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Jane Field: A Novel, a novel by Mary E Wilkins Freeman |
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Chapter 10 |
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_ Chapter X When Lois left home that afternoon her mother had been in her bedroom changing her dress. When she came out she had on her best black dress, her black shawl and gloves, and her best bonnet. The three women stared at her. She stood before them a second without speaking. The strange look, for which Lois had watched her face, had appeared. "Why, what is the matter, Mis' Field?" cried Mrs. Babcock. "Where be you going?" "I'm goin' out a little ways," replied Mrs. Field. Then she raised her voice suddenly. "I've got something to say to all of you before I go," said she. "I've been deceivin' you, and everybody here in Elliot. When I came down here, they all took me for my sister, Esther Maxwell, and I let them think so. They've all called me Esther Maxwell here. That's how I got the money. Old Mr. Maxwell left it to Flora Maxwell if my sister didn't outlive him. I shouldn't have had a cent. I stole it. I thought my daughter would die if we didn't have it an' get away from Green River; but that wa'n't any excuse. Edward Maxwell had that fifteen hundred dollars of my husband's, an' I never had a cent of it; but that wa'n't any excuse. I thought I'd jest stay here an' carry it out till I got the money back; but that wa'n't any excuse. I ain't spent a cent of the money; it's all put away just as it was paid in, in a sugar-bowl in the china closet; but that ain't any excuse. I took it on myself to do justice instead of the Lord, an' that ain't for any human bein' to do. I ain't Esther Maxwell. I'm brought up short. I ain't Esther Maxwell!" Her voice rose to a stern shriek. The three women stared at her, then at each other. Their faces were white. Amanda was catching her breath in faint gasps. Jane Field rushed out of the room. The door closed heavily after her. Three wild, pale faces huddled together in a window watched her out of the yard. Mrs. Babcock called weakly after her to come back, but she kept on. She went out of the yard and down the street. At the first house she stopped, went up to the door and rang the bell. When a woman answered her ring, she looked at her and said, "I ain't Esther Maxwell!" Then she turned and went down the walk between the rows of marigolds and asters, and the woman stood staring after her for a minute, then ran in, and the windows filled with wondering faces. Jane Field stopped at the next house with the same message. After she left a woman pelted across the yard in a panic to compare notes with her neighbors. She kept on down the street, and she stopped at every door and said, "I ain't Esther Maxwell." Now and then somebody tried to delay her to question her and obtain an explanation, but she broke away. There was about her a terrible mental impetus which intimidated. People stood instinctively out of her way, as before some rushing force which might overwhelm them. Daniel Tuxbury followed her out to the street; then he fell back. Mrs. Jane Maxwell caught hold of her dress, but she let go, and leaned trembling over her iron gate looking after the relentless black figure speeding to the next door. She went on and on, all the summer afternoon, and canvassed the little village with her remorse and confession of crime. Finally the four words which she said at the doors seemed almost involuntary. They became her one natural note, the expression of her whole life. It was as if she had never said any others. At last, going along the street, she repeated them to everybody she met. Some she had told before, but she did not know it. She said them to a little girl in a white frock, with her hair freshly curled, carrying a doll, and she ran away crying with fright. She said them to three barefooted boys loping along in the dust, with berry-pails, and they laughed and turned around and mocked her, calling the words after her. When she went up the path to the Maxwell house, she said them where the shadow of a pine-tree fell darkly in front of her like the shadow of a man. She said them when she stood before the door of the house whose hospitality she had usurped. There was a little crowd at her heels, but she did not notice them until she was entering the door. Then she said the words over to them: "I ain't Esther Maxwell." She entered the sitting-room, the people following. There were her three old friends and neighbors, the minister and his wife, Daniel Tuxbury, his sister and her daughter, Mrs. Jane Maxwell and her daughter, and her own Lois. She faced them all and said it again: "I ain't Esther Maxwell." The lawyer jerked himself forward; his face was twitching. "This woman's mind is affected," he declared with loud importance. "She is Esther Maxwell. I will swear to it in any court. I recognize her, and I never forget a face." "I ain't Esther Maxwell," said Jane Field, in her voice that was as remorseless and conclusive as fate. Lois pressed forward and clung to her. "Mother!" she moaned; "mother!" Then for once her mother varied her set speech. "Lois wa'n't to blame," she said; "I want you to know it, all of you. Lois wa'n't to blame. She didn't know until after I'd done it. She wanted to tell, but I told her they'd put me in prison. Lois wa'n't to blame. I ain't Esther Maxwell." "O mother, don't, don't!" Lois sobbed. She hung about her mother's neck, and pressed her lips to that pale wrinkled face, whose wrinkles seemed now to be laid in stone. Not a muscle of Jane Field's face changed. She kept repeating at intervals, in precisely the same tone, her terrible under-chord to all the excitement about her: "I ain't Esther Maxwell." Some of the women were crying. Amanda Pratt sat sewing fast, with her mouth set. She clung to her familiar needle as if it were a rope to save her from destruction. Francis Arms had come in, and stood close to Lois and her mother. Suddenly Jane Maxwell spoke. She was pale, and her head-dress was askew. "I call this pretty work," said she. Then Mrs. Babcock faced her. "I should call it pretty work for somebody else besides poor Mis' Field," she cried. "I'd like to know what business your folks had takin' her money an' keepin' it. She wa'n't goin' to take any more than belonged to her, an' she had a perfect right to, accordin' to my way of thinkin'." Mrs. Maxwell gasped. Flora laid her hand on her arm when she tried to speak again. "I'm goin' to tell her how I've been without a decent dress, an' how I've been luggin' my own things out of this house, an' now I've got to lug 'em all back again," she whispered defiantly. "Mother, you keep still," said Flora. Mrs. Green went across the room and put her arm around Lois, standing by her mother. "Let's you an' me get her in her bedroom, an' have her lay down on the bed, an' try an' quiet her," she whispered. "She's all unstrung. Mebbe she'll be better." Mrs. Field at once turned toward her. "I ain't Esther Maxwell," said she. "O Mis' Field! oh, poor woman! it ain't for us to judge you," returned Mrs. Green, in her tender, inexpressibly solemn voice. "Come, Lois." "Yes, that'll be a good plan," chimed in Mrs. Babcock. "She'd better go in her bedroom where it's quiet, or she'll wind up with a fever. There's too many folks here." "I wonder if some of my currant wine wouldn't be good for her?" said Mrs. Jane Maxwell, with an air of irrepressible virtue. "She don't want none of your currant wine," rejoined Mrs. Babcock fiercely. "She's suffered enough by your family." "I guess you needn't be so mighty smart," returned Mrs. Maxwell, jerking her arm away from Flora. "I dunno of anything she's suffered. I should think Flora an' me had been the ones to suffer, an' now we shan't never go to law, nor make any fuss about it. I ain't goin' to stay here an' be talked to so any longer if I know, especially by folks that ain't got any business meddlin' with it, anyway. I suppose this is my daughter's house, an' I've got a perfect right in it, but I'm a-goin'." Mrs. Jane Maxwell went out, her ribbons and silken draperies fluttering as if her own indignation were a wind, but Flora stayed. The women led Jane Field into her little bedroom, took off her bonnet and shawl and dress as if she were dead, and made her lie down. They bathed her head with camphor, they plied her with soothing arguments, but she kept on her one strain. She was singularly docile in all but that. Mrs. Green dropped on her knees beside the bed and prayed. When she said amen, Jane Field called out her confession as if in the ear of God. They sent for the doctor and he gave her a soothing draught, and she slept. The women watched with her, as ever and anon she stirred and murmured in her sleep, "I ain't Esther Maxwell." And she said it when she first awoke in the morning. "She's sayin' it now," whispered Mrs. Babcock to Mrs. Green, "and I believe she'll say it her whole life." And Jane Field did. The stern will of the New England woman had warped her whole nature into one groove. Gradually she seemed more like herself, and her mind was in other respects apparently clear, but never did she meet a stranger unless she said for greeting, "I ain't Esther Maxwell." And she said it to her own daughter on her wedding-day, when she came in her white dress from the minister's with Francis. The new joy in Lois's face affected her like the face of a stranger, and she turned on her and said, "I ain't Esther Maxwell." [THE END] _ |
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