Sentimental Tommy

by J. M. Barrie

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE PAINTED LADY

  It had been the ordinary dwelling room of the unknown poor, the meanlittle "end"--ah, no, no, the noblest chamber in the annals of theScottish nation. Here on a hard anvil has its character been fashionedand its history made at rush-lights and its God ever most prominent.Always within reach of hands which trembled with reverence as theyturned its broad page could be found the Book that is compensation forall things, and that was never more at home than on bare dressers andworm-eaten looms. If you were brought up in that place and haveforgotten it, there is no more hope for you.

  But though still recalling its past, the kitchen into which Tommy andElspeth peered was trying successfully to be something else. Theplate-rack had been a fixture, and the coffin-bed and the wooden bole,or board in the wall, with its round hole through which you thrust yourhand when you wanted salt, and instead of a real mantelpiece there was aquaint imitation one painted over the fireplace. There were some piecesof furniture too, such as were usual in rooms of the kind, but most ofthem, perhaps in ignorance, had been put to novel uses, like theplate-rack, where the Painted Lady kept her many pretty shoes instead ofher crockery. Gossip said she had a looking-glass of such prodigioussize that it stood on the floor, and Tommy nudged Elspeth to signify,"There it is!" Other nudges called her attention to the carpet, thespinet, a chair that rocked like a cradle, and some smaller oddities, ofwhich the queerest was a monster velvet glove hanging on the nail thatby rights belonged to the bellows. The Painted Lady always put on thisglove before she would touch the coals, which diverted Tommy, who knewthat common folk lift coals with their bare hands while society uses thefringe of its second petticoat.

  It might have been a boudoir through which a kitchen and bedroom hadwandered, spilling by the way, but though the effect was tawdry,everything had been rubbed clean by that passionate housewife, Grizel.She was on her knees at present ca'ming the hearth-stone a beautifulblue, and sometimes looking round to address her mother, who was busyamong her plants and cut flowers. Surely they were know-nothings whocalled this woman silly, and blind who said she painted. It was a littleface all of one color, dingy pale, not chubby, but retaining the softcontours of a child's face, and the features were singularly delicate.She was clad in a soft gray, and her figure was of the smallest; therewas such an air of youth about her that Tommy thought she could become agirl again by merely shortening her frock, not such a girl as gauntGrizel, though, who would have looked a little woman had she let herfrock down. In appearance indeed the Painted Lady resembled her plaindaughter not at all, but in manner in a score of ways, as when sherocked her arms joyously at sight of a fresh bud or tossed her brownhair from her brows with a pretty gesture that ought, God knows, to havebeen for some man to love. The watchers could not hear what she andGrizel said, but evidently it was pleasant converse, and mother andchild, happy in each other's company, presented a picture as sweet as itis common, though some might have complained that they were doing eachother's work. But the Painted Lady's delight in flowers was a scandal inThrums, where she would stand her ground if the roughest boy approachedher with roses in his hand, and she gave money for them, which was onereason why the people thought her daft. She was tending her flowers nowwith experienced eye, smelling them daintily, and every time she touchedthem it was a caress.

  The watchers retired into the field to compare impressions, and Elspethsaid emphatically, "I like her, Tommy, I'm not none fleid at her."

  Tommy had liked her also, but being a man he said, "You forget thatshe's an ill one."

  "She looks as if she didna ken that hersel'," answered Elspeth, andthese words of a child are the best picture we can hope to get of thePainted Lady.

  On their return to the window, they saw that Grizel had finished herca'ming and was now sitting on the floor nursing a doll. Tommy had notthought her the kind to shut her eyes to the truth about dolls, but shewas hugging this one passionately. Without its clothes it was of thenine-pin formation, and the painted eyes and mouth had been incorporatedlong since in loving Grizel's system; but it became just sweet as sheswaddled it in a long yellow frock and slipped its bullet head into aduck of a pink bonnet. These articles of attire and the others that youbegin with had all been made by Grizel herself out of the coloredtissue-paper that shopkeepers wrap round brandy bottles. The doll's namewas Griselda, and it was exactly six months old, and Grizel had foundit, two years ago, lying near the Coffin Brig, naked and almost dead.

  It was making the usual fuss at having its clothes put on, and Grizelhad to tell it frequently that of all the babies--which shamed it nowand again, but kept her so occupied that she forgot her mother. ThePainted Lady had sunk into the rocking-chair, and for a time she amusedherself with it, but by and by it ceased to rock, and as she sat lookingstraight before her a change came over her face. Elspeth's handtightened its clutch on Tommy's; the Painted Lady had begun to talk toherself.

  She was not speaking aloud, for evidently Grizel, whose back was towardher, heard nothing, but her lips moved and she nodded her head andsmiled and beckoned, apparently to the wall, and the childish facerapidly became vacant and foolish. This mood passed, and now she wassitting very still, only her head moving, as she looked in apprehensionand perplexity this way and that, like one who no longer knew where shewas, nor who was the child by the fire. When at last Grizel turned andobserved the change, she may have sighed, but there was no fear in herface; the fear was on the face of her mother, who shrank from her inunmistakable terror and would have screamed at a harsh word or a hastymovement. Grizel seemed to know this, for she remained where she was,and first she nodded and smiled reassuringly to her mother, and then,leaning forward, took her hand and stroked it softly and began to talk.She had laid aside her doll, and with the act become a woman again.

  The Painted Lady was soothed, but her bewildered look came and went, asif she only caught at some explanation Grizel was making, to lose it ina moment. Yet she seemed most eager to be persuaded. The little watchersat this queer play saw that Grizel was saying things to her which sherepeated docilely and clung to and lost hold of. Often Grizelillustrated her words by a sort of pantomime, as when she sat down on achair and placed the doll in her lap, then sat down on her mother's lap;and when she had done this several times Tommy took Elspeth into thefield to say to her:

  "Do you no see? She means as she is the Painted Lady's bairn, just thesame as the doll is her bairn."

  If the Painted Lady needed to be told this every minute she was daftindeed, and Elspeth could peer no longer at the eerie spectacle. Toleave Tommy, however, was equally difficult, so she crouched at his feetwhen he returned to the window, drawn there hastily by the sound ofmusic.

  The Painted Lady could play on the spinet beautifully, but Grizel couldnot play, though it was she who was trying to play now. She was runningher fingers over the notes, producing noises from them, while she swayedgrotesquely on her seat and made comic faces. Her object was to captureher mother's mind, and she succeeded for a short time, but soon itfloated away from all control, and the Painted Lady fell a-shakingviolently. Then Grizel seemed to be alarmed, and her arms rockeddespairingly, but she went to her mother and took loving hold of her,and the woman clung to her child in a way pitiful to see. She was onGrizel's knee now, but she still shivered as if in a deadly chill, andher feet rattled on the floor, and her arms against the sides of thechair. Grizel pinned the trembling arms with her own and twisted herlegs round her mother's, and still the Painted Lady's tremors shookthem both, so that to Tommy they were as two people wrestling.

  The shivering slowly lessened and at last ceased, but this seemed tomake Grizel no less unhappy. To her vehement attempt to draw hermother's attention she got no response; the Painted Lady was hearkeningintently for some sound other than Grizel's voice, and only once did shelook at her child. Then it was with cruel, ugly eyes, and at the samemoment she shoved Grizel aside so viciously that it was almost a blow.Grizel sat down sorrowfully beside her doll, like o
ne aware that shecould do no more, and her mother at once forgot her. What was shelistening for so eagerly? Was it for the gallop of a horse? Tommystrained his ears.

  "Elspeth--speak low--do you hear anything?"

  "No; I'm ower fleid to listen."

  "Whisht! do you no hear a horse?"

  "No, everything's terrible still. Do you hear a horse?"

  "I--I think I do, but far awa'."

  His imagination was on fire. Did he hear a distant galloping or did heonly make himself hear it? He had bent his head, and Elspeth, lookingaffrighted into his face, whispered, "I hear it too, oh, Tommy, so doI!"

  And the Painted Lady had heard it. She kissed her hand toward the Denseveral times, and each time Tommy seemed to hear that distantgalloping. All the sweetness had returned to her face now, and with it asurging joy, and she rocked her arms exultantly, but quickly controlledthem lest Grizel should see. For evidently Grizel must be cheated, andso the Painted Lady became very sly. She slipped off her shoes to beable to make her preparations noiselessly, and though at all other timesher face expressed the rapture of love, when she glanced at her child itwas suspiciously and with a gleam of hatred. Her preparations were forgoing out. She was long at the famous mirror, and when she left it herhair was elaborately dressed and her face so transformed that firstTommy exclaimed "Bonny!" and then corrected himself with a scornful"Paint!" On her feet she put a foolish little pair of red shoes, on herhead a hat too gay with flowers, and across her shoulders a flimsy whiteshawl at which the night air of Thrums would laugh. Her every movementwas light and cautious and accompanied by side-glances at Grizel, whooccasionally looked at her, when the Painted Lady immediately pretendedto be tending her plants again. She spoke to Grizel sweetly to deceiveher, and shot baleful glances at her next moment. Tommy saw that Grizelhad taken up her doll once more and was squeezing it to her breast. Sheknew very well what was going on behind her back.

  Suddenly Tommy took to his heels, Elspeth after him. He had seen thePainted Lady coming on her tip-toes to the window. They saw the windowopen and a figure in a white shawl creep out of it, as she had doubtlessescaped long ago by another window when the door was barred. They lostsight of her at once.

  "What will Grizel do now?" Tommy whispered, and he would have returnedto his watching place, but Elspeth pointed to the window. Grizel wasthere closing it, and next moment the lamp was extinguished. They hearda key turn in the lock, and presently Grizel, carrying warm wraps,passed very near them and proceeded along the double dykes, not anxiousapparently to keep her mother in view, but slowly, as if she knew whereto find her. She went into the Den, where Tommy dared not follow her,but he listened at the stile and in the awful silence he fancied heheard the neighing of a horse.

  The next time he met Grizel he was yearning to ask her how she spentthat night, but he knew she would not answer; it would be a long timebefore she gave him her confidence again. He offered her his piece ofcold iron, however, and explained why he carried it, whereupon she flungit across the road, crying, "You horrid boy, do you think I amfrightened at my mamma!" But when he was out of sight she came back andslipped the cold iron into her pocket.