Months passed before another name came up for discussion; this time it was the name of the girl in the scarlet cap and sweater; a poor enough little country name; a name hardly destined for tragedy, but when the older townswomen had finished with it, it had become a foul thing—fouler, poor defenseless young name, than the great red-ember names of Catherine de’ Medici or the Empress Faustine. When autumn dragged its gritty brown leaves into the gutters of Ivy Corners this name, too, had become nearly buried. The little scarlet coat had vanished from the town, but every door-knob seemed to be aware of its history, every window was alert and cold to face it down. White curtains, carefully tied back, seemed to wait primly for the moment when they also would be called to impress themselves upon any one who should be so bold as to try to win their immaculate favor.
Yet one winter night when the wind-blown trees seemed to try to claw the stars out of the sky, the girl in the scarlet coat did come back. There was a push at Miss Frenzy’s door, the little shop bell jumped with a scared jangle. It was almost midnight; shadows shivered under the electric lights and the village streets were empty; a prickling drift of snow sifted past the blue bleakness of the windows. Things were at the relentless hour; a second desperate pull sent the store bell into a frightened spasm.
“Who’s there?” quavered Miss Frenzy. She sat up; then, looking like a nut-colored Persian in her strange-figured wrapper, she got out of bed and held high the lamp that burned all night on her chair. The cold made her gray face quiver, but she shuffled bravely into the store where the street light still flickered its bleak question.
On the shop floor lay a figure. Its abandon had a stark quality, as if it had been buffeted and abandoned to unappeased tortures of the elements. The old spinster, lamp in hand, leaned shivering over it. It was a little scrap of life’s tragedy that had blown like a dead leaf in Miss Frenzy’s path; she was not prepared for it. “Not dead? Not dead?” she quavered. Well, yes, it was dead. Miss Frenzy could see animation, the thing we call “life,” but even she knew that it was dead youth, with all its fairy powers lost, that she looked upon. She bent closely to stricken lips that muttered a tuneless kind of song:
“The night train.... If I go back, if I go back ...” There was a long silence and then the young voice chanted, deliriously, “In Miss Frenzy’s garden ... the fences are high ...”
The girl’s body lay with the stamp of primal woe fixed indelibly upon it. It was wastage in the social scheme, yet it had something of torn petal, of wind-blown butterfly, of wings that had been frozen while fluttering at the very center of the flower of life. Protest dragged at Miss Frenzy’s heart.
“Young,” muttered the cracked voice. “Young.” The tears tore to the near-sighted eyes. Out of the old maid’s defeated being came the curious sense of being true to something; of loyalty to hidden forces life had hitherto kept her from recognizing. As she might have raised a vestal virgin struck down by her flame she raised the piteous form. Staggering to her deserted bed, Miss Frenzy laid the girl in its warmth. She drew off the wrecked red clothing, she made a hot drink and got it somehow between the locked lips. “There, there!” sobbed Miss Frenzy. She knew that “There, there” was what mothers said to their hurt children, and yet she was not a mother—and this—oh, this was not a child!
When at last the exhausted frame shuddered down to sleep the old storekeeper moved away, shutting the bedroom door. She went back into the shop and roamed restlessly hither and yon. The electric light had gone out and dawn was stealing in. On every hand some article of woman’s clothing interrogated her. Lace collars, immaculate in their set pattern, swayed fastidiously from her absent touch; the cards of buttons eyed her curiously; bolts of smooth, conventional satin ribbon conveyed calm judgments. With a frightened look, she turned out the lamp and sat sleepless at the store window....
All that winter Miss Frenzy held her little fort alone; her gentle face grew sterner, her careful speech more and more stilted. To all inquiries, curious, suave, or critical, she returned the invariable statement:
“I have long been in need of an assistant. This young girl is bright and willing; her friends have, most regrettably, cast her off—” A dark flush would come into Miss Frenzy’s face as she forced herself to add: “It appears that she has had a sad experience.... I intend to befriend her.”