Edith Wharton - SSC 10 (23 page)

 
          
This
time Mrs. Clingsland swallowed it down like champagne. Blinded by her beauty;
struck dumb by love of her! Oh, but that’s what she’d been thirsting and
hungering for all these years. Only, once it had begun, she had to have more of
it, and always more … and my job didn’t get any easier.

 
          
Luckily,
though, I had that young fellow to help me; and after a while, when I’d given
him a hint of what it was all about, he got as much interested as I was, and
began to fret for me the days I didn’t come.

 
          
But,
my, what questions she asked. “Tell him, if it’s true that I took his breath
away that first evening at dinner, to describe to you how I was dressed. They
must remember things like that even in the other world, don’t you think so? And
you say he noticed my pearls?”

 
          
Luckily
she’d described that dress to me so often that I had no difficulty about
telling the young man what to say—and so it went on, and it went on, and one
way or another I managed each time to have an answer that satisfied her. But
one day, after Harry’d sent her a particularly lovely message from the Over
There (as those people call it) she burst into tears and cried out: “Oh, why
did he never say things like that to me when we were together?”

 
          
That
was a poser, as they say; I couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t. Of course I knew it
was all wrong and immoral, anyway; but, poor thing, I don’t see who it can hurt
to help the love-making between a sick woman and a ghost. And I’d taken care to
say a Novena against Father Divott finding me out.

 
          
Well,
I told the poor young man what she wanted to know, and he said: “Oh, you can
tell her an evil influence came between them. Some one who was
jealous,
and worked against him—here, give me a pencil, and
I’ll write it out …” and he pushed out his hot twitching hand for the paper.

 
          
That
message fairly made her face burn with joy. “I knew it—I always knew it!” She
flung her thin arms about me, and kissed me. “Tell me again, Cora, how he said
I looked the first day he saw me…”

 
          
“Why,
you must have looked as you look now,”
says
I to her,
“for there’s twenty years fallen from your face.” And so there was.

 
          
What
helped me to keep on was that she’d grown so much gender and quieter.
Less impatient with the people who waited on her, more
understanding with the daughter and Mr. Clingsland.
There was a
different atmosphere in the house. And sometimes she’d say: “Cora, there must
be poor souls in trouble, with nobody to hold out a hand to them; and I want
you to come to me when you run across anybody like that.” So I used to keep
that poor young fellow well looked after, and cheered up with little dainties.
And you’ll never make me believe there was anything wrong in that—or in letting
Mrs. Clingsland help me out with the new roof on this house, either.

 
          
But
there was a day when I found her sitting up in bed when I came in, with two red
spots on her thin cheeks. And all the peace had gone out of her poor face.
“Why, Mrs. Clingsland, my dear, what’s the matter?” But I could see well enough
what it was. Somebody’d been undermining her belief in spirit-communications,
or whatever they call them, and she’d been crying herself into a fever,
thinking I’d made up all I’d told her. “How do I know you’re a medium, anyhow,”
she flung out at me with pitiful furious eyes, “and not taking advantage of me
with all this stuff every morning?”

 
          
Well,
the queer thing was that I took offense at that, not because I was afraid of
being found out, but because—heaven help us!—I’d somehow come to believe in
that young man Harry and his love-making, and it made me angry to be treated as
a fraud. But I kept my temper and my tongue, and went on with the massage as if
I hadn’t heard her; and she was ashamed to say any more to me. The quarrel
between us lasted a week; and then one day, poor soul, she said, whimpering
like a drug-taker: “Cora, I can’t get on without the messages you bring me. The
ones I get through other people don’t sound like Harry—and yours do.”

 
          
I
was so sorry for her then that I had hard work not to cry with her; but I kept
my head, and answered quietly: “Mrs.

 
          
Clingsland,
I’ve been going against my Church, and risking my immortal soul, to get those
messages through to you; and if you’ve found others that can help you, so much
the better for me, and I’ll go and make my peace with Heaven this very
evening,” I said.

 
          
“But
the other messages don’t help me, and I don’t want to disbelieve in you,” she
sobbed out. “Only lying awake all night and turning things over, I get so
miserable. I shall die if you can’t prove to me that it’s really Harry speaking
to you.”

 
          
I
began to pack up my things. “I can’t prove that, I’m afraid,” I
says
in a cold voice, turning away my head so she wouldn’t
see the tears running down my cheeks.

 
          
“Oh,
but you must, Cora, or I shall die!” she entreated me; and she looked as if she
would, the poor soul.

 
          
“How
can I prove it to you?” I answered. For all my pity for her, I still resented
the way she’d spoken; and I thought how glad I’d be to get the whole business
off my soul that very night in the confessional.

 
          
She
opened her great eyes and looked up at me; and I seemed to see the wraith of
her young beauty looking out of them. “There’s only one way,” she whispered.

 
          
“Well,”
I said, still offended, “what’s the way?”

 
          
“You
must ask him to repeat to you that letter he wrote, and didn’t dare send to me.
I’ll know instantly then if you’re in communication with him, and if you are
I’ll never doubt you any more.”

 
          
Well,
I sat down and gave a laugh. “You think it’s as easy as that to talk with the
dead, do you?”

 
          
“I
think he’ll know I’m dying too, and have pity on me, and do as I ask.” I said
nothing more, but packed up my things and went away.

 
          
  

 
          
That
letter seemed to me a mountain in my path; and the poor young man, when I told
him, thought so too. “Ah, that’s too difficult,” he said. But he told me he’d
think it over, and do his best—and I was to come back the next day if I could.
“If only I knew more about her—or about
him.
It’s damn difficult, making love for a dead man to a woman you’ve never seen,”
says he with his little cracked laugh. I couldn’t deny that it was; but I knew
he’d do what he could, and I could see that the difficulty of it somehow
spurred him on, while me it only cast down.

 
          
So
I went back to his room the next evening; and as I climbed the stairs I felt
one of those sudden warnings that sometimes used to take me by the throat.

 
          
“It’s
as cold as ice on these stairs,” I thought, “and I’ll wager there’s no one made
up the fire in his room since morning.” But it wasn’t really the cold I was
afraid of; I could tell there was worse than that waiting for me.

 
          
I
pushed open the door and went in. “Well,” says I, as cheerful as I could, “I’ve
got a pint of champagne and a thermos of hot soup for you; but before you get
them you’ve got to tell me—”

 
          
He
laid there in his bed as if he didn’t see me, though his eyes were open; and
when I spoke to him he didn’t answer. I tried to laugh.
“Mercy!”
I
says
, “are you so sleepy you can’t even look round
to see the champagne? Hasn’t that slut of a woman been in to ‘tend to the stove
for you? The room’s as cold as death—” I says, and at the word I stopped short.
He neither moved nor spoke; and I felt that the cold came from him, and not
from the empty stove. I took hold of his hand, and held the cracked
looking-glass to his lips; and I knew he was gone to his Maker. I drew his lids
down, and fell on my knees beside the bed. “You shan’t go without a prayer, you
poor fellow,” I whispered to him, pulling out my beads.

 
          
But
though my heart was full of mourning
I
dursn’t pray
for long, for I knew I ought to call the people of the house. So I just
muttered a prayer for the dead, and then got to my feet again. But before
calling in anybody I took a quick look around; for I said to myself it would be
better not to leave about any of those bits he’d written down for me. In the
shock of finding the poor young man gone I’d clean forgotten all about the
letter; but I looked among his few books and papers for anything about the
spirit messages, and found nothing. After that I turned back for a last look at
him, and a last blessing; and then it was, fallen on the floor and half under
the bed, I saw a sheet of paper scribbled over in pencil in his weak writing. I
picked it up, and, holy Mother, it was the letter! I hid it away quick in my
bag, and I stooped down and kissed him. And then I called the people in.

 
          
Well,
I mourned the poor young man like a son, and I had a busy day arranging things,
and settling about the funeral with the lady that used to befriend him. And
with all there was to do I never went near Mrs. Clingsland nor so much as
thought of her, that day or the next; and the day after that there was a
frantic message, asking what had happened, and saying she was very ill, and I
was to come quick, no matter how much else I had to do.

 
          
I
didn’t more than half believe in the illness; I’ve been about too long among
the rich not to be pretty well used to their scares and fusses. But I knew Mrs.
Clingsland was just pining to find out if I’d got the letter, and that my only
chance of keeping my hold over her was to have it ready in my bag when I went
back. And if I didn’t keep my hold over her, I knew what slimy hands were
waiting in the dark to pull her down.

 
          
Well,
the labour I had copying out that letter was so great that I didn’t hardly
notice what was in it; and if I thought about it at all, it was only to wonder
if it wasn’t worded too plain-like, and if there oughtn’t to have been more
long words in it, coming from a gentleman to his lady. So with one thing and
another I wasn’t any too easy in my mind when I appeared again at Mrs.
Clingsland’s; and if ever I wished myself out of a dangerous job, my dear, I
can tell you that was the day…

 
          
I
went up to her room, the poor lady, and found her in bed, and tossing about,
her eyes blazing, and her face full of all the wrinkles I’d worked so hard to
rub out of it; and the sight of her softened my heart. After all, I thought,
these people don’t know what real trouble is; but they’ve manufactured
something so like it that it’s about as bad as the genuine thing.

 
          
“Well,”
she said in a fever, “well, Cora—the letter? Have you brought me the letter?”

 
          
I
pulled it out of my bag, and handed it to her; and then I sat down and waited,
my heart in my boots. I waited a long time, looking away from her; you couldn’t
stare at a lady who was reading a message from her sweetheart, could you?

 
          
I
waited a long time; she must have read the letter very slowly, and then re-read
it. Once she sighed, ever so softly; and once she said: “Oh, Harry, no, no—how
foolish” … and laughed a little under her breath. Then she was still again for
so long that at last I turned my head and took a stealthy look at her. And
there she lay on her pillows, the hair waving over them, the letter clasped
tight in her hands, and her face smoothed out the way it was years before, when
I first knew her. Yes—those few words had done more for her than all my labour.

 
          
“Well—?”
said I, smiling a little at her.

 
          
“Oh,
Cora—now at last he’s spoken to me, really spoken.” And the tears were running
down her young cheeks.

 
          
I
couldn’t hardly
keep back my own, the heart was so
light in me. “And now you’ll believe in me, I hope,
ma’am,
won’t you?”