Late that afternoon Linda was lying on, or perhaps I should say clinging to, the hard and slippery thing they called a sofa—Heaven save the mark! It was long and hard, and smoothly covered with shiny leather. It arched up in its middle over very powerful springs, and the springs and the slipperiness did the trick for every one. You could not snuggle on it to save your life, and if you attempted to be friendly with it and tried to rest your book or fan or smelling bottle beside you—hoop la!—with an intensity of malice known only to the inanimate enemy it would hitch up its back and fire everything off onto the floor well out of your reach—and if you showed any marked annoyance it would fire you after them. There was not a day that it did not shoot Miss Linda’s pillow from under her head, and twice I saw it slide her bodily to the floor.
I had found just one thing that could hold on to this slippery fiend, and that was a blanket—but who on earth wanted to lie on a blanket in the summer-time? So there Miss Linda lay on the glassy-surfaced “sofa,” with a chair pushed close up to it to prevent her sliding off, and I on the floor slowly fanning her and hoping she might be asleep, she was so very quiet. But no, she was not sleeping, for presently, without opening her eyes or making the least movement, she whispered: “Little sister, you saved three of us much grief and pain by your caution and your thoughtfulness to-day, and now, dear, I will explain about the picture.”
I turned hot and shame-faced, and rubbing my head upon her hands like an affectionate young puppy, I muttered confusedly, “that, if she pleased, I’d rather not!” But she smiled; not her family smile, but a sad, slow smile, and stroked my hair and went on gently: “It is right that you should know. He, the man of the miniature, was to have been my—” She stopped; she swallowed hard at something. She moistened her lips and started again: “He—at least, I was to have been his wife! I wore his ring—I—I—” Suddenly her eyes opened wide on mine, and she said with a sort of rush: “Child, child! Heaven will have to be a very glorious place to make me forget the happiness I knew with him! and I loved him so! oh, I loved him so!”
In a very transport of sympathy I broke in: “But he was good, I am sure he was! and he don’t look as if he were dead?”
She smiled kindly at me, and fully understood my blundering, hurried words: “Yes, dear,” she said, “you are right; he is not dead, and he is good! A little hard, perhaps—” Her eyes closed again. “Yes, perhaps, a little hard, but—well, men must be hard or they cannot succeed! We were very happy, dear! Papa—” Her brows drew together quickly for a moment;—“papa gave his consent. He—Roger—had a noble voice; we sang together at the church, we rode, we planned—we planned—” A pause, a long, long, shivering sigh, and then: “Papa changed his mind. I was not of age—even had I been, I had been bred up to such strict obedience—I—oh, I don’t know!—but Roger, he could not bear dependence on another man’s whims for two long years! He was one of the college professors; he needed quiet, regularity, positively settled plans, or the quality of his work might suffer! Papa broke his promise—he gave no reason. Roger said ‘he was jealous of us.’ I only know he broke his promise! Roger would not wait! Father commanded—he demanded! They were two angry men—I stood between them, dear—and I am crushed!”
“Oh,” I cried, “he did not love you hard enough, dear Miss Linda! What was enduring two years of Mr. Hyler compared to enduring a whole life without you?” It was not exactly a polite way to speak of the reverend gentleman or of her lover, and she laid her finger on my lips, as she resumed: “Papa does not understand—time has passed—but, oh, child, child!—each day of my life—I lose my love—each day the pain of it—is fresh and new! Had papa known of the picture to-day—he might have understood—he might have—suffered remorse—and he is old and—and—‘As we forgive those who trespass against us!’”
Her whisper died away on the last word; she lay quite still. I fanned her gently, slowly, and kissed her little, paper-dry hands now and then, and by-and-by the smile faded quite away, the sweet lips took a downward droop, the heavy waves of her brown hair made her face look piteously small and wasted, and, with hot tears dropping down into my lap, I took my first look at the real Linda. The little songster, with the song stopped in her throat! The loving little woman, with her heart crushed in her breast!—and as it was my first so it was my last look at that Linda, for it was the only time I ever saw her asleep, and when awake she was always on dress-parade, and wore her smile as an officer would his sword.
Shortly after this I began to worry, for though I was still in ignorance, even I could see that as these hot days went panting by each one of them took with it some small portion of dear Miss Linda’s strength. The dandelion in seed, lifting in air its phantom, downy globe, was scarcely whiter, lighter or more frail than she. Then I was worried about myself. The family were taking suddenly too deep an interest in me, my tastes and my desires. I was even asked what I would do under such and such circumstances, or how I would decide between this claim and that, and when I entered a room the “grown-ups” were almost sure, of late, to stop speaking, or they would clear their throats and speak of the weather with an elephantine lightness that could not deceive a goggle-eyed infant negotiating teeth with a rubber ring.
Once my very own mother, speaking excitedly, too, stopped short when I came in, and though I looked and looked at her with forty-horse questioning power in my eyes, she answered nothing, and my most penetrating and gimlet-like glance finally brought out a very brief, not to say sharp, suggestion that I sit down and stare at my spelling-book awhile—which, like most good advice, was neither kindly given nor willingly followed. So I was worrying, when one morning I stood listening to Miss Linda’s unspeakably sad music. She was playing with fervor and more strength than usual, and suddenly she was seized with a paroxysm of coughing. Instead of going to her at once, I ran into the next room for some troches that were on a table, and before I could return with them she had fallen and was lying motionless on the floor. My cry and the shouts of little Arthur gave the alarm. Mrs. Hyler entered first. She went very white, but she stooped and lifted Linda like a child, and I thought it strange that, as she carried her, she held a handkerchief to her face. Mr. Hyler appearing suddenly, exclaimed in excited tones: “Ice—ice! Salt—linen!” and, taking these exclamations as orders, I ran forward, intending to carry the message to my mother. At that moment Mrs. Hyler stretched out her hand to push the door more widely open, and on the breast of her light dress, just where Miss Linda’s head was resting, a great, red stain was slowly, evilly spreading. I glanced from it to the handkerchief in her hand, and it was red! red!! red!!! With stiffening lips, I whispered: “Miss Linda—oh, Miss Linda!” and suddenly there came a mighty roaring in my ears—a cold air on my face, and as I sank into the windy darkness, afar off I heard a voice cry: “There she goes! Catch the child—ah! she saw it all.”
Yes, in very truth I had seen all! And when, with a general sense of discomfort, I opened my eyes upon the sunlight again, I found myself attended by two of the seven sons, who cast water on me with lavish hand and pounded me with an affectionate brutality that left marks by which my fainting might be remembered for days after. I looked stupidly at them at first and wondered, and then I saw that great, red, growing stain beneath the wasted, white face, and I broke into such sobs as fairly frightened them. I was crouching on the top step of the porch, with my feet drawn up and my arms and head resting on my knees, and as I glanced downward I saw four bare, brown, boyish feet, and noted how restless they were. With my heart almost bursting with pain, some portion of my brain made a note of the fact that one of the four great toes before me had received a recent cut that must have been given by a hoe. Then the elder one thumped me kindly on the back and said: “Don’t, Carrie, don’t!”—and the other one said, in a husky voice: “Why, didn’t yo’ never know at all that sister Linda was a-goin’ to die?”