Beyond the Gates

by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

I had known Mrs. Mersey for a lovely woman. She died of a fever contracted in the care of a poor, neglected creature. I saw her at this moment across and far down the street, coming from a house where there was trouble. She came with a swift, elastic motion, unlike that of any of the others who were about us; the difference was marked, and yet one which I should have found it at that time impossible to describe. Perhaps I might have said that she hovered above rather than touched the earth; but this would not have defined the distinction. As I looked after her she disappeared; in what direction I could not tell.

“So they are dead people,” I said, with a sort of triumph; almost as if I had dared my father to deny it. He smiled.

“Father, I begin to be perplexed. I have heard of these hallucinations, of course, and read the authenticated stories, but I never supposed I could be a subject of such illusions. It must be because I have been so sick.”

“Partly because you have been so sick—yes,” said Father drawing down the corners of his mouth, in that way he had when he was amused. I went on to tell him that it seemed natural to see him, but that I was surprised to meet those others who had left us, and that I did not find it altogether agreeable.

“Are you afraid?” he asked me, as he had before. No, I could not say that I was afraid.

“Then hasten on,” he said in a different tone, “our business is not with them, at present. See! we have already left them behind.”

And, indeed, when I glanced back, I saw that we had. We, too, were now traveling alone together, and at a much faster speed, towards the outskirts of the town. We were moving eastward. Before us the splendid day was coming up. The sky was unfolding, shade above shade, paler at the edge, and glowing at the heart, like the petals of a great rose.

The snow was melting on the moors towards which we bent our steps; the water stood here and there in pools, and glistened. A little winter bird—some chickadee or wood-pecker—was bathing in one of these pools; his tiny brown body glowed in the brightness, flashing to and fro. He chirped and twittered and seemed bursting with joy. As we approached the moors, the stalks of the sumachs, the mulberries, the golden-rod, and asters, all the wayside weeds and the brown things that we never know and never love till winter, rose beautiful from the snow; the icicles melted and dripped from them; the dead-gold-colored leaves of the low oaks rustled; at a distance we heard the sweet sough from a grove of pines; behind us the morning bells of the village broke into bubbles of cheerful sound. As we walked on together I felt myself become stronger at every step; my heart grew light.

“It is a good world,” I cried, “it is a good world!”

“So it is,” said my father heartily, “and yet—my dear daughter”—He hesitated; so long that I looked into his face earnestly, and then I saw that a strange gravity had settled upon it. It was not like any look that I had ever seen there before.