Oldfield: A Kentucky Tale of the Last Century

by Nancy Huston Banks

The abrupt withdrawal of her hand from his arm when they reached the door told him that she did not wish him to enter the house with her, and he as abruptly drew back, feeling the blood rush to his face as Sidney came out of Miss Judy's room to receive his grandmother. Returning to his seat on the bench under the window, he tried not to strain his ears toward what was passing within the room, and he heard only the indistinct murmur of voices. But he could not help wondering miserably why his grandmother had come. He knew her too well to think that she had been induced to come by pure fondness for Miss Judy, such as had brought all these other people, who were so patiently waiting with heavy hearts and wet eyes. The sudden thought of Doris—a formless fear for her—made him leap to his feet. And then he put away the vague alarm as unworthy of the rough justice, the haughty generosity, of his grandmother's character. He sat down humbly, ashamed of his passing suspicion, to wait with such patience and composure as he might muster till she should come from Miss Judy's room. But the intensity of his suspense became almost unendurable before it was ended. When his grandmother finally appeared in the passage door, he sprang up with a nervous start and hurried to help her to the coach. Again they were both silent until she was comfortably settled on the easy cushions, silent even until the bag had been rehung closer to her hand, and the little black boy was again seated on the refolded step. Then she told him, speaking slowly and gruffly as though she found the few words hard and bitter to utter, that Miss Judy had asked her to send him to the bedside. When this had been said, and he had made no reply, old lady Gordon sat still and silent for a moment, looking grimly straight ahead, as if there were something else which she wished to say. But if so it was never said; she suddenly and roughly ordered Enoch Cotton to drive her home, and went away—poor old lady Gordon—without a single backward glance.

The young man then turned swiftly and went softly into Miss Judy's room, as the reverential enter a holy place. Doris, bending over the bed, did not see him come. Miss Sophia was dozing, worn out with watching and grief and—most of all—with trying to understand. Sidney sat motionless in the farthest corner of the quiet, shadowy old room, where the shadows were deepest. The only sound was the hushed murmur of the voices of the many others who loved Miss Judy and who watched and waited without; some in the parlor, which had been opened wide at last, others in the passage, and more in the yard.

The little figure on the big bed lay motionless and with closed eyes. Such a little creature, so white, so beautiful, so wonderfully young—almost like a child, with the soft rings of silver hair wreathing the border of the snowy cap, and the little arms which always had been so strong for burdens, and the little, little hands, which always had been so busy for everybody but herself, resting now—as still and cold as snowflakes—on the deep blue of the old quilt. Looking down with dim sight and swelling heart, Lynn thought of the Divine Bambino lying asleep on its azure shield; he could think of nothing else so unearthly in its loveliness.

The blue eyes opened as if Miss Judy had felt his presence, and the flicker of a smile went over the sweet, quiet face. The young man, leaning down, thought that she murmured something in apology, that she tried to say something about a gentlewoman's bedchamber. But the words were so faintly uttered, and the pauses between were so long, that he could not be sure.

"Dear Miss Judy, is there anything—anything in the whole world—that I can do?" he said, with all his heart.

"It is about the selling of the house. We can't depend on John Stanley to sell it—to pay himself," panted Miss Judy with long, anguished waits between the words, almost between the breaths.

There was a still longer pause after this, a still longer wait for a slow wandering breeze to bring the needed breath.

"Dear John," Miss Judy murmured, when she could speak again, "he must not know—till the note is paid. He doesn't quite realize what is due our father. You must overlook it, sister Sophia. He means only to be kind—so, so kind."

"Just so, sister Judy," replied poor Miss Sophia, through the habit of a long lifetime, not knowing what she said.

"Dear John. Dear John," Miss Judy said again, hardly louder than her fluttering breath.