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The Portion of Labor, a novel by Mary E Wilkins Freeman |
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Chapter 32 |
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_ Chapter XXXII Amabel was a very nervous child, and she was in such terror from her really terrific experience that she threatened to go into convulsions. Andrew went over for his mother, whom he had always regarded as an incontestable authority about children. She, after one sharp splutter of wrath at the whole situation, went to work with the resolution of an old soldier. "Heat some water, quick," said she to Andrew, "and get me a wash-tub." Then she told Fanny to brew a mess of sage tea, and began stripping off Amabel's clothes. "Let me alone! Mamma, mamma, mamma!" shrieked the child. She fought and clawed like a little, wild animal, but the old woman, in whose arms great strength could still arise for emergencies, and in whose spirit great strength had never died, got the better of her. When Amabel's clothing was stripped off, and her little, spare body, which was brown rather than rosy, although she was a blonde, was revealed, she was as pitiful to see as a wound. Every nerve and pulse in that tiny frame, about which there was not an ounce of superfluous flesh, seemed visible. The terrible sensitiveness of the child appeared on the surface. She shrank, and wailed in a low, monotonous tone like a spent animal overtaken by pursuers. But Mrs. Zelotes put her in the tub of warm water, and held her down, though Amabel's face, emerging from it, had the expression of a wild thing. "There, you keep still!" said she, and her voice was tender enough, though the decision of it could have moved an army. When Amabel had had her hot bath, and had drunk her sage tea by compulsory gulps, and been tucked into Ellen's bed, her childhood reasserted itself. Gradually her body and her bodily needs gained the ascendancy over the unnatural strain of her mind. She fell asleep, and lay like one dead. Then Ellen crept down-stairs, though it was almost midnight, where her father and mother and grandmother were still talking over the matter. Fanny seemed almost as bad as her sister. It was evident that there was in the undisciplined Loud family a dangerous strain if too far pressed. She was lying down on the lounge, with Andrew holding her hand. "Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Poor Eva!" she kept repeating. Then she threw off Andrew's hand, sprang to her feet, and began to walk the room. "She'll be as bad as her sister if she keeps on," said Mrs. Zelotes, quite audibly, but Fanny paid no attention to that. "What is goin' to be done? Oh, my God, what is goin' to be done?" she wailed. "There she is locked up with two men watchin' her lest she do herself a harm, and it's got to cost eighteen dollars a week, unless she's put in with the State poor, and then nobody knows how she'll be treated. Oh, poor Eva, poor Eva! Albert Riggs told me there were awful things done with the State poor in the asylums. He's been an attendant in one. He says we've got to pay eighteen dollars a week if we want to have her cared for decently, and where's the money comin' from?" Fanny raised her voice higher still. "Where's the money comin' from?" she demanded, with an impious inflection. It was as if she questioned that which is outside of, and the source of, life. Everything with this woman, whose whole existence had been bound and tainted by the need of money, resolved itself into that fundamental question. All her woes hinged upon it; even her misery was deteriorated by mammon. "Where's the money comin' from?" she demanded again. "There's Jim gone, and all his mother's got is that little, mortgaged place, and she feeble, and there ain't a cent anywhere, unless--" She turned fiercely to Andrew, clutching him hard by the arm. "You must take every cent of that money out of the savings-bank," she cried, "every cent of it. I'm your wife, and I've been a good wife to you, you can't say I haven't." "Yes, of course you have, poor girl! Don't, don't!" said Andrew, soothingly. He was very pale, and shook from head to foot as he tried to calm Fanny. "Yes, I've been a good, faithful wife," Fanny went on, in her high, hysterical voice. "Even your mother can't say that I haven't; and Eva is my own sister, and you ought to help her. Every cent of that money will have to come out of the savings-bank, and the house here will have to be mortgaged; it's only my due. I would do as much for you if it was your sister. Eva ain't goin' to suffer." "I guess if you mortgage this house that you had from your father, to keep a woman whose husband has gone off and left her," said Mrs. Zelotes, "I guess if you don't go and get him back, and get the law to tackle him!" Then Fanny turned on her. "Don't you say a word," said she. "My sister ain't goin' to suffer, I don't care where the money comes from. It's mine as much as Andrew's. I've half supported the family myself sewin' on wrappers, and I've got a right to have my say. My sister ain't goin' to suffer! Oh, my God, what's goin' to become of her? Poor Eva, poor Eva! Eighteen dollars a week; that's as much as Andrew ever earned. Oh, it was awful, it was awful! There, when I got in there, she had a--knife, the--carving knife, and she had Amabel's hair all gathered up in one hand, and her head tipped back, and poor old mother Tenny was holding her arms, and screamin', and it was all I could do to get the knife away," and Fanny stripped up her sleeves, and showed a glancing cut on her arm. "She did that before I got it away from her," she said. "Think of it, my own sister! My own sister, who always thought so much of me, and would have had her own fingers cut to the bone before she would have let any one touch me or Ellen! Oh, poor Eva, poor Eva! What is goin' to become of her, what is goin' to become of her?" Mrs. Zelotes went out of the house with a jerk of angry decision, and presently returned with a bottle half full of whiskey. "Here," said she to Ellen, "you pour out a quarter of a tumbler of this, and fill it up with hot water. I ain't goin' to have the whole family in an asylum because Jim Tenny has run off with another woman, if I can help it!" The old woman's steady force of will asserted itself over the hysterical nature of her daughter-in-law. Fanny drank the whiskey and water and went to bed, half stupefied, and Mrs. Zelotes went home. "You ring the bell in the night if she's taken worse, and I'll come over," said she to her son. When Ellen and her father were left alone they looked at each other, each with pity for the other. Andrew laid a tender, trembling hand on the girl's shoulder. "Somehow it will all come out right," he whispered. "You go to bed and go to sleep, and if Amabel wakes up and makes any trouble you speak to father." "Don't worry about me, father," returned Ellen. "It's you who have the most to worry over." Then she added--for the canker of need of money was eating her soul, too--"Father, what is going to be done? You can't pay all that for poor Aunt Eva. How much money have you got in the bank?" "Not much, not much, Ellen," replied Andrew, with a groan. "It wouldn't last very long at eighteen dollars a week?" "No, no." "It doesn't seem as if you ought to mortgage the house when you and mother are getting older. Father--" "What, Ellen?" "Nothing," said Ellen, after a little pause. It had been on her lips to tell him that she must go to work, then she refrained. There was something in her father's face which forbade her doing so. "Go to bed, Ellen, and get rested," said Andrew. Then he rubbed his head against hers with his curious, dog-like method of caress, and kissed her forehead. "You go to sleep and get rested yourself, father," said Ellen. "I guess I won't undress to-night, but I'll lay on the lounge," said Andrew. "Well, you speak to me if mother wakes up and takes on again. Maybe I can do something." "All right, dear child," said Andrew, lovingly and wearily. He had a look as if some mighty wind had passed over him and he were beaten down under it, except for that one single uprearing of love which no tempest could fairly down. Ellen went up-stairs, and lay down beside poor little Amabel without undressing herself. The child stirred, but not to awake, when she settled down beside her, and reached over her poor little claw of a hand to the girl, who clasped it fervently, and slipped a protecting arm under the tiny shoulders. Then the little thing nestled close to Ellen, with a movement of desperate seeking for protection. "There, there, darling, Ellen will take care of you," whispered Ellen. But Amabel did not hear. _ |
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