"Pleasant, isn't
it? I am so glad, Sarah," her eyes dimming a little.
"She's a very dear
sister to me."
She stepped in again to raise a stem of the lilies that had fallen from
the vase and lay like wax upon the table, then she shut the door and
came away.
That door was shut just so for years; the lonely bars of sunlight
flecked the solitude of the room, and the lilies faded on the table. We
children passed it with hushed footfall, and shrank from it at twilight,
as from a room that held the dead. But into it we never went.
Mother was tired out that afternoon; for she had been on her feet all
day, busied in her loving cares to make our simple home as pleasant and
as welcome as home could be. But yet she stopped to dress us in our
Sunday clothes,--and it was no sinecure to dress three persistently
undressable children; Winthrop was a host in himself.
"Auntie must see
us look our prettiest," she said.
She was a sight for an artist when she came down. She had taken off her
widow's cap and coiled her heavy hair low in her neck, and she always
looked like a queen in that lustreless black silk. I do not know why
these little things should have made such an impression on me then.
They are priceless to me now. I remember how she looked, framed there in
the doorway, while we were watching for the coach,--the late light
ebbing in golden tides over the grass at her feet, and touching her face
now and then through the branches of trees, her head bent a little, with
eager, parted lips, and the girlish color on her cheeks, her hand
shading her eyes as they strained for a sight of the lumbering coach.
She must have been a magnificent woman when she was young,--not unlike,
I have heard it said, to that far-off ancestress whose name she bore,
and whose sorrowful story has made her sorrowful beauty immortal.
Somewhere abroad there is a reclining statue of Queen Mary, to which,
when my mother stood beside it, her resemblance was so strong that the
by-standers clustered about her, whispering curiously.
"Ah, mon Dieu!"
said a little Frenchman aloud, "c'est une résurrection."
We must have tried her that afternoon, Clara and Winthrop and I; for the
spirit of her own excitement had made us completely wild. Winthrop's
scream of delight, when, stationed on the gate-post, he caught the first
sight of the old yellow coach, might have been heard a quarter of a
mile.
"Coming?" said mother, nervously, and stepped out to the gate, full in
the sunlight that crowned her like royal gold.
The coach lumbered on, and rattled up, and passed.
"Why, she hasn't come!" All the eager color died out of her face. "I am
so disappointed!"--speaking like a troubled child, and turning slowly
into the house.
Then, after a while, she drew me aside from the others,-
-I was the
oldest, and she was used to make a sort of confidence between us,
instinctively, as it seemed, and often quite forgetting how very few my
years were. "Sarah, I don't understand. You think she might have lost
the train? But Alice is so punctual. Alice never lost a train. And she
said she would come." And then, a while after, "I _don't_ understand."
It was not like my mother to worry. The next day the coach lumbered up
and rattled past, and did not stop,--and the next, and the next.
"We shall have a letter," mother said, her eyes saddening every
afternoon. But we had no letter. And another day went by, and another.
"She is sick," we said; and mother wrote to her, and watched for the
lumbering coach, and grew silent day by day. But to the letter there was
no answer.
Ten days passed. Mother came to me one afternoon to ask for her pen,
which I had borrowed. Something in her face troubled me vaguely.
"What are you going to do, mother?"
"Write to your aunt's boarding-place. I can't bear this any longer." She
spoke sharply. She had already grown unlike herself.
She wrote, and asked for an answer by return of mail.
It was on a Wednesday, I remember, that we looked for it. I came home
early from school. Mother was sewing at the parlor window, her eyes
wandering from her work, up the road. It was an ugly day. It had rained
drearily from eight o'clock till two, and closed in suffocating mist,
creeping and dense and chill. It gave me a childish fancy of long-closed
tombs and low-land graveyards, as I walked home in it.
I tried to keep the younger children quiet when we went in, mother was
so nervous. As the early, uncanny twilight fell, we grouped around her
timidly. A dull sense of awe and mystery clung to the night, and clung
to her watching face, and clung even then to that closed room upstairs
where the lilies were fading.
Mother sat leaning her head upon her hand, the outline of her face dim
in the dusk against the falling curtain. She was sitting so when we
heard the first rumble of the distant coach-wheels. At the sound, she
folded her hands in her lap and stirred a little, rose slowly from her
chair, and sat down again.
"Sarah."
I crept up to her. At the near sight of her face, I was so frightened I
could have cried.
"Sarah, you may go out and get the letter. I--I can't."
I went slowly out at the door and down the walk. At the gate I looked
back. The outline of her face was there against the window-pane, white
in the gathering gloom.
It seems to me that my older and less sensitive years have never known
such a night. The world was stifling in a deluge of gray, cold mists,
unstirred by a breath of air. A robin with feathers all ruffled, and
head hidden, sat on the gate-post, and chirped a little mournful chirp,
like a creature dying in a vacuum. The very daisy that nodded and
drooped in the grass at my feet seemed to be gasping for breath. The
neighbor's house, not forty paces across the street, was invisible. I
remember the sensation it gave me, as I struggled to find its outlines,
of a world washed out, like the figures I washed out on my slate. As I
trudged, half frightened, into the road, and the fog closed about me, it
seemed to my childish superstition like a horde of long-imprisoned
ghosts let loose, and angry. The distant sound of the coach, which I
could not see, added to the fancy.
The coach turned the corner presently. On a clear day I could see the
brass buttons on the driver's coat at that distance.
There was nothing
visible now of the whole dark structure but the two lamps in front, like
the eyes of some evil thing, glaring and defiant, borne with swift
motion down upon me by a power utterly unseen,--it had a curious effect.
Even at this time, I confess I do not like to see a lighted carriage
driven through a fog.
I summoned all my little courage, and piped out the driver's name,
standing there in the road.
He reined up his horses with a shout,--he had nearly driven over me.
After some searching, he discovered the small object cowering down in
the mist, handed me a letter, with a muttered oath at being intercepted
on such a night, and lumbered on and out of sight in three rods.
I went slowly into the house. Mother had lighted a lamp, and stood at
the parlor door. She did not come into the hall to meet me.
She took the letter and went to the light, holding it with the seal
unbroken. She might have stood so two minutes.
"Why don't you read, mamma?" spoke up Winthrop. I hushed him.
She opened it then, read it, laid it down upon the table, and went out
of the room without a word. I had not seen her face. We heard her go
upstairs and shut the door.
She had left the letter open there before us. After a little awed
silence, Clara broke out into sobs. I went up and read the few and
simple lines.
_Aunt Alice had left for Creston on the appointed day_.
Mother spent that night in the closed room where the lilies had drooped
and died. Clara and I heard her pacing the floor till we cried ourselves
to sleep. When we woke in the morning, she was pacing it still.
Weeks wore into months, and the months became many years. More than
that we never knew. Some inquiry revealed the fact, after a while, that
a slight accident had occurred, upon the Erie Railroad, to the train
which she should have taken. There was some disabling, but no deaths,
the conductor had supposed. The car had fallen into the water. She might
not have been missed when the half-drowned passengers were all drawn
out.
So mother added a little crape to her widow's weeds, the key of the
closed room lay henceforth in her drawer, and all things went on as
before. To her children my mother was never gloomy,--it was not her way.
No shadow of household affliction was placed like a skeleton confronting
our uncomprehending joy. Of what those weeks and months and years were
to her--a widow, and quite uncomforted in their dark places by any human
love--she gave no sign. We thought her a shade paler, perhaps. We found
her often alone with her little Bible. Sometimes, on the Sabbath, we
missed her, and knew that she had gone into that closed room. But she
was just as tender with us in our little faults and sorrows, as merry
with us in our plays, as eager in our gayest plans, as she had always
been. As she had always been,--our mother.
And so the years slipped from her and from us. Winthrop went into
business in Boston; he never took to his books, and mother was too wise
to _push_ him through college; but I think she was disappointed. He was
her only boy, and she would have chosen for him the profession of his
father and grandfather. Clara and I graduated in our white dresses and
blue ribbons, like other girls, and came home to mother, crochet-work,
and Tennyson. Just about here is the proper place to begin my story.
I mean that about here our old and long-tried cook, Bathsheba, who had
been an heirloom in the family, suddenly fell in love with the older
sexton, who had rung the passing-bell for every soul who died in the
village for forty years, and took it into her head to marry him, and
desert our kitchen for his little brown house under the hill.
So it came about that we hunted the township for a handmaiden; and it
also came about that our inquiring steps led us to the poor-house. A
stout, not over-brilliant-looking girl, about twelve years of age, was
to be had for her board and clothes, and such schooling as we could give
her,--in country fashion to be "bound out" till she should be eighteen.
The economy of the arrangement decided in her favor; for, in spite of
our grand descent and grander notions, we were poor enough, after father
died, and the education of three children had made no small gap in our
little principal, and she came.
Her name was a singular one,--Selphar. It always savored too nearly of
brimstone to please me. I used to call her Sel, "for short." She was a
good, sensible, uninteresting-looking girl, with broad face, large
features, and limp, tow-colored curls. They used to hang straight down
about her eyes, and were never otherwise than perfectly smooth. She
proved to be of good temper, which is worth quite as much as brains in a
servant, as honest as the daylight, dull enough at her books, but a
good, plodding worker, if you marked out every step of the way for her
beforehand. I do not think she would ever have discovered the laws of
gravitation; but she might have jumped off a precipice to prove them, if
she had been bidden.
Until she was seventeen, she was precisely like any other rather stupid
girl; never given to novel-reading or fancies; never, frightened by the
dark or ghost-stories; proving herself warmly attached to us, after a
while, and rousing in us, in return, the kindly interest naturally felt
for a faithful servant; but she was not in any respect _un_common,
--quite far from it,--except in the circumstance that she never told a
false-hood.
At seventeen she had a violent attack of diphtheria, and her life hung
by a thread. Mother was as tender and unwearying in her care of her as
the girl's own mother might have been.
From that time, I believe, Sel was immovable in her faith in her
mistress's divinity. Under such nursing as she had, she slowly
recovered, but her old, stolid strength never came back to her. Severe
headaches became of frequent occurrence. Her stout, muscular arms grew
weak. As weeks went on, it became evident in many ways that, though the
diphtheria itself was quite out of her system, it had left her
thoroughly diseased. Strange fits of silence came over her; her
volubility had been the greatest objection we had to her hitherto. Her
face began to wear a troubled look. She was often found in places where
she had stolen away to be alone.
One morning she slept late in her little garret-chamber, and we did not
call her. The girl had gone upstairs the night before crying with the
pain in her temples, and mother, who was always thoughtful of her
servants, said it was a pity to wake her, and, as there were only three
of us, we might get our own breakfast for once. While we were at work
together in the kitchen, Clara heard her kitten mewing out in the snow,
and went to the door to let her in. The creature, possessed by some
sudden frolic, darted away behind the well-curb. Clara was always a bit
of a romp, and, with never a thought of her daintily slippered feet, she
flung her trailing dress over one arm and was off over the three-inch
snow. The cat led her a brisk chase, and she came in flushed and
panting, and pretty, her little feet drenched, and the tip of a Maltese
tail just visible above a great bundle she had made of her apron.
"Why!" said mother, "you have lost your ear-ring."
Clara dropped the kitten with unceremonious haste on the floor, felt of
her little pink ear, shook her apron, and the corners of her mouth went
down into her dimpled chin.
"They're the ones Winthrop sent, of all things in the world!"
"You'd better put on your rubbers, and have a hunt out-doors," said
mother.
We hunted out-doors,--on the steps, on the well-boards, in the
wood-shed, in the snow; Clara looked down the well till her nose and
fingers were blue, but the ear-ring was not to be found.
We hunted
in-doors, under the stove and the chairs and the table, in every
possible and impossible nook, cranny, and crevice, but gave up the
search in despair. It was a pretty trinket,--a leaf of delicately
wrought gold, with a pearl dew-drop on it,--very becoming to Clara, and
the first present Winthrop had sent her from his earnings. If she had
been a little younger she would have cried. She came very near it as it
was, I suspect, for when she went after the plates she stayed in the
cupboard long enough to set two tables.
When we were half through breakfast, Selphar came down, blushing, and
frightened half out of her wits, her apologies tumbling over each other
with such skill as to render each one unintelligible, and evidently
undecided in her own mind whether she was to be hung or burnt at the
stake.
"It's no matter at all," said mother, kindly; "I knew you felt sick last
night. I should have called you if I had needed you."
Having set the girl at her ease, as only she could do, she went on with
her breakfast, and we forgot all about her. She stayed, however, in the
room to wait on the table. It was afterwards remembered that she had not
been out of our sight since she came down the garret-stairs. Also, that
her room looked out upon the opposite side of the house from that on
which the well-curb stood.
"Why, look at Sel!" said Clara, suddenly, "she has her eyes shut."
The girl was just passing the toast. Mother spoke to her. "Selphar, what
is the matter?"
"I don't know."
"Why don't you open your eyes?"
"I can't."
"Hand the salt to Miss Sarah."
She took it up and brought it round the table to me, with perfect
precision.
"Sel, how you act!" said Clara, petulantly. "Of course you saw."
"Yes'm, I saw," said the girl in a puzzled way, "but my eyes are shut,
Miss Clara."
"Tight?"
"Tight."
Whatever this freak meant, we thought best to take no notice of it. My
mother told her, somewhat gravely, that she might sit down until she was
wanted, and we returned to our conversation about the ear-ring.
"Why!" said Sel, with a little jump, "I see your ear-ring. Miss
Clara,--the one with a white drop on the leaf. It's out by the well."
The girl was sitting with her back to the window, her eyes, to all
appearance, tightly closed.
"It's on the right-hand side, under the snow, between the well and the
wood-pile. Why, don't you see?"
Clara began to look frightened, mother displeased.
"Selphar," she said, "this is nonsense. It is impossible for you to see
through the walls of two rooms and a wood-shed."
"May I go and get it?" said the girl, quietly.
"Sel," said Clara, "on your word and honor, are your eyes shut
_perfectly_ tight?"
"If they ain't, Miss Clara, then they never was."
Sel never told a lie. We looked at each other, and let her go. I
followed her out and kept my eyes on her closed lids.
She did not once
raise them; nor did they tremble, as lids will tremble, if only
partially closed.
She walked without the slightest hesitation directly to the well-curb,
to the spot which she had mentioned, stooped down, and brushed away the
three-inch fall of snow. The ear-ring lay there, where it had sunk in
falling. She picked it up, carried it in, and gave it to Clara.
That Clara had the thing on when she started after her kitten, there
could be no doubt. She and I both remembered it. That Sel, asleep on
the opposite side of the house, could not have seen it drop, was also
settled. That she, with her eyes closed and her back to the window, had
seen through three walls and through three inches of snow, at a distance
of fifty feet, was an inference.
"I don't believe it!" said my mother, "it's some nonsensical mistake."
Clara looked a little pale, and I laughed.
We watched her carefully through the day. Her eyes remained tightly
closed. She understood all that was said to her, answered correctly, but
did, not seem inclined to talk. She went about her work as usual, and
performed it without a mistake. It could not be seen that she groped at
all with her hands to feel her way, as is the case with the blind. On
the contrary, she touched everything with her usual decision. It was
impossible to believe, without seeing them, that her eyes were closed.
We tied a handkerchief tightly over them; see through it or below it she
could not, if she had tried. We then sent her into the parlor, with
orders to bring from the book-case two Bibles which had been given as
prizes to Clara and me at school, when we were children.
The books were
of precisely the same size, color, and texture. Our names in gilt
letters were printed upon the binding. We followed her in, and watched
her narrowly. She went directly to the book-case, laid her hands upon
the books at once, and brought them to my mother. Mother changed them
from hand to hand several times, and turned them with the gilt lettering
downwards upon her lap.
"Now, Selphar, which is Miss Sarah's?"
The girl quietly took mine up. The experiment was repeated and varied
again and again. In every case the result was the same.
She made no
mistake. It was no guess-work. All this was done with the bandage
tightly drawn about her eyes. _She did not see those letters with them_.
That evening we were sitting quietly in the dining-room.
Selphar sat a
little apart with her sewing, her eyes still closed. We kept her with
us, and kept her in sight. The parlor, which was a long room, was
between us and the front of the house. The distance was so great that we
had often thought, if prowlers were to come around at night, how
impossible it would be to hear them. The curtains and shutters were
closely drawn. Sel was sitting by the fire. Suddenly she turned pale,
dropped her sewing, and sprang from her chair.
"Robbers, robbers!" she cried. "Don't you see? they're getting in the
east parlor window! There's three of 'em, and a lantern.
They've just
opened the window,--hurry, hurry!"
"I believe the girl is insane," said mother, decidedly.
Nevertheless,
she put out the light, opened the parlor door noiselessly, and went in.
The east window was open. There was a quick vision of three men and a
dark lantern. Then Clara screamed, and it disappeared.
We went to the
window, and saw the men running down the street. The snow the next
morning was found trodden down under the window, and their footprints
were traced out to the road.
When we went back to the other room, Selphar was standing in the middle
of it, a puzzled, frightened look on her face, her eyes wide open.
"Selphar," said my mother, a little suspiciously, "how did you know the
robbers were there?"
"Robbers!" said the girl, aghast.
She knew nothing of the robbers. She knew nothing of the ear-ring. She
remembered nothing that had happened since she went up the garret-stairs
to bed, the night before. And, as I said, the girl was as honest as the
sunlight. When we told her what had happened, she burst into terrified
tears.
For some time after this there was no return of the
"tantrums," as
Selphar had called the condition, whatever it was. I began to get up
vague theories of a trance state. But mother said,
"Nonsense!" and Clara
was too much frightened to reason at all about the matter.
One Sunday morning Sel complained of a headache. There was service that
evening, and we all went to church. Mother let Sel take the empty seat
in the carryall beside her.