolefully wise heads. Dry grief. Already it was laying deep hold on her, racking her like ague. She would waste under the curse of it, and follow Isom to the grave in a little while, if she could not soon be moved to weep.

Ollie did not want to appear unneighborly nor unkind, but as the night wore heavily on she at last requested them to leave her.

”You are all so good and kind!” said she, sincere for the moment, for there was no mistaking that they meant to be. ”But I think if you'd take the lamp out of the room I could go to sleep. If I need you, I'll call.”

”Now, that's just what you do, deary,” said red-faced Mrs. Greening, patting her head comfortingly.

The women retired to the spare bedroom where Joe had slept the night before, and from there their low voices came to Ollie through the open door. She got up and closed it gently, and ran up the window-blind and opened the window-sash, letting in the wind, standing there a little while drawing her gown aside, for the touch of it on her hot breast. She remembered the day that Joe had seen her so, the churn-dasher in her hand; the recollection of what was pictured in his face provoked a smile.

There was a mist before the moon like a blowing veil, presaging rain tomorrow, the day of the funeral. It was well known in that part of the country that rain on a coffin a certain sign that another of that family would die within a year. Ollie hoped that it would not rain. She was not ready to die within a year, nor many years. Her desire to live was large and deep. She had won the right, Isom had compensated in part for the evil he had done her in leaving behind him all that was necessary to make the journey pleasant.

As she turned into her bed again and composed herself for sleep, she thought of Joe, with a feeling of tenderness. She recalled again what Isom had proudly told her of the lad's blood and breeding, and she understood dimly now that there was something extraordinary in Joe's manner of s.h.i.+elding her to his own disgrace and hurt. A common man would not have done that, she knew.

She wondered if Morgan would have done it, if he had been called upon, but the yea or the nay of it did not trouble her. Morgan was secure in her heart without sacrifice.

Well, tomorrow they would bury Isom, and that would end it. Joe would be set free then, she thought, the future would be clear. So reasoning, she went to sleep in peace.

Ollie's habit of early rising during the past year of her busy life made it impossible for her to sleep after daylight. For a while after waking next morning she lay enjoying that new phase of her enfranchis.e.m.e.nt.

From that day forward there would be no need of rising with the dawn.

Time was her own now; she could stretch like a lady who has servants to bring and take away, until the sun came into her chamber, if she choose.

Downstairs there were dim sounds of people moving about, and the odors of breakfast were rising. Thinking that it would be well, for the sake of appearances, to go down and a.s.sist them, she got up and dressed.

She stopped before the gla.s.s to try her hair in a new arrangement, it was such bright hair, she thought, for mourning, but yet as somber as her heart, bringing it a little lower on the brow, in a sweep from the point of parting. The effect was somewhat frivolous for a season of mourning, and she would have to pa.s.s through one, she sighed. After a while, when she went out into Morgan's world of laughter and chatter and fine things. She smiled, patting her lively tresses back into their accustomed place.

Ollie was vain of her prettiness, as any woman is, only in her case there was no soul beneath it to give it ballast. Her beauty was pretty much surface comeliness, and it was all there was of her, like a great singer who sometimes is nothing but a voice.

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