Autumn Part 17

Mrs. Grumble smiled. "There's no use trying to fool me," she declared.

"I'm not afraid any more. I'd like to see Mr. Jeminy before I go. I'd like to know he was in good hands. I'd like to think you'd look after him a bit, Mrs. Wicket, when I'm gone."

"Yes," said Mrs. Wicket, "set your mind at rest."

"You've been very kind to me," said Mrs. Grumble, with difficulty.

"You've had a hard time of it here in Hillsboro. You're a good woman, Mrs. Wicket. I'm glad you'll be here for him when he comes home. I took care of him for twenty years. As though he were my own."

"I'll care for him the same," said Mrs. Wicket, "as though he were my own."

Mrs. Grumble seemed to be content with this promise, for she remained for some time sunk in silence. At last she said, "He'll come in time for me to see him again. He won't leave me to die alone, not after I took care of him for twenty years.

"I remember the time he brought me a bit of lace from the fair over to Milford. He used to give me a lot of trouble. But he didn't forget to bring me home a piece of lace from the fair. I put it on my petticoat.

"He's on his way home now, Mrs. Wicket: yes, I can feel he's coming home."

Mrs. Wicket, who had been up with Mrs. Grumble the night before, let her head droop forward on her breast. "I don't doubt it," she said.

And in the silence of the sickroom, she presently fell asleep. Mrs.

Grumble lay with wide open eyes, staring at the door through which Mr.

Jeminy was to come. She felt quiet and happy; it seemed to her that her pain was already over and done with. Framed in the doorway, in the yellow lamplight, she beheld the fancies of her youth, the memories of the past. She saw again the woman she had been, and watched, with eyes filled with compa.s.sion, her early sorrows, and the troubles of her later years. "It was all of no account," she said to herself, "but it doesn't matter now." And she set herself to wait in patience for Mr.

Jeminy, who she never doubted would come to help her die.

Meanwhile the schoolmaster, in Aaron Bade's wagon, was rattling along the road, with Juliet tight asleep in his arms. As he drew near his home, he saw in the distance Barly Hill, and the lights of Barly Farm s.h.i.+ning across the valley. "I am coming home again," he said to them; "I have no longer any pride. So now I know that I am an old man."

But later a feeling of peace took possession of his heart. "Yes," he said, "I am an old man. The world is not my affair any more. I belong to yesterday, with its triumphs and its failures; I must share in the glory, such as it is, of what has been done. The future is in the hands of this child, sound asleep by my side. It is in your hands, Anna Barly, and yours, Thomas Frye. But you must do better than I did, and those with whom I quarreled. To youth is given the burden and the pain. Only the old are happy to-day.

"Children, children, what will become of you?"

When Mr. Jeminy, with Juliet in his arms, strode in through Mrs.

Grumble's door, Mrs. Wicket rose to her feet, her hands pressed to her bosom with delight and alarm. Mr. Jeminy gave Juliet to her mother.

"Take the child home," he said. Then with timid, hesitant steps, he approached Mrs. Grumble's bed.

"You've been a long time coming," she said. "I'm tired."

"I'm here now," replied Mr. Jeminy; "I am not going away any more."

"No," said Mrs. Grumble, "you'd better stay home and attend to things.

I won't be here much longer."

Mr. Jeminy wanted to say "nonsense," but he was unable to speak.

Instead he took Mrs. Grumble's hand in both of his. "Are you going to leave me, dear friend?" he asked.

Mrs. Grumble smiled; then she gave a sigh. "Look what you called me,"

she said. And they were both silent, thinking of the past together.

In the distance the crisp footsteps of Mrs. Wicket died away down the hill. And presently nothing was to be heard but the steady ticking of the clock on the mantel. Then Mr. Jeminy, for once, could find nothing to say. It seemed to him that instead of the clock's ticking, he heard the footsteps of death in the house, on the stair . . . tik, tok, tik, tok . . . And he sighed, with sadness and horror, "Ah, my friend," he thought, "are you as frightened as I am?"

Presently he saw that Mrs. Grumble was trying to lift herself up in bed. "I'm going now," she said. Her voice was low, but resonant.

"Mrs. Wicket will look after you. She's a good woman, Mr. Jeminy. My mind's at peace. I never knew death was so simple and ordinary. It's almost like nothing."

She sank back; her voice gave out and she began to cough. "You will only tire yourself by talking," said Mr. Jeminy. "Rest now. Then in the morning . . ."

"No," said Mrs. Grumble faintly, "there'll be no morning for me, unless it's the morning of the Lord. Not where I'm going."

"You are going where I, too, must go," said Mr. Jeminy. "You are going a little before me. Soon I shall come hurrying after you."

"It's nearly over," said Mrs. Grumble. "I did what I could." Her mind began to wander; she spoke some words to herself.

"You, G.o.d," said Mr. Jeminy aloud, "this is your doing. Then come and be present; receive the forgiveness of this good woman, to whom you gave, in this life, poverty and sacrifice."

"Please," whispered Mrs. Grumble, "speak of G.o.d with more respect."

They were her last words; it was the end. A spasm of coughing shook her; for a moment she seemed anxious to speak. But as Mr. Jeminy bent over her, her breath failed; her head fell back, and with a single, frightened glance, Mrs. Grumble pa.s.sed away, without saying what she had intended.

Mr. Jeminy closed her eyes, and folded her hands across her breast.

"She is gone already," he thought; "she is far away. She has pressed ahead, so swiftly, beyond sight or hearing."

He bent his head. "You made me comfortable in my life, Mrs. Grumble,"

he said, "yet at the end I could do nothing for you. But you will not think badly of me for that.

"Now you are hurrying through eternity. To you, these few slow hours before the dawn are no different from to-morrow or yesterday; they will never pa.s.s.

"Do you see, at last, the meaning of the spectacle you have just quitted? Do you understand what I, for all my wisdom, do not understand? You are free to ask G.o.d to explain it to you; you can say, 'I saw armies with banners, and scholars with their books.' Perhaps he will tell you the meaning of it. But for us, who remain, it has no meaning. Well, we say, this is life. We laugh, applaud, talk together, and think about ourselves. And one by one we slip away, no wiser than before.

"We are like the bees, who work from dawn till dark, gathering honey in the fields and in the woods. But we are not as wise as the bees, for each one grasps what he can, and cries, 'this is mine.' Then seeing that it is of no use to him, he adds, 'What will you give me for it?'"

And he began to think of the past. It seemed to him that he was in school again. It was spring; and the children came romping into the schoolroom, their arms full of books and flowers. Summer pa.s.sed; he saw Anna Barly crying by the roadside, under the gray sky. He heard himself saying to Mrs. Grumble: "Yes, that's right, stop up your ears . . ." And he saw himself walking toward Milford in the moonlight, under the falling leaves. "Who, now," he thought, "will drive me out of doors because my room is in disorder, or burn, when I am away, the sc.r.a.ps of paper on which I have scribbled my memoranda?"

He bowed his head. "Rest quietly, Mrs. Grumble," he said. "Your troubles are over. For you there is neither doubt nor grief; life does not matter to you any more. Nor does it matter very much to me. For there is no one now to care what I do. I am no trouble to anybody."

The chilly breath of morning filled the valley with mist, fine, gray, imperceptible in the faint light of dawn. And a farmer's cart, as it rattled down the road, woke, in his chair, the old schoolmaster from the reverie into which he had fallen.

Faint and clear the early lights of the village went out, leaving the valley empty and cold. A freight train whistled at the junction, and crept, with tolling bell, over the switches, to the south.

The sun, rising, poured its yellow light into Mrs. Grumble's room, illuminating the bed, with its silent burden, and the still figure huddled in the chair. Slowly, and with difficulty, Mr. Jeminy got to his feet and crossed to the window. There his gaze encountered Mrs.

Wicket, coming up the hill.

Blowing on his hands, Mr. Jeminy went to meet her in the early suns.h.i.+ne.