“In the few weeks she’d been there she’d got some bloomin’ pinks an’ other flowers next the doorstep. Somehow it looked as if she’d known how to make it homelike for the cap’n. She asked me to set down; she was very polite, but she looked very mournful, and I spoke of mother, an’ she put down her dish and caught holt o’ me with both hands an’ said my mother was an angel. When I see the tears in her eyes ’twas all right between us, and we were always friendly after that, and mother had us come out and make a little visit that summer; but she come a foreigner and she went a foreigner, and never was anything but a stranger among our folks. She taught me a sight o’ things about herbs I never knew before nor since; she was well acquainted with the virtues o’ plants. She’d act awful secret about some things too, an’ used to work charms for herself sometimes, an’ some o’ the neighbors told to an’ fro after she died that they knew enough not to provoke her, but ’twas all nonsense; ’tis the believin’ in such things that causes ’em to be any harm, an’ so I told ’em,” confided Mrs. Todd contemptuously. “That first night I stopped to tea with her she’d cooked some eggs with some herb or other sprinkled all through, and ’twas she that first led me to discern mushrooms; an’ she went right down on her knees in my garden here when she saw I had my different officious herbs. Yes, ’twas she that learned me the proper use o’ parsley too; she was a beautiful cook.”
Mrs. Todd stopped talking, and rose, putting the cat gently in the chair, while she went away to get another stick of apple-tree wood. It was not an evening when one wished to let the fire go down, and we had a splendid bank of bright coals. I had always wondered where Mrs. Todd had got such an unusual knowledge of cookery, of the varieties of mushrooms, and the use of sorrel as a vegetable, and other blessings of that sort. I had long ago learned that she could vary her omelettes like a child of France, which was indeed a surprise in Dunnet Landing.
CHAPTER 4
All these revelations were of the deepest interest, and I was ready with a question as soon as Mrs. Todd came in and had well settled the fire and herself and the cat again.
“I wonder why she never went back to France, after she was left alone?”
“She come here from the French islands,” explained Mrs. Todd. “I asked her once about her folks, an’ she said they were all dead; ’twas the fever took ’em. She made this her home, lonesome as ’twas; she told me she hadn’t been in France since she was ‘so small,’ and measured me off a child o’ six. She’d lived right out in the country before, so that part wa’n’t unusual to her. Oh yes, there was something very strange about her, and she hadn’t been brought up in high circles nor nothing o’ that kind. I think she’d been really pleased to have the cap’n marry her an’ give her a good home, after all she’d passed through, and leave her free with his money an’ all that. An’ she got over bein’ so strange-looking to me after a while, but ’twas a very singular expression: she wore a fixed smile that wa’n’t a smile; there wa’n’t no light behind it, same’s a lamp can’t shine if it ain’t lit. I don’t know just how to express it, ’twas a sort of made countenance.”
One could not help thinking of Sir Philip Sidney’s phrase, “A made countenance, between simpering and smiling.”
“She took it hard, havin’ the captain go off on that last voyage,” Mrs. Todd went on. “She said somethin’ told her when they was partin’ that he would never come back. He was lucky to speak a home-bound ship this side o’ the Cape o’ Good Hope, an’ got a chance to send her a letter, an’ that cheered her up. You often felt as if you was dealin’ with a child’s mind, for all she had so much information that other folks hadn’t. I was a sight younger than I be now, and she made me imagine new things, and I got interested watchin’ her an’ findin’ out what she had to say, but you couldn’t get to no affectionateness with her. I used to blame me sometimes; we used to be real good comrades goin’ off for an afternoon, but I never give her a kiss till the day she laid in her coffin and it come to my heart there wa’n’t no one else to do it.”
“And Captain Tolland died,” I suggested after a while.
“Yes, the cap’n was lost,” said Mrs. Todd, “and of course word didn’t come for a good while after it happened. The letter come from the owners to my uncle, Cap’n Lorenzo Bowden, who was in charge of Cap’n Tolland’s affairs at home, and he come right up for me an’ said I must go with him to the house. I had known what it was to be a widow, myself, for near a year, an’ there was plenty o’ widow women along this coast that the sea had made desolate, but I never saw a heart break as I did then.
“’Twas this way: we walked together along the road, me an’ uncle Lorenzo. You know how it leads straight from just above the schoolhouse to the brook bridge, and their house was just this side o’ the brook bridge on the left hand; the cellar’s there now, and a couple or three good-sized gray birches growin’ in it. And when we come near enough I saw that the best room, this way, where she most never set, was all lighted up, and the curtains up so that the light shone bright down the road, and as we walked, those lights would dazzle and dazzle in my eyes, and I could hear the guitar a-goin’, an’ she was singin’. She heard our steps with her quick ears and come running to the door with her eyes a-shinin’, an’ all that set look gone out of her face, an’ begun to talk French, gay as a bird, an’ shook hands and behaved very pretty an’ girlish, sayin’ ’twas her fete day. I didn’t know what she meant then. And she had gone an’ put a wreath o’ flowers on her hair an’ wore a handsome gold chain that the cap’n had given her; an’ there she was, poor creatur’, makin’ believe have a party all alone in her best room; ’twas prim enough to discourage a person, with too many chairs set close to the walls, just as the cap’n’s mother had left it, but she had put sort o’ long garlands on the walls, droopin’ very graceful, and a sight of green boughs in the corners, till it looked lovely, and all lit up with a lot o’ candles.”
“Oh dear!” I sighed. “Oh, Mrs. Todd, what did you do?”
“She beheld our countenances,” answered Mrs. Todd solemnly. “I expect they was telling everything plain enough, but Cap’n Lorenzo spoke the sad words to her as if he had been her father; and she wavered a minute and then over she went on the floor before we could catch hold of her, and then we tried to bring her to herself and failed, and at last we carried her upstairs, an’ I told uncle to run down and put out the lights, and then go fast as he could for Mrs. Begg, being very experienced in sickness, an’ he so did. I got off her clothes and her poor wreath, and I cried as I done it. We both stayed there that night, and the doctor said ’twas a shock when he come in the morning; he’d been over to Black Island an’ had to stay all night with a very sick child.”
“You said that she lived alone some time after the news came,” I reminded Mrs. Todd then.
“Oh yes, dear,” answered my friend sadly, “but it wa’n’t what you’d call livin’; no, it was only dyin’, though at a snail’s pace. She never went out again those few months, but for a while she could manage to get about the house a little, and do what was needed, an’ I never let two days go by without seein’ her or hearin’ from her. She never took much notice as I came an’ went except to answer if I asked her anything. Mother was the one who gave her the only comfort.”
“What was that?” I asked softly.
“She said that anybody in such trouble ought to see their minister, mother did, and one day she spoke to Mis’ Tolland, and found that the poor soul had been believin’ all the time that there weren’t any priests here. We’d come to know she was a Catholic by her beads and all, and that had set some narrow minds against her. And mother explained it just as she would to a child; and uncle Lorenzo sent word right off somewheres up river by a packet that was bound up the bay, and the first o’ the week a priest come by the boat, an’ uncle Lorenzo was on the wharf ’tendin’ to some business; so they just come up for me, and I walked with him
to show him the house. He was a kind-hearted old man; he looked so benevolent an’ fatherly I could ha’ stopped an’ told him my own troubles; yes, I was satisfied when I first saw his face, an’ when poor Mis’ Tolland beheld him enter the room, she went right down on her knees and clasped her hands together to him as if he’d come to save her life, and he lifted her up and blessed her, an’ I left ’em together, and slipped out into the open field and walked there in sight so if they needed to call me, and I had my own thoughts. At last I saw him at the door; he had to catch the return boat. I meant to walk back with him and offer him some supper, but he said no, and said he was comin’ again if needed, and signed me to go into the house to her, and shook his head in a way that meant he understood everything. I can see him now; he walked with a cane, rather tired and feeble; I wished somebody would come along, so’s to carry him down to the shore.
“Mis’ Tolland looked up at me with a new look when I went in, an’ she even took hold o’ my hand and kept it. He had put some oil on her forehead, but nothing anybody could do would keep her alive very long; ’twas his medicine for the soul rather ’n the body. I helped her to bed, and next morning she couldn’t get up to dress her, and that was Monday, and she began to fail, and ’twas Friday night she died.” (Mrs. Todd spoke with unusual haste and lack of detail.) “Mrs. Begg and I watched with her, and made everything nice and proper, and after all the ill will there was a good number gathered to the funeral. ’Twas in Reverend Mr. Bascom’s day, and he done very well in his prayer, considering he couldn’t fill in with mentioning all the near connections by name as was his habit. He spoke very feeling about her being a stranger and twice widowed, and all he said about her being reared among the heathen was to observe that there might be roads leadin’ up to the New Jerusalem from various points. I says to myself that I guessed quite a number must ha’ reached there that wa’n’t able to set out from Dunnet Landin’!”
Mrs. Todd gave an odd little laugh as she bent toward the firelight to pick up a dropped stitch in her knitting, and then I heard a heartfelt sigh.
‘Twas most forty years ago,” she said; “most everybody’s gone a’ready that was there that day.”
CHAPTER 5
Suddenly Mrs. Todd gave an energetic shrug of her shoulders, and a quick look at me, and I saw that the sails of her narrative were filled with a fresh breeze.
“Uncle Lorenzo, Cap’n Bowden that I have referred to”—
“Certainly!” I agreed with eager expectation.
“He was the one that had been left in charge of Cap’n John Tolland’s affairs, and had now come to be of unforeseen importance.
“Mrs. Begg an’ I had stayed in the house both before an’ after Mis’ Tolland’s decease, and she was now in haste to be gone, having affairs to call her home; but uncle come to me as the exercises was beginning, and said he thought I’d better remain at the house while they went to the buryin’ ground. I couldn’t understand his reasons, an’ I felt disappointed, bein’ as near to her as most anybody; ’twas rough weather, so mother couldn’t get in, and didn’t even hear Mis’ Tolland was gone till next day. I just nodded to satisfy him, ’twa’n’t no time to discuss anything. Uncle seemed flustered; he’d gone out deep-sea fishin’ the day she died, and the storm I told you of rose very sudden, so they got blown off way down the coast beyond Monhegan, and he’d just got back in time to dress himself and come.
“I set there in the house after I’d watched her away down the straight road far’s I could see from the door; ’twas a little short walkin’ funeral an’ a cloudy sky, so everything looked dull an’ gray, an’ it crawled along all in one piece, same’s walking funerals do, an’ I wondered how it ever come to the Lord’s mind to let her begin down among them gay islands all heat and sun, and end up here among the rocks with a north wind blowin’. ’Twas a gale that begun the afternoon before she died, and had kept blowin’ off an’ on ever since. I’d thought more than once how glad I should be to get home an’ out o’ sound o’ them black spruces a-beatin’ an’ scratchin’ at the front windows.
“I set to work pretty soon to put the chairs back, an’ set outdoors some that was borrowed, an’ I went out in the kitchen, an’ I made up a good fire in case somebody come an’ wanted a cup o’ tea; but I didn’t expect any one to travel way back to the house unless ’twas uncle Lorenzo. ’Twas growin’ so chilly that I fetched some kindlin’ wood and made fires in both the fore rooms. Then I set down an’ begun to feel as usual, and I got my knittin’ out of a drawer. You can’t be sorry for a poor creatur’ that’s come to the end o’ all her troubles; my only discomfort was I thought I’d ought to feel worse at losin’ her than I did; I was younger then than I be now. And as I set there, I begun to hear some long notes o’ dronin’ music from upstairs that chilled me to the bone.”
Mrs. Todd gave a hasty glance at me.
“Quick’s I could gather me, I went right upstairs to see what ’twas,” she added eagerly, “an ’twas just what I might ha’ known. She’d always kept her guitar hangin’ right against the wall in her room; ’twas tied by a blue ribbon, and there was a window left wide open; the wind was veerin’ a good deal, an’ it slanted in and searched the room. The strings was jarrin’ yet.
“’Twas growin’ pretty late in the afternoon, an’ I begun to feel lonesome as I shouldn’t now, and I was disappointed at having to stay there, the more I thought it over, but after a while I saw Cap’n Lorenzo polin’ back up the road all alone, and when he come nearer I could see he had a bundle under his arm and had shifted his best black clothes for his every-day ones. I run out and put some tea into the teapot and set it back on the stove to draw, an’ when he come in I reached down a little jug o’ spirits—Cap’n Tolland had left his house well provisioned as if his wife was goin’ to put to sea same’s himself, an’ there she’d gone an’ left it. There was some cake that Mis’ Begg an’ I had made the day before. I thought that uncle an’ me had a good right to the funeral supper, even if there wa’n’t any one to join us. I was lookin’ forward to my cup o’ tea; ’twas beautiful tea out of a green lacquered chest that I’ve got now.”
“You must have felt very tired,” said I, eagerly listening.
“I was ’most beat out, with watchin’ an’ tendin’ and all,” answered Mrs. Todd, with as much sympathy in her voice as if she were speaking of another person. “But I called out to uncle as he came in, ‘Well, I expect it’s all over now, an’ we’ve all done what we could. I thought we’d better have some tea or somethin’ before we go home. Come right out in the kitchen, sir,’ says I, never thinking but we only had to let the fires out and lock up everything safe an’ eat our refreshment, an’ go home.
“‘I want both of us to stop here to-night,’ says uncle, looking at me very important.
“‘Oh, what for?’ says I, kind o’ fretful.
“‘I’ve got my proper reasons,’ says uncle. ‘I’ll see you well satisfied, Almira. Your tongue ain’t so easy-goin’ as some o’ the women folks, an’ there’s property here to take charge of that you don’t know nothin’ at all about.’
“‘What do you mean?’ says I.
“‘Cap’n Tolland acquainted me with his affairs; he hadn’t no sort o’ confidence in nobody but me an’ his wife, after he was tricked into signin’ that Portland note, an’ lost money. An’ she didn’t know nothin’ about business; but what he didn’t take to sea to be sunk with him he’s hid somewhere in this house. I expect Mis’ Tolland may have told you where she kept things?’ said uncle.
“I see he was dependin’ a good deal on my answer,” said Mrs. Todd, “but I had to disappoint him; no, she had never said nothin’ to me.
“‘Well, then, we’ve got to make a search,’ says he, with considerable relish; but he was all tired and worked up, and we set down to the table, an’ he had somethin’, an’ I took my desired cup o’ tea, and then I begun to fe
el more interested.
“‘Where you goin’ to look first?’ says I, but he give me a short look an’ made no answer, and begun to mix me a very small portion out of the jug, in another glass. I took it to please him; he said I looked tired, speakin’ real fatherly, and I did feel better for it, and we set talkin’ a few minutes, an’ then he started for the cellar, carrying an old ship’s lantern he fetched out o’ the stairway an’ lit.
“‘What are you lookin’ for, some kind of a chist?’ I inquired, and he said yes. All of a sudden it come to me to ask who was the heirs; Eliza Tolland, Cap’n John’s own sister, had never demeaned herself to come near the funeral, and uncle Lorenzo faced right about and begun to laugh, sort o’ pleased. I thought queer of it’ ’twa’n’t what he’d taken, which would be nothin’ to an old weathered sailor like him.
“‘Who’s the heir?’ says I the second time.
“‘Why, it’s you, Almiry,’ says he; and I was so took aback I set right down on the turn o’ the cellar stairs.
“‘Yes, ’tis,’ said uncle Lorenzo. ‘I’m glad of it too. Some thought she didn’t have no sense but foreign sense, an’ a poor stock o’ that, but she said you was friendly to her, an’ one day after she got news of Tolland’s death, an’ I had fetched up his will that left everything to her, she said she was goin’ to make a writin’, so’s you could have things after she was gone, an’ she give five hundred to me for bein’ executor. Square Pease fixed up the paper, an’ she signed it; it’s all accordin’ to law.’ There, I begun to cry,” said Mrs. Todd; “I couldn’t help it. I wished I had her back again to do somethin’ for, an’ to make her know I felt sisterly to her more’n I’d ever showed, an’ it come over me ’twas all too late, an’ I cried the more, till uncle showed impatience, an’ I got up an’ stumbled along down cellar with my apern to my eyes the greater part of the time.
The Fourth Ghost Story MEGAPACK: 25 Classic Haunts! Page 40
