Oldfield: A Kentucky Tale of the Last Century

by Nancy Huston Banks

THE LAST ARTFULNESS OF MISS JUDY

To Lynn Gordon, as to most of the Oldfield people, it seemed as if this sleepless night—the saddest ever known to the village—never would end. And yet, when he arose at last, with the first faint glimmer of the day's gray, and looked out through the dew-wet dimness of the green boughs at the softly whitening east, a sudden feeling of peace fell upon his deeply troubled spirit.

The sorrow and terror of the darkness fled away, like evil birds of the night, so peaceful did the world appear, so free from all pain and wrong and cruelty and death, now that the soft white dawn-light—cool, sweet, calm, pure as ever—was coming for the perpetual refreshment of the earth. Under this fresh whiteness from heaven all living creatures looked to be resting untroubled, completely in harmony with one another. Three little screech-owls sat as a single bunch of gray feathers, motionless among the shadows which still lingered in the nearest tree. Three little brownish heads merely turned slowly as he appeared at the window, and six big eyes regarded him calmly, as though all belonged to the one small bunch of dark gray feathers, still huddled sleepily together almost within reach of his hand.

From the darker and more distant trees gradually swelled the twitter of many bird voices, rising into a rapturous chorus as the east became rifted with rose and seamed with silver. Every member of this divine choir was singing his softest and sweetest in celebration of the dawn's eternal renewal of creation. And then, as the rose brightened into royal red, and the silver melted into molten gold, at the nearer approach of sunrise, the oriole—already wearing the sun's golden livery—sent forth his ringing welcome to the king, a greeting so brilliant and so ancient as to make the trumpeter's mediæval salute to the emperor seem but a poor dull thing of yesterday.

With this heavenly music in his ears and this seeming peace and happiness before his eyes, Lynn Gordon could hear no sound of the sorrow of living, nor could he see any sign of the pain of the world. An unconscious smile even lifted for a moment the weight from his heart as he idly watched a merry couple of nuthatches, those gay "clowns of the green tent of the woods," tumbling up and down a giant elm. He did not see the solitary butcher bird, nature's most cruel executioner, sitting in motionless, sinister silence in the dark depths of a great thorn tree, nature's cruelest scaffold.

As the light grew brighter the young man's eyes followed the wood smoke arising from the tall chimney of the tavern in slender, thin spirals of pale blue, and going straight up to the bluer blue of the warm, windless sky. With the sight, the deep sadness of the night came back suddenly and overwhelmingly. It was not a terrible dream; it was a more terrible reality. Under that old mossy roof, so simple, so peaceful-seeming, lay all that was mortal of the noblest presence, the noblest mind, the noblest heart that this isolated corner of the earth had ever given to the greater world.

Before a tragedy so overwhelming every earnest soul striving in Oldfield stood awed, although it was not given to many to comprehend that the greatest awe which even the simplest felt was for the awful Mystery of Life. Never in the history of the village had its simple people been so slow in taking up the petty burden of daily struggle and strife. It seemed as if the least imaginative must be feeling the littleness of all earthly things.

Even old lady Gordon's look and manner were almost gentle, certainly more gentle than her grandson had ever seen them. Scarcely a word passed between the two after bidding each other good morning on meeting at the breakfast table; and she saw him go in silence when the uneaten meal was over. He hastened straight up the road, looking neither to the right nor the left. Doris was with Miss Judy; he knew that she was, because he had haunted the house through the greater part of the terrible night, and, although he had not been able to speak to her, he had seen her shadow on the white curtain of Miss Judy's room. The sight had comforted him somewhat at the moment, but he now was longing more than ever to see her, to speak to her—longing with the unspeakably softened tenderness that comes to love through grief.

And he saw her through the window from Miss Judy's gate. The poor old white curtain, with its quaint border of little snowballs, had been pushed back as far as it would go, much farther than it ever had been before when Miss Judy was lying in the high old bed. There was too desperate need for every wandering breeze, for every straying breath of air, for appearances to be remembered. Miss Judy herself could no longer guard the sacred privacy of that spotless chamber. She could no longer even blush faintly when the doctor laid his shaggy head against her hard-laboring little heart, listening for its weak fluttering, and hearing the soft knell of the pericardial murmur. For even this, which rings so harshly from sterner breasts, rang softly from Miss Judy's gentle breast. Yet it rang unmistakably, nevertheless, and there was nothing more that the doctor could do—nothing save to grieve, and he never stood idle for futile grieving when the suffering needed him elsewhere. After the doctor was gone to other duties, only Miss Sophia sat at the bedside, striving piteously to realize what was happening; and Doris alone hovered silently over it and flitted softly around it; doing the little that she found to do, and holding back her tears for Miss Judy's sake. But many others who loved Miss Judy were already gathering, and waited in the passage, looking out at the passers-by and shaking their heads speechlessly and sadly at those who paused at the gate to make anxious inquiry.

Lynn Gordon did not enter the house, and he quickly turned his eyes away from the uncurtained window. Even his reverend gaze seemed a profanation of the holiness of that quiet, shadowed old room, whence the soul of a saint was so near taking its flight from the earth. He crossed the narrow strip of front yard with noiseless steps and sat down on a broken bench under the window. He could hear Miss Sophia's heavy breathing as the little sister tried to understand; and he caught the soft rustle of Doris's skirts as the girl moved now and then in her loving ministrations; he could almost hear the swaying of the fan in her hand. Presently he became conscious of a familiar scent—faint, pure, delicate, like the spirit of perfume. He did not know at first what it was, but it seemed to float out through the open window; and after a little while he knew it to be the old-fashioned, natural, wholesome sweetness of dried rose leaves, the fragrance which had always clung round Miss Judy's life, the fragrance which would forever cling round her memory.