Woon't some o'the neighbors come and offer to set up,without waitin'to be asked?""Oh,that's all right,mother.The men 'll attend to that.Don't you bother any,"Mela coaxed,and she kept her arm round her mother,with tender patience.
"Why,Mely,child!I can't feel right to have it left to hirelin's so.
But there ain't anybody any more to see things done as they ought.If Coonrod was on'y here--""Well,mother,you are pretty mixed!"said Mela,with a strong tendency to break into her large guffaw.But she checked herself and said:
"I know just how you feel,though.It keeps acomun'and agoun';and it's so and it ain't so,all at once;that's the plague of it.Well,father!
Ain't you goun'to come?"
"I'm goin'to stay,Mela,"said the old man,gently,without moving.
"Get your mother to bed,that's a good girl.""You goin'to set up with him,Jacob?"asked the old woman.
"Yes,'Liz'beth,I'll set up.You go to bed.""Well,I will,Jacob.And I believe it 'll do you good to set up.
I wished I could set up with you;but I don't seem to have the stren'th I did when the twins died.I must git my sleep,so's to--I don't like very well to have you broke of your rest,Jacob,but there don't appear to be anybody else.You wouldn't have to do it if Coonrod was here.
There I go ag'in!Mercy!mercy!"
"Well,do come along,then,mother,"said Mela;and she got her out of the room,with Mrs.Mandel's help,and up the stairs.
From the top the old woman called down,"You tell Coonrod--"She stopped,and he heard her groan out,"My Lord!my Lord!"He sat,one silence in the dining-room,where they had all lingered together,and in the library beyond the hireling watcher sat,another silence.The time passed,but neither moved,and the last noise in the house ceased,so that they heard each other breathe,and the vague,remote rumor of the city invaded the inner stillness.It grew louder toward morning,and then Dryfoos knew from the watcher's deeper breathing that he had fallen into a doze.
He crept by him to the drawing-room,where his son was;the place was full of the awful sweetness of the flowers that Fulkerson had brought,and that lay above the pulseless breast.The old man turned up a burner in the chandelier,and stood looking on the majestic serenity of the dead face.
He could not move when he saw his wife coming down the stairway in the hall.She was in her long,white flannel bed gown,and the candle she carried shook with her nervous tremor.He thought she might be walking in her sleep,but she said,quite simply,"I woke up,and I couldn't git to sleep ag'in without comin'to have a look."She stood beside their dead son with him."well,he's beautiful,Jacob.He was the prettiest baby!And he was always good,Coonrod was;I'll say that for him.
I don't believe he ever give me a minute's care in his whole life.
I reckon I liked him about the best of all the children;but I don't know as I ever done much to show it.But you was always good to him,Jacob;you always done the best for him,ever since he was a little feller.
I used to be afraid you'd spoil him sometimes in them days;but I guess you're glad now for every time you didn't cross him.I don't suppose since the twins died you ever hit him a lick."She stooped and peered closer at the face."Why,Jacob,what's that there by his pore eye Dryfoos saw it,too,the wound that he had feared to look for,and that now seemed to redden on his eight.He broke into a low,wavering cry,like a child's in despair,like an animal's in terror,like a soul's in the anguish of remorse.
VII.
The evening after the funeral,while the Marches sat together talking it over,and making approaches,through its shadow,to the question of their own future,which it involved,they were startled by the twitter of the electric bell at their apartment door.It was really not so late as the children's having gone to bed made it seem;but at nine o'clock it was too late for any probable visitor except Fulkerson.It might be he,and March was glad to postpone the impending question to his curiosity concerning the immediate business Fulkerson might have with him.He went himself to the door,and confronted there a lady deeply veiled in black and attended by a very decorous serving-woman.
"Are you alone,Mr.March--you and Mrs.March ?"asked the lady,behind her veil;and,as he hesitated,she said:"You don't know me!Miss Vance";and she threw back her veil,showing her face wan and agitated in the dark folds."I am very anxious to see you--to speak with you both.
May I come in?"
"Why,certainly,Miss Vance,"he answered,still too much stupefied by her presence to realize it.
She promptly entered,and saying,with a glance at the hall chair by the door,"My maid can sit here?"followed him to the room where he had left his wife.
Mrs.March showed herself more capable of coping with the fact.She welcomed Miss Vance with the liking they both felt for the girl,and with the sympathy which her troubled face inspired.
"I won't tire you with excuses for coming,Mrs.March,"she said,"for it was the only thing left for me to do;and I come at my aunt's suggestion."She added this as if it would help to account for her more on the conventional plane,and she had the instinctive good taste to address herself throughout to Mrs.March as much as possible,though what she had to say was mainly for March."I don't know how to begin--I don't know how to speak of this terrible affair.But you know what I mean.
