Woolson Constance Fenimore
East Angels: A Novel

Here the door at the other end of the large room opened, and Dr. Kirby came in; he had returned as soon as possible, putting off all other engagements. "You look better," he said to his patient, with his hand on her pulse. "Come, this is doing well."

"I am better," murmured Mrs. Thorne, looking gratefully at Margaret. Mrs. Carew soon followed the Doctor; Margaret went down to the garden to find Garda, the girl who was to become so unexpectedly her charge. For she shared the mother's feeling; the illness might advance slowly, but it would conquer in the end.

Garda was in the garden, lying at full length under the great rose-tree, on a shawl which she had spread upon the ground; her hands were clasped under her head, and she was gazing up into the sky. Carlos, standing near, with his neck acutely arched, his breast puffed out and his beak thrust in among the feathers, looked like a gentleman of the old school in a ruffled shirt, with his hand in the breast of his coat.

"Does mamma want me?" asked Garda, as Margaret came up.

"Dr. Kirby and Mrs. Carew are there. No, I do not think she wants you at present."

"Come down on the shawl, then, and look up into the sky," pursued Garda. "I've never tried it before – looking straight up in this way – and I assure you I can see miles!"

"I'm not such a sun-worshipper as you are," answered Margaret, taking a seat on the bench in the shade.

"The sun's almost down. No, it isn't the sun, it's because you never in the world could stretch yourself out full length on the ground, as I'm doing now. The ground's nice and warm, and I love to lie on it; but you – you have always sat in chairs, you have been drilled."

"Yes, I have been drilled," answered Margaret, sombrely, looking at the graceful figure on the shawl.

Garda did not notice the sombre tone, her attention was up in the sky. After a while she said, "Mr. Winthrop hasn't been here to-day; I wonder why?"

"He won't be able to come so often while I am here, he will have to see to Aunt Katrina."

"Mist' Wintarp desiahs to know whedder you's tome, Miss Gyarda," said the voice of old Pablo. "I tole him I farnsied you was in de gyarden." Pablo recognized Garda as a Duero; he treated her therefore with respect, and benignant affection.

Winthrop now appeared at the garden gate, and Margaret rose.

"Perhaps I had better go in, too?" said Garda.

"No, stay as long as you like; I will send word, if your mother asks for you," Margaret responded.

She left the garden by another way. When she had gone some distance, she looked back. Garda had changed her position; she was still looking at the sky, though she was no longer lying at length; she had curled herself up, and was leaning against a dwarf tree. Winthrop was in Margaret's place on the bench, and Garda had evidently spoken to him of the sky, for he, too, was looking up.

But he did not look long; while Margaret stood there, his eyes dropped to the figure at his feet. This was not surprising. There was nothing in the sky that could approach it.

CHAPTER XIII

Mrs. Thorne improved. She was still very weak, confined to her bed, and the cough continued at intervals to rack her wasted frame. But there was now no fever; she slept through the nights; she had always been so delicate in appearance that she did not seem much more fragile now. These at least were the assertions of her Gracias friends; her Gracias friends were determined to believe that time and good nursing would restore her. The nursing they attended to themselves, and with devoted care, one succeeding the other day after day. Mrs. Thorne appreciated their good offices; but she no longer concealed her preference for the companionship, whenever it was to be obtained, of Margaret Harold.

"I have pretended so long!" she said to Margaret, when they were alone together. "I am so tired of pretending! and with you I can be myself. It isn't really necessary now to be any one else – now that I shall so soon have to go; but I have got into such a habit of it with the others that I shouldn't know how to stop. With you I can talk freely, and you are the only one."

"So long as it doesn't tire you," Margaret answered.

"It tires me a great deal more to be silent," responded Mrs. Thorne.

Often, therefore, when Margaret came down to East Angels, Mrs. Thorne would send Garda into the open air to stroll about, or rest under the rose-tree, and then, while Madam Ruiz, or Mrs. Carew, or whoever happened to be in attendance, was sleeping to make up for the broken rest of the coming night, she would talk to her northern friend, talk with an openness which was in itself a sign that the many cautions of a peculiarly cautious life were drawing to a close. One reason for this freedom was that in spite of the apparent improvement, there were no illusions between these two regarding the hoped-for recovery. "We are northerners, Margaret, and we know," Mrs. Thorne had said one day, when Margaret had raised her so that she could cough with less difficulty. "Consumption —our kind – these southerners cannot grasp!" She did not wish to die, poor woman; she clung to life with desperation; nevertheless, she found a momentary satisfaction in a community of feeling with Margaret over this southern lack.

"Oh, these southern lacks – how Garda would have been part of them!" she went on. "If I had had to leave her here, if you had not promised to take her, how inevitably she would have been sunk in them, lost in them! she would never have got out. Oh! I so hate and loathe it all – the idle, unrealizing, contented life of this tiresome, idle coast. They amounted to something once, perhaps; but their day is over, and will never come back. They don't know it; you couldn't make them believe it even if you should try. That is what makes you rage – they're so completely mistaken and so completely satisfied! Every idea they have is directly contrary to all the principles of the government under which they exist But what is that to them? They think themselves superior to the government. I'm not exaggerating, it's really true; I can speak from experience after my life with that" – she paused, then chose her word clearly – "with that devilish Old Madam!"

It seemed to Margaret as if this poor exile were imbibing a few last draughts of vitality from the satisfaction which even this late expression of her real belief gave her; she had been silent so long!

Her Thorne and Duero envelope was dropping from her more and more. "Oh yes, I have stood up for them," she said, another time. "Oh yes, I have boasted of them, I knew how! I knew how better than any of them; I made a study of it. The first Spaniards were blue-blooded knights and gentlemen, of course; they never worked with their hands. But the Puritans were blacksmiths and ploughmen and wood-choppers – anything and everything; I knew how to bring this all out – make a picture of it. 'Think what their hands must have been!' I used to say" (and here her weak voice took on for a moment its old crispness of enunciation) – "'what great coarse red things, with stiff, stubby fingers, gashed by the axe, hardened by digging, roughened and cracked by the cold. Estimable men they were, no doubt; heroic – as much as you like. But gentlemen they were not.' I have said it hundreds of times. For those idle, tiresome, wicked old Dueros, Margaret (the English Thornes too, for that matter), were Garda's ancestors, and the right to talk about them was the only thing the poor child had inherited; naturally I made the most of it. They were the feature of this neighborhood, of course – those Spaniards, I knew that; I had imagination enough to appreciate it far more, I think, than the very people who were born here. I made everything of it, this feature; I learned the history and all the beliefs and ideas. I always hoped to get hold of some northerners to whom I could tell it, tell it in such a way that it would be of use to us, make a background for Garda some time. That's all ended; I have never had the proper chance, and now of course never shall. But at least I can tell you, Margaret, now that it is all over, that in my heart I have always hated the whole thing – that in my heart I have always ranked the lowest Puritan far, far above the very finest Spaniard they could muster. They didn't work with their hands, these knights and gentlemen; and why? Because they caught the poor Indians and made them work for them; because they imported Human Flesh, they dealt in negro slaves!" It was startling to see the faded blue eyes send forth such a flash, a flash of the old abolitionist fire, which for a moment made them young and brilliant again.

Margaret tried to soothe her. "It is nothing," said Mrs. Thorne, smiling faintly and relapsing into quiet.

But the next day Melissa Whiting blazed forth anew. "I detest every vestige of those old ideas of theirs; I hate the pride and shiftlessness of all this land. I am attached to our friends here, of course; they have always been kind to me. But – it is written! They will go down, down, they and all who are like unto them; already they belong to the Past. Their country here will be opened up, improved; but not by them. It will be made modern, made rich under their very eyes; but not by them. It will be filled with new people, new life; but they will get no benefit from it, their faces will always be turned the other way. They will dwindle in numbers, but they will not change; generations must pass before the old leaven will be worn out. Could I leave Garda to that? Could I die, knowing that she would live over there on Patricio, on that forlorn Ruiz plantation, or down the river in that tumble-down house of the Girons – that Manuel with his insufferable airs, or that wooden Torres with his ridiculous pride, would be all she should ever know of life and happiness – my beautiful, beautiful child? I could not, Margaret; I could not." Her eyes were wet.

"But she is not to be left to them," said Margaret.

"No; you have saved me from that," responded the mother, gratefully. She put out her hand and took Margaret's for a moment; then relinquished it. The brief clasp would have seemed cold to their southern friends; but it expressed all that was necessary between these two northerners.

Another day the sick woman resumed her retrospect, she spoke of her early life. "I was a poor school-teacher, you know; I had no near relatives, no home, I was considered to have made a wonderful match when I married as I did. Everybody was astonished at my good luck – perfectly astonished; they couldn't comprehend how it had happened. When they knew, in New Bristol, that I was to marry Mr. Edgar Thorne, of Florida; that I was to be taken down to an old Spanish plantation which had been in his family for generations; that I was to live there in luxury, and 'a tropical climate' – they all came to see me again, to look at me; they seemed to think that I must have changed in some way, that I couldn't be the same Melissa Whiting who had taught their district school. At New Bristol the snow in the winter is four feet deep. At New Bristol everybody is busy, and everybody is poor. But I was to live among palm-trees in a place called Gracias-á-Dios; I was to go down by sea; roses bloomed there at Christmas-time, and oranges were to be had for the asking. Gracias-á-Dios is very far from New Bristol, Margaret," said Melissa Whiting, pausing. "It's all the distance between a real place and an ideal one. I know how far that is!"

She was silent for some minutes; then she went on. "My elevation – for it seemed that at New Bristol – was like a fairy story; I presume they are telling it still. But if I hadn't you behind me, Margaret, I would put Garda back there in all the snow, I would put her back in my old red school-house on the hill (only she wouldn't know how to teach, poor child!) – I would do it in a moment, I say, if I had the power, rather than leave her here among the 'roses,' the 'oranges,' and the 'palms.'" (Impossible to give the accent with which she pronounced these words.) "I don't say my husband wasn't kind to me; he was very kind; but – the Old Madam was here! He only lived a short time; and then, more than ever, the Old Madam was here! Well, I did the best I could – you must give me that credit: there was Garda to think of, and I had no other home. It's so unfortunate to be poor, Margaret – have you ever thought of it? – unfortunate, I mean, for the disposition. So many people could be as amiable and agreeable and yielding as any one, if they only had a little more money – just a little more! I could have been, I know. But how could I be yielding when I had everything on my hands? Oh! you have no idea how I have worked! We had no income to live upon, Garda and I, there hasn't been any for a long time; we have had the house and furniture, the land, Pablo and Raquel, – that's all. We have lived on the things that we had, the things that came off the place, with what Pablo has been able to shoot, and the fish and oysters from the creeks and lagoon. The few supplies which one is obliged to buy, such as tea and coffee, I have got by selling our oranges; I have taken enormous pains with the oranges on that account. The same way with Garda's shoes and gloves; I couldn't make shoes and gloves, though I confess I did try. Then, if any one broke a pane of glass, that took money; and there were a few other little things. But, with these exceptions, I have tried to do everything myself, and manage without spending. I have kept all the furniture in repair; I have painted and varnished and cleaned with my own hands; I learned to mend the crockery and even the tins. I have made almost everything that Garda and I have worn, of course; I braid the palmetto hats we both wear; I have dyed and patched and turned and darned – oh! you haven't a conception! Some of the table-cloths are nothing but darns. I could put in myself the new panes of glass, after they were once bought. And, every month or two, I have had to mend the roof, to keep it from leaking; generally I did that at sunrise, but I have done it, too, on moonlight nights, late, when no one was likely to come. Then, every single day, I have had to begin all over again with Pablo and Raquel. Three times every week I have had to go out myself and stand over Pablo to see that he did as I wished about the orange-trees. Always the very same things; but we have been at it in this way for years! Every day of my life I have had to go out and see with my own eyes whether Raquel had wiped off the shelves; three hundred and sixty-five times each year, for seventeen years, she has pretended to forget it."

She lay silent, as if reviewing it all. "Perhaps I have been over-thorough," she resumed. "But somehow I couldn't help it, thoroughness has always been my mania. It has taken me to great lengths – I see it now; it has made burdens where there needn't have been any. Still, I couldn't have helped it, Margaret; I really don't think I could. After sweeping, I always used to go down on my hands and knees and dust the carpets with a cloth. And I used to pick up every seed that Dick, my canary, had dropped. Dear little Dick, how I cried when he died! – he was the last northern thing I had left; yet, would you believe it? I pretended I didn't care for him, that I was tired of his singing. I pretended I preferred the mocking-birds. Mocking-birds!" repeated Melissa Whiting, with whispered but scathing contempt.

She came back to the subject of her thoroughness when Margaret paid her next visit. "It has been a hard task-master; I have been thinking it over," she said. "Still, without it, should I have got on as well even as I have? I don't believe I should. Take the way I have made myself over – made myself a Thorne. I couldn't have lived here at all as I was, there was no room for Melissa Whiting. I saw that; and so, while I was about it, I made the change complete. Oh yes, I was very complete! I swallowed everything. I even swallowed slavery, – I, a New England girl, – what do you say to that? – a New England girl, abolitionist to the core! It was the most heroic thing I ever did in my life. Very likely you don't think so, but it was. For, never for one instant were my real feelings altered, my real beliefs changed – I couldn't have changed them if I had tried. And I could have died for them at any moment, if I had been called upon to do so, though I was playing such a part. But I wasn't called upon, and so I made them stay down; I covered every inch of myself with a southern skin. But if any one thinks that it was easy or pleasant, let him try it – that's all!"

"When the war began," she went on, "I remember how much more clearly reasoned out were my views of the southern side of the question than were those of the southerners themselves about here. They were as warm as possible in their feelings, of course, but they hadn't studied the subject as I had, got their reasons into shape; so it ended in their borrowing my reasons! But every night through all that time, Margaret, on my knees I prayed for my own people, and I used to read the accounts of the northern victories – when I could get them – with an inward shout; never once, never once, had I a doubt of the final success."

"It's a curious story, isn't it?" Margaret said to Winthrop, when she repeated to him some of these confidences. "She wished me to tell you, she asked me to do so; she said she should like to have you understand her life."

"Does she expect me to admire it?" said Winthrop, rather surprised himself to feel how quickly the old heat could rise in his throat again when confronted with a tale like this. For the southern women, who had everywhere suffered so much, given so much, and lost their all, he had nothing but the tenderest pity. But a northern woman who had joined their cause – that seemed to him apostasy. That the apostasy had been but pretence only made it worse.

"She expects you to remember her motive for it, after she is gone," Margaret answered.

"Her motive can't make me like it. Even in the midst of her mistakes, however, she has been a wonderful little creature. But you say 'after she is gone' – do you think her worse, then? I thought she was so much better."

"So she is better. But she will fail again; at least that is what she thinks herself, and I cannot help fearing she is right."

"I am very sorry to hear it." He seemed to have the idea that she would say more; and he waited. But she did not speak.

"I suppose, then, you have had some further talk about Garda?" he said at last, breaking the pause.

"Yes."

"You would rather not tell me?"

"I will tell you later."

At this moment Mrs. Rutherford came into the room. But her nephew remained silent so long, his eyes resting absently on Margaret's dusky hair as she bent her head over a long seam (she seemed to like long seams!), that at last the aunt asked him if he knew that he was growing absent-minded.

"Absent-minded – impossible! No one has ever accused me of that before. I have always been too present-minded; viciously so, they say."

"People change," remarked Mrs. Rutherford, with dignity. "There have been many changes here lately."

Her voice had an undertone that suggested displeasure; the lady was indeed in the fixed condition of finding nothing right. The state appeared to have been caused by the absences of her niece at East Angels. The household wheels had apparently moved on with their usual smoothness during that interval; Mrs. Rutherford herself had appeared to be in the enjoyment of her usual agreeably weak health; her attire had been as becoming as ever, her hair as artistically arranged. But in spite of all this there was the undertone. Nothing was as it should be – that might have been the general summing up. If she leaned back in her chair, that was not comfortable; if she sat erect, that was not comfortable either; there were draughts everywhere, it was insupportable – the draughts; the floors were cold; they were always cold. She was convinced that the climate was damp; it must be, "with all this water" about. Then, again, she was sure that it was "feverish;" it must be, "with all this sand." The eyrie had become "tiresome," the fragrance of the orange flowers "enervating;" as for pine barrens, she never wished to see a pine barren again.

These things were not peevishly said, Mrs. Rutherford's well-modulated voice was never peevish; they were said with a sort of majestic coldness by a majestic woman who was, however, above complaints. She was as handsome as ever; but it was curious to note how her inward dissatisfactions had deepened lines which before had been scarcely visible, had caused her fine profile to assume for the first time a little of that expression to which regular profiles, cut on the majestic scale, are liable as age creeps on – a certain hard, immovable appearance, as though the features had been cut out of wood, as though the changing feelings, whatever they might be, would not be able to affect their rigid line.

"She's missed you uncommon," Celestine confided to Margaret, when she returned; "nothin's ben right. 'Most every mornin' when she was all dressed I sez to her, 'Mrs. Rutherford,' sez I, 'what's the preposition for now?' And there never warn't any preposition, or, ruther, there was so many we couldn't begin to manage 'em! Mr. Evert – he's ben down to the Thornes' a good deal, you know, an' Dr. Kirby —he hasn't ben in at all. Even Mrs. Carew's ben gone. An' so she's rather petered out. Glad you're back, Miss Margaret; dear me suz! yes. A person needn't be a murderer to make a house almighty uncomfortable by just sheer grumpiness. But she'll pick up now."

Celestine had been right when she said that the lady's mental condition would improve now that her niece had returned. Gradually, as Margaret's touch on the helm brought the household back into the atmosphere she loved, the atmosphere of few questions and no suggestions, suggestions as to what she had "better" do (Mrs. Rutherford hated suggestions as to what she had "better" do), of all her small customs silently furthered, her little wishes remembered without the trouble of having to express them, her remarks listened to and answered, and conversation (when she wished for conversation) kept up – all this so quietly done that she could with ease ignore that it was anything especial to do, maintain the position that it was but the usual way of living, that anything else would have been unusual – gradually, as this congenial atmosphere re-established itself, Mrs. Rutherford recovered her geniality, that geniality which had been so much admired. Her majestic remarks as to the faults of Gracias and everything in Gracias became fewer, the under-note of cold displeasure in her voice died away; her profile grew flexible and personal again, it was less like that of a Roman matron in a triumphal procession – a procession which has been through a good deal of wind and dust.

This happy revival of placidity at the eyrie (to which possibly the reappearance of Dr. Kirby had added something) was sharply broken one morning by bad news from East Angels. Mrs. Thorne was worse – "sinking" was the term used in the note which Betty Carew had hastily scribbled; she was anxious to see Mrs. Harold.

It had come, then, the end, and much sooner than even she herself had expected. She had suffered severely for twenty-four hours; the suffering was over now, but she had not the strength to rally.

"It's because she's always worked so hard – I can't help thinking of it," said Betty, who sat in the outer room, crying (she had been up all night, but did not dream of taking any rest); "she never stopped. We all knew it, and yet somehow we didn't half realize it, or try to prevent it; and it's too late now."

All the Gracias friends were soon assembled at East Angels; even Mrs. Moore, invalid though she was, made the little journey by water, and was carried up to the house in an arm-chair by her husband and old Pablo. Recovering, if not more strength, then at least that renewed command of speech which often comes back for a time just before the end, Mrs. Thorne, late in the afternoon, opened her eyes, looked at them all, and then, after a moment, asked to be left alone with Garda, Margaret, and Evert Winthrop. Margaret thought that she had spoken Winthrop's name by mistake.

"She doesn't mean you, I think," she said to him, in a low tone.

"Yes, I mean Mr. Winthrop," murmured Mrs. Thorne, with a faint shadow of her old decision.

Her Gracias friends softly left the room. Even Dr. Kirby, after a few whispered words with Winthrop, followed them.

When the door was closed, Mrs. Thorne signified that she wished to take Margaret's hand. Then, her feeble fingers resting on it, "Garda," she said, in her husky voice, "Margaret – whom I trust entirely – has promised – to take charge of you – for a while – after – I am gone. Promise me – on your side – to obey her – to do as she wishes."

"Do not make her promise that," said Margaret. "I think she loves me; that will be enough."

Garda, crying bitterly, kissed Margaret, and then sank on her knees beside the bed, her head against her mother's arm. The sight of her child's grief did not bring the tears to Mrs. Thorne's eyes – already the calm that precedes death had taken possession of them; but it did cause a struggling effort of the poor harassed breath to give forth a sob. She tried to stroke Garda's hair, but could not. "How can I go – and leave her?" she whispered, looking piteously at Margaret, and then at Winthrop, as he stood at the foot of the bed. "She had – no one – but me." And again came the painful sound in the throat, though the clogged breast had not the strength to rise.

"If I could only know," she went on, desolately, to Margaret, the slow turning of the eyes betraying the approach of that lethargy which was soon to touch the muscles with numbness. "You have said – for a while; but you did not promise for longer. If I could only know, Margaret, that she would be under your care as long as she is so alone in the world, then, perhaps, it would be easier to die."

These words, pronounced with difficulty one by one, separated by the slow breaths, seemed to Winthrop indescribably affecting. It was the last earthly effort of mother-love.

Margaret hesitated. It was only for a moment that she was silent. But Evert took that moment to come forward, he came to the side of the bed where she was standing. "Give me your permission, Mrs. Thorne," he said to the dying woman. "Trust me, and I will fill the trust. Garda shall have every care, my aunt shall take charge of her." He was indignant with Margaret for hesitating.

But Margaret hesitated no longer. "I think I am the better person," she interposed, gently. Then, bending forward, she said, with distinctness, "Mrs. Thorne, Garda shall live with me, or near me under my charge, as long as she is so young and alone, as long as she needs my care. You have given me a great trust, I hereby accept it; and I will keep it with all the faithfulness I can." Her voice took on an almost solemn tone as the last words were spoken.

Winthrop, glancing at her as she bent forward beside him, perceived that though she was holding herself in strict control, she was moved by some deep emotion; he could feel that she was trembling. Again, even then and there, he gave an instant to the same conjecture which had occupied his thoughts before. Why should she show emotion? why should her voice take on that tone? She was not excitable; he had had occasion to know that she was not afraid of death, she had stood beside too many death-beds in her visits among the poor (not that he admired her philanthropy); it could not be that she had suddenly become so fond of poor Mrs. Thorne. But he left his conjectures unsolved. A faint but beautiful smile was passing strangely over the mother's face, strangely, because no feature stirred or changed – she was beyond that – and yet the smile was there; the eyes became so transfigured that the two who were watching stood awe-struck; for it seemed as if she were beholding something, just behind or above them, which was invisible to them, something which had lifted from her all the pains and cares of her earthly life, and set her free. For some moments longer the beautiful radiance shone there. Then the light departed, and death alone was left, though the eyes retained a consciousness. They seemed to try to turn to Garda, who was still kneeling with her head hidden against her mother's shoulder.

"Take her in your arms, Garda," whispered Margaret; "your face is the last she wishes to see."

Winthrop had summoned Dr. Kirby; the other friends came softly in. For twenty minutes more the slow breaths came and went, but with longer and longer intervals between. Garda, lying beside her mother, held her in her arms, and the dying woman's fixed eyes rested on her child's for some time; then consciousness faded, the lids drooped. Garda put her warm cheek against the small white face, and, thus embraced, the mother's earthly life ebbed away, while in the still room ascended, in the voice of the clergyman, the last prayer – "O Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of men after they are delivered from their earthly prisons, we humbly commend to Thee the soul of this thy servant, our dear sister – " Our dear sister; they were all there, her Gracias friends – Mrs. Kirby, Mrs. Carew, Mrs. Moore, Madam Giron, Madam Ruiz – and they all wept for her as though she had been a sister indeed. In the hall outside, at the open door, stood handsome Manuel, not ashamed of his tears; and near him, more devout as well as more self-controlled, knelt Torres, reverently waiting, with head turned away, for the end.

Dr. Kirby laid the little hand he had been holding, down upon the coverlet. "She has gone," he said, in a low voice. And, with a visible effort to control his features, he passed round to the other side of the bed, and lifting Garda tenderly, tried to draw her away. But Garda clung to the dead, and cried so heart-brokenly that all the women, with fresh tears starting at the desolate sound – that sound of audible sobbing which first tells those outside the still room that the blow has fallen – all the women came one by one and tried to comfort her. But it was not until Margaret Harold took her in her arms that she was at all quieted.