The Strange Woman

by Ben Ames Williams

  ‘If Will comes to know General Grant, I’m sure he can arrange it. I hope so. I’d like to see the boys.’

  Halfway to town they met General Veazie in his carriage driving toward Old Town, and the General bade his man pull up and alighted and came to speak to them, gripping John’s hand and then Dan’s. He cleared his throat tremendously. ‘A fine day,’ he said.

  ‘Fine, yes,’ John agreed.

  ‘This would have been a great winter for lumbering, plenty of snow—if we’d had the men.’

  ‘Why, yes, it would,’ John assented.

  The General blew his nose. ‘See here,’ he said. ‘Let me carry you to town. Dan, you ought not to overdo on that leg of yours.’ He shouted to his driver: ‘Turn around.’

  John hesitated, then accepted; so they came into town in the General’s carriage, and that ride was like a triumphal progress. Again and again they had to stop while men came to speak to them: George Thatcher; and Amos Roberts, who was the most extensive operator on the river; and the Reverend Enoch Pond, President of the faculty at the Theological Seminary; and Doctor Brown; and George Pickering, banker, merchant, shipowner, lumberman, and one of the founders of the Hammond Street Church. There was a certain similarity in the greeting of each one: the same strong handclasp; the same word about the weather, or about business, or about the war; the same lingering, as though, without having anything to say, each of these men was unwilling to depart. Dan, his throat full, thought: They act as if they were proud to be seen with us. God bless them!

  At John’s office General Veazie insisted on coming in, and he stayed for the hour or two they remained there. Joe Littlefield, the school teacher, stopped for a moment; and old Doctor Mason joined them and sat for an hour, muttering to himself; and Elijah Hamlin came to discuss politics, and General Hersey to talk business, and Judge Godfrey of the Probate Court, and Freeman Duren, whom John had always liked, and Moses Giddings, and Mayor Dale each came in, if only for a handshake and a casual, friendly word. Dan thought it was as though there were a conspiracy among them to show his father and him their regard and their unspoken sympathy. They talked of impersonal matters, not referring in the remotest way to the Star or to what it had printed that morning. They told tales and laughed at them. They seemed unhurried, content to be here with John, testifying in a thousand ways the strong, salty, masculine affection in which they held him, and careful to include Dan in all they said till he found himself trembling with gratefulness. Oh, men were fine, sensitive and delicate and tender as no woman would know how to be.

  Only at the end, when it was time to leave, was there any reference, even indirectly, to what was in all their minds. Then General Veazie, as John rose, said:

  ‘Well, John, I’ll carry you home.’

  John answered quietly: ‘Why, thank you, Sam; but Dan and I are going to live at the Bangor House for a while.’

  General Veazie seemed at that to remember that the house was no longer theirs, and he cleared his throat like a trumpet blast. ‘To be sure! To be sure!’ he agreed. Pie clapped his hand on John’s shoulder. ‘But I’ll want to see you every day!’

  John smiled. ‘I’ll always be here,’ he promised. ‘Thank you, Sam.’

  When Dan and his father walked up to the Bangor House together, the day was almost gone. Dan thought that this black noontime when they had read his mother’s will could already begin to be forgotten, for the sun set fine and the next day would be fair.

  IV

  Dan and Beth were married at once. They had planned still to wait awhile, but now Beth would not. ‘I want to be with you, Dan,’ she said. ‘I want to be with you every minute, always.’

  Aunt Meg agreed, and when Dan consulted his father John said: ‘Yes, Dan. Don’t wait.’ His voice was firm and strong. ‘There’s no need of waiting, not now.’

  ‘You’ll be alone,’ Dan said. ‘I can’t bear to think of you alone.’

  ‘I’m as well off alone, son.’ He smiled faintly. ‘It will give me time to lick my wounds.’ And he said in a strong certainty: ‘Mother would have torn up that will, Dan, if she’d lived a little longer. You know that. She changed from day to day. Some days she was fine.’

  ‘I can remember so many fine things about her.’

  ‘Always remember them,’ John adjured him. ‘This other will be forgotten in a while.’ He added huskily: ‘Forgotten at least by everyone but us.’ And he said: ‘Yes, marry Beth, son. You’ve long happiness ahead.’

  Dan touched his father’s arm in a shy gratefulness. ‘I want you to know,’ he told the older man. ‘It’s you who have given all of us—Will and Tom and Mat and me—what strength there is in us.’ And he said: ‘I always remember a true thing she said once, that you were like the big beam that makes the ridgepole of the house, the rooftree. Remember?’

  ‘She said that long ago, when we built the house.’ John assented, his eyes clouding.

  ‘We four have always known we could turn to you, and that you’d be strong, and understanding.’ Dan confessed almost diffidently: ‘Whenever I think of you, I think about that line in the Bible: “Be ye therefore steadfast.” You’re always the same.’

  John clapped him on the shoulder, smiling. ‘We’re a good lot, all of us,’ he said. ‘Marry Beth, Dan. She’s fine.’

  V

  Dan and Beth lived at first with Aunt Meg, and Dan found a richness in Beth of which he had not dreamed. They never spoke of what Jenny at the last had done, but Beth—and Meg too—were apt to remember and to remind Dan of old times, of bright days he had forgotten. At first Dan dreaded that he might encounter Mr. Spree or Mr. Lebbeus upon the streets, but he never did; and he learned long afterward that—under what compulsion he never knew—they had left Bangor almost at once. General Veazie undoubtedly had a hand in their departure, for Dan later heard that the General had bought the house on Exchange Street where Lena Tempest had lived so long, on condition that Lena and the girl Molly should leave Bangor and never return. The house was torn down, and a business block took its place; yet all this was managed by their friends so quietly that neither John nor Dan knew of it at the time.

  The world conspired to protect them, and at home Dan had always Beth, wise in silences, rich in understanding, ready to meet his every wish just as a dog is happiest in doing what its master desires; yet she began to lead him too, so that without knowing it he learned to forget all those things that need not be remembered and to laugh and love with her.

  Dan lived with Beth and Meg, and John lived at the Bangor House; but he came often for supper with them. Once late in June he brought a letter from Will, written from a field hospital near Cold Harbor.

  Dear Father and Dan—

  I was happy to hear that Dan is married. I remember Beth always was crazy about him even when she was a baby; and if she’s as nice and pretty now as she was then, and I’ll bet she’s nicer, it’s fine for Dan. And it’s fine for her too, Dan. She’s lucky to get you.

  I wish I could have been there, but now there’s no knowing when I can come home. I don’t think I can come till the summer’s campaign is over. I’m in charge of the Medical Dept. of the Reg. The surgeon has resigned and I expect to be promoted to fill his place. If they do not give it to me I will resign.

  I shall know in a few weeks and let you know.

  We have had very hard fighting during this campaign. We crossed the Rapid Ann River on the fifth of May into a place known as the Wilderness where we fought from then till the 17th. One Regt lost in killed 60, wounded 200, missing 40, in all 300 men and 15 of them officers, 5 known to be killed, 7 wounded, 3 missing supposed to be killed. We lost no more till we came here on the 1st of June. Here we have lost one officer and 10 men.

  Gen. Grant is an obstinate fighter. Our line is a semicircle about 7 miles long, the centre at Cold Harbor 9 miles from Richmond, our left at Meadow Bridge. Our base for supplies is White-house landing on the York River. We throw up entrenchments as we go and so do the Rebs, and in some parts our lines
are less than a hundred yards apart where if a man shows his head above the breastworks a dozen bullets come to get him.

  No one can conjecture what is to be the result of this campaign. I would like to see you very much, but I can’t come home now.

  I have to say that Tom and Mat are not coming home. They sent their love to you both, after I told them about Mother and her will, and they would like to help you face it down, but they took back their parole and are now in prison to stay till the war is over. Then they say they will go home to Georgia, because they know the South will be beaten and they will be needed after the war when the South will be hard put to it to get along. Father, they say they think you would want them to take the hard part down there, instead of bringing their families to Bangor to have it easy with you. They say going back to where they have made their own homes in Georgia is what you would do. I think they will escape from prison and get back to the fighting if they can. I guess you would say that the time to fight hardest is when you know you’re going to be whipped, and the South knows that now, and is fighting harder than ever and Tom and Mat will too. Father, I think you and Dan are proud of them. I am.

  As for me, I will come and bring my wife when I can to see you all.

  Your loving son and bro.

  WILL

  They had other letters from Will that summer, and from him and from the dispatches in the papers they had the story of that bloody campaign, and of the weary winter; and in spring they followed day by day with a deep, exultant thankfulness the news of the last battles of all. With the word of victory came spring, faintly at first and then in a pulsing tide that rose higher every day. Beth’s son was born in May, and they named him John; and Dan’s father looked at him and said with a chuckle:

  ‘Well, that’s the first of my grandchildren I’ve seen. He’s not much to look at, Dan; but I wouldn’t wonder if he turned out all right in the end.’

  Dan laughed. ‘With you for a grandfather, he’ll have a sure chance!’ That night after Beth was asleep, Dan and Aunt Meg sat together for a while; and Dan, watching Aunt Meg, thought she looked younger than she had a year ago. There had been for these long months since Jenny died a steady thought in his mind unspoken; but tonight the time had come to put it into words.

  ‘Aunt Meg,’ he said, ‘I’ve been thinking. You know grandmothers always spoil babies. It’s time Beth and I had a home of our own, to get our baby away from you!’

  She looked at him in a slow surprise. ‘Do you mean it, Dan? I thought we were all happy here.’

  ‘Well, I partly mean it,’ he admitted. ‘But mostly it’s something else.’ He hesitated. ‘Aunt Meg, do you remember I talked to you once about marrying Beth, and you said it was all right; but I was so slow that you finally had to manage it.’

  Meg smiled. ‘Do you blame me for meddling? Hasn’t it worked out all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, simply. ‘Yes, it has. But now it’s my turn to meddle.’ He hesitated. ‘Beth had a lot of trouble with me, bringing me to admit the way I felt.’ he reminded her, smiling. Then his eyes sobered and his voice fell. ‘Aunt Meg—father and I are a lot alike. I wouldn’t ask Beth, for fear it wasn’t fair to her. But I knew she loved me.’ She sat silent, waiting. ‘Father loves you,’ he said then gently. ‘But he’s like me. He’ll never ask you to marry him. But I think you want him to.’

  For a long time she did not speak, and she stared at her own hand where it lay on the arm of her chair, turning it palm upward, inspecting it as though she had never seen it before. Dan waited, and there was an excitement in him that made his breath catch in his throat, till finally her eyes met his and she spoke.

  ‘I met John in Ellsworth thirty years ago, Dan.’ she said. ‘I know now that I loved him then. But I didn’t know it for many years—not until the time came when I realized that he and your mother were no longer happy together.’ She hesitated. ‘Then I knew, Dan,’ she said. ‘Then I knew I loved him, had always loved him. But I was afraid I might let him see it. That was why I married Cap’n Pawl, so I’d be sure never to let John know.’

  His eyes were hot and stinging. ‘I’ve always known you were the best and finest person anywhere, except my father.’

  ‘I think John loves me, too,’ she said. ‘I think he always has. But he’d never let himself know it, not after he and your mother were married.’ Her eyes filled and she smiled. ‘But I’ve learned to be happy, Dan,’ she said. ‘And he’s been happy too, happy as a man is in doing what he should.’ He rose. He said strongly, smiling down at her: ‘All right, you’re two wonderful people. But now you need someone to meddle, just the way you did with Beth and me! I’m going down town, Aunt Meg. I’m going to find father. I’ll bring him here to you. Then I’ll go to bed.’ He chuckled. ‘Even when you sent me to Beth, she had to do the talking,’ he confessed. ‘You’ll have to do the talking, too. Will you?’

  He waited for her assent, and after a moment she nodded, laughing in a breathless way; and she said softly: ‘Yes. But it’s been so long. Oh hurry, hurry, Dan.’

  THE END