Chapter XXXIX

One of Jane Holder's masculine admirers brought her home in a buggy from the Square one afternoon, and when he had parted with her at the gate he drove away. She went up to Mrs. Trott's room, finding that lady dressing at her bureau.

"I felt dizzy on the street, and Tobe Overby brought me home," Jane said, sinking into a chair and leaning on her sunshade. "I don't know what is wrong with me, Liz. Tobe says the doctors won't be plain with me and tell me the truth about my condition, and Tobe's all right. He gave me a straight V just now, for the sake of old times. Huh! the doctors needn't be mealy-mouthed with me. I've had enough of this game, Liz. I've had my share of fun all through, and what more could I ask? You don't think I want to get old, bent over, and snaggle-toothed, do you? Not on your life! I'm a sport, old girl, and I'll be one to the dizzy end. Huh! I guess!"

"Hush! Don't be silly!" her companion said, giving her an uneasy look, as she turned, holding in her ringed fingers a wisp of her long hair which she was pinning into a coil on the back part of her head. "I don't like to hear you talk that way."

"I don't care whether you do or not, Liz, old girl." Jane forced a laugh that was harsh to the point of rasping. "Sometimes it looks to me like you are afraid to croak. Let the least thing get the matter with you and you are scared out of your wits; but _me_? La me! I've had my day, Liz. I don't want to be a she-hog--a sow. Enough is enough for Jane Holder. Huh! It used to be 'Jennie' when I was young and thinking about getting married. Later on it was 'Jen,' and now it is 'Jane'--just 'Jane.' 'Old Jane' next! Huh! if I had long to live you don't think I'd keep on here in this rotten, tattling town, do you? I've had my fill of it. You know what they all say about you and me, don't you? They say you ruined John's life, and that I was heading Dora for the dives when John stepped in out of pity and kidnapped her--took her 'way off somewhere to get her away from me and you, and--"

"Hush!" Lizzie Trott, white with fury, cried, brandishing a heavy silver-plated hair-brush in her hand and towering over Jane.

But, leaning on her sunshade, Jane only laughed recklessly and satirically. "Pull in your horns, Liz, old girl," she said. "I'm not giving you any worse medicine than I'm taking myself. Huh! I guess not! Huh! I'm only telling you what's being said in this darned town. They all say, judging from her looks, that John's wife was as decent a country girl as ever lived, and that if her father had met you the day he came loaded for bear he would have put daylight through you. As for me, they say John did my duty for me. Huh! it is a hell of a mix-up, isn't it? But I don't care. I believe I'm all in. I feel it in my bones, and I don't give a damn when I keel over. I hope I won't suffer, though. Whew! I don't like to think of that! Look how Mag Sebastian faced the music in Atlanta. When that fool shoe-drummer got married last week it was piff! bang! and Mag gave a coroner's jury a job. Huh! They all say who saw Mag in her fine casket that she looked like she was asleep. You see, they combed her red bangs down so as to hide the bullet-hole, and dressed her up nice. And flowers! Gosh! every girl on the town piled 'em in and heaped 'em over her. But Mag couldn't smell 'em. Huh! I guess not!"

"What ails you?" Lizzie asked, her lips trembling, her eyes wide with grim inquiry, her tone one of anxious appeal, rather than that of her earlier resentment.

"Huh! Nothing, Liz, old girl!" Jane replied, doggedly. "I guess I am having different thoughts from you, that's all. I think certain things all day long, no matter who I'm with--laughing, dancing, drinking, shuffling a deck, or giving taffy to a man. Huh! Maybe it is because I know something--huh! something that you don't know."

"What do you mean now?" Lizzie demanded, suspiciously.

"Never mind what I mean," was the stubborn retort, as Jane stabbed at the straw matting with the ferrule of her sunshade. "Let well enough alone, Liz Trott. If what I know makes me see sights and hear sounds in the dead of night, what good would it do to bring it onto you?"

Lizzie laid down the powder-puff she was using and bent lower over the rambling speaker.

"You _do_ know something," she said, under her breath. "You knew it yesterday. What do you mean by deviling me this way? You had it on your mind last night while the crowd was here and after they left. They knew it, too. I remember now how they looked at one another."

"I don't know anything," Jane said, doggedly, with a cloud across her wan face, and she got up, sighing. "I know I'll go stark, staring crazy if this keeps up. Stop your tongue! Let me alone! Huh! I know what's good for you."

Therewith Jane left the room and all but staggered to her own.

"She does know something," Lizzie Trott mused, as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. She completed her toilet and went down to the kitchen. A negro woman was at work there preparing supper.

"Don't burn the bread again, Mandy," she said, carelessly, her mind still occupied by the conversation just ended.

"Lawsy me! you needn't bother," the portly woman sniffed. "You may res' shore dat I won't burn it atter supper to-night, fer I'm gwine ter quit yer."

"Quit us? Why?"

The woman shrugged her fat shoulders. "Beca'se Jake done say fer me to, dat's why," she muttered. "I done promised ter love en' obey at de weddin', same es him, en' he say he done laid de law down. Dis is my las' day wid you en' t'other woman. We-all's preacher been talkin' ter Jake, en' he say you is unloadin' yo' dirt on de black race, 'case no white woman will work in dis house en' clean up atter you."

"So that is it," Lizzie Trott said, unrebelliously. "Well, well, I sha'n't plead with you." And with a haughty step she turned from the room.

There was nowhere to go that evening, and it happened that no visitors came, so Lizzie felt quite lonely. Even Jane's companionship was denied her, for Jane remained in her room with the door shut. She hadn't come down to supper, having answered to the call with the remark that she was not hungry and was feeling no better.

Ten o'clock came, eleven, twelve. Lizzie stepped out into the front yard and looked up at Jane's window to see if there was a light. The room was dark, and even the blinds were drawn down.

"Something really must be wrong," Lizzie speculated, dejectedly. "She is not at herself. She is imagining things. All that chatter about knowing something that I don't know may be just a crazy notion."

At one o'clock Lizzie reluctantly undressed for bed, for she felt that she was not in the mood for sleep, and she was sure she would have one of her headaches in the morning. She was about to turn out her light when she decided that she would ask Jane how she felt. So she tiptoed to the door of Jane's room and rapped.

"Who--who--who-- What is it?" came in a low, halting voice from within.

"Me, Jane," and Lizzie tried the latch, only to find, to her surprise, that the door was locked. She waited a moment and then, full of dire fancies, she shook the knob and rapped more vigorously. "Let me in, Jane," she cried. "I want to see you. I must see you!"

But the appalling thing now was that Jane still made no effort to speak or move, and Lizzie was thoroughly frightened. She beat the door with both hands and kicked it.

"Open up or I'll break in!" she cried.

There was a pause, followed by a crash on the floor within the room. Jane had stumbled over a chair and upset it. There was another unaccountable pause, then Lizzie heard Jane's hands sliding on the door, feeling their way to the lock. The key was fumbled, then slowly turned, and Lizzie pushed the door open. There in the dark, robed in her new pink-silk gown, as Lizzie afterward discovered, stood Jane. She muttered something inarticulately and stepped or reeled back toward her bed. Lizzie groped forward, wondering, fearing she knew not what. She laid hold of Jane's arm and for a moment the two stood face to face in silence. Then Jane began to mutter in slow, vacuous tones:

"You bet I had a good time. I've lived on the best. I rolled 'em high and had friends that could pay their way. I'm a sport. I was born a sport, and been a sport from the day I ran away from school till now."

"What is the matter? Why are you dressed up like this?" Lizzie had felt the silk sleeve of the gown Jane was wearing.

"Huh! You can't guess, can you?" Jane said, with a low, insinuating laugh. Lizzie said nothing. She knew where Jane's matches were and she got one and started to strike it.

"Stop! None of that!" Jane cried. "I don't want no light. Huh! I prefer darkness to light! You know where that comes from, don't you? It is from the Bible. 'Those whose deeds are evil,' you remember? Well, size me up as you like, old girl. I've had my good time. I don't want the earth. I'm no she-hog--a sow. I know what's ahead, and I take off my hat to it, that's all!"

"Sit down," Lizzie said, in the deepest dread of something, she knew not what, and she drew Jane down to the edge of the bed. Unable to formulate any further questions, she stood staring at her companion till presently she saw Jane's body drowsily inclining to one side.

"That's right, lie down," Lizzie said, and she lifted Jane's feet to the bed and put a pillow under her head. Then, unmolested, she lit the lamp on the bureau. A strange sight met her eyes and chilled her blood. In her best pink-silk gown, beaded satin slippers, and embroidered silken hose, her hair crimped and fluffy, her cheeks deeply roughed, her eyebrows blackened as for a ball, Jane lay as if asleep.

"What am I to do?" Lizzie asked herself. "She is sick and must be undressed. She is delirious. She must have fever. She ought to have a doctor, but who could I send at this time of night?"

She took Jane's wrist to test the pulse, but Jane snatched it away.

"Oh, it's you, Liz!" she said, opening her eyes in a sort of inane, widening stare. "You caught me, didn't you? Well, I want it this way. When they look at me, if any of them comes, I want them to say old Jane was a sport from start to finish. The last dance is on. Mix the drinks, boys. Eat, drink, and shake the dice, for to-morrow you may not know where you are at, and nobody to pay the bill. But keep the other thing to yourselves. I don't want to hear about it. You say it was in the papers. I didn't see it. Liz didn't see it, either, and you say she and I are in the same box. Murder? Who says it was the same as murder? I didn't intend it. I'd never have let it happen if I could have prevented it. Yes, the baby was left with me, and--and I might have raised her different, but I was a sport, full of hell and out for a good time! But, O God! I wonder what the little thing thought when the crash came. Gosh! She must have screamed! She must have choked in that awful fire! Burned to a cinder! No flowers, no sod, no nothing! Well, what's the odds? Yes, I'll let Liz find out for herself. Somebody will tell her soon enough. Lord! how a thing like that flies and spins through the air! It is everybody's business."

"I want to undress you, Jane," Lizzie said, bewildered by the ambiguous torrent of words. "Let me unhook your frock."

"No, fool, idiot, spitfire, cat!" Jane cried, angrily. "I want to be like this--_just like this_. Get away! Leave me alone! How long will it take?--the Lord only knows. I couldn't ask the drug-clerk."

"Well, I'll leave you, then," Lizzie said, slightly offended.

Jane made no response, and Lizzie started to leave the room. She noticed the lamp and paused. "She might get up and knock it over," she thought, and, blowing her breath down the chimney, she extinguished the flame.

She was in her room, still undressed, when she heard the gate being opened. She went to the head of the stairs and listened. There was a vigorous rap. Lizzie went down the stairs and opened the door.

A man she knew to be Doctor Brackett stood on the porch, a satchel in his hand. His horse was at the gate.

"I'm just in from Atlanta," he explained, hurriedly. "I have a new clerk at my store, and in looking over his prescriptions I saw that he had sold Miss Holder quite a quantity of morphine tablets. You see, from the talk that is going on in town I was afraid she might have taken an--an overdose--you know what I mean?"

"I think something _is_ wrong with her," Lizzie cried, aghast. "Hurry! Come! I'll light her lamp!"

Lizzie fairly ran up the steps and into Jane's room. She struck a match and lighted the lamp. The doctor followed her and bent over the sleeping woman. He opened her dress, quickly cut her corset-laces, and made an examination. Then, standing up, he turned to the bureau and began to search the littered top of it.

"Oh, here we are!" he exclaimed, in relief, as he picked up a vial containing morphine tablets and shook them between him and the light. "She's had a close shave. She thought she was taking enough."

"You mean that she--"

"Oh yes." The doctor put the vial into his pocket. "It is a plain case. Her mind is out of order. She actually--so my clerk heard to-night--went to the undertaker's and asked him the prices of various costly caskets. The undertaker thought she was referring to her recent bad news. She will come out of this sleep all right. But the truth is she can't recover. It is only a question of a week or two now. In fact, she won't get up from this. She hasn't the vitality. She has literally burned herself out and been living on her energies and nerves. She couldn't stand the shock of that sad calamity. I am sorry for you, too, Mrs. Trott. John was a fine boy. Now leave her just as she is. She will be easier handled in the morning. She is in no immediate danger."

The doctor took up his satchel and started away. In the darkened corridor Lizzie overtook him just as he had reached the head of the stairs.

"You said Jane had bad news, doctor," she began, falteringly, dreading revelations to come. "Do you mean about--about John taking her niece away?"

"Yes, Mrs. Trott, and the other--the deaths of the two in that awful wreck."

"Death? Wreck?" Lizzie leaned breathlessly against the wall. "What wreck--whose death?"

"Oh, oh, is it possible that you haven't heard?" And, standing in the slender shaft of light from Jane's partly closed door, the doctor awkwardly explained. Lizzie listened, as he thought, calmly enough. He couldn't read her face, for she kept it averted in the shadow.

"I understand it all now," she said, after a little pause. "Oh, oh, so that's it! That's what Jane meant."

She went with the doctor to the door, said good night, and locked the door after him. She stood in the dismal silence of the dark hall and heard his horse trotting down the street. She started to her room, sliding her hand on the smooth balustrade. Her room gained, she stood in the center of it as purposeless and dazed as a sleeper waking in strange surroundings. She felt for a chair and sank into it.

"John dead!" she suddenly exclaimed. "Why, why, it can't be--and yet why not, if they all say so? John dead, Dora dead, Jane dying, and I--and I left here all alone by myself!"

She undressed in the dark, vaguely dreading the light as if it might somehow stab her anew. She reclined on the bed. For hours she lay awake. She tried to cry, but could not summon tears to her eyes. She would have been afraid of Jane's staggering insanely about the house had the doctor not assured her that she would not stir till morning. Jane was not a ghost, but she was a would-be suicide, and that was quite as gruesome to think about.