Mrs. Worden, meeting my request with, “You girl! When are you going to learn not to prance when you are pleased? Can’t you keep your joy out of your legs?” went, all the same, to the other table for scissors to cut the cord and seals at once; for she really enjoyed showing me her precious charges; and I eagerly watched her every movement. The note enclosed she laid aside with a scornful, “Humph! as if I didn’t know what to do without their telling me.”
Then she unrolled the inner tissue-paper. There were two pieces of lace within. One delicate, oh! as cobweb, I thought, as it lay there in its folds. The other heavier, and a mere scrap.
“Why,” said she, taking it up first, “why, this must be, is a bit of old Flanders cut-work, but what a scrap! Oh, yes! I see now, it belongs to some collector; it is simply an example of the brave, old work, and I see, girl Clara, it needs two, yes, three, little brides or braces—see where they are broken? I’ll have a time, now, to wait for thread to darken to anything like that tone.”
And she talked earnestly, almost happily on, about her little tricks and devices for staining threads, etc. Then she laid her hands upon the folded lace: “Ah, I think you’re going to have a treat now, this is—” the words died on her lips. From her throat came a sound, strange, startling, neither sob nor groan, and yet like unto both! She held a length of lace between her hands; she swayed slightly back and forth, and turning my frightened eyes upon her face, I thought: “Behold! a miracle!”
From somewhere, somehow, the weary, old heart had forced through her shrunken veins one wave of blood strong enough to mount to her face, where the pained color slowly grew until it burned into two bright spots high upon her cheeks. Those two fierce spots, glowing in the awful pallor of her face, to me were terrible. I ran to her and, throwing my arm about her, lowered her light body into the chair close to the table. Her haughty, old head was bent; one hand still clutched the lace. I did not know what to do, but it hurt me to the heart to see her bow her head. Timidly I laid my hand upon her shoulder. She looked up at me, and in a husky voice she said, with a glance at the lace: “I owned it once, yes, it was mine! I wore it while I was yet a happy bride!”
I shivered and turned away, while I mutely prayed that torturing color might fade from her face before I looked again. I pressed my forehead to the window, I could see nothing; no tree, no building loomed darkly through the fog; I could not even see the pavement below me. So far as sight went, there were but two living creatures in the world, and one of them longed to leave it!
I was so lonely and so sad, I turned back again. She sat there still, one hand moving back and forth over the lace. The spots were yet on her cheeks, but they were not so fiercely bright. I did not know her like that. I wish she would accuse me of “prancing,” or tell me I “sat down too quickly,” or “jumped up” when I rose. I wished she would snap at me—that her dear, old head would lift itself imperiously again. I had not spoken one word since she told me the lace had been hers, and so, still silent, I crossed back to her and sat down at her feet and, hesitatingly, I asked: “Dear Mrs. Worden, is the lace much injured?”
The words acted like magic upon her. In one moment she had the length of lace passing swiftly between her inquiring fingers, and an instant later she gave a cry of anger: “Oh! shame! just look at this—the cruel hurt! and the soil! Why, some vulgar, new, rich, money-flaunting creature owns this dear lace now! She is ignorant and coarse! Oh, I know, girl! Don’t you see? She has dragged this delicate web about on the bottom of her gown! Its beauty was lost in such a position. It was simply done to show the owner’s utter indifference to expense. I’d wager something that it has been sent, now, by some maid or companion to be repaired. Ah! I should have recognized it any way—but look you, here is the proof that it is mine!”
She held out to me a fold of the lace, and careful examination showed where a former tear had been exquisitely repaired. I nodded my head and she went on, her eyes fixed upon the old scar: “As if I could forget! He did that, my fair-haired giant—man without soul—therefore, husband without honor! But, truly, he was good to look upon!”
I moved restlessly; she took no notice; evidently I had ceased to exist for her: “Fickle, changeable as a child, unstable as water! But, he loved me for a little while. He loved me then, the night I wore this lace to the rout. It was falling full and deep about my bare shoulders, as they rose from the golden yellow of my gown that was brocaded with a scarlet flower. I wore some diamonds and stood with others in my hands, hesitating, when he came in—my Philip—and looked at me reflected in the glass, and, standing behind me, he said, in the great voice I loved: ‘Burn my body, but you are a handsome woman, Myra!’ and he kissed me on the shoulder. ’Twas like wine taken on a cold day; I felt it mounting to my brain! We were at Christmas-tide, and a bough of holly was hanging above the dressing table. He broke a bunch of its scarlet berries and dark, bright leaves, and, with a great jewel, fastened it here, in the lace at my bosom. His fingers were clumsy and the leaves were sharp as needles, and so my lace was torn—but what cared I? The sharp leaf-points wounded my neck, too, and drew more than one drop of blood, but had they come straight from the heart, I would still have worn the ornament his hand had placed. My Philip! so much I loved him—loved him! Bibber of wine and companion of harlots; fair, like a God, yet without soul; so, being soulless, why should he be cursed for riotously living in the sunlight, and for following in the train of the scarlet woman—with the laughter of fools ringing in his ears! The lace is here, the smooth, white shoulders are shrivelled and bent, the black crown of hair he loved is gone, he is gone, only the lace and my memory are left!”