Part 8 (1/2)
”What was the matter, do you know?”
”They called it paralysis. It was sudden.”
Amanda hesitated. ”I s'pose--you know anything about--his property?”
said she.
”Yes; he left it all to my sister.”
”Why, Mis' Field!”
”Yes; he left every cent of it to her.”
”Oh, ain't it dreadful she's dead?”
”It's all been dreadful right along,” said Mrs. Field.
”Of course,” said Amanda, ”I know she's better off than she'd be with all the money in the world; it ain't that; but it would do so much good to the livin'. Why, look here, Mis' Field, I dun'no' anything about law, but won't you have it if your sister's dead?”
”I'm goin' down there.”
”It seems as if you'd ought to have somethin' anyway, after all you've done, lettin' his son have your money an' everything.”
Amanda spoke with stern warmth. She had known about this grievance of her neighbor's for a long time.
”I'm goin' down there,” repeated Mrs. Field.
”I would,” said Amanda.
”I hate to leave Lois,” said Mrs. Field; ”but I don't see any other way.”
”I'll take her,” said Amanda, ”if you're willin' to trust her with me.”
”I've got to,” replied Mrs. Field.
”Well, I'll do the best I can,” replied Amanda.
She was considerably shaken. She felt her knees tremble. It was as if she were working a new tidy or rug pattern. Any variation of her peaceful monotony of existence jarred her whole nature like heavy wheels, and this was a startling one.
She wondered how Mrs. Field could bring herself to leave Lois. It seemed to her that she must have hopes of all the old man's property.
After Mrs. Field had gone home, and she, primly comfortable in her starched and ruffled dimities, lay on her high feather-bed between her smooth sheets, she settled it in her own mind that her neighbor would certainly have the property. She wondered if she and Lois would go to Elliot to live, and who would live in her tenement. The change was hard for her to contemplate, and she wept a little. Many a happiness comes to its object with outriders of sorrows to others.
Poor Amanda bemoaned herself over the changes that might come to her little home, and planned nervously her manner of living with Lois during the next week. Amanda had lived entirely alone for over twenty years; this admitting another to her own territory seemed as grave a matter to her as the admission of foreigners did to j.a.pan. Indeed, all her kind were in a certain way foreigners to Amanda; and she was shy of them, she had so withdrawn herself by her solitary life, for solitariness is the farthest country of them all.
Amanda did not sleep much, and it was very early in the morning--she was standing before the kitchen looking-gla.s.s, twisting the rosettes of her front hair--when Mrs. Field came in to say good-by. Mrs. Field was gaunt and erect in her straight black clothes. She had her black veil tied over her bonnet to protect it from dust, and the black frame around her strong-featured face gave her a rigid, relentless look, like a female Jesuit. Lois came faltering behind her mother.
She had a bewildered air, and she looked from her mother to Amanda with appealing significance, but she did not speak.
”Well, I've come to say good-by,” said Mrs. Field.
Amanda had one side of her front hair between her lips while she twisted the other; she took it out. ”Good-by, Mis' Field,” she said.