Vistas of New York

by Brander Matthews

Fortunately she was alone when she learned that he was dead. She had been up late at a ball the night before, and, as usual, Aunt Cordelia had insisted on her staying in bed all the morning to rest. When she had finished her chocolate, Aunt Cordelia had brought in the morning paper, and had raised the window-shade for her to read, before going down for a long talk with the lawyer who managed their affairs.

Elinor had glanced over the society reporter’s account of the ball and his description of her own gown; she had read the announcement of the engagement of a girl she knew to a foreign count; and then she was putting the paper down carelessly when her eye caught the word “Panama” at the top of a paragraph. Then, at a flash, she had read the inconspicuous paragraph which told how John Grant, a very promising young engineer in charge of a section of the work on the canal, had died suddenly of pneumonia, after only two days’ illness, to the great grief of all his associates, especially of the chief, who had thought very highly of him.

The words danced before her eyes in letters of fire; and she felt as if an icy hand had clutched her heart. She was as stunned as if the end of the world had come; and it was the end of her world.

She did not recall how long she had held the paper clutched in her hand; and she did not know why she had not wept. It seemed to her as if her tears would be a profanation of her grief, too deep to be washed away by weeping. She had not cried once. Perhaps it would have been a relief if she could have had a good cry, petty and pitiful as it would be.

When Aunt Cordelia had called her, at last, to get ready for luncheon, she had arisen as if she had been somebody else. She had dressed and gone down-stairs and sat opposite her aunt and chatted about the ball. She recalled that her aunt had said that there was nothing in the paper that morning except the account of the ball. Nothing in the paper! She had kept her peace, and made no confession. It seemed to her that it could not have been herself who sat there calmly and listened and responded. It seemed as if she was not herself, but another girl—a girl she did not know before.

So the days had gone, one after another, and so they would continue to go in the future. She was young, and she came of a sturdy stock; she might live to be three-score and ten.

As she stood there at the window, staring straight before her, she saw herself slowly changing into an old maid like Aunt Cordelia, well meaning and a little fidgety, a little fussy, and quite useless. She recoiled as she surveyed the long vista of time, with no husband to take her into his arms, and with no children for her to hold up to him when he came back from his work. And she knew that she was fit to be a wife and a mother; and now she would never be either.

What was there left for her to do in life? She could not go into a convent, and she could not study to be a trained nurse. There she was at twenty-one, a broken piece of driftwood washed up on an unknown island. She had no hope any more; the light of her life had gone out.

She asked herself whether she had any duty toward others—duty which would make life worth living once more. She wished that there was something for her to do; but she saw nothing. She set her teeth and resolved that she would go through life, whatever it might bring, and master it for his sake, as he would have expected her to do. He was dead, and lying alone in that distant, lonely grave; and she would have to live on and on—but at least she would live as he would approve.

But whatever her life might be, it would not be easy without him. She had lived on his letters; and she had taken a new breath of life every month when his violets came. And now nothing would come any more—no message, no little words of love, nothing to cheer her and to sustain her. Never before had she longed so much for a message from him—a line only—a single word of farewell.