Chapter XL

Finally she fell asleep, and the sun was well up when she was waked by Mandy, the negro servant.

"Yo' breakfast done raidy on de table, Mis' Trott," she said, a touch of condescension in her voice.

"Why, I thought," Lizzie humbly faltered, "that you were not coming back."

"I did say dat," Mandy answered, "en' I did intend ter keep my word, but Jake say 'twas my bounden duty ter he'p you out en' not quit yer in de lurch, now dat you los' yo' son en' de li'l girl dat way. Jake say he knowed Mr. John Trott en' dat he was er nice-appearin' young man, en' good ter work under. Yo' coffee gittin' col', en' if I heat it ag'in it never tast' de same--de secon' b'ilin' make it bitter."

"I'll come down--I'll come down," Lizzie said. "Let it be cold. It doesn't matter. I'm not hungry. Don't wake Jane. She is asleep. She was sick last night and had the doctor."

After breakfast there was nothing to do, and Lizzie sat first in the parlor, then in the dining-room, and again on the porch. She went in to see Jane and found her still asleep. In the yellow light of day there was something weirdly uncouth in the pink-robed form, the patchwork of paint, powder, and death-tints of the face which had once been attractive and care-free. The doctor was coming again and Lizzie told herself that Jane must be undressed and put to bed properly, and yet she shrank from going about it, for she dreaded Jane's temper. But it had to be done, so, getting out a nightgown from a bureau drawer, she proceeded to wake the sleeper. It was difficult, but Jane finally opened her eyes, and, only half conscious, she submitted, falling asleep again as soon as Lizzie stopped handling her. Mandy came up the stairs and looked in at the door. She approached the bed and stared down disapprovingly at the frail, limp form.

"Dat's er dyin' 'ooman," she said, superstitiously. "She got de mark of it all over 'er."

Lizzie, in a chair at the foot of the bed, nodded, but said nothing.

The doctor came, made an examination, and motioned Lizzie and the servant to follow him from the chamber. "She is sinking pretty fast," he said. "She may come to her senses before the end, and she may not. I'm doing no good and shall not call again."

The white woman and the black, standing side by side in the corridor, watched him descend the stairs.

"Well, well, what could she expect?" Mandy muttered, as she started for the kitchen. "She made 'er bed, Jake say, en' now she's on it. Well, well, I don't judge nobody--dat's de Lawd's job, not mine--but I'm sorry for 'er--so I am. I'm sorry fer 'er, en'--en' fer you, _too_, Mis' Trott."

There were no male visitors that day. The news of John's and Dora's deaths somehow kept men away. However, the report that Jane had attempted to kill herself and was about to die reached some of her female associates, and in their perfumed finery and with mincing, high-heeled steps they rustled in. With faces as vapid as faces of wax they perched around Jane's bed like birds in tinsel plumage, ready for instant flight. They knew that the end of one of their coterie was near, and yet they chatted in low tones of things pertaining to their walk of life and this and that off-color gossip. Now and then a smile slipped its frail fetters and died of its own rebuke.

Under various and startled excuses they declined Lizzie's hint that they come back after dark and sit the night through at the dying woman's bedside. So that night, when Mandy left for her home, saying that she could not possibly stay away from Jake and the children, Lizzie found herself quite marooned with Jane and certain memories which she could not combat.

Why she did it she could not have explained, but she took her lamp and went to John's old room at the end of the house, and stood looking about. Tacked to the wall were some diagrams he had drawn; and on the dusty table lay a coverless arithmetic, a dog-eared algebra, an English grammar, and pen, ink, paper, stubs of pencils, a worn tape-line, and on the wall hung a soiled shirt, a discarded gray vest, a pair of old trousers, and a dented derby hat. Lizzie lowered the lamp to the table and sat down in the only chair in the room. A pair of John's old shoes peeped out at her from beneath the narrow bed. Lizzie sat there for an hour or more. She was tearless, but a vast reservoir of tears seemed backed up within her, and certain inward dams threatened to burst. John no longer seemed the gawky workman of his later days, but the neglected though attractive child who used to romp noisily through the house and stare at her and her friends with such innocent and prattling blandness. And he was dead, actually dead! Lizzie mused thus for a while, and then began to grow angry. People were saying that she had caused his death by separating his wife from him and driving him away. They were saying, too, those meddlesome fools! that he had tried to rescue a child from sheer contamination by her, and had lost his life in the attempt. John's father, if he were alive--but she mustn't think of him. No, she had given that over long ago. But to-night John's father, as a discarnate entity of some sort, seemed to haunt the dead silence of the house to which he had brought her so hopefully. The all-pervading gloom seemed to palpitate with his demand for the restoration to life and happiness of his son. Was she losing her mind? Lizzie wondered. She never could have imagined that such an hour as this could arrive for her, an hour so fraught with twinges, pangs, and thrusts the like of which had been alien to her experience. She could bear it no longer, and she took her lamp and went back to her own room. She listened attentively to detect any sound that might come from Jane's chamber. Was it a voice, a low, querulous voice? Yes, it must be; and laggingly she went to respond to it.

Jane lay with her eyes wide open in almost infantile inquiry.

"I see it didn't work," she smiled, wanly. "I didn't take enough, eh? Well, well, it doesn't matter, Liz. I'd rather go the regular, old-fashioned way, after all. I seem to have slept off that other feeling. I'm not afraid now--no, no, not a bit! I've had my day, old pal, and the richest women of the land haven't had a better time. I dreamt that all the girls were here--Ide, and Lou, High-fling Em, and--"

"They were here this afternoon," Lizzie fished from her turgid consciousness, "but they left. They were sorry."

"Oh, I know, but not one of the bunch thought for one minute that it would come to them, too, and that's the joke of it! Selfish fools--nasty, sly, and catty even over a corpse. They sent Mag Sebastian flowers, but it was after Mag was out of the game. Huh! I guess I know 'em, Liz, and so do you. Shucks! you won't cry when I'm carted off--not on your life! But there is _one_ thing, yes, one thing, Liz, and it lies just between you and me. I don't know why it hangs on to me so tight. Huh!" Jane forced a rasping, throaty laugh that fairly snarled with insincerity. "I mean--I mean--oh, hell! you know what I mean!"

"I--I don't think I do," Lizzie faltered, trying to meet Jane's unwavering stare.

"Oh, come off, come off!" Jane sniffed. "'Jurors, look on the prisoner--prisoner, look on the jurors'! You know what I'm talking about. I heard the doctor telling you last night about John and Dora. Listen. I've had my fun and the good things of life, but did _my fun_--you know what I mean--did _my fun_ come between me and--well--my duty to the kid's mother? And more than that--more than that--did my fun and yours, Liz, drive a young wife from a happy home with a hanging head, cause a fine boy and a helpless little girl to run from us as from smallpox into roasting flames--"

"Hush, hush!" Lizzie gasped, and she rose to her feet, quivering and pallid.

"Oh, well, never mind, Liz!" Jane sighed wearily. "You can't face that point any better than I can, but you hold a better hand than I do--for you see, Liz, you are still alive. Oh, but I don't know that I'd swap with you, for I'll soon know nothing about it, and I guess you'll tote it about with you awhile, anyway. I know I would if I lived, and that is why I tried the dope-route last night. Those thoughts have been in my mind some time. By the way, I want my pink on and the other things, and my hair fixed the same way. Don't forget. There won't be any preacher needed. I don't want any long-faced chap to whitewash my giddy record or to make an example of me. We are close to the graveyard, thank the powers that be, and I won't have to ride through town feet foremost. I wish the girls would stay away. I don't know why, but I do."

Jane's eyelids were drooping, and, thinking that she might sleep, Lizzie crept from the room. It was a long, sleepless night for Mrs. Trott. About every hour she would go to Jane, bend over her, and listen to her soft breathing. She was too inexperienced to know whether a decided change was taking place. She joyfully greeted the first gray streaks of daylight in the sky and began to watch for the coming of Mandy. Presently the servant came, accompanied by her husband, a lusty, middle-aged laborer, who simply tipped his hat and sat down on the sawhorse in the wood-yard.

"Jake say he 'low you may need er man about," Mandy explained. "How she comin' on?"

"Just the same, when I last saw her," Lizzie said. "Will you go in and see her?"

Mandy was in Jane's room several minutes. Then she came back, a serious and resigned look on her swarthy face.

"I was jes' in time," she said, stoically. "She opened 'er eyes, Mis' Trott, en' look' straight at me, en' smiled en' laughed, low-like. 'I done hat my share er fun,' she say. En' wid dat she fetched er big breath en' died. I didn't tetch 'er--no, ma'am, I didn't lay han's on 'er. Jake tol' me not ter. Jake say his maw tol' 'im dat 'twon't do ter tetch de corpse of any but dem dat's 'ceptable ter old St. Peter. Jake say dat de evil sperit is still housed up in de corruption, en' dat it will go inter any livin' flesh dat give it er chance. But somebody got ter dress 'er, Mis' Trott. It is a 'ooman's place. Dar is a black mid-wife 'cross town dat does all sorts er odd jobs. Jake say he think she would come. She got witch en' hoodoo charms, en' say ol' Nick en' all his imps cayn't faze 'er. Jake will go fer 'er ef you say so."

"Very well, very well," Lizzie consented. "And have him see the undertaker, too, please."