Part 36 (1/2)
”They were here this afternoon,” Lizzie fished from her turgid consciousness, ”but they left. They were sorry.”
”Oh, I know, but not one of the bunch thought for one minute that it would come to them, too, and that's the joke of it! Selfish fools--nasty, sly, and catty even over a corpse. They sent Mag Sebastian flowers, but it was after Mag was out of the game. Huh! I guess I know 'em, Liz, and so do you. Shucks! you won't cry when I'm carted off--not on your life! But there is _one_ thing, yes, one thing, Liz, and it lies just between you and me. I don't know why it hangs on to me so tight. Huh!” Jane forced a rasping, throaty laugh that fairly snarled with insincerity. ”I mean--I mean--oh, h.e.l.l! you know what I mean!”
”I--I don't think I do,” Lizzie faltered, trying to meet Jane's unwavering stare.
”Oh, come off, come off!” Jane sniffed. ”'Jurors, look on the prisoner--prisoner, look on the jurors'! You know what I'm talking about. I heard the doctor telling you last night about John and Dora.
Listen. I've had my fun and the good things of life, but did _my fun_--you know what I mean--did _my fun_ come between me and--well--my duty to the kid's mother? And more than that--more than that--did my fun and yours, Liz, drive a young wife from a happy home with a hanging head, cause a fine boy and a helpless little girl to run from us as from smallpox into roasting flames--”
”Hush, hus.h.!.+” Lizzie gasped, and she rose to her feet, quivering and pallid.
”Oh, well, never mind, Liz!” Jane sighed wearily. ”You can't face that point any better than I can, but you hold a better hand than I do--for you see, Liz, you are still alive. Oh, but I don't know that I'd swap with you, for I'll soon know nothing about it, and I guess you'll tote it about with you awhile, anyway. I know I would if I lived, and that is why I tried the dope-route last night. Those thoughts have been in my mind some time. By the way, I want my pink on and the other things, and my hair fixed the same way. Don't forget. There won't be any preacher needed. I don't want any long-faced chap to whitewash my giddy record or to make an example of me. We are close to the graveyard, thank the powers that be, and I won't have to ride through town feet foremost. I wish the girls would stay away. I don't know why, but I do.”
Jane's eyelids were drooping, and, thinking that she might sleep, Lizzie crept from the room. It was a long, sleepless night for Mrs. Trott.
About every hour she would go to Jane, bend over her, and listen to her soft breathing. She was too inexperienced to know whether a decided change was taking place. She joyfully greeted the first gray streaks of daylight in the sky and began to watch for the coming of Mandy.
Presently the servant came, accompanied by her husband, a l.u.s.ty, middle-aged laborer, who simply tipped his hat and sat down on the sawhorse in the wood-yard.
”Jake say he 'low you may need er man about,” Mandy explained. ”How she comin' on?”
”Just the same, when I last saw her,” Lizzie said. ”Will you go in and see her?”
Mandy was in Jane's room several minutes. Then she came back, a serious and resigned look on her swarthy face.
”I was jes' in time,” she said, stoically. ”She opened 'er eyes, Mis'
Trott, en' look' straight at me, en' smiled en' laughed, low-like. 'I done hat my share er fun,' she say. En' wid dat she fetched er big breath en' died. I didn't tetch 'er--no, ma'am, I didn't lay han's on 'er. Jake tol' me not ter. Jake say his maw tol' 'im dat 'twon't do ter tetch de corpse of any but dem dat's 'ceptable ter old St. Peter. Jake say dat de evil sperit is still housed up in de corruption, en' dat it will go inter any livin' flesh dat give it er chance. But somebody got ter dress 'er, Mis' Trott. It is a 'ooman's place. Dar is a black mid-wife 'cross town dat does all sorts er odd jobs. Jake say he think she would come. She got witch en' hoodoo charms, en' say ol' Nick en'
all his imps cayn't faze 'er. Jake will go fer 'er ef you say so.”
”Very well, very well,” Lizzie consented. ”And have him see the undertaker, too, please.”
CHAPTER XLI
Martha Jane Eperson alighted from her brother's buggy before the gate at the Whaley farm-house. Mrs. Whaley came out and met her.
”I got your message,” the visitor said, ”and came in as quickly as I could. I had heard of John's death, and, as it is all over the country, I knew that Tilly had already heard it or had to be told.”
”Yes, she knows,” Mrs. Whaley sighed, resignedly. ”Her father came in and let it out awfully rough-like. I hold that against him, so I do. He showed her the paper that it was in and told her that, although the court had dissolved the marriage tie, G.o.d had made the separation doubly sure. Tilly sat sorter dead-like for a long time. That was yesterday evening about sundown. I tried to comfort her, but she shudders and screams when me or her pa comes near her. This morning the doctor came to see her. I sent for him. He said she had to have a change. He was mad at her pa, and they had sharp words at the gate. The doctor said she simply must not stay here with us for a while--that it would drive her out of her senses or kill her.”
”So you sent for me?” Martha Jane faltered.
”Yes, because you are the only one she talks about wanting to see. She loves you, and intimated that she would like to go out to your house for a few days. I am sure it will do her good, and I thought maybe you wouldn't mind--”
”Oh, I should love it above all things!” The girl grasped Mrs. Whaley's hands and wrung them eagerly. ”I have the buggy. I could take her right back with me.”
”Then you ought to do it while her pa is away,” Mrs. Whaley said, her beetling brows lowered. ”He is in the country to-day. If he was here he might raise a row, but he won't be apt to object when it is already done. I think she ought to go. I hate to say it, but this is no place for her right now. I'm afraid sometimes that her pa's got some trouble of the brain. 'Softening,' some call it. He is not like he was. He wakes up in the dead of night and comes stumbling over things to my bed to talk all this over, and he would go to Tilly's bed, too, if I'd let him.
He is even suspicious of me--says I dispute his Bible views behind his back, or when he is expounding them to somebody before me. But I don't.